Good FOSS 3D action RPGs, nowhere to be found?

Today I got a small rant:
So there are a few really prominent types of games which ought to have their FOSS representatives, right?
Ok, well a few like epic story driven single-player games will probably never show up due to inherent problems to develop such games through the FOSS method, but besides that lets have a look what we got:

• Good and playable FOSS multi-player FPS games under active development? 
• Check! (Xonotic, RedEclipse and several other with un-free media)
• Good and playable FOSS RTS games under active development?
• Check! (0 A.D., MegaGlest, Warzone2100, Spring mods etc.)
• Good and playable FOSS racing games under active development?
• Hmm... not an expert, but I guess Speed Dreams and Stunt Rally apply.
• Flight simulators, turn based strategy?
• Check: Flightgear!
• Check: Battle for Wesnoth!
• Action RPGs like Diablo or Torchlight?
• Hmmm???

Ok... sure you will find some other genres (Mechsims, realistic tactical FPS etc.) which also lack a much played/far into development FOSS representative, but given the (current) popularity of action RPGs lets have a look at what we do have:

So, there is the really cool project FLARE, which besides being not really playable yet is also more of a nostalgic effort. More playable but also with a similar demographic of potential players is Freedroid (besides having a maybe too Linux centric style).

FLARE 2D graphics style

Maybe of interest seem to be DawnRPG and PARPG, but for both the above applies as well and they seem to be going into a rather different direction. Besides that, at least the latter seems to be not progressing well lately.

Then there are the obscure and/or non-isometric DNT and Lips of Suna. Which are both nice projects on their own (especially LoS seems to develop nicely as of late), but are not really suitable as the FOSS reference for action RPGs...

The only game that comes to my mind that would fit is Summoning Wars, which is somewhat playable and even has a single-player campaign, but development is really slow and it is still a long way off what I would call a recommendable game to non-FOSS enthusiasts.

Some new dungeon wall tests

All in all it is a very promising project, which is IMHO hold back by its lack of content creation tools (mainly, but not only a world editor). This is probably partially because of the intention to have randomly generated dungeons, but those are still really bland to look at, and should be complemented by parts or at least towns that are nicely designed by hand (those also exists, but must have been done in a text editor or such ;) ).

Part of the rather slow development I guess was the poor choice of the graphics engine, e.g. OGRE 3D which is foremost a programmers choice (due to nice features and good documentation), but a rather bad FOSS game developers choice in my opinion (due to the lack of a complete game-engine features and good tools).

There are still a few really talented artists trying to contribute (1,2,3), and I recently proposed a creative re-use of 0 A.D. assets, but everything seems to be hitting a road block when it comes to easy tinkering with the game and getting things to actually run in game... and that is really demotivating to potential contributors (FOSS development advise 101 ;) ).

So to sum it up? I think Summoning Wars is really not living up to what it could be, and the only solution I see would be the addition of a new and really motivated programmer to the team to solve the tool-chain problems and thus restart the active development again. Anyone interested???

P.S.: Not to forget mentioning it: There is also the IrrRPG builder, which could probably be a good base to build an action RPG too.

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PARPG Infrastructure Sprint: Content Creation Refactoring

A PARPG Content Creation Refactoring Sprint was announced on May 23, 2011. Here are instructions on how to join and help:

1. Register at Assembla
2. Add and resolve tickets
3. Join the #parpg channel each Sunday at GMT 8PM

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Dev-corner: m64's Development Lessons and Agile in Free Open Source Game Development

In his first Lessons from Bulletstorm post, m64 talks about the importance of Level Design, Editors, Core Gameplay and Mechanics Tweaking for open source games (although most is general gamedev related).

First, a disclaimer – Bulletstorm is a big, single-player heavy, action game. If your game is different, the observations might not apply. Some observations are shaped by how Unreal Engine 3 works and might not be easily applicable to games created with other engines. Some might be difficult to apply due to technical limitations of an Open Source process – like having to exchange data through the Internet. Without any further ado, here goes.

Speaking of development: PARPG is doing an Agile/Scrum-style one-month sprint. This means that the whole team is working towards a handful of goals and that there are 30-minutes progress and planning reports twice a week [announcement]. The main theme of this development month is "Player Character Creation".

I'm currently contributing as UI designer on the project and am very motivated by the feeling of 'single-mind development' - the knowledge that man people from different spheres work on one main task at a time. It's great to know that not only I finish a design task but that it's going to be working in-game soon.

One of the mockups I produced during the sprint [more mockups]

Please note that this is not a one man's work. I actually created no part of this image but only drew some lines and moved around existing images by other artists! See this file for a list of the work in the mockup.

Do you consider m64's suggestions relevant to free game dev? Are there any principles/structures you have seen in foss game projects that improved development? What do you think of applying Scrum to open source games?

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