Free Software FPS Games Compared 194
An anonymous reader writes "Linux-gamers.net has posted a thorough, although harsh, comparison of free software shooters. It compares seven open source shooter games in a lengthy discussion. Few have gone to the trouble of comparing and carefully examining the genre before. The author ranks the games in the following order (best to worst): Warsow, Tremulous, World of Padman, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, OpenArena, and Sauerbraten. In making these choices, it claims to use gameplay, design, innovation and presentation as criteria and includes a short history of free software shooters in the introduction."
WTF, is it free or is it open source? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is free, but I don't think is open source. Maybe it is, it is based on either Q2 or Q3 engine, and Q2 engine is open sourced (or GPLed), maybe Q3 engine is as well.
But anyway, it seems as if the summary equates open source with free and free with open source.
Re:WTF, is it free or is it open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's like the games of yesteryears... (Score:1, Insightful)
OK, fine - I'm not British (in fact, I'm of German decent) but I'm guessing this is a language rather than ancestry quiz.
Then the rest of the site hits me, slapping my eyes like the fish slapping dance.
Red and yellow text on orange background at the top and down both sides - all but unreadable - I defy you to be able to read that "shout box" thing (not sure what purpose it even serves). A "Pic of the Week" that's basically solid black with an red smear at the bottom. Light blue text on dark blue background for everything else.
And then a whole bunch of little link buttons on the other side, including one for validating WC3 CSS compliance, which, if you try, shows that there are errors in the CSS.
Why is it that open source so often implies a total lack of care for details and usability?
Re:Fun, but.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Fun, but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, wait...
Re:It's like the games of yesteryears... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lack of natural selection. If a commercial game's user interface sucks, few people will buy and play it, unless its overly hyped. Reviewers tear apart the game, word of mouth names it a real stinker, it doesn't sale, developer either goes bankrupt or learns from the mistake. Or doesn't - and goes bankrupt, eventually.
Open-source projects don't depend on sales. While this allows for experimental genres and fresh ideas, it also takes away some incentive to polish the product's user interface (bugs OTOH are more likely to be fixed).
Re:Fun, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Level design is also a REALLY tedious process. Making a good level requires replaying the level over and over slightly tweaking things to get them just right. It gets old fast, and you get really sick of the level in the process. And of course you have to deal with the issues that come up from playing the level that many times. It's very easy to memorize the level you're working on, and end up making the level way too difficult because of that.
Re:Three cheers for John Carmack, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tremulous second best? Hate to see the rest (Score:3, Insightful)