Military Base revisted in UE4

[aKe`cj]

What I find humorous is that you named only MMOs that are AAA quality. I can think of a few that are indie quality that cost far less (I have even worked on some myself); even done by only a few developers in some instances.

Don't place Neocron, clearly an indie game, into an AAA comparison.

How was Neocron / Neocron 2 an indie game?
It may fall into that niche today - not surprising since development had dried up for so long and the underlying architecture was built well over a decade ago. For most of the development time there were at least a dozen people working on Neocron full time, though. Not AAA, sure, but indie - I dont agree with that. It had financial backing of investors, major publishers etc.

I did not mean to imply that development costs for NC3 would equal any of the games quoted for reference. Those are just well known titles that are built on modern engines and that people can relate to. Also, it nicely illustrates the added complexity of developing a MMORPG at scale, compared to a regular multiplayer or even single player game. From what I have seen, you can easily triple or quadruple a budget when talking MMORPG.

Alright then, let's look at another game which does not belong in the AAA category either, nor does it qualify as a small indie project: Wasteland 2.

It's development budget is in excess of 2 million $US, not including money raised through Steam sales and post-release income. They use an engine that is more affordable than UE4 at scale (Unity) and they deal with a lot less complexity, compared to building a MMORPGFPS architecture.

Black Prophecy - developed by 30-40 employees plus additional contractors over a 4 year period. Assuming an average head cost of just $30k (poor bastards), you're looking at roughly 3-5 million just for staff. Add costs for rent, equipment, licenses and 3rd party materials. Now even assuming that a Neocron sequel is so much easier to develop than BP, since a lot of the game design and concept creation is already covered. Half the staff and half the development time - you are still looking at a couple of MILLIONS that it will cost to develop the game.

A couple of millions is what I said before and if you like it or not, it will hold.
So please stop whining about me comparing NC with AAA titles.

P.S:
On the topic of comparing apples to oranges - how many of those "just a few developer" indie projects you know and/or were involved in had the scope of Neocron or were even MMORPGs? None? Well, never mind ...

[Drachenpaladin]

What I find humorous is that you named only MMOs that are AAA quality. I can think of a few that are indie quality that cost far less (I have even worked on some myself); even done by only a few developers in some instances.

Don't place Neocron, clearly an indie game, into an AAA comparison.

Thats what they aim for. But what projects did you work on? And what MMOs are done by indi devs?!


Btw. those 10 million for developing NC3 was a number that Kirk stated at some point when they where closing down, so thats not a random number.

[\\Fényx//]

What I find humorous is that you named only MMOs that are AAA quality. I can think of a few that are indie quality that cost far less (I have even worked on some myself); even done by only a few developers in some instances.

Don't place Neocron, clearly an indie game, into an AAA comparison.

You clearly dont understand what an Indie game is. Considering the age of neocron and the market when it was being made, To have a publisher & distributor etc, that is far from being indie.

Yes in comparison, there are indie games now that look better than neocron, yet, in its prime, unbelievably still nothing compares to it ...

Also, compare neocron visually to other 2002 releases, I would say it was up there with other AAA titles of its day. now look at indie releases for that timeframe ...

Sorry but I have to say it, just because someones fiddled with unity or had a poke at the free UE/Cry releases doesnt make them a dev... any released games ? any released content ? any finished profitable projects ? The "I have even worked on some myself" statement makes it sound like you have worked on multiple finished articles

[Setlec]

Neocron is based on the good ol quake engine as far as i know, so pretty much everything that came after tech wise is not supported, which makes it pretty much impossible to make it look better without changing things under the hood

sorry that maybe is a wrong info, the engine isn't based on quake according to what i know, the engine has two rendering engines but the main platform is a modified game engine that i couldn't find any info on the net.

[aKe`cj]

sorry that maybe is a wrong info, the engine isn't based on quake according to what i know, the engine has two rendering engines but the main platform is a modified game engine that i couldn't find any info on the net.

http://genesis3d.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis3D

[Drachenpaladin]

http://genesis3d.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis3D

So, Tekktonic is a hack of Genesis3D?

[Nidhogg]

So, Tekktonic is a hack of Genesis3D?

The Tekktonic Virtual Worlds engine comprises two entirely separate beasts. It has a portal rendering engine for the city zones which is a heavily modified version of Genesis3D, and a second entirely custom-written engine for rendering the external zones. Tekktonic was also re-vamped for Neocron 2 in order to take advantage of DirectX 9.

[Drachenpaladin]

The Tekktonic Virtual Worlds engine comprises two entirely separate beasts. It has a portal rendering engine for the city zones which is a heavily modified version of Genesis3D, and a second entirely custom-written engine for rendering the external zones. Tekktonic was also re-vamped for Neocron 2 in order to take advantage of DirectX 9.

... sounds actually like a lot of sticky tape.

[GRIM]

You sure are long-winded, so I am not going to sit here and correct you where you are wrong. I will, however, explain to you what makes a game "indie".

Here is a start: Link

How was Neocron / Neocron 2 an indie game?

Basically, whether you agree with it or not, an indie game is any game that has a small team working on it, as you have clearly stated yourself:

For most of the development time there were at least a dozen people working on Neocron full time, though.

I am an indie developer, and I do not need to prove to anyone here that I am. You can choose to believe it or not; I don't care about you, or what you think. Just saying...

[GRIM]

Sorry but I have to say it, just because someones fiddled with unity or had a poke at the free UE/Cry releases doesnt make them a dev... any released games ? any released content ? any finished profitable projects ?

It looks like you have fun making assumptions of people you don't know. To answer your questions, simply reread what you replied to. You asked something that I just stated.

The "I have even worked on some myself" statement makes it sound like you have worked on multiple finished articles

While I have not worked on any "articles", I have worked on several released (either officially or unofficially) titles. While I could provide you with links, do you even know my real name?

The simple matter is you choose to believe that you know it all; believe what you want.