hypothetical question: what would it take to update an entire game engine?

[Local_Custard]

In this hypothetical let's set some things first:
-money is not an issue
-the dev team is willing in this hypothetical
-time is not an issue
-this isn't necessarily a suggestion but instead an exploration for me.

With that, I will pose the question:
in this hypothetical: what would it take to update the entire game engine?

This would of course include fixing some of (if not all of) the incongruent code. We could be generous and say with this update the battle system could change (in any number of ways or be kept the same/similar) along with core features like character customization. It could increase game limits too.

[Jeeqbit]

-money is not an issue

I don't think this is an issue.

-the dev team is willing in this hypothetical

I mean, that literally depends if they are paid to do it and asked to do it as part of their job.

But there is another issue. Are there enough people with the necessary skills and training and experience to do it? Can SE recruit and train them faster than they retire?

-time is not an issue

Unrealistic. Of course time is an issue. Yoshi-P maintained a spreadsheet that accounted even for bathroom breaks, modified an existing (but different) engine and reused assets and lore just to change the engine from 1.0 into 2.0 in 2 years. Normally making an MMORPG takes many more years than that.

what would it take to update the entire game engine?

It depends on the extent.

• Changing the network code is quite simple. They just change it. They already have, by the way, to make use of technologies being used by modern competitors. It was that change that they had to revert temporarily because it caused lag issues.
• Changing the graphics seems unnecessary because the engine is capable of what you see in FF16, they just limit it on purpose because it's a multiplayer game. They are updating mainly assets and shaders rather than the engine in the graphics update, although there are a few functional additions like the experimental dynamic resolution feature.
• Updating the sound is also quite simple. They did that as well recently around the time we got the Immerse Spatial Audio partnership.
• Fixing "spaghetti code" can be difficult because it is essentially code, built upon code, built upon code. Like a stack of cards, if you remove the bottom card, it all falls down. Like a house, if you remove the support walls, it all falls down. The current game is built on the back of 2.0, despite that we have moved away from a lot of 2.0 principles ie. role actions are based on the cross-class system, we moved away from classes yet they still exist because the jobs rely on them, FCs and houses were designed for a single world but we can visit other worlds now, linkshells were abandoned and an entirely new UI made for cross-world linkshells most likely to avoid dealing with the old code. This code does get improved sometimes but it has the potential to break lots of things so they have to be careful doing it. Visiting other worlds and data centers was in fact an example of a major change they had to take their time with and be very careful with to avoid major bugs or data loss.

[LilimoLimomo]

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask "what would it take?" Broadly speaking, time and money are the only limiting factors...but you've said that neither time nor money is an issue, suggesting that in this hypothetical there is a limitless supply of both.

There's nothing else you need at that point; with infinite time and infinite money, there's very little that you can't achieve.

[sagacious]

I don't think this is an issue.

I mean, that literally depends if they are paid to do it and asked to do it as part of their job.

But there is another issue. Are there enough people with the necessary skills and training and experience to do it? Can SE recruit and train them faster than they retire?

Unrealistic. Of course time is an issue. Yoshi-P maintained a spreadsheet that accounted even for bathroom breaks, modified an existing (but different) engine and reused assets and lore just to change the engine from 1.0 into 2.0 in 2 years. Normally making an MMORPG takes many more years than that.

It depends on the extent.

• Changing the network code is quite simple. They just change it. They already have, by the way, to make use of technologies being used by modern competitors. It was that change that they had to revert temporarily because it caused lag issues.
• Changing the graphics seems unnecessary because the engine is capable of what you see in FF16, they just limit it on purpose because it's a multiplayer game. They are updating mainly assets and shaders rather than the engine in the graphics update, although there are a few functional additions like the experimental dynamic resolution feature.
• Updating the sound is also quite simple. They did that as well recently around the time we got the Immerse Spatial Audio partnership.
• Fixing "spaghetti code" can be difficult because it is essentially code, built upon code, built upon code. Like a stack of cards, if you remove the bottom card, it all falls down. Like a house, if you remove the support walls, it all falls down. The current game is built on the back of 2.0, despite that we have moved away from a lot of 2.0 principles ie. role actions are based on the cross-class system, we moved away from classes yet they still exist because the jobs rely on them, FCs and houses were designed for a single world but we can visit other worlds now, linkshells were abandoned and an entirely new UI made for cross-world linkshells most likely to avoid dealing with the old code. This code does get improved sometimes but it has the potential to break lots of things so they have to be careful doing it. Visiting other worlds and data centers was in fact an example of a major change they had to take their time with and be very careful with to avoid major bugs or data loss.

so what % of the game code has changed? 50? 25?

[Larirawiel]

Heya,

the Lotro-devs wanted to upgrade the graphics of their game and this would cost them ~30 millions USD. So they abandoned it because for 30.000.000 USD you would get a new game. I guess, upgrading the FF14 engine would be equally expensive.

The second thing is, you do not need an upgrade of the FF14 engine. The not so great graphics is not an engine issue, it is a content issue.


Cheers

[Local_Custard]

I don't think this is an issue.

I mean, that literally depends if they are paid to do it and asked to do it as part of their job.

But there is another issue. Are there enough people with the necessary skills and training and experience to do it? Can SE recruit and train them faster than they retire?

Unrealistic. Of course time is an issue. Yoshi-P maintained a spreadsheet that accounted even for bathroom breaks, modified an existing (but different) engine and reused assets and lore just to change the engine from 1.0 into 2.0 in 2 years. Normally making an MMORPG takes many more years than that.

It depends on the extent.

• Changing the network code is quite simple. They just change it. They already have, by the way, to make use of technologies being used by modern competitors. It was that change that they had to revert temporarily because it caused lag issues.
• Changing the graphics seems unnecessary because the engine is capable of what you see in FF16, they just limit it on purpose because it's a multiplayer game. They are updating mainly assets and shaders rather than the engine in the graphics update, although there are a few functional additions like the experimental dynamic resolution feature.
• Updating the sound is also quite simple. They did that as well recently around the time we got the Immerse Spatial Audio partnership.
• Fixing "spaghetti code" can be difficult because it is essentially code, built upon code, built upon code. Like a stack of cards, if you remove the bottom card, it all falls down. Like a house, if you remove the support walls, it all falls down. The current game is built on the back of 2.0, despite that we have moved away from a lot of 2.0 principles ie. role actions are based on the cross-class system, we moved away from classes yet they still exist because the jobs rely on them, FCs and houses were designed for a single world but we can visit other worlds now, linkshells were abandoned and an entirely new UI made for cross-world linkshells most likely to avoid dealing with the old code. This code does get improved sometimes but it has the potential to break lots of things so they have to be careful doing it. Visiting other worlds and data centers was in fact an example of a major change they had to take their time with and be very careful with to avoid major bugs or data loss.

I was primarily thinking of the incongruent coding in it. My thoughts were around the limits of the character creator. However, I also wanted to keep my post broad to see what other people could think of for updating the game engine.
The infinite time and money was primarily to say in the hypothetical those weren't limiting factors. So, yeah. My question was to ask what would have to go into it (I guess like a dissection of the game) to change various aspects of the game in this hypothetical.

I would like to apologize for not having my thoughts be clear and how hastily written my post was.

[MistakeNot]

What it would take is a lot of work and time. And of course money to pay for all that work.

Something to keep in mind is that those people working on the hypothetical engine upgrade would then NOT be working on other things. And you can't just hire a bunch of new people and throw them at the task, unless you want the development to get very inefficient. What this means is that an engine upgrade would mean that regular content updates would get delayed quite a bit meanwhile.

As it is, I assume they actually do upgrade things here and there as needed and when they have time. Not a full rewrite, but many small improvements.

[MsQi]

It would take… updating the entire game engine.

[Sindele]

I don't see it taking less than four years, realistically. You're basically asking for a full remastering. A not wholly inaccurate comparison would be WoW Classic, and that was a less ambitious project working on a smaller content base that still took somewhere in the realm of 3-4 years.

The only reason ARR worked in the time it did was because of a willingness to commit to an absolutely unreasonable pace of work, and because they were recycling the bones of a game that was literally months old when planning began. An engine 'update' presumes keeping a decade of content wholly intact and functional and that is, paradoxically, a much more challenging ask. It's also the kind of project that is hard to shave time off of by just adding more people - feature-heavy, high-complexity projects are prone to being riddled with volatile bottlenecks where one person's work can hold up dozens more from even beginning theirs.

[SannaR]

What it would take is a lot of work and time. And of course money to pay for all that work.

Something to keep in mind is that those people working on the hypothetical engine upgrade would then NOT be working on other things. And you can't just hire a bunch of new people and throw them at the task, unless you want the development to get very inefficient. What this means is that an engine upgrade would mean that regular content updates would get delayed quite a bit meanwhile.

As it is, I assume they actually do upgrade things here and there as needed and when they have time. Not a full rewrite, but many small improvements.

I want to say they answered this question if not a similar one recently. Where they said if they did this it would mean having the game down for a whole year. Which we all know would not fly with a lot of players. Even if it did mean that the game would hopefully be better.