Hi everyone,
I am an open source enthusiast and a beginner Linux game developer. Apologies for the upcoming long rant lol
I fully switched to Linux about 6 months ago after being a windows user for my entire life and am not looking back. I love the freedom that comes with Linux and the amazing helpful community especially on Reddit.
I found out about Xonotic from the "Unvanquished: Building a community as a service" talk by Thomas Debesse in the latest Debian MiniDebConf Gaming Edition conference.
I played both Xonotic and Unvanquished for a while and I am still discovering open source games available on Linux. To my surprise I entered a whole new world that I didn't know existed and can't be more impressed.
Being more of a tinkerer than a gamer , I dipped my hands into the wikis of opensource games trying to contribute or get involved in some way. I have some basic knowledge of c/c++ and python , as well as some basic blender skills.
As Reddit was my inlet into Linux and Linux gaming , I spent my time browsing for Linux gamedev content only to be met with mostly outdated or scattered content if any existed at all. This issue isn't just in Reddit but across all the internet. And then I remembered what Thomas Debesse mentioned at the talk:
"We can’t underestimate the importance of being close to communities. I just discovered this month another somewhat alive XreaL-based project. A Kingpin remake over XreaL. I’m among the ones having the deepest knowledge about all those forks but I missed this one for a decade. Less than two weeks after having talked for the first time with one of the remaining hard-dying contributors he helped us to fix an issue for our upcoming release. It took me 10 years to meet this community, I hope we can do more things together."
It seemed like not only is it hard for Linux game developers to know each other , but getting contributors and reaching gamers alike. I attribute this to various This to various factors:
-The developers resources especially time is scarce and so much of the time is focused on developement stifling community outreach.
-Foss games almost always use custom engines that have to be maintained , documented and developed by the game team with varying degrees of complexity and almost exclusive development methodology that is only used within the project (quakeC for example)
-This complexity acts a deterrent to people that want to get involved.
-The game team has to make do with what ways they have to reach the community ( forums , social media outlets , or sometimes communication method that aren't popular like IRC).
While I can't come up with all the suitable answers , the solution that occurred to me was centralisation. I made a thread on r/Linux-gaming to discuss that idea Here
I settled on r/linux_gamedev
Here's a thread in r/linux_gamedev that explains The vision of the sub
The sub isn't just concerned with technical development . Tools and methods (including graphic programs like gimp or blender) or anything that assists the users to create Foss games content and modding are welcome as well.
We also have a wiki under development
wiki.linuxgamedev.org
I promise it wasn't just a shameless plug lol
I spent my past days learning about Xonotic and Netradiant and gotta say it took longer than needed to grasp the basics of netradiant especially as the content available is years old. Next step is to get a basic map in netradiant and try the workflow between netradiant and a recent version of blender.
After I gather good enough knowledge I will share what I learned with the rest of the community.
So to sum up with some questions :
-what do you people feel about what's mentioned above?
-What's the possibility of considering other communication mediums for Xonotic?
Example , considering r/xonotic for updates (Devlogs) , onboarding and discussion -the sub already exists btw- , matrix for chatting ( using IRC bridge like we do at r/linux_gamedev) and so on
- If you agree , can you help spreading the idea to the Linux game developers you know?
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for this amazing work you all are doing!
Looking forward to learning from you
I am an open source enthusiast and a beginner Linux game developer. Apologies for the upcoming long rant lol
I fully switched to Linux about 6 months ago after being a windows user for my entire life and am not looking back. I love the freedom that comes with Linux and the amazing helpful community especially on Reddit.
I found out about Xonotic from the "Unvanquished: Building a community as a service" talk by Thomas Debesse in the latest Debian MiniDebConf Gaming Edition conference.
I played both Xonotic and Unvanquished for a while and I am still discovering open source games available on Linux. To my surprise I entered a whole new world that I didn't know existed and can't be more impressed.
Being more of a tinkerer than a gamer , I dipped my hands into the wikis of opensource games trying to contribute or get involved in some way. I have some basic knowledge of c/c++ and python , as well as some basic blender skills.
As Reddit was my inlet into Linux and Linux gaming , I spent my time browsing for Linux gamedev content only to be met with mostly outdated or scattered content if any existed at all. This issue isn't just in Reddit but across all the internet. And then I remembered what Thomas Debesse mentioned at the talk:
"We can’t underestimate the importance of being close to communities. I just discovered this month another somewhat alive XreaL-based project. A Kingpin remake over XreaL. I’m among the ones having the deepest knowledge about all those forks but I missed this one for a decade. Less than two weeks after having talked for the first time with one of the remaining hard-dying contributors he helped us to fix an issue for our upcoming release. It took me 10 years to meet this community, I hope we can do more things together."
It seemed like not only is it hard for Linux game developers to know each other , but getting contributors and reaching gamers alike. I attribute this to various This to various factors:
-The developers resources especially time is scarce and so much of the time is focused on developement stifling community outreach.
-Foss games almost always use custom engines that have to be maintained , documented and developed by the game team with varying degrees of complexity and almost exclusive development methodology that is only used within the project (quakeC for example)
-This complexity acts a deterrent to people that want to get involved.
-The game team has to make do with what ways they have to reach the community ( forums , social media outlets , or sometimes communication method that aren't popular like IRC).
While I can't come up with all the suitable answers , the solution that occurred to me was centralisation. I made a thread on r/Linux-gaming to discuss that idea Here
I settled on r/linux_gamedev
Here's a thread in r/linux_gamedev that explains The vision of the sub
The sub isn't just concerned with technical development . Tools and methods (including graphic programs like gimp or blender) or anything that assists the users to create Foss games content and modding are welcome as well.
We also have a wiki under development
wiki.linuxgamedev.org
I promise it wasn't just a shameless plug lol
I spent my past days learning about Xonotic and Netradiant and gotta say it took longer than needed to grasp the basics of netradiant especially as the content available is years old. Next step is to get a basic map in netradiant and try the workflow between netradiant and a recent version of blender.
After I gather good enough knowledge I will share what I learned with the rest of the community.
So to sum up with some questions :
-what do you people feel about what's mentioned above?
-What's the possibility of considering other communication mediums for Xonotic?
Example , considering r/xonotic for updates (Devlogs) , onboarding and discussion -the sub already exists btw- , matrix for chatting ( using IRC bridge like we do at r/linux_gamedev) and so on
- If you agree , can you help spreading the idea to the Linux game developers you know?
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for this amazing work you all are doing!
Looking forward to learning from you
