Slashdot Mirror

GtkRadiant-GPL.zip Feb 17 2006

Which seems a bit old. As I look through each of these files, none seem to be related to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory, Return to Castle Wolfenstein single-player or Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer. A few directories up I see Wolfenstein 3D for the iPhone but all I'm seeing are older games that have been open sourced with notes from John Carmack. There are a lot of Doom and Quake utilities and Wolfenstein 3D but ... I cannot find these other engines. Am I missing something? Is the Quake code the same engine?

Gamasutra ran a similar story back in August but there's no press release on id's site about such a commitment to the GPL. One would think that if this did happen at QuakeCon it would be on QuakeCon's news site. Did someone make an announcement and confuse Wolfenstein 3D with the later games or is there a legit place you can get the source with a GPL license alongside it?

As somebody who was a PC-only gamer for most of the 90s, I always used to enjoy the point, 3 years or so into the console cycle, where my PC was putting out the kind of graphics that my console-owning friends could only dream of. It's been a long time since we were in that kind of territory, though.

You do realize that your observation proves my point completely, don't you? It's because of the console platform dominance that developers are no longer pushing the envelope with their PC releases. As with the Crysis example you gave, it is economically unattractive for publishers to back a dev studio who is working on a PC-only title. If John Carmack walked into Activision's offices and said, "Guys, I just came up with this new rendering engine that's incredible. Ambient lighting, reflective shadows, the whole shebang! Only drawback is that it requires a video chipset released within the current generation of video cards." Those executives would punt his ass right out the door if titles using the engine can't easily port to consoles.

Did you notice that this year's QuakeCon tournaments were entirely limited to QuakeLive? iD has given up on horsepower-hungry development and has redirected its pc-gaming business towards comodity hardware.

Goodbye innovation. Hello stagnation.

This is a post that I made on WoW's general forums a ways back, but which was silently deleted after it received several pages of responses.

---

Blizz should take a page from id's book

It really irritates me (and several people I know) that Blizz is charging $120 for a ticket to Blizzcon. Why? A little history...

Back in the 1990's, there was this company (which still exists today, actually) called id software. id had some really kickass people, and wrote several wildly popular games. You might have heard of several of them; they're names were generally single words, things like "Quake" and "Doom" (and several sequels). After id made their millions (and millions, and ...), they decided that they would start throwing an annual event to celebrate the people that had made them successful, their fans.

And thus, Quakecon (http://www.quakecon.org/) was born. Every year around August, id software throws a big ass, multi-day con for their fans. For free. FOR FREE. This past year, there were approximately 10-15,000 attendees. Over 6000 brought their computers to enjoy the largest LAN party in the western hemisphere. Attendees heard keynotes from key personnel at id, Raven, as well as many other companies, browsed through companies' newest products and got to play--for the first time ever--id's newest title Quake 4. For free.

Blizz, take a page from id's book. With revenue in the millions every month from all of your subscribers, the $120 per ticket isn't just wrong. It's plain greedy. And it's disgusting.

Actually I've been working on the Q3 code for a number of years. I wrote this and this for example.

I wrote the Enemy Territory 2.60 Release for Id/Activision under contract with them.

I've also had the engine source for over a year under contract with Id/Activision so I could write this. You might have heard of this little get together called Quakecon. It was used to broadcast the qualifier and tournament matches.

Care to tell us what exactly is your experience with the q3 engine code?

id does get new graphics cards _far_ in advance of their release... something like 6 months to a year in advance. Nvidia and ATI both keep in very close contact with John all the way through the development process. John has even talked about how he has helped them track down driver bugs for unreleased hardware before.

If you can, try to go to QuakeCon sometime. John's keynote is always enlightening (except that last year he gave it via a prerecorded DVD... which was kind of boring.... but I guess the birth of his child was a little more important ;-)

Friedmud

If I had to put money down, I'd Mr. Sinus are interested in dick/fart jokes and "racy" humor. But I haven't seen their show, so it's only speculation.

The theme of their comments, though, was to essentially make fun of the rumors that (Top Gun star) Tom Cruise is gay. Every chance they got to make fun of him being (rumored to be) gay they did. And to their credit, there's a lot of Top Gun that can be considered gay when you look at it that way (shower scenes, volleyball game, etc.).

The truly amusing part was that I went to go see it with a friend of mine who's gay. I figured for sure he'd be offended (especially since a lot of the crowd had derogatory gay comments to shout out) but he thought the whole thing was hilarious.

The thing about MST3K was that it had to stay with "safe" humor (for television) and it couldn't spend much to license movies. Mr. Sinus has those advantages - they can be as raunchy as they want to be and they can use any movie, in theory, since they don't have to pay rebroadcast rights. Of course, I'm not sure if they're getting any rights or even if they'd need to. That could be their next lawsuit. Funny that they don't get sued until QuakeCon gives them more exposure. I bet the exposure of this story gets them in trouble with the MPAA.

Interestingly enough, on the 14th (last Saturday) at the same time that this conference with the Infinium Labs CEO was going on, Kyle Bennett from [H]ARD|OCP was on stage at Quakecon, smashing a Phantom console with a big fucking sledgehammer.

Pictures are up at qconpics.org in the Saturday gallery. The pictures of the smashing start here. It was pretty cool to see, and Kyle promised the crowd that next week they are going to have a story up all about the internals of what the Phantom REALLY has.

... but our show does. It's why we do it, for gamers.

http://www.quakecon.org/

These cases were also featured at quakecon 2003 (pic)... just a nifty little tidbit..

yes, that is a computer. Yes, it looks like an airplane... yes it works =) I saw it working with my own two eyes.

We've already started a collection for the kids over at the Quakecon Forums. After just a few hours I've had $20 sent in and on December 5th I'm going to collect up everything donated and buy a shitload of stuff from the wishlist and send it off to Gabe and Tycho. The specific thread has more details and if you'd also like to be a part of our massive money collection then feel free to donate over at the official donation site. Not only will you get your name on the big donation but you can get a nice warm feeling during Thanksgiving!

We've already started a collection for the kids over at the Quakecon Forums. After just a few hours I've had $20 sent in and on December 5th I'm going to collect up everything donated and buy a shitload of stuff from the wishlist and send it off to Gabe and Tycho. The specific thread has more details and if you'd also like to be a part of our massive money collection then feel free to donate over at the official donation site. Not only will you get your name on the big donation but you can get a nice warm feeling during Thanksgiving!

This year at QuakeCon 2003 there will be the very first female gaming tournament in the event's history. The turn-out is expected to be a mix of boyfriends, hangers-on, and droolers.

More details here.

If you're able to get to the U.S. within 3 weeks: QuakeCon. The world's largest lanparty for a legendary game and the games powered by its engine. Meet the id software folks, attend workshops and of course play games.

It look like these were NOT intended to get out at all...every site that had them is gone, gone, gone!

Here's the word from the staff of QuakeCon regarding the issue: Message board thread

Are you planning on trying to get a patent on it?.... On a more serious thought this sounds exactly like a small little convention called Quakecon

Check out this pic from the gallery...are you getting pumped for Doom III yet? THE EVIL LIVES ON!

What about QuakeCon? They've had well over 1100 people for the last couple of years. Here is their site. Last year, they filled up the Mesquite Convention Center (Mesquite, Texas) and were turning people away. Total count for last year was somewhere around 1,200 people in the BYOC alone. This does not include all the spectators or people that diddn't bring a comp but played on someone else's... Their sponsors include: ATI (last year), Nvidia (year before), Bawls, AMD, Linksys, Speakeasy, id Software (id software auctually pays for most of it). I would have to say that QuakeCon is FAR larger that the one you're referring to. For those interested in going: the BYOC is completely FREE. Yes, you pay nothing at all to get to participate in QuakeCon. They have $30,000+ tournaments (that's grand prize). Normally, they're held in August here in Texas (Mesquite, Texas... east of downtown Dallas) and registration normally fills up within a day of it being opened. =\

And as for grrl gamers showing up, yes there will be plenty I assure you. Some hot ones too. Only maybe 1 out of 50 of participants will be female based on the big lans I've been to, but they do show up (usually as a gf, or MOM even, but there are some female clans out there.)

We do. Its called QuakeCon. Its held every year in Texas, and hosted by id software.

QuakeCon

yes it can, it's friday night and I'm reading about LAN parties on Slashdot from QuakeCon

For those of you in Texas: (I know it is a big state) There are a few places to check out LAN Parties.
Check TexasLAN is a group dedicated to bringing LAN Parties to cities across Texas.
For those up in the Panhandle, check out SystemAddicts LAN A member of the TexasLAN Family.
LAN parties aren't exactly new but are definitly becoming more "main stream" than they have been in previous years.

Posted from QuakeCon, the Ultimate Texas LAN Party.

I dunno, sounds like fun, but then again, that's why I'm going to Quakecon next month. We're running a full 100mbit LAN with internet access in a 1500 seat Bring-Your-Own-Computer area, and of course 2 tournaments with big cash prizes. Not going to have paintball, but then again its only 3 days for the event. (a little easier if you can only come on the weekend.) Get to see some of the cool displays from id Software, ATI, and whoever else is there this year. Last year, something like 3000 people showed up, to play, compete, or just to hang out.

Not to mention, I'd rather have my computer inside. Just one of those things. Concrete floor, A/C, etc.

But if I could go, I'd be there.

p24t
p24t-at-quakecon.org

Hmmm. Maybe he meant to post a story about QuakeCon. Registration started last night.

Don't forget Quakecon 2001 this weekend. They have their annual Case Mod Contest, and this year should be quite good. I heard rumour of a question asked of one of the organizers: 'You think a goldfish would live if its water was heated by my P4?'

It was nice, but he did say he had a problem with cooling the thing... but then again, I figure you can always do liquid cooling. I was thinking about doing one like that myself. It's the one and main reason I don't go to more LAN parties, other than the distance and sleep deprivation and bad food thing ;-)

Good Luck.

Excellent synopsis. Did someone mention 70 people at a LAN party? Ever heard of QuakeCon? last year, there were almost 1000 computers networked. Sponsors like linksys and amd provide the equipment. You can also check out LanParty.com for local parties in your area.

I'm married now (just recently), and as I noticed no mention of "wives" watching Wallace and Crommit, it can safely be assumed that spouses aren't too fond of the environment...oh the good ole days...

Gamers live, abide, and pursue their interests in very distinct layers, imposed by the "connectedness" of their favorite games. This layering has a huge effect on the interaction between gamers, and the cultural similarities they may (or may not) share. For example, until very recently, console games had no facility for connection to the net. And hence, console gamers have absorbed very little of that which we might call the "Gamer Culture".

On the other hand, the fans of id Software's games, including Quake X, Doom X, etc. use those games as a communications medium, as well as an outlet for fun (The same is true of Tribes players, UT players, etc. id, however, must be given credit as the company which invented the gamer culture as we think of it today). These players have internet connections (and usually the very fastest available), and spread the memes and mores of the gamer culture through direct interaction. Not only do they communicate directly in games, but they meet in Clans (teams) outside the game, socialize together in IRC on networks exclusively dedicated to gamers like irc.enterthegame.com, and troll forums on clan websites, and other gaming oriented sites. They also meet at popular events catering exclusively to gamers, like Quakecon.

It is this interaction and communication that defines the gamer culture. And it is also why, for the most part, that which we describe as "the gamer culture", is in reality, the "id culture".

While I certainly do think the gamer subculture is interesting and worthy of description, I suggest that Mr Katz spend a little more time getting to know it, and what it's really about, before pontificating about it. It's a fact that the corporate websites of banner ad providers aren't setting any standards within the culture.

gg dewd.

Tapper