Monday, December 28, 2009

FOSS RTS games

Hey FreeGamers!
I know, news are a bit slow here lately, but all three of us are a bit busy with real-life issues, I guess. So if you are interested in becoming a contributor to this blog drop us a line in the forum!
We have also recently gotten some readers feedback concerning this blog entry. I have to admit that our background search was a bit short concerning the Hypertension game... and it turned out that this game is surrounded by some controversy concerning the (probably illegal) use of the original Blood art assets (which were only granted by Monolith to the Transfusion project).

Are there any good FOSS RTS?

Well that depends on what you think is good :)
We have had a small discussion in our forums which resulted in a lot of links to all sorts of FOSS RTS. So if you are looking for some obscure (often unmaintained RTS) have a look.
Overall I would say however that currently there is none that can be recommended without doubt. This might change soon however!

0-A.D. Commercial grade FOSS RTS?

We have mentioned this great project before, and especially since they have gone fully open-source earlier this year all eyes of the FOSS community are probably on this gem.
So far a consumer ready release seems to be still distant however, even though some parts of the game look quite playable already:

Development is progressing though and you can have a look at this interview with the current project leader for some background infos and nice new screenshots. Further news can be found on Moddb.com.

Upcoming Warzone2100 developments

Warzone2100 is one of the few really playable FOSS RTS games out there. There are steady improvements and sometimes you can even find someone to play online ;)
With it's Playstation 1 art assets it is quite a chore to look at however. There is light on the horizon though; A new terrain renderer was recently developed for it and is expected to be released with Version 3.0.

Let's hope this will reach us gamers ASAP!
Their forum has also some other nice upcoming features to offer. There are plans to update the GUI, with some really nice mockups.
Furthermore MaNGusT is working on new units:


And there is a nice mod project involving mechs :)

6 comments:

Gallaecio said...

New Warzone 2100 terrain reminds me to that Sierra game, Empire Earth (1). I like the way WZ2100 is improving :)

theotherhiveking said...

Uh, i have been playing with that terrain rendered, isnt it already included in 2.3? Dunno, i play with trunk, and the thing is finished.

Julius said...

Nope, not anywhere near the offical release sadly. But personally I don't really see why it couldn't be enabled. Very conservative release policy I guess :(

oldrocker99 said...

I really like this game, and the new graphics look to be a great spiffing up. I'm OK with a conservative rease policy myself, Julius...

Greg said...

My only problem with warzone is the game play is way too complicated. Wesnoth took me 2 years+ to learn, but that's because the complexity is in the human players, not the game options.

Sure it's neat building units, and the combat isn't half bad for 1998, but it quickly devolves into a chore to keep the upgrades straight. This is even worse since the units change so much from upgrade to upgrade. You end up with an entire base full of useless vehicles. Even ones with lots of experience are turned into cannon fodder after a couple of maps.

While I always felt Starcraft and Red Alert could use a few more units, Warzone could lose 3/4ths of its options and still have a ton.

Also, the AI is really poor. All the single player maps amount to, "Kill a ton of turrets without losing any units". The AI doesn't build any bases, or really produce, it just sends out very tiny attacks at very slow intervals which always get crushed unless you happen to walk into range of some turrets.

Alexander Pyattaev said...

Cheack out Spring project.

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