Unvanquished Alpha 41 Released, Still Moving Towards NaCl VM Usage

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Unvanquished Alpha 41 Released, Still Moving Towards NaCl VM Usage

It's been a while since last reporting on Unvanquished (mostly because it seems their RSS feed is broken), but they've continued moving along with their open-source game and Daemon engine. This first person shooter is now up to its 41st monthly alpha release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Unvanquished-Alpha-41

[andrei_me]

Alpha is part of the game's name, or is alpha like alpha/beta/RC release?

If so, they are in apha state for more than 3 years?

[yash]

Developer 1 : Sir, I think we should now move out of Alp...

Head : No!

[kharnov]

Hi, I'm one of the heads of the Unvanquished project.

One of the primary reasons that we've been in alpha for so long is due to the volunteer nature of our project and the scope of what we're aiming to accomplish. When we started out in the summer of 2011, we were initially a mod project meant to revive Tremulous, which was in its death throes at the time. As things progressed, we decided to fork, and we've been continuing development ever since. It isn't easy to simply rewrite the aging Quake 3 engine in C++, nor is it easy to replace the VM system with an entirely new one, or continuously upgrade the renderer with new features, and that's just some of what we've been doing with the code-side of the project. There's also a whole asset collection to deal with, not to mention our map pack, since an FPS/RTS hybrid like our own has pretty specific mapping requirements that you wouldn't find in a standard death-match.

It takes much longer to progress through the checklist of things when everyone is doing this in their free time as a hobby project, since there isn't any money involved and there aren't any producers breathing down our collective necks. People have day jobs, are in school, or have other things to do. Sometimes people go on vacation or have family things to deal with. If this was a commercial project, then sure, we'd have been out of alpha by now, but it isn't the same. This is a community-driven effort and we're putting our heart into this thing, one step at a time.

However, I'm pleased to say that the wait isn't going to be much longer. Our artwork is almost complete, our map pack has already hit the quota we've set for it, and we're finishing up the final engine features that are critical for beta while laying the foundations for what we'll be doing next. There will be a month or two of polishing once that's done, and then we'll have a beta release ready. Ideally, the target is the first half of next year. Anything can happen. It can come a little bit sooner or a little bit later, but the thing to remember is that it's going to come.

We're grateful for the continued coverage that Phoronix has provided us, and it's been a massive help to drive up interest in our game and attract new contributors. For that, I'm very thankful.

Now, I'd be happy to answer any questions if any of you have some.

[andrei_me]

We're grateful for the continued coverage that Phoronix has provided us, and it's been a massive help to drive up interest in our game and attract new contributors. For that, I'm very thankful.

First, thanks for your reply

I remember looking the screenshots on the project`s page and thinking "Nice graphics for a open-source game"

Keeping on the subject of coverage, I think it would be an awesome post for Michael/Eric G showing the evolution of the project, comparing it`s artwork with another open-source projects, any performance improvements between releases, etc...

[kharnov]

I would actually love to see some new performance analysis myself, we've changed quite a lot of code since the last time we were benchmarked! Personally, I've always been a huge fan of the benchmarks on Phoronix for a while now, so when I saw us featured here for the first time a couple of years ago, it was a huge surprise.

[Michael]

I would actually love to see some new performance analysis myself, we've changed quite a lot of code since the last time we were benchmarked! Personally, I've always been a huge fan of the benchmarks on Phoronix for a while now, so when I saw us featured here for the first time a couple of years ago, it was a huge surprise.

I tried a few months ago and if I recall correct the benchmark functionality broke/regressed. If it is now working again, happy to try it out again for use in our GPU and driver articles.

[kharnov]

That's strange, what would we need to fix? Is it something wrong with the demo system?