FIFE - open source RPG engine with Fallout support

There are two important things to talk about so we decided to post a little developer blog update to keep the community up to date about the current status of the project.

FIFE is still progressing rather slow because of the lack of active developers who can invest time into the project. If you think you could help, please don't don't hesitate to grab the latest code from SVN to have a look into it and get in contact with us after that.

We recently released an upgraded compile SDK for win32 systems. You can read about all of this in detail at the FIFE developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/05/29/18.38

Enjoy the good weather outside and remember that you don't need a weathermen to know which way the wind blows.
 
Welcome to yet another FIFE update!

This one covers a whole bunch of aspects. Finally the end of the license switch process from GPL to LGPL is in sight. Furthermore we're currently replacing our unittests, consider to upgrade to the latest guichan release and plan to release a new win32 compile SDK soon. FIFE recently gained some new developers and the datasets branch will hopefully get merged into trunk rather soon. You got curious?

Check out the full news update at the FIFE developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/06/18/03.41

Still not really convinced? Maybe these work in progress screenshot of maps of the upcoming release help:




 
We've done it again! We proudly present the FIFE 2008.1 release :-)

Download:
Source package (FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh)
Win32 binaries

For the 2008.1 release we decided to stick to the tropical island concept and called our example game "Rio de hola".

Caution: this release is still lacking a lot of polish, especially the "Rio de hola" game that ships with it. It lacks almost any form of gameplay but there is a reason why we decided to ship the release in its current form nevertheless. We planned to release future FIFE milestones under the LGPL to offer a less "restrictive" license to possible FIFE users (we know that the term "restrictive" is just our personal point of view).

We had to clear up the legal situation first and fortunately the software freedom law center helped us with the transition. The agreement of all developers who contributed code that was still used in FIFE was needed and because over three dozens of people contributed code to the project, this took us a lot of time. We were not able to reach all of them so we decided to either remove or rewrite the code of the contributors who didn't reply to our license switch proposal mails (from scratch).

We were able to replace the last parts of the problematic code today so now FIFE is officially LGPL'ed software. We're glad that we were able to make this step after it took us so long and we think that the new license alone is worth a release. Therefore we're proud to finally present the first FIFE release that is published under LGPL 2.1 or newer (your choice).

Engine and the editor tool made _huge_ steps forward since the last release about 5 months ago. Therefore we decided to release the current status as stable release although it offers not many new aspects on the content side and the content that is in place is very likely to change with the 2008.2 release.

The milestone itself seems to be a very important step into the right direction. You can build your own maps now with the help of the editor tool. Furthermore a basic application structure is in place that should give you an idea how can create your own FIFE-based game; this release is stable enough to start working on your game now :-)

Most important changes since the 2008.0 release:
* License switch from GPL 2.0 to LGPL 2.1 or newer.
* Improved map format & resource loading (datasets branch).
* Vastly improved editor tool; batch object loading.
* New (work in progress) Rio de hola demo: new maps, graphics, sounds (still unfinished!).
* Eye candy: stepless zoom (OpenGL mode only), instance coloring & outlining.

Screenshots & videos:
Just two somewhat representative release screenshots.

Rio de hola:


Editor tool:


No videos from our side this time. You might see a video presentation of the new FIFE release soon nevertheless as the FreeGamer blog considers to cover the release with a short video soon. No final decision made yet but if it they actually create a video of this FIFE release, we'll let you know here :-)

Read the full release announcement at the FIFE developer blog.
 
It's time for a little FIFE update again :-) We're currently considering to change the name of the project or to choose at least a new meaning for the FIFE acronym to express that we've moved away from our initial Fallout roots. The engine is simply neither limited to Fallout-like games in particular nor to RPGs in general anymore.

We would like to hear what the community thinks about it. You got two weeks to bring up proposals for new names or new meanings for the FIFE acronym at our forums:
http://forums.fifengine.de/index.php?topic=93.0

After that we'll open a poll and all registered forums' users can vote for two choices from the list of all proposals. The poll will stay open for four weeks; after that the developers will try to agree on one name from the top 3 of the poll.

You can read about our plans in details at the developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/07/19/21.53

A little screenshot from work in progress FIFE-based game OpenAnno:


I plan to cover OpenAnno in the second episode of the FIFE community spotlight series soon. Stay tuned :-)

Last but not least: Urban Breznik, a friend of our team member Lamoot, was so kind to provide us with a draft for a new FIFE logo. We're interested in all kind of feedback concerning the draft. If the community thinks it suits the project we'll introduce it as new official FIFE logo after we decided on a new name (text can be adjusted; the cube itself would stay regardless of a possible name change). Discussion concerning the logo takes place at the forums:
http://forums.fifengine.de/index.php?topic=86.msg873#msg873



That's it from our side for today :-) see you at the next update.
 
Welcome to yet another FIFE update! This time we're proud to bring the second issue of the community spotlight series to you.

In this episode we cover the progress (or the lack of it) of the current FIFE-based projects in general but also the development of the OpenAnno project in detail. OpenAnno is a free and open source realtime economy simulation with strategy elements loosely oriented towards Sunflower's Anno series.

You can read the full community spotlight article at the FIFE developer blog.

Here is a little visual teaser for those who would like to get a first impression of OpenAnno before deciding if it's worth to dive into the mass of text. More screenshots can be found in the full article that is linked above.

 
Hello and welcome to yet another FIFE update :-)

This time we'll cover the ongoing name change process of the project. We asked the community to send in proposals for a new name and new meanings for the FIFE acronym to underline that we've moved away from our Fallout roots. Now that the proposals have been sent in, we've opened a poll and every user who's registered at the forums got over three weeks to vote for two of the choices.

Furthermore our artist Lamoot started working on two new tutorials that should help FIFE users to create nice-looking isometric graphics. The birthday of the FIFE project is nearing as well; just one month left until FIFE turns three! Last but not least we ask the community to lend us a hand to track down a bug that affects a rather huge number of Linux users. In case you running Linux and ATI hardware don't hesitate to get in contact with us!

You can read about the details at the FIFE developer blog.
 
@ mvBarracuda
I just checked the dev blog well don't really know how to feel about the name change but I'm absolutly happy about the graphic tuts.
 
My ignorant opinion is that I agree with Jotisz, why change the name?

First: You of all people should know how well the name FIFE is distributed all over the web, into every place that could possibly draw attention to the nature and purpose of the project. Most of these links were made by you, mvBarracuda, and it will take years to establish that kind of exposure again, even with a FIFE page that redirects people to the new name.

Second: Why be distanced from Fallout? What other games in an isometric engine have as many fans as Fallout does? Arcanum? Baldur's Gate? Torment? I could be wrong of course, but it seems those people have all moved on to more graphically advanced games. Can you think of ANY that still have the following and forum/modding activity that Fallout does?
 
How hard is it to actually make a game with FIFE? I mean do I have to be an actual Programmer, Super Scripter?

Or can a mere mortal such as myself fumble his way through it?
 
@wild_qwerty

I´d say it is "easy". I´m no python programmer but wrote our framework for Zero. Okay, I am involved in the FIFE development for more then 2 years now - but the python core is present since one year or so.

The major stability which enables 3rd party teams to use FIFE is IMO present since half a year now. Since this time I wrote the first serious code for Zero and wrapped my head around python.

So including the possibility for you to ask either the Zero-Team or the Openanno-Team how certain things can be made, you should be able to create something playable a lot faster then us. (As we had to do a lot of spadework, too)

Content creation however is a different story to tell - I´d say 2 hard working 3D-Artists could do the job - but that also depends on the scale of your project. But one diligent scripter can do the basic work to create a game, though.

Don´t hesitate to join #zero-projekt @ irc.chatspike.net or the official fife channel @quakenet to ask your questions :)
 
Thanks guys, I'll read the pdf file that mvBarracuda posted a link too :)

At this point I'm not worried about the content as much as I am the possibility of getting it working in game.
 
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