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Well, you might want to take a look at Worldforge, then. Like I said, they do have some tech, and you're right - there is quite a bit of tech that has to be developed, fairly complicated tech, in order to build an MMO. As far as I can tell, WorldForge looks like it's done a somewhat decent job of creating a game engine for building an MMO, there just doesn't seem to be any actual game that's been created with that Tech yet. Might be a good time for you and your friends to jump in and contribute.

WorldForge

OS MMO? You mean like World Forge?

I'm aware of the evolution MUDs have taken over the years. Unfortunately the creative space seems to have been largely usurped since the release of Meridian 59, Ultima Online, and Everquest. No longer are there hordes of new and unsuspecting college kids eagerly waiting to play test your new idea. New (and old) MUDs and their ilk seem to only attract the detritus of the internet these days, (very) young kids, those too cheap to afford the pay for play content, and drifters just sampling the waters before moving on to move evolved game space.

So what's left are the few MUDs who have survived over the years, such as BatMUD which have become very cool, but also have a small and deeply entrenched player base. This makes breaking into such games rather difficult for new players. And this is possibly a fault with the game model itself. When you allow players to greatly control the game world, they seem to become very possessive of the game space they control which leads to a Darwinian battle where only the most die-hard and fanatical groups rise to the top.

I've seen a few game designs over the years which suggest newer and better things are on the horizon, but none of the ones I've been interested in have evolved into a playable state, or else have grown in directions other than I was looking for. So if anyone knows of games with dynamic/evolving content engines, I'd be greatly interested.

As the article mentions Google ended up funding a number of Gaming projects. There are a total of 7 game projects and 5 game related projects for a total of over 40 slots.

The following game projects have been accepted,

• Battle for Wesnoth (projects), a very cool turn based strategy game in the theme of Heroes of Might and Magic.
• BZFlag (projects), the classic tank first person shooter game. One of the oldest open source games around!
• Linden Lab (projects), the makers of Second Life the largest "almost game like" online universe.
• ScummVM (projects), an engine which lets you play all the classic Lucas Arts games and many more!
• Thousand Parsec (projects), a framework for building 4x empire building games. Been around since 2001 and growing quickly.
• Tux4Kids (projects), a group of multi-platform open source educational games for children.
• WorldForge (projects), one of the original open source MMORPG which has even been mentioned on Slashdot multiple times (original called Altima).

My own project Thousand Parsec got 8 slots for a number of critical features. One of the coolest is a 3d client, which should make the games much more interesting to look at.

We will also finally have a few more interesting games to actually play, including a clone of Risk in Space and a very interesting game called DroneSec. Finally, we should have some opponents for you to play against as 2 AI clients being developed for our premier RFTS ruleset.

I know I posted roughly this comment in the last GSoC Slashdot announcement but I've been told the information is really useful and some people might have missed it.

On the note about how GSoC effects our project you should take a look at our web stats since we where announced as a GSoC mentor organisation. The increase has been massive!

Google has been very good to the Open Source gaming community again this year, there are a total of 7 game projects and 5 game related projects.

The following game projects have been accepted,

• Battle for Wesnoth (ideas), a very cool tu rn based strategy game in the theme of Heroes of Might and Magic.
• BZFlag (ideas), the cla ssic tank first person shooter game. One of the oldest open source games around!
• Linden Lab (ideas), the makers of Second Life the largest "almost game like" online universe.
• ScummVM (ideas), an engine whic h lets you play all the classic Lucas Arts games and many more!
• Thousand Parsec (ideas), a framework fo r building 4x empire building games. Been around since 2001 and growing quickly.
• Tux4Kids (ideas), a group of mul ti-platform open source educational games for children.
• WorldForge (ideas), one of the ori ginal open source MMORPG which has even been mentioned on Slashdot multiple times (original called Altima).

The Summer of Code had a huge impact my own project, Thousand Parsec and I hope that it will again have a significant positive impact. GSoC 2007 helped us develop a number of core utilities that the main developers just would not have time to do. These projects should substantially increase the productivity of new contributors and lower the barrier to entry into development. The huge amount of web traffic brought to our website from just being a mentor organisation can clearly be seen in our web statistics.

This year we are planning to concentrate on improving the player experience. The two ways for achieving this is to create more full and interesting games (rulesets) and making the game clients more attractive and easier to access (such as a web-based client and improving the desktop client).

Out of the three students that where selected last year, two passed their final evaluations. The code that the students produced was of both a high quality and quantity.

One of the students projects, the RFTS clone ruleset, is now one of the most complete and popular of our games (rulesets). The student has continued to help with its development and is now currently considering being a mentor this year.

The other successful student made over 220 commits and produced 28,824 lines of code, more than some of our other long term project members! He has developed a

I know I posted roughly this comment in the last GSoC Slashdot announcement but I've been told the information is really useful and some people might have missed it.

On the note about how GSoC effects our project you should take a look at our web stats since we where announced as a GSoC mentor organisation. The increase has been massive!

Google has been very good to the Open Source gaming community again this year, there are a total of 7 game projects and 5 game related projects.

The following game projects have been accepted,

• Battle for Wesnoth (ideas), a very cool tu rn based strategy game in the theme of Heroes of Might and Magic.
• BZFlag (ideas), the cla ssic tank first person shooter game. One of the oldest open source games around!
• Linden Lab (ideas), the makers of Second Life the largest "almost game like" online universe.
• ScummVM (ideas), an engine whic h lets you play all the classic Lucas Arts games and many more!
• Thousand Parsec (ideas), a framework fo r building 4x empire building games. Been around since 2001 and growing quickly.
• Tux4Kids (ideas), a group of mul ti-platform open source educational games for children.
• WorldForge (ideas), one of the ori ginal open source MMORPG which has even been mentioned on Slashdot multiple times (original called Altima).

The Summer of Code had a huge impact my own project, Thousand Parsec and I hope that it will again have a significant positive impact. GSoC 2007 helped us develop a number of core utilities that the main developers just would not have time to do. These projects should substantially increase the productivity of new contributors and lower the barrier to entry into development. The huge amount of web traffic brought to our website from just being a mentor organisation can clearly be seen in our web statistics.

This year we are planning to concentrate on improving the player experience. The two ways for achieving this is to create more full and interesting games (rulesets) and making the game clients more attractive and easier to access (such as a web-based client and improving the desktop client).

Out of the three students that where selected last year, two passed their final evaluations. The code that the students produced was of both a high quality and quantity.

One of the students projects, the RFTS clone ruleset, is now one of the most complete and popular of our games (rulesets). The student has continued to help with its development and is now currently considering being a mentor this year.

The other successful student made over 220 commits and produced 28,824 lines of code, more than some of our other long term project members! He has developed a

Google has been very good to the Open Source gaming community again this year, there are a total of 7 game projects and 5 game related projects.

The following game projects have been accepted,

• Battle for Wesnoth (ideas), a very cool turn based strategy game in the theme of Heroes of Might and Magic.
• BZFlag (ideas), the classic tank first person shooter game. One of the oldest open source games around!
• Linden Lab (ideas), the makers of Second Life the largest "almost game like" online universe.
• ScummVM (ideas), an engine which lets you play all the classic Lucas Arts games and many more!
• Thousand Parsec (ideas), a framework for building 4x empire building games. Been around since 2001 and growing quickly.
• Tux4Kids (ideas), a group of multi-platform open source educational games for children.
• WorldForge (ideas), one of the original open source MMORPG which has even been mentioned on Slashdot multiple times (original called Altima).

The Summer of Code had a huge impact my own project, Thousand Parsec and I hope that it will again have a significant positive impact. GSoC 2007 helped us develop a number of core utilities that the main developers just would not have time to do. These projects should substantially increase the productivity of new contributors and lower the barrier to entry into development. The huge amount of web traffic brought to our website from just being a mentor organisation can clearly be seen in our web statistics.

This year we are planning to concentrate on improving the player experience. The two ways for achieving this is to create more full and interesting games (rulesets) and making the game clients more attractive and easier to access (such as a web-based client and improving the desktop client).

Out of the three students that where selected last year, two passed their final evaluations. The code that the students produced was of both a high quality and quantity.

One of the students projects, the RFTS clone ruleset, is now one of the most complete and popular of our games (rulesets). The student has continued to help with its development and is now currently considering being a mentor this year.

The other successful student made over 220 commits and produced 28,824 lines of code, more than some of our other long term project members! He has developed a ruleset editor which will make ruleset development significantly easier in the future.

As well, the Open Source Office funded one student in a Summer of Code style outside the program. The student successfully completed the project and we hope the code will soon be rolled out.

Because of the success of our GSoC, our project has actively started to engage with educational instit

Google has been very good to the Open Source gaming community again this year, there are a total of 7 game projects and 5 game related projects.

The following game projects have been accepted,

• Battle for Wesnoth (ideas), a very cool turn based strategy game in the theme of Heroes of Might and Magic.
• BZFlag (ideas), the classic tank first person shooter game. One of the oldest open source games around!
• Linden Lab (ideas), the makers of Second Life the largest "almost game like" online universe.
• ScummVM (ideas), an engine which lets you play all the classic Lucas Arts games and many more!
• Thousand Parsec (ideas), a framework for building 4x empire building games. Been around since 2001 and growing quickly.
• Tux4Kids (ideas), a group of multi-platform open source educational games for children.
• WorldForge (ideas), one of the original open source MMORPG which has even been mentioned on Slashdot multiple times (original called Altima).

The Summer of Code had a huge impact my own project, Thousand Parsec and I hope that it will again have a significant positive impact. GSoC 2007 helped us develop a number of core utilities that the main developers just would not have time to do. These projects should substantially increase the productivity of new contributors and lower the barrier to entry into development. The huge amount of web traffic brought to our website from just being a mentor organisation can clearly be seen in our web statistics.

This year we are planning to concentrate on improving the player experience. The two ways for achieving this is to create more full and interesting games (rulesets) and making the game clients more attractive and easier to access (such as a web-based client and improving the desktop client).

Out of the three students that where selected last year, two passed their final evaluations. The code that the students produced was of both a high quality and quantity.

One of the students projects, the RFTS clone ruleset, is now one of the most complete and popular of our games (rulesets). The student has continued to help with its development and is now currently considering being a mentor this year.

The other successful student made over 220 commits and produced 28,824 lines of code, more than some of our other long term project members! He has developed a ruleset editor which will make ruleset development significantly easier in the future.

As well, the Open Source Office funded one student in a Summer of Code style outside the program. The student successfully completed the project and we hope the code will soon be rolled out.

Because of the success of our GSoC, our project has actively started to engage with educational instit

WorldForge, Delta3D, and CrystalSpace are all viable choices. Delta3D in particular has good physics, though I understand it currently has limited scalability.

The bottom line is that no engine is perfect. Some are better than others for certain tasks, and they all have shortcomings. You shouldn't tie yourself too closely to any one engine, because you may want to switch at some point down the road.

BuildaWorld is a project to create an abstraction layer which will make it easy to switch between engines, and to allow different versions of your game with different engines. Ultimately they plan to create tools to enable non-programmers to design their own game or game world. It's still in the early stages, but then, anyone wanting to design a game or build a world has to think long-term.

You should consider linking up with an existing open-source project such as WorldForge or BuildaWorld (or both, since their products can be used together). They plan to provide tools to allow non-programmers to design their own games. They still have a ways to go, but designing a game is going to be a long-term project for you no matter how you go about it.

I've flirted with a few MMORPG's and they've all left me flat. They've got pretty pictures, but they're essentially just graphical MUDS. You kill stuff, you get gold, you buy items, you level up, rinse, repeat. The better ones at least have some faction based intrigue beyond just bragging on who cleared the new expansion dungeon first.

The thing is, those old text based games evolved beyond all this hack & slash dungeon crawling stuff. On DuneMUSH if you got into a violent altercation it means that you were either fighting a duel or you had seriously blundered somehow. At its peak it had hundreds of users with characters, factions, and settings spread across a dozen or more factions on multiple in-game worlds.

GarouMUSH is still running after all these years! They are extremely exclusive as to whom they accept as players, to the point that you have to submit an application with a character concept for approval before joining. They would often reject them at first draft and offer suggestions on how to make the character more three dimensional and "real." While there were occasional moments of ultraviolence (it was a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game, after all), most of the time you were just interacting in character, researching mysteries, tribal politics, mentoring cubs, whatever.

In both cases, they had such depth for two reasons. One, was that everyone got to build items and to some extent environments using a simple C-ish language. You could even code special attributes and behaviors on to your own character to some degree. The other (and more important) reason was that the games were ROLEplaying communities. I don't just mean having a message board and giving advice to newbies. I mean that everybody (at least the ones who stuck around) was invested in making the game an rich world full of interesting characters living out engaging stories. Most of the time you didn't break character except in the chatroom areas and nobody built areas (at leas In-Character areas) that broke with the setting.

Second Life is approaching and in some ways exceeding the versatility, but that's not exactly a game. Because MMORPG players are customers/renters, they (in general) have a very different attitude than volunteers/owners. The scale required to run one of those things profitably (coders, designers/artists, admins, servers, etc) beans they have to go for the lowest common denominator dungeon-crawl play style that appeals to a mass-market. WoW is amazing, but it's still all about dungeon crawling and leveling-up.

What would be amazing about a working Free Software MMORPG engine is that you could have a small, comunity based game. Imagine a close knit community where you trusted your fellow players enough to create your world together. Worldforge has been trying for years to make this happen, but for as far as they've come it always seem sjust around the corner. Dropping a fully functional world, physics, object library,game engine, etc into the wild would free creators from having to develop software, and let them start developing worlds.

"What would be nice is some sort of site like sourceforge but for creative commons licensed artwork that open source games could make use of."

This does exist: Worldforge - although the site appears to be down at the moment (but this on is up: http://purple.worldforge.org/ - svn repository has a number of models in different formats).

As for you main issue of offering to contribute and then getting rejected - for no good reason, well - please contact us: http://fearann.com/ (on irc -freenode- #fearann), we'll be glad to hear from you.

And your art looks good.

Which is why there is WorldForge.

There is an understood proviso there, that Ghandi's statement applies to the masses. He wasn't talking to a group of smart, dedicated, but ultimately limited-in-population geeks.

The OSS/geek world is powerful because it has the ability to release disruptive technologies (and has consistently done so, sending waves through the tech community, especially in the past few years). Its buying power may not be tiny, but it is still insignificant compared to that of the Joe Sixpack market.

And Blizzard has busily sealed off the main way that the OSS world can bring in disruptive technologies -- write software compatible with Blizzard software, and you get sued.

The only real remaining way would be to sit down and write a better version of whatever Blizzard produces, but Blizzard (unlike, say, Microsoft) produces products that have relatively little code and lots of content (audio, artwork, etc). The OSS world is rich in coders, and exceedingly poor in skilled people willing to donate talent on audio and graphics. So, yes, I can design and implement an WCIII-type RTS engine -- it still won't impact Blizzard's bottom line, because they have masses of artists and sound engineers that I *can't* get. Sure, there are open-source people busily producing RTS code, but as long as their audio and graphics aren't comparable to Blizzard's, Blizzard can easily shrug them off.

And as long as the DMCA sits around, as long as there are restrictions on reverse-engineering and producing interoperable software, the open source world is hamstrung in many ways.

What, exactly, would a free alternative to an MMOG be?

Unreal Doom3 HalfLife2 Enemy Territory Cube Savage Stratagus Freeciv Wesnoth NeverwinterNights Tribes2 Vendetta YohohoPuzzlePirates Civilization AlphaCentauri FrozenBubble Pydance Teg DeusEx BZFlag XPlane Flightgear Torcs Scorched3d Pingus Lincity Tuxcart Torcs Quake 123 VegaStrike Railz LBreakout Armagetron PPRacer Vendetta and there more impressive titles under development.

Here's my opinion. What "we" need are fewer people saying we need more games, and more people recognizing some of the excellent offerings we have right now. If we support these games (even with nothing more than just a little recognition), the companies WILL notice, see us as a market, and want to cater to us.

to stop using proprietary software. There are a lot of amazing free software game projects that need our support (like e.g. WorldForge) that not only allow but in fact encourage hacking. Proprietary crap is good for uneducated people who want to have a one-size-fits-all black box. For thinking people who want to learn by tinkering, free software is the way to go.

Where's the Open Source games? Everyone knows Worldforge is infinitely better than Everquest 2 AND World of Warcraft combined.

It's only an amount of time when such classic Worldforge spinoffs like Archipelago
deserve their own respect from the realm of sequential graphic media.

After all, with WoW-beating graphics like these, surely there's a 'raft' (pun intended) of opportunities for quality comic art.

Heve you seen the screenshots? Here is a good one:
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/screenshots/image13.jpg
You know what? I have seen better graphics in Yux Racer and glTrone, and a better story line in Cuyo and RocksAndDiamonds, thankyouverymuch. Do you want a REAL Linux game, by which I mean FREE and Open Source, unlike this proprietary crap vapourware? Then go to http://www.worldforge.org/ and be amazed. There is nothing to see here.

There is also Worldforge, a GPLed MMORPG client and server framework.

I'll second this. I am teaching programming to my 11-yr-old totally blind son using Python and Emacspeak on Linux.

In another post I have mentioned The WorldForge Project: "Our vision is to foster an independent community in which many free games can develop and evolve with unique roleplaying-oriented worlds and rules, running on a wide selection of server and client implementations with a standard networking protocol tying everything together. The WorldForge project hasn't produced any complete, playable games. We have games that are under development, but we're still working on developing the underlying tools."

Future WorldForge games will be playable using many different clients, including graphical and entirely text-based ones, ideal for Emacspeak. Lots of WorldForge software is written in Python under Linux, which seems to be a perfect project for your son to learn advanced programming in the future and something interesting to know about today. I wish him the best luck.

Blind + Linux = BLINUX. This is the best solution in the long run and it doesn't cost anything, unlike solutions from Microsoft and other proprietary software. I wish you the best luck. The command-line interface is ideal for blind users.

Interestingly (but a tad OT) is that nethack can be configured for blind users as well. All work and no play makes Johnny a dully boy. Other games for the blind would probably include the many, many MUDs out there.

Not only MUDs but also future MMORPG games from The WorldForge Project where people will be able to play with each other on-line on the same servers and in the same worlds using different clients, including 2D isometric, full-3D OpenGL and entirely text-based ones. Not to even mention that thanks to Emacspeak a blind person can play even Tetris. This is not off-topic at all.

And to demonstrate how interfaces such as Emacspeak are impressive and important not only for blind users but for the general public, I am planning to develop a fully audio-desktop based car audio system, most probably using Oralux GNU/Linux, a Knoppix customization with Emacspeak user interface, with emphasis on making as much information and entertainment (music, games, WWW, etc.) accessible to the driver with absolutely no display distracting from the road, which in my opinion is the very direction every car manufacturer should follow to make cars safer. Projects like Emacspeak, BLinux and Oralux freely available make such a system trivial to build using an old laptop hidden somewhere under the seat, some cables and a simple input system, with almost no custom software needed.

I have been thinking about it since I first saw the most stupid idea in the history of car audio systems, i.e. text display of local traffic-related messages in real time. I thought that it is utterly moronic, since such messages should be spoken and in fact even the number of CD track I change to should be spoken instead of displayed in a place I have to look instead of focusing on the road. Hence the idea of full audio car audio system.

Sounds like the type of things the WorldForge projects have been intending to incorporate and handle.

Actually MMPORGs are pretty much the only genre of game that the points brought up in the article don't apply to. MMPORGs are long lived, have tons of replay value and don't need cutting edge technology (The most popular MMPORGs today are by and large still the first ones released). There have been attempts to build open source MMPORGs, but so far not much to show for it. Still, I think the problems are more a lack of focus than than anything else.

PlaneShift is a pretty nice open source MMORPG, it's still in development and I don't really know about the current userbase though. Check http://www.planeshift.it

Eternal-Lands is also looking good and should be farily playable http://www.eternal-lands.com
I don't really know about the current userbase but I'm about to try it again :)

Also there is Arkanae https://arkanae.dev.java.net/- I don't really know anything about that one though.
Then you have WorldForge which I really haven't had any luck with, and I don't really think it is in a playable state anyway (http://www.worldforge.org).
In addition to those you have http://www.genecys.org/ - don't really know much about that one either.
So theres a few going on :)

I agree that there's often a need for revenue in order to support professional development, but I believe that open platforms and standards spur development far more than closed or proprietary systems do. Sure, ownership guarantees profits but one only has to look at the net or OS's to see the obvious disadvantages of overcontrol. I suspect that MMOG's will never become massively popular until the those worlds become "free" worlds. This also applies to other game genres. Imagine if you will a protocol / server that allows Q3A players to fight against UT players. In this regard, I can only hope that open alternatives are developed that allow users to interact without being forced to pay someone to do so.

I found FreeWRL by following your informative post about X3D, it's a Canadian governmaent supported development which looks very cool. Could this be the 3D browser I've been hoping for? I hope so. I can't wait to actually travel through 3D cyberspace ala Lawnmower Man or Neuromancer. There's also WorldForge which looks cool, but is more limited to game development.

Thanks to both of you for steering me in the right direction. Oh, and thanks to those who modded my orignal comment up. Of course, no thanks for the over-rated from some bitter poor soul with nothing more positive to do with thier points. Some people eh. (shakin head)

The concept for Meridian 59 did not begin with 3DO. A small company called Archetype Interactive conceived the game. "It was a major effort," says Koster, who had developed a name in the MUD creation world and turned down an offer to work on Meridian 59. "For a long time, work on Meridian 59 was distributed over the Internet. People worked remotely. It was a grassroots effort that made good."

I've never quite figured out why the open source movement has never produced anything like this. The dedication to maintaining MUD codebases in the '80s and '90s was pretty incredible, especially since it made it so easy for people to make their own MUDs without serious coding skills. And I would think that making an open source game with half-decent 3D graphics wouldn't be so hard in a time when it seems like every thirteen year old in his basement can make a somewhat enjoyable Half-Life or Quake mod. So why, when so many geeks like RPGs, MMORPGs, and even some of the remaining MUDs, isn't it being done? At the very least, I think a few dedicated programmers and artists could make a graphical equivalent to the old MUD codebases like DikuMUD.

Sure, there's WorldForge, but that project is so ambitious and slowly developed that it should be released on the same day as Duke Nukem Forever. Why hasn't anyone tried anything on a slightly smaller scale?

What I would love is a MUD with a roguelike interface.

You mean a cross-platform, GPL game with vast worlds, lots of development, and years of content under their belt? Free to play?

I believe that looking for the Crossfire webpage. A bit more Gauntletish than I'd like (contains monster generators), but other than that, good.

And while I haven't played it (and I don't know if it's as far along, there's also the more modern WorldForge, which has some screenshots of the various clients.

What I would love is a MUD with a roguelike interface.

You mean a cross-platform, GPL game with vast worlds, lots of development, and years of content under their belt? Free to play?

I believe that looking for the Crossfire webpage. A bit more Gauntletish than I'd like (contains monster generators), but other than that, good.

And while I haven't played it (and I don't know if it's as far along, there's also the more modern WorldForge, which has some screenshots of the various clients.

You may want to check out this. Not quite there yet, but promising.

I have seen this graphics already, and I really like it. I wonder when graphics designers are going to follow game engine coders and release their work under a copyleft license, so everyone could use their work in free software games. It would be very useful for the WorldForge Project, which I am sort of into. This graphics could be great to start this new trend.

Of course it is not WorldForge, no doubt, but for a proprietary software it sounds quite interesting. I also had no idea it is so popular. Could it be because of PR and marketing? I do not really think so.

One word: The WorldForge Project. Should I say more? No. That is because the most interesting research in this field is being discussed on The WorldForge Project's public mailing lists, which I strongly urge you to subscribe to. (But before you post any questions there please make sure to read the FAQ.)

One word: The WorldForge Project. Should I say more? No. That is because the most interesting research in this field is being discussed on The WorldForge Project's public mailing lists, which I strongly urge you to subscribe to. (But before you post any questions there please make sure to read the FAQ.)

One word: The WorldForge Project. Should I say more? No. That is because the most interesting research in this field is being discussed on The WorldForge Project's public mailing lists, which I strongly urge you to subscribe to. (But before you post any questions there please make sure to read the FAQ.)

Worldforge developers are also worried about the loophole, there's an article about it from last year.
They hope the GPL3 addresses the issue. But as GPL 3 isn't expected any time soon they are looking for any hack that closes the hole while staying GPL.

Theres dozens, theres a few that are pretty good, no they arent as good as Doom3(until ID releases the source) or Turbines engine, but they dont have to be, they just have to be good enough to make PS2 quality games.

Most of these games would look better than anything on the PS2. There is an open source game repository but are you willing to donate money to make these games good? Or will you complain about quality when you dont pay?

Well here are some engines.

Genesis3d
Nooface
WorldForge

Reality FactoryM

Ogre

Obsidian

More at LinuxGames

Why don't you drop by and help making that vision come true?

Amen. The story totally ignores the way open source works.

If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM

Which can be to be on an Open Source project. However, the fact remains -- they need to be paid.

This wave of users coming in, demanding a clone of Windows, not really caring about functionality, choice, the ability to see source, and just saying "I want idiot-proof editor! I want idiot-proof file browser! I want idiot-proof web browser! I want GNOME and KDE combined because they sound the same to me and I don't understand their internal structure! All developers should drop everything else and work on that, because that's what I want! Me me me me me!" piss me off.

Most developers are working on their software because it's *fun* for them to write something the way *they* want to write something and try out their own ideas. Maybe learn something. Fulfilling the needs of a whiny end user who doesn't give a damn about anything but "cheap and Windows clone" is really far down on the list. If you submit some code to a project, you're *much* more likely to be listened to.

I mean, seriously. Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users. And this misunderstanding is producing a lot of discontent. "Why are people writing all these stupid command line programs when I want a GUI program!"

Here's the deal. If you want a feature and no one else is doing it, especially if it's been suggested over and over before already (merge GNOME/KDE, clone InstallShield), you're pretty much responsible for doing it yourself. If you can't write code, sorry. Open source developers are not a bunch of little "code fairies" that grant you your every wish. If you write *some* unrelated code for their project (or for other projects), developers are more likely to listen to requests. If your sole contribution to the OSS world is telling everyone on Slashdot that "Linux rules" or whatever, yes, you may get ignored.

Now, do developers sometimes go out of their way to fulfill random end user requests? Sure, especially if they don't take too much work to implement. It *is* a source of pride to be more popular than commercial alternatives. However, it comes down to the fact that users frequently don't seem to understand that they're going up to talented people who are already volunteering their time and (very skilled labor) for particular goals and then trying to tell them what to do.

As for "it's not about getting your name as the author in the credits", that's also false. Lots of people have had fun analyzing open source, because it's a weird social phenomon and in the news a lot. It's a gift-based culture, where you get fame in exchange for your work (in addition to other things). There's a *reason* volunteer OSS people don't like doing plumbing-type work on code. Recognition in exchange for code *is* important to most OSS developers.

Finally, while coding is important to get respect and influence in the OSS world, it's not the only path. Artists are quite scarce, and folks like the free WorldForge project desperately want you. If you're maintaining the website for a project, that's going to grant you some influence in that project and others. If you do translations, that's good too. Not many people translating to Swahili.

But if you just want to play Icewind Dale and don't want to pay anything for your software...well, the Open Source world probably isn't really a place that's going to be all that pleasant for you. Maybe, maybe one day. But not now. BSD and Linux simply don't fit you very well.

The code never went away. If they never released the source, would you be happier and feel less betrayed?

There's a project called Worldforge that has some interesting things going on. You may want to check it out.

I've heard rumors that they want to implement P2P for the game media, but not for the game itself.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

An age system will benefit those that don't have a lot of time to game, but want to play the game, those that have time to be a little better than the lite gamers, but its still competitive, and you can discourage addictive play.

The only problem is that nobody wants to discourage addictive play in the first place. This is where the profits are.

That's why I'm sure Sony (or any other company, for that matter) won't ever introduce rules like that. They are doing the opposite, i.e. only the addictive play allows you to do anything in those games. That's why I think that the only hope for a really enjoyable online RPG is in community projects, like WorldForge.

Take a look at the Newbie's Guide To WorldForge to have some idea what this project is about, if you don't already, join one of the mailing lists (World@ or Rules@ or General@) and post your ideas there, because I think they are very good indeed, however they won't ever be used by Sony, while they can be used by WorldForge. You can also join the #lounge channel at irc.worldforge.org. Good luck.

What You Really Get From an Online Game?

You get a life...

Few years ago I bought Ultima Online as a good-bye gift to my Microsoft Windows 95. What can I say, it's highly addictive. You can play few weeks for many hours a day and it's still not enough. Fortunately at that time I had already decided to go Debian-only, and I never figured out how to run Ultima Online on GNU/Linux (which was possible, as far as I know, using Wine or the unofficial port). I really hope WorldForge won't be as good as I'm afraid it's going to be...

The article mentions three: Crystal Space, World Forge and Cube 3D.

World Forge doesn't look to be very far along. I haven't looked at Cube 3D yet. But I was impressed with Crystal Space. From the cursory look I gave it, I'd say it's between Quake and Quake 2 in terms of technology (but I might be horribley wrong). There are different types of renderers (playing a game in ASCII mode would be fun), and quite a list of features. Take a look at the screenshots to see what it's capable of - impressive, I thought.

It's LGPL, which if I understand correctly means that it can be used in proprietary commercial products. That, I think, is intriguing. That could enable very small-time developers to make simple games and sell them for cheap. (If my understanding of the LGPL is wrong, someone correct me.)