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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!"
ROTT is a damn good game. Awful nice of 'em to let this loose.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
Seeing your opponent turn to a charred skeleton then to ash was quite amusing as well.
I'll have to dig that out again...
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Ludicrous gibs!
every so often when you kill someone there would be 3x the gibs.. I wish more games had this!
On christmas day, the game gets xmas music and an xmas theme...
there are other easter eggs too.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
I bet you're a real hit with the ladies.
"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.
Does anyone remember the code to activate Dog Mode?
I only vaguely remember running around in ROTT with a dog sniffer in front of me instead of a gun. I believe it would facilitate getting under/to areas you couldn't access otherwise, as well.
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!
Your trolling right?
I do security
I wish I had "+1 way to kick his ass" in my moderator's bag.
I know more than you drink.
"So a man dies, and the secrets of his work get released to the world.
How does this benefit him again?"
Out of curiosity, do you understand the idea behind grave stones?
With the source code, I wonder how easy to make a Linux port of this game.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The only improvement over Doom was a real Z dimension, but it didn't make a whole lot of use of it. We played ROT at my workplace during breaktime for a few weeks, but got bored and went back to Doom. And the monsters weren't as interesting. And then, of course, we got ahold of Doom 2.
Actually, I haven't thought of ROT in about seven years.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
ROTT, for some odd reason, gave me terrible motion sickness. Many times playing ROTT, I remember thinking "Feeling queasy...but...must...continue game". Then I'd go into shroom mode. I really hated that... =)
But seriously, did anybody else find that ROTT gave them more motion sickness than any other 3D game?
"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..."
Perhaps you should focus on being a better parent than trying to turn your PC or TV into a babysitter.
"Derp de derp."
I don't really get motion sickness. Although initially the shrooms made me queasy. But the secret shroom level in ROTT. Holy mother...I needed some dramamine for that one.
If I stand close to the TV and lean forward a bit while playing Time Splitters 2, I get just a touch of a queasy tingle. Too much free time you say?
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Credits for Rise of the Triad:
Programming
Mark Dochtermann, Jim Dose, Nolan Martin, William Scarboro
Graphics / 3D Programming
Stephen A. Hornback, Chuck Jones, Tim Neveu, Susan Singer, James Storey
Level / Scenario Design
Tom Hall, Joseph Selinske, Joe Siegler, Marianna Vayntrub
Music
Lee Jackson, Robert Prince
Documentation
Robert M. Atkins
Executive Producer
George Broussard, Scott Miller
Director
Tom Hall
Playtesting
Mike Bartelt, Steven Blackburn, Neil Bonner, Glenn Brensinger, Douglas Brewer, David Butler, Daniel Creeron, Scott Darling, Jason Ewasiuk, Craig Hamilton, Ken Heckbert, Terry Herrin, Greg Hively, John Howard, Douglas Howell, Dennis Kurek, Hank Leukart, Jim Lietzan, Ken Mayer, Wayne Millard, Penny Plant, Brian Prinner, Jeff Rausch, Kelly Rogers, Neil Rubenking, Todd Rubin, Steven Salter, Chris White
Special Thanks To
John Carmack, Gregor Punchatz, Ken Silverman, Pau Suet Ying
The release of the source code is dedicated to William Scarboro's memory, but it's not like the man singly-developed the game, and some group of people have pulled the source out of his frozen hands and given them for free, leaving his widow and children starving in a corner.
Rise of the Triad is over 8 years old, in an excellent game (still) but was the effort of many people, from a company that still sells it but wanted to let other people check out how it was done. Carmack does the same thing, god bless him.
So sit down.
Well then, the answer is obvious. Get rid of all the violent games and no one will ever kill eachother again. Hell we won't even need police because all the violence in this world comes directly from volent video games. You sir are a genius. Why didn't you say this after Columbine? Think of all the lives you could have saved.
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.
rottsource.zip (3.85MB)
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Five and seven? I would SO own them.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I believe it was right after their product release (or was it the demo?)...if you played it right before christmas, the splash screen would be decorated all xmas-y and xmas music would play in background.
or was that duke3d...
should be distributed *unregulated* is indeed disturbing. Particularly in America. Congress should act immediately by passing laws forbiding the publication of certain works, particularly those which might incite violence.
I mean, really, what would Adams and Jefferson think of such unregulated published works?
KFG
Yeah, I got it too, although I noticed it with Duke3D as well. I guess it was any game with the build engine that made me motion sick. But not as badly as Dark Forces did. I couldn't play that game for more than 20 minutes without feeling sick to my stomach.
Anyone know what causes this with some games for some people? Is the frame rate too high/low or something?
Wow! You're right. Thank you.
I noticed some people are speculating on the sourcecode and I want to inform you that the GPL'd ROTT is far from being buildable.
It was built specifically and only tested upon Watcom C Compiler 10, with x86 assembler modules developed in Borland Turbo Assembler.
As I stated in www.linuxgames.com's forum, this GPL'd ROTT is verry dependant on those two commercial compilers and the x86 platform; don't waste your time unless you want another dejavu fist-person-shooter. For those of you skilled enough, you will discover ROTT is an enhancment of Wolfenstein3D and you should just turn back now because the enhancments are quick and dirty to get the job done on x86's.
The only people capable of saving ROTT are at http://www.icculus.org.
Glad to help, flame away!
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
ROTT was the first game I experienced where a bad guy could go down but only be wounded, and get back up again. I remember that as a real universe-changing experience. Shoot shoot shoot, bad guy goes down, walk forward into room....oh shit! Guy gets up! WHAT THE FUCK!? Truly a panic-inducing moment.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I would like to thank 3D realms for doing this. Whether you liked the game or not, it is good to see more code being preserved in the GPL pool.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
It was originally an ID software approved sequel...Wolfenstein: Rise of the Triad. The ROTT project was beyond 50% complete when ID Software called them later and decided to cancel. ROTT was originally planned to be a game based after the death of hitler; so yes, all that fun gameplay they decided to morph it into was originally supposed to be part of a fight against the Nazi army. That sounds kind of scarry to think about it...who knows, maybe Barney the Dinosaur was part of somthing more sinister...and we all know there was somthing extremly wrong with Pee Wee Herman's show.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
It's written in some mix of C and assembler. To compile it, you'll need Watcom C v10.0b (not later versions) and TASM.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
I hope you're not just trying to play the game for free. You can already download a demo version with 20% of the levels and 90% of the weapons. The source code won't get you the rest, you'd still have to find the datafiles to enable them (such as from the full version of the game).
Getting this to work will probably be harder than you're expecting. Looking at the history of commerical FPS released as GPL (Wolf3d, DooM, Quake, Quake2), there'll be a lot of work needed to just make something compile, and then more work to get the colors, framerates, and file-locations right. The companies consider it a favor that they're releasing code at all- spending extra time writing updated directions isn't likely to be on their agenda.
Your surest bet, honestly, is to wait for someone else to solve those problems. In a situation like this, an expert can find the answer faster than you'd find the question.
Come back in 3 weeks and check around for a distribution set to compile on your favorite OS. For instance, initial release of DooM source code would only compile on DOS with a commercial (Watcom?) compiler, and absolutely would not play sound. But today you can download ZDoom or PrBoom to run on any desktop PC (via SDL, for instance)
Linux's ideas about how interfaces work don't translate well in the game world.
Just so that some reader doesn't take this joke the wrong way, I should note that Quake III Arena works on Linux. It's possible to use SDL to configure the keyboard into a keydown/keyup mode to provide the input expected in an arcade style game.
Imagine typing 'strlft' to strafe left!
Actually, Quake 1 did have such commands; you used them with the bind command in the console or in the init file. For instance, it was common to add +mlook to Q1's init file to keep mlook turned on permanently without having to hold down a mouse button.
What was the first FPS game to have a command console? The popular Doom source ports have one now; if ROTT didn't have one, it probably will after a couple months when the ROTT source ports begin to flood into VA Software's web sites.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"maybe it's just me, but i don't see how this has anything to do with Lord of the Rings... or even RPGs for that matter, it's a first-person shooter like Doom.. ??????????????"
Actually, I was under a similar impression when I read 'Rise of the Triad', a game I never played. I did a little digging around and realized that that RoTT is not the game I was thinking of.
Didn't 3D Realms do an RPG game at some point?
"Looks like we've given them a severe slashdotting in return. Any mirrors out there?"
Sure! Here you go.
"In a real Windows FPS, on the other hand, you'd have to drag with the mouse to aim at things, then click on the toolbar buttons when you wanted to move, fire, jump..."
No no no, you're thinking of Mac. Windows gives you a bunch of pulldowns, and all you can do is hit Okay, Apply, or Cancel.
yeah your fucking right as we can fucking see that you are fucking pretty fucking much a fucking good fucking guy. why no fucking person can fucking see any fucking thing otherwise.
I am so fucking impressed at your fucking command if the fucking english fucking language that you can fucking speak like a fucking president of some fucking corperation.... are you a fucking priest or a fucking genius? because your fucking language skills are fucking amazing!
Fucking idiot...
Totally. I played Duke Nukem, Doom, but ROTT gave me splitting headaches and less enjoyable motion sickness problems.
It's weird that some games seem not to bother me while others do. I played all the way through Medal of Honor: Allied Assault without any problem, for instance, but Operation: Flashpoint makes me weird out.
cough cough Karma Whore cough cough
Hacker Media
I'm actually interested in porting this too Gameboy Advance. From my early inspection with gbadv, it has planar video memory layout, similar to the PCs vga planer memory modes(mode2? can't remember now...)
I think you're among the only ones. Certainly one of those precious few minorities that Slashdot seems to encourage every once in a while.
Let's go over the facts, in case they escape you:
1. In the era of DOOM (First), Castle Wolfenstein 3D, Soundblaster cards being a novelty and 9600/14.4k modems being the standard, Apogee (working on a possible Castle Wolfenstein 3D II, but later changing the name and the approach) creates, via 4+ programmers and many others, a game called Rise of the Triad. (1994)
2. The game is sold, like any other game. It is somewhat overshadowed by ID's creations, and becomes an also-ran in the now-beginning First Person Shooter genre. Those of us who like the game a lot (and I'm one of them) think it's a fun time and enjoy it.
3. Years pass. Quake comes out and freaks everyone out at how cool it is. This causes a real gold rush of FPS, with literately dozens of titles making an appearance.
4. MORE years pass. Apogee is eventually bought out by 3D Realms, makers of (among other things) Duke Nukem, which is another "Doom Clone".
5. MORE years pass. Rise of The Triad (ROTT) to its friends is now 8 years old, a lifetime in an industry that doesn't normally support games past 6 months. The game has been sold on 3D Realms' site for years and years now (I bought a copy that way, and you can too) has garnered whatever it is likely to garner for the product, and is in danger of not even running on newer Windows OSs that are coming out. (I haven't tried it in XP).
6. So 3D Realms kindly offers to release the software's source code, while retaining rights (maybe they'll make a new version, who knows) and continuing to sell it for downloads.
Where is the injustice here? Are you saying that if a developer dies, the game shouldn't be sold? Maybe you also think a band's music shouldn't be sold if a member dies? Tough luck for the Beatles, Norvana, and a billion other bands.
Your thinking is faulty; but you fit right in here.
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!
Shame on you, moderators.
Sex - Find It
What's karma? I get a +5 every day because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and damnit all, people like my posts. A negative mod is like charging Bill G. an extra dollar for popcorn at the movies. Makes you feel better, but he will still go home and screw lots of inhuman robot beasts while a petrified Natalie Portman is forced to watch.
K?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ii: How do you exit vi?
vi? Bloody fancy-pants Nancy-Boy. Real men cat > filename and do it right the first time.
harumph..[/curmudgeon]
Trolling is a art,
Wasn't it ROTT that would display "You need to get a 486 :)" when you minimized the viewing area to increase game speed on your krad 386DX DR-DOS box?
I remember running ROTT on a pentium several years later... it was still fun on a multi-player level, just much much faster, heh. Those tramp-o-leens saved my ass many many times, all while managing to piss off whomever was chasing me.
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
ROTT used a descendant of the Wolf3D engine, not Build. That's why all the walls were at 90 degree angles.
Poped your girlfriend's Internet cherry? A disturbing thought, to say the least.
A point made in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (by Marilyn Manson no less) is that while everyone pointed the finger of blame at video games, rock music, violent movies, etc. Not a single person noted that on the exact same day the Columbine massacre happened, the President was busy bombing the shit out of a foreign country.
I assume you're not familiar with the concept of operant conditioning.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"I assume you're not familiar with the concept of operant conditioning."
Hardly relevant. If it were as simple as that the world would be a much different place in recent years.