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Rise of the Triad Source Code Released
Woody writes "3DRealms gave us an early Christmas present this year: they've released the complete Rise of the Triad source code in memory of William Scarboro, one of the game programmers who died earlier this year. The source is being released under the GPL, so everyone should be happy. If you ever played ROTT, you might remember that under all of the silliness and gore there was an incredible deathmatch and capture-the-flag element. Discussions are currently starting in the 3DRealms forums. Thanks, 3DRealms!"
"3DRealms gave us an early Christmas present this year: they've released the complete Rise of the Triad source code in memory of William Scarboro, one of the game programmers who died earlier this year."
Somehow, I have a feeling William Scarboro would be happier with a $1 donation for the source code to his family than a free giveaway of one of his greatest works.
And you thought it would never happen...
Today we're doing something I bet most everyone out there thought we'd never do. No, it's not Duke Nukem Forever, but something some folks on the net have been asking us to do for ages. Today we're releasing the source code to Rise of the Triad! The source is being released under the GPL license, and we still retain copyright on the game (plus we still sell Rise of the Triad), but folks have been asking for something like this for a long time, and here it is.
We are dedicating the release of the Rise of the Triad Source code to our late friend and Rise of the Triad programmer William Scarboro, who died tragically back in early August of 2002. I'm sure if he were still with us, William would be happy to see this out there, and see what folks might do with the code.
In the archive are some thoughts about Rise of the Triad by Tom Hall (the game's producer), and Scott Miller (Apogee/3DR CEO/Founder). You can check out the readme here before downloading the entire archive. In addition to this file, we have several other ROTT related downlods available - check out our ROTT page for the full list.
The folks reading this who aren't programmers probably won't have any interest in this, but those who are programmers might want to check it out. You can download the file (which is roughly 4Mb zipped) here:
ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/source/rottsource.zip
Enjoy! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. See ya next year!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Uh, the game was owned by 3DRealms, not William Scarboro. Beyond that, they still own the game and sell it, they're just GPLing the source. You have a problem with that?
Remember that fast food place you worked at when you were a kid? They tore it down. Should they have destroyed your "life's work"?
Somehow, I have a feeling William Scarboro would be happier with a $1 donation...
Nice of you to second-guess the people who knew him! I won't venture to speak for Mr. Scarboro, since I didn't know him, but all I know is that as a programmer myself, I've already made arrangements for my family -- it's called insurance. I would be FAR more happy to see one of my old projects released to the public by the company that owns the code.
"Do you think it's really a good idea to release such a violent game for free? Totally unregulated? At least if you're selling a game, you can check IDs and make sure the buyer is over 18..."
Society hasn't exactly gone to hell over the release of games like DOOM.
"I'm a little worried about what kind of psychological damage something like this could do to a little kid that stumbles upon this. We don't need another Columbine."
Ah, you're a well behaved media controlled zombie. DOOM wasn't the reason that happened. If anything, DOOM gave those kids an outlet to vent their frustrations. I suggest you read their journals, they had some serious mental stability issues. DOOM didn't cause them to respond that way. They were attracted to DOOM because they had some rather morbid ideas about the futility of life on earth. It's kind of like saying baseball caps cause baldness. Nobody ever assumes that baseball caps are worn BEACUSE of baldness.
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Jason fuckface, you have a problem if I confront you with a 9mm pistol??? I would like to shoot one bullet through your brains. Perhaps I will do it. Watch out fucker!
Cool! Only here could I have my life threatened by an anonymous person for disagreeing about the impact of the release of source code upon a deceased programmer's legacy.
Hey! I could become the Alan Berg of Slashdot! I might get a "Your Rights Online" story for that!
Naw, how about replacing the audio library and other libraries with their equivalents in SDL?
If anyone's going to port it, how about porting it in a cross-platfrom kinda way.