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Dune II Source/Download


Gobalopper

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  • 2 weeks later...

One question: What will you do with the Dune2 source anyway? It's not as if there's anything stunningly new we can learn from it (we know more or less how it works and can extract its resources), and what with many of the clones out now, we have better engines, and other advantages which I needn't name. I'm not sure it'd be worth much more effort.

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The Dune2 "videos" are using the same tech as the Dune videos. Those things were programmed, coded. They did't use a program or something. Starting with Dune2000 the duniverse games had real actors and real video. Anyway, I'd be me more interested in the DuneI source.

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true, but i still am interested in the source :)

Anyway, this quote tells enough about my activities last period:

EA will not give you permission to use (any part of) the Dune II source

code. (They appreciate that you have shared your intentions with them.)

However, they do urge you to refrain from further pursuing them.

;)

wow! talk about NASTY LETTERS. that looks like it was forwarded to EA's "ANTI-PR GUY" for his response. i suggest you take a formal copy of the whole message and spruce it up with lamination etc. and we use this to somehow show the world how evil EA is. perhaps *then* they might listen. seems to be the only way to get their attention. ie: Westwood Underground was screwing with their business so they decided that instead of using brute force to get rid of them, EA would just get in bed with them to shut them up.

therefore based on history it looks like EA can be lulled into submission by negativity. of course, we should be trying to get the Emperor source code with these tactics, not just Dune 2

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...

Well I talked with Louis and he says they looked into the open source option for all their old titles and it wouldn't work.

They can't offer it for download for free since they have to pay licencing fees. So it looks like it won't happen.

Hello all.

I'm only interested in Dune 1, and I read with greater interest your posts, especially the ones concerning Louis (up)

It's right, it will be almost impossible to convice EA to release Source Code. Not only because of the licenses concerning Dune, but mostly because all major comapnies won't ever release any source code when they know it could possibly bring money (there are some exceptions like ID Software, but this is rare...)  ...and Dune games are Gold. Especially now, with the new mobile-phones games and mobile-consoles games. The Bitmap Brothers are earning money with their old Speedball2 on Nokia !!!

I'm totally ready to start over from scratch, rewriting the whole game, even if it's totally illegal (it's not illegal in itself, because you can still pretend that it's for real possessors of the old game so that they can continue to play with it on modern computers - but it will become illegal as soon as EA says "STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!")

Anyway, it's worth trying to begin an open-source project.

The real problem is : HOW TO READ FROM ANCIENT FILE FORMATS?

With no original source code available, it will be very difficult to read from bitmap/sprites/music files, without knowing their internal structure, probably compressed/modified using Cryo utilities.

Any idea?

Do you know of any ancient "graphics/music modifier/extractor for Dune1", made by a fan of the game?

We could convince him to realease his source code!

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I managed to know more about the file formats used in Dune 1...

Well, it seems to be real archeology (very exciting!), but there are remaining clues.

By searching on the web, i found this page : http://sorry.vse.cz/~roman/dimension/rdos/rdosplay/

This is the page of an utility called "rdosplay", designed to play the music of ancient video games on our PC's.

I tried the utility, it still works on my WinXP using VDMS.

This page also deals with Dune's SDB and AGD files (music files).. But what is MUCH MORE important is that it reveals that .HSQ files (almost all files in the game are .HSQ) are compressed files, just like .ZIP or .RAR.

The only problem is that the utility UNHSQ (used to unzip) only seems to have existed on some old mini-computers that were running the ancient O.S. "RDOS"

So, now, there are two manners to find a way to unzip those HSQ files :

1/ Find back the guy who wrote that rdosplay utility, and ask him to give us the source code of the internal "unhsq" used in rdosplay.

2/ Make some archeology in the RDOS documentation, and find a geek to rewrite an unhsq (or maybe find the original one! maybe a PC version of unhsq exists!)

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