Whoa! Y'all misinterpreted my question! I did not ask whether y'all prefer 2D or 3D Engines!

I asked everybody what was their fav. 3D Engine AND 2D Engines are! I was looking for certain specific 2D Engines you like. And, I wanted to know what 3D Engines you like.


I did not ask whether y'all prefer 2D or 3D Engines!

But still, y'all have raise an interesting topic here on what you prefer: 2D vs. 3D.

I like a lot of things about 3D Engine. With 3D engine, I like that I can rotate, pitch, spin, pan, and move the camera around any way I like -- like you could in NWN (especially once you installed HOTU, it unlocked the camera fully) or say Black White.

It must be nice to re-use textures and stuff in 3D engines on the fly, also -- so, you don't need 40 CD's to put an entire game on.

If Divine 2 is to go into 3D, it can't lose the elements that make it great in 2D. In other words, the gameplay that made DD work can't be thrown away b/c the game jumps to 3D. They can't botch the story, make the game linear, or any other basic stuff that makes their series rule that has little to do w/ 3D engines. Just b/c you're in 3D don't mean that the game should become a graphics show and forget the depth of gameplay that made the 2D series work.

An interesting example of a point-and-click Company going from 2D to 3D would be BG series (2D) to NWN (3D). I won't speak on the NWN MP, b/c that was good. We'll tackle the SP. NWN:OC SP component was missing a lot that made BG great. Mainly, these were things that made BG great: it missed a lot things. It did NOT have a lot of non-linearity, multiple ways to solve many quests, decent AI & a story that was executed well. These things don't really have much to do w/ 3D. The gameplay was really lacking. But, one could see Aurora Engine had a lot of potential, as it was a solid game itself. Just, NWN:OC was not a good SP game. The basic gameplay mechanics were there, but the depth lacked -- you could only have one party member w/ you at all times.

SOU showed us hope; that the Aurora Engine can be put to good use. AI was better, story was solid, there were some non-linear elements, some quests w/ multiple solutions. You did have sometimes people tag along w/ the 2-person party b/c they were important to a quest. It would've been nice to have allowed 3 to be in a party.

Then the awesome HOTU Expansion, NWN finally showed us what Aurora could do. HOTU was non-linear (to an extent, like most RPG's), had multiple endings, AI was better, story was very good -- everything worked. Best of all, the # of allowed in a party was upped to 3 -- not only this, but often you'll have other NPC's or groups join your party for a short time even, if you have your 3 in a party (b/c they are important to a quest), though.

Now, back to the other question: what do you like as your favorite 2D Engine(s)? And what about for 3D Engine(s)?





Last edited by MysterD; 12/11/04 06:28 PM.