Avernum 5 General Author Comments

[Spidweb]

Avernum 5 for the Mac is out. After a brief vacation, I will start the Windows port, which should be ready in early March.

 

I won't be all windy about this. If you care what I think, open the instructions and read the author comments in the credits chapter. TLDR version: I'm really proud of this one.

 

The game should run fine on Leopard. I, with great trepidation and suffering, installed it on my machine for testing. I really hope an upcoming OS update solves the problems with the funny looking dock icons after quitting because I am completely at a loss for how I can prevent it.

 

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'll be watching the threads in this forum pretty closely for a month or two, to spot problems and so on. Hope you like it, and have fun!

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Scorpius]

sank yuu vogeru-chan!!

 

I look forward to the windows port

[Xaiya]

March? Well, my birthday is in March so I can be a bit more patient. I think.

[Spidweb]

I also wanted to mention what my favorite parts of the game are. Just out of general interest.

 

Favorite Fight (design-wise): The Prime Sentinel. This mechanic makes me giggle.

Favorite Fight (writing-wise): Lysstak the Beast. A fairly straight-forward encounter, but the text wrapped around it makes it pretty funky.

Favorite "Oh, We're About To Fight" Dialogue: The Rat Lord.

Favorite Character: Probably Gladwell. Or Melanchion. Melanchion will be back in the next game, for sure.

Dialogue/Descriptions That Were the Most Fun To Write: The Giant's Spire.

Thing That I Thought Would Irritate Hardcore Avernum Fans the Most: Solberg is craaaaazy.

Most Blatant Fan Service: Cheeseball Two. And three, four, five, and six.

Favorite Minor Encounter: Fae's Basement.

Encounter That Could Have Been Brilliant But I Just Never Got the Balance Right: Master of the Pit.

Most Gratuitously Mean Encounter: The Soultaker. I was really full of beans the day I designed that whole dungeon.

Thing That Is Most Improved Over Avernum 4: I think the chitrach section is just about right.

 

There will be an Avernum 6, but that will be it for new Avernum content for the foreseeable future.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Khoth]

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
Most Gratuitously Mean Encounter: The Soultaker.

For me, that was Encounter That Finally Gave Me A Use For One Of Those Basins Of Poison People Seem To Leave Lying Around.

I think it's a pity than Hirickis's cunning name-change isn't on your list somewhere.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Congratulations on getting the game released sooner than expected. The march to March begins!

[Aequitas]

Since we've got you (Spidweb) here, may I ask a question about game development plans in general? Might be a little off topic.... but I was wondering about your thoughts on the Geneforge storyline. What happens when the series is done w/G5? Are you planning to stay exclusively with the ultimately more interesting Avernum genre, or start on another original project?

 

I've just realized that this is my second post in an Avernum forum. Never been down here much, but the storyline is exceedingly interesting. It seems to be much easier to come up with individual game plots for Avernum than Geneforge.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Quote:

Originally written by Dryth'tor:
the ultimately more interesting Avernum genre

I object, your honor.

[Sleeping Dragon]

You know how I can tell Jeff writes great stories? My heart skipped a beat when I saw the Empress getting hit by that spell in the opening sequence. I knew from the website that there would be an assasination attempt but just seeing that happen to a character I have come to know and like was powerful.

 

Keep it up Jeff!

[Rowen]

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
[QBFavorite "Oh, We're About To Fight" Dialogue: The Rat Lord.[/QB]

Yup, I found this to be very entertaining. Pure guineas to make a NPC that had an army of rats. Avernums own Peter Piper. Well done indeed.

[Men are from Slars]

As of the first hour of gameplay, I've seen some of the best writing in any spidweb game since Exile 2 and Nethergate. Exile feels like Exile again. (Avernum. Whatever.) Anyway, bravo.

[Randomizer]

From a beta tester's perspective:

 

Favorite Fight (design-wise): Fang Clan Test. Doing all 9 areas was a test of strategy and planning.

Favorite Fight (writing-wise): Lysstak the Beast. Best in fight comments by an opponent to break up the hacking.

Favorite "Oh, We're About To Fight" Dialogue: The Rat Lord.

Favorite Character: Probably Gladwell. I wanted to kill him from the start, but had to keep helping him.

Dialogue/Descriptions That Were the Most Fun To Write: The Giant's Spire. Agree, and it gave the best reason to go back and eliminate all the witnesses.

Thing That I Thought Would Irritate Hardcore Avernum Fans the Most: Solberg is craaaaazy.

Most Blatant Fan Service: Cheeseball Two. And three, four, five, and six. Loved the dialog before meeting Cheeseballs 3 to 6.

Favorite Minor Encounter: Fortunda's Alchemy Shop and his apprentice comments.

Encounter That Could Have Been Brilliant But I Just Never Got the Balance Right: Master of the Pit. You made it hard enough anyway.

Most Gratuitously Mean Encounter: The Soultaker. I was really full of beans the day I designed that whole dungeon. Probably the hardest fight in the game.

Thing That Is Most Improved Over Avernum 4: The Plot. I actually became invested in the story line and care about what was happening.

[Tyranicus]

Never before have I registered a game after the first 15 minutes of gameplay, (no, not even Nethergate ), but A5 just blows me away. Keep up the great work, Jeff!

[Aequitas]

Quote:

Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar:

Quote:

Originally written by Dryth'tor:
the ultimately more interesting Avernum genre

I object, your honor.

Geneforge is good, but Avernum has a more developed plot. But that's just my opinion.

[Slith666]

Question, are their any new playable races in Avernum V? Like for example, the Valhati (Sorry if I mispelled the name)?

[Locmaar]

You can hire a Vanahiti on the Isle of Vinitawawa, but you may not play one. I'm sorry.

[Jeran Korak]

CHEESEBALL 2!!1one!!!1one and half!

 

(Yes, I loved him)

[Alorael at Large]

Vahnatai! The word is vahnatai!

 

—Alorael, who happens to disagree about plot. Geneforge's plot is assuredly more developed. Avernum's world is far more detailed, though, despite being mostly generic fantasy. A good world allows many different plots.

[Locmaar]

Alo, obviously you can't play one of them. But as I said: you can hire a Vanahiti on the sunny Isle of Vinitawawa after you've completed Gladwell's Cream of Coconut quest.

 

But really, playing a Vahnatai, Pffft. What won't they think of next!

[Alorael at Large]

Misspelled vahnatai aren't funny. Gladwell isn't funny. Cream of coconut is a little bit funny.

 

—Alorael, who actually wasn't able to start that quest chain. Where, exactly, do you find the Xian Skull?

[Randomizer]

Quote:

Originally written by Waterbearer:
—Alorael, who actually wasn't able to start that quest chain. Where, exactly, do you find the Xian Skull?

First you need to deliver an anvil from Solberg to X. Then you have to survive listening to X tell his life story and his quest to perfect his anvil spell.

[Men are from Slars]

The part where Jeff has your monitor strobe to give you a stroke was a nice touch, I thought.

[Locmaar]

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:

Quote:

Originally written by Waterbearer:
—Alorael, who actually wasn't able to start that quest chain. Where, exactly, do you find the Xian Skull?

First you need to deliver an anvil from Solberg to X. Then you have to survive listening to X tell his life story and his quest to perfect his anvil spell.

And that was one of the easier parts of that quest. Personally I wrecked my brain around how to get Hurrr Bellafont in Nephar Beach to sell me her banana boat. I'd never expected a singing contest in any of Jeff's games.

[Callie]

My iMac, it's obsolete now.

 

Using the household Windows machine for internet is a disgrace, but the concept of playing A5 on it is depressing.

 

*Plays an mp3 of a requiem*

[Cheeseball-Seven]

Quote:

Originally written by Locmaar:

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:

Quote:

Originally written by Waterbearer:
—Alorael, who actually wasn't able to start that quest chain. Where, exactly, do you find the Xian Skull?

First you need to deliver an anvil from Solberg to X. Then you have to survive listening to X tell his life story and his quest to perfect his anvil spell.

And that was one of the easier parts of that quest. Personally I wrecked my brain around how to get Hurrr Bellafont in Nephar Beach to sell me her banana boat. I'd never expected a singing contest in any of Jeff's games.

...are you just making things up, or does this quest chain actually exist?

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Cheeseball-Seven:
...are you just making things up, or does this quest chain actually exist?

The former. If you see anything involving the Xian Skull on these boards, assume it's part of an old, old running joke that now exists mostly to confuse newbies.

[King InuYasha]

I do wish to see a Linux port of the game. The time is ripe too....

 

With the resurgence of the Linux desktop, and more businesses using it in corporate environments and the work people seeing it and trying it out at home, Linux will gain a foothold. Also, Windows Vista hasn't been doing so well... Already with all the other advancements in propagation of Linux to the masses (Dell selling Ubuntu PCs, Everex and ASUS low cost machines, etc.), Spiderweb Software should rethink their position about Linux games.

 

Anyone who says that the games always work fine under Wine are crazy. The latest versions of Wine + any of the Exile and a few of the Avernum games = borked up screen and sound. Sound is easily fixed with driver emulation, but screen issues... Also it is a very weak excuse to not support Linux natively when there are very powerful cross-platform toolkits that can be used for game development (SDL, OpenAL, wxWidgets, MinGW, Code::Blocks, wxFormBuilder, etc.), and all these tools work on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. I just hope Spiderweb reconsiders it for Avernum 5. Now that would be sweet for Linux.

[*i]

The issue is, regrettably, one of money. Fortunately a port from OS X to Linux is, in general, not too bad. However, time being money and these games being Jeff's source of income, there have to be priorities of releasing new games versus capturing the Linux users, which are (at current) a small market share.

 

Personally, I would love to see the Linux community grow so that it becomes a more business viable focus for software companies.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
The issue is, regrettably, one of money. Fortunately a port from OS X to Linux is, in general, not too bad. However, time being money and these games being Jeff's source of income, there have to be priorities of releasing new games versus capturing the Linux users, which are (at current) a small market share.

Personally, I would love to see the Linux community grow so that it becomes a more business viable focus for software companies.

The problem is that it is a circular dependency (hehe, software developer term). If no one takes the plunge, others will not follow. Generally, smaller companies would be in a better position because they don't have bureaucrats controlling them as much, telling them what they can and cannot do. It is those companies that start trends.

Case in point, id Software. id Software was one of the first companies to make truly 3D game engine. They pretty much made Linux a possible gaming platform by releasing every game they made for Linux (though not always at the same time).

Consequently, Loki Software (now defunct unfortunately) was able to garner some business in porting games to Linux, and all the tools they created to ease the porting efforts were released as open source (SDL, Loki Setup). Today, the chief porting man of the Linux world is Ryan Gordon, known for the icculus.org projects and the one who handles the Linux porting project of Unreal Tournament and quite a few others. He is also rewriting the Loki installer to be cross platform and much more sophisticated as well as less error prone. The name of it is MojoSetup. Currently it has support for CLI, GTK2 Linux, and support for Windows and Mac OS X is in the works.

As more commercial games show up for Linux and begin to succeed, major companies will take notice and go forward. Unfortunately, there is a flip side to this. Consumers will not use Linux unless there are game titles that they enjoy to play, and companies will not make them unless there are Linux users asking for them.

Unless smaller companies start making their games available for Linux alongside whatever platforms they currently support, there will be no change among the larger companies, and thus few commercial games on Linux, and finally keeping people from taking the plunge to use Linux.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by King InuYasha:
The problem is that it is a circular dependency (hehe, software developer term). If no one takes the plunge, others will not follow. Generally, smaller companies would be in a better position because they don't have bureaucrats controlling them as much, telling them what they can and cannot do. It is those companies that start trends.

Smaller companies also doesn't have the money to absorb big losses. Jeff has said before that he's not in a position to take risks. In the past, he's nearly been sent out of business by a single game that didn't sell as well as expected. I don't think any of us wants to see that happen.

[*i]

Quote:

Unless smaller companies start making their games available for Linux alongside whatever platforms they currently support, there will be no change among the larger companies, and thus few commercial games on Linux, and finally keeping people from taking the plunge to use Linux.

Spiderweb Software is a small company with three employees that serves primarily to support a family. To devote time and effort to please a few is a big risk, especially with a family business.

I agree in concept that it would be great if there was more support for different platforms; however, asking Jeff to risk a significant portion of his family income for an abstract and altruistic gain is a bit too much to ask. Ironically, it is the larger companies who are most suited for taking the risk, but their marketing people see that the best way to make money is to do Windows-only games. I can't say I like this being a Mac user, but I cannot blame them for doing what is best for them.

I impart with you the wisdom that change begins on the individual level. If you feel strongly about this matter, start your own company and sell games to a bunch of platforms. Be part of the solution rather than asking others to.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:

Quote:

Originally written by King InuYasha:
The problem is that it is a circular dependency (hehe, software developer term). If no one takes the plunge, others will not follow. Generally, smaller companies would be in a better position because they don't have bureaucrats controlling them as much, telling them what they can and cannot do. It is those companies that start trends.

Smaller companies also doesn't have the money to absorb big losses. Jeff has said before that he's not in a position to take risks. In the past, he's nearly been sent out of business by a single game that didn't sell as well as expected. I don't think any of us wants to see that happen.

That is true. However, if Jeff were to incorporate use of cross-platform libraries, a Linux binary would merely be a recompile away. Being able to build from one codebase four different targets (Darwin/x86, Darwin/PPC, Windows/x86, Linux/x86_32) is a mighty thing. When Jeff plans to port from the Mac OS X version to Windows, instead of choosing to use Windows native APIs, he could choose to port to cross-platform APIs, which provide him the ability to simply rebuild his code to make it work on different platforms. Additionally, if future games would designed with cross-platform APIs, he could reduce his work time to build for his needed targets. If the game you are referring to is Exile III for Linux, its because he outsourced to someone else who I suspect didn't do a complete port, but rather wrapped the code using something like Visual MainWin. MainWin ports are generally not very good, and are considered merely stopgap measures to full native portings.

Note: Darwin/x86 and Darwin/PPC are Mac OS X/x86 and Mac OS X/PPC respectively. Darwin is the official GCC target name. Windows/x86 official target name is mingw32, since Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft, and all the other things we don't really want to get into..

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
I impart with you the wisdom that change begins on the individual level. If you feel strongly about this matter, start your own company and sell games to a bunch of platforms. Be part of the solution rather than asking others to.

Yes, for that I am attempting to re-learn C++. I am hoping to try to port BoE to Linux using open source technologies. First step obviously is to get the Win16 code to work on Win32, but I can't find any resources on Win16 => Win32 porting, so for the moment, I'm looking for resources on using SDL and wxWidgets in apps. Hopefully something will turn up or someone can suggest some material I can read.

Edit: Just found this nice PDF on Linux Game Programming that focuses on SDL and OpenAL. This will definitely be useful....

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by King InuYasha:
If the game you are referring to is Exile III for Linux

Blades of Avernum, actually. Not a Linux port, just a game with disappointing sales.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:

Quote:

Originally written by King InuYasha:
If the game you are referring to is Exile III for Linux

Blades of Avernum, actually. Not a Linux port, just a game with disappointing sales.

It makes me wonder though, how well did Exile III for Linux sell?

Note for anyone reading the PDF I linked to in my previous post, there are a few SDL addon libs for Audio, in particular, SDL_mixer and SDL_sound. SDL_sound is the one created by Loki though, and supports a wider range of formats and features. In any case, the recommended compressed audio format for games is Ogg Vorbis.

Edit: Wow, I'm on a roll! I found a PDF on Cross Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets ! To those reading this PDF, apparently there is errata regarding this eBook .

[DarkTreader]

King, I understand and agree with your sentiment, but at this point you might be pushing a wee bit too hard. Jeff began on a mac, so he too understands your sentiment. However, spiderweb has spoken right now. In situations like this, it's better to politely state your arguments up front, be very magnanimous, and step back. Continuing to push your point after they already said no is going to just make people annoyed.

 

In the future I recommend a polite email, expressing your interest in buying a linux copy, briefly lay out your facts, then ask all of your friends to do the same. This will show spiderweb the demand in a Linux version. If it's in the cards, it will happen in a future avernum release.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by DarkTreader:
King, I understand and agree with your sentiment, but at this point you might be pushing a wee bit too hard. Jeff began on a mac, so he too understands your sentiment. However, spiderweb has spoken right now. In situations like this, it's better to politely state your arguments up front, be very magnanimous, and step back. Continuing to push your point after they already said no is going to just make people annoyed.

In the future I recommend a polite email, expressing your interest in buying a linux copy, briefly lay out your facts, then ask all of your friends to do the same. This will show spiderweb the demand in a Linux version. If it's in the cards, it will happen in a future avernum release.

Very well.... I'll cool it.... for now.....

[Randomizer]

If you want a Linux game go here . But there is no guarantee that it will work on your version of Linux,

[scottk]

Coding it with cross-platform libraries is one thing, but you're asking Spiderweb Software to also support the Linux distribution(s). If he's going to sell it, he is on the hook for making sure it installs and runs. Unless the libraries are included with the binary (which isn't Linux-like), or built for a narrow specific system configuration (what would be the point?), I think it would be a super headache! I have a lot of experience with how the Battle for Wesnoth is distributed and built for 80 different Linux distributions, and it wouldn't happen without the work of many volunteers familiar with their distributions and able to customize the source so that it builds properly or advise their peers on how to make it themselves. I have a hard time getting my brain around how a commercial Linux venture like that would work.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by scottk:
Coding it with cross-platform libraries is one thing, but you're asking Spiderweb Software to also support the Linux distribution(s). If he's going to sell it, he is on the hook for making sure it installs and runs. Unless the libraries are included with the binary (which isn't Linux-like), or built for a narrow specific system configuration (what would be the point?), I think it would be a super headache! I have a lot of experience with how the Battle for Wesnoth is distributed and built for 80 different Linux distributions, and it wouldn't happen without the work of many volunteers familiar with their distributions and able to customize the source so that it builds properly or advise their peers on how to make it themselves. I have a hard time getting my brain around how a commercial Linux venture like that would work.

True, it isn't Linux-like to statically link binaries, but by using modular DLLs and including them in the binary tree, that works well for commercial Linux binaries. Many companies do that already. Heck, Exile III for Linux did that. It really isn't necessary to create native packages for all distros either. The Loki installer and the MojoSetup project both are designed with commercial Linux apps in mind. It would be a major problem for Spidweb to support all the different Linux systems if it was in native packaging. However, even without using Loki or Mojo, the Linux Standards Base has a standardization regarding packaging. Debian even adheres to it. All Debian has to do is convert an LSB-RPM to DEB package and it installs perfectly.

A generic installer would probably be more suitable though, since there are distros that do not use ANY form of packaging (Linux from Scratch, Gentoo (portage doesnt count)) There is nothing wrong with including shared libraries in the package, or statically linking them. In the unlikely event he would want to spring for a commercial installer packaging system for Linux, there is BitRock. BitRock InstallerBuilder works on all major platforms, but its overkill unless you plan to standardize your installation system across all three platforms.

There is a huge difference between Battle of Wesnoth and Spiderweb Software. One, Battle of Wesnoth is open source, and thus it can use dynamic linking and work with the system libs, and two Spiderweb would ALREADY have to include the libraries with the Windows version, and statically linking the Windows and Linux version isn't too big or hard a step. Doing so also would make the games slightly faster than their dynamically linked counterparts.

I regularly statically link programs that I compile from sources because I use them for various server stuff (MathTeX for TeX stuff on website, ImageMagick for image thumbnail manipulation on websites, etc.) and the server itself runs an older version of Linux than build environment. Because of this, I make statically linked binaries that include everything in the binary so that its easier to manage and more likely to work. I also have experience packaging in RPMs as well as in BitRock installers, so I know the major differences required to package for each. In RPMs, generally it is recommended you dynamically link so that dependency checking can be used. In BitRock, no such feature exists, so therefore you should either statically link or include the shared object libraries in the program tree included in the installer.

Generally statically linking is the better choice because with static linking you have less files to manage, and the program is less likely to be incompatible with future distro versions. In Windows, it is common to dynamically link while including the DLLs in the main program folder, Mac OS X is similar in this I think. Linux varies depending on your range of targets. If your target is a server market, you will want to use native packaging and dynamically link, because that market is slow changing, but when it does, you want to be able to take advantage of new things. For games, things change extremely quickly, so you want to be able to slow down a bit. In this case, static linking or including the libs in the program tree is recommended.

Even Wesnoth has a generic installer, though that one does dependency resolution. Personally, I would go with either MojoSetup or BitRock for generic installers. MojoSetup because it is the successor to Loki and is in active development, soon to support all the platforms rather than just Linux. BitRock because it is a commercial alternative that is stable and flexible. BitRock also is very open source friendly for a commercial company, and they evolve with changing demands quite well.

I think I repeated myself a few times, but we will just take that as emphasizing

[Bryce]

I agree with King InuYasha with regard to statically linking for closed-source programs on Linux; I've had nothing but trouble with dynamically linked binaries on Linux that weren't from my distribution's own package system.

 

I think a better ultimate solution, of course, would be to open-source the engine so that Jeff can focus on developing (and selling) content rather than hacking on the engine.

 

There is no reason why an open source engine would prevent him from using his demoware model, with some minor adjustments. If you are skeptical, let me explain.

 

The current model relies on the content (scenario) trusting the engine to tell you if it is registered or not. If the engine is open source, you can't trust it to do that, because the user might alter it to always say that it is registered. (You can't trust a closed-source engine either; in theory they can always be compromised, and often in practice they are.)

 

So, don't trust the engine - you don't need to. Instead of sending a registration code when the user pays, send a small (~100k) but vital piece of the full scenario, so that if the unregistered user compromised the shareware protections, it would do him little good. This process could easily be streamlined to the same or similar amount of effort for the user.

 

You could argue that the user can copy the piece of code and give it to his friends. This is true, but he can also copy his copy of Avernum and it's registered preferences file or whatever. You cannot thwart the determined illicit copier, the objective is just to make it easier to register than to copy it illegally for the great majority of people. (People aren't evil, just lazy.)

 

Even in the case where the current system is unchanged, most users can't read C++ and you'd be fairly hard put to find a programmer who is going to steal bread from a colleague's kids by circumventing the system and then advertise and distribute it. I certainly wouldn't. But in case Jeff has any programmer enemies that hate him personally, I still think the alternate scheme above is a better deal.

 

I think that improving Blades of Exile would be a great way to show Jeff that open-source works. If I finish my current project over winter break, I'll try to take a look at how the open-source BoE project is coming along and contribute. (I have done work with SDL before, I agree that it's the right tool for the job.)

 

[edit] On the other hand, Blades of Avernum would be pretty much done for as a salable product with an open-source engine, but there is a partial solution that is pretty simple - sell the normal Avernum editor instead.

[King InuYasha]

Quote:

Originally written by Bryce:
I agree with King InuYasha with regard to statically linking for closed-source programs on Linux; I've had nothing but trouble with dynamically linked binaries on Linux that weren't from my distribution's own package system.

I think a better ultimate solution, of course, would be to open-source the engine so that Jeff can focus on developing (and selling) content rather than hacking on the engine.

There is no reason why an open source engine would prevent him from using his demoware model, with some minor adjustments. If you are skeptical, let me explain.

The current model relies on the content (scenario) trusting the engine to tell you if it is registered or not. If the engine is open source, you can't trust it to do that, because the user might alter it to always say that it is registered. (You can't trust a closed-source engine either; in theory they can always be compromised, and often in practice they are.)

So, don't trust the engine - you don't need to. Instead of sending a registration code when the user pays, send a small (~100k) but vital piece of the full scenario, so that if the unregistered user compromised the shareware protections, it would do him little good. This process could easily be streamlined to the same or similar amount of effort for the user.

You could argue that the user can copy the piece of code and give it to his friends. This is true, but he can also copy his copy of Avernum and it's registered preferences file or whatever. You cannot thwart the determined illicit copier, the objective is just to make it easier to register than to copy it illegally for the great majority of people. (People aren't evil, just lazy.)

Even in the case where the current system is unchanged, most users can't read C++ and you'd be fairly hard put to find a programmer who is going to steal bread from a colleague's kids by circumventing the system and then advertise and distribute it. I certainly wouldn't. But in case Jeff has any programmer enemies that hate him personally, I still think the alternate scheme above is a better deal.

I think that improving Blades of Exile would be a great way to show Jeff that open-source works. If I finish my current project over winter break, I'll try to take a look at how the open-source BoE project is coming along and contribute. (I have done work with SDL before, I agree that it's the right tool for the job.)

[edit] On the other hand, Blades of Avernum would be pretty much done for as a salable product with an open-source engine, but there is a partial solution that is pretty simple - sell the normal Avernum editor instead.

Theoretically, if the engine and the shareware code were split, with the engine open source, then it would be possible to distribute the shareware component as a separate closed source component. The official Avernum content data could require the shareware component to tell whether it was registered or not. If it isn't registered, then part of the content data would be disabled. If it is registered (according to the shareware component), then the whole data would be accessible.

The benefit of that would be that the Avernum core engine could be packaged by people, while Jeff concentrates on the most important part, the content. When the content is ready, then Jeff could offer an installer with the build of engine and content software, as well as offer a content only option, so that those with packages for the engine code already installed can just drop the content in place.

Pretty much that is how the Quake engine stuff is handled nowadays (lower than Quake 4), though the Quake data was completely pay for, not shareware. There are still companies that license id Tech 3 for use in commercial games, and all those games are compatible with the opensource engine. In Linux, it is common to combine Quake 3 based games with the ioQuake3 engine because the ioQuake3 engine is very much technically superior to the stock and other modified quake 3 engines. This allows pretty much any Quake 3 based game in Windows to be played in Linux.

[lizzard]

am i the only one who wants to see a spiderweb game ported to ipod?

or iphone.

[Alorael at Large]

The iPod lacks both keyboard and mouse. It's not really capable of running Avernum games. Avernum could be adapted to touch screen for the iPhone, but it would be trying to wedge a niche product into a different niche market and sales probably wouldn't justify the massive effort of porting to such a different medium.

 

—Alorael, who hopes nobody noticed his embarassing error that required a total rewrite of this post.