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Absurd Revolver posted:So, there's no way to get into early access anymore? I think it has to do with this? https://www.therepopulation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11183
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Nov 9, 2015 16:12
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So did this game ever get reasonably playable? It always used to crash and I talked to game devs about it like 10 times since it wouldn't even get past the first load screen and they never figured it out. Is it totally dead now?
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Dec 16, 2015 05:33
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2DCAT posted:I think it has to do with this? If they don't have enough liquid capital to continue development and are seeking additional outside funding, that's not very encouraging.
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Dec 16, 2015 19:12
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Its the company that develops the engine that they're licensing and runs their servers which is having cash issues, not the actual game development company. The engine company have said if they go under, the engine will be released to all of their customers with full source code for modification, afaik the actual game development company are fine.
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Dec 16, 2015 23:44
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Has any news come out of the dev recently?
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Dec 17, 2015 02:41
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Well, a bit of optimism from the HeroEngine folks, anyway. http://steamcommunity.com/app/322300/discussions/0/487876568239708458/
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Dec 18, 2015 00:01
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Welp, https://www.therepopulation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11233 "It is with heavy hearts that we announce today that development The Repopulation has been temporarily suspended and alpha servers are expected to go offline on Wednesday, December 23rd..."
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Dec 23, 2015 18:51
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It's a shame their project is at risk because a third party poo poo the bed.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:28
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Announcement posted:It is with heavy hearts that we announce today that development The Repopulation has been temporarily suspended and alpha servers are expected to go offline on Wednesday, December 23rd. As most of you are already aware, Idea Fabrik (the creators of Hero Engine) has been going through some turmoil over the past month which has caused us to temporarily suspend sales of the game. Servers have remained online, but their ongoing costs are preventing us from keeping them online indefinitely. As a result, the Repopulation’s alpha servers will be going offline on Wednesday until this situation is resolved. Still far more likely to become a complete game than Star Citizen.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:20
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Reason number 374658378464838 not to buy into early access bullshit. I was hoping this one would pull through though. We need more non-medieval fantasy setting games.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:48
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While I honestly wasn't feeling it in what we had already, I appreciated the fact that they had a vision for something cool and, unlike most crazy mmo devs, actually made a product. That and they were killed by external forces, not their own hubris.
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Dec 24, 2015 00:11
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Not News: Sandbox start up fails. News: goons are surprised
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Dec 24, 2015 01:47
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It's not a horrible game from what I could play of it. I mean, it's definitely not Revival. I'm more surprised that it's their drat server/account management system and not them mismanaging funds.
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Dec 24, 2015 03:16
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I may request a refund and see what happens, since they claim they still have money. Not sure if I actually paid them any though.
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Dec 24, 2015 03:43
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It's a bummer but it's still pretty weird that they would be so impacted by hero engine having problems. It's not like the old republic is shutting down because of this.
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Dec 24, 2015 05:21
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randombattle posted:It's a bummer but it's still pretty weird that they would be so impacted by hero engine having problems. It's not like the old republic is shutting down because of this. quote:
EA is not letting some third rate engine developer handle servers and accounts.
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Dec 24, 2015 06:26
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randombattle posted:It's a bummer but it's still pretty weird that they would be so impacted by hero engine having problems. It's not like the old republic is shutting down because of this. EA/Bioware also bought a source code license, whereas these not multi-billion-dollar devs bought a non-source code license, thus they don't run their own servers like Old Republic does. The differences in cost are $99/year + royalties or $75,000(or more) one time cost. I'll let you figure out which one matches which engine license. ModeSix fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 06:31
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Basically the situation they're in is, they're stuck waiting for them to either fold (which would grant them the engine, but that would mean they'd have to support it themselves), get their finances together and resume service OR transition to another engine which would add another 18 months of work to their plate at the very least, but at least they wouldn't have to support the engine themselves for the lifespan of this game, and depending on their plans as a company, it might be a good idea. If you were part of the independent scene 4-5 years ago when this started, you'd know that HeroEngine was the only viable option. No one could have seen CryEngine/Unreal doing what they did and Unity was quite archaic at the time. I really don't blame these guys at all for any of this. They've managed their project well and it's just a lovely situation to be in. They will deliver on a finished product, it's just a matter of when. Alexander DeLarge fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 06:42
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the HeroEngine based off the old Torque engine source code, or is that something else? I know Torque evolved into something indie devs use.
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Dec 26, 2015 00:08
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Kimsemus posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the HeroEngine based off the old Torque engine source code, or is that something else? I know Torque evolved into something indie devs use. Don't think they're derivative, HeroEngine was made specifically to cater to easy-ish MMO production, Torque 3D remains a mediocre indie engine that gets used all the time.
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Dec 26, 2015 00:44
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Orv posted:Don't think they're derivative, HeroEngine was made specifically to cater to easy-ish MMO production, Torque 3D remains a mediocre indie engine that gets used all the time. Okay, gotcha. And wasn't TOR crippled heavily by the use of the HeroEngine and its severe deficiencies as far as animations went, and an overall cartoony feel?
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Dec 26, 2015 01:19
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Kimsemus posted:Okay, gotcha. And wasn't TOR crippled heavily by the use of the HeroEngine and its severe deficiencies as far as animations went, and an overall cartoony feel? Cartoony feel is indeed a staple of HeroEngine
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Dec 26, 2015 01:21
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Kimsemus posted:Okay, gotcha. And wasn't TOR crippled heavily by the use of the HeroEngine and its severe deficiencies as far as animations went, and an overall cartoony feel? TOR was crippled by plenty of other things. As middleware engines go, HeroEngine is just sort of there, mostly in that it got used for SWTOR and this and no-one else has touched it, making it sort of hard to tell from the outside.
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Dec 26, 2015 01:51
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Kimsemus posted:Okay, gotcha. And wasn't TOR crippled heavily by the use of the HeroEngine and its severe deficiencies as far as animations went, and an overall cartoony feel? TOR used an even earlier version of the engine, like pre-alpha level stuff. The Repopulation at least uses a current build.
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Dec 26, 2015 04:04
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Alexander DeLarge posted:TOR used an even earlier version of the engine, like pre-alpha level stuff. The Repopulation at least used a then-current build. My first ever FTFY
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Dec 26, 2015 04:40
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Repop doesn't have a source code license, so their engine version is more or less always current. Edit: Also, the thing about hero engine was that TOR used it and it was rear end. And EA blames IF and IF blames EA so it was never really clear who was at fault. With The Repopulation's early access, it became clear after a few minutes of playing the game that IF was 100% at fault.
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Dec 26, 2015 08:15
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I'm still surprised as hell that anything ever came of the Hero Engine. I'm not surprised that Simutronics eventually sold it off, but a company whose claim to fame remains an array of weirdly arcane MUDs with weirdly obsessive fanbases, suddenly branching out into MMO engine development and licensing seemed like a hell of a leap to begin with.
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Dec 26, 2015 17:40
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LOL. This is turning into a cluster gently caress of Star Shitizen proportions: http://massivelyop.com/2015/12/30/the-repopulation-rejects-blame-for-hero-engines-financial-struggles/
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Dec 31, 2015 15:18
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Christ I feel bad for these guys, they had no viable alternatives and you have a bunch of idiots saying WHY NOT UNITY WHY NOT CRYENGINE WHY NOT UNREAL in response to this coming out. They have a pretty good reason for not using any of those considering this went into serious production back in 2012 when none of these things existed for indies/were any good.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:36
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It sounds like this game is more or less dead in the water now, unless I'm misreading the signs. It might not be the fault of the developers themselves which sucks, but doesn't change the reality does it?
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Dec 31, 2015 21:50
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Finndo posted:I may request a refund and see what happens, since they claim they still have money. Not sure if I actually paid them any though. Wondering if this went through. I bought two of the silver level packs or whatever they were, when they said it was the last chance to buy them. 
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Dec 31, 2015 22:23
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Kimsemus posted:It sounds like this game is more or less dead in the water now, unless I'm misreading the signs. It might not be the fault of the developers themselves which sucks, but doesn't change the reality does it? I believe them when they say they have the funds to finish it off. Whether that's by waiting until Idea declares bankruptcy and they get the engine that way, or they transition over to Unity/CryEngine, I think they can do it. Problem is, if they continue using HeroEngine, they'd be responsible for maintaining the engine themselves which isn't ideal to say the least. It's no small feat to move a project of this magnitude to another engine, but it's certainly possible with the money they have in the bank. They're looking at several months without revenue, but they can take the hit until it hits EA again with a launch in 2017. While it does suck, it opens up a couple new opportunities too. Not to mention they're forcing their hand to either stick with HeroEngine (which will take 30% of their revenue, in addition to the rumored 30% from Steam) or go with Unity/CryEngine which takes nothing or Unreal which takes 5%. Sure, they'll have to maintain their own servers, but 30% of all revenue? gently caress that. Alexander DeLarge fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 22:29
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2DCAT posted:LOL. This is turning into a cluster gently caress of Star Shitizen proportions: http://massivelyop.com/2015/12/30/the-repopulation-rejects-blame-for-hero-engines-financial-struggles/ That seems incredibly petty for them to blame the repop devs for not bailing them out in exchange for basically nothing.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:31
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Unity/Unreal/etc. are you only client side solutions, which in MMO's is basically the least important part. At least from a development perspective. If they are forced to switch off HeroEngine, they're going to have to develop their own server-side solution (IIRC all the out of the box ones are pretty much horseshit). It's a shame really, as janky and broken as this game was, I had some fun with it. And that's why kids, you don't create business dependencies on companies that have less than a billion in yearly revenue.
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Jan 2, 2016 02:21
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SweetBro posted:Unity/Unreal/etc. are you only client side solutions, which in MMO's is basically the least important part. At least from a development perspective. If they are forced to switch off HeroEngine, they're going to have to develop their own server-side solution (IIRC all the out of the box ones are pretty much horseshit). It's a shame really, as janky and broken as this game was, I had some fun with it. They laid out in their responses what they had in front of them when they started the project. It was all poo poo, it was just that Hero was the least poo poo out of all of it and Bioware was also working with them at the time so it appeared safe. Currently the indie market is more workable with the way Unreal and Unity have appeared/changed. Repop Dev JC Smith posted:Unfortunately at the time when we started out here the only viable options were Hero, Bigworld, or Torque 3D, with the first of those two having restrictive license agreements, and the third being a good renderering engine that lacked in MMO specific features.
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Jan 2, 2016 03:18
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SweetBro posted:Unity/Unreal/etc. are you only client side solutions, which in MMO's is basically the least important part. At least from a development perspective. If they are forced to switch off HeroEngine, they're going to have to develop their own server-side solution (IIRC all the out of the box ones are pretty much horseshit). It's a shame really, as janky and broken as this game was, I had some fun with it. Thing about Unity is that you have multiple networking frameworks that have been used for MMOs so it's probably the best solution out of all of them. Between things like uLink and Forge, it's certainly a better option than CryEngine or Unreal where you would be required to write everything yourself.
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Jan 2, 2016 04:07
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No, that's not how it works. Like you can have whatever networking framework you want running on Unity. At the end of the day, if you're serious about making an MMO you write your own server-code either using a custom built stack with a high-performance library/language combination like asio or you use SmartFox which has been an industry standard for like ever. Even now the only reason you would use poo poo like uLink/Photon is for that sweet sweet distributed power, but honestly that networking paradigm is pretty standard nowadays, so you can either implement your own stack, or once again use SmartFox. Which I would advise, since you know AWS is immensely more reliable then whatever Photon's running (though, they may just be reselling? doesn't matter though, it's another dependency that can go down). As for the client-side, literally take any 3d game framework and start working up from there. The vast majority of features a game engine provides is useless when all your logic is running-server side, and the optimization benefits you get from tailoring it to your networking layer will outweigh those penalties. When making an MMO or any scaling network application, writing the netcode yourself isn't a downside, it's a requirement (or at the very least having access to the source code and the servers/clusters it's on). And I guarantee you, that Bioware had a custom licensing agreement for the HeroEngine which gave them access to all of the source code, on-prem servers, and no royalty. tl;dr: Repop should have dropped Hero like an ugly baby the moment they got funding from their little tech demo. They chose the easy path, and now they reap the fruits of a clusterfuck that anyone in a tech leadership position should have seen coming.
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Jan 2, 2016 11:43
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Just as an addendum, what pisses me off most about this. Is that Hero is optimized for themepark MMOs and WoW clones. I don't know if they still have media up but look at all their media around 2012-2013. The Repop was ultimately touted as a sandbox game, so they probably still had to make a massive engineering effort to code all of that functionality. It's like loving using RPGMaker to make a platformer. It's like at some point they doubled down on HeroEngine and refused/couldn't change course. Maybe someone early on signed a really retarded contract that stipulated they had to use HeroEngine for X years?
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Jan 2, 2016 11:49
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Not saying it'd be easy, it's just way better than Unity's poo poo networking system. I know people that have been working with UNET for months and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Seriously lacking features compared to what is available on the asset store.
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Jan 3, 2016 05:16
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Drinkfist posted:They laid out in their responses what they had in front of them when they started the project. It was all poo poo, it was just that Hero was the least poo poo out of all of it and Bioware was also working with them at the time so it appeared safe. Currently the indie market is more workable with the way Unreal and Unity have appeared/changed. Bioware was licensed an early alpha build of Hero Engine and gutted the hell out of it too to make the necessary alterations.
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Jan 3, 2016 18:47
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