St. Louis based game development company Simutronics has been working on their fantasy MMORPG Hero's Journey with their own HeroEngine. Their graphics engine has already generated interest in third parties even before the release of Hero's Journey, such as the recent announcement of HeroEngine being used by BioWare for their upcoming and unnamed MMORPG project. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with Simutronics' PR rep Neil Harris to find out more about HeroEngine.

FiringSquad: First, why did Simutronics want to develop it's own MMOPG game graphics engine?

Neil Harris: Initially we did not want to develop our own engine. About five years ago we had decided on what we wanted to achieve with our next game, Hero's Journey, and began looking for available game engines. What we discovered was that the engines in the market were not able to keep up with our ambition and with the technical needs we had based on nearly 20 years building multiplayer online games. After an exhaustive search, we decided to build our own technology.

We build a graphical client that is tightly linked to the server, carefully dividing the work so client and server each handle what is appropriate and most efficient and what will deliver the best experience to the players. We developed our integrated toolset, HeroBlade, so the entire team could collaborate together online when building the game.

We had thought about licensing our toolset to other developers, but we assumed that we would have to wait until after Hero's Journey shipped to prove our technological viability. Instead, once we began showing the game and the platform back at the 2005 E3, developers started begging for access to our toolset. We had to revamp our schedule to be able to deliver clean code to them, and by the Spring 2006 GDC we were ready to show the engine in public.

FiringSquad: How hard it it to create a graphics engine from stratch that has all the features you wish to add?

Neil Harris: It is a huge challenge, both technologically and from a design standpoint. HeroEngine currently includes more than 3 million lines of code and took a team of engineers five years to build. Before beginning development we spent several years designing the engine. Without our experience -- we build our first multiplayer RPG back in 1988 -- it would have been impossible to get it right. I think that's why the response from the MMO development community has been so strong -- the engine and the tools were designed from the ground up to meet the specific needs of MMO developers like ourselves.

The feature set will continue to expand over time. We have our own wish list and developers add new ones all the time. Plus we have designed the engine so developers can add their own modules and features at will.

FiringSquad: Can you give us an idea on the kinds of features HeroEngine has and why its a better choice than other competing game engines such as Epic's Unreal Engine 3?

Neil Harris: Unreal is a great engine, and it can create excellent games. HeroEngine was designed from day 1 to be an engine for MMO games, handling graphics, server, and with complete developer and back office tools. Engines designed for FPS games can render well but the developer would have to build the server, tools, and back office. We can hand over the entire package up front.

FiringSquad: Are there regular updates to HeroEngine to support upcoming and improved features such as Windows Vista and DirectX10?

Neil Harris: The HeroEngine engineering team continues to work away at new features. As new technologies evolve, from Microsoft and various middleware vendors, we intend to support everything that makes sense. We already incorporate a number of outside technologies, like SpeedTree and Granny2.

FiringSquad: You are using the engine for your own MMORPG Hero's Journey. How has creating the game with the engine improved the engine's development?

Neil Harris: We can't imagine how a team could design an engine that is practical and effective without also being a game developer. Lots of things sound good in theory, but HeroEngine is the only package that puts it all together in a way that feels intuitive and practical for the MMO developer.

FiringSquad: Why did BioWare, which already uses its own engine technologies as well as the Unreal engine, decide to pick HeroEngine for its own MMORPG?

Neil Harris: The BioWare Austin team knows us very well. They are very experienced in the industry, as we are, and they knew how we liked to build out technologies. In fact, a couple of their employees used to work for us, so they got it right away. We saved them a year or two of development at the beginning of the process and enable them to rapidly prototype live, online, to test their concepts. I'm pretty certain that once they got their hands on the engine they realized that it was more of a bargain than they thought, compared to what it would have taken them to build anything close.

FiringSquad: What other developers will be using the HeroEngine for its own games?

Neil Harris: We are swamped with requests for demos and meetings. The only challenge right now is that we have to give a hands-on demo in order to convey the full flavor of what HeroEngine can do -- people would love it if we could let them download a demo, but right now it's just not possible. We are bringing teams to our St. Louis development studio and opening the kimono so they know what's in there. So far every time we do that the team is amazed at how much more is in the engine than what they were expecting. Watch for more announcements as we get contracts completed. Given what HeroEngine offers, why build it yourself?

FiringSquad: What kind of technical support do you offer those developers who are using the HeroEngine?

Neil Harris: We want our developers to be happy, so we do whatever it takes. We give them direct access to our engineers and to the people who are working on our own game, people who have been using the engine hands-on for Hero's Journey. We do as much training as they need, and we are super-responsive to all questions. Plus, there is automated technology built into the engine for our teams to track bugs and feature requests.

FiringSquad: Can you give us an idea on the pricing of HeroEngine and how it compares to competing products?

Neil Harris: HeroEngine is designed for top-quality MMO projects, and is priced accordingly. Our clients tell us that it's worth more than we charge, and we feel good about that.

FiringSquad: Will HeroEngine support next-gen consoles as well as the PC?

Neil Harris: Today the client software runs under Windows, but in the near term you should look for announcements as we add support for other game-playing platforms.

FiringSquad: Finally is there anything else you wish to say about HeroEngine and its plans for the future?

Neil Harris: With all the interest in MMO games around the world, we've delivered a toolset that makes it easier and faster to develop new games. We truly believe that HeroEngine will enable more excellent games to be delivered and that the games will be more fun at launch and down the road. It even makes it more fun for developers to build new games. What more can you ask?

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