ArenaLive, an Open Source MMOFPS 95
ZeXx86 writes "ArenaLive is a new open source game based on the well-known OpenArena. Its aim is to become an open-source alternative to id Software's QuakeLive. The main idea is to make a game available in your web browser. So far, the game is playable and provides player stats, straight-forward settings for your account in a web browser and, of course, loads of fun with your friends. At the moment, it is available only for 32/64bit Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux, however, support for other platforms and browsers is coming soon. The game is licensed under GNU/GPL2. It's still in an early development stage, so players and developers both are welcome to join."
Re:This is absurd (Score:2, Insightful)
to increase that number?
Re:This is absurd (Score:3, Insightful)
many horrible "our first opengl software project" FPS games target linux initially, and for good reason
people expect so much less out of linux games, as there simply isn't much good entertainment software available to them. linux gaming addicts end up appreciating any peice of shit game they can get their hands on
windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress, or something that is simply a peice of shit, as they're used to commercial grade game releases. that can be very hard to compete with, considering the development time that goes into even a passable 3d game.
so if your game sucks (or is in "permanent alpha"), guess where your largest audience is going to be
Fair enough (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess it's better than the current option we have for running QuakeLive for Linux (i.e. nothing). Yes I know they're working on it, but it'd be nice if Linux wasn't treated second-class to Windows all the time.
Re:This is absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
windows users laugh at you when you release a work in progress, or something that is simply a peice of shit, as they're used to commercial grade game releases. that can be very hard to compete with, considering the development time that goes into even a passable 3d game.
By your argument Linux should not exist since commercial OS's are so hard to compete with. Labor is not the issue with open software, it is more having a good idea that attracts people who want to work on it. So if a game sucks and stalls in alpha it is probably because it just outright isn't any good and nobody wants to fix it.
There are so many gamers so pissed off with the commercial game world who would leap all over a by-the-gamer-for-the-gamer open source revolution. So what's pissing us gamers off? How about paying upwards of $50 for a game only to have seven hours of single player game play and mediocre multiplayer with hardly any servers. Or amazing graphics, sophisticated sandbox gaming (Cryengine) and it's all over in that 7 hours of cookie-cutter linear storyline with little replay value (Crysis). Throw some buggy code and DRM and you have all the reasons to be angry.
Re:This is absurd (Score:4, Insightful)
By your argument Linux should not exist since commercial OS's are so hard to compete with. Labor is not the issue with open software ...
Labor of skilled programmers is not an issue with open software. Labor of skilled graphics artists, UI designers, project managers, and various other professions vitally important to get a polished final product, is definitely an issue.
Re:This is absurd (Score:3, Insightful)
A good project manager is worth an order of magnitude more than a good programmer because they enable the good programmers to do good work without being hassled by things outside of their job of writing and documenting good code.
The fact that there are few good project managers doesn't make this any less true.
Re:This is absurd (Score:4, Insightful)
There are so many gamers so pissed off with the commercial game world who would leap all over a by-the-gamer-for-the-gamer open source revolution.
Horseshit.
The plain fact of the matter is that you're not going to get the same kind of quality, by any stretch, out of an "open source revolution." I don't suppose you've noticed that virtually all of the open-source FPSes out there are based off very old (originally proprietary) code, do you? Code that has to be hacked at significantly to get much beyond the nVidia TNT2 target that it originally topped out at (oh boy, the GPL'd Quake 3 code has hardware T&L!)? Even the really good open-source FPSes (I'm talking Warsow here) are extremely limited games, and sure as hell don't address what you complain about ("linear storyline").
Open source software is good in some cases. Games are clearly not really one of them. You aren't getting Half-Life 2 out of the open source world, I'm sorry to say. You don't have anything technically equivalent to even Source (and despite Valve making great, quality games, Source really sucks, it's one of the main reasons I'm glad my team is writing our own engine for our games). You don't have the kind of incentives to create a focused, quality project because you're not paying them to stay in line (people will just toddle off to play with your code--which is by no means a bad thing, but it kind of makes it hard to make a kickass game when everybody's off dicking around with their own thing).
Sorry, but no, open source is not always the answer. Like right here.