Give it up already! There are lots of really good engines already out there that are available for lower prices than your time is worth. Just start writing your game and quit with the engine-shtick.
It's just not worth it!
Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!
Clue #1: you can learn just as many things from making games as you can from making engines. also, you learn quite a bit simply by using an engine, because you need to become familiar with how it works in order to use it effectively.
Clue #2: engines are made to be reused. think about that realistically and ask yourself if the engine you are making will actually be reused. Probably not. If, for some reason, you do actually finish your engine, you will use it for a single game, and that's it. Now you've got all of the time you spent on making the engine gone, and then all of the time you spent making your engine work in your game.
Clue #3: as I was writing this little rant, i looked up at the ad placed on the top of the page. guess what it was for? a GAME ENGINE! For
ONLY $100!
Clue #4: as much as you hate to admit it, you probably don't have the skills required to make a AAA game engine. just face it and move on.
But people forget. John is The Man. He has almost certainly sold more copies of his games than you ever will, and each of the games took less than a month to write. Don't listen to him, and instead go about making your Massively Multiplayer First Person Real Time Tactical Role Playing engine, because apparently *YOU* know better.