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Battle For Wesnoth Version 1.6 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-and-shiny dept.

bomanbot writes "The team for the great turn-based, open-source strategy game Battle for Wesnoth has just released the new stable version 1.6 of their popular title. Some of the new version's highlights include a new campaign, new multiplayer scenarios, improved graphics and user interface, and new background music. The full release notes have been posted, and the source code and binary downloads for many different platforms including Linux, Windows and Mac OS X are available as well."

1 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. I'd go further than that by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It isn't just art, but basically non-programming related assets that OSS games tend to lack in. Not a surprise since they are usually done by coders. So not only does the artwork tend to be lacking, but sound, music, level design and so on. It seems that most of the people who are interested in working on that sort of thing, do it for a commercial engine. You'll find some pretty amazing community developed stuff for things like UT3.

    Part of the reason is probably that the tools are better for those games. Take a look at the Unreal Editor or the Elder Scrolls Construction Kit some time. They are extremely solid tools, and have some good assets to start working with. Compare that to many OSS games which have NO tools. The designers would have to do everything on their own. Also it is easier to reach an audience that way. If you are a level designer and make a level for a popular game, you just release it and people can play. If you sign on with an OSS game, well first it has to actually reach a state people want to play, and then people have to discover it and try it.

    I do think one thing that would help is for OSS games to have much better tools. Make it easy for people to add assets, build levels and so on. Maybe more people would be willing to do so.