I know folks are naming custom engines from dev studios - IMO - sort of a copout as those are very limited in scope (and since they are not usable by all, we simply don't know all their dirty little secrets and limitations)
Most custom engines lack many features that CryEngines has built in.
You are correct most of the time in house studio game developers make the engine to suit their needs i know Square Enix did that and mentioned they kept a lot of the design the same so that employees did not have to be fully trained again.
There is nothing wrong that i know of with the Cry Engine,imo they have always been sort of riding Epic's Unreal but still a good quality engine.I know Epic did not make the Unreal engine just for themselves because the very design of it was an oddity they were obviously searching for a better way to design maps in games all while using simple C+ code.
People talk about game flowing smoothly lol,that has NOTHING to do with the game engine.That is called VERY low poly graphics and that is what Blizzard does with all their games ,long end game design,of course it runs smooth.I have played games that look like 1k budget games ,they run smoothly as well lol.
You ONLY deserve credit if you are advancing the genre going beyond the simple designs,Blizzard does not and likely will never do that.
One example is what EQN and Landmark claim to be doing and that is allowing the digging out to enter caves.Well that is in it's lowest form in way of Voxel chunks,very low poly graphics.Epic Games can do the same thing in Unreal just takes more work because you end up with a MUCH higher end look and effect.Voxels for instance is always that cube ,designed that way for ease of design,in Unreal you can create any shape you might want to have removed.
I might add in closing that a LOT of what we talk about are TOOLS added to the main game engine and a lot of that is designed by outside sources NOT the game engine itself.One example would be PhysX or the equivalent of ,one working better with Nvidia one with ATI or other gpu's.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It have a lot with how you use the engine and what type of game you make for that matter. A good engine for a fantasy game might not work for a space ship 'MMO.
But, yeah. GW2s engine is really good, at least for the game it's been built for.
You know what.. some of you will hate me for saying this haha..
I think the engine behind Darkfall is one of the better MMORPG engines.. the amount of players it can handle on one server is awesome. Sure graphics wise its not that great but tis not all about the graphics..
Also SOE's Forgelight engine is bloody good as well when it comes to player numbers on the server..
For me an mmo is supposed to be massive.. sure there are engines out that look a hell of a lot better but fall short when it comes to player numbers.
There's something wrong with the GW2 engine though as it makes my (and others) GPU sweat. I never have overheting issues, but something is going on in GW2 that I could never figure out. What's really weird is that it went away for a while (like months) and then came back. I dunno what it is, I know I'm not the only one, but it does keep me at arms length from GW2.
People talk about game flowing smoothly lol,that has NOTHING to do with the game engine.That is called VERY low poly graphics and that is what Blizzard does with all their games ,long end game design,of course it runs smooth.I have played games that look like 1k budget games ,they run smoothly as well lol.
You ONLY deserve credit if you are advancing the genre going beyond the simple designs,Blizzard does not and likely will never do that.
I think that most people in here were talking about how smooth the gameplay is, not about graphics.
WoW engine recognizes every input you make, accepts them immediately, and makes your character do precisely what you order it to do. There's some delay in some actions due to lag, but WoW engine hides that delay better than other MMO engines. WoW engine allows you to do any series of actions permitted by the game's rules as fast as you're manually able. WoW engine never locks you out of control with your character unless there's an crowd control effect on you.
That's what I meant by smooth. And I think other who used smooth do describe WoW meant something similar. Smooth graphics are entirely different matter.
My issue is with servers. Servers are to split up the population thus lowering lag. Which is good. I don't need to be surrounded by thousands of other players. Odds are my graphics setting will be so low I wont even be able to see them anyway. But I don't see why there couldn't be different versions of the same mmo on different servers. They should split servers based on the major issues that split the gaming community. One server for World PvP. One server Role Players. One server End Game Elitists. One server Environmentalists / Farmers / Simulation Freaks & Fashion Fanatics.
Channels within servers are even better. GW2 is nice how they have a channel popup that asks if you want to be moved to a more populated channel but it still lacks player control. What if I change my mind and want to move back? No option for that.
Of course it does. That wasn't my point. I think there's great capacity for panoramic scenes, and I thought that was your point, so I showed another engine that has competitive style.
The WoW engine is ancient so of course it is smooth. It was designed over 10 yrs ago for CPU's from that time. At that time it was a shitty engine because it would choke down your FPU to nothing when 100's of people are in front of you.
Im not sure if it had anything to do with it but Rift was the smoothest launch I have played and even public events that had tones of players ran smooth. I dont know what engine they used but I was impressed.
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.
I find hard to give wow any credit now because its a old engine, any pc will run this thing fast without problem, plus the animation was never out of normal, I give it a okish because it works nothing else
gw2 is the top one for sure, fast load, works very well with several people, and the animation are solid, second I give the rift game engine a pretty well standard for several players playing at the same time, I remember when I did that event with a lot of players trying to close several rifts open, I didn't feel a lag and loss of FPS, pretty sure I ahd over 200 players in my screen and no lag everything working fine, graphics not so much, but I guess its the art style over anything.
cry engine is pretty, works well for small group but anything over 25 people I start to feel lag, not on FPS side, but the load of info he download for each action is too big, I also start to notice huge drops on FPS with anything over 60 players around.
unreal well I don't really remember any MMO using it, try to name a few so it can spark my memory? I only have unreal engine with 1stPS and 1stPS hardly have issues like that
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Im not sure if it had anything to do with it but Rift was the smoothest launch I have played and even public events that had tones of players ran smooth. I dont know what engine they used but I was impressed.
just quoting this for the answer
RIFT made his own engine, so yes when trion was serious about being a developer, not this joke they are now
I think half of it rests with the developer using the engines. Poor coding and special modifications to the engine can turn a good engine into a lemming.
The best engine would be the one that supports DirectX 12 and/or Mantle.
The best engine wouldn't use proprietary vendor tech (looking at you UE for using GameWorks, PhysX or other engines choosing Havok over Bullet and TXAA over SMAA)
The best engine should utilize all system's resource, kinda what Frostbite is doing
And this one is a very personal opinion, the best engine should be developed with ALT+TAB in mind, kinda like Gw2 but it could be better. Aion used to be like that back in the Vista days.
But so far my engine chart would go like this
1. Gw2 for the smooth and non clunky animations and effects. The game feels very dynamic, compared to other MMOs that just look swuggish. Ever jumped in TESO? Yeah...that.
2. Definitely Frostbite for the graphic fidelity and those sweet 140+ fps i get on ultra setting on a 5 year old hardware (last game tested was DAI and Battlefield: Hardline)
3. CryEngine for showing that it can host graphically intense MMOs with 60 frames per second. Popular mentions are Star Citizen, Archeage and Black Desert.
Final Fantasy XIV has the most amazing MMO graphics and scenery but it's battle animations are almost as cheesy as EQ2. WoW has amazing animation and feel but the graphics are dated. The Elder Scrolls series always had an earthy tone that I liked but the ESO game mechanics are terrible. GW2 has a good mix of graphics, animation and gameplay but none are overly impressive either.
Final Fantasy XIV has the most amazing MMO graphics and scenery but it's battle animations are almost as cheesy as EQ2. WoW has amazing animation and feel but the graphics are dated. The Elder Scrolls series always had an earthy tone that I liked but the ESO game mechanics are terrible. GW2 has a good mix of graphics, animation and gameplay but none are overly impressive either.
Good question
Very good question, i have only a 'barely' mid range PC, but it runs FFXIV;ARR really well and i like the graphics, the animations alike, but, best engine? hard to say, for FFXIV;ARR it is, but, the game engine has to fit the game, it may well be disastrous for trying to implement a more action orientated, or FPS orientated type of game, and while not all developers use their own game engines, it does seem to be an issue sometimes when they use someone else game engine, the whole Hero Engine debacle with SW;TOR was fairly enlightening tbh, on just how problematic that can be.
I don't think there is a 'best' game engine, more a case of, one thats 'good enough' for the game in question. And thats pretty much the best we can hope for currently.
Comments
You are correct most of the time in house studio game developers make the engine to suit their needs i know Square Enix did that and mentioned they kept a lot of the design the same so that employees did not have to be fully trained again.
There is nothing wrong that i know of with the Cry Engine,imo they have always been sort of riding Epic's Unreal but still a good quality engine.I know Epic did not make the Unreal engine just for themselves because the very design of it was an oddity they were obviously searching for a better way to design maps in games all while using simple C+ code.
People talk about game flowing smoothly lol,that has NOTHING to do with the game engine.That is called VERY low poly graphics and that is what Blizzard does with all their games ,long end game design,of course it runs smooth.I have played games that look like 1k budget games ,they run smoothly as well lol.
You ONLY deserve credit if you are advancing the genre going beyond the simple designs,Blizzard does not and likely will never do that.
One example is what EQN and Landmark claim to be doing and that is allowing the digging out to enter caves.Well that is in it's lowest form in way of Voxel chunks,very low poly graphics.Epic Games can do the same thing in Unreal just takes more work because you end up with a MUCH higher end look and effect.Voxels for instance is always that cube ,designed that way for ease of design,in Unreal you can create any shape you might want to have removed.
I might add in closing that a LOT of what we talk about are TOOLS added to the main game engine and a lot of that is designed by outside sources NOT the game engine itself.One example would be PhysX or the equivalent of ,one working better with Nvidia one with ATI or other gpu's.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
i like Phyre Engine and Havok for physics. Its not the best but if i can get an mmorpg that plays exactly like Dark Souls my life would be complete.
ITs not an mmo engine but you get the idea.
It have a lot with how you use the engine and what type of game you make for that matter. A good engine for a fantasy game might not work for a space ship 'MMO.
But, yeah. GW2s engine is really good, at least for the game it's been built for.
Snowdrop and RAGE
You know what.. some of you will hate me for saying this haha..
I think the engine behind Darkfall is one of the better MMORPG engines.. the amount of players it can handle on one server is awesome. Sure graphics wise its not that great but tis not all about the graphics..
Also SOE's Forgelight engine is bloody good as well when it comes to player numbers on the server..
For me an mmo is supposed to be massive.. sure there are engines out that look a hell of a lot better but fall short when it comes to player numbers.
- Albert Einstein
I think that most people in here were talking about how smooth the gameplay is, not about graphics.
WoW engine recognizes every input you make, accepts them immediately, and makes your character do precisely what you order it to do. There's some delay in some actions due to lag, but WoW engine hides that delay better than other MMO engines. WoW engine allows you to do any series of actions permitted by the game's rules as fast as you're manually able. WoW engine never locks you out of control with your character unless there's an crowd control effect on you.
That's what I meant by smooth. And I think other who used smooth do describe WoW meant something similar. Smooth graphics are entirely different matter.
No one has impressed me yet.
My issue is with servers. Servers are to split up the population thus lowering lag. Which is good. I don't need to be surrounded by thousands of other players. Odds are my graphics setting will be so low I wont even be able to see them anyway. But I don't see why there couldn't be different versions of the same mmo on different servers. They should split servers based on the major issues that split the gaming community. One server for World PvP. One server Role Players. One server End Game Elitists. One server Environmentalists / Farmers / Simulation Freaks & Fashion Fanatics.
Channels within servers are even better. GW2 is nice how they have a channel popup that asks if you want to be moved to a more populated channel but it still lacks player control. What if I change my mind and want to move back? No option for that.
Advanced servers and channel control, I say.
I concur with the OP and others, GW2 is the smoothest I've ever used.
As for LotRO, landscapes are great, but everything else is sub par.
Of course it does. That wasn't my point. I think there's great capacity for panoramic scenes, and I thought that was your point, so I showed another engine that has competitive style.
I find hard to give wow any credit now because its a old engine, any pc will run this thing fast without problem, plus the animation was never out of normal, I give it a okish because it works nothing else
gw2 is the top one for sure, fast load, works very well with several people, and the animation are solid, second I give the rift game engine a pretty well standard for several players playing at the same time, I remember when I did that event with a lot of players trying to close several rifts open, I didn't feel a lag and loss of FPS, pretty sure I ahd over 200 players in my screen and no lag everything working fine, graphics not so much, but I guess its the art style over anything.
cry engine is pretty, works well for small group but anything over 25 people I start to feel lag, not on FPS side, but the load of info he download for each action is too big, I also start to notice huge drops on FPS with anything over 60 players around.
unreal well I don't really remember any MMO using it, try to name a few so it can spark my memory? I only have unreal engine with 1stPS and 1stPS hardly have issues like that
just quoting this for the answer
RIFT made his own engine, so yes when trion was serious about being a developer, not this joke they are now
I self identify as a monkey.
The best engine would be the one that supports DirectX 12 and/or Mantle.
The best engine wouldn't use proprietary vendor tech (looking at you UE for using GameWorks, PhysX or other engines choosing Havok over Bullet and TXAA over SMAA)
The best engine should utilize all system's resource, kinda what Frostbite is doing
And this one is a very personal opinion, the best engine should be developed with ALT+TAB in mind, kinda like Gw2 but it could be better. Aion used to be like that back in the Vista days.
But so far my engine chart would go like this
1. Gw2 for the smooth and non clunky animations and effects. The game feels very dynamic, compared to other MMOs that just look swuggish. Ever jumped in TESO? Yeah...that.
2. Definitely Frostbite for the graphic fidelity and those sweet 140+ fps i get on ultra setting on a 5 year old hardware (last game tested was DAI and Battlefield: Hardline)
3. CryEngine for showing that it can host graphically intense MMOs with 60 frames per second. Popular mentions are Star Citizen, Archeage and Black Desert.
It's hard to pick one.
Final Fantasy XIV has the most amazing MMO graphics and scenery but it's battle animations are almost as cheesy as EQ2. WoW has amazing animation and feel but the graphics are dated. The Elder Scrolls series always had an earthy tone that I liked but the ESO game mechanics are terrible. GW2 has a good mix of graphics, animation and gameplay but none are overly impressive either.
Good question
Very good question, i have only a 'barely' mid range PC, but it runs FFXIV;ARR really well and i like the graphics, the animations alike, but, best engine? hard to say, for FFXIV;ARR it is, but, the game engine has to fit the game, it may well be disastrous for trying to implement a more action orientated, or FPS orientated type of game, and while not all developers use their own game engines, it does seem to be an issue sometimes when they use someone else game engine, the whole Hero Engine debacle with SW;TOR was fairly enlightening tbh, on just how problematic that can be.
I don't think there is a 'best' game engine, more a case of, one thats 'good enough' for the game in question. And thats pretty much the best we can hope for currently.