Arianne ALPHA 2 Released

Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin writes "Arianne is a Game Engine to build Internet games and applications. You can use it to create your own games, from RPG to Realtime strategy games, arcade or Turn based strategy ones." We noted Arianne two years ago.

Miguel continues: This release of Arianne is a major milestone on our goal to get a working framework for simple online games creation. It features a new working and playable 2D Client with new gfx, music and sfx.
This release features also a working RP system on C++ with the next actions: Move, Chat, Attack, Spell, Get, Put, Consume, Look.
Arianne allows now a hardware limited number of connections to the server so you can have as much players as your hardware allow.
All files on Arianne features XML syntax.

Go to Arianne and get it.
Report problems with Arianne to Sourceforge Bugs Tracker

P.S:
We need binary packages for BeOS and MacOS X.
We need reports about BeOS, MacOSX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, IRIX, QNX, Linux and Windows NT.
We need new GFX ( don't ask what are them, look and do ).
We need new SFX ( _.wav )

wow

Wow,

So that means I can make my own Q3?

How about one based on financial shenanigans?

Arianne 5?

So when are they going to release Arianne 5?

I would love to see it crash and burn...

Screenshots

Haven't these people heard of cropping an image?

Oh yeah, your desktop is very r33t, but I don't care what it looks like. Crop the image to the window or take a screenshot of only the window.

Yoda

We need new GFX ( don't ask what are them, look and do ).

You help have from the Force
You need my help not
You need new SPLCHCK (ask what are them not, look and do !)

Re:Yoda

Alternatively, you could stop taking the piss out of the guys' English. I'm betting its a second language for him. Unless you can talk his first language (Spanish?) at least as well as he talks English your best bet is prolly to hush up.
OR you could be constructive and sign up with the the project on the Documentation Team and offer to help out with the language side of things.

Licensing

From the front page...

We still need to discuss the LICENSE of Arianne as actually code is only usable for GPL projects and being an engine that perhaps is not good, also we need to avoid the GPL 2.0 blackhole by, perhaps, switching to Affero GPL to disallow service providers to avoid the GPL restrictions to enforce users rights. Our goals should be:

Open Source

Disallow possible ways of close RP, AI or framework of the Engine

Allow creation of close source clients easily

Disallow use of Arianne by Service providers that doesn't collaborate into Open Source

The resulting license and the discussion to reach it should be done on arianne-general. I WON'T allow any kind of Arianne special License. We DON'T forbid commercialization of Arianne, we forbid closing source the application.

Apart from the fact that I can only make sense of one word in three, I smell confusion. If the code is currently released under GPL, then I guess that's because either (a) it contains code borrowed from some other GPL'd program, (b) one or more of the developers has decided to copyleft their contribution, or (c) both of the above. If you want to modify the license in some way, you'd better start re-writing the parts of the code which are under GPL.

Let's look at these goals:

> Open Source

GPL does that.

> Disallow possible ways of close RP, AI or
> framework of the Engine

GPL does that.

> Allow creation of close source clients easily

Why would you want to do that? As RMS would say, "We are not excluding them from our community; they are choosing not to enter".

> Disallow use of Arianne by Service providers
> that doesn't collaborate into Open Source

Why would you want to do that? If they're not producing a "derivative work", then they cannot infringe on anyone's copyright. I'm not entirely sure what's meant by "collaborate into"; if it means "contribute", then it's blatantly unfair (why should a distributer/service provider have to also write code for the priviledge?); if it means "co-operate with", well it still doesn't make sense :) Are we trying to stop people making money from selling free software and related services?

> We DON'T forbid commercialization of Arianne

GPL doesn't do that either.

> we forbid closing source the application.

GPL does that.

I don't understand where this compulsion to avoid the GPL is coming from. I mean, we're writing *free* software here, yes? Seems to be the perfect candidate from where I'm sitting.

(For the full story on "commercialisation" vs GPL see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html)

Is it just me

or does anyone else tremble in fear at the thought of clicking on any link in the .cx domain.

Risque

Join Arianne
Know Arianne
RoadMap
Who is who
Latest Code

Oooh err, we get to "know" Arianne as well? Anybody else find those biblical connotations amusing?

Congratulations

to the Arianne folks on all their hard work!

And now for something much better: NeL !

There's this company called Nevrax founded by Slashdot reader Lejade [slashdot.org] that makes a MUCH better engine: NeL [nevrax.org] AND it's released under the GPL, AND they are using it to make a very unique looking MMORPG called Ryzom [ryzom.com].
Check out the screenshots in the "download" section! Although beware: the site is not very Mozilla friendly and uses Quicktime and Realmedia. Bleurgh! :(

Engines, but where are the RPGs?

Almost offtopic, but it relates:

So I'm browsing around last night for an RPG, or really any game which looks especially interesting. I run across many RPG engines... more engines than games. While this and other engines of course are interesting, I'm looking to play on them. Can someone tell me (us) where to get the good RPGs and other games?

WildTangent?

Sounds [from an outsiders point of view] like its similar to wildtangent [wildtangent.com]. Wildtangent has a pretty nice engine, very well documented. Of course, I don't think its GPLd, but just to point out that there are other 'internet engines' out there.

On an aside, try some of the games if you can. They're good-looking, and some of them are real fun.

Destined for failure.

I recommend they skip . [sun.com]

Cheating...

"Cheating is not going to be allowed nor tolerated; if you are caught cheating you are going to be kicked off of the server and your possessions given to the local lord."

Wow! Too bad the US government wasn't running Arianne prior to Enron et al...

Destined for failure

I recommend that they skip version 5 [sun.com].

Re:another "game development on the cheap" thread

perhaps a rewrite of an old console classic *hint* *hint*

and unless the game is abandonware, get royally sued by the company that owns the "console classic".

Re:WHAT THE FUCK?

ALpha 2? And it was noted here two years ago?

When's it going to be finished. The next apocalypse?

Actually, Larry Wall has been releasing those at a pretty steady clip.

Re:Why?

Because Flash and shockwave are slow, not designed for network play, and have poor sound in comparison.

Re:another "game development on the cheap" thread

yet I got modded "Off Topic"......... oh well :( - HeXa

Re:a link would have been nice

It is.

Just click on Miguels name.

Not really obvious I admit, but it is in the story.

First place, even.

That said, it is in the responsibility of the editor to place a link in this case. Probably michael just searched slashdot, just knowing that a game running on linux must have been mentioned on slashdot already.

Re:could it be they dont have a clue

Because of the way the client/server model works they could easilly have a 3-d engine that works with the same server as the 2-d engine. FWIW the movement is along three Axis, so it is truly capable of a real 3-d engine too. Perhaps somone will write an arianne capable client salvaging code that was open sourced by id software or something.
BTW the 2-d graphics are actually prety good, some improvements in the tiles, the addition of some layers (ala SNES) and you could almost get baldur's gate quality.
And yeah as a framework this project hasn't come very far in the past two years. However with enough interest they could easilly have a better system. MUDs weren't written in a day (and they're mostly text) for a graphical engine framework that can do everything from a single player RPG to a MMORPG to (potentially) a 3-d shooter they've managed to come a long way.