Open source Elite

[IndigoWyrd]

what about selling the 'star forge' system. that would be so cool to mess around with if you are smart enough

Stellar Forge, and I'd wager it's far less interesting than you think.

It's likely little more than a massive database of facts and figures and a few educated guesses that sits in a corner and crunches data. The result that we can see is only possible through the Cobra engine, and without that, no pretty things to look at.

As for whomever said something about Licensing the Cobra engine...

This is a very special kind of nightmare. You see, this wasn't developed as a commercial engine, like Gamebryo, LightSpeed, or Unity. It's an in-house tool, written and supported internally, by and for the people who use it on a daily basis. This is very different than a commercial project designed to be used by licensees. And it requires a dedicated support team as well, something very likely beyond the scope of what Frontier wants to do with this.

 

[Spacecat]

This is DB's baby and there's no way he's going to let anybody else take the wheel, even if he drives it off a cliff.

 

[znôrt]

Since I seem to know nothing, educate me. How does this open source system work? Who in the community has the final say (notwithstanding FD of course) on what is added, what is deleted and what is modified in the game? Is there a monthly get together to decide whose idea is better? What happens if the community is polled and half want option 'a' and half want option 'x'?

an opensource community is people organizing themselves around a project. there is often a founder, pioneer, benevolent-dictator-for-life, or a core group. then there may be several developers with different level of engagement. any unrelated developer may spontaneusly submit work to be incroporated, which is evaluated and curated by whatever the decision body is. then there are users of the software which may ask for features. and discussion forums. there may be companies involved, wether financing, providing resources or services, with influence or without and profiting in several ways.

as in any collective project, differences need to be discussed somehow. discussions may be at multiple levels, and may be easy, difficult or even impossible. but, being opensosurce, you can always fork your own from there. often opensource projects produce different branches. some of them prevail, some not.

as you might see now, this can be a lot of work, distributed over very diverse groups. it usually happens that those who do the most work or anyhow contribute the most have more to say, which is just natural. hope this dispells your doubts

 

[two quiet suns]

@op:

here’s a great video with some info on the back end;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvJPyjmfdz0

 

[M00ka]

an opensource community is people organizing themselves around a project. there is often a founder, pioneer, benevolent-dictator-for-life, or a core group. then there may be several developers with different level of engagement. any unrelated developer may spontaneusly submit work to be incroporated, which is evaluated and curated by whatever the decision body is. then there are users of the software which may ask for features. and discussion forums. there may be companies involved, wether financing, providing resources or services, with influence or without and profiting in several ways.

as in any collective project, differences need to be discussed somehow. discussions may be at multiple levels, and may be easy, difficult or even impossible. but, being opensosurce, you can always fork your own from there. often opensource projects produce different branches. some of them prevail, some not.

as you might see now, this can be a lot of work, distributed over very diverse groups. it usually happens that those who do the most work or anyhow contribute the most have more to say, which is just natural. hope this dispells your doubts

Thank you (and repped). After being called 'silly' by the OP, I thought I would do the right thing and ask, pity the OP couldn't answer!

What you described seems workable if the group has a common goal. However I stand by my original statement that such a diverse group as this, where we still can't agree on direction, whether we need Open/PG/Solo, atmospheric landings, space legs etc, would lead to mayhem. No doubt some of the group would have good intentions but there would be elements who want 'uber' ships, or turn it into a FPS version of Eve or the like.

Again, thank you for taking the time to explain the system to me.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

The only time E : D has any chance of becoming Open Source is when Frontier sunset the game. I'm hoping that they'll keep the promise that they made when the offline mode was pulled that when the game is finally closed, they will release a final version which will include the galaxy for a static offline mode. Hopefully this will also allow people so set up their own online versions of the galaxy that they and their friends could play. When you look at the mods that have been done for Freelancer, I-War II and even the amazing work that AndyJ and company has done with FFE; it breaths new life into an old game and allows the community to take ownership.

That said, I'm happy with the state of the game and hope that it doesn't get sunset for at least the ten year plan.

 

[amadeus1171]

Thank you (and repped). After being called 'silly' by the OP, I thought I would do the right thing and ask, pity the OP couldn't answer!

What you described seems workable if the group has a common goal. However I stand by my original statement that such a diverse group as this, where we still can't agree on direction, whether we need Open/PG/Solo, atmospheric landings, space legs etc, would lead to mayhem. No doubt some of the group would have good intentions but there would be elements who want 'uber' ships, or turn it into a FPS version of Eve or the like.

Again, thank you for taking the time to explain the system to me.

I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But silly is silly.

 

[Old Duck]

The only time E : D has any chance of becoming Open Source is when Frontier sunset the game. I'm hoping that they'll keep the promise that they made when the offline mode was pulled that when the game is finally closed, they will release a final version which will include the galaxy for a static offline mode. Hopefully this will also allow people so set up their own online versions of the galaxy that they and their friends could play. When you look at the mods that have been done for Freelancer, I-War II and even the amazing work that AndyJ and company has done with FFE; it breaths new life into an old game and allows the community to take ownership.

That said, I'm happy with the state of the game and hope that it doesn't get sunset for at least the ten year plan.

I truly do hope they keep that promise

 

[Martian Successor]

But silly is silly.

I agree. Your request is definitely silly

 

[uliando]

Maybe if we beat corporate greed after that 10 year plan is finished maybe we could get this vintage game then.