Age of Empires open source

[dearingj]

I just sent an email to Microsoft's Customer Advocacy Team asking about the possible release of the original Age of Empires game under an open source license. I really enjoy this game and would love to see it ported to Linux. If anyone else out there wants to show their support for this idea, you can contact the team by email at advocate@microsoft.com.

Anyone interested?

[dearingj]

(edit: please don't copy & paste this, it'll be more effective if you write your own)

Here's the message I sent to them:


Microsoft Advocacy Team:

I have been a long-time fan of the original Age of Empires game. Now
that it is nearly 12 years old and no longer being sold, I am curious if
Microsoft has any plans to release it under some kind of open source
license, now or in the future, as they have with other old pieces of
software.

I know many, including myself, who would be overjoyed to have the chance
to fix the networking bugs which occur in AoE on some modern computers.
If you do not know if Microsoft has any plans to release AoE's source, I
would love to know who better to contact regarding this issue. I was
eventually given your address after calling your Sales Information and
Corporate Office phone numbers.

Thank you so much for your time.

[Vadi]

Thanks. Here's what I sent them:


Microsoft Advocacy Team:

I have been a long-time fan of the original Age of Empires game. Now
that it is nearly 12 years old and no longer being sold, I am curious if
Microsoft has any plans to release it under some kind of open source
license, now or in the future, as they have with other old pieces of
software.

I know many, including myself, who would be overjoyed to have the chance
to fix the networking bugs which occur in AoE on some modern computers.
If you do not know if Microsoft has any plans to release AoE's source, I
would love to know who better to contact regarding this issue. I was
eventually given your address after calling your Sales Information and
Corporate Office phone numbers.

Thank you so much for your time.

(copy/pasted msg, but I agree with it and I'm lazy!)

[dearingj]

@Vadi: Thanks for sending them a message, but I'd prefer that people not copy & paste what I wrote. It makes it look like a form letter, or worse, like I'm trying to fool Microsoft by using a second email address.

Anyway, glad to see you're interested in this :)

[Diptansu]

As a die hard fan of Aoe II da expansion am surely going to send them a msg ... thanx for taking this effort ... But i hardly believe they are ever going to do any good thing for linux ... :lolflag:

[dearingj]

Well we don't have to tell them we want a linux version :)

I doubt they'll release the source, but it's worth a shot.

[Sockerdrickan]

It's Microsoft we are talking about, I could write a native AoE faster than the source will be here (since it won't lol :()

[Diptansu]

Guys, Funny things they said as a reply of my mail ... here it is ...

Hello Diptansu,

The issue you have submitted regarding Age of Empires: The Conquerors Expansion has been received by the US Response Management Team (USRMT). For your reference, the Service Request ID that has been assigned to your issue is "Blah Blah". At this point, I am going to engage the Product Group regarding your request.

I will provide you with a status update if this issue is not resolved within 3 business days.

Best Regards!

Ashlee
Escalation Specialist
North America Customer Service Response Management Team
Microsoft Corporation

Its so sweet to talk with Microsoft ppl. :tongue:

[dearingj]

I got the same reply as Diptansu, except the one they sent me specifically mentioned open source.

[Sockerdrickan]

Guys... it's obvious that it's an automatical reply.

[ELD]

You will see nothing out of it, it is microsoft after all, and it will be built on directx so it would take a while to port.

Besides the Spring engine could easily have a age of empires style mod if someone was to make the models

[ucal]

You will see nothing out of it, it is microsoft after all, and it will be built on directx so it would take a while to port.

Besides the Spring engine could easily have a age of empires style mod if someone was to make the models

That would be awesome. Plus it would get rid of that pesky unit limit.

[Vadi]

Haha, definitely.

[ELD]

I would give it a go, but i can't mod or model for the spring engine, since i only know php and i can't stand graphics haha

[dearingj]

Microsoft does allow the use of AoE's graphics according to their game content usage rules (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm). Perhaps the models could be taken from AoE 3 or Age of Mythology. Either that or one could find a 2d RTS engine and use the graphics from AoE 1 and 2.

[ELD]

Hmm i had a quick scan and it seems your right you can use any graphics from age of empires games, heh, nice find!

[dearingj]

:) i found it while looking for contact info to ask about making aoe open source

[dearingj]

Got this yesterday:

(sent to both my email and usrmt@microsoft.com)

Hello <name removed>,

I am still waiting for a response from the Product Group. As soon as I receive more information, I will let you know.

If you have any questions about the status of this issue or have additional information I should be aware of, please "reply all" to this email.

Best Regards!

Ashlee
Escalation Specialist
North America Customer Service Response Management Team
Microsoft Corporation

[MaximB]

Microsoft has other ideas of what is an "Open Source" license.
They got their "open" licenses which actually gives you nothing.
You cannot hope making a Linux client out of their licenses.

[wingnux]

Did I read "Microsoft" and "open source" on the same sentence???

ROFL!

[dearingj]

Microsoft has other ideas of what is an "Open Source" license.
They got their "open" licenses which actually gives you nothing.
You cannot hope making a Linux client out of their licenses.

Microsoft does have two licenses which have been certified by the OSI. See http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx

[Vadi]

Yeah they do. And going against every single thing isn't a smart way to achieve a goal...

[ucal]

Microsoft does allow the use of AoE's graphics according to their game content usage rules (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm). Perhaps the models could be taken from AoE 3 or Age of Mythology. Either that or one could find a 2d RTS engine and use the graphics from AoE 1 and 2.

I don't know if age of mythology is included with that (is it technically an age of empires game?), but AoE 3 would be perfect for this. After that all we'd have to do is get some free sound effects (swords clashing, arrows whooshing, the like) and some one experienced with modding for the spring engine, and we'd be golden.

I'm surprised. That license is pretty nice.

[MaximB]

Microsoft does have two licenses which have been certified by the OSI. See http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx

I know, therefore I've said :

"Microsoft has other ideas of what is an "Open Source" license.
They got their "open" licenses which actually gives you nothing.
You cannot hope making a Linux client out of their licenses."

I don't think that the GNU/Linux users can benefit from those licenses.

[kelinu]

Hi, I sent Microsoft a request to make AOE open source...here is what they replied...


Hello Michael,

The Product Group has provided the following response:

“Thank you for your interest regarding Microsoft’s Age of Empires product line, specifically Age of Empires 1. In recent months there has been active interest in Microsoft returning this product to retail availability, however, at this time, Microsoft does not plan to re-launch this product. In addition, there are no plans to release the source code to the public. Should that position change a public statement will be made regarding its future availability and access rights.”

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best Regards!

Ashlee
Escalation Specialist
NACS Response Management Team

I doubt they are going to make it open source, it is Microsoft we're talking here in the end of it all...still, it's worth a try!

[dearingj]

just got the same reply as Kelinu. It was worth a try... and we probably never would have found their game content usage rules had we not tried.

[Greendogo]

Hey guys, if you are interested in writing an open source engine for the first two AoE games, and if it is true that MS isn't locking up the game's resources lock and key, there are ways to extract the game's resources using utilities. All of them. Check out this site for AoE: Age of King/Age of Conquerors:
http://aok.heavengames.com/
There are two utilities, one called the Mod Pack Stable, and the other is called Mod Workshop. One or both of them should be useful if you'd like AoK/Cq's resources.
Mod Pack Stable:
http://aok.heavengames.com/modpacks/
Mod Workshop:
http://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=9177
I'm having trouble finding a utility for AoE 1, maybe there never was one...

[dearingj]

I believe DRS Explorer (http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=1716) (for extracting the .slp files from AoE 1's graphics.drs) and SLPcnvt (http://artho.com/age/files/slpcnvt.html) (for converting the .slp files to .bmp) will work for AoE 1's graphics.

[Greendogo]

Awesome! So, just out of curiosity, are you wanting to do only AoE 1, only AoE 2, or both? I didn't gather from the previous posts (because I'm too lazy to look back at them) which one you're thinking of. Personally, I think they both are pretty similar, and are of the same "generation" of graphics. What do you think?

[jakedubai]

cool idea

but use wine to make it work :D

i played age of empires 2 it worked with wine :D

hmm im too lazy to send them and i dun think they would agree!

[dearingj]

Awesome! So, just out of curiosity, are you wanting to do only AoE 1, only AoE 2, or both? I didn't gather from the previous posts (because I'm too lazy to look back at them) which one you're thinking of. Personally, I think they both are pretty similar, and are of the same "generation" of graphics. What do you think?

Personally I like AoE 1 more, so that's the one I've been focusing on, but you're right that they're very similar.

@jakedubai: Wine works for single player games, but not multiplayer because it doesn't have DirectPlay. Even if it did have DP, AoE might not work - one of the reasons I want it open source is because multiplayer no longer works even on my Windows boxes.

[Sockerdrickan]

make a script that converts all the images to png and I'll see what I can to

[Frem]

This AoE data file explorer (http://artho.com/age/files/drsxplor.html) might prove useful.

[jatayu]

hi,

I am the author of Modworkshop program and have extensive experience of modding.

There was actually an attempt to make an open source genie engine but it petered out. Search for 'prophet' on sourceforge.

Visit AOKH forum for more discussions
http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokcgi/Ultimate.cgi

[eragon100]

That license really comes from microsoft??

If you can use halo 2's content and music, all you would have to do is write a linux-native engine for it, load the resources in it, and then you would have a linux version of halo 2, right (only you wouldn't be allowed to make money with it, offcourse) ?

[Frem]

That license really comes from microsoft??

If you can use halo 2's content and music, all you would have to do is write a linux-native engine for it, load the resources in it, and then you would have a linux version of halo 2, right (only you wouldn't be allowed to make money with it, offcourse) ?

Read the rules! (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm) ;-)

#
# You can’t necessarily use the soundtracks or audio effects from the original game. We often license those from third parties and don’t have the rights to pass them on to you. We might mention on the community website for a particular game whether you have these rights, so you’d do well to check. And you might need permission from a third party, especially for games with licensed music. But we’ll confirm right here that the music from Halo 3 is available for your use in non-profit ventures thanks to an arrangement with O’Donnell/Salvatori, Inc., composers of this iconic theme.
Halo 2 music is up in the air, the sound effects from the Halo games are up in the air, but the music from Halo 3 is good.

[eragon100]

****! It would have been so much easier if microsoft owned all the IP for their games's content

[Snappo]

I'm an avid age of empires/ empire earth fan. I've been working on a small project based of my javascript chat engine, the effects are next to rubbish but i should have some sort of client in a few months or so.

[scragar]

cool, I want to register my intrest in this, it sounds like such a cool i8dea, porting the origional game to linux would be really cool, it'd also be nice to have some of the limits removed.

[altonbr]

I think someone should register a program in Launchpad.net for reverse engineering AoEII (if they know what they're doing) and then call out AoEII hackers from the heavengames/aok (http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokcgi/Ultimate.cgi) forums (as there are still some die-hards around) and see what you can produce.

I could help with a website and promotion and some ideas here and there but I'm not a game developer (unfortunately).

We'd need some serious sound engineers, AI programmers, artists and so on.

I was just discussing with my friend who still plays LAN battles with me (every so often) just how popular an updated version of AoEII would be (and I'm not talking Age of Mythology or Age of Empires III or IV).

I'd take a pro-active approach to show Microsoft how committed we are, showing on the website our talks with Microsoft about open sourcing the game and what we've done to reverse engineer it and improve it.

There wouldn't be a download available until it was 100% reverse engineered and free, of course, but it would be a start.

[kelinu]

Someone has got to do something, I mean maybe we could open up a project on sourceforge...I won't be able to help though, I am not a programmer or anything like that, just interested.

[Jerm93]

actually i enjoyed the aoe games how ever i find the stronghold games about 10000000000 times better (thats 10mill i think^^)

[altonbr]

I forgot, has anyone heard of 0 A.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._(game))? It is supposed to be a 3D RTS, resembling AoEII (AoK) and will be fully open source once it's released.

[gamewolf]

I have been thinking about this for awhile now before I found this thread. I am very interested as well. Im not an experienced programmer, but I would like to help get things started. I know all web languages well and scripting languages also.

I have loved playing this game for a long time and would love to help make it open-source!

[captain_conrad]

OMG duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude finding this post has made me SUPER EXCITED:KS:popcorn:

I luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrvvvvvvvvvvee eeeeeeee AOE, im currently raping AOE 3 and warchiefs expansion pack on my vista bootup, level 100 home city :cool:

Now whats this I hear about AOE 4??????????????????? Is there such a thing?

Anyways I will flip my lid and do backflips and cartwheels buttnaked down the street if AOE goes open source and I can play it on Ubuntu, ESPECIALLY if one can remove that VERY PESKY unit limit!

So can I also confirm this... AOE 2 works in ubuntu, using wine? My ubuntu runs like a well oiled machine and I have crossover as well. This is exciting news, i would defenately like to try this!

I also do run virtualbox 2.1.4 and thats workin like a dream. Im running windows XP in it, and all is well. I was however unsuccessfull in running AOE 3 in the virtual machine, it came up with this message:

Initialisation Failed, direct3d initialisation failed, possible causes:
Old or corrupted graphics driver, direct3d improperly installed, hardware acceleration disabled, starting application with workstation locked. Please check the log file for more information

Any advice?:(

Are there ANY games even similar to AOE that are linux/open source games? and if there are, where can I get my eager hands on them?

I highly appreciate the efforts made to bring AOE to open source, thanks guys, I´m a true Die-Hard AOE fan.

peace. CaptainConrad

[PythonPower]

I forgot, has anyone heard of 0 A.D.? It is supposed to be a 3D RTS, resembling AoEII (AoK) and will be fully open source once it's released.


Good point; it already looks better than AOE 3 graphically.

Since Ensemble Studios have closed down, many of their team have created other studios, Robot Entertainment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Entertainment) and Bonfire Studios (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_Studios), which may release very similar games to the AOE series. And Big Huge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Huge_Games) games are still going - they made the Rise Of Nations games...

[gamewolf]

Alright. Well, I have been looking into Reverse Engineering and I can say that I cannot do it. I do not know assembly and the disassembly that was generated cannot even be reassembled. We need to find someone that knows what they are doing.

Otherwise, I can help in anyway I can. I know the web technologies fairly well so I could get a site up and a sourceforge page up quickly.

Hope we will be able to do this.

[jsimms2222]

I have been a fan of the age of empires games for well......long enough, just waiting for them to release another amazing game!

I want to do anything for them to release aoe4!

If anyone gets news of whats happenning please let me know as i am an excited fan wanting to have many more hours of entertainment from age of empires!:D:popcorn:

[Simian Man]

This is a pipe dream.

Microsoft *does* sell AOE 1. I saw it on a bargain shelf the other day.
Even if the engine was opened, the art assets assuredly wouldn't be. Even id didn't open their assets.
The engine would be of no use to anyone since it is old and based on MS tech.
There are better RTS engines already open like that of 0 AD (http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/).


Basically give it up.

[altonbr]

This is a pipe dream.

Microsoft *does* sell AOE 1. I saw it on a bargain shelf the other day.
Even if the engine was opened, the art assets assuredly wouldn't be. Even id didn't open their assets.
The engine would be of no use to anyone since it is old and based on MS tech.
There are better RTS engines already open like that of 0 AD (http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/).


Basically give it up.

Good summary. I agree.

[eragon100]

This is a pipe dream.

Microsoft *does* sell AOE 1. I saw it on a bargain shelf the other day.
Even if the engine was opened, the art assets assuredly wouldn't be. Even id didn't open their assets.
The engine would be of no use to anyone since it is old and based on MS tech.
There are better RTS engines already open like that of 0 AD (http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/).


Basically give it up.

The art assets are already open. They are per definition for all microsoft game studios games. Their licence allows you to create a new game (not for profit) with another engine, but re-using any artwork you like MS holds the IP of, including game music, textures, models, levels, etc.

License text is here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm

[gamewolf]

A similar game engine could be created, such as that with FreeCol or FreeCiv, and just use the artwork from the game. I don't believe that would be too hard if we could assemble a team.

[masque7]

This is actually a very good idea as far as being idealistic goes. I played the original Age of Empires (as well as RoR) religiously online, as well as Age of Empires 2 (and Conquerors), the latter of which I still continue to do so via IGZones (Microsoft cut off support for AoE2 in mid-2005? I think) I felt the games were never supported enough. They could be unbalanced at a competitive level, there could have been room for improvements like new units, etc. They did release a game Star Wars: Galatic Battlegrounds (& Clone Wars) which was basically just a fullgame mod of Age of Kings. Those of you that did enjoy Age of Empires 2 may wish to have a look at the first AoE2 Mod: Age of Chivalry (http://www.age-of-chivalry.com/) It's a shame that such a good engine (Genie?) isn't being used in RTS games anymore. AoE3 was horrible, what with the home city aspect and Microsoft putting out so many expansions packs just to cash-in.

[Greendogo]

Personally, I believe an engine reimplementation should be devised for AoEII + Conquerors because of the improved graphics (and for various reasons that I believe it is a better game, for instance how the walls auto connect, etc.).

Anyway, so if this is going to happen, we need someone to start, someone or some people to start organizing things. A web page somewhere to consolidate and converse would be nice (Sourceforge or personal website, whatever works). We'll need either forum support or IRC or some means of rapid communication. We NEED to establish a project administrator, so if someone has any leet managerial skills, please step forward.

Here are some (if not all) of the positions that will need to be filled:
1) Project lead or leads - needs to be someone who has a comprehensive understanding of the target language to be used or open source graphics engine/game engine to be used and a good sense of project direction.

2) Programmers for basically everything:
-a Database management
-b AI script interpretation (since all the AI is scripted for us already in handy little files)
-c Computer graphics guy or girl to head a team in charge of the GUI, menus, HUD, integration of visual gaming elements such as units, animating them and any graphics that need to be actually drawn from scratch (such as a revamped user interface)
-d Behind the scenes scripting that connects the actions of the units and their respective npc or pc controlers with the database of unit information, resource amounts and basically all the numbers.
-e Someone who can make the sound work
-f Someone who can make the online part which should compliment any work having to do with multiplayer (meaning with other human players).

Also, someone will need to know how to get things working for both linux and windows systems (I would imagine that the windows community would like access to this as well)

3) If we commit to this, we WILL need some form of a website, so we'll need site administrators or at the very least forum admins and moderators. Perhaps if not done on something like sourceforge, we'll also need the help of someone who knows about web design, but those are a dime a dozen and I think anyone could do it nowadays.


Ok, so who wants to get the ball rolling on this? What language, graphics engine/game engine should be used? We'll also need an audio solution and a gui method (I propose an XML style so it can be easily tweaked).

Ideas ideas ideas - come on guys, we only have the rest of our lives to get working on this, don't slack off! :P

[Dejai]

I am first year computer science student. I am very interested in this project. I believe I could contribute a lot to this project over an extended period of time... If its ok with everyone I could set up a sf page etc and get something going.

C++ is a pretty standard language for game development and may suite this program. As for a game engine that would have to be looked into as there is no point reinventing the wheel twice if there is an open source RTS game engine about, otherwise possibly recreating the engine in SDL + OpenGL is an option.

I want people to understand that game development on this scale is an incredibly challenging task and it will most likely fail. Thats the honest truth. Still I think it would be a really cool project to work on. I don't visit these forums that often but email me at: ben@dejai.org if you would like to make suggestions etc.

[Dejai]

Just submitted a request for freeaoe.sf.net so we can collaborate and plan.

[Greendogo]

Just submitted a request for freeaoe.sf.net so we can collaborate and plan.

Great work! freeAoE is a great name for the project too. So, next on the agenda would be finding some interested people and do a little planning.

First however, I'd like to establish which AoE we are going to reimplement the engine for: AoE 1 + Rise of Rome or AoE 2 + Conquerors...

Personally I'd like to see AoE 2, I know it much better and I can easily get the game's resources (textures/animations/audio etc.). However, I have a further little twist that people might agree with or disagree with and it is to do a hybrid engine that supports both games. I don't really advise it because it would be pretty complicated, but we could also take it one step forward and just make an AoE 2 engine reimplementation and it should be fairly simple to pull the resources from AoE 1 and load them into the engine, it would support better AI scripting, but I bet we could adapt the older AoE 1 scripts to any interpreter that we construct for an AoE 2 reimplementation.

So, what's it going to be guys: AoE 1, AoE 2, or a hybrid?
I suggest AoE 2 for starters, since we could always easily adapt the more advanced engine for the dumbed down play environment needed for AoE 1.

[LiamWilson]

Yeah, I'd say AOE2, it's my fave version ^_^

Speaking of, I don't suppose anyone else's AOE2 has stopped working with Wine since 1.1.19 was released, or is that just me?

[tcoffeep]

If you all would mind a newbie programmer trying to learn as much as he can, I'd like to help too.

[Dejai]

Well I will see what I can do to get us our own forum space.

[Greendogo]

Thank you both,
@tcoffeep - When we are ready to start programming something and we have a good direction you are welcome to help out!! Thank you!

@Dejai - That is probably the next step we need to take! Good job, and I hope you can get it. We really need a place to consolidate conversation. We also need to reach out to the remaining AoE community. There are bound to be people there that would like to see something like this come to fruition and would be willing to help out. I know some places to go and check out, but it might take me a couple of days, I have some work in RL I need to finish up first.

[LiamWilson]

Yeah, we could really do with getting the intrest of other Linux Developers, so this project can really start off.

[crazyfuturamanoob]

Some people could make a Red Alert 2 clone on top of an open souce isometric RTS engine, I always wanted RA2 for Linux.

[Bucky24]

I would be interested in this as well. I do not have much graphics experience in Linux, but I am experienced in C and game design in general (as well as AOE and AOE 2).

-Bucky24

[Greendogo]

Yeah, we could really do with getting the intrest of other Linux Developers, so this project can really start off.

Like I said, I doubt this project will get finished if we don't aim for an AoE reimplementation compatible with Linux AND the Win/Mac crowd, and especially Windows (yes, I know *pat pat*). The game was released on Windows and I don't see this or any project like this really going anywhere if the original target system (windows in this case) isn't made compatible with what we make. There is a sizable AoE1/2 community that is still active and I doubt they'd support the project if they couldn't use it, and believe me, we'll need their help.

[Exciterusa]

There is a sizable AoE1/2 community that is still active and I doubt they'd support the project if they couldn't use it, and believe me, we'll need their help.

This is true and anyone can check that out by using gamespy and going to the aoe2 channel. You will see lots of people still playing the game. Mostly because they download it and crack it.

[johnnyboyblue]

Hey i'm a sophomore in high school, and recently started to play age of empires 2 again within the past month online with a bunch of my friends. It's been a couple years since I last played, but after searching this forum I came upon this thread and am so glad that you guys are considering to work on the game. I took a java programming class a year ago, so I am really not a programmer of any sort, but if you are looking for testers, I would be more than glad to help in any way possible. Just email me or PM me. :)

[MarcusA]

http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/

Will this game be like AOE?

[Greendogo]

@Exciterusa - I agree. The biggest problem for AoE right now is that it was written for an outdated OS, a MS OS no less. I believe this project can improve the operational efficiency of an already operationally light game. We can vastly improve upon compatibility issues in Windows and construct the engine to be wholly compatible with Linux (most likely most of the coding will be done on Linux anyways :P) and Apple. Personally, I run my programming computer with Linux and my gaming computer is Windows (for compatibility... ha ha).

@johnnyboyblue - Thank you. When we get a working pre-Alpha we'll definitely need people to stress test the engine on different systems.

@MarcusA - Yes, in the sense that it is an RTS game. I've recently visited this site and it seems like it is going to be a fantastic game. I hope they can get it done! On the other hand, it isn't AoE 1/2 by a long shot. It may have better graphics (read: much better), there is still something to be said for the level of graphics in the early AoE series. They were cheap performers and the interface of AoE IMHO is a lot better than most modern RTS games mostly because the 3D aspect adds a bit of difficulty in empire management and map navigation. If you've ever played Sins of a Solar Empire, Age of Mythology, AoE III or any newer RTS games you may know what I mean (Note: these games are still all fantastic, except AoE III, which for an AoE fanboy like me was heresy).

Edit: Any news on those forums Dejai?

[Dejai]

FreeAOE
Ok so I finally got some time to set some things up for the project. I am not that interested in maintaining a blog, twitter, forums, wiki's etc. So I hope that as a community we can delegate these jobs to people that would like to participate. I have set up a website as a subdomain of my webserver, it has more capabilities than a basic SourceForge page and should handle the needs of this project perfectly. I have set up the following:
http://freeaoe.dejai.org
* Blog / Homepage (Wordpress)
* Forums (phpbb3)
* Wiki (phpwiki)
* Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/freeaoe
* RSS (comes with wordpress)

I own the server so if you want any additions please just create a list on the forums. Under general chat. I have set up a download page and I may be bringing in some additional content sooner or later at the request of the community. I program in C and C++ and I have experience with graphics engines. I am not sure how committed I will be to the programming side of the project, and as I said earlier I can make NO PROMISES. You can however expect from me free access to my webserver, all additions to the site will be decided upon by the community. Free FTP access with up to 4gb quotas and email addresses for all core developers. I am doing this because why not, I have the server space and I like AOE2.

I will tell you this, game development is a "bitch". Don't expect it to be easy. It has to be structured with clearly set out goals. But above all that it has to be fun, it may be a long road to a final product but if we stick with it I am sure it will turn out really great! If anyone wants to contribute I suggest you sign up to the forums. Please make important posts there, and if you are collaborating on design docs PLEASE back up a hard copy in case something goes down etc. No point loosing work.

I could set up an irc channel as well but I don't expect it to be that active and I don't have the time (literally I am in Australia) to moderate a channel primarily consisting of North Americans, if someone wants to set up irc.freenode.net #freeaoe feel free to do so I will then link that to the site once it seems stable and creditable.

So lets get to it! (Sorry about my English, its my native tongue, too much programming does that to you.)

[Greendogo]

Yeah, everybody go there and register! Also, tell anyone you know that may be interested about our project. We'll need plenty of help!

Give a BIG thank you to Dejai for the website and forums!

[Greendogo]

UPDATE: The new website is a big help! Hopefully we can get some good work done now!

[dannybuntu]

Hey, what's up any update?

[ELD]

Looks like it was a false hope.

[leonardo_neo]

I am anxiously waiting if things turn out positively.

I wish if I could be of any help for this project, but I have no knowledge in game writing or advance programming. I can only give moral boosting to the developers and those who are devoting their precious time for the project.

Best of luck guys :D

[Bucky24]

Most of the dev team seems to have vanished, myself sadly included. Actually having a job that isn't titled "Student" is a bit more work then I thought it was. But I am starting to find some time for coding again-I'll see if I can motivate some of the others.

-Bucky24

[Greendogo]

Yeah, sorry about my absence as well. I too have a demanding job that doesn't allow for much free time.

I was playing Conquerors today and wanted so much to change the arbitrary game parameters to something more suitable. Perhaps this project can be jump started?

[Arthur_D]

Just discovered this, but the site seems to be down?

[Greendogo]

Indeed it is down. We'll have to start from here again.

[tcoffeep]

I'm still up for it. :)

[cel1]

Hello Everyone,

When I found this thread I became very excited about this project. I loved playing AOE2, and I would love to do programming work on building this project. I've never done game development before but I am up to the challenge. :)

However I see there is no activity now and the site is gone. :( Dejai, what happened?

Should we start a new sourceforge project for this? I really hope this can be kept going. Are there enough people still interested?

-cel1

[569874123]

You could help develop 0AD.It is similar to AOE2(in theme), if i remember correctly(played it several years ago).

[cel1]

I will look into 0AD. It looks very interesting. I see that they have opened the source as of last month.

[ELD]

0ad is not complete and not playable bear in mind.

[569874123]

0ad is not complete and not playable bear in mind.

0ad is playable. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQRS2H0haAs.

[ELD]

0ad is playable. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQRS2H0haAs.

A small tech video of a tiny bit of gameplay does not mean the game is playable.

To quote the project lead himself from a few days ago:


The game is not yet in what we'd call a playable state. It is possible to download and check it out, but for now it's really just intended for developers, not for players. There are a lot of things that still needs to be done before it's going to be fun to play.

[Bölvaður]

0ad is playable. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQRS2H0haAs.

this isnt a proof. a proof would be bringing him a computer with it set up on and telling him exactly everything that can and cannot be done.

If you tell me how I can make the walls connect to each other instead of being individual blocks, or how to open the gate on it to let people through... or just the tech tree.. or let some buildings actually do anything. The gameplay isnt there, there are still bugs with models.

The graphics is there and the gameplay is halfway there, that is what you are seeing in this video.

[569874123]

this isnt a proof. a proof would be bringing him a computer with it set up on and telling him exactly everything that can and cannot be done.

If you tell me how I can make the walls connect to each other instead of being individual blocks, or how to open the gate on it to let people through... or just the tech tree.. or let some buildings actually do anything. The gameplay isnt there, there are still bugs with models.

The graphics is there and the gameplay is halfway there, that is what you are seeing in this video.

playable - capable of or suitable for being played or played on.
The person playing the game was capable of playing the game.

[Bölvaður]

playable - capable of or suitable for being played or played on.
The person playing the game was capable of playing the game.

yes football with 4 sticks, a stone and 2 players wearing barned wire is quite playable as well.. it's just not what it should be.

[scragar]

yes football with 4 sticks, a stone and 2 players wearing barned wire is quite playable as well.. it's just not what it should be.

Just how wrong of me is it for me to want to watch that sport?

[569874123]

Just how wrong of me is it for me to want to watch that sport?

Glad i am not the only one.

[DrWer2]

I love age of empires II.
I hope this can be completed quickly.
The lack of being able to play AOEII seamlessly in WINE is the only thing that keeps me from throwing out XP.
AOEII almost runs better on wine than on vista.:lolflag:
The only problem with WINE is that text doesn't show right, the pointer blinks and the game runs at a forth of the speed.
Vista randomly turns the grass red and the water purple, and it tends to crash with out warning.(Maybe I need new graphics drivers or something) Also on vista I had to mess with compatibility mode in order to get it to install at all.
With WINE it installed fine.

[Ellipsis]

It doesn't make business sense for Microsoft to release AoE as open source. If I was in charge of Microsoft (and disliked open source) I wouldn't release a game as open source that could be ported to a competing platform: that could make that platform (slightly) more competitive.

So yeah don't waste your characters...write to Blizzard about releasing Starcraft source...that has a larger chance of succeeding.

[Major_Kong]

It doesn't make business sense for Microsoft to release AoE as open source. If I was in charge of Microsoft (and disliked open source) I wouldn't release a game as open source that could be ported to a competing platform: that could make that platform (slightly) more competitive.

So yeah don't waste your characters...write to Blizzard about releasing Starcraft source...that has a larger chance of succeeding.

I don't think it has, StarCraft is still very much avaliable at the Blizzard Store and probably all things considered still selling reasonably well.


I would look more on the possibility of just using the AoE I models and such. And then using the Spring RTS Engine.

[xantis]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to make a clone of 'Age of Empire I' just to learn things about game programming. I'm a beginner in this.

I have spent a lot of time implementing a class to read graphics from the original cd and so the game is in a elementary level.

All I've done is to render a small map within trees, stones and decoration things. Till now there is no animation and some resources still have to be rendered.

I want to share this project on SourceForge but I have some doubts. Let me explain better:

First on 2007 someone started a similar project on SourceForge but now it seems to be dead because actually there is no activity and there are no files.
Second: you were talking about making an 'OpenAoE' but nothing happened.

Why have these intentions vanished? Is this because of legal issues?

I know Microsoft gives the opportunity to use his Graphics resources.
Is that legal to make an open source class to read proprietary format (DRS files, SLP files)?

Before sharing the clone on SourceForge I want to be sure to do things in the right way.

PS: I'm making the clone in Java.

[avacado]

Have you tried WARZONE 2100 there are many similarities.

[Aayu]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to make a clone of 'Age of Empire I' just to learn things about game programming. I'm a beginner in this.

I have spent a lot of time implementing a class to read graphics from the original cd and so the game is in a elementary level.

All I've done is to render a small map within trees, stones and decoration things. Till now there is no animation and some resources still have to be rendered.

I want to share this project on SourceForge but I have some doubts. Let me explain better:

First on 2007 someone started a similar project on SourceForge but now it seems to be dead because actually there is no activity and there are no files.
Second: you were talking about making an 'OpenAoE' but nothing happened.

Why have these intentions vanished? Is this because of legal issues?

I know Microsoft gives the opportunity to use his Graphics resources.
Is that legal to make an open source class to read proprietary format (DRS files, SLP files)?

Before sharing the clone on SourceForge I want to be sure to do things in the right way.

PS: I'm making the clone in Java.

Technically, creating an open source project that still requires the original data files or proprietary files is against a number of rules in the open source/GPL license. Your only hope for 100% open source, would be to create all the graphics, animations, music, effects, menus etc yourself.
In my experience, online projects die because it's not a closely knit team. I was on a project once, but the artist never made any graphics (I was programming the game/engine faster) and ultimately, I got bored.

[CanadianBac0n77]

Personally, I believe an engine reimplementation should be devised for AoEII + Conquerors because of the improved graphics (and for various reasons that I believe it is a better game, for instance how the walls auto connect, etc.).

Anyway, so if this is going to happen, we need someone to start, someone or some people to start organizing things. A web page somewhere to consolidate and converse would be nice (Sourceforge or personal website, whatever works). We'll need either forum support or IRC or some means of rapid communication. We NEED to establish a project administrator, so if someone has any leet managerial skills, please step forward.

Here are some (if not all) of the positions that will need to be filled:
1) Project lead or leads - needs to be someone who has a comprehensive understanding of the target language to be used or open source graphics engine/game engine to be used and a good sense of project direction.

2) Programmers for basically everything:
-a Database management
-b AI script interpretation (since all the AI is scripted for us already in handy little files)
-c Computer graphics guy or girl to head a team in charge of the GUI, menus, HUD, integration of visual gaming elements such as units, animating them and any graphics that need to be actually drawn from scratch (such as a revamped user interface)
-d Behind the scenes scripting that connects the actions of the units and their respective npc or pc controlers with the database of unit information, resource amounts and basically all the numbers.
-e Someone who can make the sound work
-f Someone who can make the online part which should compliment any work having to do with multiplayer (meaning with other human players).

Also, someone will need to know how to get things working for both linux and windows systems (I would imagine that the windows community would like access to this as well)

3) If we commit to this, we WILL need some form of a website, so we'll need site administrators or at the very least forum admins and moderators. Perhaps if not done on something like sourceforge, we'll also need the help of someone who knows about web design, but those are a dime a dozen and I think anyone could do it nowadays.


Ok, so who wants to get the ball rolling on this? What language, graphics engine/game engine should be used? We'll also need an audio solution and a gui method (I propose an XML style so it can be easily tweaked).

Ideas ideas ideas - come on guys, we only have the rest of our lives to get working on this, don't slack off! :P

I make some websites im only a junior in HS but their not horrible: cjf.exofire.net

Also, your going to need people to test/debug (that i could do)
:D

[Aayu]

Cross platform compatibility should not be a problem, languages like C/C++ and Lua (for background scripting) create some makefile scripts and a configure script, then building and compiling from source won't be an issue.
I would volunteer, but I have tons of stuff going on, thus, won't be much use to anyone :)

[lakersforce]

Perhaps there will be a better chance of a positive reply, if you guys only ask them for a release of GNU/Linux binaries.

[xantis]

@Aayu

"Technically, creating an open source project that still requires the original data files or proprietary files is against a number of rules in the open source/GPL license." Which kind of rules? Where can I find more information?

Well, I've been inspired by these projects: Transport Tycoon Deluxe (http://www.openttd.org/en/) and Theme Hospital (http://www.mobstar.biz/openTH/). They made a clone of the original game but it needs the original CD in order to play. I thought this was the best way to avoid legal problems..

Why can't I do the same?

As I said before my purpose is to learn things about game programming that's why I choose to clone a game.
I know it's complex to make a game like that however I never thought to make up a team.

I can't still programm in C++ that's why I use Java.

[Woojoo//.deb]

if you only use your own code to create a engine which uses linked pics what ever your not useing the property of M$ also the grafics as far as i know are free to use nowadays but the original code is not read the thread i think its somewhere in here

[u235sentinel]

Have you tried WARZONE 2100 there are many similarities.

as much as I enjoy warzone 2100, it's not like Age of Empires. My kids enjoy Warzone 2100 but go back to AOE 1, 2, 3 because they love the historical aspect of the game.

Basically playing as the romans or greeks or whatever is what interests them.

And yes I've been messing with 0AD. It's still a little raw but honestly I'm impressed where it's going. When it goes gold I expect to see my kids pushing me hard to get rid of Windows completely.

We've converted as much as I can over to Linux AND am using Wine / Crossover games for whatever we're having trouble with Wine. AOE 1-3 and other's are just not co-operating with us and are known to have severe problems.

Crossing my fingers with 0AD. Looking good and it's not even released yet :D

[xantis]

if you only use your own code to create a engine which uses linked pics what ever your not useing the property of M$ also the grafics as far as i know are free to use nowadays but the original code is not read the thread i think its somewhere in here

You're right.
I want to be sure that the code I wrote to read property formats (DRS and SLP - contain graphics of AOE) can be public under GPL license.

[OldSpiceAP]

I would think that a mod of the stratagus engine could be used. The stargus mod actually work really well and utilizes art from the starcraft cd for its art and interface. The engine supports most of what would be necessary. At the minimum the civilizations and the multiplayer mode would be fine, and its what most people play anyways. i was looking at how to do it, but I can't seem to get batch conversion of the game art into a readable bmp or png file - not without doing it one file at a time which would suck horribly.

[OldSpiceAP]

http://imagebin.org/99631

There is a quick screenshot - I just replaced an ingame unit in boswars with an AOE II castle. What I can't figure out how to do is a batch conversion. It would be nice to have a script that extracted the aoe data files then put them into appropriate stratagus engine files. Then one could extract the interfaces, do some lua scripting, and have a fairly good start I think. Boswars uses its own newer modified version of the stratagus engine so that would probably be the best place to go short of using the modified version that stargus uses.

[sakuramboo]

That looks amazing! I love it.

The question I have is, does the Stratagus engine support unit upgrading?

The only engines that support that, to the best of my knowledge, is Warzone2100 and Glest. The latter is the one that I would think would be the best bet. However, it is a 3D RTS game/engine, so the game would resemble AoE3 instead of AoE2.

[OldSpiceAP]

I'm fairly certain it does support unit upgrades as boson has some. The glest engine wouldn't work because it is indeed 3D. What I would like to do is use the original artwork from AoeII and then clone the game rules as close as possible. Reusing the original art would insure that it would look/feel pretty much like the original game.

[codymyth]

Sounds like a great idea OldSpiceAP. I wish you luck on your endeavor and will definitely play it when you finish!

[ELD]

For anyone interested in one that doesn't rip graphics from AoE but is supposed to be highly like it i suggest 0 A.D. (http://www.gamingonlinux.info/item.php?iid=18)

[sakuramboo]

Everyone keeps on suggesting 0 A.D. but that game isn't even playable yet. You can load one map, make some buildings and that's it. Stop suggesting a game that is not even in Alpha yet.

[ELD]

Everyone keeps on suggesting 0 A.D. but that game isn't even playable yet. You can load one map, make some buildings and that's it. Stop suggesting a game that is not even in Alpha yet.

It is the closest thing to aoe we have and its making good progress.

I would rather support that than ripping aoe graphics and putting them in a game engine like boswars where it will play nothing like aoe, also its not even legal to do so and this forum doesnt condone it.

[u235sentinel]

Everyone keeps on suggesting 0 A.D. but that game isn't even playable yet. You can load one map, make some buildings and that's it. Stop suggesting a game that is not even in Alpha yet.

Playdeb.net

It's available as an alpha release and ready for download to 10.04. It runs. I'm waiting for the beta before loading it to my computers though.

and 0 AD is the only game that comes close to AOE unless you know of another that can be suggested.

[DrWer2]

Playdeb.net
It's available as an alpha release and ready for download to 10.04. It runs. I'm waiting for the beta before loading it to my computers though.

and 0 AD is the only game that comes close to AOE unless you know of another that can be suggested.

It is currently in the Pre-Alpha 2 stage. The official Alpha release is not expected until late July of this year.

From the 0ad web site:

Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of a second pre-alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. Although it's not a playable release yet, it includes a new pathfinding system, training queues, a dynamic minimap and more. This progress in gameplay, graphics, audio, and GUI brings us closer to the alpha version set in July.
0ad has made some good progress in the last few mouths (or so it appears, I am not on the 0ad team so I can not say for certain).


It is the closest thing to aoe we have and its making good progress.

I would rather support that than ripping aoe graphics and putting them in a game engine like boswars where it will play nothing like aoe, also its not even legal to do so and this forum doesnt condone it.
I couldn't agree more.

[sakuramboo]

Playdeb.net

It's available as an alpha release and ready for download to 10.04. It runs. I'm waiting for the beta before loading it to my computers though.

and 0 AD is the only game that comes close to AOE unless you know of another that can be suggested.It runs, that's ALL it does. You can't really do anything in it. Build some buildings and have your small 4 man group kill the other group that doesn't move, doesn't build anything, has no AI, and on the same map over and over again.

0AD is still a LONG ways off from being even remotely close to playable, and by playable, I mean a full on game.

[ELD]

It runs, that's ALL it does. You can't really do anything in it. Build some buildings and have your small 4 man group kill the other group that doesn't move, doesn't build anything, has no AI, and on the same map over and over again.

0AD is still a LONG ways off from being even remotely close to playable, and by playable, I mean a full on game.

No other project in this thread comes close to 0 A.D. either in terms of being like AoE, so i will continue to promote it.

[disturbedite]

don't know if anyone here is aware of it, but i thought i'd mention: http://www.unknown-horizons.org/site/

it is packaged for my distro (opensuse) but unfortunately it does not work because the packager(s) packaged mismatched versions of the data & engine so i can't vouch for its gameplay.

[Metrop021]

No other project in this thread comes close to 0 A.D. either in terms of being like AoE, so i will continue to promote it.

it looks like it'll be pretty good. looking forward to it coming out, since that's actually going to happen whereas microsoft making something open source is probably not

[u235sentinel]

It runs, that's ALL it does. You can't really do anything in it. Build some buildings and have your small 4 man group kill the other group that doesn't move, doesn't build anything, has no AI, and on the same map over and over again.

0AD is still a LONG ways off from being even remotely close to playable, and by playable, I mean a full on game.

Probably why I haven't installed it yet :-)

[oldrocker99]

don't know if anyone here is aware of it, but i thought i'd mention: http://www.unknown-horizons.org/site/

it is packaged for my distro (opensuse) but unfortunately it does not work because the packager(s) packaged mismatched versions of the data & engine so i can't vouch for its gameplay.

I managed to get the .deb packgages added to my sources list and installed it. A little FreeColish, but looks good so far.

Thanks for the headsup on this game!

:guitar:

[disturbedite]

I managed to get the .deb packgages added to my sources list and installed it. A little FreeColish, but looks good so far.

Thanks for the headsup on this game!

no problem.

[OldSpiceAP]

I would rather support that than ripping aoe graphics and putting them in a game engine like boswars where it will play nothing like aoe, also its not even legal to do so and this forum doesnt condone it.


Its not illegal, it would basically be akin to an engine reimplementation which is indeed legal. The engine used by Boswars is Stratagus, an engine that got its name after a rename from FreeCraft. You can actually (legally) use the warcraft game data in conjunction with the stratagus engine to play warcraft on linux.

Saying it would play nothing like AOE is a misnomer as well. It might not but that is dependant on the skill of the people who would reimplement the game rules in LUA which can be done. If the game rules get implemented closely enough, the rest of the engine is similar enough to get a good look and feel. I've played the Stratagus mod Stargus as well which is StarCraft using the Stratagus engine. It looks the same, has the same feel. A few things aren't in yet, but overall it looks and plays just like starcraft which is pretty cool. This is completely legal as well. Playing it requires a copy of the CD to pull the game data from.

That isn't to say I'm not watching 0ad. I've been keeping an eye on it for years and it is looking like its shaping up really well. I'm extremely excited about the game.

That said, I have some nostalgia for The Conquerors, and would like to play it in linux. It doesn't work well in wine due to the DIB engine issue. I do have wine built patched with Max's DIB engine and its much improved but still not quite where it needs to be. There were also a few things about the aging engine that could use updating like the ability to use some wide aspect resolutions. This is something that the Stratagus engine supports so it would really be a nice upgrade to an aging but excellent game.

I don't have the coding skill necessary to pull it off though. Its just a bit beyond me. I know some C# and Python, and some basic web stuff, but this is complex enough that scripting out the pulling of game data alone is something I couldn't do. I could go through and manually do it one unit at a time using free tools for AOE Editing, but it would take forever. Should I ever find myself with that kind of free time I might attempt it anyways, but in the meantime its not something I can do. I'd gladly aid anyone who wanted to work on something like that (website, promotion, even coding and scripting in anything I could, or even hosing an svn repo on my work servers) but unless someone magically shows up who can help, it'll probably never get done anyways so you really have nothing to worry about.

Cheers and meanwhile I'll keep watching 0ad and perhaps start in on some 3d modeling for them eventually.

[ELD]

I meant illegal in the sense that if they gave out the art along with the game engine, anyone who wanted to play would need a copy of AoE.

I support 0 A.D. because it is original, doesn't need content from others work, garunteed to be closer to AoE that what has been suggested etc etc.

I would rather support that than play a game i own - AoE on Linux in an Engine that doesn't play with it correctly, no matter how good the persons skills are in LUA if the engine can't work how AoE does it will play differently.

[OldSpiceAP]

To each their own I suppose. There are a lot of things I personally like about AOE II that I don't think will be emulated exactly in a new game. Its designed to be AOE-like, but not to be AOE itself. Still though, its looking great and I'm sure I will play and enjoy it.

I will say that I do think that one could reliably reproduce the game play of AOE II with the stratagus engine. The other mods for games its not designed to be like worked perfectly well and while it might be too much work to support the campaigns and the like, the melee person v person and person v computer standard game ought to be quite feasible.

Would need to:

Reproduce game menus/interface first (these are in the DRS files just like other art)

Import all units - this would involve pulling them out and converting to a form and format that stratagus can read.

Index the units against the aoe index so we know whats what

Stratagus already supports player color and the like so we'd need to set the colors to match exactly what was in aoe

Rip out the game rules (this is possible to look at and view - we know the math behind the game already so it would be a matter of adjusting the defaults in stratagus to perform the same math for hit, defence etc...



The process of pulling art and formatting it could be done via a clever app or script and some help from imagemagic or some other library (batch gimp processing or something else).


Not saying I can do it, I'm just saying its possible to reliably reproduce the look/feel in a way that would be great fun for people whom are huge fans like myself. I think its partly just a love for the game / enthusiasm thing. Its my favourite game of all time so my desire to play/work on it is probably a bit more than someone who was a casual player and merely enjoyed the game.

Take care!

[sakuramboo]

I'm not sure if anyone knew of this, I didn't bother to read this whole thread, just the most recent posts, but there already is an open source remake of AoE, I just found.

http://freeempires.yoll.net/

Needs a lot of work, but it can be added to.

[Arthur_D]

Good find, but last source code release was 3 years ago... dead project? :(