Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

Wait wait, doesn't Frostbite...not support saving and loading on it its own?

REVOLUTIONARY AMIRITE

One way companies have been trying to avoid ‘the crunch’ has been through a milestone system, have X ready by this date get a bonus. Steady development and planning removes the need for ‘Bio Ware Magic’.

But that requires competent leadership...

Hold on, I gotta ask: why doesn't DICE just develop like... an extended version of Frostbite or something to be able to support games that aren't strictly FPS? Or something?

Maybe I'm naive asking this but I am really curious. EA wouldn't listen? DICE don't think it's necessary?

Would it be too costly? I mean some companies just modify their engines or create a new version to make games previous engines couldn't.

I'm reminded of an old game called Rune which had a modified OG Unreal Engine for third person hack n' slash mechanics. Or how Monolith Productions just nicely modified their Lith Tech Jupiter EX for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor or created a new version called Firebird for Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Edited by Dhiruxide on Apr 9th 2019 at 9:13:34 PM

I mean, making an engine takes time, and dice has shit to do like make the next battlefield schedlued for essentially their whole life.

Aren't savegames like, rudimentary or whatever? Like, the sort of shit any basic game engine has by default? Design isn't my strong suit but it seems like game saves shooooould be industry standard from day 1.

Yeah, designing your own engine from scratch is really really hard. It takes a lot of time and manpower.

All the more reason why game companies frequently license stuff like Unreal. EA just didn't want to pay the royalties associated with using it.

Unreal is basically the Swiss Army Knife to Frostbite's...knife.

Even Kingdom Hearts uses Unreal now. That's... Unreal. Square, and Japanese devs in general, put a lot of emphasis on making things with their own tools. Remember when Kojima and Konami kept puffing out their chests about the FOX engine?

A lot of devs only use in-house engines though, like Insomniac. Capcom's also really good at making engines, if MT Framework and DMCV using Resident Evil's engine is anything to go by.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Apr 10th 2019 at 3:38:53 PM

There's an argument to be made for using your own engine. You know the ins-and-outs best, you don't have to pay licensing fees, you can tweak it to your heart's content...and of course there's the pride you get in saying "this was made with our own personal engine".

Of course that means...making your own engine. Which is really hard to do right.

It's kind of like trying to cook every dish for a banquet at home by yourself as opposed to just hiring a caterer.

Edited by M84 on Apr 11th 2019 at 3:56:32 AM

That doesn't actually work very well and is extremely time consuming. When Square made the Crystal Tools they did so specifically with FFXIII in mind and even in house the engine was broken and had massive issues to even do the semi-open world elements of XIII-2 and even worse with LR. By the time they got to XIV it was literally melting computers trying to run it and it didnt even look that good, for A Realm Reborn they basically rebuilt and modded it so extensively that they have said there is basically nothing left of the original game engine.

It was also the biggest project that Square has ever done, they had to more than triple their R&D staff to make it and used resources all around the world, FFXV's engine 'Luminous' is seemingly going in the same direction.

Like I said, it's like trying to cook an entire banquet's worth of food by yourself.

Sometimes you just gotta admit when things aren't working out and order delivery.

Edited by M84 on Apr 10th 2019 at 5:00:04 PM

I wonder when Square’s gonna admit that.

I think part of the issue is that a lot of executives and higher-ups, not having actually worked in game development before becoming CEO's or what not, don't really grasp just how insanely difficult and time-consuming these sorts of tasks are.

Game developers are not wizards. Seriously, fuck "Bioware Magic".

Oh and fuck the Frostbite engine too. IIRC it was meant for big multiplayer shooters but EA wanted to publicly wank about how they had a big cool engine too so, basically they forced Bioware to fit a square peg in a hole that was hastily whittled into a sort of tiny round shape if you squint.

Man, I've been reposting this reddit post way too often:

Bioware was NOT forced into using the Frostbite Engine

What happened was that while EA did want to encourage their studios to use the same engine, they didn't outright force the studios.

And in Bioware's case, their management at the time was impressed by Frostbite's ability to render open-worlds and handle multiplayer. They were looking to replace their aging Eclipse engine with something that could handle open-worlds and multiplayer since they were planning to pivot into multiplayer stuff, and Frostbite seemed perfect.

Then it turned out that Frostbite can't really do much else outside of those things. But by then it was their developers' problem. And by now we should realize that Bioware's leadership doesn't listen to their developers. They just rely on "Bioware Magic".

Seriously, just...fuck Bioware.

Edited by M84 on Apr 10th 2019 at 6:46:38 PM

Ah okay. My bad. But yeah, fuck Bioware magic most of all, its an excuse to overwork their staff and practically fucking brag about it.

I'm not really sure how the whole "EA forced Bioware to use Frostbite" narrative started. It's probably because EA is an easy target given its well-deserved reputation as the worst videogame publisher ever and because Bioware fans didn't want to think badly of Bioware.

In the case of Anthem, EA is to blame for depriving Bioware of support on Frostbite by shuffling developers who actually knew how to work with Frostbite to FIFA and Andromeda. EA's Frostbite support team also gave higher priority to FIFA instead of Anthem since FIFA is EA's main moneymaker.

Like I said, EA does deserve its bad reputation.

Edited by M84 on Apr 10th 2019 at 6:51:13 PM

Makes me wish Pro Evo was still a big thing in that case

I also gotta admit the way Bioware didn't even try to carry on the lingering plots in Mass Effect 2 in 3 after their old writers left was also kind of, well, shit. Along with making Shepard constantly lose to some fucking sci-fi ninja dipstick who dresses like fucking Nightwing. Yes you get to stab his guts out in the end but goddammit the lead up was whaaaaaaack.

Corporate executives love to use terms like "magic" to describe shit they don't understand.

In my own profession as a data analyst, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard a manager or VP describe me as a "wizard", I could probably retire.

What's worse is when these same people are the ones making the decision about which technology the company will embrace. These decisions are made not with a comprehension about the products in question, but because some executive VP or CEO exchanged money with another executive VP or CEO and wrote up a contract.

And then the "wizards" are just entrusted to "work their magic" on the new, often shittier tech.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 10th 2019 at 8:03:55 AM

Activision-Blizzard wants to know about their employees pregnancy

I am scared

Edited by fasoman1996 on Apr 10th 2019 at 11:53:16 AM

Activision does not understand this weird new kind of loot box they're hearing about, but they do know people spend a lot of money on it, so they're interested.

I'm not entirely surprised that it's the AAA videogame industry bringing us closer to a corporate cyber dystopia.

They're just big corporations after all, so yeah, no surprise where this is all leading.

id are also known for designing a brand new engine for very single game, but they can get away with it because 1: they built their business plan around it, and 2: they had John Carmack, who is an actual dark wizard.

Just as the feudal lords sought to revive slavery, so too do the capitalists seek to revive feudalism.