Open Source Shooter Nexuiz 2.5 Released

Michael writes "A new version of Nexuiz, a GPL-licensed, first-person shooter, has been released. There are over 3,000 changes in Nexuiz 2.5, including new maps, new game-modes, enhanced graphics, new audio, and other major changes. Phoronix has posted a preview of this Nexuiz 2.5 release, with screenshots showing the impressive graphics and how it has raised the bar for open-source gaming. Details about the Nexuiz project are available at SourceForge."

Comments

Bizzaro-UT

[im_thatoneguy]

Are all of the maps UT maps or just all the the ones in the trailer?

First PS

[Bromskloss]

Many games claim to be the first person shooter. I don't know whom to believe.

Re:First PS

[dns_server]

I guess it's just a matter of perspective.

Re:First PS

[Blakey Rat]

That's ok, I can never tell the real time strategy games from all the fake ones out there, either.

Cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered, how do open source games (Especially FPS ones) deal with cheating. Server side checks and such can of course be implemented, but what prevents someone from just turning all the enemies bright red?

With the source, one could even make a rather effective aimbot (Or just write a bot that plays completely by itself) and it would be nearly undetectable since any countermeasures are also open source.

I understand that even a closed source game will have its fair share of cheats, but open source is almost begging for them.

Re:Cheating?

[struppi]

Yes, but how do you notice someone is cheating? Because he is good? In counter strike, any time someone enters a server who is much better than all the others, people start shouting "cheater". That doesn't necessarily mean they are cheating.

Re:Cheating?

[windsurfer619]

I actually find it a complement when I'm kicked for "cheating" when I'm actually not :)

Re:Cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

What one of the developers had to say about cheating: http://www.nexuizninjaz.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=428&pid=3267#pid3267

To add some technical stuff to this emotional matter:

Basicly only a few cheats are possible: auto-aiming (which aims for you and SHOULD be able to hit perfectly), wallhacks (which allows you to see through walls) and speedhacks (which allow you to run faster). Stuff like health, armor, weapons you posses are TOTALY in control of the server and can't be changed by any client. So if you suspect people to be unkillable this usually just means they collect lots of health/armor and as you can collect them almost without limit it can be hard to kill someone really stacked. Being able to change health/armor/weapons would require a custom setup (recompiled) server, so if you play on the 'well-known' servers you should be fine. In theory it might be possible to hack a server but thats totally unheard off. So, nothing to cheat here..

Speedhacks usually point to some bugs in Nexuiz and while there were such bugs in the past they should all be fixed now, which should make speedhacking impossible. If there are still bugs in Nexuiz the developers should be told about! For the fun of it, due to network changes a certain Nexuiz version acted as speedhack on certain older nexuiz servers, but again, thats all fixed now and also helped to get server admins to update :-) So, nothing to cheat here..

Wallhacks are also impossible with the default settings because Nexuiz uses a clever anti-wallhack. Basicly most games tell the client the position of all other players and items and when using a hack to make walls transparent you can see those players and items in the whole map. Nexuiz in turn only sends info about players and item only if you could possibly see them. So even if someone WOULD use a wallhack and make walls transparent there would be nothing to see. This means wallhacks are USELESS in Nexuiz, nothing to cheat here... (Unless someone changes the default settings to save SERVER cpu power). One can also usually notice a wallhack when spectating as the user of such hacks tends to aim at players behind walls. However notice that good players tend to do 'prediction shots' aka shoot were they think someone might be or go to. Their experience is good enough to make this tactic work very well.

Which leaves us with aimhacks or autoshoot hacks. First the bad news, in theory there is nothing to REALLY stop them. Some games, companies TRY to run programs to find KNOWN aimhacks but thats a arms race and can only be lost. Programs like punkbuster will only hog your system while searching for known hacks, they can not find UNKNOWN hacks and a few month ago there was a big uproar as someone found a way to get MANY (iirc tenthousends) people banned via punkbuster though they did not cheat at all :-).
Now the good news, aimhacks can usually be spotted very easily if you spectate. Also, as i said they should be able to hit perfectly but they do not. Most of the hitscan (point-and-frag) guns in Nexuiz have spread. For example the shotgun and mg. Also while playing online there is ping which changes slightly and thus some shots are missed. Other weapons are projectile based which can be evated. Thats an area were good players with lots of experiance can even be better then aimhacks because they are better at anticipation and can 'feel' were that guy will move to :-). Also players that use aimbots usually do so because they are not as good as they would like to be so you will notice a big difference in movement and aiming. As for autoshoots, thats a hack which 'fires' if you move the crosshair over an player. That thing can be harder to find in an demo or spectating but it will ONLY work with hitscan weapons and is also not perfect. If its a bad autoshooter you will notice it fires rockets or similar guns when the crosshair meets the other play

What type of DRM do they use?

[Anonymous Coward]

What type of DRM do they use?
Because EA has taught me that playing games without DRM is stealing and wrong ... very wrong.

Unless this installs some horrible boot-sector-writing DRM to my computer, it isn't up to EA's commercial quality standards and I don't want it.

Re:What type of DRM do they use?

[MrNaz]

It's not often that I feel it's appropriate to say this, but this is one of the rare occasions where it is:

You want it? Go code it yourself!

(Oh, and before you whoosh me, I know the OP was joking.)

Re:What type of DRM do they use?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

You want it? Go code it yourself!

So that's why some people want companies to open up DRM! It's because they do a clearly superior job compared with open source equivalents!

Not Very Impressing

[aaaaaaargh!]

Sorry, I know that some people think you shouldn't criticize any free open source software, but this is really not impressing. It's kind of weird that with all the freedom they had the developers of this game only came up with a generic Quake Arena clone. If that's typical for open source games, then No, thanks.

Re:Not Very Impressing

[physicsphairy]

First person shooters have never been and will probably never be a competitive aspect of opensource. The major reason is because they are extremely content-intensive, and the collaboration advantages open source has in creating code just don't apply to things that require sound and art studios.

That out of the way, your complaint is totally invalid. While Nexuiz might not be an innovation to the genre, and might not smitten you with the highest res graphics, it still proves the concept of open source by taking something that already existed (the original Quake 1 source code) and continually improving it with user contributions. Hardcore gamers will definitely appreciate the never ending flow of UI and gameplay improvements. And if someone ever has a better idea, they can take Nexuiz and expand on it, whereas without that open source foundation, not only would they be delayed by years of extra work, they might not even start.

And I'm sure if you go to the trouble of reading the changelogs, you will have a much greater appreciation for all the work that has gone into it than you do just as some guy who plays the latest console releases.

Meanwhile, checkout TA: Spring for a RTS, and Wesnoth or Freeciv for turnbased strategy. If you aren't impressed, I suppose you aren't in to strategy games.

Re:Not Very Impressing

[dave420]

That sounds lovely and all - I appreciate the immense amount of work the developers put in, but they ended up with a game that looks 10 years out of date. So what you're saying is that FOSS FPS games are made by people with the best intentions and skill, but end up being terrible when compared to closed-source commercial games.

Re:Awesome, lets hope it works now!

[Artemis3]

Don't use full screen mode (use windowed) and it works. Hopefully this has been fixed...

FOSS gaming has a long way to go...

[John Betonschaar]

Kudos to the developers and for someone who likes this kind of games it's probably good fun to play, but seriously, you can't really call this 'impressive graphics' or 'raising the bar for OSS gaming', can you?

It looks like they just took the Quake 2 engine with Quake 3 sound clips and recreated all the levels en textures.... badly...

Worst of all: from the video it appears there is literally zero innovation in the gameplay, its just adhd shooting and running with the same futuristic weapons all over again.

I can understand it's hard to create something that compares to a commercial game in terms of graphics and content, but you'd excpect some more creativity in the gameplay. There must be some guys with really crazy ideas they can try out.

Looks like FUN

[BLKMGK]

I see complaints that the engine is "old" and that the graphics aren't up to snuff with more modern games. I say "So What?!".

I like FPS and own all of the UT series of games as well as some of the older id games. I still find myself going back to UT2K4 over and over even though I have a later "better" UT3. Why? It's not the graphics, it's not the engine, it's not the sound - it's the gameplay. UT2K4 is FUN for me. Fun doesn't require super duper grpahics it simply requires engaging gameplay. With all of the custom maps, weapons, and other things added to UT2K4 it's a ton of FUN to play. Looking at the movies for this game it looks FUN just like the old Quake games were. Okay maybe the graphics aren't quite as good as a modern shooter but I don't appear to be paying $50 for it either AND honestly many of those bells and whistles found in expensive games don't add to the FUN. Kripes I had FUN playing the original Wolfenstein. the original Quake, why couldn't I also enjoy this one? Folks don't like the maps? Build better ones - just like what has been done with UT, Quake, Doom, and others. Stop bitching about that stuff and fix it if you really have heartburn with it...

Nexuiz can't compete with Quake Live and Tremulous

[PNP_Transistor]

I don't see how a game like this can compete with something like Quake Live. Quake Live (still in beta) is free and has comparable graphics and gameplay. Yet it already has a much larger community, more polish, and runs more smoothly.

I understand that it is difficult for an open source game to have the same playerbase and polish as a professionally developed, ad-supported game. But at the very least Nexuiz should run more smoothly and should differentiate itself from other games that have already been released.

I'd say that a better open-source game might be Tremulous. Runs much more smoothly on my computer, and I often want to play it because its gameplay is different from other games I already have. Perhaps that's why there have always been more Tremulous players than Nexuiz players in my area.

Just consider it a new aspect of gaming...

[jopsen]

Why don't we just consider it a new aspect of gaming... ?
- May the best hacker win...