Free The TA Source Code

JFL writes " A petition to request that the Total Annihilation source code's current owner, Infogrames, release the code into the public domain is currently in full swing over at the French site TA Forever. " I recently picked up TA again, and played around with it - while the graphics are looking a bit dated, the design for the system is great - a very extensible design system, and one that you could build some interesting environments on top of. The use of height is something that was, and to a certain extent, still far ahead of other RTS ^? games.

Deadline

[hogsback]

The TA site says the deadliine for the petition was 30th December 2001.

Oops.

But there are a couple big "IF"s.

[uncle isaac]

My last job was as a high-level manager at a well-known game company [sierra.com], and I can tell you that there are a few simple economic forces that keep most of the old, discontinued games in closed source format forever. Consider the following:

• The manufacturers have a nonexistent economic incentive to give away their work for free. If you look at it from their viewpoint, you will see that the best they can do is to not lose money from the proposition.
• Most software houses have licensed proprietary [vasoftware.com] pieces of code or business processes [amazon.com] from other companies, and they did not pay for the right of unlimited distribution. A vendor notorious for continuing this practice, then blaming the fact that its main product is still completely closed source, is Sun.
• Companies know that they can quickly gain popularity amongst open source supporters by releasing their code, so this often provides an impetus as it could lead to better sales for newer products from the resultant goodwill.
• Giving old products away to the general public has certain specific and often harmful tax consequences. Effectively the companies are declaring the value of their goods to be zero, which keeps them from using the standard 20-year depreciation chart to deal with unsold inventory. In a nutshell, this means that there are huge tax benefits to not releasing old software as open source.
• And lastly, code reuse is rampant because of the short development cycle of most games. I have seen code from Apple II games from 1987 show up in brand new product releases in 2001. Giving your code away gives your competitors an edge, and nobody wants to do that.

As futile as it may sound, it is important for us all to contact our federal representatives and urge them to provide tax credits to companies when they release open source software. That would be a very good way to swing the economic incentives in our favor, and possibly even help out struggling OSS companies like Caldera and SGI.

uncle isaac

Catching Up With TA

[flotsam or jetset]

Gamespot.com has this [gamespot.com] nice feature story on Total Annihilation. Light reading and thorough. The focus here is mainly on the designer Chris Taylor.

Re:The AI

[thunderbee]

You did because the AI built units it knew not how to use. There is an altered AI out there that is basically a stripped down version of the original that will build no units it cannot use. The result is challenging. If you did not try it, I suggest you do. However, TA was meant for network play. IMHO, an 8 player TA game is the best RTS experience you can get.

Re:Why not demand all games 2+ years old be opened

[neonstz]

I checked my box of Total Annihilation. Copyright 1997. That means 4-5 years old. About the age of Quake2 actually (and the Quake2 source *is* released). Releasing the source of a RTS game could result in many different clones. TA is an excellent game for this because it uses 3D models as units instead of pixelled graphics. This will probably make it easier to create new units or themes.

Re:Forget it

[theoddone33]

1. Even if the source is released, you can still use the original game on Windows. No one needs MSVC to install a commercial game on a "proper gaming OS."

2. Even if the source is released, the publishers still make money off of every game sale. Even if someone else tries to make profit off the source code, they will have to create their own data. Anyone that would pay for just a source modification that came without data deserves whatever they get.

The only tarnish that comes to a company's name is when people use the source code to create cheats. But really, is the company to blame for the existence of cheaters?

To all the people replying and saying "id didn't get any problems for releasing Quake and Quake 2!!!!!", you are wrong. Carmack took a lot of crap over the Quake source release. He just seems to not be intimidated by a subculture of adolescents that can't type.

Re:Why not demand all games 2+ years old be opened

[LoudMusic]

Unreal Tournament is still turning a profit. I've seen it for $35 in stores this month. I just bought six copies of TA:CC for $7 a piece, which I imagine was about the manufacturing cost for the box set. And the company that owns TA is no longer in business. I guess you could compare this to the "Free BeOS" petition. The company that owns it isn't around anymore, it's a really great product, and if you wanted to purchase it, it would be difficult. So we ask the owner to give it to us.

~LoudMusic

It was ported to MacOS 8

[enkidu]

I have a copy (which I need to boot into OX9 to run). When CaveDog was releasing updates to TA, MacSoft was pretty quick about keeping up with them, so I don't think there would be that much of a problem porting to Linux of OSX. After playing with Starcraft and Command and Conquer for a while, I'm amazed at how much deeper the whole TA gaming experience is. TA is a much better candidate for porting because of all of the plug-ins and add-ons that have been developed. Bloodthirsty AI still gives me the willies.

Why we want the source code!

[Anonymous Coward]

DarkYouth here, I run PlanetAnnihilation.com Its the first slashdot post for me, so be gentle :) First of all thankyou to the Slashdot news team for posting about the petition! We've also given you a mention on the PlanetAnnihilation news page. Secondly, The reason the TA community wish to gain the code is to remove limits and restrictions within the engine that hinder the progress and development of third party units and maps and utilities. Currently there are well over 2000 addon units for the game to play with, another six or seven complete addon races of around 80 units each, more than 3000 downloadable maps, twenty or so new tilesets, four converted TA:Kingdoms tilesets etc etc. However, the engine only allows 512 units to be installed at once, counting the default ones, only 256 unique weapons (most addon units come with new weapons) and a maximum of 500 units per side in the game. All of these can be changed with "hacks" that cause problems and errors in the multiplayer gaming side of things. Also, tools are available that allow players to show up to 14 units to build per page (instead of the usual six), but these do not work in multiplayer due to engine "features". The AI needs fixing etc to be more fun in skirmish and so on and so on. The list is practically endless. Total Annihilation has yet to be surpassed in terms of tactical diversity or longevity within the strategy genre, and those close to it intend to do their best to ensure a future. TAForever's efforts will not just benifit TA engine developers, but also the team of TA: Flashback, the fan based ground working to create a modern TA sequel ( HTTP://www.planetannihilation.com/studios ) and even the TA Movie project. The creators of the TA Multiplayer Demo recorder would be well suited to the TA source code too, having created some awesome stuff without it, who knows what can be done WITH the code. Its all down to public support, and promotion from sites like slashdot is a good thing for sure!

OK guys..to answer all the questions

[Gamefreak]

Hello. I'm Gamefreak from www.tauniverse.com After looking through here I've noticed that many people wonder why we want this source code? After all, who still plays TA? Who still plays TA? Thousands of people. After over 4 long years we still remain one of the largest RTS communities. There are tons of large TA supersites such as TA Universe ( www.tauniverse.com ), Planet Annihilation ( www.planetannihilation.com ), Annihilated ( www.annihilated.com ), TA Designers ( www.tadesigners.com ), Ultimate-Strategy ( www.ultimate-strategy.com ), TAMEC ( www.tamec.net ), and many more. Along with these sites are tons of hosted sites. TAU and PA alone host at least 60 sites, and there are many other TA sites independent from those mentioned above. You don't think anything's happening in the community though do you? Check the news at TA Universe or PA! We still have more news every day than brand new popular games that just came out! We want this source code because we have accomplished more than probably any other RTS community. After making over 1000 new fully 3D scripted units, over 5000 maps (at least), probably over 10 full races (who else can make races?), tons of third party programs and mods and so on, we are getting bored and want to alter the game engine itself. Our community has gone so far that we are making a full length TA movie at Annihilation Studios, a first person shooter in the TA world (called TA: Close Quarters), and the third party sequel to TA, TA: Flashback. TA:F will be fully 3D and so on, and it is also being made by Annihilation Studios. Just recently Infogrames opened up a TA forum for us (who knows why?), apparently after finally noticing we survived and thrived even after they closed down Cavedog and left us to die. (whoever claims he is a former infogrames worker is wrong, I've had TA since october 1997 and I know for a fact that cavedog was NOT dead when infogrames acquired GT). Anyway...anyone who still plays TA is encouraged to come to the above sites and post on all our forums, esp. TA Universe, the biggest one (still bigger than most RTS fan forums, believe it or not. Several hundred thousand posts and several thousand users..).