Are Open-Source Games & Community Game Engines Fading Away?

[plonoma]

Widelands and Unknown Horizons are other interesting RTS games.

And 0 A.D. has an OpenGL 4 branch: https://github.com/Yves-G/0ad/tree/OGL4

Amazing how 0 A.D. has an OpenGL 4 branch.

https://github.com/Yves-G/0ad/tree/OGL4

The Linux drivers might catch up with the demands of the branch in 2016.

[Irritant]

Looks nice but only the engine is free, while the content is proprietary. At least according to Wikipedia.

Quite correct. The article was discussing the open source game engines though. I only pointed to the Alien Arena media because that's the best example of how it's currently rendering(with new lighting and shadowing, terrains, vegetation, ragdoll physics, etc), and people tend to associate an open sourced engine many times with the primary game. Michael rarely seems to mention us these days, mostly citing Xonotic or Unvanquished. It's true we haven't had a release in a few years, but our media page is constantly updated, and the forums still get plenty of progress updates. It just seems he's had his favorites and doesn't really give some others much attention. Maybe it's the proprietary game art that keeps him away, I don't know really. I know it's not a popular stance on Linux based sites, but we are not going to change that.

Eventually we will have the engine fully scriptable and release and SDK for people wishing to use it for other games(of course they can do that now, but it's a little harder to massage it to make it do exactly what you want without getting pretty dirty, in it's current state). The main point is, we have been working steadily on this game for years, and the engine is constantly advancing while others may have apparently been stagnating.

[oibaf]

Michael, you seem to have forgotten(I guess) about Alien Arena and the CRX engine. We have been working on many advances in the engine across the board, and all new game art.

We aim to eventually release another game using the engine, and in the process are making it easier for people to edit and create content. One only needs:

NetRadiant
Blender
Gimp

How easy is that?

Just a sampling of what we are doing can be seen here:

http://red.planetarena.org/media.html

Looks nice but only the engine is free, while the content is proprietary. At least according to Wikipedia.

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

@TheOne: I HAVE been a gamer for 30 years; as in, I still am. And games less violent then? Wolfenstein 3D and Doom basically inventend the genre of FPS. Furthermore, you know very little about my actual life; I gave you just the gist of it. Trust me when I say that my younger self demonstrated far more than just anger and no, my parents did not worry about me. Not in the manner that they should have anyhow. They're my parents, not yours. I think I have a better understanding of what my childhood was like than you do. I was subjected to all forms of neglect and abuse except for one; sexual. Had I lived in the US my parents could've very well ended up in jail, had I spoken out about it. So, please, stop condescending and generalizing. The fact I know how I was has nothing to do with my parents being some sort of reference frame because individually, they're both just as broken as I am; they simply never learned to overcome their issues.
Regarding "absorbing" false realities; we all need escape mechanisms at times, you are no exception to that. No one is an exception to that. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to escape the harsh realities of life; life just isn't always fair and/or pleasant. Some people prefer alcohol, some drugs, some games. Take your pick as to which is the least dangerous. Fact of the matter is, far more people die each year as a result of alcohol abuse than they do of games and in the case of alcohol, most victims actually are not even the ones drinking; think drunk driving and causing mayhem.

[Irritant]

Michael, you seem to have forgotten(I guess) about Alien Arena and the CRX engine. We have been working on many advances in the engine across the board, and all new game art.

We aim to eventually release another game using the engine, and in the process are making it easier for people to edit and create content. One only needs:

NetRadiant
Blender
Gimp

How easy is that?

Just a sampling of what we are doing can be seen here:

http://red.planetarena.org/media.html

[TheOne]

@TheOne: I have no doubt in my mind you truly believe in what you say and that you do not explicitly mean harm with said opinion. However, the world is a very gray place; for example, as a young boy, I used to have a terrible temper, at one point my parents were adviced to simply place me in a home of sorts simply because they had trouble making contact with me that was mutually benefitial. Basically, I was heading for a life of violence, crime and who knows what not. I'm now 38, happily married and perfectly at peace. In fact, I would say I am one of the most balanced/strongest individuals I personally know. I've come a long way from being that ill-tempered young boy and guess what, I've also been a gamer for 30 years.

I'm on the same age range as you are and all I can say is video games of our childhood times weren't as violent as today. Maybe having less detailed graphics helped see it that way. My first violent video game encounters where duke nukem, quake, unreal tournament, etc... and I was mature enough to handle them, yet I got angry when people/npc frag me and got stressed a lot while playing them. But not everybody learns to channel/control its emotions, like not everybody produces the same amount of adrenaline. So as I'm not supposed to think that violent video games will affect everybody, I should also not suppose that violent video games will not affect anyone. Maybe if you are the kind of person to channel your rage and discharge it threw a violent game, that is good, but not everybody is the same. Anyways, why defend these games so much, they don't add anything to our life besides some wasted hours of distorted fun and rage....

Main point is that open source applications that get funding is because they are useful. Even supertuxkart (a game) got funding, and that is because you can play it with your kids without them been susceptible into becoming psychopaths... Also not everybody enjoys blood bath games.

Point being, there is far more to children growing up to becoming violent adults than merely one form of activity. I was heading for something akin to those two that were responsible for the Columbine shooting; as far as I can tell I had far more anger and rage in me than those two combined. In fact, I still do.

Anger is one thing, insanity gained by assimilating what isn't reality is another thing.

And, please, do not assume that my being able to control my inner beast had anything to do with having good support to do so because I had none.

I have been there, and believe me, your parents worrying just a little about you, even if you think they didn't did anything, indeed helped you overcome that situation, because you are conscience and clear about how you were. Just that, indicates there was some kind of caring in your surroundings.

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

@TheOne: I have no doubt in my mind you truly believe in what you say and that you do not explicitly mean harm with said opinion. However, the world is a very gray place; for example, as a young boy, I used to have a terrible temper, at one point my parents were adviced to simply place me in a home of sorts simply because they had trouble making contact with me that was mutually benefitial. Basically, I was heading for a life of violence, crime and who knows what not. I'm now 38, happily married and perfectly at peace. In fact, I would say I am one of the most balanced/strongest individuals I personally know. I've come a long way from being that ill-tempered young boy and guess what, I've also been a gamer for 30 years.

Point being, there is far more to children growing up to becoming violent adults than merely one form of activity. I was heading for something akin to those two that were responsible for the Columbine shooting; as far as I can tell I had far more anger and rage in me than those two combined. In fact, I still do. But, I never so much as hit a person in my life; while still enjoying games that regularly involve killing NPCs. I guess what I'm trying to say is -- people that end up unable to control their anger, their rage in real life had some predisposition to do so. Or, maybe, they simply lacked the inner strength to control said anger. Either way, games by themselves do not create psychopaths. Real life is far more responsible for that. And, please, do not assume that my being able to control my inner beast had anything to do with having good support to do so because I had none.

If anything, gaming actually helped me as opposed to hurting me. It gave me an activity to hide from the world with, to vent my anger with.

[TheOne]

Edit: Duplicate post

[TheOne]

EDIT: Here is a pretty good article I read some time ago. http://drdouglas.org/drdpdfs/106027_08.pdf

That was a nice read, but the study believes lyrics don't affect at all and from experience I don't believe that. A nice experiment would be for a person attracted to some kind of music sound but that doesn't understands the language used on the song and another person attracted to the sound and that understands the language, and analyze the behavior of both.

In short, the answer is yes, violent music videos
appear to have a much more powerful effect.

That part of the document conclusion just proves what I'm saying, sound mixed with visuals does affects weaker people. Now imagine a kiddo that is having a hard time at school with another kiddo and constantly playing Killing Floor which is more immersive than a music video, that may affect his response to what he is being exposed to, and enforce a negative behavior.

I've been a video gamer since the age of 3. I've never been excessively violent in my whole life, nor do I enjoy displays of violence.
Conditioning like that might work for a limited number of individuals, but making the blanket statement that video games and other modern forms of art are turning the whole of humanity violent is not only bloody ridiculous but pretty dangerous on its own.

Dude, I'm not saying all video games provoke violence behavior, maybe you as a kid played Super Mario/Duck Hunt, what kid would become violent playing such kind of game? Now, if you compare that kind of games with Killing Floor, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc...., that is a whole different story, and the worst part is that society is demanding this kind of content with their pockets, that is why game studios keep developing such trashy content. We may not want to believe it but people is becoming sicker and there is a lot going on the background that people still don't understand. That is why companies don't care to fund open source development of such trashy content. Now, if you develop a simulation game for space travel, for solving agriculture issues of the world, a game to build electronic circuits, then maybe that would be an interesting game.... I loved playing the first versions of Flight Simulator as a teen. Why so much damn FPS violent games and not more games where you may gain something in exchange?

So maybe if open source game developers focused on building more than (violent) games, they could attract funding to keep them working on what they like.

If we need to talk about things that breed violence, why not talk about religion? Or far-right politics and nationalism?

I haven't said those are issues too. But Taking those as example, people become idealist of certain subjects like religion, politics, etc... So what makes you think that kids will not become idealist about their games and the attitudes and behavior they absorb from those games? What makes you think that a kiddo playing Grand Theft Auto will not try to make the same in real life?

Talking about children: I doubt you're old enough to have any. In fact, you're probably still in that phase in which all girls are "icky"

Well, I will not tell you how much of those small creatures I have , but they bring joy in your life.

[unixfan2001]

Well if you ever become a father or you are a father try putting some of your kids from a small age to play a violent game and watch his reactions. At first he will get scared, such violence will scare him but, the more he grow playing that, the more he will get used to it and find it is normal to smash some ones else head, then start analyzing his behavior and you will notice you raised a monster. Now tell me that those games are not suitable for small kids and I have just proved you wrong :P. But hey, all of this I'm saying is nonsense for you, because you may be a hardcore gamer (maybe a kiddo) that doesn't wants to believe the true consequences of your adorable games... I'm the psycho...

I've been a video gamer since the age of 3. I've never been excessively violent in my whole life, nor do I enjoy displays of violence.
Conditioning like that might work for a limited number of individuals, but making the blanket statement that video games and other modern forms of art are turning the whole of humanity violent is not only bloody ridiculous but pretty dangerous on its own.

If we need to talk about things that breed violence, why not talk about religion? Or far-right politics and nationalism?

Talking about children: I doubt you're old enough to have any. In fact, you're probably still in that phase in which all girls are "icky"