What is the Cyberpunk's Engine ?

[Walker17x]

I see your point, but I am not sure I agree. CDPR's strength is in strongly story-driven games, not the sort of open-ended worlds that are ALife's strength. In TW2, for example, pretty much all of the quests you can undertake are closely tied to the underlying story. I don't see how ALife NPCs and randomly generated quests would fit their narrative model.

Random quests will be very useful for the hunt quests to obtain some orens or some levels you need just a large bestiary.
The Alife system is not necessary for the open world Rpg only , it can be used by the semi-linear rpgs like The witcher , the NPC will Live his life without our witcher, they will buy and sell , move on the city , reproduce , travel , do his job , fight , marry...etc , They will not do one thing every day from morning until the night as in the witcher 2.

 

[nocny.945]

I support TheStalkWitcher in this matter. TW3 or Cyberpunk needs more side quests. To me the ideal solution is something like this:

- Stem, core: the main storyline quests. Such as in TW2.
- Branches: side quests designed as those in TW2
- Twigs: Small side quests, which in TW2 is missing! Here is the place for that what TheStalkWitcher writes.

 

[kingioverth]

off course the Red Engine but I'm pretty sure they will use a modified version some thing like 2.0 as others said.

 

[dragonbird]

off course the Red Engine but I'm pretty sure they will use a modified version some thing like 2.0 as others said.

I think so too. They've given "The engine's still being developed/enhanced" as the reason for not bringing out a toolkit a few times, so I assume it isn't considered to be finished yet.

 

[volsung]

Random quests will be very useful for the hunt quests to obtain some orens or some levels you need just a large bestiary.
The Alife system is not necessary for the open world Rpg only , it can be used by the semi-linear rpgs like The witcher , the NPC will Live his life without our witcher, they will buy and sell , move on the city , reproduce , travel , do his job , fight , marry...etc , They will not do one thing every day from morning until the night as in the witcher 2.

How is The Witcher (semi) linear? And how does it compare to so-called "open world" games? The fact that you can choose the order in which you do things has little to do with the actual flexibility of the game to respond to your actions. "Open-world" games like any Elder Scrolls let you do anything at any given moment, but without major consequence and without having the possibility to change the outcome. Both Witcher games have a limitation in when you can do things and go to places, depending on the chapter, but they are actually open-ended in terms of gameplay and interactivity, which is what counts. You can't role-play without a story, and it doesn't matter what you do if the game won't acknowledge your actions.

I see your point though, and that is interesting. But the random quests part is better left to games where looting and leveling is a major goal, not the ones where decision making, planning and narration are the prevalent features.

I support TheStalkWitcher in this matter. TW3 or Cyberpunk needs more side quests. To me the ideal solution is something like this:

- Stem, core: the main storyline quests. Such as in TW2.
- Branches: side quests designed as those in TW2
- Twigs: Small side quests, which in TW2 is missing! Here is the place for that what TheStalkWitcher writes.

Yeah, it would be cool to have activities that somehow complement the world/setting/characters, even if they are unrelated to the main story. However, they have to have a reason for existing in the first place. In real life, if you have something to do, you go ahead and do it and try not to get too distracted with completely unrelated tasks unless you have time to spare. Then again, you need a solid reason to do those other things. You don't think of "getting XP" or "leveling up" because such things do not exist for you. That is what your character sees in a ROLE-PLAYING game; the leveling up and so on is what you, as the player, see, but that is not part of the game world.

--

Geralt sees a Scoia'tael scout coming, and quickly examines him. Oh, he thinks, he's only level 7 and doesn't have the parrying talent, and can only roll normal distance. Easy!

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Any chance they'll port the engine to OpenGL as well?

 

[Walker17x]

Any chance they'll port the engine to OpenGL as well?

The Mac version of the witcher 2 run with OpenGL.

 

[GuyNwah]

The Mac version of the witcher 2 run with OpenGL.

Only via Wine. The engine does not speak OpenGL. It's possible to write an engine that does both. But if you did not actually do so, and especially if you have used a Microsoft development environment, it is a lot of work to convert for a relatively small increase in your market.

 

[CostinRaz]

On lowest settings I suppose... Every benchmark that I found show that 5770 on high (not highest) settings doesn't run even on 40 FPS.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-8.html

And on low settings even TW2 will run 60+ FPS on 5770.

That's because BF3 has DX11 Tessellation. If you turn that off then games run better in DX11 then in DX9

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

May be increase is small, but engine will be more mature and portable. Understandably it's more effort to design some generic part, and then layers where it plugs into OpenGL or DirectX correspondingly, but some managed to do such thing successfully. Running under Wine is not what I was asking about. Of course it's good if that work well too, but native OpenGL usage is another matter.

 

[GuyNwah]

May be increase is small, but engine will be more mature and portable. Understandably it's more effort to design some generic part, and then layers where it plugs into OpenGL or DirectX correspondingly, but some managed to do such thing successfully. Running under Wine is not what I was asking about. Of course it's good if that work well too, but native OpenGL usage is another matter.

Successful software development is measured by return on investment, not by elegance, maturity, or portability To be more specific, an attempt to require one of these characteristics when it does not contribute to return on investment is among the most damaging ways to wreck a commercial software project

If the market for native OpenGL support is insignificant compared to DirectX, and the tools available for pure DirectX allow completion with significantly less time and effort, then no matter how much somebody wants OpenGL, an intelligently run company will not be distracted into giving them what they want.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

That all depends on how well they can anticipate such changes. That's always a balance of what works already, and what will come later, if you build up to it earlier. Let's be optimistic that OpenGL will have a big come back, but of course no one can guarantee it soon. But those who build from scratch have more options to prepare for such things, if they design the engine well.

 

[GuyNwah]

If they do not end up with a project that misses deadline. Time to market is always significant. In game development, it is critical.

And I take issue with an underlying assumption of your post. A software product that includes features not wanted in its target market cannot, by definition, be "designed well".

The phenomenon of "oh, we can add this piece, it isn't required now, but we think we'll want it later" is well known and is properly anathematized as "feature creep". It is a leading cause of failed developments and failed companies.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Firstly, it can be used now already. Mac and Linux markets while smaller, do exist and competition there will be only increasing, so those who come earlier will have a good start. Secondly, it's of course easier to do when building from the ground up. When the engine already exists and design decisions didn't take such kind of flexibility in consideration, it's much harder to retrofit it there.

So as you pointed out, that's the question of estimating effort vs outcome. But it also depends on short/long term estimation. Engine is supposedly a core investment, so it should work out well long term too. (While one product based on the engine is a more short term thing).

 

[GuyNwah]

The engine already exists, so talk of doing a ground-up build is moot. While I do not speak for CDPR, it's pretty clear that they developed for the PC and Xbox market, intended to use tools that produce code optimized for these platforms with a minimum of effort, and did not intend to address the market for non-DirectX platforms.

They have a working engine and can develop games they can sell using it now. It would be an expensive folly to say "we have to hold off until we can refit our engine for OpenGL". The loss in sales from the delay alone would exceed the gain on sales to OpenGL-only platforms.

Long-term, what do you think the future of the market for OpenGL-only platforms is? It has never risen to 10 percent of the market, nor does it show any sign of doing so.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Right, holding off isn't proper, so they for sure should use what they have now. But having a parallel effort to build a flexible engine can benefit them in the long run. It requires more people and resources of course, and I have no idea whether they can afford it, but if they can - it would be wise.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

On a side note, if CDPR can at least polish their releases to work with Wine well, and submit needed fixes to Wine upstream - it would be great. So far this didn't happen even for Witcher 1, while it was released with a Wine wrapper with fixes for Mac.

 

[GuyNwah]

Right, holding off isn't proper, so they for sure should use what they have now. But having a parallel effort to build a flexible engine can benefit them in the long run. It requires more people and resources of course, and I have no idea whether they can afford it, but if they can - it would be wise.

When this sort of thing works, it usually works as a "skunk works" project, not as one officially sponsored by management. Most engineering shops have learned to tolerate engineers spending as much as 20% of their time on work that is not their direct assignment, because something interesting usually comes out of doing so.

"More people and resources" for an uncertain, possibly zero, return is something management can't get their heads around. "This is interesting, and maybe we can make it work" is something engineers have to get together and do on their own.

But you are right about the Wine community. If they take Wine seriously enough to use it for Mac ports, they can probably provide some very useful fixes and feedback that would substantially improve Wine.

 

[Vojtas]

Random quests will be very useful for the hunt quests to obtain some orens or some levels you need just a large bestiary.

I don't want RANDOM quests. Really good story wise sidequests would be lost in pile of trash. If you want more fedex quests, just play Skyrim, KoA Reckoning or the first Witcher.

 

[Blothulfur]

Damn straight Votjasass, one of the strengths of CDPR is their intricately and lovingly crafted quests, replete with subtle foreshadowing or obscure lore clues. To want to make this rare, well crafted and detail laden system into a cookie cutter, side quests on demand abomination, well that's just a bad idea from start to finish. In my own humble anyway.