Podcast Episode 5: All About the Engine

[CTH]

Some nice information but not as technical as I hoped, cant they just give us some info on what machines thye have tried it on? I know it is not completly done yet but it would still be intresting to hear what kind of machine that can run the current highest settings...

 

[Hafnia]

Interesting read!

One thing that was nice was that everything was no longer quoted verbatim - cutting out the ummm's and aaaahh's, and generally editing the text a bit, has led to much improved readability

 

[Shiggs713]

yea, pretty weak honestly. I was expecting some technical info, and all I read was poor analogies about cars. Couldn't even get half way through it because it just seemed like random gibberish, nothing to do with the technical parts of the game engine.

O_o a new game engine, and they didn't buy it from some 3rd party developer!! WOW! watch out, were supposed to be impressed. The fact is if they didn't build it from scratch it would be an utter failure. Everyone already expected this.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Well I found the part about diplomacy interesting, how it's like it's own 3d engine within an engine(that's how I understood it anyway). They said something along the lines of it being a whole new experiance, and he called it a fps in civ. I can't wait to see it, just hope my graphics card can handle it. The car analogies where a little too much, the first time ok, after that enough already we get it.

Also I like Elizabeths voice too, but she does pause too much lol. I think she's trying to be dramatic or something. "I love civ..........................................it's great."

 

[The_J]

Was imho pretty interesting, would want to know more about the generated coastlines.

O_o a new game engine, and they didn't buy it from some 3rd party developer!! WOW! watch out, were supposed to be impressed. The fact is if they didn't build it from scratch it would be an utter failure. Everyone already expected this.

No, i guess more than 50% of the modders didn't expect that. I didn't expect it. Programming an own 3D engine is a major task, this work deserves a bit honour.


And an addtional thought: New engine = new 3D format. New 3D format = special plugins needed. Which means, the 3D modding will not be possible unless Firaxis releases the plugins for 3D smax (i guess they use it). So, what about Blender, which mosst of the modders use? Will it be possible to mod with it? This whole stuff could have a bigger impact on the modding.
I would like to hear something official about that.

 

[D712]

Its really kinda what I was looking for. Ive been looking for info on how scaleable it is. And when Elizabeth did say she was "floored to see how many machines this game will run on" which gives me hope mine will work well too

 

[Souron]

I wish they had concrete examples of how building their own engine was a damper in civ 4, but not civ 5.

 

[12agnar0k]

Well it was an interesting podcast, let me know a few things I didn't know, always good. We will see how well this Engine will work, I am hopeful it will work well.

Looking foward to the next Podcast even more, the UI is something that interests me and that I understand more than Engine programming which I know nothing about .

 

[Dale]

I wish they had concrete examples of how building their own engine was a damper in civ 4, but not civ 5.

Civ4 was built on GameBryo, which means the game is limited by a 3rd party engine. Civ5 if they needed something else they just add it themselves.

*thinking* If Civ5 has it's own engine, and the engine code for Civ4 was not released due to licensing limitations of GameBryo, that may mean we will have access to the engine code for Civ5 in the SDK. That would be AWESOME!

 

[civ_king]

Civ4 was built on GameBryo, which means the game is limited by a 3rd party engine. Civ5 if they needed something else they just add it themselves.

*thinking* If Civ5 has it's own engine, and the engine code for Civ4 was not released due to licensing limitations of GameBryo, that may mean we will have access to the engine code for Civ5 in the SDK. That would be AWESOME!

This might be what they mean by even more modable

 

[mjs0]

It's also possible that because they built their own engine they also built their own tools and utilities to develop with it; those tools may also be something they can release to the modding community

 

[Krill]

Was imho pretty interesting, would want to know more about the generated coastlines.



No, i guess more than 50% of the modders didn't expect that. I didn't expect it. Programming an own 3D engine is a major task, this work deserves a bit honour.


And an addtional thought: New engine = new 3D format. New 3D format = special plugins needed. Which means, the 3D modding will not be possible unless Firaxis releases the plugins for 3D smax (i guess they use it). So, what about Blender, which mosst of the modders use? Will it be possible to mod with it? This whole stuff could have a bigger impact on the modding.
I would like to hear something official about that.

Another level of control that Firaxis (and hence 2K) have over the modders. First SteamWorks, now software plugins...and with D2D/Babylon issue, it's just so naive to expect the best IMO. Which is sad, I've been looking forward to this game for 5 years

 

[Lillefix]

Another level of control that Firaxis (and hence 2K) have over the modders. First SteamWorks, now software plugins...and with D2D/Babylon issue, it's just so naive to expect the best IMO. Which is sad, I've been looking forward to this game for 5 years

It's their game. The fact that they make their own engine, in stead of borrowing it from another company, can hardly be described as "another level of control".

 

[Krill]

New engine = new 3D format. New 3D format = special plugins needed. Which means, the 3D modding will not be possible unless Firaxis releases the plugins for 3D smax (i guess they use it).

Reading comprehension would be useful...

 

[Lillefix]

Reading comprehension would be useful...

But you write as if it is purposefully done in order to put more restrictions to modders. You can't know that. They just want to give us better graphics.

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Podcast Episode 6: Making sense of all the different pre-order bonuses

 

[Krill]

But you write as if it is purposefully done in order to put more restrictions to modders. You can't know that.

No, I didn't. Wat I said was that it is another level of control. What 2K/Firaxis decide to do with that control is up to them: they may give away the plugins for free, they may charge for them, they may vet who is allowed to use them, or they may decide to no release them.

God forbid, they may even go the same route that Apple has gone with Apps for the iPhone (vis à vis Adobe).

We don't know what they are going to do with the control that they have, but they do have it. I did say that it is naive to hope for the best, but hey, people are still going to do that. The cynical customers are going to wait and see until the dust has settled, then decide if the product is worth buying.

They just want to give us better graphics.

Pot, Kettle, Black. You don;t know that for sure either. (Short sighted) Marketing and PR is all about selling the positives and hiding the negatives, until you have money in your bank account.

 

[civ_king]

The Gamebryo engine is very unspecialized, there is lots of useless stuff in it that makes it slow down. I doubt Firaxis would sell the plugins, and if the engine works well it might be used with Civ VI.

Flash sucks, it is unstable and drain a lot of power, neither of which are good for a phone

 

[Souron]

Civ4 was built on GameBryo, which means the game is limited by a 3rd party engine. Civ5 if they needed something else they just add it themselves.

I'm saying it'd be nice to have a specific example of this.

 

[civ_king]

specific example of what? how it was limited or how they can add stuff?