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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)HI
Posts
2
Comments
158
Joined
11 mo. ago

  • Don't underestimate what hobbyists want in their games. It's actually AAA games that don't want to risk and do fairly standard stuff while indies/hobbyists like to experiment and implement unorthodox mechanics and visuals. I think that, for example, writing your own 3rd person character controller (with stuff like snappy raw input movement, walljumps and also properly handling moving/rotating platforms) and cartoonish NPR rendering requires going through a lot more irrelevant systems in UE5 than doing the same in many other engines including Unity, Godot, and UPBGE. In Unity there actually is a similar kind of bloat (like URP), but it's optional and you can just hack "good old" built-in render pipeline (also has tons of ready-to-use snippets and shaders open-sourced by community through years). In other words for me UE5 vs other engines is more like Java EE vs Python (or NodeJS) than Java EE vs Wordpress. UE5's complexity is more of too many abstraction layers and lengthy workflows rather than being too low-level and flexible. Lightweight and flexible engines are great for hobbyists, game constructors are fine too for those who really want something very basic.

  • Arguing about UE5 feels just as bloated and convoluted as using the engine itself! Sorry, I couldn't resist 😅

    If a slow startup of the editor the first time

    By "one-time learning cost" I meant that to learn how to do a thing in UE5 you will have to spend 95% of time learning things you won't ever need to understand that 5% that you actually want. Yes, it's also a one-time cost, but it's not one-time cost most developers want to pay unless they really need all that compexity.

    It is a philosophical difference.

    It's a personal productivity difference. If you are able to allocate N hours to make a game and you don't need most of those features, you will be much more likely to finish that game in time in a simpler engine.

  • one time cost

    Maybe stuff like shaders compiling isn't a big deal in the long run, but one-time cost in terms of learning may be too much. If you're going to use 5% of its features, having to go through the rest 95% when learning how to do things is a big distraction and productivity killer. Also, there is a surge of AAA games made in UE5 that have critical performance issues that developers struggle to fix for extended periods of time after release, killing performance even on the most top-notch hardware that most gamers could never afford.

    an indicator that you probably shouldn’t be developing medium fidelity 3d games on a potato

    Why though? Just use other engine and you're good.

    For “hobbyist” 3d games, Unity is still the king.

    I'm doing a hobbyist 3d game and I'm using UPBGE. It's terrible in a lot of ways, depsgraph kills performance, but it's very convenient to just hit P and play during 3d modelling of the scene. This is what I would call an engine for "hobbyist". Unity is a decent engine for professionals, for indies, for AAA, for AA, for a lot of things. At least, technically it's there. Its management is a big issue though.

  • Unreal is easy to pick up for 3D.

    Unreal Engine 1.5 - yeah, maybe. Definitely not UE5. It's one of the most complicated, convoluted and heavyweight systems in existence. Just engine itself is 100gb+ download, opening it the first time takes 30m to compile shaders. Just reading briefly through gtlf import dialog took me like 10minutes.

  • Imo that's one of the lesser QoL issues. I find it more annoying that there's no pagination other than "Next" button. Why don't we have "Prev", "First", "Last" and page numbers? That's quite basic pagination functionality.

  • ////

    Jump
  • The title before editing was "Do you know any popular websites where people can talk to each other anonymously?" And it made way more sense when it was like that...

  • Doom ... mod-friendly

    If it's non-standard engine ("sourceport" in Doom terminology) with its own scripting infrastructure (like GZDoom) then sure. Vanilla and Boom compatible engines are kinda tricky, DeHackEd isn't exactly the easiest modding approach. Mapping-friendly - for sure, but modding - less so.

  • exarcheia and anabaptist

    Do those guys build their own roads, pipes for water and heat, homes, bake bread, make drugs, provide healthcare? Or do they depend on external nation-states and their economy to exist?

  • In the context of previous message I meant anarchist society comparable to state, at least very small state. Not just a club of shared interests with members living their lives in regular nation-states. Do you have any examples in mind?

  • Theoretically maybe, but empirically, humanity was completely unstructured at the beginning and currently not a single anarchist society exists. Why do you think everyone transformed into various kinds of nation-states eventually? Because nation-states were exceptionally good at filling that "power vacuum". To overpower nation-states, something at least comparable is needed. Transnational corporations/syndicates/unions, something like that.

  • Responsible anarchism is a good ideal to aim for, but in pure form it's utopian. Realistic way to get closer to this ideal is shifting to stateless/borderless societies that center around some alternative entities other than geopolitical nation-states.

  • Being "social" often involves power dynamics games. Often that's even part of the culture. Sometimes people who are not interested in that notice each other and proceed to their own comfy wavelength, but it's not something I would expect in average "social group".

  • Proton has some technical issues as well. Recently there was a day when email wasn't working at all for hours, maybe even half a day. I'm paying for their VPN sub and using it for years and not going to move in nearby future, but if I was picking something now I would carefully consider other options. Never heard about those mentioned in thread though, if they are new I wouldn't use them, I'd like something with good record track of at least one decade, better few decades.