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Archives (read only) => Vanilla Glest => General discussion => Topic started by: Omega on 8 December 2010, 07:06:54

Title: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 8 December 2010, 07:06:54
Question: Which of the two is your favorite to use for everyday usage and/or modding? Please give REASONS FOR YOUR ANSWER. Don't just state your favorite (the reason why there's no poll), but defend that reason.

Important rule to note is not to attack the other people's opinions on their favorite. This is a question to determine the community's preferences, not to split the community into those favorites.



I'll begin. I prefer GAE because it has many more features for modding which I've come to depend upon, a better UI, improved pathfinding, and features like autoreturn.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 8 December 2010, 07:41:27
For me, I prefer Neither. Each of the two forks' pros and cons crosses each other out for me...
MG is good for multiplayer and some features that GAE doesn't have... and the megapack is a nice too. People could say that it's too big or it's quality can't be compared with magitech...but people can always download a version without the megapack. For quality, megapack is pretty good compared to most of the mods/factions that Glest has.
GAE, great features...but its lack of good multiplayer makes it kinda bad.  :| That's main con. People could say that the main con of MG would be that it doesn't have as much features or not enough features, but its multiplayer, other good features, and future features or other "stuff" makes it up for that. With the main con for GAE same thing...its great and many features basically make it up for that. But multiplayer is kinda bigger thing...part of the reason why MG has more downloads than GAE.
improved pathfinding
Well, MG has it too. I guess ya' didn't know.  :P Now, maybe even better than GAE...not sure.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Psychedelic_hands on 8 December 2010, 10:52:38
Well, since I tried GAE it's hard to go back to MG, or VG....

It wasn't a big deal before I tried GAE, but MG seems kinda choppy now.

For me GAE, feels more like a continuation of Glest's development. MG feels like a big mod for it.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Gabbe on 8 December 2010, 15:26:22
Poll? GAE for modding abilities (and military ;) ), MG for multiplayer ;) I prefer both :P
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Zoythrus on 8 December 2010, 17:41:44
Well, since I tried GAE it's hard to go back to MG, or VG....

It wasn't a big deal before I tried GAE, but MG seems kinda choppy now.

For me GAE, feels more like a continuation of Glest's development. MG feels like a big mod for it.

this
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ElimiNator on 8 December 2010, 18:17:44
My favourite is MG because I help make it and it is stable with single / multi player. Also I like the building rotation and hight cells for air units (There is lots more but I wont post it now).
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 8 December 2010, 22:53:06
Poll? GAE for modding abilities (and military ;) ), MG for multiplayer ;) I prefer both :P
Quote
Don't just state your favorite (the reason why there's no poll),
Hmm...I guess I prefer both too?  :thumbup:

It wasn't a big deal before I tried GAE, but MG seems kinda choppy now.
It was a little bit choppy...but the upcoming version (3.4.0) is much better. Now, I guess it's "normal"...
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: John.d.h on 9 December 2010, 19:42:30
I'd rather stay out of this.  I support the development of both engines, and I wish the best for each.  Some people prefer one, some people prefer the other.  I don't think it's constructive to have a debate about which is better.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 9 December 2010, 21:07:39
It's not asking which is better, simply which engine you prefer (either for modding, playing, multiplayer, or all-round).
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 9 December 2010, 23:55:59
All-round and playing: Depends on the type of  "Glest game" that you want to play...
Modding: GAE, unless you want to have good multiplayer support/MG's additional features
Multiplayer: Basically MG, unless people are using windows to windows or linux to linux and that they really want to have GAE's features.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: titi on 10 December 2010, 13:30:40
I like multiplayer a lot and I play it nearly every day!
Thats why I like MG. Beside of this its pretty stable and comes with lots of fitting data (factions/tilesets/maps) using most of the available features it has.
in short:
Multiplayer, fitting data, easy to install and completly ready to play offering hours and hours of fun! -> MG

GAE is trying to be a good RTS engine focussing on new features but just has rudimentary multiplayer support.
Its nothing for me, because I simply want to play! I love big one hour battles! My personal motivation to create stuff for glest is that I really like to play this game.
Sadly not many other people really play it a lot yet. So whats missing the most for MG and GAE are active players.
Thats our main issue!

Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Zoythrus on 10 December 2010, 22:56:01
you know, that keeps coming up. the reason people dont play MG or GAE is because only we know about them. if they were broadcast on the main site, people might know about them. before you say "but Vanilla Glest is useful because its stable!" remember that it's really outdated! the main site needs a revamp! it needs to show that better versions exist.

why dont we fix this?
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 10 December 2010, 23:03:51
We've tried again/we are trying...please don't discuss that in this thread...this thread isn't about that.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: John.d.h on 10 December 2010, 23:08:25
Honestly, I think we're comparing apples and oranges here.  Megaglest is a game; GAE is an engine.  They're not the same thing.  If things work out the way I'm planning, that will change in the not-too-distant future, when GAE has a full-featured tech tree of its own that will explore all its myriad capabilities.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 10 December 2010, 23:33:44
Megaglest is a game; GAE is an engine.  They're not the same thing.
True, but not 100% true...
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Gabbe on 11 December 2010, 19:40:44
What do i see? This thread becoming another "How to merge GAE&MG" topic.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 11 December 2010, 20:00:19
I don't see that...and besides, that won't happen... I only see that this is becoming a GAE VS MG thread...
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 12 December 2010, 06:46:31
...And it's meant for neither. The thread is simply for peeps to give their opinions on their favorite. Not what they think should replace glest, nor putting down the other side, but to simply give your personal favourite and the reasons for that.

The two engines can also see this as a way to know what is their "weak points" (ie: user A prefers GAE because it has function B. MG now knows that if they get function B, user A will like them just as much).
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 12 December 2010, 07:01:19
Heh, of course. I do think that some "response" is ok...as long as things don't too hectic...in a debating kind of way.

Quote
The two engines can also see this as a way to know what is their "weak points" (ie: user A prefers GAE because it has function B. MG now knows that if they get function B, user A will like them just as much).
True...but not really, for now. In the future, sure. I know that Softcoder and Titi aren't focusing on features that GAE has, and for GAE I think Silnarm and Hailstone are preparing a release + they're currently focusing on other features...and also not multiplayer, yet. Only thing that they might be is observers...
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Chakravanti on 13 December 2010, 04:28:48
From the perspective of someone who is just getting into glest...this is all pretty rediculous.  I mean, I understand that there is some reason the whole project split like pane glass but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is and everything on the topic amounts to some hush hush drama that was swept under the rug with repeated statements to the effect of 'we've already been over that and dev's have stated their positions.'

Really?  Where?  'Cuz if you think MG and GAE are hard to find.  The REASON they exist is even more elusive.  After pouring over a dozen stickies, faqs and random forums posts.  This thread is the most informative thing I've come up with.

I'm not trying to troll you, I personally don't care serious business your development squabbles are.  I'm just trying to figure out what I want to play and what to reccomend to friends...

Having played glest.  I have NO IDEA WTF THIS IS ABOUT.  So I picked one: MG,  purely for the multiplayer content.  I suppose GAE might have multiplayer eventually but with a community expressing this kind of...err....yeah...I think I'll hold my breath for a multiplayer version of dwarf fortress till you guys figure out what the heck is going on here and put up some decent self-descriptions somewhere normal people can read about whatever the heck it is you are doing here that doesn't smell like the result of a bean burrito (which is exactly what it loooks like now considering the lack of anything else).  Still, it's probably for the best, and no...I'm not asking for an explanation of drama.  Only an explanation of exactly WTF GAE & MG ARE, and how they build upon glest because this is surprisingly lacking from my perspective).

All in all though....glest is pretty sweet and I'm looking forward to rockin down some games with you on MG when I bring myself up to par and hopefully I'll get something decent I can bundle into linux installs for my clients.  TIA, I probably just missed 'the link' that explains everything...
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: wciow on 13 December 2010, 10:49:08


I agree that it may be somewhat unclear exactly what MG/GAE are and what the differences are for new players. This is something that will hopefully change down the line when the forks recieve their own website/portal. Having said that, if you want to play Glest just search your package manager and there will be an up-to-date vanilla Glest install for major linux distributions. If you want to play with versions of Glest that are still under development you may have to accept that it is not so straight forward.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 19 February 2011, 07:24:05
My favorite is "Future Glest" (https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php?topic=6577.0)...it seems to have everything!  :o
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Mr War on 22 February 2011, 21:47:48
I appreciate both, but right now I'm modding only in GAE because it allows me to do water units. I also find the tile sets in GAE slightly easier to work with as I'm trying to add quasi-blending to the bases of my buildings.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 22 February 2011, 22:37:47
Well, MG is a little bit better than GAE performance wise now; at least. Even if you don't count the FPS Cap. Perhaps even better when MG improves its pathfinder...

I really don't have a favorite anymore. I just wish GAE would not have resolution problems, be OK with cross platform play, be able to to be OK with Magic, and have some space to be able to chat when people are setting up the game. Oh and an addon manager :D

But really once this resolution bug is fixed, I'm fine with GAE. GAE is great with its additional features, but I wish it would work multiplayer wise. Vice versa with MG.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Mr War on 22 February 2011, 22:57:47
re resolution, I find MG has too small buttons, at least on my screen. But having the map visible in the game set-up screen on MG is great.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 2 March 2011, 08:29:26
Hmm...another reason that I like to use MG, is that it's easier for me to see the units' information. It's not that I'm not used to the UI, but rather , I think, I waste a good amount of time when I need to hover for armor or move speed information. So basically, when testing mods a key essential is to look at the units' information. Armor, move speed, etc. Hovering just wastes time...but I suppose the UI will be improved before the next release comes out; although if I still have to hover that technically isn't really an improvement. :P I guess the other thing is that you can see your opponents' stats too...mainly for armor. Some people may call it cheating, but it isn't really cheating unless you're a newbie. ;)

Mydata VS Addons
Basically I guess you could say addons does win...although I usually edit my external mods... I suppose if this was somehow "fixed" and an addon manager was implemented, it would obviously be better.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 3 March 2011, 00:51:27
Hmm...another reason that I like to use MG, is that it's easier for me to see the units' information. It's not that I'm not used to the UI, but rather , I think, I waste a good amount of time when I need to hover for armor or move speed information. So basically, when testing mods a key essential is to look at the units' information. Armor, move speed, etc. Hovering just wastes time...but I suppose the UI will be improved before the next release comes out; although if I still have to hover that technically isn't really an improvement. :P I guess the other thing is that you can see your opponents' stats too...mainly for armor. Some people may call it cheating, but it isn't really cheating unless you're a newbie. ;)

Mydata VS Addons
Basically I guess you could say addons does win...although I usually edit my external mods... I suppose if this was somehow "fixed" and an addon manager was implemented, it would obviously be better.
Addons are far easier for someone who has no tech experience to install though. Hmm...What if you could have uncompressed folders in the same structure (the first folder would replace the archive, so would be ignored) to allow you to edit the mod(s) in particular?
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: John.d.h on 3 March 2011, 01:24:04
What if you could have uncompressed folders in the same structure (the first folder would replace the archive, so would be ignored) to allow you to edit the mod(s) in particular?
You means like addons/name_of_addon/techs/?  If so, that's absolutely already possible.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 3 March 2011, 03:12:14
What if you could have uncompressed folders in the same structure (the first folder would replace the archive, so would be ignored) to allow you to edit the mod(s) in particular?
You means like addons/name_of_addon/techs/?  If so, that's absolutely already possible.
Oh. I stand corrected. Never knew you could do that. In this case, I find Ultifd's addon argument void, as he can still edit the file easily be extracting it to any random folder in the addons folder.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 3 March 2011, 03:56:50
Oh, really? Cool, I'll try that out...although I don't know about you, but that kinda takes away the purpose of addons then...if people do that, they are using more space than mydata...or equal space I guess. :|. Or am I wrong there somehow?
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: John.d.h on 3 March 2011, 04:36:04
Oh, really? Cool, I'll try that out...although I don't know about you, but that kinda takes away the purpose of addons then...if people do that, they are using more space than mydata...or equal space I guess. :|. Or am I wrong there somehow?
That depends.  If it's an entire tech tree, then it should be equal, but if it's modifying an existing tech tree it's a big savings.  Take PG for example.  It's 1.9MB, whereas it would be much larger if you had to copy the whole Magitech folder.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 3 March 2011, 04:44:06
Oh, really? Cool, I'll try that out...although I don't know about you, but that kinda takes away the purpose of addons then...if people do that, they are using more space than mydata...or equal space I guess. :|. Or am I wrong there somehow?
That depends.  If it's an entire tech tree, then it should be equal, but if it's modifying an existing tech tree it's a big savings.  Take PG for example.  It's 1.9MB, whereas it would be much larger if you had to copy the whole Magitech folder.
Right. I forgot about addons like that I guess, so yeah it does save a lot of space in that case. For regular techtrees, I guess it isn't any better or worse; which is still good.  :thumbup:
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: MJR on 10 May 2011, 03:27:08
MegaGlest has a better AI than GAE. So if you want to play a 1 player game and be challenge then MegaGlest is the way to go if not you will get board with GAE AI  soon enough.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: -Archmage- on 10 May 2011, 03:50:19
MegaGlest has a better AI than GAE. So if you want to play a 1 player game and be challenge then MegaGlest is the way to go if not you will get board with GAE AI  soon enough.

I would say that's for the most part wrong. GAE has lots of little AI things like auto-return and auto-repair that make your units a bit less zombie-like and more intelligent. I always found GAE to be a lot more fun to play than MegaGlest. Also GAE's pathfinder has always been way less laggy. Plus GAE has specular and normal mapping as well as per-pixel lighting coming soon. Basically, GAE is smoother gameplay, with better graphics. :P
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ElimiNator on 10 May 2011, 04:43:40
Basically, GAE is smoother gameplay, with better graphics. :P
I am afraid this is purely your opinion.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 10 May 2011, 05:46:32
Basically, GAE is smoother gameplay, with better graphics. :P
I am afraid this is purely your opinion.
Isn't everything? He doesn't need our opinions, he can try both for himself and see. And of course, the best neutral comparison is as Ultifd pointed out: https://docs.megaglest.org/Engines#Comparison_of_the_Engines
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 10 May 2011, 05:48:56
MegaGlest has a better AI than GAE. So if you want to play a 1 player game and be challenge then MegaGlest is the way to go if not you will get board with GAE AI  soon enough.
I would say that's for the most part wrong. GAE has lots of little AI things like auto-return and auto-repair that make your units a bit less zombie-like and more intelligent. I always found GAE to be a lot more fun to play than MegaGlest. Also GAE's pathfinder has always been way less laggy. Plus GAE has specular and normal mapping as well as per-pixel lighting coming soon. Basically, GAE is smoother gameplay, with better graphics. :P
Maybe you should actually try megaglest 3.5.1 before talking. You sound like you're talking about the first few versions of it.  :angel: If we're talking about that, then you're 100% correct. Gratz.
Anyways, Softcoder has improved the AI a lot, and the pathfinder too. GAE hasn't really tried to improved the AI much, ask the developers. Then there's the default resource multipliers, compare MG's to GAE's. MG=Ultra, 2.0 Mega, 3.0 GAE=Ultra, 3.0  Mega, 5.0 The AI is ultimately much better in MG.
Now graphics wise, of course with the additions of specular and normal mapping, GAE is better that way. Which is awesome. Tileset particles partially make up for that though, sometimes. Just look at Annex.  :P
Pathfinder-wise, I think MG has improved it a bit. It doesn't cause lag anymore. We did a lot of pathfinder-nodes tests.
Autoreturn and repair is great, but just a feature really.

Basically, GAE is smoother gameplay, with better graphics. :P
I am afraid this is purely your opinion.
Isn't everything? He doesn't need our opinions, he can try both for himself and see. And of course, the best neutral comparison is as Ultifd pointed out: https://docs.megaglest.org/Engines#Comparison_of_the_Engines
Nope, just some things. The comparison is great for general stuff, though.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: MJR on 11 May 2011, 07:45:25
The AI in GAE is and only attack from one direction so all you have to do is put up a good defense and you have the battle half won where MegaGlest AI will attack from more than one direction to make game play harder so any of the guard features of GAE stills leave to a easy game where MegaGlest is more difficult to win in my opinion. In fact the makers of GAE even says they done little to enhance the AI logic where they admit MegaGlest has.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 11 May 2011, 22:28:38
The AI in GAE is and only attack from one direction so all you have to do is put up a good defense and you have the battle half won where MegaGlest AI will attack from more than one direction to make game play harder so any of the guard features of GAE stills leave to a easy game where MegaGlest is more difficult to win in my opinion. In fact the makers of GAE even says they done little to enhance the AI logic where they admit MegaGlest has.
For now. First to impliment Lua AI wins the AI battle, forever.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Ishmaru on 12 May 2011, 03:58:45
For now. First to impliment Lua AI wins the AI battle, forever.

That's in the future though... Isn't this topic about the Present though??
Anyway wasn't Lua AI was postponed till after the merger?
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: Omega on 12 May 2011, 04:20:23
For now. First to impliment Lua AI wins the AI battle, forever.

That's in the future though... Isn't this topic about the Present though??
Anyway wasn't Lua AI was postponed till after the merger?
I haven't heard anything official, but all major changes are supposed to wait till after the merger. Hasn't even started though, to my knowledge.
Title: Re: Choose your Favorite: MegaGlest or Glest Advanced Engine
Post by: ultifd on 15 May 2011, 01:22:52
Well if it's not in 0.4 then everybody wins the battle of best AI.  :P Win-win xD Even better?

In MG the AI has better response to Air units...which is good but bad for air raiders.  :O It doesn't really make a defense then though, you just now have to be smarter with air units.