So for those who don't know what a game engine is, it's basicly in the name. It's the engine (duh) for a game. It's the foundation that makes it possible to create a game. Now I'm not an expert to fully explain what it is so I'll let Wikipedia do the job for me.
A game engine is conceptually the core software necessary for a game program to properly run.[1] This is not to be confused with the often incorporated software-development environment designed for people to build video games.
Developers can use game engines to construct games for video game consoles and other types of computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine may include a rendering engine ("renderer") for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and video support for cinematics. Game engine implementers often economize on the process of game development by reusing/adapting, in large part, the same game engine to produce different games[2] or to aid in porting games to multiple platforms.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine)
Now there are a lot of reasons why I believe Frontier Developments inhouse game engine (called the COBRA engine) is the cause of a big amount of issues in Odyssey, but for this threadand for the credability of it I'll be focussing on 3 aspects I can proof. I'll list those below.
The Table of Contents
1) The Glassdoor reviews
2) The leaked 2019 Roadmap
3) The Updates
The Glassdoor reviews
So for those who don't know, Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees can review companies. Now what is so interesting about that? Well on there multible (former) employees complain about how bad the inhouse COBRA engine is. Before anyone starts complaining about Glassdoor not being 100% reliable, I agree and that's why I'm asking you to put a pair of scepticle glasses on. But know this, if 1 person says something on there you can have your doubts. If 2 people start complaining about the same thing it's a tiny bit more believable. But if the same thing pops up multible times you have to at least aknowledge that there might be something going on.
I will give you all the reviews where they complain about the game engine below.
As you can see, 4 people say this out of the 67 reviews and all of those reviews are not that old (not older then 2 years). This, to me, also explains why they are struggling to update Odyssey and why there are so many issues. But you can think about that how you want. Just let it sink in a bit.
The leaked 2019 Roadmap
For those who don't know, in 2019 a 4Chan post was made with a roadmap. In this roadmap you could read what Frontier Developments was planning to do for the next few years. (See image below)
When you read true this you might have figuered out that most of these things are have become true.
For example
-Planet Coaster Ghostbusters pack https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092880/Planet_Coaster_Ghostbusters/
-Jurassic World Evolution 1993 pack https://www.jurassicworldevolution.com/en-GB/dlc/return-jurassic-park#masthead
-Elite Dangerous Space legs, Obviously there https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336350/Elite_Dangerous_Odyssey/
-Planet Zoo https://store.steampowered.com/app/703080/Planet_Zoo/
-JWE 2 Coming Soon https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244460/Jurassic_World_Evolution_2/
-Etc...
Now it's about that sentence after the JWE2 that I want to talk about. "We can't fix JWE so we are going to make a new one. Now doesn't that sound troubling if you know that JWE is a game released in 2018 (https://store.steampowered.com/app/648350/Jurassic_World_Evolution/). Now doesn't that slightly worry you knowing that Odyssey has way more bugs in it, they struggled to fix JWE and with what we know from the Glassdoor reviews? Think about it, doesn't that sound like they are struggling with the game engine to fix things?
The Updates
Final point: the updates. We recently got update 5 and got a Dev update. We have had so many fixes over the past months. But it has been stated in the issue tracker, across the forums and even by FDev themselfs that fixes they roll out often not get fixed even tho they state it has been. On top of that it took them all this time to identify "Pathways" to issues. Not solve them but find Pathways to fix them. All together this gives me the vibe of them struggling with Odyssey. I mean i can't be the only one to feel that. Much in that description of a game engine in the beginning come back as issues.
Here are some examples:
-Rendering, we all know the issue with rendering planets, textures not loading and the mountains acting all strange.
-Collision detection, we all know the NPC's stuck in a wall or in weird possitions. Not to mention invisible rocks and unaccessable containers.
-AI, there have been multible bug reports and fixes for AI related issues.
If all that isn't a red flag for issues with the COBRA game engine, then I don't know.
A game engine is conceptually the core software necessary for a game program to properly run.[1] This is not to be confused with the often incorporated software-development environment designed for people to build video games.
Developers can use game engines to construct games for video game consoles and other types of computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine may include a rendering engine ("renderer") for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and video support for cinematics. Game engine implementers often economize on the process of game development by reusing/adapting, in large part, the same game engine to produce different games[2] or to aid in porting games to multiple platforms.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine)
Now there are a lot of reasons why I believe Frontier Developments inhouse game engine (called the COBRA engine) is the cause of a big amount of issues in Odyssey, but for this threadand for the credability of it I'll be focussing on 3 aspects I can proof. I'll list those below.
The Table of Contents
1) The Glassdoor reviews
2) The leaked 2019 Roadmap
3) The Updates
The Glassdoor reviews
So for those who don't know, Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees can review companies. Now what is so interesting about that? Well on there multible (former) employees complain about how bad the inhouse COBRA engine is. Before anyone starts complaining about Glassdoor not being 100% reliable, I agree and that's why I'm asking you to put a pair of scepticle glasses on. But know this, if 1 person says something on there you can have your doubts. If 2 people start complaining about the same thing it's a tiny bit more believable. But if the same thing pops up multible times you have to at least aknowledge that there might be something going on.
I will give you all the reviews where they complain about the game engine below.
As you can see, 4 people say this out of the 67 reviews and all of those reviews are not that old (not older then 2 years). This, to me, also explains why they are struggling to update Odyssey and why there are so many issues. But you can think about that how you want. Just let it sink in a bit.
The leaked 2019 Roadmap
For those who don't know, in 2019 a 4Chan post was made with a roadmap. In this roadmap you could read what Frontier Developments was planning to do for the next few years. (See image below)
When you read true this you might have figuered out that most of these things are have become true.
For example
-Planet Coaster Ghostbusters pack https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092880/Planet_Coaster_Ghostbusters/
-Jurassic World Evolution 1993 pack https://www.jurassicworldevolution.com/en-GB/dlc/return-jurassic-park#masthead
-Elite Dangerous Space legs, Obviously there https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336350/Elite_Dangerous_Odyssey/
-Planet Zoo https://store.steampowered.com/app/703080/Planet_Zoo/
-JWE 2 Coming Soon https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244460/Jurassic_World_Evolution_2/
-Etc...
Now it's about that sentence after the JWE2 that I want to talk about. "We can't fix JWE so we are going to make a new one. Now doesn't that sound troubling if you know that JWE is a game released in 2018 (https://store.steampowered.com/app/648350/Jurassic_World_Evolution/). Now doesn't that slightly worry you knowing that Odyssey has way more bugs in it, they struggled to fix JWE and with what we know from the Glassdoor reviews? Think about it, doesn't that sound like they are struggling with the game engine to fix things?
The Updates
Final point: the updates. We recently got update 5 and got a Dev update. We have had so many fixes over the past months. But it has been stated in the issue tracker, across the forums and even by FDev themselfs that fixes they roll out often not get fixed even tho they state it has been. On top of that it took them all this time to identify "Pathways" to issues. Not solve them but find Pathways to fix them. All together this gives me the vibe of them struggling with Odyssey. I mean i can't be the only one to feel that. Much in that description of a game engine in the beginning come back as issues.
Here are some examples:
-Rendering, we all know the issue with rendering planets, textures not loading and the mountains acting all strange.
-Collision detection, we all know the NPC's stuck in a wall or in weird possitions. Not to mention invisible rocks and unaccessable containers.
-AI, there have been multible bug reports and fixes for AI related issues.
If all that isn't a red flag for issues with the COBRA game engine, then I don't know.
