Choosing a game engine

humanji

In the off chance that someone might wander in here, I thought I'd post this.

I'm starting to develop an RPG for PC (might try for xbox at a later date) that will be along the lines of the Knights Of The Old Republic/Neverwinter Nights style of isometric game.

The thing is, I'm not sure how to go about sorting out a game engine. I'm a so-so programmer and the thought of designing an engine from scratch is fairly daunting. I could mod the NWN or KOTOR or similar games, but I don't want to have to work around the constraints of someone else's game (and possibly ending up compromising certain game aspects just to get it running).

So, my other choice is to buy an engine and tailor it myself. A fairly hefty job, but I'm sure it can be done. I know some engines can be downloaded for free and if you want to sell your end product, you pay for a full license, so at the very least I can try my luck.

And this all leads me back to this post, which will possibly never be read by another human being. I wanted to know if anyone has any recommendations on an engine to choose, words of wisdom to share, or have any experience with undertaking a task like this?

Anima

Being honest I don't know much about game engines but from what I've seen, most people use an existing one. Coding one from scratch is not a very realistic goal in my opinion.

I'd ask around on a few gamedev sites like http://www.gamedev.net/.

humanji

Cheers, I didn't see that site before. I've posted on a few other sites, the best I foudn so far was http://www.devmaster.net/engines/ which lists a load of engines to use. It's a start anyway.

Anima

Thats actually the site I was trying to find, its great. Has reviews and everything for each engine. Cheers for the link.