Slashdot Mirror
Free The TA Source Code
JFL writes " A petition to request that the Total Annihilation source code's current owner, Infogrames, release the code into the public domain is currently in full swing over at the French site TA Forever.
" I recently picked up TA again, and played around with it - while the graphics are looking a bit dated, the design for the system is great - a very extensible design system, and one that you could build some interesting environments on top of. The use of height is something that was, and to a certain extent, still far ahead of other RTS ? games.
Here's hoping the release the code! TA was a great game, and I'm sure lots of creative people will be able to find fun things to do with it.
Who here will actually use the source code that is going to sign the petition? You are going to act like you will, but once you see the source you are going to say "yes.. it is open now".
Then tommorow you will forget that anything happened. Not trying to be flame bait, but that is just how I see it.
At least give them something of value for it.
If the code belongs to a small group of individuals, offer to pay them or exchange services (like web design or web hosting?) to the people who own it. Help them advertise themselves and start a new business for themselves.
There is little tolerance for email petitions and other such forms of protest in this day and age. Few can afford to be generous.
Goat sex free since 2001
I don't get why people want this specific game released?
If you're going to make such a fuss over this game, why not sign petitions to get Unreal Tournament's source released? It's just as old as this game.
Why doesn't anyone make a fuss for the laundry list of games that no one generates profit from anymore?
In case you're wondering, you can still buy this game in the stores, so it's still generating profit for the company(albiet marginal profit).
The TA site says the deadliine for the petition was 30th December 2001.
Oops.
Hogsback
T.A. Forever
IMO, the only reason TA isn't considered to be the BEST RTS game created is because it was overshadowed by a much more hyped and anticipated game, Starcraft.
-- Dan
IANAL, but public domain software has several legal issues that open the originator of the code to legal liability. It may prove prudent to request that they license their code under the BSD or GPL licenses, which limit liability.
Although I can't go into details (still under NDA after 6 years technically), we got bitten by this at a large software house not so long ago. Basically, some of our examples in the documentation were marked as "public domain" software and a third party began to redistribute the examples in binary form with added graphical interfaces. It turned out of the developers of this GUI had written his code on another company's time, and that company decided to sue us. Since there was no limitation of liability in our distributed source code, our lawyers had a harder time justifying our position.
Don't underestimate the bit of a license that goes something like this:
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED.
Asking Infogrames to "public domain" their source code is, in my opinion, uninformed and irresponsible.
Sadly... I very much doubt this effort will result in the TA source code being released to the public. Whilst the source code probably isn't much use to Infogrames anymore, they have no reason to release it.
Perhaps this being posted on Slashdot will conjure up enough momentum to sway Infogrames into releasing it, but if you look at the petition it's quite apparrent that it's not going anywhere really fast with comments like "FREE THE DAMN CODE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and "AHHH!!! FrEe ThE DaMn CoDe MaN!!!!".
It's not much of a convincing argument and I hate to sound negative but this seems like a lost cause. Infogrames would only ever release the source code out of good will, and unfortunately good will is something that large companies inherently lack (even Philips with their fight against copy protection have a motive other than good will).
Either way, I'm off to sign the petition... at least only good can come from at least trying!
I played it for a little while back... quite a game. Open Sourcing it would mean lots of high-quality, free RTSes, for AtheOS, BeOS, Linux, Windows, QNX and pretty much everything else. The one thing that non-Windows OSes currently lack are excellent multiplayer games. It's time. I certainly hopes this goes through. Perhaps the code will be bought by someone (RedHat, are you listening?). I don't think they're going to give it away.
Everything is mainstream now.
What TA always needed was a better AI. I can almost always crush 3 AIs on hard on just about any map (I did eventually win on Seven Islands, but that took forever), but that's because the computer is relatively stupid in how it plays. And since I usually just play the computer (the only person I know who likes TA doesn't like to play computer games made later than 1985), I never get any better and usually get crushed when I do find a person to play.
:)
If they opened the code and someone wrote a better AI, that would kick ass! (mine, specifically
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
No, really, think about it for a minute. Sure, opening the source to an older game sounds great at first, but one must consider the full implications of that move. If the source is made publicly available, it will only result in crashy, ugly mods that are hard to use or install. Plus not everyone has Microsoft Visual C++ handy in order to compile the source and install it on a proper gaming OS. So anyone who is new to the game and wants to pick it up will take one look at it after downloading, think "god, what a mess. It isn't worth the trouble." and will probably think less of Infogrames for it.
Also, what license do you suppose they will use? If they want what they are claiming to want, shouldn't they put it under the BSD license so that it is truely in the public domain? I mean, after all, if it is so old as to not generate profitable sales anymore, why worry if someone else takes the code and releases their own modified binaries for profit?
Is your company running tools written by ma
As a noder, I'm pissed off when /. uses E2 as a dictionary of rudimentary terms. Anyone who doesn't know what a RTS is probably won't care about this article. Instead of linking to E2, why don't you just spell out the acronym?
So much for the
13 additions to the petition since the story was posted half an hour ago.
Hogsback
As futile as it may sound, it is important for us all to contact our federal representatives and urge them to provide tax credits to companies when they release open source software. That would be a very good way to swing the economic incentives in our favor, and possibly even help out struggling OSS companies like Caldera and SGI.
uncle isaac
Gamespot.com has this nice feature story on Total Annihilation. Light reading and thorough. The focus here is mainly on the designer Chris Taylor.
A company could easily Open the source to a game the minute it came out and still make money.
Imagine if you will.... Id releases the engine and other key parts of their next big game under the GPL, BSD or similar license (For the sake of conversation, we'll call it "Kill the wonderfully rendered, yet stupid monsters with Over-powered weapons.") And release the the levels, character models, weapon models, sounds under their standard, propretary license. They could bundle them together and the end user would never know the difference- they never read the licensing agreements. People still buy the game and it can be easily ported to other platforms.
Technology is only part of a game- it's the creativity and the experience of the game itself that make if valuable, not the engine. Yes, this method allows competitors to use the code, but what the hell, imagine how quickly games would advance if just one company started releasing them like this.
You know, even if the source code isn't released, Total Annihilation runs damn near perfectly under current WINE vintages.
I love this game, and I'm extremely glad I can run it in X. If you've never played it (and you run Linux), head to Electronics Boutique. You can find it on the shelf for about $4.99 last time I saw it. Then download, compile, and configure WINE, run TA setup, and voila! Runs fantastic.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
TA must have some very clever code to perform as well as it did on machines of its day, but that's nothing some open source developers working their asses off 12 hours a day can't do -- you can bet that's minimum the amount of work that Cavedog put into TA. It's getting artists to make the keen looking units, terrain, and explosions. It's getting a composer to write a soundtrack and a full symphony orchestra to perform it. OSS games tend to look and sound like ass because it's precisely the aesthetic appeal of the game that often gets dismissed as mere fluff -- forgetting that in the big picture, games themselves are mere fluff.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
This is the first time i've ever bitched about someone who posted a story (other than Katz), and usually i find the everything2 links useful, but when did the slashdot crowd get un-nerdy enough that we needed to put an explanitory link with the term "RTS". I mean, i'm not saying slashdot is news for the technical god, but its not the same audience as, say, the logon ads on AOL. Give the readers some credit.
~Z
sig?
More pop-ups, ads and broken scripts than anyone needs. They harvest your email addy and sell it to spammers, too. That is, if the servers aren't dead slow.
> you look at it from their viewpoint, you will see that the best they can do is to not lose money from the proposition
I'd think the best they could hope for would be to raise publicity for themselfs and clear the path for a very succesfull sequal. if they don;t see this them they are plain thick.
> Giving old products away to the general public has certain specific and often harmful tax consequences
Yes but giving the source away is not giving the product away is it? Is quake 2 now free? Is quake now free? is doom now free? evn is wolfenstien 3d now free? the answer to all is a resounding no. the code itself does not make a complete game.
> code reuse
let's face it there is a. probably better code already out there, have you seen some of the freely available code?. and b. irrespective the games industry is probably the worst violator of the gpl out there, i know i worked there for a time.
thus giving your code away gives your competitors nothing they don't already have available 99% of the time.
+----------------- | What is the question!
I checked my box of Total Annihilation. Copyright 1997. That means 4-5 years old. About the age of Quake2 actually (and the Quake2 source *is* released). Releasing the source of a RTS game could result in many different clones. TA is an excellent game for this because it uses 3D models as units instead of pixelled graphics. This will probably make it easier to create new units or themes.
I mean if you can not see "gpl" or "bsd" when people say "public domain" what is the world coming to?
and the only reason that any licence is needed for some software is that the judicial process is mostly thick when it comes to computer stuff.
I mean if forinstance i wrote some code and put it out with a note to the effect:
THIS SOFTWARE IS GUARANTEED TO BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING AND IS JUST THE BEST AND NOTHING COULD BE BETTER AND IT WILL EVEN IRON YOUR SHIRT.
Do you really think it would stand for anything.
When people can sue you for giving them stuff there is something wrong with the world.
+----------------- | What is the question!
there are already hundreds of units
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
I was there when ID release Doom and Quake under the GPL license.
Guys, it was a great Idea. Nowadays, we have Doom and Quake running on a variety of platforms, to not mention OpenGL, DirectX, shadows and light effects. ID users have a pretty decent updated versions for their licensed copies, and a lot of people still can play the shareware versions in a up to date hardware.
Please note that only the engine source code is GPL. The images, soundtrack, maps, etc are still copyrighted. ID loses no money with this : you still have to buy a Quake copy if you wanna play the Quake game.
However, people like the Team Fortress Team was able to extend the game, and people like QuakeForge Team can improve the game, and ID doesn't spend a cent. Everybody wins. No one loses.
Let's do the same with TA.
Just because you sign the petition dosent mean you will download the source and modify it. It may mean that you would like to see development of classic games continue once their companies have dissappear...
TA was a groundbreaking game for AI. I, personally, would like to look at how it's AI code works, although I am nowhere near good enough a programmer to actually make a game based on this source.
Basically, just because you sign the petition, dosent mean you have to be a game programmer.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I know, but letting other people create new units, maybe a new enemy or whatever isn't a bad idea.
Unreal Tournament is still turning a profit. I've seen it for $35 in stores this month. I just bought six copies of TA:CC for $7 a piece, which I imagine was about the manufacturing cost for the box set. And the company that owns TA is no longer in business. I guess you could compare this to the "Free BeOS" petition. The company that owns it isn't around anymore, it's a really great product, and if you wanted to purchase it, it would be difficult. So we ask the owner to give it to us.
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I dunno why anybody would release code that even a very small market wants, for FREE, in this economy.
I don't know why anybody would hang onto code that they don't intend to do anything with - oh wait, I do - to stifle competition.
Cavedog (the makers of TA) was dead before Infogrames aquired it's parent company, GT Interactive (and it's sister company, Humongous Entertainment). Infogrames only owns TA as an in-the-vault piece of intellectual property, yet they are extremely anal and possesive about their intellectual property. They scammed the founders of Humongous Entertainment out of all of theirs during the buyout, although they have repeatedly stymied several efforts within the studio to develop those properties.
If the code belongs to a small group of individuals, offer to pay them or exchange services (like web design or web hosting?) to the people who own it.
Do you have any idea who Infogrames is? They are not a "small group of individuals". They are often described as the world's largest intertactive entertainment company. They own the rights (for game development) to Warner Brothers characters for cripes sake.
There is little tolerance for email petitions and other such forms of protest in this day and age.
I also think this petition is doomed to failure (unfortunately). But not because of general low tolerance or because of the current enconomy. Rather, because Infogrames is a global corporation and because they act like one. We are not worthy even of their notice.
- A former Humongous Entertaiment employee.
TA was one of the first games I tried on WINE way back when, and it still remains one of the best running games under it. The only thing that really seems to be missing is being able to play over the net. That said, one of the things currently being voted on for Transgaming to add to WineX is netplay support for TA, so hopefully even this problem will be soon fixed.
I game, therefore I am...
People *have* been doing that since the game's file formats were cracked about (about 3 months after it was released/0. They've made new units, new AI, and even a couple of new races. There was an open source version of the engine written in OpenGL (iirc). Don't know what happened to it, but if you poke around the TA Universe website you should be able to find something. And this isn't the first time this has been tried. A group got together a few years ago to try to buy the source from Infogames. they didn't get very far.
I'm sure if you found some employee who made sure to grab all the source before he left Cavedog to work for another games company in the Seattle/Bellevue area, he could probably be bribed to hand off the source he had in some way that would not trace back to him, thus avoiding personal legal hassles, while simultaneously benefitting all the people who really want to see the endless lines of well commented C++ covering everything from AI, to Network Play, to Graphics Rendering.
;)
So, seeing as I'm a musician, I'd really like a T.C. Electronix Fireworx effects module, another Delta 1010 digital audio IO board, and a dbx 376 tube mic preamp. You get those to my mailbox, and then we'll talk.
Are you crazy? I've seen a box with Unreal 1 and Unreal Tourny for $20!
it was sitting right next to the box of Quake 1-3 for $30...
from the sourceforge project description:
"The OpenGL TA project is aimed at taking the greatest RTS game of all time, Total Annihilation and converting it into true 3D and open source. It uses all of TA's media, but is a truely 3D engine, complete with movable cameras!"
Of course, it isn't based off the original TA source code, but I remember seeing some screenshots of it a while back which looked -very- sweet. While the project seems to have been inactive for quite some time, the source code is available for download, and could undoubtedly be improved upon.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openglta/
TA was/is a very cool game, but I believe it was pretty heavy on DirectX for graphics. I think it'd require a pretty large rewrite effort to port it to openGL so it could run on other OS'es. Anybody know if it had it's own 3d graphics engine or if it used DirectX routines exclusively?
Anyhow, Earth2150 is very similar and has much better graphics. Someone ought to use that as a model for an open source RTS game.
I have a copy (which I need to boot into OX9 to run). When CaveDog was releasing updates to TA, MacSoft was pretty quick about keeping up with them, so I don't think there would be that much of a problem porting to Linux of OSX. After playing with Starcraft and Command and Conquer for a while, I'm amazed at how much deeper the whole TA gaming experience is. TA is a much better candidate for porting because of all of the plug-ins and add-ons that have been developed. Bloodthirsty AI still gives me the willies.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
It seems like no one is citing id Software's release of the source code for Quake I and II. I agree that making TA public domain is a bad idea, but putting just the source code under GPL is not. Infograms can still sell more copies of the game just like id does since the art work is not.
Just my two cents.
-Eric
I have never heard of someone being successfully sued for a piece of public domain software being poor quality, without an explicit warranty, and I've looked pretty hard.
Can anyone provide a single example?
This is brought up over and over again as a reason not to release code into the public domain, but I've never seen any evidence that a disclaimer sent along with the initial release of public domain software is any less valid than one included in a licence such as the GPL. I believe it's a bit of licence folklore.
First thing: it is widely accepted that you don't need to agree to the GPL to use GPL software, only to distribute it. You don't even have to read it. That means you don't have to see or agree to any disclaimer of warranty.
Similarly, the end users of BSD or X type licenses don't have to see or agree to the terms. Under copyright law, having legally obtained a copy of software, by default you have the right to run it and back it up. Shrink wrap and click-through licenses are both somewhat legally shaky, but still a lot stronger than something you don't even see unless you look for it.
Furthermore, a case could be made that a copyright holder is more likely to be held responsible for defects in his work than a contributor to the public domain. Blanket disclaimers of warranty, especially tucked quietly away in a corner of a contract (especially one presented as "standard" or a mere formality, and not offering the opportunity to negociate), and in strong contrast to public claims, fall somewhere between weak and completely invalid.
Hell, the GPL still hasn't ever been tested in court. There are reasons to believe that releasing software under the GPL is putting it in the public domain, and it is just one test case away from being treated as such.
Picking a licence causes problems, too. The most important one is licence incompatibility: choose one, and you prevent the code from being used in projects using an incompatible licence, while public domain code can be included in projects using any licence I've heard of.
If the problem of liability is not a real one, then public domain is the simplest, easiest to understand, most reliable way to give people the full free use of your code.
Although I can't go into details (still under NDA after 6 years technically), we got bitten by this at a large software house not so long ago. Basically, some of our examples in the documentation were marked as "public domain" software and a third party began to redistribute the examples in binary form with added graphical interfaces. It turned out of the developers of this GUI had written his code on another company's time, and that company decided to sue us. Since there was no limitation of liability in our distributed source code, our lawyers had a harder time justifying our position.
You left out the most crucial part: What was their complaint? It doesn't sound like it had anything to do with merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, or any sort of implied warranty.
It sounds to me a lot more like an accusation of your company being involved in the unauthorized use of this worker's paid time.
NDA or not, if you're not willing to specify enough details to show whether and how your example is relevant, you shouldn't have brought it up. I think you're using your NDA as an excuse to make vague references to a case that doesn't apply.
DarkYouth here, I run PlanetAnnihilation.com Its the first slashdot post for me, so be gentle :)
First of all thankyou to the Slashdot news team for posting about the petition! We've also given you a mention on the PlanetAnnihilation news page.
Secondly, The reason the TA community wish to gain the code is to remove limits and restrictions within the engine that hinder the progress and development of third party units and maps and utilities.
Currently there are well over 2000 addon units for the game to play with, another six or seven complete addon races of around 80 units each, more than 3000 downloadable maps, twenty or so new tilesets, four converted TA:Kingdoms tilesets etc etc.
However, the engine only allows 512 units to be installed at once, counting the default ones, only 256 unique weapons (most addon units come with new weapons) and a maximum of 500 units per side in the game. All of these can be changed with "hacks" that cause problems and errors in the multiplayer gaming side of things.
Also, tools are available that allow players to show up to 14 units to build per page (instead of the usual six), but these do not work in multiplayer due to engine "features". The AI needs fixing etc to be more fun in skirmish and so on and so on.
The list is practically endless. Total Annihilation has yet to be surpassed in terms of tactical diversity or longevity within the strategy genre, and those close to it intend to do their best to ensure a future. TAForever's efforts will not just benifit TA engine developers, but also the team of TA: Flashback, the fan based ground working to create a modern TA sequel ( HTTP://www.planetannihilation.com/studios ) and even the TA Movie project. The creators of the TA Multiplayer Demo recorder would be well suited to the TA source code too, having created some awesome stuff without it, who knows what can be done WITH the code.
Its all down to public support, and promotion from sites like slashdot is a good thing for sure!
TA, unlike red alert, actually had competant AI. It actually took some effort to defeat, and it was in fact competant enough to use combined arms forces (i.e. ships, etc.) rather than just throw tanks at you.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
IMHO, 'Emperor: Battle for Dune' is the better RTS game i've ever played. Check it out :)
There are already two good GPL RTS engines http://FreeCraft.Org/ and http://freecnc.sf.net/ but they both need GPL media.
RTS engine is written quick. The petition should be freeing the media.
Am I the only person who first thought "Tessier/Ashpool" ?
Yes, we TA'ers still have a very alive and kicking community, and we have so much talent within it. Releasing the source code would yield benefits to every RTS gamer, as we see what the likes of names you've never heard of can do. If this happens, you'll know how people like Gecko, Dawn_Falcon, Influenza, Blackthorn, C_A_P, and Estrella are.
Just a thought, and a nod to our talent.
I checked my box of Total Annihilation. Copyright 1997. That means 4-5 years old
Five is less than ninety-five. A company that Infogrames bought created the code; therefore, <sarcasm>Infogrames deserves the right to it for ninety-five years, and the public benefits immensely from receiving the source code at the end of this copyright term</sarcasm>. If you disagree, do something about it: vote those eresponsible out of office.
Assuming that you're a United States citizen who voted in the 1996 elections, the representative and senators that you elected voted for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It was a voice vote, and nobody objected enough to demand even a mere head count. Next time, vote for leaders that won't take away Americans' right to a rich public domain. In the meantime, fax your representatives in whatever national government you happen to be under. To paraphrase U.S. President Bush, if you're not for copyright reform, you're against it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
it is, the community, with very little help from cavedog (the now-defunct developers of TA). We can make the game itself do back flips without the soruce, we can add units that lose parts, over heat, transform, can be upgraded (GKX), we can make entire new races, we can even use proper 3d terran software to make maps (bryce and terragen), we can do more than Chris Taylor (creator of total annihilation) ever dreamed.
but the engine is old, and it is starting to lose it's appeal even to the guys who have been playing since it was released (4 years ago), it's running out of supply at stores, it's hard to find, and most people don't remember it, very little new blood flowing into the community (which is about 1000 people). anyways, i've never seen a commerical RTS released under an open-source liscense, I think it'd be very interesting to see the results.
Rat Hotdogs Sold
Dogs' Old Throats
God's Last Hotrod
Gold Toad Shorts
Odd Gator Sloths
Doth Drag Tools
Old Hogs Do Start
Dogs To Hold Rats
Add To Short Logs
and so on
Hello. I'm Gamefreak from www.tauniverse.com After looking through here I've noticed that many people wonder why we want this source code? After all, who still plays TA? Who still plays TA? Thousands of people. After over 4 long years we still remain one of the largest RTS communities. There are tons of large TA supersites such as TA Universe ( www.tauniverse.com ), Planet Annihilation ( www.planetannihilation.com ), Annihilated ( www.annihilated.com ), TA Designers ( www.tadesigners.com ), Ultimate-Strategy ( www.ultimate-strategy.com ), TAMEC ( www.tamec.net ), and many more. Along with these sites are tons of hosted sites. TAU and PA alone host at least 60 sites, and there are many other TA sites independent from those mentioned above. You don't think anything's happening in the community though do you? Check the news at TA Universe or PA! We still have more news every day than brand new popular games that just came out! We want this source code because we have accomplished more than probably any other RTS community. After making over 1000 new fully 3D scripted units, over 5000 maps (at least), probably over 10 full races (who else can make races?), tons of third party programs and mods and so on, we are getting bored and want to alter the game engine itself. Our community has gone so far that we are making a full length TA movie at Annihilation Studios, a first person shooter in the TA world (called TA: Close Quarters), and the third party sequel to TA, TA: Flashback. TA:F will be fully 3D and so on, and it is also being made by Annihilation Studios. Just recently Infogrames opened up a TA forum for us (who knows why?), apparently after finally noticing we survived and thrived even after they closed down Cavedog and left us to die. (whoever claims he is a former infogrames worker is wrong, I've had TA since october 1997 and I know for a fact that cavedog was NOT dead when infogrames acquired GT). Anyway...anyone who still plays TA is encouraged to come to the above sites and post on all our forums, esp. TA Universe, the biggest one (still bigger than most RTS fan forums, believe it or not. Several hundred thousand posts and several thousand users..).
In the current economic climate, businesses NEED to think long term. Up until uncles posts, I was un-aware of such financial damage that releasing an open source product on the market could mean to a business.
Of course, getting this product to work in Linux would be a harder task, thinking back I only thought that it supported directX.
-- Yes.. i do know of the winex argument.
> Really? What if I were to give you a virus or trojan? Wouldn't you want legal recourse?
Only if you had voiolated my right to refuse said item. in which case you wouldn't have given me it now would you?
+----------------- | What is the question!
Does anyone know the updated story to Cavedog and Taylor (the gamespot article is probably 3 years old at least).
I remember that they released TA Kingdoms and so forth, but what's happened to all the people? Where do they work now?
I would like to study the code for a real RTS like StarCraft or TA.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
I know I'm in the minority, but in most things aesthetics are of little importance to me. I like eye candy for its technical merit, but the artistry is not that interesting to me. I listen to heavy metal for the technical elements (difficult to play pieces, clever use of effects), not because they sound good. I don't care what colors my clothes, car, apartment, food, or friends are. I'll admit there are some realms in which artistic merit does matter to me, but there are a lot of times when the fluff really doesn't matter.
One of my favorite things about software libris(sp?) is that I can customize my environments for technical superiority, at the expense of aesthetics if need be. It's my choice.
I extend my thanks to all the developers who generously give their time and energy to me in the form of crappy-looking, but technically awesome software.
-F
I've been a fan of TA for 3 years now. Starcraft is nothing in comparison IMO. (that said, both work in wine. Yay!)
I've wanted for a while to put together a large scale RTS engine, flexible enough to allow modular configs to allow playing such games as Starcraft and Total Annihilation from the origonal files, and other games as well.
Of course, that's all highly complicated and a Lot Of Work. And I have a real job to attend to....
remote access CLI with tools is the only friend you'll ever need.
I remember reading in Game Developer Mag. that Bink Video was used heavily in TA. Often when you use a liscened library like Bink, you have all sorts of fun little non-disclosure agreements to deal with.
Just out of interest, Has anything useful come from the release of Quake1 and Quake2 source code?
:) )
I mean, it's all well and good to get it released, but I remember all the promise of great new 3d games with the release of the quake code. I haven't seen any. (Or has this got something to do with Duke Nukem Forever
I have used it as one of the standards for judging RTS games. Starcraft is pretty good, and the story there rocked, but I missed being able to select all units of a given type without a limit except for how many were on the map.
Homeworld is a great game as well. A little different, and the gameplay runs a little slower than TA or Starcraft, but fun.
I loved being involved in late night sessions of TA on the Boneyards. I was really getting good when they got rid of it though. I should really reinstall it, but classes just started back up for me, so maybe that won't be the best idea in the world.
Aw heck, I'm game.
As for what to do with the code...Public domain? No, it makes no sense for them to do that. Open Source? Yeah, that would rock!
I used to play this game on a Win95 system with 32MB of RAM. Now I have 640MB of RAM and 64MB of video memory. I think the unit limit can be raised just a bit now, for starters, and a better AI can be developed, especially for units that are shooting and turning. Too many times my tanks would turn without keeping their turrets on their targets, so by the time the turrets finally move back, they are turning again.
What else? How about SUPER LARGE maps? Or more possible simultaneous units? B-)
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
I bought Total Annihilation back in late 1997 and have been hosting lanparties since then with TA as one of the featured games. We have a small, dedicated group of about eight TA players.
I enjoy RTS games and have played most of them. Nothing I've seen comes close to the scale and grandeur of TA. In my opinion TA is simply the best. What other game can you have battles with hundreds of units at a time?
The source code should be released so that badly needed features can be added, lingering bugs can be fixed, and maybe the game can be optimized to run better. Anyone who has seen Switek's TA Bug Fix can get a good idea of how buggy the game was when it shipped.
A group called the Swedish Yankspankers wrote a program/modification for TA called TA Demo Recorder. It adds external functionality to the game which dramatically enhances its enjoyment.
With TA Demo Recorder you can:
1. Queue up units in increments of 100 instead of the default 5.
2. Execute multiple chat commands with a single keystroke. For example, execute +shootall, +noshake, +shareradar, +setshareenergy 10000, +setsharemetal 10000 with a single keystroke.
3. Share Line-of-Sight with allies (although covered by Fog of War). You can see what your allies see.
4. Instantly place your commander anywhere on the map at the beginning of a multi-player game. Great for allies who want to build close together without having to walk the Commander all the way across the map.
5. Draw lines of Dragon's Teeth or other structures with visible on-the-fly footprint resizing.
6. View resource production and storage of your allies (a floating bar graph which can be placed anywhere on the screen).
7. Place battlefield markers and attach a short text message. Good for coordinating attacks. Placing markers initiates a beep and spinning pointer to alert allies of the placement and location of the marker.
8. Using a "whiteboard" key players can actually draw on the battlefield using the mouse pointer as a pen.
TA Demo Recorder is the coolest thing I've ever seen for TA. The Swedish Yankspankers deserve high praise for their accomplishment. If you don't have TADR then visit their website and get it. Keep in mind that none of these features came with the game. They accomplished this on their own.
Other various hacks available include:
1. Increasing the unit max per player to 5000 from 500.
2. Multi-directional factories (helpful for players along the sides and bottom of the maps).
Various other features badly needed:
1. The ability to change game resolution from within the game itself rather than only from the menu.
2. Increase in the number of buttons per page in the build menus. Saves having to click through pages of buttons to find the unit you want to build. Also, the game has an internal limit of 8 pages I believe.
3. True Line-of-Sight sharing among allies.
4. Multiple chat macros so players can use a single keystroke to turn on/off resource sharing.
5. Ability to rotate factories in any direction prior to placement and construction so the exit faces whichever direction the player chooses. Since factories all face south it's kind of cumbersome for players along the bottom of the map in multi-player games.
6. Ability to assign units to groups with keys other than the 1 through 9 keys.
Understand that this is just a small fraction of what can and has been done. I'm sure there are many more things unknown to me.
Just some interesting factoids for the curious:
I presently have an Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53Ghz), 512mb DDR. My last PC was a Pentium 1Ghz with 384mb PC133. I play TA in 1280x1024 resolution and never experience slowdown even in huge battles. My old P3-1Ghz could run it in 1024x768 res but no higher without significant slowdown. At my TA lanparties we use the TA Demo Recorder features. I set the max unit limit per player to 1000 which is usually sufficient. We play TA once or twice a month with 4 to 8 people. When I bought TA in 1997 I owned a Pentium 166. Back then played in 640x480 resolution and the unit max per player was 200.
Chris Taylor now runs Gas Powered Games and his latest project is Dungeon Siege.
ICQ 1067292
AIM Razzbuten
ANYTIME ANYPLACE YOU PICK THE MAP!!! I will even let you pick which side I am...
I was WELL KNOWN on the Boneyards...me and a friend only lost 2 or 3 times in our reign of terror on a 2 v 2.
I still play it and fondly think back to the days when TA was still new and all the fun that could be had. It was a FLASH RUSH not a ZERG RUSH. The good players could recover from any start and whip you. The bad players just learned from their mistakes.
For you people complaining about the AI, try BLOODTHIRSTY AI. Wow what a rush. Several other AI's were released, bloodthirsty was the toughest (it cheats).
For fun Try Core Prime Industrial Map with 9 AI. Standard AI will take you awhile to beat. Try a smarter AI that nukes and you will have trouble...Add a KROGGY or 2 and WOW its HOURS of entertainment.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.