The open source recreation of Daggerfall hits an important milestone

Since it's using Unity, I won't call it open source really. Their own part is open, but the engine is not. In contrast, OpenMW is actually using a FOSS engine - [Open Scene Graph](http://www.openscenegraph.org).


Last edited by Shmerl on 17 Oct 2017 at 6:24 pm UTC

It's as open source as it can be considering the base engine. It'd be interesting to see it transplanted to an OSS engine like Godot ala OpenMW (OGRE->OSG), but I am well aware that's probably not exactly realistic to expect (and not that it matters all that much anyway).

Giving Daggerfall the graphical fidelity of the later games would be fantastic, along with certain gameplay improvements. Nice to see this progressing!


Last edited by Sslaxx on 17 Oct 2017 at 6:29 pm UTC

I am just curious to know the answer: why didn't they use OpenMW's engine? Is this game really that different?
Is it a total recreation of the game (assets and everything), or just the game engine?

I am just curious to know the answer: why didn't they use OpenMW's engine? Is this game really that different?
Is it a total recreation of the game (assets and everything), or just the game engine?

I suspect the answer would be something like "developer knew Unity and had no time to invest in other engines". Which is OK, it's their time, but makes their project non open really, since others can't just go and build it from source to get a playable game even if they have game assets.


Last edited by Shmerl on 17 Oct 2017 at 6:47 pm UTC

I am just curious to know the answer: why didn't they use OpenMW's engine? Is this game really that different?
Is it a total recreation of the game (assets and everything), or just the game engine?

I suspect the answer would be something like "developer knew Unity and had no time to invest in other engines". Which is OK, it's their time, but makes their project non open really, since others can't just go and build it from source to get a playable game even if they have game assets.

Unity is free to use afaik. I sure didn't have to pay anything to download it a year back or so.
Everyone can download Unity, load the Daggerfall project and build it.
Sounds open source enough to me.

Everyone can download Unity, load the Daggerfall project and build it.
Sounds open source enough to me.

I think Unity doesn't fit several freedoms from the expected list. I.e. run it as you wish (for example can you just build it for Android, or they require special license?), and freedoms of modification and re-distribution. Otherwise it would have been a FOSS engine.


Last edited by Shmerl on 17 Oct 2017 at 10:21 pm UTC

Unity is free to use afaik. I sure didn't have to pay anything to download it a year back or so.
Everyone can download Unity, load the Daggerfall project and build it.
Sounds open source enough to me.

Freeware and opensource are two diiferent things.

Everyone can download Unity, load the Daggerfall project and build it.
Sounds open source enough to me.

I think Unity doesn't fit several freedoms from the expected list. I.e. run it as you wish (for example can you just build it for Android, or they require special license?), and freedoms of modification and re-distribution. Otherwise it would have been a FOSS engine.

You need a special license for source code access, but other than that, Unity Free can be used for all supported platforms (including Android), unless the project makes more than $100.000 a year in gross revenues: http://download.unity3d.com/company/legal/eula

You need a special license for source code access, but other than that, Unity Free can be used for all supported platforms (including Android), unless the project makes more than $100.000 a year in gross revenues: http://download.unity3d.com/company/legal/eula

It's still not FOSS.

The article does not argue that the Unity Engine is F(L)OSS. It's pointless to go back and forth on that point. The Daggerfall Unity project is MIT-licensed and the code available on an online repository. It is, therefore, open source. What matters is that anyone could take these files and do their own thing, even writing an FLOSS engine around their usage. This is why I stand by the article's title as well as the "open source" tag applied to it.

We could otherwise be here all day arguing definitions of open source but this is a discussion that has been around since the 90s and we're not going to resolve this in the comment sections of an article for a fan recreation of an old game.

You can argue that project that depends on closed middleware while being open itself is open, but I don't agree with it. The claim that "anyone can write an engine" is just a mind excercise. In practice there is no such engine (so far). So you can't just go ahead and do what FOSS is intended to enable, i.e. build, run, modify, re-distribute as you wish. If anyone would make such engine and attach it to this project - then I can agree.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 Oct 2017 at 5:08 am UTC

You can argue that project that depends on closed middleware while being open itself is open, but I don't agree with it. The claim that "anyone can write an engine" is just a mind excercise. In practice there is no such engine (so far). So you can't just go ahead and do what FOSS is intended to enable, i.e. build, run, modify, re-distribute as you wish. If anyone would make such engine and attach it to this project - then I can agree.

By that logic, almost no project is open source if it has dependencies.

Sure, if a project that is, for example, a game engine depends on Ogre for rendering, then you could completely replace the code in question to use your own renderer. Or you could replace parts of Ogre to work differently.
None of that will ever happen, though, because it is beyond "not feasible". Nobody sane would ever do that.
As such, it is just a mind excercise as well.
What happens is that you will download Ogre and build the project.
Just as you would download Unity and build the project.

The only difference is that you could never build the Unity project and sell it without paying something to Unity and that you cannot build Unity yourself for free.
While it depends on the specific license for the game engine project using Ogre if you can sell it (Ogre is MIT, so it doesn't care) and you can build Ogre yourself.

You can disagree all you want, but you cannot change some facts:
A project that has open sources is, by definition, open. What middleware it uses is irrelevant, as dependencies are not part of the project's sources - they are dependencies. It might not be FOSS (not sure), but it sure is open source - look at the words. The project's sources are open.
If it were any different, a project depending on any dependency would be unable to have any different license. And projects depending on closed source libraries would be unable to make their own sources open.

Oh, and yes, you can replace Unity in such a Unity project. By keeping all the logic intact, just changing the engine-specific code pieces to use whatever C# stuff instead of Unity. And converting the assets.
So, yeah you can "build, run, modify, re-distribute as you wish". It's just very unlikely that anyone would do it as it is too much work.

By that logic, almost no project is open source if it has dependencies.

It's not open as a complete result, yes. It's open as a part only. In this case, do you care about the part, or about usable result? If about the later, then it's not open for you. Or go ahead, and replace Unity, then you can call it open. As you said, it's not feasible for most, so claiming that you could hypothetically is pointless.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 Oct 2017 at 6:08 am UTC

Is it open source? is not open source? I don't care either way, to me the important thing is if it works or not in Linux.

Does it carry over the gamebreaking bugs? It's not a true Daggerfall experience if you're able to play it.

Does it carry over the gamebreaking bugs? It's not a true Daggerfall experience if you're able to play it.

I arrived relatively late to the Elder Scrolls Universe, the first one I played was Oblivion, then Morrowind & finally Skyrim, I've never tried Daggerfall or the first one.

I am just curious to know the answer: why didn't they use OpenMW's engine? Is this game really that different?
Is it a total recreation of the game (assets and everything), or just the game engine?

Yes, Daggerfall is very different from Morrowind. Daggerfall is a massive, procedurally generated open world, Morrowind is 100% handcrafted. Theoretically it might be possible, but the procedural generation tools don't exist for Morrowind right now, OpenMW or otherwise.

Since it's using Unity, I won't call it open source really. Their own part is open, but the engine is not. In contrast, OpenMW is actually using a FOSS engine - [Open Scene Graph](http://www.openscenegraph.org).

The *game* part of it is open-source, and that is all that matters.

All that matters for what? You still need Unity to have a playable result. If you don't care about playing it, then sure, it all that matters just code wise.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 Oct 2017 at 4:17 pm UTC

Does it carry over the gamebreaking bugs? It's not a true Daggerfall experience if you're able to play it.

Yeah, that game was pretty horrible when it came to bugs :D . But still a lot of fun. "Hold!! Hold!! Hold!!"

Since it's using Unity, I won't call it open source really. Their own part is open, but the engine is not. In contrast, OpenMW is actually using a FOSS engine - [Open Scene Graph](http://www.openscenegraph.org).

The *game* part of it is open-source, and that is all that matters.

All that matters for what? You still need Unity to have a playable result. If you don't care about playing it, then sure, it all that matters just code wise.

Code doesn't have to work (at all or only by itself) to be open source.
Sure, you need non-open source software in this case to get a playable result, but that doesn't change the fact that the project itself is open source.