It would need to be an entirely new set of code as I understand it. So best bet for an elder scrolls mmo on a different engine would be when/if they made eso2.

Afaik, Wow still runs the on the same engine but it has been modified over the years. They could probably do this and have certainly done some updating to the current ESO engine over the years, but just replacing the engine in whole would mean migrating all the player characters which would mean recoding them among other things to make it work.

Ya... It does seem like the marketing department gets the big purse. They are beautiful videos though!

I can't parse the dollars and cents, but the hours spent on developing and or contracting a new/different engine multiplied by what they pay their coding staff would be the bean-counter answer.

We know so little about the actual engine used for ESO currently that it makes it difficult to evaluate it outside of game play. We think it is a heavily modified version of the Hero engine but that's based solely on it being a part of the boot screens. Zos has only stated that they used Hero in the design stages while they "developed" their own.

iirc, the original nuts and bolts coders are for the most part gone from zos, so the current staff not only must maintain code they didn't write themselves, but patch in new code without knowing what it may do thousands of lines later.

Not a quandary I'd like to find myself in...

Just for clarification, the physics, animation and behavior are based on Havoc, everything else is Hero.

@Casowen

I did find on Hero's website that you too could download the engine and develop your own mmo for only 99.00usd per year...

I am fine with the grafics of ESO. This game has to be playable for every computer with the required spec, not only for Poser's darling.

Casowen wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

Multiplayer != MMO. They're two completely different beasts, which generally require engines to be tailored specifically for each. Multiplayer games can afford to have more overhead in their netcode, while MMO's have to have very basic netcode because of the sheer scale of the entire thing. Then you have the client, then the servers, then the gameplay...

Yeah. While that Skyrim mod might outdo ESO as a generic multiplayer TES game, it simply cannot compete as an MMO.

Yes its very small, probably couldnt compete as an mmo, of course this is a small team project we are talking about, and it puts bethesda to shame.

It's not the same thing at all, though. That's like comparing someone building a remote controlled model airplane to someone who's building a stealth bomber: sure, they're both building something that can fly, but that's about where the similarities end. ESO (and any MMORPG) is many, many, MANY orders of magnitude more complex and demanding than a Skyrim mod that hacks together a very rudimentary small-scale multiplayer experience in every single respect, from coding to hardware to server maintenance and logistics. They really can't be compared in any meaningful way.

Not to say the Skyrim multiplayer mod isn't a cool idea, though, much like the New Vegas project that preceded it. It's super basic and will always be super basic because the engine in no way supports multiplayer, but given the limitations it's definitely impressive. It's just... not the same.

idk wrote: »

Casowen wrote: »

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

It would need to be an entirely new set of code as I understand it. So best bet for an elder scrolls mmo on a different engine would be when/if they made eso2.

Afaik, Wow still runs the on the same engine but it has been modified over the years. They could probably do this and have certainly done some updating to the current ESO engine over the years, but just replacing the engine in whole would mean migrating all the player characters which would mean recoding them among other things to make it work.

know anything about mmo coding and its economics? I am really curious as to what an engine swap would cost, compared to all that they spent on blur videos and continue to spend it seems...

No one that will reply in this thread can give you the answer you seek. To many variables that are not known.

As has been alluded to, there was a large number of programmers involved in building this game, a fraction of what currently works on the game. Still less than when Zos focused on finishing the port to consoles and even then Zos ceased developing the game for an entire year just to finish the console work.

It would also be more work than just updating the engine.

So it is not a small project for sure. That is all we can guess at.

Edit: and is it unrealistic, probably not in the estimated ROCE the business side would want to see.

To add to this, for reference, the only other time something like this happened was with Final Fantasy 14, and when they switched engines they literally rebuilt the entire game from the ground up and re-released it as a new product. The engine of a game is like the foundation, walls, and roof of a house - sure, you can replace them, but at that point you're basically just building a new house.

Casowen wrote: »

So is "switching engines" unrealistic? I kind of think for all they spent and continue to spend on blur videos that Zenimax might have tried something like this instead, or is that a hill that is really to steep to climb?

entirely realistic if you buy the company and change the engine yourself.

otherwise....uh, i'd think awfully close to impossible

Engine swap requires a huge amount of work. It could be done if the game is at the prototyping stage, when there's just some quite basic mechanics and nothing complex.
But when the game goes into the active development stages, when mechanics are getting new features, when all these server-client communications, animations, combat mechanics, etc. are becoming more advanced, hundreds of strings of code turn into thousands and millions of strings of code... it's kinda one way ticket.
Porting a game (and MMORPGs are likely the most huge and complex games out there) to another game engine is almost the same as making a new game from scratch. The only difference there is in case of porting you already have ready-to-use assets (3d-models basically) and some code that might be used without changes (like 10-30% of the overall code, 40% in the best case), but even then there might be some issues, e.g., some engines have different XYZ axis philisophy and you have to either adjust it in the engine or tweak it in your 3D-modelling software (I've encontered such a problem with Unity3D engine and Blender 3D-modeling software), and changing the code to build the game architecture from scratch is very hard work.
Moreover, when you finally finish the porting stage, there will be a debugging stage.

It's possible to upgrade the game engine though, to rebuild the game using a newer version of the engine (again, it might take a lot of time).

So, the amount of time, money and resources required to change the engine in the game which is already done is almost equal to making a new game. There' re rumors about ESO's budget which was like 200 millions USD, and it took 5-7 years (not sure) to develope it. As a person whose hobby is programming (I'm not a pro) and who has some experience with Unity3D and Unreal engines, I would say, switchig the ESO engine would require like 100-150 millions and 3-4 years. Of course, a half of this money is likely goes to advertisements, however they'll have to invest some resources into ads to get new audience and to create a hype around the game, so they could expect sales growth.

I'd venture to guess using that type of engine (Unreal 4) for an MMO wouldn't be possible until 100 mB connections become the low end of Norm and by that time Unreal 5 or 6 will looks so much better.

Casowen wrote: »

If your like me, you thought this game looked perfect on paper, but playing it intitially was under whelming, especially compared to more modern running MMO's that came out not long after like black desert online for instance. For me going to an engine like say unreal 4 would just be what would make the game perfect. However eso also feels like something of the long aftermath of a series of EA mmos that notoriously did bad because they tried and failed to copy WOW, such as return of the reckoning and swtor, with universes that share alot in common too. For me, all the art and textures of the current ESO is just great, but the engine just kills it for me since I like the way other games like Shadow of war, warframe, or essentially games with a real physics engine, and black desert online, and FFXV are a great example, nevermind waiting on Ashes of Creation.

So is "switching engines" unrealistic? I kind of think for all they spent and continue to spend on blur videos that Zenimax might have tried something like this instead, or is that a hill that is really to steep to climb?

"Switching engines" isn't really a thing. The engine is more than just the foundation of the game in that you are not just building something and putting it on top of the engine. Most of the game is heavily reliant on and intertwined with the specific engine you are using. Trying to switch engines would be like trying to change the material a house is made from but with the added caveat of not being able to do it a part at a time. Even customizing an engine to add feature to it is normally done before game development begins trying to do it after you've built the game would cause headaches due to functionality changes leading to issues that'd force you to refactor the game code anyway.

To answer your question, yea it is pretty unrealistic from both a practical and financial standpoint. From a financial standpoint, no company in their right mind would put in the time and money investments needed to remake the exact same game when it's already performing well. (again, from a financial perspective) Like other people have said, it's much more feasible for ZoS to come out with a second iteration but even that wouldn't happen until ESO has died to the point where lost revenue from the new game competing with the old one wouldn't be a factor.

Actually registered to answer this.

First off let us establish some things..

1] An engine is not something you can simply change. In fact, you really can't change it. Think about excel spreadsheets and document compatibility. If you work with nothing but data its just a delineated text document. It's a non-simple task to transfer that data but it's within the realm of possibility. The instant you add in a macro or any form of special formatting you start having to build bridges between these two formats. Same with engines. The data you use to create the game world is fairly exclusive to that world. The character data is also mostly exclusive. You can port it but the manhours required(thus cost) start to scale to stupid levels and that's BEFORE you even start coding things that CANT be ported like zones and scripts.

2] An engine isn't what you read on the internet. Everyone and their brother screamed that Creation Engine is "old" when FO76 was released. It's the same age as the current Unreal engine. Engines change with every product release by nature. This is mostly due to the fact that once you start laying the foundation(levels, scripts, etc) you can't really change the engine without possibly screwing over all the work you've already done or inducing performance penalties as you have to build those "bridges" mentioned previously.
Think about an engine like roads. Everyone who doesn't understand them thinks they are the cars on the roads(cars are scripts) but all an engine lets you do is perform a task. Is it easier to change a car or a road?

3] ZOS uses a version of HERO that was essentially rewritten. Hero is in itself is a very powerful engine(and yes engines are cheap to buy relative to the cost of a game) that is built entirely around multiplayer games and large world sizes. When a company "rewrites" it they take the core design and push, pull, and rip out anything that doesn't apply to their project while adding elements that do apply. The reason a studio might do this over making their own engine is simple time(thus cost) and not needing to reinvent the world when someone else does mostly what you want already. Practically what you end up with is a new engine which can be interacted with HEROs previously existing(and powerful) tool sets.

4] Changing an engine DOES NOT and WILL NEVER make a game instantly "better". An engine is a TOOL used to do a thing. Just like a hammer is useless without an arm an engine is useless without a script. Scripts ARE the games along with art and well a huge host of other data. The "features" one engine may have over another MUST be coded for... From scratch. This is because the tool has changed and your use of it must change. You don't swing a screwdriver as a hammer do you?
There is a little demon in the room called tech debt, however. As your code ages, it becomes far more time and effort(thus cost) to change elements of it. Eventually, you reach a point where you just have to start over. With the age of modular coding, this doesn't mean the end of the game, however. In the 90s when tech debt happened you just dropped the title and renamed the new version 2. In today's world of coding, you can just gut THAT PART of your code and rewrite it. It doesn't eliminate tech debt but it does prolong the life of a game far longer than previously.


To answer your question finally after establishing those points...
It would cost more than the original development budget ESO had... and it would do nothing to upgrade the game.
Most of the features you see in those other engines can probably be bolted onto ESOs version of Hero. If they haven't its probably due to tech debt, the features not representing the vision of the developers, or the features not representing a return on investment for the game.
(Exception: FFXVs engine is custom to the extreme and has the backing of billions. ESO isn't in the league so its unfair to compare the two)

nafensoriel wrote: »

Actually registered to answer this.

First off let us establish some things..

1] An engine is not something you can simply change. In fact, you really can't change it. Think about excel spreadsheets and document compatibility. If you work with nothing but data its just a delineated text document. It's a non-simple task to transfer that data but it's within the realm of possibility. The instant you add in a macro or any form of special formatting you start having to build bridges between these two formats. Same with engines. The data you use to create the game world is fairly exclusive to that world. The character data is also mostly exclusive. You can port it but the manhours required(thus cost) start to scale to stupid levels and that's BEFORE you even start coding things that CANT be ported like zones and scripts.

2] An engine isn't what you read on the internet. Everyone and their brother screamed that Creation Engine is "old" when FO76 was released. It's the same age as the current Unreal engine. Engines change with every product release by nature. This is mostly due to the fact that once you start laying the foundation(levels, scripts, etc) you can't really change the engine without possibly screwing over all the work you've already done or inducing performance penalties as you have to build those "bridges" mentioned previously.
Think about an engine like roads. Everyone who doesn't understand them thinks they are the cars on the roads(cars are scripts) but all an engine lets you do is perform a task. Is it easier to change a car or a road?

3] ZOS uses a version of HERO that was essentially rewritten. Hero is in itself is a very powerful engine(and yes engines are cheap to buy relative to the cost of a game) that is built entirely around multiplayer games and large world sizes. When a company "rewrites" it they take the core design and push, pull, and rip out anything that doesn't apply to their project while adding elements that do apply. The reason a studio might do this over making their own engine is simple time(thus cost) and not needing to reinvent the world when someone else does mostly what you want already. Practically what you end up with is a new engine which can be interacted with HEROs previously existing(and powerful) tool sets.

4] Changing an engine DOES NOT and WILL NEVER make a game instantly "better". An engine is a TOOL used to do a thing. Just like a hammer is useless without an arm an engine is useless without a script. Scripts ARE the games along with art and well a huge host of other data. The "features" one engine may have over another MUST be coded for... From scratch. This is because the tool has changed and your use of it must change. You don't swing a screwdriver as a hammer do you?
There is a little demon in the room called tech debt, however. As your code ages, it becomes far more time and effort(thus cost) to change elements of it. Eventually, you reach a point where you just have to start over. With the age of modular coding, this doesn't mean the end of the game, however. In the 90s when tech debt happened you just dropped the title and renamed the new version 2. In today's world of coding, you can just gut THAT PART of your code and rewrite it. It doesn't eliminate tech debt but it does prolong the life of a game far longer than previously.


To answer your question finally after establishing those points...
It would cost more than the original development budget ESO had... and it would do nothing to upgrade the game.
Most of the features you see in those other engines can probably be bolted onto ESOs version of Hero. If they haven't its probably due to tech debt, the features not representing the vision of the developers, or the features not representing a return on investment for the game.
(Exception: FFXVs engine is custom to the extreme and has the backing of billions. ESO isn't in the league so its unfair to compare the two)

Ok, your argument makes sense in regards to the engine being most everything, and I dont know what was changed in comparison to the original hero engine, so this begs the question, can hero engine be modified or rewritten some more to have a more Unreal Engine/Black desert/shadow of war style of play? I dont quite buy the argument that it would cost in the range of 100's of millions of dollars, given what is currently going on with skyrim online, but that truly isnt an mmo has as been said, and it would just constitute a series of small servers that are each customized to individual mods. However as you said, the engine is everything, so do you think you know enough about the current eso engine to say that its possible to be modified again to go to a different style that would be similar to changing engines, but without actually changing engines? Adding a Physics script would be essential in what I am suggesting, or would that totally break it?

I suppose the real reason I am excited for co-op skyrim is because I can just see someone transferring most or all the quest, textures, animations, dialoge, etc from eso to a skyrim server, though I am not sure how realistic that is also. I like the better styling of ESO, but prefer the mechanics of something sort of like skyrim.