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If Rembrandt could duplicate his canvases for free why not? Why can't official Dwarf fortress exist alongside clones? Didn't seem to hurt the Quake engine and

If Rembrandt could duplicate his canvases for free why not? Why can't official Dwarf fortress exist alongside clones? Didn't seem to hurt the Quake engine and Carmack's engines were every bit the craftmanship as DF. Today you can run Quake on anything, it's been modded for VR support, new effects, etc. DF? We'll be lucky if it doesn't die and people hack it anyway. You gotta respect people's desire to control their baby, doesn't mean it's productive, though. He'd literally lose nothing other than some notion of control by releasing it out in the open. He might even be able to find a novel open source business model if he tried (though that's not his desire or goal). The last part about understanding does make sense; though if development was out in the open he'd have no problems finding people to explain it.

jhbadger 10y ago
I know at least in some cases the reason for people not wanting to make something open source is that they don't want people to complain about their style of coding or to say that they are "obviously" bad programmers because they don't use design patterns or whatever the critic's favorite philosophy is.
- snerbles 10y ago
  I imagine a DF source release would spark a handful of Medium articles lambasting Tarn's coding practices.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    And at least a few praising them as a refreshing new alternative to blah blah blah, or something.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
snerbles 10y ago
The engine is the foundation upon which the content runs...but engines in and of themselves aren't content. In the case of most game engines, the two are well-separated. In the case of Dwarf Fortress, I imagine the content and the engine are heavily coupled - if not one and the same. Separating the two will be an enormous task for Tarn, who likely has other priorities in DF development and is uninterested in the inevitable bikeshedding that will result should he open the whole project open up to others. He's a mathematician, not a software engineer or project manager. > You gotta respect people's desire to control their baby, doesn't mean it's unproductive, though. While I agree, you'll probably find that his notions of "unproductive" will be wildly different than yours.
- vvanders 10y ago
  Depends, usually the content and engine become quite intertwined about 3 months before release as you try to squeeze every MB/cycle out of hardware. Even then game design will dictate architectural choices(off the top of my head streaming, networking and platform all have huge engine implications and can't be easily retrofitted).
db48x 10y ago
Quake was only open-sourced years after it was superseded by more advanced games. It was still an awesome thing, and I'm glad that ID seems to have made it a tradition. What I like about Open Source software is that I can audit it to make sure it's doing what it says it's doing, and that I can modify it to make it work better on my system. I miss that when I'm playing a game. But games are art, and art is a little different than non-art. I don't want to spoil the fun of a game by looking at the source code for it; I like that the author has some definite vision for the game. I don't even like to visit a forum for a game in order to report a bug, because I'm bound to read about other bugs in the game. I frequently enjoy games that are moddable, but if I start looking at mods too soon, then I also feel like the game is spoiled. Early-access games are also somewhat problematic, although I've been playing Factorio for years now, with no regrets. I wish there were a level in-between. If games were half-way open source, so that the platform layer was open source while the game mechanics and artistic vision were not, then I would be happier about it.
- ChoGGi 10y ago
  Quake was only open-sourced years after it was superseded by more advanced games. It was still an awesome thing, and I'm glad that ID seems to have made it a tradition. Not since id Tech 4 (Doom 3/Quake 4), now it's proprietary (thanks ZeniMax).

jhbadger 10y ago

I know at least in some cases the reason for people not wanting to make something open source is that they don't want people to complain about their style of coding or to say that they are "obviously" bad programmers because they don't use design patterns or whatever the critic's favorite philosophy is.

snerbles 10y ago
I imagine a DF source release would spark a handful of Medium articles lambasting Tarn's coding practices.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  And at least a few praising them as a refreshing new alternative to blah blah blah, or something.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

snerbles 10y ago

The engine is the foundation upon which the content runs...but engines in and of themselves aren't content. In the case of most game engines, the two are well-separated. In the case of Dwarf Fortress, I imagine the content and the engine are heavily coupled - if not one and the same. Separating the two will be an enormous task for Tarn, who likely has other priorities in DF development and is uninterested in the inevitable bikeshedding that will result should he open the whole project open up to others. He's a mathematician, not a software engineer or project manager. > You gotta respect people's desire to control their baby, doesn't mean it's unproductive, though. While I agree, you'll probably find that his notions of "unproductive" will be wildly different than yours.

vvanders 10y ago
Depends, usually the content and engine become quite intertwined about 3 months before release as you try to squeeze every MB/cycle out of hardware. Even then game design will dictate architectural choices(off the top of my head streaming, networking and platform all have huge engine implications and can't be easily retrofitted).

db48x 10y ago

Quake was only open-sourced years after it was superseded by more advanced games. It was still an awesome thing, and I'm glad that ID seems to have made it a tradition. What I like about Open Source software is that I can audit it to make sure it's doing what it says it's doing, and that I can modify it to make it work better on my system. I miss that when I'm playing a game. But games are art, and art is a little different than non-art. I don't want to spoil the fun of a game by looking at the source code for it; I like that the author has some definite vision for the game. I don't even like to visit a forum for a game in order to report a bug, because I'm bound to read about other bugs in the game. I frequently enjoy games that are moddable, but if I start looking at mods too soon, then I also feel like the game is spoiled. Early-access games are also somewhat problematic, although I've been playing Factorio for years now, with no regrets. I wish there were a level in-between. If games were half-way open source, so that the platform layer was open source while the game mechanics and artistic vision were not, then I would be happier about it.

ChoGGi 10y ago
Quake was only open-sourced years after it was superseded by more advanced games. It was still an awesome thing, and I'm glad that ID seems to have made it a tradition. Not since id Tech 4 (Doom 3/Quake 4), now it's proprietary (thanks ZeniMax).