W3D vs UDK

[wolf]

This thread was split from the "Moving on up" thread because the topic changed course.

 

Why not move to UDK? W3D is dead

Edited February 2, 2015 by Einstein
Topic Changed

[GeneralCamo]

^Honestly, I do wonder the same thing. With the fracturing of the community, the player base will be even more split. Even just developing two projects at once would be nice.

 

I understand why not Reborn, due to the loss of many source files. But AR has a lot of source files, and it is clear the team is actually USED to developing on high-end game engines, and are downgrading just for w3d's limits.

[wolf]

You don't want to use low-poly models on the UDK engine... everything would have to be recreated anyway.

[TeamWolf]

Why not move to UDK? W3D is dead

Welcome, are you staying around long? (honestly asking btw)

[wolf]

 

Why not move to UDK? W3D is dead

Welcome, are you staying around long? (honestly asking btw)

 

Depends on how much stuff there is to leak. ;D

 

W3D doesn't interest me anymore... you should contact the RenX team and see if you can get your hands on their code. This place seriously needs some UDK love. Otherwise it'll be dead on arrival.

 

Port stuff to UDK, publish some fancy ads, attract new folks and so on

Edited January 29, 2015 by wolf

[Guest rackz]

no

[wolf]

How many players does Reborn have these days?

[Sentry]

Problem is the "new" generation of gamers and players dont know Tiberian Sun.. And redo the whole work of Reborn needs much time, with this lowpoly models of Reborn you can completly restart the whole mod in UDK.. so what i would try to tell you, if they change to UDK the whole work of reborn mod was for nothing... just to be realistic.. so i understand why they wont

[wolf]

Problem is the "new" generation of gamers and players dont know Tiberian Sun.. And redo the whole work of Reborn needs much time, with this lowpoly models of Reborn you can completly restart the whole mod in UDK.. so what i would try to tell you, if they change to UDK the whole work of reborn mod was for nothing... just to be realistic.. so i understand why they wont

 

The flipside is that Reborn won't attract any new players using this engine. The outcome long term will be worse than switching over to UDK. Losing all players and devs.

[Sentry]

 

Problem is the "new" generation of gamers and players dont know Tiberian Sun.. And redo the whole work of Reborn needs much time, with this lowpoly models of Reborn you can completly restart the whole mod in UDK.. so what i would try to tell you, if they change to UDK the whole work of reborn mod was for nothing... just to be realistic.. so i understand why they wont

 

The flipside is that Reborn won't attract any new players using this engine. The outcome long term will be worse than switching over to UDK. Losing all players and devs.

 

Ofc but just remind how long Reborn is working on this modification. I know how shit it is to move to other engines.. i've started a tiberian sun mod in 2004 for Operation Flashpoint, moved then to Armed Assault (ArmA), lucky it was the same engine... after that we moved to Cryengine (Tiberian Genesis), we had/have to redo the whole mod models and textures and also learn all things new how to rig vehicles/characters and also learn all things new about scriptings... this is not shortly done.. Reborn is soon at final point here for W3d and to do all this stuff new will take a long time again.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Sentry

[moonsense715]

 

Problem is the "new" generation of gamers and players dont know Tiberian Sun.. And redo the whole work of Reborn needs much time, with this lowpoly models of Reborn you can completly restart the whole mod in UDK.. so what i would try to tell you, if they change to UDK the whole work of reborn mod was for nothing... just to be realistic.. so i understand why they wont

The flipside is that Reborn won't attract any new players using this engine. The outcome long term will be worse than switching over to UDK. Losing all players and devs.

 

Have you considered how many players cookie clicker and other free games are drawing? They are not on UDK either.

[Mighty BOB!]

You don't want to use low-poly models on the UDK engine... everything would have to be recreated anyway.

 

Eventually, but current stuff could hypothetically be used as placeholders.

[wolf]

 

 

Problem is the "new" generation of gamers and players dont know Tiberian Sun.. And redo the whole work of Reborn needs much time, with this lowpoly models of Reborn you can completly restart the whole mod in UDK.. so what i would try to tell you, if they change to UDK the whole work of reborn mod was for nothing... just to be realistic.. so i understand why they wont

The flipside is that Reborn won't attract any new players using this engine. The outcome long term will be worse than switching over to UDK. Losing all players and devs.

 

Have you considered how many players cookie clicker and other free games are drawing? They are not on UDK either.

 

 

Sure, but they have a much broader appeal than renegade's CnC mode. FPS games tend to be judged on graphics, regardless of how good the gameplay is. There are exceptions but not many.

 

CnC mode is niche, sadly. Even among FPS games.

 

I guess it's also impossible to put W3D games on steam.

Edited January 29, 2015 by wolf

[Einstein]

CnC mode is niche

 

This is precisely why we are here. We like C&C. We like the old familiar feel of the bluehelling laggerbating W3D engine. For me it brings back fond memories of my childhood. Sure, we could move to UDK, renegade X is a big thing now and it looks great! Because looking great was their aim..... But our aim is to feel good about what we do and draw the crowd that feels the same for the old games and what can be done with them. Anyone else chime in if i missed something, I think that sums up things on my end.

[OWA]

Part of the reason that we made this community is because we actually enjoy developing games for W3D regardless of their appeal to the wider gaming community. Although, I am of the opinion that with a proper distribution method (the launcher) and the proper PR steps taken, a lot of people would actually be willing to play.

 

Sure, but they have a much broader appeal than renegade's CnC mode. FPS games tend to be judged on graphics, regardless of how good the gameplay is. There are exceptions but not many.

 

CnC mode is niche, sadly. Even among FPS games.

 

I guess it's also impossible to put W3D games on steam.

FPS games like Guncraft and Roblox have terrible graphics, but are still popular. I also took a look at another game called 7 Days to Die recently which also has sub-par graphics when you compare it to something like Reborn. The fact of the matter is, gameplay is way more important than graphics ever will be. We're working on more high poly assets for AR currently which seems to be turning out well.

 

I also think that we can find more developers if we actually produce better tutorials on map-making, rigging and generally modding the engine. W3D won't be dead for a long while.

[Kai]

 

Confused?... Let me explain.

 

Still am, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. Congratulations on finding the love of your life, it's a nice feeling isn't it?

Why not move to UDK? W3D is dead

 

Reminds me of what I posted back on BHP, the small minority asking for the game(s) to be ported onto newer platforms and when they are told no they usually disappear afterwards. I don't think shoving this onto UDK or whatever at this time will draw in crowds, if anything you risk further fracturing in the community without any real gain. I'm not saying it shouldn't be a possibility, I just don't think it should happen at this point in time. Finish what you start and then consider moving platforms.

 

Another thing I noted was the poor communication to the players, no communication results in the players becoming disillusioned to which eventually they'll stop playing at all.

 

That being said, looking forward to seeing what's in store for both TSR and AR. (:

[madrox8]

 

Another thing I noted was the poor communication to the players, no communication results in the players becoming disillusioned to which eventually they'll stop playing at all.

 

 

 

i have a few ideas in mind that could help better comunicate from devs to players such as maybe possable dev streams on twitch / youtube. Q and A segments and other stuff down the road. this is just an idea tho and will need further planning

[Einstein]

I don't think shoving this onto UDK or whatever at this time will draw in crowds, if anything you risk further fracturing in the community without any real gain. I'm not saying it shouldn't be a possibility, I just don't think it should happen at this point in time. Finish what you start and then consider moving platforms.

 

Yes, we see already what this place alone caused...i can't imagine the backlash if we went all "oh btw - UDK :D"....ugh lol

[wolf]

So why not develop both games side by side? I think it's worth a shot.

Edited January 30, 2015 by wolf

[Plokite_Wolf]

You have no idea how much time and effort that would drain.

[Squid Empire]

Personally I don't have any nostalgia for w3d, it holds no special meaning or memory to me, but I pragmatically accept it for what it is when playing. The only reason I'm here is because I want to play an FPS game about Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun. Seeing how slow development here is though I'd cautiously recommend moving to a newer engine, not for graphics, but for a more modern and user-friendly toolset and tutorials/support, which would mean faster and therefore more energetic development, and for the appeal to new developers. Again personally, I toyed with the idea of spending time learning the use of the w3d editing suite, but in the end was persuaded against it by the age and nichey-ness of the engine, deciding my time was better spent honing skills I think would be more useful to me later on. This is my own personal perspective, but it means that at least one potential developer was turned off by the engine itself.

[wolf]

Personally I don't have any nostalgia for w3d, it holds no special meaning or memory to me, but I pragmatically accept it for what it is when playing. The only reason I'm here is because I want to play an FPS game about Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun. Seeing how slow development here is though I'd cautiously recommend moving to a newer engine, not for graphics, but for a more modern and user-friendly toolset and tutorials/support, which would mean faster and therefore more energetic development, and for the appeal to new developers. Again personally, I toyed with the idea of spending time learning the use of the w3d editing suite, but in the end was persuaded against it by the age and nichey-ness of the engine, deciding my time was better spent honing skills I think would be more useful to me later on. This is my own personal perspective, but it means that at least one potential developer was turned off by the engine itself.

 

This.

 

UDK is a breeze compared to W3D. I'm sure very few people , if any, are willing to invest time into learning the ins and outs of such an outdated engine. Gmax sucks, 3Dmax8 requires pirating and plugin workarounds. LE can drive people insane with random crashes and weird bugs.

 

Add to this UDK's massive userbase and many of the gameplay mechanics already being in place incase you decide to base it off RenX (mod toolset to be released next month)...

Edited January 30, 2015 by wolf

[Einstein]

Switching to UDK

 

Pros:

1. UDK is easier to use and newer, better looking engine
2. It might attract a larger playerbase and devbase

Cons:

1. It would cause a rift in the community
2. You would have to convince several devs who do know the "ins and outs" of gmax, 3dsmax8, and LE and have stable setups to abandon 10+ years worth of work and deal with #1
3. At the casual rate these folks develop (because they have lives outside this place), it would take another 10 years to get as far.

 

This is simply my perspective. Now if you wanna give it a shot man, more power to ya and we'll support you all the way! I just don't think we could take it on as another project and it get off the ground....

[OWA]

The point of Max8 being acquired is a pretty moot one, seeing as if we switched to UDK we'd have to get newer versions of Max anyway.

[TerrorTowers]

it's good to see you back at the reigns wally (this post originally referenced the "moving on up" blog post where wally announced his return to Reborn)

Switching to UDK

 

Pros:

1. UDK is easier to use and newer, better looking engine
2. It might attract a larger playerbase and devbase

Cons:

1. It would cause a rift in the community
2. You would have to convince several devs who do know the "ins and outs" of gmax, 3dsmax8, and LE and have stable setups to abandon 10+ years worth of work and deal with #1
3. At the casual rate these folks develop (because they have lives outside this place), it would take another 10 years to get as far.

 

This is simply my perspective. Now if you wanna give it a shot man, more power to ya and we'll support you all the way! I just don't think we could take it on as another project and it get off the ground....

 

extra one for the con pile

W3D runs on anything with more power than a potato, UDK would require investment in a much faster PC/Laptop

and in response to the playerbase argument, it don't matter how pretty your game looks, if it plays well and is fun, people will come.

[Synaesthesia]

W3D is actually incredibly unoptimized and runs awfully without a lot of back-end work on the map side. Older machines have issues with it. Even newer machines do because it doesn't take advantage of multiple CPUs, and IIRC the majority of Renegade's performance is CPU-related. At least from what I could tell during my days of working with that old engine.

UDK is scalable and can run at awful quality or great quality. There's really no in-between in Renegade. UDK is vastly superior in every imaginable way.

 

As far as graphics/gameplay: they're both important. You can have both. There's no reason why graphics should suffer in favor of gameplay. You should have two independent teams working on that sort of thing so the quality of both sides of a game stays consistent and high.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Aircraftkiller

[Shnappz]

Wolf, I get your point about attracting new players, but there is a huge audience who are more interested in gameplay than graphics and are happy to forgive gfx if it's fun to play. I played trough the whole of deus ex 1 the other week and those graphics are awful in comparison to today's standards, but that game is truly a masterpiece. Look at how many people play RA1 still on cncnet, I know RTS games are different, in that gfx aren't as important but still, 300+ people online. A game that's almost 20 years old.

 

I've just started learning W3D and for whatever weird reason, I love it and i wouldn't swap to UDK now even if it is easier.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Shnappz

[Timeaua]

A discussion in the W3D hub forum about moving to UDK is a bit strange

[TeamWolf]

Well Timeaua you may remember wolf, he used be called Renxc and later BlackWolf. He is clearly had enough of the W3D engine and has moved on. Sharing his opinion on engines is perfectly fine since one of the main things we're doing here is advertising the W3D engine, in a way.

[GeneralCamo]

Though, I must admit, the name "w3d hub" sounds kind-of strange. That might be a topic for later though.

 

As for Renegade X, I would wait a bit if I were you. Trust me on that.

 

And as for Blackwolf... for those of you who do not know, he created several maps for Reborn, until he had enough and decided to.. "release" Reborn... along with APB and AR. Which he actually previously leaked when he was on the BHP testing team.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Generalcamo