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its ananzi, not 'a nazi'. . .
yoda, if there arent any cheats now, and having the source code availible would almost assure that there would be cheats found.. then there would be more cheats than there are now.
even if they only managed to make 1 cheat, there would be more.
1 is more than 0. technically the phrase "more cheats" is acceptable. :)
even if they only managed to make 1 cheat, there would be more.
1 is more than 0. technically the phrase "more cheats" is acceptable. :)
I'll talk to you next time i see you ingame spellcast, you deserve to know this.
VO was never an open-source project. We started this with the hope of becoming a for-profit game company, and potentially selling the game engine to other game companies.
As individuals, however, we are a pretty open-source oriented group. Andy has contributed over the years to the Linux kernel, etc. If there were some reasonable way for us to have a project be open-source and still be paid salaries, we would probably do it. But, to date, that's still a pretty sketchy business model, especially for a game.
The thread of cheating is also legitimate. Obscurity never provides "real" security, but it does reduce the overall number of people who are willing to spend the time and energy to try and hack up your game.
As individuals, however, we are a pretty open-source oriented group. Andy has contributed over the years to the Linux kernel, etc. If there were some reasonable way for us to have a project be open-source and still be paid salaries, we would probably do it. But, to date, that's still a pretty sketchy business model, especially for a game.
The thread of cheating is also legitimate. Obscurity never provides "real" security, but it does reduce the overall number of people who are willing to spend the time and energy to try and hack up your game.
With commercial games that decide to go open-source, they generally seem to open up the source code, but not all the other game resources (level maps, 3D models, audio files, etc.). One end result of this is that open source developers can more easily port the game to other platforms that the game didn't originally suppoort (Linux, Mac OS X, etc.), and then people using those platforms will be able to play the game - but in order to legally do so they still need to purchase the game, as the required game resources are not open-source. As VO already supports Linux & Mac OS X, that point in favor of open-sourcing VO isn't as strong (although it would still apply to other platforms).
Also they usually don't release the source code under an open license until quite some time after the game has passed its peak sells - which hopefully VO hasn't gotten anywhere close to. And in the case of MMO games, like VO, releasing the source code, at least for the server, would probably have more of a detrimental effect on Guild Software's business than releasing the source code to a primarily single-player or local network multi-player game.
Anyway, as much as I support the Open Source philosophy, I don't think that in today's world for Guild Software to open-source VO is really viable. The most I could see as possibly viable is releasing the client code as open-source, but not any of the game resources nor the server code.
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For the interested, http://www.liberatedgames.com is a site for cataloging commercial games that have been "Liberated", either in source-code only (no game resources), or in binary-only (free as in beer, includes game resources to be playable, no source code), or fully liberated (source and game resources).
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Also they usually don't release the source code under an open license until quite some time after the game has passed its peak sells - which hopefully VO hasn't gotten anywhere close to. And in the case of MMO games, like VO, releasing the source code, at least for the server, would probably have more of a detrimental effect on Guild Software's business than releasing the source code to a primarily single-player or local network multi-player game.
Anyway, as much as I support the Open Source philosophy, I don't think that in today's world for Guild Software to open-source VO is really viable. The most I could see as possibly viable is releasing the client code as open-source, but not any of the game resources nor the server code.
[edit]
For the interested, http://www.liberatedgames.com is a site for cataloging commercial games that have been "Liberated", either in source-code only (no game resources), or in binary-only (free as in beer, includes game resources to be playable, no source code), or fully liberated (source and game resources).
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