This sort of shit is why we shouldn't have accepted it when games stopped coming with the ability to run your own server.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I like how splitgate devs turned the game peer to peer after they shut down the official servers. It's really unfortunate we have to hope for them to do the right thing instead of it being an industry standard
Thankfully there are still some games that have custom server support, but they're mostly in the open source space.
I really agree that, with the way gaming has gone, custom servers are going to be a necessity. The only problem is that people generally like the consistency and usability of match-making services which would also need to be open sourced, but I think there are probably clever ways to design around this (for example, servers belong to tags and users have to opt-in and opt-out of tags, and game master server lists are responsible for administering these tags.)
You can have both, like TF2. Their server browser is kinda janky like most other source games but it's there and it works
I actually am really sick of TF2 gameplay, which isn't to hate on TF2. Payload is one of the tightest most satisfying team objective gametypes I have played in a shooter. I have just played a metric fuckton of TF2 over the years and I typically want something different these days.
I still play TF2 occasionally though because of how fun it is to poke around on the server browser and see the kind of weird shit people are up to in TF2. That is what a server browser does, it gives a game a sense of place and it gives multiplayer a sense of fun exploration (ooh this server looks weird let me try it!).
What is a viable way today to play StarCraft in Linux? I miss those days
It works really well through wine. It's a little setup but it isn't too bad imo.
Just play Beyond All Reason, problem solved
I haven't played Beyond All Reason or this "StarCraft-inspired" game, but I have played Total Annihilation and StarCraft and I wouldn't consider them to be substitutes for each other.
I mean if someone wants to make a Starcraft inspired mod in Beyond All Reason, ALL of the equipment is already there, the lobby system, voting mechanisms, replay system etc...
I think the reason nobody has is Starcraft is so much more limited of an RTS design it feels weird to start from a Total Annihilation inspired rts game engine and take a whole bunch away (shift clicking, build cues, actually 3d trajectories of cannons, complex unit interactions rather than simplistic rock-paper-scissors relationships, actually flying aircraft, organic terrain variation instead of simplistic stepped levels...the list goes on and on)
Still, the Spring/Recoil engine is sitting there. Starting from scratch just to start from scratch seems VERY inefficient to me.
At the very least why not start as a Spring Engine/Recoil Engine mod, nail the gameplay and balance and then strike out on your own?
I think the reason nobody has is Starcraft is so much more limited of an RTS design it feels weird to start from a Total Annihilation inspired rts game engine and take a whole bunch away (shift clicking, build cues, actually 3d trajectories of cannons, complex unit interactions rather than simplistic rock-paper-scissors relationships, actually flying aircraft, organic terrain variation instead of simplistic stepped levels…the list goes on and on)
Exactly. Those "limitations" (I would use a less biased word, BTW) make it a different game. Not necessarily worse or even more simplistic, but definitely different, kinda like how Chess and Go are different even though they're broadly in a similar genre.
My point is the Recoil and Spring Engine already exist and could easily have features removed and simplified with modding to create a Starcraft-like or Warcraft-like.
Or... what about going with 0 A.D.'s engine?
I just don't think it is a wise business decision to attempt to create an RTS as a new game studio and expect you can build the engine from scratch. Not in this day and age, the golden age of game development is gone, you can't casually take risks like that anymore.
What you end up with is a failed game on a really pretty game engine that is starting to become promising but now since the gameplay hasn't gotten enough attention from the small overworked team nobody keeps playing the game and all the work that went into building the game engine and boilerplate is wasted and forgotten.
I think it is a FAR better idea to nail the gameplay on an already made RTS engine.
I mean, if the game engine is the issue you're worried about, people had already been working on Free Software WarCraft/StarCraft clones almost a decade before the Spring Engine existed. https://stratagus.com/stargus.html
Yeah my point is why do people keep insisting st failing at reinventing the wheel as an indie company here?
There are plenty of wheels that already exist that would serve as a much more focused starting point for a new game company.
Beats me; I wasn't trying to talk about that. I was just pointing out that StarCraft and TA (and therefore their Free Software successors), despite both being RTSs, are different enough from each other that it doesn't necessarily make sense to try to share a codebase between them.
Despite having a native Linux build, BAR is the one thing keeping my GF on windows. BAR runs flawlessly for her on windows, it runs flawlessly for me on Linux, but on her GPU on Linux, it has less than 3fps, both in the menu and the game. (Have already tried a shitton of fixes, nothing helped.)
Im having a great time with the game! Its fun.