The Origin of Forge Light (Speculation)

[Saieno]

Originally Posted by Noivad

Maybe I built a better computer then you purchased, maybe it was just luck. But I don't really believe in luck, except the luck I make by buying quality. Your probally on an Intel machine, perhaps you should give AMD a try with a good nivida vid card in it. Perhaps your using vista, try upgrading to Win 7 or downgrading to XP.

You're making quite a lot of baseless assumptions, so let me correct a few things for you. I have built every gaming machine I own, I use AMD with Nvidia cards, and I use Windows 7 and Linux. The memory issues in EverQuest 2 plauged thousands of players, 104 pages of Issue Tracking is a testament to that. Various OS's, various configurations, different video card manufacturers. It was a huge performance issue that may not have affected you, but just because you didn't have issues doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Originally Posted by Noivad

And does it really matter if the ideas of Forgelight came form a game engine that was developed in the past. Its not the same engine of the past.

The entire point of this thread is excitement in that Project Offset may not have died off completely. This isn't a stab at SOE with a giant "AHA! WE CAUGHT YOU!" record of events, its a possible scenario where the Offset Engine could partically be powering some of the greatest games yet to come. That's it, nothing more, so please stop being so defensive. I'm a huge fan of SOE, I'm also a huge fan of what Project Offset was, so the possibility of them coming together is a positive not a negative.

[Zekeen]

Originally Posted by CyclesMcHurtz

I believe all the engineers here who have devoted many, MANY hours and months and years to the development would not agree that it "just appeared"

That's a lie, I know there were no engineers on the project, only an army of highly trained WIZARDS conjuring out a game engine that defies time and space!

[Rabb]

Firefall uses a highly modified version of the offset engine.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by CyclesMcHurtz

I believe all the engineers here who have devoted many, MANY hours and months and years to the development would not agree that it "just appeared"

well for those of us on the outside it did just kind of appear. I'm sure many long hours were spent building this beast which looks totally amazing.

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

I believe he was referring on how it was presented. It did just "appear". We didn't have any idea that this was even being created for a very long time, so when it was announced, it just smacked us.

In the teeth!

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Hamma

well for those of us on the outside it did just kind of appear. I'm sure many long hours were spent building this beast which looks totally amazing.





In the teeth!

Well, it makes sense for them to keep their next gen engine which allows them to make MMOFPS games like Planetside under wraps, its given them a massive head start on the competition.

If this game is as successful as we all think/hope it will be, and MMOFPS becomes the new buzz word in town like its threatening to do.. then they are going to have EA, BioWare, Infinity Ward and every other FPS company in the genre clambering to:

A) Buy a licence to use their engine to provide their own iteration of the MMOFPS experience with their own IP
B) Spend a HELL of a lot of time making their own engine (at least 10 years of development knowledge/experience has gone into Forgelight, it will take a LOT of time to make something comparable).

[Tatwi]

And you folks thought I was crazy when I posted last year that PS2 will be a launch title for the playstation 4. Sony is going to delivering a grand unified user experience across their product lines.

[EVILPIG]

If Planetside2 is released on a console, I pity the console players.

[Saieno]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

If Planetside2 is released on a console, I pity the console players.

Why? They would obviously have their own servers, just like DC Universe Online.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by Saieno

Why? They would obviously have their own servers, just like DC Universe Online.

Having their own servers would be one thing. If they mixed with PC players, pity.

[CyclesMcHurtz]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

I would have bet engineering was like magic, though. And especially when you see Forgelight.

Just because it's Magic, doesn't mean it's not hard work. Someone has to fetch those eyes of newt and so on!

[Soothsayer]

If it were up to you the whole engine would be newt eyes...

[Roy Awesome]

Keep in mind, Engines aren't created, they evolve. UE3 still has code from UE2. Source still has code from HL1 (even back to Quake 3). Even the engine that powers Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 has code from WC3 (and probably even starcraft). Code never goes bad, you just figure out better ways of implementing things and have to update them for the times.


Now, lets take a look at Forgelight. SOE has been making MMOs since the 90s. They know how to do network tech and they know how to do character interactions. They probably took the back end networking and entity state management stuff (things invisible to players) from previous games like FreeRealms and EQ2 and slapped a fancy graphics engine on top and incorporated PhysX. While this is a ton of work (and it totally is paying off, Forgelight looks fantastic), They did not start from scratch...giving the appearance of coming out of nowhere.

[Elude]

I don't think project offset is in any way related to Forge light. I also think it's a bit far fetched to assume two games use the same engine because they look similar graphically.

I feel like this way of thinking has left a mark on people because of the mass main stream games built with Unreal Engine 3. People think they've got a clear indication of what an Unreal Engine 3 game looks like only because the developers behind those games don't care to change what they don't have to.

Given enough attention you could make almost any engine look like another, after all most have similar technologies (if you could call it such) behind them. Unreal Engine 3 has the capacity of looking near identical to CryEngine 3 or Frostbite 2.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Saieno

EverQuest Next was not the first game shown on Forge Light. They showed a model from EverQuest Next, though Planetside 2's Announcement Trailer was the first shown from within the Forge Light Engine.

That's the first in-engine screenshot ever released for Forgelight. It was released in 2010. That's EQ Next. If you read my statement as "the first gameplay shown in action on Forgelight," I'm sorry you misunderstood me. EQ Next was the game the first demonstrations (in the form of still photos of in-engine renders) used.

Originally Posted by Saieno

As is stated in the video above, Planetside 2 is going to be the first Forge Light game.

Sure, Planetside 2 will beat EQ Next to market. This is because MMORPGs require massive amounts of content generation. Multiplayer-only FPSes are fairly content-light. You don't have to write dialogue for NPCs, you don't have to write quests, and the expectations for things like backstory are completely different between EverQuest and Planetside.

In short, MMORPGs have a development cycle probably averaging 5 years or so, while Planetside 2's development cycle will probably be 3 years, max, and that's being very liberal with where you start counting given the whole Planetside Next -> Planetside 2 development switch.

[Saieno]

Originally Posted by Elude

Given enough attention you could make almost any engine look like another, after all most have similar technologies (if you could call it such) behind them. Unreal Engine 3 has the capacity of looking near identical to CryEngine 3 or Frostbite 2.

That is very true. I'm not saying SOE hasn't developed an engine, I'm saying they've made an engine that is thoroughly impressive and similar to what we saw with Project Offset. Hell even if they did start off with Project Offset that's still a 5 year old engine they'd have to work on to bring up to current generation standards; lots of development needed. I'm super excited about the Forge Light engine, can't wait to get in Planetside 2 and see how it all works and renders.

Originally Posted by kaffis

In short, MMORPGs have a development cycle probably averaging 5 years or so, while Planetside 2's development cycle will probably be 3 years, max, and that's being very liberal with where you start counting given the whole Planetside Next -> Planetside 2 development switch.

That's a fair point and one I agree with.