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MMORPG Ryzom Released Under AGPL
acemtp writes "Breakthrough for Free Software gaming. Ryzom announces full release of source code and artwork, and a partnership with the Free Software Foundation to host a repository of the game's artistic assets."
Coming soon to the web: the first MMO with more developers than players!
After years of limbo and changing hands, with initial attempts by an open source community to raise money in order to BUY Ryzom, it's about time it went open. It's been in the eyes of open source after the original developers announced they were selling it. I once payed to play it but since development, and player base, was essentially dead there was no incentive to play. Now, maybe, it might gain something like a new life.
Awesome.
Eat sleep die
You mean like gcc, bash, make, etc? ;-)
And the FSF's position seems like some strange ideology... until you actually get burned in the proprietary world. Then a lot of what they're saying starts to make a lot of very practical sense, in a very real world way, very quickly.
This is a really good news. For what I remember, the whole 3D part / textures of Ryzom is of really high quality. This will be a huge boost for many independent developers who can't access quality 3D models easily.
Now, just have to fire up my install of OGRE3D, and check if I can load those models in it :)
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
OTOH sizeable number of people would never call WoW "fun".
Heck, "free" could as well be actually an impediment - who knows how many people value their MMORPG, at least partially (but enough for it to be significant), because it costs them.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Can please tell me where in the AGPL this "implicit right" is derived. Because I read it and I think you're full of shit.
Too true. Game design is one of the things open source does not do well. Open-source clones are often superior, purely on technical grounds, but fully original open-source games tend to be less fun than commercial ones.
Why is this? Simple. Game design is an art, and a complex one at that. Open-source works well for technical tasks. The Linux kernel is one of the most stable ever, Apache is the best web server I know of, and Firefox is my preferred browser. Open-source fails at artistic tasks simply because the end result is designed by a committee, not a single vision.
I'm working on a game myself right now, and I fully plan to release the engine code as open-source. I will not, however, be making it an open-source project, because then, instead of one unified artistic direction, there will be dozens, pulling the game in different ways.
Game design is not, as most people imagine, a simple task. It takes experience and judgment, knowing not only what to add but what NOT to add. When making Wolfenstein 3D, they originally implemented things like dragging corpses into corners and searching through pockets. These were cut not because they were themselves bad, but because they conflicted with the other elements of the game. If you were to open-source a game without a strong player base with strict ideas of what belongs in the game and what does not, you will end up with a jumbled mess of ideas.
Perhaps, however, an MMO could be made to work. If you limit most contributors to only making new quests and dungeons, it might work. Large-scale balancing and other major changes should be limited to a few people, less than a hundred.
No, but it will be when i'm done stripping the artwork of clothes.
A free Massive Multiplayer Online Really Pornographic Game, the trees and clouds may be textured with ads but that's not going to stop you from playing it now will it?
Your'e overthinking it it. The obvious reason is that quality developers and artists expect to be paid for their work. There's no incentive for someone with a lot of talent to slave away on some boring but necessary part of an open source project for no reward when Blizzard will happily pay you to model those Stormwind streetlamps or program the boring bag interface code. Even Linux development is funded by large corporations whose business depends on Linux. Once again, capitalism reigns.
I've already got an idea to create a text-only MMORPG. I mean, without the graphics, the overhead will be cheaper and we won't have to charge people to play. It's a simple but elegant idea, and you all have me to thank for it. It could really take off too, if everyone else follows my lead. You can thank me for the idea later.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.