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Xonotic

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Xonotic
Developer(s)Team Xonotic
Publisher(s)Team Xonotic
Designer(s)Team Xonotic and Community
EngineDarkPlaces engine
Platform(s)Linux, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows
Release8 September 2011
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, Multiplayer

Xonotic (/zoʊˈnɒtɪk, ksoʊ-/)[1] is a free and open-source[2] first-person shooter video game. It was developed as a fork of Nexuiz, following controversy surrounding the game's development. The game runs on a heavily modified version of the Quake engine known as the DarkPlaces engine. Its gameplay is inspired by Unreal Tournament and Quake, but with various unique elements.

Gameplay

deathmatch gameplay video
Xonotic gameplay screenshot
Screenshot of the Xonotic main menu - Version 0.8.2
Title Music "Rising of the Phoenix"

There are sixteen different game modes in Xonotic, including classic modes like deathmatch and capture the flag. In order to unlock more game modes, players must complete different levels of gameplay. To score points, players must kill enemies using futuristic weapons while completing objectives. The gameplay is very fast-paced, due to players being able to move at high speed and jump erratically. While the basic concept is inspired by other games of the same genre, there are several unique elements. Emphasis is placed on movement and player physics, with a focus on gaining speed, jumping great distances, and conquering the level geometry. This is done with classic techniques including strafe jumping, bunny hopping, and rocket jumping. Weapons have special abilities such as multiple fire modes, which increase the tactical options available to the players.

The game features a futuristic aesthetic, with maps set in high-tech environments and in space. The game runs on the DarkPlaces engine and thus supports bloom, dynamic lighting and shadowing, offset mapping, and high-dynamic-range rendering. The developers claim that the graphics quality is comparable to commercial video game titles released between 2006 and 2007.[3]

Players can also personalize their HUD according to their exact preferences.[4]

Development

In March 2010, a controversy arose over the original Nexuiz being licensed to IllFonic game studios in order to create a commercial version. The original creator, Lee Vermeulen, secretly made a deal with a company known as IllFonic according to which the latter got the hold over the Nexuiz trademark. Since this turn of events was unexpected by the community and most Nexuiz developers, they promised to create a fork controlled by a community in an open manner.[5][6][7] Approximately seven months later the source code was published via Git. A preview version was released on 23 December 2010.[7][8]

Version 0.5 was released on 8 September 2011. It featured multi-language support, seven new maps, vehicle support, and enhancements to weapons and player movement, among other changes.[9] Since the release of this version, Team Xonotic's stated aim has been to "create the best possible fast-paced open-source FPS game".[10]

Version 0.6 was released on 8 March 2012. It comes with sRGB lightmap rendering, a new menu interface, 4 new maps, an integrated statistics system (XonStats), a Sandbox editing mode and the long-awaited feature of ClientSide QuakeC (CSQC) networked players. Bug fixes and optimizations have also been made.[11]

Version 0.7, was released on 8 June 2013. It features a client-side rendering of players, 4 new maps and a complete re-write of the in-game chat system. Additionally, the team has migrated to the gmqcc QuakeC compiler which generates faster, more optimized program files.[12]

The next major release of Xonotic, version 0.8, was released on January 16, 2015. It includes, among the other things, a new weapon, monsters, buffs and new maps.[13]

The most recent releases were two minor releases: version 0.8.1, which was released on August 26, 2015[14] and 0.8.2 on April 1, 2017.[15] They added new maps, new themes for the menu, and new gameplay features. In addition, the codebase of Xonotic was refactored.

Early History

Xonotic was founded around october 2009 (First public release in 2010). The creation of Xonotic was spurred on by two forces. The first cause was the continuing removal of various weapons and features by the Nexuiz lead developer Lord Havoc. Here two weapons, the HLAC (heavy laser assault cannon), and the Tag Seeker (homing rockets) were removed because the project lead wanted to keep the weapon number at nine. This created a feeling of insecurity amongst the junior developers where one was never sure if the work they had slaved over for months would one day be ripped out of the code and thrown to the side as if refuse for one reason or another. The second cause was the sale of the Nexuiz trademark to the Illfonic crew.

The fork of Nexuiz into Xonotic was spearheaded by divverent, Z, morphed, mrbougo, and various others. Divverent was asked to fork Nexuiz by a number of mappers and code developers once the Illfonic purchase of the name was finalized (sold by Vermillion), though murmerings of a fork of Nexuiz had been heard for two years prior. Over the summer of 2009 divverent, morphed, and various unnamed contributors conspired with eachother on the topic of a media fork of nexuiz with limited code patches such as the addition of the removed weapons. Talk eventually trended towards a full fork of Nexuiz into an extended project.

There were various controversies at the very beginning of Xonotic that made a fork of it, too, inevitable. In the very beginning it was decided that Xonotic would support all the maps and textures of Nexuiz. Instead Xonotic would strip out the Nexuiz player characters, depreciate the nexuiz textures (with an eye towards removal), and remove all the Nexuiz maps. It was also suggested to bring some of the most prolific mappers (and some of their better maps) into the xonotic project. Including mappers who asked for the fork of Xonotic in the first place, such as mikeeusa. However this was decided against because of the social beliefs of said content creators in some cases (example: anti-feminist, pro-girl-child marraige (example: support for social structures in afganistan)), and in other cases because their content style was not in the ever-narrowing perview of the new project.

Later, Richard M. Stallman was ejected from the Free Open Source Software community under similar reasoning.

Though off to a good start in its first two years, xonotic development then largely stalled and entered a period of rule-by-committee that continues to this day.

However, in a somewhat bright spot, in 2012 the influence of a single developer known by the nickname Samual had grown to a degree where he had a stranglehold on the project. His additions were vast and impressive; his willpower then matched by no other still-engaged developer. All decisions had to pass through him however, and his answer was usually,if not always, no. Then near May 2012 Samual made a sweeping change in the xonotic quake c code involving the rewrite of the message passing code. This convinced some projects that were tracking the xonotic git repo to break off all-together. Since that time most code changes have been of the make-work variety, such as to highlight offical servers above all others, and very few new features have been added in that particular code change. Feature development has moved towards modifications and forks of Xonotic.

There are various modifications and forks of Xonotic, some of which extend and improve the game greatly. These modifications and forks include: Tzork's Vehicle Mod, Overkill[1], Defense of The Core[2], and Chaosesque Anthology[3].

Today most interesting development occurs on off-main Xonotic branches: Such as Mario's various mutators and mods, and MiarcitaKitsune's programmatic musings and woodland romps. The main developers have long left the project effectively: and it exists mainly as a gathering space where 300 non-developers commiserate for decades to no-end. A parlour shop, if it were. Any mention of forks are deleted.

Today (as of 2020) there is a plan to "depreciate" various weapons and pair-down the game. You may think that this sounds strikingly familiar to the story behind the initial fork from Nexuiz itself. You might be reminded of a novel from your youth: Animal Farm. History repeats from those who do nothing.

Reception

Phoronix praised Xonotic's gameplay and graphics, and declared the game "one of the most visually-impressive open-source games available for [multiple platforms]". Larabel said, "For being a community-backed open-source game without the support of any major game studio, Xonotic is doing great."[9][16] Xonotic was also deemed "the Best Free Multiplayer FPS Linux Can Muster" by Softpedia.[17] Commenting on the game's community of both players and developers, About.com noted, "entering it makes you really feel like you've become a part of something bigger than just a video game."[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Xonotic FAQ: How do you pronounce the name Xonotic?". Retrieved 2018-07-07.
  2. ^ "Xonotic: Legal". Archived from the original on August 14, 2014. Retrieved 2013-05-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ^ Dan, Craciun (2011-09-28). "Xonotic 0.5 – Free Shooter Based Off Nexuiz". TuxArena. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  4. ^ "Xonotic". LibreGameWiki. 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2016-10-30.[self-published source]
  5. ^ "Nexuiz Founder Licenses It For Non-GPL Use". Slashdot. 2010-03-22. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  6. ^ "Nexuiz Related FAQs".
  7. ^ a b Larabel, Michael (2010-12-23). "A Xonotic Preview Release Comes For Christmas". Phoronix. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  8. ^ "Xonotic 0.1 Preview Released". Team Xonotic. 2010-12-23. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  9. ^ a b Larabel, Michael (2011-09-08). "Xonotic, The Successor To Nexuiz, Is Primed". Phoronix. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  10. ^ "Xonotic 0.5 Release". Team Xonotic. 2011-09-08. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  11. ^ "Xonotic 0.6 Release". Team Xonotic. 2012-03-08. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  12. ^ "Xonotic 0.7 Release". Team Xonotic. 2013-06-08. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  13. ^ "Xonotic 0.8 Release". Team Xonotic. 2015-01-16. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  14. ^ "Xonotic 0.8.1 Brings New Maps, New Gameplay Features". Phoronix. 2015-08-26. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  15. ^ "Xonotic 0.8.2 Release". Team Xonotic. 2017-04-01. Retrieved 2017-04-01.
  16. ^ Larabel, Michael (2012-04-11). "The Best Looking Open-Source Game?". Phoronix. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  17. ^ Stahie, Silviu (2013-06-10). "Xonotic 0.7 Is the Best Free Multiplayer FPS Linux Can Muster". Softpedia. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  18. ^ Rankin, Dave. "5 Open Source First-Person Shooter Video Games". About.com. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
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