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We are a little late at covering this, but following the less than cheery news that Disney had closed down the venerable LucasArts in favour of licensing out their famous franchises to other developers instead, Raven Software has decided to actually make something good of this and as such has now released the source code to Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy under Version 2 of the GNU General Public License.

Both games were based off the already free Quake III engine and were also likely to run reasonably well with WINE, but it is of course nice to be able to have them potentially run natively through a source port, as well as all the opportunities this allows for hobbyist developers and modders. The source code for both of the games was uploaded to Sourceforge and can be found here and here. There is also already work on a proper source port entitled OpenJK which can be found here.

I have never actually played these particular games myself, but I have played some of the earlier games in the same series and found them to be enjoyable. So here is hoping that we can all experience some Jedi goodness once some of the ports start to mature. It does also make me wonder if we are going to see more source code releases out of Raven, such as for the Soldier of Fortune or Elite Force games. One can always hope... Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Open Source
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About the author -
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Hamish Paul Wilson is a free software developer, game critic, amateur writer, cattle rancher, shepherd, and beekeeper living in rural Alberta, Canada. He is an advocate of both DRM free native Linux gaming and the free software movement alongside his other causes, and further information can be found at his icculus.org homepage where he lists everything he is currently involved in: http://icculus.org/~hamish
See more from me
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Kingpin Apr 4, 2013
EliteForce source code was already released.

Files >> stef-gamesource110.zip - with holomatch sources.
and >> stvoy_sp_mod_sdk.zip - with single player sources.
can be found here:

http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/files/Elite_Force/Official_Releases/Others;385

There is already holomatch linux port.
Hamish Apr 4, 2013
The Holomatch port was actually someone kludging the game to work on the Quake3 source code. That being said, it actually works pretty well.

As to the other things you have linked to, those are merely the source code to the Modding SDK released under a restrictive license, and as such it would be useless when it comes to making a proper source port.
Cheeseness Apr 5, 2013
Thanks for posting this, Hamish. It's so exciting :D
Sabun Apr 5, 2013
I looked at the source code, and my gosh is it scary. I have a bit of knowledge with C++, but I can see it wasn't easy making these kinds of titles in the past. Engines like Unity and Unreal, heck even Love2D make things a whole lot easier now. The difference in complexity is vast...
Superuser Apr 5, 2013
Quoting: SabunI looked at the source code, and my gosh is it scary. I have a bit of knowledge with C++, but I can see it wasn't easy making these kinds of titles in the past. Engines like Unity and Unreal, heck even Love2D make things a whole lot easier now. The difference in complexity is vast...
Yeah... I just can't get past the likes of Ruby (which badly needs more game engines, fellow rubyists!) and Python.

I picked a C++11 book (also covers C++03) recently though that is very good. It's from the local library and I don't think I'll by buying it as it costs US$45 (and then I'd have to import it). It's called "Sams TeachYourself C++ in One Hour a Day" Seventh Edition.

I swear that things you can do in one line in Ruby take like 10 lines to do in C++, but I'm trying to get through it. Still, now I understand why real programming is so hard, hehe. Mind you, all of those fancy commercial engines like Unity and the UDK are C/C++ under the hood as that's what brings performance. LÖVE probably also has some parts written in C or C++.

I guess I should just stick to being a non-programmer. :(
Liam Dawe Apr 5, 2013
Used to play them a lot online when i was younger, would be pretty cool to have them on Linux :D
Radegast Apr 5, 2013
Quoting: SuperuserI guess I should just stick to being a non-programmer. :(
I started tinkering with the Quake III engine as a non-programmer, because I didn't want a great game like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory to die. Now, two years later, I am still working on my project called ET: Legacy and although I cannot call myself a real programmer, it feels good to understand parts of code which were incomprehensible to me before.
Hamish Apr 5, 2013
Made this an Editors Pick since it has certainly made my week, and I think it has quite heavily contributed to Cheeseness' as well. ;)
Cheeseness Apr 5, 2013
Quoting: HamishMade this an Editors Pick since it has certainly made my week, and I think it has quite heavily contributed to Cheeseness' as well. ;)
I was over the moon when I first spotted it, but didn't have time to post it here. It's neat that there are already projects springing up too :D
SomberHill Apr 16, 2013
All I know is I've been playing jedi knight jedi academy for the last 9 years, and if there is anything I can do to help know that it is my best interest in playing a steam copy of jedi knight academy for linux.
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