Engine?

[Chiron]

I've looked a bit and cant find what engine the new game would be using. Has one been picked? Are you thinking Open Source or commercial?

[Cogburn]

Commercial.

We're using the Torque engine for Phase 1, and the Torque Shader Engine for Phase 2... I already have licenses for both.

[Chiron]

Commercial.

We're using the Torque engine for Phase 1, and the Torque Shader Engine for Phase 2... I already have licenses for both.


Ah, Garage Games.* Probably the only one out there that can do quality without costing an arm, leg and a nut.*

How many players can this engine support?* Hundreds?*

Whups. Read further down and saw 225 and secant said something about 400's. So its got big brass ones for netcode optimization.

[Secant]

That 255 generic user limit is a pretty good limitation and I don't think its gonna be breached by this project... heh... if it does need to be expanded I've done it with the Torque engine before and would be happy to contribute to doing it again.

[Cogburn]

That of course is the second best reason to get Torque (besides cost/quality): there are already 1,000's of people familiar with it.

I've experimented with a 1024 man server, but I lack the hardward and bandwidth to really give it a go.

Taking a turn from SOE, who is able to spend millions on server hardware, they set their poplocks to be around 399, the record being 700+ that they did for an event to set that record. I was there, actually, and I got 2 FPS on my rig that will give me 35FPS outdoors in a 3 way uberzerg normally.

Smoke reports that each continent in PlanetSide is served by two load-balanced machines. This could be because that's all SOE intended to spend on the hardware for this game or it could be some as of yet undiscussed technical limitation. Either way, affording ONE load-balanced server farm is going to cost more money than I have spent on a house.

Basically, if we get to a point where this game actually HAS poplocks, we need to sell it quick because its a winner. Let the guy who buys it worry about the hardware. :)

[br011i]

i would never sell, if hte game hits gold get other Gaming Companys to sponcer you etc etc

[Cogburn]

Heheh... these are all daydreams but...

Ideal situation is that a major distributor (PlayNC, SOE, EA) of MMO content takes particular interest in developing our idea under their supervision and direction. That way we will be able to maintain the soul of our project, which is being born right now on these forums.

Other than having the project outright die, the "worst" case scenario is a game production company buys the idea and prototype outright and continues development on their own. We'd lose direct control over the project, which has always had mixed results for games that have had this happen in the past.

What is probably more likely is we just keep plodding along on our own. Bit by bit, piece by piece. This is a LONG HAUL project. PlanetSide was in development TWO AND A HALF YEARS before closed beta. If you guys are expecting a game by Christmas '05 I'm sorry to dissappoint you. ;)

Upside is that we are not working from scratch. We are stealing ideas from an existing successfull product. Also, the PlanetSide engine was developed from scratch and had all the issues that that involves. Say we've saved ourselves about a year. That means we're STILL a year and a half from anything that even remotely begins to incorporate all of our ideas.

Basically... Settle in for a long ride. :)