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Being a civ2 clone, I hope this doesn't get a cease-and-desist order like http://freecraft.org/. So far it's been out of the radar. It would be a pity if the big guys went after such a great game like this. No, freeciv isn't just a copy. I actually like it better than its commercial counterparts. It's one of the best open-source games out here!

that is the idea!

That is why the "Dark Forces" threaten *any* company that dare port their games to Linux
.
* Half-Life had just about been ported to Linux but then ... silence.

* Tribes 2 was ported and was extremely successful, then all of a sudden - all distributors were explicitly prohibited in making more copies. Despite huge demand.

* For sometime people have been lobbying to get WarCraft ported to Linux, the current signature holds 12'000. Not only that was ignored, but the attempt to have a Linux free alternative was immediately culled.

Again and again - understand - if Linux or Apple become true gaming platform, Microsoft will lose the Desktop war for good.
That is why we have the Blizzards, Vivendis and Sierras pro-actively stopping such thing from happening.

Of course they don't mind using Linux to develop game servers; free platform and stability; suits them all very fine ... "thanks very much!" - they say.

it's very clear that *ideas* are not copyrightable

Tell that to the FreeCraft folks.

Daniel

OT, yet informative...

The FreeCraft project and engine can now be used with StarCraft(TM) data and scenarios. It looks beautiful, and the only thing you need is a StarCraft(TM) CDROM.

Now, to rake-up the karma, people who don't have access to buying Doom1 or Doom2 can visit http://freedoom.sourceforge.net and download freeware doom data that works well in replacing the ID(TM)'s Doom1/2 Data/IWAD. It is incomplete, yet it will allow you to use all the PWADS in circulation without having to send money around to more than just your Internet Service Provider.

Well what am I, you stinking moderators? Am I offtopic or informative?

FreeCraft is gooooood stuff.

FreeCraft is a free RTS engine and RTS game.

http://FreeCraft.Org

Open Starcraft clone? Well, the closest that I can think of is Free Craft. Right now it is being based on Warcraft, and I don't know about the AI currently, but I'm sure they would be glad to have some more help.

Why not roll your own with FreeCraft?

I (Mark Pazolli) just wanted to add a few things.

Firstly, this release was very much a development release. It was not really intended to be played, just to demonstrate the status of FreeCraft's support for Mac OS X. If you do play it, you will probably quickly discover some bugs. However with a bit of luck, we'll have a much improved version out soon.

If you're to interested in helping to develop this version please visit the FreeCraft home page. Also a Mac OS X icon for FreeCraft would be very much appreciated, e-mail me (quirinus AT mac DOT com) if you have one to offer or can design one. General questions on helping out are also welcome to that address too.

Next, as was pointed out, Mac.com homepages really aren't really suitable for wide-scale distribution (this version was actually intended to be an insiders-only release). So I'd suggest trying to download FreeCraft from here instead. It is quite a hefty download though (around 8 MB).

Cheers. :-)

Until the OS community is joined by skilled art people OS games will be limited.

At any rate, you've got some great ideas on usability. Stop by the site and make your suggestions to the maintainers, or step up to the plate and start coding it in.

Because I'm bored, I went and found you a correction. Dune II is what most people tend to think of as the first RTS (it was the first to be called such), though apparently there was something RTS-like for the Sega Genesis before that.

Oh, and as for an open RTS, there's FreeCraft.

I have been watching the development of SDL since I first saw it mentioned on Freshmeat (at 0.7). I have been on the SDL mailing list ever since, and I can tell you that SDL is probably your best bet for a fast, lightweight, cross-platform game programming library that's not going to get in your way. Right now it runs on (Source compatible) Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (Using Direct X), BeOS, and Mac. I can also tell you that there are tons of people on the SDL mailing lists, and they're not all Loki employees.

I took a look at a lot of other game programming libraries when I was first investigating SDL, I didn't just jump blindly into it. SDL isn't the answer to all game writing woes, and it could even be too low level for what a lot of people want, but it is fast, light, and since it's written in C, it can be incorporated into most anything.

If you want more information on SDL, I would recommend checking out their website: libsdl.org. It lists quite a few of the projects (Both game and otherwise) that SDL is being used in. I counted more than a hundred. A few of the highlights:

Most of the Loki games.
Descent 1x, 2x
Freecraft
OpenUT
Several DOOM and Quake projects

Also, for those of you who want something a little higher-level, SDL has several game programming libraries built on top of it:
BUILD Engine
GUIlib
PowerPak

Post your ideas, I'm sure that even those of us who can't (or just won't) be designing it would like to hear about them. I agree that an RTS engine would be a good idea, as I can't say I've seen any RTS's for linux except ALE-Clone (now freecraft?)

Well if this does happen, I wanna know about it... :-) I'll be happy to try out some alpha (and of course beta) releases. (I live on beta...)

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linuxisgood:~$ man woman