Battle For Wesnoth Version 1.6 Released 90
bomanbot writes "The team for the great turn-based, open-source strategy game Battle for Wesnoth has just released the new stable version 1.6 of their popular title. Some of the new version's highlights include a new campaign, new multiplayer scenarios, improved graphics and user interface, and new background music. The full release notes have been posted, and the source code and binary downloads for many different platforms including Linux, Windows and Mac OS X are available as well."
I'd go further than that (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't just art, but basically non-programming related assets that OSS games tend to lack in. Not a surprise since they are usually done by coders. So not only does the artwork tend to be lacking, but sound, music, level design and so on. It seems that most of the people who are interested in working on that sort of thing, do it for a commercial engine. You'll find some pretty amazing community developed stuff for things like UT3.
Part of the reason is probably that the tools are better for those games. Take a look at the Unreal Editor or the Elder Scrolls Construction Kit some time. They are extremely solid tools, and have some good assets to start working with. Compare that to many OSS games which have NO tools. The designers would have to do everything on their own. Also it is easier to reach an audience that way. If you are a level designer and make a level for a popular game, you just release it and people can play. If you sign on with an OSS game, well first it has to actually reach a state people want to play, and then people have to discover it and try it.
I do think one thing that would help is for OSS games to have much better tools. Make it easy for people to add assets, build levels and so on. Maybe more people would be willing to do so.
Re:ROFL! looks like a 1989 amiga game (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, the age-old stupidity. Good graphics != good game. If you think so, you were probably brought up on XBoxes and Playstations, which means that dedicating an evening to one game is probably a struggle and that thinking or enjoying the game is second to "completing" it or showing it to your mates.
I still play Nethack, ffs, and the graphics on that were far too primitive when I started playing that years ago. Give me an emulator and crap graphics any day of the week - there's not many games that you can replay over and over again and still feel you got your moneys-worth every time you replay it.
Re:Down for the count (Score:4, Insightful)
That it's not backed by big corporations with money to throw at servers? Actually, I thought that that was almost implicit, but if you wanna be disappointed, go right ahead.
Or you could donate, possibly allowing them to upgrade their servers. Probably not as fun as making sweeping generalizations about projects YOU couldn't build, but hey, at least donating doesn't make you seem like an whiny douche to the rest of the room.
Re:Needs an Easier mode (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, which campaign have you played? because, from actual experience as well as reading the forums, it seems like most campaigns' levels of difficulty vary a lot from what they actually mean, and while for one "Easy" is "you only need a funcioning brain", for another its "We won't torture you *that* much". A good example of the latter, for instance, is "Under the Burning Suns", excellent storyline and very fun levels, but when they say its aimed at "Expert" players, they weren't kidding.
Good campaigns for newbies at the game, IMHO, are "A Tale of Two Brothers" and of course, the classic "Heir To The Throne". Or you could play skirmishes against a handicapped AI, which in case you didn't know (it did take me a while to find it) is under Multiplayer - Local Game, then switch "Local Player" to "Computer Player", at least on 1.4.5 (the version currently available on Ubuntu).