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[DannyDanger]

Just let it die, if we keep mentioning it they will feel compelled to complete a game that might not be good in the first place.

Ohhh Yeeeaaah... What happened to Let It Die? New thread!

 

[inky]

I lost all interest the day it was announced to be F2P with a sci fi twist anyway.

for Cacpcom as far as I'm concerned. Leave it where it belongs.

 

[DigSCCP]

Ohhh Yeeeaaah... What happened to Let It Die? New thread!

Was just going to do the same question: what happened to Let it Die?

 

[BennyBlanco]

I haven't seen a Dark Souls mimic but that thing looks pretty savage the way it's chasing like that. I don't think I've ever seen a mimic give chase.

They're pretty similar.

Seriously?

I like how you couldn't be bothered to post an example.

 

[AmyS]

Check out this HQ video of the Project Offset dragon demo from GDC 2006 https://youtu.be/K6A_lgAsfR4

It's very short and there's no fire, but damn, it's nearly 10 years old now. I think the Panta Rhei engine has gone the way of the Offset Engine -- However, Offset Engine still lives.The MMO game Firefall (also coming to PS4) uses a heavily modified version of the Offset Engine

Development

Engine

Firefall uses a custom server and graphics engine with its renderer based on Offset Engine by Offset Software that was sold to Intel in February 2008. Offset Engine was originally built for Offset Software's first person shooter Project Offset that was cancelled in 2010 by Intel due to the failure of Larrabee. Red 5 Studios relationship with Project Offset gave them full access to source code, which they heavily modified to suit their needs. Modifications to the Offset Engine include a custom texture streaming engine, a character and terrain system designed to handle hundreds of players in a large open world, a vegetation and prop system, custom lighting and FX, and integration of Havok Physics onto the server-side. The server code is built in-house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefall_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_Software

 

[WickedLaharl]

the deep down project has been offset.

Nice.

I remember there was a gaffer years ago so pumped for project offset. The cancellation must have been devastating.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I've never seen one that got up and walked around before DaS.

Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin predate Dark Souls.

http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Mimic

 

[Crossing Eden]

It only existed for list wars, fool

This is pretty funny in retrospect.

 

[benzy]

6 minute gameplay from 1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=81&v=eU8HEnvwixk&t=1m14s

Producer on wanting to increase graphical fidelity even further 7 months ago:

Sugiura: “Deep Down is a game we’re going to be hedging out bets on for, give or take, 15 years, so we can’t put it out at its current visual level and say those graphics will be top-notch. It’s an extreme case, but this game takes five or six times the amount of productivity as Monster Hunter Frontier G.”

Ono on the game expansion 7 months ago.

“Deep Down will take a little more time to finish,” Ono said. “There seems to be rumors that development has come to a stop, but those aren’t true.”

Ono continued, “It might be a while ahead, but we hope to show you something truly different from what was shown previously. In fact, since we announced it, the framework behind it has grown much larger to the point that what we had before may well have been a dud.”

The Capcom producer expressed his concerns with not launching with the game’s necessary parts, which ultimately led to its delay.

"Since maintaining an online game service is a long-term challenge, if you don’t properly create necessary parts of it in time for the launch, players won’t stick around long even if it’s interesting,” Ono said. “We eventually came to have concerns that Deep Down wouldn’t initially establish itself well with consumers, so we decided to put aside more time so we could perfect it.”

6 months ago the producer still talked about what I'm assuming is the fluid simulation, which doesn't look to be implemented in any of the gameplay we've seen.

“We’re focusing on things like how to recreate real life gases and liquids, such as flames and running water,” Miyashita said.

 

[Z3M0G]

When they announced Dragons Dogma Online F2P I figured it was dead... thats practically the same game concept...

 

[silva1991]

The moment they announced Bloodborne last year I forgot about this game. and then they announced Dark souls 3n this year and we still didn't hear anything about this game.

 

[fastmower]

It was purportedly back burnered in favor of getting DDO out, but in reality it presumably just takes a long time to port things to Unity 5.

What happened to the panta rhei engine?

 

[charlequin]

Not necessarily. If they are really adamant about including Voxel GI, fluid simulations, tessellating most of the environment objects, I doubt something like UE4 would make that any easier to get it all working on PS4. If there's a lesson to be learned it's probably knowing when to give up on certain features and that you're being too ambitious.

I'm fairly confident that for almost any team, licensing Unreal for the toolchain, base scripting, integrations, etc. and then just building all your custom rendering technology on top of it would be more efficient than trying to build a modern development environment from scratch. Basically every Japanese publisher that's tried to build out an internal engine has been hamstrung by content pipeline inefficiencies, features that need constant rebuilding, and other issues that drag out game development far past its allotted schedule -- in large part, it seems, because these efforts focus on fancy rendering tech but neglect the part that's actually important, which is the day-to-day toolset the artists and engineers work with.

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

The progression in DDON isn't compelling at all, so my expectations are very low for anything F2P that Capcom puts out in the future.

I find it ironic that Ono describes Deep Down as a project they're "hedging out bets" on when Capcom's best bets have always been their strong single player franchises (Monster Hunter's co-op notwithstanding).

Capcom found a number of profitable niches within the industry and have consistently blown their opportunities to iterate successfully on their best franchises. Instead of making each of their top-selling series bigger and better as most other successful devs have, they undermine themselves through trend-chasing and poorly though out transaction models.

 

[benzy]

I'm fairly confident that for almost any team, licensing Unreal for the toolchain, base scripting, integrations, etc. and then just building all your custom rendering technology on top of it would be more efficient than trying to build a modern development environment from scratch. Basically every Japanese publisher that's tried to build out an internal engine has been hamstrung by content pipeline inefficiencies, features that need constant rebuilding, and other issues that drag out game development far past its allotted schedule -- in large part, it seems, because these efforts focus on fancy rendering tech but neglect the part that's actually important, which is the day-to-day toolset the artists and engineers work with.

Is there any evidence for that though? That's assuming their development tools are awful but I can equally just assume their toolset is fine and the actual reason for development problems is because of the fancy rendering tech having difficulties working on the intended hardware.

 

[Gxgear]

Oh, I thought the new Dragon Dogma was it.

 

[dark10x]

It is being developed on - wait for it - Unity Game Engine :lol:

No way. They're using $&@! Unity?! What a joke.

Did they lose a bunch of engineers that worked on MT Framework or something?

 

[Some Nobody]

I want them to chuck this in favor of an SP RPG, but I know better. Still, I wouldn't look for this game this year aside from some errant interview where we hear something akin to, "Progress is at a steady pace, and the new reveal will surprise most people!"

 

[charlequin]

Is there any evidence for that though?

Besides the track record of every other Japanese publisher (and several major Western pubs) on this sort of initiative, their complete inability to ship a game using this engine, their licensing of third-party engines for multiple titles despite this engine nominally being developed in-house, and all of the above being in line with the predictions people were making a few years ago about how this in-house engine drive would play out?

 

[Horp]

I'm fairly confident that for almost any team, licensing Unreal for the toolchain, base scripting, integrations, etc. and then just building all your custom rendering technology on top of it would be more efficient than trying to build a modern development environment from scratch. Basically every Japanese publisher that's tried to build out an internal engine has been hamstrung by content pipeline inefficiencies, features that need constant rebuilding, and other issues that drag out game development far past its allotted schedule -- in large part, it seems, because these efforts focus on fancy rendering tech but neglect the part that's actually important, which is the day-to-day toolset the artists and engineers work with.

So much truth in this post. I used to work in the game industry, now I work with business visualization (we use game engines) and QOL along with a good, clear and git-able project structure is in the end of the day much more important than a few extra effects.

 

[Lynx_7]

I was really interested in the project when they first unveiled it, but then they had to come out and say it was F2P and ruin any trace of excitement I had. I remember early impressions not being very flattering either. Hopefully they're taking their time retooling the game entirely as a proper single player experience, that is if they haven't scrapped it yet.

 

[Renekton]

I'm fairly confident that for almost any team, licensing Unreal for the toolchain, base scripting, integrations, etc. and then just building all your custom rendering technology on top of it would be more efficient than trying to build a modern development environment from scratch. Basically every Japanese publisher that's tried to build out an internal engine has been hamstrung by content pipeline inefficiencies, features that need constant rebuilding, and other issues that drag out game development far past its allotted schedule -- in large part, it seems, because these efforts focus on fancy rendering tech but neglect the part that's actually important, which is the day-to-day toolset the artists and engineers work with.

It's easy to say this from the comfort of an armchair but I wonder what's the publisher use case for having own one-engine-4all-dev like Frostbite. The people who work in the industry are likely far smarter than me so they probably have some data points / justifications for insisting on this.

While working for SI projects, I always see SA recommend the UE4 equivalent of enterprise/middleware/etc for a big client only to begrudgingly settle on some in-house solution to accomodate their age-old workflow.

 

[benzy]

Besides the track record of every other Japanese publisher (and several major Western pubs) on this sort of initiative, their complete inability to ship a game using this engine, their licensing of third-party engines for multiple titles despite this engine nominally being developed in-house, and all of the above being in line with the predictions people were making a few years ago about how this in-house engine drive would play out?

What's Capcom's track record with MT Framework? How many high budget flagship titles have shipped on UE4 in comparison? Daylight? IMO the lack of other games using an in-development engine doesn't exactly speak on its tools and content pipeline as much as the incomplete rendering tech that other games aren't even attempting in this particular case. I don't think it's fair to assume it's completely all on the toolset of the engine when it can very well be something else.

 

[viveks86]

They are turning it into an online shooter

 

[Futurematic]

It's easy to say this from the comfort of an armchair but I wonder what's the publisher use case for having own one-engine-4all-dev like Frostbite.

If you make enough games, owning the engine lets you mod it however you need to and of course developing it can take into account all existing toolchains and what not. Plus, obviously, no royalties to use your own engine if you can keep development costs reasonable vs theoretical royalties.

Better, what's the case for a publisher having 6 engines?
(Snowdrop, AnvilNext, Distrupt, Dumia, GR Wildlands (YETI 2?), and UbiArt)

 

[charlequin]

It's easy to say this from the comfort of an armchair but I wonder what's the publisher use case for having own one-engine-4all-dev like Frostbite.

Well, I mean, the whole big picture is just a build-vs-buy debate, which anyone working at any type of medium-or-larger technology company's run into at one point. There isn't a universal answer, but depending on market circumstances it can bend pretty far in one direction.

In cases where people go with build, the good reason is that they have in-house talent (in both quality and volume) capable of producing a world-class product, and then instead of competing for time with the engine makers, all their teams will get support directly from the internal studio that built it. The thing is that last gen, this was fairly doable, but now this is only really viable when you're the size of EA and you have a team like DICE to do the legwork.

The bad reasons, which unfortunately are much more common, are that building in-house saves money (wrong), gives you more flexibility (wrong in most cases), or lets you preserve your old workflows (probably right, but not something you should actually be doing in the first place.)

What's Capcom's track record with MT Framework?

What it is is irrelevant, since the entire issue is that a competitive engine in 2015 is an order of magnitude more complex than one in 2006. When companies had to make investments for PS360, UE3 was a rough piece of work with little documentation and lots of problematic defaults; what you get for your money with UE4 is better in every conceivable way.

IMO the lack of other games using an in-development engine doesn't exactly speak on its tools and content pipeline as much as the incomplete rendering tech that other games aren't even attempting in this particular case.

That doesn't make sense. The rendering pipeline is (relatively speaking) the easy part -- once you've got an engine up and running it won't be difficult to bring other new titles into the fold of its rendering stack. The challenge is actually being able to produce a game, which is where the toolchain comes in.

Better, what's the case for a publisher having 6 engines?
(Snowdrop, AnvilNext, Distrupt, Dumia, GR Wildlands (YETI 2?), and UbiArt)

Ubi is one of the examples of why even most Western publishers can't actually pull off an in-house engine efficiently.

 

[CybernatonEvolution]

Why would a console-exclusive get delayed/canceled? Regardless of what the devs are doing, Sony must have had a great deal with them to fund the project; it makes sense as Capcom wasn't in a good financial situation at that time.


Either way, I was interested in how the game was designed. I might get it alongside Nier 2 and BB when I buy a PS4 in the future.

Edit: what happened to Panta Rhei?

 

[Parsnip]

Some people appear to still be in denial.

It's dead Jim.
Well, maybe not entirely dead but most likely it will be rebooted on/transitioned to UE4.
Panty Raid surely must be dead.

 

[Dictator93]

6 minute gameplay from 1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=81&v=eU8HEnvwixk&t=1m14s

Producer on wanting to increase graphical fidelity even further 7 months ago:



Ono on the game expansion 7 months ago.



6 months ago the producer still talked about what I'm assuming is the fluid simulation, which doesn't look to be implemented in any of the gameplay we've seen.

Ono said it was running on PS4 during the stage reveal and on his twitter. It was obviously just a tech demo at the time showcasing target graphics though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGkHlrPuOM&feature=youtu.be&t=4m18s

http://p.twipple.jp/0vG60



Not necessarily. If they are really adamant about including Voxel GI, fluid simulations, tessellating most of the environment objects, I doubt something like UE4 would make that any easier to get it all working on PS4. If there's a lesson to be learned it's probably knowing when to give up on certain features and that you're being too ambitious.

Those technical ambitions are above every game released this gen on console and even experimental technical branches of AAA engines on PC. I am starting to doubt this game will make it out this gen...

 

[charsace]

I think that this is either cancelled or coming back as a competitor in the engine market.

 

[slavesnyder]

They want to create the next last guardian. Try harder.

 

[vpance]

Clearly they're skipping version 1 of the engine and going straight for 2. Probably gonna look bonkers when it comes out in 2017.