10 ms·

Freeciv founded 20 years ago today

222 points by roschdal 11y ago

seviuqyelsdnirb 11y ago
Thank God, in all that time, they've never been tempted to apply any graphic design talent to the project. The 'Win 95 Look' never goes out of style!
- nolok 11y ago
  They created and worked for free on an open source project, and while graphics and UI are probably not their field of expertise anyone with talent in those and interested to help has always been able to. As far as I know, you have never been tempted to do anything to help them on that front either. But if that bothers you so much, feel free to ask for a refund !
- pilif 11y ago
  I'm sure they are not opposed to contributions by artists. Maybe that's an area you want to help them with, seeing you are an expert in these manners. (Remember: freeciv is a community effort. Complaining is always much easier than helping to make it better)
  - exDM69 11y ago
    This is a huge issue in open source game projects. It's very difficult to find talented artists who are willing to put in their time. To some extent the same issue bugs open source art tools (like Gimp, etc), what those projects would need is some professional artists using them, at least every now and then. If professional programmers had a similar attitude to open source programming tools, our industry would look very different than it does today (remember buying a compiler, on floppy disks, in a shrink wrapped box?). I wonder what personality trait in us programmers makes us willing to work without compensation on our free time and why it doesn't seem to be present in artists, user interface designers and others whose contributions would be valued by the community :)
    - rangibaby 11y ago
      I think it's part the fact that art is very susceptible to bike shedding and part "starving artist"; drawing concepts for a game is something I'm sure they could do for fun in their off time, but actually making graphics for a game is most definitely a Job in the biblical sense.
      - CapTVK 11y ago
        Old Freeciv unit graphic developer speaking up here...The current Freeciv graphics you see in-game set is called "Amplio". It has been tweaked throughout the years (10?) but still based mostly on the original Amplio set. Creating a decent looking tileset (GPL licence)from scratch (no Civ2/official scenario units or derivatives allowed) isn't easy. Luckily I knew some scenario makers & graphic designers from the Civ2 scenario community and received their permission to use some of their work in Freeciv. They made some amazing stuff* in their days and a selection of their work is included in the Amplio set. There a few units in there by me as well. If you look closely you'll even find a small easter egg. *For those who still have a copy of Civ2/ToT lying around and have some time to burn. Check out Captain Nemo's "Red Front" scenario. It's a full blown civ2 re-enactment of operation Barbarossa from start to finish with changing rulesets & tiles (summer and winter conditions). Too bad that Freeciv didn't really have any proper scenario tools. "Red Front" would have been a perfect showcase.
    - SXX 11y ago
      I think main problem isn't really lack of artists around, but lack of management. Many programmers start contribute to open source projects because it's easy to start and it's also relatively easy to accept contributions for project leaders. Basically if you're programmer you can find some some project on github, check that some feature missing or bug exist and just by reading code implement or fix it. If you just stick to the project coding guidelines most of the time you'll get code review, advices, requests and then contribution going to be accepted. Easy. In same time when you're UI designer it's not easy. UI designer would have to prove that his version of UI is better and why. As there is no one managing project and take decisions it's can be tough to argue with programmers. And for artist there is usually no one to talk with at all. What worse due to lack of management most of open source games don't even have some list of assets they need, not even talking about art style guidelines. So problem isn't the fact that artists don't want to contribute, but that there is no one to accept these contributions. Just as everyone they don't like idea of working for rubbish bin. PS: Project where art contributions handled properly is 0 A.D. So open source game with quality art and style is doable, but require some management effort.
  - arbitrage 11y ago
    This is the classic response to criticism of open source projects. It tends to drive away people who otherwise might have been convinced to help. Unfortunately, while the comment above was rather acerbic and in poor taste, the idea that you should keep your comments to yourself unless you can directly help the situation is not in itself helpful. For instance, I can point out that you might have a scary looking mole on your neck, and should probably go see a dermatologist, without actually being a dermatologist.
    - jimktrains2 11y ago
      Saying a UI is difficult to use, doesn't adhere to convention, &c, even saying it may not look sexy/ggod/æsthetic for a reason is one thing. Chiding the author for a "Win95" look is just childish.
- ino 11y ago
  I played the hell out of freeciv between 2003 and 2005 and even at the time there were different tilesets or skins to choose from.
- eeZi 11y ago
  Those are vintage screenshots. It appears to look like this nowadays: https://play.freeciv.org/webclient/?action=new https://play.freeciv.org/webclient/?action=new
  - johansch 11y ago
    Hey, that was kinda evil. I expected screenshots, instead I was thrown into a live game and ended up spending quite a lot more time than intended. ;P
    - joosters 11y ago
      I just lost half an hour there... and probably some more time in the future ! Th web based game works great (and IMO the graphics are certainly polished to at least civ3 standards).
  - plonh 11y ago
    Welp, they sure optimized the ad loading code. I got to see nice animated ads while staring at a Loading spinner for the app.
  - J_Darnley 11y ago
    Nothing is shown there. I assume it needs javascript. Why would I need javascript to a page with image links?
    - sp332 11y ago
      You need JS to play the game in your browser. https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Still has a very vintage vibe to it; I'm not sure how favourably it compares with Civ II (1996)... Some people appreciate retro looks, but everything from the sprite resolution to the colour palette feels like a nineties aesthetic.
DiabloD3 11y ago
Dear God, I've been playing this for that long? Its just as bad as nethack. Okay, almost as bad as nethack. Goddamnit nethack, go away, I have work to do.
- Scarblac 11y ago
  How can you say that during the yearly /dev/null tournament? :-)
- incompatible 11y ago
  I played Freeciv quite a bit, I guess it was at least a decade ago. There were usually online games running. There was a player ranking system and you could even review previous games. It's a vicious game though, the best players were fast and aggressive. In recent years, whenever I looked at it, there's nobody online.
digi_owl 11y ago
News like this brings to mind a guys age...
roschdal 11y ago
Hi everyone! Just a note that you can play Freeciv today at https://play.freeciv.org https://play.freeciv.org - source code here: https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web We're always looking for more good developers!
- JohnTHaller 11y ago
  And if you're on a computer you can't install to or prefer to keep it on an external or cloud drive, you can grab the portable package, too: http://portableapps.com/apps/games/freeciv_portable http://portableapps.com/apps/games/freeciv_portable
- ISL 11y ago
  Or, apt-get install freeciv . Just enjoyably spent an hour remembering exactly how quickly an hour goes when playing freeciv.
- erikb 11y ago
  I'm curious what are people working on in a 20 year old project? I only know young efforts like these. They mostly focus on getting anything close to the featureset of the original game. But I figure after 20 years that's not a problem with freeciv anymore, right?
  - roschdal 11y ago
    We have recently spent a significant amount of effort on making Freeciv playable in a browser. Porting the game to new platforms is a continous development effort. Freeciv-web is now playable in any HTML5 browser, but there are still many things to improve in the game.
rav 11y ago
> The irony of it all is that last year when i had a couple of computer science applying for a job, they told me that they had assignments of doing bits and parts of a civilization clone at the university as part of the studies, so i guess that the university got smarter in the meantime. Yes, indeed. The Software Architecture course at Aarhus University (which is where the FreeCiv founders are from) now contains the HotCiv project: "This project develops a framework for defining strategy games similar to the classic computer game, Civilization." The lecturer, Henrik Bærbak, wrote a textbook for the course: http://www.baerbak.com/description.html http://www.baerbak.com/description.html
- reycharles 11y ago
  FWIW I remember the book to be not very good.

222 points by roschdal 11y ago

Thank God, in all that time, they've never been tempted to apply any graphic design talent to the project. The 'Win 95 Look' never goes out of style!

nolok 11y ago
They created and worked for free on an open source project, and while graphics and UI are probably not their field of expertise anyone with talent in those and interested to help has always been able to. As far as I know, you have never been tempted to do anything to help them on that front either. But if that bothers you so much, feel free to ask for a refund !
pilif 11y ago
I'm sure they are not opposed to contributions by artists. Maybe that's an area you want to help them with, seeing you are an expert in these manners. (Remember: freeciv is a community effort. Complaining is always much easier than helping to make it better)
- exDM69 11y ago
  This is a huge issue in open source game projects. It's very difficult to find talented artists who are willing to put in their time. To some extent the same issue bugs open source art tools (like Gimp, etc), what those projects would need is some professional artists using them, at least every now and then. If professional programmers had a similar attitude to open source programming tools, our industry would look very different than it does today (remember buying a compiler, on floppy disks, in a shrink wrapped box?). I wonder what personality trait in us programmers makes us willing to work without compensation on our free time and why it doesn't seem to be present in artists, user interface designers and others whose contributions would be valued by the community :)
  - rangibaby 11y ago
    I think it's part the fact that art is very susceptible to bike shedding and part "starving artist"; drawing concepts for a game is something I'm sure they could do for fun in their off time, but actually making graphics for a game is most definitely a Job in the biblical sense.
    - CapTVK 11y ago
      Old Freeciv unit graphic developer speaking up here...The current Freeciv graphics you see in-game set is called "Amplio". It has been tweaked throughout the years (10?) but still based mostly on the original Amplio set. Creating a decent looking tileset (GPL licence)from scratch (no Civ2/official scenario units or derivatives allowed) isn't easy. Luckily I knew some scenario makers & graphic designers from the Civ2 scenario community and received their permission to use some of their work in Freeciv. They made some amazing stuff* in their days and a selection of their work is included in the Amplio set. There a few units in there by me as well. If you look closely you'll even find a small easter egg. *For those who still have a copy of Civ2/ToT lying around and have some time to burn. Check out Captain Nemo's "Red Front" scenario. It's a full blown civ2 re-enactment of operation Barbarossa from start to finish with changing rulesets & tiles (summer and winter conditions). Too bad that Freeciv didn't really have any proper scenario tools. "Red Front" would have been a perfect showcase.
  - SXX 11y ago
    I think main problem isn't really lack of artists around, but lack of management. Many programmers start contribute to open source projects because it's easy to start and it's also relatively easy to accept contributions for project leaders. Basically if you're programmer you can find some some project on github, check that some feature missing or bug exist and just by reading code implement or fix it. If you just stick to the project coding guidelines most of the time you'll get code review, advices, requests and then contribution going to be accepted. Easy. In same time when you're UI designer it's not easy. UI designer would have to prove that his version of UI is better and why. As there is no one managing project and take decisions it's can be tough to argue with programmers. And for artist there is usually no one to talk with at all. What worse due to lack of management most of open source games don't even have some list of assets they need, not even talking about art style guidelines. So problem isn't the fact that artists don't want to contribute, but that there is no one to accept these contributions. Just as everyone they don't like idea of working for rubbish bin. PS: Project where art contributions handled properly is 0 A.D. So open source game with quality art and style is doable, but require some management effort.
- arbitrage 11y ago
  This is the classic response to criticism of open source projects. It tends to drive away people who otherwise might have been convinced to help. Unfortunately, while the comment above was rather acerbic and in poor taste, the idea that you should keep your comments to yourself unless you can directly help the situation is not in itself helpful. For instance, I can point out that you might have a scary looking mole on your neck, and should probably go see a dermatologist, without actually being a dermatologist.
  - jimktrains2 11y ago
    Saying a UI is difficult to use, doesn't adhere to convention, &c, even saying it may not look sexy/ggod/æsthetic for a reason is one thing. Chiding the author for a "Win95" look is just childish.
ino 11y ago
I played the hell out of freeciv between 2003 and 2005 and even at the time there were different tilesets or skins to choose from.
eeZi 11y ago
Those are vintage screenshots. It appears to look like this nowadays: https://play.freeciv.org/webclient/?action=new https://play.freeciv.org/webclient/?action=new
- johansch 11y ago
  Hey, that was kinda evil. I expected screenshots, instead I was thrown into a live game and ended up spending quite a lot more time than intended. ;P
  - joosters 11y ago
    I just lost half an hour there... and probably some more time in the future ! Th web based game works great (and IMO the graphics are certainly polished to at least civ3 standards).
- plonh 11y ago
  Welp, they sure optimized the ad loading code. I got to see nice animated ads while staring at a Loading spinner for the app.
- J_Darnley 11y ago
  Nothing is shown there. I assume it needs javascript. Why would I need javascript to a page with image links?
  - sp332 11y ago
    You need JS to play the game in your browser. https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- notahacker 11y ago
  Still has a very vintage vibe to it; I'm not sure how favourably it compares with Civ II (1996)... Some people appreciate retro looks, but everything from the sprite resolution to the colour palette feels like a nineties aesthetic.

DiabloD3 11y ago

Dear God, I've been playing this for that long? Its just as bad as nethack. Okay, almost as bad as nethack. Goddamnit nethack, go away, I have work to do.

Scarblac 11y ago
How can you say that during the yearly /dev/null tournament? :-)
incompatible 11y ago
I played Freeciv quite a bit, I guess it was at least a decade ago. There were usually online games running. There was a player ranking system and you could even review previous games. It's a vicious game though, the best players were fast and aggressive. In recent years, whenever I looked at it, there's nobody online.

digi_owl 11y ago

News like this brings to mind a guys age...

roschdal 11y ago

Hi everyone! Just a note that you can play Freeciv today at https://play.freeciv.org https://play.freeciv.org - source code here: https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web We're always looking for more good developers!

JohnTHaller 11y ago
And if you're on a computer you can't install to or prefer to keep it on an external or cloud drive, you can grab the portable package, too: http://portableapps.com/apps/games/freeciv_portable http://portableapps.com/apps/games/freeciv_portable
ISL 11y ago
Or, apt-get install freeciv . Just enjoyably spent an hour remembering exactly how quickly an hour goes when playing freeciv.
erikb 11y ago
I'm curious what are people working on in a 20 year old project? I only know young efforts like these. They mostly focus on getting anything close to the featureset of the original game. But I figure after 20 years that's not a problem with freeciv anymore, right?
- roschdal 11y ago
  We have recently spent a significant amount of effort on making Freeciv playable in a browser. Porting the game to new platforms is a continous development effort. Freeciv-web is now playable in any HTML5 browser, but there are still many things to improve in the game.

rav 11y ago

> The irony of it all is that last year when i had a couple of computer science applying for a job, they told me that they had assignments of doing bits and parts of a civilization clone at the university as part of the studies, so i guess that the university got smarter in the meantime. Yes, indeed. The Software Architecture course at Aarhus University (which is where the FreeCiv founders are from) now contains the HotCiv project: "This project develops a framework for defining strategy games similar to the classic computer game, Civilization." The lecturer, Henrik Bærbak, wrote a textbook for the course: http://www.baerbak.com/description.html http://www.baerbak.com/description.html

reycharles 11y ago
FWIW I remember the book to be not very good.