Is it known if Bethesda is making any effort to scrap/overhaul/rework their Gamebryo engine?
Like are they using it again in their next Elder Scrolls game?
edit: I guess their version is called "Creation Engine" now
The engine doesn't have much in common with the engine it evolved from.
A lot of the problems are more due to Bethesda than the engine. The face problems have pretty much nothing to do with Gamebryo given that Bethesda used FaceGen for that.
To begin, let's review some history. Morrowind was originally built on NetImmerse, an engine that saw many other uses in some very different games, like Dark Age of Camelot and Freedom Force. In 2004, after Numerical Design Limited, the engine's creator, merged with another company, the engine was rebranded. At this time, Bethesda still licensed what was then called Gamebryo, modifying it further and releasing Oblivion in 2006. By 2008, when production on Skyrim began, the engine had been modified to the point that it was mostly Bethesda's code running in a framework that NDL had designed; hence it was renamed the Creation Engine. By this point, Gamebryo, now owned by Gamebase Co. had evolved to Gamebryo Lightspeed, an entirely seperate engine that powered things like Warhammer Online and... Epic Mickey, of all things. It's a really diverse set of tools, and it has been from the start. Anybody that's played DAoC and Freedom Force can attest to just how different those games were to Morrowind in every concievable way, and yet they were built on the same engine.
Underneath all this are a few key architectural changes that allow new things, like the changing of cell sizes from Morrowind to Oblivion and the change to 64-bit with Fallout 4. Gameplay actions like how combat and spells work; dual wielding or no, are generally "hardcoded" game-specific alterations to the architecture that are baked into each individual release to support the desired gameplay. Virtually everything--even the type of game made--is a custom framework built on top of the basic skeleton provided by Gamebryo. Notably, the engine has powered MMO's, a super hero RTS game, platformers, and many other completely dissimilar experiences. Bethesda took that initial structure and rewrote it, bit by bit, into their own set of tools, and at some point it was so divergent that it wasn't even the IP of Gamebase Co. anymore.
Most problems people have with "Gamebryo" are largely part of these plugged-in aspects of the engine, or portions Bethesda rewrote, and are not endemic to it. Some of these carry over game-to-game, as not all of the code may be rewritten between releases. There is no such thing as "Gamebryo animations," or "Gamebryo faces." I've even heard people say "Gamebryo graphics", as if Skyrim and Morrowind share exactly the same graphical suite. The truth is, things like animation, dialogue, combat, and graphics are all solveable problems within the existing framework. In fact, one reason the games are so moddable is due to its highly modular nature, which extends from the developer-end all the way to the consumer.
However, there are some issues that cannot be solved. Cell-based loading is here to stay, as is a hard limit on how many NPCs can be displayed without a massive performance impact, due to how NPC meta-data is handled (NPCs are functionally identical to players with individual skills, inventories, and equipment, which must be kept track of every frame; the version of NetImmerse that Morrowind was built on was originally envisioned as an MMO engine before its usage broadened). Many engine operations are tied to framerate due to how event scheduling works, such as physics calculation. A heightmap-based terrain generator, which only allows for a single axis of terrain modification, means that things like caves and cliffs are very difficult to build without the use of static assets (which are more expensive, computationally). There are many more things like that, but the reality is that the engine has limitations that cannot easily be circumvented.
An engine thus, is the sum of all of these parts. NetImmerse and Gamebryo and the Creation Engine are as different as they are similar, and it is indeed very justifiable to call them different engines. The only things that remain are a few vestigial bones. The IP that Bethesda originally licensed has been gradually replaced, piece-by-piece, until it's now its own animal, but many of the bones are showing their age. Some of those bones could be replaced perhaps, but at a considerable effort. There is a point when software just needs a clean-slate rewrite before it becomes too unweildly and burdened by legacy code to function efficiently or predictably.
I put some quality time in with Nier Automata last night cause my boss kept gushing about it and I never finished it last time I played. I was reminded right away just how dang good the combat feels. I just wish the camera weren't such a chore.
Anyway maybe I'll actually finish it this time.
I put some quality time in with Nier Automata last night cause my boss kept gushing about it and I never finished it last time I played. I was reminded right away just how dang good the combat feels. I just wish the camera weren't such a chore.
Anyway maybe I'll actually finish it this time.
How many times did you finish it last time?
Only once...
I died from eating a fish
I never progressed past the desert. Played about 8 hours before.
I put some quality time in with Nier Automata last night cause my boss kept gushing about it and I never finished it last time I played. I was reminded right away just how dang good the combat feels. I just wish the camera weren't such a chore.
Anyway maybe I'll actually finish it this time.
How many times did you finish it last time?
Only once...
I died from eating a fish
I never progressed past the desert. Played about 8 hours before.
Alright, well just know that the game isn't actually over when the credits roll once.
I put some quality time in with Nier Automata last night cause my boss kept gushing about it and I never finished it last time I played. I was reminded right away just how dang good the combat feels. I just wish the camera weren't such a chore.
Anyway maybe I'll actually finish it this time.
How many times did you finish it last time?
Only once...
I died from eating a fish
I never progressed past the desert. Played about 8 hours before.
Alright, well just know that the game isn't actually over when the credits roll once.
Yeah, I've absorbed some expectations back when it was still super popular and I was the only one not playing it.
It would be valuable to expand the definition for the ability to talk critically about game structure. Nier’s structure is a short, multi-episode miniseries
It would be valuable to expand the definition for the ability to talk critically about game structure. Nier’s structure is a short, multi-episode miniseries
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
I'm playing the remastered Dark Souls on Steam as I work through my backlog. How often can I expect to fall to my death in Blighttown? We talking dozens or hundreds of times?
I'm playing the remastered Dark Souls on Steam as I work through my backlog. How often can I expect to fall to my death in Blighttown? We talking dozens or hundreds of times?
Not too often compared to how often you'll get fucked by toxic status.
blighttown is legitimately my favourite area of dark souls. It's the most fun challenge, because even if you know what you are doing, pulling it off right is still hard
whereas a lot of the rest of it gets turned into knowing the exact aggro range of every enemy to pull them into one on one fights
So I finished my time with the Neverwinter Nights premium modules and had some thoughts.
Pirates of the Sword Coast: This was a lot of fun. It was pretty light hearted had a couple of neat twists in it that kept things interesting. It had the only henchmen I've liked outside of Deekin. It really made me want a version of this that was beefed up and longer.
Darkness Over Daggerford: This game tries to mimic Baldur's Gate in structure, having a fairly straight forward main quest with loads and loads of side quests littered around. This one was also pretty light hearted. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr: It tries to do a bunch of interesting ideas but ended up falling a bit flat. WCoC goes for a very medieval knight theme in all it's plot and items. It's the only module where you can have mounts. There's a fairly complicated jousting mini-game. But the story ended up being really slow and quest were vaguely designed. Finally, I lost a couple of hours worth of time when my save got corrupted so I just gave up on the whole thing.
I ended this whole thing having a much higher opinion of NWN. I definately recommend picking it up. Play Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, Pirates of the Sword Coast, Darkness Over Daggerford and skip everything else.
I was going to recommend you try NWN 2 next, but apparently, it got taken off Steam. Guess you can still get it from GoG though.
So I finished my time with the Neverwinter Nights premium modules and had some thoughts.
Pirates of the Sword Coast: This was a lot of fun. It was pretty light hearted had a couple of neat twists in it that kept things interesting. It had the only henchmen I've liked outside of Deekin. It really made me want a version of this that was beefed up and longer.
Darkness Over Daggerford: This game tries to mimic Baldur's Gate in structure, having a fairly straight forward main quest with loads and loads of side quests littered around. This one was also pretty light hearted. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr: It tries to do a bunch of interesting ideas but ended up falling a bit flat. WCoC goes for a very medieval knight theme in all it's plot and items. It's the only module where you can have mounts. There's a fairly complicated jousting mini-game. But the story ended up being really slow and quest were vaguely designed. Finally, I lost a couple of hours worth of time when my save got corrupted so I just gave up on the whole thing.
I ended this whole thing having a much higher opinion of NWN. I definately recommend picking it up. Play Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, Pirates of the Sword Coast, Darkness Over Daggerford and skip everything else.
I was going to recommend you try NWN 2 next, but apparently, it got taken off Steam. Guess you can still get it from GoG though.
I've tried to play it in the past but I stopped about half-way through the campaign for reasons I no longer remember. I have been thinking about since I've been playing through the first. If nothing else, Mask of the Betrayer sounds like a thing I need to play.
The whole project felt very underdeveloped from what I saw of its promotional materials. I get the feeling it was a small team doing their best but just didn't have the framework to support the game people expect, so I imagine there's a lot of frayed and incomplete edges.
Mixed reviews but notes about bland and repetitive environments and frustrating combat is enough for me to tap out at full price
I hope it keeps the series alive and I'll check it out on sale
So I finished my time with the Neverwinter Nights premium modules and had some thoughts.
Pirates of the Sword Coast: This was a lot of fun. It was pretty light hearted had a couple of neat twists in it that kept things interesting. It had the only henchmen I've liked outside of Deekin. It really made me want a version of this that was beefed up and longer.
Darkness Over Daggerford: This game tries to mimic Baldur's Gate in structure, having a fairly straight forward main quest with loads and loads of side quests littered around. This one was also pretty light hearted. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr: It tries to do a bunch of interesting ideas but ended up falling a bit flat. WCoC goes for a very medieval knight theme in all it's plot and items. It's the only module where you can have mounts. There's a fairly complicated jousting mini-game. But the story ended up being really slow and quest were vaguely designed. Finally, I lost a couple of hours worth of time when my save got corrupted so I just gave up on the whole thing.
I ended this whole thing having a much higher opinion of NWN. I definately recommend picking it up. Play Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, Pirates of the Sword Coast, Darkness Over Daggerford and skip everything else.
I was going to recommend you try NWN 2 next, but apparently, it got taken off Steam. Guess you can still get it from GoG though.
I've tried to play it in the past but I stopped about half-way through the campaign for reasons I no longer remember. I have been thinking about since I've been playing through the first. If nothing else, Mask of the Betrayer sounds like a thing I need to play.
I can totally understand giving up on the base campaign. There's a lot of stuff I really like in it, but there's also a whole lot of uninteresting filler.
Mask of the Betrayer is a real unique experience though, so I'd still recommend giving that a try. I don't think it requires much knowledge from the main game either.
Except for the super shitty ending of NWN 2, which MotB mostly manages to salvage.
After the finale boss fight, where most games would give you some kind of resolution and tell you how you saved the world, NWN 2 just has the cave you were in collapse on you, and no one ever hears of you again. The end!
0
Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
I just look at the Darksiders game and I can't help but wonder what that kinda gameplay would be like in the Legacy of Kain setting
I tried to play Darksiders 2 Deathinitive edition to remember what was up before 3, and it's such a buggy mess even basic traversal is impossible. Refunded it, because while I'm willing to put up with some bugs, ones that makes movement impossible in some situations just isn't ok.
Which is sad, because I really like the original Darksiders.
So is there a website that has reliable video game sales figures? Due to the announcement of Aliens: Blackout I came across a thing that said that Aliens: Colonial Marines sold more copies than Alien: Isolation.
That cannot be true, can it? Tell me it isn't!
So I finished my time with the Neverwinter Nights premium modules and had some thoughts.
Pirates of the Sword Coast: This was a lot of fun. It was pretty light hearted had a couple of neat twists in it that kept things interesting. It had the only henchmen I've liked outside of Deekin. It really made me want a version of this that was beefed up and longer.
Darkness Over Daggerford: This game tries to mimic Baldur's Gate in structure, having a fairly straight forward main quest with loads and loads of side quests littered around. This one was also pretty light hearted. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr: It tries to do a bunch of interesting ideas but ended up falling a bit flat. WCoC goes for a very medieval knight theme in all it's plot and items. It's the only module where you can have mounts. There's a fairly complicated jousting mini-game. But the story ended up being really slow and quest were vaguely designed. Finally, I lost a couple of hours worth of time when my save got corrupted so I just gave up on the whole thing.
I ended this whole thing having a much higher opinion of NWN. I definately recommend picking it up. Play Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, Pirates of the Sword Coast, Darkness Over Daggerford and skip everything else.
I remember liking the player modules from Adam Miller, Stefan Gagne, and the Penultima series. I think. It's been awhile.
Still getting Darksiders 3 at full price. I've been waiting for this one for a while and I need to see what's become of it for myself, not what people who aren't me or even familiar with the story think of it. If it's bad, then I return it to Amazon and I'm out nothing but some time. If it's good though, I'll have another enjoyable Darksiders experience through a strange and wonderful interpretation of the Biblical apocalypse gone awry.
So is there a website that has reliable video game sales figures? Due to the announcement of Aliens: Blackout I came across a thing that said that Aliens: Colonial Marines sold more copies than Alien: Isolation.
That cannot be true, can it? Tell me it isn't!
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
0
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I've picked up Life is Strange and Into the Breach as sale purchases. I already had lined up a 4-day weekend starting Thursday for kicking back and doing nothing but game and laze, so a sale to set that up is perfect. Edith Finch has left me with a Pacific Northwest mood I'm hoping Life is Strange will itch.
So is there a website that has reliable video game sales figures? Due to the announcement of Aliens: Blackout I came across a thing that said that Aliens: Colonial Marines sold more copies than Alien: Isolation.
That cannot be true, can it? Tell me it isn't!
Western publishers generally jealously guard their sales figures except when it's time to brag about how great their sales were, so there aren't really any accurate public ones. The only ones that could remotely possibly be accurate are investor group reports like NPD Group or SuperData which are generally not available to the public(and when they are, you have to pay hundreds or thousands just to look at them).
Posts
A lot of the problems are more due to Bethesda than the engine. The face problems have pretty much nothing to do with Gamebryo given that Bethesda used FaceGen for that.
This is from two years ago but is still relevant:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/comments/4os0fj/clearing_misconceptions_on_netimmerse_gamebryo/
How many times did you finish it last time?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Only once...
Alright, well just know that the game isn't actually over when the credits roll once.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
what's Yoko Taro up to atm?
Yeah, I've absorbed some expectations back when it was still super popular and I was the only one not playing it.
I wouldn't really consider it episodic in the way that people tend to think of episodic games, though?
If you want an example of an "episodic game" that came out as a single product, look at something like Alan Wake or Until Dawn.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Maia - November 23rd
Game has some mixed reviews.
I don't think six hours, minimum, is "short."
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Probably drinking
Steam // Secret Satan
Not too often compared to how often you'll get fucked by toxic status.
whereas a lot of the rest of it gets turned into knowing the exact aggro range of every enemy to pull them into one on one fights
Steam // Secret Satan
I was going to recommend you try NWN 2 next, but apparently, it got taken off Steam. Guess you can still get it from GoG though.
I've tried to play it in the past but I stopped about half-way through the campaign for reasons I no longer remember. I have been thinking about since I've been playing through the first. If nothing else, Mask of the Betrayer sounds like a thing I need to play.
Mixed reviews but notes about bland and repetitive environments and frustrating combat is enough for me to tap out at full price
I hope it keeps the series alive and I'll check it out on sale
I can totally understand giving up on the base campaign. There's a lot of stuff I really like in it, but there's also a whole lot of uninteresting filler.
Mask of the Betrayer is a real unique experience though, so I'd still recommend giving that a try. I don't think it requires much knowledge from the main game either.
Except for the super shitty ending of NWN 2, which MotB mostly manages to salvage.
Which is sad, because I really like the original Darksiders.
Well, I guess if you have the money to casually afford that then you probably live in a place with the space to put it somewhere anyway.
That cannot be true, can it? Tell me it isn't!
I remember liking the player modules from Adam Miller, Stefan Gagne, and the Penultima series. I think. It's been awhile.
Penultima starts kinda slow, but picks up steam. And then Penultima Rerolled is top-tier from the jump.
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Western publishers generally jealously guard their sales figures except when it's time to brag about how great their sales were, so there aren't really any accurate public ones. The only ones that could remotely possibly be accurate are investor group reports like NPD Group or SuperData which are generally not available to the public(and when they are, you have to pay hundreds or thousands just to look at them).