Slashdot Mirror
Golgotha Forever Relaunched
Andrew Walbert
writes "Golgotha Forever has officially relaunched! Join forces
with us as we endeavor to create the best RTS game ever on
the most platforms ever! Read the Press Release
and sign up! " Excellent base for what could be one of
the most impressive Open Source games ever.
The original Golgotha wasn't released under any license if I recall correctly. Crack.com just said, "Here, take it."
Of course it's unfinished, but still someone could use that much of it. If this group makes a final library with the engine, LGPL it. We could still end up with commercial games using it.
The screenshots shown on the web site are a little dated, as they were from the Crack Dot Com web site. Not a lot had evolved since that time in terms of graphics or gameplay. BUT, the overhead screenshots were of the "management" view, which has since gone by the wayside. Perhaps if you download the latest binaries and game data, you would be swayed to appreciate the graphics detail and tactics? Personally, I was hooked on the game for quite awhile despite having only one working test level at the time.
Andrew Walbert
Salon's been consistently publishing pro-Linux and pro-OSS stories for a long while now, while most non-techie news organizations have occasionally lobbed out filler talking-dog pieces by some reporter that happened to catch word of the existence of some weird OS that was developed by people that never met each other and hey, get this, it's free!
Flame not, that ye be not flamed.
What are you talking about? It's a typical 3d game. They all look alike. None of them have amazing graphics, but Golgotha (I love that name only because I'm an atheist) is hardly the worst of them. It may not be the best of them either but it's free. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, dummy.
As for the comment of a side scroller. So? there are platform games, 3d games, strategy games, and overhead real time games. That's it. You know, the same things we've had since 1985? Name a new idea and become rich.
I've been trying to keep track of what
happens with Golgotha from time to time and
I noticed a lot going on today.
checkout:
http://crack.com/golgotha_release
-Slashdot discusses Golgotha Forever's reopening.
-Golgotha Forever back in business at Golgotha.org
-Article about Golgotha Forever at Salon Magazine.
-John Cabasek has RAVE Mac version
-Spycatcher is offering Golgotha data on CD.
Jonathan Clark
jc@crack.com
I am afraid the original script and story for this game was _so_ awful that I think it may have hurt it when they were shopping it to distributors. Who here read _all_ the script? I did. They need help, desperately. If nothing else, the dialogue could be severely rewritten, but does the enemy _have_ to be a playful lovable sarcastic evil genius mad scientist? There's gotta be a better way to make players walk through prearranged battles. Also, the tiles for the terrain were _very_ strange and weird, though you have to respect the sheer volume of everything- lots of art there, of all sorts, and I'm still wondering how they planned to map some of those pictures onto objects.
Any ideas on the plot?
Yippee!!!!!!!!!! (Is ten exclamation points enough? I will add one more:) !
The content that the engine plays (the actual game) is different than the code that plays it (i.e. you can have an open-source, GPLed MPEG layer 3 player and still proprietarize the songs that you bundle with it (since you're not "extending" the player) so long as the source is available for download somewhere or you provide it upon request...)- I'd think that it'd be allowable so long as the engine code was available for download, etc.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
i hope it'll work good!
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
the slashcode still has a bug or two, it's 1am eastern, the N64 controller was in the icon bar at the top and I managed to find the article...
/. is made "tipped" off on something that will happen at a particular time... news is news, and holding it off for different time is something that irritates me about commercial news.
I can understand saving features, or other non-news items for later, but the only things I could see as justification for "holding" news is to keep sites from getting slashdotted and/or when
enough about that... it'd be nice to see the ability to create one's own AI, and pit user written AI vs user written AI, or even people.
Jacob
jacob@bright.net
From what I saw of golgotha's screenshots, i saw an interface that looked like the most primitive arcade game shooter. Certainly no chopper sim (a helicopter seems to be implied as the main vehicle here). If I want real-time battlefield tactics in a chopper sim, I'll pick up Longbow 2, thanks. I was also less than wowed by the graphics.
... the side scroller.
I mean, crack.com's last title used the stunningly original genre of
Basically, does this game have anything going for it other than that it's public domain?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
oh, goodie...
Let's hope that golgotha can reduce westwood to making games for the golgotha engine in stead of pushing their own tired crap with expensive actors rather than actual game play...
In other words: Go Golgotha!
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
If I am recalling the demo correctly, you can switch between several different vehicles, from tanks to helicopters to trucks. It's no competition to Quake but it's still pretty cool.
Today's Salon has an article that discusses OSS and Golgatha in a positive way at:
http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/
I really want this to happen. I even e-mailed johnc, but (as would be expected due to the amount of e-junk he gets) never got a response.
Some players are playing an RTS, Starcraft like, and then some players act out the orders in Quake mode.
Obviously, there would have to be AI units as well, as playing with only 32 units total would suck in an RTS.
Who knows if OSS and games will mix well.
I think one thing OSS games will do is serve as "proof-of-concepts" for the commercial game makers. Lack of creativity in the game industry? No problem. Geeks to the rescue!
Uh... I don't know about you, but the main gun looks a little large to be in a helicopter, not to mention being able to go down a hill but possibly not back up. No, the main vehicle looks to be a tank or otherwise ground based.
If you'll note those screenshots are dated 1997. That's an awful long time ago computing wise. No reason to assume that the graphics will stay in that state with the increase in CPU power and 3D programming practices. Besides that, just because the graphics aren't Q2/Q3 quality doesn't mean a game can't be fun.