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ioquake3 1.36 Goes Gold
Time Doctor writes "The de-facto standard in Quake 3 engine technology, ioquake3, has hit version 1.36 recently. It includes a garbage bag full of improvements: in-game VOIP; optional external Mumble (voip); OpenAL; IPV6; anaglyph stereo rendering; Full x86-64 architecture support; Rewritten PowerPC JIT compiler, with ppc64 support; new SPARC JIT compiler, with support for both sparc32 and sparc64; improved console command auto-completion; persistent console command history; improved QVM (Quake Virtual Machine) tools; colored terminal output on POSIX operating systems; multiuser support on Windows systems (user-specific game data is stored in their respective Application Data folders); PNG format support for textures. Of course, there are even more fixes for security holes and other bugs in there. So, if you don't like ads and queues in your Quake 3 experience, get a copy of Quake 3 off Steam and copy your data files and key into your ioquake3 directory."
I requested a built-in torrent app as part of that 'garbage bag' BUT NO, THANKS A LOT.
Well, at least it's got 3D support natively. About damn time.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
The point is that it is the only place I could find to legitimately buy quake 3. Quite a few people I know have lost their Quake 3 disc or key.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
What's wrong with ID software's site? Or for that matter, Amazon, or your local shops (all of which are cheaper than Steam.. Amazon is 1/5th of the price).
But they're evil cash eating monsters who make cool games like Left 4 Dead. I gave them some money just so they could eat it and make more games, because, you know, I like games. :)
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Not the content, only what ioquake3 replaces. The data files for such games as Doom or Quake are still commercial.
You just got troll'd!
Steam is terrible and you can't sell your old games bought via that dreadful system.
And I still have my old QuakeIII CD ... somewhere ...
Much as I dislike DRM, I support Valve and Steam. Unlike some companies that use DRM as an excuse for delivering inferior service/products, Valve provides a fast, convenient service, at a reasonable price, and produces highly-polished games which have massive replay value -- and they keep producing free-to-download expansion content for literally years after release.
I have no problem with giving them my money so that they can afford to keep releasing excellent games. Because like the parent I also like games.
Pirate Party UK
the OS X dmg is a universal binary.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
First off, QuakeLive hasn't had queues in MONTHS. It also has many more players and skill matching to keep games competitive. Seriously, why the shot?
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
You could always play a derivative game such as the (free) Open Arena or Tremulous
The reason is that Quake's gameplay has become a de-facto standard of sorts for competitive gaming. Most real-life competitive sports that people play regularly have been around a hundred years or more, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that computer gaming has standardized on older games as well. Quake isn't alone, we also have Starcraft in the RTS world, Counter-Strike in the team-based tactical FPS genre and probably a few others. For games as entertainment, yes we do want original ideas. For games as competition, we want stable platforms that players can rely on to stick around for a while to make the investment in developing skills in those games worthwhile.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
The irony, of course, is that in the wider battle for the online gaming marketspace, both Q3 and UT lost out very badly indeed to a free mod for an aging game based on a hacked around version of the original Quake's engine (ie. Counter-Strike).
I think looking back, Quake 3 was the point at which id went from being the undisputed industry leaders in the fps genre to "one among many". With the original Quake and Quake 2, if you played fpses online, you basically played one of those games, or one of their mods. There were a few other minor niche games, but none of them really had much of a wider community. Counter-Strike was the last game to really unite a majority of the online fps scene under a single banner and, as it starts to fade away, there doesn't seem to be any single successor (on the PC at least), but rather a broader fragmentation.
I wonder if the same will happen in the MMO market once WoW jumps the shark? If, rather than having one all-consuming leviathan in the market and a few minnows trying to snap up a few hundred thousand users around the edges, we'll end up with a situation with multiple MMOs well up in the millions, but no clear pack leader?
Not the content, only what ioquake3 replaces. The data files for such games as Doom or Quake are still commercial.
Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
Is there a Free set of data files available somewhere?
Yes, it's called Open Arena.
Mada mada dane.
Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
Very true, that's actually a very viable way to marry commercial games and open source.
You just got troll'd!
Or you could just download OpenArena
If id hadn't released the sources to Quake 3 you wouldn't have a free game to download
Summation 2
Please officially (re?)release hordes of Q3A CDs all across the globe. Its a fine game! Kids and grown ups alike all across the world would enjoy it. It can easily be the de-facto standard in entry level serious gaming.
You can cut down on support explicitly. Its OK. Quake community is very smart and big. It can easily support newcomers. But the legit media is something always desirable - it is convenient and trustworthy. But please sell it cheap. Around 4-5$. You will easily find lots of CD pressers and distributors to take away all the logistic pains from you.
And there would be assured buys of millions of legit cheap Q3A CDs by enthusiastic gamers worldwide. Its already a must-have game in your game collection anyways. Every body will be happy.
Maybe, its a business decision to stop issuing more Q3A CDs. So please make another one to start issuing it again. It won't make you losses. No way. And gamers would be happy.
The core game is awesome & kick-ass. 3rd party mods, addons, maps, etc make it ever so expandable. The community will always have some innovative way to modify it. Look at 'WoP'! Amazing!
In the end, I can only make a request. Please start selling Q3A: Gold Edition CDs again.
Over & out!
I hated Counter Strike. It was just too slow. Different strokes for different folks. I think theres plenty of room for more than a few "ordinary" FPS.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
That little sotto voce whine about the ads in Quake Live is really lame. It's a free game. Are you seriously so obsessed with hating ads you'll pass up the opportunity to get a free game (which, by all reports from amongst my Quake-fan friends, is excellent) and cop the occasional ad?
I'd rather not buy Quake 3 again (it's not just "getting a copy" of Steam, you have to buy it) and just enjoy Quake Live.
ioquake is a fucking awesome project, but seriously
Uh.. What's the point of buying Quake 3 anymore when Quake Live exists?
#define true false
Yes there are quite a few full mods based on Q3 that come with their own content. For example, you could go get Urban Terror, a very well-made full mod on the Q3 engine.
And yes, the Q3 engine is very much open source and free software at this point. Artwork and level design that came with the original game is not even vaguely related to source code and shouldn't fall into some source licensing debate.
If you want free content, talk to the artists (or their owners), but you can do anything you like with the software of Quake 3.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It is a simple, fun game. I don't have much time, and while I still like to play games, I really only play for about 20 minutes on average. I like Quake 3 because I can click on the Quake 3 icon, start playing almost immediately, have fun for 20 minutes, then shut it down. It also has a Linux client.
Thus demonstrating the distance between Open Source and Free Software in a way RMS never could.
Actually, speaks much more about the distance between software and art.
As every open source fan knows, there's no point in buying a software product in itself. There is a point in paying for art and high-quality entertainment, however. I buy games because they're the form of entertainment I enjoy the most.
I don't pay for tools to do my work -it's pointless, because the tools to do the work are already out there, free-as-in-beer-and-speech. I am willing to pay for experiences, though.
There's absolutely no reason why game companies couldn't do what id Software is doing: The (retail sales) profit comes from the data and the game experience, not the software. Gamers don't generally care about engines, they care about the game experience. There's already so many great open-source components that you could build awesome games around them and not spend a bloody penny on the technology licensing. Maybe the open source engines don't yet employ the latest and greatest technological tricks, but you sure can build solid games around them.
I believe that in our global culture we have place for both art and entertainment that is "traditionally" copyrighted and "closed", and "free" art (like awesome GPLed games). But the game industry uses a lot of open source now, and I'm hoping one day game makers realise that there's no point in keeping engines closed - any more than, say, it makes sense to pay for a text editor, when there's bazillion open source ones out there for all conceivable uses.