Do you think Beamdog should use/develop a more modern engine?
levelworm
Member Posts: 41
I'm not against IE (or the updated IE), but it does have limitations. What say you?
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Or you can try to revive IE, somehow modify it, and it might be just enough for creating the next great game.
However, the current state of the Infinity Engine should be good enough already to create Enhanced Editions out of the remaining IE games.
Big sprites are working quite well already:
However, the physics of that game is AMAZING!!! In most games - no, in almost every game in existance - you will have characters "airwalking" and move at a set speed across the map. In Myth III they have REAL walk. That is, where the creature put its foot down, that is where it will be at the given time. When a ranged unit throws a spear and misses, the spear will stick out of the ground, where it got stuck, and at the angle it got stuck! AND the game can handle like 200 spears sticking out of the ground. Not like most games, where after 10 or so spears of blood spatters of bodies or whatever they just disappear. And so on and so forth. From a physics mechanics point of view, the only game I can think of that even gets close to how advanced the physics in Myth III is would be Half-Life 2.
Also, there is no other game better at camera handling than Myth (I, II or III handles the same).
Unfortunately, Myth III flopped, and the head developer, Santa's Head, went into making silly java script games. I think - it was a long time ago, my memory may not be perfect.
If I ever gathered enough captital to make a game (which will never happen, unless I win the lottery) I would email Santa's Head and hire him, and this way get the Myth III engine for free (at least I am assuming he hold the rights, maybe I am wrong), and then update the fuck out of it graphics-wise and game mechanics wise (so it can be an RPG instead of action strategy).
HINT HINT
Like I mentioned, Myth III has outdated graphics (but like I remembered, still prettier than NWN2 though). (Also, the guy playing obviously has a thing against zooming out proper, which makes moving around very cramped. How can you play like that? You would miss-click all the time, and get ambushed even more often.)
But imagine the graphics were more modern for Myth III or apply an imaginary ugly filter to Shadow tactics and - sorry Bob - Myth III wins!
but the reason i picked shadow tactics is because scenes in it look very pretty. if you look at them without moving the camera they can look like very detailed prerendered isometric scenes
IE can not be upgraded to modern standards, but it can be made to look satisfactory i think. in terms of 2d graphics. it will always be a bit clunky inside (not a programmer so i'm not authoritative on the issue)
Aurora was the follow up engine to Infinity. I wrote the export plug-ins for Omen and we used improved versions of those content export plug-ins for Aurora, everything else Aurora was from scratch. Two of our staff, Mark Brockington (Mutliplayer lead on Infinity and Aurora) and Jason Knipe (3D graphics Lead of Aurora) did a ton of the architectural work on the Aurora engine. Mark and Jason were also large contributors to Eclipse (DA:O)
I personally have been involved in four major engines, Shattered Steel, Omen, Aurora and Eclipse. Each was it's own beast. Had to say what the future holds.
If I had to take a guess I would assume they would move on from IE after they finish up BG and ID games. It does seem limited especially in the model sprites, I remember there were issues for why they could not update the old sprites to HD. Something about art assets which I've heard others talk about but I don't understand due to my lack of programming knowledge. So my guess would be they would want to start something original and new with 5th edition.
I will say this though, I've always loved the IE games and I've always liked how fluid and steady the games all ran, and I've played them on four completely different systems the last 19 years. I do love Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity but I felt the engines while nice looking, were sluggish and laggy. Though that could just be my experience.
Pillars of Eternity did everything right when they took what worked and tossed out what didnt.
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to see it as a soap bubble? (A. Perlis)