Hello everyone. I have'nt checked on the game for a while and was wondering if they've given a timeframe to when they were going to stop using the unity engine? I beleive they said it was temporary to work on abilities and classes. If I'm wrong then disreguard.
I'm not sure if there's been any official word on that. I've heard through word of mouth that they will use Unity as the main engine, but heavily modified. I'd really like to know more about that too. It would be an interesting dev spotlight piece in a future newsletter. I don't know if there are any (live) MMO's out that have been built with Unity.
I have been assuming they will release with a game built primarily on Unity but that may simply be ignorance - I haven't seen this discussed.
While I am not following it closely I believe Project Gorgon uses Unity probably with far fewer modifications since they have a one or two-person team. While it has helped them get as far as they have with limited resources I have seen comments that it also imposes noticable restrictions on quality of the game's look and lag when too many people are in the same area. Total hearsay that may be completely wrong - I've never played the game.
They are not going to change the game engine anytime in the near future, if ever.
Maybe you were thinking about how they are building tools in Unity that they are using to build in game abilities and such?
No i dont think they will change the unity engine. Thats like start over from 0 beside the unity engine is kinda flexible and can be altered in so many ways.
i know some people are to some degree afraid for poor framerate (not that i have witness it)
so overall i still belive unity engine might be a wise choise for this kinda game =)
Based off the information below I'd say we are staying with Unity :).
Posted date / 04.11.18
Q: Why was Unity the right choice for Pantheon? Or does that pre-date you?
A: The choice to use Unity was made prior to my coming onto the team, but I had been using Unity full time for many projects since 2009. Because of this, I was able to hit the ground running. It was quite fortunate that a lot of what I had already been working on was being handled the same way in Pantheon (networking, UI, etc.). So it was a relatively painless transition for me. Unity was definitely the right choice for Pantheon, and the innovations and improvements the Unity team are bringing to the engine are a godsend.
Q: If we were starting today, would Unity still be your engine of choice?
A: Yes, most definitely. Unity's team of engineers are actively engaged in moving the engine forward version after version. There is so much more that we can do today that wasn't possible when we first started. There's a lot of new tech coming out in the next couple of years that is going allow us to push Pantheon even further. It's really been a fantastic journey.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_april_dev_spotlight/
Yes, I remember reading this at some point too. I would really like more detail around how they are using Unity to progress the tech forward, what sort of challenges they are expecting, what new tech they are expecting that will help push Unity into the MMO space, etc.
I haven't checked in in quite a while and like I said I may be misrembering. The game animations seem a little stiff. Similar to old Everquest. I don't know if their going for this look intentionally or if its just because of the state of the game. Crowfall uses unity? That I didn't know. It looks so vastly different.
DevonMeep said:I haven't checked in in quite a while and like I said I may be misrembering. The game animations seem a little stiff. Similar to old Everquest. I don't know if their going for this look intentionally or if its just because of the state of the game. Crowfall uses unity? That I didn't know. It looks so vastly different.
It's pre alpha, the vast majority of animations and effects are placeholders.
DevonMeep said:I haven't checked in in quite a while and like I said I may be misrembering. The game animations seem a little stiff. Similar to old Everquest. I don't know if their going for this look intentionally or if its just because of the state of the game. Crowfall uses unity? That I didn't know. It looks so vastly different.
Yep. I believe that the ArtCraft team has done some heavy modifications, to the point that they're positioning their Unity modifications as its own MMO development platform for others. It's pretty cool.
I'm not a professional dev, so I can't get into the nitty gritty details, but from what I've seen of the animation system, Unity can support some pretty smooth animations. Bazgrim tweeted a great comparison yesterday of Avendyr's Pass in 2014 vs. 2018. Seeing the step up in quality there is probably a good example of how things can be polished and refined over time. I'd expect to see similar improvements on the animation side as well as development progresses.
dorotea said:While I am not following it closely I believe Project Gorgon uses Unity probably with far fewer modifications since they have a one or two-person team. While it has helped them get as far as they have with limited resources I have seen comments that it also imposes noticable restrictions on quality of the game's look and lag when too many people are in the same area. Total hearsay that may be completely wrong - I've never played the game.
Project Gorgon has absolutly horrible lag when there are a few dozen people around. Probably the leading factor for me to quit. But it was a game that had some good ideas. I loved the way vendors and npc's worked with the level of friendship you had with them.
A gaming engine isn't necessarily the blame for a game lagging. I'm not saying it doesn't play a part, but many times its your own computer, the connection to the server, or even the server itself. If the game lags because of the engine it still could be a number of other reasons. Poor optimization, high texture memory, memory leaks, server/client code, and the list goes on. There are many things that cause latency before the engine.
Bronsun said:A gaming engine isn't necessarily the blame for a game lagging. I'm not saying it doesn't play a part, but many times its your own computer, the connection to the server, or even the server itself. If the game lags because of the engine it still could be a number of other reasons. Poor optimization, high texture memory, memory leaks, server/client code, and the list goes on. There are many things that cause latency before the engine.
Sometimes it's due to server localization, sometimes to maximum bandwidth, sometimes to peering problems with some network operator (level 3, etc...). Some games had all theses issues at once, but the only game I've ever played with a laggy motor was NWN 2, whoses obsess with cracked games made them include a very intrusive progam that slowed pretty much every UI reaction, and it was a SOLO RPG.