Originally Posted by Cy-Kill
I can actually understand Bethesda reasoning for running with the Hero Engine. IF bethesda had chosen to develop their own engine from ground up, the amount of time and resource consumption would have been extreme. We're talking 5 - 10 years possibly. Its a lot easier to grab a licensed engine (such as Unreal Engine, Hero, etc) and build from the tools available, than to simply build from the ground up at times, depending on the big heads aim. I highly doubt they could run a MMO with the tools used to create Skyrim.
Look at Funcom and their Cheetah/Dreamworld engine, built from the scratch up, but during its Trial'n'Error runs with Age of Conan, almost costed funcom its moniker as a AAA game producer. However, now its much more stable, even though it shows signs of old bugs and problems (Memory leaks, ghosting characters, and "grey hair" symptoms). But its become one of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced MMO engines on the market.
But in the end its still a cash grab. Had Besthesda been in the MMO market, lets say, 5 or more years ago, they probably would have initiated a separate team for the development of a MMO on its own Standalone engine. But seeing as theyre just entering the scene, this was the best move.
Here ya go.
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