Prove to Dunenewt that I'm right

[Dante]

As far as I can gather. Which makes me wonder, did Emperor actually make a profit? If so, why abandon it? And if not, why bother at all?

[Shiroko]

I don't think Emperor suceeded well enough, but it did profit.

Anyway, Generals and Emperor were developed by totally different teams, I'm pretty sure those are totally seperate engines.

-Shiroko

[lowzeewee]

Empy with high-level graphics rocks but it lags too much. :- I also like the ability to rotate the camera 360 degrees in E:BFD as well as being able to zoom in and out.

[Dunenewt]

Emperor could have been so much more, just check the rules files.  They had plans for a smelter, where you would use a scavenger to collect destroyed units and send them  back to this smelter to make some money, as well as other things that they cancelled, such as the Tleilaxu Flyer, Super weapon, Guild Flyer's weapon etc.

[Terror]

Wasn't Emperor battle for Dune just to test a 3d RTS game, then they used it for Generals and stuff. (with many updates of course.)

No I remember the news. Emperor was Westwoods first attemt to go 3d and they did want to use it for other games at first, but they disliked the Emperor engine because it wasn't very flexible. It did it's job for Emperor right, but it wouldn't fit well for Generals.  Let's see if i can find the thread.

[Terror]

here you go, a reply by Chris Longpre.

Not exactly true.  As you may know, Westwood RTS's were firmly glued in 2D.  Even Tib Sun, while other companies were starting to play with 3D graphics in this genre.  IMHO, it was wise to wait it out a bit, and let the 1st & 2nd generation of 3D video cards come & go.  This also allowed them to start to get a feel for what aspects of 3D would enhance the game experience, rather than just show off your 3D card.

Emperor was not an 'experiment' to test a 3D engine.  It was their first venture down that road of 3D RTS games, and what were the design/production ramifications.  Westwood had previously made 3D engines & technologies, none of which were used for Emperor (Lands of Lore 1, 2 & 3, Bladerunner, Tib-Sun, Dragon-Strike, etc.).

The Emperor engine was developed and refined over the 2+ years of development to be a great 'Dune' universe 3D engine.  Specifically, to create sand, spice, rocky bluffs/mesas.  Hence, the final engine was not suited to doing other enviornments really well (i.e. you can see how much we tried to push it, on the homeworld levels).  Generals needed an engine better suited to earth enviornments, and Emperor's was too specialized to Arrakkis.

Still to this date, I think the Emperor game, on full detail settings looks superb, and runs on much lower system specs, then say 'Generals', Warcraft3, etc.  But, that is just my personal opinion.

BTW, IMHO, the days of 'named' engines are waning dramatically.  Most code bases, while nice to believe that they will remain viable for several products, several years, will just not stand up to the test of time.  If you do it right, you will get the main product out, and its add-ons and a single sequel, before the public will cry out against seeing the same engine over & over.  After 2 full product cycles (i.e. original game + sequel), you should scrap it and start over.

Of course, sports games are exempt. 

Again, just my humble musings....

[Shiroko]

He's right about the "named" engines, the well known engines are getting less popular and companies prwefer making their own then license the famous ones (Namely Unreal and Quake). Those who still do tailor the engines to their needs. No one could feel that Splinter Cell for example is an unreal based game after all the lighting added in.

Same goes for Emperor Generals, this is also because the technology is more familiar if there was a time companies didn't want to build from scrap because a lot of skilled programmers are needed, today more people are familiar with 3D, so like every technology it's much more widespread now. (Hence old games get clones in 3D with no real apparent reason).

-Shiroko