"MMO Development at Light Speed"

For those of you who are interested, (and to help add some weight to the 'the game may be nearer than we think' theory) I thought I would share this link to

Hero Engine

The 3dfx engine being used by BioWare Austin to create TOR. As you can see, by using a pre-existing 3dfx engine they are shaving prescious months (years?) off the development process leaving them room to concentrate more on creating storyline, quests and making the game their own!

"It enabled us to build a game from scratch very quickly. We were able to exercise our design ideas almost immediately, without a need to wait on engine development."
Bill Dalton,
Technical Director of BioWare

Interesting find there L-Dubz. Although perhaps a topic better posted in the 'links' thread, I praise your initiative. Nice read too...

While we're here though, do developers make their own engines, do seperate groups/buisnesses create their own or do the publishers of said game?

Harlequin2 wrote:

Interesting find there L-Dubz. Although perhaps a topic better posted in the 'links' thread, I praise your initiative. Nice read too...

Yeah I thought about putting it in "links" but thought it was more classified as "TOR Discussion" that just happened to include a link.

Seeing this, I wonder how more ready that we first thought BioWare actually is?

Harlequin2 wrote:

Interesting find there L-Dubz. Although perhaps a topic better posted in the 'links' thread, I praise your initiative. Nice read too...

While we're here though, do developers make their own engines, do seperate groups/buisnesses create their own or do the publishers of said game?

~That sentence is hard to make sense of
Well I don't know the percentage but i think alot make their own specifically built for their own game especially if it is a specilist game ie with VERY high graphics (the crysis engine) or large enviroments.
However there are companies that make engines and development tools for companies to use in their games, the best example would be the unreal engine which is used to power Unreal tournament and bunch of other games (maybe GoW) the benifits are that you can make a game alot quicker and with alot less potential problems than making your own engine.
you also have smaller engines that can work with other larger ones to implement gameplay mechanics that are hard to program, for instance the Havoc which is very commenly used in many games to give objects realistics physics, a very good engine what saves devs alot of time.

I was looking at the Hero Engine website a few days ago and found it really interesting. I was wondering to myself how much a company like Bioware/EA would pay to use such a thing. Bet it's a lot of money.

I have had a feeling now for quite a while that the game is nearer than we think, but a company like Bioware could just take a lifetime to polish a game.

Nosyd wrote:

I was looking at the Hero Engine website a few days ago and found it really interesting. I was wondering to myself how much a company like Bioware/EA would pay to use such a thing. Bet it's a lot of money.

I have had a feeling now for quite a while that the game is nearer than we think, but a company like Bioware could just take a lifetime to polish a game.

Well blizzard are worse, i remember Starcraft: ghost was in development for so long it just got axed or what about valve :p

Nosyd wrote:

I was looking at the Hero Engine website a few days ago and found it really interesting. I was wondering to myself how much a company like Bioware/EA would pay to use such a thing. Bet it's a lot of money.

I have had a feeling now for quite a while that the game is nearer than we think, but a company like Bioware could just take a lifetime to polish a game.

Well the game has been in development for 4-5 years now, and since this Hero Engine speeds up the process alot, i would not be surprised if the game was released later this year.