Home Crush your enemies... and create an EMPIRE!!! Space Empires V -- BUY NOW!!!

User login

  • Create new account
  • Request new password

Navigation

  • news
    • archive
    • blogs
    • books
    • forums
    • recent posts
    • groups
  • image galleries
  • projects & downloads
  • search
  • create content
  • news aggregator

Search

Who's online

There are currently 5 users and 151 guests online.

Online users

  • Shrike
  • ForesterSOF
  • Shadow hornet
  • koniu
  • The Antigeek

Languages

  • English English
  • French French

Browse archives

« October 2008  
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
Home » news » forums » Space Empires IV » Space Empires IV General

Its Time To Say Good Bye

Atrocities's picture
Submitted by Atrocities on Wed, 2008-05-28 19:54. Space Empires IV General

The amount of people playing SE IV has dropped off dramatically over the last two years to the point that the game is for all intents and purposes, dead. It has been milked for every last cent that it can produce and unless Aaron is willing to revisit the game and fix some of the glaring remaining bugs, so thing that he is not likely going to do, then its a safe bet to say that SE IV is past its prime and now on its last days if not already dead.

So why not get Aaron to release the source code for SE IV and let the modding community have at it? I mean the games earning potential is all but extinct at this point so why not toss the fans a much needed meaty bone and give up the source code so that they can "fix" the remaining issues and perhaps even expand the game some?

The game is after all nearly eight years old and 100% of games that old have either already released the source codes or have gone completely from the memories of players. The programing of SE IV cannot be that "secret" that after eight years its still of prized value and all.

The likelihood of an expansion pack for SE IV coming from SFI is about as likely as finding humanoid life in the core of the moon a week from last Tuesday. (In other words not gonna ever happen.)

SE IV is past its prime and its time to let the fans have it completely.

‹ SEIV and Linux (via Wine) Woes Why play SEIV instead of SEV? ›
» login or register to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by capnq on Thu, 2008-05-29 07:01.

ISTM like you've been /saying/ "SEIV is dead" for more than two years now.

I don't remember the last time I saw a commercial company open source an old property, and I've never seen an open source project actually produce a "finished" product.

I'm not sure that Aaron is even legally allowed to open source the code now.

Sometimes, I think "Open Source" is more like a religious faith than a business model.

-----
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

» login or register to post comments
BlueTemplar's picture

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by BlueTemplar on Thu, 2008-05-29 07:41.

Quote:
The game is after all nearly eight years old and 100% of games that old have either already released the source codes or have gone completely from the memories of players.
Are you kidding? Some names of games released in 2000 or before: C&C: Red Alert, Master of Orion II, Total Annihilation, Final Fantasy 7, Starcraft, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Homeworld, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Age of Empires II, Planescape Torment, Alpha Centauri, Diablo II, Baldur's Gate II, Counterstrike. Some of these games are even still regularly played in multiplayer!

I understand your frustration though, but I wouldn't hope on the SE4 source code be released - at least before there is a SE6.

» login or register to post comments
RogerN's picture

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by RogerN on Thu, 2008-05-29 12:33.

capnq wrote:
I don't remember the last time I saw a commercial company open source an old property, and I've never seen an open source project actually produce a "finished" product.

Just to provide an alternate viewpoint...

id Software has released the source to almost every property they own. These games include Doom, Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3. One of my all-time favorite games, in fact, is a "finished" open-source product called Tremulous. It was based off of the free Quake 3 source code. You can download Tremulous here.

There are several other successful open-source games based on id Software's products.

» login or register to post comments
BlueTemplar's picture

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by BlueTemplar on Thu, 2008-05-29 13:42.

Open source is never "finished", just abandonned...

You have several well working open source games out there. Consider Spring for instance.

» login or register to post comments
Mod Designer

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by Fyron on Thu, 2008-05-29 14:01.

capnq wrote:
..and I've never seen an open source project actually produce a "finished" product.
What's a "finished" project? A major point release, like 1.0? Tons of projects release 1.0s. And just like commercial companies, they keep on working to improve it, coming out with 1.1s, 1.2s, 2.0s, etc.

capnq wrote:
Sometimes, I think "Open Source" is more like a religious faith than a business model.
Tell that to Red Hat, Novel, Sun, IBM, etc. They've all made pretty successful business models on open source code. Tell it to Firaxis, which released Civilization 4 as practically open-sourced, barring the core of the game executable. All of the actual game functionality is modifiable in Python scripts or via the C++ SDK. Civ4 seems to be wildly successful in terms of sales, and it has lots of modding projects that add all sorts of new functionality (eg: magic in high fantasy mods).

-----
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.



SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

» login or register to post comments

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by capnq on Fri, 2008-05-30 07:17.

Fyron wrote:
capnq wrote:
Sometimes, I think "Open Source" is more like a religious faith than a business model.
Tell that to Red Hat, Novel, Sun, IBM, etc.
None of whom try to talk other companies into doing the same thing, AFAIK.

I'm talking about all the "evangelist" gamers I see who want companies to open source their products, who seem to have this blind faith that someone will do something to improve the code, which will magically revive interest in the game. They never say that they want the code to be open sourced so they can work on it.

-----
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it /is/ a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

» login or register to post comments
Mod Designer

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by Fyron on Fri, 2008-05-30 12:49.

I've been constantly hounding Aaron to finally release the SE3 source code as he said he would so that I could work on it...


SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

» login or register to post comments
Shrike's picture
Mod Designer

Re: Its Time To Say Good Bye

Submitted by Shrike on Mon, 2008-06-02 05:32.

And yet, some do. I simply love what came out of the released Jagged Alliance 2 source code after a few years. The V1.13 mod is unanimously considered to be a lot better than the original game ever was and it is being improved upon constantly.

----------
See my PBW game stories on http://users.pandora.be/banzaiboy/sevpbw/.

» login or register to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Now on STEAM

Now on STEAM!Space Empires V via STEAMSpace Empires IV via STEAMSTEAM online by Valve Corporation

Popular content

Today's:

  • Star Wars SEV ship set available
  • No Point Defence in Technology in Balance mod
  • New Engine System
  • Research By Percentage SUCKS
  • Space Empires V and VI: Expansions and the Future: Tell the Company What's on Your Wish List

All time:

  • Space Empires V and VI: Expansions and the Future: Tell the Company What's on Your Wish List
  • Space Empires V
  • Gritty Galaxy Fleet Clash
  • Damn Dirty Bugs/Annoyances
  • Space Empires V: General Thoughts, Observations, and Suggestions

Last viewed:

  • Ministers RE:Demo
  • Artful Sacrifice
  • Where to get Mods? and Can I help?
  • Creating stars too close to warp points blocks the warp point
  • How do you delete a waypoint?
(c) Strategy First, Inc. All rights reserved.