Unreal Engine is a massive concern for me and I think many are overlooking it.

Prescience · May 2017

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.

As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.

Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.

The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.

Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.

Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.

I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

slagathore · May 2017

How dare you doubt the gospel of Steven!

Intrepid Studios said they are going to build their own network engine on top of UE4 and it will work wonderfully so we shouldn't worry. We will also all be shitting rainbows and riding gumdrop unicorns when they deliver all their promises.

Okay seriously I think Ashes of Creation is another pipe dream of ideas that is being marketed to play off the desires and hopes of MMO gamers of old. I was pretty upset with the whole idea and how even their CEO is ignoring Kickstarter's rules of pledging but trying to shed concern about the project gets you banned from their discord channel and forums and nobody really cares enough to listen. So I've learned to watch with an evil sense of glee as people throw money at their screens over the EXACT SAME PROMISES THEY'VE BEEN TOLD A HUNDRED TIMES BEFORE. I thought that was the definition of insanity but maybe we should ask The Steven to define it for us, and maybe get him to define "core viable product" while he's at it since he's made a refund guarantee against delivering one.

Prescience · May 2017

slagathore said:

How dare you doubt the gospel of Steven!

Intrepid Studios said they are going to build their own network engine on top of UE4 and it will work wonderfully so we shouldn't worry. We will also all be shitting rainbows and riding gumdrop unicorns when they deliver all their promises.

Okay seriously I think Ashes of Creation is another pipe dream of ideas that is being marketed to play off the desires and hopes of MMO gamers of old. I was pretty upset with the whole idea and how even their CEO is ignoring Kickstarter's rules of pledging but trying to shed concern about the project gets you banned from their discord channel and forums and nobody really cares enough to listen. So I've learned to watch with an evil sense of glee as people throw money at their screens over the EXACT SAME PROMISES THEY'VE BEEN TOLD A HUNDRED TIMES BEFORE. I thought that was the definition of insanity but maybe we should ask The Steven to define it for us, and maybe get him to define "core viable product" while he's at it since he's made a refund guarantee against delivering one.

I do hope they switch to an engine that can actually accomplish what they are promising.

waynejr2 · May 2017

Prescience said:

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.
As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.
Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.
The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.
Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.
Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.
I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

So what? Why worry? If the game turns out to be bad life goes on. We move on to other games. Your worry is a trivial thing in the big picture.

blorpykins · May 2017

maybe they should use Unity XD

skullhead51 · May 2017

You use TERA as an example but that is on UE3 and the game is not tab target which requires hit detection. That is probably more expensive than checking line of sight on target in tab target games.

Archeage is a game riddled with bugs and poor coding, yet XLgames somehow made it work with cryengine. So just because an mmorpg hasn't been done on UE4, that doesn't mean it's impossible and is more likely to be easier than making one in the last 10 years. It's not like anyone is reinventing the wheel here as long as they can hire experienced people that know what needs to be done. Building an engine from the ground up is nice and all but using an existing engine and ripping out the back end can obviously work "good enough" based on the amount of MMORPGs that don't use their own engine.

Tamanous · May 2017

Problem solved:

https://spatialos.improbable.io/

May not resolve how many players can be in tight spaces (that is up to how pretty the developers want their game) but this small zone shit has to go.

Camelot Unchained (CSE) is already doing it with their own engine (with real physics btw) but now other developers can start making some real damn mmorpgs again.

It is very true however that the mmo landscape has been so restrictive over the last several years because of limitations created by net and server code. Many players have been brainwashed into thinking it's because the industry wanted this. Nope, it's because developers didn't want to invest in real innovation.

Mark Jacobs and the people over at Improbable luckily had some developer balls.

Ponzini · May 2017

skullhead51 said:

You use TERA as an example but that is on UE3 and the game is not tab target which requires hit detection. That is probably more expensive than checking line of sight on target in tab target games.

Archeage is a game ridden with bugs and poor coding, yet XLgames somehow made it work with cryengine. So just because an mmorpg hasn't been done on UE4, that doesn't mean it's impossible and is more likely to be easier than making one in the last 10 years. It's not like anyone is reinventing the wheel here. Building an engine from the ground up is nice and all but using an existing engine and ripping out the back end can obviously work "good enough" based on the amount of MMORPGs that don't use their own engine.

You make a good point. Tab targetting MMOs have been done and done again. Creating the net code for a game like that shouldn't have to be ground breaking. I believe he mentioned there would be little in terms of physics which again makes it easier.

I am surprised to see this question brought up so often. Their team seems to be very confident they can handle the net code.

Prescience · May 2017

Intrepid claims to have enough funds to complete the project with or without Kickstarter. I don't see why they can't make their own proprietary engine.

pantaro · May 2017

Prescience said:

Intrepid claims to have enough funds to complete the project with or without Kickstarter. I don't see why they can't make their own proprietary engine.

this is exactly my issue with them,as much as i would love the this game to be a thing. we have seen so little and most of what is said is what they know most of us wanna hear yet supposedly he's got all this money.

we all do the same thing he is doing with his kickstarter updates on these forums. talk about our dream game,if all this money is being put into the game already i dont see it or your hiding it somewhere.

Leiloni · May 2017

UE3 is the version that we've seen in a lot of games with problems. UE4 is a new one so we don't know yet how it will perform, but from what I heard it's supposed to be a lot better. On top of that, Intrepid is rebuilding the backend. So until we see some final results, we really don't have anything concrete to discuss.

Jediren · May 2017

Prescience said:

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.
As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.
Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.
The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.
Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.
Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.
I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

I agree here. The unreal engine is my favorite engine, however for a mmo..its one of the worst. ( and I would even put cry engine in here too.) I believe in time they will make it better.

Prescience · May 2017

Torval said:

Prescience said:

Intrepid claims to have enough funds to complete the project with or without Kickstarter. I don't see why they can't make their own proprietary engine.

Well that explains the crazy assumptions you make in the OP. If you want to make your own engine you can take his $30M estimate and double or triple it (along with the time frame) with no guarantees it will be any better than what's out there now. Huge risk, little or no reward.

It would be far cheaper to modify an existing engine than write one from scratch. I was talking with another developer at work about how companies and projects waste so much time and effort needlessly rebuilding what's already out there. You see it everywhere, not just game development.

The team is staffed with experienced industry developers. Do you really think they drew straws or chose the engine "cuz it's the coolest man"? What engine should they have used? Let's hear the right answer and why.

Mark Jacobs is making the Unchained engine with much less funding. How can he do it without that much money? Same with the PearlAbyss engine for Black Desert Online.

Wizardry · May 2017

First of all the engine is NOT for Any type of game,the networking is a different bunch of specialists.
The Unreal engine has the ability to do MORE than other engines i have tried because it can lower polycount w/o even getting into methods if limiting what gets drawn or what we see.
It all comes down to the developer and using an engine as an excuse especially the Unreal is a poor excuse.

The ONLY engine i have personally witnessed as being just bad is the Unity which sadly i believe Pantheon is using and i have had to endure it inside of Blizzard's hearthstone and project Gorgon.
IMO it doesn't matter anyhow,AOC is designed in a way that ANY engine should be able to handle what they are doing,which is not that much.Besides that,if you want ugly Blizzard type graphics,yo can get away with crappy engines and have decent framerates,if you want HD graphics and lots of physics,then you better expect to need a strong cpu/gpu.

It reminds me of the Vanguard era,people coming from Wow complaining of bad framerates in VG,i was like wtf are people really that dumb.

Long story short,AOC is only a midrange game,i would not worry about the engine but more so the developer's abilities.

Lobotomist · May 2017

If there is a red flag for me its MMOs using Unity.

UE4 engine was actually used on few of better and old-schoolish MMOs

Prescience · May 2017

Torval said:

Leiloni said:

UE3 is the version that we've seen in a lot of games with problems. UE4 is a new one so we don't know yet how it will perform, but from what I heard it's supposed to be a lot better. On top of that, Intrepid is rebuilding the backend. So until we see some final results, we really don't have anything concrete to discuss.

We don't know how it will work out for this project, but there is a decent list of titles that use UE4. You can make your own judgement from there, but there is enough out there now to form an opinion.

What we don't know is if the UE4 team will provide support for the title like Unity is doing with Crowfall. Unity is an engine we've seen very mixed results with so having the team work through issues with ArtCraft.

Another important factor is that Unreal engines aren't entire reworks from the ground up. They are updated for new API and receive some new features. However, the overall design is the same.

The engine sells very well to developers for small multiplayer and single player titles. One example that comes to mind is Gears of War. Since the engines and its past iterations have been successes for the small multiplayer titles they haven't had much need to design them to cope with large amounts of players.

What I am saying is the inherit flaws of the engine in large scale are not being remedied between iterations. Unreal 2 (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Lineage 2) has the same issues Unreal 3(TERA, Bless) did with MMOs. That's why I linked explanations from Unreal forum moderators in my OP.

There are products coming to market to try and deal with the problems such as: https://spatialos.improbable.io/. This makes it apparent that there's an issue with large battle and large amounts of players on screen in these engines.

Lastly, a really good example was the upcoming Chinese title Dark and Light Online which is lowering the per server player amounts after early load testing showed issues with high amounts of clients.

Tiller · May 2017

Lobotomist said:

If there is a red flag for me its MMOs using Unity.

UE4 engine was actually used on few of better and old-schoolish MMOs

Shadowgun Legends is using Unity which happens to be in a news story of the day. http://www.shadowgunlegends.com/

Doesn't look too bad.

And Unity is gaining street cred elsewhere https://unity3d.com/pages/adam

Slapshot1188 · May 2017

Torval said:

Prescience said:

Intrepid claims to have enough funds to complete the project with or without Kickstarter. I don't see why they can't make their own proprietary engine.

Well that explains the crazy assumptions you make in the OP. If you want to make your own engine you can take his $30M estimate and double or triple it (along with the time frame) with no guarantees it will be any better than what's out there now. Huge risk, little or no reward.

It would be far cheaper to modify an existing engine than write one from scratch. I was talking with another developer at work about how companies and projects waste so much time and effort needlessly rebuilding what's already out there. You see it everywhere, not just game development.

The team is staffed with experienced industry developers. Do you really think they drew straws or chose the engine "cuz it's the coolest man"? What engine should they have used? Let's hear the right answer and why.

Pretty sure that Camelot Unchained is not going to cost 60 to 90 million and they are making their engine from scrap. I agree with the overall point, but the example is poor.

Kryn · May 2017

waynejr2 said:

Prescience said:

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.
As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.
Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.
The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.
Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.
Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.
I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

So what? Why worry? If the game turns out to be bad life goes on. We move on to other games. Your worry is a trivial thing in the big picture.

Because how many times are they going to let these type of things go unpunished. It is considered a scam in most every aspect and its illegal. Of course, I guess there is nothing to see since its only $20 per person for the most part and they donated it and wasn't made give it up? If I was them I wouldnt spend another dime on the game...just keep the money. It trivial afterall.

[Deleted User] · May 2017

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Prescience · May 2017

Torval said:

Actually CU is a great example. How on target are they for their project. Is that beta going strong now? Release around the corner? What would the cost of the project have been without writing a custom engine from the ground up compared to running with an existing engine.

You seem to be heavily concerned with how much money Intrepid is going to make instead of how they can make a quality game.

Slapshot1188 · May 2017

Torval said:

Actually CU is a great example. How on target are they for their project. Is that beta going strong now? Release around the corner? What would the cost of the project have been without writing a custom engine from the ground up compared to running with an existing engine.

It would have been impossible. What engine currently available could they use to have 1000 player battles?

Don't you think Jacobs looked to see if the current engines could support his needs before he decided to create one from scratch? IMHO he did the right thing. Instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, he went and built a square hole.

If there was a pre-existing engine that could do it.. sure it would have been faster, but since there wasn't he had to either cut down on his features and settle for a smaller scale, or create an engine that could handle it.

CrazKanuk · May 2017

Kryn said:

waynejr2 said:

Prescience said:

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.
As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.
Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.
The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.
Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.
Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.
I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

So what? Why worry? If the game turns out to be bad life goes on. We move on to other games. Your worry is a trivial thing in the big picture.

Because how many times are they going to let these type of things go unpunished. It is considered a scam in most every aspect and its illegal. Of course, I guess there is nothing to see since its only $20 per person for the most part and they donated it and wasn't made give it up? If I was them I wouldnt spend another dime on the game...just keep the money. It trivial afterall.

First off, I think he was being sarcastic. Secondly, it's not considered a scam. You're painting with a pretty broad brush. By your categorization, someone on GoFundMe looking for funds for an experimental cancer treatment is a scammer too, right?

In the end, I agree with you, though, if I were you, I wouldn't spend a dime on it. It's quite obvious that crowdfunding isn't for you, and that's fine! Enjoy the end results, and let others put their own money at risk. Don't act like it's a scam, though. The risks are well known and actually documented in the campaign.

Prescience · May 2017

There's no reason why they can't shift to their own engine at this juncture. They claim to have the funding without Kickstarter. Boasting about funds that greatly exceed anything Camelot Unchained has come close to securing means we should expect a proper engine for this title.

Sovrath · May 2017

Kryn said:

waynejr2 said:

Prescience said:

The Unreal engine was designed for single player or small multiplayer games. The net code and the way the engine works makes it less than ideal for large scale combat and UI integration. With the developer kits available for Unreal 4 you can easily make a great looking trailer and gameplay footage with minimal effort but that's not even half the battle.
As we can see here the Unreal moderator states that the games replication system is not made to sustain large numbers of players. Further, the system is designed for accurate detection of hit and to-hit variables allowing multiple ticks on a server for competitive gameplay. This along with the replication system can spell disaster when more than 30 - 40 people are on screen.
Past Unreal based MMOs like TERA have had extreme issues coping with large scale combat and still suffer from optimization problems to this day. One can remember "Nexus" conflicts which were major open world events that took place several times a day. The replication system caused the clients to take a beating and too much information going back and forth resulted in lag regardless of graphics settings.
The only option for the developer is to then disable the replication system and make the game engine believe it's in single player mode. This is explained a little bit here. This would take extreme amounts of dedication to deal with synchronization issues that now the developers have to hard code. In short, you'd need some veteran developers with tons of experience to even have a prayer at getting "large scale mass PVP" working without a slide show and ArcheAge-like performance issues.
Moving on, anyone can claim that they are prepared to overcome these problems but in practice (unreal MMOs) it hasn't worked yet. It's also nearly impossible to know if it will work until true load testing is available (hundreds of clients during a test). Veterans of mass PVP games know you cannot utilize FPS engines for MMORPGs. Some names that come to mind would be Mark Jacobs amnd James Boer. Mark Jacobs made proprietary engines for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, and now Camelot:Unchained. James Boer worked on Guild Wars 2 creating its own proprietary engine. These proprietary engines were necessary to allow large scale combat to be lag free.
Moreover, if a guy like Mark Jacobs knew he could utilize an FPS engine like Unreal to get the job done he wouldn't be spending hundreds of man hours creating a proprietary engine. Same with James Boer who could have easily used CryEngine or Unreal. Lastly, an MMO on Unreal can spell outright disaster from the beginning. Take Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as an example there were massive net code issues causing disconnects for months. The game was so bad that it was sold off to Sony.
I do think the Ashes of Creation team has the right ideas in mind in terms of what they want their game to be but without a deviation from the Cost-effective Unreal 4 engine to a proprietary one I believe this game will have extreme issues load balancing large scale conflicts.

So what? Why worry? If the game turns out to be bad life goes on. We move on to other games. Your worry is a trivial thing in the big picture.

Because how many times are they going to let these type of things go unpunished. It is considered a scam in most every aspect and its illegal. Of course, I guess there is nothing to see since its only $20 per person for the most part and they donated it and wasn't made give it up? If I was them I wouldnt spend another dime on the game...just keep the money. It trivial afterall.

Then I guess the difference between you and them is that they at least purport to want to make a game and you just want to scam people?

Do you know what's also illegal? Libel.

CrazKanuk · May 2017

Prescience said:

There's no reason why they can't shift to their own engine at this juncture. They claim to have the funding without Kickstarter. Boasting about funds that greatly exceed anything Camelot Unchained has come close to securing means we should expect a proper engine for this title.

It's a matter of which dragon you want to fight. Personally, I see Unreal as the lesser of dragons. Actually, you can find plenty of information out there on making an MMO in U4. Actually, there is even an MMO template you can buy which includes source code for world server, persistence, etc. for like $100. So even if it's shitty, it can get you running (or walking). It's either that or try to write your own engine and make things look good, which seems easy, but it's pretty non-trivial work.

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Unreal Engine is a massive concern for me and I think many are overlooking it.

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Unreal Engine is a massive concern for me and I think many are overlooking it.

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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다