Originally posted by rounner

C# is a precompiler/ expert for c++ and is not a Java derivative unless you want to debate the origins of object oriented code. If you dont understand that I dont really know why you'd have the confidence to make claims about its appropriateness for games. Claiming games are still mostly written in c is ludicrous. Some people may choose c because they are trying to work with legacy engines that are in c and dont know how to integrate it into managed code.

Relevant for videogame industry engines are all written in C++ (Unreal, BigWorld, HeroEngine..). If a videogame engine isn't written in C++ it is just not professional. C#, Python, LUA... are in this case just "tools" (like the HSL for HeroEngine) which allows the engine user to "mod" his game.

As i thought, C++ closer to the actual hardware and as such you have more control. It's too unwieldy though, i'll crack on with C#, looks like it has a future and i can't ever see myself needing to write an engine tbh.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I want to make my first game, and get some experience in the field. I signed up for the Hero Engine to try it out. I still havnt used it yet, but I wouldnt mind some tips to get started, on where I can learn how to develope multiplayer online RPGs. I been to other sites, but nobody ever seems to have a suggestion on where to start.

Youtube is your friend. There are a bunch of tutorial videos for HeroEngine on there.

Originally posted by Vegetto

As i thought, C++ closer to the actual hardware and as such you have more control. It's too unwieldy though, i'll crack on with C#, looks like it has a future and i can't ever see myself needing to write an engine tbh.

Real coders use assembly :P

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
As i thought, C++ closer to the actual hardware and as such you have more control. It's too unwieldy though, i'll crack on with C#, looks like it has a future and i can't ever see myself needing to write an engine tbh.

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Real coders use assembly :P

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I got a book on that actually and i almost attempted it lol. But it's like, needless to code in such a way nowadays, i suppose it's mainly for hardware.

I'm still undecided over C and whether it will be a good base to work from or if it has aged too much now. I'm sure i'll spend hours either way of going through the same stuff over and over that every language text goes through (classes, loops, declarations, blah blah), until i get to the useful stuff heh.

Originally posted by Vegetto

 

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
As i thought, C++ closer to the actual hardware and as such you have more control. It's too unwieldy though, i'll crack on with C#, looks like it has a future and i can't ever see myself needing to write an engine tbh.

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Real coders use assembly :P

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I got a book on that actually and i almost attempted it lol. But it's like, needless to code in such a way nowadays, i suppose it's mainly for hardware.

I'm still undecided over C and whether it will be a good base to work from or if it has aged too much now. I'm sure i'll spend hours either way of going through the same stuff over and over that every language text goes through (classes, loops, declarations, blah blah), until i get to the useful stuff heh.

 

 

I was kidding. Coding in assembly is a terrible idea.

I use C++ and a bunch of libraries and SDKs like PhysX. And I also use OpenGL.

Most non commercial games use engines like Unity or C4 or Hero or Unreal or something.

Unity is a good engine for learning basic and making small games, but it doesn't seem to be enough for MMOs. No idea on hero engine, never looked into it.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
 

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
As i thought, C++ closer to the actual hardware and as such you have more control. It's too unwieldy though, i'll crack on with C#, looks like it has a future and i can't ever see myself needing to write an engine tbh.

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Real coders use assembly :P

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I got a book on that actually and i almost attempted it lol. But it's like, needless to code in such a way nowadays, i suppose it's mainly for hardware.
I'm still undecided over C and whether it will be a good base to work from or if it has aged too much now. I'm sure i'll spend hours either way of going through the same stuff over and over that every language text goes through (classes, loops, declarations, blah blah), until i get to the useful stuff heh.
 
 

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I was kidding. Coding in assembly is a terrible idea.
I use C++ and a bunch of libraries and SDKs like PhysX. And I also use OpenGL.
Most non commercial games use engines like Unity or C4 or Hero or Unreal or something.

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After some research, i've decided C++ isn't really a route i would like to go down, as it is too intense and is used for stuff that i don't think i'll ever get involved in, i.e. making an engine, coding huge projects, etc. I personally enjoy making small applications and it seems scripting will also play a huge part in future development of existing engines.

I'm going to start up with Hero Engine, it really is impressive how slick it is. It uses HeroScript, which seems to be C#-esque. The inbuilt libraries, IDE and the predictive coding, it's so easy. As a sole programmer or indy guy, i think C++ perhaps isn't ideal for that.

I do wish someone one day would standardize the high-level languages, i mean, Visual C# is so similar to VB it's shocking. i.e. declaring variables:

VB: Dim MMORPG as String
C#: MMORPG as String

And it's all like that.

Except obviously VB isn't OOP and is structural, but imo C# surely supercedes VB now for applications programming.

But for those that haven't tried it, i would recommend a look at HeroCloud. It's now free for the full package, only cost would be if you publish a game off the back of it and get revenue above a certain threshhold.

I am glad you took all advice with a grain of salt. XNA (a version of c# for games) is a very popular environment for those of us that gave up on pie in the sky dreams of writing our own MMO and just want to make small fun games that we can realistically finish.

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Originally posted by rounner
I am glad you took all advice with a grain of salt. XNA (a version of c# for games) is a very popular environment for those of us that gave up on pie in the sky dreams of writing our own MMO and just want to make small fun games that we can realistically finish.

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That's what i'm hoping.

Programming has always been the dagger lurking over my head, mainly as i never had a direct use for it. It would be learning for the sake of it, which to some extent i did (mainly at Uni). Even now, i don't have anything to apply it to, i just know i will need to improve it for future use, especially scripting. I'm not in the market to write a huge program from scratch, as personally i think the tools available lately negate this requirement.

When you look at it objectively, i can't really think of something one lone person would need to use C++ for, over a more friendly language such as C#. It's my understanding (from what i have tried to learn) that C++ comes into its own for large coding projects, but if you were coding something alone, would it be suitable?

Originally posted by Vegetto

 

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Originally posted by rounner
I am glad you took all advice with a grain of salt. XNA (a version of c# for games) is a very popular environment for those of us that gave up on pie in the sky dreams of writing our own MMO and just want to make small fun games that we can realistically finish.

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That's what i'm hoping.

Programming has always been the dagger lurking over my head, mainly as i never had a direct use for it. It would be learning for the sake of it, which to some extent i did (mainly at Uni). Even now, i don't have anything to apply it to, i just know i will need to improve it for future use, especially scripting. I'm not in the market to write a huge program from scratch, as personally i think the tools available lately negate this requirement.

When you look at it objectively, i can't really think of something one lone person would need to use C++ for, over a more friendly language such as C#. It's my understanding (from what i have tried to learn) that C++ comes into its own for large coding projects, but if you were coding something alone, would it be suitable?

I have written a text based browser space MMORTS in php and mysql. That is what I learned coding to do back in the day. Most of that was made easy with HTML and databases. I've written some javascript games as well. Luckily for me PHP has really really similar syntax to laguages like C++ so that made it easier.

The reason that C#  is so similar to VB is that they are .net languages that were designed for the .net framework more or less. Microsoft languages.

This is the dev corner for mmorpg.com so discussing non mmos here seems kinda weird. Might want to go to gamedev.net or something for real support for other kinds of games.

C++ can be used to make anything from a pong clone or a sales tax calculator to an MMO. So its suitable to a degree for anything you want to deal with. You can even get managed C++ and use smart pointers and crap to avoid dealing with memory leaks which are a big problem for C++.

If I was writing a game that was pretty small in size I would just write it in javascript and html or something. You can distribute the code easily and you don't actually need to have internet to use it in a browser.

Something like C++ is totally necessary for a serious graphical MMO but you can make hobby MMOs or sprite based ones easily on an engine or something.

I know what you're saying, but the engine platforms they are releasing now really seem to negate the need for really deep coding. For example hero engine: they give you an engine made in C++, but they allow you to completely modify it in hero script. I know that sounds like a cop out like you are using a level editor or something crap, but you really do have control.

I think that's where the future lies in this genre; the devs that make the engines and the devs that make the games. It just doesn't seem feasible to make both anymore. Other industries split up workloads to different teams and subcontract things like this out. Therefore from this perspective, C++ would be more suited in the engine camp I think, then the scripters in the latter.

Originally posted by Vegetto

I know what you're saying, but the engine platforms they are releasing now really seem to negate the need for really deep coding. For example hero engine: they give you an engine made in C++, but they allow you to completely modify it in hero script. I know that sounds like a cop out like you are using a level editor or something crap, but you really do have control.

I think that's where the future lies in this genre; the devs that make the engines and the devs that make the games. It just doesn't seem feasible to make both anymore. Other industries split up workloads to different teams and subcontract things like this out. Therefore from this perspective, C++ would be more suited in the engine camp I think, then the scripters in the latter.

Well depends on the limitations of the engine.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
I know what you're saying, but the engine platforms they are releasing now really seem to negate the need for really deep coding. For example hero engine: they give you an engine made in C++, but they allow you to completely modify it in hero script. I know that sounds like a cop out like you are using a level editor or something crap, but you really do have control.
I think that's where the future lies in this genre; the devs that make the engines and the devs that make the games. It just doesn't seem feasible to make both anymore. Other industries split up workloads to different teams and subcontract things like this out. Therefore from this perspective, C++ would be more suited in the engine camp I think, then the scripters in the latter.

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Well depends on the limitations of the engine.

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Well, quite. You kinda need everything under the hood before bothering. I'm slowly researching HeroEngine but it's relatively very new, it's only been released a couple of months and even less than that under the free license, so no one has really done much with it yet. Which in a way is exciting. People think Swtor used it, but I wouldn't even class it as anything like the hero engine, they took a very skeletal version of it.

Game devs make new game engines for their games for a very simple reason: games are always running at the limits of the hardware, thus having full control over the code and handcrafting it is crucial for optimal performance.

Originally posted by Vegetto

 

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
I know what you're saying, but the engine platforms they are releasing now really seem to negate the need for really deep coding. For example hero engine: they give you an engine made in C++, but they allow you to completely modify it in hero script. I know that sounds like a cop out like you are using a level editor or something crap, but you really do have control.
I think that's where the future lies in this genre; the devs that make the engines and the devs that make the games. It just doesn't seem feasible to make both anymore. Other industries split up workloads to different teams and subcontract things like this out. Therefore from this perspective, C++ would be more suited in the engine camp I think, then the scripters in the latter.

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Well depends on the limitations of the engine.

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Well, quite. You kinda need everything under the hood before bothering. I'm slowly researching HeroEngine but it's relatively very new, it's only been released a couple of months and even less than that under the free license, so no one has really done much with it yet. Which in a way is exciting. People think Swtor used it, but I wouldn't even class it as anything like the hero engine, they took a very skeletal version of it.

Yeah the current engine is WAY superior to what SWTOR had. I was thinking about doing some work with it to see if it was good. I would use it if I thought it could support the features for TTS.

There are numerous tutorials on youtube for HeroEngines. From very basic tutorials to complex operations.

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Originally posted by TruthXHurts
There are numerous tutorials on youtube for HeroEngines. From very basic tutorials to complex operations.

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I have every single Hero Video from YouTube burned to disc.

Hero themselves have put out 40 (although some of these are tech demos) and their community guy Raven has put out 13 i think.

They are mainly for setting up everything, such as importing/exporting assets. Ravens ones are good, as you can watch a 4 min clip of him just going through every option of something and know how it works, rather than read pages of the Wiki.

They have ones on HeroScript, but i think they are more focussed on implementing scripts and calling them, rather than the syntax, etc. Haven't watch all the videos yet except Ravens though.

Besides that, the information out there is mainly theoretical or talking about procedure. i.e. player housing - on the Wiki it discusses the design principles of implementing the system, but not how or where to start with the engine - it just gives general methods.

Considering the engine only released commercially last august i think and for free on HeroCloud alot more recently, i don't think there will be many devs anywhere with development yet. On the forums i think there are a couple of concepts and only really one (The Repopulation i think) that has any progress it seems.

Exciting times really, as i think this may be one of the first complete MMORPG dev packages of this standard and surely the first that's free (Big World is about £300 for a limited indy license).

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
 

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Vegetto
I know what you're saying, but the engine platforms they are releasing now really seem to negate the need for really deep coding. For example hero engine: they give you an engine made in C++, but they allow you to completely modify it in hero script. I know that sounds like a cop out like you are using a level editor or something crap, but you really do have control.
I think that's where the future lies in this genre; the devs that make the engines and the devs that make the games. It just doesn't seem feasible to make both anymore. Other industries split up workloads to different teams and subcontract things like this out. Therefore from this perspective, C++ would be more suited in the engine camp I think, then the scripters in the latter.

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Well depends on the limitations of the engine.

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Well, quite. You kinda need everything under the hood before bothering. I'm slowly researching HeroEngine but it's relatively very new, it's only been released a couple of months and even less than that under the free license, so no one has really done much with it yet. Which in a way is exciting. People think Swtor used it, but I wouldn't even class it as anything like the hero engine, they took a very skeletal version of it.

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Yeah the current engine is WAY superior to what SWTOR had. I was thinking about doing some work with it to see if it was good. I would use it if I thought it could support the features for TTS.

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The Wiki is good, but i find things like that difficult, as i prefer structured documentation, rather than "Search and hope". So, i think with Hero it's a case of just seeing how far you get before you hit a roadblock, as the engine is so new.

Oh check out the videos on the dynamic sky, particle effects and the terrain editor, some nice effects for little work there.

What i'm in the dark about with this engine is in terms of crafting. I've looked at the inventory system and how it can generate objects by combining them, but i think it will involve alot of trial and error.