Slashdot Mirror

C&C was my bread and butter series, Red Alert 2 and Generals are among my favorite games of all time. Red Alert 2 in particular was pretty well balanced multiplayer, and I'm sure there's still a community out there playing it competitively.

Warzone 2100 is a game you must check out too sometime, it's got an extremely interesting history behind it. Once a Playstation (not Playstation 2 or Playstation 3, just Playstation) game, it became an open-source PC game after the devs gave out the source code; I can't recall another game that's ever gone that route. Although it's in a bit of a slump in terms of development right now, it's got a small but dedicated community that's doing some fascinating work. In particular, since the game makes it so easy to change out the AI for an opposing side, it's got some extraordinary AI addons that actually play really well, and I haven't seen another RTS with the same focus on AI. I highly recommend you check it out if you ever feel bored on a weekend or so; it's definitely worth it.

Also, to point out, it was open sourced a while ago, and has been improved and has quite a vibrant community behind it:

http://wz2100.net/

I played the original when I was young, and was happy to see it still exists, and is still a lot of fun to play. Plus works flawlessly on Linux :-)

is in my opinion better and open source as well. http://wz2100.net/ - Graphics are a little dated but the gameplay is very addictive. I would say if the girls were tested with this game they would have been playing for longer than an hour per day ;)

I have to agree. While the graphics are a bit dated and dark, it has much better replay value than Starcraft. Even a girl might like it.

Open soures games have really come far. Who would have thought some years back after playing some of the stuff out there?

Disclaimer: I was the beta tester of wz2100. I'm a hard core shill for the game, AND I was fucked in the ass by a goat yesterday.

is in my opinion better and open source as well. http://wz2100.net/ - Graphics are a little dated but the gameplay is very addictive. I would say if the girls were tested with this game they would have been playing for longer than an hour per day ;)

I quite like Warzone2100 as a RTS
and Wormux (Worms 2 clone).

Then again, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I guess it all depends on what you want out of a game. The above have given me hours and hours of fun, despite the low-end graphics (indeed I quite like the low end graphics, allows me to play on my phone, or on other underpowered machines, no need for big gaming rig).

Thank you, you just ruined my weekend. I'll likely be sucked into playing that w/ a friend...

Likewise, there's Warzone 2100, which I thought was quite a bit like TA (with acknowledge for the fact that I maybe spent 20 minutes playing the original, 5 years after it came out, and got my ass swiftly handed to me by the computer.) I've sunk many an hour into this one.

There so many enjoyable, well-one multiplayer games for Linux (and open source in general) I've not had the desire to pay for a game in some time/with any significant frequency. (Note, I fall in the 5-hours-or-fewer per week demographic by quite a bit.)

That said, Glest kinda sucks. It's boring and slow paced, even when you speed up the game speed. The gameplay does not feel fluid, either, even when run on a higher end system. It's like the Warcraft (original) of Open Source RTS: the sides are (For all intents and purposes) identical, and the gameplay is painfully simple.

The problem isn't the tedium part. F/OSS people do a lot of tedious tasks too.

The problem is, that the whole thing needs a basis which makes people interested to improve on. F/OSS people are not very good at putting together a comprehensive seed for a healthy game, as this is a quite complex task (you really need a development team with project coordinators, artists, programmers and other staff to get this done).

Two examples of successful F/OSS games originating in commercial seeds are OpenTTD http://www.openttd.org/en and the Warzone 2100 project http://wz2100.net./

In the first instance, the commercial game (Transport and Tycoon Deluxe) first inspired some extensive modding (ttd patch) and then a complete rewrite of the engine (openttd project) including graphics and sound. Overall very tedious tasks, and the project is doing better than ever (they just released version 1.0). They are also improving the game with new features that improve gameplay a lot. Runs on Linux, OS X and Win.

The other one, Warzone 2100 was GPL'd by the original developer studio some years ago (2004). In this case, the engine was improved a lot too, and development is active with roadmap and good progress - fully playable stable versions are available for all major platforms as well.

The problem with OSS games is really, that they need a mature seed to take off, like releasing an old codebase. That's very rarely happening though. Game studios don't want to compete against OSS games, which is why they virtually never release sources for old games. And game developers give up any kind of right on their code as soon as they sign a contract, so they can't do much to prevent their codebase from getting murdered.

I hope someone will surprise us all one day, and show how to plant such seeds in F/OSS word. There is nothing on the horizon that I'm aware of so far though.

These guys have done exactly what you're aiming to do. You should probably get on their forums and talk to them for some insight. You should also check out their remake, it's a really good game! Warzone 2100

I am not the one who asked the original question, but I note that the Warzone 2100 Project, a free and open-source real-time strategy game written mostly in C, always welcomes new developers (and players!)

In particular, we'd like a new Windows developer - we currently have exactly zero. :(

Try Warzone 2100, free as in beer and speech. Massively configurable units, a tech tree that's bigger than the NSA's, artillery based combat, and if you don't like it, you've got the source and can pimp it up.

I am not a gamer, but I shudder to imagine how many months of my life I have collectively spent playing Warzone 2100.

If you play the campaign, you are looking at many, many days of game play. http://wz2100.net/ "you command the forces of "The Project" in a battle to rebuild the world after mankind has almost been destroyed by nuclear missiles. The game offers campaign, multi-player and single-player skirmish modes." Another option is to try a place like: http://www.getdeb.net/category.php?id=3

xmoto is nice, but there's so much more :)
some i have played and did like enough :

http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
http://www.openttd.org/
http://www.wesnoth.org/
http://wz2100.net/
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
http://www.bzflag.org/
http://chromium-bsu.sourceforge.net/
http://freeciv.wikia.com/
http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar/v5
https://sourceforge.net/projects/koules/ (original page seems to be down)
http://neverball.org/

I like multiplayer networked games, especially games I can play with friends or my kids. Of course, not everyone is using Linux, so that's a hurdle too. So the 3 top ones I like to play also happen to be OSS and has multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux) releases.

Favorites starting from my most are:
Warzone 2100 - Think of a real-time war game such as Command and Conquer. It's not too technical, but technical enough. I like playing with a friend in a 4 on 4 game and tag-teaming the two computer players and then battling it out. Longer games, plus there is a single-player campaign mode.

BZFlag is a classic tank game with modern 3D and maps. There are a ton of online servers hosting fun maps, plus you can download the maps and host the games yourself. Virtually unlimited amount of users can connect and play. Capture the flag mode is a ton of fun (especially with 4 color teams). Great for fast matches during a lunch break.

Freeciv doesn't require a 3D engine, and is basically an Open Source version of Civilization. Also fun with many players.

A someone else posted, there are hundreds of Linux games and even better is a list of OSS games out there, but these are my favorites.

I have a feeling that demographic doesn't really strike a lasting profit, however. Nintendo is slowly falling and has been for a few months - could the Wii's marketing be wearing off?

That's the problem with good games: if the player won't get bored with them, they won't buy a new one. Perhaps we should start paying attention to Open Source games, like Freespace 2 and Warzone 2100.

A bug causing a game to not render the background correctly is "important", but security fixes et al are not?

Well, I was exaggerating a bit. Of course security fixes are important. But as a developer of the aforementioned game, I'm kind of more affected by the rendering bug. I mean, when's the last time an OS X security bug has had an exploit in the wild? Compare that to not insignificant number of Warzone players (Windows and Linux are supported, too! Come try one of the most popular FOSS RTSes today!)

Unfortunately, it looks like nothing important was fixed, either. The OpenGL bug on NVIDIA graphics cards is still there. :/

Warzone 2100. I just saved you a bunch of $$. You'll love this game.

None of your examples are of games. There are no good, free, fun, games.

You forgot the best example of all. There is even a Mac version for jimicus and a Linux version for the rest of /.

None of your examples are of games. There are no good, free, fun, games.

Well, this actually isn't an old game (by the definition you gave - old games are games that are more than 12 years old :\ ) but I saw on a forum that it's abandonware because (by the forum poster):

• You cannot buy this anywhere in the world
• The makers have abandoned the IP (Dungeon Keeper)
• The game is over 6 years old

Just Google for 'Dungeon Keeper 2 download' (sans quotes) because I don't want my comment to be removed because of abuse.

So in my opinion if they are abandoned (or they don't have to), the OSS approach works. Look what happened to WarZone2100 which was released in 2004 as open source :)

People tend to avoid free games so here are some links: http://wz2100.net/ excelent RTS. http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/ Quake like FPS with fancy graphics. http://www.warsow.net/?page=home Fps with emphesis on acrobatics. Freespace 2 open http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html . http://www.wesnoth.org/ a very highly rated turn based stratagey game.

Still plenty of inovation in GPL land: http://wz2100.net/ a stratagey game where you design your own units. low system requirments; opengl 1.5, mac, linux, windows.

Linux Games..

http://savage2.s2games.com/main.php
http://www.eve-online.com/
http://www.wesnoth.org/
http://www.flightgear.org/
http://www.freeciv.org/
http://www.sauerbraten.org/
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
http://wz2100.net/
http://www.cubeengine.com/
http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
http://www.wormux.org/
http://www.secretmaryo.org/
http://www.ufoai.net/
http://www.bzflag.org/
http://tremulous.net/
http://www.eternal-lands.com/
http://www.enemyterritory.com/

Perhaps you could stop with the "No games for Linux" BS already as you obviously have your head up your ass.

First would have to be TA Spring, a fully 3d reimplementation of Total Annihilation and many mods and maps for it.

Then Warzone 2100 (Resurrection), a revival of a great commercial RTS game that was Freed a few years ago.

Bos Wars is by far the best and most polished of all the games based on the Stratagus(formerly FreeCraft) engine, but

Also, Globulation 2 is pretty fun, if a bit less deep than the others in terms of strategic options.

Finally, Glest is a fun from-scratch fantasy RTS game, not as polished as the others though.

Those are the ones I have installed. Of them, I play TA Spring the most, and Glest the least.

You might want to give Warzone 2100 a go.

Originally released in 1999, it was open sourced in 2001 (I think) and since then under the GPL. I was addicted to the demo that came out in 1998 and I'm looking forward to trying the GPL version once I get openGL working on my machine (The multiplayer is IMO the best part of that game, some of the missions are not so fun).