What's happened with the Genie engine?

[Mr.DannyDT]

Does anyone know what has happened to the Genie Engine that Ensemble built?

[T-West]

After Aoe2 it was licensed to LucasArts to use for SWGB. And I would assume it was the basis for the Playstation Aoe2 port. But after Aoe2 Ensemble moved on to a new engine with Age of Mythology.

A modified version of the genie engine is used for the HD Edition.

Unfortunately the engine has not been made open source, but there has been quite a bit of reverse engineering done with it. The UserPatch is a mod that adds tons of features and bugfixes to the original exe: http://userpatch.aiscripters.net

Microsoft still owns the engine, and presumably Forgotten Empires are building upon it for Aoe2 Definitive Edition.

[Mr.DannyDT]

Originally posted by TWest:

After Aoe2 it was licensed to LucasArts to use for SWGB. And I would assume it was the basis for the Playstation Aoe2 port. But after Aoe2 Ensemble moved on to a new engine with Age of Mythology.

A modified version of the genie engine is used for the HD Edition.

Unfortunately the engine has not been made open source, but there has been quite a bit of reverse engineering done with it. The UserPatch is a mod that adds tons of features and bugfixes to the original exe: http://userpatch.aiscripters.net

Microsoft still owns the engine, and presumably Forgotten Empires are building upon it for Aoe2 Definitive Edition.

Ahhh, that's sad. I was hoping it might be open source.
Thanks for the help anyway.

[T-West]

Originally posted by Mr.DannyDT:

I was hoping it might be open source.

If only! :)

[Yorok]

They are creating open source clone of genie engine - https://github.com/SFTtech/openage
And they have decent progress - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GujF6YGSBY

[000dis000]

But Age of Mythology had a superior engine - who wouldn't they build the new AoE on that engine instead?

And why focus on open-sourcing the old, stale engine?

what am I missing here?

[NIKFS]

Originally posted by 000dis000:

But Age of Mythology had a superior engine - who wouldn't they build the new AoE on that engine instead?

And why focus on open-sourcing the old, stale engine?

what am I missing here?

aom is 3d, aoe2 is 2d

both have their benefits, in 2d you can display vastly more units and have bigger maps at the same framerate on equal hardware

do you know the two games doom and quake? (the original ones each)? that was the shift between 2d and 3d shooters, doom used sprites and could display a huge amount of enemies at once while you were walking in fake-3d (you can turn and go back and forth, but up and down is more of an illusion for the most part and textures are flat)
quake was the next step, 3d, better world but less enemies with less details



both have their strengths, but id say for a strategy game isometric 2d is the better choice since it allows for bigger maps with more content

[T-West]

Originally posted by 000dis000:

But Age of Mythology had a superior engine - who wouldn't they build the new AoE on that engine instead?

And why focus on open-sourcing the old, stale engine?

what am I missing here?

The AoM and Aoe2 engines are extraordinarily different. If someone were to implement Aoe2 in the AoM engine, it might be possible to have different graphics, but the game would not play or "feel" like Aoe2. For many players the nostalgia of playing a game that feels like the game they played in the late 90's or early 2000's is a key feature.

And open-sourcing the Aoe2 code base would be great for the Aoe2 community. The are mods that add far more features than are available in the HD Edition, from spectating games with an overlay displaying stats, to new AI features that allow for more intelligent computer opponents, to drastically improving the performance of multiplayer games. But these features are implemented by editing the game's exe file without access to the source code. Granting access to the original code base would grant the community a much greater ability to improve the game.