FreeCnC + OpenRA + (Other open source C&C clones)

[Myg]

What is the current standing of these conversions, how do they size up these days?

 

FreeCnC stopped devving years ago and the website was altered/taken down.

I haven't heard from the OpenRA guys on the forums here for a while.

There are possibilities of other conversions running around the internet as well (excluding the html5 clone [no source code for latest version]).

 

Am I just the only one interested in this stuff?

 

[Matt]

I wouldn't bet on FreeCnC. The project is inactive for like a decade, just like all it's clones FreeRA or OpenRedAlert and looking at the C code base, I doubt anyone wants to touch and resurrect it.

 

The only other modern Open Source game clone I know of https://github.com/ultraq/redhorizon/ halted development years ago and is also far from playable.

 

So OpenRA is kind of the only one in town. I stopped posting news about OpenRA releases as to me this was the home of the original classics and I did not want to step on anyone's toes (again). However I can continue to post announcements like we do on ppmsite.com & friends if it is approved by the administrators here. As more developers joined us recently we were able to make a big jump with http://www.openra.net/news/release-20150424/

[Blade]

None of the clones has really got near to being a real reimplementation of the C&C game engines, the C++ ones have all ceased development and the OpenRA guys have created their own game engine that happens to load the C&C graphic formats, but otherwise can't utilised the C&C game content (map and missions have to be converted and implemented as mod content for the engine rather than the engine being written around loading and playing the original content IIRC).

[Matt]

I guess there is no point in re-implementing the original engines with all it's hacks, exploits and limitations given how well supported the original binaries are thanks to community patches and how easy you can run them with DOSbox or Wine on other platforms.

[Blade]

I have to disagree, properly reimplementing the old engines by reversing engineering the original code would potentially have several benefits. For one it would make it easier to remove many of the limitations and to maintain community patches than assembly hacking the binary. It would also make it easier to adapt it to changing graphics frameworks so fake ddraw dll files and the like would be unnecessary and it would be possible to port it to other operating systems making wine unnecessary as well. Finally it would also provide some preservation and documentation of the techniques that were used when writing games like these on resource limited systems working with constrained memory and CPU cycles.

[Rampastring]

I guess there is no point in re-implementing the original engines with all it's hacks, exploits and limitations given how well supported the original binaries are thanks to community patches and how easy you can run them with DOSbox or Wine on other platforms.

I guess I shouldn't feed the troll, but..

 

1) You don't need DOSbox for any of the C&C classics. The patches hosted here are enough, even for Windows 10. Wine is required for OSX and Linux though.

2) Many/most hacks and exploits have been fixed over the years, and new ones (if any will show up) should be fixable as well if they're critical enough for people to care. It would be especially easy if there was an open-source reimplementation.

3) A lot of the logic in the old games is just different compared to OpenRA. Not hacky or limiting, but different. Now, there's some limitations in modding the games (not too many though, look at what community mods have achieved already), but a re-implementation of the old engines would allow infinite modding possibilities anyway by source code modification.

 

OpenRA is an interesting project, but you're not gaining any respect by bashing and spreading FUD about the classics.

[Matt]

It seems you got this the wrong way. What I meant is you are doing pretty good job with your assembly patches, launchers and replacements for the online services, that no one is really pressured into crafting a native backwards compatible re-implementation.

[Rampastring]

Oh. In that case I apologize. You however did make the classics seem worse than they really are by referencing DOSBox as needed for compatibility and all the "hacks, exploits and limitations" that they supposedly have.

[Matt]

Well, you need DOSBox or Wine to run the original C&C and C&C:Gold/RA95 on Mac/Linux which is fine. Even commercial games are "ported" that way nowadays. If http://www.gog.com/ were to sell those, I assume that is what they would do.

 

Also sorry, but there undoubtful engine limitations such as C&C having a map size of 64x64 and there are exploits such as the place building bug which is used in Tiberian Sun speedruns such as http://www.speedrun.com/run/wzpqonvy that reduce the value in terms of competitive play. Not sure if that is already solved with a community patch. I think this should be allowed to point out. You do not have to feel responsible or offended although in practice you pretty much took over from EA in terms of support for the classic games on this site.

[Rampastring]

Not sure if that is already solved with a community patch.

I'm fairly sure it is. It'd be quite widespread otherwise, and people aren't complaining about it on the TS section.

 

When it comes to engine limitations I was mostly talking about RA1 and especially TS. As a developer of the TS-to-TD mod I naturally see little value in TD at this point with the exception of its campaigns.

 

As for DOSBox, the patched versions here make the DOS C&C and RA1 redundant. There's nothing special about them compared to the community builds, just extra hassle and a limited 320x200 resolution (and the very atmospheric sound card configuration screens). Basically no one plays the DOS versions compared to the fixed versions we have here, so saying that DOSBox is needed for the classics is plain wrong when people aside from Nyerguds automatically associate the classics with the more advanced and fixed Windows versions.

[Grant]

I personally love the ambition in the OpenRA project, kudos to you Matt and to everyone involved, it's a great achievement.

 

My only criticism is how the project grew away from trying to replicate the current gameplay and balance. It's great to update the UI, make the game HD, but changing the core mechanics and balance should have been controlled IMO.

 

Still thats my only criticism, great work otherwise

[Matt]

I also thought about that and did some experiments, but then I doubt anyone would want to play an OpenRA mod that mimics http://redalert1.com/ which already has a larger player base due to being there earlier and better marketing as it re-uses the original trademarks.

[Grant]

I also thought about that and did some experiments, but then I doubt anyone would want to play an OpenRA mod that mimics http://redalert1.com/ which already has a larger player base due to being there earlier and better marketing as it re-uses the original trademarks.

Theres many reasons, multi platform, game and o/s bugs being easier to fix, actual "HD".

 

How did OpenRA become successful?  Being an open source reimplementation Red Alert?

[Matt]

I was told that a disassembling and re-implementation project in C++ steered by this community to be in progress, which certainly would be interesting though legally quite questionable.

 

I only noticed https://github.com/damiencarol/openredalert got recently imported from Google Code, but I haven't seen any public activity. Then there is also https://sourceforge.net/projects/freera/ with nothing going on and http://freecnc.org/ which at least still has some Tiberian Dawn related content left and a source code repository converted to git recently at https://sourceforge.net/projects/freecnc/ I don't know which fork descends from what. It seems the work was a bit scattered and people were scared away from writing a complex RTS game in native code leaving their projects left for dead. Also none of these clones have been embraced by the community in any way.

[Blade]

If its a proper engine reimplementation along the lines of OpenTTD or OpenDUNE I'm all for it, and I can't see how it would be any more legally questionable than these.

 

Regarding defunct clone attempts, freecnc was the first, freera forked from it and as far as I can tell openredalert kind of borrows from both of them.

[Matt]

I just stumbled upon https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2 whose reverse-engineering development model might be worth imitating if you want binary compatibility and just replace ancient windowing as well as rendering API with something modern platform independent like SDL.

[Nyerguds]

Huh. The first RollerCoaster Tycoon was written in x86 assembly language. Not much to reverse engineer, there

[Blade]

You can reverse engineer a higher level language representation from it

 

Huh. The first RollerCoaster Tycoon was written in x86 assembly language. Not much to reverse engineer, there

[Matt]

The windowing part and loading screen process bar in Chris Sawyer games was always written in C out of necessity to interact with the Windows API.

[Nyerguds]

Well the project was about the second game. Maybe that one wasn't written in asm anyway.