Mike

As far as I'm aware, the Engine itself allows you to make money with it. However, depending on which engine you use, you must give them credits afaik. And you have to make sure that everything (music, graphics etc.) is free to use for you commercially. I'd also suggest you to stick with the base or renown custom version of the Engine, since I've seen plenty of Eclipse-Based Versions, which came with plenty of ripped stuff. Personally, I'm having a look at Unity… since it has a 2D Mode and MMO-Support (unlike Unreal for no additional fee), I figured I should at least consider it, even tough it's gonna add at least 1 year on top of the time I'll need to make my Game.

Sorry that my replies take so long, but I keep running into issues with the page and have to clear my cache all the time. @'PD': > The limitations on the amount of players a server can support comes from the fact that the server wasn't designed in a good manner. This isn't a limitation of VB6 but instead a problem with how the server was programmed. At the sametime, if you look to a game like PokeCyrus which for the longest of time was running on Eclipse Evolution (Yes, the codebase was changed and updated through the years) but still it was based on an even older version of Eclipse and that game could support a couple hundred players at a time. > > At this point, you should either go with Worlds or Skywyre. Neither is the greatest engine ever but they are somewhat stable and somewhat still supported. But to get far, you will either have to become a programmer yourself or find a programmer to help you. You may even find a programmer for free who works with you in a collaboration. Couple hundred doesn't sound too bad… I've seen quite a lot of PokeMMO, but I don't quite get why it's THAT popular... sure I played Pokemon, too... but it's not really suited for MMO imo. ATM the only eclipse engines I consider are Worlds and Skywyre... Worlds surely has the pluspoint of Helladen being active on the Forums. But on IndieDB I've seen a earlier Worlds Version as gold edition with Projectiles... which seems to mean that Projectiles are a Premium Feature there. And at least for one of my stories, this would be a huge downer... then again I guess I could just go with Skills only. * * * @'Agoraphobic': > The idea of only programmers or artists making a game is incorrect. > There are writers, such as myself, but more importantly anyone can be a game designer. > Use existing free graphics and music. Create your own story and design your game. > > Realistically as your first project it is highly unlikely you will get hundreds of players. Make a game, get a player base, then take it from there. Worst case you have several people playing your game; best case you deal with the issue when you have that large of a player base. Well, I don't need free Graphics, as said I can make them and already have made some. I just don't do it like an artist… Music... I can get my hands on some or even make it if I have to, but tbh I don't think it really matters too much. As far as stories are concerned, I have 1 done and 1 in progress (both 100% unrelated to each other)... and I'm not talking about a lore etc. If you'd compare it to the storyline of Guild Wars 1 + Add ons, both would be notably longer, altough it depends on the point of view. I never said I can get hundreds of players, I just said I can get that many to test it. How many players I end up with, is something nobody can tell... but I don't have any illusions about my 1st attempt resulting in any sort of success. My main goal is creating the Game I want, without making compromises on the crucial parts.

@'abhi2011': > They come from the base engine. All those players require their own chunk of memory and processing times. The original engine was never written with 100s of players at a time. Maybe 20-30\. It'll start failing bit by bit by that time. Well… doesn't this - by default - make it next to hopeless to make money ouf of anything based on Eclipse? I mean... the only Business Model really working is F2P with Premium Features or hoping for Donations... both would mean that roughly 95% of your Playerbase isn't gonna spend a single $. Taking the 100 Player limit (as mentioned, which requires a lot of optimisation by people knowing what they're doing), that would mean 5 players would help to finance your server, team and energy drinks consumed in the process. And I'd assume it would not even be enough for the energy drinks. @'Helladen': > You won't get far if you aren't a programmer or artist. This is why I became a programmer. Nin Online using an i7 processor can get over 300 players on a single server with no problem. The only issues we had were the packets being exploited and flooding the server by DoSing, and the event system has major problems with redim. Redim causes the server to break under high loads of pressure. This is why you only use redim for developer tools and not player data. Game data is fine as long as you aren't using it for events for instance. Well… programmer wise I think I'm a lost cause... anything going beyond cheap Fallout NV mods is beyond me. Calling myself an artist would be insulting to all artists, but I can create the graphics I need in GIMP. Well... just an i7 doesn't tell me a lot but it still sounds like a rather small player number compared to the system requirement. btw. I do get DoSing, but not what "redim" is...

@'abhi2011': > I'm guessing you could reach somewhere at 30-40 with heavy optimizations and bug fixing. But, I don't think any base engine will support more than that. I've worked on Nin, and the only reason it is able to support so many players because of the time invested in fixing many of its problems. Last I remember, we got 100+ on a single server after which a second server was deployed. (I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. Seth might be able to clarify more) > > 1000+ players is beyond this realm. You'll be deploying multiple servers by that time (assuming you get the funds to get yourself a programmer to do that) > > I honestly think you should give up on Eclipse and find yourself a more powerful engine written in a more modern language. VB6 is super old and support for it is waning away day by day. But where exactly is the limitation coming from? I can't really imagine it coming from the engine/game itself eating up that many resources to require multiple powerful servers… just to put it into relation, during the time of Ragonarok P-Servers, there have been hundreds of people on what today would pass as an average smartphone. Lineage II P-servers could hold 500~ People with specs lower than a 200€ Netbook... An awful lot of Data Transfer surely won't be the case either... So... the only thing I can think of would be either too many and/or bad written events per map or the engine itself having some sort of issue. A rather ambitious project like NIN being unable to house more than 100 people per server at the same time does seem very strange to me... and at some point I think it's getting a financial issue, since additional servers don't come for free.

@'Growlith1223': > Lavos is just being pessimistic about the player count, you should be able to handle about 30-40 players as-is with skywyre, do a bit of optimization and it should be relatively fast and stable. im always going to recommend EO 2.0 however. > > The plaigarism thing is true, and this is more or less why i recommend EO 2.0, it's a base and if you have the ide, you can create your own code(or hire someone to do it for you). > > if i had to say what engine to use, i would use an engine you yourself has created, a bit of an excessive suggestion but it's actually rather easy to do once you get the basics down! Well… assuming I get it done in a halfway decent fashion and open my pocket for a proper internet connection, I'm quite confident I could get around 1000 people online at the same time, at least for testing purposes. As mentioned, I don't have the skills to work on a engine myself, nor the money to pay for it. @'Helladen': > GPL means it is free to use for whatever purpose even commercial. You just can't copy it and claim it as your own. Basically games made using the editors can be commercial, the engine cannot be proprietary. I allow custom edits of the engine that can be kept private, you just can't redistribute it as your own. License GPL license what is my intent on this license? I do not want anyone to copy the engine and make their own fork of it, you must keep your edits private and for your purpose/games only. If you wish to contribute back to the main branch, go to our GitHub repository. You may fork your own version on GitHub, but this source should not be changed to another name other than Eclipse Worlds. You cannot brand it as your own engine. Basically, no rebranding you can do anything you want. My wording may sound a little confusing, but it is pretty standard for GPL license. That sounds OK, I just got confused with the official text (english isn't my native language).

@'Lavos': > I suggest you start "READING" around the forums by using the search engine to look for content on what eclipse has to offer. > I don't care what others say about what is the best engine and what not. The only way for you to find out for yourself is to try everything out until you find what best suits you. I did read around quite a while, but the way this Forum is set up is rather confusing to me… not to mention there's plenty of dead ends in terms of abandoned engines who's threads are up because someone asked about the status and got "nah it's down and sucked anyway" (or something like this) as a reply. And in general, those threads don't look too different to those of engines assumed to be still actively developed. At least on first sight for a newcomer like me, it's difficult to figure out weither or not there's development being made or if the engine(s) got left to rot at an incomplete state like Xtremeworlds, NetGore and so on. @'Mohenjo: > If you want a good list of engines then check out my signature, I have quite a few in it Some of the Links are broken and some have been stopped being developed long ago… and as I said, there's not really any mention of the specs/limitations/licence @'Helladen': > Best codebase is probably mine aside from DX8 GUI. Which I am adding in a few weeks or less, who knows I am quite slow at my updates. :P Although, my engine is notorious for bugs as well, but I am working on it. It isn't like you cannot make your game with it. It just lacks features and such, but it has a lot to offer. > > Best looking engine is Skywre Edition with one of the worst codebases to build off of. > > Best base engine is EO 3.0 with Events, even if they are buggy and will make your server crash if you get 300 players like Nin Online did, but the system is useful to make a good game. > > Base engines are more stable usually also - they don't have as many features. You should find a programmer your game will always have bugs without a programmer. I assume with your engine, you mean Eclipse Worlds? I took a look at the Threads, but there was no Download option visible (just looked at it again and saw the "here" being linked…) , and the last build seems to be from mid 2015... which didnt leave the impression that you're doing constant updates on it. I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way, I just say which impression I had when looking at it... But seeing as you seem to be active on the Forums and work on the Engine, I guess it's back in the race. To come back on another thing I already mentioned: There's no clearity on the licenses... On IndieDB I think was it, eclipse origins was listed as commercial, Eclipse Worlds as GPL (which I'm not quite sure about what it means) and there's also a "Prospect Source" with a MIT Licence which looks to me as if it's based on Eclipse. @'Mohenjo: > Ok, I'll put my two cents in. > Worlds is buggy (not stable) and isn't updated much > Skywyre is stable but has bugs with editors and you have to change the max maps (easy to do, just find maxmaps = 50 and change then compile) and it's also updated a bit more than worlds > EO3 is has few features and (if I recall rightly) was buggy/unstable and not updated > EO2 is just as basic and not updated but is stable > SEB engine is stable and offers features but is not worked on > Eclipse Renewal 1.6 is stable and offers features but isn't worked on That sounds kinda depressing… @'abhi2011': > I don't really know the best game engines out there but I do know a few base versions, off of which all the other versions were made. I'd like to answer your queries step-by-step. > > 1) Most of the engines here have the Event System based off of RPG Maker's. It has a bunch of features that make the entire game making process much more smoother. Though, be warned that the event system is a big, giant mess under the hood. Like Seth said, it can cause really big problems for big games. > > 2) Most Engines here are stable from what I know. They shouldn't crash if you plan to have around 5-10 or maybe even 15 players. Though, have more than that and you'll start running into all sorts of weird, undocumented and really, really hard to fix errors. > > 3) As far as support is concerned, many Engines get their time in the lime light and then quickly lose support. This is mainly due to their creators losing interest and/or not wanting to spend time on something that won't ever give them returns. > > 4) If VB6 can handle that many maps, you can surely have that many. But, I really don't think this will happen. > > 5) You can do that. > > 6) I' m guessing, you mean the code base for an engine. Well, there will be bits and pieces of every engine that'll be ripped off of from some other guy. From what I've read, this plagiarism has been going from since the beginning. > > 7) –- > > 8) --- > > 9) You can restrict PvP to diff maps in every single Engine here. > > 10) Nope. Can't do that without source edits. > > Most bug fixes and features for any engine here will require you to pay up. That's how it is unfortunately. :( 1) Event System isn't really important, since (at least one of my stories) wouldn't require events. 2) A Player Limit of 15 wouldn't do it at all… and tbh I didn't even expect it to be THAT low. 3) I guess this makes sense to some degree... but from what I've seen none of the Engines has really come close to a "finished" state, nor have I seen any successful Game coming from them. The only possible exception I could see to this is NIN Online... but I guess it's gonna be save to assume that it uses a premium version of the eclipse engine and/or has a staff that can just customize the Engine wherever they need to. 4) Well... having a lot of map-space is essential for the stories I've written (long before actually thinking of making a Game)... using large maps (or multiple ones on a single map) would just create a laggy mess for me I suppose. 5) at least something... 6) Kinda feared this... :S 9) Cool, since most likely the only PvP I'd have would be in some sort of Arena etc. 10) Damn...

Hello, I've asked in the Shoutbox but couldn't really decide for on a engine tough some guys did give me good advice. The issue I have is, that I'm hopeless when it comes to coding etc. so "just changing something in the sourcecode" isn't exactly gonna work for me. The Engines also have no detailed description of their limitations, licences and terms of use etc. (unless I just haven't found it) For example, I've been told that the map limit in skywyre's is 50 (which would be VERY far from what I need), but this could be changed by editing the source code (would this even be allowed?). While I do plan to make my project to a commercial standard (meaning I'm free to do with what I made… not so much that it's good), I don't have any illusions about actually making some money with it... thus I can't afford to pay for a premium engine, a team or even hire others to do some work. So... what I'm looking for would roughly be: 1\. Simple... because hands down, I'm not gonna make my game overly complicated with stuff that annoys me while playing other Games (i.E. Daily Tasks). Ideally, it would work somewhat like RPG Maker Vx Ace, which I found quite easy to get used to. 2\. Stable, which should be self explaining. 3\. Supported, because as mentioned, I would hate to rely on myself to fix bugs, since I have no clue about that. 4\. Have a map limit of 9999+ (ideally allowing to name the maps and put them in a drop-down menu) 5\. Allow selfmade sprites and tilesets, which I think is not an issue with any of the engines I saw here. 6\. Obviously, not some ripped off junk, that would get me into trouble later on. 7\. Skills/Projectiles should be decent... as it is in Tibia would be enough for me, just using the same projectile for everything or having non-customizable skills would annoy me. 8\. The Battlesystem should also be as it is in Tibia (I guess it's called action battle system). 9\. I'd need an option to restrict PvP to certain Zones. 10\. It would be nice if I could put player classes into different factions (like WoW Alliance vs. Horde for example), but that's not important. Thanks in advance for anyone willing to help a overly ambitioned noob...^^ Edit: The Resolutions would also be good to know... at least on RPG Maker Vx Ace this was quite a downer...