| abstract
| - Based on estimations by Daniel Markstedt (below) thousands of people (at least) play Freeciv. I (Timothy J. Crowell) interviewed Daniel Markstedt (a.k.a. Hima), a Freeciv project administrator about the project by email: Timothy: I am wanting to do a report on Freeciv in Teklogs. Daniel: I'll try to answer your questions as well as possible. Let's start out by telling you a bit about myself and my involvement in this project: I started playing Freeciv early 2005; found out about it while looking for a civ-like game that could be played on hexagonal tiles. Became a contributor winter 2005, originally designated as "nations maintatiner". Since then I've become involved with various aspects of the project, my latest responsibility being the release cycle, i.e. getting releases out the door. Timothy: How many developers are currently working on the project? Daniel: We are four active developers, together with a number of lurking ex-devs, occational hackers, artists and opinion machines. =) Timothy: How many users do you think play Freeciv? Daniel: Very hard to estimate, as recent Freeciv versions have had a singleplayer focus. Since the release of the last major version a week ago we've gotten over 16,000 downloads. Most of these are Windows binaries as most Linux mainstream distro users wait for binaries to hit their respective package repositories, so the total installed base is most certainly much higher. Timothy: How is the project expected to grow? Daniel: We hope for a creative ecosystem to evolve around the game, where programmers and content creators can cooperate creating a more enjoyable game. There's also a partership with the GGZ Gaming Zone folks in the works. I'm really excited about this, as it will make online Freeciv gaming so much more accessible and attractive. Timothy: What is the current development status of Freeciv? Daniel: A lot of exciting new features have been implemented in 2.1.0 - including scripting, improved modability, battlegroups etc. Together with graphical updates, it's gotten a makeover that finally brings the game into the 21th century! Unfortunately, lack of programmer hours has left quite a few of the new features half-finished and poorly documented. Right now, we're hard at work sorting out a number of long-standing low-level flaws in the code. Timothy: What is the future of Freeciv? Daniel: For 2.2, we have a built-in editor, more advanced terrain, and more customizable units rules planned. Together with the improvements already in place in 2.1, this version will become a powerful platform for modifications and scenarios. To complement this, we have for a time been in contact with the talented people of the Apolyton Scenario League, a group of veteran Civ2 scenario creators that are looking to Freeciv as an alternative to their aging creative platform. Keep your eyes open for an announcement of the first official SL scenario for Freeciv! ;) Timothy: Do you have fun playing Freeciv? Daniel: Yes! In short bursts, at least. I personally love leading the primitive land wars of the first 50-something turns of a game. A fundamental design flaw in Civ, starting with the original game, is that further you get in the game, the longer each turn takes as you get caught up managing multiple wars and dozens of cities. As I grow older, I have less and less time left for gaming. I believe the answer is the previously mentioned scenario scene. A scenario can usually be finished between 50-100 turns, making it possible to play a game from start to finish in two-three hours. This, I believe, is the future of Freeciv - at least for me. :) Timothy: What Operating System do you play Freeciv on? Daniel: Mac OS X Panther, Windows XP, Ubuntulinux. Timothy: What is the current quality of play on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)? Daniel: Unknown, though there has been some mixed positive reports on the forums. Remember that Freeciv is built upon common and freely-available libraries. As soon as these libraries have been stabilized on the new platform, Freeciv will run flawlessly with little or no modification - as was the case on Windows Vista. Timothy: What is wrong with the sound on Freeciv in Mac OS X Leopard? Daniel: It's a not a Leopard-specific issue. I have the same problem on my ancient iBook running Panther. Our OSX packager has on the other hand been able to build his packages with sound support, so it's certainly possible - just quite difficult. Timothy: Anything more you want to tell me about Freeciv? Daniel: Freeciv is a great game, if you approach it with an open mind. It's not quite like Civ2, most certainly not Civ4, but the kind of Civ-like game a group of enthusiasts wanted to play themselves. Join the Freeciv community and make the game _you_ like to play! This is the power of Open Source. =) Daniel (continued): Hope this made sense. Most of it written over a late-night session. ;) Please ask for more details or clarifications if needed! Sincerely, ~Daniel
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