Natural Selection 2: Engine Change

**ImAWuss** · 07-14-2008, 08:05 AM

In the latest Unknown Worlds Podcast #32, it was announced that they are moving away from the Source Engine. How do you think this will effect the audience behind NS? I think it's a bold move, but they seem to have great ideas, and an understanding of what they want.

Do you support this move?

**MagnaCentipede** · 07-14-2008, 09:22 AM

For one, I'm certainly not going to try it out, despite many, or at least a couple, TG/TF2 players suggesting this game to me, because my gaming needs are currently satisfied, and thus am only interested in a new game if it is without a marginal cost to me.

However, the coders should use whichever engine is best suited for what they wish to create. By creating the best mod they can, the base-game's popularity is insignificant because people will buy the game for the mod as long as they know the mod is worth the price. On the other hand, a poor mod will struggle to earn a strong player base even if their engine game is popular.

**FooKer** · 07-14-2008, 07:57 PM

I like the change tbh. The fact that they can build it to their needs instead of modifying the engine to theirs is a good thing.

**Skud** · 07-14-2008, 11:48 PM

It's very very...ambitious. My only concern is the current amount of work that's now meaningless by both devs and fans because of the switch.

It's for the... better... But there are always unforeseen consequences (Dr. Freeman...)

**Ferris Bueller** · 07-15-2008, 07:33 AM

This just means it'll be another 5 years before NS2 comes out.

**FooKer** · 07-15-2008, 09:29 PM

You'd be surprised actually, I think it's a bit further along then most people think.

**Donat** · 07-16-2008, 12:00 AM

Well they made decoda and such FOR source... so i don't know exactly how far along they are. It will be a long road of testing and bug solving i bet. many map makers are probly pissed. O well, just going to be playin spore, SCII and such till it comes out.

**Ferris Bueller** · 07-16-2008, 06:02 AM

Donat, every time I see your avatar, all can hear is "exterminate....exterminate..."
Dr. Who fans will understand the reference.

**Katana-** · 07-16-2008, 10:36 PM

it is a dalek isn't it? I never put 2 and 2 together, lol. +2 points for donat

**i3ishop** · 07-17-2008, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Ferris Bueller

This just means it'll be another 5 years before NS2 comes out.

I would greatly enjoy having a new NS game to play in which a competitive community can support itself once again. That being said, the facts are they just got an artist and a couple pieces of concept art quite recently. If they had started coding the game there would have been some indication, because that would give a lot of us an optimistic view on progress. Now they announce a new engine which takes years to configure and perfect. I have heard about larger companies spending four years or more to configure their first engine. So if NS2 is released in five years that would be good 'cause, now it seems they are trying to tell us we have no idea what we want to do and this game will not release. Think about the podcasts and how they come off as indecisive, not to mention lazy and unmotivated before getting frustrated by this post.

**Katana-** · 07-17-2008, 09:53 PM

A) Apparently Max has been working on this engine since 2005.
B) All the game play code they already had in place ports directly to new engine because it was all written in LUA, and they add their LUA hooks into this engine
C) their points about working with in the source engine are valid, Its a big piece of code, with all kinds of weird ins and outs.

I think the work load change is probably about the same between using source and this engine from what I can hear, but I share your fears. The engines you are talking about taking 4 years to develop are cutting edge designed to be broadly useful so they can license it over and over again. Many of the features in such an engine would not be utilized by the NS2 dev team because they don't have the budget for all the art assets. Also in my experience programing takes less time than art development, particularly if the team is careful about through testing during the entire build process. I think NS would really benefit from its own engine. A lot of stuff in NS seems like a dirty hack to get something to work in an engine in a way it totally wasn't designed for, namely commander mode. I haven't lost hope yet.

**Katana-** · 07-17-2008, 09:54 PM

A) Apparently Max has been working on this engine since 2005.
B) All the game play code they already had in place ports directly to new engine because it was all written in LUA, and they add their LUA hooks into this engine
C) their points about working with in the source engine are valid, Its a big piece of code, with all kinds of weird ins and outs.

I think the work load change is probably about the same between using source and this engine from what I can hear, but I share your fears. The engines you are talking about taking 4 years to develop are cutting edge designed to be broadly useful so they can license it over and over again. Many of the features in such an engine would not be utilized by the NS2 dev team because they don't have the budget for all the art assets. Also in my experience programing takes less time than art development, particularly if the team is careful about through testing during the entire build process. I think NS would really benefit from its own engine. A lot of stuff in NS seems like a dirty hack to get something to work in an engine in a way it totally wasn't designed for, namely commander mode. I haven't lost hope yet.

**Sirusblk** · 07-20-2008, 04:12 AM

So did they announce what engine they're gonna use? I'd probably guess the Unreal Engine but I'd rather not have everything dipped in Vaseline thank you very much

**Donat** · 07-20-2008, 10:14 AM

their making / using their own creation afaik

**FooKer** · 07-20-2008, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by Donat

Well they made decoda and such FOR source... so i don't know exactly how far along they are. It will be a long road of testing and bug solving i bet. many map makers are probly pissed. O well, just going to be playin spore, SCII and such till it comes out.

By the way... "Decoda is a professional development environment for debugging Lua script in your applications."

Not made FOR source