TABB is out! Lithtech ESD developers here?

#1 Richard - I'm not a Lithtech ESD engine subscriber, but I have tried TABB, and am considering RealArcade for our product Avoyd, though we are currently going to distribute it through our site.

I've had several crashes in TABB, so am not that pleased with it at the moment. I haven't had enough gameplay to see if it's enjoyable yet.

Doug. EnkiSoftware Limited

#2 RealArcade is an awful piece of intrusive Spyware. We would stay Lithtech ESD developers but this REQUIREMENT for RealArcade to be installed is really bugging me. I hope GarageGames.com doesn't have any whacked wrapper like that in mind.

#3 Hey Brother Lithtech ESD Developer :)

I am a little miffed with the mandatory download of Realarcade. Its not a bad program, just annoying to HAVE to get it. I'm thinking its just a fancy game launcher not unlike Gamespy.

I gonna plan to stay on with Real, but I'm also going to expand to other publishers so as not to stay confined to just Real. I found out that as long as you have the $250K license covered, they won't complain.

Of course, it is $250K...but more freedom :)

#4 Can you explain what you mean by "as long as you have the $250 K license covered, they won't complain" ?

I have seen the Real ESD program and wasn't sure what the licensing terms were for using the Lithtech engine.

#5 I have now become sufficiently enraged with RealArcade's constantly trying to get me to register, access the internet, etc., that I am definetly not going to go with them for our product.

RealArcade could have made this an easy way to access, store and play games for people who don't know much about computers, but instead they seem to be trying to use it as yet another of their spyware style marketing campaigns. A loss for all I feel.

If I was using the Lithtech ESD engine, I would consider just moving the whole lot to V12 and dumping the contract, as $250,000 doesn't seem worthwhile for a non-publisher funded game. I doubt many ESD games will make that kind of money.

Doug. EnkiSoftware Limited

#6 Doug and company,

Exactly my point. RealArcade is freaking spyware! It requires all kinds of personal information and keeps asking you log-on to Real.com even if you want to play TABB (or any other RealArcade game for that matter) in single player mode!

It is more that just Real.com wants its spyware log of your activities. Real.com COUNTS each visit to its RealArcade as part of its web traffic. That's bullshit! RealArcade basically artifically inflates Real.com's number of impressions (aka page hits/page views).

Here's my problem... if we forget about the spyware part; you still have to realize it will take someone to download RealArcade before he can buy your game. You need to download and install RealArcade, fill out loads of personal information, then you need to enter your credit card info from RealArcade before you can make a purchase.

Kamal Hathi,

If you pay the $250,000 for Lithtech ESD, you have basically bought a full license to the Lithtech engine. They will also give you Lithtech 3.x which is a great engine.

Once you paid up, you can sell a Lithtech-based game (either Lithtech ESD or Lithtech 3.x) anywhere. You can publish it in the store, sell it here at Garagegames.com, sell it online yourself.

But $250k is hard to come by and most ESD games won't make that kind of money. I don't even TABB will make $250k.

#7 What I planned to do was go through Real, but first seek another publisher after we have gotten to the beta stage. From there we can see about getting the full license with the help of the publisher..I figure that would make it easier. At least if you are able to put your game through another publisher, you won't be fixed in to using Realarcade in order to play your game.

It is true that an ESD game making a huge amount of money at this point in gaming is probably at the low end of the spectrum. However, if no one else is going to try to expand the recognition of ESD games, we might as well be the first :) I for one am dedicated to trying to create full scale games that don't have to be in retail stores to be successful.

I really don't know why they couldn't just put Tex and the gang on Gamespy, since its the same technology...I don't mind Realarcade all that much, but I don't like being forced to use it...that ain't being friendly...

If we weren't so deep (well, relatively deep :) into the Lith, I wouldn't mind going for the V12, but Lith suits our purposes fine, and we all like it. Besides, its one of the only eninges I've seen that works well with multiple cards...at least better than some engines I've experienced.

#8 What I forgot to mention is that you CAN get an evaluation version of the Lithtech. This way you can actually create a version of your game to present to a publisher, and go from there in acuiring a license. I think thats a pretty good alternative as well.

Since we already have the ESD version, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to get an evaluation version, but for those who didn't give up the 500 bucks, not too bad :)

#9 I agree, Lithtech runs super fast even on my laptop and seems super compatible. Getting a publisher to fork out $250k is difficult. We know from experience, it isn't the first time we made games or dealth with Lithtech. For relatively unknown, indie developer, many companies feel $250k should be the full budget. It almost makes you want to go to Serious Sam for $75k. Too bad there's no evaulation version I know for that.

#10 OMG!!!, stupid me!, I just installed this real-arcade crap!. and guess what??, It replace my DirectDraw.dll and ddhelp.dll with the older version. now my Win98 is pissed, so piss that it actually refuse to run, WTF??!!!

#11 Pricing for Lithtech ranges from 50k-250k, depending on the license agreement you sign with them. All licences include tech support, it's how MUCH tech support they include..I'd recommend contacting Lith to find out more.

- Nick Robalik
www.digital-soapbox.com

#12 Fred,

HAHAHA! LOL! HAHAHAHA!

Nick,

$50k? I've spoke to Monolith many times and I never heard about $50k. Who told you can get Lithtech for $50k. Have ever spoke to them about it, because I am 99% sure is it $250k or ESD and nothing in between.

#13 well Im very dissapointed from what i saw of the new lithtech engine, Not only did Realarcade software make me want to punch my screen in but the lithtech engine is looking very poor for a 250k engine!!!!
Im alot more impresed with V12 at this stage.
Big bot battles was really average looking. not much of a technology demo

#14 Here's my observation...

NOLF ran smoother and looked better than Tex Atomic. I suspect that the reason Tex Atomic ran slower and looked worse is probably because of excessive compression. Lithtech licensed the realvideo codec for use in compressing textures, well that alone might not slow things down (since decompression would be done at startup or level loading, not during gameplay -at least not on levels as small as TABB) the fact that they had a streamed video as a texture in the level could slow it down. That codec is not the fastest in the world and especially not well suited for use in a game.

The overall unlcean look of it is probably just because they had to keep the download size small (for ESD) again excessive compression...

I don't think that TABB is capable of showing off the Lithtech engine very well.

#15 Brendan - TABB is still lithtech2, same engine as NOLF, not the newer version of the engine. Also, keep in mind that they needed to keep it as simple as possible graphics-wise to keep the download as small as possible.

Richard - an account executive at Lith told me that 50k-250k is the range of pricing, depending on platform and usage.

- Nick Robalik
www.digital-soapbox.com

#16 Nick,

Thanks. I talked to Monolith on the phone today. You are correct, there is a $50k price point.

For what it's worth, my company Freeform Interactive LLC is officially no longer a Lithtech ESD (RealArcade Lithtech) developer anymore. In the same conversation, I told my Monolith rep to take us off the RealArcade developer's list. Ironically, I recieved the latest and probably final Lithtech ESD disc yesterday.

If any other Lithtech ESD developers (or Real.com reps) are interested, we left because of the RealArcade requirement itself. When we signed on, there was no mention of such thing as RealArcade. As far as I understood it, all that was required was the game would be sold on Real.com. More importantly, our game requires people able to run dedicated servers and a master server we could control, like Quake3 and Tribes2. We found out that was impossible in RealArcade, so our decision was easy.

#17 That's some Real crap about having to develop for that Realarcade :(

That wasn't part of any deal I signed. I'll be damned if I have to develop for realarcade. That makes it final...Getting another publisher once we are done. Real has no problem with that. If there is a problem, We'll just go for the lith evaluation SDK.

They appear to have Half Life servers on realarcade tho...are you sure it doesn't support client/server games? Our game has to operate like that as well...

#18 Oh my poor, foolish Jerane. They have Half-life server, yes. Guess HOW they have Half-life servers. Look very carefully. It is provided by Gamespy! HAHAHAH!

No kidding. For "non-RealArcade" games, they use GameSpy. Why can't Lithtech ESD developers just use the GameSpy SDK instead of RealArcade?

Jerane, neither you nor I knew about RealArcade when we first signed up for Lithtech ESD. I found out from a reliable source that it was always planned, but they were just super secret about it. Personally, I think if they told people about RealArcade, no one would use Lithtech ESD. Did you get that latest disc from Monolith entitled "RealArcade Lithtech". It isn't even called "Lithtech ESD" on the CD anymore.

#19 Heh, ya I'm aware of the Gamespy hosted servers :) That's fine, since we planned on our game servers annouced through gamespy anyways...

I wondered the saem thing, why they just didn't use Gamespy...you'd think that would make sense!! I plan to use Gamespy for sure. I really don't mind if the game servers show up on Realarcade, but as for having to launch exclusively through Realarcade? They can keep that :)

#20 Erm, I thought everybody knew that.

Gamespy trumpeted that pretty loudly -- not only are *other* games supported by Gamespy, but Gamespy licensed their technology to Real for RealArcade itself. That's basically a refurbished Gamespy you've got yoself.

You know what I wish? I wish there was some way you could use an engine for free and *only* pay a fee if your game gets picked up by a major publisher. Dammit, I thought that at one point the Serious Sam license was going to include that, but apparently they changed their mind . . .

I'm getting Serious, btw. I just passed the entire game on Normal difficulty, which is fucking INSANE hard. And I have been blown away so far at the incredible amount of AIs -- it's running liquid smooth on a fucking Voodoo3 2000, even in that level where there are literally over one hundred little hopping guys in one medium-sized room with you. Even with the higher-poly (tho still relatively low) models, such as the Werebull -- hell, the last level put my in an arena with so many of them I couldn't count; it had to be at least fifty, and the fps never dropped below 25 at the worst -- that's with particle effects and everything set to optimal. Also, the inclusion of the alpha-texture for detail on closeup textures made the jump from a good-looking engine to something that seriously competes with Quake 3.

I just can't get over the things you could *do* with that engine -- I mean, think of a WWII game where the battles really *are* as big as life? All you'd have to do is up your system requirements to a first-gen GeForce and we're talking a couple hundred AIs on screen at high fps . . . *sigh* but unfortunately, the Serious Engine has the same goddamn licensing restrictions as Q3, LithTech, and UT.