Recently a couple of friends and myself commited ourselves to start a game company. This because we''re all still fairly young, game fanatics and thought that if we won''t give it a shot now we never will. Since we don''t want to rush into things and think it over good first we promised ourselves to start everything off by writing a good business plan. This might also come in handy when it''s time to talk to investors, venture capitalist, incubators, family members and other people who have more money than they really need We''re at the stage now that we want to make a planning for the development process and have come to a halt at the game engine. This is a crucial part for the planning of the development and resources (staff, budget, etc) needed. We''ve been searching the internet a lot and seem to coma back to LithTech, Quake III and the Unreal Tournament engines as being popular ones. The idea for the game that we have, without going into too much detail, is a real time strategy game combined/integrated with a 1st person shooter. Basically you orchestrate your battle in the RTS with the option to switch to 1st person to finish a certain part of the mission. Since we want the RTS part besides the 1st person shooter we had the idea that maybe the UT or Quake engines might be too limited. LithTech we just don''t know enough about to even make that assumption. I have a CG and animation background and am not a C++ expert and would like to know if for instance the UT engine can be integrated with or linked to a RTS engine. Also would LithTech be able to handle this kind of game? I''d be gratefull for any feedback or comments that you can give me! Cheers!

It all depends on how much money you have .

Quake can definitly handle a rts but do you want to spend 300 grand on the q3 engine??

Quake 1 is free

And the V12 (Tribes 2 engine, very nice) is only $100. Check Garage Games for more info on V12. Right now it's probably the best option for independent developers that want to liscense a professional engine.

Edited by - impossible on June 19, 2001 10:00:56 PM

I really sugest you to take a look at Renderware Graphics is teally powerfull and very flexible, look at www.renderware.com
it is about $1000 per year and per title.

Oscar

I really sugest you to take a look at Renderware Graphics is teally powerfull and very flexible, look at www.renderware.com
it is about $1000 per year and per title. It is used by many large game developers companies like Konami!.

Oscar

Yes V12 is a very nice option. We currently plan to use it for our shooter, but it can be used for an RTS, hell is can be used as a 3d chat.

In terms of standard engine functionality what would be a better option for a RTS combined with a 1st person shooter?

Price vs. development complexity are the key factors here I guess. An expensive engine with less development might mean the same for your budget as a cheap engine with complex and long development.

What would be the best engine if you want less and simple development and what would be the best engine for low price and complex development?

I am leaving marketing out of this because that is discussed in another thread and for now I assume that the game will sell itself.