The number one, market leader middleware for MMO development? Unreal Engine? No, sorry, though I would have thought that. MMOs like DC Universe Online, Stargate Worlds and Vanguard (which reportedly used it poorly) plus dozens of console games of all descriptions had me guessing that. Or BigWorld, which a few upcoming MMOs will use (like Twin Skies and 38 Studios’ code-name “Copernicus” MMO, which also claims to be using Unreal Engine… so I’m confused. UE3 for client and BW for middleware? Okay…).
No, apparently the number one MMO development engine is HeroEngine by Simultronics, who’s own MMO, Hero’s Journey, has been stuck in development for many years. HeroEngine was licensed last year by Bioware Austin for the MMO we now know is Knights of the Old Republic Online, but I guess Bioware changed their minds, since they announced a month later that they were using Perpetual Entertainment’s engine. Now that PE is gone, I wonder what MMO engine Bioware actually IS using…
Simultronics just announced that new MMO developers HSC Labs (currently advertising in Craigslist for story writers willing to work in Las Vegas) will be using the HeroEngine in their game. I totally wish their project the best and hope these kinds of deals give Simultronics enough cash to finish Hero’s Journey, but when I see statements like this, I just have to wonder if someone is in for a rude surprise…
HSC Labs Director, Daniel de la Cruz says, “I believe that middleware software is the future of gaming, and that Simutronics is currently the leader in this industry. I also believe that the efficiency and dependability offered by Simutronics is going to push production dates backwards for the first time.” [Source]
I guess people can believe a lot of things. I absolutely agree with Mr. Cruz on the importance of middleware, but without any released MMOs based on the technology, I think it has a ways to go before it can truly claim to be number one.
He’s correct in that middleware is increasingly and incredibly important. Why spend years developing a rendering engine when you can license one and and just get busy making your game? UE3 is a decent rendering engine with an incredible toolkit. BW seems to be a great networking system, so studios are licensing that. Vivox makes a killer VOIP system, why not license that instead of being Blizzard and making your own inferior proprietary one?
If that pissed off ex-VG dev last year was correct, McQuaid had their guys completely re-work UE so none of Epic’s code remained, which goes quite a way in explaining VG’s performance issues. Still… the engine itself was designed around smaller maps, and I can’t help being unconvinced of its viability in an MMO with much larger environments. VG and L2 both use it, and both perform rather clunky and sluggish. 38Studios or Cheyenne Mountain is welcome to prove it can be done, though.
Perpetual’s platform was for handling things around the game itself (support, billing etc), not dealing with graphics rendering.
Since there are many different bits an pieces to an MMO solution, you will probably have a number of players claiming to be market leaders, defined by some scope that is beneficial to them.
Having worked as a game master on Hero’s Journey for awhile – before life caught up with me – I can tell you that the Hero Engine is amazingly powerful and still easy to use. They’ve done a ton of work on the whole development pipeline as well making it easy to get models and such into the game so that world builders can just drag and drop them.
I also have a few ideas about why the game itself is delayed and when we’ll see it but I don’t think I’ll air those in such a public forum 🙂