Gamebryo Lightspeed : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:44 pm

These days it seems like gaming companies are dieing or getting consumed on a large scale. I would go so far as to say that Zenimax is starting to become so large that merger/acquisitions/take-overs are becoming almost monthly news for them, so Bethesda is on the winning side.

Its a sad thing to watch though, all these peeps and jobs getting wiped out in the blink of an eye casts a long shadow over the gaming industry to me, it seems like job security is almost non-existent unless you get lucky and end up in a big/powerful studio.

I wonder if they teach about those aspects of the job in the colleges and graduate programs that focus on getting Into the industry. It would seem prudent to teach today's game-maker students on strategies of how to survive lay-offs, how to apply for jobs after such losses and how to insulate one's self against that. Or at least teach them to watch out for the riskier companies like Activision, which seems right up there in the top list of companies that hack people out instantly - like the poor folks at Bizarre.

Hopefully this trend will change over time, but the industry lost money last year overall and that doesn't spell good things for company OR employee longevity in alot of cases.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:31 pm

The game itself is a combination of different engines working together to produce the world that you get to see.

Gamebryo is the graphics engine, controlling lots of different objects, characters, armour, facial features, weapons, items, etc.

Havok is the physics, explosions, ragdoll, gun damage, etc.

Since Gamebryo is an old engine, the same used in Fallout 3 in 2008, makes it clear that the graphics have reached their limit for this engine.

The engine has been slightly improved to accomodate new textures and models and lighting, but the bugs still remain from back when they made Fallout 3.

Knowing game mechanics helps troubleshooting I guess, so when a bug is apparent, you know it's a bug and that it's not meant to do that.

Sorry for the delay and thank you for taking the time to explain that for me!
:tops:

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:33 pm

I think Duke Nukem Forever was proof that changing game engines mid-development to get the latest features is a marvellous idea that always produces top-notch results.

Nice try, but from what I've picked up there wasn't really anything behind DNF in terms of plot and so on.

But let's try Half-Life. That was almost complete before they completely scrapped and redeveloped it within 12 months (and Valve switched engines at least once to GoldSrc engine during the entire development). Furthermore, almost the exact same thing happened with the sequel after the hack of the Beta.

If the team is good enough, they can handle it.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:12 am

Bigger is not always better. Bethesda's games are always going to be riddled with these problems because they insist on making huge open worlds. I'm waiting to see what Brink, Rage and Hunted are like, because they are not actually huge open worlds and focus on more than just stats.

Not saying that huge open worlds are crap, just that Bethesda has had more than enough chance to try and innovate it, but it's just the same spread-too-thin kind of game that becomes annoying.

BAH.

I buy Beth games because they are huge, open worlds, and I expect that to never change.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:52 pm

If the team is good enough, they can handle it.

If the team is good enough, they wouldn't have to do it.