Java is painful

[shubla]

Though I somewhat agree that HnH should not use some ready-made game engine, at least with smaller game engines (like the one that swampmonster linked) there is a chance that they just stop maintaining it or something...

I argue Godot engine is better, because he'll have both the full source and the right to use it as he sees fit - with Java he has neither and oracle seems to be busy killing it.

What happens if development of godot stops? Then its all over.
This game seems to be going for the long run so there is a risk.
Also loftar has said that game engines restrict him too much. Yeah the godot is open source but so what? it is WAY too large and complex for loftar to modify for his own needs in reasonable timeframe.

And for loftar: there is a reason why most (or all) games just have normal updates for their clients with even smallest modifications, because it works.
Dynamically loading resource files with code in them is just stupid, restricts you to use ONE programming language in the whole world? But still you refuse to use game engine because "its too restrictive"!!

[Granger]

it is WAY too large and complex for loftar to modify for his own needs in reasonable timeframe.

I think you underestimate loftar.

[shubla]

it is WAY too large and complex for loftar to modify for his own needs in reasonable timeframe.

I think you underestimate loftar.

One word: client rendering rewrite
Making modifications to large messy software alone that you have no idea how it works is slow!

[Granger]

Godot is not messy.

[jorb]

Half the charm of building computer games lies in maintaining your own engines. Yes, X is open source, but the moment you start making significant modifications to it -- and you will want to -- you may or may not remain compatible with the future development of the main branch, and suddenly you find yourself in magical limbo land where you half-own your own problems, yet half don't, and all along you maintain a bunch of code and datastructures to support features you're never going to use. You want to do something, but do you file a feature request and wait patiently for support for that to be added to the main branch, or do you actually fix it yourself? Who knows. "Oh, but it's open source, you can do whatever you want", yeah, sure you can, but what you do needs to be in conformity with the totality of what's already there, which could be quite a bit. Rather than working on your game, you'll be spending time understanding and working around someone else's preconceived notions of what you may or may not want to do. Were I to start building a new game today, I would never for a second consider using Godot, or Unity, or UnReal Engine, or anything of the sort.

Granted, I say that because the technical integrity of a project is important to me, certainly more so than speed or ease of implementation. If you had a project of limited scope, and the result -- getting a game out fast, or whatevs -- was more important than the journey, then you can certainly get faster results by using someone else's engine. If the technology doesn't interest you, but game design does, then go for it, but that's not us.

Java is one of the most, if not the most, used programming language(s) in the world. Doesn't say much in and of itself, but it is certainly not a legacy technology.

there is a reason why most (or all) games just have normal updates for their clients with even smallest modifications, because it works.

... as does dynamically loading code, or resources otherwise, except we don't have to have the entirety of the project in a monolith, and can keep a minimalistic launcher.

Dynamically loading resource files with code in them is just stupid

Dlls exist for a reason, among others to allow for modularized code. The clutch being platform independence, which Java provides. Why would it be stupid?

[Granger]

Were I to start building a new game today, I would never for a second consider using Godot, or Unity, or UnReal Engine, or anything of the sort.

You certainly can take the stance that you're preferring to employ something under the control of oracle, compared to something available to you through a really free and open license (I agree with you regarding unity and unreal, as both are unfree), to build your business upon... Or to develop things from scratch, reinventing both fire and the wheel in the process, instead of simply picking an already existing and working solution from the shelf....

I would say that both would now be quite bad decisions. It certainly was different when you started haven some ten years ago as things were different (mainly the availability of multi platform graphics/game engines for low to no cost), but that was then and things have changed drastically over the last decade.

As a side note regarding taking an engine and hacking it hard enough that you deviate from upstream development far enough to end up sitting on your own dead fork: you're doing it wrong in case you do it that way - same as you would do it wrong with Java would you hack your custom things into the JVM runtime, instead of just using it as a platform to build your things.

[shubla]

Dlls exist for a reason, among others to allow for modularized code. The clutch being platform independence, which Java provides. Why would it be stupid?

Many people who develop custom clients (or even attempt to write clients from scratch) are frustrated and have even quit these ambitions because of part of the code is hidden in files which you do not necessarily know names of in some obfuscated custom format in java (hint: at least make code of these files public like rest of the client). And as loftar said, you cannot rewrite client in c++ because you are bound to use java with that system.

Java is not legacy technology

It will soon be one if oracle keeps on doing stupid things.

Maybe there are some good things about java.
But you must admit that java is not as efficient as some non-jvm languages, using c++ for client would be feasible, and if you didn't already have the client in java, you most likely would not code it in java now.

[borka]

Are there plans to bring the game to a more current technology?

Current technology like streaming ?!?

[shubla]

Are there plans to bring the game to a more current technology?

Current technology like streaming ?!?

Maybe he means some more recent OpenGL version than 15+ year old one

[borka]

loftar surely had a look at lwjgl.org and Vulkan ...