Has anyone heard of this graphics engine before? I know someone who is releasing a commercial product based on the engine and from what I hear it is a great engine to work with and easy to use. If SOE ever does decide to change the encryption to something we can't break or if the lackluster appeal of EQ2Emulator continues for a long term the option always exists of creating our own open source MMORPG. I never really considered this option because I am not an artist but from what I hear this engine allows just about anyone to design things and drop them into the world. Long term this might be the way to go because 90% of the problems we have today are caused by trying to implement SOE's crazy network implementation. Controlling both the server AND the client would indeed create more work in the short term, but long term it would prevent us from wasting time trying to figure out how something works (or how it is supposed to work). Any thoughts?

That is absolutely phenomonal. Its funny... I am an artist and not a coder, so this program is daunting for me for the opposite reasons...

I like the idea, and I guess it depends on how difficult it would be to create one.
Is this the engine: http://www.visual3d.net/ ?

They have an open source Second Life client/server as well.

Hey...C#, my favourite programming language...and XNA is easy to work with...sounds promising as long as you can get a stable team.

LE, are you saying you're ready to throw in the towel on EQ2Emu, or are you talking about a side project that's similar to EQ2? Perhaps you're talking about an EQ2 Clone (in the same sense that back in the day of Apple Clones - basically the exact same thing in a different box)?

He is talking about creating a new MMORPG with out SOE's graphics and coding, or at least taking it a different direction with new coding.

While that is a wonderful idea, there are two major problems here with creating our own MMO from scratch with this engine.
1.) This project is only in beta and once it is released, I am sure it won't be free. (I am sure it will be quite expensive actually)
2.) If you look at the Roadmap on their site, it won't be until 2010 until the MMO parts of the program will be available.

Nah, man. Turning this into another SimpleClient project is nothing I'm interested in. I'm in this to emulate a commercial MMO that people otherwise have to shell out money to play.
Edit: Ok, fine. It wasn't fair of me to judge the notion without investigating. After looking at the engine and seeing the results and capabilities, it does look cool. However, I still hope to finish this project without taking time away from it to pursue another... but this does look fascinating.

It wasn't my intent to mislead anyone into thinking that I was giving up on the project. I am still actively working on the emulator, I just wanted to see what everyone thought about the idea if we were forced down that road due to actions taken by SOE. As of right now I have no intentions of quitting the project or deviating from the original intent of emulating the EQ2 client. However, I think it is good to think about other options in case we have to proceed that way in the future. Besides, any work we do for the server would still have to be done if we had our own client so IF we ever decide to switch clients in the future our work here is not wasted.
In conclusion, NO I am not suggesting that we ditch the SOE client and make our own.

In the future I hope we can go down a path similar to Iris. That is, a an open source 3D client that loads up EQ2 data and would allow you to play on the emulator, but also live?

John Adams wrote:After looking at the engine and seeing the results and capabilities, it does look cool.

Any game engine can have good artwork, it doesn't say anything about the engine though. With that said, I've checked this out and I'd have to say this is not that great.
Compare their API to something like Ogre3D's API and you'll understand what I mean.

Their product hasn't been released yet and probably wont be for a few years. That said, I have heard several people that have used different engines (including people that produce commercial games) and they all say that at this point in the product's life cycle it blows the other ones out of the water. Besides just because something is huge and bloated doesn't mean it is a good product. Vista anyone?
If I ever wrote a 3D client it might allow the user to render the EQ2 art, but it definitely would NOT be compatible with Live. Their protocols for the most part are crazy and unnecessary and I would not reuse them if I had a choice.

Besides just because something is huge and bloated doesn't mean it is a good product. Vista anyone?

This has nothing to do with bloat and more to do with Support and documentation.
This project has very little compared to other 3d Engines.

Andrew wrote:

Besides just because something is huge and bloated doesn't mean it is a good product. Vista anyone?

This has nothing to do with bloat and more to do with Support and documentation.
This project has very little compared to other 3d Engines.

Again, because it hasn't been released yet...

It's an interesting idea and I'd like to help see it become a success if I ever get any time to work on anything..