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New Open Source FPS Blood Frontier Shows Promise
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:30 AM
from the but-can-i-bunny-hop dept.
from the but-can-i-bunny-hop dept.
Softhaus writes "The guys at Blood Frontier have been busy for the last two years working on a new FPS called (surprise) Blood Frontier . This game is an enhanced Cube 2 engine with original artwork and new gameplay (including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood — a nice option for a change). Add the new paintball mode and you have a real 'game community' here. The code is all there (complete for you to play with), the team listens to feedback from the community, and the game is great! It's nice to see these talented guys showing a true free software attitude. They've mentioned that the first actual release is scheduled for next Friday. Does anyone know of other great open source games that are truly 'open?'"
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Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games [wikipedia.org]
That was easy...
Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Alphabetical_list_of_open_source_games (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdotted (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotted already. Should give an indication of how desperate /. ers are for a new FOSS FPS.
http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=198419 [sourceforge.net] Get it at sourceforge
Parent
Re:Slashdotted (Score:4, Insightful)
It's great they are doing this - but in the end the project needs funding to get huge - otherwise it is a hobby for the technical folk (with rare exception).
With luck these guys will use this on their resume', get great jobs, and help make some great products. I know someone will flame me, and 5 others will mod me down - but think about it. WoW costs money (all three expansions = about 75-100 probably), then it's 14.95 a month. Not free at all - but look at the game. It's been out since what 2002 and still the most played game with the largest base of paid accounts. None of that could not happen if the resources were not in place, and resources are limited which means they cost money.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WoW actually dates from November of 2004 for active release.
Your point still stands though.
Duke Nukem Forever.... (Score:4, Funny)
because the release date is open-ended?
cool (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
not only is there an option to turn off blood, but you can turn off the web server too!
They implemented blood with a server? Wow. I'll have to edit inetd.conf to crank up bloodd now! What port do I need?
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones?
There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed
Hey everybody! Rik has had his fill of FPSs! You can stop developing them now.
Thanks for letting us know, otherwise I'm sure game developers would have kept on making them without realizing that you didn't want them to.
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for letting us know, otherwise I'm sure game developers would have kept on making them without realizing that you didn't want them to.
Uwe Boll, however, will continue creating movies based on them.
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait what??? Rik has had his fill? DAMMIT! why did he not tell everyone earlier. We have been working on this new one for 2 years now.
DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT... I hate it when Rik slacks off and does not announce hs is full on public television.
WE know he is tired of Hot-dogs, Loves Obama, and Is starting to grow tire of the word "albanian" but that asshat did not mention ONCE in his last press conference he had his fill of FPS games.
What a hoser. Let me guess, He's had his fill of racing games as well, I better warn the guys down the hall.
Damn Rik.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
According to google images,
Image Links to their game [google.com],
More poor use of light/bump/normal mapping. I, however, can't rail on them too much. I know good artists and artwork can be a challenge to find on an open source project.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones? There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.
I don't know why this guy got modded Troll. Wanting to know what's different about a title is a perfectly valid question. Especially in a -recently- unadventurous genre, such as the FPS. As is being bored of a genre a perfectly valid statement, when taken in that context. Sure, if he's just shown up to announce that he didn't care about FPS games, that wouldn't have added much. But 'What's different?' is really the question 'Why should I care?' and that's a perfectly fair question to ask.
The main site's been slashdotted, all we've got is the summary, and the only real selling point mentioned there is that it's open source. If that's enough for you, sure, fine, ok. But for me open source is a BONUS, not a panacea.
Interesting side note: I know one of the main designers of Tremulous through an old friend. Nice guy, drives an utterly crazy car.
Parent
Re:And? (Score:4, Funny)
Damn. Out of mod points.
-1 Troll - that'll have to do.
Although... if there was a "-1 Really, REALLY Boring" then I think I'd be tempted use that one first :)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So what makes this online FPS stand out from all the other ones?
There's Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Urban Terror... I had my fill of first person shooters years ago and yet for some reason they're still being developed and offer little to nothing different over the last one.
I think you weren't trolling and were merely stating your opinion. The mods and one poster (who was also rewarded by the mods -- do you see the self-reinforcing nature of derision?) have effectively ridiculed you because it was very easy to do. You may not have known it but you stuck your neck out and they gleefully took a swing at it. They don't know they are making a statement about themselves and the appeal that low-hanging fruit has over them, as you may not know that this was predictable given how l
Blood optional (Score:2)
I never understood the purpose of this. If it is for children then what is the rational behind it? If it is just to help children differentiate from real-life traumas then I advocate the extra-blood option. It is not likely someone will get fragged and it rain blood for two minutes irl. Either way the whole idea is silly. Like showing kids a movie with someone being tortured and censoring the cuts. It doesn't affect anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Like showing kids a movie with someone being tortured and censoring the cuts. It doesn't affect anything.
Unless it's the chinese thousand cuts torture.
In which case you end up with just two guys looking at each other.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. Next thing we know, they'll be editting old movies [wikipedia.org] to replace the cops' guns with walkie-talkies. Where will it end?
Re:Blood optional (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, if you do paintball mode it turns it from a game where you're killing people to a game where it's just some guys playing paintball. Does it change the gameplay? Of course not, but it does change the entire frame of reference for the violence in the game. I can see that being desirable for parents and I think it's a great idea. My friend and I were talking about how they should do something along the lines of Unreal Tournament: Nerf Edition, where all the guns are nerf guns.
Just because you don't care doesn't mean that parents don't care.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Add the new paintball mode ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, seriously. Why? Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?
Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..." (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, I admit, that answer wasn't helpful at all... I did my best though...
Parent
Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..." (Score:5, Funny)
Why take a game where you pretend to shoot people and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to shoot people?
To teach recursion?
Parent
World of World of Warcraft (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if you've ever played paintball, but when you play you really ARE shooting people. There's no pretend.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, if you're like the punk kids at my local range, after you're shot you walk behind a building and being playing again.
Re:"Add the new paintball mode ..." (Score:4, Funny)
When we played in the German winters, we'd keep our paint in coolers (no ice) to maintain temperature. We would also trade out paint we had left in our hoppers for paint from the cooler every one or two games. It still only did so much.
One game got cold enough to decrease the pressure of the CO2 we were using (yeah - back in the old days when CO2 in 7oz bottles was still pretty advanced, siphon tubes belonged on gimmic guns using .62 cal, and dinosaurs roamed the earth). Our effective range began to drop. Paintballs that managed to lob far enough to hit someone just kind of bounced around a bit. Both teams decided to end the game and charge. I found myself pitted up against my wife who laughed at my attempts to shoot her. That is, until one hit squarely in her chest.
I saw the bruise. Once. It was a particularly cold few weeks that winter.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Why take a game [...] and modify it so you are pretending to pretend to [...]
Let's say you can play the guitar and pretend you're a rock star.
Then you play GH and pretend you play the guitar, so you pretend that you pretend you're a rock star.
Why? Because people like it. Or, if you prefer: because it sells well, and it sells well because people like it.
World of Padman is a quite fun FPS where you shoot paint, among other things. Granted, it's in a cartoony setting in the first place, so the paint fits in, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't be fun to shoot pretend paint at pretend
AssaultCube FPS (Score:3, Informative)
Another FOSS FPS? Check out AssaultCube [cubers.net], description from the website:
AssaultCube, formerly ActionCube, is a free first-person-shooter based on the game Cube. Set in a realistic looking environment, as far as that's possible with this engine, while gameplay stays fast and arcade. This game is all about team oriented multiplayer fun.
Kid mode? (Score:5, Insightful)
including a kid-mode, which optionally turns off the blood â" a nice option for a change
Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"? Are you still running around killing people?
I'm not the sort of person who's a big believe in sheltering children, but if you are that sort of person, does simply censoring blood make the game OK to play? I think if I were the sort of parent that didn't want my kids to play violent games, then censoring a little gore wouldn't really make them acceptable.
On the other hand, some parents are a little crazy, so whatever. I just think it's weird to censor blood out of a FPS called "Blood Frontier", and then call it "kid mode".
Re:Kid mode? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, maybe because you're *not actually* running around 'killing people'.
It's a videogame. No people are being killed. The 'pretend people' that you're 'shooting at' (pressing a butting to make a graphic appear), are not actually real people, and they are not actually being injuired, maimed, or killed.
So, to begin with, how is it violent?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yes, absolutely. Just think of the chiiiildren. Remove from sight what offends you and everything will be fine. You can't change human nature, but you can push it underground, into repression, where you can then capitalise on it. That's been modus operandi of the catholic church and every other conservative power group for at least a thousand years, probably a lot more.
See, removing child porn from the Internet is so much more important than actually finding and locking up the people who produce it. And
Re:Kid mode? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that people think turning off blood makes things "kid friendly"? Are you still running around killing people?
I'm not the sort of person who's a big believe in sheltering children, but if you are that sort of person, does simply censoring blood make the game OK to play? I think if I were the sort of parent that didn't want my kids to play violent games, then censoring a little gore wouldn't really make them acceptable.
Let me ask you this: In the Disney movie "Snow White", would it be as accepted as a kid's movie if it showed the hunter tearing the pumping heart out of a pig, or showed the jagged rocks tearing apart the flailing, twitching body of the evil witch? Such things happen during the course of the movie, but are not shown. The violence is implicit, not explicit, and therefore it runs above the line of childhood trauma.
I could go on for hours on this subject, but the best way for you to understand is to raise a 5-10 year old child. You'll recognize the difference, quickly, between what causes nightmares and what does not. Philosophize all you want, but you're talking theory to a world of practice. Kids freak out much more over the sight of a shootout where the walls are being splashed with blood, and one where people just fall over.
Parent
But.., (Score:5, Interesting)
... is the server still that horribly unsafe bare-bones packet-switch, that it is in Cube 2?
For those that don't know the details: The "server" of Cube 2 (Sauerbraten) is really basically just sending update packages around. No rules/physics validation, server simulation, or cheat checking of any kind. This, and the fact that it is open source, made it possible for every noob with a bit of C/C++-knowledge, to change some rules, and cheat like crazy.
I played it for some months, and saw people flying around, beaming themselves to where they liked it, completely defeating game physics, and making every shot a perfekt hit.
If this is not fixed, there is no reason to play that game, because you can't determine a winner anyway. (Or is it going to become a contest of the greatest hackers? ;)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FPS fun is a delicate balance (Score:3, Interesting)
I've played a lot of FPS' up to Unreal2004, and some are clearly better than others. There's the obvious map features, like size vs. player number, overall layout, wall design with hiding places, etc. And that's not even counting the artistic side of texture mapping and making it look interesting.
But the player dynamics, and weapon characteristics combine to subtly change the intensity/speed of the game. For example the archaic Marathon was very slow due to show shot speed comparatively weak weapons. Quake III has much stronger weapons making distances seem shorter due to the killing power.
Unreal has a great balance, of player speed, map size and weapon strength/diversity that makes it consistently fun to play. It also has reasonably good AI for the bots. This balance seems to be elusive in FPS, as there are so few who really get it right, and you can see that in the communities they spawn.
I hope these OSS projects can match the balance of a great FPS even if they don't have the deep pockets or manpower to spend on visually stunning maps.
Sheldon
WinBolo (2D Tank Strategy) (Score:3, Informative)
While WinBolo has been around for a decade or so, the source was released about a month ago [winbolo.net]. And by source, that means a few things: the logviewer, the server (Windows and Linux), the client (Windows), a Java port, as well as the backend for the winbolo.net domain.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?
Maybe it should be called "Blood-Lite?"
Re:The (surprise) first post frontier (Score:5, Funny)
I can just see the ad campaign comparing Blood-Lite to Killer-Lite.
"Tases Great!"
"Less Spilling!"
Parent
Re:The (surprise) first post frontier (Score:5, Funny)
If you turn off the blood, is it still called Blood Frontier?
No, then it's just called Frontier, and it becomes about a family traveling from Independence, Mo to Oregon.
Parent
Re:The (surprise) first post frontier (Score:5, Funny)
Unless you die from dysentery. Then it's only from Independence, MO to Kansas City.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it could be the other side of the frontier, couldn't it?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The author of the game is the submitter, so yes, you're correct.
Re: (Score:2)
I played Trem for a while, but it has some problems, some of which are not that hard to fix. To name one, all players on the human team have the same model/skin/voice.
The graphics are kinda old which wouldn't bother me that much if it weren't for the samewhat disappointing gameplay. Humans tend to camp a lot until they get enough kills for stage 3, and one or two feeders on your team can make you lose the game easily. Also, deconners suck.