Lets not forget that COD is a multimillion dollar game and NS2 is an indie game.
Also, lets not forget CoD had hyears to improve the game, did anyone play the first call of duty? I did.
Less crying more putting things into perspective, time sovles everything, weve seen from UWE that they take things seriously, last hotfix anyone? yeah, interrupting sleep to fix a problem ona game, not many devs do that nowdays do they?
Also, alt tab while reloading and browsing reddit? you sir, are ridiculous, come back with a valid argument and we may, just MAY give a crap about what you have to say, until then, toodles.
It doesn't take a multi-billion dollar corporation to produce good netcode.
UWE is fantastic at trying to resolve problems quickly. I will never stop being critical however, of their choice to program an engine in LUA. Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed a team that size produced an engine of this quality on the budget they had. I do think, however, they would have been better off investing that time in money in working off an existing engine like Unreal or Source.
This is a nitpick, but the engine itself isn't in LUA; the game code is written in LUA and processed by the engine (which is, I believe, compiled C++). Think of it kind of like a virtual machine.
You are right about that, yet i do not see the purpose in the LUA, at all. I'm not a programmer or something, by any stretch, but I would think that one of the things you'd want to do is keep things as simple as possible, and as efficient as possible. I don't see how having one language interpret another when you could have just used the one language. I use VMs constantly in and off work/school, and while I see the usefulness of it, it's never quite the same as far as performance. I just don't see the logic behind the design choices made as far as engine and performance.
The reason why any game uses a scripting language (Unreal, Crysis, WoW, etc. etc.) is because scripting languages are generally simpler to use and less crash-prone than C++. This does come at the cost of performance, so it's a trade off you need to decide on. It's like asking, why aren't web pages written in C++ as opposed to JavaScript? Surely C++ would be faster - and it would be. But there are other considerations, such as development time, likelihood of mistakes causing crashes, etc. etc.
It is certainly arguable whether or not LUA is the right choice, but it's not an easy, obvious argument to partake in.
Like I said- I'm not going to pretend to know anything about programming, and I'm sure the choices were made for very good reasons, I just wish that performance was a larger concern than it is. Not to say it's not a concern, I know it is...
But when you have a 20 ping, with no loss, on a server getting a fantastic tickrate, and you are getting spotty hit-reg, it's immersion breaking, frustrating, and down-right a boner-kill. Thanks for the response, I just hope that you guys are seeing the gravity of poor performance.
I am a Software Engineer, programming in C++ and C#. In my opinion the choice to go LUA was because of the modding. LUA as a scripting language is most prominently used because it allows easier modding of an environment. The performance lost when going with a scripting language it totally dependent on how much it needs to run, for example if you are running 50 active mods every one of those mods have to be loaded into memory thus decreasing the performance(This is in excess of what the vanilla project needs). LUA is easier to exception handle though and that is why its the better choice when you include mods.
Thanks for the insight, I had no idea. Wonder why modding was such a huge thing for them, then. hmmm
Lets not forget that COD is a multimillion dollar game and NS2 is an indie game.
Also, lets not forget CoD had hyears to improve the game, did anyone play the first call of duty? I did.
Less crying more putting things into perspective, time sovles everything, weve seen from UWE that they take things seriously, last hotfix anyone? yeah, interrupting sleep to fix a problem ona game, not many devs do that nowdays do they?
Also, alt tab while reloading and browsing reddit? you sir, are ridiculous, come back with a valid argument and we may, just MAY give a crap about what you have to say, until then, toodles.
It doesn't take a multi-billion dollar corporation to produce good netcode.
UWE is fantastic at trying to resolve problems quickly. I will never stop being critical however, of their choice to program an engine in LUA. Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed a team that size produced an engine of this quality on the budget they had. I do think, however, they would have been better off investing that time in money in working off an existing engine like Unreal or Source.
This is a nitpick, but the engine itself isn't in LUA; the game code is written in LUA and processed by the engine (which is, I believe, compiled C++). Think of it kind of like a virtual machine.
You are right about that, yet i do not see the purpose in the LUA, at all. I'm not a programmer or something, by any stretch, but I would think that one of the things you'd want to do is keep things as simple as possible, and as efficient as possible. I don't see how having one language interpret another when you could have just used the one language. I use VMs constantly in and off work/school, and while I see the usefulness of it, it's never quite the same as far as performance. I just don't see the logic behind the design choices made as far as engine and performance.
The reason why any game uses a scripting language (Unreal, Crysis, WoW, etc. etc.) is because scripting languages are generally simpler to use and less crash-prone than C++. This does come at the cost of performance, so it's a trade off you need to decide on. It's like asking, why aren't web pages written in C++ as opposed to JavaScript? Surely C++ would be faster - and it would be. But there are other considerations, such as development time, likelihood of mistakes causing crashes, etc. etc.
It is certainly arguable whether or not LUA is the right choice, but it's not an easy, obvious argument to partake in.
Like I said- I'm not going to pretend to know anything about programming, and I'm sure the choices were made for very good reasons, I just wish that performance was a larger concern than it is. Not to say it's not a concern, I know it is...
But when you have a 20 ping, with no loss, on a server getting a fantastic tickrate, and you are getting spotty hit-reg, it's immersion breaking, frustrating, and down-right a boner-kill. Thanks for the response, I just hope that you guys are seeing the gravity of poor performance.
I am a Software Engineer, programming in C++ and C#. In my opinion the choice to go LUA was because of the modding. LUA as a scripting language is most prominently used because it allows easier modding of an environment. The performance lost when going with a scripting language it totally dependent on how much it needs to run, for example if you are running 50 active mods every one of those mods have to be loaded into memory thus decreasing the performance(This is in excess of what the vanilla project needs). LUA is easier to exception handle though and that is why its the better choice when you include mods.
Thanks for the insight, I had no idea. Wonder why modding was such a huge thing for them, then. hmmm
Because modding is great?
No, that's too obvious, it makes me wonder if they plan on doing different gameplay types ala TF2, like Capture the tech point, Combat Mode(god pls no), etc
Lets not forget that COD is a multimillion dollar game and NS2 is an indie game.
Also, lets not forget CoD had hyears to improve the game, did anyone play the first call of duty? I did.
Less crying more putting things into perspective, time sovles everything, weve seen from UWE that they take things seriously, last hotfix anyone? yeah, interrupting sleep to fix a problem ona game, not many devs do that nowdays do they?
Also, alt tab while reloading and browsing reddit? you sir, are ridiculous, come back with a valid argument and we may, just MAY give a crap about what you have to say, until then, toodles.
It doesn't take a multi-billion dollar corporation to produce good netcode.
UWE is fantastic at trying to resolve problems quickly. I will never stop being critical however, of their choice to program an engine in LUA. Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed a team that size produced an engine of this quality on the budget they had. I do think, however, they would have been better off investing that time in money in working off an existing engine like Unreal or Source.
This is a nitpick, but the engine itself isn't in LUA; the game code is written in LUA and processed by the engine (which is, I believe, compiled C++). Think of it kind of like a virtual machine.
You are right about that, yet i do not see the purpose in the LUA, at all. I'm not a programmer or something, by any stretch, but I would think that one of the things you'd want to do is keep things as simple as possible, and as efficient as possible. I don't see how having one language interpret another when you could have just used the one language. I use VMs constantly in and off work/school, and while I see the usefulness of it, it's never quite the same as far as performance. I just don't see the logic behind the design choices made as far as engine and performance.
The reason why any game uses a scripting language (Unreal, Crysis, WoW, etc. etc.) is because scripting languages are generally simpler to use and less crash-prone than C++. This does come at the cost of performance, so it's a trade off you need to decide on. It's like asking, why aren't web pages written in C++ as opposed to JavaScript? Surely C++ would be faster - and it would be. But there are other considerations, such as development time, likelihood of mistakes causing crashes, etc. etc.
It is certainly arguable whether or not LUA is the right choice, but it's not an easy, obvious argument to partake in.
Like I said- I'm not going to pretend to know anything about programming, and I'm sure the choices were made for very good reasons, I just wish that performance was a larger concern than it is. Not to say it's not a concern, I know it is...
But when you have a 20 ping, with no loss, on a server getting a fantastic tickrate, and you are getting spotty hit-reg, it's immersion breaking, frustrating, and down-right a boner-kill. Thanks for the response, I just hope that you guys are seeing the gravity of poor performance.
I am a Software Engineer, programming in C++ and C#. In my opinion the choice to go LUA was because of the modding. LUA as a scripting language is most prominently used because it allows easier modding of an environment. The performance lost when going with a scripting language it totally dependent on how much it needs to run, for example if you are running 50 active mods every one of those mods have to be loaded into memory thus decreasing the performance(This is in excess of what the vanilla project needs). LUA is easier to exception handle though and that is why its the better choice when you include mods.
Thanks for the insight, I had no idea. Wonder why modding was such a huge thing for them, then. hmmm
Because modding is great?
No, that's too obvious, it makes me wonder if they plan on doing different gameplay types ala TF2, like Capture the tech point, Combat Mode(god pls no), etc
Doubtful. It's more for community modding. I think they have their hands full with optimization, mapping and balance of the base game. Combat mode has already been made by the community.
UWE became what it is today because of a mod. I find it fair that they release a game and allow modding, giving other the change of creating their own game, just like UWE did.
From a business point of view (and it is an important one because money is what will keep the business afloat and sustainable), I always thought the big pay off was in licensing (as opposed to in-house game sales, which is not as easily scalable) the engine to other games developers for use with other games, and thus, an important factor is that an engine is easily modifiable? How many games are based off of Source, Unreal, and other engines?
From a business point of view (and it is an important one because money is what will keep the business afloat and sustainable), I always thought the big pay off was in licensing (as opposed to in-house game sales, which is not as easily scalable) the engine to other games developers for use with other games, and thus, an important factor is that an engine is easily modifiable? How many games are based off of Source, Unreal, and other engines?
Thats what confuses me too, I mean, if they do well, great, but I can't see many games going with Spark as it is now.
From a business point of view (and it is an important one because money is what will keep the business afloat and sustainable), I always thought the big pay off was in licensing (as opposed to in-house game sales, which is not as easily scalable) the engine to other games developers for use with other games, and thus, an important factor is that an engine is easily modifiable? How many games are based off of Source, Unreal, and other engines?
Thats what confuses me too, I mean, if they do well, great, but I can't see many games going with Spark as it is now.
I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
Spark is a very attractive choice in many respects. At the moment you see hundreds, if not thousands of small independent development houses popping up for iPhone and Android dev. This is because the barrier to entry is so low. That is to say the skills are relatively quick to pick up and the startup costs are low. Up to now we have only seen this kind of explosion in small mobile games, but it is slowly starting to spread into platforms like desktops and consoles.
Even then though, this mostly relates only to 2D, and very simple 3D games. I mean, how many indie first person shooters can you think of? The issue is that 3D, and especially first person games, are complex, and typically have a much higher barrier to entry. Engines like spark can completely change this though. It may be a slow process, but engines like Spark definitely have a future in my opinion.
Comments
Because modding is great?
No, that's too obvious, it makes me wonder if they plan on doing different gameplay types ala TF2, like Capture the tech point, Combat Mode(god pls no), etc
look how many great games are made like ns2 (core engine, game completely in lua):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lua-scripted_video_games
(yes, farcry and crysis are scripted too completely in lua,
you can easily have a look at it by downloading the free full sdk
so it is just a matter of time when uwe catch up to these games in performance
Doubtful. It's more for community modding. I think they have their hands full with optimization, mapping and balance of the base game. Combat mode has already been made by the community.
I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
Spark is a very attractive choice in many respects. At the moment you see hundreds, if not thousands of small independent development houses popping up for iPhone and Android dev. This is because the barrier to entry is so low. That is to say the skills are relatively quick to pick up and the startup costs are low. Up to now we have only seen this kind of explosion in small mobile games, but it is slowly starting to spread into platforms like desktops and consoles.
Even then though, this mostly relates only to 2D, and very simple 3D games. I mean, how many indie first person shooters can you think of? The issue is that 3D, and especially first person games, are complex, and typically have a much higher barrier to entry. Engines like spark can completely change this though. It may be a slow process, but engines like Spark definitely have a future in my opinion.