Best MMO Game Engine In Your Opinion?

Warjin

After many years of playing MMO's I have a hard time finding a better MMO game engine then Guild Wars 2, from the jumping to animations and over all performance, a very close second IMO has to be the Planetside 2 engine (Forgelight Engine), granted this is my opinion giving what I have experienced over the years as far as MMO game engines go.

The Warcraft  Engine gets a third from me and was number one until PS2 & GW2 over took it, but a Dam good engine still.

My question is what do you think is the best MMO game engine you experienced so far and why?

Warjin

P.S I will smack the bastard that tells me Hero lol

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nebb1234

the gw2 engine is so solid. The game loads in about 2 seconds it's almost suspicious 

Myrdynn

to this date, no game has matched the responsiveness of the WOW engine.  Its hands down the best of any MMO I have played

 

Warjin

Originally posted by Dren_Utogi

gw2 doesnt do it for me. If one was going to create an engine, it would have to be from great engine designers like Johm Carmak or at that level of knowledge.

 

Unreal Technologies has alway been up there in respect to staying current upcoming trends in special effects and physics.

IF I was to pick a game engine, it would be the current unreal engine.

 

Purely mmorpg game engine, I will go with Turbine's game engine. Over the last 7 years I have watched LotrO continue to scale up the graphics in the later parts of the game to the point where one wonders how far the engine can really go since it is the same engine as Asherson Call but evolved. Their engine is unique to their products and when you seen a Turbine game it is distinct in it;s look. specifically with fantasy settings. At the same time you can see Turbine create the Moba for Marvel, which showcases what can be accomplished on the Turbine Engine.

 

Other then Unreal and Turbine, most game engines are in house and arent perpetual peices of software that can just be download and use.

 

Gw2 beta engine, looked the best, what ever they did at launch with the shaders,

just dulled down what I was excited to play.

 

I just can;t get the game to look like that now

Turbine is a good engine from what I experienced, the reason I did not added it to my list is because I really didn't play lotro  that long to give it a fair opinion, however I did play Asheron's Call 1 for years and at that time I had no problems with it and I enjoyed what I saw from a game like AC, but back then playing a MMO on a dial up the last thing I was worried about was a game engine, I was more worried about staying connected and downloading 30 MB within 8 hours lol.

Warjin

Originally posted by Myrdynn

to this date, no game has matched the responsiveness of the WOW engine.  Its hands down the best of any MMO I have played

 

It is a very solid engine and for me was number 1 for a long time , I am willing to bet my left that Blizzard with today's tech can and will create the best engine on the market, back in 2004 till 2011 they IMO had the game MMO engine world crown.

Myrdynn

yep, and I still think it crushes GW2 engine, I havent played PS2, but have played every other MMO, and nothing still comes close

this is generally what happens when you build an engine with a game.  Most games are build on existing engines so there is always going to be a natural delay while the game tells the engine what to do.

WOW as far as I know is the only game built with an engine as part of the game

 

Warjin

Originally posted by Myrdynn

yep, and I still think it crushes GW2 engine, I havent played PS2, but have played every other MMO, and nothing still comes close

this is generally what happens when you build an engine with a game.  Most games are build on existing engines so there is always going to be a natural delay while the game tells the engine what to do.

WOW as far as I know is the only game built with an engine as part of the game

 

GW2 and PS2 engine are like Warcraft, they are there own engine built from the ground up, the Warcraft engine is a modded engine from Warcraft 3 just as GW2 was a home built engine from the GW1, PS2 the same, a MMO engine built for the game not a third party engine, for this reason as you stated those games run and plays so smooth with the games at hand.

Wizardry

If i was to put value on game engines Unreal 4 would be $1 million Warcraft 50 cents and Forgelight about 50 bucks.One is literally garbage and Forgelight always runs poorly and i doubt even has a way to run better.

It really does not matter anyhow,most MMO's are super cheap designs they will never take full advantage of the game engine.One example is lighting,most of the time it is global lighting,not that it is always a bad thing but if comparing quality then yes it matters.

There is still a lot that goes into a game that is outside the engine so really it comes down to the quality of the developer.Example making any animation,a GOOD one needs a lot of frames,few frames and it looks too fast and clunky.Also a Animation if in talking about a character needs lots of vertices,too many and causes of course other problems but still it gives the model a way better realistic look in it's movements.

Texture making,music,sound effects all are factors in a quality game.

Another example is in FFXI an older weaker game engine much like Warcraft you could overload a zone and it would not crash.In Wow however it can and does crash.This is i guess more bout Blizzard's lack of design and weak server structure more so than the engine itself.

When talking Blizzard we really should not be talking any sort of quality,their textures ,game engine MANY aspects of their games are second rate.They even stooped so low as to use the Unity engine for Hearthstone,that one really baffles me.Do they consider the cheapo Unity engine to be better than their own engine,quite possible i guess or they were given a free license to help promote, i don't really know.

Warjin

Originally posted by Wizardry

If i was to put value on game engines Unreal 4 would be $1 million Warcraft 50 cents and Forgelight about 50 bucks.One is literally garbage and Forgelight always runs poorly and i doubt even has a way to run better.

It really does not matter anyhow,most MMO's are super cheap designs they will never take full advantage of the game engine.One example is lighting,most of the time it is global lighting,not that it is always a bad thing but if comparing quality then yes it matters.

There is still a lot that goes into a game that is outside the engine so really it comes down to the quality of the developer.Example making any animation,a GOOD one needs a lot of frames,few frames and it looks too fast and clunky.Also a Animation if in talking about a character needs lots of vertices,too many and causes of course other problems but still it gives the model a way better realistic look in it's movements.

Texture making,music,sound effects all are factors in a quality game.

Another example is in FFXI an older weaker game engine much like Warcraft you could overload a zone and it would not crash.In Wow however it can and does crash.This is i guess more bout Blizzard's lack of design and weak server structure more so than the engine itself.

When talking Blizzard we really should not be talking any sort of quality,their textures ,game engine MANY aspects of their games are second rate.They even stooped so low as to use the Unity engine for Hearthstone,that one really baffles me.Do they consider the cheapo Unity engine to be better than their own engine,quite possible i guess or they were given a free license to help promote, i don't really know.

I think Blizzard used the unity engine for Hearthstone to make it easily ported to Tables/Smartphones, as we all know Unity is very universal for all platforms, that's just my guess.

FIXTHECAMERA

WoW's game engine without a doubt, there is no competition to WoW's game engine which is one of the reasons why it's so successful, everything just works and flows so perfectly, you feel in full control. I think that's what a lot of people miss when talking about the success of WoW, I still haven't played an MMO to this day that feels so good and responsive, along with being user friendly and everything in the game just "making sense". Look at the way PvP flows and how responsive it is. It's extremely good game design.

GW2 had to be one of the worst mmo game engines I've ever played. I'm talking purely about responsiveness and feel. It looks beautiful sure, but GW2 is up there with one of the worst feeling engines, ironically enough my name exists because I made this account when GW2 launched and wanted to make a thread about how bad the camera control is. It's so clunky and delayed, they try to make it feel cinematic with the mouse smoothing but it detracts from the whole experience. I went back recently to see if it's still like that and it is. You can't even hold down either mouse button and zoom in and out simultaneously. The jumping feels weightless/aimless, the combat especially has this feel also.

Just had to post in this thread, I was shocked to see it to be honest, as GW2's game engine in particular is the reason why a lot of people dislike the game. Remember, I'm talking about feel, not aesthetics or how smooth it LOOKS, or how fast it loads up, even though WoW still wins in those categories excluding aesthetics.

 

Second best would have to be the unreal engine 3.

Warjin

Originally posted by FIXTHECAMERA

WoW's game engine without a doubt, there is no competition to WoW's game engine which is one of the reasons why it's so successful, everything just works and flows so perfectly, you feel in full control. I think that's what a lot of people miss when talking about the success of WoW, I still haven't played an MMO to this day that feels so good and responsive, along with being user friendly and everything in the game just "making sense". Look at the way PvP flows and how responsive it is. It's extremely good game design.

GW2 had to be one of the worst mmo game engines I've ever played. I'm talking purely about responsiveness and feel. It looks beautiful sure, but GW2 is up there with one of the worst feeling engines, ironically enough my name exists because I made this account when GW2 launched and wanted to make a thread about how bad the camera control is. It's so clunky and delayed, they try to make it feel cinematic with the mouse smoothing but it detracts from the whole experience. I went back recently to see if it's still like that and it is. You can't even hold down either mouse button and zoom in and out simultaneously. The jumping feels weightless/aimless, the combat especially has this feel also.

Just had to post in this thread, I was shocked to see it to be honest, as GW2's game engine in particular is the reason why a lot of people dislike the game. Remember, I'm talking about feel, not aesthetics or how smooth it LOOKS, or how fast it loads up, even though WoW still wins in those categories excluding aesthetics.

 

Second best would have to be the unreal engine 3.

I don't know what they did but GW2 runs flawless for me, granted the first few months the game ran like crap for me but now it runs great, the game runs and plays for me without a single hic-up from animation to combat, maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones who knows.

AceMaster

In mmo don't think there is an engine better than gw2. (in terms of quality. Performance wise ,altough not bad, is not that good)

If you have a good computer, don't think you can find a better looking game (maybe black desert which is not here yet)

 

Not sure about ps2. It had/has bigger requirement and doesn't seem better in term of graphics to(for me).

 

What mmo were done in unreal engine and were "good" in terms of engine? The ones I've played (lineage 2 for example) had terrible issues with many players making, for example,  sieges unplayable for most. Lineage 2 isn't the only one with that issue, but can't remember the names of the other ones.

Also unreal engine games, didn't age so well. They were > WoW. But after a few years, when i went back, i couldn't believed I thought they had better engine than WoW.

Unreal engine is good for single players tough.

 

Final fantasy XIV ARR has a good engine to. It runs on ps3 and is has low requirements even tough it looks great. The problem is that the zones are small to improve performance which is the only flaw I see there.

 

The best engine I ever saw, for single players games, for me, was crystal engine for Tomb raider. Tomb Raider legends, aniversary, underworld ran pretty well on my old laptop. I was really surprised on how well it run and how it played.

Wonder how a mmo would play with that engine.

The newest Tomb Raider looks great but not sure about the changes done to the engine (which is the same one but heavily modified)

 

Warjin

Originally posted by Myrdynn

yep, and I still think it crushes GW2 engine, I havent played PS2, but have played every other MMO, and nothing still comes close

this is generally what happens when you build an engine with a game.  Most games are build on existing engines so there is always going to be a natural delay while the game tells the engine what to do.

WOW as far as I know is the only game built with an engine as part of the game

 

Holy hell Brother!, You need to play some PS2 if you like FPShooters, not only that this game set a world record for most players in a FPS battle something like 1200 players in one battle, I been in battles with hundreds and ran the game at 60+ FPS on a mid range RIG, the Forgelight engine kicks butt  and knocks teeth in fun wise if you love FPS games, give it a try man, it's pretty dam fun : )

vadio123

Not best engine. 

 

Because people dont do things same ways as others but its not say MY IS BETTER 

Engine need can handle tasks without bottlenecks if engine cant archive  that 

probably this engine can consider death you can work fix fix and fix util engine become great 

but in my view depend how engine is projected in most case bad engines dont live long enough

you think wow engine but realy? you believe only engine? but blizzard dont say hey its NEW ENGINE (maybe said it sometimes but i cant remember well) usual blizzard say new hardware requirement stuffs like that

Adjuvant1

Best engine? For.. what ? Each engine focuses certain strengths to where it diverts resources depending on the intended playstyle of the game. If you want alot of "looks" and some decent "action", you go with Unreal. If you want more "looks", not so much "action", you go with Unity. Some studios have proprietary engines which custom-appropriated resources, like Forgelight, which sacrifices looks and action a little, but it picks up a strong modular and database accessibility capability. Each has strengths, each has weaknesses. It may seem an engine doesn't have weaknesses because you're not interested or not paying attention to that which it lacks, and that's fine. The op question is akin to asking, "hey, what kind of game do you like?".

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Adjuvant1

Originally posted by Dren_Utogi

Originally posted by Warjin

 

Turbine is a good engine from what I experienced, the reason I did not added it to my list is because I really didn't play lotro  that long to give it a fair opinion, however I did play Asheron's Call 1 for years and at that time I had no problems with it and I enjoyed what I saw from a game like AC, but back then playing a MMO on a dial up the last thing I was worried about was a game engine, I was more worried about staying connected and downloading 30 MB within 8 hours lol.

Yup and now it looks like :

People have been mashing up Unity with Voxel Farm for about a year or so, and if you want real panorama, that's probably the way to go, lately, but again, you're sacrificing resources elsewhere and limiting the actual gameplay.

edit: I guess they've been working on it over a year. Here's from Cepero's dev blog.

http://procworld.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-unity-plugin-is-looking-good.html

hercules

while wow engine is bit smoother then the forgelight engine soe is using for all its recent game the soe engine certainly has more capability  then the wow engine.

so for me overall the forgelight engine wins.

there are other good ones like gw2.

now here a good kicker .hero engine for the price $99 or something is actually not too bad,but certainly it is nothing more then an engine for a small indie company of 1-2 people who are very tight on money .why a big company like bioware who ran on a budget of 100m+ would use it is beyond me and if you google you see a good  number of people quit the game early because of it.i

 

zaberfangx

So many game game engine are in the market that mmo use, not all of them but a bit of them use a engine not made by them, but it comes if there keeping it optimization so people don't crash or lag to death.

 

But anyhow game engine can make any mmo look good, just end up whats the limits what can do you do with out that engine with out the player needed a more powerful computers to play it, as there are limits what one can do with out cutting off a good % of players with mid range pc or laptop.

Quizzical

The best engine for an MMO--or any other sort of game--is the one that is custom built for that particular game.  If game A built its own engine and game B built its own engine, even if you think game A's engine is better, trying to build game B on game A's engine would probably make game B a lot worse than using its own.

JonBonJawa

Cryengine 3 and Frostbite

SirAgravaine

I am partial to UE4. With that being said, some of the games developed on the UE don't exactly captivate me. TERA was developed using UE3 and I am not a fan of the way the game looks or feels. CryEngine 4 is what they are using over at Star Citizen and that game is shaping up to look/feel really nice, which suggests that the CryEngine can handle MMORPGs quite well in the right hands. Its worth noting that ArcheAge uses CryEngine 3. The best MMO game engine...hmm, I'm just going to say UE4, because they have taken great lengths at optimizing the engine for a wide range of game genres, to include MMORPGs.

SavageHorizon

lotro imo.

Bascola

 

FFXI

Most versatile and content rich engine with features no other engine has even after 12 years.

GW2

Looks great and performs great. Very solid engine with a lot of features.

Planetside 2

Hands down best performing engine if it comes to big crowds and vehicles. No other engine comes even close.