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Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory Public Source Released
DeadBugs writes "According to Blue's News: 'The public source code for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is now available from id Software, Activision, and Splash Damage (the developer working on Doom 3's multiplayer content), offering modification authors the resources to create mods for the free multiplayer shooter.' First they release a free game, and now free source code for it - there are download links at Splash Damage's files section."
.. is the source code for the original two Wolfenstein games, though I suppose that they were written in 6502 assembly. (For the kiddies: Castle Wolfenstein is over 20 years old.) I loved those games, but if I could change anything about them I would get rid of 1) the annoying flicker effect when you ran into the walls, which could get you killed/captured very easily and 2) the damn time that it took to open up all of the treasure chests! (Who the hell wants to wait 60 seconds to find a vat of sauerkraut?) :)
Ahem, the public source code was released, not the engine code (obviously, but...). This is just for modmakers. Really cool, but the engine's still viable business for id.
Except this is only the source for making mods. The source that most games release shortly after the game is in stores. The game cannot be ported and the engine cannot be used for other projects.
That headline's misleading and this isn't really news...
True story.
The public source allows you to make game mods. For example, Quake Rally for Quake 3, or Counter-Strike for Half-Life. Or even something as simple as the mutators in Unreal Tournament. You can change game physics and make a new game within the engine, but can't change how the engine renders stuff.
It is Activision giving the code away. Splashdamage got paid for Enemy Territory because they kept up their part of the contract. They are now working on at least some part of the multiplayer for DOOM 3.
Background to ET:
Enemy Territory was originally to be a retail expansion for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, including both singleplayer (by MadDog IIRC) and multiplayer, developed by Splashdamage. Increasing scope of ET led to it later being announced to be a full, standalone retail game. However, there was problems with the singleplayer portion - perceived within the Wolf communities to be due to the singleplayer supporting bot's AI. Left with no working singleplayer, but a working multiplayer, Activision decided to release it, presumably to at least gain some PR (for both Activision and Splashdamage) out of what they would have to pay for regardless.
In particular I noticed these prohibited acts...
section 2 (prohibitions)
One may not --
h. reproduce or copy the Software (except as permitted by section 3. hereinbelow);
i. publicly display the Software;
j. prepare or develop derivative works based upon the Software;
you are allowed to distribute the software but
section 3 which describes permitted uses;
basically rules out everything except distributing the unaltered code without commercial gain.
To me, it really doesnt seem worth looking at with these kinds of restrictions. And presumably the mere fact of looking at the code could potentially lead to IP Violations if you were to develop a similar game.
I'll post the full licese as an AC after this message, but I'd like to here your views / interpretations of the license because it seems rather restrictive to me.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Aimbots and wallhacks are made using OpenGL hacks, the source code is not at all necessary, and largely irrelevant. The actual engine code (different to source code, and not released) could be used for some fairly elaborate cheats. Sourcecode however cannot, at least not unless the cheat is installed on the server (in which case you can be amply screwed anyway).
There has always been very little cheating in RTCW, verging upon nil since Punkbuster took effect. There are however many amazingly skilled players, perhaps you were... a little confused?
ET however, has had plenty of cheats avilable, mainly aimbots, wallhacks, ESP, cham hacks and suchlike. Free games seem to attract kiddiez, you'll find the same with Americas Army (it's even worse there). According to the cheater forum I frequent to keep track, all of the ET cheats are currently detected by Punkbuster.
That is, all the widely available ones. Cheaters who keep their hacks private are unlikely to ever be detected unless fingered with the PB screenshot facility.
Releasing a game for free, then paying for Punkbuster, then releasing an update patch... "As if activision isn't ignoring and neglecting this game enough." Yeah, OK.
- DG
www.rtcw.co.uk
It looks like it , there is a /src/unix directory in there ... although im still rummaging through
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
ET is an excpetional game (arguably the best team based shooter around) .pk3 files. Only cosmetic things like sounds and models can be changed.
but none of the vitals were scripted in the
The actual game play stuff, rate of fire, damage, splash damage, weapon type and class, objective types, player classes ect were hard coded. Which pretty much prevented us from making and underlying changes to the actual play of the game.
Hopefully this source will change that.
"Public source" seems to mean the header files to compile against, and the source code for the RTCW:ET-specific bits of the game (i.e. not the engine). This is the same sort of thing as the Half-Life SDK which the original (pre-commercial) Counterstrike was based on.
:-)
(For Debian users: if this was in Debian, it'd be a binary package called something like rtcw-enemyterritory-dev
As for the licensing (Polyp2000: thanks for posting the text), many game SDKs have restrictive EULA-like licenses (presumably the publishers insist on them) which mean that the majority of distributed mods for those games are likely technically illegal, as are many activities which an average gamer would probably consider perfectly reasonable.
In this case, among other things, the EULA asserts that you can't back up the SDK to a CD (only to "one (1)" hard disk), and that commercial distribution of a "New Creation" (mod) is not allowed (so magazines which distribute "RTCWstrike", or whatever the next big mod is called, on their cover CDs are potentially in trouble).
This isn't Free Software, it's not Open Source, and indeed the "non-commercial distribution" stipulation probably means it wouldn't even make it into Debian's non-free section.