Unvanquished Open-Source Game Still Pushing Slowly Ahead In 2021

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Unvanquished Open-Source Game Still Pushing Slowly Ahead In 2021

Nearly a decade ago we were intrigued by Unvanquished as one of the most interesting open-source game/engine projects of the time. It was peculiar in going through dozens of alpha releases prior to drying up a few years ago. There hasn't been any major release yet past the prior alpha state but the project is in fact still moving along and issued their first new (point) release of the year as well as rolling out a new online updater...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Unvanquished-First-2021

[bug77]

I hope they re-write it in Rust

[illwieckz]

The purpose of this point release version is to

1. keep players able to play the game while we are polishing our next big iteration… =)
2. validate the release process to make sure everything works after so many time! :-)
3. make people already have the updater when our next big iteration will be there…

1. is because with time passing, our old build started to fail (especially on linux — see details — and macos).
2. & 3. are because next installment is coming.

So basically, as a player, don't expect changes in that release, but expect one that runs. Purpose of this is to prepare the next one. =)

Thank you Michael for the sharing!

[cl333r]

I hope they re-write it in Rust

Please ignore this troll for implying that the game hasn't been rewritten in Rust.

[illwieckz]

I hope they re-write it in Rust

Please ignore this troll for implying that the game hasn't been rewritten in Rust.

In fact it has been rewritten in C++ (years ago)

[coder]

The purpose of this point release version is to

1. ...
2. ...
3. make people already have the updater when our next big iteration will be there…

Why do you need a custom updater, instead of just making RPMs or DEBs and setting up a dedicated repo for popular distros? This is already a solved problem.

[tildearrow]

Please ignore this troll for implying that the game hasn't been rewritten in Rust.

Agreed. We cannot stop working on everything just to satisfy the dreams of a group of fanboys.

[illwieckz]

Why do you need a custom updater, instead of just making RPMs or DEBs and setting up a dedicated repo for popular distros? This is already a solved problem.

The main problem most open source projects face is lack of man power and lack of available time. The current updater solves the distribution issue for almost all users of Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Doing DEBs or RPMs only solves the problem for a fraction of the fraction of the user base. And because we need the updater for non-Linux platforms, doing DEBs or RPMs does not solve the problem more, it adds more problems to solve.

Note that we are OK with distro-packages and we welcome them. I myself fixed the Debian scripts to make deb packages because I care about them. Viech maintains the Arch AUR packages because he cares about them. So you already find two people from the head triumvirat making effort to be sure distro packages are doable. At some point we even hosted a debian repository. In the past some people did packages for OpenSUSE, Slackware or others… But this is just more work, more problems to solve, so with time such effort just rot because of lack of manpower. We don't need solutions for distributing the game, there is plenty of them as you noticed, we need solutions for the lack of manpower.

When we published that release, updaters and related game files were uploaded to:

• our website (this also includes our CDN mirrors in fact)
• GitHub because that's where our repositories are
• SourceForge because we still have players downloading the game from there (for example after last Debian conference related to our game, id Tech history and the need for communities, SourceForge downloads went from 8 downloads a week to 40 download a week, even if don't talk about it since many years, people still ends there when looking for the game,
• IndieDB, because some gamers may discover the game there.

Then,

• we created a torrent that is used by the updater and we got in touch with FOSSTorrents whose also hosts it (we also rely on their tracker),
• we also updated the lutris installer,
• the AUR package was updated.

Then people ask for FlatPak, DEBs, RPMs…

Developer is a full time job. Editor is a full time job…

…and Publisher is a full time job.

I like DEBs but this is not a solved problem, it's another problem to solve.

[coder]

The current updater solves the distribution issue for almost all users of Linux, Windows, and macOS.

After I asked, I wondered if Windows would factor into the answer.

[*]we created a torrent that is used by the updater and we got in touch with FOSSTorrents whose also hosts it (we also rely on their tracker),

I appreciate your use of torrents. I wish the open source community had seized on them for things like package distribution. Whenever I need to download a new OS image, I always go for a torrent.