A switch to Unreal Engine.

Discussion in 'Fire Lotus Tavern' started by Lathiari, May 18, 2020.

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  1. Lathiari

    Lathiari Avatar

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    On the last stream @Chris made an off the cuff remark about talking with some people at epic and kicking around the idea. I think he ultimately landed on it would be too costly. I think this was the single most exciting thing I have heard suggested for the game however as it would fix SO many issues that the game faces while giving immediate benefit to the player base. I don't know anything about coding games, but I wanted to ask here.. (cost aside) how possible would a conversion of a Unity game like Shroud into the Unreal engine really be? I have seen other games in the past that switched from Unity to Unreal and they completely praise it in how it simplified their work flow and saved their game.

    SO many of the problems we face with development can be traced back to UNITY and I really lament the decision to build the game on this engine. I really hope this can come back around as that would be completely awesome.
     
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  2. Barugon

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    There have already been lengthy discussions about this. The short answer is that it won't happen.

    Aside from that, the version of Unity that they're using is like two years old. Chris also said that they're trying to update to a newer Unity version (on QA soon) to help eliminate some of the persistent issues.
     
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  3. evillego6

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    Chris estimated the cost at around 6 million dollars and a 2 year conversion to during which all other development on the game would have to cease.
     
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  4. Lathiari

    Lathiari Avatar

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    :eek:

    WOW. I had no idea it would take 2 years, man that is crazy!
     
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  5. GMDavros

    GMDavros Avatar

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    so is being on a 2 yr old version of your game engine.
     
  6. Lathiari

    Lathiari Avatar

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    :eek:

    Also a good observation. Man I like this game but it bums me out to see it losing so much steam in recent times. Maybe it will just have to be a case of "this is the engine we have and damnit we are going to make the best of it". If somehow they turn this thing around though... a switch to unreal in the future should always be up for consideration, I think at least from a performance stand point it would be worth it.
     
  7. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    Anyone want to hazard a guess as to home many player we would gain by switching to Unreal or how many we have lost to Unity?

    I'm not sure the average player cares or even knows what engine their games are on.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2020
  8. Barugon

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    This is actually not so crazy as long as things are working properly.
     
  9. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    The only other Dynamic Object engine I have played with (No Man’s Sky) uses the Havoc engine. But even that can still be a bit glitchy. But it doesn’t use as high a level of detail as this game.

    I can only hope the new version of Unity will work out better for the game.
     
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  10. Violet Ronso

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    I'll be honest, I have no clue what the engine difference does, and as long as the game works correctly, I am fine with whatever engine we are on. I think the engin does not explain the countless unfinished systems, or broken ones, and that is probably where we lose out on many people.

    UI aswell, I'll give this point to Vlad, lately I've been wondering why I couldn't simply see my buffs remaining duration on its glyph in my action bar, and have to try to find it in my 2 full bars of buffs... that must annoy people way more than unity or unreal or diva or whatever the engine type could be...
     
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  11. Wilfred

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  12. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    I guess I could look this up, but perhaps you could share what games you know switched here anyway?
     
  13. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    This is the best route...there are many games out there that are running on older engines and have healthy populations. It's a matter of fixing things, doing things right, and not overstretching. Sorry if I offend anyone who has invested in it (me included, although a small investment for access), but Ep. 2 is an overreach. It's not going to fix any problems we have now (UI, quest system, combat, <insert whatever you want here>). If anything it is just going to exacerbate them. Making the best of it would be finishing up Ep. 2 and then just focusing on fixing problems for a while without creating new things that will create new problems or further exacerbate older ones.
     
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  14. Xiones

    Xiones Avatar

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    Git Gud a programming...
     
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  15. ShurTugal

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    I whole heartily agree with this assessment. Pushing on to episode 2 is a bad move at the moment. There is SO much that needs improved upon which quite frankly is probably why the game is not doing better than it could be. These people are so focused on "keep moving forward, keep moving forward" that long term I feel they are hurting themselves more than they are helping. Sometimes the best path forward is to stop, take a pause and fix the holes in your boat because to keep trying to sail forward in a leaking boat because "we have to keep moving forward".... Well, you know the analogy. I'll be frank. I would be completely happy with episode 2 being pushed out another year or two if it means so many things that could be done better WERE done better before moving on. (UI, journal, questing system, awards system, vendor system, I could go on and on and on) It's short sighted to attempt to keep moving on with out addressing these things and more first..... My 2 cents for what its worth which I am sure is not much. I have zero influence on the developers because I haven't dropped 8 grand on a bundle....... this concept seems to becoming more glaring the older I get. If you want to be heard or taken seriously you better have money. If you don't have money well than your just another non existent smuck..... lol
     
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  16. craftymethod

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    This progress trying to update Unity has really smashed into the programming bandwidth for ultra important polish. Has sure been a major hurdle at least :)

    The polish phase doesn't really seem to have happened all that much yet, changing the start screen would have really been something that could help mark Chris's new Reign of the project, but there it sits like 2013.

    God speed to the casual programmers!
     
  17. marthos

    marthos Avatar

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    Exactly.

    There have been a lot of bad decisions made to abandon work on a system in order to move on to the next shiny project. I think it came down to a couple of factors. There was a rush to get to "release" in the hopes of getting more players/money, and so they rushed to check off as much as they could from the Kickstarter promises. It became quantity over quality.

    You can also see human nature at play here. New systems are fun to think about, and building those systems out starts out pretty easy. Once you get to about 80% complete, then it gets really hard. That last 20% is a killer. The developers look at the laundry list of things they want to do, and decide 'meh, 80% is good enough, let's work on something new." The skill combo system comes to mind here - I'm sure it was a lot of fun to code that system and create several combos. But once it came down to balancing out the combos' power and make sure each skill tree is properly represented, the devs quickly moved on to other things. I think we've had one or two updates to combos, but it's still pretty much the same thing as when it came out in pre-release. Town sieges haven't changed much since implementation other than you can skip the content now.

    The 2020 Roadmap contains so many systems that there's no way the team can achieve implementing them. So they put themselves back into this situation where they have a long list of things to do, and likely whatever does get implemented will be half-finished. In 2021, there will be another impossibly long to-do list, and we'll get more broken systems and frustrated players.

    Chris shouldn't be thinking of switching to Unreal. That's just another new shiny thing to get distracted by, and instead the roadmap should be finishing some of these systems.

    We all see the potential that the game has, I'd just love to see that potential realized in one or two new systems each quarter. Put the new shiny stuff on hold.
     
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  18. Bedawyn

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    I don't think he is thinking of it. Well, thinking of it in the vague way that we all wish for castles in the sky (or castle lots in the water). He's mentioned it a few times in streams the past year, but always in a "we carefully considered this some time ago and decided it wasn't feasible" way.
     
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  19. dayero

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    which unity is the game currently running on? the newest unity version is 2019.3.13f1
     
  20. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    2018.4.19f1

    the qa build chris is trying to do will be on 2019.3
     
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