Games: The Boundary Of Open Development?

Clyde writes "Computer games represent an interesting frontier for Open Source development. Unlike other desktop applications, games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work. This discussion with Scott Draeker, president and CEO of Loki Entertainment Software and Jorrit Tyberghein, volunteer project leader for Crystal Space sheds some light."

Comments

Re:Unfortunately true

[Ian Wolf]

Art is important too. The problem with many games is that art (sub: eye-candy) is the basis of the game (Myst). Some games put a premium on their art, and usually pay the consequences. However, there are quite a few that draw from these qualities and make for a much richer experience. There are games out their that achieve a good balance between art and gameplay. Starcraft, European Air War, Rainbow 6, the Quakes, and most of the EASports games, as well as many more examples that I'm leaving out, do an excellent job of mixing good visuals and good gameplay.

BTW my favorite game of all time is the graphically spartan Civ2. I have to admit that sometimes you don't need flashy graphics to make a great game, but they can certainly make it better.

Re:Half open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you miss my point. Coding may not be VISUAL art, but I contend that at least some aspects of coding are artistic in nature: the creative processes involved, choices in languages, techniques, invention of new algorythms, etc.

As you say: "you can get the source, but it's not worth much without a copy of the game files". But the opposite is also true: the game files are not worth much without the engine.

Here's the dilemma: Close source game: $60 (coding & art)

Developer substitutes proprietary engine with an open source engine. Maybe gets to fire half the programming staff. How much should the game cost now? Was the art worth $30? $50?

Re:Long-term benefits of open source code

[Dwindlehop]

I think that an open source environment for games has two potential benefits - firstly for allowing bugs to be quickly fixed, and secondly to allow the game to be enhanced and updated in reponse to user requests and ideas.

You don't need open source code for this.

As id has demonstrated time and again with the Quake series, it is possible to design a game so that users can enhance and modify it. Another good example is the Rules Description Language (and this link too) of Stars! Supernova. Using the RDL, the multiplayer Stars! community will be able to effect gameplay balancing changes without waiting for the developers to release a patch. They'll also be able to set up custom rules for creating themed games, like Star Trek, Star Wars, or Babylon 5. Stars! Supernova will also has some interesting ways of letting players supply custom artwork and sound for their races. For more on this game, see news://rec.games.computer.stars.

At any rate, the point is through the implementation of good game design, developers can ensure that users will be able to update and enhance a closed-source proprietary game. It'd be interesting to see if anyone else has examples of this sort of design besides the ones I've mentioned (*hint, hint*).

Jonathan David Pearce

Re:Unfortunately true

[Nezumi-chan]

How many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?

You seem to be confusing "art" with "artwork". That "art" of a game goes considerably beyond the pretty (or not so pretty) pictures that populate your screen. To define it as such means you're devaluing the writing and general design of the script as well.

Personally, I consider all creative aspects of a game to be the "art" component. A game need not have incredibly flashy visuals to be artistic. Look at GnomeHack, for instance. Very simple game, minimal graphics. But there has been undeniable creativity in the design of the game. The same applies for games such as Baldur's Gate, where I am not terribly fond of the visuals, but like the writing a great deal.

I know this from experience, as co-writer on an Open Source game, Adonthell. No one is going to confuse us with Final Fantasy VIII. But no one is going to accuse us of not being artistic wither. The fact is, Adonthell is the result of many creative people working together in an Open Source setting, and we are getting good results.

Of course, I do agree with Draeker and Tyberghein. The artistic portions of a game are difficult to Open Source, and there's no point fooling ourselves that they are of the same nature as the programming. Open Source allows for the script, for instance, to be changed every bit as much as it does the code. But would it be improved thereby? Possibly. But I'm willing to bet it wouldn't.

Re:The problem.

[Black Parrot]

> I have yet to see an open source project that is not a clone or a close relative of something that already exists in the world.

I have yet to see any software that is not a "close relative" of something that already exists in the world. Indeed, I wouldn't even limit that statement to software.

> Perhaps it's done better, but that's not the point.

For most OS software, that is exactly the point. Maybe less often for games, although I'm creating one for the sole reason that I want something better than the current commercial leader of the genre. (Well, also for the joy of doing some "joy programming".)

--

Re:Have you heard about Vampire The Masquerade gam

[catseye_95051]

We've tried it.

Storyteller mode without the world building tools is fairly useless.

They still haven't releasd the promised world building tools.

Canard

[jtgold]

As a security system architect, allow me to point out that you are dead wrong. The security a game gets from not releasing source code is an illusion. There used to be an army of people with mediocre debugging skills who made a sport of shredding copy protection for closed source programs -- until game companies got tired of running in circles and stopped trying. For multiplayer games, the problem is even worse because all one needs to do is examine the network traffic and create a filter (to improve aim, reveal hidden enemies, and so on). If you understand graphics and can program in C (and you would need to in order to cheat using GPL'd code) then you shouldn't have a hard time using these techniques.

Encryption would help, but the reason servers trust clients is to improve performance and cryptographic operations are expensive. The difficulty here comes not from open or closed source, but from the hoards of skillful people with too much time on their hands beating on a fragile system. Consider this Eric Raymond essay, which discusses this issue in more depth and points out that cheat programs have been developed for Quake without using the source code.

Re:Canard

[randombit]

Encryption would help

How? If the client could provide a zero knowledge proof that the data it was sending to the server was legitiamite, all is well, but that would be impossible (practically speaking). Encryption, OTOH, isn't helpful at all. The client knows everything that is getting encrypted and decrypted, and someone can easily hack/patch the client to dump a copy to a file. It'll prevent other people from altering the game, but that doesn't seem too useful.

Re:Canard

[Life Blood]

All ESR says is "trusted clients make for bad security". Big deal we all knew that. However untrusted clients make for inefficiency because the centralized servers have to do almost everything. In gaming using a trusted client would be great because you could run a distributed client-side AI. In other words using a trusted client would be nice because it would allow you create more elegant solutions to common gaming problems.

Basically what you are saying is that there is no such thing as a trustworthy client. While true, I didn't have any trouble with massive amounts of multiplayer Quake cheating until the source was released. I also haven't seen any versions of quake that get rid of the cheating problem either. I submit to you that a CS trusted client doesn't seem to be as easy to break as you suggest.

Re:A new (falulty) paradigm for game design

[catseye_95051]

Haven't you ever noticed how many suppoaed game projects these days put up "screen shots" (often done with on off-the shelf 3D package) and some cool verbage and then never deliver a game?

I sure wouldn't pay for a game ahead of time based on that. Even if the developer is sincere (and this would open the door for all kinds of straight con-jobs) abilty to dream and ability to deliver are very different. The first is preveleant, the second is not so.

The only developer I would even think of gioving my moeny to ahead of time woul be a big, well established and already successful group with a lot of cash on hand to voer their development costs. In which case, they don't need my money anyway.

Anyone remeber Hack?

[catseye_95051]

Good, very old example of a freeware, volunteer extended game.

JK

Re:Business Model for Open Source(TM) Games

[philipm]

Sorry,
1) I am not interested in your application
2) You sound excitable and suspicious therefore not a good person to give money

I'm sure you think that reading the back of a book or a computer game box is a much better way
to decide how to spend your money.
Well, go right ahead and support the marketer's kids through college.

Re:Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Hmm - no, it always will take effort from the programmers to adapt the engine to the specific game. It's the same thing as using the Quake III engine for a game, but open-source style. Quite a few companies do that. In the end, programmers release the modifications they made to the engine, thereby helping the next game to get built! By using an Open Source engine, every game that gets written adds to the next game, gradually increasing the general state of gaming. For instance, 007: The World Is Not Enough (the game) modified the Quake III engine to let Bond be thrown around the room by explosions. If they were using an open-source engine, that would be released, and the next adventure game would have the benefit of that effect as well. I didn't say fire the programmers - I said make life easier for the programmers, and at the same time build a better game faster!

Nothing wrong with saying IMHO

[samael]

Because IMHO is easily pronouncable, it makes a perfect word. I know a couple of people who use it.

Pronounced IMM-HOE

all we need is intergration

[oliverthered]

I downloaded Crystal Space about an hour ago, and have been playing with allegro for some years.

Though both of these are fairly good GFX engines I have yet to see good integration with games engines, and porting between the to would be a nightmare.

If interfaces between GFX engines (Crystal Space does support plugins), AI,rules and scripting languages were standardised, open source game development could be onto a real winner.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Steeltoe]

If you're afraid that people will warp your story, don't tell it to anyone.

Really, that's the only way to be sure. Now, I'm pretty sure someone has come up with a similar story before anyways, and maybe that your story is a "warped" story from someone else you've heard. So why worry? What do you lose? Why be afraid over a perfectly natural thing?

- Steeltoe

Re:Games?

[Blue Lang]

IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.

Wrong.

Game engines


http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/

3D graphics


http://crystal.linuxgames.com/

http://www.mesa3d.org

etc are now a mature software area, and
with today's hardware we're almost at the point where brute forcing it will be a "good enough" programming strategy.

Wrong. Copying graphics to the screen one pixel at a time will _always_ suck.

And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....

... suddenly, i feel as though i'm being trolled.

well, reading it again, he wasn't saying that OSS can't produce the code to do the low level stuff, but, since i bothered to paste those links, i'm leaving them in. :P

--
blue

That old misconception again

[-Harlequin-]

>Unlike other desktop applications, games tend to be hybrid organisms
> half software program, half artistic work.

"Unlike" other applications? I would submit (again) that one big reason open-source is having difficulting gaining users other than technicians is because of this misconception that good software consists merely of code. Even the Sorceforge Help Wanted section re-inforces the detrimental (and simply incorrect) notion that non-coders are not developers. As long as open-source developement of software is done by "developers" of the Sourceforge definition, the results will continue to be largely inaccessible to non-coders and non-technicians.

Re:Day of the tentacle

[Steeltoe]

"This is the ultimate proof for me that art does make the game."

Let this sentence be the proof that any blatant over-generalisation about one incident to be worth null and void.

;) Steeltoe

Re:Open Source at heart

[AgentGray]

I don't remember any mods to Red Alert. Got any links?

Is there a FSF statement about games?

[tjansen]

I always asked myself whether there is an official FSF statement about games. While relatively simple games (like GNU chess) can be written by individuals in their spare time, projects that take many man years certainly can not, and the classical revenue streams for open-source companies like selling support obviously doent work with games.
So are there any FSF suggestions on how to write commercial-grade games as free software, or does the FSF tolerate at least games based on non-free art.

Re:More on this topic...

[Otter]

Moderate this up! The article he links to is really a pleasure to read -- well thought out and argued, and refreshingly free of zealotry.

Re:Long-term benefits of open source code

[Black Parrot]

> Why do I need to change the source if I can change the .ini files anyways?

Ever tried changing Civ II to use a hex map rather than a faked oblique square grid? Tried changing it to let units cooperate like real armies? Tried making the AI smarter?

Yes, lots of commercial games now come with customization features. But if you don't like some of the features of the actual design, there's no way to fix it yourself. With OSS you can. I have a .diff that I apply to every new version of Freeciv that I download, because I have a difference of opinion with the maintainers as to what makes good human engineering for the display.

ps - The Freeciv maintainers have now implemented most of the features of Civ I/II, and are increasingly talking about launching out on arbitrary extensions. I think that's the paradigm for OSS - rather than "embrace, extend, extinguish", it's "imitate, enhance, perfect". Admittedly, many are still in the "imitate" phase, but that's no reason to think OSS can only imitate.

--

Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

The ideal format of a game is to be half open-source. As the article said, a game is half a programming matter and half an artistic matter. So, the programming parts (the graphics engine) is open source and the artistic part (the game files, wad files, hog files, whatever your game calls them-files) is distributed as the game. It's the perfect compromise. That way, people have the opportunity to improve the state of their game (doesn't work quite right on XYZ 3D Blaster? Fix the game yourself!) while the artists/writers/programmers/modelers who put their time into developing their artistic work can still get the reward for the public appreciation.

The question is, why do some games suck as much as some art sucks?

Re:Half open-source

[MarkKomus]

"The engine should be open source, and the part that makes it the specific game that it is, the artistic components, stay the part that makes the money."

So would you consider say game specific code, like for the AI of a end boss, or something similar should be closed as well as part that makes money? That way I'd see it being a more equal setting between artist/programmer.

Re:Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Ooh. That's a toughie - that stuff should, yeah, probly be part of the artistic stuff. However, AI like in Black & White (where you "train" your monsters - a very, very cool feature) would fall into the Open Source trap if they open-sourced the engine.

Re:Half open-source

[luckykaa]

Its a nice idea, with a few potential problems. This would require new game engines to be commisioned for specific games, which would require that the people with money are willing to let others use their stuff, requiring a change in corporate culture. Of course, if everyone was giving away their code, they would see the benefit of code reuse.

The other problem is that it could result in new engine development slowing down. All games would have to be designed to use modified existing engines rather than designing the engine to fit the game. A lot of games are sufficiently similar for this not to matter. All first person shooters are essentially Quake. All flight sims have a sky and aircraft and and similar controls. But some games don't fit the mold. Nothing I can think of uses the same graphics technique as Grand Theft Auto. Would the result of free game engines be that new ideas are avoided? Or am I just being paranoid here?

Re:Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

You're just being paranoid. If someone wants to make a game, they'll make a game. The team that made Grand Theft Auto could just as likely made an FPS by licensing the Quake engine, so the problem already exists.

Open Sourcing of engines can actually improve games and speed development of new games, as I explained below. If the Quake III engine were an Open Source engine, then 007: The World Is Not Enough would contribute their modifications that let Bond be pushed around the room by explosives back to the engine. The next adventure game would take those modifications for their game instead of rewriting them. That means that game develepors spend more time on the game than trying to write a game engine - resulting in a better game, faster. (It also makes it easer for independent developers not backed by mega-name publishing companies to make games themselves!)

Re:Half open-source

[Erataikasu]

I agree. The games industry is one of the biggest re-invent-the-wheel-every-time industries imaginable (With notable exceptions, such as the highly successful Lucasarts SCUMM engine, which was re-used with gradual improvements over a long period of time). Isn't this one of the things open-source is supposed to be so good at fixing?

If open-source engines can effectively seperate the art of game design from the programming of game engines, that has to be a good thing. Of course, the downside is that a game is then confined to what the pre-existing engine can do.

I suppose the much derided Daikatana used the Quake 2 engine, but that alone is not a good argument for the non-reuse of engines. Deus Ex uses the Unreal engine, and seems to be widely regarded as a great game.

How all this applies to non first-person-shooters is less certain. We've already seen that engine reuse can work well for Adventure games. Real Time Strategy should also work.

I guess the concern is for the more innovative games - the more a game deviates from the strict pre-defined genres that we have in the modern games industry, the bigger the programming penalty. This could hardly provoke more conformism than we have already, though.

Re:Half open-source

[mikpos]

Ahh. Thanks for saying exactly what Draeker said, but in a more incoherent way. That was very "insightful" of you.

Re:Half open-source

[MarkKomus]

"So, the programming parts (the graphics engine) is open source and the artistic part (the game files, wad files, hog files, whatever your game calls them-files) is distributed as the game. It's the perfect compromise."

Well it is a nice model what about for the programmer who needs art? I might like to write a game (open source or closed) but the biggest problem I face is drawing stick people is the limit of my art ability. If you really wanted to have the game open, have all the code, and art avialable for reuse, and just have things like the levels, story, as what you're selling.

What you described above has the coders giving their work out for free, while the artists get to keep theirs.

Re:Half open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

"while the artists/writers/programmers/modelers who put their time into developing their artistic work can still get the reward for the public appreciation"

Really? And who buys YOUR food? And you pays YOUR rent?

I'm not so certain the distinction between "art" and "software" is all that obvious. I happen to think the creation of Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, Dreamweaver -- and the Gimp -- also involves a good deal of "art".

If you can separate the art from the software -- how much is the "game" worth? Will the game makers (or makers of embedded Linux) pass the savings on to users?

Rod.

Re:Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Nope. What I described was a collaboration between artists and programmers as a game development team - the team produces the game, and then the programmers make the source libre for the good of the game itself. And there's more than art out there - level design, for instance, or level scripting are all places where the programmers can help in the assembly of the game files themselves. The engine should be open source, and the part that makes it the specific game that it is, the artistic components, stay the part that makes the money.

Re:Half open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Hmm - it's fairly easy to distinguish the programming from the art. Most games use some form of wad/hog/whatever file system to load up game levels and scripts. New levels can be added through third-party add-ons that give the game a whole new story. These levels are the part that's the artistic part. The engine coding part itself is what should be Open Source. It's like downloading the source to Quake - you can get the source, but it's not worth much without a copy of the game files. In this sense, the Quake engine is open source but the game files are the artistic part that you still need to pay for.

Re:Half open-source

[VaporX]

You may inherit the code, but you also inherit all the bugs, all the gameplay, and all the limitations. There's a _reason_ why Quake engine games are so easy to spot. You can't just keep regurgitating the same old engine over and over again. You lose big points for unoriginality because it's essentially the same fucking game over and over again, just a different face... Unless you modify the engine so heavily that you can't tell it from the original. But if you're going to do that, why not just create a new, better engine anyway?

Re:Half open-source

[Duane Dibbley]

To start, I have to agree -- I think this kind of license is the way games should be developed. To answer your question, I say AI most definitely goes there because it may be game specific, but it might be useful to others. You know the reaper bot from Quake? Is that best open-source or closed-source? I don't know anybody that would say it's best for games if that source is kept closed. But then, to agree with the above post, that is a tough call.

The only concern I have is how to write such a license, particularly if your artistic expressions are also ``code'', for example, if you have a 3D game with a VRML-based engine. Source-code vs. artwork is fairly simple - you can read source code, you can't read a graphics or sound file. But you can read VRML, even though I think it'd qualify as art. I definitely think that if you use something like MAP files or VMRL, you should include the source (well, with VRML that's kind of a moot point), but I think that should also fall under the artistic part of the license.

You could always do what Microsoft does w/ Direct X -- classify a certain branch of the game source REDISTRIBUTABLE. The rest belongs to you, and the engine has to be able to exist without your stuff. If somebody changes it, it must behave just like yours. For example,
mygame/bin (not redist)
mygame/mymod (not redist)
mygame/mymod/source/art (not redist)
mygame/mymod/source/sound (not redist)
mygame/redist/engine/source (redist)
mygame/redist/engine/bin (redist)
mygame/redist/engine/lib (redist)
mygame/redist/engine/install (redist)
...etc...

I think this would avoid ambiguities in the license. Just specify ``Anything in the path /redist you may redistribute and falls under the GPL. Anything in other sections is subject to yadda.'' Just to make sure it can exist peacefully w/ the GPL, the engine must be able to run/compile/etc. w/out your game elements.

I dunno, I've just always wanted to make a game, but I like the principles of open source and I've been trying to figure out a way to benefit the games community but still be able to make money. If I could do it for a living, I would.
---

Re:Games?

[Phil Wilkins]

> with today's hardware we're almost at the point where brute forcing it will be a "good enough" programming strategy

Of course you'll still have to write the physics code, and if brute-force is good enough, then a decent engine will allow you to actually populate that world with a million characters.

The way I see it, the engines and editors will become standard, open-source, industry tools, and then the designers, and artists can make the games they want, without having to continually fight the technology.

May take some time though.

l8r
pHile

PS Awaiting embedded Linux for X-Box with interest...;)

Re:this is more of what we need

[^chuck^]

Maybe you didn't understand me fully. Partially Open allows development without losing your IP (if you need be so protective). For instance:

I am sure that Dungeon Keeper, the Civ series (for sure) and X-com allow to build more levels when you get bored.

As for the others, if they did have that, imagine the extension of playability that you see with the ones that allow you to that. Sim City allowed you to build terrain, imagine if it provided enough of a SDK so that you build your own feature addons instead of waiting 2-3 years to be able to drive/fly/create a tower in the thriving city you built 10 years ago...

That is why i quoted Doom as an example, it was designed in mind for people to easily hack it, and id could care less as long as you bought the commercial version. Personally I modded levels/sounds/sprites to hell just for fun and passed them round to friends/BBS's. And don't even get me started on Halflife with its excellent free[speech as well as beer, i don't know] mod Counter-Strike. This type of stuff can only be an improvement on 90% of the stuff out there.

this is more of what we need

[^chuck^]

The one thing I don't understand is the major difference between console video game development and PC development (for games). In one area (PC) the best games are the ones left half, or completely, open. Things that come to mind are the excellent developments using Carmack's great engine design [raise your digital hand if you ever made some kind of mod for doom and put it on a bbs]. When you then take a look at the structure and attitude of console companies, they only now seem to be getting the idea that openness can help (with the release of some of the PS2 specs), but for a long time emulators and hacks were a bad idea... Always left me wondering why.
Anyways, this is an old idea for PC games, but still a great thing to discuss. And whatever happened to that guy trying to close the source on his mod to quake1?

Re:this is more of what we need

[-Harlequin-]

>The one thing I don't understand is the major difference between console video game development and PC development (for games).

One big reason would likely be that there is no point in doom-like openness on a console - the gamers still can't make their own mods because they've only got a console, not a computer. (Eg how could they have edited, compiled, and saved new levels?)

Re:this is more of what we need

[Jon Peterson]

"In one area (PC) the best games are the ones left half, or completely, open"

REALLY??? Angband springs to mind as a game that benefited from OS development. Yes, there were some truly nice mods to Quake and Doom.
But,
Day of the Tentacle
Dungeon Keeper
Populous
Elite
X-com series
Civ series
billions of others

They were all very very very closed source. Games are imaginative. Committees don't have good imaginations. OS games generally suck unless they are simply feature-crammed implementations of tried and tested formulas.

Re:this is more of what we need

[JonK]

That said, the original Elite source has been opened - but only 3733T 6502 hackers need apply. See Iain Bell's website for details.
--
Cheers

Re:this is more of what we need

[^chuck^]

PSX comes to mind about this...
It took CD's [which you can burn], why not create a simple SDK for independent developers and hobbiest [yes they do exist] instead of trying to take the emulator off the market (and trying like hell to stop people successfully hack their boxes to get past the gay regionalization [but thats another arguments]).

Pokemon

[Phil Wilkins]

A bit out of date too.

"as far as the general public is concerned, games borrow from popular music and film cultures, not the other way around"

I can think of at least one case where this is complete bunk. (See subject for clue;) Many many more to follow...

l8r
pHile

PS Eventually people will come to realise that film and television are just non-interactive games, and then we will rule the world! Muahahahhhaaa....;)

Open Source and 'Open Art' at work

[P_Simm]

Take a look at WorldForge, a fully open-source development project creating a massively multiplayer online gaming system. They already have a very large team of volunteer artists as well as volunteer coders and managers. While discussion has gone on within the project as to what license to use, they are implementing copyright licenses for artwork which allow both reusability, distribution, and editing.

It's been a while since I've had time to watch the development more closely, but it's still a superb example of the potential of open source game development. It's a very highly ambitious project which looks like it can pull off it's goals.

You know what to do with the HELLO.

Half Art, half software?

[DustyHodges]

Isn't coding itself an art form? I know that most people can't see it, but I truly think that a beautifully written piece of source can rival Shakespear... Just my opinion on the subject. Be careful when you make that distinction there Taco!

-Dusty Hodges

Re:Half Art, half software?

[DustyHodges]

You need to read more code through the eyes of an artist. I admit that nothing I have been able to code can be considered art, but look at the above post about the creator of TeX... THAT is Art.

So you know, I have read the complete works of Shakespeare, and have heard most of the great works of Johann Sebastian Bach. I am not trivializing their efforts. I am saying that they are not the only art.

Re:Half Art, half software?

[Jorrit]

Coding is an artform indeed. But there is still a fundamental difference to me. When I code something I don't expect it to be perfect. I KNOW it isn't perfect. I'm sure it will have hundreds of bugs and will not work correctly on most systems. That's just normal life for a programmer. So I like to get all the help I can get. That's why I release something Open Source. I want to get help from other people. On the other hand, if I were to create an artwork (which I'll not try to do as I'm not a good artist) then I don't really see how anyone else can improve it. Improving an artwork is not always possible. If you improve it then it will not be the same anymore. An artwork doesn't contain bugs in general :-) Just my opinion. Greetings,

Re:Half Art, half software?

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Sure - just have a look at Douglas Irving Repetto's media art. The result of his programming is a visual piece of art - some of which generates music as well!

Re:To quote ESR

[Black Parrot]

> OS works because people want to "scratch the itch." The problem is the game development is actually a true manufacturing industry not a service industry.

I think that's a false dichotomy. I certainly want to "scratch the itch" on games. Indeed, one of the reasons I finally scratched Windows off my dual-boot system was that I was progressively losing interest in commercial games, as I almost always disliked some feature or another of any game I bought, and got aggravated at paying for flawed games that I could not fix.

> The other reason is of course the cheating issue.

I think for genre other than the live-action shoot-em-up, you can keep all the information a player isn't supposed to know on the server, and only dribble it out when appropriate. I admit that I don't have a solution for the LASEUs, but I wouldn't condemn OSS games in general due to the difficulties in producing cheat resistance in one specific genre.

--

Unfortunately true

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

"...games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work."

This is true--and unfortunate. Think of all the computer games you've played in your life. Rank them in order of "playability" (judged by how often you replayed). Now look at the top ten: How many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?

For me, the answer is 1 and 0. The only game I've liked enough to keep playing AND that had decent art was Civilization--and some would argue that the art sucked. In any case, the art itself had almost no contribution towards the playability.

Right now I'm hooked on xscorch . The art is pitiful. The game is addictive.

Clearly, YMMV--I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I exist (and I know I'm not the only one). Why is this market not being exploited? Make some good fun games that cost half as much (fire the art staff) as the art-filled wonders that crowd the shelves.
--

Re:Unfortunately true

[ruin]

Sorry, but if you can't find one good computer game that came out in the nineties, then the simple fact is that you just don't like games. I suppose I could write you a list of games that have come out in the last decade that were wildly fun and innovative, but if you can't tell the difference between Populous and AoEII, then it probably wouldn't do much good.
--

Re:Unfortunately true

[Ig0r]

I think that Half-Life, while using a heavily-modified quake(1) engine, has the feel of a completely new game. It is the best and most immersive single-player experience I've had since quake(1). One of the reasons is that they actually took the time and effort to make an extremely vivid environment. I think that this is a 'new idea' in that all the other first-person shooters seem to neglect the single-player experience (as q3 has done).

--

Re:Unfortunately true

[webrunner]

The fact remains gaming is a visual form of media. A web browser, a word processor, those can get a way with having minimal interfaces- but with gaming the graphics are all the visual feedback you have and also act as the interface.

And certian games, like Half-Life, really benifit from having good graphics to help the immersion factor.

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Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:Unfortunately true

[Matthew Smith]

convince someone to give you shelf space for it.

Really? I think you are grossly mistaken here. We see more and more games companies going bust or cutting down in size. I think those companies really underestimate the word of mouth marketing of games titles. The result is a series of titles that are no different from each other beside the artwork they wrap around the old schemes. How much longer will we have to suffer populous clones?

I really wish this industry took a second look and started attacking niche markets more. I'd stil buy a good text adventure if it was available. New processors offer the power that could add immense levels of playability to text adventures yet the game shops are flooded with those basic types:

• F1, Grand Prix, drive fast crap (you run around in circles as fast as you can). I had more fun with the speccy racing games than the pc offerings
• Fly in the sky Flight simulator (so realistic that you need a FAA license before taking off. Sorry guys but a game is supposed to be FUN not a practice session. Games are not simulators they are for entertainment
• Kill em all bastards! Hopeless, no comment.
• Populous x (Yes AoE and AoK is in this bucket together with Caesar I, II, III and whatever else)
• "Get a hammer and hit that nail" type of things (All the Lara Cruft crap and countless others.

Now that's about it. There is NOTHING else in shops (at least here in the UK). It's completely hopeless to assume that there is a huge market for what is essentially countless clones of four basic games. In the eighties game designers had to be more inventive because they had to deal with limited resources now we have eye candy crap that can only amuse a thirteen year old and not for very long. I'd still take C64 Pirates over the lame PeeCee stuff and even lamer console crap. In the nineties we witnessed a spectacular collapse of quality in the games industry with Civ being possibly the single exception. If games companies want to stay afloat they once again have to start being innovative, throwing scores of artists at your titles will not do.

Re:Unfortunately true

[webrunner]

The games of today *are* the use and extrapolation of ideas past. Half-Life, for instance, was a groundbreaking game- but it's based on the gameplay mechanics of quake. Which was based on DooM. Which was based on Wolfenstein.

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Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:Unfortunately true

[Duane Dibbley]

If you're afraid that people will warp your story, don't tell it to anyone.

(Before you think the following is a flame, please note that it isn't. This is more of an expansion refuting this statement as a bad way of saying a good point. Okay, on to my rant...)

That's exactly the kind of attitude that made copyright law such a good idea. If you want to get ideas to spread, don't tell somebody not to tell his story. That's the exact opposite of the whole free-software philosophy! Free software wants ideas to spread and the community/gift-economy is the incentive. OTOH, copyrighted closed-software uses a monopoly of limited (well, once upon a time) time as a monetary incentive. So both the closed- and open-software models are designed to spread ideas and promote the sciences and useful arts.

Telling somebody to keep their ideas to themselves is elitist and doesn't fit well into any development methodology I can think of.

(See, getting back to what I said earlier, this really sounds like a flame at this point, and I'll admit it kind of is, but read on...)

Really, that's the only way to be sure. Now, I'm pretty sure someone has come up with a similar story before anyways, and maybe that your story is a "warped" story from someone else you've heard. So why worry? What do you lose? Why be afraid over a perfectly natural thing?

This is the part of my post where I concede that you are correct. My main concern is that the previous statement could have been phrased ``That's a good thing! The free spread of information benefits society!'' So now I concede w/ the original point, you can't really control ideas and it's not a very admirable goal IMO. However, you can always use the word ``Official''. Remember, that's how you allow communities to expand on your ideas but you don't necessarily incorporate them into the core of whatever little universe you've created. They're left floating in the realm of ``unofficial''. Worrying about somebody changing something you've made is part of life -- it's part of the spread of ideas, and then there is the point that yeah, it's probably pretty similar to something that's already been done. The only way to see what happens, though, is to put it out there.
---

Re:Unfortunately true

[Erataikasu]

I think that the number of times you replayed is a poor gauge for game quality. I have only played my favourite game of all time (Grim Fandango) three times through, but that is a lot for an Adventure game.

Strategy games, where there are a lot of random elements, are inherently more replayable than Adventures, RPGs, or even First Person Shooters.

I remember Arena, and Daggerfall attempted to apply the random-factor to RPGs, and in my opinion, it didn't work. The world was filled not with interesting people, but cookie cutter characters giving you cookie-cutter quests in cookie-cutter towns.

But just because the best RPGs and Adventures are only replayable a few times, it does not mean they're inherently inferior to Strategy games which can be replayed effectively infinitely.

Re:Unfortunately true

[webrunner]

You almost allways have to take tried and true gameplay mechanics, but there are always points where they innovate. Vampire has the storyteller mode. Half-Life had a story. Halo has the realisation of a huge physics-run world. Homeworld took the RTS genre and gave it a whole new feel- RTS without *terrain*!? Are they mad? It worked.
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:Unfortunately true

[MarkKomus]

"Really? I think you are grossly mistaken here. We see more and more games companies going bust or cutting down in size. I think those companies really underestimate the word of mouth marketing of games titles."

I know word of mouth can be a powerful marketing mechinism, but even if I really love a game I'll have a hard time convincing most people I know to buy one if its text based, or has really crappy graphics. Everyone I know who is just a game player, and not nescessarily into computers otherwise, wants to see nice things on the screen.

"Now that's about it. There is NOTHING else in shops (at least here in the UK)."

Well I've also seen sports games, RTSs, strategdy games, there's more then 4 basic types that are cloned.

"In the nineties we witnessed a spectacular collapse of quality in the games industry with Civ being possibly the single exception."

I wouldn't say so, take a look at Warcraft 2, Starcraft, SimCity, Master's of Orion, Star Control 2, Half Life, Asheron's Call, to name a few. These have all been very cool games, totally drawing me into their gameplay, with the addition of having nice graphics and sound even. There is a lot of crap clones out there, but there's hardly been a collapse of good games.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Cuthalion]

I think examples abound in the platform adventure world... Out Of This World, Abe's Odyssee, SkullMonkeys, all of those I would say were fun, mostly because of level and character design. Monkey Island and other Lucasart games (Full Throttle!!!) are other examples.

I think that every RTS blizzard makes (Starcraft, Warcraft (have you heard much about Warcraft 3? should be good)) relies VERY heavily on non-code based design (call it art or not). Starcraft, for instance, is really quite simple to code. But it's not so easy to make a game where there's good gameplay balance and such.

Similar - all of the Street Fighter / Mortal Kombat games - I literally DID write a fighting game engine in about 10 days. It wasn't fun to play, but that wsa the fault of the character design (which I would have done better at had I had more time before the deadline!). Really, you could swap in new character design files, and it could be as fun as SF2.

Is the quake engine fun to play? No. Is Quake? Hell, yeah!

Re:Unfortunately true

[Cuthalion]

They exist. The Sims, Dungeon Keeper, the upcoming game Black & White are all pretty different from your standard game formulas.

Let me point out that those three groundbreaking games (I'm with you all the way, particularly wrt The Incredible Machine) were not a glut of innovation all at once, but trickled out over the course of about 10 years.

People have always made crappy, imitative and crappily imitative games. Oddly, game development is NOT different from other creative endeavors - truly imaginitive work is rare but delightful.

Stop complaining and have a brilliant idea, instead.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Cuthalion]

It was a new game, but not a new concept. Wolfenstein, Tetris, The Incredible Machine, Populous, Sim City, The Sims, Ultima Online, these were new gameplay.

Half-Life, Out Of This World, Full Throttle, Starcraft, are all examples of old gameplay, all fantastic games and exquisitely done.

Evolutionary/revolutionary, blah.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Ravagin]

Top ten, eh? Lessee:
1. NetHack
2. Rogue
3. SC2K
4. Commander Keen
5. Dangerous Dave
6. Lemmings
7. Blake Stone
8. Walls of Rome
9. Terminal Velcoity
10. Minesweeper

So let's examine the very best of the very best. Rogue has infinite replay value because it is TOTALLY random. There were always more potions to find, scrolls to discover, letters to identify, and somewhere was the Amulet... I still play this on my PalmPilot. It's called iRogue, and it's a fairly faithful clone.
NetHack is all the amazing things of Rogue and then some. The DevTeam must be a bunch of lunatics; there is always some new twist just waiting to be discovered.
So here we are. Roguelikes are, I believe, as close to the ultimate game as we have come. They have completely infinite replay value and are engaging and fun. The graphics are as good as they need to be (NetHack offers simple color graphics for those who wants 'em). Once you're familiar with the symbols, ASCII-based graphics are far better than any super-rendered polygonal 3D stuff.
I guess this makes the market kind fo hard to exploit, what with most roguelikes being freeware. NetHack 3.3, which is quality gaming, is even less than half of the price of, say, Diablo, or Quake, or whatever you care to name. So, for that matter, are Rogue, *Angband, Moria, Omega, etc...
Enough of this writing business. I have to go slay the Wizard of Yendor.
===
-J

Re:Unfortunately true

[UnknownSoldier]

If you want to check out an orginal RTS+RPG blend of gameplay,
check out: Majesty

Re:Unfortunately true

[Steeltoe]

You are correct I said this in a negative way. Everything may be viewed from a positive or a negative pole, and I chose the negative one. Why did I do this? Simply because the poster I was replying too already had a negative view of things. He wanted to own his ideas, and keep use of it restricted even though that is not natural. I responded with a blatant remark, backed up with some explanation as not to be marked as flame-bait, because that's how I felt that day. I sort of fought fire with fire, to show the meaninglessness of owning or putting constraints of information.

You wrote your post beautifully I think, and I really enjoyed a more positive version of the whole thing. I don't think it was a flame at all, it merely stated what you thought about my angle of opinion, which I believe is right. Plus it is probably more effective than my rant, but perhaps not if the reader is against any "communistic" ideas and all that crap.

Now anyone who reads both ours posts will succumb ;*)

- Steeltoe

Re:Unfortunately true

[|/rad|/oder]

I think it's important to broaden our definition (just a little) of art in the game. We're not just talking about the visual media in the game. The "artness" of a game is conveyed through more than the textures on the models, or the lighting. Game developers are trying to convey an experience in the game, and this usually consists of elements more akin to literature or just basic storytelling. Even in games without story, (read: any 3D shooter) it is the gameplay that shapes the experience. I think that this is where a game can become a piece of art, in it's playability. When the game seamlessly disappears, and all you recall is the experience, then you have a work of art. If all you remember from playing DOOM is the adrenal fear that kept you glued to your monitor till 3am, and not actually how you played, then I'd say you have a classic.

aesthetics class strikes again...

Re:Unfortunately true

[Matthew Smith]

These have all been very cool games, totally drawing me into their gameplay, with the addition of having nice graphics and sound even. There is a lot of crap clones out there, but there's hardly been a collapse of good games.

OK talking of a collapse in the industry that eclipses the Hollywood movie business might be a bit of exaggeration but my point remains valid. The games you mentioned (I don't know all the titles) were available in the eighties and early nineties under other titles. They were often simpler (a weakness or a strength depending on which way you look at it) and had poor graphics by today's standards but were much more addictive because at that time they carried an element of novelty. Today all I see is countless clones of those games.

BTW. I don't have a web page but check out my user info for some more on this topic :-).

Re:Unfortunately true

[MarkKomus]

"Clearly, YMMV--I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I exist (and I know I'm not the only one). Why is this market not being exploited? Make some good fun games that cost half as much (fire the art staff) as the art-filled wonders that crowd the shelves."

Well I agree with you that the gameplay is way more important then the art, unfortuantly fancy graphics sells. People like seeing pretty pictures a la Myst. I just bet there isn't enough of a market to sell art free games anymore, let alone try to convince someone to give you shelf space for it.

Re:Unfortunately true

[GregWebb]

If I was doing this, I'd make it modular.

Create an abstract RPG engine which happens to fit your storyline nicely. GPL it.

Write your game as a set of datafiles for this engine. Release them as freeware.

That way, you have an engine which can be handled by the GPL and enhanced by the world as a whole, along with your game which the world as a whole can still use but which remains true to your vision as you retain copyright.

Re:Unfortunately true

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

The article didn't mean art as in drawing - it meant art as in the total artistic conceptualisation of the game. Level design, etc. are all part of that. That's why xscorch isn't a commercial game, because it doesn't have much of an "artistic conceptualisation" - the game is very addictive, but not neccesarily the result of an artistic vision. When one plays a game, one hopefully sees the vision that the makers of the game try to impact on the players of the game. You can see how they were thinking of the game. It's what seperates the good games from the bad games. It's not just artwork - it's story, level design, mood, etc. that's not just a result of programming. Keep the engine open-source - but the mood and feel of the game is the artistic part.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Dwindlehop]

The reason this market isn't being exploited is that it's complete. It's done. All the platform jumpers, 2-d shooters, Scorch-clones, and turn-based strats have been written already. To rewrite them would be a duplication of effort. They also wouldn't sell.

We could go on playing the same games, year in and year out. Some of us do. But game developers, and the gaming public, think there's still some new ground to be broken. With the advent of faster computers, nicer displays, and beefier graphics cards, game developers are able to bring to life gaming visions they never had a chance to create before. If you don't like 'em, don't play 'em. But don't call for a return to the gaming days of the early 90's. Those games have been written already, and there's nothing further to be done there. That's why the developers and market have moved on.

Jonathan David Pearce

Re:Unfortunately true

[NaughtyEddie]

This is a geek answer to the question (not meaning the word in a derogative sense). Do you really imagine that geeks represent a large proportion of the people who buy video games?

Sure, if geeks want geek games, the way to do it is opensource (geeks writing their own games). But don't confuse the larger games industry with the tiny fragment which Slashdot sees.

To answer your question "Why is this market not being exploited" the answer is simple: the market is MINISCULE. Go ahead and exploit it yourself; you won't make any money - and (oddly) money is all the Sony's of this world care about.

I won't even take the suggestion seriously that we should fire half the games industry. That runs counter to my Marxist tendencies ;)

Of course, this doesn't alter the fact that 80% of video games are crap ... but 80% of ANYTHING is crap. It's a natural law.

Re:Unfortunately true

[Destrius]

Art doesn't mean just the graphics. It could mean the storyline. What license does the plot go under? If I create my own RPG based on a story I wrote myself, and then release it under the GPL, what happens to the storyline? Since the story and the characters are figments of my imagination, and maybe I feel emotionally attached to them, is there any way I can prevent people from warping the story into something I do not like?

Re:Unfortunately true

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

I'm not talking about using old technology. Clearly the market for some of these concepts is saturated.

I'm talking about new ideas. Where are your tetris's, your Wolfenstein's, your Incredible Machine's of 2000? I'm not talking about porting these games to new hardware, I'm talking about new ideas of the same caliber and freshness as those were in their day.

Here's what I see happening: Take the source for game X. Double the number of polygons. Transport the location from A to B. Release. That's not a new game.
--

*chuckle*

[Jeckle]

Anyone else getting a screenshot of this? I mean, I've seen the same story posted twice numerous times, hell they ARE only humans running this site, but not one right after the other an hour apart! Copnsidering that UF wasn't terribly funny this morning (when the hell are AJ and Miranda going to hop on the good foot and do teh bad thing?), it's good to know I can still rely on /. for a nice chuckle to get things started right.

Oh, and to folks who post crap like "this should be moderated down", or "Malda, you f*cking idiot"... get a sense of humor... it's Good Thing.

Re:*chuckle*

[webrunner]

UF is never terribly funny. Terrible, maybe. Plus, for a linux comic, it's pretty close to Microsoft mentality.

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Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:artists and copyleft

[RickHunter]

I'm afraid I found your post a bit confusing and hard to read, and your last point didn't seem to make any sense. I know a lot of music "superstars" have spoken out against MP3s in general and Napster in particular, and the RIAA is trying desperately to stop them from catching on. But for the most part, every musician I know likes the idea of digital music that's easy to record, distribute, and edit. Remember that there are a lot of fairly well-known musicians that have spoken out in favour of MP3s. I think most of them like it because it means their music gets wide recognition and they get their revenue from sources other than selling tapes and CDs.

Also remember that most record-label-signed artists only get about $0.02 per CD, and most (from what I've heard) even wind up in debt to their label. I imagine that not having to pay a label to distribute their music might seem quite attractive...

-RickHunter

IMHO?

[eval 9]

Tyberghein: I can see 100 percent Open Source commercial games happening in the (near) future. What you pay for when you buy that game is the levels that have been designed, and the artwork. You don't pay for the game code itself. The same reasons that are valid for using Open Source for infrastructure technologies are also valid for games IMHO.

Wasn't this a spoken conversation? Did he really say "IMHO" out loud?

artists and copyleft

[bytesex]

The artists that I know (I'm trained as one myself), are, generally speaking, the least, of all kinds of people that I know, positively inclined towards the idea of copylefting. Which,to me, seems a bit strange; it seems to me that any graphic designer should jump to occasion of having to rebuild the coca cola-logo and -image again every so many years, but hell no; instead they are afraid of the possiblity of anybody running off with their work. They provide no service, run no help-desk. Their work is like walking for ages up a gradual slope, only to drop it into the ravine on the other side. It begins hidden, secretively, closed-off from the outside world, until whatever presentation comes along. The work gets sold; the artist never sees it again. Then the nagging begins. What if I sold it too cheap ? What if I sold it to a reseller ? What if someone else runs off with the idea now ? Fear. No way to exercise control. No versions 1.1. No shrink-wrap licenses. No license-revoking. No court-cases (because no money). It won't be easy to sell these people copyleft; they live because they think that what they make is unique, and it's pure form as well; no function; there is no such thing as can't do without. We know how musicians, high and low, react to mp3; well, that basically sums it up.

Re:artists and copyleft

[Shin Elendale]

While I generally agree with you, I do have some things to point out. As I mentioned in another post, I am currently creating a tactical/RPG. Now I have went back and forth about open sourcing my work and reaping the benefits (mainly, people to debug my bad code) but I can't help but shy away from that option. The main reason for me is this: the story and "immersivity" (not a real word, I know) of the game is much more important than the gaming engine. Yes, if the game is painful to play it doesn't matter that you are the next Shakespeare because people will hate your game. I have also gone over opening the engine but keeping creative control over the actual direction of the game, but that would be too difficult to work as the plot/characters/engine are too interwoven. In any case, perhaps a 'open game' liscense needs to be developed...

-Elendale (blah.)

Re:Open Source Game [Development]

[Azog]

Well, it's not that simple. You may recall a few months back, after Quake was GPL'ed, people started cheating by customizing clients. (Well, the problem was around before then, but after the source was opened it got really bad.)

Now those customized clients couldn't just get away with making the player twice as powerful, or twice as fast, or whatever. The server set the rules for that.

What the clients could do was:
- add aim-bots that gave players perfect (easily detected by the server) or just better aim. Some players just have really, really good aim, and it's not easy for the server to tell the difference between that and a subtle, well-written aim bot.
- Presumably, any other advantage that is possible within the game physics/rules - automatically dodging rockets, detecting (beeping?) whenever anyone has you in their crosshairs, or whatever.
- Plus, see through walls, see in the dark, make all the other players look like big red targets, and other visual hacks.

A solution was developed, however. I don't remember the details, but I believe it uses a small closed-source component which does cryptographic signing and checking of the open-source clients.

Depending on the type of game, cheating can be a major or minor problem. For quake-style games (client-server, with prediction on the client) it's in-between. Everyone has to follow the rules of the server, but hacked clients can allow cheating as described.

For on-line games like chess, checkers, and cards, cheating isn't an issue because the game is really just a communications medium.

For big role-playing games, it seems to me that an open source approach could work. Since the frame rate isn't so critical, some of the cheating problems of quake can be eliminated by making more things "synchronous". For example, even if clients are hacked to make it possible to see through walls, if the server only sends information to the clients that are supposed to see it, seeing through walls doesn't get you much. This isn't done in quake because it would cause either a loss in framerate, or things "popping" into view right in front of you when the server finally gets around to sending you that information.

Anyway...

I would really like to see an on-line role playing game as much like Tolkien's Middle Earth as possible.

I think the problem with on-line role playing games isn't so much the technology, (Free/OpenSource or not) but the sociology of it. How do you deal with all the losers who don't stay in character, and just run around swearing at people or killing them?


Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

Multiplayer is the biggest problem

[The.Tempest]

I'm a semi-game developer. I haven't really written anything, I'm just an amateur programmer teaching myself OpenGL so I can. The biggest problem I see with open sources games, is hacked up multiplayer client programs. One game I know of, Mangband, avoids this by keeping all information on the server. But they can afford this, beacuse it's a multiplayer roguelike, and doesn't take a lot of processing power. Imaging what would happen if Quake 3 Arena, to avoid hacked clients, did all the 3d rendering on the server side.

Re:Multiplayer is the biggest problem

[Graymalkin]

Thats pretty damn close to how both Quake 1 and 2 worked. The rendering wasn't server side but the positional information and the like was all done on the server with the clients just rendering and passing commands onto the server. This was one of the biggest lag problems because you needed a fat pipe to get all the frames in a timely fashion. You'll notice with Quake 3 you can have a high framerate with a horrible ping, this is because the networking dudes at id convinced John Carmack to forgo the dumb client system. Multiplayer is a big problem even when you have all the physics and mechanics handled by clients. It is really tough to battle orcs or frag bozos when they're hopping all over the place do to a 500ms ping.

Re:Multiplayer is the biggest problem

[Nick Ives]

Actually the only Quake game to use 'dumb clients' was the original release of Quake 1. Of course this meant you had to have a high speed internet connection in order to play the thing online, which left modem users such as myself as fragbait.

In order to fix this Carmack created QuakeWorld with the aim of providing a playable game of Quake for people on a modem. In order to do this the QW server sends much more data then the client actually needs, such as the position of all the entities in the level as opposed to the entities you can actually see. This solved the problem of walking round a corner and then not seeing some other guy until 300ms later because thats how long it took you to tell the server you had turned the corner, the server to figure out you should see the other guy and the journey time back to you so that your client could draw the other guy. Of course the guy in question will always without fail be on a local 10ms LAN connection to the server (due to Murpheys law) which means unless hes an incredibly bad player (unlikely, again, Murpheys law), your dead.

The other major feature that QuakeWorld added was client side prediction. The main aim of this is to 'smooth' gameplay, as if your on a high latency connection playing vanilla Quake you'll notice that you'll 'judder' forwards as opposed to nice smooth motion. This is because your client sends a 'move forward' command to the server, you wait 150ms for it to reach the server, the server processes it in a negligible amount of time (which is about as likely as ever seeing a light inextensible string but bear with me =) ) and then the server sends back a packet saying 'you moved forward'. This means you have a 300ms delay between you hitting the key and you actually moving forward, which is just plain silly really. Client side prediction basically means that you move the moment you hit the key, the client just predicts that you will move forward as planned. This extends to every other entity in the game, e.g. the client assumes that all other players will continue to move with the same velocity they were travelling at before and will continue to do so until the server tells the client otherwise, the client also predicts the motion of projectiles such as grenades/rockets/nails/etc.

Now, that sounds nice and perfect, but creates problems. If you hit the 'move forward' key and your client predicts that you do just that, what happens when the server tells you that you were actually killed/displaced by a rocket fired by someone who just ran round the corner? Well, you get a 'warp' artifact. If you were killed you get warped back to where you were killed and your looking at the sky, if you got bounced then you get warped to wherever you were displaced to.

I think its important to note that none of the Quake games trust the client, i.e. if your client says "I killed that guy" and the server disagrees, the server always has the final say. Instead they just give them more information than they strictly need in order to offset the effects of latency.

Oh, also, a final distinction. You dont need a 'fat' pipe to get a good game of Quake, you need a 'fast' pipe. Satillite frame relay is a 'fat' pipe, you can get quite a few Mbit out of it, but it also has a very high latency. On the other hand, ISDN is a comparativly 'thin' pipe, but it has a much lower latency. I think Quake only uses about 1Kbyte/s of bandwidth on a modem, QW a bit more (due to the extra information it sends) (and also, the actual amount of bandwidth QW uses is dependant on the '/rate' console command) but whats important is shifting that small amount of data as fast as possible. We dont care if you have 1Gbit of bandwidth just so long as you can shift it within a few ms =).

I'm sure I've missed something, but bleh. Oh yea, the Q2 networking code is actually based off QuakeWorld (which Carmack handed over to Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch (sp?) to work on after he'd done the initial implementation). I'm not too sure about the parentage of the Q3 networking code, but I should imagine its fairly similar to the stuff used in Q2 and hence is directly descended from QW.

Its amazing how much its possible to go on when you dont really mean to =)....

Nick

Re:To quote ESR

[randombit]

I think for genre other than the live-action shoot-em-up, you can keep all the information a player isn't supposed to know on the server, and only dribble it out when appropriate. I admit that I don't have a solution for the LASEUs, but I wouldn't condemn OSS games in general due to the difficulties in producing cheat resistance in one specific genre.

Even in that case, you can probably limit the ability of people to cheat enought that it doesn't matter too much. Not being a game programmer, I really don't know for sure, but that how it would seem (don't hand out stuff to the client you don't actually want the client to know about).

Open source == distributed processing

[Jouni]

The human mind is a powerful neural network processing unit; now imagine a Beowulf cluster of those. :)

Open source development is, by nature, a form of distributed work. It's rare that open source software would be written by only one person, and nobody else would ever contribute, unless of course the project is utterly useless. :)

Programming is a task very well suited for distributed processing; you can have clearly defined tasks (to the point of individual APIs) and overall functionality is usually split into components. Form and function aren't exactly tied together in programming - ugly code can accomplish the task just as well and coding style doesn't necessarily show up at all in the end product.

In game art, however, form and function are generally very close to each other. Suddenly consistency of style has great impact across the project as well as individual imaginations on what the product should look like, regardless of how good the sketches were. It's important to note here that you can't generally plan consistent art by verbal description only, and still your plans are limited to bits and pieces open for artistic interpretation. If you turn it into paint-by-numbers, where's the art?

This isn't to say that distributed art is impossible, just that it's more difficult to find good artists that would effectively contribute to an open source game project. Open source art today seems limited to skins for various UIs and gadgets, and it can be argued that most of them are not art at all.

As for open source games, Nethack is certainly one of the games I have spent a lot of time in my life playing. I've always known I have access to the source, but I've never looked. I could have always uncovered every bit of the game, but I chose not to. Why?

Simple - it's hard to keep enjoyment unspoiled if you see the source. This is why game development feels like actual work and not like playing around - most of the people who make games don't play their creations nearly enough. They would simply not enjoy a game they know everything about, unless they weren't actually defining the gameplay itself.

Here's where it gets interesting: if you manage to separate tool development (engine, content converters, editors, ...) from content development (gameplay, levels, story, ...) you have a solid platform for open source game development. Coders have fun coding, but ALSO playing through the content put together by some artistic and creative minds on the other side of the team. Obviously, the core game engine itself wouldn't have to be freeware or even open source, it could be a commercial product and you just create art, scripts and objects...

... and suddenly, with a small leap, we find ourselves in the game mod development community. It takes a small bit of imagination and a bigger bit of work to close this circle. Who says open source games have no future?

Jouni
--
Jouni Mannonen : 3D Evangelist @ SurRender3D.com

Re:Day of the tentacle

[webrunner]

The 2D adventure game is very close to being completely dead, unfortunately. With Sierra and Lucasarts sticking their games in 3D engines, it's just being sold out to the graphics card makers.
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

At least they're being realistic

[ceswiedler]

They prompted an interesting idea... What if a software developer could publish an application with complete source code, but with the theoretically simple restriction that you have to buy a license to compile or run the program?

This would allow software publishers to make money, but allow the game to be improved by the standard "many-eyes" technique. Most of the criticisms of closed-source software come from the idea that we don't want programs which we can't modify or improve--not the pipe dream of getting programs for no money. To quote Heinlein, "TANSTAAFL."

Technically, I imagine that it would be very difficult to force people to buy a license to compile or run the code, if the source code itself is freely distributable. I'm sure that whatever protection scheme the distributor came up with, crackers would crack it. Then there's the problem that even if I can't run or compile Adobe Photoshop without a license, if the code is available, I can easily cut-and-paste large sections, thereby stealing Adobe's work.

But if we could indeed enforce this restriction, I think it would be wildly beneficial for the software community. All of the positive effects of Open Source software, without the huge drawback that it's horribly difficult to make money.

Multiplayer

[Ian Wolf]

One of the only problems I can see with open source games is in the multiplayer genre. Just imagine the difficulty of getting the various versions of a particular game to "sync-up" for a multiplayer game. Not to mention the increased ability to cheat inherent within this model. The only two solutions to this problem that I can see are:

- Create a level playing field check where each player's game is scanned for "illegal" modifications. The problem with that is that onesomeone will always find away around something like that and that very few people, myself included, like having their system scanned.
- The game company releases a mostly closed source game for multiplayer purposes. The problem with that being, who wants to install two games at roughly half a gig each. Then again, I suppose they could share most of the same files, but I still think it isn't the most attractive option.

I honestly believe, that games are better off in a closed/open hybrid state. I think all the development tools should be open source, as well as some of the game code and art, but the developers should keep some of the truly unique things to themselves, atleast for a little while.

Re: Black and White will be open-source

[Red Moose]

AFAIK a few months ago Peter Molyneaux announced that the last ever final PC/Computer game Black and White will be open-sourced.

I suppose it's a sort of legacy to Molyneux's/Bullfrog's history as they jump to consoles forever. I wonder how much it will cost to develop for an X-Box.........

Re:Did they say "Open Source" Enough?

[webrunner]

you make it so Game Version X only can authenticate with Game Version X... however a server might be running Game Version Y which all the cahracters glow- only people using that cheat will be able to play.
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Anyone remember Star Fleet II?

[FreeUser]

One of the funnest games I ever played was Star Fleet II.

It was mostly text, with rudimentary CGI graphics for the planetary bombardment screen. It was buggy as hell, would often crash, etc.

But it had to be one of the funnest space conquest games ever. You attack starships (represented as little greek symbols on a text starscape), board and take prisoners, torture them for information ("The Prisoners will be tortured your Excellency, Hail Zagar!"). Upon successfully bombarding a planet into submission one would typically be given 50 slaves for the conquest. Particularly wanton acts of cruelty (slaying all of the prisoners after they surrendered for example) would be awarded with a medal for "wonton cruelty to the enemy" or some such.)

Sometimes it is just plain fun to be the bad guy *grin*. The game had:

Zero Artistic Merit.
Zero Social Merit.
A Minimal Storyline.
Mediocre Programming Quality (buggy as hell).

Despite this it wsa very playable, very addictive, unbelievably fun!

The problem.

[Matt2000]

The problem with open source initiatives seems to with creativity, and this hurts in game developement the most.

I have yet to see an open source project that is not a clone or a close relative of something that already exists in the world. Perhaps it's done better, but that's not the point.

Open source breeds innovation, not invention and in the world of game design this is death.

My current theory is that new ideas need alot of high-bandwidth discussions, i.e. face to face meetings, to hash out and transfer the idea from one brain to another. Open source projects rarely have this luxury and so perhaps are forced into pointing their efforts at a well understood problem.

Summary: I find it unlikely that an amazing open source game will emerge under the current community conditions.

Hotnutz.com - Funny

Re:The problem.

[Bryce]

The problem with open source initiatives seems to with creativity, and this hurts in game developement the most.

There are plenty of creative people on the net. There are plenty of good coders on the net. The only trick is getting them to talk to one another. There are plenty of people who are good at getting people to talk to one another. I do not see how this task is impossible. It just takes some work.

Summary: I find it unlikely that an amazing open source game will emerge under the current community conditions.

I find the principle difficulty in making open source games is the public perception that it cannot be done. I don't understand why the open source philosophers have to make this mealy allowance. A secondary difficulty is that the open source development community is not providing the open source media creation tools necessary to creating games.

I have yet to see an open source project that is not a clone or a close relative of something that already exists in the world. Perhaps it's done better, but that's not the point.

Look harder. Often we pay more attention to the familiar than the unfamiliar when it comes to amature works - a time travel game may pass you buy, but you'll take note of the clone of Myth, since you already know and like it.

And also accept that many commercial games are nothing more than clones of previous games. In fact, how many of the great games out there are basically the same gameplay style, but with different graphics or a different rendering technology?

Re:The problem.

[Cuthalion]

You can write free (libre & gratis) software using non-free tools, though. I do both every day.

Re:The problem.

[Kisc]

>>innovation, not invention and in the world of game design this is death.

Counter: HalfLife was innovation of Quake2. Game of the Year from 50 mags (supposedly) and Best Game Ever from PCGamer.

Failure is not an option.

Re:The problem.

[-Harlequin-]

>Yes, it is definitely rewarding to meet in person and flesh out ideas, but as people are
>becoming more accustomed spending their days online, discussing things on web forums might prove comparable.

I don't think so. I've done work along both lines. To make really successful work, you need hours of face to face discussion, with pen and paper, able to sketch with each other, gesture the nuances, talk and interupt at high speed, and be able to do this at pretty much any time of any day. Artistic collaboration creates something greater than the sum of the parts when the artistic vision is shared right down to subtle nuances.
On the other hand, using chat and email, you end up spending hours typing and reading every day yet are aware things aren't geling the way they should, art created is sometimes useless or less than excellent because of discrepancies in vision.

It can work, but I think the better your artists are, the more greater depth of communication they will need to work optimally, because they will be able to communicate more with their work, and much of that will be in very subtle and/or intricate ways, and the artists need to be bang-on with each other and the game design to be able to capitalise on such things. When these nuances work in cohesion, the result can be very powerful, when they work in different or conflicting directions, the work is sabotaged.

Re:The problem.

[mrogers]

I think you're probably right about creativity requiring high-bandwidth discussions. But bear in mind also that most of the current effort in open source / free software is directed towards replacing existing proprietary system components (OS, GUI, productivity apps) with free equivalents. This is a problem most proprietary software vendors don't have to worry about. When id starts designing a new game, they don't have to first write an editor, then an assembler, then a linker, then a compiler, then a kernel, then command-line tools, then a GUI, then desktop tools, then an IDE, then a game. They just write the game. Free software has covered an immense amount of ground in the last fifteen years, but it's really still in its infancy, still at the stage of "reinventing the wheel". Once the boring work has been done (and I think we're nearly there), I'm sure we will see some more creative and imaginative projects emerging.

Re:The problem.

[mrogers]

True, but the aim of the GNU project has been to create a complete free system, and I think that's determined the agenda for a lot of free software development. Obviously even GNU had to develop with non-free tools at some stage. :)

Re:The problem.

[Vlastyn]

I have to both agree and disagree to what you've said. Yes, it is definitely rewarding to meet in person and flesh out ideas, but as people are becoming more accustomed spending their days online, discussing things on web forums might prove comparable. That at least is the hope for my current project. ;) Another problem with open game development is just that -- it's open. Some projects attract so many developers (with so many different ideas) that the initial goal becomes shadowed and replaced with "We'll see what is best in the end". There's definitely something to be said about convential game development, and I'm sure if free software developers kept it in mind they would achieve much more success. What I mean is, get an initial team together who share the same vision. Then spend a few months designing everything (i.e. gameplay/balance, style, milestones, contingencies, etc.) After that, it should be clear where things are headed and how to get there. So if you wanted to open up the process so anyone can join in and help -- great -- except NOW there is a clear outline and none of the bickering that might otherwise be common.

Re:The problem.

[Error27]

People say this all the time and I really don't understand it.

True linux is missing a lot of applications that some other operating systems have and so a lot of cloning goes on. To me this is all good and well.

On the other hand there are a ton of really cool new progects that people tool around with just for fun. They aren't nesecarilly very large or very fit for mass consumption but their still new and very cool.

stuff like freeweb. that's very new and creative. I can't explain here but they have a page at sourceforge.org

jabber. sure you could say it's just another instant messenger but then you'd be a crack head. can you use your icq program to run a mud? to talk on irc? for collaboritive document creation in real time? to download rsh? it's a freaking excelent protocol that also does instant messanging really.

berlin is cool. but we've had graphical user interphases since the 80's at least so it's not that new.

stuff with beowulf clusters is new.

the dude who made a video with a linux laptop and one of those gameboy camera's did something new.

there is some cool new stuff going on at the kernel level that doesn't get talked about too much. the guy who made a module so he could mount windows/any file systems over net. the folks who made a webserver right inside the kernel for extra speed.

eros is cool and new and open source.

hurd is old but only now getting finished and it's open source.

the guy who got his computer to boot up in a tenth of a second by putting linux on his bios did something new.

There is a ton of fairly experimental new stuff going on every day really. it's tipically a pain to compile but it's out there if you look.

limited def. of art

[b1nd0x]

First of all, the art is often part of the code. Art is not limited to the skins on the models and the textures on the wall, but also includes the mechanisms of the game itself. For example, the notion of a RTS game, or an FPS game, when first devised, were certainly artistic creations, and the code simply implemented that creation. Obviously, given the proliferation of clones in any genre, that type of "art" has always, for better or worse, been "open-source": you know the rules of the game, otherwise it would be unplayable.

secondly, perhaps the most pressing problem with making a game even partially open-source, in the case of online multi-player games, would of course be cheating. Given the ridiculous amount of cheating and patching required for games either pre- or post-SDK release (i.e. half-life (counterstrike), qIII, diablo (trainers) etc. etc.) releasing the "graphics engine" and other aspects to the public would only provide more ammunition for cheating attacks. Of course security on open source projects (linux) is often better than closed source counterparts (m$), but given the complexity of any security model for multiplayer games and the game software itself, in many ways the more obfuscated the game code the better.

not to stop mods though.

you can't beat Monkey Island :)

[jesterzog]

I definitely agree. The art is as much of what goes into the story as into the visual effects in the game. I'm a great fan of a lot of adventure games, and even many platform games, because there's not much more they could do to draw people in than have a good story.

The stories in modern 3D games OTOH are getting thinner and thinner. Wolfenstein 3D was about the only one with a decent story before game developers decided to put as much effort into storylines as Bruce Willis beating up a killer asteroid. Instead there's more development emphasis on simply having better game engines and network-playability, and this gets really boring (for me) after a short time.

DOTT was cool, but I still don't think anything can beat the Monkey Island series. (It's no surprise that they're both Lucasarts.) The first time I saw it was when I admittedly pirated the EGA version from someone while I was in High School. This was about the same time as King's Quest 4. I enjoyed the story and the jokes a lot, and the modern intuitive interface was also a great new thing, unlike other adventure games that were still trying to use text game concepts in graphics mode.

Combined, the whole thing was awesome for the time. Today it's still awesome. This is nothing to do with the technology which has been cloned and reused and is everywhere now. It's to do with the story, which survived so well because it can't be cloned. I never play Doom anymore because it's been surpassed, but I'd still play The Secret of Monkey Island. Hell, I'd still play Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure (ancient game from Apogee) because the story of the cute little alien stuck on Earth gives me such a kick.

A few years later I saw the VGA edition of MI1 in the shops, bought it up instantly and played it many times all over again. The two sequels haven't been any worse, because the same artistic story and visual effort's been put in by the development team.

Re:Games?

[Cuthalion]

And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed.... no 'gift culture' for them, thank you very much.

I think this is the most rediculous statement I have heard on slashdot today. And I don't THINK it's meant as a troll even.

1. See how much art there is on the web, published SO THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE IT, not for page views or banner clicks or any of that shit.
2. Sonique skins, Enlightenment Themes - these all fit the model of a 'gift culture' perfectly.
   AND
   
3. There is plenty of money to be made coding. Therefore coders have the means to spend a large amount of time doing projects which they get no financial compensation for. It is NOT so easy to get "enough" money doing artwork, music, et cetera.

Re:Have you heard about Vampire The Masquerade gam

[Yakman]

They still haven't releasd the promised world building tools.

Yes they have.

To quote ESR

[Life Blood]

The software industry is a service industry masquerading as a manufacturing industry. OS works because people want to "scratch the itch." The problem is the game development is actually a true manufacturing industry not a service industry. Thats one reason why OS games haven't really become popular.

The other reason is of course the cheating issue. A GPL'd game has the source code easily available, it has to by law. So anyone can take that code an recompile it an allow themselves to cheat. This is especially bad in multiplayer. See quake for an example. The GPL and code availability means that lots of good efficient designs have to be discarded because they lack the necessary security. For instance Worldforge has to use an untrusted client and server side AI. It doesn't have a choice, despite the fact that trusted clients and distributed client-side AI would be more efficient.

As for a commentary of current projects. I like worldforge, but they seem to have lost sight of their goal of a MMPOG with all the effort they are putting into this pigs game they're making. However I think in the end they may at least move online roleplaying away from the godawful D&D model of RPGs.

Re:To quote ESR

[richie123]

I would tend to agree to some extent, since games don't need real sucurity, just a big enough road block to cut it down a bit. But cheating has been around in closed surce games for a long time, look at the zbot, at its various clones. I think OSS has a good chance of creating good, reliable networking code for multiplayer games such as quakeforge and others.

Artists vs. Artisans

[bfan2]

Unfortunately, there is a different paradigm at work when it comes to Art.

Art is created in the Cathedral, by big-name Artists, as a one-of-a-kind expression of that Artist's vision (like Sistine Chapel). Artists tend to keep hush about their Art until it is completed. Artists want to get paid for their Art. Artists also feel that they "own" their Art in perpetuity. They don't like people making changes in their Art, even if the Artist gets credit for the original work.

There is another product, similar to Art, which is produced in the Bazaar. The people who produce this product are called Artisans. Artisans also create art, but do so without the feeling that their art is proprietary. Think of the 1-minute caricature artist or the person who mass-produces cheap landscape paintings or the sidewalk chalk artist. The Artisan simply produces works-for-hire. Once the work is finished and sold (or given away) the Artisan is also finished.

Most software programmers see themselves as Artisans. However, most artists see themselves as Artists. More unfortunately, Artists see Artisans either as hacks or as artists who have sold out.

The problem is: how do we convince current Artists and aspiring artists to become Artisans? Or, is there something fundamentally different about Art such that it can never be commoditized?

Ben

Re:Artists vs. Artisans

[-Harlequin-]

As a game artist, my perception is that most game artists are fine with work-for-hire - that's what they do, that's what their contracts say. The problem is more to do with the (current?) nature of open-source - the existing revenue models are ill-equiped to pay the rent, and the intensive creative process just doesn't work very well (if at all) via internet communication if you're dealing with people you haven't spent significant time with IRL and don't know inside out. Even then, some get-togethers are going to be needed, or discrepancies in artist vision will either cause problems or limit the degree of collaboration achievable.

art

[mcc]

your point is extremely insightful and eloquently made, but keep in mind there is an important exception to what you say, an exception which can be expressed in three words:

performance... art.. programming.

May not rival the great Shakespear.. but does rival at the least those people who stand in the street with white face paint on, imitating statues..

Re:Open Source at heart

[webrunner]

Some interesting points:
Tiberian Sun-----I think mods were available before the game was.
An interesting thing about this was that there was at least one mod that put in some new units, and then Westwood suddenly came up with all sorts of amazing original ideas for their expansion pack- direct copies of that mod. Basically it was the last straw for the mod developers, who called it quits then... since TS was like Daiktana is now, a very 'split' market of people who think it sucks and those who think it's the bes thing since the knife they use to slice the bread.

While this is a small list to be sure, one of the things to remember is that when these games first came out, THEY DID NOT SUCK!!! Vanilla Quake 3 isn't much more than an engine with some flashy guns, to tell the truth. There's just not enough acutal 'substance' - but it's the most amazing engine out there right now making it prime for Modmakers. I remember an article on PlanetQuake how QIII is more of a development environment than a game- and the acual game is provided mostly just stock art and coding examples.

If the above mentioned REAL games had bad mechanics, they would have failed. And should have.
TO put this in another angle, you could say that the reason that an open sourced horrible game isn't going to succeed because nobody is going to play the game long enough to give a crap about coding for it.
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:Games?

[meepzorb]

>>IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.

>Wrong.

This remains to be seen. If I'm wrong, great! Free games to play. >}:) But the outlook now is that we're going to end up with great game concepts, and great games engines, with crappy artwork.

>>...now a mature software area, and with today's hardware we're almost at the point where brute

>>forcing it will be a "good enough" programming strategy.

>Wrong. Copying graphics to the screen one pixel at a time will _always_ suck.

You're absolutely right. Which is why, with today's hardware, you make calls to the hardware drivers to blit for you. AKA "Brute force".

I'm sorry if you feel trolled, my point wasnt that Open Source couldn't produce good games engines. The basic math for games engines and 3d graphics has not really changed in 10 years, and is unlikely to (barring quantuum computers). My point was that, culturally, the OSS model is unlikely to infect the community of games-oriented artists: It's a different culture, with a different mindset.

Go ask an ambitious and talented Graphic Arts type if you can take his/her work and give it away for free, allowing anyone to copy and re-use it as they see fit. Observe the scowl you are most likely to get in reply.

:Michael

Open Source my games?

[Midnight Ryder]

Open Source games is one of the options that I've looked at too... and me personally, I still can't decide if it's really worth the headaches.

For example: How many Open Source'd games have produced much of anything? There's technology back-end products like SDL (cool) and Crystal Space (even cooler) that have done a damned cool job. But the games themselves? Eh. There's some good mods of current existing games out there, but, there's only a couple of games that have produced anything of real interest, IMHO.

The problem, as I see it, with producing a game that's completely Open Source where a whole community works on it is that there's a lack of cohesion when it comes to the vision and direction of the project. It's bad enough sometimes in a OS development or application development project like AllianceOS or LinuxPLC - but at least then there's a pretty direct idea of what needs to be done, and the discussion is on implementation. But with games, it's much more open terrirory...

And while I like the idea of the model where you release level packs, etc. to make money, I'm not so sure that's going to be a great idea for everyone involved. I might give it a go one of these days with a game or two, and see how well it works or doesn't work.

The thing I really do advocate is the Doom / Quake model of things. When it's all done and over with, release the game GPL'ed, and let the mod authors have a field day with it.

(Of course, this is all easy for me to say - I'm a small time game author, not a company with a lot on the line like Loki, iD, etc.)

Re:Long-term benefits of open source code

[ERRoR 808]

Yes, video games have come long way, but there still are a lot of glitches that open sourcing them would fix. This leads to my major point. As you might know me from TRoLLaXoR's wonderful stories, I am good ol' ERRoR 808. Although, what you might not know about me is that I am a virgin. You see TRoLLaXoR's stories usually deal with gratuiutous gay sex. But they are just stories, and I have been saving myself for that special someone. But alas!! I have given up that dream. I am now auctioning off my virginity on ebay. That's right, you can have my clean, shaven, and pure body. Here is the link! Now, we gotta set some ground rules first, buddies. Most importantly, NO dirty kikes or hairy deigos are allowed to vote. Hell, even if you're clean and shaved you still can't vote. But don't get me wrong here. I'm not a racist, because I ENCOURAGE niggers to bid. I'll even give them a $50 credit. It's all about the affirmative action, kids! There's one thing I haven't told you. Well, I don't know what most people consider being a virgin is, but I consider it not ever having sex WILLINGLY. I feel this way because when I was a small boy, my favorite nun raped me with a strap-on. It might have been wet, messy, satisfying, and gratuitous but by no means was it consciously willing. OK folks, I gotta go, but remember to act fast! There's no telling when ebay might shut this gem down. If they do you can still contact me and we'll do business.

Where open-source games would really benefit

[Jimmy_B]

The games that would really benefit from being open sourced (as in code only), would be the games that were extremely strong in some areas but prematurely released or weak in coding (a few names spring to mind: Freespace 2, some of the Ultimas). Fact is, a game that doesn't have a good base won't attract many open source developers to it, because starting at the release people will only buy it if the reviewers like it.

Re:More open source games are required!

[webrunner]

Sims would work excellently in open source- because physics tweaks could be made by all the code masters out there who think that plane X needs 20% more friction, or somesuch.

"Look at the MAME and console emulators - mind you, that genre is a bad example, since I would imagine you'd get your ass sued if you even tried to make money :) "

tell that to Bleem!

----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?

Re:Games?

[meepzorb]

Did you read his post? He mearly stated the same thing that games are now more about art, so the engine should be opensourced while the files that make up the art and story of the game would be the sellable product.

Yes, I did read his post. And IMO, this model doesnt fit the definition of Open/Free. Unless the artwork is also copylefted, able to be copied, distributed, shared, and used by other game authors, the game isnt Open.

:Michael.

A new paradigm for game design

[neo]

The current model of game software goes something like this:

Game Designer has idea.
Game Designer tries to get money for idea.
Publisher likes idea and gives money to make game in exchange for majority of profit of game.
Publisher promotes game.
Game is created.
Publisher sells game.
Publisher makes lion's share of profit.
Game designer gets some money.


What if instead of having a publisher you could get money directly from the public before starting to making a game?

Imagine a system where designers would pitch the game directly to you, the potential customer. The pitch would include features, mock screen shots, a demo and anything else the design team thought would sell it. It would also include the projected budget to make the game happen, including any profit they wanted to make.

If you thought the idea for the game was good, and the design team was good, you could pay to have the game written. Pay whatever amount you thought it was worth (I think good games are worth about $30). The money would sit in an escrow account and you could opt out at any time before the budget total was reached.

When the budget total is reached the team is now under contract to build the game.

The best part? Once the game is done, it's release to the masses.

Re:A new paradigm for game design

[-Harlequin-]

No matter how many times this system works, so many people are going to get repeatedly burned when it doesn't (which will be frequently, (IMHO usually)) that it will lose whatever steam it had.
And I don't really see it getting much steam up in the first place, though I would love to be wrong :-)

Re:Long-term benefits of open source code

[thue]

The first point has already been covered many times here on /. but it is the second that interests me the most. Whereas some games aren't in particular need of new features or concepts, others can hugely benefit - think strategy games like Civilisation or role playing games like Worldforge as mentioned by another poster.

Freeciv! version 1.11 should be released today or tomorrow. www.freeciv.org btw, freeciv really need someone to implement isometric view... :)

Re:Open Art in Software and Independent Film

[Junks Jerzey]

If an open source game project were to collect a large enough following of programmers and artists, it could 'pull a linux' on the game industry. It will take time to build that sort of following, but I am beginning to see it happen with several projects

We are currently undergoing a renaissance in independent film making. I've seen some incredibly high quality films churned out by teams of talented volunteers.

Those high quality films are done by small, focused groups of people with a vision. Throwing lots of people at project isn't necessarily going to make it better. If anything, I would expect it to cause the project to lose focus. This is starting to become a real issue with big open source projects.

The vision issue is just as important. Right now, almost all Linux game projects are from coders who want to clone something, be it a current game or a relic. You would think that free tools, free libraries, and free documentation would open the door to creativity; "I have something 500x more powerful than an Apple II, so I can create whatever my mind desires, unlike those game designers who had to work within the limitations of an Apple II." But it isn't happening. We're not seeing anything creative. Browse through the Linux Game Tome if you want to be slapped in this face with this.

From a solo game designer

[Shin Elendale]

This is very interesting to me. Both because I am writing a tactical/RPG game in my spare time and also because I have only one partner in it (an artist cuz I can't draw). I would very much like to have the benefits of open source- mainly people to check my badly coded game engine- but have a difficult time doing so due to the fact that others would be able to basically make a copy of it. To me its kind of like open sourcing a book: while having thousands of volunteers to help with production, there is a danger of also losing your story. I suppose I could open-source the engine and then add the story after, but that would be difficult as the fully dynamic storyline requires more coding than anything else... After giving it much thought, I decided that its way to early to talk about opening it yet becuase I have very little work done on the actual code itself.

-Elendale (BTW, anyone good with music???)

Re:From a solo game designer

[swordgeek]

Don't suppose that's Rune Conquest you're working on? :-)

Re:From a solo game designer

[Shin Elendale]

Nope ;)
Actually I'm making a single-player (not online in any respect) game. I'm staying out of those MMORPGs mainly because I don't want to deal with large, monopolistic corporations. Also because I don't have the hardware to make them... or the coding skill... or desire... Hrmmm....

-Elendale (If I troll a troll... does that make me a meta-troll?)

I hereby invoke the Roman Rule...

[Daniel]

FreeCiv, NiL, Pingus, XPilot, NetHack, Crystal Space, GFingerPoken, Koules, Liquid War, XConq, WorldForge, SpellCast. To name the tip of the iceberg; I don't have time to do this all day :)

Or, in other words: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

Cheers,
Daniel

Re:I hereby invoke the Roman Rule...

[-Harlequin-]

>Or, in other words: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

Some devil's advocacy - many of the links are game components, not actual games. Many of the games are not really modern-commercial-style as discussed, and probably the biggest challenge in making a game is not "doing it", but finishing it. IOW, the jury is still out - the examples are not conclusive in either direction.

(Yeah ok, so it was more pessimistic negativity than actual devil's advocacy, but I'd like to stress that I'm _not_ knocking these excellent games or the outstanding efforts behind them - my point is limited to disagreement that they settle the question of whether OSS will produce commercial-style modern games in the near future.)

Re:I hereby invoke the Roman Rule...

[Daniel]

many of the links are game components, not actual games.

Maybe you're having trouble counting, but I wasn't aware that many==one :) Crystal Space was the only game "component" that I listed, and it includes several small games as well as being the foundation of several other free projects (which aren't far enough along to check on the progress of)

Many of the games are not really modern-commercial-style as discussed

This presumes that this is a bad thing..I don't mind attractive graphics (which most of those games (aside from NetHack, which is too cool to need them :) ) have, incidentally), but I don't see why lots of extraneous pictures and movie clips are necessary.

and probably the biggest challenge in making a game is not "doing it", but finishing it

Finishing it in what way? When is a program finished? Freeciv has been a perfectly respectable Civ clone for years, but has a VERY active development team and just recently released a major upgrade.

my point is limited to disagreement that they settle the question of whether OSS will produce commercial-style modern games

Oh, there will certainly be no "commercial-style" games, but they will certainly be modern. Nothing raises my hackles more than seeing these two equated, as though anything without a huge corporation behind it is the equivalent of living in an unpainted and unsanitary wooden shack.

Daniel

Re:I hereby invoke the Roman Rule...

[-Harlequin-]

> Oh, there will certainly be no "commercial-style" games, but they will certainly be modern.
>Nothing raises my hackles more than seeing these two equated

I think you missed the reason I wrote what I did. I had in mind the subject of the degree to which games are a prerequisite for the success of a platform such as Linux. More to the point, while games of the type you describe will go down well with much of the existing demographic, serious expansion of that demographic is going to bring serious demand for commercial-style titles, especially the big-name titles (eg the sort of games that Loki ports).
The merits of the commercial-style of modern game are not all thaty relevant to what I'm trying to say, nor the merits of non-commercial modern games.

For the record, by "commercial-style" I did not mean a game with a huge corporation behind it, but rather one that is sold in game shops, with a glitzy box that people can browse, and buy on the spot - no downloading or delivery wait. Plenty of these commercial style games do not have a big corporation behind them (though most do - getting the shelf space usually involves the distribution muscle of a major publisher).

My post was _not_ about whether the example games were better or worse than commerical games, it was about whether they demonstrate that open source can provide the sort of games Linux needs to greatly increase its demographic appeal. I suspect that they don't demonstrate this (though as you've probably guessed, I'm not familiar with all of them yet).

Re:Day of the tentacle

[Steeltoe]

I'm glad that you see it's a personal opinion because that's what I intended with my blatant remark ;-)

I missed your "for me" distinction, although you are limiting yourself to only eye-candy games with such an opinion. What about chess for instance? You don't even need a computer to enjoy a game. That too is subjective though, and changeable with weather.

- Steeltoe

nethack is great, just no eye candy

[zatz]

I find moria descendants, especially nethack, to be very creative and addictive games, with a lot of replay value. Nethack has more depth in item interactions than any MUD, hack-n-slash or RPG I've ever played. Too bad it's not multiplayer....

I've worked on a few non-commercial game projects... the problem is always finding artists.

Software As Commodities

[JezChown]

OSS works best when it can be reduced to a standard commodity (or protocol).

Until PC are powerful enough to have something like:

class Photon extends ElementaryParticle {

...
then simulation type games will never agree on what simplifications to make about the real world. Renderers have to make a call on what's in and what's out, and that is almost game dependent, and hence not commoditizable.

Re:Day of the tentacle

[sela]

This is an obvious blamebait, but I cannot resist but reply:

My point was: A game where its creator invested in storyline and graphics can be more enjoyable than any other game.
Proof is based on subjective opinion: to me, DOTT is more enjoyable than any other game _because_ it have a good combination of clever and funny story line and good graphics.
Every game where there was no investment in storyline and/or graphics is less enjoyable (to me) than this one.
So, the question was "Does art make a game". Answer: yes, here is an example where art makes a game. Conclusion: Art=good.

Q.E.D.

Ofcorse, this proof is based on subjective opinion. If you happen to think the best ever game was space invaders, than you wouldn't accept my argument. This is why I said "ulimate proof for me" ...

Re:Games?

[Midnight Ryder]

> IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.

Wrong.

Game engines

As you pointed out, he never said anything about the underlying technology not working under Open Source / GPL. In fact, the interview was with Jorrit, who founded Crystal Space 3D, which is becoming a very solid engine. :-)

But the games themselves... I don't really ever expect to see an explosion of Open Source games like we have seen in other areas. Sure, mods will always happen, especially for game companies that encourage that sort of development - QIII, UT, etc. It's game programming without all the hastles of game programing. There's a pre-established engine under you, game content already exists, and there's even a user base existing to release your mods to. Writing a game from scratch is a pretty hard deal, and requires a very specific focus to get the job done - unlike making a mod, in which someone on the team can easily say, oh, "Hey - lets add a grapling hook!" and can easily implement it on top of the already working stuff. But when you start from scratch, people are already saying "Hey, lets add a grappling hook!" 15 times a day, but, you haven't even gotten basic game content complete! That's not to say it can't be done - it would just be harder, IMHO, to keep your focus. There have been some good MUDs and some other games done this way successfully, but, I think they are the exception to the rule

As for artists:

And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....

Really? There's a new observation I've never really made myself. The few artists I've known both in the computer arena and real world actually liked to share thier artwork more than most of the programmers I've known. They wouldn't be fond of you modifying it, mind ya, but, they like everyone to look at it, play with it, etc. But, that is from a rather small sample set - a little under a dozen people.

Even harder than games....

[tytso]

An even harder application area than games for Open Source to get into is tax software, such as TurboTax. That's because it's not so much about the software programming, as it is about having the legions of tax accountants and lawyers who need to keep up with the huge number of changes in the tax code every year. (Voted into law by our devoted public servants, who happen to be also lawyers...... :-)

So, there will always be a few areas where buying propietary software will make sense. I would much rather pay $19 for TurboTax than to spend several hours doing the taxes myself, or to pay several hundred dollars for a tax accountant to do it for me.

Applications as art

[JCMay]

I take offense when people say that games are different from "normal" applications in that games are half program, half art. Perhaps this is my Engineer showing, but I think that "normal" or "productivity" applications should be considered art as well.

First, I am sure that everyone here knows how much work goes into usability and interface design, as most people here have some modicum of programming experience. One of my favorite web pages, AskTog, goes into great detail on the ins and outs of computer user interface design.

I know that many people would use the building/ architecture analogy-- mere building is not art, while architecture is. "Normal" applications, they say, are mere building, while games would be considered "architecture" due to their beauty.

Poppycock! Architecture is art not because it is beautiful, although one goal of the architect is indeed visual appeal. He goes about attaining that beauty, however through the use of some language-- a visual vocabulary-- to make some statement or invoke something in the imagination of the viewer. An example: Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye is a private residence, but its visual elements combine to evoke a steam ship cruising across the lot. That is what makes it art. Art is communication, not pretty colors or "photorealistic backgrounds." Art tells you something that the artist wanted you to hear.

It is my opinion that the true art lies in making complex operations decipherable by even the simplest users. A good GUI is a work of art. Reducing complex-looking physical phenomena to a few mathematical equations, such as Ohm's Law or Maxell's Equations, is art. Pretty pictures are just that. And nothing more. They convey no extra message to the viewer; they are merely eye candy.

Don't get me wrong; these new games are beautiful. The intense graphics do enhance play by making it easier to submerge yourself in the play-world presented. But there's more to art than pretty pictures.

Re:Long-term benefits of open source code

[sugarman]

Were you playing the same CivII as the rest of us?

Civ2 had the game rules in delimited text, and the graphics were also easily substituted. I remember the ton of various Civ2 mods that existed prior to the release of Fantastic Worlds, and FW itself was just a mod pack and a GUI editor.

Why do I need to change the source if I can change the .ini files anyways? The game could be expanded and updated, allowing new art and endless replayability. (not that Civ didn't have that in the first place)

freeciv anyone?

[ostrich2]

What about games like Freeciv? It's certainly professionally done in the engine, and the graphics are very good, too. And, as far as I know, it's all open-sourced.

So how come the OSS model doesn't work for games?

games are the new literature

[matthew_gream]

Games, virtual reality and fantasy worlds are the new literature in many ways.

They should be both software and art in the same way that a book is composed of writing and art. Books are constructed with textual grammatical substrate that is open source to everyone - the art is in using this to construct an experience. The virtual reality game experience is little different, now the substrate is software -- more dynamic than text. Another analogy can be drawn from board games, role playing games, virtual environments, MUDs and all manner of immersive environments.

Re: Black and White will be open-source

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

OT: X-Box is just a piece of hardware. With nVidia's super-duper Linux drivers, you can easily make a game disc that boots linux instead of embedded Win2K. Then you just base your game off of linux, and develop on the PC. Simple as that :-P

Open doesn't have to mean free...

[MrHanky]

Of course, providing sourcecode for a game does not mean that you have to give the game away. Just think how much easier it would be if the only thing you had to do to get DooM ]I[ going on your new ARM-based NetBSD-box was a ./configure and a make... No more waiting for ports that never show up at all.

Portability is the best reason I can see for opensourceing games. Hell, it's a good reason for open source in all sorts of SW.

The Beauty...

[suwalski]

The beauty of open source projects is that they tend to work in relatively small groups. This in turn means that most people have more than one function. I know many artistic people who are great programmers and would be great for open source game development.

The problem is not necessarily with artists, but IMO a lack of interest towards this on the programmers' side. Games (graphics + code + sound + GUI) take much longer to develop than a regular app (code + GUI), and a lot more things can go wrong. I think it's just too laborious a process for many people.

Just my CDN$0.02!

Long-term benefits of open source code

[Jon Erikson]

I think that an open source environment for games has two potential benefits - firstly for allowing bugs to be quickly fixed, and secondly to allow the game to be enhanced and updated in reponse to user requests and ideas.

The first point has already been covered many times here on /. but it is the second that interests me the most. Whereas some games aren't in particular need of new features or concepts, others can hugely benefit - think strategy games like Civilisation or role playing games like Worldforge as mentioned by another poster.

The transition from Civ to Civ II was not one of a radical change in the core concept of the game - instead it was a tweaking of rules, adding new features and expanding player options. Having the source code for the game would mean that these additions could me made as and when people wanted them, making the game improve over time.

So for this sort of game, open source would offer both of these advantages and could allow a program to outlast the platform it was written on :)

---
Jon E. Erikson

Keep the art components open

[bug_hunter]

I've been converting everybody's favourite logos into characters for a scrolling shooter game (which steals the obvious name of Xtux) and so far I've had two people ripping off my graphics (with permission, tho they don't need it) one for a screen mate and other being clan bomber) [hopefully they've gotten some better graphics than the original ones they borrowed].

Personally I'm flattered, but that's probably because I'm a uni student living at home and don't need any money yet.

I find nothing more useful then when people leave they're textures or props avaliable for download. I see the best compromise as leaving components of art open source (such as textures or 3D prog macros) yet the final product (animated 3D models etc) as closed source. Leaving those components open make it easier for other people to make their own graphics, so they can be better suited to the task at hand.

Although I plan to still stay completely open source until I need the money.

If you want to see Xtux's current state of development http://sourceforge.net/project/?grou p_id=206

enjoy

Is Slashdot reading my mind?

[SmokeSerpent]

I just happened to have been pondering this exact situation over the last week or so. It seems that games are a very tricky situation for open-source.

One of the major sticking points is the "art" components. Games need one major thing to be good from the artistry standpoint, and that is consistency. The art, the story, the movement of characters, and the interface all must work as a single "portal" into the world of the game. You can't have one texture artist creating photorealistic bricks while another is creating cartoonish wood grains. You can't have some truly isometric objects, and some that are obviously rendered with perspective. If the storytellers describe a dark foreboding wilderness, and your visual artists are drawing sunny glens, you have a problem. Also, if your world needs 4 sentient races and tens of animal species, you'd better hope your most productive artist isn't creating an entire tribe of 42 different Orcs "for variety".

This leads to a second problem. The obvious solution to this is to have a small team or a single person act as art coordinator. They need to pull together the available resources, edit the content, and make assignments. Congratulations, now being an artist for the game is a job, with bosses and deadlines and everything else that artists hate. And if the project is being run by the programmers, (as most open-source projects are, based on the show-me-the-code tradition) good luck.

What we are going to be stuck with for a while, is...

Games with crappy artwork, which hopefully is later replaced by some kind soul

Games which are never finished because they don't have the artwork or storyline they need to be complete

Game projects run by idea-guys with tons of artwork and backstory, but no working code

I don't know what the solution to all this is, but hopefully we'll see some project pull itself together and surmount these difficulties, providing both an incentive and a model for others to follow.

Art vs craftsmanship

[P_Simm]

I think this is a case of mistaking fine craftsmanship for art. Art strives to express something through it's medium. Good craftsmanship can be beautiful, but it does not strive to express anything - it strives to elegantly achieve its needed functionality.

These lines have blurred mainly through the use of the term architecture IMO. True architecture (the design of buildings) has a tone of art to it, because it can incorporate visual ideas and concepts into its functionality. While people talk of computer architecture and software architecture, the same sense of art really can't apply there. There's no way to express an idea through software code, other than through direct I/O implementing true visual, textual, or audio artwork.

You know what to do with the HELLO.

Re:Art vs craftsmanship

[matthew_gream]

What is 'art' is one of the great debates of the ages, and to try and simplify it can't give justice to the complexities and nuances. Suffice to say that computer achitecture and software architecture can be just as 'art'ful, as a visual work of art. One of the things art does is reveal new realities, display aesthetic beauty, and make creative connections beyond what craftsman do. You could say that artists create the rules, find the new rules, and experiment with the rules - whereas the craftsman usually just 'apply' - hence the age old distinction of 'applied arts'.

When an existing algorithm is 10 pages long, unweidly and unoptimal with numerous mathematical operations and constructs - and then a master mathematican comes along and creates a new algorithm of beauty and simplicity to perform an otherwise 'boring' goal - I call that art just as much as monet dabbling in the nuances of light and colour on a painted canvas.

It depends on your reasons

[E1ven]

In the article, they talk about open source engines, versus open art games.
Open source games have all of the advantages that ESR preaches. People submit patches, it is improved with many eyes, ect.
Open Art, and by Art I mean levels, textures, ect., offers little to offer ESR and his crowd. There is no fundamental incentive to give this away. RMS would disagree. I would predict that RMS would say that the games are not truly free, and should not be used. You can't own that game, even if the engine is GPL'd. You don't have the choice to do what you want. It is more a moral decision.

It all comes down to your reasons for wanting to play an open-source game. Caramack has discussed this in his .plan file, a couple of months ago. He, IIRC, supports being open where ever possible, but thinks that it would help competitors more than ID software. Maybe he's right.
As much as I hate to say it, maybe we need a more strict option than the GPL/BSD licenses. Use this code here, change whatever you want, but don't bring it into another program.

I think the best think we (non-industry execs) can do right now is to show our support for open source supporting companys (Loki is obvious, ID soft releases it's older titles, such as Quake, The Unreal team has opened some of it's back-end), and, in rational and informed language, explain why we think OSS games (in whichever flavor, Open engine/open art) are superior.

Re:Open Source Game [Development]

[Daniel]

Actually, chess can run into the same problem: people patching computer algorithms into their client. In fact, it can be worse: the player can run an analyzer at the same time as the client and ask for hints without even bothering to modify the client!

I think the only real way to deal with losers is to not play with them. Technological solutions to the problem (including hidden source) are bandaid solutions.

Daniel

Hmmmm

[Daniel]

Counting "different" as more important than "better" flatly contradicts the whole point of how bazaar mode software development works, and that's why we haven't yet seen any spectacular games coming from the Internet.

The author has clearly not played Koules or Liquid Wars. Now, I'm not sure that there are "better", but they're certainly "different" -- in fact, I don't think I've seen games like them anywhere else. Both these games are free software. I believe this is a simple counterexample to the above assertion.

Daniel

Games?

[meepzorb]

IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work. Game engines, 3D graphics, etc are now a mature software area, and with today's hardware we're almost at the point where brute forcing it will be a "good enough" programming strategy. So games dont really belong to the programmers like they did in the 70s and 80s. This has been true for some time.

Today's games are largely about the graphical arts, soundtrack, 'look & feel' and (sometimes) storyline. Games are now about art. And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed.... no 'gift culture' for them, thank you very much.

I can imagine an Open Source games culture where artsy young wannbes would use a Free Software game as a springboard for their professional career... or do little one-shots to impress their friends (I'm thinking of the amiga demo culture of the 80s & 90s here). I could also imagine a world in which a number of cheap-but-decent Shareware games were produced for Linux (this model worked well on the Mac in the 90s actually).

But I cant see Open Source games going much further than that.

:Michael

Re:Games?

[Blue Lang]

most of those muds, by far, are based on one of two code bases, DIKU or lp.

all it will take are a couple of good modifiable FPS's and 2D adventure games to hit the 'net and it wil be off to the races, just like with muds.

Re:Games?

[cpt kangarooski]

Yo. I'm a graphic arts type. (ambitious yes, I won't presume to call myself talented ;) Generally as long as people give me reasonable credit, I don't care if people copy works I hold the copyright to and redistribute and modify it as they like. Just ask. Better though to create new stuff for the project in question though.

(I have turned people down before, generally b/c I was working on a better version myself, and I'd rather that they muck about with the better one than the crappy one)

I think that you'll find that many artists are receptive to the idea; we already study each other's works intensely all the time. Something like OS isn't much of a departure.

OTOH, expect to still have to pay for something the first time - artists just don't usually pull down the big programmer bucks ;)

Re:Games?

[molog]

Did you read his post? He mearly stated the same thing that games are now more about art, so the engine should be opensourced while the files that make up the art and story of the game would be the sellable product.
Molog

So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

Good point...

[jtgold]

You're right. What I meant to say was "cryptography would help" -- where cryptography includes the zero knowledge proof that you mentioned. I came to the same conclusion you did (that it would be impractical). Actually, encryption wouldn't even prevent a determined attacker from altering the game since the key must be stored on disk somewhere.

Netrek and RSA anti-cheating measures

[pjbrewer]

Counterargument... Netrek ia a team played first person shooter on a 2d field with dull artwork.

Because people would cheat and come in with perfect shot bots, most servers required a client that had been blessed with an rsa key.

Thus the game was both open and closed source. How it all worked is open source. But the private keys are private, and blessed clients are by nature binaries only.

I've been hoping for something like this

[Bad_CRC]

for a long while.

it seems like it would be a great fit. Open source engines companies could modify to fit their game, and share the source when the game comes out. Plenty of time to get your sales in before your competition could absorb your tech.

They would still have full copyright on all the models, sounds, maps, artwork... everything else.

It would seem to be a great benefit to the game companies, and everyone in general.

Imagine all the talent currently going into mods, instead going to a bunch of individual games, many probably free. I worked on a few mods people seemed to like, just because it was fun.

but, since I'm not a game developer, I don't know. Maybe it would just encourage more really crappy games. Maybe the open source model would discourage innovation since people could pump out a game without adding much to the engine code if they didn't want to.

Who can tell. But with the release of the sourcecode to golgotha, Quake, and now the Duke Nukem 3d Build engine, It's suprising noone has taken any of these projects to the next step.

________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"

More on this topic...

[Denor]

While we're talking about open source and games, here is a piece by Shawn Hargreaves (maker of the allegro gaming library) on open source and gaming. It's an interesting read, even if you don't quite agree with what he has to say.

Free engines vs. free data

[mrogers]

From the article: Another option might be to Open Source all the software for the game, but require that the data files (art, sounds, maps, movies, etc) be purchased. This approach is similar to what companies like id Software have done for years, releasing enough source code to allow users to modify the game and create their own add-ons, but still requiring users to purchase the full game in order to use any of those mods.

This approach is not similar to what id has done. Id has released a proprietary game engine and allowed users to add their own artwork (skins, textures, levels). The popularity of Doom/Quake mods shows that if a game attracts a following, artwork can be produced by volunteers and enthusiasts which matches the quality of the original professional artwork.

As for game engines, there are several examples cited in the article of open source engines. The interviewee believes that this is the area of game development which lends itself most readily to an open source development model. So the only component which is still needed before a fully free game can be developed is a fan base. If a single project can build up enough of a following, there is no reason why engine and artwork alike shouldn't be produced in a distributed fashion.

Re:Games? Artists greedy?

[-Harlequin-]

>And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....
>no 'gift culture' for them, thank you very much.

Excuse me? I completely disagree, but I would be interested to know why you believe this.

As for a 'gift culture', exactly how many new, free levels and wads were there for Doom again? Half-life?
The man-hours that have gone into the "gift culture" of art quite possibly dwarf that of the entire open source movement. Perhaps you think that these people are different from the people who work commercially? I'll think you'll find a huge proportion of those commercial artists have poured hundreds, even thousands of hours into works they have distributed freely on the internet.

You should also note that there are a few fundamental differences in how (non-code) artistic works are created. I suspect that you have misinterpreted some of the repercussions of these in forming your opinion. For example, open source code often results in something better. Open source art usually results in worthless crap. I could explain why, but it would take a while and this is just an example. Consider that things done differently != things done for inferior motives.

(NB, for the record, I consider fine coding to be an art, however I have maintained a distinction between code and art in this post to avoid confusion).

Clone existing stuff in an extendible way

[gnalle]

I have yet to see an open source project that is not a clone or a close relative of something that already exists in the world. Perhaps it's done better, but that's not the point.

Well actually most the popular games today are either wolfenstein clones (such as halflife) or dune clones (such as starcraft). In other words this is what people want. So if we want to create GPL'ed games as an alternative to the games you can buy in the stores, we must make the games that people want to play

Personally I think that the worldforge project is doing the right thing. They are writing an engine that you can use to create a diablo clone or an ultima clone. But then again the engine is extensible in such a way that you can also implement a starcraft or pong. This way they are almost sure to make a game that someone would like to play, but if some creative person comes along with an idea to create something completely new, the engine can also provide the right tools for that.

By the way I don't understand all this fuzz about graphics and new ideas. I usually play xpilot This game looks like an amiga game from the 80'es. but its still good fun. Who needs this new creativity anyway? No flame intened, but I just love that game :)

Freedom software innovations still to be completed

[Sludge]

I have two ideas, but no the time to implement them, for a while yet.

First, we need an impulsive way for artists to contribute graphics to a project. To say artists won't release their work for free is folly; I've been following a number of Quake texture sites around, looking for stuff that could be used in the version of my game that is cost-free and comes with the level editor.

I propose that something like CVS for artists is created. This would have a very simple web interface (because we want a large audience), and it would have the ability to let artists upload images. These images would go into a queue which would be checked by people in the project, and would either be put into the rejected folder (with a reason attached, hopefully), or accepted into the game project.

This would be useful to track ownership of art back to the person. Perhaps in a larger system, something like the slashdot system could be implemented.

My second innovation is game-evolution. It would be possible to have a client/server type system for an RPG where the storyline unfolds based on data sent from the server, whether it be in-game scripting or dialog. This dialog would be rewritten from time to time by the programmers, and the storyline would change- perhaps on player's input, or be added to. People would use the open source client to connect to this server, which could charge on a per-service basis.

I don't like the idea of converting something that works fine into something client/server so you can charge for it on a per-use basis, but it does deem interesting to me to have value added options.

Re:Business Model for Open Source(TM) Games

[philipm]

Anyone with a bit of sense would be happy to prepay. Just think we could eliminate ALL middlemen. That would be an incredible savings in price for us and all those middle men would have to work as McDonalds managers were they belong.

No offenseve to McDonalds managers, but saying CEOs a class I despise much more, would have sounded silly.

Have you heard about Vampire The Masquerade game

[bcthomas]

Activision and Nihilist Software have just released this game based on the White Wolf World of Darkness. And its solo player is a great 3d real time rpg. But what really makes it special is that the multiplayer is designed for 4 players max, and includes a storyteller mode that allows one of the player characters to change the world around them, speak through the characters, all kinds of stuff. And the company is releasing editors for the software in JAVA ( and script editors as well). So chance to combine Storytelling, programming, and interacting with friends. I intend to set up stories on and eventual create worlds. Hopefully I won't be the only one.

Devil's Advocate

[AgentGray]

I don't want to be the bad guy, but I do want to point out that not all opensource softaware is a great thing.

Yes, there anre many truly great projects out there, but how many of them have an outrageously long dev cycle? How many of them are riddled with bugs?

The plus side being that you can take the source and fix the problems yourself (if your ambitious enough)

Remeber when the Quake source was released? Dozens of people tried to find ways to exploit the game. Definitely not a plus. I'm really anxious to see some really great games built off the source. Something truly phenominal like Half-Life. (Remind you though, I think Half-Life ended up being 80% of its own code.)

All we've really seen are some minor modifications here and there. I'd be curious to see what massive projects are in the works.

Best Gameplay

[drenehtsral]

I'd have to say that Scorched Earth and clones are up there, along with DigDug, PlatMan (amiga) Mr. Do, Frenzy, MegaMan (nes), Galga, Sonic (sega), and a couple others i can't think of now... Quake3 is okay, but it doesn't have that timeless draw of those simpler scrollers and platform games.

Did they say "Open Source" Enough?

[Roofus]

I think I only counted about 40-50 uses of it. One problem I still see is how to make the source code for the client available, and not have cheaters in Multiplayer games? There was quite a thread on this awhile back, but I don't have a link to it (I believe it was soon after QW source was made open). Wasn't it Carmack who said that the only real solution was to have part of it binary only, and have that part authenticate? In that case it still makes the point of opening the source moot.

Open Art in Software and Independent Film

[Izaak]

The article seems critical of the idea of volunteer provided 'open art'... but my experience is that there are many talented musicians and artists who are willing to get involved, if you just approach them about it. At least that is what I am finding with my own video game SDK project www.gridslammer.org and with my independent film project. Here is what I had to say in the Linux Today forum about this article:

From the article:
It's difficult to imagine how Open Source developers could match the speed, quality and quantity that the commercial gaming industry gives us each year. It would be like trying to film Star Wars with your friends on weekends.

Difficult, but not impossible. If an open source game project were to collect a large enough following of programmers and artists, it could 'pull a linux' on the game industry. It will take time to build that sort of following, but I am beginning to see it happen with several projects.

As for 'open art', I can see one big reason that a musician or graphic artist might donate their efforts to an open game project: exposure. Art is a competitive field. Getting your name out there by showcasing your art on a popular game could really advance one's career. The same could be said about the 'weekend Star Wars' comment. We are currently undergoing a renaissance in independent film making. I've seen some incredibly high quality films churned out by teams of talented volunteers. The lower cost of newer digital video technologies even allows for some amazingly good special effects. If the game industry falls into the pattern of Hollywood and begins churning out the same old big budget crap, look forward to the independent, volunteer game developers to pick up the flag.

Lets face it, video games are a type of art, and art is something that comes from individuals (sometimes working with other individuals), not faceless corporations. I see no reason why a properly motivated team of volunteer artists and programmers cannot produce a 'professional' level game. Time will tell I guess.

Thad

Re:Release everything as Open Source?

[AgentGray]

It seems that for some games releasing all the specs would lead to cheating or at least the destruction of part of the mystery behind the game engine.

This is what I meant in my previous post. Without some type of validation, people will be looking to exploit things.

Look at the best MUDs, now make a graphical one

[Steeltoe]

I don't believe quality games can be made easily by Open Source efforts. Sure, libraries, game-engines, AI, and endless other code-snippets may be "easily" created by the community spirit. Even these tend to be mediocre at the beginning. It takes time for these things to mature. However, when it comes to artistic music, graphics, sound-effects, plots, themes, etc, it's a whole different ballgame. It takes something special to make everyone play on the same team and create a _consistent_ world. One other thing is to make artists put their works under a GPL-style license, or public domain.

I said it was difficult, not impossible. And even a quality game can fall short of the joys and thrills of creating and sharing a free world.

I think the best solution is to make available an initial game-world in which everyone can share their ideas by copying and extending them. Then instantly interact with the new objects with your friends. MUDs is a good example of this. Such a game would be very difficult from the proprietary games we have now (that are graphical), but would nevertheless be much more interesting, freer and make you more productive d;-) than MMORGs than Everquest and Ultima Online. We already have them in text, it would be interesting to have graphical and audio implementations that are similarly extendable and reflective (to some degree) as LP-muds. You shouldn't just be allowed to create new objects, you should be allowed to create new concepts to the game and extending already existing classes without clashes.

- Steeltoe

I see no reason to make a game open-source

[Chiasmus_]

The open source movement's principles don't really apply to games the same way they apply to software which is actually useful.

Sure, there are some sections of games which might--and this is a big might--have applications in "real" software. For example, someone who designes a new 3D engines or AI module might have legitimate cause to let people review it. But let's face it--how much can anyone really learn from Heroes of Might and Magic III--and how important is it to submit it to endless peer review to get the bugs out? The worst thing a bug is generally going to do is destroy your saved game, and even though it might feel like it, that isn't the end of the world.

There are three main reasons that people write code: 1) To make money; 2) To show off or impress or entertain people; and 3) To make the world a better place. Writing an operating system, or a tool, can include all three, hence open-sourcing. But those who write games are not generally concerned about making the world a better place. They want to look cool and make money.

In conclusion, if Microsoft opened Windows 2000, but left Minesweeper in binary form, I would have no complaints.

Research

[Tom7]

A lot of academic research in computer science is open source (and if it's not open source, it's almost always Open Research Paper). I'd say this is a pretty high source of creativity; you might just be looking in the wrong places.

Most academics aren't making games, though. And meetings certainly do help! So you're partially on the right track, IMO.

Freak!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

Open Arts & Crafts Highly Unlikely

[werdna]

At the outset, count me in as a huge Open Source fan. I use and contribute OSS regularly, and am a true believer in the fruits of the movement (or at least one or more definitions of the "movement").

Further, let me say at the outset that OSS provides and has provided a large set of tools of enormous value to game developers. The technical side of game design is far easier today than once it was. The publication by leading lights of their technical works (which happened only under the covers in the old days) has helped to improve the state of the art greatly.

However, that being said, let me make this remark: a great game is not a pretty game; a pretty game is not a great game. A highly technical game need not be pretty or great; and vice vice versa. What is more, it is naive to believe that there is any clear division between the "art" of game design and the "pure tech" of game execution. (let alone the "art" and "pure tech" of the art).

A great game, unlike many great things, is not something that lends itself well to specification; and is particularly not something that lends itself well to production by independent actors. There is often a time when you know you are "just hacking," and you know you are "just making shit up to be fun," but it is not a readily engineerable task. The subtlest change can make a useless game great and a great game useless -- and it may have nothing or everything to do with design -- and it may have nothing or everything to do with hackery.

In short, game design, like movies, theatre and most purely artistic efforts, can be the result of collaborating artists and technicians, but to be great requires a central focused vision articulated and enforced by one or a very small community of brilliant folks. Like a director for a theatrical production, there will be much reliance on the purely artistic contributions of others and the purely technical contributions of others -- but the greatness comes from the gestalt.

The Masterplay occurs as the result of technical excellence, so perfectly and cunningly crafted as to transcend to an art. Such excellence does not happen by accident, or by consensus; at least in my experience.

Open Source Gamery may well be possible, but like Harvard Berkman Center's "Open Law" efforts, is really a different paradigm sucking up a popular term.

Yes, we will have Open Source games as we understand them, but they are unlikely to be truly great. In time, there will be collaborative game design environments, perhaps that call themselves Open Source -- but that doesn't mean anything really.

Great games will not come from consensus. Killer shoot-em-ups certainly can -- and some may be truly pretty and truly beautiful. But me-too is me-too. What will stun us is the truly surprising. the different. the great.

That will come from a small, focused group, IMHO; and not by consensus.

Open Source at heart

[krystal_blade]

Game graphics aside, most good games are pretty much open sourced anyway. Lets take a look at some favorites...

Quake II---------Oh yeah... Lots of Mods.

Red Alert--------Again lots of mods.

Tiberian Sun-----I think mods were available before the game was.

Quake III--------Skinz, levels, etc...

While this is a small list to be sure, one of the things to remember is that when these games first came out, THEY DID NOT SUCK!!! (well, maybe networked TS, but....)

The core of the game is essentially what makes the game. While I am in favor of Open sourcing game coding to fix bugs, I think some people are looking at it like a golden egg... There are just some games out there that should be allowed to fail.

Example. ABC gamez creates "Chicken Scratch" A third person fighting game from a chicken standpoint. The game is flawed, and buggy, and generally not well tested. But, it is RELEASED and SOLD with the software open sourced. Mods come in, and changes happen, and some "can't be bought" gaming mags have articles that read like so:

"CHICKEN SCRATCH with Lupo's Xworminator mod ROCKS!!!" "Pick up Crazee D's 298.0102 alpha patch!!! over 3000 bugs fixed, plus enhanced gameplay on this awesome platform!!!"

So, who wrote the good game? ABC, or all the Open source hackers out there who fixed all the screw ups the corporation made? Not to mention that J.Q. Public is gonna read these articles and think that they're buying a great game, when in fact, they're buying a peice of shit...that happens to have some really neat peanuts and toilette paper available for download.

The fact is, game mechanics make the game. If the above mentioned REAL games had bad mechanics, they would have failed. And should have. Proper coding shouldn't have to rely on consumers fixing shoddy merchandise.

krystal_blade

Day of the tentacle

[sela]

I used to be an adventure-game fan, and one of my all-time favorite is Day of the Tentacle. This is one of the best example that prove art does make the game - both visual art and the story.

For all this time since DOTT came till now, with all the neat 3D engines and all, I never saw any game (yet alone, adventure game) that reached the same level of enjoyability.

This is the ultimate proof for me that art does make the game.

Open Source Game [Development]

[Captain Derivative]

IMHO, I don't think we're going to see very many, if any at all, large-scale open-source games. The obvious problem in this case is cheating. Consider an open-source first-person shooter game that lets people play each other over a network. There's nothing to stop anyone from "tweaking" the code to give himself an unfair advantage (e.g., maybe doubling his characters defensive power). Of course the blatant cheaters will be kicked out or ignored soon enough, but someone smarter will make his changes subtle enough not to be readily noticable but still give him an advantage. Instead, however, I do see a future for open-source game development tools. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who has a few good ideas for games but doesn't have the free time to build all the necessary engines and stuff. Open-source dev tools would help eliminate this problem, letting the designer jump more directly into the artistic/creative stuff. And of course this should be open-source: there's always going to be something you want to change on the game engine, giving it more features you want. Closed-source wouldn't let you do that kind of stuff, reducing the development to nothing more than, say, making new levels for Quake or something. So don't expect any big open-source games to be released, soon or ever. But there would be, I think, a market for open-source game dev tools. Yes, a *market*, as in selling it. All you'd have to do is add features like support/assistance for the code, or something else that goes beyond just the source code and binaries.

More open source games are required!

[xtal]

This is especially important when you look at the trend towards massively interactive online games like Everquest. If you invest massive amounts of time learning a game and developing a character, it might be most annoying to have to start over in a new universe when the existing one could be expanded. This is the model that games like Hack followed, albeit with much crummier graphics (although some would argue better gameplay.. I played Moria for days at a time..)

Another arena I see this taking over is sims.. Flight simulators and driving simulators are great, but some of them require the same investments in time to learn all the tricks. It would be nice to be able to tweak the physics engines, upgrade graphics and network code, etc etc etc over a course of years to develop a mean, lean, kick butt environment. Right now you throw the games away when you're done.

The obstacle to this is the big investment you need to make a truely refined product - look at the effort that goes into games like Red Alert or Starcraft - the graphics have to be just so, the sound effects need to be engineered, etc etc etc. I don't know of many open source projects that put the emphasis on the polished look - some do, but most are just there to get the mean job done.

There are lots of open-source successes though. Look at the MAME and console emulators - mind you, that genre is a bad example, since I would imagine you'd get your ass sued if you even tried to make money :)

Kudos!