The Infinity (Baldur's Gate/Torment/Icewind Dale) and Aurora (NeverWinter Nights) engines were both phenomenal, but it seemed in both cases that the community were better able to make use of them than the developer of those same engines were. The real wealth of content available on these engines didn't come out until a few years ago, long after Bioware had lost any remaining interest in their games in favour of new, high-octane console titles.
Perhaps they're not suitable as MMO engines because of this customizability - perhaps too much functionality is laid bare to the end-user. Mind you, I haven't heard of too many exploits in NWN Persistant Worlds, so maybe it's not that much of an issue.
I agree wholeheartedly that at least from a player's perspective, both Infinity and Aurora seem very well suited for new MMOs where the selling point is persistancy, dynamism and community rather than repetitious pseudo-single player slosh with stunning shading effects. For that reason, I'm sure nobody in the industry will actually take it seriously.
Re: Bioware takes the shortcut
The Infinity (Baldur's Gate/Torment/Icewind Dale) and Aurora (NeverWinter Nights) engines were both phenomenal, but it seemed in both cases that the community were better able to make use of them than the developer of those same engines were. The real wealth of content available on these engines didn't come out until a few years ago, long after Bioware had lost any remaining interest in their games in favour of new, high-octane console titles.
Perhaps they're not suitable as MMO engines because of this customizability - perhaps too much functionality is laid bare to the end-user. Mind you, I haven't heard of too many exploits in NWN Persistant Worlds, so maybe it's not that much of an issue.
I agree wholeheartedly that at least from a player's perspective, both Infinity and Aurora seem very well suited for new MMOs where the selling point is persistancy, dynamism and community rather than repetitious pseudo-single player slosh with stunning shading effects. For that reason, I'm sure nobody in the industry will actually take it seriously.