HN Gopher Feed (2017-12-29) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Open-source clone of the Age of Empires II engine
283 points by doener
https://github.com/SFTtech/openage___________________________________________________________________
mehrdadn - 18 minutes ago
Interesting, what's made them choose to do this with AoE II rather
than AoE III? Is II more popular?
daxaxelrod - 7 hours ago
Age of empires is the only game I play on steam
vineetch - 5 hours ago
Same here! Wololo.
cpeterso - 6 hours ago
Why C++ instead of a higher level language like Python? The
developers could focus more on game functionality than C++ bugs and
cross platform issues. Performance should not be a big concern for
running an old game on modern hardware.
blattimwind - 50 minutes ago
Rule of thumb suggests that implementing AoE with Python today
probably means PyAge2 runs about as well on a 4.5 GHz CPU as AoE2
did on a 266 MHz Pentium II. (not that well)
iso-8859-1 - 6 hours ago
Modern hardware allows for new different tools. For example, Red
Alert was available for DOS. But to play OpenRA, you need OpenGL
support.
pwaai - 3 hours ago
In case this wasn't posted, here is an index of all open source
clones.https://osgameclones.com/It doesn't list OpenAge there yet
but shows 0ad instead. I wonder if we'll ever see Total War 1 clone
as well as a Civ 5 clone.
Scriptor - 1 hours ago
Seems like OpenAge is just a clone of the engine, not a full
standalone game like 0ad.
itwy - 6 hours ago
I am curious how is this not a copyright infringement?
JetSetWilly - 6 hours ago
No code or artwork has been copied from the original game, so why
would it be copyright infringement?
JepZ - 7 hours ago
AoE II for Linux :DHope it will be in a playable state soon.
emidln - 3 hours ago
0ad is playable today. On Fedora try dnf install 0ad
nkkollaw - 3 hours ago
This is awesome if it means being able to play AOE2 or a clone on
Linux.I'm not sure I understand if engine means playable game..?
d33 - 1 hours ago
Not really playable. See status
here:https://github.com/SFTtech/openage/blob/master/doc/status.md
nkkollaw - 19 minutes ago
Thanks.
SEJeff - 6 hours ago
As a longtime fan of Age of Empires, I have absolutely fallen in
love with the open source 0ad clone.http://play0ad.com/The AI is
surprisingly good, and the character models are as good as Age of
Empires. Bonus points that it is in all major Linux distro
repositories if you're one of those kinds of people (like me!).
ouid - 1 hours ago
I don't really like the idea of non-sprite graphics. Seems like
it would detract from the game.
SEJeff - 1 hours ago
What do you mean in specific? The current models are mostly
made with Blender 3D and they're quite good.
rpedela - 53 minutes ago
Sprites in a 3D game look horrible for most objects: buildings,
characters, terrain. Sprites are typically used for particle
effects, grass, or objects that are far away. The latter is
often used a performance optimization.
axaxs - 2 hours ago
Honest question... did it get better recently? I tried it years
ago... and the AI was non existent...as in, I built up an army
and went to explore, only to find my enemy had like 4 peasants.
blattimwind - 1 hours ago
Another stupid question: did performance improve in the last
~two or three years? Even on the kinda small maps back then it
quickly ran into CPU limits.
rpedela - 1 hours ago
Yes much better. I have trouble beating the default AI on its
highest setting now. I am not a great player, but I don't suck
either.
SEJeff - 1 hours ago
If you watch their svn history, they consistently are chipping
away at it. I simply wait (to upgrade to a new 0ad) with the
latest version in each new Fedora release. It gets
progressively better from an AI, music, and artwork
standpoint.0AD is definitely not the same game now as it was
years ago, it is massively improved. These were both pretty big
releases:https://play0ad.com/new-
release-0-a-d-alpha-21-ulysses/https://play0ad.com/new-
release-0-a-d-alpha-22-venustas/I find the AI to be challenging
to beat on hard, but not impossible. I'll play as the
Ptolemies, because I know that they were the pinnacle of the
Greek Phalanx lead by none other than Alexander the Great. So I
was trying to take a large group of spearman up to take over an
enemy town center filled with archers but wasn't having a ton
of luck. Every time my infantry would retreat, the 20 archers
would come out and chase them down. When I'd turn back, the
archers would head back to the town center and shred through
them. My winning strategy involved staging 10 companion cavalry
to the east and have the infantry attack the town center and
then retreat south, drawing the archers out to try to take out
the infantry. The companion cavalry rode north of the archers
cutting off their retreat to the town center and let the
infantry cut them down.The newer AI will also scout out your
location and attack weak spots. They'll purposefully avoid
attacking through walls and lots of towers if you mistakenly
leave an unprotected rear or flank that they can use to march
right up and destroy your town. It is certainly more difficult
now and the new graphics make it a lot of fun to play.
johnramsden - 1 hours ago
Watching the video sure brings back memories. I spent many an
hour as a young lad playing Age of Empires, I always loved the
sounds. It looks like they did a good job of recreating AOE
audio.
jstimpfle - 7 hours ago
AoE2 is the one game I play regularly. It's great that this project
was started, but is it still active? Did anyone manage to compile
and run it, and if so, how does it feel?Not to belittle the nice
work, but I feel there was a better reason for making this clone a
few years ago. There has been a "HD" version on Steam for a couple
of years, which finally has good network support and most of the
bugs seem ironed out, after almost 20 years! The only thing I still
miss is to be able to run it on Linux...
daveslash - 6 hours ago
There are only three games I play regularly: AoE2, Doom, and
SimCity 2000.
opsroller - 5 hours ago
Runs better on wine than it does on windows.
jstimpfle - 5 hours ago
Doesn't it compile natively on Linux?
blattimwind - 57 minutes ago
Fairly sure that AoE2HD was only released on Windows.
mikejmoffitt - 4 hours ago
Citation needed. In my experience, running AoE2HD in Wine
results in strange mouse errors at the start of a match which
can ruin a game (where the screen is stuck scrolling to one
side).
blattimwind - 58 minutes ago
Pretty sure that was one of several bugs I hit after release
back in 2013, on Windows.
craftyguy - 7 hours ago
The link shows that the last commit was a week ago... so, yes,
it's still active. It compiles and runs, provided you have access
to the media assets. It still needs work though.Having a FLOSS
engine for this game is more desirable than having to rely on a
proprietary mess like Steam to play AOE2. So I hope this project
is eventually successful.
mschwaig - 6 hours ago
I had a look at some .NET code integrating steam once and the
integration itself looked quite clean and lightweight.I'd be
interested if people got banned or something like that for
modifying games when they were clearly not
hacking/cheating/cracking/impacting the experience of
others.From DSfix for Dark Souls I know that it can be fine
with them if you hook function calls to improve rendering for
example.I imagine you also have to distinguish between Steam
and VAC (anti-cheat) integration.
craftyguy - 3 hours ago
This project has nothing to do with Steam, other than perhaps
(optionally) using the assets from the steam version of AOE2
HD, but it doesn't interface or interact with Steam at all
AFAIK.
[deleted]
anewhnaccount2 - 7 hours ago
It even has dev diaries: https://www.reddit.com/r/openage/
JepZ - 7 hours ago
Status Video on Youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnLTS4tAJKs
everdev - 7 hours ago
0ad is another open source project. It's a full-fledged game which
can be modded with your own imagery/units, etc.http://play0ad.com/
larrykwg - 4 hours ago
Most impressive feature:> We have an integrated terminal emulator
supporting ecma-48. You can run vim or anything else within
openage. This is neat to interactively edit scripts.it runs vim!
andrew_wc_brown - 7 hours ago
I'm working on my own open-source game as a Tetris Attack clone.
https://github.com/omenking/swap-n-pop/What I'm always surprised is
the lack of tooling and test code and I'm of the belief that in the
war of the clones, the ones that chooses tooling and a stack
designed for larger teams, and a focus on BDD will get your project
where it needs to go.Instead of building a game, focus on building
a team.Great work on this clone so far, I was just talking top of
mind.
caio1982 - 5 hours ago
I did not downvote you but I suspect you might have been
downvoted because you "stole" someone else's thunder so I would
suggest you post your clone in a, perhaps, Show HN post.
kbenson - 4 hours ago
Interestingly, it's pretty common to also mention your own
project in a comment, and how it's received seems to differ
quite a bit based on how it was presented. If they start out
with relevant comments about the current submission, a segue-
way into a somewhat related project is usually taken well. If
you start off with what can be taken as self promotion and take
a while to get to relevant comments about the current
submission (or never do), it's not received well.In this case,
I'm actually surprised that it was downvoted. After the
initial line with a link, it's all fairly general and about
clone projects in general, which makes that line read as
presenting bon fides and not self promotion when the comment is
interpreted as a whole.
cjslep - 4 hours ago
Note that the AoE 2 community is still going strong with HAD and
Voobly communities, casters like T90 and ZeroEmpires, and streamers
like Viper.There have been some epic professional games as well as
community games.It will be interesting if a similar competitive
community popped up for the open source versions.
saikiranmc - 7 hours ago
WTFContributing: Being typical computer science students, we hate
people. Please don't contact us. Nobody likes Age of Empires
anyway. None of you is interested in making openage more awesome
anyway. We don't want a community. Don't even think about trying to
help.Guidelines: No bug reports or feature requests, the game is
perfect as is. Don't try to fix any bugs, see above. Don't
implement any features, your code is crap. Don't even think about
sending a pull request. Please ignore the easy tasks that could
just be done. Absolutely never ever participate in this boring
community. Don't note the irony, you idiot. To prevent accidental
violation of one of those guidelines, you should never
ClassyJacket - 6 hours ago
The quote you pasted literally says "Don't note the irony, you
idiot".
TN1ck - 7 hours ago
It's a joke. It's obvious that they want people to contribute, as
this follows with:---To prevent accidental violation of one of
those guidelines, you should never* learn git* fork the repo*
learn python* learn c++14* read the code and documentation*
contribute anything to the code* contact uscheers, happy hecking.
---The contribution guide in general is pretty well written and
welcoming.
Sylos - 7 hours ago
Also, "Don't note the irony, you idiot." directly above that.
lsh - 45 minutes ago
And for those Vulcans that are still confused, this is
Morrisette-level irony.
dudul - 7 hours ago
Probably a little overdone in terms of sarcasm/2nd degree, to the
point that it's not really funny. It references
https://github.com/SFTtech/openage/blob/master/doc/contribut...
for contribution guidelines though
peterburkimsher - 6 hours ago
For other AoE fans, I like this real-world map creator
tool:https://peterolson.github.io/AOE2-Real-Map-Creator/I've made
my own custom map of Taiwan with the correct locations for gold,
stone, and types of fish in the area. I plan to screen-record some
famous historical events and make a video, but I'm still figuring
out how to make such a video interesting and short enough to
actually watch.
nurettin - 6 hours ago
Why use SDL2 for input handling when you have Qt5?
cosarara97 - 1 hours ago
Isn't sdl2 a lot smaller than qt5?
okanesen - 5 hours ago
There is also the open source implementation of RollerCoaster
Tycoon 2:https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2
slaman - 1 hours ago
This is mentioned in the first sentence of the ReadMe.
rawnlq - 28 minutes ago
There's also a new Age of Empires coming out soon. You can thank
Bill Gates for it:https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/49jkhn/im_
bill_gates_...https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5whpqs/im_bill
_gates_...