Planning new RTS game (is Torque right for me?)
by Charles Hill · in Torque Game Engine · 04/05/2006 (2:36 am) · 2 replies
I am planning to create a very large RTS game. I've done a lot of casual gaming over my life. The most memorable games to me being Sim City, Civilization II, Caesar 3, Age of Empires 2, and Empire Earth 1. My idea is to use my ideas as well as those of my casual gaming colleagues to make an RTS game that will combine aspects of all of these games as well as new features that many online gamers have always wanted. I've done a lot of very good scenario design for Empire Earth, and I think that I am fairly capable of designing an indepth, addicting RTS game. I have not done any significant programming, but I am endeavoring to learn. I have a brother who has done a lot of programming, and has been studying business and computer science. I think I would be able to learn programming rather quickly. I read a C++ tutorial online, but it uses some language that I just cannot figure out. So that leads to my questions.
Where is the best place to start with computer programming?
Is C++ the best programming language to use if I want to make a very large RTS game using the Torque Game Engine?
If I decide to use Torque and my game were to exceed $250,000 in gross sales, how much in terms of percent of overall gross income would royalties be?
How would I best protect my work from other programmers or developers? I want to avoid big legal messes if possible.
Would it be possible to build a "modding" program that could be shipped with my game that could modify the unit and building models used in the game (or create new models to use in the game)? Or is there a way to include some Torque product that could do such a job, and simply create some sort of bridge program to link said Torque product to the game?
Would it be possible to build a scenario editor (similar to the one found in Empire Earth) that could be shipped as part of my game that could create new maps and scenarios to be used in the game? Or is there a Torque product that could do such a job?
Thankyou in advance for your help.
Regards,
Charles Hill
Where is the best place to start with computer programming?
Is C++ the best programming language to use if I want to make a very large RTS game using the Torque Game Engine?
If I decide to use Torque and my game were to exceed $250,000 in gross sales, how much in terms of percent of overall gross income would royalties be?
How would I best protect my work from other programmers or developers? I want to avoid big legal messes if possible.
Would it be possible to build a "modding" program that could be shipped with my game that could modify the unit and building models used in the game (or create new models to use in the game)? Or is there a way to include some Torque product that could do such a job, and simply create some sort of bridge program to link said Torque product to the game?
Would it be possible to build a scenario editor (similar to the one found in Empire Earth) that could be shipped as part of my game that could create new maps and scenarios to be used in the game? Or is there a Torque product that could do such a job?
Thankyou in advance for your help.
Regards,
Charles Hill
#2
Best place to start
From scratch. Learning to code is not hard everyone can do that, like everyone can learn to ride a bike. But learning to program is difficult, like doing stunts on the bike. I would recomend that you found a course, online or a uni near you, and start there. There is a reason why Computer Science usually is a 3-5 years study. If there's any part of the language you don't understand like partial specialization of class templates, you should think twice about doing games using C++.
C++ best language for Torque
Well the engine is written in C++ and the script language uses a C++ like syntax, so yes it is the best language when using Torque. Luckily most game concepts can be writte in script, and then moved to c++ later. But there are things that simply isn't possible in script and must be done in the engine.
To exceed
I think that when the time comes to ship your game, and you have a feeling that you will cross the 250000 value (Remember that's total for all income) you can just shift to the comercial version of all licences, it's only $500 and well worth the spend. Regarding the fee there is none, as the EULA say:
Protection
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Torque does nothing which actually prevent others from using your code, granted they do create a dso (Torque compiled format), but everyone with the desire to decompile can do it. You will need to create your own way to deal with this (It has been discussed here before).
Modding
Yes it's possible, in fact that's who the engine works out of the box. And creating a similar concept into the game should be hard. And you can include all the script code from the Toqque engine you want as the no source distrib only goes for the engine code.
Scenario
This is something you haveto build yourself, but it's doable.
Hope that helped.
05/07/2006 (12:59 pm)
These are all good questions and I think they have in some way all been covered somewhere here on the board (Using search is alway good if you have questions). But here's some thoughts on your questions:Best place to start
From scratch. Learning to code is not hard everyone can do that, like everyone can learn to ride a bike. But learning to program is difficult, like doing stunts on the bike. I would recomend that you found a course, online or a uni near you, and start there. There is a reason why Computer Science usually is a 3-5 years study. If there's any part of the language you don't understand like partial specialization of class templates, you should think twice about doing games using C++.
C++ best language for Torque
Well the engine is written in C++ and the script language uses a C++ like syntax, so yes it is the best language when using Torque. Luckily most game concepts can be writte in script, and then moved to c++ later. But there are things that simply isn't possible in script and must be done in the engine.
To exceed
I think that when the time comes to ship your game, and you have a feeling that you will cross the 250000 value (Remember that's total for all income) you can just shift to the comercial version of all licences, it's only $500 and well worth the spend. Regarding the fee there is none, as the EULA say:
Quote:The Commercial license fee for the Engine is $495, with no royalties. Licensee does not need to have any permissions or approvals from Licensor to release, publish, sell, or otherwise exploit Products.
Protection
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Torque does nothing which actually prevent others from using your code, granted they do create a dso (Torque compiled format), but everyone with the desire to decompile can do it. You will need to create your own way to deal with this (It has been discussed here before).
Modding
Yes it's possible, in fact that's who the engine works out of the box. And creating a similar concept into the game should be hard. And you can include all the script code from the Toqque engine you want as the no source distrib only goes for the engine code.
Scenario
This is something you haveto build yourself, but it's doable.
Hope that helped.
Torque Owner Skylar Kelty
SkylarK