15 ms·

EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

1262 points by Klaster_1 2y ago

danielktdoranie 2y ago
Hopefully this means we’ll get an iPadOS and macOS release :-)
anotherhue 2y ago
EA, I've cursed your name since you smothered Westwood. But thank you for this.
- keyringlight 2y ago
  Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood tells it a bit differently [0]. From memory after the EA acquisition they stopped doing their edutainment/casual games, which is where they used to nurture their junior developers along with taking on too many major projects because EA gave them the resources to do that. That led to less quality and later Westwood releases (Renegade, Emperor Battle for Dune) suffered. The podcast also includes details of Westwood's filming setup, which seemed to include motion tracking which would have been interesting in the context of performance capture, but before its time. [0] - https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/louis-castle https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/louis-cast...
HelloUsername 2y ago
Red Alert: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert Tiberian Dawn: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn Renegade: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade Generals Zero Hour: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour EA post: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-conquer-remastered/news/steam-workshop-support https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con... Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb (Deleted Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmml4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmml4/)
- adenta 2y ago
  praying for Red Alert 2
  - BuildTheRobots 2y ago
    Slightly odd (age wise) Generals got open sourced before RA2. I wonder why?
    - apetresc 2y ago
      It is apparently the case that the original source for Tiberian Sun and RA2 has been lost; EA doesn't have it. There's been rumours to that effect for a while.
      - evanjrowley 2y ago
        Thanks for the insight. I was wondering the same thing.
      - BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
        To acquire the source code we must first obtain the Tacitus.
        blibble 2y ago
        dead and back commander, dead and back I did very much enjoy the Firestorm expansion story line roughly: a rogue AI (CABAL) betraying the world to try and achieve its genocidal master (Kane)'s goals then because you can't operate your army without an AI, you steal the enemy's (non-crazy) AI and turn it evil one particularly memorable cheesy cutscene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjtiACglSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjtiACglSE General: CABAL is too dangerous and must be deactivated CABAL: No Generals, I will not allow it. My survival is paramount. (AI instructs its cyborgs begin the coup) CABAL: IT IS MY WORLD NOW! LISTEN TO THE SOUNDS OF YOUR OWN EXTINCTION, HUMAN I wonder if Altman played it...
      - 2y ago
Flimm 2y ago
Nice! Now this piece of video game history can be better shared and preserved. Does this repo include the artistic assists, or does it include the code only?
- ratmice 2y ago
  I think this qualifies as art. char insert_string1[]={"\n\r;\n\r"}; char insert_string2[]={";For some reason, inserting these lines makes it assemble correctly\n\r"};
  - inetknght 2y ago
    Oh boy when I see stuff like that in modern code, I start looking for undefined behavior occurring elsewhere in the same or dependent translation units...
    - dwattttt 2y ago
      Normally I'd totally agree, but looking closely, that's a _comment_. If it is a load bearing comment, we're looking at an assembler bug there. EDIT: Looking more closely, it's less absurd than this. The comment is referring to directives on the next lines that have an impact, rather than itself.
- bangaladore 2y ago
  > To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. I take that as buy the game to get the assets.
nicce 2y ago
> To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. > This repository and its contents are licensed under the GPL v3 license, with additional terms applied. Please see LICENSE.md for details. It does not sound open-source to me...
- josephcsible 2y ago
  I think they just mean that for the game to work, you'll need art assets, etc. from the original game that aren't part of the code they open-sourced. I don't think it's a licensing restriction. (And even if it were, they released it under the GPLv3, which says "If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.", so you could just ignore it.)
  - nicce 2y ago
    It certainly sounds like all you need is in the repository, and the usage of the resulting binaries are still restricted. Whether they find assets correctly or not correctly should not matter, if they are somewhere else.
    - Macha 2y ago
      > the usage of the resulting binaries are still restricted To use the binaries, you need the game assets. The only legal way to acquire the game assets is to own the game, as EA have not included them in this release. This is less a licensing issue, but stating the real limitations, that EA aren't volunteering to do the leg work to remove. Which is fine.
      - worldsayshi 2y ago
        Where are the assets for openra coming from? I guess those could be used in a fork of this?
        2y ago
ageitgey 2y ago
Who's going to be the hero that builds a modern update of C&C Generals/Zero Hour with 4k rendering, raytracing, etc?
- theandrewbailey 2y ago
  I'd settle for a native Linux build.
  - tete 2y ago
    Would be nice. But they all work just fine with wine and/or proton.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      I haven't tried wine in ~15 years, but it was pretty useless for gaming back then. Has it much improved?
      - Sesse__ 2y ago
        Basically the entire premise of the Steam Deck is built on WINE (via a Valve-developed fork, Proton).
        sho_hn 2y ago
        Noting that Proton is regularly rebased on upstream, and Valve is contracting CodeWeavers, the same company which employs many core Wine contributors. Fork is certainly technically the correct word, but "distribution" might give more the right impression.
      - khedoros1 2y ago
        When someone releases a game in a Windows version and a Linux version, the current Wine-based compatibility layers mean that the Windows one is more likely to run without issue than the native binary is. I built a Linux gaming desktop 5 years ago. The only thing that regularly causes more than minor issues is that many online games use incompatible anticheat technology. I pretty much play exclusively single-player games on PC, so it hasn't been a practical issue for me.
LorenDB 2y ago
According to some research I did a few years back, EA currently owns the rights to Full Tilt! Pinball, which is what 3D Pinball Space Cadet was based on. EA, if you have a single shred of decency, open source Pinball!
- Macha 2y ago
  From what I've heard from videos by Microsoft devs on why it was dropped between XP and Vista, the source code is obtuse and very difficult to port/work on.
  - theandrewbailey 2y ago
    Microsoft devs also claimed that making cmd faster would require years of research, but someone did that in a weekend by making it run on a GPU. I'm sure there's someone out there that would solve every problem Space Cadet has within a week, just for fun.
    - jimnotgym 2y ago
      I'm sure there are lots of large groups of devs who are undone by an upstart kid with a fresh perspective and no fear
      - josephg 2y ago
        Can confirm. I've been on both sides of that fence. I worked on a product about a decade ago which had an unnecessarily complicated custom layout system written in javascript. CSS was missing a lot of features at the time, so we figured we'd roll our own. It was crazy complicated - and it had all these weird easy to reproduce bugs. For fun, some pesky kid on twitter took our insanely layout system and reimplemented 95% of it in a couple hundred lines of (almost) pure CSS. At a glance, it looked identical to our product - but the code was small, clean and fast. The link got passed around the office. It was amazing how many reasons people had to dismiss it. "Ah, see - it doesn't even do this weird custom behaviour we have!" or "Well and good in chrome - but it doesn't work properly on IE8!" and so on. I've never seen a better example of motivated reasoning, before or since. What we should have done is reach out and offer that kid a job. The smartest programmer on your team isn't as smart as the smartest programmer on the internet.
boomboomsubban 2y ago
The complete C&C bundle with all open sourced games and several others is currently $6 on Steam, if you need the art assets https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer_The_Ultimate_Collection/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer... Hopefully this causes a sales spike and encourages other developers to do similar things.
- nottorp 2y ago
  Hmm there's also a c&c remastered bundle. Anyone knows if either of them includes stuff that requires an EA account?
  - sumtechguy 2y ago
    The remastered bundle does not need it.
    - nottorp 2y ago
      Well I hope you're right, I just bought both bundles. This is the first time I give money to EA since Mass Effect 2* :) * Technically i also paid for the Mass Effect collection for playstation, because Sony doesn't allow them to require a login on there. But it's the first time for a PC title since ME 2.
      - gimme_treefiddy 2y ago
        Damn looks like remastered one doesn't have the Zero Hour version in it.
        onli 2y ago
        No, that would be surprising. They only remastered C&C1 and 2. If you want Generals, buy the "Ultimate Collection" bundle.
      - sumtechguy 2y ago
modeless 2y ago
The complete game was released as freeware by EA over 15 years ago. It was freely available for download from EA's servers for many years and has been redistributed by many third party sites as well. So getting the art and other assets to use with this code should be no problem. https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.comman...
hd4 2y ago
I think this marks the first time EA have open-sourced a videogame, a welcome development.
- Macha 2y ago
  That would have been Micropolis in 2008, I think (better known as Simcity, the open source release was renamed to be super clear it doesn't include the trademark)
  - swat535 2y ago
    I think this is the biggest release of open source they have done, if am I wrong, someone correct me please. Either way I’m very impressed !
tete 2y ago
This is really nice and positively surprising for EA. While the RTSs are amazing I think Command and Conquer Renegade is one of the most fun games ever made as well. https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade What these people did is really amazing: https://w3dhub.com/ https://w3dhub.com/
tomw1808 2y ago
I am speechless. The most vile gaming company I know. The most beloved game I ever played. Now, Open source ... from them? How? Why? Marketing gag or a step in the right direction? But then, OpenRA has existed for a while - does that mean its getting even better? Where is this going?
- Macha 2y ago
  The official stated reason is to make life easier for modders, for the steam workshop mods in their latest releases.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  EA and Open Source isn't completely alien. Their C++ standard library EASTL was open sourced long ago and is a historically quite important and influential codebase in the history of C++'s evolution. They've also open sourced and patent-pledged a bunch of gaming-relatee accessibility tech over the years. And of course Micropolis/SimCity. My advice is to celebrate the successes of large corporates in this regard very hard and often - this provides backup to the champions on the inside.
  - tomw1808 2y ago
    > My advice is to celebrate the successes of large corporates in this regard very hard and often - this provides backup to the champions on the inside. I am wondering what the metrics / KPIs are they are tracking to see if open sourcing something is a success or not. Can't be just "sales went up for retro games when we open sourced" - there must be something like community reception and retention, general acceptance or whatever... But yes, I agree. Let's celebrate this and hope for more.
newsclues 2y ago
great news, thanks to id software for leading the way!
tosh 2y ago
Related: If you like the old Command and Conquer classics, give Combined Arms a try. https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-conquer-combined-arms https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-conquer-combined-arms
Starlevel004 2y ago
// Homework for today. Write 2000 words reconciling "Your code must never crash" with "Intentionally putting crashes in the code". Fucktard. // DEBUG_CRASH(( "xferScienceVec - vector is not empty, but should be\n" )); // https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blob/0a05454d8574207440a5fb15241b98ad0b435590/GeneralsMD/Code/GameEngine/Source/Common/System/Xfer.cpp#L646 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...
- inetknght 2y ago
  EA game devs cursing each other out? Internal company drama being aired out years later? Oh boy!
  - cluckindan 2y ago
    *Westwood
    - IntelMiner 2y ago
      Generals was EA Pacific (Formally Westwood Pacific, opened by EA)
- jsheard 2y ago
  // Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header // directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how // its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blob/main/Generals/Code/Main/WinMain.cpp#L615 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...
  - poizan42 2y ago
    ... because they just casted lParam into a pointer to DEV_BROADCAST_HDR a few lines above, which is the common part of the different structure it could point to. That's just doing inheritance the C way. What did they expect? A C++ class from a C api?
jklinger410 2y ago
This makes sense because OpenRA was doing so well!
kennysoona 2y ago
This is some very welcome and surprisingly, good news which has been really, really, lacking this year.
sho_hn 2y ago
This is very cool. It should be done a lot more often for old games. Whoever pulled this off at EA Games, you did a great thing for art and culture, and chapeau for pulling it off at a big corp.
grayhatter 2y ago
OpenRA did it better :D If you haven't seen it yet https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/ is worth your time. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA I have many fond memories of playing openra as "LAN" game on the gaming weekends we used to have in a few open source groups I've been in. I can't recommend "saturday gaming" enough, for anyone involved in any foss community, set up a recurring gaming weekend! You get bonus points if you make it mostly or exclusively foss games!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- IntelMiner 2y ago
  OpenRA is all well and good...until you want to play Tiberian Sun, or Red Alert 2 I'm still a little salty as someone who donated to the project in 2013 to add support and it's still not even at "alpha test"
  - grayhatter 2y ago
    If it's making you salty.... I don't think it's fair to call that a donation. I unfortunately don't have a better word yet, what's a word for money that's freely given but only with the expectation of some return in exchange? I'm also disappointed there's no OpenRA2... That was without a doubt my favorite RTS!
    - IntelMiner 2y ago
      I know it's an open source project and I'm not "owed" anything But watching them just drill away at every pixel of Tib Dawn and Red Alert 1 is like watching the Sistine Chapel be repainted as the world's most intricately beaten dead horse Was anyone really asking for a "C&C in-game wiki"?
    - cipehr 2y ago
      The word you're looking for is "gift." That is a gift.
bee_rider 2y ago
I only glanced at the code in ANIM.CPP but for a C++ program from 1997 it looks kinda nice, right? The methods are all short, with some descriptive comments at the top of each one. Inputs and outputs described. Nice index at the top of the file. I’ve seen worse!
- pcwalton 2y ago
  Yeah, I was looking at infantry.cpp, and the quality is actually very good for 90s game code. The documentation is good, it's decently well-formatted, and there are assertions. Nice counterexample to the "all successful games have terrible code" conventional wisdom.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > Nice counterexample to the "all successful games have terrible code" conventional wisdom. That's a modern wisdom from the last 15-ish years when people started to have good enough internet connections that you can get away with publishing a dozens gigabytes patch on launch day. In ye olde times, it was prohibitively expensive (or in the case of console ROM cartridges, impossible) to distribute patches, so projects were usually planned with plenty of buffer time and plenty human testers. These days it's rush to not collide with the releases of other AAA studios, and human paid-for testers have been replaced by free (or, sometimes, paying) early-access players.
  - philistine 2y ago
    I think survivor bias is at play here. C&C had many sequels, ports, expansion packs that helped make it popular. So of course it had nice code, otherwise we wouldn't have seen such a wide berth of reuse for that code.
- lucb1e 2y ago
  I made some games as a teenager and had the experience that I was basically forced to stop projects because they got too complex. Game Maker had only limited support for things like variable scoping; you really need to isolate components and have them all do their own defined thing to make it not grow too complex or you'll fix one bug and cause two new ones. Even more so as a team, I can only imagine, though I never concurrently worked on game code with more than one person (for longer than a literal weekend project, that is) Normal software I find is a bit different because things like UI libraries give you a lot of structure already. In game code, you do so many things custom, and performance matters so much (each frame needs to finish around e.g. the 17-millisecond mark) that it's really up to you to apply the necessary discipline
zamubafoo 2y ago
Shame they'll never do it for Warcraft 3 with the remaster still around.
SXX 2y ago
Whoever pushed for this at EA - my deepest respect is with you! Original C&C was rewritten from scratch long ago, but open source version of Zero Hour is such an amazing gift. PS: if you want to send respects to the person who did it you can do it on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jim-vessella-62726825_from-the-commandandconquer-community-on-reddit-activity-7300953625088901121-BWZL https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jim-vessella-62726825_from-th...
- pizzathyme 2y ago
  Agreed. Internally at companies like this, it's extremely difficult to get something like this approved. This is the result of a lot of meetings, a lot of "no"'s, a lot of legal approvals.
  - SXX 2y ago
    Let's be honest I can't view this anything other than miracle that was delivered to us by some very dedicated people who likely pushed this for years. I hope there will be more people and companies within industry making similar moves. It's will both increase their sales as well as allow fans to keep their favorite games alive.
- jacooper 2y ago
  Finally somebody can fix the mismatch errors in the game and make it actually playable again!
- CCHyper 2y ago
  Hey, that would be me! :D You can check out our full announcement post here; https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb/cc_steam_workshop_support_source_code/ https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb/...
  - SXX 2y ago
    Sorry for not mentioning you initially and thank you Sir for making it happen! I obviously love classical RTS and playing them since original C&C, but there are special place in my heart for Generals exactly because ot was different game. And for me as game developer seeing this game in a sad state make me sad. I feel it does have as much potential as AoE2 and now more people can try to bring new life to it.
rgbrgb 2y ago
Would be cool to jump in the codebase here with claude code and start riffing. Anyone get this or the others to compile on a mac?
Angostura 2y ago
No sign of the Ma version :(
colechristensen 2y ago
25 or 30 years would be a good amount of time for software copyright to expire. It would be fantastic if there was a way (somewhat like patents) where IP protection could be linked up with publishing materials so that in order to get the law to protect your software from copying, you had to have it published at the end of the protection period. (like on release you had to store the source code at the library of congress or something)
- aflag 2y ago
  Even if it expires after 30 years, if the company doesn't publish the source code, what good does it do?
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    Perhaps to get the copyright you should put the code in escrow? Not really, it costs a fortune
    - colechristensen 2y ago
      This is exactly what I meant though, put the code in a private third party library in order to gain IP protection.
    - account42 2y ago
      Escrow for source code only costs a fortune because the only demand for it is b&b software where contracts require it. It's not a fundamentally expensive service and if it was required in order to receive copyright protection then it would just be provided by the government either for free or at cost.
    - goalieca 2y ago
      Who wants to write it in a weekend with me?
giancarlostoro 2y ago
Who can we bribe at Microsoft to get Fallout 1 / 2 source code released? Would be really interesting when you consider that FO2 has online modding, so it would allow for so much craziness to ensue out of FO2...
- SXX 2y ago
  Fallout 1 and 2 were rewritten from scratch more than twice already. Several times as clone game engine with most popular being falltergeist: https://github.com/falltergeist/falltergeist https://github.com/falltergeist/falltergeist Second time as MMO client-server tech: https://github.com/cvet/fonline https://github.com/cvet/fonline FOnline for sure use nothing of original game except for assets. PS: So yeah source code of fallout wouldn't be of any use really except for historical archive.
  - account42 2y ago
    Reimplementations are never perfect replicas so the source code would at the very least be useful as a reference. Some people also want to play the original with only minor compatibility fixes for moderns systems without random unwanted "features". Your first link also talks about a "Development Roadmap" that doesn't give the indication that it's even fully playable yet.
amacneil 2y ago
That's nice, but who is working on porting this to the typescript type checker?
walrus01 2y ago
I wonder if the current owners will ever consider open sourcing Supreme Commander, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_(video_game)
- SXX 2y ago
  Might be you actually interested to work on that code? I do personally know some of main developers and they know who owns the IP, but to push something like that it will take some resources unfortunately. So might be if some people get together on this it's could be done. It's wouldn't cost some immense amount of money, but it will certainly cost some. At least I pretty sure that source code for the games is not lost.
  - walrus01 2y ago
    I wouldn't be the guy to work on the code, not being a game developer or even adjacent to it. I work in ISP/telecom core network infrastructure, so would be happy to help out with questions on stuff like DIYing a set of self-hosted servers for a revival of the game.
    - SXX 2y ago
      Don't you know? Multiplayer for SupCom is alive and well with FAForever: https://www.faforever.com/ https://www.faforever.com/ They also have patches, but they obviously limited since it's all just patching memory.
      - walrus01 2y ago
        Yes I'm aware it exists, was thinking more of what theoretical infrastructure might be needed if the full art assets/code/etc for the final release of Forged Alliance was open sourced and further built upon. My understanding is that FA Forever is a group of people who've implemented a server replacement since the officially-hosted multiplayer servers went offline some time in 2012.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ww520 2y ago
We used to waste so much time on this in the lan party.
arduanika 2y ago
Finally, EA does the optimal thing to benefit all humanity!
iancmceachern 2y ago
Great memories, playing these when they came out against my crew.
tomaytotomato 2y ago
"Compiling" "Cannot compile, building in progress"
- CrimsonCape 2y ago
  Lol, we need a terminal extension to play these sounds when compiling. "Building-Unit Ready" is burned in my brain.
  - tomaytotomato 2y ago
    Or we could do one for unit tests, every time a test fails it should say "Unit lost", "Unit lost"....."Unit lost" If a build or deployment fails "A-bomb launch detected"
- lucb1e 2y ago
  Unable to* compile, building in progress as I recall, at least. I may have played tibsun to death on my grandma's computer. Not that I spoke a word of English back then, so this must have been from replaying it later actually
binary132 2y ago
The comments on the Red Alert sources are so detailed. This is awesome. Major props to EA!
klaussilveira 2y ago
> If you wish to rebuild the source code and tools successfully you will need to find or write new replacements (or remove the code using them entirely) for the following libraries; Take the hint, Valve. And Epic (UT99). Having third-party code is not an excuse.
- jamesfinlayson 2y ago
  I thought about this recently - probably Valve is reluctant to because people are still licensing both the GoldSource and Source engines (I think the last GoldSource engine license was in 2020 but the game hasn't even been announced; I think four Source engine games are due this year). If EA released the Nightfire engine code (very advanced GoldSource engine fork) that would be great though! But it's sad that John Carmack's example has not been widely followed.
  - klaussilveira 2y ago
    I completely forgot about Nightfire! What an amazing game it was.
    - jamesfinlayson 2y ago
      I know! I played some multiplayer (against bots) not long ago and I don't remember it from the first time around, but there were no blood decals. I wonder if Gearbox just developed one low-violence version that they could sell in all markets.
  - account42 2y ago
    This might be an argument if those engine licenses were more than a rounding error in Valve's profits. I seriously doubt that that's the case.
    - jamesfinlayson 2y ago
      I think it's more to protect the current licensees though - I have no idea how much an engine license costs, but I don't think it's cheap, and I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd dropped that money a year or two ago only to find out that the engine costs nothing. That said, I'd be a little surprised if any more engine licenses to get sold so maybe give it a couple of years.
InitEnabler 2y ago
I'll just leave this here. https://youtu.be/niZpcdp2v34 https://youtu.be/niZpcdp2v34
punnerud 2y ago
How hard would it be to convert this so it could run in the browser using WebAssembly?
1970-01-01 2y ago
I guess this is as close to public domain that software can be until the 2070s. Functionally no different to use, but you are not allowed to make any money selling it.
- lucb1e 2y ago
  > you are not allowed to make any money selling it. Why not? I don't see it in the additional terms, so if you mean the GPL part then https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
astrostl 2y ago
Best game intro [1] ever IMO. Fun story, compact length, epic soundtrack ("Hell March"). They did that in 1996 and nothing since has even come close for me. Had a ton of fun with the game itself, too. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJnMaTx4yjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJnMaTx4yjI
mhotchen 2y ago
Christ: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CODE/CONQUER.CPP https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CO...
icemelt8 2y ago
As a React developer, how does one even compile something like this
- swat535 2y ago
  It's in the README
- richardboegli 2y ago
  Generals has been compiled see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960
liamkearney 2y ago
Curious. Can anyone tell me if it’s windows thing, specific filesystem thing, source control system thing or just a style thing, naming all files and directories in caps?
- abanana 2y ago
  It came out not long after Windows 95, so it will have supported earlier versions of Windows, which had the 8.3 character all-caps filename limitation.
joquarky 2y ago
I wish they would release all the code and assets used to make Earth & Beyond.
Zardoz84 2y ago
now, if they open source Red Alert 2 engine ... That was a masterpiece of using voxels
nntwozz 2y ago
Good job, now open source Dark Age of Camelot. Thank you
hammock 2y ago
What is the best c&c style game that has been released in the last couple years?
- lucb1e 2y ago
  Beyond All Reason sorta isn't released yet, but I'm liking that a lot as an old C&C2/AoE1 fan
- Macha 2y ago
  C&C Remastered The 8-bit (armies/hordes/invaders) games play very much like a faster C&C. They had a sequel recently with 9-bit armies. Starcraft 2 for ages was basically "the last RTS", and it does have some differences from how the C&C formula, but then I always felt Generals took liberal inspiration from Starcraft compared to classic C&C too.
molave 2y ago
EA... good?
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
[flagged]
Sjonny 2y ago
There are loads of .BAK files as well, and diffing them with the actual file gives you some insight on what they were working on. (Like pre and post Counterstrike addon).
- CCHyper 2y ago
  Yup! Keeping those in there was important for us as we know the core community would love to see this historic data!
voidfunc 2y ago
Wow. Please do SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4 next EA!!
nomilk 2y ago
Alas, no red alert 2 (the best, IMO). But still this is such great news. Huge props to EA for this.
- 3abiton 2y ago
  I don't know why they're stalling, I wonder if there still any revenues from the game or if it's IP issue.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    This stuff is decades old. It's completely legitimate that they may simply have lost the source code during a server migration or whatnot.
    - MortyWaves 2y ago
      No, because Red Alert 2 Remaster exists...
      - jamesgeck0 2y ago
        Do you work for EA? Because they haven’t announced or released such a thing. A year ago a developer hinted there might be another remaster in the future, but it could just as easily be Generals as RA2.
      - rsstack 2y ago
        No, that was gaming tabloids misunderstanding a sentence by EA a year ago. It was never announced.
    - swat535 2y ago
      They didn’t announce it, the most likely explanation I’ve heard is that the original code is lost, along with Tiberian Sun
    - account42 2y ago
      It may be common but let's not take the average companies lax attitude to source code archival and backup as "legitimate". It's a disgrace for the industry that this happens so often.
dogancelik 2y ago
I really hope that one day they will open source Nox [1], it was my favorite childhood game after Sims. Nox was also a game created by the same studio that created Red Alert. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nox_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nox_(video_game)
breck 2y ago
[dead]
JanSt 2y ago
// Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header // directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how // its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME *vol = (DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME*) (hdr); // @todo - Yikes. This could cause us all kinds of pain. I don't really want // to even think about the stink this could cause us. TheFileSystem->unloadMusicFilesFromCD(vol->dbcv_unitmask); return TRUE;
- nomilk 2y ago
  This is kinda funny too: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/0dc09bb1d6188d1ec79ab4765b22a48b75ffee32/CODE/STARTUP.CPP#L1050C1-L1062C13 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/0dc09bb...
m463 2y ago
how prescient they were! "Nationalism will bring us victory!" "China will grow larger"
SaltyBackendGuy 2y ago
IDK why but it ironically brings me joy to find typos in old code. Maybe a reminder that we're all human (well back when code was written by humans /s). https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection/blob/master/REDALERT/INTERNET.CPP#L143 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection/...
- high_priest 2y ago
  Some influencer coder right now "i don't use IDE, because it makes my coding more detailed & thorough"
  - ChromaticPanic 2y ago
    We want that artisanal hand crafted environmentally friendly codebase
montag 2y ago
I heard this line of code `Sound_Effect(VOC_TANYA_LAUGH, Coord);`
- jaredhallen 2y ago
  Shake it, baby!
- edm0nd 2y ago
  You must construct additional pylons....wait....crap...wrong game!
superconduct123 2y ago
Some funny comments https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izpkmh/funny_generals_source_code_comments/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=commandandconquer https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izpkmh/...
- iab 2y ago
  ScenarioInit = 0; // Kludge. I vibe with the authors.
  - bbor 2y ago
    Ha, wow -- great minds think alike. Somehow I ended up at the exact same file (only went to one!) and was coming back to comment on exactly this line. What makes this especially funny is that this is the very second line of the entire game, at least in the case of Red Alert! So very CPP. For the curious: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CODE/CONQUER.CPP https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CO...
alanh 2y ago
A bit off-topic, but I found it very dystopian a few months ago to ask ChatGPT to describe the game in some detail. It refused to, claiming it violated content policy. Chilling.
Jd 2y ago
A bit challenging since none of the repositories I looked at actually compile. EA says that if you remove (or refactor!) the dependencies it might work but I don't know if that's high enough confidence to dive in.
- richardboegli 2y ago
  Generals has been compiled. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960
haunter 2y ago
>To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. The C&C Remastered Collection is available for purchase on EA App or Steam. Mind you EA released [some of] the games as freeware back in 2008 so no, you don't have to buy them for the graphics, art, sound, and music assets Tiberian Dawn GDI https://web.archive.org/web/20110927141135/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/GDI95.iso https://web.archive.org/web/20110927141135/http://na.llnet.c... Tiberian Dawn NOD https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060230/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/NOD95.iso https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060230/http://na.llnet.c... Tiberian Sun (though no source code was released for this game) https://web.archive.org/web/20110823002110/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/OfficialCnCTiberianSun.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20110823002110/http://na.llnet.c... Red Alert Allied https://web.archive.org/web/20100130215623/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/RedAlert/RedAlert1_AlliedDisc.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20100130215623/http://na.llnet.c... Red Alert Soviet https://web.archive.org/web/20100130220258/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/RedAlert/RedAlert1_SovietDisc.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20100130220258/http://na.llnet.c...
- seasluggy 2y ago
  Damn, hell march still slaps
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Thanks for spoiling my weekend. :)
- eighthourblink 2y ago
  .......and there goes my weekend :)
- WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  > you must own the game. Really weird choice of word, considering how “you can’t own the game, into a licence for it”.
DrNosferatu 2y ago
EA could release the source code of Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat and LHX.
rumdz 2y ago
Please open source Nox!
- haunter 2y ago
  Sim City 2000!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- seasluggy 2y ago
  [dead]
guidedlight 2y ago
Maybe someone can finally make a native Mac version. It astonishes me that EA leaves obvious money on the table by not taking the 5 mins it would take to recompile it for MacOS.
- bangaladore 2y ago
  This is a terribly naive comment. I'm not going to even go into the specifics. Lets assume they click one button and it recompiles, how many people would buy it? Almost certainly wouldn't pay back the dev and qa cost.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - wingerlang 2y ago
    I am sure there are people who has moved to macOS that grew on playing eg. Red Alert 1 who gladly would pay some amount of money to instantly own and play it again for some nostalgia. And by this I mean myself.
    - bangaladore 2y ago
      There are at least four dependencies that EA would have to replace for MAC. That would be an extremely complex task just for the first two. And who knows about the second. I just don't see a way for that to be profitable. Its no secret that games ported to Mac do poorly. DirectX 5 SDK DirectX Media 5.1 SDK Greenleaf Communications Library (GCL) Human Machine Interface (HMI) “Sound Operating System” (SOS)
      - wingerlang 2y ago
        Your assumed scenario was a magic button to recompile it.
- grg0 2y ago
  "The 5 mins it would take" --- Check the README on Red Alert, for example: If you wish to rebuild the source code and tools successfully you will need to find or write new replacements (or remove the code using them entirely) for the following libraries; DirectX 5 SDK DirectX Media 5.1 SDK Greenleaf Communications Library (GCL) Human Machine Interface (HMI) “Sound Operating System” (SOS) That still look like 5 minutes to you?
stormfather 2y ago
If anyone used to play Zero Hour, there is still an active community. They still have tournaments and world series. A guy called Dominator on Youtube casts it all and its a pretty entertaining blast from the past. I recommend checking out his channel.
- llamaLord 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure there was a weird bug in the original C&C generals where the game engine 'tick rate' was somehow tied to CPU cycles and assumed single-threading or something. I remember going back and trying to play it many years after it came out, and it was basically broken because the entire game moved at like... 2-3x the maximum speed it was ever meant to run at
- wingerlang 2y ago
  Same with Red Alert (etc) through the modern rewrite OpenRA (https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/). Similarly there is a guy FiveAces who has been commenting videos for nearly a decade.
ed_mercer 2y ago
Finally we can start fixing the insane amount of bugs in Zero Hour.
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tetrisgm 2y ago
I was a young teen when Command & Conquer came out. It was so damn cool. Westwood was at their peak: they made hit after hit after hit. The Kyrandia point & click series. The Eye of the Beholder series. Lands of Lore. Dune II. Everything they made was gold. They came in and made an RTS when we didn't have a term for this. It had a cool, modern soundtrack. It had a cool world and a story fleshed out in high production value FMV. Cutting edge CGI. We all know how Westwood died. Then the series had disappointing sequels, and a sad mobile title, and it all died until the remaster. The remaster felt like a well-executed effort, and a way to enjoy the classics on modern systems. Today's release of the source code is so exciting. A recognition that C&C is worth preserving. That its community is still excited for it. It allows the series to live on forever. For fans to go crazy. For all sorts of mods and tweaks to be enjoyed on Steam. It finally feels like after a decade and a half, C&C has a future. No longer a great old RTS, but one that has lots of excellent campaigns available on modern systems, moddable, and evergreen. Battle control... online :)
kangs 2y ago
I love reading the code that these people wrote when i was a kid enjoying the game. Never thought I'd have the opportunity when I was 10 and dreaming of these things haha.
29athrowaway 2y ago
I recommend this video "This is Why We Still Play Tiberian Sun in 2025" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIbuqy6bI2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIbuqy6bI2Y
trackofalljades 2y ago
"I'VE GOT A PRESENT FOR YA!"
dagelf 2y ago
For real, CnC Generals was the game that has taught me the most about the frivolity of war: there are no winners, both sides lose, it's just a grand burning of resources... for nothing. You build a wonderful base and war machine, only to watch it burn. If this was "required playing" to all kids, I would be greatly surprised if war would still be a thing... it basically mocks war. In the most fun way possible! Look up Jeffrey Sachs' address to EU Parliament, if you are unsure about the real geopolitics of this century... you won't find it in US media.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  Sachs is a moron. Here are some reasons why. https://voxukraine.org/en/open-letter-to-jeffrey-sachs https://voxukraine.org/en/open-letter-to-jeffrey-sachs
sour-taste 2y ago
The only thing I know about this game is that it's what Jeremy in pure pwnage played
Owlettotoo 2y ago
wow I didn't expect this from EA... Good for them, good for us, good for everybody.
extraduder_ire 2y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964 "EA will be releasing the C&C Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert source code under GPL3" May 20, 2020 253 comments
ghostpepper 2y ago
I like to think I caused this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42827280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42827280
thisOtterBeGood 2y ago
Found this gem in Recorder.cpp of generals: //Kris: Patch 1.01 November 10, 2003 (integrated changes from Matt Campbell) // Since we don't seem to have any *visible* desyncs when replaying games, but get this warning // virtually every replay, the assumption is our CRC checking is faulty. Since we're at the // tail end of patch season, let's just disable the message, and hope the users believe the // problem is fixed. -MDC 3/20/2003 //TheInGameUI->message("GUI:CRCMismatch");
- joerick 2y ago
  Hahaha. We used to get desyncs on networked games of Generals pretty regularly. I remember if a game took more than 30-40 mins I'd start to get a spidey sense things were about to go wrong
  - elephanlemon 2y ago
    Generals was one of our favorite LAN games. It seemed that as time went on this problem got worse and worse somehow, to the point where we gave up trying to play it at all. I have fresh hope again that this might one day be fixed!
    - scarby2 2y ago
      when generals was released it was the same time my high-school were encouraging everyone enrolled in specific classes to get laptops as part of a pilot program (with some of the money coming from the government). I started bringing a network switch to school so we could play during free periods/lunch (the wifi was problematic).
dzonga 2y ago
great in code documentation. but how to C++ folks cope. every C++ codebase looks like its own different language with so many dialects.
jacooper 2y ago
Now please, could somebody path C&C generals so we can play multi-player without every other game having a mismatch?
lukky513 2y ago
I hope that the events like this could start a bigger wave of opening the source for many other older games. To anyone else reading, who's passionate about the topic: reach out to the companies however you can! I can share a personal experience that it does sometimes work, and thanks to that, a somewhat niche game of Zatikon is getting a second life as a FOSS project :)
- CCHyper 2y ago
  Our intent with this release was to support the preservation of video games and the open source community. I hope that this release leads to more positive actions towards preserving classic video games across the industry :)
vanattab 2y ago
Neat! I am going to have to play with this for fun in my free time. C&C Red Alert was one of the first things that got me interested in programming and developing software, there was an ini file somewhere where you could control all the stats/wepons of the units. I had a blast making crazy units mods to units and it made me want to learn how to create games and software generally.
yowayb 2y ago
The hardest part about making a game is the art.
zenlot 2y ago
Just bought the pack + remastered on steam to support open sourcing old games.
lacoolj 2y ago
I just reached Nostalgia Level OVER 9000.
nickpsecurity 2y ago
One idea I had for open source games like this is AI experiments or training. Many people have been using Starcraft. If not it, they often use games that are nowhere near mainstream quality. My idea was to have games in various genres with different skills required, like planning or physical abilities. Then, set each one up to work with just the engine in a way where game state is easy to interact with. For instance, no graphics or pop-up menus. Then, iterative experiments, like genetic programming or neural networks, could run much faster. Later, a common interface to many of them, like human senses, might let them be used to build general knowledge for AGI experiments. Curious what people think of this. Especially a few exemplars in each category modified to just run really fast. For each, maybe training data on top of it that shows how to play the game. Seems like a cheaper option for testing architectures vs games not designed to do this.
nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
Looking at the README for Red Alert specifically and the various requirements, how is it possible that these run on modern Windows? OFC they're distributed via Steam as binaries + libs etc, but are they including these ancient versions of DirectX and the other dependencies with the downloads? Are these still compatible? I know Windows has/had for years remarkable backwards compatibility, but that's always been a source of confusion for me. Is there some monstrous "compatibility shim" somewhere for old DirectX APIs or something? What makes this possible? Edit: Wait was this a re-release at some point more recently? If so, I suppose that specific question is addressed, but that still pertains to other old games. How does Half-Life (or whatever) still work? Same story?
- account42 2y ago
  Yes, windows provides backwards compatibility for these old DirectX versions. They are probably mapped to a newer version internally. It doesn't take that much work to pull this off.
richardboegli 2y ago
Omniblade from Thyme project [0] managed to get Generals to compile [1][2] but there is still work to be done: [0] https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Thyme https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Thyme [1] https://discord.com/channels/409121752921276426/409121752921276428/1345188172375527504 https://discord.com/channels/409121752921276426/409121752921... [2] https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/compare/main...OmniBlade:CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour:feature/cmake https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/com...
hhcoder 2y ago
I used to play this game a lot (more Red Alert 2, which is actually hosted for free online somehow with multiplayer mode: https://chronodivide.com/ https://chronodivide.com/)
sureklix 2y ago
Can I have some shoes please? And also a MacOS version built via Claude 3.7?

1262 points by Klaster_1 2y ago

danielktdoranie 2y ago

Hopefully this means we’ll get an iPadOS and macOS release :-)

anotherhue 2y ago

EA, I've cursed your name since you smothered Westwood. But thank you for this.

keyringlight 2y ago
Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood tells it a bit differently [0]. From memory after the EA acquisition they stopped doing their edutainment/casual games, which is where they used to nurture their junior developers along with taking on too many major projects because EA gave them the resources to do that. That led to less quality and later Westwood releases (Renegade, Emperor Battle for Dune) suffered. The podcast also includes details of Westwood's filming setup, which seemed to include motion tracking which would have been interesting in the context of performance capture, but before its time. [0] - https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/louis-castle https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/louis-cast...

HelloUsername 2y ago

Red Alert: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert Tiberian Dawn: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn Renegade: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade Generals Zero Hour: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour EA post: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-conquer-remastered/news/steam-workshop-support https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con... Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb (Deleted Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmml4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmml4/)

adenta 2y ago
praying for Red Alert 2
- BuildTheRobots 2y ago
  Slightly odd (age wise) Generals got open sourced before RA2. I wonder why?
  - apetresc 2y ago
    It is apparently the case that the original source for Tiberian Sun and RA2 has been lost; EA doesn't have it. There's been rumours to that effect for a while.
    - evanjrowley 2y ago
      Thanks for the insight. I was wondering the same thing.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 2y ago
      To acquire the source code we must first obtain the Tacitus.
      - blibble 2y ago
        dead and back commander, dead and back I did very much enjoy the Firestorm expansion story line roughly: a rogue AI (CABAL) betraying the world to try and achieve its genocidal master (Kane)'s goals then because you can't operate your army without an AI, you steal the enemy's (non-crazy) AI and turn it evil one particularly memorable cheesy cutscene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjtiACglSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEjtiACglSE General: CABAL is too dangerous and must be deactivated CABAL: No Generals, I will not allow it. My survival is paramount. (AI instructs its cyborgs begin the coup) CABAL: IT IS MY WORLD NOW! LISTEN TO THE SOUNDS OF YOUR OWN EXTINCTION, HUMAN I wonder if Altman played it...
    - 2y ago

Flimm 2y ago

Nice! Now this piece of video game history can be better shared and preserved. Does this repo include the artistic assists, or does it include the code only?

ratmice 2y ago
I think this qualifies as art. char insert_string1[]={"\n\r;\n\r"}; char insert_string2[]={";For some reason, inserting these lines makes it assemble correctly\n\r"};
- inetknght 2y ago
  Oh boy when I see stuff like that in modern code, I start looking for undefined behavior occurring elsewhere in the same or dependent translation units...
  - dwattttt 2y ago
    Normally I'd totally agree, but looking closely, that's a _comment_. If it is a load bearing comment, we're looking at an assembler bug there. EDIT: Looking more closely, it's less absurd than this. The comment is referring to directives on the next lines that have an impact, rather than itself.
bangaladore 2y ago
> To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. I take that as buy the game to get the assets.

nicce 2y ago

> To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. > This repository and its contents are licensed under the GPL v3 license, with additional terms applied. Please see LICENSE.md for details. It does not sound open-source to me...

josephcsible 2y ago
I think they just mean that for the game to work, you'll need art assets, etc. from the original game that aren't part of the code they open-sourced. I don't think it's a licensing restriction. (And even if it were, they released it under the GPLv3, which says "If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.", so you could just ignore it.)
- nicce 2y ago
  It certainly sounds like all you need is in the repository, and the usage of the resulting binaries are still restricted. Whether they find assets correctly or not correctly should not matter, if they are somewhere else.
  - Macha 2y ago
    > the usage of the resulting binaries are still restricted To use the binaries, you need the game assets. The only legal way to acquire the game assets is to own the game, as EA have not included them in this release. This is less a licensing issue, but stating the real limitations, that EA aren't volunteering to do the leg work to remove. Which is fine.
    - worldsayshi 2y ago
      Where are the assets for openra coming from? I guess those could be used in a fork of this?
      - 2y ago

ageitgey 2y ago

Who's going to be the hero that builds a modern update of C&C Generals/Zero Hour with 4k rendering, raytracing, etc?

theandrewbailey 2y ago
I'd settle for a native Linux build.
- tete 2y ago
  Would be nice. But they all work just fine with wine and/or proton.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I haven't tried wine in ~15 years, but it was pretty useless for gaming back then. Has it much improved?
    - Sesse__ 2y ago
      Basically the entire premise of the Steam Deck is built on WINE (via a Valve-developed fork, Proton).
      - sho_hn 2y ago
        Noting that Proton is regularly rebased on upstream, and Valve is contracting CodeWeavers, the same company which employs many core Wine contributors. Fork is certainly technically the correct word, but "distribution" might give more the right impression.
    - khedoros1 2y ago
      When someone releases a game in a Windows version and a Linux version, the current Wine-based compatibility layers mean that the Windows one is more likely to run without issue than the native binary is. I built a Linux gaming desktop 5 years ago. The only thing that regularly causes more than minor issues is that many online games use incompatible anticheat technology. I pretty much play exclusively single-player games on PC, so it hasn't been a practical issue for me.

LorenDB 2y ago

According to some research I did a few years back, EA currently owns the rights to Full Tilt! Pinball, which is what 3D Pinball Space Cadet was based on. EA, if you have a single shred of decency, open source Pinball!

Macha 2y ago
From what I've heard from videos by Microsoft devs on why it was dropped between XP and Vista, the source code is obtuse and very difficult to port/work on.
- theandrewbailey 2y ago
  Microsoft devs also claimed that making cmd faster would require years of research, but someone did that in a weekend by making it run on a GPU. I'm sure there's someone out there that would solve every problem Space Cadet has within a week, just for fun.
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    I'm sure there are lots of large groups of devs who are undone by an upstart kid with a fresh perspective and no fear
    - josephg 2y ago
      Can confirm. I've been on both sides of that fence. I worked on a product about a decade ago which had an unnecessarily complicated custom layout system written in javascript. CSS was missing a lot of features at the time, so we figured we'd roll our own. It was crazy complicated - and it had all these weird easy to reproduce bugs. For fun, some pesky kid on twitter took our insanely layout system and reimplemented 95% of it in a couple hundred lines of (almost) pure CSS. At a glance, it looked identical to our product - but the code was small, clean and fast. The link got passed around the office. It was amazing how many reasons people had to dismiss it. "Ah, see - it doesn't even do this weird custom behaviour we have!" or "Well and good in chrome - but it doesn't work properly on IE8!" and so on. I've never seen a better example of motivated reasoning, before or since. What we should have done is reach out and offer that kid a job. The smartest programmer on your team isn't as smart as the smartest programmer on the internet.

boomboomsubban 2y ago

The complete C&C bundle with all open sourced games and several others is currently $6 on Steam, if you need the art assets https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer_The_Ultimate_Collection/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer... Hopefully this causes a sales spike and encourages other developers to do similar things.

nottorp 2y ago
Hmm there's also a c&c remastered bundle. Anyone knows if either of them includes stuff that requires an EA account?
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  The remastered bundle does not need it.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Well I hope you're right, I just bought both bundles. This is the first time I give money to EA since Mass Effect 2* :) * Technically i also paid for the Mass Effect collection for playstation, because Sony doesn't allow them to require a login on there. But it's the first time for a PC title since ME 2.
    - gimme_treefiddy 2y ago
      Damn looks like remastered one doesn't have the Zero Hour version in it.
      - onli 2y ago
        No, that would be surprising. They only remastered C&C1 and 2. If you want Generals, buy the "Ultimate Collection" bundle.
    - sumtechguy 2y ago

modeless 2y ago

The complete game was released as freeware by EA over 15 years ago. It was freely available for download from EA's servers for many years and has been redistributed by many third party sites as well. So getting the art and other assets to use with this code should be no problem. https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.comman...

hd4 2y ago

I think this marks the first time EA have open-sourced a videogame, a welcome development.

Macha 2y ago
That would have been Micropolis in 2008, I think (better known as Simcity, the open source release was renamed to be super clear it doesn't include the trademark)
- swat535 2y ago
  I think this is the biggest release of open source they have done, if am I wrong, someone correct me please. Either way I’m very impressed !

tete 2y ago

This is really nice and positively surprising for EA. While the RTSs are amazing I think Command and Conquer Renegade is one of the most fun games ever made as well. https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade What these people did is really amazing: https://w3dhub.com/ https://w3dhub.com/

tomw1808 2y ago

I am speechless. The most vile gaming company I know. The most beloved game I ever played. Now, Open source ... from them? How? Why? Marketing gag or a step in the right direction? But then, OpenRA has existed for a while - does that mean its getting even better? Where is this going?

Macha 2y ago
The official stated reason is to make life easier for modders, for the steam workshop mods in their latest releases.
sho_hn 2y ago
EA and Open Source isn't completely alien. Their C++ standard library EASTL was open sourced long ago and is a historically quite important and influential codebase in the history of C++'s evolution. They've also open sourced and patent-pledged a bunch of gaming-relatee accessibility tech over the years. And of course Micropolis/SimCity. My advice is to celebrate the successes of large corporates in this regard very hard and often - this provides backup to the champions on the inside.
- tomw1808 2y ago
  > My advice is to celebrate the successes of large corporates in this regard very hard and often - this provides backup to the champions on the inside. I am wondering what the metrics / KPIs are they are tracking to see if open sourcing something is a success or not. Can't be just "sales went up for retro games when we open sourced" - there must be something like community reception and retention, general acceptance or whatever... But yes, I agree. Let's celebrate this and hope for more.

newsclues 2y ago

great news, thanks to id software for leading the way!

tosh 2y ago

Related: If you like the old Command and Conquer classics, give Combined Arms a try. https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-conquer-combined-arms https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-conquer-combined-arms

Starlevel004 2y ago

// Homework for today. Write 2000 words reconciling "Your code must never crash" with "Intentionally putting crashes in the code". Fucktard. // DEBUG_CRASH(( "xferScienceVec - vector is not empty, but should be\n" )); // https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blob/0a05454d8574207440a5fb15241b98ad0b435590/GeneralsMD/Code/GameEngine/Source/Common/System/Xfer.cpp#L646 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...

inetknght 2y ago
EA game devs cursing each other out? Internal company drama being aired out years later? Oh boy!
- cluckindan 2y ago
  *Westwood
  - IntelMiner 2y ago
    Generals was EA Pacific (Formally Westwood Pacific, opened by EA)
jsheard 2y ago
// Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header // directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how // its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blob/main/Generals/Code/Main/WinMain.cpp#L615 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...
- poizan42 2y ago
  ... because they just casted lParam into a pointer to DEV_BROADCAST_HDR a few lines above, which is the common part of the different structure it could point to. That's just doing inheritance the C way. What did they expect? A C++ class from a C api?

jklinger410 2y ago

This makes sense because OpenRA was doing so well!

kennysoona 2y ago

This is some very welcome and surprisingly, good news which has been really, really, lacking this year.

sho_hn 2y ago

This is very cool. It should be done a lot more often for old games. Whoever pulled this off at EA Games, you did a great thing for art and culture, and chapeau for pulling it off at a big corp.

grayhatter 2y ago

OpenRA did it better :D If you haven't seen it yet https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/ is worth your time. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA I have many fond memories of playing openra as "LAN" game on the gaming weekends we used to have in a few open source groups I've been in. I can't recommend "saturday gaming" enough, for anyone involved in any foss community, set up a recurring gaming weekend! You get bonus points if you make it mostly or exclusively foss games!

deleted 2y ago
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IntelMiner 2y ago
OpenRA is all well and good...until you want to play Tiberian Sun, or Red Alert 2 I'm still a little salty as someone who donated to the project in 2013 to add support and it's still not even at "alpha test"
- grayhatter 2y ago
  If it's making you salty.... I don't think it's fair to call that a donation. I unfortunately don't have a better word yet, what's a word for money that's freely given but only with the expectation of some return in exchange? I'm also disappointed there's no OpenRA2... That was without a doubt my favorite RTS!
  - IntelMiner 2y ago
    I know it's an open source project and I'm not "owed" anything But watching them just drill away at every pixel of Tib Dawn and Red Alert 1 is like watching the Sistine Chapel be repainted as the world's most intricately beaten dead horse Was anyone really asking for a "C&C in-game wiki"?
  - cipehr 2y ago
    The word you're looking for is "gift." That is a gift.

bee_rider 2y ago

I only glanced at the code in ANIM.CPP but for a C++ program from 1997 it looks kinda nice, right? The methods are all short, with some descriptive comments at the top of each one. Inputs and outputs described. Nice index at the top of the file. I’ve seen worse!

pcwalton 2y ago
Yeah, I was looking at infantry.cpp, and the quality is actually very good for 90s game code. The documentation is good, it's decently well-formatted, and there are assertions. Nice counterexample to the "all successful games have terrible code" conventional wisdom.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > Nice counterexample to the "all successful games have terrible code" conventional wisdom. That's a modern wisdom from the last 15-ish years when people started to have good enough internet connections that you can get away with publishing a dozens gigabytes patch on launch day. In ye olde times, it was prohibitively expensive (or in the case of console ROM cartridges, impossible) to distribute patches, so projects were usually planned with plenty of buffer time and plenty human testers. These days it's rush to not collide with the releases of other AAA studios, and human paid-for testers have been replaced by free (or, sometimes, paying) early-access players.
- philistine 2y ago
  I think survivor bias is at play here. C&C had many sequels, ports, expansion packs that helped make it popular. So of course it had nice code, otherwise we wouldn't have seen such a wide berth of reuse for that code.
lucb1e 2y ago
I made some games as a teenager and had the experience that I was basically forced to stop projects because they got too complex. Game Maker had only limited support for things like variable scoping; you really need to isolate components and have them all do their own defined thing to make it not grow too complex or you'll fix one bug and cause two new ones. Even more so as a team, I can only imagine, though I never concurrently worked on game code with more than one person (for longer than a literal weekend project, that is) Normal software I find is a bit different because things like UI libraries give you a lot of structure already. In game code, you do so many things custom, and performance matters so much (each frame needs to finish around e.g. the 17-millisecond mark) that it's really up to you to apply the necessary discipline

zamubafoo 2y ago

Shame they'll never do it for Warcraft 3 with the remaster still around.

SXX 2y ago

Whoever pushed for this at EA - my deepest respect is with you! Original C&C was rewritten from scratch long ago, but open source version of Zero Hour is such an amazing gift. PS: if you want to send respects to the person who did it you can do it on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jim-vessella-62726825_from-the-commandandconquer-community-on-reddit-activity-7300953625088901121-BWZL https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jim-vessella-62726825_from-th...

pizzathyme 2y ago
Agreed. Internally at companies like this, it's extremely difficult to get something like this approved. This is the result of a lot of meetings, a lot of "no"'s, a lot of legal approvals.
- SXX 2y ago
  Let's be honest I can't view this anything other than miracle that was delivered to us by some very dedicated people who likely pushed this for years. I hope there will be more people and companies within industry making similar moves. It's will both increase their sales as well as allow fans to keep their favorite games alive.
jacooper 2y ago
Finally somebody can fix the mismatch errors in the game and make it actually playable again!
CCHyper 2y ago
Hey, that would be me! :D You can check out our full announcement post here; https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb/cc_steam_workshop_support_source_code/ https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb/...
- SXX 2y ago
  Sorry for not mentioning you initially and thank you Sir for making it happen! I obviously love classical RTS and playing them since original C&C, but there are special place in my heart for Generals exactly because ot was different game. And for me as game developer seeing this game in a sad state make me sad. I feel it does have as much potential as AoE2 and now more people can try to bring new life to it.

rgbrgb 2y ago

Would be cool to jump in the codebase here with claude code and start riffing. Anyone get this or the others to compile on a mac?

Angostura 2y ago

No sign of the Ma version :(

colechristensen 2y ago

25 or 30 years would be a good amount of time for software copyright to expire. It would be fantastic if there was a way (somewhat like patents) where IP protection could be linked up with publishing materials so that in order to get the law to protect your software from copying, you had to have it published at the end of the protection period. (like on release you had to store the source code at the library of congress or something)

aflag 2y ago
Even if it expires after 30 years, if the company doesn't publish the source code, what good does it do?
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  Perhaps to get the copyright you should put the code in escrow? Not really, it costs a fortune
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    This is exactly what I meant though, put the code in a private third party library in order to gain IP protection.
  - account42 2y ago
    Escrow for source code only costs a fortune because the only demand for it is b&b software where contracts require it. It's not a fundamentally expensive service and if it was required in order to receive copyright protection then it would just be provided by the government either for free or at cost.
  - goalieca 2y ago
    Who wants to write it in a weekend with me?

giancarlostoro 2y ago

Who can we bribe at Microsoft to get Fallout 1 / 2 source code released? Would be really interesting when you consider that FO2 has online modding, so it would allow for so much craziness to ensue out of FO2...

SXX 2y ago
Fallout 1 and 2 were rewritten from scratch more than twice already. Several times as clone game engine with most popular being falltergeist: https://github.com/falltergeist/falltergeist https://github.com/falltergeist/falltergeist Second time as MMO client-server tech: https://github.com/cvet/fonline https://github.com/cvet/fonline FOnline for sure use nothing of original game except for assets. PS: So yeah source code of fallout wouldn't be of any use really except for historical archive.
- account42 2y ago
  Reimplementations are never perfect replicas so the source code would at the very least be useful as a reference. Some people also want to play the original with only minor compatibility fixes for moderns systems without random unwanted "features". Your first link also talks about a "Development Roadmap" that doesn't give the indication that it's even fully playable yet.

amacneil 2y ago

That's nice, but who is working on porting this to the typescript type checker?

walrus01 2y ago

I wonder if the current owners will ever consider open sourcing Supreme Commander, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_(video_game)

SXX 2y ago
Might be you actually interested to work on that code? I do personally know some of main developers and they know who owns the IP, but to push something like that it will take some resources unfortunately. So might be if some people get together on this it's could be done. It's wouldn't cost some immense amount of money, but it will certainly cost some. At least I pretty sure that source code for the games is not lost.
- walrus01 2y ago
  I wouldn't be the guy to work on the code, not being a game developer or even adjacent to it. I work in ISP/telecom core network infrastructure, so would be happy to help out with questions on stuff like DIYing a set of self-hosted servers for a revival of the game.
  - SXX 2y ago
    Don't you know? Multiplayer for SupCom is alive and well with FAForever: https://www.faforever.com/ https://www.faforever.com/ They also have patches, but they obviously limited since it's all just patching memory.
    - walrus01 2y ago
      Yes I'm aware it exists, was thinking more of what theoretical infrastructure might be needed if the full art assets/code/etc for the final release of Forged Alliance was open sourced and further built upon. My understanding is that FA Forever is a group of people who've implemented a server replacement since the officially-hosted multiplayer servers went offline some time in 2012.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ww520 2y ago

We used to waste so much time on this in the lan party.

arduanika 2y ago

Finally, EA does the optimal thing to benefit all humanity!

iancmceachern 2y ago

Great memories, playing these when they came out against my crew.

tomaytotomato 2y ago

"Compiling" "Cannot compile, building in progress"

CrimsonCape 2y ago
Lol, we need a terminal extension to play these sounds when compiling. "Building-Unit Ready" is burned in my brain.
- tomaytotomato 2y ago
  Or we could do one for unit tests, every time a test fails it should say "Unit lost", "Unit lost"....."Unit lost" If a build or deployment fails "A-bomb launch detected"
lucb1e 2y ago
Unable to* compile, building in progress as I recall, at least. I may have played tibsun to death on my grandma's computer. Not that I spoke a word of English back then, so this must have been from replaying it later actually

binary132 2y ago

The comments on the Red Alert sources are so detailed. This is awesome. Major props to EA!

klaussilveira 2y ago

> If you wish to rebuild the source code and tools successfully you will need to find or write new replacements (or remove the code using them entirely) for the following libraries; Take the hint, Valve. And Epic (UT99). Having third-party code is not an excuse.

jamesfinlayson 2y ago
I thought about this recently - probably Valve is reluctant to because people are still licensing both the GoldSource and Source engines (I think the last GoldSource engine license was in 2020 but the game hasn't even been announced; I think four Source engine games are due this year). If EA released the Nightfire engine code (very advanced GoldSource engine fork) that would be great though! But it's sad that John Carmack's example has not been widely followed.
- klaussilveira 2y ago
  I completely forgot about Nightfire! What an amazing game it was.
  - jamesfinlayson 2y ago
    I know! I played some multiplayer (against bots) not long ago and I don't remember it from the first time around, but there were no blood decals. I wonder if Gearbox just developed one low-violence version that they could sell in all markets.
- account42 2y ago
  This might be an argument if those engine licenses were more than a rounding error in Valve's profits. I seriously doubt that that's the case.
  - jamesfinlayson 2y ago
    I think it's more to protect the current licensees though - I have no idea how much an engine license costs, but I don't think it's cheap, and I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd dropped that money a year or two ago only to find out that the engine costs nothing. That said, I'd be a little surprised if any more engine licenses to get sold so maybe give it a couple of years.

InitEnabler 2y ago

I'll just leave this here. https://youtu.be/niZpcdp2v34 https://youtu.be/niZpcdp2v34

punnerud 2y ago

How hard would it be to convert this so it could run in the browser using WebAssembly?

1970-01-01 2y ago

I guess this is as close to public domain that software can be until the 2070s. Functionally no different to use, but you are not allowed to make any money selling it.

lucb1e 2y ago
> you are not allowed to make any money selling it. Why not? I don't see it in the additional terms, so if you mean the GPL part then https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

astrostl 2y ago

Best game intro [1] ever IMO. Fun story, compact length, epic soundtrack ("Hell March"). They did that in 1996 and nothing since has even come close for me. Had a ton of fun with the game itself, too. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJnMaTx4yjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJnMaTx4yjI

mhotchen 2y ago

Christ: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CODE/CONQUER.CPP https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CO...

icemelt8 2y ago

As a React developer, how does one even compile something like this

swat535 2y ago
It's in the README
richardboegli 2y ago
Generals has been compiled see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960

liamkearney 2y ago

Curious. Can anyone tell me if it’s windows thing, specific filesystem thing, source control system thing or just a style thing, naming all files and directories in caps?

abanana 2y ago
It came out not long after Windows 95, so it will have supported earlier versions of Windows, which had the 8.3 character all-caps filename limitation.

joquarky 2y ago

I wish they would release all the code and assets used to make Earth & Beyond.

Zardoz84 2y ago

now, if they open source Red Alert 2 engine ... That was a masterpiece of using voxels

nntwozz 2y ago

Good job, now open source Dark Age of Camelot. Thank you

hammock 2y ago

What is the best c&c style game that has been released in the last couple years?

lucb1e 2y ago
Beyond All Reason sorta isn't released yet, but I'm liking that a lot as an old C&C2/AoE1 fan
Macha 2y ago
C&C Remastered The 8-bit (armies/hordes/invaders) games play very much like a faster C&C. They had a sequel recently with 9-bit armies. Starcraft 2 for ages was basically "the last RTS", and it does have some differences from how the C&C formula, but then I always felt Generals took liberal inspiration from Starcraft compared to classic C&C too.

molave 2y ago

EA... good?

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

[flagged]

Sjonny 2y ago

There are loads of .BAK files as well, and diffing them with the actual file gives you some insight on what they were working on. (Like pre and post Counterstrike addon).

CCHyper 2y ago
Yup! Keeping those in there was important for us as we know the core community would love to see this historic data!

voidfunc 2y ago

Wow. Please do SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4 next EA!!

nomilk 2y ago

Alas, no red alert 2 (the best, IMO). But still this is such great news. Huge props to EA for this.

3abiton 2y ago
I don't know why they're stalling, I wonder if there still any revenues from the game or if it's IP issue.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  This stuff is decades old. It's completely legitimate that they may simply have lost the source code during a server migration or whatnot.
  - MortyWaves 2y ago
    No, because Red Alert 2 Remaster exists...
    - jamesgeck0 2y ago
      Do you work for EA? Because they haven’t announced or released such a thing. A year ago a developer hinted there might be another remaster in the future, but it could just as easily be Generals as RA2.
    - rsstack 2y ago
      No, that was gaming tabloids misunderstanding a sentence by EA a year ago. It was never announced.
  - swat535 2y ago
    They didn’t announce it, the most likely explanation I’ve heard is that the original code is lost, along with Tiberian Sun
  - account42 2y ago
    It may be common but let's not take the average companies lax attitude to source code archival and backup as "legitimate". It's a disgrace for the industry that this happens so often.

dogancelik 2y ago

I really hope that one day they will open source Nox [1], it was my favorite childhood game after Sims. Nox was also a game created by the same studio that created Red Alert. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nox_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nox_(video_game)

breck 2y ago

[dead]

JanSt 2y ago

// Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header // directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how // its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME *vol = (DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME*) (hdr); // @todo - Yikes. This could cause us all kinds of pain. I don't really want // to even think about the stink this could cause us. TheFileSystem->unloadMusicFilesFromCD(vol->dbcv_unitmask); return TRUE;

nomilk 2y ago
This is kinda funny too: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/0dc09bb1d6188d1ec79ab4765b22a48b75ffee32/CODE/STARTUP.CPP#L1050C1-L1062C13 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/0dc09bb...

m463 2y ago

how prescient they were! "Nationalism will bring us victory!" "China will grow larger"

SaltyBackendGuy 2y ago

IDK why but it ironically brings me joy to find typos in old code. Maybe a reminder that we're all human (well back when code was written by humans /s). https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection/blob/master/REDALERT/INTERNET.CPP#L143 https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection/...

high_priest 2y ago
Some influencer coder right now "i don't use IDE, because it makes my coding more detailed & thorough"
- ChromaticPanic 2y ago
  We want that artisanal hand crafted environmentally friendly codebase

montag 2y ago

I heard this line of code `Sound_Effect(VOC_TANYA_LAUGH, Coord);`

jaredhallen 2y ago
Shake it, baby!
edm0nd 2y ago
You must construct additional pylons....wait....crap...wrong game!

superconduct123 2y ago

Some funny comments https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izpkmh/funny_generals_source_code_comments/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=commandandconquer https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izpkmh/...

iab 2y ago
ScenarioInit = 0; // Kludge. I vibe with the authors.
- bbor 2y ago
  Ha, wow -- great minds think alike. Somehow I ended up at the exact same file (only went to one!) and was coming back to comment on exactly this line. What makes this especially funny is that this is the very second line of the entire game, at least in the case of Red Alert! So very CPP. For the curious: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CODE/CONQUER.CPP https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert/blob/main/CO...

alanh 2y ago

A bit off-topic, but I found it very dystopian a few months ago to ask ChatGPT to describe the game in some detail. It refused to, claiming it violated content policy. Chilling.

Jd 2y ago

A bit challenging since none of the repositories I looked at actually compile. EA says that if you remove (or refactor!) the dependencies it might work but I don't know if that's high enough confidence to dive in.

richardboegli 2y ago
Generals has been compiled. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43216960

haunter 2y ago

>To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. The C&C Remastered Collection is available for purchase on EA App or Steam. Mind you EA released [some of] the games as freeware back in 2008 so no, you don't have to buy them for the graphics, art, sound, and music assets Tiberian Dawn GDI https://web.archive.org/web/20110927141135/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/GDI95.iso https://web.archive.org/web/20110927141135/http://na.llnet.c... Tiberian Dawn NOD https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060230/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/NOD95.iso https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060230/http://na.llnet.c... Tiberian Sun (though no source code was released for this game) https://web.archive.org/web/20110823002110/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/Classic/OfficialCnCTiberianSun.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20110823002110/http://na.llnet.c... Red Alert Allied https://web.archive.org/web/20100130215623/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/RedAlert/RedAlert1_AlliedDisc.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20100130215623/http://na.llnet.c... Red Alert Soviet https://web.archive.org/web/20100130220258/http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagames/cnc3/cnc3tv/RedAlert/RedAlert1_SovietDisc.rar https://web.archive.org/web/20100130220258/http://na.llnet.c...

seasluggy 2y ago
Damn, hell march still slaps
pjmlp 2y ago
Thanks for spoiling my weekend. :)
eighthourblink 2y ago
.......and there goes my weekend :)
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
> you must own the game. Really weird choice of word, considering how “you can’t own the game, into a licence for it”.

DrNosferatu 2y ago

EA could release the source code of Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat and LHX.

rumdz 2y ago

Please open source Nox!

haunter 2y ago
Sim City 2000!
deleted 2y ago
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seasluggy 2y ago
[dead]

guidedlight 2y ago

Maybe someone can finally make a native Mac version. It astonishes me that EA leaves obvious money on the table by not taking the 5 mins it would take to recompile it for MacOS.

bangaladore 2y ago
This is a terribly naive comment. I'm not going to even go into the specifics. Lets assume they click one button and it recompiles, how many people would buy it? Almost certainly wouldn't pay back the dev and qa cost.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wingerlang 2y ago
  I am sure there are people who has moved to macOS that grew on playing eg. Red Alert 1 who gladly would pay some amount of money to instantly own and play it again for some nostalgia. And by this I mean myself.
  - bangaladore 2y ago
    There are at least four dependencies that EA would have to replace for MAC. That would be an extremely complex task just for the first two. And who knows about the second. I just don't see a way for that to be profitable. Its no secret that games ported to Mac do poorly. DirectX 5 SDK DirectX Media 5.1 SDK Greenleaf Communications Library (GCL) Human Machine Interface (HMI) “Sound Operating System” (SOS)
    - wingerlang 2y ago
      Your assumed scenario was a magic button to recompile it.
grg0 2y ago
"The 5 mins it would take" --- Check the README on Red Alert, for example: If you wish to rebuild the source code and tools successfully you will need to find or write new replacements (or remove the code using them entirely) for the following libraries; DirectX 5 SDK DirectX Media 5.1 SDK Greenleaf Communications Library (GCL) Human Machine Interface (HMI) “Sound Operating System” (SOS) That still look like 5 minutes to you?

stormfather 2y ago

If anyone used to play Zero Hour, there is still an active community. They still have tournaments and world series. A guy called Dominator on Youtube casts it all and its a pretty entertaining blast from the past. I recommend checking out his channel.

llamaLord 2y ago
I'm pretty sure there was a weird bug in the original C&C generals where the game engine 'tick rate' was somehow tied to CPU cycles and assumed single-threading or something. I remember going back and trying to play it many years after it came out, and it was basically broken because the entire game moved at like... 2-3x the maximum speed it was ever meant to run at
wingerlang 2y ago
Same with Red Alert (etc) through the modern rewrite OpenRA (https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/). Similarly there is a guy FiveAces who has been commenting videos for nearly a decade.

ed_mercer 2y ago

Finally we can start fixing the insane amount of bugs in Zero Hour.

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tetrisgm 2y ago

I was a young teen when Command & Conquer came out. It was so damn cool. Westwood was at their peak: they made hit after hit after hit. The Kyrandia point & click series. The Eye of the Beholder series. Lands of Lore. Dune II. Everything they made was gold. They came in and made an RTS when we didn't have a term for this. It had a cool, modern soundtrack. It had a cool world and a story fleshed out in high production value FMV. Cutting edge CGI. We all know how Westwood died. Then the series had disappointing sequels, and a sad mobile title, and it all died until the remaster. The remaster felt like a well-executed effort, and a way to enjoy the classics on modern systems. Today's release of the source code is so exciting. A recognition that C&C is worth preserving. That its community is still excited for it. It allows the series to live on forever. For fans to go crazy. For all sorts of mods and tweaks to be enjoyed on Steam. It finally feels like after a decade and a half, C&C has a future. No longer a great old RTS, but one that has lots of excellent campaigns available on modern systems, moddable, and evergreen. Battle control... online :)

kangs 2y ago

I love reading the code that these people wrote when i was a kid enjoying the game. Never thought I'd have the opportunity when I was 10 and dreaming of these things haha.

29athrowaway 2y ago

I recommend this video "This is Why We Still Play Tiberian Sun in 2025" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIbuqy6bI2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIbuqy6bI2Y

trackofalljades 2y ago

"I'VE GOT A PRESENT FOR YA!"

dagelf 2y ago

For real, CnC Generals was the game that has taught me the most about the frivolity of war: there are no winners, both sides lose, it's just a grand burning of resources... for nothing. You build a wonderful base and war machine, only to watch it burn. If this was "required playing" to all kids, I would be greatly surprised if war would still be a thing... it basically mocks war. In the most fun way possible! Look up Jeffrey Sachs' address to EU Parliament, if you are unsure about the real geopolitics of this century... you won't find it in US media.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
Sachs is a moron. Here are some reasons why. https://voxukraine.org/en/open-letter-to-jeffrey-sachs https://voxukraine.org/en/open-letter-to-jeffrey-sachs

sour-taste 2y ago

The only thing I know about this game is that it's what Jeremy in pure pwnage played

Owlettotoo 2y ago

wow I didn't expect this from EA... Good for them, good for us, good for everybody.

extraduder_ire 2y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23249964 "EA will be releasing the C&C Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert source code under GPL3" May 20, 2020 253 comments

ghostpepper 2y ago

I like to think I caused this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42827280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42827280

thisOtterBeGood 2y ago

Found this gem in Recorder.cpp of generals: //Kris: Patch 1.01 November 10, 2003 (integrated changes from Matt Campbell) // Since we don't seem to have any *visible* desyncs when replaying games, but get this warning // virtually every replay, the assumption is our CRC checking is faulty. Since we're at the // tail end of patch season, let's just disable the message, and hope the users believe the // problem is fixed. -MDC 3/20/2003 //TheInGameUI->message("GUI:CRCMismatch");

joerick 2y ago
Hahaha. We used to get desyncs on networked games of Generals pretty regularly. I remember if a game took more than 30-40 mins I'd start to get a spidey sense things were about to go wrong
- elephanlemon 2y ago
  Generals was one of our favorite LAN games. It seemed that as time went on this problem got worse and worse somehow, to the point where we gave up trying to play it at all. I have fresh hope again that this might one day be fixed!
  - scarby2 2y ago
    when generals was released it was the same time my high-school were encouraging everyone enrolled in specific classes to get laptops as part of a pilot program (with some of the money coming from the government). I started bringing a network switch to school so we could play during free periods/lunch (the wifi was problematic).

dzonga 2y ago

great in code documentation. but how to C++ folks cope. every C++ codebase looks like its own different language with so many dialects.

jacooper 2y ago

Now please, could somebody path C&C generals so we can play multi-player without every other game having a mismatch?

lukky513 2y ago

I hope that the events like this could start a bigger wave of opening the source for many other older games. To anyone else reading, who's passionate about the topic: reach out to the companies however you can! I can share a personal experience that it does sometimes work, and thanks to that, a somewhat niche game of Zatikon is getting a second life as a FOSS project :)

CCHyper 2y ago
Our intent with this release was to support the preservation of video games and the open source community. I hope that this release leads to more positive actions towards preserving classic video games across the industry :)

vanattab 2y ago

Neat! I am going to have to play with this for fun in my free time. C&C Red Alert was one of the first things that got me interested in programming and developing software, there was an ini file somewhere where you could control all the stats/wepons of the units. I had a blast making crazy units mods to units and it made me want to learn how to create games and software generally.

yowayb 2y ago

The hardest part about making a game is the art.

zenlot 2y ago

Just bought the pack + remastered on steam to support open sourcing old games.

lacoolj 2y ago

I just reached Nostalgia Level OVER 9000.

nickpsecurity 2y ago

One idea I had for open source games like this is AI experiments or training. Many people have been using Starcraft. If not it, they often use games that are nowhere near mainstream quality. My idea was to have games in various genres with different skills required, like planning or physical abilities. Then, set each one up to work with just the engine in a way where game state is easy to interact with. For instance, no graphics or pop-up menus. Then, iterative experiments, like genetic programming or neural networks, could run much faster. Later, a common interface to many of them, like human senses, might let them be used to build general knowledge for AGI experiments. Curious what people think of this. Especially a few exemplars in each category modified to just run really fast. For each, maybe training data on top of it that shows how to play the game. Seems like a cheaper option for testing architectures vs games not designed to do this.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago

Looking at the README for Red Alert specifically and the various requirements, how is it possible that these run on modern Windows? OFC they're distributed via Steam as binaries + libs etc, but are they including these ancient versions of DirectX and the other dependencies with the downloads? Are these still compatible? I know Windows has/had for years remarkable backwards compatibility, but that's always been a source of confusion for me. Is there some monstrous "compatibility shim" somewhere for old DirectX APIs or something? What makes this possible? Edit: Wait was this a re-release at some point more recently? If so, I suppose that specific question is addressed, but that still pertains to other old games. How does Half-Life (or whatever) still work? Same story?

account42 2y ago
Yes, windows provides backwards compatibility for these old DirectX versions. They are probably mapped to a newer version internally. It doesn't take that much work to pull this off.

richardboegli 2y ago

Omniblade from Thyme project [0] managed to get Generals to compile [1][2] but there is still work to be done: [0] https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Thyme https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Thyme [1] https://discord.com/channels/409121752921276426/409121752921276428/1345188172375527504 https://discord.com/channels/409121752921276426/409121752921... [2] https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/compare/main...OmniBlade:CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour:feature/cmake https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/com...

hhcoder 2y ago

I used to play this game a lot (more Red Alert 2, which is actually hosted for free online somehow with multiplayer mode: https://chronodivide.com/ https://chronodivide.com/)

sureklix 2y ago

Can I have some shoes please? And also a MacOS version built via Claude 3.7?