hey DTG there is going to be plans to update the TSW modified unreal engine once the tools are release right?
Updating the Unreal Engine is a massive job, it's akin to changing the foundations of your house and expecting your house not to fall down around your ears while you do it. The last engine update from 4.14 to 4.16.3 (which had to bring in fixes from 4.17 and 4.18 - the latter of which had barely been started at the time) was a mammoth task and broke tons of stuff due to changes in the engine. So yes, I'd love to say that the engine will be upgraded at some point - I will also throw a ton of caution on there that don't be surprised if it's a while before you see it, with the amount of changes we've made to the engine combined with the deep level of integration in the game i'm expecting it to be a decent sized task
ah ok. reason i ask is when you release the tools there probably alot of people making content and getting it ready for tsw and they might be using current unreal 4 (4.22) some might have apply Ray tracing in it or have support for it. if the TSW editor is using 4.16 when release there could be issues when people import content that has stuff in version 4.18 and up. if that content doesn't work they have to downgrade to unreal 4.16 and change that content a little to make it work for tsw. there is few that bought video cards while ago to see what ray tracing is and love it, battlefield support it. and now current unreal support ray tracing and they applying it to there content. cause they like it. lot don't care about ray tracing cause it kill performances on there machine i think. for route builder i think some will they and apply true sky to there world cause the current sky looks blah.. we will have to see what happens in future.
Isn’t the great danger that the longer it gets left, and the more DLC gets released, the harder and bigger a proposition it becomes? Glad I don’t have to make the call...I’d be like DelBoy, ‘he who dares, wins’
So people are making content using tools that aren't "authorised" in the game engine so you want DTG to amend their development cycle to match this unauthorised development? Does that sound off to anyone else? Having done even basic development I can agree that trying to update the core between major version updates of base software is a pain in the back end so I feel DTG's pain
Hi Matt, I know, I am in software maintenance. My company missed 1 year of updates for our billing system, so I had to install and test over 200 patches at once. The problem is that when you do so, nobody is able to identify the risks of the update, so you can only run a big test. This is a lot of work, so you tend to postpone this, but this makes the task even bigger... It should be your top priority to be able to follow Unreal updates closely and make sure you have fully automated testing in place. I think TSW is different from most games. Where most games are developed once and then you just do nothing. TSW is a company strategy and a very important company asset. So, protect it! PS. When I learned about the issues, I decided to investing automated testing. Now, six months after I got the jow we will run a proof of concept for test automation. It is hard to get results here, but it is absolutely necessary. It also may help you to have far less bugs in new routes and rolling stock.
Maybe 20 years ago. Today I would say it's the complete opposite. Story based single player games (sadly, almost a dying species) is the main category of games that are "done" on release. Not that this matters for the topic!
Automation testing however is not magic and only as good as the programmer who writes the tests. The major issue facing any game dev is that very rarely do they use the UE engine as is, often heavy modification to core modules of the engine are required, this is very different from having to test patches to a known product where you're deviation from the core product code base is zero. DTG Updating UE is probably more akin to having to rectify 1000s of merge conflicts with your code base than applying patches....never a fun time.
So upgrading a couple of release plus adding fixes from two later releases was a mammoth task? Ignoring 4.22 which has just been released and TSW is at least 3 to 4 releases behind. I have to agree with hightower that DTG are probably setting themselves up for serious problems given that this work is unlikely to start before next year at the earliest.
