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SOE Forgelight engine to use PhysX

akugami

akugami

Diamond Member
http://www.mytoptrailer.com/mmorpgs/show.php?game=everquest2&vid=-Cp3j-7yz3I&exp=111009

Sony's new MMO engine will use PhysX. It will at the very likely use software PhysX as one of the nVidia guys said that it will "work across multiple hardware manufacturers."

Being a fan of the original Everquest, I'm wondering if EQ Next will be the game that pushes me into buying a video card specifically for PhysX support. To date, no other game has swayed me into being a fan of PhysX.
 
I have an nvidia card. I am disappointed with most uses of PhysX. I really enjoyed Mafia II but seeing physx on/off I really wasn't quite as impressed as I thought I would be. I hope companies will start designing engines that include physics built into the game running off a hardware agnostic system. Although this is wishful thinking, I think that is where immersion will really come to play.

I absolutely love the Red Faction series for some good fun with physics. Their engine is neat, but is severely limited. Red Faction 2 provided tons of buildings to blow apart. Red Faction Armageddon has a bit more detailed but less number of buildings to destroy, but they also give you a rebuilder nanoforge which does add to the gameplay. In Red Faction original the environment could be blown apart albeit in a very rough nature (not as detailed damage for walls and the like) but had little structural damage that could be done.

I just hope within the next 5 years we may see actual games where their world is open to whatever you want to do to achieve your objectives. I think it's something that definitely is going to come in small steps as hardware progresses. I was pleasantly surprised in BF2 with the destruction that could be caused to buildings.
 
I agree about the level of destructibility being more realistic as we go but they're going to have to rethink how they structure a game if you can destroy the very building you need to get through in order to advance the story.
 
They are using PhysX as a middleware, think Havok but partly running on the GPU. Nvidia users might get a tiny bit extra detail, but that is all.
 
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I don't think you're going to be impressed by any physics simulation in any MMORPG. The nature of these types game means that the physics simulation needs to be run exactly the same on all PCs of all people playing the game, or the consequences of the simulation can't matter. Since the first alternative isn't really practical, especially for players who enter the area after the event has occured, it's going to be limitted to things that disappear after the event.

If you smash a wall, the peices will bounce around, probably differently for each player, and then disappear. You won't have peices left around as obstacles or anything. Kill a monster and it'll rag-doll to the ground, probably a bit awkwardly so it doesn't move too far from the spot where it was killed. Someone who comes in after the monster has died, but before its been looted and disappears, might end up seeing his own delayed version of the monster dying.

In other words, it'll mostly just be hopefully more realistic versions of the canned animations we typically get now. You can see that right now in MMORPGs like City of Heroes and Champions Online that are already using PhysX.
 
pw38 said:
I agree about the level of destructibility being more realistic as we go but they're going to have to rethink how they structure a game if you can destroy the very building you need to get through in order to advance the story.
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Not to mention stop characters having 10+ weapons & thousands of rounds of ammo, rockets & grenades. It's just not realistic is it...
 
Ross Ridge said:
I don't think you're going to be impressed by any physics simulation in any MMORPG. The nature of these types game means that the physics simulation needs to be run exactly the same on all PCs of all people playing the game, or the consequences of the simulation can't matter. Since the first alternative isn't really practical, especially for players who enter the area after the event has occured, it's going to be limitted to things that disappear after the event.

If you smash a wall, the peices will bounce around, probably differently for each player, and then disappear. You won't have peices left around as obstacles or anything. Kill a monster and it'll rag-doll to the ground, probably a bit awkwardly so it doesn't move too far from the spot where it was killed. Someone who comes in after the monster has died, but before its been looted and disappears, might end up seeing his own delayed version of the monster dying.

In other words, it'll mostly just be hopefully more realistic versions of the canned animations we typically get now. You can see that right now in MMORPGs like City of Heroes and Champions Online that are already using PhysX.
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It's probably based on scalability using APEX modules.
 
StrangerGuy said:
This won't take off...simply because anything SOE touches turns into shit.
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In days of old, they were innovative (Original Everquest (obviously) and Planetside (one of the first MMOFPShooters), I hear SWG was quite innovative (player made content) as well, but was screwed up by the NGE and catering to casuals (which may or may not have been at the order of Lucas Arts).

They are too spread out right now and need to focus on a couple of core games and shut down the rest. Vanguard (which had so much potential) and some of the others that they have acquired over the past few years come to mind.
 
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