SEIV as OPEN SOURCE?

Eisenhans · #1 January 11th, 2001, 03:40 AM

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but it definitely would be great for SEIV to be open source.
There are so many ideas around worth having in the game that it is just impossible for MM to get it all done alone. With a large community interested in the game there should be enough programmers to help building the game into the most exciting computer game experience ever.
As for MM's profits: MM (or shrapnel)could still sell the developer's kits and put together the official gaming Version. You would just buy the DevlpKit and then could do to the game whatever you liked enjoy the results for yourself or share it by sending them back to MM(who would of course make them available in their forum). You would not be any more entitled to give away the game to others...

How about it MM?

Instar · #2 January 11th, 2001, 04:02 AM

I believe that Aaron is against this. He has said no before, and I see no reason why he would change his mind.
Myself, I think that open source is decent at times, however, it won't make money. Anybody could get the code and make a free Version of it.
And besides, its in Delphi, and all I know is C++!

Eisenhans · #3 January 11th, 2001, 04:20 AM

the game being in delphi is too bad. But why do people think open source would get "distributed" (pirated that is) any more freely than other software?

ColdSteel · #4 January 11th, 2001, 04:47 AM

The problem is that this isn't a good economic business model for a small company such as MM. They'd kill themselves IMO if they went the whole open source route.

However, many other games, notably all the Quake Games and Unreal Tournament have released source for a sizable portion of their game engines. Quake2 did this in the form of C language DLL source that you could modify and recompile. That way the core game and game technologies that they wanted to protect remained inaccessible and yet it allowed the mod community to do a whole lot more than just play around with some text file settings (flexible though they may be).

That's one way they could go but a game has to be designed for this approach from the start and SE4 probably is not.

It is something they could consider for the future though.

Atrocities · #5 January 11th, 2001, 10:57 AM

The only game that I know of that has ever been released as "open source" was starseige Tribes. That was a big break for the modders out there, and they all produce some awsome mods. Voice packs, skins, mods, etc.

But in this case, SE IV, I would think that given the tight competition in this market, that would spell doom for MM. You know how people are, they would take someone elses idea, modify it, and thus claim to have a "new" code. Then MM would be SOL on the deal, and that just won't float.

Taqwus · #6 January 11th, 2001, 06:19 PM

Descent's also open-source, and ditto with Hexen. Yes, Q1 too.

...with the caveat that id Software and other companies may open up the engine code (at least the parts they have copyright on), but generally don't relax licensing requirements for the data files.

StarOffice (well, now it's... OpenOffice, IIRC) was a full-blown commercial office suite, for multiple platforms, that got bought by Sun and opened up. But Sun, being huge, has far more revenue lines than Malfador and Shrapnel.

There are also interesting free clones of commercial games out there, like FreeCiv and so forth. And many darn good non-commercial games like Xconq. But for now, MM has better things to do...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

jpinard · #7 January 11th, 2001, 10:58 PM

Terrible idea.

Eisenhans · #8 January 11th, 2001, 11:06 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jpinard:
Terrible idea.

Come on it's not that bad. Anyway you could be less cryptic.

SirDarwin · #9 January 11th, 2001, 11:34 PM

Releasing the source would really only hurt a company if they plan on liscening the engine to another company (reason that iD has not released the Q2! source). Just because you release the source, doesn't mean you have to give out the data files (all the .txt files, pictures, etc). I know that you can create your own, but thats the point. If someone is gonna pirate it, it won't matter if the game is open source or not.

My two cents.

dmm · #10 January 12th, 2001, 12:04 AM

No way would I make it open source (if I were the developer). However, I would consider allowing a few eager enthusiasts to look at parts of the code under non-disclosure agreements so that I could make a better game and still have a life. I might even give them small rewards (mostly non-monetary) if I adopted one of their ideas. But I'm not the developer.