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Friday Fun Thread for January 3, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Did anyone play Battle For Wesnoth as a kid? Open source fantasy strategy game from the early 2000s, which I just found out is still getting content updates to this day.

Most projects like this fall apart within a few years if they ever get off the ground at all. It's the sort of thing that makes me tempted to do a deep dive into the history and organization to learn the secrets of its longevity. Same with openTTD and freeciv, which have even more impressive histories.

The Wesnoth organization has an actual constitution detailing the responsibilities and powers of the various officers and sub-groups, but is it the rules or the men involved that keep it going?

Wesnoth has a place near and dear in my heart as one of the first times I grok'd tactics in a game like this. I was playing a mission and just kept slamming my forces against the enemy with no ability to make headway. I finally realized if I pulled back a bit I could stretch his reinforcement lines out and build up overwhelming force, upon which point I broke through and destroyed him. Was very empowering.

As a kid? Yeah…

I’m happy to see it has dozens of new long and intricate campaigns packed with plenty of missions pathways and a sense of character progression tied to a solid gameplay loop.

Warzone 2100 is an open source RTS that is similarly well maintained.

The Wesnoth organization has an actual constitution detailing the responsibilities and powers of the various officers and sub-groups,

Oh no, terminally online mentally ill nerds will turn it fake and gay as soon as they cross a metastatic threshold.

but is it the rules or the men involved that keep it going?

The latter, for now.

Replying to remember to download 2100 when I get home

Did you download it? Cinematics are separate.

I haven't yet, I got distracted. Is there a difference between the steam version and the standalone version?

I would make sure they have the same version number. The Steam release might lag.

I ended up looking around a bit and it looks like the community much prefers the standalone version. I remember playing this for a bit during the ps1 era and finding it only okay. I certainly find the pathing frustrating, but other than that it's pretty fun.

Path finding as you recalled it? I’m sure it has since improved, this isn’t just a new paint job.

It still is going on? That's awesome. I wasn't exactly a kid in an objective sense when I devoted a lot of time to playing it, but from my current age that person was nothing but a kid. Certainly one of the handful of impactful games for me.