Jagged Alliance 2 Source Code Released

kovi writes "You might remember that game - it was ported to Linux a while ago (by Tribsoft) and is one of the 'overall top sellers' at Tux Games. Well, according to this press release from Strategy First, the newest mod for JA2, 'Wildfire,' will include full source code of the original retail release! It might not be the biggest news, and it might not even matter, but it is not very frequent in the gaming industry that source code gets released." No word on what's included with the source release, but the game's been out for a week now, so likely someone with a copy knows more. S! Apparently, the Bear's Pit Forums are discussing the code as we speak, including why shooting cows is bad.

Comments

Licencing Agreement?

[Anonymous Coward]

What sort of licence does the source code come with? I can't imagine them wanting other companies to steal their work, so what measures have they put in place to stop other people profiting from this?

Good News probably

[root 66]

JA2 was a gorgeous game. I would love to see the development of a multiplayer mode; that would definitely be a lot of fun.

Re:Good News probably

[Mechanik]

JA2 was a gorgeous game. I would love to see the development of a multiplayer mode; that would definitely be a lot of fun.

Definitely. Turn based multiplayer would even out the lag and twitchy reflex factors. Then the game would be about strategy and tactics, not pixel perfect aiming with your mouse, nor how many FPS you can get out of your video card, nor how low you can get your ping to the server.

And hell, while we're at it, you could definitely combat cheating with this too. Since combat is not realtime, you would not have to offload very much processing to the client. Shooting your enemies becomes a matter of sending a "I want to shoot at the guy on my left. Server, please calculate my to-hit roll and tell me if I hit him," request, rather then "Server, please fire bullet along vector (x,y,z) which has conveniently been generated by my aimbot."

Ahhh... a more cheat free game... tell me that's not attractive.


Mechanik

So what's needed?

[JohnFluxx]

What do you need to get the game up and running?
Can people distribute this code?
Will I need to buy the original to get the data files (artwork + level maps)?

Re:Yay Turn-Based Strategy Games!

[metalmario]

yes, some people spend $20+ on food a day, but i spend around $8. should i buy the game, because those people, who have lots of money? ;)

JA2 was pretty ok, nothing spectacular. imho laser squad was superior. i recently bought silent storm, which is also much better than JA2, and also cost me around 20e. should i buy a so-so JA2 while i can have silent storm? buying old and average games for what? supporting linux and games? uh... they'll have to do better than that to get my interest.

OH MY GOD!

[0x0d0a]

This is *fucking* amazing.

JA2 is a phenomenal game. It's absolutely *fantastic*.

JA2 is also one of the few games that has had a Linux port.

If you'll look here, you'll notice a snapshot into the kind of problems that Linux people have had trying to keep the ported binary running on modern systems. Linux binary compatibility cross-distro and over time is not exceptional, and this source release means that Linux folks can continue to patch and play JA2 without problems well into the future.

I'd like to give Strategy First a big thumbs up for this -- if I hadn't already purchased JA2, I'd do so again.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, the source release does not include the Tribsoft source for the Linux port, which means that this stuff may need to be ported again to run on Linux (but when it does, it means that Linux gamers can play the Wildfire release as well). I hope this doesn't mean that Tribsoft makes even less money from their port -- as Linux gamers already didn't give them very many sales.