| |||||||||||||
The state of Linux gamingThe state of Linux gamingPosted Oct 7, 2010 14:44 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183)Parent article: The state of Linux gaming
I remember a while back reading one or several pieces suggesting that FLOSS games would never take off because the process of creating a game doesn't follow the same dynamics as that of creating some other pieces of software - once you have finished your game you already know all there is to find out and you have little incentive to actually play it to work out all the glitches; and similarly other people have a limited interest in hacking on your game to improve it as it will spoil their gameplay fun.
I don't know how true that is, but assuming it is, I would have thought that FLOSS game development processes could be adjusted to take it into account. There are so many independent components in a game, many of which do repay time invested into improving them. For instance, the world that a game takes place in doesn't have to have been created for the game, but can be one that someone else created for other purposes, possibly adjusted a bit to add elements of surprise (but I am sure there are enough virtual worlds going around that the average player won't know most of them anyway). There are people who enjoy creating animated creatures outside of games, but which could be reused inside of games. Libraries of worlds and characters could be also redone and reused for other games.
There are virtual world engines which can be used for games. And I could imaging competitions between people creating gaming levels to produce those that will be used in a game, with those contributing being those allowed to vote on which will get into the final product, which gives a special incentive for each contributor to polish their piece as much as they can.
(Log in to post comments)
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 17:04 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
The fact is, games are not different from any other software. You get many times more silent users that will never give anothing back than peple that actively contribute, and that should be fine (human nature, you can do nothing about it).
And you answered to the first part of your comment yourself. Current FLOSS games use a componentized approach. Some people develope the engines, others create the ambient art, and yet others write the stories and think of challenges. One has many opportunities to contribute in any or all of those differents aspects of a game.
As with any other aspect of FLOSS, the more people that joins the culture, the better stuff we will get.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 18:56 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
I'd say that developing a game is often like writing a work of fiction. That's not to say that community participation isn't possible, but it does mean that it's not the same sort of interaction.
Open source developers can write KOffice, but it would be crazy to have KDE manage the documents that people write in KOffice. Wikipedia works on a very different development process from MediaWiki. Open source can provide the game engine and could provide the world and environment in which games could take place, but playing a game involves consuming content which is established as "canon", and that's inherently a process that's append-only once something is established.
Of course, there are also games which have little content and a lot of structure, like Street Fighter, Tetris, or Go. These work well for open source development. And there are sorts of content-heavy games where the tool support is sufficient that authors can take turns writing and releasing their games, which can be closed-source releases for portable open-source platforms. But there is, in general, something different going on from what happens when people write applications.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 19:17 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> I'd say that developing a game is often like writing a work of fiction. That's not to say that community participation isn't possible, but it does mean that it's not the same sort of interaction.
As someone involved in amateur drama, I would think that community participation ought to work well. You just need your equivalent of the director, who provides the overall artistic direction and makes sure that everyone's contributions come together to form a consistent whole. (I have also taken part in productions with no director, in which everyone shared that responsibility, but that is a much greater challenge.)
> Open source developers can write KOffice, but it would be crazy to have KDE manage the documents that people write in KOffice.
Not quite sure what you mean by that. I would love to see KOffice limited to the actual editing, with all else pushed to other KDE components (open this document, manage recent documents, whatever) but that is probably not what you had on your mind.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 19:50 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] As someone involved in amateur drama, I would think that community participation ought to work well. It's not that a community can't do it. But you don't incorporate audience feedback into a production once it opens. The community you start with does a particular production, and the audience can join for the next production. So an open source game community is like a theater troupe, rather than like the cast of a single production; your new energy mostly gets directed to the next episode. Open source developers can write KOffice, but it would be crazy to have KDE manage the documents that people write in KOffice. By this, I meant that, when you write a story in KOffice, the KDE team doesn't decide whether to reject or accept the changes you're making to your paper. They provide the tools for you to edit your content, and the content is under your exclusive control. With a game, what the player often gets is something like a story embedded in KOffice. After playing the game, the player might sensibly fix the functional aspects (similar to fixing KOffice to make it more pleasant to read your story) but it doesn't make so much sense to change the content aspects.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 20:11 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> It's not that a community can't do it. But you don't incorporate audience feedback into a production once it opens. The community you start with does a particular production, and the audience can join for the next production. So an open source game community is like a theater troupe, rather than like the cast of a single production; your new energy mostly gets directed to the next episode.
Right, I take your point. That is not always strictly true of course, as you may well put on subsequent shows after the first run, and since that usually means replacing the half of the cast who are no longer available, you can also end up reworking the production quite a bit. It is still a very controlled feedback though of course.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 7, 2010 19:20 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> The fact is, games are not different from any other software. You get many times more silent users that will never give anothing back than peple that actively contribute, and that should be fine (human nature, you can do nothing about it).
Perhaps you can do something about it. The harder it is to give back the less people are likely to do so, but if you do everything you can think of to lower the bar you might be surprised (I'm using "you" in the general sense of the word by the way). In the end, giving back is a rewarding process.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 9, 2010 22:20 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Procedural generation helps here. A good few long-lived free software games (notably Nethack and Oolite) have mostly or entirely procedurally-generated content, and lots of flexibility. That way, merely knowing what can happen isn't going to spoil the gameplay, because you never know when the game will choose to hit you with what, or in what combinations.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 12, 2010 14:58 UTC (Tue) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> Procedural generation helps here. A good few long-lived free software games (notably Nethack and Oolite) have mostly or entirely procedurally-generated content, and lots of flexibility. That way, merely knowing what can happen isn't going to spoil the gameplay, because you never know when the game will choose to hit you with what, or in what combinations.
Do you think that could also be applied to e.g. arcade or platform style games? It seems to me that it is only suitable for certain categories, but perhaps that is just my lack of imagination.
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 17, 2010 21:39 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
You can certainly apply it to platform games: nethack is pretty much just a platform game turned on its side. A lot of arcade games have always been procedurally generated (the real exception here is R-Type, in which the aliens always arrived in the same order and position every time). The only domain I think you'd have no chance in is adventure games (which unfortunately seem to be a mostly dead category nowadays).
The state of Linux gaming Posted Oct 22, 2010 16:55 UTC (Fri) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] Even in adventure games there is potential. I've played gearhead for a while (the console version), and it includes a "playwright" module which takes preprogrammed snippets of plot and weaves them into a storyline at the start of every game. It's still primitive (the patterns become predictable after 5-6 games) but I think the idea can go far.
|
|||||||||||||