Breaking: Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic
- Thread starter scooby_dooby
- Start date
not necesarily.. Bioshock is an fps in mostly closed spaces. Completely different than what Too Human is trying to accomplished.
What is Too Human trying to accomplish?(ignoring the fact that Bioshock's more UE2.5+major overhaul by Irrational+toolset from UE3).
I think it was mentioned in an interview that bioshock was originally developed on ue2.5 + custom stuff, and then ported to UE3.
isn't too human more of a 3rd person action game with huge enviroments?
scooby_dooby
Legend
Exactly what I was thinking. Bioshock is the nicest game ever to come out on 360, and it's UE3.
Having seen Bioshock, I have to think Epic's middleware business will be just fine.
True, it doesn't vindicate them in regards to this lawsuit, but moving forward, it's obviously a killer engine, that can perform amazing visuals when put in the hands of a talented dev team willing to do the hard work in modifying it.
Doesn't that very point raise doubts as to the evidence of Bioshock supporting UE3? People make silk purses out of sows' ears all the time, in different fields. You can take a naff car and turn it into a great car with a lot of modification. The value of UE3 is to make things easier on developers. If the devs have to put in the same effort modifying UE3 and tool chain to get the required results, versus build their own from scratch, UE3 is no longer a straight win. And we don't know how much they've modified things to pull Bioshock off.
Relating that to the lawsuit, perhaps the Bioshock team had the same issues as SK, but they managed to work past them instead of relying on Epic to come to their aid? This possibility means, for me, the idea of "Look! Finally a UE3 game that isn't from Epic! That proves UE3 is viable" doesn't work. If they had said the engine wasn't hugely modified, that would have supported Epic's position.
As Bioshock sports some sort of FSAA not found in UE3 games such as Stranglehold I assume Morgoth the Dark Enemy is more spot on.
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Hmmm... I don't think many people would be happy if a game called "Boishock" vindicated their software. Bioshock, on the other hand...
Well, I remember them saying pretty much that in regards to UE2.5 as well. But they were pretty comfortable ripping it to shreds since they already had to do it a few times before with System Shock... So being prepared to tear apart UE3 may have been something they were very willing to do and moreover, knew how to.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Well, we know that they ported the engine to UE3 within the last year.
It WAS running on 2.5, so obviously Irrational felt there were some very real benefits to be had with moving to 3, or they wouldn't have done it. And they pulled it off without any major delays.
Irrational did this the smart way. Use an older proven engine for the majority of development, and then once Epic has shipped a game, and their engine is in a final more optimized form, THEN switch over.
SK, took a much riskier path, as they had no contingency plan, and no working engine to use while waiting for Epic to deliver UE3 updates.
As I've said before people, especially those not in direct contact with the technical side usually masively underestimate the engineering cost of adopting a 3rd party engine and shipping a title on it.
I've seen cases of management sweeping aside engineering objections to 3rd party engines, only to be cursing the engine supplier a few months later when they realise there is a real engineering cost associated with it.
Some developers know what they are getting up front, and they're willing to pay the cost so they can start content development earlier in the cycle.
How the law suit goes is going to depend on the way Epic presented the technology and set expectations with Silicon Knights, contract law is very complex and I don't pretend to understand it, but it's my understanding that as much can ride on the percieved intent of the contract and discussion surrounding the contract as much as the exact wording of the final agreement especially if the wording is overly broad.
I've seen cases of management sweeping aside engineering objections to 3rd party engines, only to be cursing the engine supplier a few months later when they realise there is a real engineering cost associated with it.
Some developers know what they are getting up front, and they're willing to pay the cost so they can start content development earlier in the cycle.
How the law suit goes is going to depend on the way Epic presented the technology and set expectations with Silicon Knights, contract law is very complex and I don't pretend to understand it, but it's my understanding that as much can ride on the percieved intent of the contract and discussion surrounding the contract as much as the exact wording of the final agreement especially if the wording is overly broad.
From the same interview that StefanS posted:
So it sounds like they're still mostly using their modified stuff, but they switched the base engine stuff out for UE3. So I wouldn't say this proves anything about UE3 since they're not using the complete engine, and in their own words "there's a lot of marketing there".
i dont know if this has been said but each company that liscenses UR engine are under contractual agreement not to speak anything bad about the engine. Saying there is a lot of marketing there is probably the strongest language a developer can use without breaing there contract and thus a strong indication of them having issues with the engine.
If they have developed on the engine beffore such as UR2.5 then i would say they know exactly what Kind of product and support level to expect when switching to 3.
If they have developed on the engine beffore such as UR2.5 then i would say they know exactly what Kind of product and support level to expect when switching to 3.
archangelmorph
Veteran
Hmm I'll ask my friend John about the validity of this..
Digital Extremes are, or perhaps were, one of Epic's closest partners. They helped develop/co-develop Unreal, UT, UT2003, UT2004, UT on the PS2/DC and UC on the Xbox.
If one of Epic's working partners are coming out with this, I wonder how many others feel the same.
Onkl Bjorni
Newcomer
Look's like SK lost the case against EPIC
http://kotaku.com/5914326/epic-says-epic-wins-lawsuit-battle-with-silicon-knights
Guess we wil never se Too Human 2 now
I really enjoyed the first one, even with al it's shortcoming. Espetali liked the setting/univers the had set up.. Oh vell, Guess I will need to bot up the first game again soon... balder need's to kick som ass Ps. Sorry for digging up such an old thread...
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