I’ve read so many posts that say stuff like “the gameengine was the downfall of blender” and saying that the gameengine sucked and everything. Sure it’s not as powerful as the Quake III engine or something, but for something at the beginning of development it’s pretty damn good. The only question I have for you is have you ever tried to make a game with blender, because if you haven’t you have no right to diss on it and try to get rid of it.
Pooba
There were too many (irreproducible) bugs in the features i wanted to use. so i gave up.
Same here, too many bugs. Collision detection failed a lot and my players would either walk through a wall or fall through a crack. Creating new objects would eventually crash the process. Sound would go into a loop. The physics was a real balancing act.
I went back to using blender to model my objects and my own ogl or inventor code to play the simulation.
I hoped (still do) that blender lives long enough to fix the bugs. It is still my favorite modeling tool, I would be nice if it would handle the dynamics as well.
i’m making a game and it’s going fine.if i get stuck with something i ask other users. 
went way too slow unless you used really low-poly models and low-res textures. neither of which am I fond of.
low poly yes but never had a problem with low res textures. my works were all fully detailed. maybe hardware problem?
Despite my personal preference for the non-gaming functionality, what Blender had was the beginning of something pretty cool. However, the reality is that creating a very functional, up-to-date gaming engine is a major undertaking. There are some recent articles on the Wired site that discuss the kinds of decisions that need to be weighed against each other in order to produce something that works in a wide range of environments. Something else no one has mentioned yet - there is starting to appear some GPL’ed gaming engines that have some of the more advanced features. What they lack is a front end, but it seems to me that this can’t be that far behind. It may not be as slick as the integration that Blender offered, but ‘good enough’ is a distinct possiblity. Once they’re in place, you’ve got a good front end coupled with a good engine, and suddenly Blender has some major competition.
Well what do you expect? To use 10000 poly models in a realtime engine? There’s not one game that uses more than 5000 polys per model, most of the time you can use 1000 poly models in blender. Most of you people are really good at modeling, and you can create nice looking models that are low-poly too. It’s not that slow, you just can’t use way too much. As for crashing a lot, sounds like a problem with your computer, not with Blender. It never crashes with me. Also, collision detection only really fails with the Dloc type movement, which is only a bug. If you take a little time to learn how to do everything it is fun.
Pooba
I will admit that I never really tried it. I followed a tute frok blender.nl, (I think that’s where it was), and made a ball bounce around on some planes. Seemed easy enough, just never got into it.
Honestly, I don’t think I have the time to sit down and make a full blown game. I find it hard enough just getting my modelling done.
BgDM
At the very least.
How about shaders? How about vertex transformations? How about displacement techniques? How about networking? How about AI? How about actually working physics? Trying to blame bad physics and ill working collision detection on one bug is really really naive. And for that matter, why has that been in there then? It has since it got implemented. Besides, the game engine isn’t really new, apparently it has been there since the beginning. Only released with 2.0. I remember trying it in version 1.68. It was impressive back then, some two years ago. In two years, a lot happens.
The game engine is a pretentious piece of junk imho. It was fun to toy with, for about 5 minutes. But when it came to actually create a full blown game, I think it stands no chance to other engines. And I did try to make a fullblown game, along with others. The conclusion that it was slow, ill functioning and overall pretty bad made us stop. So there.
I think calling it a “Game Engine” was being hopeful but I would rather have than not. Not all interactive 3D content is games.
Macke: Some of the stuff you mentioned (and networking in particular) could be handled by Python no?
The way you can add stuff and then test stright away is really great for tinkering around. Trouble is a guess I need the right graphics card to make it work at any kind of speed. I have tried to make some really simple games but I have never been able to stop things going through walls, unless they are very very slow and that makes for no game at all. Maybe theres a way to do it in Python? An example of a simple fun game would be great. Everyone seams to want ot make epics, which run at geological speeds on my PC. There is nothing wrong with my PC, it is full of cheap old games the kids love to play and they are very fast.
Rob
What’s the point then really, seeing as there are many engines based on c/c++ for instance. I mean, in a game you want things to be speedy, and Python, albeit quite powerful and REALLY nice imho (just written a backup program in it ;o)), in speed terms it stands no chance really.
I bet you can make python as speedy as compiled stuff, but it seems like throwing rocks in glass houses.
Yep, I agree where games and especially speed are concerned, although you can extend Python with C/C++ libraries (I’m no expert, I gave up learning it when NAN went bust). All the same, I’m impressed with it’s features and look forward to using it in non-gaming applications.
c/c++ > python > engine
or
c/c++ > engine
which would you prefer? =)
I’d say if one knows c/c++, its prolly lot better to use an engine that you program via either of those languages.
Ditto!
ive made bunches of games, and am seriously working(devoting most of my time to) on a skateboarding game thats gonna rock, i hope =)
ive actually finished several lengthy games…my latest was about 40 minutes of gameplay for me, the creator so about 50-60 minutes of gp for a new player =) it came out pretty cool, i find myself playing it from time to time…
the game engine is pretty darn cool i have to say, i think its the best thing blender had going for it cause it made blender apart, unique, and original…
macke, always the negative one eh? and too talentless to make anything good with blender so u bash it…but thats ok, u wouldnt be macke without your dry humor and tastless predictable attitude… yer a real 'ass’et to this community…pun! 
as to modelnig low poly fer games…i think its fun to go simple and have good textures…and programming the game logics kind of a cool rush when u get things working… and if u have advance logical thinking, the more complicated and intense u can make games without the python…
its not hard at all to create a full game, as long as u have the initiative…
i hope alot of people are toying with it as well. its pretty darn neat
-chris
Acually, everything that Macke said was bad CAN be done with python.
The gameengine didn’t appear until 2.00, so Macke, you couldn’t have done it in 1.68.
Also, python is very fast. So don’t give me crap about speed. Also about all your crap about going through walls is just problems with Dloc. if you use force it never goes through walls. Also recalculating normals helps too. LinV also doesn’t go through walls.
Also, WAHOO! I made a post with more than 6 responses 
.
Pooba
wait for more flame!
I made a few “games” once. One was (what else?) a racing game where you drove around a city. Another had you flying into a canyon. (It was going to be mission-based, but just wait until I explain.) The other had you “dancing” (or rather jumping around). I submitted them for the original CJ. Calli told me that my games weren’t even demos for games. I guess that I realized I couldn’t make games as good as anyone else.
I later tried to remake the canyon game, but it was too hard. I decided not to make games again.
Now I wish that there was a way to make mazes simply in Blender using a random maze generator. (Hey, there’s an idea for a Python Script!)
The worst problem was that there was no AI. They could have given one to us for making good games. Plus, I don’t want to learn Python.