New Open Source FPS Blood Frontier Shows Promise

Softhaus writes "The guys at Blood Frontier have been busy for the last two years working on a new FPS called (surprise) Blood Frontier . This game is an enhanced Cube 2 engine with original artwork and new gameplay (including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood — a nice option for a change). Add the new paintball mode and you have a real 'game community' here. The code is all there (complete for you to play with), the team listens to feedback from the community, and the game is great! It's nice to see these talented guys showing a true free software attitude. They've mentioned that the first actual release is scheduled for next Friday. Does anyone know of other great open source games that are truly 'open?'"

Comments

Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[MRe_nl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games
That was easy...

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[gambino21]

I see the list has a screenshot for Battle for Wesnoth. I started playing it a couple months ago when it was mentioned here on Slashdot, and it's really fun. It's a turn based strategy which is maybe not as intense as a RTS or FPS. But it's perfect for me because I have young kids and frequently get interrupted, so I need a game that I walk away from without messing up the game.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[ShieldW0lf]

Check out the High Seas add on. It's like Sid Meyer's Pirates! meets Wesnoth.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabetical_list_of_GREAT_open_source_games
Hmmm, maybe not as easy as you think...

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is a link to last measure.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[bky1701]

TOME is a very good game as well, if you can handle totally keyboard interfaces. It is similar to nethack, but has more of the things you'd expect from a typical modern RPG. It has a (very dated) graphics mode or text. Only problem is probably the difficulty, you'll die a lot first starting out. Enable the cheat death option until you get the hang of it; it'll make the game much more fun.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Anonymous Cowpat]

I like Wesnoth, but whenever I start to get into it and feel "hey, this is a really well put together, prefessional-quality game" something monumentally stupid happens, and all the warm fuzzy feeling that I had towards it fades away into thinking "another open-source project that hasn't quite made it".

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Spice Consumer]

I'm a huge fan of Turn-based strategy and I've never heard of this. Just wanted to say thanks for giving me something to try when I get home.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice any games starting with "B" that are NOT on this list???

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[crabboy.com]

Check out Warzone2100 if you want an RTS.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[iago-vL]

Can you be more specific? I've played that game a significant amount, and beat a handful of the campaigns, but I've never had any issues that make the game out to be less than professional.

As a disclaimer, I've never played online, so I don't know how their multiplayer gaming is set up.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[vindimy]

I have been playing an AWESOME open-source FPS called OpenArena. It is based on the ioquake3 engine that id3 released under GPL license.

OpenArena is a violent, sexy, multiplayer first person shooter based on the ioquake3 fork of the id tech 3 engine. It has many game types beyond deathmatch and a lot of characters. Due to violent and racy content, it may not be suitable for children under 17.

The game is absolutely free and all development is done by the community, including maps, media, and running the game servers. IMHO, it's the only game worth playing that gives me exactly what I need - less BS effects, more fast-paced action and great flexibility at customization (settings, mods, etc). Also, it has a somewhat small but very unique community of players, server admins, and of course clans + n00bs.

Direct download link for release 0.8.1: here.

Download, unzip, customize your settings, and you'll be fraggin' away!

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[vindimy]

For a demo of OpenArena, see this video (no registration required).

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[richtaur]

And yet Blood Frontier isn't listed... (I'm guessing that'll be fixed shortly.)

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[GaryPatterson]

Lots of clones (ie total ripoffs from original ideas), some commercial games open-sourced by their owners and about three original games in there.

Yay for F/OSS.

Any truly original games released recently? On the commercial side we've seen some real innovation lately, but that list (which I hope is woefully out of date) shows OSS is less of a gaming platform than OS X.

As someone else said - why should we care that yet another FPS has arrived? What does it bring that's new, unique and interesting?

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Phil Urich]

On the commercial side we've seen some real innovation lately, but that list (which I hope is woefully out of date) shows OSS is less of a gaming platform than OS X.

As someone else said - why should we care that yet another FPS has arrived? What does it bring that's new, unique and interesting?

There's several reasons, even without challenging your hypothesis here. For one, there's the same reasons the Freespace devs gave for open-sourcing their Freespace games (which, if you haven't checked out, you definitely should, easily the best 3D spacefighter games ever), to give the next batch of programmers something to learn from, which apparently they wished they had when they started out.

Similarly, John Carmack does a great service to the public by releasing his engines afterwards, and that openness also brings some pretty interesting things (have you seen Non-Photorealistic Quake? Personally I love playing through the game as sketches or cartoons!). It also gives people the tech on which to build their new ideas; one of the reasons the gaming industry at large has been somewhat hard-pressed for innovation recently is that the cost of a modern gaming engine (in both time/effort and money) is enormous. The F/OSS scene raises the water level a fair bit, so that talented individuals can float more on their own.

Of course if you're just talking about Linux versus OSX in general, I know at least UT2004 had several times over more Linux players than OSX players, at least according to what Epic's master server browser saw. So in that way as well F/OSS is important, even if the game itself is commercial and neither free as in speech or as in beer; it provies a platform for commercial games, and it's no wonder that if given the choice people that play high-graphics FPSs would choose Linux. You spend so much time and effort making some kind of custom gaming rig . . . and then install something as rigid as Windows? Or even worse, have to choose from one-size-fits-all Macs? If given a shot, Linux rocks for the PC gaming tweakers out there.

Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the request was for 'great' games, which sadly excludes most of the games on that list.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[kandela]

If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

The author of the game is the submitter, so yes, you're correct.

Slashdotted

[Yuioup]

Slashdotted already. Should give an indication of how desperate /. ers are for a new FOSS FPS.

Re:Slashdotted

[SpitfireSMS]

Or the kind of servers that open source software companies can buy and manage. Or should I say server..
Unfortunately, they dont have a huge repetour of games and donations to fund better servers.
They never stood a chance against /.

Re:Slashdotted

[moteyalpha]

Slashdotted already. Should give an indication of how desperate /. ers are for a new FOSS FPS.

http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=198419 Get it at sourceforge

Re:Slashdotted

[furby076]

Or that FOSS lacks the funds to have a server which can handle the load.

It's great they are doing this - but in the end the project needs funding to get huge - otherwise it is a hobby for the technical folk (with rare exception).

With luck these guys will use this on their resume', get great jobs, and help make some great products. I know someone will flame me, and 5 others will mod me down - but think about it. WoW costs money (all three expansions = about 75-100 probably), then it's 14.95 a month. Not free at all - but look at the game. It's been out since what 2002 and still the most played game with the largest base of paid accounts. None of that could not happen if the resources were not in place, and resources are limited which means they cost money.

Re:Slashdotted

[ya really]

Slashdotted already. Should give an indication of how desperate /. ers are for a new FOSS FPS.

Or how little bandwidth their server has, since it's only been posted for a little over 2 hours :p

Re:Slashdotted

[agrounds]

WoW actually dates from November of 2004 for active release.

Your point still stands though.

Re:Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

t's been out since what 2002 and still the most played game with the largest base of paid accounts..

2004

Re:Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

You know when you cite world of warcraft's success, you just show everybody that you aren't a real gamer.

Re:Slashdotted

[Eil]

An FPS is a much different project than an MMORPG like Wow. An FPS-style game can actually be considered finished at a given point while an MMORPG requires constant development (as long as you want to keep customers, that is). There's a long history of people making full-featured games for free and actually completing them. It's just that the list of incomplete ones dwarf the complete ones.

Re:Slashdotted

[vikstar]

What about warsow? You get a very innovative "wall-jumping" ability, and strong/weak ammo to prevent spamming (where you start with strong ammo, and when you use it up you get weak ammo).

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[seeker_1us]

If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?

Maybe it should be called "Blood-Lite?"

Duke Nukem Forever....

[John3]

because the release date is open-ended?

Re:Duke Nukem Forever....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, OP asked about open SOURCE games.

Re:Duke Nukem Forever....

[WWWWolf]

because the release date is open-ended?

And since no one knows what the heck the game will be like - if you don't like the over-inflated expectations of what this game will be, you can always fork the ideas and add your own! Like this: "Yeah, I'm sure it won't hurt 3DRealms to spend a few more years to add sharks with lasers to DNF... it would be so awesome!" After that, the users will decide whether this sharks-with-lasers fan vision of the game's future will live on, or die out.

Perhaps some of these forked visions could even form a significant vein in the pre-release history of the game! (Though I wonder if once the game is released, people still talk about the Great Sharks-With-Lasers Debate of Early 2009.)

Re:Duke Nukem Forever....

[DanielKerr]

Open source *and* open destination!

cool

[ocularDeathRay]

not only is there an option to turn off blood, but you can turn off the web server too!

Re:cool

[Hordeking]

not only is there an option to turn off blood, but you can turn off the web server too!

They implemented blood with a server? Wow. I'll have to edit inetd.conf to crank up bloodd now! What port do I need?

Re:cool

[WWWWolf]

not only is there an option to turn off blood, but you can turn off the web server too!

Somebody apparently threw in the psdoom code too...

Re:Everybody Hates Jews

[grub]

There's a game called Ethnic Cleansing you may find to your liking.
Never played it, just remember the stir it caused when it came out.

And?

[Rik Sweeney]

So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones?

There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.

Re:And?

[diqmay]

There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed

Hey everybody! Rik has had his fill of FPSs! You can stop developing them now.

Thanks for letting us know, otherwise I'm sure game developers would have kept on making them without realizing that you didn't want them to.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to google images,

Image Links to their game,

More poor use of light/bump/normal mapping. I, however, can't rail on them too much. I know good artists and artwork can be a challenge to find on an open source project.

Re:And?

[_Sprocket_]

Thanks for letting us know, otherwise I'm sure game developers would have kept on making them without realizing that you didn't want them to.

Uwe Boll, however, will continue creating movies based on them.

Re:And?

[wild_quinine]

So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones? There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.

I don't know why this guy got modded Troll. Wanting to know what's different about a title is a perfectly valid question. Especially in a -recently- unadventurous genre, such as the FPS. As is being bored of a genre a perfectly valid statement, when taken in that context. Sure, if he's just shown up to announce that he didn't care about FPS games, that wouldn't have added much. But 'What's different?' is really the question 'Why should I care?' and that's a perfectly fair question to ask.

The main site's been slashdotted, all we've got is the summary, and the only real selling point mentioned there is that it's open source. If that's enough for you, sure, fine, ok. But for me open source is a BONUS, not a panacea.

Interesting side note: I know one of the main designers of Tremulous through an old friend. Nice guy, drives an utterly crazy car.

Re:And?

[causality]

So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones?

There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.

I think you weren't trolling and were merely stating your opinion. The mods and one poster (who was also rewarded by the mods -- do you see the self-reinforcing nature of derision?) have effectively ridiculed you because it was very easy to do. You may not have known it but you stuck your neck out and they gleefully took a swing at it. They don't know they are making a statement about themselves and the appeal that low-hanging fruit has over them, as you may not know that this was predictable given how limited their prevailing mentality is.

What I believe you were really saying is something I mostly agree with, which is why that's easy for me to recognize. I remember when the original DOOM came out. I played the hell out of it. Somewhere after DOOM ][, I got tired of first-person shooters in general. The appeal that those had for me, which was a fast-paced challenge and a gritty environment with blood (not so unique now), was not a lasting appeal. What was a fast-paced challenge becomes repetitive gameplay and what was a realistic, gritty environment with blood got old quickly and no longer seemed more immersive. I can play almost any first-person shooter and feel this way about it. The weapons look different and the enemies look different from game to game but otherwise it has the exact same effect on me, an effect which has lost its novelty.

What's odd for me is that the one exception to this, that is, the one FPS game that I have played (though do not own myself) is Halo 3. I'm referring to the actual campaign missions; the online "deathmatch" play is no fun for me because there is no way I can invest the time to become as good as the kids who don't have jobs. I'm not sure if it's the AI or something about the game mechanics but I really have fun playing it, and that's saying something since I am no fan of MIcrosoft and I don't precisely make a secret of that fact. Generally though, I do agree with you about FPS as a genre.

Re:And?

[Theoboley]

I cannot wait to see this shitbag of a movie if it gets that far. Everything he touches turns to pure Diarrhea.

Re:And?

[causality]

I don't know why this guy got modded Troll.

Because that's how fallen people (i.e. bullies) get their jollies. Sometimes one might think that no Slashdot moderator has ever seen an actual troll because they seem to have a very hard time telling the difference between a troll and a very unpopular opinion. What's funny is that if they mod me down for saying so and thus prove my point, they would do so hoping that it shuts me up and intimidates me into not pointing this out (they see that I am not a bully so they assume I must be a coward because those two things are all they know; in fact I am neither). It's funny because if they work to make my point for me, it would really be utterly hilarious but I may have a higher than average appreciation of irony.

Re:And?

[Lumpy]

Wait what??? Rik has had his fill? DAMMIT! why did he not tell everyone earlier. We have been working on this new one for 2 years now.

DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT... I hate it when Rik slacks off and does not announce hs is full on public television.

WE know he is tired of Hot-dogs, Loves Obama, and Is starting to grow tire of the word "albanian" but that asshat did not mention ONCE in his last press conference he had his fill of FPS games.

What a hoser. Let me guess, He's had his fill of racing games as well, I better warn the guys down the hall.

Damn Rik.

Re:And?

[Phoenixhawk]

Sad but true...

Re:And?

[V!NCENT]

Prey. Play it and complete the game. It has a Linux client too and it's the best FPS, no... game I have played in years.

Re:And?

[parcel]

I don't know why this guy got modded Troll. Wanting to know what's different about a title is a perfectly valid question.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that the Troll mod was related more to the part after the ellipsis rather than the part before.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uwe Boll, however, will continue creating movies based on them.

From this I can only conclude that Rik likes Uwe Boll movies!

Great! Thanks a lot Rik! Thanks a lot!

Re:And?

[__aasqbs9791]

At this point, he is modded +4 Interesting, so (I think) you just needed to give it some time. And the way his post was written, it was pretty easy to see it as condescending. Heck, it might have even been intended that way (I don't know the guy myself) and since the server is down, it is much easier to make jokes about that than it is to actually answer his (valid) question. Maybe nothing is really different. Maybe these guys just wanted to do something on their own to truly understand it? I wish I knew, but again, the server seems to still be down at the moment.

Re:And?

[CyberKnet]

Damn. Out of mod points.

-1 Troll - that'll have to do.

Although... if there was a "-1 Really, REALLY Boring" then I think I'd be tempted use that one first :)

Re:And?

[diqmay]

as the aforementioned poster who took a swing at the OP, I just wanted to say that you are spot on about more than one thing in your post.

(A) I also don't think that the OP was trolling, and that he does have a valid, though not very well articulated, point. The FPS genre has grown quite stale in recent years from my point of view. While the occasional gem does poke through, most are a regurgitation of an existing plot, theme, or general idea, and it's hard to get excited about anything new when it all feels the same as what we saw last year or last decade.

That said, I do personally find myself buying the newest games pretty soon after they hit the shelves. I love online play even though I do hold two jobs and can't keep up with the fourteen year old kids who can spend days online. If I could consistently find good matches on older games, I probably wouldn't buy the new games, but as the players move on to the latest and greatest, the impetus to play an older game dwindles.

(B) In regards to the low hanging fruit; damn right! You toss a slow ball like that out there, and by god I'll swing for the fences. :)

Re:And?

[causality]

And the way his post was written, it was pretty easy to see it as condescending.

I really don't think it was. There's this perception that is slowly creeping into the mass consciousness like any sort of worm. The perception is that anyone who says what he genuinely thinks and is unashamed of it must be arrogant or condescending because everyone else is falling over themselves to follow up their opinions with "as long as that doesn't offend you". This is a perversion and it's designed to make you timid and it's designed to make you accept the validity of ideas that simply don't work on the basis that your ideas must not be any better.

It's like we've forgotten that everything anyone says is just that person's perspective until and unless that person makes a positive unmistakable claim that what he says is some kind of universal truth. If such a claim is made, it may need to be tested, but even that is not a big deal. Now the assumption is that you are speaking for all people at all times whenever you say the slightest thing, so you better be subservient and apologetic about it lest you offend. I reject this notion. Let the offended deal with their own offense and recognize that they had a choice about whether to even read what I write and a second choice about whether to allow that to bother them.

Likewise, if that guy really was genuinely condescending, let that be his problem. Being that way won't make him happy, I assure you. In fact it will make him suffer. That much is his choice. Whether I see it and decide to resent him for it is my choice as to whether I will also needlessly suffer and be part of the problem. It's that simple. It's a self-correcting deal so there is no need for me to control or censor anyone. That's the folly of hypersensitive, knee-jerk moderators -- they do not understand this.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed

Center of the universe much?

Re:And?

[__aasqbs9791]

I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.

The logical extension of that would be that since he has had his fill, everyone has had their fill of these games. What is that if not a Universal Truth as you put it? Yet I sort of doubt that is really what he meant. Language is this fluid, fun thing. I sometimes think no two people actually speak the exact same language, it just happens to be that many of use appear to speak very similar languages, and thus we are actually translating what other people say into our own version of English (or whatever language you happen to speak). It is okay to have fun with language, whether it be with a pun, or unintended meanings. You're right that people do sometimes get overly sensitive about their opinion and how it may effect other people. But empathy isn't bad, either. What we need to be well adjusted is a balance between understanding how other people feel and the value of our own ideals. But being overly sensitive about other people pointing out what was probably an unintended potential meaning isn't healthy, either. Just because someone does that, it doesn't automatically make them a bully, as you don't know their intentions anymore than we know the intentions of the OP. Among my close friends, the comments we make to each other often seem very harsh to outsiders (bringing up bad experiences, etc) but we only do that among ourselves to prevent any of us from getting too big an ego for our own good. And we appreciate that we can be that brutally honest with each other, because we know it isn't intended to be mean. That doesn't mean we are that honest with people we don't know extremely well, though. But we would consider poking fun at a point that could be considered extremely arrogant to be just a bit of good fun. And if they took it too hard, then as you say, we would consider it to be their problem.

Re:And?

[sa1lnr]

"Hey everybody! Rik has had his fill of FPSs! You can stop developing them now."

Hey, you've been...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OY1M-CJHQ8s

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should try playing against "real people." It's somehow more satisfying to boringly frag real people than, say, doom 2 creatures. But I guess you get driven off by the nojob kids.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is more "smart" First person shooters out there. Meaning something with a meaningful storyline and a strategy more than shooting all the bad guys, something with a challenge. Maybe a storyline that involves each level having a different challenge and approach. For example, say the first level is trying to break out of some sort of compound, police department, military base. Surely if you make it more realistic you couldn't take on every single armed person but would need to use stealth and when needed power to reach the objective. Think about metal gear solid when getting caught meant a whole company of bad guys with guns would have you dead and 3 seconds flat. I'm not saying this type of game is new and ground breaking but having a lazy shoot em' up is boring and uninspiring. Might be good for multiplayer but we need some more good multiplayer games with storylines and real objectives. Programming is only a small part of video game programming, but you need to account for a good enticing story and some decent art work.

Re:And?

[dr.g]

Regardless of one's opinion of the FPS genre (The novelty long ago wore off for me, and eventually the interest in playing them waned...sometime after Castle Wolfenstein (the first). So I share his experience there.), the designation "troll" was generous, assuming the OP would know that posting of such an obtuse comment constituted the dangling of the irresistible "low-hanging fruit" in front of /.ers. This is "trolling".

Actually responding as if he were serious, ex: "They develop them because people still buy them derrr.", or pointing out that the comment is as remarkably clueless as an old man wondering why people still have sex when he's been disinterested in it for a long time, would require a tag.

Hence, the ridicule. THIS. IS. INTERNETS!!!

ps) I read your (recursively ironic) post whining about the "bully" mods in Comic Book Guy's voice and it was equally lame, but very funny. See, the mods are tasked with judging whether this guy was trolling or just a little thoughtless, whereas you jump in with butthurt nitpickery to do the same to them just to make yourself look...ummm, I'm not sure what you were going for. But it's certainly a subjective judgement, eh?

Re:And?

[dr.g]

And I meant a "/pointing out painfully obvious" tag. derr.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words. Mirror's Edge.

Play it, love it.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been Rik-rolled o/

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

give team fortress 2 or left4dead a try

Re:And?

[shutdown -p now]

So, when's "Overkill: the Movie" is coming out? I really want to see that, Boll or not.

Re:And?

[qreeves]

You've been Rik-rolled o/

Haha, nice. I hated that right up until now. :D

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

That does look like shit. It's a shame they decided to use the Cube 2 engine or I might have helped the project.

Re:And?

[ShakaUVM]

>>I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.

CustomTF is still an open source project under development (started in 1999). Quake engine is open source, game code is open source, anyone can submit patches to me, or fork off their own versions. It is based on Team Fortress, but modified so that you can build your own class, using a pricing system for each component you want to buy, so you can play a scout that drops sentry guns or a sniper with a rocket launcher.

It has all sorts of interesting options to it beyond what were in the original Team Fortress. A lot more.

Latest version came out, oh, today.

Information:
http://wiki.quakeworld.nu/Prozac-TF

Forums:
www.customtf.net/forum/

Server:
http://quake.phoenixlabs.org/

Download:
http://customtf.sourceforge.net/customtf/index.html

Re:And?

[causality]

The logical extension of that would be that since he has had his fill, everyone has had their fill of these games.

I didn't find that extension to be particularly logical. It sounded more like the guy had a preference to me. Now I do find it logical to say that everyone who plays these games has their own preference, but that's not the same kind of extrapolation you're making there.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA, that was great. I don't normally laugh at comments on the articles I read, but that was freaking hilarious.

But hey, you know, Rik hasn't seen anything new in the last years from the FPS genre...maybe Rik is just blind, deaf, and dumb.

Rik, grab Obama's hotdog and crawl back in your hole!

Softcoder

[Anonymous Coward]

I think (as the article mentions) the game reaches out to a broader audience through the ability to offer choices in gameplay. Nice that the code isn't partially hoarded and completely available for community involvement. To me that is very different from many other options.

Blood optional

[Idiomatick]

I never understood the purpose of this. If it is for children then what is the rational behind it? If it is just to help children differentiate from real-life traumas then I advocate the extra-blood option. It is not likely someone will get fragged and it rain blood for two minutes irl. Either way the whole idea is silly. Like showing kids a movie with someone being tortured and censoring the cuts. It doesn't affect anything.

Re:Blood optional

[Thanshin]

Like showing kids a movie with someone being tortured and censoring the cuts. It doesn't affect anything.

Unless it's the chinese thousand cuts torture.

In which case you end up with just two guys looking at each other.

Re:Blood optional

[gnick]

Agreed. Next thing we know, they'll be editting old movies to replace the cops' guns with walkie-talkies. Where will it end?

Re:Blood optional

[moderatorrater]

I appreciate those options for myself. I remember with TA: Kingdoms turning off the blood because my archers would shoot a guy so many times that blood would be spurting out nonstop, which I found gross at the time. Same with the gore in the original UT. I can see parents appreciating that in addition to people who just don't like gore.

Also, if you do paintball mode it turns it from a game where you're killing people to a game where it's just some guys playing paintball. Does it change the gameplay? Of course not, but it does change the entire frame of reference for the violence in the game. I can see that being desirable for parents and I think it's a great idea. My friend and I were talking about how they should do something along the lines of Unreal Tournament: Nerf Edition, where all the guns are nerf guns.

Just because you don't care doesn't mean that parents don't care.

Re:Blood optional

[hitnrunrambler]

I don't know what the purpose is, but I have to say I like the option personally. Does blood spatter enhance the game for you? Then go for it, but for my taste many gore effects just help to juvenilize most games; it's like endless penis jokes in an Adam Sandler movie, if I had the option to turn off "13 year old mode" I'd actually be able to enjoy the experience.

Re:Blood optional

[diqmay]

I was with you right up until the bit about enjoying an Adam Sandler movie with 13 year old mode turned off.

90 minutes of blank screen? You sir have a strange idea of enjoyable.

Re:Blood optional

[causality]

I don't know what the purpose is, but I have to say I like the option personally. Does blood spatter enhance the game for you? Then go for it, but for my taste many gore effects just help to juvenilize most games; it's like endless penis jokes in an Adam Sandler movie, if I had the option to turn off "13 year old mode" I'd actually be able to enjoy the experience.

We just have different definitions of juvenile.

I think that it's quite natural for there to be blood when a character is shot with a bullet. To me, what's juvenile is to portray something completely unnatural, like a bloodless bullet wound, for the sole purpose of placating the easily offended. No one really respects that kind of people-pleasing, not even those who vehemently demand it, and for good reason. It's a subservient desire to appease that makes a mockery of real respect and of anything that is genuinely pleasing.

Re:Blood optional

[moderatorrater]

I'm going to guess you were modded flamebait because you're doing the very thing that you're saying people shouldn't do. Take, for example, these two quotes.

It's desirable for parents who feel good about sheltering their children from the world instead of equipping their children to deal with the world (and maybe, just maybe, to build a better world). By extension it's desirable for parents who don't know the difference, too.

You leave absolutely no room for people in the middle, people who believe that children should be able to participate in violent images but not at all ages. Football, soccer, and tag are all (at least arguably) stand ins for more violent behavior, but parents and society monitor the level of violence that they're able to participate in so that they can get used to it and learn to deal with it.

Does that mean that little Johnny should go see the Roman Colosseum? No, you twit (not you personally, but anyone who would respond that way). Now you're going from one extreme to the other because you were overreacting the whole time and thus, extremes are all you knew. The allure of things like violence and other "forbidden fruits" is the big deal we make out of them. It's an excitement that becomes attached to the thing itself that is not inherent to the thing itself.

Here you're getting after people for going to extremes and viewing the world as without nuance, which is what you did above.

The opposite of making a big deal of everything is to talk to little Johnny and say "that's violence, this is why it's wrong and doesn't lead to health and harmony and happiness, ok?" and then MOVE ON. Then it's possible to appreciate a fictional work that happens to have violence.

Children are not adults and they don't think the same way. I remember many instances where my parents tried to explain something and I didn't understand because I wasn't mature enough to get it. "Protect the children" is such a potent rallying cry because there's a real need to protect children. But the ridiculous opponents of violence in video games should push those of us who disagree with them to the other extreme in saying that violence is good and beneficial, or even neutral, for children, because we can't back that statement and it doesn't even seem plausible.

Re:Blood optional

[vm]

Something like this was done with Chex Quest which was a total conversion of Doom -- but instead of killing the NPCs, the main character's weapon merely teleports them to another dimension.

As for knocking anyone doing total conversions or mods of any kind, it's not exactly child's play. However, you're certainly welcome to download the idTech 3 source and show us how it's done. Keep in mind, too, that many game developers over the years began their careers in the industry by deconstructing or modding their favorite games.

Re:Blood optional

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually did do this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerf_Arena_Blast

Re:Blood optional

[Stormwatch]

I guess it would be the same movie, except Adam Sandler would be removed. Something like Garfield minus Garfield.

Re:Blood optional

[shutdown -p now]

Also, if you do paintball mode it turns it from a game where you're killing people to a game where it's just some guys playing paintball.

Paintball itself is a game where you pretend to be killing people. Don't think kids are so stupid as to not know that fake guns stand for real ones, and that real guns are for killing people.

Re:Blood optional

[Acord]

Well, I guess that largely depends on if you're a kid. There are, believe it or not, parents who want to moderate what content their kids are exposed to on the internet and take steps to do so. The paintball mode is a nice option if you want some FPS fun and have parents that won't let you play the bloody stuff. When I think of the children, I'm not worried about what they get exposed to - not my problem. That is their parents' responsibility. But I do worry that someone who might like the game won't get to play it if there's no option like that in there. Some people like the action, but are turned off by the gore. Now there's something there for them too.

Re:Blood optional

[Cathbard]

But how is paintball mode helping to condition children for a life in the military? We need more gore to desensitise them to it so they will sign up. Typical communist FOSS plot to undermine the strength of their enemy!! Forshame. ;)

Re:Blood optional

[Acord]

All the zombies will be thoroughly non-human, meaning that all they have to really learn to do is de-humanize their targets. Although that could be a really good side story - set a condition where killing too many will drive a conscientious character mad, even if they are zombies, but require them to kill a few to get past key points.

Re:Blood optional

[brkello]

After reading your post, and then your complaint about your post...and falling asleep a few times in between...I agree, I don't think your first post should be modded flamebait. But whining about moderation is fairly pointless. I would have modded both your posts "-1, Get To The Point Faster". The funny thing is you don't really add anything new or insightful. You just say the same thing other Slashdotters say with a lot more words.

Re:Blood optional

[causality]

After reading your post, and then your complaint about your post...and falling asleep a few times in between...I agree, I don't think your first post should be modded flamebait. But whining about moderation is fairly pointless. I would have modded both your posts "-1, Get To The Point Faster". The funny thing is you don't really add anything new or insightful. You just say the same thing other Slashdotters say with a lot more words.

Brevity can be hard for me. You might not think so but I actually do try to work on that from time to time :-).

Re:Blood optional

[triso]

Maybe Greedo shooting first.

Tremulous

[Anonymous Coward]

One word: tremulous.

Re:Tremulous

[Thiez]

I played Trem for a while, but it has some problems, some of which are not that hard to fix. To name one, all players on the human team have the same model/skin/voice.
The graphics are kinda old which wouldn't bother me that much if it weren't for the samewhat disappointing gameplay. Humans tend to camp a lot until they get enough kills for stage 3, and one or two feeders on your team can make you lose the game easily. Also, deconners suck.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Hordeking]

If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?

No, then it's just called Frontier, and it becomes about a family traveling from Independence, Mo to Oregon.

"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[qoncept]

"Add the new paintball mode ..."

I mean, seriously. Why? Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[whisper_jeff]

Because imaginary violence is bad for young and impressionable minds but imaginary imaginary violence is ok for children.

Ok, I admit, that answer wasn't helpful at all... I did my best though... :)

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Thanshin]

Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?

To teach recursion?

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

I don't know if you've ever played paintball, but when you play you really ARE shooting people. There's no pretend.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[CannonballHead]

hehe, that was funny :)

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[jandoedel]

maybe in paintball mode people don't 'die', and can continue playing, while in real FPS, when you die it's game over?

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just painting them.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[jonaskoelker]

Why take a game [...] and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to [...]

Let's say you can play the guitar and pretend you're a rock star.

Then you play GH and pretend you play the guitar, so you pretend that you pretend you're a rock star.

Why? Because people like it. Or, if you prefer: because it sells well, and it sells well because people like it.

World of Padman is a quite fun FPS where you shoot paint, among other things. Granted, it's in a cartoony setting in the first place, so the paint fits in, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't be fun to shoot pretend paint at pretend real people.

I guess trying it out is the only way to be sure. Why dis it prematurely? Or are you just pretending to dis it? ;)

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[jandrese]

Maybe it behaves like real paintball, where after you shoot someone instead of falling down they walk out of the map.

Or, if you're like the punk kids at my local range, after you're shot you walk behind a building and being playing again.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

You probably need to hotkey a macro that goes "Chekkitbuddy! Chekkit! Chekkit!"

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[digitalderbs]

If I've learned anything from school, it's that two imaginaries are definitely negative. Four on the other hand...

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

No. You see, you have these things called "paintguns." You aim them at the opponent, pull a trigger, and if you're aim is good (and the gun isn't crap, the paint isn't crap, the wind doesn't pick up, and there's not a stray branch you didn't see between the two of you), you hit them. That's commonly referred to as "shooting."

OK - sure. You can call it "painting" as well if you really want to. But that's ignoring the actual mechanics of the equipment used (which shouldn't be confused with most painting that involves a brush).

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Phoenixhawk]

And paintball in wintertime probably hurt just as much as the real gun shot in a non-vital location. Note to self, do not let the wife freeze her paintballs next time....

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they are officially called "paintball markers". Not guns. And it isn't all played in the woods. Have you seen professional paintball? Its on a flat field, bunkers and such to hide behind strategically placed around the field, and the markers are capable of shooting 15+ balls per second. It's a very tactical sport really.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

To teach recursion?

I doubt it. They would first have to learn recursion.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

Yeah - that's speedball. Which is a fun game in itself. But that's a variation really designed for TV and fast elimination competition.

And honestly - I know where you're coming from. I've been around paintball for years. I've watched it go from "survival game" to "legitimate sport." You can call them markers all you want. It's valid. But they are, in fact, guns. They're a far cry from firearms and only a small subset of folks still try to equate them with firearms. But whether they be dressed up to replicate a M-16 or splash anodized and cut up to look like extreme sports gear, a gun is a gun. Not that there's anything wrong with that (unless you're trying to sell the sport side and keep out of the for-the-children and/or anti-war contingent).

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[The Moof]

But everyone knows in order to understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

When we played in the German winters, we'd keep our paint in coolers (no ice) to maintain temperature. We would also trade out paint we had left in our hoppers for paint from the cooler every one or two games. It still only did so much.

One game got cold enough to decrease the pressure of the CO2 we were using (yeah - back in the old days when CO2 in 7oz bottles was still pretty advanced, siphon tubes belonged on gimmic guns using .62 cal, and dinosaurs roamed the earth). Our effective range began to drop. Paintballs that managed to lob far enough to hit someone just kind of bounced around a bit. Both teams decided to end the game and charge. I found myself pitted up against my wife who laughed at my attempts to shoot her. That is, until one hit squarely in her chest.

I saw the bruise. Once. It was a particularly cold few weeks that winter.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Semantics, but their original purpose was to paint trees with a mark. The game came later

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

Semantics, but their original purpose was to paint trees with a mark. The game came later

Trees and livestock - the Nelspot 007. Fancy pumps were a later innovation. The first paintgun designed for sport was the Splatmaster (produced by NSG). I don't have a Nelspot. But I do have a Splatmaster, a Rapide, a GZ1000 (the return of Gurnsey) and in a similar class - a PGP.

In a wierd twist of history, I had one player's father buy a PGP to mark his cattle.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[_Sprocket_]

Another oddity - when we got permission to play in the woodlands in some areas in Germany, one stipulation tended to be that we didn't use specific colors which they used to mark trees for forestry management. I'd imagine it would be tragic to find whole areas cleared by mistake.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard you like to pretend to shoot people, so we put a way to pretend to shoot people in your game where you pretend to shoot people, so you can pretend to shoot people while you pretend to shoot people.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Ihmhi]

Wouldn't imaginary imaginary violence be real violence? This is kinda like the double-negative rule, isn't it? d:

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[qreeves]

I mean, seriously. Why? Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?

Blood Frontier has attracted a few families with children in its development circle. Paintball/Kids mode is (what was supposed to be) an unadvertised feature for them to use in their homes.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I was playing a WW2 shooter on-line the other night. Shooting guys in the face etc. It was great fun until I got muted for typing 'sex' on the chat window. Why was it bad? 'because kids could be playing'

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[iosq]

Quite a while back from now, I took a look at the feature list. There was a _lot_ more then Paintball mode in the pipe.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Man Eating Duck]

Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?

Because the people who spend their time to develop it chose to do so? They might have any one of a bunch of reasons, why do you care? Just don't enable that option if you don't like it. It's an easy solution to a non-existent problem.

Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..."

[Man Eating Duck]

I just realised the GP post was aiming for a funny... so my post is in response to the mods giving him an insightful. I, in turn, blame this misunderstanding on the good people from Islay :)

Unfortunately Obligatory...

[longhairedgnome]

How good can it really be if it's server can't handle a simple slashdotting after only 25 posts...

Here is the cache.. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ORDt8YILNcwJ:bloodfrontier.com/+blood+frontier&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Re:Unfortunately Obligatory...

[longhairedgnome]

And... Very much redundant...

Re:Unfortunately Obligatory...

[DiLLeMaN]

that comment, or the game?

Battle City

[Anonymous Coward]

Another free game you might like to check out is Battle City. You build a city, hire commandos (real-people), and orb other cities to gain rank. http://battlecity.looble.com/

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you die from dysentery. Then it's only from Independence, MO to Kansas City.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe plasma frontier?

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[moranar]

Well, it could be the other side of the frontier, couldn't it?

AssaultCube FPS

[adrian.henke]

Another FOSS FPS? Check out AssaultCube, description from the website:

AssaultCube, formerly ActionCube, is a free first-person-shooter based on the game Cube. Set in a realistic looking environment, as far as that's possible with this engine, while gameplay stays fast and arcade. This game is all about team oriented multiplayer fun.

World of World of Warcraft

[billlava]

This reminds me of an Onion video that showed a sequel to WoW called World of World of Warcraft that let your characters buy and play WoW themselves. I got a kick out of it, but then again, I'm not a WoW player...

War$ow then?

[e-Flex]

What about her? http://www.warsow.net/

Re:War$ow then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Warsow isn't open source.

Re:War$ow then?

[windsurfer619]

Yes it is. It's just the models and art that are not.

Re:War$ow then?

[packman]

Warsow code is released under GPL...

Kid mode?

[nine-times]

including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood â" a nice option for a change

Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"? Are you still running around killing people?

I'm not the sort of person who's a big believe in sheltering children, but if you are that sort of person, does simply censoring blood make the game OK to play? I think if I were the sort of parent that didn't want my kids to play violent games, then censoring a little gore wouldn't really make them acceptable.

On the other hand, some parents are a little crazy, so whatever. I just think it's weird to censor blood out of a FPS called "Blood Frontier", and then call it "kid mode".

Re:Kid mode?

[jadbalja]

I just think it's weird to censor blood out of a FPS called "Blood Frontier", and then call it "kid mode".

When you turn on kid mode, the game is just called "Frontier".

Re:Kid mode?

[MrMista_B]

Um, maybe because you're *not actually* running around 'killing people'.

It's a videogame. No people are being killed. The 'pretend people' that you're 'shooting at' (pressing a butting to make a graphic appear), are not actually real people, and they are not actually being injuired, maimed, or killed.

So, to begin with, how is it violent?

Re:Kid mode?

[LandDolphin]

Is "Beat your Wife III" for the X-Box 360 not violent?

/obviously made up title

Re:Kid mode?

[Abuzar]

including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood is a nice option for a change

Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"?

DUHHH!!! Isn't it obvious?
Turning off blood makes things "kid friendly" because kids don't bleed! Don't believe me? Go ahead, try it yourself. You can run around and kill a whole whack of them without ruining your carpet.

Are you still running around killing people?

Nope, you're not killing people. Only kids.

Re:Kid mode?

[BobMcD]

Is "Beat your Wife III" for the X-Box 360 not violent? /obviously made up title

Not on the 360, no, but the experience on the Wii definitely crosses the line...

Re:Kid mode?

[bendodge]

There's something particular about video game blood that mothers can't stand. Go find some 10-12 year old kids and ask them. There's little explanation for it, but it's true.

Re:Kid mode?

[nine-times]

I really am not trying to be snarky, but I don't think you read my post very well and perhaps missed the point. I was saying I'm not the sort who thinks that kids need to be highly sheltered from video game violence. I don't think pretending to kill people is all that big of a deal.

On the other hand, I have some understanding of why parents get concerned about these things, and I think it's fine for parents to believe that their children shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. In those cases, I think it's incumbent on the parents to pay attention to what their kids are seeing/playing and censor their own child's experience without infringing on the rest of our rights. I don't think it's the job of the government (or society at large) to censor reality, movies, television, or video games so as to protect your child from experiencing something that you don't happen to believe is appropriate.

Still, if I imagine being such a parent, and I don't allow my child to play violent video games, then I simply can't imagine that censoring the blood would be satisfying. If you're afraid that violent games will send the message that "violence is OK," then a bloodless violent game will only send the message, "violence is ok so long as you don't see the blood."

And this weirdness is just highlighted for me in the fact that it's actually called "kid mode", as though the game is now an appropriate children's game because the blood has been removed. It's like if Rockstar released a separate version of GTA with all the same content except that it didn't render blood, edited out the swear words, and covered the strippers a little bit more, and called it "GTA for ages 10 and under". That'd be a pretty lame attempt at being child-friendly.

Re:Kid mode?

[Cornflake917]

You can say the exact same thing with movies: it's all fake, no-one actually dies. In either medium, violence is depicted, and that's why the adjective "violent" is assigned to them.

Regardless, I think you and GP are making the same point. If it's pretend, why the hell does it matter if there is blood or not?

Re:Kid mode?

[Tom]

Oh yes, absolutely. Just think of the chiiiildren. Remove from sight what offends you and everything will be fine. You can't change human nature, but you can push it underground, into repression, where you can then capitalise on it. That's been modus operandi of the catholic church and every other conservative power group for at least a thousand years, probably a lot more.

See, removing child porn from the Internet is so much more important than actually finding and locking up the people who produce it. And filtering out the blood from a shooter is a lot better, and also easier, than stopping to think that you're, you know, like shooting people, blood or no blood.

In fact, there's some research out there (not undisputed I should say, to be totally honest) that indicates that displays of "clean violence" is more likely to result in actions of violence than splatter, blood and gore, because the consequences of violence are hidden and thus don't enter consideration as much.

Re:Kid mode?

[CorporateSuit]

Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"? Are you still running around killing people?

I'm not the sort of person who's a big believe in sheltering children, but if you are that sort of person, does simply censoring blood make the game OK to play? I think if I were the sort of parent that didn't want my kids to play violent games, then censoring a little gore wouldn't really make them acceptable.

Let me ask you this: In the Disney movie "Snow White", would it be as accepted as a kid's movie if it showed the hunter tearing the pumping heart out of a pig, or showed the jagged rocks tearing apart the flailing, twitching body of the evil witch? Such things happen during the course of the movie, but are not shown. The violence is implicit, not explicit, and therefore it runs above the line of childhood trauma.

I could go on for hours on this subject, but the best way for you to understand is to raise a 5-10 year old child. You'll recognize the difference, quickly, between what causes nightmares and what does not. Philosophize all you want, but you're talking theory to a world of practice. Kids freak out much more over the sight of a shootout where the walls are being splashed with blood, and one where people just fall over.

Re:Kid mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

/obviously made up title

Uh, yeah, thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Kid mode?

[nine-times]

You'll recognize the difference, quickly, between what causes nightmares and what does not....Kids freak out much more over the sight of a shootout where the walls are being splashed with blood, and one where people just fall over.

So your aim is to make sure you expose your kids to violence, but just to make sure that they don't get nightmares about it?

I dunno, but I might wonder whether "my kids are too young to be exposed to depictions of bloody gun violence," should be considered a much different statement than, "my kids are too young to be exposed to depictions of gun violence." If your kids are constantly being exposed to violence, maybe it's best that they are a bit horrified by it.

Re:Kid mode?

[brkello]

So, to begin with, how is it violent?

Umm, maybe because it depicts violence?

Re:Kid mode?

[gknoy]

While I agree that it's important that the concepts of death and harm not be sanitized too much, you have to temper it to the maturity of the viewer. At some point, we all had to learn that people die, and that death is permanent. There's a reason Bambi makes kids cry. Once your child understands that that is what is happening, story-wise, they will understand what's going on better. Whether it's an old Errol Flynn movie where the bad guy gets skewered, or a western where people tend to just keep over, you can still convey the message, without needing the blood sprays.

Re:Kid mode?

[nine-times]

Sure. I'd agree that there is such a thing as age-appropriate violence (or whatever terminology you'd like to use). That is to say, children's entertainment probably shouldn't be sanitized of all violence and conflicts, and that including some kinds of violence without the full gory detail is probably a good idea.

The issue in my mind is not some kind of absolute, but more of an issue of degree. I haven't been able to get much detail on this particular FPS, but it seems unlikely to me that something called "Blood Frontier" would become suddenly child-friendly just because there are a couple fewer red pixels when you shoot someone.

I'm guessing that it's more like-- I forget which fighting game it was, but years ago there was some Street Fighter/Virtua Fighter-ish game where when you punched someone, there was a little flash of red. It wasn't the slightest bit gory, but parents got mad because that little flash of red was supposed to be blood, so the makers caved and changed the color of that flash to blue. Suddenly parents were happy.

So to a large degree I'm asking the question, "Does the appearance of blood make this game completely inappropriate for 5 year olds, and if so, does simply removing blood suddenly make this game appropriate for 5 year olds?" And I'm guessing the answer is "no."

Re:Kid mode?

[men0s]

It reminds me of all the "Christian" servers out there for the PC version of Halo. You pretty much get booted/kicked for swearing despite the fact you're playing a game that's already rated M. Not to mention using guns and grenades to kill other actual players.

Re:Kid mode?

[shutdown -p now]

Philosophize all you want, but you're talking theory to a world of practice. Kids freak out much more over the sight of a shootout where the walls are being splashed with blood, and one where people just fall over.

That "theory in a world of practice" is an advice you might want to apply to yourself... ever seen a kid (under 10) play Carmageddon or GTA? I've did, quite a few of them. They didn't seem to mind the gore, and none that I know of torture cats or show other signs of becoming serial killers in the future. It may come as a surprise, but they do know the difference between a video game and reality. And why not? I mean, I sure did, back when we played war with toy pistols and stuff (which did involve stuff such as impersonating wounded/dying soldiers, with the associated screams and body thrashing and all, as seen in the action movies).

Re:Kid mode?

[qreeves]

Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"? Are you still running around killing people?

...

I just think it's weird to censor blood out of a FPS called "Blood Frontier", and then call it "kid mode".

Kid mode was more about forcing the Paintball mode rather than turning off Blood.

Re:Kid mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because your kids might be a bunch of sheltered little faggots doesn't mean all of them are.

Re:Kid mode?

[CorporateSuit]

That "theory in a world of practice" is an advice you might want to apply to yourself... ever seen a kid (under 10) play Carmageddon or GTA?

Of course I have. 10-year-olds equate violence with awesomeness when it comes to cartoons, games, and drawing. I was possibly the worst of them all. However, you're no parent. You don't realize how blurred the line between media and reality is for kids. You're not constantly bombarded with questions like "Can this really happen?" "Do those kinds of things really exist?" "Can we really go somewhere like that?" "What happens to the videogame guys when they die? Do they go to heaven?" Spend enough time with a 7-year-old and find out how, to them, "going to work" is as ethereal and socially relevant as "achieving nirvana" is to you. Hear the questions that come from them as their brains are still establishing the boundaries of reality.

You just sit there, saying that you see kids playing GTA for a few minutes and suddenly you have an arbitrarily accurate gauge on the healthy psychological development of 10-year-olds. You obviously deserve some honorary degrees in child psychology from your intense sessions of hearing about other peoples' kids' reactions to play video games.

Every kid is different, but avoiding addictions to violence, childhood trauma, or apathy to suffering are 3 targets of every good parent. Seeing splattering blood, for one reason or another, tends to be the first large canyon for kids to cross when it comes to seeing forms of violence. Removing that and/or dismemberment from a violent depiction seems to soften much of the impact on their developing brains. Try listening to someone who deals with this kind of thing every day, rather than trying to view your childhood memories through your current, rigid understanding of the world, and trying to treat other peoples' kids as your own "progressive" social experiments, then insulting them when they tell you that your theories are shallow, misdirected, and unfounded in reality. Theory in a world of practice.

But..,

[Hurricane78]

... is the server still that horribly unsafe bare-bones packet-switch, that it is in Cube 2?

For those that don't know the details: The "server" of Cube 2 (Sauerbraten) is really basically just sending update packages around. No rules/physics validation, server simulation, or cheat checking of any kind. This, and the fact that it is open source, made it possible for every noob with a bit of C/C++-knowledge, to change some rules, and cheat like crazy.
I played it for some months, and saw people flying around, beaming themselves to where they liked it, completely defeating game physics, and making every shot a perfekt hit.

If this is not fixed, there is no reason to play that game, because you can't determine a winner anyway. (Or is it going to become a contest of the greatest hackers? ;)

Re:But..,

[adrian.henke]

Yes, the Cube2 engine has still a lot of client-side logic. And No, it does not matter.

See, it does NOT matter if the logic is client or (as you prefer) server side. Because as long as the game is opensource, there are ways to cheat. That's a fact.

If you don't believe me, think about hacks like: wallhacks, respawn-timers, aimbots, enemy-radar, etc. How do you want to combat this by pushing the logic to the server? This is opensource, its easy to hack no matter what you do..

Re:But..,

[bendodge]

Um, no. If your server code balks at someone exceeding 75mph on foot, it will do it whether or not it's open source. The client has no control over the server's physics checks. The problem is that those checks don't exist.

Re:But..,

[Chris_Jefferson]

It's easy to do those kind of hacks in closed-source projects too, that's why almost every commercial game has moved to not trusting the client as much as possible, only sending it what the client can see and only accepting input it trusts as valid.

Re:But..,

[nickruiz]

Sounds like the public game server should be doing some hash-checking on client installations.

Re:But..,

[SheeEttin]

It's slightly better. The master system helps a bit (players take master, and can then kick players if this kind of thing happens--the master system, as it isn't perfect, will always be under revision, though). I've actually noticed people cheating a lot less than they used to. Especially on the "known" servers. Just thought I've give a bit of an update. If you want to REALLY follow what's up, try the forum.

Re:But..,

[adrian.henke]

You are talking about speedhacks here, it's clear to me that these kind of cheats can be avoided with server side code. However I talked about: "wallhacks, respawn-timers, aimbots, enemy-radar, etc"

These things can be implemented in every foss fps game with a few minutes or hours of programming, simply by editing the client source and recompiling. Doing this in (current) closedsource games is _way harder_.

Re:But..,

[adrian.henke]

It is possible in closedsource games, yes. However saying "it is easy too" is simply not true. Editing the client source code and recomiling versus memory hacking a high-profile game like CS:S are just totally different levels. I don't consider latter to be 'easy'.

Problem with threating every client data as untrusted is the additional required bandwith. The more data the client has to send (to make the server do the right decision) the more LAG you get, which is extremely undesireable in all games, especially in FPS'es.

Re:But..,

[jonaskoelker]

Sounds like the public game server should be doing some hash-checking on client installations.

Okay. I reverse engineer the client to determine what kind of crazy dance I must perform to make the serve think I'm kosher. Then I cheat.

The server has been assured of what, exactly?

To make it painstakingly clear, the security is this:

There's a server and a bunch of clients. There are trust boundaries between everybody, meaning no one trusts another. Having the client tell the server "You can trust me" doesn't make the client trustworthy. Sending a hash value is a different way to "spell" the message "You can trust me": it's different data, but the same semantics.

What you need to do if you want real security is give everybody only the data they're allowed to get, and check their input for validity when you get it.

Yes, that's slow. There's a trade-off. But having clients send a hash value and then trusting the clients is simply security by obscurity, with the worst possible security scenario happening when the first line defense is breached.

Re:But..,

[men0s]

What you need to do if you want real security is give everybody only the data they're allowed to get, and check their input for validity when you get it.

Well that is one way to do it. You can also have something along the lines of an RSA-blessing algorithm that Netrek uses. Essentially, you have a set of clients that are white-listed and are allowed to connect to certain servers. So while there is nothing from stopping you from compiling your own client with whatever hacks you decide you want, you won't be able to play on most of the "official" servers. The same could be said for any game. Have trusted servers only allow trusted clients. Sure, it might fragment the community into hacked-server and legit-server groups, but it's a good setup to have.

Re:But..,

[brkello]

You are on Slashdot claiming that? Turn in your UID. You essentially just said that we can't use Linux any more since everyone can hack us because it is open source.

There is a difference between open source and secure. You don't seem to understand that they aren't the opposite. There can be both secure and insecure open source. It sounds like this is just done poorly. People don't want to play a game where everyone is cheating.

Re:But..,

[moonbender]

You essentially just said that we can't use Linux any more since everyone can hack us because it is open source.

No. He's saying that it's (much!) easier to pull off certain kinds of cheats when you've got the source than when you don't.

Part of the problem is that clients get information (and often do in fact need it) that they're not supposed to show to the user. A simple example: player inspects all packets that flow between his client and the server in order to dump all player positions from the data. With a closed source, he's got to reverse engineer the stream format (or worse, encryption). With open source, the stream format including any encryption can be trivially gotten from the source.

The real flaw is that this kind of information is available on the client in the first place, but I don't think there's a viable alternative to that. Ideally, the server would do everything up to and including rendering the scene and simply send bitmaps to the player -- a 3D scene graph would include information about (partially) obscured objects/players -- but obviously that won't be possible any time soon.

Re:But..,

[shutdown -p now]

For Cube at least, this is (or was, when I was active in the community) by design. You were supposed to play with the people you know, or at least trust.

Re:But..,

[Anonymous Coward]

See, it does NOT matter if the logic is client or (as you prefer) server side. Because as long as the game is opensource, there are ways to cheat. That's a fact.

If you don't believe me, think about hacks like: wallhacks, respawn-timers, aimbots, enemy-radar, etc. How do you want to combat this by pushing the logic to the server? This is opensource, its easy to hack no matter what you do..

Wallhacks: No source required. Actually the first mention of this I saw was a setting in a Windows graphics driver.

Respawn-timers: If correctly enforced by the server, source is no help.

Aimbots: No source required. Aimbots exist for every major FPS out there.

Enemy-radar: Only a possibility if the server sends information to the client that the user should not be able to see.

In short: Either the cheat can be done easily without source, or a well-written server prevents the cheat. Open source is not the problem.

Re:But..,

[brkello]

Then he (and you) are also saying that it is (much!) easier to hack in to a Linux box then a Windows box. The client should only be allowed certain information. The server should be checking of things that should not be possible are occurring. Like you said, closed source FPS's are going to be hacked too by REing the network traffic. Yet these games still have anti-cheat measures because they know this is occurring. Is it possible to have 100% cheat free FPS's? Maybe, but it would cost way too much money. But this game just sounds sloppy and I reject the idea that it can't do cheat prevention because it is open source.

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

Simple. Very simple.

As is the Quake engines, the server actually simulates the whole game world in the same way that the client (in fact every client) does.
So if one of those simulations deviates from the others (normally from the server's), the player could simply be kicked.
This means everything. Movement, targeting, ammunition count, and, and, and...

Problem solved.

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

Cheating in all this ways by changing the game engine, can be protected against, by using an heavily guarded external tool (like PunkBuster was).
This tool would create checksums of the files, and submit them to the server trough a protected connection on its own.
You could even extend it to the graphics driver and libraries of the os.

Of course this has the same basic problem as DRM: The CPU of the client still interprets it in... ehem... the way it likes it. Which includes cracks of any kind, written by one person, and distributed trough the (gamecopy)world(.com). ;)
But this is true for any (other) closed source too. (So the game engine itself does not have to be closed, for it all to be safe. Just let the checking tool allow only pre-checked and approved patches.)

However, this is much more rare, and harder, than just opening a C(++) file with notepad, and changing a line (or automating that by extracting a patch archive to the game folder), between extraction an compilation/installation of the game.

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

No, it does not require more bandwidth. It can even reduce it.

This is, because the server simulates the game world too. It does not have to get everything from the client.
So even if the client would use an aimbot, the server would have a different simulation, and the shot would not do anything.
Instead, the simulation of that client would break down on the next sync packet, because the server would enforce the state the world would have to be in, if you wanted to participate.

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

Okay. I reverse engineer the client to determine what kind of crazy dance I must perform to make the serve think I'm kosher. Then I cheat.

Please let us think this trough on a few examples:

Example A) You want to run really fast. For this, your first sync packet *has* to be at a further distance from the second sync packet, than allowed by game physics. The server would simply calculate the distance of your positions, and throw you out if it's over the limit. No hash-checking needed.

Example B) You want to create an aimbot. For this you have to use hash-checking.
    Case 1) Hash-checking works. This means you have no way to change the engine. Hence no aimbot
    Case 2) You crack the (binary blob) hash-checking tool and submit your own hashes. This works with every closed-source project too.

Example C) You want to not get hit yourself. Well, the server will count those hits, even if you don't. Only if you can see trough walls, can you partially avoid the enemies. But this again requires the same thing as example B, case 2.

So in the 3 most important points, hash-checking and more importantly a self-simulating server, leave only hacking the heavily guarded hash-checker as a crazy dance. Hmm... same as with closed source.

But you're completely right. The client should only get, what he absolutely needs to do its work.
That's how I design my client right now. Good thing, you can't possibly wall-hack that one, and still be a human.

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

Nice. That's a good start. Thank you for the info. :)

Re:But..,

[Hurricane78]

Ok... I did not know that. But of course this was not the case most of the time. (Or was it? Known personally, and known well enough to know they do not apply a cheating patch? I would not even be sure that half of my friends would never do that.) So the design was pretty unrealistic, wasn't it? ;)

Of course this saved much needed programming time. So it was not a completely bad thing. :)

Still I prefer the (now open-sourced) Quake 3 engine over any other engine any day. (Except maybe if the Unreal engines were open source.)

FPS fun is a delicate balance

[stokessd]

I've played a lot of FPS' up to Unreal2004, and some are clearly better than others. There's the obvious map features, like size vs. player number, overall layout, wall design with hiding places, etc. And that's not even counting the artistic side of texture mapping and making it look interesting.

But the player dynamics, and weapon characteristics combine to subtly change the intensity/speed of the game. For example the archaic Marathon was very slow due to show shot speed comparatively weak weapons. Quake III has much stronger weapons making distances seem shorter due to the killing power.

Unreal has a great balance, of player speed, map size and weapon strength/diversity that makes it consistently fun to play. It also has reasonably good AI for the bots. This balance seems to be elusive in FPS, as there are so few who really get it right, and you can see that in the communities they spawn.

I hope these OSS projects can match the balance of a great FPS even if they don't have the deep pockets or manpower to spend on visually stunning maps.

Sheldon

Re:FPS fun is a delicate balance

[rantingkitten]

It also has reasonably good AI for the bots.

In Unreal 2004? The bots that follow the same retarded routes over and over, frequently stop and stare into space during critical moments, and will shoot at you even though you're further away than the engine can even render, are hidden in foliage, and aren't doing anything tactically significant anyway, while ignoring the guy taking down their node six feet away?

Unreal 2004 has some of the most retarded bots I've ever seen in a game, to the point where if there are more than a few on a server, I leave because it's absolutely no fun. They make horrible enemies and even worse teammates (how many times have I seen one grab a vehicle, plow it into a hillside, and get stuck there spinning its wheels for the next ten minutes?).

Yeah, I hadda go off on this rant. Back to the normal discussion!

Paintball is silly

[Brain-Fu]

I think the paintball mode is equally silly.

Paintball is a game that mimics a gunfight, even though no actual weapons are involved (assuming we classify paintball guns as toys, and not projectile weapons).

Virtual shooters are all games that mimic a gunfight, even though no actual weapons are involved (assuming we classify desk chairs as furniture, and not projectile weapons).

They are already the same thing. The bloody FPS is a metaphor for a gunfight. The splattery paintball sport is a metaphor for a gunfight. So we make a metaphor for a metaphor for a gunfight, and somehow that makes it ok?

People are weird.

Re:Paintball is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

assuming we classify desk chairs as furniture, and not projectile weapons

Steve Ballmer would like a word with you...

someone will have a blood hack

[jollyreaper]

This game is an enhanced Cube 2 engine with original artwork and new gameplay (including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood -- a nice option for a change).

Slackers. Our media's had that feature for years.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[jggimi]

Maybe it should be called "Blood-Lite?"

I can just see the ad campaign comparing Blood-Lite to Killer-Lite.

"Tases Great!"

"Less Spilling!"

UFO: Alien Invasion

[Talar]

Speaking of other open games, take a look at this:
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/

Urban Terror

[chord.wav]

I've said it a millon times, here's one more.

Urban terror (http://www.urbanterror.net/) is Counter Strike, less realistic, more fun. Runs in Linux, MacOSX and Windows. Check it out.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[V!NCENT]

Blood pumping action? :')

Three vampires walk into a bar

[tepples]

Three vampires walk into a bar:

1. I'll have a glass of blood.
2. I'll have what he's having.
3. A glass of plasma please.

Bartender: "So that'll be two bloods and a blood light."

Re:Three vampires walk into a bar

[kLaNk]

AABB humor? :-p

Disable The BLOOOOOOD

[Tarlus]

...including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood -- a nice option for a change...

This version of the game is called "Frontier".

I think they should go the OTHER route....

[gosand]

and have "kid mode" teach them the reality of violence. If you are playing the game and you get killed, it does a "sudo rm -rf /" on your system.

oh COME on !!

[unity100]

Does anyone know of other great open source games that are truly 'open?'"

is this question, appended to the end of the whole paragraph solely pimping a game, really necessary ? it seems as eloquent and delicate as a butterfly that's landed on a horse's dick. if you gonna pimp the game, just pimp it.

Wavesonics

[Wavesonics]

TA Spring is a completely open source 3D RTS, and it's awesome! http://spring.clan-sy.com/

Is 1and1 still having DDOS issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like 1and1 (the hosts of bloodfrontier.com) are having issues. Looks like I will never choose them as a host.

Nexuiz

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh huh, some competition for Nexuiz eh. >:)

OpenBVE, for train sim buffs

[jkxx]

While train simming is not exactly a hot genre it has been entering the mainstream as of late. The proprietary contenders currently include Kuju's Rail Simulator and Auran's Trainz series. Both are closed-source but use plain XML for all their data files which makes developing easy for these sims. Microsoft decided to re-enter the race with a new "Microsoft Train Simulator 2" bragging that they have endless resources and will beat any competitor. A few days ago, however, they canned the project along with everyone at ACES who had been working on it. Anyway, where it gets interesting is a freebie (fully open-source) sim called openBVE which can be found at http://openbve.uuuq.com/en/index.html. While its predecessor BVE was not fully open, openBVE is and it's making rapid progress, especially as of late. A video showing off its capabilities is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtITwxTWLyM&fmt=18. So as far as train sims go, yes there is at least one that's starting to turn heads and it's good to see something that's not an FPS for a change.

Mirrored link without images.

[antdude]

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:ORDt8YILNcwJ:bloodfrontier.com/+http://www.bloodfrontier.com/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=mozilla

Re:Mirrored link without images.

[qqtortqq]

Here's the download links too @ sf for: Windows: https://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=198419&sel_platform=13227 Linux: https://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=198419&sel_platform=13228

Agree but...

[Jabbrwokk]

I was going to flame you but then I re-read your post and I somewhat agree with you.

But I don't think it's fair to lump parents into two categories - those close-minded fundamentalists who shelter their children, and open-minded free thinkers who teach their children to make their own decisions. That's stereotypical nonsense.

Violence is part of life. Animals eat other animals, and even my three-year-old daughter is starting to understand that. But gratuitous violence which we watch for our enjoyment and amusement is not part of life and I think kids deserve to be sheltered from as much unnecessary violence as possible. We put too much emphasis on our right to be entertained, and justifying our appetite for violence in our entertainment by mocking anyone who disagrees with us (not that you are doing that) but I think a kid's right to an innocent, happy childhood should take precedence.

For the record, I have enjoyed violent FPS games since Wolfenstein 3D but when I'm playing STALKER I don't let my daughter watch because I don't want to fill her mind with violent images. She used to sit on my lap while I would play Half-Life 2 but when she started trying to tell me which gun to use I realized that maybe it would be more appropriate to shut down the game and go play soccer with her outside.

I'll save the "appreciation of violent art" discussion for when she's in her teens, when her reasoning skills really start to develop.

That was kind of a long-winded way of saying I'm glad the team put a no-blood option in the game. That actually could broaden their audience. My wife played and loved the first two Fallout games because there was a violence filter. We passed on Fallout 3 because as far as I can tell there is no such filter (at least, when I contacted the company directly to ask this question I received a useless generic form letter which did not answer the question).

Re:Agree but...

[causality]

But I don't think it's fair to lump parents into two categories - those close-minded fundamentalists who shelter their children, and open-minded free thinkers who teach their children to make their own decisions. That's stereotypical nonsense.

I say it knowing it's stereotypical because it provides contrast. Some contrast is needed in order to get people to consider new ideas or to reconsider old ideas from a different perspective. You were not my target audience because you are clearly able to see these things for yourself and make your own decisions, so you do not need me or anyone else to talk to you about perspective. This is a good, refreshing thing to see.

Violence is part of life. Animals eat other animals, and even my three-year-old daughter is starting to understand that. But gratuitous violence which we watch for our enjoyment and amusement is not part of life and I think kids deserve to be sheltered from as much unnecessary violence as possible. We put too much emphasis on our right to be entertained, and justifying our appetite for violence in our entertainment by mocking anyone who disagrees with us (not that you are doing that) but I think a kid's right to an innocent, happy childhood should take precedence.

For the record, I have enjoyed violent FPS games since Wolfenstein 3D but when I'm playing STALKER I don't let my daughter watch because I don't want to fill her mind with violent images. She used to sit on my lap while I would play Half-Life 2 but when she started trying to tell me which gun to use I realized that maybe it would be more appropriate to shut down the game and go play soccer with her outside.

I'll save the "appreciation of violent art" discussion for when she's in her teens, when her reasoning skills really start to develop [nih.gov].

I have recently realized (and I am not the first to "discover" this) that those things which we think are "bad influences" are not the problem. How we collectively respond to them is the problem. We either get angry and rebel or fight against them, or we get timid and become subservient and dominated by them. Both of those lead to suffering. Neither of those is rooted in love and understanding. So, I do not believe that fictitious violence (emphasis on fictitious) is a problem in and of itself but it will appear to be a big problem to people who don't realize that they are making choices as to how they handle it. Young minds very well may be in that category but I don't think that any sort of universal law has decreed that this must be the case.

That was kind of a long-winded way of saying I'm glad the team put a no-blood option in the game. That actually could broaden their audience. My wife played and loved the first two Fallout games because there was a violence filter. We passed on Fallout 3 because as far as I can tell there is no such filter (at least, when I contacted the company directly to ask this question I received a useless generic form letter which did not answer the question).

This relates to the concept of a "stumbling block". A stumbling block is when something does not inherently cause a problem but a person finds that something offensive and refuses to look at it in any other way. As an adult woman, your wife is perfectly capable of dealing with the Fallout series in all its uncensored expression. I strongly doubt she is truly so delicate and frail and helpless as to be unable to handle that (it would be difficult to listen to how reasonable you are and believe that this would be the case). She just really doesn't like it. So the violence filter is a way of removing a stumbling block so that she can enjoy a thing that she otherwise wouldn't like. That's about as big of a deal as this whole issue ever had to be. Compare that to all the controversy and media attention and lobbying and groups advocating censorship and all of that and you will probably come to see why I think those things are something like madness.

Seems the Slashvertisement Worked....

[SIR_Taco]

The stats show that this little Slashvertisement worked quite well.

Blood Ocean

[GameMaster]

The first thing I thought about after reading the name of the game was the horrible horror/action movie made by the characters in Metalocalypse, "Bood Ocean". Now I can't get the idea of Nathan Explosion doing the absurd voiceover in the mock movie preview but doing it for "Bood Frontier".

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[gknoy]

You joke, but I think an updated Oregon Trail would be interesting. Scout your path in first person, do minigames for river crossings, hunt things in first person, perhaps. Include an option to play it "desert bus" style, for the truly masochistic. ;)

Incognito Episode 1

[Anonymous Coward]

We have been working on this open source title for about 12-months and released it this Jan.

http://magrathean.ca/project/incognito

These genres change at each "zoom level" of the game:
*. When you're on foot, it's a First-Person Shooter with RPG elements
*. When you're in your ship, it's a Space Trading/Combat Simulation
*. When you're in low orbit of a planet, it's a Simple Real-Time Strategy Game
*. When you're in your hovertank, it's a Tank Combat Game

In order to progess through each Episode, you'll have to conquer challenges at each level, gathering information on foot, exploring in your ship, landing on uninhabited planets and establishing bases, and on hostile planets, invading a planet's surface defenses in the hovertank.

We give away ALL code to the game once you purchase it, but no, we don't release it for free. It's only $9.99 USD which is less than a pack of smokes for those thinking it's WAYY to much.

People are so cheap these days it makes me sick.

Re:Incognito Episode 1

[slack_prad]

No Linux? I was actually about to buy it.

Neowin is Working on One

[ToAllPointsWest]

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=707404 Not sure how far they've gotten though

Slashdotted... apparently to death!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL -> It works!

The idea

[Anonymous Coward]

is to ignore the trolls. Please reserve your informative chips for actual players: thank you.

Sounds like fun

[Anonymous Coward]

"XEvil is a 2D side scroller with an excessive amount of violence."

What a recommendation.

Re:Sounds like fun

[argiedot]

I've played XEvil since god knows when. The game is just awesome. Even more awesome to split-screen on the same computer.

warsow

[Bahdom]

Have you checked warsow? Its pretty much the best Open Source FPS out there in my opinion. warsow[dot]net

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

It even works!

"Mirror"

[Anonymous Coward]

The website/masterserver for the game are slightly hosed at the moment, but here is some information on the game for people looking:

Windows download link
Linux download link

From included readme.txt:
Dear User,

Welcome to Blood Frontier, and thanks for your interest! Please note that Blood Frontier is in early alpha stages, and as such, is not yet fully finished, polished, or even playable. It is intended as a multiplayer only demo of what is to come in future versions, meaning that singleplayer and enemies are not implemented yet. You are however invited to try out the features that have been added that will lead up to these things, such as; bots, online triggers, and much more :)

If you are interested in development, or require technical support please visit the #bloodfrontier IRC channel on freenode at irc://irc.freenode.net/bloodfrontier or you can visit our website, which offers more details at http://bloodfrontier.com/

The source code, license, and related documentation can be found in the 'src' subdirectory of this archive. Enjoy messing around with our little project, and be sure to have fun!

Regards,
Acord, Quin, and the Blood Frontier Team

= BLOOD FRONTIER =

Humanity has spread throughout the solar system, to Mars and beyond. A vast communications network bridges from colony to colony, human to machine, and machine to human. This seemingly benign keystone of inter-planetary society, however, appears to be the carrier of a mysterious biological plague. Any persons so-connected seem to fall ill and die, only to return as ravenous, sub-human cannibals. You, a machine intelligence, an android, remain unafflicted by this phenomenon. You have been tasked with destroying the growing hordes of the infected, and, hopefully, locating and stopping the source of this epidemic.

Blood Frontier is a single-player and multi-player first-person shooter game, built as a total conversion of Cube Engine 2 (Sauerbraten). The project tries to work closely with the gaming and open source communities to provide a better overall experience, with a primary goal of creating a adventure based game environment that is flexible, fun, easy to use, and pleasing to the eye; it is a project with a true "by the people for the people" nature.

During its life, the goals of the project have shifted dramatically from its original concept, lending itself toward a more balanced gameplay, completely at the control of map makers, while maintaining a general theme of tactics and low gravity. Building upon a main philosophy of making a game everyone likes, Quin attempts to make the development process more open, with ideas coming in from every direction, from your average player to your seasoned developer.

The main adventure component of Blood Frontier will always be Free and Open Source Software, the only restriction is that currently you are free to distribute but not copy or reuse the artwork without permission. This project will eventually release its assests under an as-yet undetermined open source license, once it reaches full version. For a full list of people who have contributed see the Credits. For licensing information, please see the License.

These are people who have helped shape Blood Frontier into what you see. Your name could be here too if you Donate or Collaborate.

Developers
Anthony "Acord" Cord Original Blood Frontier concept, most art assets and content
Quinton "Quin" Reeves Gameplay and AI code/design, community and website management
Lee "Eihrul" Salzman Backports from Cube Engine 2, support, encouragement, code advice and speed improvements
"Hirato Kirata

WinBolo (2D Tank Strategy)

[men0s]

For those who have ever spent an entire Typing Class period in middle school on a Mac playing Bolo will find WinBolo very familiar.

While WinBolo has been around for a decade or so, the source was released about a month ago. And by source, that means a few things: the logviewer, the server (Windows and Linux), the client (Windows), a Java port, as well as the backend for the winbolo.net domain.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?

No, then it's just called Frontier, and it becomes about a family traveling from Independence, Mo to Oregon.

..until they get sent a terse letter from David Braben.

Pretending the slashdot effect:

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I cannot get to the download site for the game (the download is slashdotted at the moment), I'm playing the game where I'm pretending that other people are pretending to pretend to shoot people.

Paintball mode

[ewanm89]

I downloaded it and tried the paintball mode just to see how it differs. Basically, you halt for a few seconds after getting hit. After four hits you die and have to respawn. And there is a time after the pause during which you can't be shot. Quite unique, fun and different.

Re:Paintball mode

[qreeves]

I downloaded it and tried the paintball mode just to see how it differs. Basically, you halt for a few seconds after getting hit. After four hits you die and have to respawn. And there is a time after the pause during which you can't be shot. Quite unique, fun and different.

Glad you enjoyed it, I wanted to be a little different in the execution of everything; which included paintball. Basically it is "easy mode" for people who have a harder time playing FPS games, like kids and newbies :)

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it has been mentioned previously but you should definitively have a look there:

www.warsow.net

It's a great opensource fast-paced FPS with Tron-like graphics. Have a try.

non-FPS open source strategy game: Hedgewars

[bombjack7000]

The open source game I play quite often these days is called Hedgewars). It's a turn-based strategy game, actually a Worms clone. I find it clearly superior to Wormux, as it overall fits together much better. Neat graphics, nice sound effects and some new weapons, too. And I didnt even mention the addictive online multiplayer mode! Although it is under heavy development at the moment, it is quite stable. I can online recommend it!

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[qreeves]

The author of the game is the submitter, so yes, you're correct.

Actually, I'm one of the authors. Softhaus is an over-excited newcomer. Blood Frontier wasn't ready for /.

Re:The (surprise) first post frontier

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope - we didn't submit. We did get our server trampled though!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bloodfrontier/

Check out the details page.

Want new FPS mechanics? Here's your chance!

[Acord]

We're not looking for tried and true - double jumping, in-air directional impulses, moving bullets that make sniping hard and aimbots less than useful, a redirection from collecting crap on a map(ammo, armor, health etc.... THERE IS NONE!) We want to make something cool and different. If you've got ideas, let's hear 'em!

Re:Want new FPS mechanics? Here's your chance!

[qreeves]

Hell yeah, we're more than happy to make this the open source FPS that everyone wants. Which I think is what the article poster was talking about; We strive to actually take input from the public and fine tune the game into something everyone wants to play.

You may even want to compare the old "Alpha 2" to the "Beta 1", the gameplay drastically changed in six short months based on player and developer feedback.

FLOSS REVIEW

[Life2Death]

BloodFrontier http://simutrans.sourceforge.net/ Number of players: Who cares Version: -1 Alpha, it has to be.
Graphics: 3/5 Gameplay: 1/5 Interface: -10/5 EPIC FAIL Stability: 1/5 Installer: -1/5 Multiplayer: 1/5 Sometimes when you make an installer, you just dont care about it. Perhaps this is it. It may get a point for actually doing something, like drawing a cute screen, but thats only because it its the bare naked nullsoft installer thus they get no points. They might as well give you a zip file and call it a day, as thats about how impressive the installer is. Note that the name is also stupid, but we wont concern ourselves with that. The website is also uglier than a text file, and somehow manages to break every function a website is supposed to have like HYPERLINKS and pictures. PICTURES! GRAPHICS The game looks like a strange combination of 50 peoples work. The level is a mix of VRML quality polygons with some cool lighting effects, but the weapon seems like its coming out of your hat or something, is that a weapon?! Gameplay... Loading up the game you're wisked into a quake "into" like level, okay. Interesting. But the cube engine is so slow loading, well, we wont blame that. It has some funky interactive pannel thing, or tries to. but its really just a pain in the ass excuse to not do a GUI right. Speaking of that, opening the menu (you walk over the the central VRML ugly and hit e, at which point you get presented with the worst interface I've ever seen. Text mode is friendlier. It looks more like something Linus shit out after taco day and just too much beer. Maybe, maybe i'll figure out how to change the game to higher settings. I think. Does it support this? I tried to just connect to a server, Weird, no sound. I go to the server list and it said to update. Weird, assult cube handled this perfeclty. The game lags horribly. You have to change menus (they respond to mouse hover OR SOMETHING.) I cant get the resolution to change. I'm done before i convulse on the floor. Alas i cant take the epic fail of its gui, thus This review is terminated.

Re:FLOSS REVIEW

[Life2Death]

Pardon the wrong url, I've been reviewing every FLOSS game i can find and neglected to update it. not like the website is anything to look at. I'm sorry i'm so harsh, but dont follow in the failsteps that Tremulous did. A fun game for a while has broken the basic game it was built on - menus don't need to fight the user!

NOT just no blood, different gameplay!

[gosand]

I wondered why they have a paintball mode too... but you know what? It's fun! I downloaded and played it. Here is the description from the docs:

Paintball

Paintball mode! You will be given a paintball marker and must tag your opponents with paint. Tagging an opponent freezes them in their tracks for a short time, but once they are un-frozen they cannot be tagged for a few seconds. However, they can still tag you so get moving! 5 tags will knock a player out and they must respawn.

It's actually pretty cool.

It will be interested to see how the game progresses, if there are community maps made, etc. They have an "editing" mode but I haven't tried it out yet.