Hero Engine Troubles Could Cause Downtime - The Repopulation News

Shelassa · November 2015

Hero Engine Troubles Could Cause Downtime - The Repopulation News

The Repopulation, built using the Hero Engine, stands the very real possibility that there will be serious downtime as a result of Idea Fabrik's financial issues.

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PurplePoloPlayer · November 2015

The combat system could use an overhaul so perhaps an engine change is best in the long run.

psiic · November 2015

An engine change could only help. Always hated the hero engine felt it was very amateurish at best.

Octagon7711 · November 2015

I had big hopes for that game. Hopefully everything will work out for them.

Solar_Prophet · November 2015

Sucks for these guys, but no sympathy for Idea Fabrik. Hero engine is complete garbage, though Above and Beyond has done much better with it than Bioware has.

Razeekster · November 2015

Another MMORPG ruined by Hero Engine... I would have thought after SWTOR, developers would have known to stay away from the engine if they were planning on making a full-scale open world MMORPG, but I guess I was wrong. :|

kamenryder · November 2015

Is too late for a refund? I mean.. I bought the game one year ago and I played it less than one hour. I decided then to wait for the final release.. and now you are telling me that you have to start over again? I know it's my fault. I didn't listen to the rule number one: never buy unfinished games.

Jinxys · November 2015

ouch harsh news. Not good at all. But an Engine change? Could someone with some knowledge on this please chime in. Wouldn't that mean a massive setback to the game if they have to change the entire game to an entirely new graphics engine? This is not just a simple change right?

Also another question. Was Hero Engine from the same people that were doing that mmorpg some years back, "Hero's Journey"? I remember waiting for that game then it just vanished . An nvm I found it http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/174/Heros-Journey.html Same company I guess

Wizardry · November 2015

Maybe the oddist thread i have ever witnessed.

Who the hell is Idea Fabrik,why is this all of a sudden a crisis now?Why do financial reasons have anything to do with the engine?

Ok so i have to google Idea Fabrik to find out they own the rights to the Hero engine.I also have to read their marketing add to find out they offer a sort of build the game along with you type of design.I guess in a way most do that anyhow,i mean Epic games will help you out somewhat with their Unreal engine if you choose to pay for that added feature.

Even still the thread makes no sense as to what exactly is the problem?Am i to assume that if Idea Fabrik is in debt and might go bankrupt losing ownership of it's engine?Then i have to assume how can they be bankrupt or in debt?Did they borrow a ton of money to gain access to this engine from prior owners?

I know big business usually operates in a sort of bullshit mannerism anyhow by borrowing so much just to get started and often times taking all money and putting it somewhere else holding the business in financial debt.It is not like that team made the engine,they simply inherited it likely through borrowing money from a bank/investor.Why would anyone sign a license to work with some outfit that never even built the engine is beyond me.

This is why budget game development is just bad at all times,whatever game they are building will NEVER be the best possible version of that game,instead a budget build.

Seelinnikoi · November 2015

Hero Engine sucks so much! :(

Atrocitus · November 2015

Alas, I was right.....All those years ago making posts about why this game was/is doomed to fail FINALLY came to fruition. This team could never ever make this work, for a million different reasons. This reason was just one in a plethora of them that could of killed it....

This is why you don't put your hard earned cash down on an 'idea' people. So ill just leave this here...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Atrocitus · November 2015

kamenryder said:
Is too late for a refund? I mean.. I bought the game one year ago and I played it less than one hour. I decided then to wait for the final release.. and now you are telling me that you have to start over again? I know it's my fault. I didn't listen to the rule number one: never buy unfinished games.

Its not that you dont put cash in an unfinished game...Its that you dont put cash down on a idea, especially one with such a small inexperienced team with zero practical experience. No cash backing, horrible graphics and simpleton A.I.....

I could go on and on...And I have in other threads regarding this game....

To all you people who gave this game cash?

Hope you learned your lesson...............

Muke · November 2015

PurplePoloPlayer said:
The combat system could use an overhaul so perhaps an engine change is best in the long run.

Hero engine proved a disaster for SWTOR, although it was a modified version.

donger56 · November 2015

The reason this game has taken so long is because they already did switch to a new engine from what they started with which made them have to remake the game once already. Having to do that all over again seems impossible for a small team like this. I really wanted this game to do well and even bought a founder pack for it on steam, but I haven't touched it in a year. It looks like it is pretty much over for this one. It is unfortunate, but that's the reality of crowdfunded MMO's they pretty much all fail lately.

Baitness · November 2015

Not saying I believe that ESO is not running on Hero Engine (if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck..) but Zenimax claims that they built the assets in hero and then ported them to their own engine.

If that is true, maybe there is plenty of hope yet for the Repopulation.

jesteralways · November 2015

Bioware bought license of hero alpha version back when they were just showing a new engine to game developers and trying to attract attention in media. Bioware took the alpha version, modified it heavily to make swtor and they spent over 100 millions of $ to just make the engine mmo worthy.

MrSnuffles · November 2015

HeroEngine just like Unity is not able to handle real MMORPG's unless you throw a team at the source code and rewrite it. Why people still try it is a mystery to me. Especially people that have never made a game before and think they can instantly advance to the masterclass of game development: MMORPGs.

The next game hitting the brick wall is going to be Saga of Lucimia.

IAmMMO · November 2015

They need to buy a license to use Engine Darkfall uses. That engine will do what they want to get out of this game.

Lobotomist · November 2015

Changing the engine will put the game back at least 2 years. And thats if you have AAA team of top notch programmers and at least 5 million dollars.

Since they have neither. You can write this game as vaporware right now.

Honestly, i suspect they are seeing the game is heading nowhere , so they are trying to abandon the project.

observer · November 2015

The devs were persistent in keeping the Hero Engine, despite everyone telling them it wasn't good, especially after seeing it in action with Swtor. Hero Engine, Unity, and Unreal Engine are not good for MMOs at all. It's just a cheap way of saving money.

Antiquated · November 2015

observer said:

It's just a cheap way of saving money.

What in that statement is at odds with "crowd-funded startup?"

Lobotomist · November 2015

observer said:

The devs were persistent in keeping the Hero Engine, despite everyone telling them it wasn't good, especially after seeing it in action with Swtor. Hero Engine, Unity, and Unreal Engine are not good for MMOs at all. It's just a cheap way of saving money.

Actually Unreal Engine is pretty good for MMO. And only one that some actually good MMOs are based upon

Phry · November 2015

Baitness said:

Not saying I believe that ESO is not running on Hero Engine (if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck..) but Zenimax claims that they built the assets in hero and then ported them to their own engine.

If that is true, maybe there is plenty of hope yet for the Repopulation.

Zenimax used Hero engine during development, by the sound of it, for the benefit of the art assets, while their own game engine was being developed. Hopefully it means that any art assets that Repop have created can be ported from the Hero engine they are using, to whatever engine they decide to use in the future, should that become an option. But thats not to say that it doesn't also require a ton of work to do so, either way i think its safe to say, if Repop continues to be a thing, it will push back their beta a signficant amount of time.
Bioware had a much bigger team of professional coders, and even then it still took a ton of work for them to make Hero Engine work, and no doubt they probably wish they had chosen to make their own engine at the end of it, that the Hero Engine creators themselves are now in trouble, may be largely down to the Hero Engine not proving popular with other developers either, so their revenue from it is probably next to zero, chances are, no matter what happens to Repop now the Hero Engine is finished, hopefully Repop will recover from this, but, i wouldn't get my hopes up, the hurdle now before them may be insurmountable.

DXSins · November 2015

Its interesting to wonder how many more of these indi/crowdfunded mmo dev studios are signing up to licencing deals like this which can destroy the game at any time and are totally dependent on outside sources (outside of backer funding of course).

I mean atm this has happened while the game isn't finished but by the sounds of it, this could have happened 1-2 years after the game released and it would be in the same situation, right? And from what ive read over the last few weeks on the hero engine problems, this isn't the only project effected by this.

I guess swtor studio foreseen this possibility happening and is why they bought the base alpha engine and coded it anew themselves.

MrSnuffles · November 2015

"Unfortunately we can only say so much due to confidentiality agreements. A third party partner of ours has run into some issues though which are having a trickle down affect on us." [source]

This kids is why you don't patchwork your game with plugins and packages from the asset store by third party developers.

What you do is:

1. Get a real Engine like Unreal
2. Sit your ass down and start coding in C++
3. Develop for 5 years
4. Profit

Watch Saga of Lucimia go belly up next with their game based on Unity and asset store.

MrSnuffles · November 2015

Phry said:

Baitness said:

Not saying I believe that ESO is not running on Hero Engine (if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck..) but Zenimax claims that they built the assets in hero and then ported them to their own engine.

If that is true, maybe there is plenty of hope yet for the Repopulation.

...the Hero Engine creators themselves are now in trouble, may be largely down to the Hero Engine not proving popular with other developers either, so their revenue from it is probably next to zero, chances are, no matter what happens to Repop now the Hero Engine is finished, hopefully Repop will recover from this, but, i wouldn't get my hopes up, the hurdle now before them may be insurmountable.

I think the main problem is that the source license is completely overpriced for this POS of an engine. Compare that to Unreal or even CryEngine.

"The basic HeroEngine source code license is $75,000 with a 7% revenue share." [source]

No wonder they are in trouble.

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Hero Engine Troubles Could Cause Downtime - The Repopulation News

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Hero Engine Troubles Could Cause Downtime - The Repopulation News

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"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey