OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce applications utilising hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. The class library abstracts all the details of using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive classes.
I had forgotten how capable this engine is. It's a shame it isn't more widely used by game designers on a budget. In their ignorance, they instead use dated engines such as the quake engine. I can't wait to start using this.
There's a good reason for that, and that is that an engine like Ogre is just that: an engine. You start out with nothing, and unless you have huge prior experience with making games, or you have a team to help you out, you're not getting anywhere fast with your game ideas.
Now, if you start with something like Quake, there's already plenty of content from the beginning to help you out from the start of development, which is what makes it so mod friendly and overall intuitive to use. Engines like Ogre all have great eyecandy and other features to show, but unless they are picked up by a professional studio, chances are they will never be picked up that much by people because they don't include any kind of template to work with.