RE: Direction of Linux games...

[Erik <br0ke@math.smsu.edu>]

On 12-Nov-99 Veljko Krunic wrote:
> First, sorry for the long post but I could not make my point with less
> text... 
> 
> One observation I have, and that I could not recall that it was
> mentioned anywhere: I believe that Linux games have overlooked one
> important target market. What I mean by that is that nobody tried to see
> what are the greatest weaknesses of the Windows games, and how Linux
> could profit by exploiting this weaknesses.
> 

I don't think they've been overlooked and are non existant :) Possably you
overlooked their existance, or dismissed less mature projects. Pretty much
anything you can think of, someones doing it right now or has already done it.
Depends on how much abstraction you're willing to give...

> Where I believe that is a big potential strength of the open source
> projects is in the niche markets. Reason for that is that game companies
> don't like to make them (niche game would not make anyone rich), and
> even when started this games are very often shutdown or published in
> non-finished or unusable state. Let me give you couple of examples what
> I am talking about:
> 

Niche markets, by definition, are very small and specialized. Niche products
in the commercial world are usually either extremely expensive or extremely
shoddy. The up front development cost is high, and if you can't distribute that
over many people, the cost must be passed on in some form... 

This is definitly a place where open source has great potential I think. If a
program only has 100 users, but all those users were active in the development
(providing code, art, ideas, bug reports, inspiration, etc) then that project
will probably be of quality. With a small user base, there's less of an
instinct that "someone else will do it", so there's more motivation to improve
it. If everyone thinks someone else will do it, then no one does it:)

> 1. Space combat hard-core simulation: BC3000AD (http://www.bc3000ad.com)
> based on the story of the original author was published by Take Two in
> the unusable form, regardless of the  of the original author strong
> dislike (the complete story is somewhere on the site or maybe in the
> download of the version 1.0, and is a great look at the some of the
> worst things that could happened to the game in development).
> 

orbit   (open source, gratis, but the emphasis is on the windows port. I need
        to polish up the joystick code I wrote for linux and bsd and submit...)
parsec  (http://www.parsec.org) (closed source, I think)
terminus        (closed source, commercial)
one of my projects was something along these lines, too, codenamed "lwing". I'd
like to work on it again... (*sniff* *sniff* smells like vapor :)

> 2. Hard-core military flight simulator: Flanker 4.0
> (http://www.flanker4.com) was relaesed with tons of bugs, not completly
> usable (see first review at http://www.combatsim.com), and was patched
> for months to be brought in the stable form. As company said: "if we
> don't release it now in the incomplete state and patch it later, we will
> be forced to shut down complete project".
> 

saber?

> 3. WWII naval combat: Fighting Steel (http://www.fightingsteel.com) was
> released with lot of bugs, and soon after its premature release,
> publisher cuts partnership with the company that developed it,
> dissapointed by the sales and reaction of the people on the message
> board (imagine, some people did not liked the fact that the game is
> unstable and lacks some minor features that were cut off to make it
> faster, like land!)... 
> 

one of the many games on my list of favorites is "silent service", captaining a
wwII 'seek and destroy' submarine. The scenarios were slow (3 time settings
were made available, real time, double time, and quadruple time) so it was a
game of strategem, not reaction. mmmm, multiplayer internet silent service...
There's a windows game, I forget the name, but it is a submarine sim also. I
remember checking it out at a friends place (before ripping windows off his
puny system and giving it the grace of linux), it was a modern s&k sub that had
3d rendering (mebbe ogl?) and looked pretty sweet.

> 4. Hard-core modern naval war simulation: Harpoon 2... you need to see
> how many bugs this thing have...
> 

harpoon2 was the hydrofoil sim? I think I vagually remember... :)

> Why I enumerated this games? Becuase you should see how much support
> this games generate between peoples who were playing them, how their
> message boards are acttive, and how many free add-ons are made by their
> players. In many respects they look similar like Linux community, are
> usually technically versatile, and contribute both code and art (sound,
> technical data and graphics). Furthermore, they are not too picky about
> graphics - one very popular hard-core flight simulator (Su-27 Flanker
> 1.5) has simple polygonal graphics, and was played by many people until
> a few days ago (release of the successor).
> 

If a games content is good, it usually gets a lot of leeway for graphic and
audio quality. If the quality of gfx and vox are critical to a game, then it's
probably a pretty shallow game... the FPS genre is indicative of this. They're
fun to play, but there is no real plot, no real interaction, the whole idea is
to run around, grab powerups, and shoot shtuff. Woo. Wee. Fun.

> Now, Falcon 4 or BC2000AD are probably far from the resources this
> community could devote to games (maybe FGear prove that I am wrong on
> this one). But Harpoon 2 and Fighting Steel are probably within our
> rich. Maybe reasonably size hard-core niche products, and not a clone of
> existing games, are a way to go? Maybe that could give Linux an edge
> over Windows gaming? Open source nature of Linux games could integrate
> hard-core gamer feedback much better than any Windows game company, and
> I think that developers could count on the hard-core gamers to provide
> them with the technical data they need (like weapon characteristics).
> And people who like this kind of games are usually technically literate
> enough to accept Linux easily (if they don't already have Linux). If
> such projects succeed, maybe Linux community could claim that we have
> BETTER games in some categories than Windows, or that better games
> originate from the Linux first. And that it could integrate some game
> communities much better than Windows game companies.
> 

last I looked at flight gear, it was not quite playable, but looked extremely
promising. (This was before plib was introduced to it). I loved playing flight
sims :)

> Of course, for something like this to succseed, we must first ask
> hard-core gamers what they want (or who starts this project must be a
> hard-core gamer).
> 

If someone wants a game bad enough to begin a project to create such a game, I
think it's relatively safe to assume they're 'hardcore' about it or at least
know people who are. It's not always the case, but I think it's a safe
assumption. The whole "personal itch" clause mentioned in esr's works, ya
know... :)

> Now, I could not start such a project, and I don't have almost any spear
> time to contribute so I don't have answer on "show me the code". But I
> hope that this ideas (and probably discussion of this topic) could help
> to someone with more time (and technical expertise).
> 

Talk is good, but talk is cheap :) I blabber on and on incessently to no avail,
but what scraps of time I can muster up, I donate my time and (lack of) skill
to what I hope is a good project :)

> Just my two cents. Sorry if I made you read a long post and you feel
> that I am way of target.
> 
> Veljko Krunic                           
> 
> P.S. Disclaimer: The games here are only enumarated as representatives
> of the niche markets. I am not advocating making a clone of the Harpoon
> 2 (or any other game, for that matter). First, with the Harpoon 4 coming
> that would probably be stupid. Second, we need a new games not clones of
> the old ones.
> 

As another thread pointed out, the content of old games usually far exceeds the
content of new games. I still play starcraft even tho there are lots of newer
shinier 'better' games like it. I still play pirates on occasion even tho it's
15 years old. I'd rather have a GOOD game than a PRETTY game, and if we can
pretty up old good games, all the better :) Given the choice between a bad but
pretty game (the windows norm) vs a good pretty game, I'd choose a good pretty
game. If linux offers good pretty games and windows offers bad pretty games,
obviously linux is a better platform for gamers.

        -Erik <br0ke@math.smsu.edu> [http://math.smsu.edu/~br0ke]

The opinions expressed by me are not necessarily opinions. In all
probability, they are random rambling, and to be ignored. Failure to ignore
may result in severe boredom or confusion. Shake well before opening. Keep
Refrigerated.