Open Source Option

[Brent]

First, let there be no doubt that I (and probably a lot of people) think that you are doing a great, if not one of the greatest jobs ever, on this project and that you really don't require the hassle that comes with being a truly Open Source project. I think that you'll produce one of the best RTS's ever and do not need any extra help with that, the 0AD team is fully capable of doing so. When I looks at the screenshots (which appear to be not working right now ) and read the backgrounds, it's clear that you know what you're doing.

That said, I think that, as an Open Source fan, as a gamer and as a gamer that would love to switch permanently to Linux, opensourcing the game and/or it's engine in one way or the other would be a fantastic push for the open source gaming-scene. The 0AD project is a project of the scale of major commercial game projects and by unleashing your code you could contribute a earthshaking way to the development of more (competative) open source.

My main point is that most games and pretty much all commercial games are Windows-only. There is a pretty big gap between commercial games and OS-games. Take Civilisation 4 and Freeciv for example. Not only graphically is it a big difference, also gameplay wise, and, I'm sad to say, in favor of Civ4. Of course, this is only one game, if one looks closer, you'll find genres like RTS/Race/Adventure are underrepresented and thus underrepresented on Linux.

The culprit with pretty much all OS-games is the accessability and eye-candy. People like to play pretty games and there's nothing wrong with that. The downside of that is that, apart from a small but loyal group, most people avoid OS-games and just pick up a game from the shop, even if the game in reality is crappier.

I'm not saying you, as the 0AD-dev-team have any obligations towards doing something about this, but I do think you have a great opportunity to do so. You're developing a free game that breaks with all preconceptions and truely is a game that competes (and, judging from the backgrounds articles, possibly even surpasses) in almost all aspacts of games.

Therefore, releasing this would very probably mean landslide in the game-landscape. The few OS RTS'es could easily upgrade their graphics, since the hard part, a decent graphical engine, is done. Anyone with modelling and texturing capabilities can go create a custom game. Of course this will be possible, to some extent, out-of-the-box with 0AD through modding, but still.

Since you'd like to keep at least the development of your own game indoors, you could come up with a creative way to opensource it all. Perhaps by update the source package every month and leave it at that. I f anyone wants it, they can get it and fork it if they want. Whatever. The point is it'll be available (and by the way could easily end up in a lot of Linux-distro's repositories!). My point is that OS-ing it would not automatically mean that you'll soon be in trouble that has nothing to do with you want: building a great game!

Of course, I'm not forcing anything, just trying to convince

I love you all, peace.

Edited January 9, 2006 by Breepee

[Dnas]

Cool! Another fellow Linux user!

Well, the game will run Linux regardless of open source-ness. And I somehow doubt we'll prevent distros from putting it in their repositories (I don't know), so at least it'll end up in the non-free sections of them. And we're making as much of the game as scriptable as possible, so you could do quite a lot without editting the the engine.

[prefect]

Therefore, releasing this would very probably mean landslide in the game-landscape. The few OS RTS'es could easily upgrade their graphics, since the hard part, a decent graphical engine, is done. Anyone with modelling and texturing capabilities can go create a custom game. Of course this will be possible, to some extent, out-of-the-box with 0AD through modding, but still.

That's a complete misjudgement. Creating a decent graphics engine isn't the hard part, lots of projects have done it. The real problem with open source projects is creating decent graphics. Or, more specifically, getting the people who can create decent graphics engines and the people who can create decent graphics to work together. Just look at projects like Widelands if you want to know what I mean (I used to be pretty active there a long time ago).

And this is a problem that simply can't be fixed by releasing an engine as open source. After all, the Quake engine has been released as open source. And yes, there have been some entirely open games as a result of that, but have they taken off and caused a landslide? Certainly not.

Now, speaking only for myself, that doesn't mean that I'm personally opposed to open sourcing the engine - at some point in the future, once it's done. But right now, there's nothing to gain from open sourcing.

My main point is that most games and pretty much all commercial games are Windows-only. There is a pretty big gap between commercial games and OS-games. Take Civilisation 4 and Freeciv for example. Not only graphically is it a big difference, also gameplay wise, and, I'm sad to say, in favor of Civ4. Of course, this is only one game, if one looks closer, you'll find genres like RTS/Race/Adventure are underrepresented and thus underrepresented on Linux.

Don't worry about that part. The game runs on Linux, today, and that isn't going to change as long as I'm using Linux full-time

[Brent]

That's a complete misjudgement.

OK, but I think not entirely. When you guy's are done, there will be a fine-tuned and polished 3D engine suited for RTS'es (and for RPG's and adventures too I guess?). Pretty much all OS-RTS'es are 2D (nothing wrong with that of course).

But, on top of that (I should have left 'graphical' out) there's a bunch of other usefull stuff (thinngs like fog of war) that's already done. And you're right in saying that most project lack artists and have plenty programmers, but from what I can see there's a heap of models and textures and sounds available in 0AD and modding is easier than creating (and yes, you already support that, hmm, what was my point again ). Of course, this depends on what parts will be opensourced, if any.

In any case, I think there's nothing to lose when making the code available. And instead of some CVS/SVN repo, just putting a source tarball up every now and then, will cost you hardly any effort and possibly gain us new games.

[Matei]

I'll have to agree that a lot of what goes into making a game look nice is not the 3D engine programming but the art. Take a look at the whizbang screenshot on Stuart's article about graphics, and compare with this and later this. Very little has changed in the renderer since then - there were some optimizations and bug fixes, more animation support was added and there is a very preliminary version of water rendering - but the newer screenshots look a lot better because our art has improved greatly. Also notice that the only graphics trick being used is shadow mapping, and even this is pretty limited right now (shadows only appear on the terrain, not on other objects). Other than that you're just seeing plain textured objects with no special effects. 0AD is very fortunate to have started as a mod and therefore to have had good artists on the team since the beginning, and they've only gotten better through years of practice. I'm definitely not against open sourcing but I don't think it would result in more than possibly some gameplay variants or little upgrades, or maybe more games about ancient times, at least not at first.

By the way it looks like there is at least one open-source 3D RTS engine out there: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/. Hopefully development of other types of games will also pick up.

[Aeros]

Other than that you're just seeing plain textured objects with no special effects.

Oh us artists use quite alot of tricks that we've got up our sleeve as well as perfecting techniques and always brainstorming on how to make things better. But yes, all our art are simple traditional textures and models. We're lucky to not be pressured like artists in profesional studios so we can have time to put effort and quality into our art.

In my opinion the best part is the performance factor, we don't throw away processing power on normal mapping or HDR lighting (yet? ) or all this gunk that new games have which are very rarely pulled off well (Half Life 2 is maybe the only game thats used shaders to proper potential). As for having good artists, there are two people making 90% of the ingame art here, myself and Wijitmaker the project leader. The remaining 10% is sprinkled out over a few other people helping out in certain fields.

As a point of interest, I have had zero 3d modelling or texture art experience outside of this project and one of my goals in joining was to learn how to do this stuff. Our real advantage is having real artists on the team who have an understanding for color, scale, motion, position and lighting, as well as having enough time to put quality and effort into our work and if its not good enough to do it over.

P.S. Oh my gosh that whizbang screenshot looks terrible...funny what a year and a half can do to the project. :-P

[Wijitmaker]

Other than that you're just seeing plain textured objects with no special effects.

Oh us artists use quite alot of tricks that we've got up our sleeve as well as perfecting techniques and always brainstorming on how to make things better.

Yeah I think Matei was just making note that we aren't really doing anything fancy with our art besides player/object color. No gloss/specular maps, no diffuse maps, no bump maps, no fancy 3d materials - just pretty much plain old flat 2d diffuse maps (with some some transparency here and there).

[Aeros]

Yes, I'm simply saying the quality you see in the screenshots is done through clever art styles and techniques. I've had a few people think we have normal mapping or shaders on people's skin/helmets. And then theres all the people who think this is AoE3 when we show them a screenshot.

[nedkelly]

First of all I would like to say that this game looks awesome and I think it really is going to be as good as or even better than commercial games. Since I am also a Linux user it is cool that it will also be available to this platform.

I think that what Breepee wrote is quit right and that making it open source now would probably not do any good to the progress of the game. How ever I think that when the game is finished it should be realest under GPL or another open source licence, since a nice engine like this would make open source gaming take great step forward. I think that making open source games can be achieved if one look at games like www.glest.org and www.nexuiz.com. They have both nice graphics and a very good gameplay.

Especially glest can be compare with 0 A.D so I think that making 0 A.D open source should be done, but that it should be up to the developers to make the decision when it will benefit the games development.

[Wijitmaker]

Thanks and welcome to the forums

Just for clarification, prior to completion (while the WFG is still in development) we most likely will not open source the project. Mostly for the reasons stated in this thread here already. However after release - depending on bugs, feedback from players, number of interested parties, etc... we are seriously considering open sourcing the project. One of the goals being to empower more hobbyist independant game developers.