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Fastlane, your large project may be better served by another engine, if you can afford it.

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If I were starting this project today, I would agree. With MultiVerse up and running, I would not have come near 3DGS and instead would have jumped right in there. Of course, I would have had all the headaches that come with a bleeding edge offerings and it is debatable if my project would be better or worse for leaving the development in someone else hand, but it is true that MMP offerings are better than they were 5 years ago.

However I am in the middle of the project with a successful (if not always stable) architecture. I have learned SO much about every facet of game development using it and continue to do so. I like to think of my project as a loooonnnngggg Proof Of Concept. And once it's proven, we can see what the other engines have to offer. But for now, switching engines would mean at least a 1 year setback and that will kill my nascent company. Instead, I'm going after VC and AI monies here in about 6 months and all I need is a version stable enough to demo... then I get the thousands and make a decision to stay or not. And who knows? 3DGS may yet surprise both of us!

So for me, the decision to jump ship still rests on the adage: "The devil you know is better than the one you don't."

But, like you, I digress.

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Geez I love reading your post's lately.... "You are on fire" in my best NBA JAM jargon...

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I know. I don't know what got into me on these threads yesterday. It's like I was channeling the old Fastlane69... you rememeber him, the "in your face" annoying squirt that I was. But I could sense that a bandwagon was forming and headed in the wrong direction and just felt I had to do something to reign it in.

Thanks for the insight into what happens during and AFTER the publishing deal. I think you have hit upon a very important point and that is that 3DGS DOES have it's weaknesses and we should recognize them and work with them. Take cross-platforming: If cross platform isn't your thing, then the fact that 3DGS doesn't offer it doesn't matter a bit! But the video card issue you mention IS a big deal and something that a publisher would understanably be weary of. Then again, AFAIK we know which cards are the problem and that is why the side of the box will recommend one card over another... we've all seen this done too many times to think it would be weird for a 3DGS game to come with a recommended card list and if your card isn't on the list, "player beware".

Bottom line folks, if you don't care for what I'm saying, then listen to Nard... he's been in it and deeper than most of us and he is telling us unmistakenly that if you plan on using this engine and going for publishing deals, trying to hide it won't do any good. Rather, there are more pressing issues with the engine (such as the video card support) than the name and so let's focus on those in an attempt to get more pub. deals instead of name-calling (or name-finding or name-destroying... whatever you want to call losing acknex from your files...)