Relics from the Past

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Kyran
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Relics from the Past

Post by Kyran »

Found an old summary of the state Stratagus was in back in 2005 by Kimmo Merikivi. Aleona's Tales is coming back baby!
Because Blizzard sent Cease and Desist -letter to FreeCraft-stuff, development was shut down. As being Open Source -project, many people had fresh CVS-repository and nearly everyone could have given rebirth to project (And I REALLY hoped that when this happend). Not that didn't happen, unfortunately. I think it could have been done as it was, but with different name. So, someone started new project using FreeCraft-sources, that's that Stratagus. Unlike FreeCraft, it really was meant to be generic RTS-engine, not for just one game with two different datasets. There is still some hardcoded things, but greatest weakness, pud-map format was removed from CVS-version some time ago. As I already told, it is possible to make different games with Stratagus. First ones were Wargus, game wich works with WarCraft II data (ATM someone is making StarCraft-version, I think also WarCraft I is planned, but I'm not sure) and Aleona's tales wich was meant to base it's work to FreeCraft Media Project and Robovaision. Aleona's tales was, in fact, meant to be Free Craft Fantasy Edition, but it didn't got much developers, Stratagus-developers made LUA-conversion but that was all. Nothing happend. You can still get Aleona's tales and if you have much time in your hands, you can port it to newer Stratagus-version (I would do that if I had time, and develop it too, maybe). Robovaision had some plans, but also it hasn't released anything since starting of project. After some time of development, Stratagus 2.0 was released and it had better support for other games. In that time Battle of Survival and Magnant appeared and someone began to "make" Acron hunt and GnomeGnation. Battle of Survival has nice graphics and sounds, but unfortunately it's main developer died. In CVS-version it has got some new features and it still has good graphics and sounds, it is good game, but because it lacks depth, I don't like it. Fun until you learn to beat AI, I could say (In fact, I am "enemy" (but also "friend") of BoS, so don't belive me). Magnant has nice graphics and sounds and is basically single-raced WarCraft/FCMP with ants. Quite good game, but there isn't very much development anymore, as far as I know, and it seems it's not "offically" available for download. But it's developer has done something, but I really don't know, what, tough. Acron hunt and GnomeGnation have never come anything. Only ideas. Last time I checked (I'm too lazy to check it now), there was about 40 "developers" in GnomeGnations projcet-page (in SourceForge). I wonder what on earth they're doing. And Acron hunt.. It has never come anything. Shor after that, Astroseries appeared. At first it used FreeCraft with modded graphics, but now it is ported to Stratagus 2.1. Quite good game. Graphics aren't best possible, but I don't mind that. I've spent some time playing it. In start of year 2005 I released game named Battle for Mandicor, using Stratagus too. If you don't want hear text written by fanatic developer, please skip this. **Flame begins*** Battle for Mandicor is fantasy RTS game and it's fantasy-world is very much like Tolkien's. Me nor my little brother haven't written much about story, because we don't have much time (and most text is in Finnish, even more is only in our minds). Many graphics are still placeholders (But that is getting better, two skilled artists have joined the project, TimberDragon (Who is now also main-artist of BoS) and Geargolem. TimberDragon has made many dwarven-buildings, example of his work is found http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/b ... iew=markup - I'm too lazy to search for link-tag, TimberDragon has been lots offline past months tough. Geargolem joined project about month ago and he is skilled artist, like TimberDragon, http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/b ... iew=markup is example of his work) Sounds are still very placeholder, I need good sound-artist ;). But if you don't mind much about placeholder-graphics and terrible sounds (Even my little brother prefers to turn them off), BfM is a very good game. More researchs, units and buildings than other Stratagus-games and is expanding much faster. Unfortunately I've been quite lazy past weeks and most work I've done isn't expanding game). And when story is more complete, it will be worth of reading, even if you don't like game ;). ***Flame ends*** And there is short-version of this. Stratagus: - Project started, because FreeCraft-development was shut down - Is generic engine and can be used with much games - Has many nice new (compared to FreeCraft, also anyways) features, but I can still make much feature-requests. ;) - As being engine, it still isn't "game" and needs game using it. - Still, it is engine. And rating of games: - Wargus, good if you have WarCraft II. Good graphics and sounds (Because they are from WarCraft). Doesn't work without it. - Battle of Survival, nice graphics and sounds, but lacks depth (this is getting better, but slowly, because developers don't like placeholders). - Magnant, this could be what you seek. Nice graphics and sounds, basically WarCraft II with ants - Astroseries, also same thing, sounds and graphics aren't very good, but it is nice game and has too races and quite long campaign. - Battle for Mandicor, the youngest project, I'm it's main-developer and has greatest depth, but has many placeholder-graphics (but the ones wich aren't, are good) and awful sounds. - Aleona's tales, was meant to continue FCMP/FCMP Fantasy edition, but uses old CVS-version of Stratagus, so you cannot get it easily working (because it doesn't use any release) and hasn't been developed expect conversion from ccl to lua. - Robovaision, old project, nothing has ever released - GnomeGnation and Acron hunt, middle-aged projects, nothing is ever released For you real question, there isn't FCMP anymore. Wargus uses WarCraft II data and Aleona's tales doesn't work with any released version of Stratagus nor with newest CVS. You could mix these two projects, make Wargus use graphics and sounds from Aleona's tales, but this will take long time. But if you were real fan of FreeCraft, this isn't impossible. If you have any questions, come to #stratagus@Freenode, thanks. -- Kimmo Merikivi (KimmoKM)
04:27 jim4 why haven't you added wc1 support? this project sucks. i'm only going to use freecraft
05:06 jim4 finished wc1 support yet? i've been waiting for 6 years
05:10 jim4 new things scare me
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Big Daddy
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Re: Relics from the Past

Post by Big Daddy »

How about some proper paragraph formatting
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Kyran
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Re: Relics from the Past

Post by Kyran »

Linux Tome where I quoted this from doesn't allow for paragraphs.
04:27 jim4 why haven't you added wc1 support? this project sucks. i'm only going to use freecraft
05:06 jim4 finished wc1 support yet? i've been waiting for 6 years
05:10 jim4 new things scare me
User avatar
Big Daddy
Posts: 118
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 11:23 pm

Re: Relics from the Past

Post by Big Daddy »

Ah yes, Linux-related media is notoriously backwards. However, I can say with some slight certainty that phpBB does allow for proper formatting... unless I'm mistaken. Shit, am I mistaken again?

I'm probably mistaken. Ah well, c'est la vie.
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