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EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

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Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#71

Post by sho_hn »

tomw1808 wrote: post #39

I am speechless. The most vile gaming company I know. The most beloved game I ever played. Now, Open source ... from them? How? Why? Marketing gag or a step in the right direction? But then, OpenRA has existed for a while - does that mean its getting even better? Where is this going?

EA and Open Source isn't completely alien. Their C++ standard library EASTL was open sourced long ago and is a historically quite important and influential codebase in the history of C++'s evolution.

They've also open sourced and patent-pledged a bunch of gaming-relatee accessibility tech over the years.

And of course Micropolis/SimCity.

My advice is to celebrate the successes of large corporates in this regard very hard and often - this provides backup to the champions on the inside.

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#72

Post by inetknght »

Starlevel004 wrote: post #62

// Homework for today. Write 2000 words reconciling "Your code must never crash" with "Intentionally putting crashes in the code". Fucktard. // DEBUG_CRASH(( "xferScienceVec - vector is not empty, but should be\n" )); // https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...

EA game devs cursing each other out? Internal company drama being aired out years later? Oh boy!

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#73

Post by 4ggr0 »

wglb wrote: post #27
HelloUsername wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps @dang can change URL to https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con...

Best to email hn@ycombinator.com; dang can't possibly read all comments.

wouldn't surprise me if dang is notified when he's mentioned :D

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#74

Post by bee_rider »

I only glanced at the code in ANIM.CPP but for a C++ program from 1997 it looks kinda nice, right? The methods are all short, with some descriptive comments at the top of each one. Inputs and outputs described. Nice index at the top of the file.

I’ve seen worse!

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#75

Post by joshuaturner »

adenta wrote: post #3
HelloUsername wrote: post #2

Red Alert: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert Tiberian Dawn: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn Renegade: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade Generals Zero Hour: https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour EA post: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/command-and-con... Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb (Deleted Reddi…

praying for Red Alert 2

Apparently the source code for RA2 has been lost (along with Tiberian Sun)

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#77

Post by inetknght »

ratmice wrote: post #22
Flimm wrote: post #6

Nice! Now this piece of video game history can be better shared and preserved. Does this repo include the artistic assists, or does it include the code only?

I think this qualifies as art. char insert_string1[]={"\n\r;\n\r"}; char insert_string2[]={";For some reason, inserting these lines makes it assemble correctly\n\r"};

Oh boy when I see stuff like that in modern code, I start looking for undefined behavior occurring elsewhere in the same or dependent translation units...

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#78

Post by 6SixTy »

Macha wrote: post #45
LorenDB wrote: post #28

According to some research I did a few years back, EA currently owns the rights to Full Tilt! Pinball, which is what 3D Pinball Space Cadet was based on. EA, if you have a single shred of decency, open source Pinball!

From what I've heard from videos by Microsoft devs on why it was dropped between XP and Vista, the source code is obtuse and very difficult to port/work on.

Thing that's hard to communicate is that Vista was moving away from how older versions of Windows rendered their desktop and past art styles. With Pinball originally from Windows 95, porting it to leverage Vista's new graphics paradigm on top of the artstyle was probably too much work for a pack in game.

Though I do wish they contracted out a clone of Pinball instead of Purble Place.

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#79

Post by keyringlight »

anotherhue wrote: post #5

EA, I've cursed your name since you smothered Westwood. But thank you for this.

Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood tells it a bit differently [0]. From memory after the EA acquisition they stopped doing their edutainment/casual games, which is where they used to nurture their junior developers along with taking on too many major projects because EA gave them the resources to do that. That led to less quality and later Westwood releases (Renegade, Emperor Battle for Dune) suffered.

The podcast also includes details of Westwood's filming setup, which seemed to include motion tracking which would have been interesting in the context of performance capture, but before its time.

[0] - https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/louis-cast...

Re: EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games

#80

Post by evanjrowley »

apetresc wrote: post #19
BuildTheRobots wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly odd (age wise) Generals got open sourced before RA2. I wonder why?

It is apparently the case that the original source for Tiberian Sun and RA2 has been lost; EA doesn't have it. There's been rumours to that effect for a while.

Thanks for the insight. I was wondering the same thing.
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