Interview Lionheart Q&A over at RPG Vault

[Spazmo]

I'm not blaming LithTech. Feargus himself was pretty clear on the fact that it wasn't so much the fault of the engine as it was that of the BIS people who didn't know how to do 3D. Much the same thing would have happened with any 3D engine, I'm sure.

 

[triCritical]

I'm not blaming LithTech. Feargus himself was pretty clear on the fact that it wasn't so much the fault of the engine as it was that of the BIS people who didn't know how to do 3D. Much the same thing would have happened with any 3D engine, I'm sure.

I think the main problem was that the LithTech engine was not designed for what blackisle wanted to do with it and that was make 3D isometric game. This was not to say that the engine could not do the thing BIS wanted to do, but that the LithTech would have been put to better use with a FPS. I would hate to work on engine and try to force it do soimething that it was never intended to do, just because its the cheapest engine that can be licensed.

 

[Rosh]

Camera view shouldn't be a problem in most 3d engines. Object placement, proportions, and color selection shouldn't be dependent upon the viewpoint.

I can understand the problem with making the interface different, which would be much different than making tables with absurd proportions or...pardon the pun...shitty color selections.

 

[triCritical]

Camera view shouldn't be a problem in most 3d engines. Object placement, proportions, and color selection shouldn't be dependent upon the viewpoint.

That and it had a physics engine designed with a FP game in mind. Don't forget they had to switch versions half way through production because the current version did not allow them to do everything they needed. Trying not to sound like a blatant fanboy, but it is much easier IMO to build a RPG engine yourself (in the long run at least), then transforming something like the budget lithtech (which killed the MM series) or a Doom like engine.

 

[MF]

The Doom engine would actually be quite suitable.

 

[triCritical]

The Doom engine would actually be quite suitable.

Actually I meant to say the quake engines. I guess I am of the opinion that the oinly good thing Id has done was the Doom games.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That and it had a physics engine designed with a FP game in mind. Don't forget they had to switch versions half way through production because the current version did not allow them to do everything they needed. Trying not to sound like a blatant fanboy, but it is much easier IMO to build a RPG engine yourself (in the long run at least), then transforming something like the budget lithtech (which killed the MM series) or a Doom like engine.

There's a simple way around that whole physics engine thing. You just ignore that code exists where you don't want it. It's pretty simple.