Someone linked me to this thread so figured I'd come in here and clear
up any misconceptions as to what the future of The Repopulation (and
Fragmented) are. Will use bullet points as that is often the easiest way
to follow.
- We also realized that a port to Unreal
Engine would take time. It would be a significant setback time wise. We
didn't want to ask our users to accept another long bit of downtime
after they had already dealt with downtime from the Repop servers going
down, so we wanted to get a product in their hands (for free) while the
process was underway.
- We decided to make that product a sci fi
survival game, which we have titled: Fragmented. It is in essence a
downsized survival version of The Repopulation. And it is also making
the base of what will be the Unreal Engine 4 version of The
Repopulation. This isn't a replacement product, it is a spin off that
everyone who already owns the Repopulation is going to get for
free. But it's more than that, because it is also The Repopulation,
in that it is the code base that will make up The Repopulation, just
early along in the development process. Where Repop is still a ways from
getting back in testing, we'll begin opening Fragmented up to testers
later this month.
- Fragmented and The Repopulation will be
separate products due to Repop being an MMO, and more complex, but you
can think of Fragmented as stage 1 of The Repopulation. You can play it earlier, and if you prefer it you can keep playing it forever. Those who
prefer the more complex MMO oriented version would play The
Repopulation. Though it will be a bit longer before The Repopulation
gets back into testing, as it's feature set is a lot more complex than
Fragmented's. It requires some larger scale changes to Unreal Engine 4's
networking, requires cross-area transfers, more complex features, and a
lot of additional content. Fragmented gives players something they can
play in the meantime (or after) while they wait on The Repopulation to
enter into its new client's first phase of testing.
- We will be
releasing The Repopulation in modules when it happens. The first stages
will be very similar to Fragmented but with additional features tacked
on. First you might see a release which adds NPCs and Missions, then in
another update engagements are added, etc. That will allow us to get it
back up and testing more quickly, and also to get the modding tools into
the hands of players.
- Both Fragmented and The Repopulation will be moddable and will support player hosted servers, as well as official servers.
- The new Repopulation won't be an exact duplicate of the Hero Engine version. While building systems fresh we will give areas a look which we may feel needed a second look. The spirit of the game will remain the same though, just in a new engine. We have a thread on our web site where we are encouraging players to give their thoughts on this process here: https://therepopulation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=11261
Someone linked me to this thread so figured I'd come in here and clear
up any misconceptions as to what the future of The Repopulation (and
Fragmented) are. Will use bullet points as that is often the easiest way
to follow.
- We also realized that a port to Unreal
Engine would take time. It would be a significant setback time wise. We
didn't want to ask our users to accept another long bit of downtime
after they had already dealt with downtime from the Repop servers going
down, so we wanted to get a product in their hands (for free) while the
process was underway.
- We decided to make that product a sci fi
survival game, which we have titled: Fragmented. It is in essence a
downsized survival version of The Repopulation. And it is also making
the base of what will be the Unreal Engine 4 version of The
Repopulation. This isn't a replacement product, it is a spin off that
everyone who already owns the Repopulation is going to get for
free. But it's more than that, because it is also The Repopulation,
in that it is the code base that will make up The Repopulation, just
early along in the development process. Where Repop is still a ways from
getting back in testing, we'll begin opening Fragmented up to testers
later this month.
- Fragmented and The Repopulation will be
separate products due to Repop being an MMO, and more complex, but you
can think of Fragmented as stage 1 of The Repopulation. You can play it earlier, and if you prefer it you can keep playing it forever. Those who
prefer the more complex MMO oriented version would play The
Repopulation. Though it will be a bit longer before The Repopulation
gets back into testing, as it's feature set is a lot more complex than
Fragmented's. It requires some larger scale changes to Unreal Engine 4's
networking, requires cross-area transfers, more complex features, and a
lot of additional content. Fragmented gives players something they can
play in the meantime (or after) while they wait on The Repopulation to
enter into its new client's first phase of testing.
- We will be
releasing The Repopulation in modules when it happens. The first stages
will be very similar to Fragmented but with additional features tacked
on. First you might see a release which adds NPCs and Missions, then in
another update engagements are added, etc. That will allow us to get it
back up and testing more quickly, and also to get the modding tools into
the hands of players.
- Both Fragmented and The Repopulation will be moddable and will support player hosted servers, as well as official servers.
- The new Repopulation won't be an exact duplicate of the Hero Engine version. While building systems fresh we will give areas a look which we may feel needed a second look. The spirit of the game will remain the same though, just in a new engine. We have a thread on our web site where we are encouraging players to give their thoughts on this process here: https://therepopulation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=11261
I would approach this engine with a bit of caution JC. First of all the server side will fall way short of expectations if you try a OW so you best to work on multi-servers as zone based game play OR write your own version of a clustering based infrastructure as of this time the default engine does not support multi-computer clustering.
A couple issues I ran into. Collision is terrible on sloped terrain. Most times the avatar was running knee deep on the terrain if there was any steep angle like 30 degrees or so. At steep angles the avatar was through the terrain. I submitted a bug report for terrain meshing issues which probably will be fixed in 4.11.
The game save feature, eats a lot of CPU because it saves everything in the list so character data, world data and all go to the disk every time.
Engine performance is poor on anything under mid range. Min spec will have a tough time running a decent frame rate so you will narrow your customer base. Its actually worse than HE in performance. They are working on fixing some of the issues but over all the engine runs at a lower frame rate in the newer release than in 4.8.
Over all the engine is great. Its easy to use. Can do rapid development in blueprints and if needed use C++ when critical code is required. Most time blueprints are good enough.
Anyway, good luck on the switch it probably was the best decision.
Comments
- The Repopulation has not been cancelled. After the issues at Idea Fabrik (detailed here https://therepopulation.com/index.php/news/274-alpha-servers-going-offline-temporarily ) we have made the decision that our best choice would be to port the game to Unreal Engine.
- We also realized that a port to Unreal Engine would take time. It would be a significant setback time wise. We didn't want to ask our users to accept another long bit of downtime after they had already dealt with downtime from the Repop servers going down, so we wanted to get a product in their hands (for free) while the process was underway.
- We decided to make that product a sci fi survival game, which we have titled: Fragmented. It is in essence a downsized survival version of The Repopulation. And it is also making the base of what will be the Unreal Engine 4 version of The Repopulation. This isn't a replacement product, it is a spin off that everyone who already owns the Repopulation is going to get for free. But it's more than that, because it is also The Repopulation, in that it is the code base that will make up The Repopulation, just early along in the development process. Where Repop is still a ways from getting back in testing, we'll begin opening Fragmented up to testers later this month.
- Fragmented and The Repopulation will be separate products due to Repop being an MMO, and more complex, but you can think of Fragmented as stage 1 of The Repopulation. You can play it earlier, and if you prefer it you can keep playing it forever. Those who prefer the more complex MMO oriented version would play The Repopulation. Though it will be a bit longer before The Repopulation gets back into testing, as it's feature set is a lot more complex than Fragmented's. It requires some larger scale changes to Unreal Engine 4's networking, requires cross-area transfers, more complex features, and a lot of additional content. Fragmented gives players something they can play in the meantime (or after) while they wait on The Repopulation to enter into its new client's first phase of testing.
- We will be releasing The Repopulation in modules when it happens. The first stages will be very similar to Fragmented but with additional features tacked on. First you might see a release which adds NPCs and Missions, then in another update engagements are added, etc. That will allow us to get it back up and testing more quickly, and also to get the modding tools into the hands of players.
- Both Fragmented and The Repopulation will be moddable and will support player hosted servers, as well as official servers.
- The new Repopulation won't be an exact duplicate of the Hero Engine version. While building systems fresh we will give areas a look which we may feel needed a second look. The spirit of the game will remain the same though, just in a new engine. We have a thread on our web site where we are encouraging players to give their thoughts on this process here: https://therepopulation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=11261
- You can find more questions answered in the official news post here: https://therepopulation.com/index.php/news/275-the-future-of-the-repopulation
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
I would approach this engine with a bit of caution JC. First of all the server side will fall way short of expectations if you try a OW so you best to work on multi-servers as zone based game play OR write your own version of a clustering based infrastructure as of this time the default engine does not support multi-computer clustering.
A couple issues I ran into. Collision is terrible on sloped terrain. Most times the avatar was running knee deep on the terrain if there was any steep angle like 30 degrees or so. At steep angles the avatar was through the terrain. I submitted a bug report for terrain meshing issues which probably will be fixed in 4.11.
The game save feature, eats a lot of CPU because it saves everything in the list so character data, world data and all go to the disk every time.
Engine performance is poor on anything under mid range. Min spec will have a tough time running a decent frame rate so you will narrow your customer base. Its actually worse than HE in performance. They are working on fixing some of the issues but over all the engine runs at a lower frame rate in the newer release than in 4.8.
Over all the engine is great. Its easy to use. Can do rapid development in blueprints and if needed use C++ when critical code is required. Most time blueprints are good enough.
Anyway, good luck on the switch it probably was the best decision.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.