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FreeCiv 1.12.0 Released
wmulvihillDxR writes "For you Civilization addicts, check out FreeCiv. They have just released version 1.12! Highlights of changes include the isometric view we all know and love. You can download here(gz) or here(bz2). This project is a great example of the things open source can accomplish."
As a game? Nothing.
As an example of open source, a clone of a game that's quite old may be seen as not a great example.
Open Source version: 2001
I know it's a troll, but I'll bite:
Civilization II Gold (first multiplayer version): 1999
Freeciv multiplayer: 1998
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
What is it about the interface that bothers you? I'm sure the people that write the game would love your constructive feedback.
You can reach them at freeciv-dev at freeciv dot org, or check out their website at http://www.freeciv.org
for archives.
This "common open source software problem" is more likely that there's not enough feedback regarding what would improve the UI, and/or not enough people or time to do it. It's really difficult for most people to provide a nice UI to software they spend a lot of time working on. FreeCiv has 4 clients in the code base now, and different people work on different parts. There are several nice pending patches that we'll probably see in later days as the source base was being stabilized for the 1.12.0 release. FreeCiv dev people are constantly trying to improve the user's experience, just look at the changelog, almost everything there is for usability or a gameplay enhancement. Many users also contribute new parts for the GUI when they have an approach they like better, like the new city dialog patch for the gtk client(don't know what the current status is, but it doesn't look like it got in 1.12.0). The feelings you have shared would be the most productive if you used them to motivate yourself to do something similar.
Users are the most important part of usability and when you don't know what they want or how they think it should work then it's pretty difficult to give them what they want.
The command line interface on the server makes perfect sense. Are you always going to be wanting to run the server on a machine you have a GUI on? I sure don't. It's better than requiring a GUI to run the server... I'd rather there was more focus on improving the clients than the server UI, but perhaps you could write a little shell script or some server gui add-on that would simplify or render transparent setting up the game environment for single and possibly multiplayer games. That would likely be quite well received.
You can complain, you can contribute. You can even complain while you contribute, but contribution is the only way to get it done the way you want it to be done.
This project is a great example of the things open source can accomplish.
This is fine for games like freeciv, where the game is mainly gameplay and not fancy graphics; the goalpost isn't being moved.
But what about things like first-person shooters? These games are always pushing the boundaries of hardware, and so it needs a lot of time and effort just to keep up. Can open source keep up with this?
Another issue is with map design; in a game like Half-Life (for example), a huge amount of effort has to go into designing the story, and you can only play it once, unlike freeciv. This means that there would be have to be a single point where the game would be considered complete and released; otherwise both the designers and the gameplayers would lose interest.
So games like freeciv are fine, but what about the rest of the computer game market? Is it practical for open source development to continue? Or are companies like Loki going to be producing most of our decent games?
Besides, it's not so much just the fact that you can play Civilization for free that makes FreeCiv a triumph of the open source community. What really makes it great is that people who wouldn't normally have access to game source code can see inside the guts of the game, learn how it works, and make changes. The alterations could be as sweeping as an entire new ruleset which could be distributed over the net or as simple as altering a few #DEFINEs just to see what happens, but in any case, the ability to work with the source of a project like this is invaluable.
Hacking this sort of project is a big part of what the open source movement is all about: having a good time, growing intellectually, and inviting others to do the same.
This seems to be a recurring trend in open source software - it's very stable, low/no cost - all ideal qualities! Except the interface blows.
Something tells me that in the original "Civilization", the end user would not have to use a command line to configure and play the game. Why couldn't they "clone" the setup process?
Why does all open source software tend to have bad user interface?
This is a great example of what open source can accomplish? A (not-quite-primetime) clone of a decades-old game that's already been re-implemented several times commercially with better graphics and gameplay?
No, I don't think so. This may be nice to have around in the game-poor Linux world, but it's not an example of what open source can do. For that you'll want to look to Apache, to Postgres, to BIND, and to any of the other programs that do what they do _better_ than the comparable commercial alternatives.
Freeciv seems to have a lot of the look-and-feel of xconq (with lots more detailed city development and unit types) - and that was available at least back in 1988 when I recall wasting hours on it - actually the first version came out even before X was synonymous with X version 11 (we ran version 10 for a while...).
So, I think the OSS version actually came first...
Energy: time to change the picture.
I've been working with tech for longer than I'd expect the average /. reader to have been. I'm a smart guy. I can program decently in many real (i.e. not created by Microsoft) languages and I can administrate the hardware and software on several UNIX variant systems. But I'm obviously not smart enough to read /. because I just don't get the humor in wiZd0m's "witticism".
Would someone be so kind as to explain to me why this was funny? If, like me, you don't get the humor, you have moderator status for the day, and you just find this insulting, please do me the favor of modding this idiot down; at least we've given him a chance. If it is funny, maybe now would be a good time to educate me. Thanks!
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What does it matter if the game is old?
That doesn't affect the gameplay at all, and that's what matters in a game. Although the graphics and sound are certainly subpar by todays standards, many of the games that come out these days are crap if you actually look at the gameplay factor. Civilization was a great game, and it deserves to have a clone, no matter what time it's in. It's still fun.
First off, I've only had a global warming problem once, in many games, several of which progressed past the 50's.
But in any case, why is this a "problem"? It's a "problem" that a game acts more realistically? If you think global warming is going to be a problem, then you should hurry up and conquer your enemies, right? (hmmm....)
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff