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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

#311
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the Tiberian Dawn code is Windows too (so C&C Gold / W95) I was kind of wishing it was the 1995 DOS version source code! (also, no Dune 2000)

Emporer: Battle for Dune was their first 3D RTS and I personally loved the gameplay, story, and soundtrack. I very much hope it will eventually be open-sourced.

I really liked that game, it had a lot of strategy to it and a decent story.

The multiplayer had a common key bug that made it hard on some maps. The atreides airdrones could fly at the edge of the map and not be targeted, and take out the harvester carryalls / and other air units There were claims of a flame tank bug that could target any unit that was mentioned on the forums much much later, but I don't know if the details were ever revealed, I never figured it out so I guess its just theoretical..

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

#312

>To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game. The C&C Remastered Collection is available for purchase on EA App or Steam. Mind you EA released [some of] the games as freeware back in 2008 so no, you don't have to buy them for the graphics, art, sound, and music assets Tiberian Dawn GDI https://web.archive.org/web/20110927141135/http://na.llnet.c... Tiberian Dawn NOD https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060230/…

> you must own the game.

Really weird choice of word, considering how “you can’t own the game, into a licence for it”.

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

#313
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it expires after 30 years, if the company doesn't publish the source code, what good does it do?

Perhaps to get the copyright you should put the code in escrow? Not really, it costs a fortune

Who wants to write it in a weekend with me?

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

#314

// 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...

As an ex-gamedev, this one cracked me up:

  else {
    DEBUG_CRASH(("PREFER_CORRECT_SOLUTION @todo impl"));
  }
(From PartitionSolver.cpp)

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

#315
Looking at the README for Red Alert specifically and the various requirements, how is it possible that these run on modern Windows?

OFC they're distributed via Steam as binaries + libs etc, but are they including these ancient versions of DirectX and the other dependencies with the downloads? Are these still compatible?

I know Windows has/had for years remarkable backwards compatibility, but that's always been a source of confusion for me.

Is there some monstrous "compatibility shim" somewhere for old DirectX APIs or something? What makes this possible?

Edit: Wait was this a re-release at some point more recently? If so, I suppose that specific question is addressed, but that still pertains to other old games. How does Half-Life (or whatever) still work? Same story?

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

#316
post #83

Whoever pushed for this at EA - my deepest respect is with you! Original C&C was rewritten from scratch long ago, but open source version of Zero Hour is such an amazing gift. PS: if you want to send respects to the person who did it you can do it on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jim-vessella-62726825_from-th...

Hey, that would be me! :D You can check out our full announcement post here; https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izmpmb/...

Can you shed any light on the rumors about TS/RA2's code being MIA?

(Or if you can't shed any light. Can you confirm "I can't talk about that")

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

#317
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header // directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how // its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blo...

... because they just casted lParam into a pointer to DEV_BROADCAST_HDR a few lines above, which is the common part of the different structure it could point to. That's just doing inheritance the C way. What did they expect? A C++ class from a C api?

Generals was famously extremely rushed in development. Probably a novice programmer

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

*Westwood

Generals was EA Pacific (Formally Westwood Pacific, opened by EA)

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

#319

OpenRA did it better :D If you haven't seen it yet https://www.openra.net/ is worth your time. https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA I have many fond memories of playing openra as "LAN" game on the gaming weekends we used to have in a few open source groups I've been in. I can't recommend "saturday gaming" enough, for anyone involved in any foss community, set up a recurring gaming weekend! You get bonus points if you mak…

OpenRA is all well and good...until you want to play Tiberian Sun, or Red Alert 2

I'm still a little salty as someone who donated to the project in 2013 to add support and it's still not even at "alpha test"

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

#320
Omniblade from Thyme project [0] managed to get Generals to compile [1][2] but there is still work to be done:

[0] https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Thyme

[1] https://discord.com/channels/409121752921276426/409121752921...

[2] https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/com...

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