Hi there,
I’m using Unity at the moment, but I’m very expressed about Unreal and I’m still thinking about a switch.
I saw in the GDC '19 video, that Epic now offers a free Online Service for Multiplayer and Analytics.
So, are they fully free? No fees for hosting and so on?
And I saw there’s a SDK for download. Maybe this is a stupid question, but SDK means I’ve to use C++ to use the SDK or is it automatically available via Blueprints after I install the SDK?
How about multi-platform games? Does I’ve to create my game for one platform and duplicate it to edit it for another platform. Means multiple projects on my hard drive (like in Unity) or will I’ve one single project, which I compile to multiple platforms?
Does Unreal still has some problems with 2D games or is it much better in the meantime (2D support in general)?
And I saw that the Marketplace is much smaller than the AssetStore of Unity, is this because all needed things are already build into Unreal or is it because the most developers create their own stuff on Unreal in comparison to Unity where the most people buy an Asset for stuff, that’s not in Unity itself or it’s bad integrated?
And maybe this is a little bit off topic, but does someone can explain why so many people prefer Unity over Unreal? Sometimes I think Unity Tech just want to make a lot of money and build bad stuff, which sometimes feels a little bit tinkered together - it works, but in a bad way. And some stuff never get out of alpha (like Automatic LOD). So why so many developer still prefer Unity (specially for mobile-games) over Unreal?
It’s probably a bit early to be asking this stuff to be honest since Epic are still fleshing it out. I had a quick glance at the SDK when it went public and here’s what I gleened from it so far (take this with a pinch of salt - I’m likely to be wrong on some stuff)
First of all it’s just a native C++ SDK - there’s nothing in it that’s exclusive to Unreal and it doesn’t use Unreal types so yes you would need to use C++ to use it right now. I can’t imagine that will stay that way for long however, since Epic themselves are bound to release a Plugin for Unreal at some stage that natively works with it. It’s a proper SDK rather than some kind of UE4 extension right now (makes sense with it being available to all platforms and engines).
There is no hosting for things like Dedicated Servers for your game, that’s still up to you to host and pay for those (make sense - I don’t see how Epic could afford to front that kind of cost for everyone) - they just store data on their servers like analytics information and the like. Think of it like Steam, they host some small systems and provide a way for players to communicate with and find Servers, but they don’t host the actual servers directly.
The rest seem to be general UE4 engine questions.
In theory yes, if you build a game for one platform it will then be shippable to another - you shouldn’t need to make custom versions of projects so long as you plan correctly and ensure the actual game code is platform-agnostic as well. That’s up to you to handle based on your project of course. All platforms have different capabilities, it’s up to you to build content with all the different platforms in mind and scale/adjust accordingly. Personally I’ve worked on/shipped multi-platform projects that share the same uproject file / content / engine build etc.
There aren’t really any “problems” with 2D game development as far as I’m concerned/aware. Paper 2D is kind of an abandoned plugin tbh, I haven’t seen any work being done on it for ages - but there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from making a 2D game with all the traditional 3D engine tools. I expect most “2D” games these days are using 3D tech anyway.
As for marketplace, it’s considerably younger than Unity’s but IMO has a higher standard. That said, the submission process is still pretty open - and you should bear in mind that Blueprint assets on Marketplace are often made by folks who have no background in programming. Most if not all blueprint content I’ve bought from marketplace has had questionable, sometimes downright ridiculous implementations. I prefer to do things on my own - but I have plenty of experience to help with that so not everyone can do the same.
I don’t really go in for the “engine-war” debates, but my advice frankly is to pick a toolset you like and stick with it - but obviously give them all a fair trial first. Too many folks dart around between engines thinking this feature or that feature is better for their game without ever actually making anything. When it boils down to it it’s really up to you to do your due diligence and work out which toolset is best for you and what you want to make.
SDK: Ok, so it could be possible, that Epic will release it as a plugin, which makes it possible to access the SDK via Blueprints, right?
Paper2D: Ok, so it’s more treated negligently?
Engines: Yes, you are right. All this wars are confusing so much. Maybe I should take a 4-8h tutorial on Unreal and give it a try to compare to Unity by myself and see what works best for me.
