To this day, Valve is using a game engine that is, at its core, the Quake engine from 1996. Goldsrc? Source? Source 2? All increasingly heavily reworked versions of the Quake engine.
All Valve statements about the Source2 port of Counter-Strike say Source2 is a completely new engine.
It’s new in the sense they have rebuilt large enough parts of it to fully justify giving it a new name. Certainly it’s very far removed from Quake. It’s not like they’ve been sitting on their hands for almost 30 years. But it’s not like they rebuilt it all from scratch, either; just the parts they needed to. Old code is still being used, and even new code still sometimes uses the old as a base. The most obvious visual example that comes to mind is the pattern they still use for flickering lights which has been around since the Quake days.
It’s a bit of a Ship of Theseus situation, but I think my point still stands: Bethesda doesn’t need an entirely new engine, they need devs who can (or more likely, need to give their devs time to) properly rebuild the parts that need it.
The most obvious visual example that comes to mind is the pattern they still use for flickering lights which has been around since the Quake days.
But you wrote “To this day, Valve is using a game engine that is, at its core, the Quake engine from 1996” and that’s just untrue. Just because nobody ever saw the need to change the light flickering pattern for no reason other than to make it new, doesn’t mean that Source2 is “at its core” still Quake1. Even the community-maintained wiki (not a officially sanctioned Valve document, btw) you’ve linked only speaks about “some residual Quake code”.
Another to look at it is that if Valve properly managed their VCS, you could do git ls-files HEAD^10000 and see Quake/goldsrc code building the foundation for everything that came after. Every subsequent rewrite and refactor was shaped and constrained by what came before and what hadn’t been rewritten yet. If they had started with another engine, they wouldn’t have ended up here.
Beyond semantics, Source 2’s lineage is still very apparent. While the engine is very good at what it does, it’s without question much better suited to a rather specific class of semi-realistic 3D games. It has a look, a feel, strengths and weaknesses. It can’t be Unity or Unreal Engine, and it would have been a ridiculous mistake to use it as a base for Elite Dangerous or Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Terraria.
Surprisingly, that isn’t what the thought experiment has in mind. It was created before any kind of engine for a ship, so clearly they had other ideas. Generally it’s asked if it’s still the same shop when only one board from the original ship remains? If so, is it suddenly a different ship when that board is replaced? Before then all other boards were part of the Ship of Theseus, so why does that one board matter? If it doesn’t matter though, what does it mean to be The ship of Theseus?
I know the original thought experiment but it doesn’t apply here because Source2 is a completely new engine with some residual stuff brought over like light flickering pattern.
It is not a “completely new engine”. That’s an insane statement. The renderer is mostly new, but the way it handles entities is pretty much the same. An engine is a large collection of tools. Some of those tools being changed out doesn’t mean you have a whole new toolbox.
Please talk to the Valve developers who said this in interviews about the Source2 Counter-Strike port that they make insane statements. I’m simply believing the actual creators over random guys on the internet.
All Valve statements about the Source2 port of Counter-Strike say Source2 is a completely new engine.
It’s new in the sense they have rebuilt large enough parts of it to fully justify giving it a new name. Certainly it’s very far removed from Quake. It’s not like they’ve been sitting on their hands for almost 30 years. But it’s not like they rebuilt it all from scratch, either; just the parts they needed to. Old code is still being used, and even new code still sometimes uses the old as a base. The most obvious visual example that comes to mind is the pattern they still use for flickering lights which has been around since the Quake days.
It’s a bit of a Ship of Theseus situation, but I think my point still stands: Bethesda doesn’t need an entirely new engine, they need devs who can (or more likely, need to give their devs time to) properly rebuild the parts that need it.
I mean a huge (really huge) number of game engines ultimately draw lineage from Quake. It’s either Quake or Unreal.
Nobody is denying that but the claim that Source2 is at its core just Quake 1 is just insane.
I agree that is insane. It’s also insane to say the Creation Engine is GameBryo. It isn’t. They just need to invest more to update it further.
Starfield contains much idTech7 code, so by the logic of certain individuals Starfield is basically Quake1 just because there is some heritage…
But you wrote “To this day, Valve is using a game engine that is, at its core, the Quake engine from 1996” and that’s just untrue. Just because nobody ever saw the need to change the light flickering pattern for no reason other than to make it new, doesn’t mean that Source2 is “at its core” still Quake1. Even the community-maintained wiki (not a officially sanctioned Valve document, btw) you’ve linked only speaks about “some residual Quake code”.
Semantics.
Another to look at it is that if Valve properly managed their VCS, you could do
git ls-files HEAD^10000and see Quake/goldsrc code building the foundation for everything that came after. Every subsequent rewrite and refactor was shaped and constrained by what came before and what hadn’t been rewritten yet. If they had started with another engine, they wouldn’t have ended up here.Beyond semantics, Source 2’s lineage is still very apparent. While the engine is very good at what it does, it’s without question much better suited to a rather specific class of semi-realistic 3D games. It has a look, a feel, strengths and weaknesses. It can’t be Unity or Unreal Engine, and it would have been a ridiculous mistake to use it as a base for Elite Dangerous or Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Terraria.
Ship of Theseus.
When does the ship change from the ship of Theseus into something else?
When they decide to build a completely new ship with a steam engine and bring the lamps from the old ship because why not. They’re good lamps.
Surprisingly, that isn’t what the thought experiment has in mind. It was created before any kind of engine for a ship, so clearly they had other ideas. Generally it’s asked if it’s still the same shop when only one board from the original ship remains? If so, is it suddenly a different ship when that board is replaced? Before then all other boards were part of the Ship of Theseus, so why does that one board matter? If it doesn’t matter though, what does it mean to be The ship of Theseus?
I know the original thought experiment but it doesn’t apply here because Source2 is a completely new engine with some residual stuff brought over like light flickering pattern.
It is not a “completely new engine”. That’s an insane statement. The renderer is mostly new, but the way it handles entities is pretty much the same. An engine is a large collection of tools. Some of those tools being changed out doesn’t mean you have a whole new toolbox.
Please talk to the Valve developers who said this in interviews about the Source2 Counter-Strike port that they make insane statements. I’m simply believing the actual creators over random guys on the internet.
All statements Bethesda has made about Creation say the same thing. Doesn’t mean it’s true.