Questions About Leadwerks engine

[HeadClot]

Ok,

 

I have a few questions Regarding the Leadwerks engine. The Big ones i need answered are about Royalties, Licensing, and The Engine Itself.

 

1. Royalties will we have to pay Leadwerks any royalties if i license and Publish a game on this Engine?

 

2. If i do have to pay Leadwerks Royalties how much? If it is a Percent made on my teams games what is the percentage?

 

3. Licensing the engine costs 200.00, but if a Major upgrade for the engine comes out will I have to pay to upgrade?

 

4. If so how much does this usually cost?

 

5. Can the Leadwerks engine Support Multi-Genre games Such as RTS\FPS?

 

6. Can the Leadwerks Engine Support MMO styled Games?

 

7. Does the Leadwerks Engine have Built in Support for Level Streaming for large levels and such?

 

8. I noticed that there is a world editor is that a add on to the Leadwerks Editor? or is that the editor just standalone?

 

9. What is the Network Structure (Sever/Client or Peer to peer) for leadwerks Engine? Can it be easily altered?

 

I am really looking forward to your replies about leadwerks.

 

Thanks

 

Headclot

[Canardia]

Thanks for the questions, I love these kind of queries because the answers are always suprisingly positive

 

1) No royalties

 

2) Still no royalties

 

3) It has happened once from version 2.28 to 2.30, but it was only an $50 upgrade, and before that, and after that there has been hundreds of versions for free. I think, an upgrade fee is only needed when there is major addition in features to the engine, which makes it step to another level of consciousness (which was the case with 2.30 since it introduced realtime and visual programming with Lua).

 

4) $50 is the only example we got so far

 

5) It can not only support all game genres, but it can also do much more than games, like simulations and applications, or why not also some cool 3D multimedia demos which you want to show to your friends. It's not tied to anything, although some features are indeed FPS related, but they only make FPS development easier, and don't stop you from making something completely different.

 

6) Yes

 

7) No, but you can do it easily yourself (sqlite3 db, like firefox does), since expanding the engine is a no-brainer. The engine is made to be expanded, because it gives access to all core functions with a very easy interface.

 

8) 3D World Studio is a separate product, but I use it too, since it's the best solid geometry modeller I have found. For hollow modelling I use Blender.

 

9) The network API in Leadwerks is merely a simple one, but it works fine for casual needs (like counterstrike types of games, with no more than 64 players). For commercial grade and heavy networking I would suggest RakNet, which also many people have succesfully added to Leadwerks Engine. There are also specialized MMO solutions which you can use with Leadwerks Engine and are much faster than RakNet (I have the source code for one).

[macklebee]

Ok,

 

I have a few questions Regarding the Leadwerks engine. The Big ones i need answered are about Royalties, Licensing, and The Engine Itself.

 

1. Royalties will we have to pay Leadwerks any royalties if i license and Publish a game on this Engine?

no

 

2.

If i do have to pay Leadwerks Royalties how much? If it is a Percent made on my teams games what is the percentage?

n/a

 

3. Licensing the engine costs 200.00, but if a Major upgrade for the engine comes out will I have to pay to upgrade?

yes- for major upgrade; no for minor updates

 

4. If so how much does this usually cost?

last time was $50... LE3.0 will probably be significantly more due to the amount of features being added.

 

5. Can the Leadwerks engine Support Multi-Genre games Such as RTS\FPS?

 

6. Can the Leadwerks Engine Support MMO styled Games?

 

7. Does the Leadwerks Engine have Built in Support for Level Streaming for large levels and such?

 

yes it can support any game style you wish to implement as long as you are willing to do the work... there is no CreateFPS() of CreateMMO() command. No, at this time LE cannot inherently do streaming levels/terrain.

 

8. I noticed that there is a world editor is that a add on to the Leadwerks Editor? or is that the editor just standalone?

there is only one Editor. dunno what other editor you are referring to...

 

9. What is the Network Structure (Sever/Client or Peer to peer) for leadwerks Engine? Can it be easily altered?

you would be better implementing a 3rd party library like Raknet... LE's inherent network is still a WIP

[Josh]

7. Does the Leadwerks Engine have Built in Support for Level Streaming for large levels and such?

In order to maintain a simple to use command set, the engine does not automatically stream objects in as you move around. However, it handles worlds about as big as Crysis, so it can probably do what you want.

[HeadClot]

In order to maintain a simple to use command set, the engine does not automatically stream objects in as you move around. However, it handles worlds about as big as Crysis, so it can probably do what you want.

 

ok, that is good to hear.

 

I still have a few questions about leadwerks...

So far I think it is the BEST engine under 1000 bucks. And I am Highly Thinking of licensing it for my team.

 

1.What is your policy/pricing on Bulk ordering the Engine? (I want to purchase 3 licenses of this engine for Commercial use)

2.Can the 3d World Studio be used with UDK (Unreal Development Kit)?

3.learning Curve - How long did it take for users to learn how to use leadwerks Engine?

4.What other networking solutions are there besides raknet?

[Josh]

1. We can provide a discount for multiple licenses.

2. As far as I know it can. You may need to use Unwrap3D or something to convert to whatever format Unreal wants.

3. I think the programming is as simple as can be, but you still need to know or learn how to program.

4. There are some simple built-in networking commands, but I will admit that's not my specialty.