Ideal storyline/genre for a Linux FPS?

[cypher543]

Well, after playing Quake 4 on the Xbox 360, I've got this huge urge to make a FPS for Linux, since there seems to be a shortage of them (single-player, at least).

But here's the thing... I can never find the right "niche". SciFi is kind of over-done (though they are the best games, imho) and fantasy is really hard to make a FPS out of. I never did like the idea of making a modern FPS, because they aren't usually that imaginative. SciFi opens up a ton of different storylines and so does Fantasy (even though the game mechanics can be a bit tough to come up with).

So, what do you all think? What type of FPS should be made for Linux? Do you have any storyline ideas?

Credit will of course be given if I decide to use your suggestion(s).

If anyone is interested, and would like more information on the project, please send me a PM. I don't want to clutter up this topic with discussions about helping me with the game.

Thanks!

[Mess]

Cyberpunk ;) like "system shock2'

[bob]

There's always the Terrorist theme - Bush/Cheney vs. the world (of terrorism). Super weapons vs. the multitude of fanatics leading through every known Country up to Big Boss Osama. Supposed allies who fire at you as soon as your back is turned or pull out at critical times. Subplots on oil & opium production that must be curbed or they increase the terrorist numbers and weaponry - possibly using UN sanctions as temporary blockades that last less than 10 seconds... Perhaps you could come up with better heros though....

[bob]

Going Postal: PO'd mailman who got squat from his route customers for last Xmas goes on a rampage and inundates them with spam mail. Object is to bury them in bills and flyers before they can release increasingly viscious dogs and lawn sprinklers on the mailman. Sub-plot involves supervisor attempting to stop mailman before being restrained by postal union official.

[Dan]

Bob... You live in a scary world!

My world, on the other hand...

YIKES! It's the same one! :eek:

Dan :p

[cypher543]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Bob: It seems as though the terrorist thing has been done hundreds of times. I do like the "Going Postal" idea. But that seems more like a minigame instead of an action-packed FPS. Good idea, though. ;)

Mess: Thanks for telling me about system shock 2. It gave me a few ideas for a storyline that revolves around technology (not exactly SciFi).

I am still open to suggestions, though. The idea is not final.

UPDATE: I think I've found a way to combine Mess and Bob's ideas into one storyline. But, I'll still take suggestions.

[Jongi]

As long as there are no monsters

[bob]

Relax, Cypher's already dumped the Bush/Cheney idea... :D

[Mess]

I am very intrigued by your game. Waiting to see anything :)

[schwim]

Of course the themes have been overdone. The game genre itself somewhat restricts your theme, unless you decide to drop the believability factor, and just make up a story line, feasibility be damned.

For that reason, I'd suggest making a storyline that you like, that has nothing to do with shooting anyone, then begin molding the two together.

For instance, you're out of milk. You really need some for your Super-Poofs. You go to the store, but on the way there, you see a turtle in the road. While picking up the turtle, a crazed deer with an M-203 strapped to it's head leaps out of the brush and begins laying a base of fire for it's squadmates as they flank your car from the rear and sides. One gets in and begins attempting to put the car in gear, but it's lack of opposable thumbs makes it tough, so you get a chance to crawl in the window and beat the living hell out of it to regain control of your car. The others have you surrounded though.

Remember the turtle you were saving? You use it as a shield as the deer begin filling your car with rounds and smoke grenades from the M-203.

I can keep going if you need. Just let me know. I've got a lot of great ideas like this. One in particular involves two hedgehogs trapped in a convenience store with nothing but seran wrap and a gallon of canola oil. I'd be happy to share it if you'd like.

thanks,
json

[Dan]

I can keep going if you need. Just let me know. I've got a lot of great ideas like this. One in particular involves two hedgehogs trapped in a convenience store with nothing but seran wrap and a gallon of canola oil. I'd be happy to share it if you'd like. I'm intrigued... Do go on!

Dan

[wdgiles]

There's always the Terrorist theme - Bush/Cheney vs. the world (of terrorism). Super weapons vs. the multitude of fanatics leading through every known Country up to Big Boss Osama. Supposed allies who fire at you as soon as your back is turned or pull out at critical times. Subplots on oil & opium production that must be curbed or they increase the terrorist numbers and weaponry - possibly using UN sanctions as temporary blockades that last less than 10 seconds... Perhaps you could come up with better heros though....

Yeah, you could call it Operation Iraqi Freedom, oh, I guess that name's already taken... ;)
Not wishing to start a political flame thread, but couldn't resist. I've always preferred the scifi themed games. Has to be a mental challenge as well, not just how well you can hit center mass on some random alien creature.

[schwim]

Yeah, you could call it Operation Iraqi Freedom, oh, I guess that name's already taken... ;)
Not wishing to start a political flame thread, but couldn't resist.

You just had to do that, didn't you? I'm talking about defending yourself with nothing but a turtle against killer deer, and you had to take us off-topic.

I hope you're happy,
json

[schwim]

I'm intrigued... Do go on!

I don't want to spoil it, in case cypher wants to use the idea. I've put a lot of thought into it though, and although I can't give it all away, the story climaxes with the hero standing triumphant over a dead McDonald's employee, eating a cheeseburger......
.....
.....
.....
From Wendy's!!!!

Oh, I've got you begging for more now, don't I?

thanks,
json

[wdgiles]

Consider the audience of linux users: techs, sysadmins and support pro's and make it into a sysadmin -vs- the users type setup. Lots of possibilities there. Sorry for the previous comment for the name - had no place here.
bg

[Flounder]

How about a resistance type thing (know it's been tried over and over). Not very often do you have games with revolutions short of half life 2 but hey. In the story line you could put in various elements, getting information from other civilians supporting your cause in ousting the goverment, breaking into goverment facilities. Kind of make it a low budget resistance meaning you'd be more likely to find weapons like Ruger 10/22s, Mini-14s, Remington Model 700s, etc. Build on the kind of weapons the average joe uses rather than all military spec equipment you can keep it like present day but with you being the terrorist/resistance fighter. There are not a whole lot of games that have the hero doing questionable things to get to the greater good if any.

For instance assasinations, torture, interogations, stealing supplies. Put some strategy behind it. Don't limit yourself to run and gun if you want a quality game build as many possibilities as technology allows. Show that war is more than just shooting the enemy but comes with a far messier package. You can base the storyline on some fictional president, or anything you want. But for a resistance to catch on it has to be done for a reason. I say use all the security crackdowns that the US has been having lately as leading up to a group of rights activists going further than anyone has since the civil war.

[JN4OldSchool]

It's a Linux FPS right? Well then, it needs to be about hero Tux winning back the world from evil villen phill bates and macrosoft (dont want to get sued right?) who are out to turn us all into MS using zombies. Oh, just think of all the puns and inuendo...The ultimate irony would be to write the bulk of it on an MS computer...hmmm, maybe I should keep this idea to myself...

[schwim]

the innuendo in a game like that would Rival the Leisure Suit Larry series(1-27) :D

thanks,
json

[cypher543]

These ideas are awesome!

However, I don't mean to spoil your ideas by saying this, but I was kind of wanting more of a serious storyline, more like Flounder's (which I have added to my brainstorming sheet along with Bob and Mess' ideas).

schwim: I really do suggest that you learn how to make games (if you don't know already). Those ideas you have could do very well, but they just aren't the type of thing I am wanting for this project. I thank you for making the suggestions, though. I needed a good laugh after the crap I've dealt with today.

[NBZ]

How about a space western A'la the Firefly TV series?

Or just a cowboy western. I've not seen a good game set in the midwest.

[Ronin2007]

What about a game where you can go back or forward in time and be able to use old weapons against modern weapons or vice versa.

[Legomax]

ok, an extension of bobs idea. how about you are Karl Rove, and you have gone beserk during a campaign trail and you have to kill every democrat and moderate republican you find. subplots include a watergate-like incident and a pro-choice massacre. the game ends with bush's election and a dumb-founded democratic party.

[Legomax]

and Karl starts off with a gun the fires anthrax pellets

[Dan]

Hmmm...

Methinks that thin line that seperates game plot discussion from politics is a step behind us now.

Dan

[cypher543]

ok, an extension of bobs idea. how about you are Karl Rove, and you have gone beserk during a campaign trail and you have to kill every democrat and moderate republican you find. subplots include a watergate-like incident and a pro-choice massacre. the game ends with bush's election and a dumb-founded democratic party.
Heh. Sorry, but I don't want to make a game about what has already happened in real life... ;) (seriously though, it's a funny idea)

Anyway, I think I've got a storyline now. rappermas and I will have the game's development wiki up and running soon. You can all read it there. (i'll post a link when it's ready)

[Legomax]

=(... max is a saaaaaad panda

"its sexual harassment Pan-da"

[cypher543]

Well, I said I would post when the site was ready, so here it is:

http://2048.cypherspace.info

It's not a wiki, like I said it would be, but I'm installing a wiki later on for documentation. There are some screenshots up, but no downloads yet. rappermas is still having problems with the nVidia drivers. Hopefully that will all be fixed up soon. There's not storyline up yet, but that's because I'm still trying to write a good summary. Nothing seems to sound very good. Oh well, keep checking the site. We'll try to post news pretty often.

The design is not final (though, rappermas likes the way it looks already). It seems kind of light for such a dark game, but it'll do for now.

[Firewing1]

I checked out the site, I like the game design idea. If you need help with that glade interface, let me know ;)
Edit: Oops, should have read this first:I don't want to clutter up this topic with discussions about helping me with the gamelol...
BTW - Maybe you should check out Cube or Sauerbraten (I'm sure that's mispelt, but it's CUBE II). It might be a good reference.
Firewing1

[Legomax]

... you could call my idea Rove Rage.... lol... but yeah off of the stupid idea...

[cypher543]

Firewing1: Nah, it's ok. What I meant by that was that I didn't want the entire topic to turn into a recruitment medium. But, I'm glad you are interested. I never did learn Glade, and it would be good to have another person on the team. Send me a PM if you are still interested.

[Seve]

Heh. Sorry, but I don't want to make a game about what has already happened in real life... ;)
Hello:
Well ... Postal would be a good template, if not that then how about the world versus Gates?

Seve

[cypher543]

Well ... Postal would be a good template, if not that then how about the world versus Gates?
Personally, I don't have anything against Bill Gates.

[Seve]

Personally, I don't have anything against Bill Gates.
Hello:
Bill Gates ???

I just mentioned Gates.
Actually I was thinking of Ralph Gates ... some one else :)
No real harm intended Ralph. ;)

You don't have to have any personal feelings one way or the other to make a game..do you?
Seve

[cypher543]

Ok, we were going to use "2048" as the name, but that is slightly boring and very hard to work with in terms of logos and things. So, we've got to come up with something else. Now we are thinking about "Surge". Surge means "a sudden movement or displacement", which fits well with the storyline, since it involves a rebellion (a movement) against the government. But we aren't sure if we want to use this. So, I'm aksing for your help in coming up with a new name.

Anyone have some suggestions? :D

[Firewing1]

Well, 2048 alone is a cool name but like you said hard to work with. So why not make it something like "Surge 2048"? You can always integrate the 2048 into the game by having a critical location called "Sector 2048" or something.
As for the engine - I read the thing about hacking out the Direct3D - Why make it Linux-only? I'm not good in this area, but curious so correct me if I'm wrong but why not use OpenGL so it can be ported to all systems later?
Firewing1

[cypher543]

As for the engine - I read the thing about hacking out the Direct3D - Why make it Linux-only? I'm not good in this area, but curious so correct me if I'm wrong but why not use OpenGL so it can be ported to all systems later?
The reasons why the game is Linux-only is explained on the About page (http://2048.cypherspace.info/about/) and in the last post on the homepage (http://2048.cypherspace.info/2006/09/16/its-finally-up-and-running/). Direct3D does not work on Linux, which is why we are removing all Direct3D related code from the Irrlicht 3D engine. It just adds to the filesize and we'll never use the features anyway. But, yes, we are using OpenGL. Someone asked me about porting the game to Windows on the Irrlicht forum, and I told them the following:
About Windows support... this is something we decided on when the project first started. We will not be wasting our time trying to get every single bit of code to be cross-platform. This defeats the purpose of the game. If it runs on Linux and Windows, it's like saying "Oh, look! It looks great on Linux, but you can do the exact same thing on Windows without all of the geek stuff!" That's not what we want to happen. The game is completely open source, so if someone in the future would like to port the game to Windows, we have no problem with that.
:D

[Legomax]

could you add in code that makes it almost impossible to port to windows? that would be a nice feature.

[cypher543]

could you add in code that makes it almost impossible to port to windows? that would be a nice feature.
Absolutely not. I have nothing against Microsoft nor Windows. Plus, since it's open source, the code could easily be removed. It also wouldn't make us very likable, now would it? Doing that would just add to the image that Linux users are a bunch of Windows hating elitists. As I said before, we welcome a Windows port, but don't expect us to be the ones to do it.

[rappermas]

could you add in code that makes it almost impossible to port to windows? that would be a nice feature.

LOL, funny. Back to the Microsoft days, eh? "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"

I've seen a lot of you guys asking about DirectX. So, I'm here to explain why the Surge Engine won't support it. DirectX is a proprietary technology. It is the complete manifestation of everything that is needed for a game--graphics, physics, sound, etc. With this comes the dreaded truth--you are locked into Windows if you want to use this technology. Now, by combining things like OpenGL, OpenAL, and an Open Source physics implementation, you basically get something that can run everywhere--OS X, UNIX, Linux, and Windows.

The Surge Engine will support UNIX and Linux, basically POSIX compliant operating systems. Everything else will have to wait for some generous porter to come along and port it. Hey, Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Valve, Raven, etc etc etc have been ignoring us for the past 15 or so years. It's our turn to show them that this has been a WRONG decision.

We are therefore going to gut the Irrlicht Engine of Direct3D code and add our sound, logic, and physics modules. In essence, this will become a new engine--Surge.

What we are left with is something very exciting. This engine will have hard-coded into it all the basic functions. For example, it will have some high-level OpenGL, which will be able to create characters, landscapes, and other objects. It will have basic OpenAL for sound--7.1 channel multithreaded. The sound module will be able to play sounds and effects and output them to the appropriate channels and devices, etc. The physics module will be responsible for detecting collisions and then responding in ways that are realistic. Also, objects will interact based on type, density, mass, etc. There will also be a simple logic interface that allows things to happen--explosions, character movement, etc. Take all of this and you get Surge standalone. Put it together will the power of Python scripts you get something amazing.

The Surge Engine will be completely scriptable. This means that a developer takes a graphics script, a sound script, a physics definition table, a logic script, and a master script to create his own game. What this means is that after we finish development of our FPS, another developer could come in and write something totally new, knowing just python, mind you, based off our engine. Oh, but it doesn't stop there. The scripts will be stackless python--it's multi-threaded and has a small footprint.

Once the scripting feature is functional, we hope to get someone with Glade and GTK+ to make a development GUI. You'll be able to make games right from a GUI, with triggers, graphics, sounds, physics, everything.

The first step right now is to optimize the core and restructure it. Then we add the modules. Then we make it scriptable. Then we write the Surge game, then we make the GUIs, and then we are done, more or less, ready to pump all the money that those poor little consumer pockets can hold (through the distribution of hard copies, of course, let's not get ahead of ourselves) :D

Now, of course, as Firewing said...If anyone wants to help, our arms are open and our hearts are willing. Anyone is welcome. That's the spirit of open source. You don't have to have PhD in computer science to make something nice.

[Legomax]

Absolutely not. I have nothing against Microsoft nor Windows. Plus, since it's open source, the code could easily be removed. It also wouldn't make us very likable, now would it? Doing that would just add to the image that Linux users are a bunch of Windows hating elitists. As I said before, we welcome a Windows port, but don't expect us to be the ones to do it.
ok... so if its hard to port something from one OS to another, the people that made it hard are eletists. whata does that make windows? if we have to install windows to play windows games, shouldnt they have to install linux to play linux games? they EDIT: get END EDIT the better deal you know.

[rappermas]

ok... so if its hard to port something from one OS to another, the people that made it hard are eletists. whata does that make windows? if we have to install windows to play windows games, shouldnt they have to install linux to play linux games? they EDIT: get END EDIT the better deal you know.
Two wrongs don't make a right. We're all about showing that we can rise above the adversity that they present us. So let them make every closed and make us pay. We will beat them with grace and honor.

[Legomax]

allow me to draw a parallel here... the Jewish people. in many case, they have made the right (or at least honorable) decision when someone did them wrong. but did this make them stop? no, HECK NO! after the holocaust, the jew took no action against the germans, a few years later the jewish state is created. everyone around them hates them. they are all attacking them, and israel prevails, for the most part in an honorable manner. they make a treaty with egypt and give them the sinai peninsula- a few years later tunnels are found where weapons are given to militant groups, supported by the egyptian ppl. in this most recent conflict with hezbollah, the israelis drop panphits to warn about bombing in cities and towns- israel is accused of human rights violations and hezbollah becomes a "victim" in the eyes of most arabs. hezballah launches over 1000 unguided missles into Israeli territory. the only thing the otherside understands is force, two wrongs make a right under some circumstances.

srry that was somewhat disorganized, kinda tired

[Thetargos]

For the story line, you may want to take a look at DeusEx's plot. I don't know if you've played that game, and (to date) I consider it to be one of the best games of all time. And I'm talking about the original one, not Invisible War. You could lookup on GameFAQs a plot-guide and see for yourself.

Another game/game-type that would also fill the gap nicely is System Shock II (as previously mentionned), I'm not sure there are any plot-guides for that, but it was a rather nice game too (plot-wise and even in terms of gameplay, just like DeusEx). Both games were written by the same guy: Warren Specter, and both games have a strong political and "conspiracy theory" angle to them, which drives the characters through some rather nice twists and unsuspected areas... Rather nicely done too.

I'm not sure, but since you did not explain much of what did you want for the game, I'm not entirely sure what else to propose.

I'm a ware that both these themes have already been explored, but I think that threre is a lot of room to explore in a CyberPunk-themed FPS games with a lot of interesting facts and an exciting plot, merged with superb gameplay (FPS mainly, from what I gather you want to do) with a strong enphasis on single player mode... Mix this with a strong story-telling aided by the gameplay and some good elements, in a compelling and exciting environment where all the good stuff: Visual, aural, physics, placeables, etc, add to the way the story could be told and encourage the player to go deeper into the story to find out just "what happens next"... Even further, have it so that even the plot could vary based on the outcome of conversations, for instance, or if some actions were done or not... Make this more like the DeusEx game was an FPS-RPG or FPS-Adventure, make the player immerse into the story and not only hand him/her a gun with the legend "blow'em-up"... I think there are a lot of possiblities where the FPS gameplay could help unravel a compelling story line.

[JN4OldSchool]

allow me to draw a parallel here... the Jewish people. in many case, they have made the right (or at least honorable) decision when someone did them wrong. but did this make them stop? no, HECK NO! after the holocaust, the jew took no action against the germans, a few years later the jewish state is created. everyone around them hates them. they are all attacking them, and israel prevails, for the most part in an honorable manner. they make a treaty with egypt and give them the sinai peninsula- a few years later tunnels are found where weapons are given to militant groups, supported by the egyptian ppl. in this most recent conflict with hezbollah, the israelis drop panphits to warn about bombing in cities and towns- israel is accused of human rights violations and hezbollah becomes a "victim" in the eyes of most arabs. hezballah launches over 1000 unguided missles into Israeli territory. the only thing the otherside understands is force, two wrongs make a right under some circumstances.

srry that was somewhat disorganized, kinda tired


You should go back to that Bible you call cud. The Jews are the chosen people and will prevail no matter what mortal man tries. You love your enemy. You wash his feet. This world means nothing anyway, it is gone in a twinkling of an eye.

Back to our reality, Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat! Wanna know why? Because Linux is so unthreatning. We are not out to dominate MS. We dont really want their market share. No one makes money off Linux. It is this free spirit that MS fears. They know they cant compete with this. There will come a time when people wake up and find out they have a free alternative to MS's monopoly. They dont need all the corporate strings hoilding them down every time they change a hard drive, play a DVD movie or a music CD, build a new computer...MS is fighting a one sided battle against Linux. MS is swinging at windmills. From our standpoint there is no battle. We offer things up in an open source spirit for people to use or not use at their own will. MS cant win against this. If we started excluding MS users then we are no better than they are. Besides, that is not the way to win their hearts and minds. Dont be a typical newbie LEGOMAX. Dont "fight" MS. Sure, you can hate them, I hate them for what they are. But the way to beat them is to work with them and prove you are better than they are.

[Thetargos]

Back to our reality, Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat! Wanna know why? Because Linux is so unthreatning. We are not out to dominate MS. We dont really want their market share. No one makes money off Linux. It is this free spirit that MS fears. They know they cant compete with this. There will come a time when people wake up and find out they have a free alternative to MS's monopoly. They dont need all the corporate strings hoilding them down every time they change a hard drive, play a DVD movie or a music CD, build a new computer...MS is fighting a one sided battle against Linux. MS is swinging at windmills. From our standpoint there is no battle. We offer things up in an open source spirit for people to use or not use at their own will. MS cant win against this. If we started excluding MS users then we are no better than they are. Besides, that is not the way to win their hearts and minds. Dont be a typical newbie LEGOMAX. Dont "fight" MS. Sure, you can hate them, I hate them for what they are. But the way to beat them is to work with them and prove you are better than they are.
A small comment on this...

Indeed JN4OldSchool, there is no real battle... or is there? Lemme be Devil's advocate for a bit here. Maybe There is indeed no battle from the Linux side to the Microsoft side, or the FLOSS side to the proprietary side (if you will), however, the ongoing battle on the proprietary side (and this not necessarily means only Microsoft), can cause the FLOSS side to slip, or rather have less penetration. How? Simple: Format wars. There are various "format wars" going on. From the next DVD specification (HD Vs BluRay), to office formats (OpenDocument Vs "Open"XML), and inevitably the media formats (Windows Media Vs QuickTime), and this is where (IMO) the real problem lies, the problem which spreads this "battle" to the FLOSS side, as these formats are protected by patents which (in theory at least) prevent the FLOSS side to use them, not that there are no tools to use the formats in the FLOSS side, just not "legally" (which then again, makes you wonder what's legal anymore). Then there are other "interests". Those which are "bigger" and trascend the boundaries of simple "computing": Media interests. Whether we like it or not, what has tied our hands more and more in recent years is not real capabilities of one system over another, like Windows Vs Linux, but rather the entertaining side of things... Multimedia, as it is generally called. And here Microsoft is not only fighting a war, but it seems to be winning. The media companies want to have their interests assured, and since they're pretty much the same as those from the guys at Redmond (pay whenever you use/see my products, 'cause it's mine!), is the "perfect marriage". The rest are a bunch of pirates. So media content protected by restricted or legally encumbered formats which ties you to the formats, which in the end are tied to a platform... Unless Linux and other alternative systems could provide the same "confidence" of locking in to those interested, a.k.a the media corporations, content providers. This philosophy is completely agains that of what the OpenSource is all about, and even if DRM could make into these alternative platforms, will the media corps take it seriously, seriously enough to warrant release of content in free formats like ogg? I think that given the very nature of our human condition, even if they did, we'd be finding ways to circumvent these locks and "free the content". Do these companies see this too, and thus their refusal to use the formats? Maybe, I can only speculate. Most probably they ignore these formats even exist, as they're not being pushed with high profile campaigns, etc.

Just my 2¢, something to ponder on.

[cypher543]

Please, do not turn this topic into another of the many Microsoft arguments.

[JN4OldSchool]

Very good points THETARGOS. This is all very true. I can only hope MS has enough sense than to create yet more formats that are closed to everyone except MS users. I really dont see this as an issue though. MS knows it has to play nice with other operating systems. And as far as day to day apps go I dont think this will become any more of a problem than it already has. Now, about media...Yeah, you are too right there. The day is soon coming when we wont be able to play new movies or albums in Linux. And there really isnt much we can do about this and still remain open source. I think we will all have a major decision to make in the near future. Personaly speaking, I have a DVD player and a stereo. Granted I use my XP computer as a PVR now and I have my CD collection ripped to .ogg on my HD. But I have already boycotted Hollywood and the music industry. I just dont waste my money on their crap anymore. If I want a movie bad enough I record it off the TV and music off the radio. Yeah, I do have a handfull of store bought DVD movies but it's not really my thing anyway. So the decision for me is a simple one. That and the fact that I really dont need to "play nice" with any MS formats anyway leaves me in a Linux world all my own. But yeah, MS wants your entertainment center along with your desktop. They wont stop short of having every single appliance in your house wired together and reporting back to Redmond through the X-Box. Call me crazy today, but just you wait a few years. It's getting mighty scarey.

[Thetargos]

Please, do not turn this topic into another of the many Microsoft arguments.
Sorry, this'll be the end of this ongoing-neverending dinscussion, on my part anyway. I just felt like airing these thoughts out.

[Legomax]

You should go back to that Bible you call cud. The Jews are the chosen people and will prevail no matter what mortal man tries. You love your enemy. You wash his feet. This world means nothing anyway, it is gone in a twinkling of an eye.

Back to our reality, Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat! Wanna know why? Because Linux is so unthreatning. We are not out to dominate MS. We dont really want their market share. No one makes money off Linux. It is this free spirit that MS fears. They know they cant compete with this. There will come a time when people wake up and find out they have a free alternative to MS's monopoly. They dont need all the corporate strings hoilding them down every time they change a hard drive, play a DVD movie or a music CD, build a new computer...MS is fighting a one sided battle against Linux. MS is swinging at windmills. From our standpoint there is no battle. We offer things up in an open source spirit for people to use or not use at their own will. MS cant win against this. If we started excluding MS users then we are no better than they are. Besides, that is not the way to win their hearts and minds. Dont be a typical newbie LEGOMAX. Dont "fight" MS. Sure, you can hate them, I hate them for what they are. But the way to beat them is to work with them and prove you are better than they are.


first of all, im not better than them, linux is better that MS. and im not saying that they shouldnt be allowed to use our software, im just saying that they could do a dual boot like we do. its not that terrible, we pay around 150 dollars for a windows disc, they shouldnt pay around a dollar for 5 discs? any ways, the thing is, they see that they can run this and that on windows, and they can only run that on linux, what will they choose (im talking about the basic user)? they arent going to look at where it came from! heck, i know i never did when used windows! windows never told you where its software came from so you dont look at where other items come from. Im sorry to take a cynical view here, but but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and the more users you have [usually] the faster you advance. so if linux is huge, linux grows faster! and im srry to be the "typical newbie" i dont hate microsoft, no i really dont, im not even asking for a completely fair deal. im just asking that both sides should see, recognize, and possibly use the other side.


oh, sorry didnt mean to make this into an argument, you get the last word if you want it. srry again.

[Flounder]

Keeping the source code open and keeping normal free software practices going is our best bet to draw people over. Chances are whoever wants to play the game wants to make a mod. And windows has a lot of proprietary options for IDEs which cost insane amounts of money, whereas linux has a free C compiler called gcc and a free C++ compiler called g++ and python is here too. Linux is free as in beer and speech, and not everybody has the dough everytime they have to reload windows on their machines which is normally every 6 months or less.

Tons of people use firefox over internet explorer, others use thunderbird over outlook, and more and more quality open source products are being used in place of proprietary software. It will only be a matter of time before the Open Source fever catches on and people cherish the ideals behind it. But we don't need to go to Microsofts practices just to get people to come over to linux. There are at least 3 million users of this operating system if not more I wouldn't worry about it if no one catches on. It's there loss not ours...

[JN4OldSchool]

exactly. I was like anyone else. When i discovered Linux I wanted to save the world all by myself. But a few years into this now and I realize that most people are just not suited for Linux as it sits in it's current state. It is getting easier to use all the time and I am all for that, but not at the price of becoming dumbed down like Windows is. Lets face it, most people cant even keep their Windows computers running right, they really have no business trying to use linux. They will just get frustrated and cause more harm than good for the rest of us. I can look ahead and see a million problems if Linux becomes big and dominant. I dont want this. I am not trying to be an elitist either, but I just want people to understand that using Linux is going to require some knowledge of computers. This is as it should be. So I agree with Flounder in that it is their loss and not ours. Linux is steadly gaining in popularity. It is just a matter of time. Enjoy it in the state it is in now because just like the state of Florida, once the people start moving in all hell will break loose. It will become unrecognizable from what attracted us all in the first place.

[cypher543]

I understand most people are not suited for Linux, but this project isn't for them. Surge is meant to draw the attention of big-time game developers to Linux/UNIX. It's also for the people who complain that Linux doesn't have good games. Of course, as I've said before, we are in no way against a Windows port. But we will not be making it.

So... about Surge:

We just registered the project with SourceForge, and the blog/wiki will be transferred to their webspace in around 2 or 3 days. You can expect some short downtime, but it shouldn't last longer than an hour or two. We are also going to use SF's SVN versioning system, which will make development a lot easier.

rappermas got the nVidia problems fixed up, so the graphics engine is being revamped.

If you have anything that you would like to see in the engine (or in the game), please tell us. We already have a very large list of features we would like to include, but there's room for more (maybe). ;)

[Legomax]

exactly. I was like anyone else. When i discovered Linux I wanted to save the world all by myself. But a few years into this now and I realize that most people are just not suited for Linux as it sits in it's current state. It is getting easier to use all the time and I am all for that, but not at the price of becoming dumbed down like Windows is. Lets face it, most people cant even keep their Windows computers running right, they really have no business trying to use linux. They will just get frustrated and cause more harm than good for the rest of us. I can look ahead and see a million problems if Linux becomes big and dominant. I dont want this. I am not trying to be an elitist either, but I just want people to understand that using Linux is going to require some knowledge of computers. This is as it should be. So I agree with Flounder in that it is their loss and not ours. Linux is steadly gaining in popularity. It is just a matter of time. Enjoy it in the state it is in now because just like the state of Florida, once the people start moving in all hell will break loose. It will become unrecognizable from what attracted us all in the first place.
well, that beats my idea. congrats, you managed to beat a 14year-old in debate! =) srry again for getting us so very far off topic.

[Legomax]

I understand most people are not suited for Linux, but this project isn't for them. Surge is meant to draw the attention of big-time game developers to Linux/UNIX. It's also for the people who complain that Linux doesn't have good games. Of course, as I've said before, we are in no way against a Windows port. But we will not be making it.

So... about Surge:

We just registered the project with SourceForge, and the blog/wiki will be transferred to their webspace in around 2 or 3 days. You can expect some short downtime, but it shouldn't last longer than an hour or two. We are also going to use SF's SVN versioning system, which will make development a lot easier.

rappermas got the nVidia problems fixed up, so the graphics engine is being revamped.

If you have anything that you would like to see in the engine (or in the game), please tell us. We already have a very large list of features we would like to include, but there's room for more (maybe).
so surge would allow developers to market to the other 6% of the market profitably?

[cypher543]

so surge would allow developers to market to the other 6% of the market profitably?
Oh, please. What, are you kidding me? Marketing? Profit? Hello?? Do you know what Open Source is? We don't want to get rich! We want to make something which helps bring more things to Linux. In the case of Surge, it's games. Do want everyone to just bow down to Windows, and completely stop making Linux apps? Because that's essentially what you are saying. Just because Linux isn't used as much, it's completely pointless to make anything for it. That's what you are saying, isn't it? So don't talk to us like we're making a bad decision, just because we won't port the damn thing to Windows. Believe it or not, it's also an exciting experience.

[Legomax]

??? i was talking about some video game developers... i was just thinking that some of them choose platforms based on the amount of ppl there who are willing to buy the game. take2... EA... ect, they want to sell for profit. i guess i misunderstood what you were saying and im sorry.

[cypher543]

No no, I misunderstood you. I think a few people here can tell you that I do that sometimes. It's 10:00pm here, and I get cranky in the evening. :p

So, my apologies. I always end up ruining a good conversation.

But to answer your question... yes, we do expect developers to sell to 6% of the market. It's a good business practice to experiment. I'm sure more people would buy the games than the execs think. A lot of people around here want better gaming support on Linux.

[Legomax]

i know i do! and i only steal things that are made by MS, never games-one part of MS i lUV! the sad this is that we will probably never see fable in linux format.... =(

EDIT: will there be a running version up by FC7? and about how fast do you think developers will make games for it?

[cypher543]

the sad this is that we will probably never see fable in linux format....
*sigh* that really is too bad. Fable is a good game.

[Legomax]

well i think that it is safe to say that the release of surge will multiply the amount of Linux users, and what a day, im both a windows hater and advocate.

[rappermas]

Guys, before anyone starts to criticize our project just for the sake of criticizing, listen to this:

We want to bring developer attention to Linux. The ONLY way to do this is to break the chicken-egg process that we have been locked into for the last decade and a half. The only way that we can make this happen is to have some really good, amazing free software for Linux. I think a top-notch game under the BSD license along with a top-notch engine under the GPL license should do the trick very nicely. If we let people use windows to play this game, then it will be just like everything else--they won't need Linux and Linux will keep being left out in the cold not only by gaming developers, but also by some of the big names like Adobe.

And besides, it's so easy to criticize. Ask yourself this, before you openly put down a project:

What have YOU done?

Oh yeah, and keep in mind that Cypher gets kind of confused around this time of night, so use small sentences :D

[Legomax]

What have YOU done?
nothing to criticize, it sounds wonderful to me.

If we let people use windows to play this game, then it will be just like everything else--they won't need Linux and Linux will keep being left out in the cold not only by gaming developers, but also by some of the big names like Adobe

that was my arguement in a previous discussion.

unless for some reason i am able to get my "legal" copy of windows corp running in dual boot with fedora, im completely behind you, and if i do get it running, i will be behind you playing games, waiting to erase windows from my computer. i would like to be the first to say thank you for coming up with such a splendid idea, and making the world a better place.

[rappermas]

nothing to criticize, it sounds wonderful to me.



that was my arguement in a previous discussion.

unless for some reason i am able to get my "legal" copy of windows corp running in dual boot with fedora, im completely behind you, and if i do get it running, i will be behind you playing games, waiting to erase windows from my computer. i would like to be the first to say thank you for coming up with such a splendid idea, and making the world a better place.
In that case?....

Why can't we be friends,
Why can't we be friends,
Why can't we be friends,
Why can't weee beeeee frieeeends...

Sorry, had to sing. Oh and about the whole Windows thing. Get a gparted live cd (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php), and format your disk to unallocated space. Install XP. Use your gparted LiveCD again to shrink the NTFS partition and leave free space. Install Fedora on the free space and set up GRUB to boot XP and Fedora. And go wild! Oh, but do be sure to back up your data before doing anything too drastic.

[Legomax]

i dont really need to worry about backing anything up, but why does that work? im not saying you're wrong, i just want to know why thats right. does fedora keep me from installing windows (im really more worried the other way around...)

[cypher543]

Oh yeah, and keep in mind that Cypher gets kind of confused around this time of night, so use small sentences
:eek: I get tired and easily angered. Not completely confused. ;)

Yeah, so, anyway... it's morning now, so I'm back on track. I think some people are going to like this scripting engine. Instead of going the easy route and using SWIG, i think we're going to embed the Python interpreter directly into the engine. This, however, also means that the Surge will not be compiled as a linkable library. It will work much the same way that Quake does.

So far, rappermas has removed over 2000 lines of code from the Irrlicht Engine (all Direct3D and Windows stuff). The Irrlicht examples still run great, so I think it's doing quite well. I'm ordering a C++ book from Half.com, also. I was originally just going to be the Python guy, but the scripting engine really sparked some interest, but I'll need some extensive C++ knowledge to make it work.

It's actually coming along faster than I had imagined. But, I think compiling it as an executable will break it. I'm not sure. I completely forgot to tell rappermas that it shouldn't be a linkable library.

EDIT: BTW, we've decided that the engine will be released under a GPL license, but the media (3D models, textures, levels, etc) will be under another license (not determined, yet). The bottom line is, you can sell the engine, but not the artwork. (unless you make it yourself)

[JN4OldSchool]

Far be it from me to criticize! I think it's a great idea and have major respect for both of you for taking on a project of this proportion. Way above my head! I also admire the fact you are keeping it (the main engine anyway) open source in the spirit of further advancing Linux. This I can dig! It is a chicken/egg thing. Gamers stay with Windows as there are no games for Linux, but game developers dont port to linux because all the gamers use Windows. You guys might be on the ground floor of a major Linux revolution here. BTW LEGO, I know exactly what you ment by hateing Windows and advocating it at the same time. I feel this way too. I really dont hate Windows as much as I hate MS as a company. I am a linux user, nothing is going to change that. But I see the need for Windows too. Anyway, the fact remains that we will need to coexist with them for the indefinite future. So because of this I feel Rapper and Cypher are on the right track. We need to entice Windows users to move to linux one at a time, individual by individual. Some require better Linux graphics programs, some would like to see better Linux audio editing apps, Linux already has a strong set of office apps excluding a really good tax program. But games are a major sore spot in Linux and the better we can get here the more people we will see moving over to us.

[bob]

This is very interesting and amazing to watch. To see an idea gel into a program so quickly and with collaboration from people in different regions is just a great example of what Open Source is and should always be about. No matter if this ends in perfection or something less, THANK YOU for donating your talents to the community.

[Thetargos]

Hey Cypher and Rappermas! What are you contemplating to be the settling down of the engine and more importantly the plot, so other people can jump into the bandwagon and start doing the "fun stuff" (textures, models, levels, music, sounds, scripts, movies, etc, etc)?

I ask, because the people who will be doing all this stuff, should at least have some idea of the plot so they can start imagining how will the environment and world will look like and how will it "work", do you have any thing regarding the plot?

[cypher543]

Thank you for all of the encouragment!

Regarding the plot... we haven't actually talked about it much. The engine is nowhere near finished, and the game cannot be started until the engine is ready. However, we do have some small ideas:

Basically, the game will take place in the future, during a time when the world's most powerful nations are working together to form a huge world power. The entire idea for the giant nation was thought up by a dictator, who is now pretending to be an advocate for a Democracy. But, the general public and lower government officials have no idea that it's all just a scheme that the dictator cooked up so he could slowly morph this new nation into a dictatorship of his very own. During a press conference, the dictator invites his "right-hand man" to attend and help answer questions. Our main character, an ex-soldier, is watching the conference on TV when he recognizes the dictator's guest. He was the man who had ordered an assasination of the soldier's parents. When the soldier realizes this, he also begins to notice subtle hints that the man behind the whole "Super-nation" idea is not who he says he is. He soon finds out that he is not the only one who believes this, when he is contacted by a group of rebels, who've apparently unravled the whole scheme. From there, the game can be split into different campaigns, each telling the story of the main leaders of the rebellion. It gives the game an open-ended feel, since you are not limited to just one storyline, but many.

Of course, I just wrote most of that off the top of my head, and it probably won't be the final plot. Besides, like I said, the engine is our main priority at the moment.

[Legomax]

its like a future fable! why not have one good and one evil, with other choices inbetween. and in the end you either become a hero or a ruthless dictator?

[cypher543]

It's a possibility. ;) Good idea. :D

[Firewing1]

its like a future fable! why not have one good and one evil, with other choices inbetween. and in the end you either become a hero or a ruthless dictator?
From what I see it as, that's the beauty of this engine they're making - The scripts can be made and used for any game (type) or for changing plot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you really wanted to you could make pinball games with this engine, too.
So it would be quite possible to have a dual-thing going on - The quest from two points of view.

Like in Starcraft or Warcraft - You start the campaigns on one side, and then when you get to the next race you're suddenly destroying the progress you made in the other campaign because you're switched point of views. You get the whole storyline, but in chunks from different sides. A really neat idea.

Firewing1

[cypher543]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you really wanted to you could make pinball games with this engine, too.
You are completely correct. The engine is designed to be multi-purpose. Surge supplies the low level graphics, sound, logic, physics, and networking functions. Then you use the scripting engine to put it all together. It won't be limited to a certain genre of game, because there will be no rules as to what you can and cannot do with the scripting engine. But, as First Person Shooters seem to be the most popular games these days, that's what we will be making as a demonstration of Surge's power.

There has been more progress on the scripting engine. I've decided to write it as a seperate "module", just as rappermas is doing with the graphics engine. It's getting a bit complicated, though, because I just realized that I will have to tailor the embedded Python interpreter to work with multi-threading. There are various guides to doing this, however. I was going to use Boost or SWIG, after seeing that I had to compensate for multi-threading, but directly embedding Python gives Surge more control. It'll also help me learn more C++. ;)

[rappermas]

You could even use it to write 3D tetris, if you really had the inclination to. Now, sit down and think about this for a moment...it's probably going to be one of the hardest things to code right? Right, so let's just keep that in mind.

I have already gutted most of the major Windows and DirectX calls--now I need to remove them from all of the other 500~ source files. After removing windows libraries, I got something that is 8 meg smaller and conserves a few megs of memory, which is always nice for a game.

Now, a new idea that I've been wanting to implement here is Concurrent Unlimited Virtualization. That's my own term for something that should make our game unique. Ever played some other FPS, where you're going around and you have to go through that door, watch this cutsceen, kill him, and then push that level, and then etc? Yeah, once you played it once, you played it a million times. Well, wouldn't it be nice if you could plant a charge and blast a hole in the wall, go that way, and do some totally different stuff that more or less would change the course of the game? What I want to have is a huge environment where everything obeys the laws of physics--walls are destructable, new paths are creatable, etc. Since all of this will happen in game scripts, the engine need not worry about the level of complexity this will entail. However, along with this, the player is going to be able to play as numerous personas during the game--depending on how well he does with each one, the game outcome changes. You can play as the dictator, a regular civilian, the ex-soldier, a rebel, etc. And of course, all of this built on advanced physics, 7.1 channel multithreaded digital sound, and stunning graphics. Anyway, I figured that another tetris clone for getting people over to Linux for the games wasn't going to cut it.

Now, in about a month, I really do think that I'll have Irrlicht gutted and cleaned. I'll have all of the baggage out (Windows, DirectX) and I'll have all of the compiler warnings fixed. There was this one bug I found in Irrlicht yesterday where unsigned and signed integers were being compared for screen size, which would allow a negative cursor value and I fixed it. Just things like that. However, it looks like Irrlicht is no Hello World app, it has quite a few complex lines of code. After I get done with that, however, I'm going to start asking people to help out writing physics, more graphics, audio, networking, etc. After we have the engine nicely polished and all, we can start creating scripts for the actual game.

The engine that I'm deriving from Irrlicht will be called The Surge Engine. Also, the very first game that we make for it (the one that cypher described), will be called Surge. From there, I hope that we'll be able to continue development using this engine for other games. Also, I'm going to leave it up on SourceForge, probably doing some maintenance on it every few weeks or so. We're in the process of getting a SourceForge account approved, and I'll start putting up modified code very soon.

So, in about a month or two (depending on how much I nap in between my coding sessions), it would be nice to get help. Since I've been with this forum for quite a while now, I know that it would be nice if we could wheedle some talent into the game. For example, I know that Firewing knows Glade and GTK+. I hope I can get Firewing to help me out in writing some GUIs for the game, but more importantly, for the programs that we're going to have later that allow people to create a game without writing any python code at all--using our own SurgeEdit programs. So, as you can see, what we're going for here is a massive collaboration in developing an excellent piece of open-source software.

The Surge Engine will be GPL. Most likely, the games made for it will be under the BSD license, where the author has more freedom with his code (like keeping it closed source). And even though the engine is GPL, the games created for it do not have to be.

Now let me just say this--I want to slam this in the face of so many people that have said "Gaming for Linux sucks." One guy in my English class today said that Windows has better memory management and such because all the games are made for it. He also said Microsoft invented C++. It's people like this that should be put in place by a good game for a good operating system.

Oh, and hopefully, if anyone really feels like it, someone will write the last piece of office software that's missing based on Surge--the tax software. Make it have 3d characters that walk around and advise you :D

So, does anyone want to help? I'm not asking for slaves here, I would just like to have people that are willing to do this in the spirit of Open Source, not working too hard, but going at a nice, self-set pace to get something good done. There's nothing to do just yet, but hopefully, by the start of November or so, there will be. And umm, you know, if there is profit to be made off of this game, when that profit is made, let's just say the Surge team won't forget who deserves credit, both respect and monetary.

[Firewing1]

As I said before - You can count on me to do my best with PyGTK / Glade :)
I don't have much time on my hands anymore, but I like to program and I'll spend as much time as I can helping with the glade, I think this is a great idea.
Firewing1

[Legomax]

now here is one thing i dont understand, open source games. please, bedore replying read my whole reply, not just one sentence-no misunderstandings.
i dont believe that closed source is inately better, but games are considered "unnecessary" and having ppl work on a 1.5 gig to 3gig game (a BIG game) would move more efficiently if those working on it say that they would get something in return other that gratitude. i believe that closed source works better for large GAMES (not anything else) while open source is fine for small ones. And i know that i would be willing to pay 50-60 USD for an FPS on Linux, so long as it was a good one.
of course, im not able to make games, so my perspective may be incorrect, but who doesnt like money for working?

[rappermas]

Haha, legomax, but you misread.

Check this out. The Engine is open source. Right now, cypher is working really hard on the python scripts that we're going to use. I just spend the last hour playing Half-Life 2 (hey, you can't blame me, I had to see what it looks like on a Big Screen TV with a top of the line Quadro card).

Cypher is going to put the bulk of the actual game together. And here comes the beauty. The engine that I create is open source. Make another pong clone off of it for all anyone cares. Knock yourself out. I have a hard time remembering the last time anyone got rich off of selling game engines.

The actual game that cypher makes will be, more or less, under a BSD license. So, if we choose, we can keep it shut and sell it. We can give it to others, they can change it, and then keep it shut and sell it.

Cypher is also going to implement a way for the engine to run the scripts. And here comes the punchline. The engine is free for developers to use--they can make their own games based on it and sell their games.

No one says that you can't make money off of opensource software. You just have to do it the right way. Look at RHEL. The linux kernel is open source, but they're making money off of it. So shall we.

Firewing:
Great! We all love a man that knows his glade! I'll let you know what comes up--looks like a graphical installer would be the place to start, well, once I finish the engine and cypher makes the game. But we're working towards something.

[Flounder]

The problem I believe lies in management. In a corporate enviroment there's a lot of management. What needs to be done is project leads need to be selected by skill in their fields. One person is in charge of graphics, storyline, sound, engine code, etc. With other people being assigned to those teams under them working on assigned tasks. You can't have people just working on random things at this point or you may get two people working on one bug and only the one bug gets fixed while two people have wasted their time.

Providing you get enough help you will have to delegate it around. I wouldn't do micromanagement however. Whoever is chosen needs to have a specialty for the job they are given to lead and they need to have some leadership skill. That way whoever is at the top doesn't have to worry if they are getting it done right. If you get the development system laid out in an apropriate manner development time will be cut and it should be more polished. However while you guys are working on the code you may want to get other people working on models and have them just create a bunch of random content they think apropriate for the storyline. This way when your done they are done to and you can pick the content and they can go with it. Right now sample generation is probably what you want.

As far as the storyline goes I'd try something that will still seem believable from today's politics and try and make a realistic projection that way the storyline hits home a little and seems more real. As for maps I'd try familiar surroundings in the real world such as New York City, Fort Jackson, Paris, some farmers field that exsists from satelite photos. In other words you are going to be making this a game based on a rebellion and if I were you pick real targets and take whatever media you have of the places your going to be making missions and other such scenery. People are going to be amazed if it looks a lot like home. Most games are based on foreign unknown enviroments and to spend less time on creation this is also an advantage I think. But the game will feel closer to home. Ultimately I think that's what you guys should aim for.

Say you want to get supplies for your rebellion go and attack a fort. Need a helicopter raid a base to steal it. Get what I'm at here? As for rappermas's idea on making new paths I think that would go perfectly with familiar content especially if you've been in a certain part of New York your going to in the game. However getting detail down as much as possible will take months, if not years so you may want to get started on grabbing ariel photo's and blueprints for buildings those who will be making maps. These are just my ideas. I'd try and not go to far in the future that way you can use current weapons models and that sort of thing. Instead of having to dream up enhancements. Because no one's going to believe that everyone's still using M-16s and Remington Model 700s in the future. Tech changes so the best idea would be to go off of what's real to be honest. But these are my opinions doesn't mean they are correct or that you have to go with them but it may save you development time.

[rappermas]

The problem I believe lies in management. In a corporate enviroment there's a lot of management. What needs to be done is project leads need to be selected by skill in their fields. One person is in charge of graphics, storyline, sound, engine code, etc. With other people being assigned to those teams under them working on assigned tasks. You can't have people just working on random things at this point or you may get two people working on one bug and only the one bug gets fixed while two people have wasted their time.

Providing you get enough help you will have to delegate it around. I wouldn't do micromanagement however. Whoever is chosen needs to have a specialty for the job they are given to lead and they need to have some leadership skill. That way whoever is at the top doesn't have to worry if they are getting it done right. If you get the development system laid out in an apropriate manner development time will be cut and it should be more polished. However while you guys are working on the code you may want to get other people working on models and have them just create a bunch of random content they think apropriate for the storyline. This way when your done they are done to and you can pick the content and they can go with it. Right now sample generation is probably what you want.

As far as the storyline goes I'd try something that will still seem believable from today's politics and try and make a realistic projection that way the storyline hits home a little and seems more real. As for maps I'd try familiar surroundings in the real world such as New York City, Fort Jackson, Paris, some farmers field that exsists from satelite photos. In other words you are going to be making this a game based on a rebellion and if I were you pick real targets and take whatever media you have of the places your going to be making missions and other such scenery. People are going to be amazed if it looks a lot like home. Most games are based on foreign unknown enviroments and to spend less time on creation this is also an advantage I think. But the game will feel closer to home. Ultimately I think that's what you guys should aim for.

Say you want to get supplies for your rebellion go and attack a fort. Need a helicopter raid a base to steal it. Get what I'm at here? As for rappermas's idea on making new paths I think that would go perfectly with familiar content especially if you've been in a certain part of New York your going to in the game. However getting detail down as much as possible will take months, if not years so you may want to get started on grabbing ariel photo's and blueprints for buildings those who will be making maps. These are just my ideas. I'd try and not go to far in the future that way you can use current weapons models and that sort of thing. Instead of having to dream up enhancements. Because no one's going to believe that everyone's still using M-16s and Remington Model 700s in the future. Tech changes so the best idea would be to go off of what's real to be honest. But these are my opinions doesn't mean they are correct or that you have to go with them but it may save you development time.

Oh yeah, I totally agree with the whole management overhead thing. And the wasted effort. The structure that you put forth is, of course, probably the best way to work on anything in any industry.

Now, about hitting close to home. Has anyone ever read 1984? It was written in 1948, then the last two digits were swapped. Well, fast forward 100 years and you get 2048, the original name of the game. This is the year that we want the storyline to happen. Given, there will be a flashback or two. Actually, cypher has had some very good storyline ideas and you should probably talk to him if you want more details. I know that we will be using realistic environments and realistic weapons. Let's say that we're in New York City though. What we want to implement that's totally new in a game like this is a Massive Environment Model. You could be placed right in the big apple. From there, you can bust holes in buildings, break down doors, and explore every single building, running into all kinds of things in every one of them, like a bunch of office rats, or the enemy, or supplies. If you really want to, plant a charge, blow a sewer open, and explore the underground. What we're trying to implement here is a huge environment that is fully under the control of the player based on the true-life laws of physics. This whole idea will be implemented in two places--the physics module in the Surge engine and the actual game logic scripts that cypher will create.

However, I don't think that cypher will be able to use anything that we prototype right now (like graphics, sound, models, landscapes, buildings, etc) because it is, at this point, not fully known what format is to be used. Like I said, however, in about a month or two, the engine will be ready for modules and cypher will have implemented Script/Engine IO, as well as some simple game things. Then, we can really have this thing take off, drawing on the talent that seems to be so plentiful lately.

Blender, for some reason, keeps popping back into my head. That looks like a good choice to use for making models. We would really appreciate any advice though.

[cypher543]

And here comes the beauty. The engine that I create is open source.
we. The engine that we create. Scripting is still part of the engine. ;)

BTW, going with the open source spirit, I think the Ogg format should be used for sound, instead of MP3.

[Firewing1]

Ogg Theora for videos, too :P
Firewing1

[cypher543]

Good news! Surge has been accepted at SourceForge! As rappermas said, hopefully we will have the current source all packaged up in a nice Subversion repository. It will make collaboration a lot easier.

Check it out at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/surge

We was going to move the site over to SF's webspace, but they only give 100megs for web sites (but unlimited for SVN and File Releases)

[Thetargos]

Rappermas: Blender is a good idea for the models, it even supports some rather nice animation tricks and techniques. Howver I don't think it is as advanced as Maya can be (yeah, for 100% off the price of Maya, too :D), I guess the best way to find out is to just start doing some tests. Being this an FPS game, and the fact that you want to make it with such high quality in mind, manually animating the models and try to resemble MoCap (or natural movement) will be real hard to do.

[rappermas]

Alright, we're finally hogging up some space on SourceForge.

But yes, we're going to have to think about how we're going to animate characters. You know how well faces are done in HL2? That's what I'd like to see in ours.

Requires thought, though...

[cypher543]

HL2 uses a program which syncs facial movements using "nodes" with a sound file. Then the engine reads the data in and morphs the mesh accordingly. (that's what I read, anyway) It sounds like a resource hog, though.

[rappermas]

HL2 uses a program which syncs facial movements using "nodes" with a sound file. Then the engine reads the data in and morphs the mesh accordingly. (that's what I read, anyway) It sounds like a resource hog, though.
Sure looks nice. Valve calls it realistic facial muscles.

[Thetargos]

I'm sure there has got to be a way to have such level of sofistication, either by manually animating the characters' expressions or by using some sort of speech recognition like Valve does, to dynamically morph the meshes... But as Cypher says, it could end up being such a resource hog... On the bright side, the characters aren't expected to be talking all the time, now do they? So resources otherwise used for physics, for instance, can be used for this "SpeechMorph" technology :D

[cypher543]

It could be done a lot faster with Stackless Python, since "SpeechMorph" could be run in a seperate tasklet (they're not called threads in Stackless Python). But, since the morphing is actually done by the graphics engine, it still might hog a few resources.

Speaking of Stackless Python... I ran across an article that showed some unit test of Stackless vs. Threaded Python. The author created a simple "hackysack" game in which a hackysack was kicked from one person to the next using random numbers. Using threaded Python, the game completed 1000 rounds in about 180ms. He tried the same using a Stackless version of the game. With Stackless, the game completed 1000 rounds in 19ms. The author even said that the game completed 10,000 in Stackless quicker than 1000 in threaded.

That's a HUGE speed gain.

The scripting engine is coming along very nicely. There's a small bug in which the PYTHONPATH must be set by the user manually to point to the game's directory, but I'm working on changing this. The engine is actually pretty small, but I still haven't added exception handling or anything like that.

[Legomax]

if its going to be a rebellion, it ought to be staged in France, afterall, they arent all that stable. they never were. and you could base the entire thing around farmers being forced to eat stale bread, i can see it now, "I HATE TO EAT ZIS STALE BREAHD! I SPHIT! PETOOWEE! ZIS MEANZ VOR!"

[rappermas]

if its going to be a rebellion, it ought to be staged in France, afterall, they arent all that stable. they never were. and you could base the entire thing around farmers being forced to eat stale bread, i can see it now, "I HATE TO EAT ZIS STALE BREAHD! I SPHIT! PETOOWEE! ZIS MEANZ VOR!"
AHAHA. Lol. That just sounds like a ridiculously funny idea. I recommend you learn C++ and Python and write this as your own game when we finish the engine.

I imagine that this would go faster on a better machine. I've spent the better part of many hours of tigerdirect and newegg lusting after hardware.

[Legomax]

i was planning on learning C++ soon, i guess python could be learned too

[Firewing1]

diveintopython.org - I learnt python in a night, and worked on PyGTK for about a week. It's really a great language, and it's easy to use, too!
Firewing1

[rappermas]

With python, the learning curve for anyone is small. You actually hit the ground running most of the time. It just makes sense. It might offend some of the hard core programmers that love their curly brackets, but once you use it, you don't want to lose it. That's why development on top of the Engine will be done in Python.

[Firewing1]

One thing you guys will need to keep on top of is memory management, though - Look at what happened to Yum. The memory usage is HUGE, and updating sqlite was horribly slow comparted to what happened when the re-wrote the metadata parsing part into C.
Firewing1

[rappermas]

One thing you guys will need to keep on top of is memory management, though - Look at what happened to Yum. The memory usage is HUGE, and updating sqlite was horribly slow comparted to what happened when the re-wrote the metadata parsing part into C.
Firewing1
Oh yeah, true. Which is why cypher is going to be very efficient in his scripts. It's also why I'll rewrite the most taxing algorithms in assembly after the engine is finished.

[Melio]

I'v always liked the ideas of say popular movie topics.

for instance, a popular video game is called Dead Rising, it's based on the concept that people are dead, and they're trying to eat your brains or something. so survive it. and figure out what caused it..

as a first person shooter, why not start someone in a hospital, and everyone is posessed with some kinda demon soul spirt or something.. you know classic horror movie appeal.

Now, as a demon enters a body it can jump into someone elses body when you kill it. until later in the game, you can pick up enchanted weapons that can absorb the demon's soul and make the weapon stronger or something

the ponit is.. give the game some wickedly itneresting concepts .. taken from movies. sorta.. but you gotta give the concept of entertainment to the game.. the demon souls thing is cool cause demonicly possessed people are harder to kill cause they don't feel pain n stuff.. and if you can exercize the demon if you hurt the human you hurt the person "host" and that could make other humans wanna attack you because they want to defend the little girl possessed cause they don't knwo it's possessed..

I mean you can put all sorts of spins on the game.. . but bosses can obviously have supernatural powers that other demons or lesser demons dont.

that's my idea..

[rappermas]

Melio, it's a good idea for a game. And the beauty is, you can go ahead and make it once we complete the engine.

Ah, can't you feel the power of open source software flowing through your veins?

[Legomax]

I'v always liked the ideas of say popular movie topics.

for instance, a popular video game is called Dead Rising, it's based on the concept that people are dead, and they're trying to eat your brains or something. so survive it. and figure out what caused it..

as a first person shooter, why not start someone in a hospital, and everyone is posessed with some kinda demon soul spirt or something.. you know classic horror movie appeal.

Now, as a demon enters a body it can jump into someone elses body when you kill it. until later in the game, you can pick up enchanted weapons that can absorb the demon's soul and make the weapon stronger or something

the ponit is.. give the game some wickedly itneresting concepts .. taken from movies. sorta.. but you gotta give the concept of entertainment to the game.. the demon souls thing is cool cause demonicly possessed people are harder to kill cause they don't feel pain n stuff.. and if you can exercize the demon if you hurt the human you hurt the person "host" and that could make other humans wanna attack you because they want to defend the little girl possessed cause they don't knwo it's possessed..

I mean you can put all sorts of spins on the game.. . but bosses can obviously have supernatural powers that other demons or lesser demons dont.

that's my idea..

you could also make so that you can BE the demon, and you have to get rid of the nuts trying to stop your undead army

EDIT: and you could call it, LIVING FALLING

[JN4OldSchool]

brains...BRAINS...BRAINS

[Legomax]

see? it would be a cool game. and you could have Tom Cruise in a closet. and you could say, "Tom Cruise, please come out of the closet"

i luv south park

[cypher543]

There have been quite a few updates... http://surge.cypherspace.info

rappermas has uploaded Surge 0.0.2, which eliminates all compiler warnings. I also urge (heh... urge, surge... funny) you to post a comment on http://surge.cypherspace.info/2006/09/30/ferite-what-do-you-think/ as I am quite interested in hearing what people think about Ferite being used as the scripting language (please visit the Ferite homepage link and read up on it before posting your opinion).

The decision isn't final, and I still haven't spoken to rappermas about it. But I would just like some input.

EDIT: Oh, wow. I completely forgot to change the comment box's colors. Well, I'll have to do that sometime. ;)

[Moustacha]

just read the whole post, can't wait till it's ready (i might be waiting sometime), but will the engine sport OpenGL 2 or 2.1? I sure hope so at it looks really nice. I played Nexuiz with the opengl 2 effects and it just looks stunning.

[Firewing1]

I vote python - It's easy to use and script... Besides - Did you say you were embedding a python interpreter anyways?
Firewing1

[cypher543]

The site is down at the moment because I'm creating the new CMS system for it (user system, bug tracker, blog, etc). I also have the new design done, which you can view here (http://surge.cypherspace.info/test2).

About scripting... we haven't quite decided what we are going to do. There is a post on the forum that you can view here (http://surge.cypherspace.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2) which lists the canidates. Feel free to register and post your opinion.

[rappermas]

As OpenGL gets updated, some calls may get deprecated and some may get enhanced. However, it is mostly backward-compatible. By the time we finish, we'll make sure that it works with the latest OpenGL and we'll also make sure that it doesn't work with DirectX :D

[rappermas]

Surge developer here to offer some more input.

I have done some testing of our Engine so far on an nVidia Quadro and ATi FireGL, both on Windows. This was before I removed Windows and DirectX support. Basically, on both cards, OpenGL, in every case, looked better than the DirectX, at least to me. Anything that DirectX can do, OpenGL can do, maybe even better at times. Also, it's an open technology, why not use it? It sets up the game to be portable in the future.

Oh, and I believe the ATi card that I tested on is based on the Radeon core. The Quadro might be a derivative of nVidia's other card, GeForce. Anyway, workstation cards usually have the some cores, just downclocked for stability and a little different, but not so much so to be different.

Another thing that doesn't make sense is using DirectX for sound and physics. Lots of free technologies out there that one can use that would make the process much better--OpenAL for sound and ODE or Newton for physics.

I don't think that it takes a lot of money to make a good game. The guys at Raven or Valve started out small, put down one or two good games and really got into the action. That's what Surge aims to do. Except we want to promote Linux in the process by not offering a Windows version. People are free to port it to Windows, but we all know how hard that is. Well, *cough* *cough* especially if, ummm, I put in a few important Linux calls not available on Windows *cough* *haaak* *cough*. The goal here is to make a game that's way ahead (gameplay wise) of the current games by offering a type of gameplay never before experienced in an FPS. Of course, top-notch graphics, sound, and physics are parts of making this happen (I don't think anyone wants to play a game that looks like the original Half-Life on modern-day hardware, now).

So, there's the plan put down by the man. As soon as I get the graphics, sound, and physics integrated, which I really want to happen before next year, I think Cypher will done with remaking the website and deciding on how the engine will be scripted, so that he can actually script it. Of course, that should take another few months, all the while I'll be polishing the underlaying engine framework. Afterwards, cypher will start making game content (I might help), while maitaining his scripts/script modules. During this entire process, I never stop working on the engine--even the little improvements add up to a big change.

I should get some time to work on it during fall and winter break. Right now, I'm skipping lunch so that I can go up to the library and edit a few source files. The project means a lot to me, I don't want it to follow in the footsteps of OpenDarwin http://www.opendarwin.org/ .

Let me, again, outline a few plans that I have for the game, that will be implementable because of the scriptable nature of the engine. First of all, I believe many people on this forum have played FPS. What cypher and I want to create is a Huge Dynamic Environment. Of course, cypher will be responsible for generating most of the scripts to handle this. Basically, this will let the player interact with the environment. Now, for those that have played FPS, they are familiar with the linear gameplay. Do X, go to Y, shoot Z, move to X, press Y, shoot Z, shoot X, game finished. Next time, the replay is exactly the same. The only replay entertainment possible is using the cheat codes to get the cool weapons at the beginning of the game and just go wild. Now, this isn't bad, but FPS's done like this, which is pretty much all of them, are pretty boring. It's just not working out for most.

Here's where Surge (The Game) is different. In Surge, The Game, you can follow the linear storyline if you like, but it is discouraged. Let's say you come into a room and don't know where to go next. Just grab some C4, place it on a wall, stand back, and blast open a new path for yourself. Or, discharge clips of bullets to create a perforated area in a wall and then charge through it, creating a new direction to head in. The environment is huge--everything is destroyable, interactive, and smart. If you talk to someone at the beginning of the game (like some Joe on the street) and he gives you some info, you might be able to use that info 10 hours later into the game to help you. However, talking to that Joe is completely optional and you can still get by without it. That's kind of what I have in mind. Make the game just so variable (with such realism) that it seems like real life. With the help of OpenGL, OpenAL, and ODE/Newton, this should create on hell of a game.

But, I have to code it. It's not easy. Cypher has to script it. It's definitely not easy. Cypher has to generate artwork and game content. That's time-consuming. Cypher is making an amazing website, which made my jaw drop open when I first saw it, which I have to praise him for. Overall, we make quite a team that will deliver the best FPS for Linux, or for all computing, ever, right to the public and hopefully push the entire industry in a new direction.

But let's just fix these 3 bugs first, okay?

[guisar]

I'd suggest something along the lines of Second Life- only with bullets. The battleground may seem a tired genre but it gives the modders and skinners something to work with. A scripting language like Python could allow even mortals to add to the game's complexity. I think a P2P based Multi-player game for Linux would be great- allow it to evolve it's own story line. Consider the love child of war bride, Second Life and the warrior Battleground Europe- World War II online- only with kicking graphics and TrackIR support. THAT would put Linux on the gaming map....

[rappermas]

That's the great thing about the engine--after we release the Surge Engine and Game, we're moving on to more games and letting the public use it for their own games--we want to be able to amass a huge amount of excellent games for Linux this way.

Oh, and btw, Surge 0.0.3 was released last Sunday. I took out about 10000 lines of Direct3D/Windows code. Some cleanups remain, but the graphics seems to have gotten to a workable stage. Whoever knows the OpenAL API will be helpful during the next phase of the operation--tell me.

[Moustacha]

when you guys have finished the engine and have gotten to the stage of the tools of making Surge based games, will it be n00b friendly, like how the NWN toolset was? IMO that's the best toolkit i've seen so far. CoD(2) Radiant has just scared me with it's wireframes and hard-to-understand interface.

[Firewing1]

The plan's to make it as user-friendly as possible - It may not turn out to be at first, but we'll work on it.
Firewing1

[rappermas]

The plan's to make it as user-friendly as possible - It may not turn out to be at first, but we'll work on it.
Firewing1
Yeah, and since Firewing is our GUI expert, he'll make everything very user friendly once everything is ready to roll like that.

I'm at the stage where I'm writing the OpenAL part of the engine for sound but so far it's hard--I've installed the API and I have been only able to find minimal documentation and supposedly works but fails to generate any sound at runtime, so I'll keep struggling with this meanwhile.

[Firewing1]

:D My initial goal is to get the basic modding working - eg, you can use my script to easily install your levels and artwork into the game engine and then test it out - Don't like it, then use the interface to remove your old version, change it, re-load it, test, etc...
Once that's up and working, then I'll attempt to start doing more complicated things - I don't want to aim *too* high and overwhelm myself, but I'd like to have a level editor, too.

In the meantime, you can expect fwfstab, a easy to use GUI fstab editor to come out soon :p

Firewing1

[cypher543]

Well, I'm afraid there's going to be some major downtime on the website. My current host ticked me off by ignoring a problem with phpMyAdmin, which made it impossible to do perform any actions on tables. So, I ended up installing a temporary and smaller mysql manager. But, it's not the actual problem that made me angry, it's the fact that they blew the problem off saying "I don't see an error here."

Anyway, I'm moving to TextDrive, and writing the site in Ruby on Rails instead of CakePHP (mostly because TextDrive is very good with RoR). I've also got other RoR projects going on (such as a photo gallery system for my dad), so development might be a little slow at first.

Sorry about that.

[JN4OldSchool]

Well, I'm afraid there's going to be some major downtime on the website. My current host ticked me off by ignoring a problem with phpMyAdmin, which made it impossible to do perform any actions on tables. So, I ended up installing a temporary and smaller mysql manager. But, it's not the actual problem that made me angry, it's the fact that they blew the problem off saying "I don't see an error here."

Anyway, I'm moving to TextDrive, and writing the site in Ruby on Rails instead of CakePHP (mostly because TextDrive is very good with RoR). I've also got other RoR projects going on (such as a photo gallery system for my dad), so development might be a little slow at first.

Sorry about that.

:eek: Good God, this thread gets geekier and geekier. I dont even know what the heck y'all are even talking about anymore. Gotta love it! :D

[superppl]

I've been following this for some time now, and I think that this is really freakin' cool.
But this game is going to single-player. Can the engine be used for multiplayer games? Like the upcoming Quake Wars?
Keep up the good work!

[cypher543]

Can the engine be used for multiplayer games?
In the early stages, no. But we are planning a networking component in the future. Mostly to add deathmatch games to the single-player game, but you can certainly use it however you like.

[cdlaforc]

Hey all,
This sounds cool, any update.? I'm looking for a good first person shooter right now.

[Zero-Override]

like......... O M F G O_O

first off.... i have ADD which sort of means that my attention-span is VERY limited (after about 20 minutes of doing the same thing i start to do a billion other things :D) and i have just spend like 2 complete hours of non-stop reading here..... so that in itself is a miracle !!!! :D

i think this is just a very VERY brilliant idea if it is still going on, i myself have actually had a LOT of times where i thought about a dynamic environment like you guys have described and never found a single game thta featured it :(

i would LOVE to see a game like this and i would get it no matter what ;)

on a sidenote though, non of the links work :(


keep up the fantastic work guys!!!!!! :)


***edit***
btw, the words did start to get very fuzzy after all of this reading :D

[Firewing1]

cypher, rappermas, is this project still undergoing development?
Firewing1

[Dan]

Hi Firewing1,

I haven't seen Cypher on-line since before the first of the year.

Kinda miss the kid.

Dan

[Firewing1]

Yeah, I checked his blog he's pro-microsoft, and since he hasn't been around I guess he's stopped using Fedora...
Firewing1

[Dan]

Sure looks like it.

Well, I hope he'll come back and check in again ... in any case. But you can bet your last pair of clean dry socks he's gonna get the devil razzed out of 'im while I welcome him back!

<...:p...>

[phkahler]

But here's the thing... I can never find the right "niche". SciFi is kind of over-done (though they are the best games, imho) and fantasy is really hard to make a FPS out of. I never did like the idea of making a modern FPS, because they aren't usually that imaginative. SciFi opens up a ton of different storylines and so does Fantasy (even though the game mechanics can be a bit tough to come up with).

So, what do you all think? What type of FPS should be made for Linux? Do you have any storyline ideas?

Thanks!

I just had crazy idea. Be a first person iguana. You know, with the long tongue that can shoot out and eat stuff. You'd be both predator and prey depending what other critters are around. Climbing trees (FPS looking up), eating bugs, can they swim? Escape from a cage. It sounds kinda neat to me at first, but I think you'd have problems:
1) not much combat - either chasing or being chased.
2) no real weapon choices, it's just the tongue.
OTOH, it may be neat to have a strap-on rocket launcher on a lizard. A little unrealistic yes, but you could shoot down hawks. The right style can allow you to do a lot of unrealistic things. I wonder if the squirels should be armed? Now I'm thinking it could be cool again.

This is the kind of off the wall idea that is either a total flop or wildly successful. It's not the concept, but the creativity that goes into the implementation that makes this type of thing work. Think of a frog crossing the road - sounds dumb, but Frogger was very successful. Brain storm this for a while before you reject it :-)

[schwim]

Firewing, Good God, man... You're the GUI tech! You don't know if the project still exists??? ;)

In all seriousness, I love cypher like a son I never had, but he reminds me an awful lot of myself at his age: He's got a lot of interest but the stick-to-it has not developed yet. There was a brief moment in time when he was going to develop the world's largest linux developer's network.

I liked that idea too :)

thanks,
json

[Firewing1]

Firewing, Good God, man... You're the GUI tech! You don't know if the project still exists??? ;)

In all seriousness, I love cypher like a son I never had, but he reminds me an awful lot of myself at his age: He's got a lot of interest but the stick-to-it has not developed yet. There was a brief moment in time when he was going to develop the world's largest linux developer's network.

I liked that idea too :)
We actually got started on that Wiki, too, but realized Red Hat and a few other websites already had similar things going, so it wouldn't be good to have yet another branch :(
Firewing1

[schwim]

We rarely do things because we'd be the only one doing them. We usually do things because we think we can do it better.

Regardless, my point was that he's no different than many(myself included) were at his age. A lot of things interest and excite him, and often, it's too many things for a person to want to stick with one.

You on the other hand, are our prodigy. We'll beat you with a parallel cable if you try to move on to greener pastures. We need young blood to keep us from looking like a bunch of old geeks. We'd much rather look like a bunch of mixed age geeks, plus you boost our productivity level with your scripts..

thanks,
json

[cdlaforc]

Firewing1,
Do you mind listing some of those other projects? I would like to take a look at them.

[cypher543]

I see you all have missed me. ;)

Yes, it is true that I am now pro-Microsoft. But, I'm working really hard to get back with Fedora as well.

schwim: You are correct. I don't stick with things for very long. I hate that about myself. I even bought a shirt from ThinkGeek.com which says "I never finish anyth". Sometimes I go into projects thinking that they will be a big hit. As with Surge and the OSDN project, they were big hits. But then I realized what I had actually gotten myself into. People were depending on me, and I really didn't have the experience or the patience for such large ideas.

So, here I am. Frankly, I'm not sure what to do. I like Windows, but I also like Linux. I'm not sure if I will be able to keep them side-by-side without mixing them up. Since I've been gone, I've forgotten even the most simple of things about Linux.

Anyway, I'll figure it out. Don't expect anymore big ideas from me, though. But, I do think of a good one, I'll just pass it along to someone more capable than myself.

[schwim]

I don't stick with things for very long. I hate that about myself.

Do what I did; embrace it. I have no issue with the fact that my house has no bathroom on the first floor. My wife is less than thrilled, but I have spent decades cultivating this nonchalant indifferent attitude towards actually completing tasks.

Who needs a freaking bathroom?

thanks,
json

[Firewing1]

Firewing1,
Do you mind listing some of those other projects? I would like to take a look at them.
I've been trying to track down the links I found, too, but they seem to have disappeared :(
@Cypher, good to know you're back... If you want to try Fedora again give it a little more wait for F7, it will be worth it!
Firewing1

[cdlaforc]

I agree FC7 looks exciting. I can't wait to see what changes/enhancments FC8 will include. I think by FC8 a lot of Windows users will be turning there heads towards Fedora.

Firewing1,
If you find those links let me know.

[JN4OldSchool]

I see you all have missed me. ;)

Yes, it is true that I am now pro-Microsoft. But, I'm working really hard to get back with Fedora as well.

schwim: You are correct. I don't stick with things for very long. I hate that about myself. I even bought a shirt from ThinkGeek.com which says "I never finish anyth". Sometimes I go into projects thinking that they will be a big hit. As with Surge and the OSDN project, they were big hits. But then I realized what I had actually gotten myself into. People were depending on me, and I really didn't have the experience or the patience for such large ideas.

So, here I am. Frankly, I'm not sure what to do. I like Windows, but I also like Linux. I'm not sure if I will be able to keep them side-by-side without mixing them up. Since I've been gone, I've forgotten even the most simple of things about Linux.

Anyway, I'll figure it out. Don't expect anymore big ideas from me, though. But, I do think of a good one, I'll just pass it along to someone more capable than myself.
Ahh Cypher, you are really no different than any one of us. You just havent learned to accept the hiuman condition as Schwim explains. Heck son, you dont have to move the world with every idea that floods your brain. We all have those "what if?" moments. Maybe once or if you are lucky twice in a lifetime the idea will actually be worth persuing. As for the rest...In 5 years Schwim may be in a new house in a new state or even on a new planet and that bathroom to be will just be a distant memory. Dont take it so seriously, enjoy the short time you have here. Find out the things that are important and immerse yourself. Dont fight the Windows/Linux thing, it aint worth all the stress you are putting yourself through. Use both, or use the one you feel most productive with. It doesnt matter. No need to slam doors on yourself. Just relax, enjoy life.

[cypher543]

Ahh Cypher, you are really no different than any one of us. You just havent learned to accept the hiuman condition as Schwim explains. Heck son, you dont have to move the world with every idea that floods your brain. We all have those "what if?" moments. Maybe once or if you are lucky twice in a lifetime the idea will actually be worth persuing. As for the rest...In 5 years Schwim may be in a new house in a new state or even on a new planet and that bathroom to be will just be a distant memory. Dont take it so seriously, enjoy the short time you have here. Find out the things that are important and immerse yourself. Dont fight the Windows/Linux thing, it aint worth all the stress you are putting yourself through. Use both, or use the one you feel most productive with. It doesnt matter. No need to slam doors on yourself. Just relax, enjoy life.
Lately, my idea machine has been busted, so I don't think I'll have a problem relaxing. Although, sometimes I get annoyed that I don't have any ideas, because then I get bored. Anyway, the problem I have is that I need Windows for some stuff and then I need Linux for other stuff. But at the moment, I can only have one due to money issues. :(

[Firewing1]

I guess dual-booting is out of the question? :/
Firewing1

[Thetargos]

Lately, my idea machine has been busted, so I don't think I'll have a problem relaxing. Although, sometimes I get annoyed that I don't have any ideas, because then I get bored. Anyway, the problem I have is that I need Windows for some stuff and then I need Linux for other stuff. But at the moment, I can only have one due to money issues. :(
How about virtualizing Windows on top of Linux? If you've got a recent enough system you can even use Xen to do that, or wait for FD7 and use the next gen virtual machine (already in mainline kernel). The main advantage of that is that you'll get the best of both worlds... Unless that is not possible for any reason.

[cypher543]

Dual-booting would be fine, except for the fact that I would need to run some Windows programs to make stuff for the projects I'm developing in Linux (editing images with Photoshop for example). I would run Windows in a VM on top of Linux, but that would mean using up yet another XP license to install it.

Anyway, I've gone through this over and over on these forums, and my choice is to just get another computer (which won't cost as much as I had originally thought).

[Firewing1]

I forget were you are, but if it's in Canada www.directcanada.com can get you the parts for a brand new computer for under 450$.
Firewing1

[cypher543]

*sigh* That makes me wish even more that I lived in Canada. :p

[JN4OldSchool]

*sigh* That makes me wish even more that I lived in Canada. :p

Why? You will probably find even better deals at newegg.com!

[cdlaforc]

or at tigerdirect.com

[Dan]

www.globalcomputer.com ... ask for Akua.

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2541471&Sku=J156-4218

Hard to beat at that price.

Dan