If anyone is interested, I've shared some story of my work on the Engine since the beginning, you can read here:
https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/711...s-reviews/

Wanted to say thank you everyone who joined me here on the forum
Those that used the engine, those that supported it and me, either with donations or even with just your presence here, I'm glad to have you.
Thank you!

I will keep on working on the engine and games, hopefully until I die

interesting read !

I do agree that the way the market place is handle in UE is a bit weird, it seems that the moderator are taking very bold moves... I had heard of similar treatment done to one of the creator where his work got copied/pasted by someone else and put on the market place as a discount... and he ended up losing his revenue and left UE marketplace

For the way that the EPIC megagrant are distributed.... this is a mystery... though i always assumed it would be mostly towards devs that use UE4, and in reality just a way to push their engine forward in the engine market place (long term investment)... but ye the copy/pasted rejection letter can hurt... ( i have also applied for a grant in the past, and got the same bot "NOPE")

i am glad that you are still committed into improving EE, which i spend many hours on every day !
from someone that came into loving coding later in life, there is still many things that i dont understand, but enjoy (almost) every moment playing around in EE !

I guess all that is left to do is keep moving forward, and hope for the best !
I do agree with some of the posts, that a great game made with the engine can speak a lot for it... Have you ever thought about building a small indie studio on the side instead of going solo? it feels like you have set all your business option into the engine, but it could be more than that ?

Your story of UE marketplace even beat mine. Thanks for sharing.

We're in the same boat when it comes to grants then
Yes I think at first it was only for UE related projects, but then I've heard that some other open source game engine got it, so I gave it at go. But it's only UE marketing and a show to get more people to use it, nothing fair about it.

Actually I was thinking about doing games as a team, there are however some dangers to that, which I haven't been able to solve:
-people taking code and selling or using it for other projects
-people taking assets and selling or using it for other projects
-revenue sharing
-code leaking is also especially dangerous when it comes to online games, as people with knowledge of codes could potentially develop cheats/hacks for games more easy, and that could ruin the online game experience for many

But yes, eventually if my game https://www.facebook.com/EsenthelWorld got bigger, I'd probably need more help, and I guess this forum and everyone here would be the first that I would ask to join me
This topic is definitely worth exploring, but would have to solve the problems listed above and any similar that I haven't thought about yet

my feeling on that
you cant really control anything about other people... Having a contract is great, but it cost a lot of hours/money to do anything about it if it is broken...

which comes to the point, you have to be able to trust your teammate... and get with people that you have known over the years and discussed and engaged in meaningful conversation.
though i agree that adding people mid project is a toughie because you have lots to lose, especially from "project jumpers"

but by the end of the day, if you got the right game with the right people, you can push for release and any stolen partial code wouldnt matter.
there has been tons of code leaks over the years from studios, but it didnt make the game itself fail.

even AAA title have tons of hacks and cheats, this is not a wrong point, but then again, they will cheat no matter what

the real difficulty is finding same minded people with the likely motivation and goals...
especially in the "hobby /rev share" industry.
At the end of the day, i always felt it was worth it tho, and being in a motivated team is the best feeling !

My inner brain is itching to give out faceslaps.

I must admit that I do not understand the struggles you have been going through from any of the mentioned perspectives (be it financial, developing-wise, or deeper thoughts that I will not mention) as I always had a bit more relaxed approach to making games. It's the experience that I got over the years in the game developing community that partially created the person I am today (and most thoughts are not positive).

However, and I think this needs to be said, you should start dragging yourself out of this negative spiral. It's a very vicious cycle that brings more harm than good. If I were to live next to you, Greg, I would first faceslap you and we would have a very good talk, because that is what I think is needed. You have put so much energy into programming in what is, from my humble opinion, one of the best game engines out there, that you sometimes forget to take the time to reflect on yourself how much strain this has been putting on you. You are a single-man army of knowledge and experience.

That being said, I am offering solutions or a listening ear, whatever you prefer. This community always helped each other and you foremost did most of that with your incredible one-liners on some of my issues, and you got them fixed. If you have a need to talk or want a listening ear, please reach out to me. I am here for you, and I think most others here are as well. Join us on Discord

(10-29-2021 09:03 AM)Dwight Wrote:  However, and I think this needs to be said, you should start dragging yourself out of this negative spiral. It's a very vicious cycle that brings more harm than good. If I were to live next to you, Greg, I would first faceslap you and we would have a very good talk, because that is what I think is needed.

What did I do? Did my story sound like a negative spiral to you?
Umm.. how to say. I am happy with my work, with what I've created, yes of course I wish it could've become something much more popular with higher income as I dreamed when I was younger. I was dreaming very big, something like private-island-big haha. When that didn't happen and instead I have low income, yes there is some disappointment. But it's not like I have a dark cloud on my head all the time for all my life. I still keep on fighting, if can't achieve success with the engine itself, then just have to shift focus on making games. I wouldn't change my job or any work related decisions that I've made up to this point. There's some pressure that I'm having for some time, as it turned out, I've ended up in Thailand, only afterwards I've learned of its quite big air pollution, and now after having a baby I want her to grow up healthy, however I've read some research about the negative health effects of pollution and brain development, which for me as a programmer is especially important So I can't be at peace because of that and trying to push myself/work harder. Everyone has their own problems in life, so of course I don't want to shoulder you or anyone with that.
But yeah, your optimistic message did bring a smile on my face, so thank you
I got smile-slapped.

Something you may not know I guess, by deciding to choose EE for my game, many people in my country have paid attention to EE since I let them play early demo of the game, they say: "wowwww it is not UE, or Unity, then what is this engine ? How can it look so nice?" and I am really proud of saying that "I made it in Esenthel". You need a game, a complete product to show people around the world what capabilities of EE. I am willing to offer my game as a demontration of EE.

I really admire you because you made EE with only yourself. It is just amazing. You did a good job!

My "powered by Esenthel Engine" game is almost completed. And I will release a full features demo soon, maybe Q1 2022.

Please take a look at some of my teasing videos, sorry for bad video quality, I captured them quick for references
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs_uaheQUuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzLXR9Uf_3c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTf3Gn_MQVI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEHyGMCFLLM
I am gonna put some high quality gameplay on "Showcase" section soon

All I want to say, Keep up the good work ! I really love EE and want to make it more popular. I even have plan to teach others (online class) using it in my country after releasing my game, they have already asked me how to use it.

The fact is there are many many people who want to make their own game, but all they hear is about UE and Unity with wellknown game titles. These engine are just good at marketing. but I used both of them before, and I dont like them. EE is my best choice until now.

Be healthy!
(sorry for my imperfect english)

Thanks for your kind words and sharing your project tipforeveryone
The videos do look cool, especially those when you play some music, it makes the game feel more dynamic. So are you from Vietnam? Sounds like not far from me now.
Again sorry that I couldn't improve the ragdolls at the moment, hope you were able to workaround that problem with death animations. Good luck with your game development progress, I'm always happy to see something coming to life.

Interesting read indeed, I've been with Esenthel for a very long time, all the way back I bought what were called the 'Company license', before that I had indie license.

For me, Esenthel's stability has been one of the most amazing aspects, second is code clarity|quality even if parts were completely void of documentation back then, quick tampering allowed me to easily verify if it was indeed what I thought it was.

by Stability I mean, I've gone through alot of hardware during my time using Esenthel list is not necessarily in order.

pentium 4 and Sempron 3200+, E6600,Q6600, phenom X4 955,FX8320, 1700X, 5900X and a few other of intels Bridges and lakes.

I've gone through X1800XTX, 8800GTS, HD3870,HD4870,HD5870, GTX480, HD6870, HD7870, 290X,GTX780,GTX970,GTX1070, RX470, and now 6800XT and 2070 Super.

I can name engine related problems to this range of hardware to 5 times(I remember Tottels Benchmarking program, which I used to test HD3870,4870,5870,GTX480 one after another on the same CPU). and I am typically a driver update freak, is there any driver update, it gets installed and 3 of those times were exclusively due to specific drivers mucking things up, and Esenthel wasn't the only program that refused to run with these drivers properly at those times. ​

Esenthel has been my only goto Engine when I just need to play around with something without having to worry about random crashing, lockups, unable to load projects or need to test my latest play thing repeatedly and very quickly. not to mention, install/download time whenever I've setup a new system or an update etc.

For me programming is exclusively a hobby, of course, jumping from one engine to another frequently but before finding Esenthel, I still couldn't program at all, however, certain things started to click(from the ones who are still around and remember some of my oldest work, might've seen quite huge floppy spaghetti code). I've had a blast playing around with implementing/utilizing Recast and Detour, Raknet, Terrain Generators, Lua scripting, Squirrel scripting,Sqllite, Angelscript and many more things.
Heck, I am going to be honest, I hated the Code Editor(probably someone who were in the devgroups that can remember me making comments about that), after a long while it grew on me when it came to quick prototyping or short code testing, I still like to go back to Visual Studio(includes pruning and cleaning away all the automatic variable from Code editor to VS "export").

but Greg...Now I can't get the image of you getting "Smile-Slapped" out of my head..

Edit: Oh, and I also wanted to say, I still support Esenthel through Github sponsor thingy even though my status on the forum is not listed as such.

Thanks for your feedback Zervox, and your presence and support throughout the years, I'm really glad to have you here
Wow, you've had lots of computer hardware, you will can open your own museum soon.

It appears my slap has done its work.

Flying off onto working with this wonderous engine again! Can't be smile-slapping 24/7... I won't get things done

The big guys have adopted these models for one reason and one reason only, to ensure the competition are cut out of the equation and new up and coming game developers get experience using their engines, as they are more likely to want to continue using these when they either start their own Indie companies or join existing game development companies. It seems unfair but is unfortunately the face of raw capitalism, where big companies will always attempt to stifle their competition and grow bigger and eventually dominate the market as a result.

I greatly sympathise with you, as you have built a great alternative game engine to the two big offerings out there but I feel the battle is long lost for you and many other small game engine developers if seeking to make a living out of just the engine itself.

I agree with RedCrow that your best way forward would be to set up a small game dev team and produce some impressive games. You have the advantage of complete knowledge of the engine and the ability to extend it whereever necessary. This would not only stand a reasonable chance of bringing in a return on your investment but also serve as a great advert for the engine itself. Sure there is risk involved, but there is in any business venture.

Regardless of what direction you take I wish you well and have always had the upmost respect for your engine, unfortunately just never the time to produce anything that did it justice.

Thanks Pixel Perfect for your kind words as always I'm always happy to hear your thoughts and opinions, I believe the forum is richer because we have you here.
Yes I'm fully focused on game development right now, I have 2 games in development, and today I woke up with an idea for another one, a simple one, that I might do in between the 2 games. Feeling excited and motivated. Good luck to everyone with your projects