7 ms·

OpenMW 0.40.0 Released

184 points by rocky1138 10y ago

cyphar 10y ago
It's awesome to see free software games being made, and it's pretty cool that someone decided to reimplement one of the best open world games made. Finally I might be able to play it on my GNU/Linux machine.
- mynameislegion 10y ago
  This is only a free software game engine, not a free software game.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    However, they plan to expand the free software editor to the point where you could create fully free game assets. So while it doesn't have that _yet_, it's on the pre-1.0 roadmap.
- a3_nm 10y ago
  You can already play Morrowind in GNU/Linux using Wine. It works fine except for some minor glitches.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    Emphasis on the words free software. Games are very under-represented in the free software world.
    - Narishma 10y ago
      Only the engine is free software. The game data is proprietary.
      - cyphar 10y ago
        True. However, OpenMW has a game editor and the 1.0 roadmap states they want to make the creation of games using the engine doable without requiring any of the proprietary assets from the original game. I expect this will take a while, but you can already create maps without needing all of the "game creation" functionality -- and I have no doubt someone will make a clone of the original once the editor is up to snuff.
kevinmchugh 10y ago
It's very good, runs the original game and both expansions very well. Mod compatibility isn't complete yet, but they're working on it. It's great to be back in that world, and to be able to play natively on a Mac or Linux machine. Edit:The most important mod,Tamriel Rebuilt works flawlessly. http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org
boriskourt 10y ago
Awesome to see this project here! It also comes with an open source creation kit that allows for standalone (non mod) games to be built with no Morrowind associations. The whole thing runs on top of Open Scene Graph, and is multi-platform out of the box. Their GitHub has some useful information as well: https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw
partycoder 10y ago
I loved that Morrowind, especially the music, and the fact that you could see the stars at night. A very immersive game. However today it might look a bit dated, I hope for this project that can bring some cool upgrades to the Morrowind experience as well as that it can thrive from a legal standpoint. Now, I never really enjoyed the fact you could enter a shop and steal from it, and then sell it to the vendor. In Oblivion they fixed that.
- ashark 10y ago
  A handful of games trigger a deep sense of nostalgia and... I don't know what you'd call it, home-sense I guess. Morrowind's (relative) immersiveness, large world, and first-person perspective trigger it hard. Walking off that dock is like coming home. Big thanks to the project contributors. Morrowind's one of a few games that I'll probably never go more than 2-3 years without playing at least a little bit, and their work makes that much easier.
- boyter 10y ago
  From memory you couldn't. The owner would say something like hey that's mine and you would gain a bounty instantly and guards would chase you.
  - ashark 10y ago
    IIRC you couldn't sell to the person who was marked (behind the scenes) as the object's owner, but the object wasn't classes as "stolen" and made impossible to sell to anyone but a fence, as it would be in later games.
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    He might be thinking of Daggerfall, where you could use the "wait" command in a shop until the shop closed, then take all the items off the shelves and none of them were considered stolen.
  - partycoder 10y ago
    You could if you sold items from one vendor to another vendor, e.g: from another town.
iamcreasy 10y ago
Another group of developers are remaking Morrowind using Skyrim's engine. They call it "The Elders Scroll Renewal Project". Their latest dev video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  On balance I wish I hadn't clicked that link. It's impressive. :) I adored Morrowind and spent a ridiculous amount of time in it. I liked Skyrim, but regretted the lack of depth of quests and in the world which is built around you being a special snowflake.
btown 10y ago
The legal status of this is fascinating. Essentially, it's blessed in a series of email by Bethesda, as long as the OpenMW team doesn't explicitly promote its use on mobile platforms - with the understanding, of course, that as a cross-platform open-source engine, it could certainly be used for that purpose. Bethesda had every reason to find legal ways to shut down the project (it's quite the opposite of a clean-room implementation), but they worked to find a happy medium that allowed the project to coexist with its own mobile ambitions. https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails But it's certainly unclear in the general case whether engines that require the user to provide their own (presumably legally purchased) data files are derivative works of the original engine. It's even more iffy when, as is the case for https://pokemmo.eu/ https://pokemmo.eu/ , it might be illegal in certain jurisdictions to obtain a ROM even if you have purchased the physical product. Of course the creators protect themselves legally, but is it ethical for a software product to effectively encourage users to break a law that is itself unethical? (IANAL)
- Sevrene 10y ago
  So what's the difference between this and the whole Mojang 'scrolls' debacle? Seems pretty strange Bethesda would let this fly compared to simply naming your name Scrolls.
  - UVcuvv 10y ago
    They are required to defend trademark, just to keep it.
  - sythe2o0 10y ago
    Presumably there is no attempt by the open source devs to trademark their work.
  - justinlardinois 10y ago
    Trademark versus copyright. Also, my guess is that a court would reject the idea that you could trademark as common a word as "scrolls," and Mojang simply conceded to avoid a costly legal battle.
beefsack 10y ago
I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge what I feel is the greatest FOSS reimplementation of a game engine: OpenTTD[1]. I'm sure many here fondly remember Transport Tycoon Deluxe, but for those who don't know it, imagine Sim City but only the transportation side of things (sea, air, road and rail.) The cities grow organically and you need to connect them with each other and industries dotted around the map. It also has multiplayer which is really fun if you want to work either with or against others. It seems the game is really enjoyable for analytical / engineering types, and I still love to play it after over a decade since I found it. Nowadays, OpenTTD is available via most popular distros' package managers, along with free graphic and sound assets so you can jump right in[2]. [1]: https://www.openttd.org/en/ https://www.openttd.org/en/ [2]: pacman -S openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx apt install openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx yum install openttd openttd-opengfx
- Sevrene 10y ago
  I love OpenTDD, but I had no idea you could install it with package managers. That's awesome.
- PercussusVII 10y ago
  I'd like to take this opportunity to hijack the thread
  - sctb 10y ago
    Please stop. We ban accounts that don't comment civilly and substantively.
- mbrock 10y ago
  Building efficient rail networks is one of the most interesting parts of the game. OpenTTD extends TTD with "presignals" and "path signals" which allow much better junctions and stations. https://wiki.openttd.org/Signals https://wiki.openttd.org/Signals https://wiki.openttd.org/Building_railway_stations https://wiki.openttd.org/Building_railway_stations https://wiki.openttd.org/Advanced_signalling_examples https://wiki.openttd.org/Advanced_signalling_examples
gravypod 10y ago
This is something that makes me extremely happy. I can't wait until someone tries something like this for FO3/NV as these are my favorite games. Hopefully then I can jurry rig some kind of coop system into the game. I can also be sure that my favorite game will be supported on all future hardware I run, fix any bugs myself, and keep it going until I die. Without VMs of course. This is very important to me as these sorts of things aren't like books or movies. People who don't game might not understand this. It's more like a really really long game of chess that gets you purposefully emotionally invested in certain characters. I think I'd feel emotionally sick if I lost the ability to be able to start Fallout 3/NV and I don't even play it that often due to college and work.
- kevinmchugh 10y ago
  There have been fleeting little explorations into co-op with openmw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg. It's lower priority for now than complete mod compatibility, but an obvious and awesome goal.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Yes it is an awesome goal. Great to see it.

184 points by rocky1138 10y ago

It's awesome to see free software games being made, and it's pretty cool that someone decided to reimplement one of the best open world games made. Finally I might be able to play it on my GNU/Linux machine.

mynameislegion 10y ago
This is only a free software game engine, not a free software game.
- cyphar 10y ago
  However, they plan to expand the free software editor to the point where you could create fully free game assets. So while it doesn't have that _yet_, it's on the pre-1.0 roadmap.
a3_nm 10y ago
You can already play Morrowind in GNU/Linux using Wine. It works fine except for some minor glitches.
- cyphar 10y ago
  Emphasis on the words free software. Games are very under-represented in the free software world.
  - Narishma 10y ago
    Only the engine is free software. The game data is proprietary.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      True. However, OpenMW has a game editor and the 1.0 roadmap states they want to make the creation of games using the engine doable without requiring any of the proprietary assets from the original game. I expect this will take a while, but you can already create maps without needing all of the "game creation" functionality -- and I have no doubt someone will make a clone of the original once the editor is up to snuff.

kevinmchugh 10y ago

It's very good, runs the original game and both expansions very well. Mod compatibility isn't complete yet, but they're working on it. It's great to be back in that world, and to be able to play natively on a Mac or Linux machine. Edit:The most important mod,Tamriel Rebuilt works flawlessly. http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org

boriskourt 10y ago

Awesome to see this project here! It also comes with an open source creation kit that allows for standalone (non mod) games to be built with no Morrowind associations. The whole thing runs on top of Open Scene Graph, and is multi-platform out of the box. Their GitHub has some useful information as well: https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw

partycoder 10y ago

I loved that Morrowind, especially the music, and the fact that you could see the stars at night. A very immersive game. However today it might look a bit dated, I hope for this project that can bring some cool upgrades to the Morrowind experience as well as that it can thrive from a legal standpoint. Now, I never really enjoyed the fact you could enter a shop and steal from it, and then sell it to the vendor. In Oblivion they fixed that.

ashark 10y ago
A handful of games trigger a deep sense of nostalgia and... I don't know what you'd call it, home-sense I guess. Morrowind's (relative) immersiveness, large world, and first-person perspective trigger it hard. Walking off that dock is like coming home. Big thanks to the project contributors. Morrowind's one of a few games that I'll probably never go more than 2-3 years without playing at least a little bit, and their work makes that much easier.
boyter 10y ago
From memory you couldn't. The owner would say something like hey that's mine and you would gain a bounty instantly and guards would chase you.
- ashark 10y ago
  IIRC you couldn't sell to the person who was marked (behind the scenes) as the object's owner, but the object wasn't classes as "stolen" and made impossible to sell to anyone but a fence, as it would be in later games.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  He might be thinking of Daggerfall, where you could use the "wait" command in a shop until the shop closed, then take all the items off the shelves and none of them were considered stolen.
- partycoder 10y ago
  You could if you sold items from one vendor to another vendor, e.g: from another town.

iamcreasy 10y ago

Another group of developers are remaking Morrowind using Skyrim's engine. They call it "The Elders Scroll Renewal Project". Their latest dev video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o

anexprogrammer 10y ago
On balance I wish I hadn't clicked that link. It's impressive. :) I adored Morrowind and spent a ridiculous amount of time in it. I liked Skyrim, but regretted the lack of depth of quests and in the world which is built around you being a special snowflake.

btown 10y ago

The legal status of this is fascinating. Essentially, it's blessed in a series of email by Bethesda, as long as the OpenMW team doesn't explicitly promote its use on mobile platforms - with the understanding, of course, that as a cross-platform open-source engine, it could certainly be used for that purpose. Bethesda had every reason to find legal ways to shut down the project (it's quite the opposite of a clean-room implementation), but they worked to find a happy medium that allowed the project to coexist with its own mobile ambitions. https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails But it's certainly unclear in the general case whether engines that require the user to provide their own (presumably legally purchased) data files are derivative works of the original engine. It's even more iffy when, as is the case for https://pokemmo.eu/ https://pokemmo.eu/ , it might be illegal in certain jurisdictions to obtain a ROM even if you have purchased the physical product. Of course the creators protect themselves legally, but is it ethical for a software product to effectively encourage users to break a law that is itself unethical? (IANAL)

Sevrene 10y ago
So what's the difference between this and the whole Mojang 'scrolls' debacle? Seems pretty strange Bethesda would let this fly compared to simply naming your name Scrolls.
- UVcuvv 10y ago
  They are required to defend trademark, just to keep it.
- sythe2o0 10y ago
  Presumably there is no attempt by the open source devs to trademark their work.
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  Trademark versus copyright. Also, my guess is that a court would reject the idea that you could trademark as common a word as "scrolls," and Mojang simply conceded to avoid a costly legal battle.

beefsack 10y ago

I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge what I feel is the greatest FOSS reimplementation of a game engine: OpenTTD[1]. I'm sure many here fondly remember Transport Tycoon Deluxe, but for those who don't know it, imagine Sim City but only the transportation side of things (sea, air, road and rail.) The cities grow organically and you need to connect them with each other and industries dotted around the map. It also has multiplayer which is really fun if you want to work either with or against others. It seems the game is really enjoyable for analytical / engineering types, and I still love to play it after over a decade since I found it. Nowadays, OpenTTD is available via most popular distros' package managers, along with free graphic and sound assets so you can jump right in[2]. [1]: https://www.openttd.org/en/ https://www.openttd.org/en/ [2]: pacman -S openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx apt install openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx yum install openttd openttd-opengfx

Sevrene 10y ago
I love OpenTDD, but I had no idea you could install it with package managers. That's awesome.
PercussusVII 10y ago
I'd like to take this opportunity to hijack the thread
- sctb 10y ago
  Please stop. We ban accounts that don't comment civilly and substantively.
mbrock 10y ago
Building efficient rail networks is one of the most interesting parts of the game. OpenTTD extends TTD with "presignals" and "path signals" which allow much better junctions and stations. https://wiki.openttd.org/Signals https://wiki.openttd.org/Signals https://wiki.openttd.org/Building_railway_stations https://wiki.openttd.org/Building_railway_stations https://wiki.openttd.org/Advanced_signalling_examples https://wiki.openttd.org/Advanced_signalling_examples

gravypod 10y ago

This is something that makes me extremely happy. I can't wait until someone tries something like this for FO3/NV as these are my favorite games. Hopefully then I can jurry rig some kind of coop system into the game. I can also be sure that my favorite game will be supported on all future hardware I run, fix any bugs myself, and keep it going until I die. Without VMs of course. This is very important to me as these sorts of things aren't like books or movies. People who don't game might not understand this. It's more like a really really long game of chess that gets you purposefully emotionally invested in certain characters. I think I'd feel emotionally sick if I lost the ability to be able to start Fallout 3/NV and I don't even play it that often due to college and work.

kevinmchugh 10y ago
There have been fleeting little explorations into co-op with openmw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg. It's lower priority for now than complete mod compatibility, but an obvious and awesome goal.
- gravypod 10y ago
  Yes it is an awesome goal. Great to see it.