Intersect Game Engine Review After 4 Months

[Julian]

Hi All.

 

I was very interested in the intersect project.

 

These are my gripes and the reasons why I am leaving the community.

 

1. github patches:

 

a) There are so many new releases of intersect that the patches that are being built typically last as long as the intersect version is standing. At least half of the patches are incompatible with eachother and also break when new versions come out.

b) The github version control process is tedious, confusing for non programmes and frustrating for programmers due to the above problem.

 

2. There is no plugin or extension system and the code is not documented inline. Insead we are forced to use the github patch system with the problems mentioned above

 

3. The foundation, monogame is actually quite limited and introducing advanced functionality often proves impossible.

 

4. The opensource beta was rushed in my opinion.

 

a) They system should never have been released without a working guild system

b) There are limited visual programming structures .. which could have been handled visually through common events as the infrastructure is there

c) Rubber Banding on official servers.

 

5. The moderators of the forum are too strict and micromanage the users. I find this very frustrating

 

6. The open source policy is frustrating. I would have rather paid a once off license to have complete control over the source code.

 

7. Responses on forums are limited as this project has been marketed as a non programming engine . The reality is that it should have been marketed as a template for programmers because the features are so limited.

 

8. Nobody told me that I had to buy visual studio. I ended up building for a month only to find out that my license expired and I had to purchase the expensive visual studio system.

 

9. No real C# Guidelines or class documentation. It is very frustrating trying to modify the code as I simply find myself continuously looking for a needle in a hay stack...

 

In conclusion, I could have spent less time building my game in javascript then I spent working in this engine.

 

I would give it a 2 out of 5 stars.

 

Cheers,I doubt that I will return to this forum for another 18 months...Maybe something would have changed by then. This engine is very young and needs a lot of work

[Beefy Kasplant]

Open source rushed, that's a new one. 

 

Agree with the patches, it's annoying.

 

You don't have to buy Visual Studio, just use the community version.

 

Anyone could have told you that Intersect is not the right engine to create a 'game' like yours in. 

 

Hope to see you back, with some more backbone!

 

PS: How is the android version coming along? 

 

 

[AisenArvalis]

15 minutes ago, Julian said:

Hi All.

 

I was very interested in the intersect project.

 

These are my gripes and the reasons why I am leaving the community.

 

1. github patches:

 

a) There are so many new releases of intersect that the patches that are being built typically last as long as the intersect version is standing. At least half of the patches are incompatible with eachother and also break when new versions come out.

b) The github version control process is tedious, confusing for non programmes and frustrating for programmers due to the above problem.

 

2. There is no plugin or extension system and the code is not documented inline. Insead we are forced to use the github patch system with the problems mentioned above

 

3. The foundation, monogame is actually quite limited and introducing advanced functionality often proves impossible.

 

4. The opensource beta was rushed in my opinion.

 

a) They system should never have been released without a working guild system

b) There are limited visual programming structures .. which could have been handled visually through common events as the infrastructure is there

c) Rubber Banding on official servers.

 

5. The moderators of the forum are too strict and micromanage the users. I find this very frustrating

 

6. The open source policy is frustrating. I would have rather paid a once off license to have complete control over the source code.

 

7. Responses on forums are limited as this project has been marketed as a non programming engine . The reality is that it should have been marketed as a template for programmers because the features are so limited.

 

8. Nobody told me that I had to buy visual studio. I ended up building for a month only to find out that my license expired and I had to purchase the expensive visual studio system.

 

9. No real C# Guidelines or class documentation. It is very frustrating trying to modify the code as I simply find myself continuously looking for a needle in a hay stack...

 

In conclusion, I could have spent less time building my game in javascript then I spent working in this engine.

 

I would give it a 2 out of 5 stars.

 

Cheers,I doubt that I will return to this forum for another 18 months...Maybe something would have changed by then. This engine is very young and needs a lot of work

 

1: 
a) This is expected when there's multiple users introducing new features and might be messing with the same code and it will cause clashes no matter what.

b) OpenSource is meant for programmers and if you can't handle it, get someone to do it for you or use a pre-built base

 

2: Maybe a extension system is in the works and you don't know it? And as I said above, have someone else do it for you or use a pre-built base

 

3: I can agree that MonoGame is limited as a base but it's what they decided to use. Oh well.

 

4: Eh, no. It's been in development for YEARS. This was not rushed at all.

a) Pedantics, a guild system would be the first thing people would make for this using the new OpenSource. Didn't really happen as it's more complex than you think.

b) I'm sorry things aren't drag and drop, lol

c) This is highly dependent on Server location and player location as well as their network connection. I've used Intersect since B5 and had NO issues with rubberbanding.

 

5: Well yeah, they're doing their job.

 

6: You DO have control over your own fork of the Open Source if you wanted to. But you just can't resell it, that's all.

 

7: Eh, no.

 

8: VS is completely free if you got the Community Edition ...

 

9: Google is your friend, there's plenty of classes online in how to learn C#

 

To your conclusion, why didn't you?

[wishy]

I rofl'd pretty hard. Sounds a bit hypocrite saying the open source release is rushed, did you even see your own creation? Looks like it's worse than just a rushed project, and you sell it's source for 4k and even claim to have an android version for sale...

 

You seem to be on a quest to find the perfect wysiwyg game engine which ranges from 2D to 4D, has built in multiplayer and mmo support, visual scripting and export options to all platforms, but still don't want to touch stuff like VS and can't even see that it has free versions (and in the end complain that it doesn't work properly to your standards and that you will rewrite it all.... But applying a git patch or downloading Visual Studio seems too hard for you... )

 

Goodbye!

 

 

[jcsnider]

Re: Rubberbanding

https://github.com/AscensionGameDev/Intersect-Engine/issues/141

 

TLDR; Not gonna be a hard issue to solve. Commenting out one line of code would do it. (Just would open you up to speedhackers). Working on a smarter system to do protection without kicking legit players back. 

[Ainz Ooal Gown]

2 hours ago, Julian said:

Hi All.

 

I was very interested in the intersect project.

 

These are my gripes and the reasons why I am leaving the community.

 

1. github patches:

 

a) There are so many new releases of intersect that the patches that are being built typically last as long as the intersect version is standing. At least half of the patches are incompatible with eachother and also break when new versions come out.

b) The github version control process is tedious, confusing for non programmes and frustrating for programmers due to the above problem.

 

2. There is no plugin or extension system and the code is not documented inline. Insead we are forced to use the github patch system with the problems mentioned above

 

3. The foundation, monogame is actually quite limited and introducing advanced functionality often proves impossible.

 

4. The opensource beta was rushed in my opinion.

 

a) They system should never have been released without a working guild system

b) There are limited visual programming structures .. which could have been handled visually through common events as the infrastructure is there

c) Rubber Banding on official servers.

 

5. The moderators of the forum are too strict and micromanage the users. I find this very frustrating

 

6. The open source policy is frustrating. I would have rather paid a once off license to have complete control over the source code.

 

7. Responses on forums are limited as this project has been marketed as a non programming engine . The reality is that it should have been marketed as a template for programmers because the features are so limited.

 

8. Nobody told me that I had to buy visual studio. I ended up building for a month only to find out that my license expired and I had to purchase the expensive visual studio system.

 

9. No real C# Guidelines or class documentation. It is very frustrating trying to modify the code as I simply find myself continuously looking for a needle in a hay stack...

 

In conclusion, I could have spent less time building my game in javascript then I spent working in this engine.

 

I would give it a 2 out of 5 stars.

 

Cheers,I doubt that I will return to this forum for another 18 months...Maybe something would have changed by then. This engine is very young and needs a lot of work

 

I agree with everything that @AisenArvalis, @Beefy Kasplant and @wishy said.

 

Basically sounds to me like you dont want to put the effort into making a game, which takes time, patience, effort and alot of trial and error. The community here is great and people go out they way to support and help eachover and if your like me and not a true coder, you ask here and people guide you/point you in the right direction.

 

If you really believe this engine is 2/5 stars then go use a different one. I really dont see the point to your rant as Intersect was built by developers for years and then they just freely give it out. They did not have to do that and could of sold it as it is a very powerful engine, and now has even more potenial being open source to edit it to the way you invision, but with that you have to put in the effort.

[jcsnider]

3 hours ago, Julian said:

The foundation, monogame is actually quite limited and introducing advanced functionality often proves impossible.

 

2 hours ago, AisenArvalis said:

3: I can agree that MonoGame is limited as a base but it's what they decided to use. Oh well.

 

Since it isn't possible to derail this thread... I'd love to touch on this and discuss/learn.

 

MonoGame was chosen because of simplicity, performance, and it achieved our goals of keeping desktop cross platform support with no licensing restrictions. (No matter how profitable a project becomes)

 

It also leaves the door open for dedicated developers to port their projects to mobile devices in the future which is nice. It's not perfect by any means, but their dev team has been great to work with and problems we have faced with it have been quickly resolved.

 

So that leaves me with a 2 part question:

• I guess I'm wondering what 'advanced functionality' specifically is missing in MonoGame that you would want in a typical 2d orpg (or even a dating chat app in the dark)?
• Outside of SFML (which we did use in Intersect for quite awhile but discontinued due to performance issues) what other libraries should we have considered?

[panda]

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

1. github patches:

a) There are so many new releases of intersect that the patches that are being built typically last as long as the intersect version is standing. At least half of the patches are incompatible with eachother and also break when new versions come out.

b) The github version control process is tedious, confusing for non programmes and frustrating for programmers due to the above problem.

1a. You can simply use the exact commit that the patch is for rather than constantly updating. If you are going to constantly update, you need to either wait for patch authors to update their patches, or learn how to resolve merge conflicts yourself. Patches being incompatible with each other? That's going to happen no matter what. Plugins can be incompatible with each other too. If you are referring to git not allowing you to patch, that's because the documented commands and options on Intersect's documentation website only cover the absolute basics, meant for people who had never interacted with this stuff before. If one is actually ready to resolve a merge conflict though (requires an extra argument on git am), they would look for git's documentation for the command and find what they're looking for immediately.

1b. Version control software is complicated, but it also does a lot of the work that you would otherwise have to do in order to accomplish the same tasks. It's something to learn. Having to resolve merge conflicts is frustrating, sure, but it's also inevitable if I want to be collaborative. Having to clean up after cats is frustrating, but it's inevitable if I have cats. Having used version control for years and having not used version control for years, I can say with certainty that I prefer the aid of git to trying to manage my code like I'm writing an Untitled-Final-Paper-Final-Draft-v3-DEFINITELYTHELASTDRAFT (2).doc.

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

2. There is no plugin or extension system and the code is not documented inline. Insead we are forced to use the github patch system with the problems mentioned above

2. Plugins and extensions... not an easy system to write! Most of the code isn't well documented, you're right. But most of the documentation that would be added will still not say "here is where you make your changes for X feature that you want", that's something that needs to come from experience, which is the result of investing time. A lot of it. You're not forced to use the patch system. You could make modifications by yourself instead of getting low-cost if not free help from other users.
 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

3. The foundation, monogame is actually quite limited and introducing advanced functionality often proves impossible.

3. Monogame is actually not extraordinarily limited. It just doesn't plop down what you want in front of you without research. It's got a lot of barebones functionality, it is a framework after all. JC writing some rendering code using VBOs is proof that it really isn't limited to just "blit this sprite here".

Since JC replied in the middle of me writing this I'll respond to his post now. 

19 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

MonoGame was chosen because of simplicity, performance, and it achieved our goals of keeping desktop cross platform support with no licensing restrictions. (No matter how profitable a project becomes)

 

It also leaves the door open for dedicated developers to port their projects to mobile devices in the future which is nice. It's not perfect by any means, but their dev team has been great to work with and problems we have faced with it have been quickly resolved.

 

So that leaves me with a 2 part question:

• I guess I'm wondering what 'advanced functionality' specifically is missing in MonoGame that you would want in a typical 2d orpg (or even a dating chat app in the dark)?
• Outside of SFML (which we did use in Intersect for quite awhile but discontinued due to performance issues) what other libraries should we have considered?

Like I pointed out, VBOs have been used, shaders too and more can be added.

In case anyone was thinking "SFML" and "advanced functionality" in that order without "does not provide" in between them is sadly mistaken. SFML is horribly limited and very non-performant at the scale that something like Intersect needs. The "this is not advanced" is literally in the first letter of "SFML" which stands for Simple. What SFML allows is for you to interface directly with OpenGL in order to do all of the VBO and shader magic needed for performant code for intensive drawing capabilities that it doesn't really give you the ability to do itself. With Monogame you don't have the ability to use OpenGL directly, but it does give you access to VBOs and shaders so it's not like it's hanging you out to dry. But both of those things are complicated features and by their nature are difficult to use. Having used both of them in OpenGL myself, I would argue that anyone arguing that VCS is too complicated is in for a reckoning if they thought "advanced functionality" was anything less than "complicated".

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

4. The opensource beta was rushed in my opinion.

4. Personally, I think the code base needed to be improved further before going open source. Realistically speaking though, there were 3 developers with access before. All of us have jobs. All of us have lives. Our jobs and our lives come before working for free on a code base that you are not being forced to use. Many of the forum members were close to rioting because the source took 3 years to release after I joined, and I joined to speed it up. Ironically, my joining probably slowed the source release down by a lot, but then the claim that it was rushed (because the code was a mess) would have been much more true.
 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

5. The moderators of the forum are too strict and micromanage the users. I find this very frustrating

 5. There are rules. Users are supposed to abide by those rules. Don't complain that people are doing their jobs if you don't like the rules, you should get public support for amending a rule instead.

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

6. The open source policy is frustrating. I would have rather paid a once off license to have complete control over the source code.

6. If we were in the business of selling licenses for the code, the license would be more restrictive not less. Notably: Instead of being allowed to compile the client and share it without source code, and being allowed to share the server/editor with their source code provided as well, you would only be allowed to publicly share a compiled client and you would not be allowed to share the source, period, or that would undermine selling licenses.
 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

7. Responses on forums are limited as this project has been marketed as a non programming engine . The reality is that it should have been marketed as a template for programmers because the features are so limited.

 7. There are 0 engines with advanced features that are truly non-programming engines. You might think "how about Unity or Unreal?", well: they're both programming engines. You can drag and drop all you want, but at the end of the day for any real customization or advanced functionality someone has to write code. Whether you buy it pre-written, write it yourself, or pay someone else to write it custom for you, someone wrote code. Even doing advanced things in Game Maker required at least basic scripting (or spending eons in the visual code editor).
 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

8. Nobody told me that I had to buy visual studio. I ended up building for a month only to find out that my license expired and I had to purchase the expensive visual studio system.

8. You don't have to.

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

9. No real C# Guidelines or class documentation. It is very frustrating trying to modify the code as I simply find myself continuously looking for a needle in a hay stack...

9. No documentation on a code base this large is going to tell you what you want to know before you even know what it is you want, at least not when it's written by 3-4 people over the course of 5 years in their free time.

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

In conclusion, I could have spent less time building my game in javascript then I spent working in this engine.

 

I would give it a 2 out of 5 stars.

This would have made a fine end to what is ostensibly a negative rant.

 

2 hours ago, Julian said:

Cheers,I doubt that I will return to this forum for another 18 months...Maybe something would have changed by then. This engine is very young and needs a lot of work

The engine does need a lot of work, you're right. And thank you for all of your contributions towards improving the engine.

[buu]

The moderators are pretty lenient in my experience. Except damian. Bro let me go back to the chat box bro 

[Riuback]

hello people maybe they don't understand me much, I don't speak English, but I wanted to tell you that what little I understood is that it bothers you github, is that in this you are right, it is very annoying, why? why only apply the patch! if you are copying part of the code in X sector you are learning and even accommodating it to your liking, one never ends up understanding how the engine works

[jcsnider]

1 hour ago, Riuback said:

hello people maybe they don't understand me much, I don't speak English, but I wanted to tell you that what little I understood is that it bothers you github, is that in this you are right, it is very annoying, why? why only apply the patch! if you are copying part of the code in X sector you are learning and even accommodating it to your liking, one never ends up understanding how the engine works

 

Want to do it manually, here's how you take a patch and view it's changes. If you want to learn that way, great. At least with the patch you can check beforehand if it would apply so you don't get half way through your copy-paste session and realize it isn't compatible. Also viewing the diffy means that you can see the exact changes and they won't be subject to author errors from translating patch -> forum topic. 

https://www.ascensiongamedev.com/topic/5092-hint-examine-patches-with-diffy/

 

[Shilo]

@Julian

Lets be real. This is far from a review and just straight complaints. Every point you made was negativity. Also a lot of what you said sounds like lack of knowledge on your end. Everything has pros and cons, but you seem to avoid looking at the pros, one of which would be saving a massive amount of time on creating your own 2d MMORPG from scratch. The fact that this is open source makes it practically limitless.

One of the biggest giveaways to your lack of knowledge and openness, is the following statement:

Quote

In conclusion, I could have spent less time building my game in javascript then I spent working in this engine.

It would take a single developer well over a year(s) to develop something on par with Intersect Engine, and that requires knowledge and tons of free time that very few people have as programmers.

Sounds like you should go back to RPG Maker MV and stick to using pre-build plugins and no multiplayer. I hope you take more than 4 months to learn how to do proper coding to know the shear work thats involved in this project.

Heres my review:
There isn't a single 2D ORPG Engine that compares to the scale and functionality of this engine. The dedication and effort shows very clearly. Thank you for making my life easier.

[ShiEksdee]

5 hours ago, Shilo said:

Sounds like you should go back to RPG Maker MV and stick to using pre-build plugins and no multiplayer.

Incorrect. There are plugins to make robust, fully functional MMORPGs in MV, plus you're able to use nearly all the existing plugins to customize with, making that plugin effectively "the most fully functional, ease-of-use, 2D MMORPG Maker". So far.

I check back here for updates in case things are added, though. And do appreciate the work of these developers.

[Cheshire]

37 minutes ago, ShiEksdee said:

Incorrect. There are plugins to make robust, fully functional MMORPGs in MV, plus you're able to use nearly all the existing plugins to customize with, making that plugin effectively "the most fully functional, ease-of-use, 2D MMORPG Maker". So far.

I check back here for updates in case things are added, though. And do appreciate the work of these developers.

 

6 hours ago, Shilo said:

Heres my review:
There isn't a single 2D ORPG Engine that compares to the scale and functionality of this engine. The dedication and effort shows very clearly. Thank you for making my life easier.

 

 

I'd say the main upside to intersect compared to RPG maker is that you have online editors multiple people can use to work on the same project at once. And edits to the editors themselves can easily be made and distributed to team members without needing to swap the entire project around the place and get licenses for each member.

 

There's probably more back and forth where one engine beats the other in terms of functionality and features. Especially since both were originally designed with different use cases in mind. For example, adding new features to Intersect is more work.. BUT because it is designed to be online the client itself has basically no say in anything, like it should. With RPG Maker, the entire engine is designed to be single player leaving a lot more holes and potential points where users can fool the system that you simply can not change. (Unless you write your own executable, but at that point you're basically at the same point as Intersect)

 

Saying one is inherently better than the other seems an odd thing to me.

[jcsnider]

Also it's minimal in the grand scheme of things but there is a barrier of entry to MV in terms of cost.

 

You are then constrained to the limitations of MV as a whole while with Intersect if you have a developer you have full control over everything - you're only limitation is the language itself.

 

If MV with plugins and whatnot handles all of your needs though then by all means go that route, given their funding and army of developers I'd expect them to have the better product. I remain skeptical, however, about the viability of the online plugins at play, given past experience with those that existed for XP and VX.

[ShiEksdee]

13 minutes ago, Joyce said:

 

 

 

I'd say the main upside to intersect compared to RPG maker is that you have online editors multiple people can use to work on the same project at once. And edits to the editors themselves can easily be made and distributed to team members without needing to swap the entire project around the place and get licenses for each member.

 

There's probably more back and forth where one engine beats the other in terms of functionality and features. Especially since both were originally designed with different use cases in mind.

 

Saying one is inherently better than the other seems an odd thing to me.

Well, note that i say fully functional ease-of-use, which is one of OP's main critiques. I more commented to the fact that someone thinks there's no MMORPG functionality in MV, when there is, and being consistently updated. I switched to the MV engine specifically for the turn based battles alone, which is a big pull to my specific project.

My downside to MV is that it's JavaScript and I'm currently learning C# and not that, so when all is said and done, I could customize faster/better in an engine using C# than the latter. But for now battle systems are too daunting of a task for just an upper novice in programming. XD; And I'm too poor to hire anyone. So I'd say for ease of use, MV beats it out as far as "ton of nearly out-of-box" features", as most plugins come with clear guides for customization and you learn programming logic by altering code and tweaking here and there without having to write from scratch~

Hm, there's the "editor mode" you link to with the one plugin I use, but I am the sole eventer/maker in that regard so I haven't tried out collaborative tools on either engine. You do still need a little technical knowledge and some elbow grease to get it working completely as you want, pull it online, etc., the engine is just an easier engine to use as of now, if it has the plugins you want.

EDIT: And yes, the cost, but it does go on sale for 50-75% of pretty frequently. In terms of cost though, this engine will always beat. Also i think more guides/tutorials/etc. could take it a long way as well. RPG Maker has a whopping community behind it, too. But it's too be expected since this one is still in its infancy yet.

[Cheshire]

8 minutes ago, ShiEksdee said:

Well, note that i say fully functional ease-of-use, which is one of OP's main critiques. I more commented to the fact that someone thinks there's no MMORPG functionality in MV, when there is, and being consistently updated. I switched to the MV engine specifically for the turn based battles alone, which is a big pull to my specific project.

That's why I pulled both quotes in there, I'm not really trying to prove anything to anyone or tell someone they're completely wrong. Just adding my opinion on the topic of both of the engines put side by side. Discussions like this are good, as they show people different perspectives they might not have considered.

 

8 minutes ago, ShiEksdee said:

You do still need a little technical knowledge and some elbow grease to get it working completely as you want, pull it online, etc., the engine is just an easier engine to use as of now, if it has the plugins you want.

Yeah, I'm not saying you're wrong here, to be honest for some people it might very well be the right solution.. But long term I see the same problem JC foresees as mentioned here:

 

10 minutes ago, jcsnider said:

I remain skeptical, however, about the viability of the online plugins at play, given past experience with those that existed for XP and VX.

 

The main issue for me, is that it is inherently a single player engine. And while it DOES have a multiplayer mod it is technically still multiplayer tacked unto an engine that was not built to be used as such. There will always be inherent limitations you can not work around.

 

The use of other plugins also concerns me, as in theory players could just add whatever plugin they want to mess with the game and it would never correct them properly.. It is after all not designed to do so.

 

Intersect, while maybe not as plug and play for the inexperienced can be extended (securely) to a much greater degree.

[ShiEksdee]

Once I get gud with the programming, I can likely migrate back over to here, which is my intention, cause I can customize and tailor to my specific taste. I don't plan on learning JS, at least, it's not on my trajectory. My ORPG is a hobby project and most of my interests in commercial games are single-player games (learning Unity engine).

There are hurdles, but the plugins so far make for fully functional 2D ORPGS. Parties, guilds, pets, crafting, chat, auction house, global events, etc. it's got it all almost - still in dev, but what's there works in a fairly non-buggy way.

Cause I ultimately agree that if you program, this is the better engine (designed from the base to support ORPGs). But if you want to pull in new people who want to learn programming without it being too daunting to make stuff that almost all ORPGs should have at the core, and then moving away from it because they can't get a basic ORPG, it's gonna take more time in the oven for the dev and community to expand it to such. I hovered around here wondering if I should migrate back and make a "need a lead programmer" thread, but I'd be afraid of the cost for what I want to do (turn based battle systems, pet systems, guilds........) lol

[jcsnider]

Turn based battles is a good reason to choose MV for sure. Not something we will ever officially offer AFAIK. Do the online systems offer turn based PvP these days? Interesting nonetheless.

[Riuback]

11 hours ago, jcsnider said:

 

Want to do it manually, here's how you take a patch and view it's changes. If you want to learn that way, great. At least with the patch you can check beforehand if it would apply so you don't get half way through your copy-paste session and realize it isn't compatible. Also viewing the diffy means that you can see the exact changes and they won't be subject to author errors from translating patch -> forum topic. 

https://www.ascensiongamedev.com/topic/5092-hint-examine-patches-with-diffy/

 

 

:0 Thanks 

[Shilo]

 

7 hours ago, ShiEksdee said:

Incorrect. There are plugins to make robust, fully functional MMORPGs in MV, plus you're able to use nearly all the existing plugins to customize with, making that plugin effectively "the most fully functional, ease-of-use, 2D MMORPG Maker". So far.

 

6 hours ago, ShiEksdee said:

I more commented to the fact that someone thinks there's no MMORPG functionality in MV, when there is, and being consistently updated.

You are assuming things bud. At no point did I state that RPG Maker MV had no multiplayer plugins. As multiplayer games is a must for me, I have researched far and wide for decades on game engines with multiplayer functionality, well before RPG Maker MV and Intersect Engine existed. I have both used RPG Maker MV and followed the development of a few multiplayer plugins for years. There only seems to be one RPG Maker MV multiplayer plugin that has potential, and that is "Alpha NET". The majority are for past RPG Maker versions and the functionality is skeptical for all of them. If he uses RPG Maker MV for multiplayer, he will most definitely run into more difficulties. But if that's his choice then best of luck to him!

But that's besides the point of my statement. I love RPG Maker MV I think its very possible to extend it with multiplayer functionality. However, due to it's focus on single player and turn based, it will prove to be an insanely hard task to create something even nearly on par with Intersect Engine. If Julian isn't happy with Intersect Engine, I fear he will have no luck with any engine given his current knowledge. That's why I simply suggested he should rethink his goals if he's not up for the major task at hand.

 

I could have stated my RPG Maker MV comment better, but in truth, it was basically my backwards approach to the following:

Quote

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

The limitation is not with Intersect Engine or any engine for that matter. It's all about knowledge, time, and dedication. The limit is ultimately in ourselves. With my decades of research and development with MMORPG engines, i've realized that even though there's no perfect solution, the real problem always ended up being my lack of knowledge and commitment, as it still is. You can do anything you set your mind too. Intersect Engine is merely a tool (amazing one at that) that helps you with your goal to creating an ORPG, whether we succeed is all on ourselves. Hope that makes more sense.

[Shilo]

6 hours ago, ShiEksdee said:

Once I get gud with the programming, I can likely migrate back over to here, which is my intention, cause I can customize and tailor to my specific taste. I don't plan on learning JS, at least, it's not on my trajectory. My ORPG is a hobby project and most of my interests in commercial games are single-player games (learning Unity engine).

Unity Engine is a great choice to pick up programming and general game development. I use the engine regularly. Plus C# is a very enjoyable and well rounded language and learning Unity development will help you to work with Intersect Engine in the future.  There is also a couple good 2D MMORPG assets for unity (such as uMMORPG 2D). Alternatively, Javascript is also one of my favorite languages because its very easy to use and widely used in tons of platforms.

Unfortunately from my experience after everything ive used, whether is old VB6 ORPG engines, Unity MMORPG assets, Unity network assets, RPG Maker MV plugins, EOSERV, networking from scratch via web or game engines (you name it ive either tried or researched it). My experience has taught me that I require particular knowledge and skill-sets that I dont entirely have yet and I always end up back with waiting for Intersect Engine to mature enough. Now I just need time to dive back into it.

I wish you the best of luck on your project! It's so exciting to learn new things such as Unity Engine.

[Mighty Professional]

This reads more like a rant then a review as others have said. A lot of your problems come from not knowing the programming space. There is comments and documentation, maybe a beginner programmer needs much more but a experienced one can read code like English and more comments just bog down the experience. Only complicated explainable sections should be commented. It may need more, but honestly the intersect code base is not complicated (from the parts ive read, im sure there are complicated parts).

 

Visual studio is completely free, you just tried to get the professional version which is 100% not needed and you probably wont even know the difference at your experience level. Hell, almost everything is free now, im not even sure I know the difference anymore.

 

You clear dont know programming, but you could rewrite your whole game in javascript in less time? Seems unlikely.

 

You also argue that monogame is limited but dont say why? Seems like something you read somewhere and dont understand why.

 

The github patch point is somewhat true.

 

 

At the end of the day, a engine that requires no programming will be limited in what it can do. Rpg maker may be ahead in features as its been out longer. Not really a fault of intersect. If you want to make a unique game your going to have to program, or at least use visual scripting of some kind.

[Julian]

On 5/12/2020 at 2:10 PM, AisenArvalis said:

 

1: 
a) This is expected when there's multiple users introducing new features and might be messing with the same code and it will cause clashes no matter what.

b) OpenSource is meant for programmers and if you can't handle it, get someone to do it for you or use a pre-built base

 

2: Maybe a extension system is in the works and you don't know it? And as I said above, have someone else do it for you or use a pre-built base

 

3: I can agree that MonoGame is limited as a base but it's what they decided to use. Oh well.

 

4: Eh, no. It's been in development for YEARS. This was not rushed at all.

a) Pedantics, a guild system would be the first thing people would make for this using the new OpenSource. Didn't really happen as it's more complex than you think.

b) I'm sorry things aren't drag and drop, lol

c) This is highly dependent on Server location and player location as well as their network connection. I've used Intersect since B5 and had NO issues with rubberbanding.

 

5: Well yeah, they're doing their job.

 

6: You DO have control over your own fork of the Open Source if you wanted to. But you just can't resell it, that's all.

 

7: Eh, no.

 

8: VS is completely free if you got the Community Edition ...

 

9: Google is your friend, there's plenty of classes online in how to learn C#

 

To your conclusion, why didn't you?

I am a programmer, most likely far more experienced then you. I have been programming since before the internet ...My comments are based on my personal experience with hundreds of frameworks, api's etc over the years

[Julian]

On 5/14/2020 at 4:42 PM, Mighty Professional said:

This reads more like a rant then a review as others have said. A lot of your problems come from not knowing the programming space. There is comments and documentation, maybe a beginner programmer needs much more but a experienced one can read code like English and more comments just bog down the experience. Only complicated explainable sections should be commented. It may need more, but honestly the intersect code base is not complicated (from the parts ive read, im sure there are complicated parts).

 

Visual studio is completely free, you just tried to get the professional version which is 100% not needed and you probably wont even know the difference at your experience level. Hell, almost everything is free now, im not even sure I know the difference anymore.

 

You clear dont know programming, but you could rewrite your whole game in javascript in less time? Seems unlikely.

 

You also argue that monogame is limited but dont say why? Seems like something you read somewhere and dont understand why.

 

The github patch point is somewhat true.

 

 

At the end of the day, a engine that requires no programming will be limited in what it can do. Rpg maker may be ahead in features as its been out longer. Not really a fault of intersect. If you want to make a unique game your going to have to program, or at least use visual scripting of some kind.

You clearly do not know programming if you think that visual studio is programming. It is one of many IDE's I work on a linux environment , using JAVA, CLASSIC C, CLASSIC ASP, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, COBOL AND STRAWBERRY PERL. You are the amature and completely do not know programming if you think that visual studio is the only programming IDE