The Pros and Cons of Eclipse

[Rob Janes]

**The Pros and Cons of Eclipse**

Eclipse like yet another 2d online game engine, like many out there.  Eclipse has its advantages and disadvantages as do any other engine.  I'll way in some of the pro's and con's I see about the engine and perhaps people can add their own.

**The Pros**
+ Source Code Included - Offering Limitless possibilities for modifications
+ Freeware and License Free - Great for indie developers looking to turn a potential profit.
+ Well Designed - The Data Packet structure, and code itself is extremely easy to understand and follow
+ Somewhat Helpful Community if you are up to par on the latest release of the engine.

**The Cons**
+ Out-dated IDE (VB6)
+ Uses BitBlt (slower than DirectX)
+ Uses DirectX7 (now defunct release of DX) for additonal functionality
+ Lack of Help Files / Documentation for 'New Users' to learn the engine
+ Poor Customer Service - (Mainly the lead developer having a poor attitude toward people who are unfamiliar with the engine, just learning, or seeking advice)

The poor Customer Service (albeit a free service, people have paid for advanced versions of the software, and even free customers are still customers) pushes me towards using a different engine, mainly because of such a negative attitude on the forums.  Though currently, the Pros outweigh the Cons

Thoughts?

[Marsh]

There is plenty of tutorials around if you know where to look. Also just because you think one person has a bad attitude doesnt reflect upon the many other members. Also there is no paid version of the engine. Robin sells source code. That is a separate thing that he does and is not connected to the forum.

[Rob Janes]

Oh I'm refering to included help files, there are indeed plenty of tutorials on the forums.  Yes, you are correct.

No, it's not reflecting any of the other members or 'Moderators' however it does reflect poorly on the engine, as he's the only developer of it and the only person to provide true 'product support' from his standpoint.

[kender the great]

This is a community board, and several several different topics have been posted in relation to helping out new members. But sadly to speak, most of the new comers on the forum use little common sense so they don't realize that there is a search bar located up at the top of the screen. They just constantly want to post in the shout box until someone says whatever and answers their question. You say that a con is the outdated IDE, but most of the engines out there, unless you start going more towards 3D graphics and such things deal with Visual Basics 6.0\. So any engine you seek to use for a type of game of this proportion, will be coded in it. The people who know what they are doing also have a lot of things that deal with outside of this forum. They help when they can get around to it. It isn't for someone to download and demand answers right then and there. They aren't getting paid to help, they are doing it straight out of volunteering around their own agenda.

[Rob Janes]

That's actually not the case in regards to engines, there are hundreds of engines out there, and very few are using VB6, and are not geared towards 3D media  Even for online 2D Games, Torque2D is a major one that comes to mind for example.  The VB6 ones are just commonly referred to because they're free ;)

[Marsh]

It is much easier to create a game with Eclipse then torque.

[Rob Janes]

I'm not trying to 'rag' on the engine, I'm simply stating the pro's and con's of the engine. ;)  I still like Eclipse and plan to use it regardless of it's shortcomings.  BTW: Torque2D is much simpler to make a game than Eclipse, as Eclipse, to make something unique you need to understand VB whereas even the UI editor, etc is all point-and-click in Torque, aside from the C scripting

[kender the great]

I'm sure you aren't attempting to rag on the engine itself, rather than the Help staff. Can Torque2D even make an Online game? Plus the price. And you are losing sight of the beauty of it being in Visual Basics, where you actually learn, instead of just "point and click".

[Rob Janes]

@William:

> This is a community board, and several several different topics have been posted in relation to helping out new members. But sadly to speak, most of the new comers on the forum use little common sense so they don't realize that there is a search bar located up at the top of the screen. They just constantly want to post in the shout box until someone says whatever and answers their question. You say that a con is the outdated IDE, but most of the engines out there, unless you start going more towards 3D graphics and such things deal with Visual Basics 6.0\. So any engine you seek to use for a type of game of this proportion, will be coded in it. The people who know what they are doing also have a lot of things that deal with outside of this forum. They help when they can get around to it. It isn't for someone to download and demand answers right then and there. They aren't getting paid to help, they are doing it straight out of volunteering around their own agenda.

Volunteering doesn't mean they can be 'rude' to people who are seeking assistance.  Many respectable volunteer positions online and in the community, doesn't give someone any justification to be a 'dick' to someone ;)  Again, not pointing fingers, but using the volunteer thing does not justify anything. I have over 50 volunteer Trainers & Admins on Artifact and if any of them were rude to my customers, I'd remove them.

[Rob Janes]

@William:

> I'm sure you aren't attempting to rag on the engine itself, rather than the Help staff. Can Torque2D even make an Online game? Plus the price. And you are losing sight of the beauty of it being in Visual Basics, where you actually learn, instead of just "point and click".

Torque2D includes networking protocol so "Yes" is the short answer, but it does require a bit of C scripting to get functional.  It's also only $100 as compared to Visual Basic 6 (which is now only accessibly through secondhand or illegal means, and retailed "New" in the high-hundreds low thousands ;)  Releasing a product with an illegal build of VB6 is a Microsoft TOS Violation

[Keebler Elf]

There is a thread like this atleast once or twice a month. I still do not see why people feel the need to try and create a pro's and con's list on a forum dedicated to the engine. There is a reason the majority of people are on this forum. It is because they already like using the engine.

[kender the great]

@SamuGames:

> Volunteering doesn't mean they can be 'rude' to people who are seeking assistance.  Many respectable volunteer positions online and in the community, doesn't give someone any justification to be a 'stick' to someone ;)  Again, not pointing fingers, but using the volunteer thing does not justify anything. I have over 50 volunteer Trainers & Admins on Artifact and if any of them were rude to my customers, I'd remove them.

It's just the simple fact that 99% of all questions have been answered 1000 times before that. People tend to become too needy when they know that someone will constantly give the same tedious answer each time. I'm sorry our communities differ ;).

[Rob Janes]

Oh I agree, it stinks having to give the same answer multiple times.  I couldn't agree more with some of the new users lacking common sense ;)

[aaaron]

Well, if you say there are no help files, write some up in Word or something and have one of the developers add it to them. Just a thought.

[Rithy58]

Rob(That's your name, right?), I can honestly tell you, I try my best to be nice and answer even the most stupid question and repetitive. The thing is, after 2 years, you get annoyed of it. There used to be Stickies that have all the answers to questions that being ask over and over for the past 2 years I've been here(I bet even before I was here) but they just don't read them. There is a history of Mirage-Based Engine and believe me, Eclipse is the most(and now probably the only) alive community and I considered the best.

I must say, there are people who pissed me off sometime but come on, you don't go crying over a little thing from the internet(although, Cyber-Bullying is illegal now). And I understand, sometime you get frustrated when someone ask the same stupid question. So I'm not bias.

As for the Pro and Con :
I pretty much agree with the Pros

**The Cons**
+ Out-dated IDE (VB6) - Outdated language, yes.
+ Uses BitBlt (slower than DirectX) - DirectDraw is limited but we don't really need DirectX8 for 2D
+ Uses DirectX7 (now defunct release of DX) for additonal functionality - ^
+ Lack of Help Files / Documentation for 'New Users' to learn the engine - Yes, but we have an active forum and lots of tutorials.
+ Poor Customer Service - (Mainly the lead developer having a poor attitude toward people who are unfamiliar with the engine, just learning, or seeking advice) - True but I only said a little so we can discuss this part.

Sincerely,
Rithy

[Ruins of Hell]

None of us are perfect, but we strive. We try to limit fooling around to when there's actually a topic that could be answered by reading an easy to find, existing guide. Before the forum redo, I would answer the same questions every other day. People still need help with the same things, and in the end, most of us feel that we are in a terrible case of déjà vu. Hence, sometimes it may seem that we are the worst Moderation Team ever. (Yes, our prime job is to moderate, not support, surprise, surprise.) But overall, we are a pretty effective group. Not only do we redirect people to the right answer, by making them search themselves, we keep the forum in check for the most part. Although it may sometimes seem we are slacking off all day instead of doing our job, we do it in our way, by trying to teach people how to do it themselves.

Now for documentation, it's already been discussed, we, if not just Robin, will once Robin's done with a milestone. Keep in mind we were still in Alpha for Eclipse Origins until about a month ago, the community base around it is still growing. People in Eclipse Stable can't provide support for Origins to a small extent. I personally spent some time before I got the gist of doing it the right way. It was worth it, because now I can actually offer support for our new community.

[mrmiguu]

@Rithy58:

> **The Cons**
> + Uses BitBlt (slower than DirectX) - DirectDraw is limited but we don't really need DirectX8 for 2D

Actually the way DX8 works would take away from the simplicity that Eclipse has retained for quite some time now. DX8 would use D3D to render 2 triangles to form a rectangle. An image would be loaded to that rectangle. The way that D3D does this in memory is **faster** than DirectDraw. DX10+ has a new system (D2D) cleaning up the manual GDI methods that most developers use to render 2D from a 3D graphics enviroment.

[Rob Janes]

Oh I'm positive as time goes on with Cons will become less and less, it would be nice to see professional documentation included at some point to truly help new people go from nothing to at-least some level of understanding without needing to search for forums.  But all in due time.

As for the IDE and DX7, the entire thing would have to be re-written (though I know JAVA is in the works+!), but for the style of games, VB6 get's the job done, it's just dated and far past it's product support cycle.  Even the ActiveX controls are dated and need to be properly configured for windows 7 and 64 bit Operating Systems.  VB.NET would be a poor choice in comparison to new IDEs though, Microsoft releases tons of great features for Visual Studio, mainly C#, and then later configures them to work in VB.NET.  VB.NET is now the red headed step child of Microsoft.  Atleast VB6 was prime in it's day, and still works well to-date. 

I don't want my original post to be misconstrude any way, it was meant to outline the Pros and Cons in my own opinion.  I'm fairly new to the community and still getting to know people as I go, it's just my current perspective.  Ask again in 6 months and it'll be something different ;)

[Jeff]

Actually, There are DX8 versions.  People have done it for there own games and Robin released a premium version with it.  They all say that it's easy once you start really working on it.  However I see your mentioning D3D quite a lot so I may be confused.

[Rithy58]

I'm currently learning DirectX7 and I like how it's simple.
The only thing I'd use DirectX8 for is the Particle Engine.
But really, I'm satisfied with DirectX7\. It's easy to use.

Sincerely,
Rithy

[mrmiguu]

@Rithy58:

> I'm currently learning DirectX7 and I like how it's simple.
> The only thing I'd use DirectX8 for is the Particle Engine.
> But really, I'm satisfied with DirectX7\. It's easy to use.
>
> Sincerely,
> Rithy

If you use textures to render 2D images in your game, you don't need to worry about the surface system that DD7 uses. The textures process faster and the only difficult part is understanding the TU and TV variables. Its a ratio from 0 to 1 where your image is located within the file (so a 600-px wide image in a 1024 image file is roughly: TV = 0.5859375).

[Chief]

Robin just has a stick up his arse, thats all.
(please don't smite me!)

[Robin]

@SamuGames:

> + Out-dated IDE (VB6)

Hardly. Just because a language is old doesn't mean it's outdated. VB6 is still a part of the education system over here.

@SamuGames:

> + Uses BitBlt (slower than DirectX)

No it doesn't. >_>

@SamuGames:

> + Uses DirectX7 (now defunct release of DX) for additonal functionality

DirectDraw is all you need. It's like using Java2D or something like that. Just because people are using newer graphics libraries doesn't mean it's outdated. It's the last release with DirectDraw which is very useful for making these games.

@SamuGames:

> + Lack of Help Files / Documentation for 'New Users' to learn the engine

Purely because I'm the only one with the knowledge to create these. I will do once Origins enters it's beta stage, but at the moment I'm the sole developer of the engine, the website and forum theme/content, the support software and one of only two or three people who actually know enough to answer everyone's questions. As you can imagine my time is already stretched.

@SamuGames:

> + Poor Customer Service - (Mainly the lead developer having a poor attitude toward people who are unfamiliar with the engine, just learning, or seeking advice)

I don't have a poor attitude towards people simply being unfamiliar with the engine, I have a poor attitude with people who expect to have their game made for them. I'll help people who want help but I will _not_ go around doing things for people who want the entire thing on a silver platter. There are plenty of examples of people who come here with the motivation to learn. I'm more than happy to mentor the people like this.

Also you've got to keep in mind the cultural differences. I'm from Yorkshire. We've always had a blunt honesty which some people my find offensive, especially the Yanks.

@SamuGames:

> The poor Customer Service (albeit a free service, people have paid for advanced versions of the software, and even free customers are still customers) pushes me towards using a different engine, mainly because of such a negative attitude on the forums.  Though currently, the Pros outweigh the Cons

The 'advanced versions' of the software are completely unrelated to anything here. It's something I do personally to bring in a bit of extra cash to pay the bills. The main problem is that Soul and I are the only ones left in the admin/moderation team who have actually used Origins, or at least have enough knowledge to answer people's questions. There aren't any people on this forum who know much about the source code because I've only just introduced it (a complete re-write) after people have been using the same old crap for the last 5 years.

As you can imagine people are going to have problems shrugging off their bad habits.

@SamuGames:

> Even the ActiveX controls are dated and need to be properly configured for windows 7 and 64 bit Operating Systems.

No they don't. You just need to install them as an administrator, just like most other software.

If you're using a x64 OS then you'll need to install them in compatibility mode, just like every other x84 application.

[Rob Janes]

"Even the ActiveX controls are dated and need to be properly configured for windows 7 and 64 bit Operating Systems."

That's if they use the Library Installer provided, to make a Stock version of Visual Basic 6 work on Windows 7 x64, you need to register the files using Windows on Windows SYSWOW64's 32 bit regsvr32 in order to get it working properly, otherwise, key components like Common Controls do not work unless properly registered.  It's just a flaw to a dated technology in a new environment.  Also, if they are teaching VB6 in school. For shame.  They need to get with the times.  You will not find any 'professional' development company using VB6 for anything these days.

[Robin]

@SamuGames:

> That's if they use the Library Installer provided.

Origins has been developed solely by myself on a Win7 x64 installation. I've formatted dozens of times. Whenever I get a new install going I simply install VB6 in administration mode and in compatibility mode for XP SP3, then do the same with the service pack and the library files.

Works every time flawlessly. This has nothing to do with VB6 but simply installing x84 software on a x64 OS. There is plenty of commercial software which requires this because there isn't a x64 version. Firefox is one of the big ones.

Complaining about having to install the library files doesn't really fly when every single commercial 3D PC game you buy will install it's own personal version of the VC++ libraries.

@SamuGames:

> Also, if they are teaching VB6 in school. For shame.  They need to get with the times.  You will not find any 'professional' development company using VB6 for anything these days.

And? VB6 is still a fantastic example of an RAD event-driven language. You want everyone to move over to .NET or something? Just because something is newer doesn't mean it's better. If I was asked to teach the basics of programming to a class of kids I'd choose VB6 every time. It's a good starter language which you can use to spring-board in to the more advanced ones.