Originally Posted by
Ivan Eres
I second that.
I know another game that was in a similar state once. I have played that game a lot since 1999 when it first came out and I still do from time to time. It is called Jagged Alliance 2.
In 2004 it was made Open Source. One of the first things the volunteers did there (besides porting it to C++) was to externalize many parameters that were hard coded (e.g. stats for guns & chars) to reduce the effort for alterations greatly. That's comparable to what our NST is doing right now to make the balancing process possible at all.
It took some time but JA2 is going stronger than ever now. If anybody is interested I recommend checking out the Bear's Pit forum and version 1.13 of JA2 with its latest build. If you like turn based RPG strategy with strong characters and a gritty story and care more about game mechanics than graphics it's a gold mine for every gamer. Yes, it's bastard ugly but it is one of the coolest TBS ever.
The best part about it all is that professional game companies are also getting more interested in the game again, with two of them making new games for the franchise.
A loyal fan base is a good reason to do so for them.
Regards