A terrible company to deal with, a warning...

[Chiblue]

Given the whole BS with MW2 and the potential for our community to be left out in the cold,  I have been looking around for possible gaming engines to build our own FPS.  I have looked at many tools,  including a couple from a company called "The Game Creators",  as a result I purchased one of thier products online... the problem is that this company made it extremely difficult for me to get the product,  not due to anyother reason that just being a PITA.  I had to send multiple emails for them to release the downloads... even to a point this weekend that I had to register a complaint with Paypal about it... and they are still playing stupid games with me,  not the way I would expect a company selling software online to behave... I just wanted to post a warning to anyone who may visit this site and look at thier software,  please beware they are a real PITA to deal with...

[Velmarshal]

Dude, use the Cube 2 Sauerbraten, it's simple and free.

[rocky6]

Let's make a game on UDK (www.udk.com).

It's a great engine for FPS and you could probably have everything you want in it (and for free).

We could distribute the game for free. A game for the community, by the community.

[SiCDude4Him]

Cube 2 Sauerbraten has to have custom maps built into mod releases so that's a not a good model for building a FPS game community.

And the Unreal engine deal seems ok as long as everything stays free and open source. If eXtreme ever wanted to charge for the game they built, Unreal comes in with an instant 25% royalty fee (initial).

[Rev0verDrive]

The UDK would be an awesome engine. I've been working with UEd since 99. Its wuite similar to the quake engine/editor in my opinion.

[Chiblue]

The main consideration here is that it needs to be royalty free,  and this is not that I intend to make lots of money on this,  although that would be nice...  My main consideration is that if we do go in some direction and put a significant amount of energy into something new that we have the opportunity to go in any direction we wish...  so these are my considerations,  please feel free to add more if you wish all suggestions and ideas are very welcome...

anyway...

1. A flexible game engine with high end graphic capabilities DX9 and DX10 capable.
2. It must  be able to support custom maps and have a flexible map building tool that is free distribution becuase I don't want to get into building tools.
3. It must be capabale of supporting multiple player environments with a minimum of 64 players.
4. It must be either free   or have a low entry cost,  with no or little royalty commitments...

Personally I don't want to get into selling software licenses,  but if we can built a group of modders to be able to build somethine for the community a minimal financial return, even if this is only enough to support tools and marketing would be good.  My concern is if this is successful then the obvious step would be a step into a commercial venture,  but I for one do not want to invest a massive amount of time learning and using a game engine if when we look at other options we have to ghange the technology...

I have spent sometime reviewing the UDK licensing,  and I don't have a problem with thier license... we can make upto $5,000 if we pay $99...  which sounds pretty reasonable... if we build something and make more that $5,000 on it then I don't see a problem in paying 25% royalty for the ability to exploit the power of the Unreal Engine... I would appreaciate any other thoughts on this...  Also I am going to ask Joker to setup a new area for this discussion to move any further...