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The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 12:08:14 PM

Kuokkanen

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SPWAW and its Mega Campaigns got me thinking about something: why things like that aren't done more often? Why there are many expensive games which are so similar? Why wheel ( = game engine) is invented over and over again? Why there couldn't be one game engine, like SPWAW, where campaigns and scenarios are bought without fee of game engine itself?

Idea behind SPWAW is great: game is free and it has lots of scenarios and campaigns. In addition scenarios of over 10 year old Steel Panthers can be converted to work on SPWAW, which practically makes SPWAW updated version of SP. Then are Mega Campaigns and those cost money, not game itself!

If it would had been done the old way, each of those we know as Mega Campaigns would be its own game like Korsun Pocket and Battles in Italy. Both mentioned games (KP and BII) have their own game engine. Making game engine, or even modifying existing one, costs time and money. Result is many different game engines and each of those has eaten time and money. And who pays? Your customers! Not to forget used hard disk space by said game engines!

One review of The Operational Art of War, Vol. 1 says that demo of game alone would be worthy for full priced game. Trick of demo is that there is no save game option available. Otherwise we can think that game would had been free in the first place and customer would had paid for scenarios and campaigns.

So this is what I propose: one game engine for hex based games which is developed and updated by whole Matrix Games. In this post I call it The Ultimate Game Engine (TUGE). TUGE is available for free and it supports games on tactical and operational levels. What costs money, are scenarios and campaigns. But becouse there is one game engine for all scenarios and campaigns, development time is shortened dramatically and thus price is lower.

Campaign may work either on tactical or operational levels, or on both! There are plenty of war games like that: Close Combat serie, Total War serie, Lords of the Realms serie... Anyways when opposing forces on operational scale meets, player is taken to tactical scale to fight it out Steel Panthers style, if so desired by campaign designers or player him/herself.

If scenario and campaign designers want something not yet supported by TUGE, they compose document and give it to coders and they update TUGE to meet requirements of planned campaigns. Only few lines of code is required compared to creating whole new game engine. In theory TUGE could support all kinds of action involving hexes from legions of ancient Rome to tanks of 2nd World War to Titans of future. Demo would mean couple scenarios or shortened campaign of long, chargeable campaigns.

Not everyone wants to play with legions of Rome or 200 ton Titans. So in order to save disk space and bandwidth, TUGE needs to be modular. In order to play scenarios/campaigns which involve Titans, appropriate updates for TUGE need to be downloaded. This way data regarding Titans are downloaded only by players who play them.

Now either tell me why this can't work, or get on with it!

_____________________________

You know what they say, don't you? About how us MechWarriors are the modern knights, how warfare has become civilized now that we have to abide by conventions and rules of war. Don't believe it.

MekWars

Post #: 1

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 3:32:17 PM

Hertston

Posts: 3564
Joined: 8/17/2002
From: Cornwall, UK
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quote:

And who pays? Your customers!

I suspect that is the point! Economics; that individual games simply generate more cash at the end of the day taken as a whole (even if it gets spread about a bit more). That doesn't mean there isn't room for such a system, or that it isn't a good idea; it's something I've wanted to see HPS do for years. I have a couple from each main series (Squad Battles, Panzer Campaigns, Modern Battles, Civil War), but if the model was to sell a 'core' module with the scenario of your choice intially, followed by scenario packs at a reduced price, I'd probably own all of them. You just reach the point where you really can't justify paying full price for what amounts to much the same thing. I'd no doubt buy a lot of 'TUGE' models, too, if...

if... I liked the system. There's a problem there in that not everybody will, and they won't buy anything. Some people like TAOW but not the SSG engine, and vice versa, there's a lot of personal preference involved. Some would really enjoy the familiarity as each new 'game' wouldn't take long to get into, while others prefer new systems to provide new challenges, and just for a change. I'm concious that a one-engine-delivers-all approach may well have limitations compared with games that deal specifically with one era or campaign. Another problem is that as the engine was improved and refined it would also have to retain compatability with the modules released to date. That's possible (Prosim make huge efforts in that regard, for example, with all ATF scenarios/games being playable using the new AATF engine), but sooner or later it will hamper and restrict development and the base engine will become more and more of a dinosaur.

In short, good idea, but you would still need a full range of other games to be available. Or at least I would.

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 2

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 4:34:25 PM

Kuokkanen

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Joined: 4/2/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hertston

quote:

And who pays? Your customers!

I suspect that is the point! Economics; that individual games simply generate more cash at the end of the day taken as a whole

Let's say time it takes to create detailed campaign for TUGE is more or less half from what it takes to create campaign with its own game engine. That would mean two times more products to sell with half, or bit more than half, of normal game's price.

If time to create new campaign is less than half of time of creation whole new game and it is sold for higher than half the price of new game, then two sold campaigns should have higher income than one sold game. This is just my wild guess; I need someone from Matrix to give estimations of times needed to create game engine and campaign for it. Give examples of Korsun Pocket and Battles in Italy please.

quote:

There's a problem there in that not everybody will, and they won't buy anything.

These problems are available for SPWAW and Titans of Steel: both of said games are available for free with plenty of content even though chargeable versions are available.

quote:

Some people like TAOW but not the SSG engine, and vice versa, there's a lot of personal preference involved.

TUGE would cover most or all features of mentioned engines and it's up to scenario/campaign designers to decide what features they want to use. Some features, what are used only on few campaigns, could be sold as part of that campaign and thus save hard disk space of those who don't play said campaigns (also saves bandwidth).

quote:

Another problem is that as the engine was improved and refined it would also have to retain compatability with the modules released to date.
...
sooner or later it will hamper and restrict development and the base engine will become more and more of a dinosaur.

Yeah, one coder of MegaMek game complained just about that:

quote:

Apr 13, 2005

Elevation levels are sort of my baby, because I love my choppers and want to have an entire company of Yellow Jackets flying before summer is out. But they're just hell to code. You're talking about literally a hundred points of change in the code because we're breaking assumptions a lot of different people have made and perhaps not documented because it was so obvious at the time. Some examples:

LOS (Pain! Pain! Pure pain! Its got all of the fun of trigonometry with fifteen zillion edge cases like what happens when you try to fire between a Yellow Jacket at L6 over a L-2 hole and a hovercraft on D3 water at L1 with a L3 hill with a heavy woods in the middle)

Targetting (a lot of code assumes only one target in a hex -- oops, a sufficiently tall building can fit multiple mechs now)

Interface (redesign time -- need to be able to show units which are not present on either the floor or surface of a hex, and need to be able to order elevation changes for units which are capable of them, like subs/VTOLs)

Cases not sufficiently documented in the rules, but which our players will expect to work right -- artillery strike against a hex with a VTOL in it, for example ("But he's not on the ground! How did he get hit with the arty strike?!")

Redo moving code (if you haven't seen it, you're lucky -- its a mess, and large chunks have to get ripped out and recoded, which will cause rippling bugs all over the place)

Lets see, what else is there... LOTS.

Patrick McKenzie

That was written over year and half ago. Now buildings are working properly, bridges work, they can be destroyed, units can get under bridges and helicopters and submarines work as described on rule books (note: MegaMek is under update process to meet rules of Total Warfare). Not bad from bunch of amateurs who use different notations in their source codes and don't get paid their work.

But we're talking about paid professional here and some of them have been on business literally for tens of years! (Gary Grigsby

)

Even if TUGE comes to point where overhaul is absolutely required, old campaigns and scenarios could still be played on older versions. Or convert said campaigns to new version. Both of these options are available for Steel Panthers scenarios: play them on old game or convert for SPWAW. Unless I'm badly mistaken...

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(in reply to Hertston)

Post #: 3

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 5:27:16 PM

Hertston

Posts: 3564
Joined: 8/17/2002
From: Cornwall, UK
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

If time to create new campaign is less than half of time of creation whole new game and it is sold for higher than half the price of new game, then two sold campaigns should have higher income than one sold game.

Even assuming your guesses are right, and they seem reasonable, you are also assuming that for each one sale before you would now have two. I think that's unlikely. Firstly, there are only so many games people have time to play... when they bought one new one before they may only buy one now. Secondly, even at a reduced cost I still think such campaigns may limited appeal compared to a brand new shiny game system. I agree you would get more sales, but I think double is very ambitious.

You also need to factor in the development of TUGE itself, which would be a huge and continuing project, and cash-flow problems with that in terms of money needed up front would be considerable. How many campaign releases would be needed to cover the costs of that initial development? I can forsee a situation where, say, it takes three years to develop TUGE, and another five pushing out campaigns before those costs are recovered, let alone a profit made. You can do that in some industries, but I don't think Matrix could convince the bank computer wargames are one of them. And should TUGE development go tits-up in Combat Leader fashion (and its a far more ambitious project than CL), it would be bye-bye Matrix.

quote:

TUGE would cover most or all features of mentioned engines and it's up to scenario/campaign designers to decide what features they want to use. Some features, what are used only on few campaigns, could be sold as part of that campaign and thus save hard disk space of those who don't play said campaigns (also saves bandwidth).

It's not so much 'features' as the way in which different systems handle the basics.. which has considerable variation. Some people prefer one approach, others another.

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 4

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 6:21:10 PM

Kuokkanen

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Joined: 4/2/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hertston

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

If time to create new campaign is less than half of time of creation whole new game and it is sold for higher than half the price of new game, then two sold campaigns should have higher income than one sold game.

Even assuming your guesses are right, and they seem reasonable, you are also assuming that for each one sale before you would now have two. I think that's unlikely. Firstly, there are only so many games people have time to play...

I believe that over the years there have been made enough scenarios for Steel Panthers and SPWAW which would take for tens of years for one player to play. Add there multiplayer and you have enough WW2 on tactical level to play with for life time and without Mega Campaigns. Or if you have unlimited amount of free time, let me introduce you MekWars. Becouse I dare say that Classic BattleTech and related (free) computer games will outlive SPWAW. When it comes to buy new products, I believe that time to play is small factor.

quote:

Secondly, even at a reduced cost I still think such campaigns may limited appeal compared to a brand new shiny game system.

If on one game system can be played scenarios and campaigns of WW2 and scenarios and campaigns of Classic BattleTech (slightly modified in Titans of Steel), I'll take it. Of course TUGE wouldn't be answer for everything: people need variety like RTS, first person shooters and top-down shooters

quote:

You also need to factor in the development of TUGE itself, which would be a huge and continuing project, and cash-flow problems with that in terms of money needed up front would be considerable.

Point! Uhm... how would I answer...? Let's start from SPWAW! How its development was paid?

Maybe TUGE could start off as commercial game: you need to pay to get it. No no no, there would be demo versions and TUGE would be required to run them. But that is with all games and all game engines and many campaigns.

All right. First couple campaigns using TUGE engine would be on same disc/download package with TUGE itself. Later, maybe after that 3 years, TUGE would be officially announced as free downloadable version and chargeable campaigns before that free release would be offered with reduced price and maybe some of them for free (there are campaigns and scenarios on free SPWAW which were in chargeable SP).

quote:

It's not so much 'features' as the way in which different systems handle the basics

Please define basics.

[edit]
SPWAW is pretty close to TUGE: great game engine, lots of free stuff, advanced Mega Campaigns for price and compatibility with scenarios of old game system (SP). If TUGE would be limited for tactical level only, I say get back to work with SPWAW and give us new Mega Campaigns.

[edit2]
I don't play free MegaMek/MekWars just becouse it's free. BattleMechs just happen to be more cool than tanks of WW2 and there is this MMO thing... which leads me to new thread.

< Message edited by Matti Kuokkanen -- 12/17/2006 6:42:26 PM >

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RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/17/2006 6:38:40 PM

Hertston

Posts: 3564
Joined: 8/17/2002
From: Cornwall, UK
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

If on one game system can be played scenarios and campaigns of WW2 and scenarios and campaigns of Classic BattleTech (slightly modified in Titans of Steel), I'll take it. Of course TUGE wouldn't be answer for everything: people need variety like RTS, first person shooters

Agreed, it would have to be turn-based wargames only. I'd take it too, IF it delivered those WW2 and Mech (and Cold War and Civil War and Ancients and Modern, and.. ) scenarios as well as SPWaW delivers WW2 and Megamek (which I have played) and ToS deliver the Mech stuff. But it's a very big 'if', hence my comment on development risk. TAOW3 does Normandy well, but BiN does it better, simply because that's ALL it does.

quote:

Maybe TUGE could start off as commercial game: you need to pay to get it. No no no, there would be demo versions and TUGE would be required to run them. But that is with all games and all game engines and many campaigns.

All right. First couple campaigns using TUGE engine would be on same disc/download package with TUGE itself. Later, maybe after that 3 years, TUGE would be officially announced as free downloadable version and chargeable campaigns before that free release would be offered with reduced price and maybe some of them for free (there are campaigns and scenarios on free SPWAW which were in chargeable SP).

Yes, it would have to, I think. That's a reasonable model.

quote:

Please define basics.

The look and feel of the GUI. Basic play style, IGOUGO or WEGO. Possibility for continuous time in HttR/CotA style or not?
Even within those the turn/phase systems are different and that can affect gameplay fundamentally. Sure, you could build in options for all those things, which may make TUGE more complicated or simpler depending on exactly how. In the second case, that complexity would transfer to the modules and hence make them more expensive to develop. In both cases you would need different AI routines for all of them, albeit with shared elements.

< Message edited by Hertston -- 12/17/2006 6:47:58 PM >

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 6

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/18/2006 1:57:50 AM

martxyz

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Joined: 1/29/2005
From: Broughton, Northants, UK
Status: offline

The attempt to produce a perfect generic tactical simulator has been a real saga. Ezra Sidran's "Universal Military Simulator" was a brave attempt, but as computers (and expectations) became increasingly demanding, the ability to keep programming AI one-step ahead of the chip-speed meant that the great endavour ultimately ground to a temporary halt. Although Ezra subsequently went back to college, he is still considered somethng of an icon in the league of Peter Molyneux and the like. His approach to UMS, UMS II, and War College (and his later Jack the Ripper) was to try and develop a good AI. By that, I don't mean a good "pseudo" AI for a particuar programme, but a programme that had a good "real" AI that was transferable. It was a mammoth task, and he didn't succeed, and he didn't get rich. But - he did go back to college, to give it some more thought. I liked Ezra. He once sent me a floppy disk, with a patch on it (pre-internet days). he wanted no money (not even postage) but just asked that I sent him a British local newspaper, as he loved them. I was happy to oblige. His website is

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~dsidran/

You may have to wait 10 years or more, but one day you'll be chucking your SPWAW, TAOW, and The SIMS, out of the window, while the world makes way for the output from a REAL programmer. Sorry Mr Koger, you'll just have to stand aside, however many sucessful games you seem to have under your belt

Well, that's my view - and I'm sticking to it. He's read the Corby Evening Telegraph, and I'm sure that changed his life!

(in reply to Hertston)

Post #: 7

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/18/2006 2:27:20 PM

ravinhood

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Actually the "Guild War's game is using his principle right now. They have a basic game engine and every 6 months are trying to release a new chapter. What's happening though is the game is getting redundant. There is no character progression, there is no phat loot, there is only hacking and slashing to get thru the story content, which isn't that great since Prophecies and well it's just getting old already after 2 years. It has no other motivation other than hacking and slashing and some new skills and skins (though even the skins are just rehased older ones with some different colors). Only vanity plays any part of elitism since all max weapons are the same no matter what they look like, same with armor, purely cosmetic. It's a game where everyone can be at the same end of the box at the same time, but, with nowhere to go.

For me anyway a game must continue to 'evolve' while still remaining challenging and fun. On the other hand if it evolves in the wrong direction that can spell trouble as well. MOO3, HOMMIV, LORDS of the REALM III and several others have evolved in the wrong direction and well it was bye bye American Pie for the developers. The Total War series has evolved in the wrong direction as well for me. While evolving to glitz & glamour the meat of the game has gone and it's just become some kiddie game.

Human nature is to want more and fresh and new. But, there are a few titles that still hold our interest from the past because they were "quality" titles that just require some fresh paint. I don't think the Close Combat series or the Talonsoft series are part of them though, because I really didn't care for either one back when they were fresh and new. I was looking forward to the Combat Leader game, but, of course they just tossed that one in the trash. Battlefront is making some game called "Shock Force" that is modern day hypothetical warfare. I'm not impressed with that move and won't be buying into it. They have also moved into RTS with the upcoming TOW and I won't be buying into that either.

The sad thing about most development teams is they forget who gave them the clout to continue in the first place. While moving toward more money they leave those of us who dedicated our money to them in the early years. They move toward the mainstream and forget who fed them when they were but babes in the industry. Heh, much like children do their parents. haha And they overlook the land battles of the Pacific War waaaayyy too much. Always seems to be about ships and airwar.....it's about time SSG and KOIOS moved to the Pacific Land Battles I think. ;) I've wanted a good computer Guadacanal pacific war land battle game since I can remember.

(in reply to martxyz)

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RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/18/2006 3:05:41 PM

Sarge

Posts: 2841
Joined: 3/1/2003
From: ask doggie
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quote:

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

And they overlook the land battles of the Pacific War waaaayyy too much. Always seems to be about ships and airwar.....it's about time SSG and KOIOS moved to the Pacific Land Battles�I think. ;) I've wanted a good computer�Guadacanal pacific war land battle game since I can remember.

Agreed,

They could have bombarded Iwo for weeks and it would have had little effect, along with the rest of the Pacific islands.
Time after time you see this in Pacific war games, they concentrate on Naval and Air , at best have a vague ground combat system .

Not ONE island would have been taken with out boots.

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(in reply to ravinhood)

Post #: 9

RE: The Ultimate Game Engine - 12/18/2006 4:49:55 PM

Kuokkanen

Posts: 3545
Joined: 4/2/2004
Status: offline

quote:

there are a few titles that still hold our interest from the past because they were "quality" titles that just require some fresh paint.

Are you talking about SPWAW? Some new graphics, higher resolution (1600x1200 anyone?) and new Mega Campaigns would do trick. I'm not sure would I buy them though becouse at the moment I'm too devoted for MekWars and school exams at end of week.

[edit]
There are many games which makes think is one bird or fish: Dune, UFO Enemy Unknown, Star Control serie, Total War serie and Master of Orion serie comes to mind. All said games have at least two sides which are very different from each others. Dune is mostly adventure (I think) and strategy is served for dessert. Star Control 2 has adventure and arcade style shooting a.l.a. Spacewar! Couldn't something like this to be done with heavy weight wargames Matrix is putting out?

TOAW4 could have improved engine of TOAW3 + tactical level combat a.l.a. SPWAW (maybe use SPWAW engine itself) + more detailed scenarios/campaigns (make Normandy campaign as good or better as it is in BiN) + chance to play scenarios of TOAW3 (directly, emulation or change scenario data a.l.a. SPWAW) = start for TUGE.

< Message edited by Matti Kuokkanen -- 12/18/2006 5:15:33 PM >

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(in reply to Sarge)

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