Sauerbraten rated worst Open Source FPS?

by SanHolo on 12/30/2007 22:54, 131 messages, last message: 11/25/2017 23:24, 118486 views, last view: 04/27/2024 15:04, closed on 11/25/2017 23:38

There's an article over at Slashdot that links a report of linux-gamers.net which compared 7 open source shooters. Since the site is slashdotted ATM, all I can get from /. is the ranking: (best to worst) Warsow, Tremulous, World of Padman, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, OpenArena, and Sauerbraten.

I hope the site will be back online soon to see their arguments... :P

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#72: ..

by geartrooper2 on 01/03/2008 22:29

http://johnny3d.promail.ca/concept/rect7140.png

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#73: polish

by Megagun on 01/03/2008 23:16

Yes, what Sauerbraten needs is polishing.

Part of the reason why I like both Urban Terror and Tremulous, is that both games have an extreme ammount of polish to them: guns sound like guns, lots of attention to detail, menus work, etc. Personally, I think that the sound guns make is something that is *very* important and often overlooked: if a gun sounds like it should (or like you expected it to), it \"feels\" right and the enjoyment of the game is increased drastically.

But with polish I also mean game polish and menu interface polish. Things will just have to feel right, which is why people apply polish to their games. A menu interface, even though many of you might not like it, would be a good thing. Plus it might actually make things slightly faster, since you don\'t have to load metl4 anymore (instead can hop straight onto a server)... ;)

What you might do is add a uniform (same levelstyle, etc.) singleplayer campaign and a nice GUI for it (Unreal Tournament\'s Tournament interface was neatish)...

Again though, if weapon sounds are improved, I bet Sauerbraten\'s game (I personally think that the engine is hyperawesome, whereas the game is somewhat fun. Regen capture with 16 people is fun thogh) will be vastly improved, or at least feel as if it is vastly improved.

It is often quite surprising how much small little tweaks can optimize the feel of a game enormously.

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#74: Re: agreed

by Drakas on 01/03/2008 23:16, refers to #47

Let's feed the noobs a bit more, shall we?

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#75: Re: polish

by Drakas on 01/03/2008 23:23, refers to #73

You think that will improve Sauer, you think this will improve Sauer. What are you talking about? If you don't like something - here! Here's the source! Use it!

If you think sounds are bad, *contribute*. If you think that Sauer needs more SP maps, *contribute*. If you don't like the current GUI system, *contribute*!

Yeah, just "add a singleplayer campaign" <--- ????


You are just talking and you will never get to work itself, which, is actually what the developers have achieved. Oh, and they have a vision not to create a standard suckup game with Halo 3, UT and Gears of Wars components.


I think that it may even offend the people behind Sauerbraten when people speak like this... "add a singleplayer campaign", "add new weapons" and such... What a load of ****


Oh, by the way, do the reviews actually mean that Sauerbraten is the worst? Or are just they giving their own opinion? Where does this game qualify as the worst? Definitely not in the reality of what it is. And definitely in these peoples' opinions.



[/rant]

Forgive me if I sound like a total jackass.
My opinion on the situation here. Might not be correct. Don't take offensively.

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#76: Re: polish

by Drakas on 01/03/2008 23:37, refers to #73

You know... The more appreciatable things are constructive criticism and good quality feedback. That means:
* What you think would work - new weapon sounds
* Why it would work - better game experience
* Other examples - other games
* Opposite examples - similar games using basic sounds
* How it perhaps could be implemented - depends
* How you could help - for example, you searching for good sample sources.

Also, ideas that are not OBVIOUS will be much more useful :)


I know two people who have been asked to search for sounds. And guess what? The search is very difficult, unlike you are thinking.

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#77: Re: agreed

by gilgamesh on 01/04/2008 00:30, refers to #74

"Let's feed the noobs a bit more, shall we?"

What's wrong with making things simpler for new players? It helps them and saves us from having to answer their questions. Win-win situation.

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#78: Cool.

by conorkirk@mac.com on 01/04/2008 01:16

I like Aardrappel's idea, but I have a suggestion:

In the menu, like after you start playing, "Quit" should be renamed to "Quit Sauerbraten" to avoid someone from thinking that goes to the menu.

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#79: Splash Proposal

by Blindabuser on 01/04/2008 03:11

Hi,
I've followed Aardappel's directions, and I've thought to make my own splash-screen attempt. I've tried my best, and here are the results: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2yrpkz

Most of the 3D stuff has been made directly within the Sauerbraten editor, then imported in Photoshop and worked out a bit. The splash size is 1024x768 (it's supposed to cast a smooth shadow over the background texture, if seen at larger resolutions, as showed on my screenshot).

The small text field below, should be dynamic, and show the game version (and/or other stuff, is needed).

For those wondering... carotennaro and Blindabuser are the same person. I'm not really fond of posting on forums (I'm mostly a lurker) so I had set up a fictitious account to test people's reactions to my proposal, before revealing myself. Sorry... XD

Let me know what you think.

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#80: Re: Splash Proposal

by Blindabuser on 01/04/2008 03:14, refers to #79

Sorry, the correct image URL is the following: http://usera.imagecave.com/carotennaro/SauerSplash.jpg (I wish I could edit my own posts :P)

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#81: Re: Splash Proposal

by MovingTarget on 01/04/2008 03:58, refers to #79

Hey, no need to hide yourself, we're nice people around here (when there is not an abundance of flaming going on)! Anyway, great job with the splash screen, it's a nice start.

If the text is dynamic, why not have the two IronSnouts dynamic too. Or like someone suggested earlier, have a minimal menu and a demo video playing in the background.

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#82: Re: Splash Proposal

by SheeEttin on 01/04/2008 05:29, refers to #81

Make the Ironsnouts actually standing on those ledges (maybe with the idle animation running, as MovingTarget suggests), and it'll look better.

Oh, and maybe /shaderdetail 2 for those images, please, the glare looks bad... (And the steel tile could look a bit grimier, but that's probably just the texture.)

One last thing: The version info looks out of place there. Dunno where else it could go, though...

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#83: Map_gui concept

by steve_e on 01/04/2008 05:36

One of the ideas was a map that loads that runs the gui (not a splash screen as such), so here is a map file to test that idea out that has map images from the base directory as well as the sauer logo (in two parts to keep it 2x2 texture):

http://tigerleo.com/igd/cube2/test_gui.zip
(download and extract to the sauerbraten directory, then type 'test_gui' [without quotes]to run)

Not 2D, but if the selected textures were really nice bumpspecmapparallaxglowworld textures (perhaps glowing lights or something - I just used an existing texture with these attributes) then a really neat 3D opening interface might be able to be created. When gui2d 1 mode it is effectively a 2D interface, when gui2d 0 then it is a 3D interface (duh!).

This sets the thirdperson to true, so afterwards you may need to type 'thirdperson 0' (without the quotes) in the concole.

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#84: Re: polish

by SanHolo on 01/04/2008 09:57, refers to #75

Take it easy, Drakas, he's just pointing out his opinions on a more polished game. ;)

-----

I like the posted start screens a lot, this was a very good idea!

For the size of the start screen - Sauerbraten could load a tiny map (like the one Blindabuser created for his screenshot with 2 Ironsnouts standing in front of a wall), render the menu centered and the "player" can't move (except for the mouse). That way resolution independence would be granted with minimal effort.

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#85: cool

by Aardappel_ on 01/04/2008 12:09

I'll whip up an implementation in cvs soon (once I am back from holland probably), then you can all try to replace the image, which will probably be easier. I may stick ironsnout in there actually rendered in 3d, that will be cooler.

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#86: Re: My two cents

by JadeMatrix on 01/04/2008 13:49, refers to #68

steve_e, did I mention I liked it? *scatterbrained*

On a side note, I'm working on a Cubescript tutorial. So far I'm working on ch 3 (section on intro to GUIs). I'll get 1 and 2 here or on the wiki (hopefully) when I get the chance. (read within the next week)

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#87: ..

by Passa on 01/04/2008 15:00

Bah, I don't login to the forums for a few days and I miss an awesome topic like this?!

I spend all day playing 'polished' games, those $20 million dollar epics that sell millions of copies. I also play Sauerbraten normally every day. Yeah, Sauerbraten isn't 'as polished'. It isn't anywhere near as slick and smooth compared to something like Nexuiz. But is Nexuiz fun? Hah, no chance in hell is Nexuiz fun, at all.

Sauerbraten does suffer from feeling like a game that is cobbled together with contributions from many different people. Guess what, that's what it IS. Slowly though, that's starting to change. The new hud-guns? The replacement of the legendary ogro? The fact that the first page of the map list contains maps that look as good, and play better than what you'll find in recent commercial FPS games? That's all steps in the right direction.

Things like how the entire game.. text.. has no capitalisation at the start of sentences, no full stops, etc etc probably adds to the whole 'unfinished feel' ..

Anyway I'm ranting aimlessly. I can't get over the whole 'it has no community' comment though. Those asshats honestly believe Nexuiz, Padman, Alien Arena, OA.. that they have more players than Sauerbraten?!

Even taking in the bots that roam empty servers in Nexuiz and Alien Arena into account - Sauerbraten still has 5x the players :P

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#88: Re: My two cents

by steve_e on 01/04/2008 16:40, refers to #86

"steve_e, did I mention I liked it? *scatterbrained*"

No, just "I\'ve seen my brother play it (he died like a bajillion times, the newb)" lol ;) thanks.

The cubescript tutorials sound great - I will be looking forward to reading them when you post them up.

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#89: Re: polish

by Megagun on 01/04/2008 17:22, refers to #75

Bleh. I was just writing an extremely (!) lengthy post about the reply by Drakas, inserted some screenshot of Tremulous to give you all an idea about some way of adding polish, hit backspace and everything was lost.. Pure awesomeness. I'll try to sum up what my post was a bit about.... Sorry for the lack of any explanation of whatever I'm about to say now; my motivation to reproduce my entire post isn't existing.

The general outline of my post was though that I haven't gotten the time to actually contribute to Sauerbraten, because of other projects which already too are all competing for my attention and motivation. Rest assured, though, I know enough about content creation to be able to talk about it without looking like a total oblivious fool..

Motivation (ideas based on my own experiences with motivation and projects, feel free to use googling skills to read more of my ideas regarding this subject and the source of my ideas about motivation): Motivation is built by showing interest in a project and contributing interesting ideas to it (by means of an intellectual discussion). Motivation is key in developing. Decrease motivation by not giving enough feedback when asking for feedback about bugs (IE: hardware, software settings, errors being given, etc). Decrease motivation of the people who are going to increase developer motivation (read: people doing intellectual discussion!!!) by flaming. motivation is key. Motivation is powerful. Do not underestimate the strength motivation gives you when developing a project.

Drakas: have you yourself contributed to Sauerbraten? Looking at the readme, the wiki, and Quadropolis, it seems like you have not. Are you one of those people who yells "CONTRIBUTE PLZ!!" to those people who want to have an intellectual discussion about things regarding a project, whilst not actually contributing themselves?

And yes, I actually have dealt with content creation before. So I think I at least know enough about it to be allowed/able to talk about it.

Sound stuff (want to contribute? Go ahead!):
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/ (requires registration to download, can play through a flashapplet)
http://ccmixter.org/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (use it to change sounds you want to change a bit!!!)

Polish in general: Polish only is not good (see WarSow: awesome polish, yet I do not like the game itself due to the gamestyle). Lack of polish means game not being really awesome (Tremulous: lots of people who do not 'get' the game and gameplay: Tutorial mode would fix it). Polish is good. Gameplay is good. Together they make awesome. Lack of polish in a game makes irritativeness and lack of seeing how well the game actually is.

Polish: Tutorial modes for editing, playing and multiplayer etiquette (SENDMAP and GETMAP and showing whta can go wrong: a user building a house, but destroying another's palace in coopmode)
More polish: tremulous-style tutorial mode (http://home.deds.nl/~megagun/temp/blaattrem.jpg look to the left)
More polish: look at Urban Terror 4.1's tutorial mode!

Whoever had trouble with getting a serverlist on Tremulous on mac: Tremulous by default sets the multiplaer serverlisting to "LAN/LOCAL". Might want to switch that to "INTERNET" to get the serverlisting.
Tremulous: note that Tremulous has Creative commons game media and awesome weapon sounds and models.
Urban Terror, whilst having great weapon sounds, is not licensed under something like CC. but asking the UT developers might be a good idea? Lots of realisticish weapon sounds with great quality!

General outline of post: why flame and decrease developer motivation when you can have an intellectual discussion and thus INCREASE developer motivation?
Other outline of post: Contributing without having thought-out ideas makes useless and stupid.

Note that I respect developers. No developers => No Sauerbraten. It is never my intention to badmouth developers or decrease their motivation to work on Sauerbraten.
Also note that developers should also be aware of the fact that their content or work might be replaced eventually due to better content or a change in project goals. This is completely naturally. If someone makes a sound that isn't really high quality, they should be aware of the fact that it might be replaced later on.

----

Now excuse me while I go and play some Sauerbraten. Love the Ironsnout. Including the Ironsnout in favor of the Ogro made Sauerbraten look much more polished. Great job! :D

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#90: Re: My two cents

by JadeMatrix on 01/04/2008 19:36, refers to #88

steve_e: Cubescript Tutorial chs 1-4 (kinda) posted. Will fix license soon.

Megagun:
AFAIK, Drakas is not a content contributer; however, imho he contributes alot in discussions on various topics.
Automatically set to local/lan? I'm pretty sure I changed that... not that I've have much time to learn new games lately...
And I like the ogro. If we could get a new (read md3) ogro model, that would be a good start to letting players choose their in-game appearance (start with either ogro, IS, model3 and model4... 2/4 isn't a bad start)

(+ 2 2) lol

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#91: Re: polish

by Drakas on 01/04/2008 22:58, refers to #89

As a matter of fact, yes, I have; read: "woop clan", "fragfest". "Not letting the gamer community evolve into a dead community."

You have the keywords; the rest should be self-evident.

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