Re: [ox-en] muddev
- From: oekonux phk.at
- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 16:18:36 +0100
Hi,
You wanted a list reply right ?
Don't know of how much interest this is to the general list audience.
Free Mud/Gaming Links ... ok.
As the term "MUD" and what exactly it means is so disputed that discussion
about it is banned at the aforementioned MUDDev mailinglist I'll just
write about anything game related in this context that comes to mind.
Worldforge (http://www.worldforge.org) is probably the high-profile
project with the most "GNU spirit". Everything LGPL/GPL/GFDL
It aims to be a "Complete Gaming System for Massively Multiplayer Online
Roleplaying". It's not quite there yet but they produce quite a lot of
code and more remarkably for a free software game a lot of good
artwork (graphics,models,music etc.) under GNU licences.
Getting artists involved is usually the most difficult part for free games.
Cube (http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/) is a cool First Person Shooter/3d Engine
that supports online in-engine point/drag editing of levelgeometry.
Even multiple people at once. That kinda gives it additional free software
feeling.
There is also still no other (commercial) engine that can do that afaik.
It's "only" Zlib licensed though (BSD like). The author also doesnt want
contributors.
NeL (http://nevrax.org,http://nevrax.com) is a "platform for Persistent Worlds",
so in the same category as Worldforge. It is developed by a commercial entity
with the intent on using it for their Multiplayer Online Game. Only the code
itself is free (GPL). They plan to charge for access to content and
infrastructure. RMS visited them so it must be ok ;)
id Software (http://www.idsoftware.com) and namely game industry poster child
John Carmack are important supporters of the free software cause.
Not only by porting their games to Linux regardless of commercial viability
and supporting OpenGL. They also released the code for most of their
older games (Doom, Quake II,...) under the GPL with the stated intent to
continue to do so in the future.
This doesnt include the game assets though so you still need the datafiles.
Counterstrike (http://www.counter-strike.net) is one of the Halflife
Modifications mentioned. It definitely shows the power of non-commercial
community development even when applied only to some part of the product.
In terms of popularity and number of players Counterstrike beats all other
online shooters by several orders of magnitude. And that even though the
engine used is ancient compared to newer offerings.
Halflife is a Windows game though and so I don't have much firsthand
experience with Counterstrike. As a result of that I don't really know
if the code to the mod itself is open or if it is shipped in compiled form.
Traditional text muds are mostly based on some opensource server
with nonstandard licences (not to be used for monetary gain etc.)
On top of that there is often interpreted code (mudlib) which is mostly
exchanged quite freely as well between hobbyist muds. The actual content
though, areas, non player character skripts etc. is not accessable and
well guarded against anyone not a coder on that mud.
Quite understandably as the usually competitive games rely mostly on
finding secrets and weaknesses.
I guess that were the most interesting ones, showing various facets.
There are of course countless other free/GPL games out there in various
stages of completeness, but that links page is probably the wrong place to
list them all :). I'd wish I could point to a site which lists only
free software games but gaming sites are usually distinguished by
the platform they run on. There is dmoz.org of course.
Tuxracer, Freeciv and Flightgear are quite nice.
To sum it all up there is a lot of interesting stuff out there but
the output isnt big enough yet to keep a serious gamer busy in my
personal experience. Some genres are especially underrepresented like
Adventures for example.
Uh ... this mail got a lot longer than I intended.
Sorry if I bored anybody ... just grab the links :)
ph
On Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 11:33:48PM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Stefan Merten wrote:
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Hi Philipp!
3 months (91 days) ago oekonux wrote:
As references to relevant discussions elsewhere seem to be quite welcome on
this list I thought some might be interested in this thread on the MUDDev
mailinglist. It's a mailinglist for developers of Multiplayer Onlinegames.
Quite a few influential names in the field post there.
It all started quite innocently with a discussion about playergenerated
content in such games and ended up at topics like intellectual property,
p2p systems, free software and paradigm shifts.
I think this message makes a good starting point:
https://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2002Q4/msg00056.php
This link provided in the thread provided some interesting reading as well:
http://www.digitalartauction.com/
Let me know if stuff like this is ontopic ... I havent lurked for that long.
To me its is so much on-topic that I'd like to ask you whether you
have any useful link about something I'd call Free MUDs? I'd gladly
add it to the links provided in
http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/links.html
There is an (old) link to the HalfLife community creating new content,
but I'd love to add more links from the gaming scene.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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