Graphics engine choice (RE: [MUD-Dev] size)

[Sheela Caur'Lir]

From: "Paolo Piselli"
> --- Derek Licciardi <kressilac at insightbb.com> wrote:

>> Lastly, You're already behind on the content race. Why waste a
>> huge segment of development time waiting for the engine to be
>> stable and developed to the point where your entire art pipeline
>> is complete?  The 12 months of idle art time could have been put
>> to far better use.  It doesn't make sense.  Buy the engine and
>> implement 100 new quests and I am sure your players will thank
>> you for it with their wallets.

> Derek makes an excellent point, but its not just about time cost.
> In the coming years the cost of producing content will explode
> faster than the cost of developing graphics engine n+1.  Doubling
> polycounts, texture resolutions, texture-passes, number of
> pixel-shader instructions, etc. will only yeild some small epsilon
> of improved visual quality compared to the geometric increase in
> artist-hours required to produce said content.  Combine these
> requirements for improved visual quality with an escalation of
> user expectations with regards to quantity of content and unique
> artistic stylization, and you have a colossus of art assets needed
> for generating graphical MUD n+1.

Yes, I agree.

When it comes to costs, I believe the most expensive parts of a game
is the artists who makes the 3D models and textures. There are far
more man hours put into the graphics than in the Engine currently.

Which might explain why they often make their own engine ... with
more or less degree of success. Also, the engines you could (can)
buy are often woefully inadequate for an MMOG, even if they are good
for a FPS game. As time progresses, I believe someone will address
this, since it's a market waiting to be exploited.

Who knows, perhaps EQ2 will be an engine you can license.  I
wouldn't put that past SOE.


---
Jens L. nielsen
aka Sheela Caur'Lir
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