Xaroth

I've been on IRC for the past 13 years, and most of what you experience is just lack in knowledge. Not every server is 'suitable' for your average channel, most networks are aimed towards a particular purpose (QuakeNet being the most known for it's counter-strike followers, ColdFront for it's support by a select few games, like EVE Online)... by picking a server that's got the right policies, the right target audience will help a great deal. Also, with the introduction of IRC-Services (Q/L on QuakeNet, ChanServ/NickServ/OperServ on others), a lot of the spam/crap has been easier to control for those responsible for the network. also, sites as posted below are prone to spam, mainly due to the obvious of a lack of protection, more and more of those sites shut down due to the amount of abuse they are receiving, and a lack of functionality to prevent said abuse. If people are interested, the folks who follow the OpenDUNE project hang out on OFTC, in #OpenDUNE .. I've secured the channel #fed2k there as well, in case people are interested in hanging out there. [edit] bit silly to not post the full details: server: irc.oftc.net channel: #fed2k (or #OpenDUNE )

massive, and only 1500? bit exaggeration innit? To put things in line: EA's Game Development Studios: Global Headquarters - Redwood Shores, California Regional headquarters - Geneva Switzerland - Singapore Studios: - BioWare, Edmonton, Canada; - Black Box, Vancouver, Canada; - Bright Light, Guildford, U.K.; - Criterion, Guildford, U.K.; - Digital Illusions, Stockholm, Sweden; - EA Montr

And they wonder why a large part of non-amerikans think the american govenment system is so wrong... it takes a dozen to get something done, and one to mess it all up again. Now I'm not saying little ol holland is any better, I mean.. we're still being governed by harry potter himself (and they want him to lead the eu ??? ).. but at least it's somewhat difficult to undo what has been put in stone, unless there's an equal great force that judges otherwise To stick on the topic of Obama, as an outsider I can only see the critique and the fanboyism that follows him closely, but at least he's doing a better job socializing with the outside world than his predecessor...

That's why I linked the concept art ;)

That's mosly because it's not in the normal position on the front page (but at the bottom).. it does appear on normal locations for the forum, and the wiki: original concept art here: http://devs.opendune.org/~xaroth/concept1_600x600.jpg (there's also a 3000x3000 variant for those who enjoy lots of pixels)

While I'd like to thank you both for the icons provided, we have already decided that we will be using the standard OpenDUNE logo as an icon, this to be uniform with our sites and their logos. @Skrilax_CZ: I discussed this, in the current form it's not (yet) doable, however, I'll make a note of it.

Good to see that you're enjoying it :) For the windows users amongst us, if the game closes instantly, followed by the console terminal, it's most likely that it was a triggered crash.. if you re-run opendune from a dos console (start->run->cmd) the console will not be automatically closed, and you will be able to see what the error output was (and as such, report it to us so we can fix it :) )

Sound, for now, is a dodgy area, due to the way we are working.. yes it's technically possible to use something intermediate, but that wouldn't be a true recreation, so for now it'll be a silent game (and as such cost TrueBrain a LOT of troops to worms ;D ), and hopefully in some time we'll be able to get it working flawlessly.

Frequent updates there will be, as described on the forum/wiki our release cycle will be fairly quick, 3 months between releases. That said, the project is nothing without the help we are getting, and I hope that in time more people will join in on the fun.

Sound support is part of the conversion, if it's 100% feasable in it's current state I don't know yet, but I'm sure it'll work one way or another. Re: Fullscreen support... I think that's more feasable in combination with an improved graphics set... stretching a 320x200 pixel window to 1600x1200 will make things look a bit... dotted :P that said, I added my suggestion for Lua on the suggestion forum, I hope more will follow ;)

Right, one step at a time. We're first working on converting the game from bytecode to assembly representation in C, to pure C.. we won't do any modding on it until we feel is a good time, which is most likely when we're done converting it to pure C. That doesn't mean, however, that we don't have ideas/dreams on what we can do... ranging from things like LUA support to replace the unit settings (including scripts) to multiplayer support to various other things.. in general, yes, OpenDUNE will allow for modding, and heavy modding.. but we're trying to keep this project as close to the original Dune as possible, so it's more than likely that somebody else will make a heavily-modded branch that will be nothing like the dune we know. Re: new units, self repair.. as said, possible most likely, but it won't be until we're ready that we decide to put it in or not.. If you have a (what you think) good idea, feel free to post them on the suggestion forum, I'll most likely be putting up a post myself with some pointers on how/what we like to see as suggestions (concept wise) Granted I decide to work out my LUA plan a bit more (and put it on our suggestion forums for others to read/comment), technically that would make it a really small step up for allowing more units to be made.. I'll make a note of that for my own suggestion thread.

I'd have to go with the following: Amsterdam ... and that mostly because I live 10 miles south of it.. while 90% of the tourists think all people in amsterdam walk on clogs, smoke pot or work in the red light district, nothing is further from the truth.. while it might be a relentless city to be in if you don't know your way, it's still a city full of history. Rome mostly for it's historical reasons, though I wouldn't recommend people going there in the middle of the summer.. i had the 'pleasure' of walking around there for a week when the lowest day-time temperature was 40C... Add the Vatican to that for your religious day-trips.. while the atheists under us might frown at it, it's still a nice visit even if only for the nice decoration everywhere. For the car lovers under us, Adenau, Germany.. it's a few minutes away from the Nurburgring, which is quite clear in the surroundings, as everything has some vague relation to the ring, or cars in general... there's also some nice roads around it that are worth taking, even the view alone is nice. For england, I'll have to stick with Hertford, I've had the pleasure of staying there for almost a week.. it's a nice little town just north of london, and is full of history.

A truly nice piece of work you made there, Segra.

I was more thinking of the code-base information on it.. where it is referenced (if it's referenced at all), and if so, why/how it's used. On a separate note, we entered out pre-release cycle.. even though at this point 100% what we do is bugfixes anyways, and we managed to book some nice progress on getting some unresolved points ironed out... mostly due to the help of others (Our team has spawned a new member as well, glx). In the meanwhile I have been busy re-shaping parts of the site and wiki, giving it a bit more of a dune-ish feeling to things. If people are interested in running it and aren't able to compile it by themselves (it took me a few hours to figure out as well), drop me a line on this or our forums and I'm sure I can accomedate for something.. for now we'll have to rely quite a bit on people helping us test, so any help is more than appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZkMEm6E96Y Mastodon - Oblivion ... mainly because a friend recommended it... I like the focus on instrumental music over some bloke shouting his arse off with some drums on the background :P

what would be even more ironic, if the 'supreme being' that goes under the name of God, is in fact, an extra-terrestrial life form.

Hopefully we can see the 'inside' version of that, perhaps, maybe there are some references to it, and we'll be able to see what it is exactly :)

Personally I was more thinking of throwing both that, and the AI together in a scripted language like LUA .. but as i said before, this won't happen until we have a complete replica of the original :)

We evolved because of one instinct all living beings share, the need to survive. You mention Charles Darwin in your quote, I quote you to one of his works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection a small quote: Take this process, and supersize it to thousands of years, and you have gotten yourself a small part of evolution. You quote something about 120 years, this is so incredibly naive, things don't evolve over the course of 120 years, they take hunDREDS of years, sometimes even thousands... now before you ask me proof, go look at the skeletal remains of early mankind, you'll notice significant changes.. over the years we've become taller (my 6'5" is giant-like for people from medieval times), we're living longer (life expectation in some countries is slowly moving towards 100 years, whereas in medieval times this was less than half that). Keep in mind that technological advancements is also a form of evolution, but at some extreme cases also devolution. For the animal kingdom, take a look at crocodiles, and you have a good example of an evolutional line that requires little more improvement. They have survived the dinosaur eras, and they have survived the period from then until now, wth surprisingly little changes Fred Hoyle isn't opposed to the evolution theory, however, he takes a different approach to the big bang in a theory that the universe has already existed and shall always exist (which, as well, is against the creation theory) Both Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge and David Raup all try to find differences in fossiles, while evolution is not limited to -just- the layout of an animal's bones, but also it's behavior, it's responses and it's instinct... unfortunately you can't provide proof as those 3 are interpreted, but that doesn't mean it's not visible. Take dogs for instance, while they might have changed only slightly for centuries, they have changed from a wild beast to now not much more than a common house pet.. tame and nowhere near the predator they used to be.. that should speak for itself.

Hwi, it's a nice story and all, but for an atheist, what you say is like trying to tell me there actually -is- an arrakis. Many catholics use the escape of claiming that "It was written in our book, so it must be true"... a dutch cabaratier once used a witty response to this, a response I used in my younger years in defence when talking to a local pastor.. you take a piece of paper, and write on it "There is no god" .. when I told him that, because it was written, it must be true, he was silent for a good minute, I would imagine by both disgust of my lack of respect (I was young), and a lack of easy comeback for him. After that silence he asked me "So, how do you think the earth was created", at which I answered (mind, translation might mess up a bit here seeing i'm not english speaking by nature) "I don't know how earth was created, but I do believe in what scientists explain on how the universe was created". He grinned, obviously wanting me to reply something similar... "So you believe in the big bang, right?, well, how did the big bang happen?" To that I could only respond that I did not know, but I do not believe it was god doing so. Several years later, I realised that I was a fool for falling for that, and even a bigger of a fool of not responding as I know now... In medieval times, people did not know why the sun rose every day, and set every night.. they claimed it was god, because they didn't know.. yet In the same time, the same was believed for the plague, lightning and many other things, because they didn't know.. yet. There is scientific proof, that earth was created in millions of years, and that life on earth was formed over those millions of years... the holy book tells us the earth was created in days time, including mankind and every being on this planet. Nothing was mentioned about the extinct beings, like dinosaurs, mammoths and the like, creatures we -know- have lived because of science and proof, we know when they lived, where they lived and even how they lived, and that there was no adam or eve around during that time that resembled anything like described in the holy book. Another common excuse i've seen and heard over time is the argument of 'order in chaos', the universe is a chaos, and we show order, so we must have a creator.. this is a dangerous sentence for any religious person to say against a scientist, as science has proved that there are thousands of examples where natural phenomena create order from chaos, and are all scientifically explainable.. from grains of sand dropping on a pile in a bucket forming a cone-like shape, to iron being forged into steel.

putting down bare cables is asking for trouble, you only need one idiot that stamps on the ground too hard for the cable to start shifting, maybe a rock or something that gets pressed down on it and you have yourself a broken cable. I'd also go for gryphon's idea, if you really want speed/geekness you can go for the even more expensive method of putting fiber down, but that might be totally out of your budget (not to mention you'll need switches that support fiber). also, if you dig, don't go 1 ft down.. stick to 2-3 ft at least, just to make sure that whatever is walking/driving on the soil won't move your cable..it'll preserve your cable(s). As a last idea, don't put down just 1 cable.. get a backup.. as you said 16 bucks isn't that expensive, so you can get a 2nd (or even third) line down.. in the rare occurrence that one breaks, you can switch to the 2nd without having to dig them up.

At some point the conversion to C will be complete, at that point in time we should (if no bugs have been created) have a perfect 'clone' of Dune II, which will be released and tagged so that people can enjoy the Dune II experience on any platform. Our goals, however, will go much further than that :)

Personally, I can't agree more with this.. but then again it's also the reason for me why I'm still an Atheist. But at the same time, I've been raised to respect others and their believes, and to 'live and let live'.. unfortunately (for me at least), not all religions share this.

Our main goal for now is a complete recreation.. once we reached something we are satisfied with, we will discuss options in term of making this great game even better... ofcourse we've had our ideas, but I doubt any will be implemented before we're content with the code base.