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Ask HN: Which closed-source software would you most like to see the code for?

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31–33 of 33 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which closed-source software would you most like to see the code for?

#31
post #30

All the video games blizzard makes specially Starcraft 2 and Overwatch. They just seem to not struggle in lag department as other games. And for the massive world World of Warcraft it keeps state amazingly compare to other mmorpg's. Plus the networking seems to be a step above most.

WOW is dead simple TCP with smoke and mirrors.

Is it though?

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/300479

My understanding is the best video game netcode tends to rely upon UDP for gameplay, TCP introduces way too much overhead to keep gameplay at its smoothest: far better to use UDP and get latest player data as fast as possible, lost packets be damned.

Re: Ask HN: Which closed-source software would you most like to see the code for?

#32

Dwarf fortress. Incredibly complicated simulation and procgen code written by a guy who admits to having very little engineering knowledge.

I think he has spoken about his development methodology and codebase in interviews. From what I remember based on his description it would horrify any professional engineer who saw it but it seems to work for him. Here is the AMA where he briefly touches on some of his implementations: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1avszc/im_tarn_adams_...

This is the reason DF sprang to mind for me, too. From what I gather, tools like Dwarf Therapist work by directly manipulating the game's memory. If it were open source, I'm sure there would be some halfway sane plugin system by now.

Also, having the source code would mean that one could compile it for ARM devices...

Re: Ask HN: Which closed-source software would you most like to see the code for?

#33

Bayonetta or thr Ai code from F. E. A. R.

I don't know about the code, but the basic model behind F.E.A.R's AI has been explained in a couple of presentations, afaik.

Cf: http://web.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/gdc2006_orkin_jeff_fear.pdf

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