Spiderweb Games - How Jeff Vogel Saved the Gaming Industry Overnight

[aries100]

Jeff Vogel has updated his blog (http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-i-saved-gaming-industry-overnight.html) - in a response to a comment on the RPG Codex (http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=200). In it, he talks about using the same game engine for many years which he things other game developers should do as well:
And the big companies, who make AAA games with these amazing awesome big-budget engines? They should re-use more of them! The Dragon Age engine is very cool. Make ten games with it! And not just piddly Dragon Age DLC either. Make games that are cyberpunk, horror, science fiction, fantasy in a new setting. The budgets will be much lower, and that makes it easier to take risks. And use the same dragon model. It looks really sweet. And, once the engine is a drained husk (in, say, five years), then spend a lot of money making a new one.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=14837)

[BillSeurer]

The Codex guys were either being irrationally harsh or stupid. Or both I guess.

[JemyM]

He is perfectly right. However, isn't DA:O, NWN2, KOTOR1/2, Jade Empire etc based on a constantly improved/tweaked NWN1 engine?

[Terry]

I am not a game producer but what he says makes a whole lot of sense. It seems to have worked well in his case any way, but one thing he may not be considering is the "glamorizing" of the AAA titles its all about the whole big production not about making the best game you can with the resources you have. So unlike an indy project.

[Sir Markus]

I think it makes sense. The Infinity engine was used to make five games and four expansion packs. (BG I plus Tales of the Sword Coast, BG II plus Throne of Baal, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale I plus Heart of Winter and Trial of the Luremaster, and Icewind Dale II. They were all good games and as far as I know they all sold fairly well.

[ortucis]

The "AAA" developers already use the same engine but only add minor new upgrades to the engine for every new game (which is just obvious evolution, it will happen and it MUST happen).

Unlike Jeff however, 3D game developers cannot afford to use same old engine from 2000 now unless they feel like spending millions of dollars on new art material only to have a big flop because no one saw specular maps and bump maps in the screenshots of their game compared to the competitors.

Lets face it, graphics are 50% of the game and without any visual treat, you better have one hell of a storyline (read = Planescape Torment) to make people world over spend money on your little "gem".

[Dez]

The man has a point…

The problem is that because graphics cost money, everything else has to take a back seat in order for the game to become profitable (or so they say?). I truly wonder if this assumption is even true. I happen to follow quite many game related sites like many here and I rarely see people basing their buying decisions on the visual quality.

In fact I'd like to belive that most gamers value gameplay, storytelling, good a.i, large gameworld, music, physics, voice acting etc over nice visuals. Just read best games ever lists. Those games are loved because of their storytelling, gameplay etc.

Devs/publishers are using so much money and resources to make their games look stunning which is why they have to cut perfectly good gameplay feautures, rewrite storylines, cut sidequests etc. Innovation suffers a lot due to this.

[V7]

The man has a point…


not really, sure technically reusing game engines and art makes sense but pretty much everyone is already doing that run down any list of AAA games and the engine is either resued (either internally or licenced from another company) or built in hopes of licencing the underlying technology to other companies. There's hardly any games made these days where the developer starts off with a blank sheet. The real dispute is just over degree not over whether anyone is doing it.

[GhanBuriGhan]

For engines this already seems the case, as people have pointed out, with regards to the even more expensve (in terms of manpower and time) art assets however, I think there is indeed a point. Sure, I don't want to meet the same dragon in every game, but still reusing graphical assets more extensively would seem to make sense, especially if we consider a secondary market viable. Basically, I think we could have more games like MoB and SoZ (and hopefully FO:NV) if game platforms and art were reused a bit more extensively, a bit more often. And that would be a good thing.

[JemyM]

not really, sure technically reusing game engines and art makes sense but pretty much everyone is already doing that run down any list of AAA games and the engine is either resued (either internally or licenced from another company) or built in hopes of licencing the underlying technology to other companies. There's hardly any games made these days where the developer starts off with a blank sheet. The real dispute is just over degree not over whether anyone is doing it.

You are only speaking about the 3d Engine here, not the game engine. A highly optimized game requires stuff like a level creator, right textures, a dialogue editor, optimized controls etc... many things that lies beyond the graphics engines they usually license. Building a game from scratch takes time even if you have something like the Unreal engine in your hands.

Look at the time it have taken to develop Fallout 3 vs Fallout: Las Vegas. You have numerous of examples of the first game taking ages and it's sequel taking 1/2 or 1/3 the time to produce usually with enhanced gameplay.

[GothicGothicness]

Well, perhaps he should take his own advice? And, once the engine is a drained husk (in, say, five years), then spend a lot of money making a new one.


As for the AAA game developers that is what they are already doing.

He is perfectly right. However, isn't DA:O, NWN2, KOTOR1/2, Jade Empire etc based on a constantly improved/tweaked NWN1 engine?

Don't forget the Witcher....


I want to add one thing though, it depends on HOW and WHY they are using a certain engine. If they build a new engine to enable new gameplay features which is not possible with current engines. That's one thing.

If they build a new engine from scracth just to get a bit better graphics and nothing new in regard to gameplay.. well, that's another thing.

[KasperFauerby]

I've now worked in two game companies where it was decided that in order to move to "next gen" (read: current gen) it was necessary to radically rewrite the old in-house tech from the PS2 days.

In both cases it was correct that a quite big change was needed - and in both cases it *hurt*, because the way the tech was upgraded was pretty much to start from scratch. It takes a *long* time to build a new engine from scratch... much longer than people usually anticipate :)

So I definitely agree with Jeff that engines should be re-used even more than they are today.

[V7]

For engines this already seems the case, as people have pointed out, with regards to the even more expensve (in terms of manpower and time) art assets however, I think there is indeed a point.

Not sure I agree with that - if you look at what goes into the big game engines I'd guess that there's at least as much effort on them as later gets put into art,but its not only game engines getting licenced - how many games have come out using Speedtree lately?

I don't disagree that more reuse of developed assets sounds like a good thing, I just don't think the idea is all that novel - hell if you're looking for an example of a big studio recylcing games over and over how about EA Sports lineup?

[Benedict]

Well, perhaps he should take his own advice?


He is, Avernum & geneforge are all wrapped up and apparently there's a fairly significant redesign for his new IP. I think it's reasonable to say that 5 AAA developer years are equivalent to about 15 indie developer years.

Edit - totally agree with his viewpoint anyway. Anything that skews budgets towards high quality content generation rather hardcore programming gets my vote.

[Malk]

Sure, I don't want to meet the same dragon in every game, but still reusing graphical assets more extensively would seem to make sense, especially if we consider a secondary market viable. Basically, I think we could have more games like MoB and SoZ (and hopefully FO:NV) if game platforms and art were reused a bit more extensively, a bit more often. And that would be a good thing.
I agree if a game is a expansion or a sequel, but for a brand new game I don't want to see any art reused.

[wolfing]

I agree and been saying it forever. How many games were made for the 'gold boxes'? They all used pretty much the same engine, and there were MANY, from D&D to Ravenloft, Dark Sun, hell even Buck Rogers (and even an RPG maker if I'm not mistaken). Nowadays you're lucky if the same engine is used in two games.

Take an engine with all the tools you developed for it, and bring that synergy to make other games, with different settings, stories, spells, skills, characters, but keep the engine the same. Not only you don't have to spend time and money developing it, but the developers learn to use it to the fullest and what took them 1 month to do the first time now takes them a week.

[GothicGothicness]

Nowadays you're lucky if the same engine is used in two games.

That statement is just... wrong.

I think you'll have a hard time to tell me about a game which use a engine that hasn't been used more than twice.

[St.Penguin]

Heck, look at Valve. Their newest offering (L4D2) uses the Source engine. Counter-strike Source and Half-Life 2 were released on the Source engine how long ago? And that engine still looks and plays beautifully. Have they done a lot of work on it since its first release? Oh, absolutely. But...you get the point.

[wolfing]

That statement is just… wrong.

I think you'll have a hard time to tell me about a game which use a engine that hasn't been used more than twice.

Oblivion's engine I don't think has been used in other games (not talking about DLC or expansions). Same with, pretty much every MMO out there, and how many games are out using The Witcher's engine (again, not expansions), or even Risen, which is supposed to be the same Genome engine from Gothic 3 yet it was almost 'rewritten from scratch'.

I'm talking about taking the same engine, no modifications, and just create new games with it, with a different setting (sci/fi instead of fantasy, or steampunk), different textures, story, etc. That's just not happening.

[SirJames]

Yeeeeahhh, I dunno...

To me this is sort of evidence of just how much he's sitting in his own little box.

The biggest bane on these flashy AAA games atm IS that they're all on the same engine. Its unreal3 engine and it seems to be used in much the same way with every game. Its like theyre all loading up a tutorial template for their code. Same GOW angle, same GOW cover system....

Other than unreal3 engine, what is there? cryengine? maybe 2 games on that.... ids tech4? maybe 3 games? tech5, 2 games... 3rd expected soon. Source engine I think is really sweet, but no one is using it.

Look, if quake 3 was done on the quake 1 engine the industry would look NOTHING like it does today. New tech was the driving force not only for the devs and money hungry publishers but also for my own enthusiasm and incentive to get me a 32mb DiamondViper TNT2 Ultra!

So yeah, Sure... money, time.. blah blah blah... But a new engine is a new game and a game on an old engine is just a classy MOD you're paying for.

[Sir_Brennus]

Oblivion's engine I don't think has been used in other games (not talking about DLC or expansions). Same with, pretty much every MMO out there, and how many games are out using The Witcher's engine (again, not expansions), or even Risen, which is supposed to be the same Genome engine from Gothic 3 yet it was almost 'rewritten from scratch'.

I'm talking about taking the same engine, no modifications, and just create new games with it, with a different setting (sci/fi instead of fantasy, or steampunk), different textures, story, etc. That's just not happening.

Well, Oblivion's "engine" is a certain iteration and use of Gambryo - Which was Morrowind before and Fallout 3 and F:NV are now. I don't call this unused.

The Witcher's engine is a different story, though. The underlying script engine was licensed from Bioware, the graphics technology was developed inhouse. I think that there is not much documentation there to sell the tech to other companies, especially because noone was keen on the engine - I remember reviewers calling the graphics "dated".

And AFAIK Risen does not use Genome, but I may be wrong.

If you want something like this, then you'll have to leave it to the community. Look at NWN or The Witcher - there is a lot of MOD material that count as fully new games…

[GothicGothicness]

Oblivion's "engine" is a certain iteration and use of Gambryo

That's acctually the same engine as Divinity 2 uses ( among a lot of other games).

I'm talking about taking the same engine, no modifications, and just create new games with it, with a different setting (sci/fi instead of fantasy, or steampunk), different textures, story, etc. That's just not happening.

I don't think that would work out. Sure an engine like Unreal Engine 3.0 is really generic, but the developrs still have to write a lot of game specific code, almost no matter which game they want to do… and I for one am thankfull of that as the industry keep evolving… HOWEVER I think they focus on the wrong thing as mentioned before…. their main focus should be to modify the engine to improve the gameplay not to improve the graphics.

It so happens though that there is a huge community all making games with RPGMaker…. but that's a bit different, they all have more or less the same ( text-based ) choice combat. old 2D J-rpg perspective etc etc. which makes this a lot easier… basically the engine contains a template to make such a game it even comes with a bunch of 2d tile graphics and other stuffs. I played a bunch of these games and some are really good… they have to focus a lot on the story, characters etc, and they don't need so much resources and they don't even need a programmer.

But it gets old…… I found it harder and harder for me to get into RPGMaker games even if it has a great story and so on…. because I just feel like replaying the same thing again and again, and I am just so tired of it by now.

[ortucis]

Oblivion is using Gamebryo and so are even some Indie titles released in the past and posted about on this site as well.

Anyways, I don't know why people hate Unreal 3 engine so much. I am no Epic fan and despise Gears of War as much as I did HALO, but doesn't mean I don't see the reason behind every possible studio ignoring Crysis, idTech 4 or Source for U3.

Simply put, U3 engine works fine, just fine. Unlike Crysis or any other unproven tech, U3 has countless titles on different platforms. Most of these titles when not using any third party addons work flawlessly without any issues. Not to mention the powerful toolset U3 comes with, which makes it a blessing for artists (who don't have to depend on programmers to do the scripting part most of the time in the levels/missions).

In comparison, Crysis comes a bit close with proper toolset but U3 blows it apart with KISMET which, like I said, makes it a blessing for artists. idTech 4 comes second and Source editor from my experience is best left alone at Valve HQ.

Now in future, idTech 5 will be what most likely be when the empire strikes bac.. err, I mean return of the id Software. These engines are bought not cause how cool the tech demos made in them are (Crysis) but what the toolset and specific features (Megatexture) deliver while designing the game. Features like KISMET and Megatexture are a big plus for artists, which means only 10 times better looking or better working levels/missions. Crysis 2 still doesn't offer anything special except for the shiny new editor in comparison.

[wolfing]

but you guys (except GG) keep thinking I'm talking about 3d engines. I'm talking about game engines (including or not the 3d engine). Again, think of the gold boxes. They were the same *game* engine, which was used for many games. Same options, same layout, same interface. In one game you had a fireball, in another you had a grenade, but underneath it all it was basically the same. The settings were wildly different, so were the stories. Like GG said, RPG Maker was like that, but how old is it?
Nowadays, every game pretty much builds its own engine, maybe with luck it's reused (sort of) for 1 sequel, let alone different games on different settings.

[Malk]

Now, I haven't played any Gold Box games, but that sounds pretty dull.. I mean, it would be OK if they made 4 or 5 games which are played the same, but any more than that… boring.
But a new engine is a new game and a game on an old engine is just a classy MOD you're paying for.
If it's a good mod (if it's as much fun as a completely new game), then why not pay for it? I doubt fan-made mods ever get close to the original game's quality.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Now, I haven't played any Gold Box games, but that sounds pretty dull.. I mean, it would be OK if they made 4 or 5 games which are played the same, but any more than that… boring.



I don't know, I think that is an acquired taste - after all, paper and printed ink have served well for transporting stories for over 550 years. I think the Graphics tech train will keep rolling for a while yet, but with diminishing returns (I think this is visible already now (witness the success of the wii, relative poor performance of Crysis, etc.) eventually games / digital interactive media will have to concentrate more on content, story, AI and gameplay again to compete on the market.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

but you guys (except GG) keep thinking I'm talking about 3d engines. I'm talking about game engines (including or not the 3d engine). Again, think of the gold boxes. They were the same *game* engine, which was used for many games. Same options, same layout, same interface. In one game you had a fireball, in another you had a grenade, but underneath it all it was basically the same. The settings were wildly different, so were the stories. Like GG said, RPG Maker was like that, but how old is it?
Nowadays, every game pretty much builds its own engine, maybe with luck it's reused (sort of) for 1 sequel, let alone different games on different settings.

I see what you mean.

It reminds me of the (A)D&D concept of one rule system, many worlds". Which wouldn't work with TDE, for example.
In TDE, worlds and rule sets are more or less hard-coded into one another.

I once asked an employee whether the underlying Engine of Drakensang - NOT the graphical representation ! - could be exchanged, so, that a ifferent rule system could be used for it (I was thinking of TDE 3rd edition).
She said basically "yes", but I haven't seen any mods trying to do it yet - and no examples by Radon Labs as well.

If an engine could be exchanged, then the graphical representation could remain the same, but for example user-generated rule sets could also be used. That's my dream.

This would in the essence mean that both graphical representation and underlying engine implementing the rules could be seen as two different things, perhaps even fully distinct from one another.

I do see a market there with user-generated or commercial rule sets sold as underlying rule-set-engines for games - for graphical representations, that is.

But since - and as long as they are - rule systems are only licensed, the licensing companies will sit on them like hens on theior eggs. They won't share their rule systems, because they consider them intellectual property that must be protected from ANY other use other than they allow.

So - this means that we'll never see games - read: graphical representations - with different rule sets. Atari won't give it aways - at least as long as no-one is paying them for it - and similar things can be expected from TDE, Midard ... except the generical D20 rule set (and perhaps the D6 set from West End Games, it the plan to release it in a similar fashion like the D20 set ever becomes true).

[Cassius]

I'm interested in seeing what the Element: War of Magic engine can really do when it's released. The Temple of Apshai style mod Brad Wardell is proposing to make points to tradition CPRG possibilities. At least the cloth map concept and the assets associated with is appear easy to modify: change of few PNGs, edit a few xml files, and hey presto - Middle Earth, or Earthsea, or Warhammer's Old World, or the Forgotten Realms ...

[Benedict]

I'm interested in seeing what the Element: War of Magic engine can really do when it's released. The Temple of Apshai style mod Brad Wardell is proposing to make points to tradition CPRG possibilities. At least the cloth map concept and the assets associated with is appear easy to modify: change of few PNGs, edit a few xml files, and hey presto - Middle Earth, or Earthsea, or Warhammer's Old World, or the Forgotten Realms …

Thoroughly excited about the whole Elemental project, I can see it being an absolutely amazing game and they've clearly designed from the ground up with an engine that'll have years of life in it after release.

[Cassius]

Yup, I'm hyped for Elemental. This may be the first game I'll try my hand at modding. It'll take me back to happy hours of my childhood spent drawing fantasy maps.

[Unrestigered]

I couldn't post at the blog-site without registering on one of a slew of crap hippie nonsense other sites so I'll post here and fake its there:

I just want to say that I've been saying this forever. This theory is called sunk cost in economics. I never could wrap my mind around it, being so naturally frugal.

Anyway, I'm an avernum guy more than an genforge guy, and I think avernum 5 is the only game this decade that can go toe to toe with ToEE when it comes to combat.

Anyway, I've been saying this for years. I'm pure genius yet get no credit. How convenient of you damn hippies. No one will be sparred during the revolution!