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ArenaLive, an Open Source MMOFPS

Posted by Soulskill on from the free-as-in-frag dept.

ZeXx86 writes "ArenaLive is a new open source game based on the well-known OpenArena. Its aim is to become an open-source alternative to id Software's QuakeLive. The main idea is to make a game available in your web browser. So far, the game is playable and provides player stats, straight-forward settings for your account in a web browser and, of course, loads of fun with your friends. At the moment, it is available only for 32/64bit Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux, however, support for other platforms and browsers is coming soon. The game is licensed under GNU/GPL2. It's still in an early development stage, so players and developers both are welcome to join."

95 comments

  1. This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Would someone like to explain why a game with a grand total of 5 Git commits (http://repo.or.cz/w/ArenaLive.git) and approximately 1 kloc is on the front page?

    1. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      to increase that number?

    2. Re:This is absurd by Panzor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hey, I clicked the link and even started installing it. That's more than 95% of the articles on this site can say, for me. The reason I stopped installing it was because I already decided I didn't like playing quakelive, since I have Unreal on the windows side anyway, and because I genuinely suck compared to people that play that game. It is neat to see someone targetting the linux crowd before anyone else, but that feeling is overruled with the question "why?" I guess they're doing this just for the hell of it.

      Also, I use Epiphany. \o/ I was going to wait for Chrome to be competent enough for me, but not anymore. Great app.

    3. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't mind finding out, but their site = epic FAIL.

    4. Re:This is absurd by resfilter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i wouldn't say they're targetting linux first it for the hell of it..

      many horrible "our first opengl software project" FPS games target linux initially, and for good reason

      people expect so much less out of linux games, as there simply isn't much good entertainment software available to them. linux gaming addicts end up appreciating any peice of shit game they can get their hands on

      windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress, or something that is simply a peice of shit, as they're used to commercial grade game releases. that can be very hard to compete with, considering the development time that goes into even a passable 3d game.

      so if your game sucks (or is in "permanent alpha"), guess where your largest audience is going to be

    5. Re:This is absurd by DavoMan · · Score: 0, Troll

      windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress, or something that is simply a peice of shit, as they're used to commercial grade game releases. that can be very hard to compete with, considering the development time that goes into even a passable 3d game. so if your game sucks (or is in "permanent alpha"), guess where your largest audience is going to be

      Its platform neutral you dumbass. And a game's platform is not simply 'Windows' or 'Linux'.
      A game's platform is decided at the API layer. The operating system really has sweet fuck all to do with it. Windows is just a collection of APIs as is a GNU/Linux system.
      EG the WINE project is simply Windows APIs on Unix.

      Your post makes screw all sense and is fanboy.

      --
      Whats the harm in yelling 'Computer, end program!'? You could be living in Star Trek! Go on.. give it a try.
    6. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sources on the git are only of plugin .. All sources (server and client) should be in repository soon (when it's enough secure)

    7. Re:This is absurd by ardor · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Your platform is NOT decided at the API layer. Your platform is Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, OSX Tiger, PS3, Wii, ...

      First, consoles have no API. You use the hardware directly. Second, you forget that writing platform-neutral code that is not a lowest common denominator and used the maximum power of each platform instead is HARD and time-consuming to do (and mostly happens in game engines that are then sold as middleware). Third, you forget QA and support.

      In the real world, specific platforms are targeted from the start: PC (meaning: Windows XP/Vista), Wii, PS3, etc. Additional platforms may be targeted later, as a port. What you never do is simply rely on some system API. This is a maintenance, QA, and support nightmare. Add to that the typically very tight time constraints for development, and hacking for a few specific platforms becomes a necessary option. Again, you cannot rely on some system API here, because the hacks often involve very platform specific behavior.

      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
    8. Re:This is absurd by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      The reason I stopped installing it was because I already decided I didn't like playing quakelive, since I have Unreal on the windows side anyway, and because I genuinely suck compared to people that play that game.

      The skill matching system didn't work for you or did they not have that in place before? It seemed to work quite well for me.

      --

      Liberty.

    9. Re:This is absurd by sznupi · · Score: 1

      First, as another poster said, Quake Live has a skillmatching component to it that is poised to work better than any OSS alternative even simply because of sheer number of players.

      Secondly - prepare for onslaught of aimbots in ArenaLive. It is, after all...open source.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    10. Re:This is absurd by hedwards · · Score: 1

      But the important question is: "Do aimbots pass the turing test?"

    11. Re:This is absurd by w0mprat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress, or something that is simply a peice of shit, as they're used to commercial grade game releases. that can be very hard to compete with, considering the development time that goes into even a passable 3d game.

      By your argument Linux should not exist since commercial OS's are so hard to compete with. Labor is not the issue with open software, it is more having a good idea that attracts people who want to work on it. So if a game sucks and stalls in alpha it is probably because it just outright isn't any good and nobody wants to fix it.

      There are so many gamers so pissed off with the commercial game world who would leap all over a by-the-gamer-for-the-gamer open source revolution. So what's pissing us gamers off? How about paying upwards of $50 for a game only to have seven hours of single player game play and mediocre multiplayer with hardly any servers. Or amazing graphics, sophisticated sandbox gaming (Cryengine) and it's all over in that 7 hours of cookie-cutter linear storyline with little replay value (Crysis). Throw some buggy code and DRM and you have all the reasons to be angry.

      --
      After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
    12. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like that absurd Linux kernel, first time it was uploaded it had no gits or klocs. Which is ludicrous. Delete any Linux software from your hard disk to correct these great mistakes in posting.

    13. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A game's platform is decided at the API layer. The operating system really has sweet fuck all to do with it. Windows is just a collection of APIs as is a GNU/Linux system.

      So, you're saying that the thousands of games which have been (and are still) written in assembly have no platform? Gosh, that's news to me and a lot of people.

    14. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Uhhh.... OpenArena had 914 commits:
      http://openarena.ws/svn.html

    15. Re:This is absurd by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      By your argument Linux should not exist since commercial OS's are so hard to compete with. Labor is not the issue with open software ...

      Labor of skilled programmers is not an issue with open software. Labor of skilled graphics artists, UI designers, project managers, and various other professions vitally important to get a polished final product, is definitely an issue.

    16. Re:This is absurd by upuv · · Score: 3, Funny

      ??? Project Managers ???

      Where do you live?
      Where do you work?
      How do I move there?
      Who do I have to bribe to get a job there?

      Clearly you have project managers of value for you to mention them as valuable assets! Actually contributers to the process and progression of a project?

      I need to know desperately where this nirvana is!

      What a second. Are you a project manager?

    17. Re:This is absurd by Herkum01 · · Score: 1

      Ah! Project Managers, the turd polishers of the IT world.

      Don't know enough to collect business requirements, and yet unable to write a "Hello world!" program. Yet they still manage to slip themselves into the middle and get paid more than their customers OR programmers!

    18. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A good project manager is worth an order of magnitude more than a good programmer because they enable the good programmers to do good work without being hassled by things outside of their job of writing and documenting good code.

      The fact that there are few good project managers doesn't make this any less true.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    19. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There are so many gamers so pissed off with the commercial game world who would leap all over a by-the-gamer-for-the-gamer open source revolution.

      Horseshit.

      The plain fact of the matter is that you're not going to get the same kind of quality, by any stretch, out of an "open source revolution." I don't suppose you've noticed that virtually all of the open-source FPSes out there are based off very old (originally proprietary) code, do you? Code that has to be hacked at significantly to get much beyond the nVidia TNT2 target that it originally topped out at (oh boy, the GPL'd Quake 3 code has hardware T&L!)? Even the really good open-source FPSes (I'm talking Warsow here) are extremely limited games, and sure as hell don't address what you complain about ("linear storyline").

      Open source software is good in some cases. Games are clearly not really one of them. You aren't getting Half-Life 2 out of the open source world, I'm sorry to say. You don't have anything technically equivalent to even Source (and despite Valve making great, quality games, Source really sucks, it's one of the main reasons I'm glad my team is writing our own engine for our games). You don't have the kind of incentives to create a focused, quality project because you're not paying them to stay in line (people will just toddle off to play with your code--which is by no means a bad thing, but it kind of makes it hard to make a kickass game when everybody's off dicking around with their own thing).

      Sorry, but no, open source is not always the answer. Like right here.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    20. Re:This is absurd by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Code that has to be hacked at significantly to get much beyond the nVidia TNT2 target that it originally topped out at (oh boy, the GPL'd Quake 3 code has hardware T&L!)?

      This kind of comment makes you appear to have no clue what you're talking about. Hardware T&L is an artefact of the drivers, not the engine. GLQuake makes use of hardware T&L if you run it on a card which supports it. Most modern open source FPS engines - including things like DarkPlaces which are based on updated versions of the original GLQuake engine - make heavy use of fragment and vertex shaders, rather than relying entirely on the fixed-function pipeline that older engines used. This puts their requirements (for full hardware support) several generations after the cards that first introduced hardware T&L.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    21. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Battle for Wesnoth is probably the game with the highest quality.

      http://www.wesnoth.org/

      Games is no different then other things that can be made. The main thing is to attract the right people to get stuff done.

      The Amiga scene is one of several examples of volunteer art scenes producing state of the art results. The Amiga scene pushed the limits of multimedia of that period.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_demos

      The blender community might be the closest we get in the open source world of today.

    22. Re:This is absurd by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

      windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress

      No they don't. We get plenty of half-assed, non-polished games for the windows platform. And for consoles too. Rushed deadlines and shitty code aren't just part of the GNU/Linux world.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    23. Re:This is absurd by ZosX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Pretty much all consoles now have an API. The only exceptions are probably like the game boy DS. Even the PSP has an OS. The XBOX runs direct X as its api. Don't know about the PS3, but I'm sure they do have some operating system to make calls to. Sure a lot of programming is still being done directly on the hardware via assembly, but we are not in the DOS days where the OS just took a back seat to the hardware.

      --
      zosxavius photography
    24. Re:This is absurd by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      cube2 shows that on the technical level opensource can compete.
      Nethack shows that on the complex non-linear story level opensouce can compete

      You don't have the kind of incentives to create a focused, quality project because you're not paying them to stay in line (people will just toddle off to play with your code--which is by no means a bad thing, but it kind of makes it hard to make a kickass game when everybody's off dicking around with their own thing).

      The same could be said about linux. In addition closed source gaming is pretty complicated, so its safe to say that it's not as simple open source not being able to produce quality games. There are many problems but simply being open source isn't one, a free highly customizable engine would surely be a great base for many indie developers to work from.

      For example, if indie developers interested in a genre worked together to produce a cutting edge engine, they would all gain and be able to spend more time on producing whatever differentiates their game from the crowd.
      The advantage of this over just buying the latest engine from ID/vavle/unreal is that if the engine gains significant use then it also improves faster and .'. gets used more.
      The advantage of this over a consortium of indie developers producing a closed engine, is free compatibility with obscure platforms (andriod -> wii)
      There are ofc disadvantage (its counter intuitive to help the competition, you have to give up on drm, it requires a significant investment to get the current OSS engines up to commercial standards)

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    25. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Yes, I know Sauerbraten. It doesn't compete. I'm sorry, because it's a really nifty concept for an engine, but it really doesn't.

      Compare Sauerbraten to UE3 and tell me how it goes.

      As for Nethack--frankly, and I say this as somebody who loves NetHack and has ascended four times, it doesn't stack up from a gameplay perspective except for the "god dammit I WILL BEAT THIS GAME" people. That's not at all the people who you'd be targeting for the person I replied to's "open source gaming revolution" because they're not the people playing the games.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    26. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, anyone? Of course hardware T&L is a driver thing, I was poking fun (you know, that thing normal people have) at the old Quake 3 requirements.

      Yes, DarkPlaces supports shaders. It also couldn't have been a particularly easy task to convert a largely fixed-function setup to a shader-based one, which is why I said "has to be hacked at significantly". And any of the GPL'd iD Tech engines suffer from fairly huge technical shortcomings (yes, BSP is a technical shortcoming--modern engines, like ones based on the very awesome and underappreciated OGRE code, support it and significantly better managers, I don't know if any of the GPL Quake clones have done this, as frankly I don't give a damn because I won't use GPL code and I don't keep up with them).

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    27. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      But Wesnoth still lacks anything even approaching the polish of a commercially published game, and there doesn't seem to be a huge drive to it. I'd agree that it's probably the highest quality, but that doesn't mean it's within driving distance of a commercial release.

      Stuff like FreeCiv is the same way. Good game? Sure! Better under-the-hood than the original? Maybe, if you're feeling generous. Ugly as sin and misunderstanding the end user? Fuck yeah. (Anything that pops up a lobby for a single-player game, as FreeCiv does, Misses The Fucking Point as far as end users go, really.)

      I would disagree that games are not different, because games require a significant convergence of a lot of different talent, all willing to go the same way under a leadership that has to be authoritarian and vision-oriented to come up with a quality product. It's not like a desktop app, where "well, this can wait a while." You need the whole thing, working and working well, or none of it is worthwhile.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    28. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Too bad I'm a developer, moron.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    29. Re:This is absurd by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      The only area in which I found Wesnoth to be lacking polish was some cringeworthy grammatical errors in the story. Not great, but Serious Sam (a commercial game) had far worse abuses of the English language in its story text.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    30. Re:This is absurd by ardor · · Score: 1

      The "OS" is little more than the main menu you get at the start. Today's consoles remind me a lot of the Commodore Amiga; there is an OS, but the programs have the option to completely bypass them, and return control to the OS cleanly. If you want to squeeze out performance, this is what you have to anyway. I would not be surprised if games effectively shut down the OS (or at least large parts of it) and restart it when necessary.

      As for DirectX: exclusive AAA titles still use the 3D hardware directly. Why shouldn't they? There is no point in using this extra layer on a hardware that never changes. The same applies to OpenGL on the PS3.

      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
    31. Re:This is absurd by ilovegeorgebush · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? Of course there's an API on consoles, at the very lowest level at least. There has to be an OS that exposes the hardware and provides access both securely and in a uniform manner. You can't provide hardware to development studios and expect them all to write low-level code and for it all to work.

      Your post screams of unfounded bullshit. Can you back up any of what you're saying?

      --
      ilovegeorgebush
    32. Re:This is absurd by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      By your argument Linux should not exist since commercial OS's are so hard to compete with. Labor is not the issue with open software,

      Yah it is.

      Where are the great open source artists, musicians, screenwriters, modelers, level designers? Those all count as "labor", buddy. And the open source community has few-to-none of them. (For good reason: those people like to be paid.)

      Having a good idea to attract people doesn't help make a finished game if you only attract programmers.

      There are so many gamers so pissed off with the commercial game world who would leap all over a by-the-gamer-for-the-gamer open source revolution. So what's pissing us gamers off? How about paying upwards of $50 for a game only to have seven hours of single player game play and mediocre multiplayer with hardly any servers. Or amazing graphics, sophisticated sandbox gaming (Cryengine) and it's all over in that 7 hours of cookie-cutter linear storyline with little replay value (Crysis). Throw some buggy code and DRM and you have all the reasons to be angry.

      And yet Crysis is orders of magnitude better than, say, Alien Arena or Blood Frontier. For example, I can play Crysis for more than 5 minutes without getting pissed off at it's horrible UI, unlike the two games named above.

      --
      Comment of the year
    33. Re:This is absurd by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      You're probably used to the business world. In the games world, the project manager is the creative vision of the game. Analogous to the director of a movie.

      In any case, if you have useless project managers that says a lot more about your company's hiring practice than the value of a project manager.

      --
      Comment of the year
    34. Re:This is absurd by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Wow, you've completely missed the entire *point* of the grandparent's post to focus on a trivial technical error. Which was probably a joke you didn't get in the first place. You win Slashdot.

      You might want to check those trees again, I think there might be a forest hidden in there.

      --
      Comment of the year
    35. Re:This is absurd by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      First, consoles have no API. You use the hardware directly.

      Wow, you're writing this post from a time-warp! Because all modern consoles certainly have an API, and some of them (like Xbox) have an extremely extensive API.

      --
      Comment of the year
    36. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 0, Troll

      Serious Sam is very much a budget title. And old, to boot.

      You can't compare against worst-of-breed. Stack it up against Starcraft 2 when it comes out.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    37. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because any open source game that manages to compile is an astonishing achievement!

    38. Re:This is absurd by skreeech · · Score: 1

      On the PS3 a certain amount of ram is reserved for the OS and it's features, the amount has been lowered at times but no game can turn off features to use that memory. At one time it was around 90 megabytes.

      --
      [20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
    39. Re:This is absurd by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I'm just a developer. However, from my experience, I have concluded that a good project manager is absolutely crucial to get things done. And developers usually do not make good PMs (though a good PM must have some understanding of what he is managing).

      It is true that a good PM is a rarity in any case; before you ask, a good one is the one who listens to developers he manages, and doesn't try to second-guess them or override their time & comlexity estimations for individual tasks. I had a pleasure of working with one such, however, and I very much appreciated being able to do my job while having clear goals set, a definite timeline, and with minimal paperwork and outside distractions.

    40. Re:This is absurd by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I find it sad that the parent poster, who is spot on (and precisely mirrors my experience), is modded Troll. You mods are poor, sad people - if you have bad PMs, then blame them specifically, not the profession.

    41. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joel Spolsky is that you?

    42. Re:This is absurd by jackbird · · Score: 1

      IHAIN (I have Ascended in Nethack)

      Nethack shows nothing of the sort. It's the exact same fucking story (and not much of a story at that) every time, modulo the quest levels, which are all roughly the exact same fucking thing every time ("We have class-themed problems, please kill everything you see after descending this staircase to solve them") with different monster names and level layouts.

      Nethack offers a huge variety of possible strategies, items, and approaches to getting from the beginning to the end of the same old fucking thing, but it is NOT a complex, non-linear story.

    43. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blizzard, Id, etc. make great games because they have great project managers. They just use different labels, like "lead designer", but it's essentially the same thing.

    44. Re:This is absurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it looks like total garbage that could have been released in 1997. It appears to have no art direction whatsoever and the UI looks archaic. Your example simply proves his point even more strongly.

    45. Re:This is absurd by quadrox · · Score: 1

      Huh? The crysis menu system is a serious PITA. unnecessary nesting layers, unreadable fonts (using all caps IIRC), horrible delay when clicking on items etc... I have never seen a worse menu system than that of crysis.

      Bad example, seriously

    46. Re:This is absurd by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      You're right, it's a bad example. But, still, try Alien Arena or Blood Frontier-- trust me, it could be a thousand times worse.

      --
      Comment of the year
    47. Re:This is absurd by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Ding ding ding. Sandboxes (which, in a lot of ways, Nethack is) are not non-linear stories.

      It also isn't really an example of good game design, except when you want to explicitly target uber-grognard hardcore types. There aren't a lot of those.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    48. Re:This is absurd by quadrox · · Score: 1

      I have played alien arena, and while the UI is a bit quirky if I remember correctly, it never pissed me off as much as crysis' did.

      I'm not really an FOSS fanatic who thinks that everything FOSS is better than anything purely commercial, but I have no illusions about commercial games either. Sure the games industry has a lot of technical expertise, but even they are only able to make a truly good game once in a while. And I have never been so frustrated with FOSS games as I ever have with commercial ones (bugs, quirky interfaces, quirky controls, etc.)

      And if you compare the number of games released for windows with the number of games released for linux (including commercial ones) I am sure that the ratio of good games to bad games on linux is far better than on windows - at least it looks that way to me.

    49. Re:This is absurd by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      I'm no expert on game engines, but comparing the current top of the line commercial engine to a previous gen engine, isn't really fair.

      Compare Sauerbraten (a 2004 gamecube-era engine) to the modified goldsrc in CS:CZ/Unreal engine2/idtech4 and while it might not be as good, it surely does compete!

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  2. Uh oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bye bye open source id tech 4 :(

  3. Laggards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    QL is almost out of beta and there is only one "alternative"? What *WILL* we do??!!1

    Am I doing it right?

  4. skaldicpoet9 by skaldicpoet9 · · Score: 1

    I've been playing a lot of Quake Live lately and I have to say it is good fun. I can see an open source equivalent being better if the community is there for it to flourish. I would definitely play it. Otherwise, I don't see much of a reason for having an open source Quake Live clone especially when the service it seeks to clone is free as well.

    1. Re:skaldicpoet9 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could see it being useful for some of the standalone Q3 mods, like tremulous or urban terror. They suffer from Quake 3's crufty server browser, and a central, Quake Live-like matchmaking and statistics-gathering service could make them much more approachable.

      That said, paying for hosting is always an issue...

    2. Re:skaldicpoet9 by ardor · · Score: 1

      Otherwise, I don't see much of a reason for having an open source Quake Live clone especially when the service it seeks to clone is free as well.

      The real reason for this is for the FSF to finally get a chance to call something "GNU Quake".

      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
  5. Works just fine by Llynix · · Score: 1

    Installed and played a few games without a hitch. I'm sure it's not 100% but it seems pretty playable. I think it's nice being able to play in linux first for a change.

  6. why not AGPL? by influenza · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's too bad this isn't under the AGPL. Maybe it has to be GPL2 because of what it's based on. But with the GPL2 source only has to be shared with people who receive binaries. This does not include visitors to a website, or an in-browser game in this case.

    The AGPL got me thinking about the relevance of FLOSS if everything moves to cloud computing. If this project takes off, it would be a "cloud" that is based on FLOSS. Meaning that others could take the code and run their own "clouds". It would be the same as it is now, only instead of connecting to player-run servers through the game menus you would surf to them in a browser.

    Either way, I'm far to crappy on FPS, so unless the game has safe-zones for hippies that don't like killing it won't be very fun for me.

    1. Re:why not AGPL? by Antidamage · · Score: 2, Informative

      You receive a binary each time you load the game. Hosting it on a website and re-downloading it with java each time doesn't circumvent the license. If you want the source, perhaps you could approach them about rectifying their license obligations.

    2. Re:why not AGPL? by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      The limit to a specific browser on a specific OS sounds like there's a lot of client-side code to this (and makes me wonder why the hell it's even browser based if all it's doing is display an installed game in a browser window).

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    3. Re:why not AGPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Game should be available on the BSD, Mac OS X, Windows and all browsers which supports NS-API, soon

    4. Re:why not AGPL? by johannesg · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's too bad this isn't under the AGPL. Maybe it has to be GPL2 because of what it's based on. But with the GPL2 source only has to be shared with people who receive binaries.

      That's not true.

    5. Re:why not AGPL? by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      It's too bad this isn't under the AGPL.

      The AGPL is a complete waste of time - it is an EULA and thus suffers the exact same problems as every other EULA. Namely that it is pretty much unenforceable and thus its only use is to intimidate your own customers into doing things they have no legal obligation to do.

      I'm afraid the FSF has completely lost the plot these days - they are more interested in pushing their own agenda than supporting the Free software projects.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    6. Re:why not AGPL? by Drinking+Bleach · · Score: 1

      The AGPL is as much of a EULA as the regular GPL, be that version 2 or 3. It only really applies to developers, not end users. The ability to retrieve source code is not the same as forcing users to download source code.

    7. Re:why not AGPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the source is *not* GPL2. The comments at the beginning of each source file clearly indicate that it is GPL2 *or any later version*. So if the authors want to, they can release their derived work under GPL3+ or just GPL3. I'm not sure if the AGPL3 is considered a later version of GPL2 though.

    8. Re:why not AGPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The FSF aren't "pushing" anything. They only came up with some legal text that *independent project authors* adopt as the licence for their code. They do this, I don't know, maybe because they find it appropriate?

    9. Re:why not AGPL? by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      The AGPL is as much of a EULA as the regular GPL, be that version 2 or 3.

      Wrong.

      The GPL is a *distribution licence*. If you don't distribute the software, you don't need to agree to it. If you do distribute the software then copyright law prevents you from doing so unless you have a licence to do so - i.e. if you're going to distribute the software, you *must* agree to the GPL because there is nothing else that allows you to do so.

      The AGPL is a *use licence*. If you use the software (i.e. you are a service provider, using it to provide a service to your users) then the FSF tells you you must agree to the licence. But there is no law preventing you from using software for which you have no licence - copyright law only applies to distribution, not use. So from a legal perspective, there is no requirement to agree to a use licence since you can use the software without doing so anyway. You can agree to the use licence if you want, but since it does nothing but revoke your existing rights why would you want to?

      So if it ever came up in court, you have very little defence against GPL infringement - if you were distributing the software then you either agreed to the licence, or you are infringing the copyright. On the other hand, you have plenty of defence against the AGPL by simply saying "I didn't agree to that licence". There is no way for the prosecution to prove you ever did agree to it since there is no contract with your signature on it.

      This, by the way, applies to any click-through or shrink-wrap EULA - there is no way to prove you agreed to it, and there is no legal obligation to do so in order to use the software. The court cannot prove that you ever read the licence or clicked "I agree" - that might have been done by a friend/spouse/child/dog/shop-you-bought-the-computer-from or the software may even have been modified to remove the technical requirement to agree to the licence.

      Thus the only use for an EULA is to intimidate your own customers into doing stuff that you want, even though they have no legal obligation to do so. Now, I know that intimidating, suing and generally abusing your own customers is seen as the right way to do business these days, but I happen to disagree - if you insist on abusing your customers then you can expect me not be be one of them if there are other choices where I won't get that abuse.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    10. Re:why not AGPL? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      But with the GPL2 source only has to be shared with people who receive binaries. This does not include visitors to a website, or an in-browser game in this case.

      In the case of a browser game, the game is sent to the client for play, and so it most certainly does apply. You receive the binary before execution. The site isn't sending geometry data to your browser in realtime.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    11. Re:why not AGPL? by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Every lawyer I've ever talked to about the GPL and AGPL (some very invested in the open source community) agrees with this viewpoint.

      The GPL is a distribution license, and thus probably enforceable (has been, some places). The AGPL has poorly worded extensions to the GPL, and redefine "distribution" to essentially mean "use"--which they may find cute, but does turn it into a use license and an enforcement mess.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    12. Re:why not AGPL? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think you need to talk to better lawyers. The AGPL doesn't say anything about use, it says something about modification. If an AGPL program includes a download-the-source link, you are not allowed to remove it. If you do remove it, then you have created a new derived work, which is something restricted under copyright law and requiring explicit permission from the author. The AGPL provides you with explicit permission to create derived works as long as they do not remove the download-the-source link. Nothing about this is related to use.

      Note, however, that the AGPL could be seen as violating the FSF's Freedom 1, which requires the program to come with the rights to 'change it to make it do what you wish'. If you wish to change it to not contain a download-the-source link, then you can not.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    13. Re:why not AGPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because it's based on Quake 3, which was released under the GPL2.

    14. Re:why not AGPL? by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      No, because in the course of using it you are subject to specific restrictions (the inability to modify it--just like a closed-source EULA).

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    15. Re:why not AGPL? by vivaoporto · · Score: 1

      IIRC, AGPL only additional clause over GPL is that, in addition to being obligated to provide the source code if you distribute the executable, you are also obligated to do it if you make it available to the public. There is nothing forbidding you to alter it in any way, as long as you make the source code available for anyone that either received a copy of the executable or received access to use the application.

      I don't know how did you came to that particular conclusion, but it is not right at all.

    16. Re:why not AGPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand why you people can't see distinction. It's *NOT* GPL2, it's GPL2 *or any later version*, which makes all the difference! Only a few projects are actually GPL2, most notably Linux. Most everything is something like GPL2 or later, which means you can freely redistribute it under "GPL3 or later" or just "GPL3", for example. If your contributors only made new contributions under GPL3+, then you'd be obliged to release the whole thing under GPL3+ as well.

  7. Fair enough by GF678 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess it's better than the current option we have for running QuakeLive for Linux (i.e. nothing). Yes I know they're working on it, but it'd be nice if Linux wasn't treated second-class to Windows all the time.

    1. Re:Fair enough by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      Then have a community big enough to merit it.

      I like Linux in some capacities (I hate it as a desktop because it doesn't work particularly well for me and advocates try to foist it off on people who don't know better, but it's running on all but two of my server machines). But there's no market share worth noting for targeting for most consumer applications.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    2. Re:Fair enough by RazZziel · · Score: 1

      yeah right

      --
      for geeks. from geeks. out of geeks_ http://www.freewear.org
  8. Best for the community? by Phayder · · Score: 1

    I understand the benefits of an open source version of Quake Live, but wont this just divide what is (in my experience) an already small community?

    1. Re:Best for the community? by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      Thats not an issue yet, atm you have
      QL = windows only (500k players)
      AL = linux only (a few players)
      Even when both spread to multiplatform QL is going to get the majority of players, and AL will be an interesting project but between hosting costs and lack of a recognized name will never be able to split the community

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  9. Yeah its nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But can it run Quake?

  10. Small? by mad+zambian · · Score: 1

    Last time I looked there were over half a million players. Small compared to WoW I agree, but 500K ain't that small, surely.

    --
    Trying to associate Microsoft with "fun" is like trying to associate Satan with aromatherapy. -Tycho
    1. Re:Small? by Phayder · · Score: 1

      500 thousand? Wow, I had no idea. I just say small community because sometimes I have trouble finding a populated server.

    2. Re:Small? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      500k registered players, that barely play the game. Epic fail.

  11. Another effort ruined by furries. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is it with furries ruining everything? The first thing that hits you on that site is a cat woman. Pathetic.

    1. Re:Another effort ruined by furries. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quake3 has the slash/grrl skin. UGH A GAME MADE BY FURRIES. Pathetic.

  12. mmoRPG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does anyone even remember what RPG stands for anymore?

    1. Re:mmoRPG by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well in my days of playing 1st Edition D&D during the late 1970s it was "Role-Playing Game" but when Doom and other FPS games came out, it also became "Rocket-Propelled Grenade".

      So I guess for a game like OpenArena, either could apply.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    2. Re:mmoRPG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The title says MMOFPS my good sir/madam. Not RPG.

  13. instantaction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Consciously ignoring the open source melodrama, the article named only QuakeLive, not instantaction which hosts in-browser games like Legions, Galcon, and other independently developed ones. It's free and it supports the little guy!

    1. Re:instantaction by binarylarry · · Score: 1

      And only runs on Windows!

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  14. How will this be better than OA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope this game will have more polish and more of a coherent art direction than OA did. I love open source, but there's only so much clusterfuck game development I'm willing to excuse. And this is coming from a guy who played OA to death....

  15. its sad that Quakelive doesn't work under linux by Inconnux · · Score: 1

    With all the work that Mr Carmack has done under linux, I was surprised when I loaded Ubuntu on my new laptop that Quakelive wasn't supported... its kinda sad actually

  16. the question is... by DeskLazer · · Score: 1

    does it run linu.....er, windows?!?

  17. Hrm. by Hsien-Ko · · Score: 1

    This is the first time i've ever heard of it. FYI, I currently lead the OpenArena project. I don't think this will take off for two reasons: - OA is already a free game to begin with, browserfying it would be very pointless. - Coder-only lead, no artists/mappers. - "ArenaLive" is a trademark violation waiting to happen.

  18. Why even bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, aren't there already enough FPS games out there already? We have Alien Arena, Nexuiz, Warsow, etc, and all of them are so vastly better than Open Arena anyway, so why does anyone even bother with this or Open Arena in general? Open Arena is a badly made game with awful art and levels. Quake Live will be on linux soon enough and won't make your eyes bleed to look at.