OpenFrag - An Open Source FPS

OpenFrag was founded in May 2003 and aims to create an open source first person shooter with commercial grade quality. All participants are volunteers and use some of their spare time to help in the development process. The project was recently featured last month at the Finnish game exhibition XPlay 2006. Some of the project's textures have also been featured in the news at BlenderNation, it looks as if there is a promising future for these developers.

Comments

Ugly

[Ramble]

As with all open source software, it's pretty damn ugly.

Re:Ugly

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's ugly. It just started. Polish comes after functionality is in.

Re:Ugly

[thelost]

as with all open software, you have the chance to change this :) put on your artist hat and get your brushes in gear. If you are not of an artistic bent, then perhaps you could make some suggestions and constructive criticism of the project.

Re:Ugly

[JoeLinux]

Ok, here's the criticism: It's ugly.

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!

Re:Ugly

[Anonymous Coward]

As with all open source software, it's pretty damn ugly.

Thank you for volunteering. We can always use more artists.

Re:Ugly

[Oriumpor]

Artists can't eat good video games. Maybe a donation center just for open source art (models, skins etc) needs to be established with a system for comissioning artists renderings.

Re:Ugly

[andrewman327]

"Of course it's ugly. It just started. Polish comes after functionality is in."

For once I actually agree with an AC! I much prefer a functional V1.0 game that has to grow a little in the graphics department to a gorgeous game with one level.

Re:Ugly

[jrockway]

Programmers can't eat code, either, but somehow we have things like perl, MySQL, Mozilla, fetchmail, GNOME, Linux, GNU, etc. etc.

Re:Ugly

[WilliamSChips]

That's not constructive criticism, you dolt.

Re:Ugly

[gEvil (beta)]

Programmers can't eat code, either

Then please explain why they call it spaghetti code, Mr. Smartguy.

Re:Ugly

[Ant P.]

There are a few exceptions.

Re:Ugly

[usrusr]

which provokes the question: "why is this in any way newsworthy at this point in time?"

starting a project and having dreams may be some kind of accomplishement in itself, but it's by so many magnitudes smaller than sticking to a project long (and skillfully) enough to achive something like nexius (which i still found very lacking last time i checked, mostly because of squishy controls) that it hardly matters any more than stories about overbalancing sacks of raw food in foreign countries. the only thing that could make a project in this state any newsworthy would be if the core team would include some developers who are already known for one or two successful projects, but i did not see that anywhere.

and don't even think of "but only a news story will get them more developers", because no open source project will ever achieve anything if the original core developers are not ready to go all the way alone if neccessary.

Re:Ugly

[Oriumpor]

But most artists I know have to leave their parent's basement occasionally or they get geekitis and loose their artistic ability in exchange for a pocket protector, or a lvl 60 paladin.

Re:Ugly

[xtracto]

That's not constructive criticism, you dolt.

Ok, ok I see.
mmm what about:

It lacks beautifulness :)

Thanks, Ill be here too.

Re:Ugly

[__aaclcg7560]

No wonder! It's been slashdotted! :P

Re:Ugly

[damiangerous]

You really should design for internationalization from the the start, and not try to hack it on later.

Re:Ugly

[Bastian]

Oh boo hoo. Would "It should be less ugly" be better?

Re:Ugly

[d3ac0n]

Behold! Someone who has NO IDEA what "Constructive Criticism" actually means!

Alternately, this could be someone who is attempting to make a joke, and simply failing miserably. :)

Re:Ugly

[WilliamSChips]

Tell me where it should be less ugly.

Re:Ugly

[drsquare]

Tell me where it should be less ugly.

The graphics.

Re:Ugly

[PHPfanboy]

Polish comes after functionality is in.

I'd have thought that an English version first would enable more developers to participate... ... I thank yooooow

Re:Ugly

[Tim Browse]

Compare and contrast:

It just started. Polish comes after functionality is in.

with:

OpenFrag was founded in May 2003

...unless they spent 3 years just talking about it. Hey, this is an open source project, right..? Hm...

Re:Ugly

[n3v]

Luckily I was born Polish!

Re:Ugly

[russ1337]

Thanks, Ill be here too.

all week? man, i'm glad its Thursday.

Re:Ugly

[Petrushka]

Re:Ugly (Score:5, Funny)

Alternately, this could be someone who is attempting to make a joke, and simply failing miserably. :)

Hmm, you're right: there certainly is a sense-of-humour failure going on here ... somewhere ...

Re:Ugly

[sabit666]

There are a few exceptions [alientrap.org].

MY EYES!!!

Re:Ugly

[WWWWolf]

OpenFrag doesn't seem to be from the ugliest end (though it definitely isn't from the prettiest end, either, far from it).

If you want to see hilariously, sacrilegiously ugly stuff, check out the old FreeCraft Media Project (I don't know if it still works in Stratagus though). I really need to thank those people - I'm a big fan of Warcraft II, yet found the whole thing pretty amusing in so-bad-it's-so-good way, also because this thing is a perfect slap on the face of Vivendi and Blizzard for the whole bnetd deal =)

But there have been some very pretty and nice-sounding open source games... Battle for Wesnoth springs in mind.

Too bad there's that many competent graphicians working on these things. I mean, I suspect this is the flaw of the open source crowd: They can work on the code, create really cool 3D engines for example, but can't really do the artwork to go with it.

I could help with the game projects - too bad everyone values a good programmer but can't find a good use for a designer or a writer, both things which I think I could do better than programming...

Re:Ugly

[KDR_11k]

You don't WANT me to do that. On the other hand, opensource celshaded anime FPS does sound nice...

Re:Ugly

[Maxo-Texas]

So it starts out ugly and then later they make the ability to speak Polish required to play it?

This is never going to fly.

Re:Ugly

[cliffski]

such things exist, you can put your art on turbosquid for free, or just on your blog. There are plenty of small indie gamers wanting cheap art (or free art).

there is no safe distance?

[plotz]

Does this bring http://parsec.org/ to mind for anyone else?

Re:there is no safe distance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this bring http://parsec.org/ to mind for anyone else?

In terms of a grand promise of "commercial quality" without commercial backing, this one was a complete failure as well.

Folks just need to come to terms with it, there is just no such thing as a "commercial quality open source" when it comes to the bigger titles...

I'll admit, you have things like frozen bubble every once in a while, but nothing on the huge scale of today's console games.

Right

[spykemail]

Ramble's right, that's the very reason I 3 Apple. They take the awesomeness that is open source and polish it up for me.

Re:Right

[drinkypoo]

Ramble's right, that's the very reason I 3 Apple

You know, if you use < instead of &lt; when you want to insert a less-than symbol someplace, then your <3 ends up looking more like you're teabagging than hearting Apple.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

And?

Re:Right

[WilliamSChips]

What the fuck does Apple have to do with this?

Re:Right

[spykemail]

Call me when slashdot is revolutionized by the feature every other site has had for over a decade - an edit button.

Re:Right

[linvir]

Insightful Comment by some-user (44522) on 06/06/06 18:10 (#134324) (Score: 5, Insightful)
This is a very Insightful comment which will soon be modded up. Isn't it great? Huzzah!

Later that day, the user returns and edits his +5 comment:

Insightful Comment by some-user (44522) on 06/06/06 18:10 (#134324) (Score: 5, Insightful)
About GNAA: GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS. Are you GAY? Are you a NIGGER? Are you a GAY NIGGER? If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions...[truncated]

This issue could be prevented by having moderation points taken back off a comment when it's edited. In this case, people would be discouraged from moderating as their work could be deleted at someone else's whim. Even if you returned their points to them after the fact, this would in turn create issues with newly issued points and metamoderation.

Long story short: you sound like you think that this idea hasn't ocurred to anyone before you. It has, and there are plenty of reasons that you can't edit comments on Slashdot.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this moderation concept you are referring to?

Re:Right

[spykemail]

Slashdot's comment system is flawed by design. I'm not saying an edit button should just be added, the whole thing needs to be scrapped. I know none of you are going to listen to me, but that's my opinion.

I honestly don't know what the rating system is for, that's one of the reasons I turned it off and don't even look at my comment's ratings. Unless you set your filter really high (more or less hiding all comments) it doesn't really do anything. In fact, it's kind of annoying not to be able to see all the comments immediately - especially because some of the worst ones can be entertaining.

I'd much rather see the ability for people to fix / improve their comments than the ability to filter them based on a very poor rating system. Everyone seems to make a big deal out of it, but I don't think it actually has any effect on the quality of comments. The point of a moderation system is to improve the quality of comments, if it doesn't do that what exactly is it for?

Call me crazy, but editing just seems like a more useful feature than a lame duck rating system that doesn't have a net effect on anything.

Re:Right

[Jugalator]

Long story short: you sound like you think that this idea hasn't ocurred to anyone before you. It has, and there are plenty of reasons [slashdot.org] that you can't edit comments on Slashdot.

On some other sites, this is solved by (rather short) editing time limits. Enough to correct spelling mistakes etc, but far from enough to have the time to get modded up.

Re:Right

[drinkypoo]

On some other sites, this is solved by (rather short) editing time limits. Enough to correct spelling mistakes etc, but far from enough to have the time to get modded up.

On this site, this is solved by having a preview button, and if you can't get it right with that, then fuck ya.

I get things wrong too, typically because I forget to use preview, so fuck me, too.

Er, not literally.

Re:Right

[linvir]

I honestly don't know what the rating system is for, that's one of the reasons I turned it off

I'm with you on that. Slashdot's definitely a better experience with score display turned off.

BUT, and as you can see, it's a very big 'but', the moderation system is most definitely doing its job. The Slashdot you see today, where it's possible to turn score display off, only exists in this form because of the moderation system, which has cleaned out tonnes and tonnes of bullshit over the years.

It may look like it's not doing anything (most would disagree even on this point), but I reckon that that's because it's reached a sort of terminal velocity.

Re:Right

[Professor_UNIX]

So simply remove the option to edit a comment once it has been moderated.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't use the preview button?

Fuck, your UID suggests you're brand new. You get embarassed and decide to slam the site instead. You're skin's too thin, lad, back to digg with you.

Michael Sims, Esq.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Editing posts is weak, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fucking FAGGOT!!!

The moderation system here is awesome, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a god damned NAZI!

This comment brought to you by trolls, and the number -1.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

"Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!"

Re:Right

[spykemail]

Lol, my post giving constructive criticism of the moderation system was modded down to 0, I couldn't have asked for better evidence.

The Actual Site

[Kwesadilo]

The project site is located at http://openfrag.org/, although I believe it is in the process of being slashdotted right now.

I wonder whether the first iteration of the game will be traditional or tactical? I assume that the designers want the engine to be good enough that it can be customized to do both. But what kind of game do they actually want to make? More like Quake or more like Counterstrike?

Re:The Actual Site

[Anonymous Coward]

The project site is located at http://openfrag.org/, although I believe it is in the process of being slashdotted right now.

*clicks*
...
*waits*
...
*waits a little longer*
...
I think I can confirm that for you ;)

Re:The Actual Site

[88NoSoup4U88]

Or... how about: Something -completely- different from the ones you mentioned.
The problem with these Open Source games is that they lack quality (as in, visual quality): When having to choose between CS (which can be bought for about 5 bucks nowadays) and this engine replicating the exact same gameplay: Most people wouldn't bother with this.

One of the few ways how such a project can be picked up imo, is if it's different than the rest of what's out there: And for projects like these there are no constraints from any publishers/outsiders: Only their own imagination.

Savage (an RTS/FPS hybrid),while not open source, is a perfect example of this.
If you haven't played Savage allready, be sure to give it some playtime, since they just released it as Freeware :D : For more info/download links go to this site.

Re:The Actual Site

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a CS clone you can't cheat in and I would start playing online games again.

I have only ever liked CS (no idea why) but Steam gave me the shits to the point where I stopped playing.

Not interested in Quake or Unreal.

CS up to versions 1.6 absolutely rocked. I played online at least 5 hours every week and enjoyed every second.

To replicate these ancient versions of CS would mean more to me than anything NEW!

Re:The Actual Site

[Kwesadilo]

I agree that they could go in really any direction with this, including making a game that is not entirely an FPS. Quake and CS are, IMO, classic examples of what I would consider to be the two main families of pure FPSs. I can't think of any other kinds now, but I'm sure they're out there. (Maybe WW2 gets its own division?) Anyway, I get what you mean about the potential for this to be different. That said, if its solid and fun, I wouldn't decline to play the completed product just because it sticks to tradition.

Thanks for the Savage links. I think I played that before at some point, but that was a demo. I don't recall being that enthralled with it, but I didn't really understand it either. I'll have to see how it goes. No reason to pass up free games.

New Gun: The Slashdoter

[Vandilizer]

Frag count

www.Slashdot.org: 1
www.openfrag.org: 0

Slashdot wins this round...OpenFrag is dead.

Re:New Gun: The Slashdoter

[Leffe]

Terrorists win ;)

Re:New Gun: The Slashdoter

[Anonymous Coward]

Post has been reported to the FIBI !

Re:New Gun: The Slashdoter

[Eberlin]

Ooooh, I like the idea -- let's expand it a little:

The SlashGun could be a bit like a BFG or redeemer for the UT fans. Maybe it could be a clone gun that shoots clones (dupes) of destructible objects. The CBN gun would have to be a six-shooter that does BB Gun damage.

The concept: You are CmdrTaco, leader of the slashdot editing squad. You must navigate your way from cyberspace, past the spellcheck, and out into the real world where you must clear your name from the list of 10 people that don't matter in tech. Along the way, you'll have to make choices that define your character's skill levels. Vi vs. Emacs, KDE vs. Gnome. You'll join up with the Firefox dev team in the browser battle, and later on you realize you've become part of a much bigger encounter -- the OS Wars.

For aiming assistance (cheating), you can download a SlashBot.

What, you'd rather be playing a FPS version of MS. Pacman?

Re:New Gun: The Slashdoter

[zerocool^]

Yeah, but they are blaming it on lag:

Ping times:

slashdot.org 76
openfrag.org 2000

Chainsaws are ugly too.

[Brothernone]

Ugly or not it'll probably be much more fun than some other major titles. Major software houses don't usually have a fucos on making a fun game, it's all about timelines and profit. I think people taking their own time to make something they want to play would at least be worth a look at.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[BadDoggie]

No, it won't be more fun than any decent game. While Open Source is great, there are serious problems with the anarchy of it. Most coders seem to only want to code the sexy stuff; very few are willing to bash their heads against the wall for hours tying to figure out some bug that turns out to be an incorrect variable in a recursive 80-element formula which determines a cube map texture coordinate. So the routine is killed, the graphics quality drops and progress toward completion is made. Even Tux Racer still glitches reproducibly.

woof.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[88NoSoup4U88]

Ugly or not it'll probably be much more fun than some other major titles.

Erm, actually no: Point me to an open source (FPS-)engine that -isn't- an exact copy of games that have allready been tried and done.
Most of these engines only have deathmatch, with a few gems of them sporting some alternatives gametypes.

It's not that I want to discourage people from downloading it: I think you're right that if you're able to download games like these (and you like them) you always should give them a try because of the few gems out there.
I just don't agree with your use of 'probably' in that sentence, as it's an often repeated meme, but it just isn't true.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[JFMulder]

I think people taking their own time to make something they want to play would at least be worth a look at.
3 words : Duke Nukem Forever.

Can't wait to see what a 10 year in the making game looks like.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[quincunx55555]

I can see your point, but I think in order for companies to make a profit, they do have to focus on the "fun factor" as well. My concern with this project is that it'll be like 90% of the FOSS volunteer projects out there. (Mind you, I am QA, so I'm not going to sugar coat this much) Which includes:

1. Lack of documentation (or lack of documentation that tells you what you need to know, or lack of documentation that is written for someone other than the volunteering developers)
2. Not providing what is marketed - In the evil-for-profit software world, the app may not do what you want, but rarely will they tell you that it will contain a feature that either completely does not exist, or exists but is completely broken. Well, unless it M$.
3. Being released while the dough is still gooey - Make a small mile-stone for completion, stablize the code, then release. Most FOSS that I've used out there feels like I'm using something made of bubble-gum and baling wire. Semi-completed, and barely functional... forget usability.

Since game development requires nearly every resource the computer has, and does so at a high load/stress level, I don't have much confidence for this project. I've seen many projects that were far more simple, acheive next to nothing (and being touted as the best available in the FOSS world). Frankly, I'm shocked that programmers associate their names with what they release in these cases. I hope this project does take off and make a great success, but the FOSS world is lacking QA in a big way. To me it's the biggest reason why we don't see more of it on everybody's computers.

So, I agree, it will probably be more fun (provided the people involved have any amount of creativity), but that's only if they're able to complete it, stablize it, and make enough useful documentation for the rest of the world that wants to use it.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[YodaToad]

It'll look a lot like Daikatana.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[JFMulder]

I dunno. I played the Prey demo the other day and it seemed like a pretty decent shooter. The gravity platforms were pretty cool and were a refreshing kind of puzzle.

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[Eideewt]

http://warsow.net/

Re:Chainsaws are ugly too.

[KDR_11k]

Almost all opensource games are pretty much verbatim clones with some features added. Probably because "We're copying Starcraft!" attracts more developers than "We've got this completely new idea!"

XGL

[MarkByers]

As with all open source software, it's pretty damn ugly.

It seems that you have never heard of XGL.

Now you have. :)

Re:XGL

[Caspian]

That's ALSO pretty damned ugly.

Re:XGL

[MarkByers]

I can see you haven't actaully tried it. You can't judge the beauty of XGL from looking at static screenshots (if you do that, you only see the applications running, you are not looking at XGL). It's the stunning effects and animations that make your desktop interesting and also more intuitive.

Re:XGL

[Valdrax]

As with all open source software, it's pretty damn ugly.

It seems that you have never heard of XGL.

Not helping.

Re:XGL

[MarkByers]

Watch a video of it here and you might get a better idea of what XGL is.

More videos here and here.

Re:XGL

[usrusr]

seen videos, was not impressed, at least in terms of beauty.

i guess it's just that some people correlate beauty and novelty more and some correlate those terms less. call it taste if everything else fails.

Re:XGL

[zootm]

Isn't that more of a demonstration of Compiz, more than XGL? XGL just running Metacity or whatever looks much the same, if a little rougher around the edges.

Re:XGL

[ratatask]

LOL.
More confusing(because of many minor irrelevant eycandy) and slower is what you mean.

Cube

[AndyG314]

Cube and it's sequal are two great open source fps games... http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/

Re:Cube

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering when someone would get around to mentioning Cube - and it ain't ugly, either! ;)

Re:Cube

[zerocool^]

There was also one called Legends: The Coming of a New Age, which was an open source rip of Tribes. It was getting pretty good, the demos were fun, and there was a decent community surrounding it, but then it evaporated.

I miss tribes.

Comming soon

[Tribbin]

The screenshot section sais: Comming soon.

http://images.google.nl/images?q=openfrag+screensh ot&btnG=Zoeken&svnum=10&hl=nl&lr=&client=firefox&r ls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial

Re:New Gun: The Slashdoter: A new Target

[Vandilizer]

For those who are willing to actually let there site respon.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openfrag/

You might also be interested in...

[MarkByers]

If you like the sound of this then you might also be interested in Cube.

Re:You might also be interested in...

[Affenkopf]

Since Cube is not further developed anymore you might want to check out it's successor Sauerbraten

Re:You might also be interested in...

[MarkByers]

Accoring to Sauerbraten's Sourceforge status page, it is still in a pre-alpha stage. In other words, you should expect that it probably won't work properly. I haven't tried it though. Maybe their status page is ust not up-to-date? On the other hand, Cube is mature.

For most software, not being developed further is a bad sign, but for games it is completely normal that when a game is stable and playable, it is released and then no longer developed further, apart from perhaps some bug fixes if the error affects a lot of players.

Even so, thanks for the link. I might check it out when it becomes a little more stable.

Re:You might also be interested in...

[jambarama]

As long as we are bringing this up - check out Tremulous. It is kind of like and RTS and FPS at the same time. It is tough to imagine (it was for me) until you experience it. Truly innovative gameplay really.

Alien Arena is similar to CUBE - good multiplayer, virtually no single player.

All three have source available and are available on Windows and Linux.

Re:You might also be interested in...

[BiggyP]

Tremulous is excellent and really rather addictive, i used to be a big fan of onslaught in UT2k4 but i tend to find Tremulous more interesting.

Not sure that i'd agree with the comparison of Alien Arena 2006 to CUBE, Alien arena is quite nice to look at and a fast paced deathmatcher based on Quake(2 or 3, i forget), for some reason there aren't any good screenshots of it on the homepage so http://www.ratiatum.com/img/logiciel/502/502.jpg will give you a better idea. CUBE is mildly entertaining but Sauerbraten with coopedit is more fun.

Nexuiz does a good job with a heavily modified version of the original Quake engine as its codebase, again surprisingly attractive for such an old fashioned engine http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/

Warsow is fast paced Deathmatch with a twist, and quite nicely done in a cellshaded style http://www.warsow.net/

Most of those are free software, if not they're at least linux compatible. http://www.happypenguin.org/ despite looking a little dated, is still a good place to find new games.

Re:You might also be interested in...

[Leffe]

You really have to keep software up to date, otherwise it'll just end up unreadable like http://advsys.net/ken/klab/labflsrc.zip (yes, you'll want to check the source).

This is especially important for a crossplatform application that will have to support the newest architectures that weren't even conceived when the application ceased development.

Of course, it's a pain in the ass, so why bother ;)

hm...

[joe 155]

I wonder how this will differ from nexuix which, as far as I am aware, is pretty much this...

Doesn't look too good imo.

[88NoSoup4U88]

I like their effort, but it doesn't come close to, for instance, the Quake III source (released under the GNU license).

Besides being graphically superior, Quake III also has the advantage of alot of tutorials/documents being available (mostly made by the community).

Allthough I have to give credit to Ogre (which this engine seems to be based on), which was one of the few engines which had some nice wiki's/community to help you through.

But hey, as said, I like their effort, and maybe within a few builds it will shape up.

-1 Redundant

[MrZaius]

http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/
http://www.cubeengine.com/
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake2.zip
http://www.itplaysdoom.com/

It's not like there aren't other FPSs and engines available. Am I nuts, or would someone with an interest in game design and F/OSS be better off creating derivative work from those engines?

Re:-1 Redundant

[C_Kode]

Thats like saying... Why doesn't Apple, FreeBSD, and Linux quit making operating systems. I mean we already have Windows.

I don't think your nuts, I just think you are looking at it from the wrong side. Derivative works improve said work. (Linux kernel 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6) Creating from scratch allows for core innovation. (FPS engines, Doom, Quake, Quake 3, etc)

Wheeee-hah!

[Eil]

Fragged their web server!

Open Source Tools?

[grumbel]

One of the things that made Elephant Dream, the recently released 3D short movie that was created (almost) with only Open Source Tools, so interesting was that it focused on doing it completly the 'Open Source'-way, free tools whereever possible and all source and data was released as well. This lead to quite some nice improvments in Blender, which was used for most of the work and a whole lot of data to look at and browse around to learn from. So the question is, how does OpenFrag compare to that? We already have quite a few free FPS floating around, so yet another one isn't all that interesting by itself, even with source. However, having access to a bunch of 3d animated models with free licensing and a whole lot of textures would definitvly be very interesting, especially when they could be manipulated with open source tools and not just Photoshop and Max. So is OpenFRAPs trying to stay completly with all its files "Open Source" or will it only be the engine that have an OpenSource license and data more or less locked up by only being available in engine specific or proprietary data formats?

Re:Open Source Tools?

[IFASS]

We do indeed try to stay completely opensource with our files, media will be released under CC-By

Dont you understand?

[Jasper__unique_dammi]

they dont call it spaghetti because its eatable as spagetti, they call it spaghetti code because only the flying spaghetti monster can understand it!

Sourceforge.net Address

[Jesterboy]

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=82471

I couldn't get it to work; maybe somebody else can. Seems a bit iffy about card detection; it kept thinking my nVidia Geforce 6600GT was an ATI Radeon 9600.

Also, I think somebody needs to have a little talk with them about what "open source" means. Unless Bush and Evanescence are really big fans of their work, I don't think they have permission to be including their songs along with their tech demos...

I wonder how to suggest text changes ...

[timothy]

I tried to sign up for the forums, after I didn't find an obvious email address for a webmaster, but (and this is before any Slashdotting took place) I got an error message instead. If I knew where to send it, I'd like to send a diff from their current home page text which would include at least a few spelling fixes, etc. Editing is fun :) -- but not when it's a bother ...

timothy

Re:I wonder how to suggest text changes ...

[ChatChewbacca]

Hey, you can email me the mistakes, I am the webmaster there, but I'm leaving for a holliday for five weeks, and I am totally rebuilding the website, new CMS etc.. But every input is welcome :)

Re:I wonder how to suggest text changes ...

[timothy]

Cool! Thanks much for the response -- it's hard to organize a site so that someone as unintuitive as me can find the right contact info ;) Is your best email the one in your Slashdot profile?

Cheers,

timothy

Re:I wonder how to suggest text changes ...

[ChatChewbacca]

The one in my slashdot is my personal, the one on openFrag is my business email :)

Quake II GPL Engine

[Kadin2048]

So ... if the Quake engine has been released under the GPL, why does this project exist?

Why not build on and improve Quake II's engine, instead of just reinventing the wheel (3d engine) all over again? Does the world really need another engine, when there's a perfectly good FPS one available that's both free and a lot more mature?

I don't get it.

If it's just a for-the-hell-of-it project, that's fine, but the summary makes it sound like it's somehow creating something new, as if an open source FPS doesn't already exist. It does.

Doomsday

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the Doomsday engine, and it apparently works with shareware WADs as well as the official Doom 1 & 2, Heretic and Hexen ones (but I just use Doom 1 and 2). It's homepage is doomsdayhq.com but other than it's forums it doesn't seem to be updated often. You may just want to go to the sourceforge page http://sourceforge.net/projects/deng. I can't wait for an Ubuntu Dapper repository to be set up, as it's Breezy packages don't work with Dapper, and when compiling the source myself I can't get any of the fancy extra models and graphics installed that the packages did for me in Breezy and Debian :-(

Re:Doomsday

[Lord Kano]

I can't wait for an Ubuntu Dapper repository to be set up, as it's Breezy packages don't work with Dapper, and when compiling the source myself I can't get any of the fancy extra models and graphics installed that the packages did for me in Breezy and Debian :-(

Then why not do both? Extract the packages to get the extra models and graphics and then compile the executables so that it'll run.

LK

Cheats

[subl33t]

It will be interesting to see if an open source development model can make a game 'cheat proof'.

What Open Source Gaming Needs!

[dbc001]

Priority #1 for Open Source Games: Make it easy to edit! I've tried to edit CrystalSpace, and it is a massive pain in the ass. If you make decent open source game engine that is easy to edit, the levels / adventures will show up eventually. Notice that there are quite a few different texture sets for Wargus/Freecraft - this is because all you have to do is edit the images! If you know of OSS games that are easy to edit, I'd love to hear about them.

Re:What Open Source Gaming Needs!

[Admiral Burrito]

Cube and Saurbraten ("Cube 2") are designed to be editable in-game. I've played with it a little bit and found it to be rather painful, but then so was my attempt at quake 3 editing (I'm clearly not cut out for that kind of thing). I'm not sure what's involved in editing textures for it though, the in-game stuff seems to be for map structure.

We already have an option for independents

[Ahnteis]

It's called modding. You take a loverly engine that someone else coded and add your own gameplay. (I'm talkin to you Doom3!)

What does an open source engine bring to the package?

Re:We already have an option for independents

[KDR_11k]

What does an open source engine bring to the package?

The ability to add or have added features in the engine that would greatly benefit your mod. The freedom to do with the engine what the hell you like without being bound by EULAs that may limit your choices.

I'm making a mod for TA Spring and I'm making heavy use of features that are in Spring but not Total Annihilation.

Have you checked it out?

[jgoemat]

You are asking "Why create a game engine from scratch when you have a perfectly good six year old, multiplayer only game engine available?" You might as well ask ID why they didn't use the Quake III engine for Doom 3.

Re:Have you checked it out?

[Zaplocked]

Maybe I was playing a different Quake II, but I'm pretty sure that it had both a single player campaign AND multiplayer in it. If for some reason you meant Quake III - it had several single player games built on its engine, ie Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

Re:Have you checked it out?

[Kadin2048]

A FPS engine that can do multiplayer play can almost certainly do single player play...I don't think there's such a thing as a "multiplayer only" engine. Actually, a single-player-only one ought to be a lot simpler (if the multiplayer version already has support for bots/AIs).

I just question whether rewriting an engine from scratch is a good idea, versus putting that effort towards improving an existing engine. If the Quake II engine is insufficent today, update/fix it. It's very hard to believe that writing a completely new one is easier than that, unless there is some vast architectural difference between the way they're designing the engine today and the way QII was designed, and I've seen no evidence of that so far.

Added to a growing list of FPS/FOSS

[MrCopilot]

Surviving the Slashdotting at: http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?gro up_id=82471 Mental note, Add to
Warsow. . . . .http://warsow.net/
Nexuiz. . . . .http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/
OpenArena . . .http://cheapy.deathmask.net/
Legends . . . .http://legendsthegame.net/
Tremulous . . .http://tremulous.net/

And the rest : http://www.icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php

Trailers / Demo

[IFASS]

Totally wrong moment for a slashdot... :P Demo is about to be released at the end of this summer. About the media, it's all licensed CC-BY so don't worry about only the source being open :) I feel sorry for our webserver... Currently i'm uploading 2 trailers to the sf.net project page.. they were on our webserver.. but well, that one is kinda dead.

That 404 is beautiful, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I'm loving this FPS! It's like 007, but change two of the numbers, play a little switcharoo, and bam! You've got yourself Goldeneye 404!

Getting into FOSS games

[Centurix]

And it's quite interesting, there's a few good looking ones which I've played a few times. But it's all come back to gameplay and I'm afraid that the gawky looking Block Attack has taken waaay too much of my time lately. Only after completing all of the stage levels could I stop playing it to any serious degree.

The graphics however, are obviously created by a programmer...

EZQuake..!

[sudog]

It's beautiful.. start with that as a base and go from there.

OpenThis, OpenThat...

[jones_supa]

Oh why must every another open source game project name begin with "Open".

Divine Grace

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's like in a spaghetti western, where everyone dies in the end, as in, "There but for the grace of flying spaghetti monster code I."

Secret Areas

[neonprimetime]

GTA was written by a large company under direct supervision, and look at the insane crap they hid in there, and the sex scenes. Spicy!

Can you imagine now, a game being written by the /. community? There would be so much hidden pr0n, hidden sex scenes, and only God knows what else. I shiver at the thought.

Re:Secret Areas

[G00F]

"Can you imagine now, a game being written by the /. community? There would be so much hidden pr0n, hidden sex scenes, and only God knows what else. I shiver at the thought."

Only that with it being open source, you can't call it hidden.

So...

[Onuma]

So they're making better progress than 3D Realms is on Duke Nukem Forever?