Upon What Engine is ESO Built?

Lava_Croft

The Havok logo that ESO shows does not inherently mean it uses Havok Physics. Havok provides several different products.

Attorneyatlawl

RSram wrote: »

Robbmrp wrote: »

...The other engines must not have been able to do what they were trying for ESO....

Like run on MS DOS?

Although ESO looks pretty, it's engine doesn't do anything that I can see better than any of the previously mentioned game engines. I been playing since beta and I see nothing ground breaking or earth shattering in the game engine that I haven't seen five years ago!

I turn the grass off because I it drives me crazy then I turn my character and see the grass rotate: That's 1990's sprite technology. I think sprites are used for all of the 3D effects; I'm not saying this is bad, but if your going to take this approach to increase performance, then why is there so many uses with frame rate issues?

There is no real physics in this game! When I kill a NPC on the edge of a cliff, their corpse just floats in mid air. Ragdoll physics do not exist in this game.

What ever game engine is being used, it's network code needs an overhaul; including the server farm hardware.

Finally, some of you who read my previous post, know that I like to circumvent the invisible walls around the zones and so far I haven't found a zone that I couldn't conquer, but it's interesting that once I walk into an uninitialized zone with no NPC's, players, and other interact-able props. my frame rate jumps from 40 to 60 FPS on a Geforce 680 (4 GB VRAM) at 2560 x 1440 with every graphics option turned on to the max settings. Note that my graphics card VRAM is never overloaded even in crowded cities, so I have to assume that there is another issue causing the jerkiness and latency that a lot of player's are experiencing.

One other point: You usually modify a game engine to enhance the game, not to travel back in time to the 1990's!

That's great, but things aren't that simple on the inside. It's one thing to look at a skyscraper and say, "that thing doesn't look so good". It's another entirely to say how to build it, fix it, or both when you don't understand how it even works or any architectural design. Visual fidelity isn't the only consideration for methods used for the artwork, and from your mentions of grass being billboarded and "not looking better than other games" it's clear enough to me that you don't .

On a simple level the majority of other MMORPG titles of recent times have not had need to maintain framerate well or responsiveness in large environments, particularly with several hundred player characters in the same zone with no segmentation or instancing between them such as Cyrodiil or the upcoming Imperial City. ESO does utilize physics libraries, but gratuitous ragdolls for character deaths not only would add too much visual clutter to the game field but simply wouldn't work gameplay wise in an area such as Cyrodiil. Your ally died next to you on the keep wall? One sec rez.... uhoh his corpse rolled off to the ground over the edge of the wall and cancelled the rez! Get what I mean?

It should be absolutely unsurprising to someone just as a player that when there's not much going on your framerate goes up...

Vram usage also isn't relevant as an individual statistic when discussing overall game performance. If you wanted to get technical about it, tools don't actually show usage but allocation, which are two distinctly different measurements internally.

On the main topic, here is one of those older interviews I'd mentioned earlier: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,1034123/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Improved-effects-with-DirectX-11-Exclusive-Tech-Interview/News/

Attorneyatlawl

Lava_Croft wrote: »

The Havok logo that ESO shows does not inherently mean it uses Havok Physics. Havok provides several different products.

They sure do, but ZOS has explicitly stated they have integrated their physics libraries for collision detection and other physics tasks already anyways.

Gidorick

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

gratuitous ragdolls for character deaths not only would add too much visual clutter to the game field but simply wouldn't work gameplay wise in an area such as Cyrodiil. Your ally died next to you on the keep wall? One sec rez.... uhoh his corpse rolled off to the ground over the edge of the wall and cancelled the rez! Get what I mean?

That would be amazing!

Varicite

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Whatever they are doing...other than the bugs which are being worked out...it went pretty well for consoles but not so hot for PC.

Well, I should hope so.

They have had 100,000+ players paying to beta test the game for over a year; it would be quite the failure if they somehow managed to make the console's launch worse than PC (which actually was pretty smooth for a MMO launch).

Arato

Whatever they call their engine, it is certainly based on HeroEngine. The character movement and floaty jumping is very reminiscent of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I could tell immediately after moving around a bit and jumping into some walls that the engine is still based on HeroEngine. The shaders/lighting is different and obviously much better, but, some aspects are still HeroEngine.

Jaxsun

RSram wrote: »

Robbmrp wrote: »

...The other engines must not have been able to do what they were trying for ESO....

Like run on MS DOS?

ROFL!

EQBallzz

IXT

Arato wrote: »

Whatever they call their engine, it is certainly based on HeroEngine. The character movement and floaty jumping is very reminiscent of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I could tell immediately after moving around a bit and jumping into some walls that the engine is still based on HeroEngine. The shaders/lighting is different and obviously much better, but, some aspects are still HeroEngine.

Well if it's certainly based on the Hero Engine but heavily modified..the name should probably be modified to reflect ESO in some representative way. I propose...Cash Shop Hero Engine or maybe P2W Hero Engine. It's a somewhat forward looking name.

Lava_Croft

Arato wrote: »

Whatever they call their engine, it is certainly based on HeroEngine. The character movement and floaty jumping is very reminiscent of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I could tell immediately after moving around a bit and jumping into some walls that the engine is still based on HeroEngine. The shaders/lighting is different and obviously much better, but, some aspects are still HeroEngine.

This is a very scientific analysis. You should work as a bug-fixer for ZOS!

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Gidorick wrote: »

Not /thread @fromtesonlineb16_ESO. That doesn't answer what they call their engine. They built it from the ground up. Cool. Does it have a name?

Personally I like to think it's something Elder Scrolls related. Like the CHIM Engine.

Why are you so fixated on some chunk of software having a name?

I get some people enjoy endless intellectual masturbation and engaging in erudite conversations about 'this' engine and 'that' engine ... but it's simply a chunk of server software IT DOESN'T HAVE TO HAVE A NAME!

Gidorick

Not fixated. Just asking a question. I guarantee they call it something. It might be something dull like "Zenimax Online Studios Development Engine" but the folder, the executable, something is named. I'm just curious what that is.

I'm sorry if you... take offense, I guess.

RainfeatherUK

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This is a very scientific analysis. You should work as a bug-fixer for ZOS!

I lol'd. Arato this game has very different physics to hero, that's immediately evident if you run it side by side with swtor. Game engines all have similar aspects in places, doesn't mean they are the same system.

I swear people have some sort of Hero Engine obsession around this place >_<

Arato

Basically you know how Skyrim is on the "creation engine" but it's still very similar to Gamebryo, but Bethesda was getting flack for using Gamebryo for their games? Same situation here. HeroEngine has been heavily criticized because of SWTOR, so ZOS says they're using a different engine, but it's still based on HeroEngine.

Just be thankful they have nothing comparable to Datacrons in ESO,, and there's only a few quests that utilize jumping on platforms in any way, but, man is the jumping awful here, extremely floaty, and if you hit any obstacle while jumping your forward momentum is translated to horizontal momentum and you fly sideways when you bounce off (instead of either falling straight down as in some games or bouncing straight backwards as you would in real life if you jumped straight into a wall)

One time I was riding back to Chorral in Cyrodiil, I was on my mount, using rapid maneuver, and sprinting, so, going really fast, I jumped a small gap, but didn't clear the far side, I hit the top edge of the side of the gap, and flew sideways about 300m into lava and died.... There was no lava where I was jumping so if I'd just dropped straight down or flew backwards a few feet I'd have survived.

But because it behaves like SWTOR jumping and you slide sideways with full momentum.. landed in lava that was at least 100m away to the right and died.

Davadin

i dont care what it's call, but can i get SMAA?

Obscure

Upon What Engine is ESO Built?

The engine is built upon broken dreams and empty promises...

...and it runs on tears.

Bouvin

What happens to the engine when you enter Cyrodil

Gidorick

Obscure wrote: »

Upon What Engine is ESO Built?

The engine is built upon broken dreams and empty promises...

...and it runs on tears.

Lol. This made me chuckle.

blabafat

it's called
engine:guardian

Varicite

blabafat wrote: »

it's called
engine:guardian

Silly, we both know that doesn't actually exist.

VoidParticle

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Your ally died next to you on the keep wall? One sec rez.... uhoh his corpse rolled off to the ground over the edge of the wall and cancelled the rez! Get what I mean?

One thing I loved doing in Skyrim was dragging someone around. Killed a bunch of bandits deciding to harass you walking by? *dead* then drag them behind some log away from the road.

Nobody wants to look bad as the Dragonborn.

I know this game was never supposed to be Skyrim online, but at least in Skyrim I could move things around and make a mess with objects. Anyways... That's my 2 thoughts on ragdolls and game physics.

mrskinskull

Gidorick wrote: »

I know it's an engine that ZOS developed from the ground up just for ESO, but what do they call it? What is its name?

I don't know its name but its dwemer in nature.

milkbox

After the recent gender kerfuffle I'm surprised no one has suggested Heroine Engine. ;p

BaconMagic

Hero Engine is the engine of broken dreams. It was created by the Simutronics corp and was supposed to be used to create their MMO in the fantasy world Elanthia from the longest running (and amazing) MUD Gemstone IV. Thousands of people were anticipating that game with the working title of Hero's Journey. Instead, Simutronics needed cash so they sold the engine so SWTOR could have it.

Gelston

BaconMagic wrote: »

Hero Engine is the engine of broken dreams. It was created by the Simutronics corp and was supposed to be used to create their MMO in the fantasy world Elanthia from the longest running (and amazing) MUD Gemstone IV. Thousands of people were anticipating that game with the working title of Hero's Journey. Instead, Simutronics needed cash so they sold the engine so SWTOR could have it.

Haha, I don't think that MMO from them would have been too popular. People still playing GS generally aren't graphical MMO players.

Gidorick

r.leigh.harperb14_ESO wrote: »

After the recent gender kerfuffle I'm surprised no one has suggested Heroine Engine. ;p

I know their programmers used the hero engine as a sort of template and learning tool for the ESO engine...

Arkadius

Don't know what their engine is called, but it must look something like this

MrBeatDown

I thought they bought the damn thing Used off of ebay, in a liquidation auction sale....

Blackhorne

mrskinskull wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

I know it's an engine that ZOS developed from the ground up just for ESO, but what do they call it? What is its name?

I don't know its name but its dwemer in nature.

It should be called the Heart of Lorkhan.

Gidorick

I quite like the name "The Mundus Engine"