Doom 3 Source Code To Be Released This Year

An anonymous reader writes "John Carmack just confirmed during his QuakeCon 2011 keynote that the source code to Doom 3 will be released this year. The source drop will follow the release of their Rage game in October. Carmack has also challenged other game developers to release their old source code."

Comments

Old hardware

[Bradmont]

Man, one thing I loved about open source software is that I could run any of it on my out of date hardware! Curse you Carmack!

Re:Old hardware

[compro01]

How out of date is your hardware? Doom 3 was released 7 years ago.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a point, but GP did make me chuckle. Doom 3 was the Crysis of it's day. In fact, Doom 3 is the reason I got into building gaming rigs. I would not be surprised to find lots of people still can't run it with their current equipment.

Re:Old hardware

[UnknowingFool]

So old it is gerbil powered. Nibbles can't spin that wheel like he used to. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Re:Old hardware

[Soul-Burn666]

Considering it can run on a Voodoo2 (which was released in 1998), I'd say you should stop trying to run games on a toaster...

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

How out of date is your hardware? Doom 3 was released 7 years ago.

How much upgrading will it take to run Doom 3 on my 8088?

Re:Old hardware

[TheRaven64]

It works faster on a modern operating system, because of optimisations in the libc. For those who haven't taken a look at it yet, the main render routine looks like this:

memset(frame_buffer, 0, frame_buffer_size);

Re:Old hardware

[Nimey]

It could run. It would not run well. It wouldn't run particularly well on my old Radeon 9600XT.

Not that I would have played it much anyway. Never could get into a game whose main selling point was how dark it was.

Re:Old hardware

[shutdown -p now]

What are you trying to insinuate here??

That Carmack doesn't know about calloc? ~

Re:Old hardware

[Orphis]

He's saying that game game is way too dark.

Re:Old hardware

[vux984]

look at the line of code...

It zeros out the frame buffer. You know... so you get a completely black screen. And if that's the main render routine... lol... I thought it was quite clever.

Re:Old hardware

[hairyfeet]

Hey leave poor Nibbles alone you bastard! can't you see he is trying his little heart out? Maybe if you bought the poor little fella some real food instead of giving him the wilted lettuce from your BLT maybe he wouldn't be huffing and puffing, ya cheap bastard!

As for TFA? Let me predict what will come of it...a shitload of bad PVP arena battle bullshit, ala Q3 Arena which seems to be the standard template for FOSS games. Does the world REALLY need another teabagging fragfest? would it REALLY kill ya to make a game with story, originality, or does capture the flag give you such a stiffie you can't think of nothing else?

Seriously guys if you want folks to take FOSS gaming seriously another DM/CTF fragger crap ain't gonna do it. Carmack is nice enough to hand you the engine for free, how about marrying it to some good ideas? Why not make a spoof that takes the piss out of the current "must have teh relism" bullshit? Like instead of your screen going bloody when you get hit it turns pink and you look like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz to other players so they can see what a big girl you are as you hide and wait for your health to regen? Or a weapon for the guys that you can't stand that throws dogshit and when they get hit enough the flies overwhelm them?

Use it for something original guys, don't just make another DM,kay? Surely there are enough FOSS guys with sick black senses of humor they could cook up something wicked. How about when your teammate does something stupid you can fill up your health and ammo for bitchslapping the stupid right off his dumb ass?

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

So old you can't buy a copy of it in stores. At least when Q3A was sourcedropped you could still buy it in stores. When was the last time anyone saw a copy of Doom 3 on store shelves?

Re:Old hardware

[mrmeval]

I never bought Doom3 for that reason among others. I'd never played the game. I just thought if they could not stick a light on a rifle and had to crank the light down it would suck. I had a friend buy it for me as a gift. It rocks.

Re:Old hardware

[atomicbutterfly]

So old you can't buy a copy of it in stores. At least when Q3A was sourcedropped you could still buy it in stores. When was the last time anyone saw a copy of Doom 3 on store shelves?

There is a reason why services such as Steam and Good Old Games are so popular - they allow you to buy games that retail stores don't stock anymore. Forget brick-and-mortar stores, it's all digital distribution nowadays. And for all their disadvantages, they do have the benefit of being able (in the case of Steam at least) to sell Doom 3 and even older games like X-COM.

Re:Old hardware

[shutdown -p now]

I thought it was quite clever.

It was, and I've got it (why yes I did play Doom 3); but it seems that no-one has understood my ~ tongue-in-cheek reply (considering the number of clueless follow-ups).

Re:Old hardware

[shutdown -p now]

... since it might still not be obvious, from man calloc:

calloc() allocates memory for an array of nmemb elements of size bytes each and returns a pointer to the allocated memory. The memory is set to zero.

What's more important is that calloc is faster than malloc+memset for a number of reasons, most notably that OS can pre-zero free memory blocks while idling. So, given Carmack's love for micro-optimizations, it would be sacrilegious to suggest that he'd use something as comparatively inefficient as memset(0) in this context.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Your joke sucked, you worthless cumstain.

Re:Old hardware

[uvajed_ekil]

Yes, Doom 3 was both the bee's knees AND the cat's pajamas, in its day. But that was a long time ago when you speak to gamers about gaming rigs. 7 years may not seem like a long time, but think about it like this: how many video cards has a serious game addict been through since then, and how many games have surpassed Doom 3 in key ways? It was a fantastic game, and still is, but releasing the source code now, while a nice gesture, is not likely to spur any dramtic advances, since all legitimate developers have already gone well beyond what Doom 3 offered. Kudos to Carmack and Co. once again, but I have to admit this isn't exciting to me.

Re:Old hardware

[Squiddie]

I'm going to be honest with you, I love the idea of digital distribution, but Steam makes me sick. It's just DRM and people seem to love the hell out of it. GOG is what I wish digital distribution was like, and I'll say it now, I bought The Witcher 2 from them, and I'll continue buying from there if there is an opportunity. Steam? Never.

Re:Old hardware

[Atomic Fro]

Wow. Wanting to play the original Doom multiplayer in the late '90s got me into networking, Quake 2 got me into gaming rigs.

Re:Old hardware

[IronSight]

Same here, doom taught me about serial network interfacing (null modem), and quake taught me TCP-IP :), quake 2 taught me how AWESOME 2 voodoo 2 cards were compared to software rendering, quake 3 taught me that mods can be better than the actual game (actually quake 1 did with team fortress, but at least quake had good single player), quake 4 taught me to play before I buy...

Re:Old hardware

[cduffy]

Steam's DRM stays the hell out of my way.

I want to play a single-player game offline? I can do that.

I want to install a game on multiple machines? I can do that.

I want to mod my single-player game? I can do that.

Most DRM schemes are hated because they break things -- they stop you from attaching debuggers to even single-player games, they encrypt files so you can't modify them, they don't let you do extra installs when you have a legitimate reason to do so, they conflict with other tools. Steam, on the other hand, provides just enough DRM to get publishers to accept it... but stays the hell out of the way of the person trying to enjoy the property they paid for. As a pragmatist, I'm fine with that.

Re:Old hardware

[vux984]

Lol, thanks for hitting me with the clue-stick.

Still, it would have been good if you'd acknowledged the joke before launching into the optimization. :p

Re:Old hardware

[syockit]

It allows new contenders to jump in the game development bandwagon and pick up the pace better.

Re:Old hardware

[Lanteran]

Darkplaces has been better than idtech4 for quite a while now IMO. But yeah, still a good thing.

Re:Old hardware

[Lanteran]

There's world of padman. Open arena and urban terror have way different themes, warsow is a cell-shaded, cartoon-like beast... seriously, have you never looked at any free shooters?

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

The light gun switching is called a gameplay mechanic. Do you wish that Doom3 was like every other shooter out there? Go buy every other shooter. I for one enjoyed Doom 3, despite it getting a bit repetitive.

Re:Old hardware

[Liinux]

Mod parent up!

The Steam DRM is very unintrusive. The ability to gather all my games in one place for easy redownloading far outweighs the lack of ability to resell your games second hand.

As the parent says, you can even install the games on multiple machines - for example if you are visiting a friend and wants to access your game library - you just cannot play on more than one machine simultaneously.

Also, they have great sales :) I have a backlog of about 60 unplayed games or so...

Re:Old hardware

[Vectormatic]

Part of your problem is that the Doom 3 engine ran much better of nvidia hardware, the ultimate BftB card for doom 3 back then was the 6600GT, stepping up to the 6800GT/U if you wanted high res.

Granted, a 6600GT is about twice as powerfull as the good old 9600XT (i had a 9600pro for a while, nice card that was), but a buddy of mine ran doom 3 quite well on a geforce 4 Ti, without Dx9 offcourse.

Man, this takes me back to playing BF2 on my unlocked 6800LE, that was just awesome.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what calloc is?

Re:Old hardware

[zwarte piet]

Ow, I dunno. Maybe if you optimize the code a bit.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

My nostril mucous membranes almost flew out reading that..

Re:Old hardware

[tehcyder]

The Steam DRM is very unintrusive.

That's exactly what Apple fanboys always say too.

Re:Old hardware

[drinkypoo]

I want to play a single-player game offline? I can do that.

Maybe. Unless Steam decides it's no longer in offline mode.

I want to install a game on multiple machines? I can do that.

Maybe. If Steam is up and connectable. Since you can't even play a Steam "backup" until the reinstall has been blessed over the network.

I want to mod my single-player game? I can do that.

Totally orthogonal and thus you have made this argument dumber by including it.

Most DRM schemes are hated because they break things

And Steam breaks backups, resale, and offline installs.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: Intel Graphics

Re:Old hardware

[ifrag]

how many video cards has a serious game addict been through since then

6 cards by my count, if SLI is counted discretely.

DooM 3 : Radeon 9700 Pro

Post DooM 3 : GeForce 7950 GT, GeForce 8800 Ultra, 2x GeForce GTX 280, 2x GeForce GTX 470

Re:Old hardware

[ifrag]

For those who are actually going to look at the source, the optimization bits are probably the most interesting parts to look at.

Take the Quake 3 source for example, it actually has a custom square root function, which ran faster than the CPU's of that generation could do square roots, and although it sacrifices some accuracy it's still plenty good for the game. Modern CPU's do square roots so fast that function doesn't actually help any more.

Also, the first correct implementation of crc-ccitt I found on the web was actually id Software code as well. I'd found 3 incorrect implementations before I finally found that. And I expect the source for DooM 3 probably also provides plenty more examples of clean and correct code which could be enlightening.

Re:Old hardware

[GameboyRMH]

Exactly. I don't get why Steam DRM is OK. Hopefully companies will shift towards GoG, they seem to be getting more "big title" releases.

Re:Old hardware

[GameboyRMH]

The gaming rig I first played Doom 3 on had a 9600XT and it ran fine on medium-ish settings.

Re:Old hardware

[GameboyRMH]

NFSU2 actually did something a little like this. They made the game take place entirely at night so they could minimize the number of objects that would have to be drawn on screen, allowing it to run on the wimpy consoles.

Re:Old hardware

[lrobert98]

How much upgrading will it take to run Doom 3 on my 8088?

I believe that will require a power cord upgrade. Unplug the power cord, keep that and throw away the rest of the computer.

Re:Old hardware

[Xest]

That's what you get for being too smart for Slashdot.

Although nowadays that's becoming much less of an achievement.

Re:Old hardware

[Tim C]

That'll probably be because no one uses that ~ mark - you are literally the first person I've seen use it, apart from one or two people who reference it in their sigs.

Re:Old hardware

[mikael]

These days, you'd have a custom shaders to do that ... in autostereoscopic HDR with ambient occlusion no less.

Re:Old hardware

[TheRaven64]

The reason it's not funny is that the frame buffer is a static memory allocation. It is in VRAM and is not allocated with malloc().

Re:Old hardware

[dunkelfalke]

Holy shit, that long ago...
suddenly feeling really old.

Re:Old hardware

[neokushan]

Since when Have you been able to resale pc games?

Re:Old hardware

[Tolkien]

Ha. I'm still running with my GeForce 7950 GT. ...I plan on upgrading soon though.

Re:Old hardware

[deets52]

I still have my Personal Netware software we used for Doom (and Hexen, ROTT, etc). Speaking of Hexen - I had some good times turning people into chickens. I just can't seem to let go of that Personal Netware software, I have the box and everything (except the cables). I guess I could get my old PC's out and load my old Doom Diskettes and relive my old LAN party days (before there were actual "LAN Parties") I might have to dust off the old Axis and Allies game as well and go get a case of Dew.

Re:Old hardware

[shutdown -p now]

I picked it up from a /. sig and I think it does in fact originate here. That said I've seen other slashdotters use it.

Re:Old hardware

[cduffy]

I want to mod my single-player game? I can do that.

Totally orthogonal and thus you have made this argument dumber by including it.

Try unpacking the data files bundled with any game on GameTap. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Re:Old hardware

[drinkypoo]

Every PC game I've ever bought except Half-Life 2 has been resalable, legally and practically.

Re:Old hardware

[Squiddie]

It breaks your ability to do what you want with the things you buy. In fact, according to them, you don't own any of your stuff. I'd rather just not have any DRM. There is no need for it and it hurts legitimate customers.

Re:Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam makes me sick. It's just DRM

Number of times Steam DRM has caused me problems or prevented me from doing whatever the hell I wanted to do with a game: 0.

Number of times other forms of DRM have caused me problems or prevented me from doing stuff with games: about 15 now. (Top prize goes to the DRM on the original Mass Effect, which would not even allow the installer to run, not because of a licensing problem but simply because the DRM installer was so incompetently coded that it would crash when run in a non-US locale. Second prize goes to the DRM on Oblivion DLC which managed only to work on Windows XP.)

This is why people love Steam. It has enough DRM to make the publishers happy, so you can actually buy nearly all new releases there. But the DRM is so unobtrusive that TBH I forget it even has DRM until someone like you who doesn't even use it tells me how horrible it must be.

Re:Old hardware

[Slashdot Assistant]

That's been my experience. The DRM from Steam isn't onerous enough to outweigh the benefits I get from the service as a whole. Same for Battlenet titles, except with the upcoming Diablo III which will require a persistent Internet connection - even for single-player content that should be playable offline. I've bought every Diablo title, and pretty much everything Blizzard has put out in the past 10 years or so, but I won't be buying Diablo III or any other Blizzard titles if they insist on using DRM that I consider to be unreasonable.

Re:Old hardware

[Yamioni]

Number of times Steam DRM has caused me problems or prevented me from doing whatever the hell I wanted to do with a game: 0.....This is why people love Steam.

Allow me to set up an analogy for you. Let's say you like the Jewish people just as much as you like games. Now let's say DRM of any kind is evil, not unlike a certain mustachioed Austrian that lived in the earlier part of the 20th century.

So your argument now becomes: Number of times Hitler has caused me problems or prevented me from having personal relationships with Jewish people: 0. This is why people love Hitler.

Nevermind that Hitler is running around killing other Jews, no no, as long as he's not on your doorstep asking why you're serving Gefilte Fish and Matzah bread to your guests, everything is Kosher (pun intended.)

Of course, I'm sensationalizing to get my point across. Of course DRM isn't as evil as Hitler. Still evil, sure, but not even in the same league, let alone the same ballpark. My point though is that some anecdotal evidence from a few users does not exonerate Steam DRM. Just because it is non-intrusive now does not guarantee that it will remain as such. It sets the framework for controls to be tightened until it is just as invasive and obtrusive as the other implementations of DRM out there right now. Where does this leave you? With the proverbial buyer's remorse, and a library full of games you now have to jump through hoops to play. And what if Steam ever closes it's doors? You're now left with lots of software that you can no longer use (barring offline mode, supposing the computer you have it installed on never tanks.) I know some people are okay with this, and with the low price tags associated with most games over Steam, I probably would be too. But I cannot get on board with Steam simply on principle. I cannot in good conscience allow my hard earned money to go towards supporting the broken-business-model-prop that is DRM. There are plenty of other publishers and independent developers out there that do not feel the need to saddle their software with DRM that are producing quality games I can use to fill my free time. It's those people I am more than happy to support, even at a higher price point.

tl;dr: Don't support the monster that you cannot control. ;-)

id Tech 5

[bonch]

I wonder if id Tech 5 will ever see a source release now that id is under Zenimax's wing. As for other developers releasing source, that's not always possible due to third-party technology licenses, ownership issues, and the source code flat-out missing (if I remember correctly, Rise of the Triad was missing for years until someone found it for 3D Realms).

Re:id Tech 5

[PhrostyMcByte]

As for other developers releasing source, that's not always possible due to third-party technology licenses, ownership issues...

id has those issues as well, though I'm told it was much less for Doom 3 than in the past. They have someone replace all the code and clean it up for public release.

Re:id Tech 5

[nschubach]

Heck Bethesda had that problem with Daggerfall... so they are in good company.

Re:id Tech 5

[mobets]

Carmack mentioned using some Microsoft technology for the texture compression. That might give them some problems.

Re:id Tech 5

[dadioflex]

I seem to recall iD had to license some tech from Creative as well, which may also have complicated things.

Re:id Tech 5

[WML MUNSON]

RTFA:

Zenimax (the company that acquired id Software) has been supportive of the process, and he has challenged other game developers to release old source-code too. Carmack says that releasing the code really helps the development community.

Re:id Tech 5

[WML MUNSON]

RTFA:

Zenimax (the company that acquired id Software) has been supportive of the process

Re:id Tech 5

[bonch]

Uh, yes, I RTFA, and "supportive of the process" is pertaining to id Tech 4.

Re:thanks but no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when?

for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have dreamt of carmageddon being released. I want to port it to Linux and update the graphics, everything. I want small kids to play this unsuitable, yet highly important game. The captcha I need to fill says it all very beautifully: overkill.

Re:for years...

[richlv]

yes. just - yes. second carma. then it could be cleaned up from "fancy" things...

GOTCHA

Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the behaviour we should be seeing. Publishers no longer sell some games yet they're classics and shouldn't fade into history; the only way to get them is to acquire them illegally via torrent sites or some such. Similar to the concept of .doc preventing people in the future from analysing our society as we do to those who lived before us and wrote on paper, it'd be a damn shame if future generations can't enjoy some of the awesome games I've been able to grow up with.

Also, as hardware and software move on, even if you do have a copy of an older game, getting it to run on a new system may be a challenge (esp. games that have 16-bit elements that no longer run on 64-bit Windows) so the only solution is to keep old (often large) boxes around and hope they don't die. With the source code the OSS community can maintain and update the codebase to ensure it runs on the latest kit.

Re:Maintenance

[h4rr4r]

Dosbox, scumnvm and all many other options are out there for this sort of thing.

Re:Maintenance

[somersault]

Also I would expect they're just releasing the source code, and not all the models/maps/textures/sounds/whatever..?

Re:Maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh?

Re:Maintenance

[zget]

I don't think they are releasing the game assets (textures, music, sound etc), only the source code. This was the case with Quake 1 & 2 code at least. If you wanted to improve or change this code, you would still need to own the original game.

Re:Maintenance

[somersault]

You didn't read the OP very carefully, did you? Opening the source alone won't save the game content from disappearing.

"other game developers"

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad most developers have signed away the rights to their source code when they signed on with a publisher. Very few of the actual coders for popular video games have control over the source anymore.

Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Emrikol]

I emailed Carmack in '06 about releasing the source code to Commander Keen, and I got this reply:

We sort of lost the source code to most of the early games, or I would have released them long ago.

When I emailed Romero about it, he replied:

Yes, I have the source but have to figure out if all of it is complete and buildable. I think it is from the last time I checked it out a year ago or so. And it's 99% coded in C with a couple asm routines. :)

I emailed Carmack back saying Romero had the code, and I emailed Romero back saying Carmack wanted to release it.

Never heard back from either one :(

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't this code posted on /. before?

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[pak9rabid]

I'm impressed you even got that far with them.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[pookemon]

Yep - in 2003 by "AlternateSyndicate". Amazing how similar the post is... http://slashdot.org/story/03/03/16/1718207/Commander-Keen-13-Years-Later

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[williamyf]

Unlike most modern games, were you have a clear separation of the engine from the ".wads/maps/music/textures/game files/etc.", in those early games, the game itself was interewined in the code.

If you see all the FOSS releases idSW has made over the years, the ENGINE soruce code gets the FOSS treatment, but the copyright of the game files themselves remains in the hands of the company, therefore, you still need to buy a copy of the game to play it legaly, even if you use a FOSS engine, or a port (my case on a MacBook).

So, most likey, they will not release that older code, not because they lost the source, but because releasing it in that case is to give away the game for free...

Cheers

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Anonymous Coward]

So, most likey, they will not release that older code, not because they lost the source, but because releasing it in that case is to give away the game for free...

Because ID are still making a mint out of Commander Keen and Spear of Destiny purchases, AMIRIGHT?

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[whoop]

Commander Keen is still all the Rage, and releasing it for free would cause a Quake to their business strategy. Oh, and CK is on sale on Steam today for $3.74 (and included in some multi-game packs). Releasing it now would just Doom their bottom line...

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I don't think there are many computer users out there still wanting to pay for Commander Keen.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[GReaToaK_2000]

Like a kid caught between fighting parents. No-one wins.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[antdude]

Did you ever follow up to both? Maybe CC to both at the same time?

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[dudpixel]

i see what you did there.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Kashgarinn]

I've always misunderstood the open sourcing carmack likes to do, but now I get it, he's not giving away the game, he's just allowing others to tinker with the game engine.

And yes, I think copyright is getting ridiculous when you can't play a 20+ year old game for free.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Anonymous Coward]

A game from 20 years ago... I don't think they are selling a lot of licenses. It's not like they are going to lose money at all.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[houghi]

And why would they not give away the code for free? I mean other then being a complete douchebag about it.

They already got the money from the game. The game won't get them any extra income.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom2 and Doom1 both used separate wads for all of the levels, sound effects, creatures, etc. Remember the barny mod etc? All of that was done with .WAD files.

Re:Still waiting on Commander Keen Source

[mgiuca]

Surely Commander Keen is old enough that they don't need to protect the assets any more. Just give the entire game away for free.

Messy source code? Love it. Doesn't compile? Doesn't matter. Don't touch a thing. Just release everything onto the Internet. It will be like an archaeological find. I would love to have the original Keen code, even if it doesn't compile, just to see what it's like. Someone will get it working and ported to Linux within 24 hours.

What are the derivatives?

[3dr]

I've not followed what has happened with previous id releases.
What have people done with them?

Re:What are the derivatives?

[Anonymous Cowar]

I've not followed what has happened with previous id releases. What have people done with them?

Mostly ported them to linux. Although there have been total conversions, such as tremulous, world of padman, and urban terror. I'm not aware of any non-game uses like medical imaging, 3d printer "print previews" or anything like that.

Re:What are the derivatives?

[h4rr4r]

The games already have linux ports. I know I bought Doom and Quake 4 and many more before it for just that reason.

Re:What are the derivatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.openarena.ws/smfnews.php

Re:What are the derivatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/

Re:What are the derivatives?

[somersault]

Google/Wikipedia to the rescue!

Re:What are the derivatives?

[the_humeister]

Yes, but now you can have a native 64-bit build on Linux, Bsd, Windows, etc.

Re:What are the derivatives?

[gman003]

Mostly ports and bugfixes/enhancements, but there's a decent number of fully-independent projects as well. OpenArena, Nexuiz, and Urban Terror, for instance.

Re:What are the derivatives?

[dbug78]

a few examples...

DarkPlaces
Tenebrae
ioquake3
World of Padman
OpenArena
Tremulous
Space trader
Smoking guns
Urban terror (used to be a Q3 mod but made standalone with the source release)

Re:What are the derivatives?

[h4rr4r]

How much ram can darkness possibly need?

Re:What are the derivatives?

[SeaFox]

Black polygons are needed to surround all the in-game photons.

Re:What are the derivatives?

[IceNinjaNine]

How much ram can darkness possibly need?

Now that's just pure gold. :) Will you be here all week? And should I try the fish?

Re:What are the derivatives?

[sonamchauhan]

Vast areas of RAM, all set to '00000000000000...' :D

Re:What are the derivatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if I have a videocard with hardware VWEP :P

Re:What are the derivatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vast areas of RAM, all set to '00000000000000...' :D

What filling ram with 0x30303030 accomplish?

A huge thank-you ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Businesses who release old source code deserve a big warm hug. Their gift is an enormous learning opportunity to budding programmers since it offers examples that are deeper and more practical than books and (most) schooling can provide. The only thing comparible is FLOSS, and they don't address certain markets (like games) very well

Re:thanks but no thanks

[PCM2]

Open Source is not a dumping ground for old and useless shit.

According to Wikipedia, an id Tech 4 game was released this year and there's another one scheduled for next year.

Good for John Carmack. This code base is past the point where it offers serious competitive advantage. The value of an id Tech 4 game today is based on how good the game is, which is really as it should be. So there isn't really much reason why it shouldn't be open sourced -- except that most companies "just don't do that."

Even if the code was "old and useless shit" (which it obviously is not), how many companies actually throw away their old and useless shit? Most hoard it like it's diamonds. So kudos to Carmack and co. for sticking to their guns continuing to challenge the industry to move forward.

Showboating?

[dstyle5]

Showboating by announcing the release of code for one of their games at their conference about their games? What better place to announce it? This is an announcement for fans as they will be the only ones playing with this code most likely. Hopefully once its released someone can create an enjoyable version of the game... ;)

Re:Showboating?

[flimflammer]

I'm betting the first use of the code will be to tape a flashlight onto the gun.

Re:An attack on the Valve SOURCE engine?

[somersault]

Source is also based on id tech when you go back far enough. I'm sure the Source guys have a lot of respect for this. I don't care if this is "headline grabbing", it's the sort of thing that should be in headlines. It's the sort of thing that might get me interested in mucking around with OpenGL again.

descent 3

[d3matt]

source code anyone?

Re:descent 3

[Plombo]

I wish.

Re:descent 3

[Mashiki]

Interplay has repeatedly refused to release the source. Same with the Freespace/Freespace 2 source until Volition started getting cranky then it came out. But I hold to hope that one day we'll see a Freespace 3 with volition doing it.

Re:descent 3

[d3matt]

that would be awesome... there hasn't been a good space shooter in years!

Re:descent 3

[gorzek]

You can blame Freespace 2 for that. It was a huge bomb and basically killed the genre.

Re:descent 3

[Mashiki]

You know I can't figure out how it was a huge bomb. Most people that I know who played it 10 years ago, still love playing it today. And with the FSOpen project, it looks prettier today than it did then.

Re:descent 3

[gorzek]

By "bomb" I mean "didn't sell enough copies to make back its budget." It was a very expensive game and didn't sell nearly well enough to break even, much less turn a profit. It was a great game, the market for it was just too small. It pretty much destroyed the genre as the industry took from it, "space combat doesn't sell!" Obviously there have been other space combat games since then, but the genre has been substantially quieter since FS2.

Thanks Id!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wished more vendors would consider following Id's lead. Releasing the code of older game engines makes it a lot more plausible for old games to continue to work on new platforms, so licenced software can continue to be useful on modern day computers because of people picking up the code and fixing bugs.

Eidos Holding 11-Year Old Thief 1 Source Code

[BrendaEM]

People have signed petitions for the Thief Dark Project code, which is eleven years old, and Eidos still has not helped Thief's community continue the legacy of their games.

Re:Eidos Holding 11-Year Old Thief 1 Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

... and the fans are wasting their time. The Thief code will likely never be released, and we have Dark Mod anyway now. It is a Thief-inspired game that isn't stuck in the 90s. There are already like 50 missions! I was (am) a Thief 1 fanatic, but since the developers couldn't even release the code to Dark Engine, I will actively avoid buying Thief 4.

This Doom 3 code should be a HUGE help for Dark Mod. Now we can have an optimized renderer and multicore support for stuff like AI, along with physics fixes. The fan-made stealth missions can live on forever now!

So, thanks Carmack for giving us Thief fans what the Thief creators never would have given us: the final piece for an open source stealth game!

Re:Eidos Holding 11-Year Old Thief 1 Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, Dark Loader has been out there for just about as long as Thief I and there's a hell of a lot more than 50 missions for it. A good number of them are better than average in comparison to the original game missions. A few of them are, IMHO, even better than the the majority of the original maps. Any real Thief fan knows this.

He gets it, he is awesome

[airfoobar]

It's a shame that a lot of old games (including DOS games, circa 1995) have been consigned to the graveyard of dead software, where they can't be ported/maintained because they have no sources and need emulation, they can't be bought except for second/third/20th-hand, they can't be copied/preserved because of copyright. It's shameful, really. I feel quite angry about that tbh, and I'm delighted to see game creators make an effort to release their code.

I sometimes see people arguing that releasing the code is impossible because some parts are based on proprietary code they don't have the rights to. I wish they would just cut that code out and release the rest. There are a lot of eager fans out there who would be very happy to rewrite that code and even develop drop-in open-source replacements that can be reused for other ports (yes, even entire game engines). Let's not let old games end up like old films, rotting away in the archives of underfunded libraries without anyone knowing they ever existed.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree... there are a lot of old code out there locked away, that people especially students could learn from. It's a real pitty to see companies hide old obsolete stuff like this. It also can spawn some good projects to get the old code running on modern computers :) lots of possibilities.

from the consumer side, its sad too, that games they grew up with have been lost into the nothingness, because the disks the game came on are corrupt, demagnetised or lost, and the games are unavailable. publishers seem unwilling to spend the money to allow them to be run on modern hardware, and at the same time unwilling to release their IP to the public domain...

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[devent]

You are not the only one that gets angry about the whole issue. Tell me how so heck does a copyright term of 70 years is encouraging developers to write games? In the current market a game is old after 6 months and after 2 years you can buy the same game for 10$ or less and after 10 years nobody ever will buy the game. So how are developers benefit from a 70 years protection?

Tell me, what game makes the original developer money after 70 years?

In my opinion the current years (from 1980 to current) will be called the dark ages of digital culture, because no game, no movie, will survive. The code will be lost in some safe because nobody cares and if the future generations like to know what games we played, they can only go to the illegal sites like http://www.abandonia.com/

It's like we wouldn't know anything about Shakespeare, Bach, Beethoven, because the code (words or notes) had the same stupid protection laws.

The only way the owner of the game is benefiting, is that nobody can take their game and port it and improve it. So they are benefiting because they hinder everybody else. You can call it greed and selfishness.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Lando]

Might want to check out GOG.com Recently found the site while researching something else, but seems to have a lot of older games that have been set up to run under windows at a decent price.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[24-bit Voxel]

I thought the whole point of abandonia was that all the games were licensed or owned by companies that are now no longer in business, thus there is no copyright. I don't think it's illegal is it?

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

>Tell me, what game makes the original developer money after 70 years?

Monopoly.

Hey, you didn't specify computer games only!

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me how so heck does a copyright term of 70 years is encouraging developers to write games?

Don't you mean between 95 and 120 years?

Another gift from the guardian of big media: Bill Clinton (the guy who also brought us the DMCA).

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[westlake]

It's a shame that a lot of old games (including DOS games, circa 1995) have been consigned to the graveyard of dead software, where they can't be ported/maintained because they have no sources and need emulation, they can't be bought except for second/third/20th-hand, they can't be copied/preserved because of copyright.

Gog.com lists about 400 MSDOS and Windows games, almost all of which will run without a hassle under 64 bit Windows 7. But you have to be realistic.

Gog sells desktop games to the hard-core PC gamer willing to invest a substantial amount of time in a classic adventure, RPG, simulation or strategy game.

The problem is that even the enthusiast finds it hard to warm up to a game with five to twenty-five year old graphics, gameplay and sound --- and that is not an easy problem to fix.

The Black Mesa total conversion threatens to become the next Duke Nukem Forever.

It needs writers, production designers, level designers, background artists, model makers, character animators, effects animators, Foley artists, composers, musicians, vocal performers, etc., etc., etc.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Baloroth]

Technically, it (usually) still is illegal. Some of the games have either been legitimately or semi-legitimately approved by the original license owner for distribution, but in most cases such sites are still breaking copyright law. For instance, a few years ago I was able to get Commander Keen on one of those sites, but as you may know it's now available for sale again on Steam. Generally, someone still owns the copyright.

Now, very few of the actual owners will care. In most cases, the game will never be sold again, and the creators approve of someone keeping their game alive. Which is why, in quite a few cases, they let the community have the source code to maintain the game and keep it alive, or simply don't do anything to stop the redistribution.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the complete Commander Keen pack on Steam during their summer sale. Barely cost anything and runs great in DOSBox. I think the issue is closer to...can we release this cheaply? Companies release basically ROMs packaged in emulators on portable markets nowadays, I hope they start releasing DOSBox ports of older games....

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[airfoobar]

Gog.com lists about 400 MSDOS and Windows games, almost all of which will run without a hassle under 64 bit Windows 7.

Gog is great, but their catalog is limited -- there are literally thousands of Good Old Games missing, most of which they'll never offer because of licensing issues or because they don't run in Dosbox or because they don't think they can sell them. Those are the sorts of problems I'm referring to, which can lead to many of those games being lost.

The problem is that even the enthusiast finds it hard to warm up to a game with five to twenty-five year old graphics, gameplay and sound --- and that is not an easy problem to fix.

Your "enthusiast" is entirely irrelevant to my argument. I'm talking about preserving these games for posterity, regardless of whether they choose to enjoy them or not.

The Black Mesa total conversion threatens to become the next Duke Nukem Forever.

Again, that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm talking about Valve releasing the source code of the original game, and volunteers taking up the maintenance of the engine and the task of untying it from the platforms and OSs it was written for. Think ScummVM, OpenMW, Spring, 7kaa, Duke3d, Quake, Hexen, etc etc -- there are plenty of success stories.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[master_p]

Almost all games ever made are playable in emulators, including DOS games. What exactly is your point?

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[drinkypoo]

It's really not a shame that old games die and new games have to be written. That's progress, baby. That's how it works with people, too.

The really great games are preserved. The others fall by the wayside. This is as it should be.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Trixter]

Tell me, what game makes the original developer money after 70 years?

Monopoly?

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[devent]

But that's also the problem. Only because 0.1% can make money after 70 years, the rest of our culture have to suffer.
And Monopoly, Mickey Mouse, etc. are a good argument against a long copyright term. After so long time, such things have become a part of our culture and history. They don't belong to the original creators anymore, the same as Jesus Christ don't belong to the pope in Rome. They belong to whole of humanity.

How many more new comic figures or games would Disney or Hasbro would come up if they didn't got a one in a lifetime hit and get a century protecting for it? The long copyright term for Mickey Mouse and Monopoly is the example how the long copyright term is getting the creator to be lazy and not come up with new ideas.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm talking about Valve releasing the source code of the original game, and volunteers taking up the maintenance of the engine and the task of untying it from the platforms and OSs it was written for. Think ScummVM, OpenMW, Spring, 7kaa, Duke3d, Quake, Hexen, etc etc -- there are plenty of success stories.

ScummVM and OpenMW, at least, are nothing of the sort -- they are original implementations of compatible engines, produced without reference to the original source code.

In the case of OpenMW (which I would hardly call a "success story" at this stage, since it's nowhere near playable yet), the developers have received no help whatsoever from Bethesda.

Re:He gets it, he is awesome

[A Jew]

It would be good if there was a practice of entrusting the code and all game assets to some foundation that would release the full game under an open-source license 20 years after release.

Who Does This help

[wisnoskij]

You always hear about games getting there source code officially released (with their art, etc remaining proprietary and the game still being a commercial product [which I assume is what this is]).
Who does this help? will anyone read through this code? Is it basically just for anyone enamoured enough with the original game to make mods/patches?

Re:Who Does This help

[shutdown -p now]

Mostly it's for porting it to different platforms, and to improve the old engine with new features (like what Tenebrae did for Quake1).

Some people also make their own games (not just mods, but completely new games) with them. Mostly a hobbyist affair, of course, since the engines are usually quite outdated by the time source code is released.

Re:Who Does This help

[UnknownSoldier]

> Who does this help?
People who are curious about "How Things Work", specifically, "How Games Work"

Perfect example:
quake 3 fast inverse square root
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/

> will anyone read through this code?
Most definitely:
  Game Programmers - Sub-Topics: Rendering, Networking, Audio, Physics, AI,
  Future game programmers
  Hackers

I've shipped numerous games. It is always a pleasure reading other people's game code -- just to see how they did things, read the comments, etc.

--
"Necessity is the Mother of invention, but Curiosity is the Father"
    -- Michaelangel007

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always fun looking at the source code for a commercial game. Beyond the actual algorithms and libraries (which are probably a bit dated) you can see how they thought to organize the overall structure - what level of abstraction they thought was useful, stupid code tricks, and how they put on the polish that is absent from most open source games.

More productive people probably have a better idea of how to leverage it than me, but that's why I'll download it.

Re:Who Does This help

[Tacvek]

Well if you wanted to write a Doom 3 like game, this would be an excellent place to start. You would need to develop graphics and levels, and make some changes for any unique features, but you would need to do that anyway even if starting from scratch, and at least here you already have a working engine. The communities that develop around these source drops often focus on making the code portable, and making minor changes here and there so that it can work well on modern hardware.

So you get to start with a portablized version of a proven game engine. The existing engines are designed with performance on relatively slow machines (by today's standards) in mind. That sounds like a reasonably good fit for something like a modern cell phone. Rewriting the graphics code to take advantage of a mobile's platform's limited 3d acceleration is often not nearly as much work as it sounds.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

Who does this help? Wow. How about anyone with more than a passing interest in game programming? I thought slashdot was a techie site...

Re:Who Does This help

[gman003]

It helps the Linux community - I'd say at least 50% the AAA-level games on Linux got there because someone released the code, and the open-source community got the port done.

It helps the hardcore fans of the game, because obscure bugs can be fixed, and enhancements can be added. Doom has gotten quite a few engine enhancements that make the original game look a lot better, without needing art replacements.

It can help indie or starting-out developers, because a full engine is a tough thing to properly write. Getting one for free, even an old one, can speed up development.

Finally, helps the original game makers. By releasing the code while keeping the art assets proprietary, you get free maintenance of your product while still profiting from sales. I know of a lot of people who didn't buy Doom until years afterwards.

Re:Who Does This help

[adamofgreyskull]

The reason for releasing source code as open source isn't so that you can download it for free, compile it, and have a working copy of Doom 3, it's so that people can look at the code, learn from it, port the game to new architectures or mod the source to add new features/take advantage of new technology. Several original games have been developed using previously released id source code: (Someone should really invent some kind of "Search" "Engine" for this internet thing...)
Nexuiz
Urban Terror
Tremulous

Sadly, I suspect that you won't appreciate the value of any of that, having phrased your questions the way you did.

Re:Who Does This help

[wisnoskij]

I have played Nexuiz, it is decent.

Re:Who Does This help

[jaxa]

This helps The Dark Mod team, among others. There are many bug fixes and improvements that can only be made once the source code is released.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a story from last year (?) about Carmack writing a phone version of Doom or the original Wolfenstien and he made use of the GPL version for a number of fixes and updates to make porting easier.

It's also a way to get an old game back in the headlines, I'll be buying Doom 3 to give it another play through (... uhhh first time I played a 'friends' copy) and check out some of the mods that were mentioned in this thread. Doom 3 + an official expansion is on Steam for US$13 right now, I paid almost that much for the 6 pack I'm drinking.

Also it's just plain awesome and gains a lot of respect for the company giving away things which no longer give them a competitive advantage.

This probably doesn't offset the $$ cost of paying someone to clean up the code and check it over for non-releaseable stuff (patented etc) but I think iD can afford.

Re:Who Does This help

[alambda]

The fast inverse square root makes a beautiful example, for to me it seems that it is embraced not only in the gaming community, but also in scientific circles. I have not went through the relevant parts of the actual source code of GROMACS, an MD simulation package praised for its speed (and thus provides the framework the folding@home project is currently built on), but its implementation of 1/sqrt(x) is not totally unlike that of Carmack's. An important factor in the software package's speed, I've understood that GROMACS's implementation predates Quake by some 10 years, but it seems feasible to me that some of Quake's ideas might have been used to further optimize the code.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to see the code, but overall it's not very useful. I guess if there is some functionality that you cannot figure out how to implement from any other documentation then you might get a better idea of how to do it from the source code, but I think the costs are far higher than the benefits. Especially if the code hasn't been used for a while, then dependencies are difficult to resurrect and it's almost impossible to get it working correctly. I am in the camp that it is almost always better to write something yourself than trying to add new functionality to someone else's mess. In the end it depends on what shape the code is in. I would emagine the source code depends on things that don't work anymore, like an old hacked version of Direct3D. Carmack has connections such that I doubt he used pure public versions of anything.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

i have played nexuiz, it's horrible. Graphics are cheesy, weapons are silly, and the community is douchey.

I have played urban terror. the graphics are ok, the gameplay is incredibly entertaining, and the community is wonderful.

I have played tremulous. It's an ok game and the community is ok, but I can never play it for long. There just seems to be some gameplay elemt existing that would give me a reason to keep playing.

Re:Who Does This help

[Lanteran]

When do you "always hear" about games getting their source code released? I rarely hear anyone other than id doing that. As for who it helps- see earlier commenters.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

Earlier release of the quake engine was used to build a VR maze system for mice (the furry ones) that neuroscientists use to study how the hippocampus creates internal maps of our spatial environment. I doubt they would have started this project if they had to start writing a rendering engine from scratch.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

> Who does this help?

It helps the imagination and knowledge of young programmers.

People you don't know.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

It will help The Dark Mod - we look forward with extreme joy to the release, so we can ifx alot of issues that arise due to the D3 code being closed, and so a couple of things not possible for us.

It will also make it possible to release a stand-alone version of TDM, one that does't people to buy, patch and install Doom 3.

Here is a (partial) List of things that we want to fix.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

why does it matter if it helps anyone?

he's probably just proud of it. maybe think of releasing the code as art itself.

Re:Who Does This help

[Steauengeglase]

If I recall that was the WolfGL port (not 100% sure of the top of my head). Though I remember following that project intently when it came down the pike, for the life of me I can only remember that it was some "Scandinavian Dude" and it was posted to BR Lowe's wolf page. It amazes me the things people added to that little game.

Anyway, this ended up being a prime example of how opening up your source ends up being beneficial to all involved parties as it cut down dev time for the iPhone port.

Re:Who Does This help

[nukenerd]

AC Wrote :

I remember a story from last year (?) about Carmack writing a phone version of Doom or the original Wolfenstien and he made use of the GPL version for a number of fixes and updates to make porting easier.

I believe that Carmack was approached by a phone/PDA maker about porting Doom II, not for Carmack to do the work but just as a courtesy. I gather that Carmack told them that they would be better off porting PRBoom because it had been developed well beyond Doom in terms of debugging and optimisation while keeping the same gameplay.

Carmack then e-mailed the PRBoom developers about this approach, again as a courtesy, and it was nice that in this he complimented the developers of the open source Doom derivatives (which would have been not just the PRBoom guys) on their work.

I know of this because I had a small part in PRBoom development - in play-testing and making suggestions.

Re:Who Does This help

[Anonymous Coward]

"> will anyone read through this code?"

Don't forget hardcore gamers. While I'm not a huge enough fan of Doom3 to care, if Valve would release CounterStrike's mod source or HalfLife 1's full engine source, I'd drop everything and read it immediately just to 100% confirm all the various myths we lived by, like if the silencer changes accuracy or damage. Especially if they released revision history as well-- I'd love to see all the undocumented changes between patches, or even see the various forks they wrote but eventually edited out. Was the scout always faster than the knife and I just didn't notice until 1.6? Why does "alias m_filter" or whatever it was let you re-execute a command on every frame update?

So many questions that can be answered with source code release.

Re:An attack on the Valve SOURCE engine?

[gangien]

Not everything is a conspiracy.

Not everything has an alterior motive.

Your life mgiht be improved if you realize this.

Max is back.

[westlake]

I have dreamt of carmageddon being released. I want to port it to Linux and update the graphics, everything,

Then these are the people you need to talk to:

The Carmageddon brand has been reacquired by the team that developed the original PC titles Carmageddon and Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now. Stainless Games today announced that a new title is in early development, called 'Carmageddon: Reincarnation'

Carmageddon

Carmageddon Paper Crafts

These fantastic 3D paper cars have been created by long-time Carmageddon fan and modder extraordinaire Harm (Harmalarm). They were created using a neat bit of software called Pepakura. This program is able to unfold digital 3D models, turning them into foldable models.

Paper Cars Pepakura

Re:Max is back.

[damn_registrars]

I've been yearning for another chance for a cunning stunt bonus for some time now. Is it wrong of me to be hoping to see the new Carmageddon released on Wii?

As much as people love to hate on the Wii, it has graphics that are easily significantly improved over the graphics of the last Carmageddon release for the PC...

Re:Max is back.

[westlake]

Is it wrong of me to be hoping to see the new Carmageddon released on Wii?

No.

But this looks like an Indie start-up with no money to speak of.

What I would like to see is [the M-rated] Carmageddon 2 on Gog.com, with the soundtrack, PDF cars, etc, as extras. Its the perfect way to test the waters and raise some cash,

"Reincarnation" is a piss-poor title --- uncomfortably remeniscent of the late and unlamented "Duke Nukem Forever." I hope they can come up with something better.

Re:Max is back.

[mobby_6kl]

I think you're missing the point of that title. Have a look at it again:
ReinCarNation

Yes!

[eskild]

I know, I know, it's years old, it's practically as old as what the egyptians built. I know, I know, I get my a** kicked by pre-teens when I go online for just about any FPS (including Solitaire. Oh, wait...) -- I'm just sooooo old and lousy.

But still, Carmack is (a) god! It's a kick-ass game, written by kick-ass, performance-aware (fanatic, even) professionals. It sure as h*ck has value, also today!

Re:thanks but no thanks

[sapgau]

Man, I still play that game in arena mode online.

Might've hurt moonlit memories 'tween the Johns.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the parent got the two Johns trolled into a cross-discussion about releasing the Commander Keen source-code? What an idiot! That is movie material worth more than Brokeback Mountain! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot were you thinking, parent?

Bringing up a cross-discussion between the Johns about releasing source-code for Quake 1 material.... now that is something they will f*cking rightly do, like Country For Old Men. Damn straight, not gay!

*lights candle on the Cadelabruhhhhrrrr.

Re:An attack on the Valve SOURCE engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

just like everything else mentioned in a keynote? what's your point? why valve specifically? source was forked from quake 1 years ago... apples and oranges at this point.

The Dark Mod

[nbohr1more]

The Dark Mod team is very excited about all the possible bug fixes and performance improvements made possible by this release. If you are a fan of the Thief games, you should check out this mod: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod www.thedarkmod.com

Re:An attack on the Valve SOURCE engine?

[im_thatoneguy]

Isn't this just a far fetched plan to try to eat into the Valve SOURCE engine developers? It's great and all, don't get me wrong, holding up the tradition of releasing the source of old Id games; but announcing the release at a Keynote seems a tad bit show-boating, and headline grabbing?

I don't think anyone is expecting Source engine source to be released (again :P) seeing as Valve is still using Source in new games.

Maybe the Half Life 1 engine would be comparable. This is a bit of a poke in Valve's face since they're still running the same engine for the last 5 years with only minimal improvements.

My tradition

[Aggrajag]

I keep buying all of their games as long as they keep releasing the source, even if the games suck (Quake 4, Doom 3).

Re:My tradition

[mojo-raisin]

Not a gamer and the last FPS I played was Doom3 in 2003/4. I will continue buying id games, though, just cuz.

I like the new pricing trends...

[damn_registrars]

I haven't gotten around to playing (or even buying) Doom3 yet, and it's already about to go open source.

Re:I like the new pricing trends...

[petermgreen]

Afaict if you want to actually play the game you still have to buy (or pirate....) a copy to get the game content. The source releases only tend to include the code.

Re:I like the new pricing trends...

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't gotten around to playing (or even buying) Doom3 yet, and it's already about to go open source.

The engine will go open source, but if you want to play Doom3, consider it the content that is delivered by the id tech 4 engine. You'll have to pay for the content, because of stupid 70 year copyright terms.

That doesn't mean people won't make FOSS games using the OSS id Tech 4 engine. Just means Doom3 the game isn't free as in beer.

Original Red Faction source

[Tekoneiric]

I wish the source code for the original Red Faction would be released. The damage & map sizes could be increased for larger amounts of memory. Also the core of the game could be used for other types of games. I'd like to see it modded to allow portal jumps added to allow people to cross from server to server.

Re:Original Red Faction source

[Anonymous Coward]

red faction was a wonderful game about the people's champion taking on the capitalists and their mercenaries. But he's not a Stalinist hero, he's also an idiot personally.

Re:Original Red Faction source

[Anonymous Coward]

This - THQ is wondering why recent Red Faction games have bombed. Because anybody that remembers the original knows it was far more capable than any other Red Faction game.

If they would do the same for Freespace, or at least Freelancer, they would have an instant hit.

For all of the crappy sequels where the only improvements they make are resolution and texture bumps, this would be all thats needed as both of these games have great engines for what is needed, with some newer eye candy, and the added benefit of not having to recreate the feel of weapons that felt right the first time around.

This scenario is every developers wet dream - as little work as possible with tons of profit, and yet they dont...

Re:Original Red Faction source

[drinkypoo]

Freelancer OMFG. That game was amazing. If they had opened the content creation tools up to the same extent that they have access to themselves then they would have at least two best-selling sequels by now (just to get the new content and engine improvements.)

Freespace is wide open, though.

People will do things with it

[guacamole]

For an analogy, you should take a look at idtech3 game engine users. Gametracker.com 2 months ago reported about 700 active Quake 3 servers (many empty of course). Lots of people still enjoy this game, and having access to source code engine is an advantage to them. Other games that use the free idtech3 engine are Urban Terror (up to version 4.2), Tremulous, Smokin Guns, and World of Padman. Granted, I think only UrbanTerror is a widely played game among these (game tracker reports over 1000 live servers) and the next version is switching to a fork of a closed source engine. There are also games based on idtech1 and idtech2 engines. Quite often the developers of the above games had been discussing switching their game engine to something else. Often those discussions ended with "let the idtech4 be released, and then we'll see"

A suggestion

[romainp]

Could Duke Nukem Forever 2 benefits of this id's gift?

Steam just marked all of Doom and Quake on Sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Coincidence??

Doom 3 still looks pretty damn good

[dcl]

I fired up Doom3 on my current rig recently and was pretty damn impressed with how good it looked for a game released 7 years ago. It honestly looks pretty good next to modern games. Widescreen wasn't supported out of the box, but wasn't too hard to set up.

I think when it was launched no one was really able to play it on highest graphical setting due to video cards not having enough video ram. My R9700 pro only had 128mb, I think D3 needed 512mb?

In the spirit of opensource

[SmallFurryCreature]

Do it yourself.

What is stopping you? Or do you just talk though on a nerd forum? You do know that isn't very hard do you? We run scared of guys who dare to run with scissors and have pens in their shirt pockets with NO pocket protector!

Re:In the spirit of opensource

[hairyfeet]

Ahh the classic horseshit that is FOSS. if you dare to say a nerd wankfest isn't up to snuff you get "Do it yourself". tell me did you perform your own engine rebuild? Did you perform your own dentistry? Then WHY THE FUCK should I have to write a game just because you suck and can't get past CTF huh?

And people wonder why FOSS doesn't go anywhere, why after 20 damned years it is stuck at 1% while an OS with a $1000 barrier of entry is gaining like mad. Well it is THIS, this right here, which I call the "shit sandwich" approach to design. Someone says "Hey you want a free sandwich?" and you say "Sure, i could eat" so they hand you a big steaming turd between two slices of moldy bread and go "Now you can't complain because its free!"

Well ya know what? its still a SHIT SANDWICH and making it free doesn't make it fucking veal alright? if you want FOSS to gain ANY traction YOU NEED a "killer app" and yet another DM/CTF wankfest? why the fuck would anybody care? We have TF2 which is frankly better than any game FOSS has put out by leaps and bounds!

So you go back to playing Tux Racer and your latest ripoff of Quake III and give us a call when you have an original thought, kay? meanwhile i'll just join the other 99% of the planet in ignoring your ass, which seems to be what you want anyway, considering you don't ever fucking listen to anyone and your answer is always "Do it yourself". Well those of us with these green slips called MONIES? We can afford to BUY games! I know, its a concept? And since these games run on Windows? Well i guess I don't need FOSS anything, now do i?

Remember Sparky, FOSS is a PRODUCT. You want companies to provide software and drivers? To open up their code? Well you need marketshare for that and the shit sandwich attitude gets you NONE. Zip, aero nada, squat. Now if you'll excuse me I picked up Kane&Lynch II for a whole $4 and haven't got around to firing it up yet. Sadly even though it has probably the worst scores in history it'll be more entertaining and original than the entire history of FOSS gaming.

Re:thanks but no thanks

[monkyyy]

agreed i wish mirco$oft would release old directx versions that run buggy (or is it the software using it) on windows 7, i can think of 1 game that current runs better emu then on "compatibly mode"

Yes, releasing old code as FLOSS...

[RichiH]

...as a general rule would be awesome. Not only for games but for everything. Artwork etc would still be an issue, but at least the code could be used/updated/improved...

I would love to have Master of Orion _1_ released. TCP/IP and larger integers for the global account. Larger universes, more tech levels to get to, maybe moving stars, improved mass updates to resource management....

I would _pay_ for that.

(MoO2 & 3 can die in a fire)

Re:Yes, releasing old code as FLOSS...

[SwampChicken]

X-Com & Elite would be my picks. (would probably pay for the source code as well)

Re:Yes, releasing old code as FLOSS...

[n1ckml007]

Master of Orion 3 made me question computer games... Awful Awful game.

Like the Close Combat series

[gravyface]

Matrix has been re-releasing the games at full pop ($49!) with minor-to-moderate bug fixes and a few enhancements. I can see how that can fly with newer games in expansion packs (with arguably more work in creating new assets, campaigns, etc.), but 10-15 year old games? They should just release the source code and stop milking cash out of an ancient game series.

Fast Inverse Square Root

[Anonymous Coward]

float Q_rsqrt( float number )
{
                long i;
                float x2, y;
                const float threehalfs = 1.5F;
                x2 = number * 0.5F;
                y = number;
                i = * ( long * ) // evil floating point bit level hacking
                i = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 ); // what the fuck?
                y = * ( float * )
                y = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) ); // 1st iteration // y = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) ); // 2nd iteration, this can be removed
                return y;
}

Re:Fast Inverse Square Root

[UnknownSoldier]

Uh, you could just read the wikipoodia page ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root

Even the source is dark.

[Admiral_Grinder]

This source code is a pain to read. I open VIM and for some reason, the back light on my monitor turns off. I close VIM and it comes back on....

(I couldn't resist)

Awesome!

[Syberz]

I'm meeting with the kids at my old high school in November to talk to them about software development and IT. Being able to show them some code behind a fairly recent video game will give them a good idea of what they're getting into. All the kids want to "do video games" in some way or another, but none really know what that means.

Speaking of which, anybody have example test cases and/or design docs for a video game? I want to show parts of the entire process.

doom 3 source code

[Anonymous Coward]

doom 3 source code:

Set brightness to 15%

IF character walks by
THEN spawn monster behind them
END

I don't get it...

[gosand]

What's your angle?

Re:I don't get it...

[gangien]

haha :)

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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where to get it

[abhikala1]

i am just waiting to play it. but i dont know know where to get it because its always comes late to my country. I used to get it from Mediafire Games Free Download till yet, is it out there or what is expected date for new release?

As per usual from JC & crew?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very cool of them! See, in my experience @ least? Well, I don't see too many other software game production houses doing the same, OR nearly as often, do you??

Please, feel free to correct me IF I am "off/wrong" here, because for a decade++ now I am NOT anywhere NEAR the "gamer"/gaming enthusiast that I was in the mid 90's to early 21st century!

(Even to the point of my designing a Voodoo 3DFx enchancing program -> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22APK+3dFx+Tuning+Engine%22&btnG=Google+Search because I "needed more speed" etc./et al, as all gamers are "wont to do" & THAT came from my enjoying playing Quake II mostly back then in those "halycyon days of yore", really)...

It's just that I really don't recall any other software gaming production house doing as much this way as Mr. Carmack & crew have over time - & I feel I have a "pretty good memory", especially for someone whose nearing 50 nowadays (wow, time flies)...

APK

P.S.=> Mr. C & company - Hey: They keep on, KEEPING ON, putting out "the hits" too! Beat that with a stick, naysayers...

... apk

Re:thanks but no thanks

[Bobakitoo]

agreed i wish mirco$oft would release old directx versions that run buggy (or is it the software using it) on windows 7, i can think of 1 game that current runs better emu then on "compatibly mode"

Are you crazy? Peoples could fix the bugs and will never pay for upgrade again !

Re:thanks but no thanks

[monkyyy]

u dont pay for directx......

Re:thanks but no thanks

[Bobakitoo]

1. You pay for Windows X+1 to get the patch that are, for no technical (read valid) reason, unavailable on the previous Windows release. If DirectX source was available peoples could, for example, back port DX11 to Windows XP for free. It's only a front-end API to the driver; as long as the DX11 capable hardware is present, there is no reason to not be able to use it. Microsoft is just bullying peoples into paying again for something they already have. This is why you won't ever get real source code from Microsoft.

2. As for the old DirectX games that are buggy on Windows 7, this is noting new. In order to steal the lead from OpenGL, Microsoft have screwed over developers, partners and gamers with their fail DirectX implementation. But worry not, with Windows 8, they have promised improved compatibility... GOTO 1;

u dont pay for directx......

And no, you do pay for DirectX when you buy Windows. And you pay again, each time you buy a 'Games for Windows' branded game.