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Engine editors are already “masters of none”. For a lot of functionality, they need plugins or something similar. See Unity editor scripts for an example. Some

by ratww 4y ago

Engine editors are already “masters of none”. For a lot of functionality, they need plugins or something similar. See Unity editor scripts for an example. Something unified would be able to take advantage of those plugins in a more generic way. Need a tile editor? Plugin. Need retargeting? Plugin. Need a special exporter for your game? Another plugin. Need a custom editor pane? Plugin, like Unity. Another proof that current engine/editors are masters of one is that most people is already using a separate IDE for code, a separate 3D software, a separate texture painter.

Ygg2 4y ago
I recently played with Songs of Conquest editor and Warcraft 3 editor, and they are easy to use but for single purpose. That's an editor for single game. The more generic you make it, the worse they are to use. It's the same thing with IDE. The more plugin friendly you make your IDE, the less optimization chances you have.
- ratww 4y ago
  > That's an editor for single game. The more generic you make it, the worse they are to use. ...and yet Unity and Unreal are quite popular compared to "rolling your own editor", and very few people do it. Most people seem to be happy with the Unity/Unreal/Godot tools, with generic IDEs, with generic image editors, with generic 3D editors, with generic DAWs, etc etc etc. A standalone scene editor doesn't have to be more generic than Unity or Unreal. The idea is providing a base for engine makers to work on, not the opposite. Part of the success of generic solutions is due to cost. Not every game developer has the time and resources to make a tool like the two you mentioned. And also engine makers, not all of them have the time and resources to do an editor like Unity or Unreal. A good generic editor is better than a shitty specific editor. It's also better than a non-existing editor. > It's the same thing with IDE. The more plugin friendly you make your IDE, the less optimization chances you have. Visual Studio Code, vim and emacs are actually extremely extensible and very performant. The sweet spot seems to be much more performant than you seem to assume.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    > ..and yet Unity and Unreal are quite popular compared to "rolling your own editor" So is Electron compared to rolling your native app. Electron is easier to develop for and pool of developers are bigger. I'm taking about optimization opportunities. > Visual Studio Code, vim and emacs are actually extremely extensible and very performant. Eh. I don't use vim or emacs, but VSC isn't on par with something more integrated like JetBrains. What I have in mind is Ralph Levien blog: https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.html https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.h...
    - ratww 4y ago
      Sorry, but Electron is amazing if the alternative is "nothing". Same for game-specific editors. Some companies can't do it, so in this case Unity/Unreal editors are indeed better. And some engines also don't have the manpower to do engine-specific editors, so if something already existed it would be by definition better to the world. And I completely disagree about JetBrains products being more integrated. Some integrations are MUCH better and deeper in VSCode. To give three recent examples I came across: Vue, React and Svelte. WebStorm doesn't even have some features offered by VSCode, like typechecking in templates. Not to mention that, at least to me, VSCode is significantly lighter than WebStorm and runs much faster in older laptops. VSCode is also significantly faster and much much lighter than the ultra-integrated and native Visual Studio, so there's also that. I know because I use both, and I know which one locks up all the time and takes 40GB of disk. Seems like they just didn't use the optimisation opportunities. Either way, this discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere. There's doesn't seem to be anything for us to learn here. I'm addressing every new single point you make, while you keep moving the goalposts by cherry-picking my posts while ignoring the parts I cover :/ We started this discussion by saying "it would be awesome if X existed" to which you said "100% disagree". Sounds like you don't want me to have some tools, or maybe you're under the assumption that my desire is for Unity/Unreal/Godot to stop existing, which is definitely not the case.
      - Ygg2 4y ago
        > Sorry, but Electron is amazing if the alternative is "nothing". The alternative isn't nothing. The alternative is either Java, Qt, Gnome, Slint, rolling your own, doing per OS UI, etc. People don't want to roll their own (understandable) or don't mind paying performance tax for stuff they don't need. I don't use WebStorm but yeah a browser (VSCode) is better at rendering JS than a Java IDE (IntelliJ). Ofc a browser will have an advantage on home turf. That said quality differs, but honestly try debugging Rust in VSCode vs CLion. Worlds of difference. Even if CLion isn't the best Rust plugin. Or Java in VSCode vs IntelliJ. > We started this discussion by saying "it would be awesome if X existed" to which you said "100% disagree". Your idea is a generic game editor vs something specific like Warcraft 3 editor, I made an analogy between something like LSP vs more integrated stuff like IntelliJ. And I showed you what you leave if you make LSP primary focus, there are going to be some use cases that won't work in generic case, that a more specific IDE (or Rappid Application Deveploer env) would work with.
- setr 4y ago
  Given how many genres of games popped out of the Warcraft 3 ecosystem (dota, tower defenses, island troll tribes, survival games, rpgs, Pokémon-likes, board game likes, etc), it seems to me that Warcraft 3 is a perfect example of how much commonality exists between games that isn’t being exploited today — that it doesn’t require that much flexibility to support quite the variety. StarCraft 2’s editor went even further with the game genres it was able to support (though they failed at building the community to utilize it)

by ratww 4y ago

Ygg2 4y ago

I recently played with Songs of Conquest editor and Warcraft 3 editor, and they are easy to use but for single purpose. That's an editor for single game. The more generic you make it, the worse they are to use. It's the same thing with IDE. The more plugin friendly you make your IDE, the less optimization chances you have.

ratww 4y ago
> That's an editor for single game. The more generic you make it, the worse they are to use. ...and yet Unity and Unreal are quite popular compared to "rolling your own editor", and very few people do it. Most people seem to be happy with the Unity/Unreal/Godot tools, with generic IDEs, with generic image editors, with generic 3D editors, with generic DAWs, etc etc etc. A standalone scene editor doesn't have to be more generic than Unity or Unreal. The idea is providing a base for engine makers to work on, not the opposite. Part of the success of generic solutions is due to cost. Not every game developer has the time and resources to make a tool like the two you mentioned. And also engine makers, not all of them have the time and resources to do an editor like Unity or Unreal. A good generic editor is better than a shitty specific editor. It's also better than a non-existing editor. > It's the same thing with IDE. The more plugin friendly you make your IDE, the less optimization chances you have. Visual Studio Code, vim and emacs are actually extremely extensible and very performant. The sweet spot seems to be much more performant than you seem to assume.
- Ygg2 4y ago
  > ..and yet Unity and Unreal are quite popular compared to "rolling your own editor" So is Electron compared to rolling your native app. Electron is easier to develop for and pool of developers are bigger. I'm taking about optimization opportunities. > Visual Studio Code, vim and emacs are actually extremely extensible and very performant. Eh. I don't use vim or emacs, but VSC isn't on par with something more integrated like JetBrains. What I have in mind is Ralph Levien blog: https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.html https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.h...
  - ratww 4y ago
    Sorry, but Electron is amazing if the alternative is "nothing". Same for game-specific editors. Some companies can't do it, so in this case Unity/Unreal editors are indeed better. And some engines also don't have the manpower to do engine-specific editors, so if something already existed it would be by definition better to the world. And I completely disagree about JetBrains products being more integrated. Some integrations are MUCH better and deeper in VSCode. To give three recent examples I came across: Vue, React and Svelte. WebStorm doesn't even have some features offered by VSCode, like typechecking in templates. Not to mention that, at least to me, VSCode is significantly lighter than WebStorm and runs much faster in older laptops. VSCode is also significantly faster and much much lighter than the ultra-integrated and native Visual Studio, so there's also that. I know because I use both, and I know which one locks up all the time and takes 40GB of disk. Seems like they just didn't use the optimisation opportunities. Either way, this discussion doesn't seem to be going anywhere. There's doesn't seem to be anything for us to learn here. I'm addressing every new single point you make, while you keep moving the goalposts by cherry-picking my posts while ignoring the parts I cover :/ We started this discussion by saying "it would be awesome if X existed" to which you said "100% disagree". Sounds like you don't want me to have some tools, or maybe you're under the assumption that my desire is for Unity/Unreal/Godot to stop existing, which is definitely not the case.
    - Ygg2 4y ago
      > Sorry, but Electron is amazing if the alternative is "nothing". The alternative isn't nothing. The alternative is either Java, Qt, Gnome, Slint, rolling your own, doing per OS UI, etc. People don't want to roll their own (understandable) or don't mind paying performance tax for stuff they don't need. I don't use WebStorm but yeah a browser (VSCode) is better at rendering JS than a Java IDE (IntelliJ). Ofc a browser will have an advantage on home turf. That said quality differs, but honestly try debugging Rust in VSCode vs CLion. Worlds of difference. Even if CLion isn't the best Rust plugin. Or Java in VSCode vs IntelliJ. > We started this discussion by saying "it would be awesome if X existed" to which you said "100% disagree". Your idea is a generic game editor vs something specific like Warcraft 3 editor, I made an analogy between something like LSP vs more integrated stuff like IntelliJ. And I showed you what you leave if you make LSP primary focus, there are going to be some use cases that won't work in generic case, that a more specific IDE (or Rappid Application Deveploer env) would work with.
setr 4y ago
Given how many genres of games popped out of the Warcraft 3 ecosystem (dota, tower defenses, island troll tribes, survival games, rpgs, Pokémon-likes, board game likes, etc), it seems to me that Warcraft 3 is a perfect example of how much commonality exists between games that isn’t being exploited today — that it doesn’t require that much flexibility to support quite the variety. StarCraft 2’s editor went even further with the game genres it was able to support (though they failed at building the community to utilize it)