I like the torque engine. It is pretty good value for money. It has a fairly powerful scripting engine, pretty good client/server functionality, stuff like the world editor is built into the engine and if the scripting language doesn't allow you to achieve what you want to, you do get the entire engine source code to play with. The downfall is the source is written in C++. If you have never done C++ before, it isn't the easiest language to start out with.
My vote would go with Blitz3d though. You just have more flexibility. In my opinion, if you are willing to pay extra cash, you have some great libraries and tools such as TerraEd, BlitzTree, BlitzGrass, Gile[s], Particle Candy, BlitzVM, BCF Gui as well as recent integration with libs like Tokamak.
My vote would go with Blitz3d though. You just have more flexibility. In my opinion, if you are willing to pay extra cash, you have some great libraries and tools such as TerraEd, BlitzTree, BlitzGrass, Gile[s], Particle Candy, BlitzVM, BCF Gui as well as recent integration with libs like Tokamak.