General Info

I agree completely with Quarto on his points about opensource, but I also want to add this point as well. One reason why Pioneer isn't open source and will likely never be open source, is because this developer and both designers have worked hard on this project to produce a quality product that looks and acts just the way they want it. They don't want to release Pioneer as open source just so five hundred idiots out there can go in and fuck around with their engine. They don't need seven or eight Wing Commander Universes popping up using their engine to pump out mindless drivel.

That being said, I do agree that the concept of open source is fantastic and done correctly can produce amazing results. The sad part is there is so few open source work that is done right, we're stuck with the garbage that everyone else loves to spew at us.
 
Reasons open source is good :

longevity.
when the next version of windows comes out, and breaks compatability, you can take the source, fix it, and recompile it, and it works. wouldn't you want to do that today for lets say, wc1/2 ? (i know i'd want to make strike commander playable on today's machines, NATIVELY. also, i know there is a windows version of wc 1/2 that came with the wc 1-3 re released collection. but *imagine* there was not. also, realise, that in the future it won't run, eventually.). as we see in this community, the life span of 'wing commander' is pretty long after the release.

maintainability.
people with bizzarre configurations, that find a bug, can fix that bug (given they are programmers). in many industrial applications, this is quite common. in this case, tho, i would guess that maybe 10% of the played configurations would have someone at the keyboard that can do something about a problem they encounter.




Reasons open source is bad :

interference.
random people come in (out of nowhere and by surprise) and commit changes that throw things out of whack. with vega strike, i've seen this happen only once. Someone decided to add in a mini-game project (from somewhere else). basically, an existing game, tacked into vega-strike, accessible *somehow*. anyways, it messed some things up, and daniel had to remove it.

early forking.
someone starts a mod for the project before the project is even finished. this is a real bummer for the people creating the original work.




Random other reason to be closed source : (not to do with open/closed, but related)

ownership.
the developers are doing this project as _their_ effort. it is a game as _they_ envision it. it's cool and all that they like to work with this community, but really, it is their undertaking and it is their right to do it their way. this includes excluding other people from the creation process. sometimes you just want to do 'something of your own, on your own'. you're not 5 years old, this isn't your family, and the game isn't candy. you don't have to share if you don't want to. once you go open source, you can't take it back if you decide to. it's too late.

practicality, design, vision.
consistency! the fewer people work on something, the tighter knit and coordinated the group is. the final product also appears more uniform, and produdes a more homogenous experience. this helps make the game environment more immersive, and ultimately makes a better product. you *can* have more people work on something, but they would have to submit to a leader that reviews and accepts/rejects work. some people are ok with that, some take it as an insult. from my experience with quake mods, for every artist you have that works 'for the mods best interest', you have another that simply 'wants his stuff in the game (and thinks it's gods gift to games...)'.





If i were to suggest something (and i _am_)
-The project should be developed closed source. (for higher quality)
-The project should not reject help, if it can be given, and will honestly be beneficial. (a team comes from somewhere...)
-The project should AFTER completion, release all source code and source materials <including models, etc>. (so it can live as long as people want to keep playing it. including 10 years from now.)

-scheherazade


p.s.
i am a fan of closed source development. i think it simply does the job better.
i also think it's honestly sad to play an awesome game, love it, and know there will come a time when it will no longer work.

i run win64, with a win32 and dos multiboot.

metal marines : win16 (win64 doesn't run win16 apps)
strike commander : dos (dosbox = unplayable, dos boot = no sound)
cannon fodder : dos (dosbox = flaky, dos boot = mouse stops working after ~1 minutes (same with warcraft1))

my previous motherboard didn't even have a gameport, so i had no joystick in dos strike commander.
some motherboards don't even have certain memory regions available that dos needs, or are very flaky in dos mode. (not a testing priority these days). i had a motherboard that would lock up playing warcraft 1.

while i can run these with a reboot, i tend to run my machine 24/7 with applications open for weeks at a time, and many of those apps have data [or are in states] that simply can't be saved. and basically all together it is a lot of trouble to save/restore a bunch of apps/data/settings. a restart can be a real chore to recover from.

if i had the source for metal marines, strike commander, warcraft1, or cannon fodder, i would port them to win32/64. i *wish* i had the option to do that.
 
I like it mixed where you have a closed development and then you open it up so far that other people can add art and other contend without braking the code (make it unplayable)
I think a good editor (for missions) and tools for converting models, sounds and other graphics, that are given from the developers are a good solution between beeing complete open or closed.
 
scheherazade said:
If i were to suggest something (and i _am_)
-The project should be developed closed source. (for higher quality)
-The project should not reject help, if it can be given, and will honestly be beneficial. (a team comes from somewhere...)
-The project should AFTER completion, release all source code and source materials <including models, etc>. (so it can live as long as people want to keep playing it. including 10 years from now.)

I agree with this completely. All you are right, that "democracy" (open-source) in game developing isn't a good thing. I am still convinced, that *all* (not saying for example, that storyline should be revealed - still maybe general parts of a gameplay should be presented and left for discussion) aspects of the game *should be* discussed with community, with us. We should have a possibility to speak our minds, to give ideas, to contribute. After all it's us who are going to play this game. The main difference in this kind of handling it to OS is the fact, that developers should have the final say in all things - a right to veto all the ideas - and thus would be able to make the game a mix the best ideas. This way all who will - in just a smallest of parts - contribute will be really satisfied that they could help and Pioneer team will have sense it is them, who made this game. In a way it works like this already, but I guess it could be further improved.
 
scheherazade said:
Reasons open source is good :
dos boot = no sound)

Das Boot = Good movie.

But in context of what you actually said, I agree somewhat. I think it's a shame that there was a great game in Starlancer but no one can make a mod for it since its all closed source. (Perhaps I should say no one has really tried). But I think the benefits of developing a closed source project speaks for itself. Whether its released to the general public or not is up to the owners of the project not just because the open source crowd wants it.
 
Quarto said:
I think that when somebody comes out of nowhere telling the members of a WC fan project that they should not make a WC fan project, he should be very careful throwing words like "trolling" around.
I can understand your aspect. However don't forget that, I answered to some hmm personal remarks.
On VS forums Someone came (out of nowhere) and told that Ogere3d'd be much reasonable choice as game engine at summer of last year. There was a mature game engine at that time. Of course that engine needed a lot of time to develop to that level. (The recent Privateer Remake release still uses the 'old VS engine).
But ogre3d is az uptodate quality engine, that supports the latest 3d effects. So the VS devels agreed that newcomer, and now he is cooperate in development of VS too. He helps porting the ogre3d engine.
Let me allow some personal story.
I know well the situation when a company becomes to bankrupt, and your favourite software or computer has no future anymore.
I had commodore 64 in my childhood as many other kids at that time too. Later I had an Amiga. They was wonderful computers of their age. Then commodore became bankrupt thanks to Ali Mehdi. He stop all development cut-back everithing, Commodore sold only its old models till all company was shut down and sold to escom. Anyone spent a lot of time to learn about every registers and bits of that wonderful hardware was upset. The special knowledge become useless in future.
(Interesting: Ali Mehdi is an owner of a medial computer newspaper publisher company. Bob Young originally was the co-founder of Linux journal, then he earned a lot of money as chairman and co-founder of Red hat)
Then I had a PC (of course I still kept all of my commodore machines). Dos seemed
like travel back in time, so I found OS/2. That was a great os and also compatible with all mainstream pc programs. After the win95 came out future os OS/2 became dark. There was more and more win32 programs were uncompatible with os/2. I tried win95 but that was far from the quality of os/2 (win95 was a windows based on a newer dos). Then I bought a my linux cd-rom (slackware) installed it. It was weird but I got used to it. I understood only open source can guarantee that an software or os won't disappear in the future. The 'funs' will always able to continue the development, even if a company disappears. (an example. eazel became bankrupt 4 years ago, but their nautilus is actively developed nowadays).
Open source is not a religion or an ideology, it is only the proper and effective way to manifest your idea, if you don't have ten millions of dollars to buy rights and coders artists etc. Of course it's not a magical wizard who turns your dreams real. If you want sg you must work on that. But there are usually some solution for your needs. You can cooperate with devels of that projects and add your options to them.
Open source is efficient way of development in case of: operating systems, development tools, scientific applications, business applications etc.
But that is right game programs are somehow different.
The first group contains timeless programs, for example there are no plans to release the ultimate edition of firefox browser. The games are different. There aren't main releases after the official release of a game in practice. Maybe mmorpg games will change it in the future. Because of this, the open source modell is not ideal for games in several cases. Also GPL or BSD licenses does not suite for game art.
But things're changing nowdays. There are several great oss games, like Battle for Wesnoth, NetHack, Globulation2, Glest, Flight Gear, Open Transport Tycoon, Planeshift or even ID's quake3. And Doom3, quake4 game engines will be also open in the future.
Some complex game engines are emerging, like ogre3d or crystal space. They are general purpose 3D engines, they'll be continially developed like firefox. They are not games, but they are bases of games. The game logic can be programmed (in case of ogre3d) in python language, that is much easier and faster if you want to create your game. The envolving game engine lets your game graphics to be keeped uptodate.
It's right there are several abandoned oss games, but who cares, there are several alive and kicking game projects.
Vega strike is much more than an alpha game project. It is useable even in its actual state, try it see it. http://vegastrike.sf.net
I just wanted to give some good imho racional advice, and do not give offence any wc funs. I'm also liked the Wing Commander series, and It's pity that new owner of Origin (EA) abandoned completly WC games.

good luck
Peter Kiss
 
plasteel <<

Plasteel Skull said:
All you are right, that "democracy" (open-source) in game developing isn't a good thing.

I'm sure you mean it to be taken with common sense, but of course as a blanket statement that isn't accurate.

A very important factors are the audience population.

You would be lucky to get 100 people to take notice of the project before any release-fan-fare, and of those, only some can contribute, and of those, only some can contribute 'well'.

The highest quality producers that contribute will end up producing work that displaces the lesser quality contributions. (a better arrow model shows up, and replaces the old one, for example)

Given enough of these producers they will take care of everything, and there won't be room for shoddy worksmanship.

So long as the pool of people is small, and the task list is high, many more shoddy jobs will make it into the product at any given time.

open source can be very evolutionary, given enough people.
but just like evolution, if you limit the gene pool, you get some in-bred results :p

while the wing commander audience is large, it is nowhere near the audience of, lets say, boost or apache.

striker <<

the fate of the project is un-doubtedly in the developer's hands. it wouldn't be fair to try to pressure them to do anything outside their desire, for their project.

for purely practical reasons, for 'the project's sake outside the consideration of any humans involved', it is better for the project to become open source at the time that the developers stop supporting it. when support stops, that starts a timer on the project's eventual death. undoubtedly, the audience outlives the developers (involvement-wise). especially in the wing commander case.

while there are people such as quarto and hcl that can do some magic, there are limits to what can be done in a reasonable amount of time dealing with only assembly.

also, this is a project was started within a community that appreciated the troubles that people like quarto and hcl went through to 'make things happen' when it was a tough task. that experience, i think, shows us that for the sake of future wing commander players, we shouldn't make their lives harder than need be by tying their hands. but this is just a statement given from a recent situation's perspective. and it is not the 'right' perspective by any authority. the real authority here, is as you said, in the hands of the developers. regardless of what they choose, there's no right and wrong. it's just what they feel like, and it will be respected.

-scheherazade
 
ChrisReid <<

"You should log in if you have a Crius.net account."

(this particular instance)
took too long to make the message and hit submit. my login times out so by the time i hit post it's by anon. tho i can't tell i timed out until after it's posted (screen doesn't change to indicate anything)

-scheherazade

p.s.

I would like to add, all this open source or not mumbo jumbo is just theory.
Step back and you see that no one that has posted anything here, other than howard, can assert _anything_ whatsoever.
I'm not pushing for anything. Just giving my opinion.
 
Unregistered said:
However Privateer remake project is also legal-risky project because of origin's (now EA) IP.

Privateer was always EA's IP. Origin has completely belong to EA for more than thirteen years.

scheherazade said:
ChrisReid <<

"You should log in if you have a Crius.net account."

(this particular instance)
took too long to make the message and hit submit. my login times out so by the time i hit post it's by anon. tho i can't tell i timed out until after it's posted (screen doesn't change to indicate anything)

That's weird. Maybe you should address that in the tech support forum or contact the admin line. Crius accounts shouldn't "time out." I haven't had to log into mine in months.
 
ChrisReid said:
That's weird. Maybe you should address that in the tech support forum or contact the admin line. Crius accounts shouldn't "time out." I haven't had to log into mine in months.

He probably forgot to check the "remember my password" box. That used to happen to me too.
 
I have some cookies turned off so the remember me option doesn't seem to work, I time out all the time. A bit of a hassle but oh well.

The thing about open source apps, take blender for example, you can commit changes but that doesn't mean it'll make it into the main tree. The main devs review all the patches and THEN decide if it's good code and worth adding the to main codebase.

Oh and warcraft 1 works fine in dosbox. You might wanna change you're DX settings or direct sound settings if you have trouble. Also their site has trouble shooting info, it could be dosbox just doesn't like your 64bit windows.
 
cookies.

they are auto cleaned on my computer.
and i don't have remember password on (purposely).

i'm aware of why it's timing out, i just wish there was something that warns you when it does so that i could relog. usually i just type a post, relog, and paste in the text, and hit post. now and then when it seems i've not been logged on that long i'll just hit post, but as you can see, intuitive timing isn't all that accurate.

-scheherazade
 
You can use something like Spybot S&D or Spyware Blaster (or both) to intelligently block cookies that track marketing data or anything like that. Then you guys could leave cookies on and not have problems like these at the multitude of legitimate sites that use them.
 
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