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Free Gaming (was: Re: [ox-en] muddev)



Hi Philipp and all!

2 weeks (19 days) ago oekonux wrote:
You wanted a list reply right ?

Yes :-) .

Don't know of how much interest this is to the general list audience.

I think this is generally interesting. Thank you :-) .

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.

This one matches most what I had in mind. I added it to the link list
mostly because of the artwork and worlds they are developing in this
project. The "real" software part - though important - is not in
itself a reason to be included in the link list or the list would be
flooded with millions of software projects.

Counterstrike (http://www.counter-strike.net) is one of the Halflife
Modifications mentioned.

So my impression was right when I added the link to the Halflife
community :-) .

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.

Because of the overwhelming visibility this is particularly
interesting of course. However, I did not understand the concept
completely. Perhaps you (or someone else) may help we these questions:

* What is and what is not available for free (i.e. without a prize)?

* Is there something similiar to a license and if so what does it say?

* Is there an open community developing worlds / scenarios /
  something? (But see the notes on secrets below)

* What is the exact role of the CS team?

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.

That is an interesting aspect. I understand that in a game like
Counter-Strike or MUDs it is not possible to publish the source code
without making the whole thing useless. This type of information I'm
calling a secret. IMHO secrets are an interesting challenge to the
whole concept of Open Information. At least we need to think about it.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/



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