Game Engines available via/supported by; this community comparison.

[Djkanna]

Okay so here is a comparison chart, detailing what each engine, that is either provided via MakeWebGames or is used within and supported (support/modules/etc) by this community.

View it here

IMHO: It's about time we had one of these.

If you've got any criticisms,concerns, comments or even additions to make this comparison chart, please reply. We're trying to get a detailed as possible chart in what hopes to become a help in researching the best product for your game (if you're wanting an engine that is).

It covers:

• MCCodes (v1/lite, v2, Redux, up-coming v3 (details sparse))
  
• NWE (current release)
  
• EzRPG
  
• GL ( I think Dayo's releases)
  

Let the flame war/favoritism comments commence.

^^

[rulerofzu]

Should be made sticky/placed in a prominent position on this website tbh.

Vital info which people should read before making a decision on what engine to go for.

[realmoflegends]

I thought GL had some potential.....Dayo: Still working on V1.0? It got up to 0.8.5, then sorta died off a bit.

[Djkanna]

Should be made sticky/placed in a prominent position on this website tbh.

Vital info which people should read before making a decision on what engine to go for.

I agree, therefore it's now sticky, I guess if anyone disagrees, they can unsticky it.

[Octarine]

Neat .

[URBANZ]

Ok just looked at the doc i think at this rate NWE should be the only one on there lol beats everything hands down according to the doc

[HauntedDawg]

Ok just looked at the doc i think at this rate NWE should be the only one on there lol beats everything hands down according to the doc

You just went full retard.

The doc is a comparison, to allow the Person to be able to choose an engine already made to suit there need's, it's not a document to see who wins.

It's like eating at a restaurant, some of the meals, you get extra onion ring's, some get something else favorable, it's up to the person who's eating it, and in this case, using it as their game.

[Danny696]

No offence, but I do think this is slightly bias to the nwe engine

[URBANZ]

well thats what im saying whats the point other engines being on there when NWE is over rated in all of them tell me if you seen that doc it is like free advertising for NWE

[HauntedDawg]

No offence, but I do think this is slightly bias to the nwe engine

I agree with you on some points of the document, however... Again, it's not a race, so there is no advantage to disadvantage here. It's just merely easily laying out what each engine has to offer instead of the Person having to manually go deep and search.

[a_bertrand]

Danny: then propose some other points toward the other engines, or share your thought on some of the points maybe providing another rating. I'm sure the table can be adjusted.

[rulerofzu]

Yes NWE does stand out in the doc but purely because it is better in areas than the others.

Saying otherwise would be providing misinformation which defeats the point of the doc.

[Guest]

NWE currently has the most features, so I am guessing the list was based off that and compared to other engines.

Good list and interesting comparisons at that :)

[sniko]

NWE currently has the most features

That's up for debate.

 

fea·ture/ˈfēCHər/

Noun: A distinctive attribute or aspect of something.

[Ishraq]

lol. Although this is true and all you stating is the truth. The Mccodes will never get any sales if customers see this before they buy it.

[a_bertrand]

Well then, maybe McCode should hurry up with their V3 and do something against it, don't you think? But I doubt that anyhow people will not buy anymore McCodes.

[Nickson]

While this list shows the many advantages of NWE, I do not think we can blame NWE for having those features or possibilities. It's up to other engines to stay behind, get up to par, or develop new unique features. Unfortunately, you do need an active developer for that.

 

If you do have any suggestions that should go on the list - it does not matter which one - feel free to leave a suggestion here and we'll make sure it will go on the list as well.

[Djkanna]

The list has been updated with the amount of lines of code each engine consists of.

[Spudinski]

This comparison is heavily biased towards NWE.

 

I can not speak for the other engines, since I haven't developed with/for them lately.But

But by developing a fork of the ezRPG engine, and still doing so, I can say quite a few things about it.

"Preferred game theme: None".

This is wrong, ezRPG has a minimalistic blue theme, and it's valid XHTML and implements a table-less design.

3rd party plug-ins available:

Yes, there a very few. But also as mentioned with NWE, MCCodes "mods" can be converted as well. With much less difficulty as well.

Time required for a patch:

Please reveal your sources on this one.

Community support:

Again, reveal your sources.

ezRPG has community support, and most people who "can" give support does it very well due those people usually having a decent experience.

Out of my head, booher on this forum can(and has) given support.

Customization without changing main code:

ezRPG is modular, I really do not see how this is relevant at all.

Easy to install:

Define "very easy" and "easy" please.

By my knowledge there's only three types: complex/hard, intermediate/medium and basic/easy.

A comment is appropriate here for NWE, which features multiple methods of installation.

Security:

I really beg to differ here.

My(and someone else's) fork includes two unique and extremely secure authentication libraries "additionally"(making a total of 3): none of the other engines even comes close to touching this.

P.S. bcrypt, PBKDF2 and normal salting can be used.

XSS and all the other fancy things is also handled appropriately by the engine.

Module installation:

"No" for ezRPG? Really?

It's as simple as copying the template and module files to the correct directory.

Only links will need to be added to the template if needed, and the template cache cleared(optionally, depends).

Documentation:

The code is fully documented, the "doc" directory is only an automatically generated set of HTML pages therefor.

FTP Auto Upload:

NWE biased, not applicable to any other engine.

Like suggested, this can be in the form of a comment.

Single file installer:

And what would this be?

One cannot simply make something, brand it vaguely, and compare it to all other engines.

Module upgrade from within engine:

First thing I actually see relevant to all engines, although, it normally takes form of an "entire" upgrade.

Crontab:

Why does NWE win this section?

ezRPG and GL doesn't use them, at all, and nothing is geared towards requiring them.

Offered modules(out of box):

Sure, can I also package all every piece of the engine and call it a "module"? No.

Speaking for ezRPG, there are two four levels of components: the core, libraries(authentication & database), hooks(statistics counters, etc.) and then modules.

Edit all texts without editing code:

Not many engines(of any kind) support this for a few damn good reasons.

Again, speaking for ezRPG: templates can be edited in an HTML editor.

Technically, it requires no "editing code".

Edit all content from admin panel:

It's like OOP, there's a reason why you'd want certain things "static"(pun).

...skip..

"Game profiler":

I'm sorry, but what the duck is a "Game profiler"?

From it's context, is probably a very minimalistic version of a normal profiler? Right?

Game bugtracking:

I've never seen an application that includes this. It's irrelevant to the "opperation" of an application.

Normally, this should be on the developer's side, not the game's(app user).

Embedded code viewer editer:

S-p-e-l-l-i-n-g.

Live stats:

Hur-dur...? If I wanted an analytics I'd get an analytics application - just sayin'.

Template system:

So what does NWE use for templating? In-house perhaps?

Well then, Smarty is obviously better(for support and updates) than anything built in-house.

Configurable modules:

All engine includes the ability to alter and create the administration modules.

Development status:

Let me translate it to management speak..

MCC1: EOL.

MCC2 & 2.5: stable, security patches.

MCC3: TBA.

NWE: unstable.

ezRPG: stable.

GL: EOL.

It's like Debian, stability is key.

No sysmin wants to go through an update every day.

Updates breaks things, period.

Module development:

Care to explain "Ok"? Again, stick to the norm: hard, medium and easy.

NB Database tables:

What is this NB you speak of? For full functionality all tables are required for each engine.

This shouldn't be on a comparison chart.

And P.S. ezRPG has two(2).

Stat changes requires DB & Code structure edit:

Du-duck? Database structures shouldn't be changed, ever.

Speaking for ezRPG again: template files can be edited to reflect other value units - database will stay the same.

Comment in code:

Again, use the norm: minimal/none, decent/appropriate, heavily/good.

File structure:

What does "fully structured" and "some" mean? I don't get it.

Code base / size:

MCCodes has a "big" code base? Compared to what? The normal size of an application? NWE and MCCodes are "tiny" compared to the "normal" applications like Wordpress.

Lines of PHP:

Might be good eyecandy, but is has no place in a comparison like this.

It's like counting your development environment's code: "Ooooh Yeaaaa! I have 3.123 millions lines of PHP".

Code base / size is enough.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Spudinski

[Djkanna]

Crontab:

Why does NWE win this section?

ezRPG and GL doesn't use them, at all, and nothing is geared towards requiring them.

How exactly does NWE win this section? Please explain.

On that note, we can skip your fork comments considering that's not the EzRPG that is present within this comparison chart, it can be once you release it, but as of now we're speaking of the original EzRPG (well not the original, but the original for here)

@Lines of code: Was suggested and added, remember we're accepting suggestions, that community feel would be helpful to them and others.

"Preferred game theme: None".

This is wrong, ezRPG has a minimalistic blue theme, and it's valid XHTML and implements a table-less design.

Shipped with a genre theme, hence mafia/crime and medieval.

Edit all texts without editing code:

Not many engines(of any kind) support this for a few damn good reasons.

Again, speaking for ezRPG: templates can be edited in an HTML editor.

Technically, it requires no "editing code".

I believe we're talking about language support, the ability to change a message without having to go and search for each occurrence of "hello player, how's it going" within the script itself.

Directly editable via some form of ACP.

Pretty sure there's a fair few engines/scripts of a various type that offer this ability, so I'm pretty sure there's a good reason for it to be implemented, regardless of the few damn good reasons you mention; that it shouldn't.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Djkanna

[rulerofzu]

So submit changes for the google doc then Spud if you are not able to change it yourself. Or ask for your ez fork to be included?

I dont really see the reason to call the doc bias it was written in my opinion in all good faith to be updated as and when information is provided and will be a ongoing document.

[Spudinski]

How exactly does NWE win this section? Please explain.

On that note, we can skip your fork comments considering that's not the EzRPG that is present within this comparison chart, it can be once you release it, but as of now we're speaking of the original EzRPG (well not the original, but the original for here)

@Lines of code: Was suggested and added, remember we're accepting suggestions, that community feel would be helpful to them and others.

My(our) fork is publicly available, it has the same exact space in ezRPG. It's not hidden behind closed doors, and the current maintainer of ezRPG is fully aware and in agreement of it.

[rulerofzu]

A bit off topic but im currently standing in for Booher for the forum here whilst he is away.

Not that I have had the time to really look into ez but its on my todo list.

[Djkanna]

My(our) fork is publicly available, it has the same exact space in ezRPG. It's not hidden behind closed doors, and the current maintainer of ezRPG is fully aware and in agreement of it.

Okay well we'll take a look at your available fork, and make provisions for it within the chart then. ;)

[a_bertrand]

- Table has been updated thanks to spud comments. If there is more, post them ;)

- Lines of PHP may give an idea of how much mess you may need to check if you want to go through the whole stuff, it doesn't say that the biggest is the best or the smallest is the best. It's just an info.

- For the player stats: you are fully right, you should not have to change the DB to be able to change the number of stat / skills or whatever. However McCodes as you know is like that where most info ends up in the user table.

- For the development status there is 2 things: stability of the API / LIB and the feature set. If buy a product you hope to get new features every now and then, and see that the product is evolving. Dead products are usually lot less interesting than emerging one. - If you run after stability you could use OS/2 which is totally dead as nobody develops it anymore. On the API side, of course as developer you don't want to change your code at each release. Now if you pick NWE, show me what changes you had in the API since the beginning which forced you to change even a single line inside a module. None is the answer... yet the engine is frequently updated / improved.

- Having game live stats is a feature... New comers (which are anyhow the target of most game engines right?) don't know much of internet overall, and having the possibility to see inside the game how it's going is a plus.

- Game profiler help you detect bottle necks, slow code and slow queries, it shows even what kind of module is used for a single page. You may find it useless, I find it extremely useful.

- Bug tracker: again something useful. The game owner could create some code which breaks something, well it's a way to report the issue. Or the content may be broken somehow... again you want to know it. Could you live without? Sure... but it's more than an useful feature.

- Edit all texts: sorry but here it's not just question of template. First of all it allows to have your game in multi-language (with little efforts), but it helps also the owner to customize the game without modifying the code / template or anything from any kind of modules. That allows a module coder to release a new version, and you are sure the customization you had for your own game will be kept, even if the base template is changed. For me again this is something mandatory for a good engine which shall use 3rd party modules. If you do all yourself you don't need it.

- NWE uses PHP as template engine ;) no need of anything else. You should have a look with the free version and then comment once you understood the concept. Smarty is not bad, don't take me wrong, yet it has a little different approach of the problem.