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New 'Reloaded Edition' of Alien Arena Open Source FPS Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the shoot-things-with-guns dept.

An anonymous reader tips this news from IndieDB: "Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition has been released. This is a major release of this game, with many new features, and a veritable truckload of new high quality content. Every aspect of the game has been improved upon and expanded, from the engine, to the game code, weaponry, and overall gameplay. Some of the new features for this release include: Many new rendering features; Twelve new/rebuilt levels; Two new player characters, the Overlord and Warrior; Brand new 'super' weapon, the Minderaser; Improved antilag code; "Simple" items rendering option; Improved and expanded movement; Improved Bot AI, particularly with CTF; New music, and music 'shifts' in game situations; and a variety of bug fixes and code cleansing. Alien Arena is free to download, free to play, and the code is open sourced, and that will never change."

13 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. That will never change by Edotopm · · Score: 2

    the code is open sourced, and that will never change.

    Are you sure? Are you absolute certain? Do you feel lucky, punk?

    1. Re:That will never change by siddesu · · Score: 2

      Yes, I do. Assuming I just downloaded it, I don't think you'll be able to close source it on me.

      More to the point, how does one turn the god mode on?

    2. Re:That will never change by siddesu · · Score: 2

      No, it is not useless, and let me show you why. The only game which I really like and still play is Doom2. Since I play it just to shoot monsters, and I play it once every two years, I like to have unlimited ammo. Ages ago, when I was playing the purchased copy, I had to keep a sheet of paper with the cheat codes, so that I can look em up when necessary.

      These days, I play the Risen3D clone. Not only am I able to enjoy shooting at ugly 3D monsters, but I don't have to remember codes, because the game is now opensource and some nice soul has extended it with a graphical console which lets me to set the god mode with commands.

      Now, again, how do I switch from Chieftan to Emperor in Civ I?

    3. Re:That will never change by siddesu · · Score: 2

      You're trying too hard not to get the point, so I'll make it even harder.

      Opensource is great, because since Doom2 was opensourced, the game has improved a lot.

      I can enjoy nicer effects and shooting ugly 3D monsters instead of ugly sprites. The icing on the cake are the mnemonic commands, which allow me to enjoy fully those rare moments when I have time for the game without having to look things up or do even more complicated things like "making or using a trainer", whatever that is.

      Cheers,

    4. Re:That will never change by SurfsUp · · Score: 2

      the code is open sourced, and that will never change.

      Are you sure? Are you absolute certain? Do you feel lucky, punk?

      With a copyleft license on the code and a vibrant community, who needs luck?

      --
      Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
    5. Re:That will never change by SurfsUp · · Score: 2

      Read the summary again. Who is making any promises beyond the current version?

      Why, your dear friend Richard Stallman has made that promise, because this code base was put under GPL by John Carmack just so that it can never be taken private. Got anything else to moan about?

      --
      Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
  2. SPAM WARE alert! by farnsaw · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Windows installer will also try to install the crawler toolbar. Supposedly it lets you uncheck the boxes but they are checked by default. This is BAD behavior in my opinion. If they want to recommend it and leave them unchecked to start with (i.e. you must opt IN not OUT) that is acceptable.

    --
    "Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their fingers" (non-mutant, non-mutilatated, human computer scientists)
  3. Cool! by humanrev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now, like a lot of other open-source multiplayer FPSes (Xonotic, Warsow, World of Padman), all we need are people actually PLAYING them online and we'll be set. Bonus points for active players here in Australia.

    --
    Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
    1. Re:Cool! by Lose · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree entirely. I'm not sure about Alien Arena, but I have noticed with a few of these open source FPS games, particularly AssaultCube (I used to love playing AssaultCube), a certain social phenomena will occur where only a handful of the "elite" developers, contributors, and players will be recognized and their ideas accepted as okay to be part of the game. Anything which conflicts with their interests is deemed bad for the game, even if the larger portion of their user base prefers these "bad" ideas.

      So, slowly but surely, the large, interested communities who enjoyed what the elites did not will fade away and find other games. The end result being something like a few weeks ago when I tried to get on one of these games again just to see if things calmed down, and all I saw was a bunch of empty servers.

      I understand that people would be protective of their work and after a while, sensitive to ideas of change. I also understand OSS permits people the option of splitting from a community and making modifications to a game they feel make it better. But when it comes down to banning players and servers alike from a master server for playing certain maps and modes too much, then you have a problem.

  4. Re:Looks like Quake 3... by Lose · · Score: 2

    Actually, its built atop what once was the quake 2 engine, but has since been modified to extremes to support all these cool new things.

    Can't really complain when the price tag for your average end user is "free."

  5. Where's the money to be made in Free games? by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    there are few enough A-grade open source games

    The problem here is that there's no money to be made from free video games, which in the present capitalist system of things means no way to put a roof over the developers' heads and food in their children's stomachs apart from a bounty system like Kickstarter. Though selling support works for some kinds of business software, games that aren't massively multiplayer tend to need far less support from the publisher. Furthermore, the game consoles tend to have explicit anti-copyleft policies. See previous posts by jcnnghm, turbidostato, and alexo.

  6. Funding Free game development without adware? by tepples · · Score: 2

    Then they'll argue that this is the only way they can fund things like the program's web site.

    To defeat that argument, you'll eventually have to demonstrate a way of funding the development of freely licensed software intended for non-business use without installing this sort of adware. The "selling support" method works only for MMO games, not for single-player, living room multiplayer, or LAN multiplayer games.

  7. Years in the past by tepples · · Score: 2

    ...meaning opensource games are 13 years in the past.

    Like that's stopped anyone. People are still making and selling new software for the Nintendo Entertainment System, a hardware platform twice that old.