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First Person Shooters (Games) Open Source Patents Games

Doom 3 Source Released 187

alteveer writes "Just like Quake 3 before it, the Doom 3 source code has been released to the public (minus rendering of stencil shadows via the 'depth fail' method, a functionality commonly known as 'Carmack's Reverse')."
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Doom 3 Source Released

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  • by CmdrPony ( 2505686 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:35PM (#38142758)
    old ID engines?

    I'm curious because the tech is there. Are there any fun open source games?
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:37PM (#38142786)

      Check out Tremulous

      • by Ciccio87 ( 2101982 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @09:19PM (#38143652)

        Check out Tremulous

        Or World Of Padman, also (as far as I know) a derivative work from Quake3 sources, like Tremulous. (World Of Padman [worldofpadman.com])

      • I came here to post because of tremulous.

        Be nice if this could turn into something similar.

        • It'd be really nice if we could start work on porting Trem to idtech4. Imagine the possibilities! *drool*

    • by Lemming Mark ( 849014 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:41PM (#38142828) Homepage

      Xonotic (successor to Nexuiz) is worth a look: http://www.xonotic.org/ [xonotic.org]

      I think that might actually have evolved from Quake 2 era code originally, or something crazy like that - it's a lot more advanced now.

      UFO:AI uses the Quake 2 engine on some level as well I think: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/News [ninex.info]

      In my experience Nexuiz and UFO:AI have both been quality Open Source games, although I think UFO:AI contains some media that are not categorised as fully Free in the strictest sense. Xonotic looks to be doing some cool new things and I hope that UFO:AI has also improved since I last played with it.

      • Quake. Nexuiz uses the darkplaces engine, which is the first quake's engine redone :)

        • And the great thing about DarkPlaces was that it let you run mods from the original Quake, but have them look significantly better than even GLQuakeWorld ever did. I don't know of any game company that's willing to invest money in making an old game look better on new machines years after the release, but the open source release means that people who still enjoy it can.
      • by richlv ( 778496 )

        was going to plug ufo:ai, even though i don't have the time to popularise it much lately. it uses id engine for 3d environments (although quite modified by now), and is of a fairly good quality and fun level.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      Not Open Source, but Brink came out this spring based on the Doom 3 (IDTECH 3, I think?) source code. While terribly supported by the developer (Splash Damage) for the PC, it's a beautiful game, and really says a lot about what can be done with this codebase.

    • by next_ghost ( 1868792 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:52PM (#38142930)
      Even if nobody created anything new, the ability to keep the original ID games up to date with modern systems is more than enough.
      • If only Lucasarts were listening... I mean, the possibility they could still *sell* the original X-wing & TIE series (DOS ones, with iMuse, not the CD-audio crap) aren't just there, so unless it's

        1- Just because they don't want to
        2- Some code might have been licensed

        My money is on n.1

        (yes, I know about Dosbox, but it has some sound issues)

    • by Joehonkie ( 665142 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:53PM (#38142938) Homepage
      Many mentioned above and Warsow (http://www.warsow.net/) which takes the arcadey style of Quake 3 even up yet another notch.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Doom 3 release is going to be great for The Dark Mod among other projects: http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/

    • Open Arena (Score:4, Informative)

      by nullchar ( 446050 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @09:14PM (#38143610)

      Open Arena [wikia.com] is a small, but active community. There are always open games to play online, and some crazy mods [wikia.com] (like Defrag to learn how to circle jump) that make it fun.

      Works great in linux with old hardware as it's based off Quake III.

    • by chilvence ( 1210312 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2011 @01:00AM (#38145064)

      From the tone of your post, it sounds as if you are dubious about the point of companies releasing their source.

      I find that depressing. Once a studio has released a game, patched the worst of the bugs, and moved on, disbanded, been bought up, that game is effectively dead. Sooner or later, some new hardware or software update will poke a hole in it, it will become impossible to run, and it will sink into the abyss taking all its fun and charm with it. The only way to keep hold of your old favourite games is to preserve your old computer, like an embalmed beige corpse in a crypt under the stairs, exhuming it once in a while to fill a void left by the abscence of anything even remotely similar in modern games.

      For me this game would be Dungeon Keeper, for you, I bet there is a 90% chance there is something you can fit in this story.

      My point is, id is a good sport releasing source code, but ALL games should release their source eventually. Once they have been sold in their millions, they are, in spirit, public property, and like a park or a road or a shopping centre, they need people to maintain them, until they have been able to live out their full lifespan gracefully.

      Now if you need me I will be under the stairs, slapping my imps...

      • Oh, Dungeon Keeper, how I loved that game.

        Mod Parent +1 Nostalgic

      • For me this game would be Dungeon Keeper, for you, I bet there is a 90% chance there is something you can fit in this story.

        My Dungeon Keeper CDs are too scratched to install, but I completed Dungeon Keeper 2 in WINE on OS X a few weeks ago. Judging by the comments on gog.com, it's more stable running on WINE than on Windows...

    • I've always enjoyed World of Padman [worldofpadman.com]. It is a cartoon-styled world of paint ball fights based on the Quake III Arena engine.
    • by F34nor ( 321515 )

      quake 2 --> halflife --> natural selection

      • by batkiwi ( 137781 )

        That was not made when the engine was GPLd and old, it was made under private licensing arrangements and new.

      • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        No, it (Half-Life's GoldSrc engine) is based on Quake 1, not Quake 2. And since the Source engine is based on GoldSrc, there are still bits of Quake 1 code in modern Source games like Portal 2.

        Natural-Selection, while awesome, is a mod with no access to the game engine itself. Natural-Selection 2 originally used the Source engine as a paid licensee, but later switched to their own in-house engine, Spark.

    • >>I'm curious because the tech is there. Are there any fun open source games?

      People still play Quake 1 / Quakeworld with updated clients that have better textures, bloom, lighting, particle effects etc. Look up FTEQuake some time (http://www.fteqw.com/), and come to the weekly game sessions (http://www.attackersgored.com/?page_id=56)

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

      Has anyone ever made anything worthwhile with the NEW ones?

  • Another level (Score:5, Interesting)

    by masternerdguy ( 2468142 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:38PM (#38142804)
    Carmack has raised the bar for the game industry once again.
  • License (Score:5, Informative)

    by u17 ( 1730558 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:55PM (#38142962)

    It seems that the licensing is a mess.

    The header in the source files state that the code is GPLv3 or any later version, with additional clauses added.

    In addition, the Doom 3 Source Code is also subject to certain additional terms. You should have received a copy of these additional terms immediately following the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License which accompanied the Doom 3 Source Code. If not, please request a copy in writing from id Software at the address below.

    However, it seems that it is only possible to apply these additional terms to GPL version 3 exactly (and not any later version):

    2. Replacement of Section 16. Section 16 of the GPL shall be deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

    These additional terms seem to be just disclaimers of liability and an indemnity clause, but it is entirely possible that they make the source GPL-incompatible, which, if true, would be a huge disappointment.

    So not only is the license not self-consistent, it is likely also GPL-incompatible. The additional terms may further make the license non-free, and definitely non-DFSG-compliant. Thanks go to the corporate lawyers who have turned Carmack's good intentions into an abomination. I hope that they can re-release this under saner terms.

    • Re:License (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:15PM (#38143154)

      This doesn't seem to be a problem since the base GPL v3 license explicitly allows replacement of Section 16:

      7. Additional Terms.

          "Additional permissions" are terms that supplement the terms of this
      License by making exceptions from one or more of its conditions.
      Additional permissions that are applicable to the entire Program shall
      be treated as though they were included in this License, to the extent
      that they are valid under applicable law. If additional permissions
      apply only to part of the Program, that part may be used separately
      under those permissions, but the entire Program remains governed by
      this License without regard to the additional permissions.

          When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option
      remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of
      it. (Additional permissions may be written to require their own
      removal in certain cases when you modify the work.) You may place
      additional permissions on material, added by you to a covered work,
      for which you have or can give appropriate copyright permission.

          Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you
      add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of
      that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms:

              a) Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from the
              terms of sections 15 and 16 of this License; or

              b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or
              author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal
              Notices displayed by works containing it; or ... [snip] ...

      • by u17 ( 1730558 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:40PM (#38143360)

        The GPL3 does indeed state that. But isn't the purpose of section 7 only to allow the copyright holder to work around the fact that the header of the license states that changing it is not allowed? Section 7 explicitly mentions that you have to have permission from the copyright holder to add additional clauses. You may thus add restrictions to the license which are not counter to the spirit of the vanilla GPL3.

        But the question is, how does this affect compatibility between "GPL3 with additional restrictions" and just "GPL3"? Since without permission from the copyright holder you cannot add or remove additional restrictions, you may not use the licenses interchangeably. Because the additional restrictions are not present in the vanilla GPL3 (which does not allow additional restrictions unless you are the copyright holder and these restrictions fall under section 7), if you combine GPL3 code and "GPL3 with restrictions" code, it seems to me that there is no possible way to satisfy the terms of both licenses simultaneously.

        So the way I see it, although GPL3 allows you to add these terms, by doing so you make your license GPL3-incompatible. If this is the case then it is troubling, and I would welcome any clarification from someone who knows the details behind this.

  • by orphiuchus ( 1146483 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:55PM (#38142966)

    Oh, I thought that was when he went from the god of PC graphics with games like Quake to their bane with that abortion Rage.

    • Re:Carmack's Reverse (Score:5, Informative)

      by scdeimos ( 632778 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:07PM (#38143080)
      This is hardly an authoritative source, but it does give some historical insight (from 2009) into why Carmack's Reverse had to be removed from the Doom 3 source release: http://newenthusiast.com/carmacks-reverse-still-an-issue-20090409489 [newenthusiast.com]
    • Re:Carmack's Reverse (Score:5, Interesting)

      by xavdeman ( 946931 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:07PM (#38143086)
      It took Carmack a considerably shorter time to come up with that engine than it took for id's art department to make a game out of it. And that game isn't even good. Seriously id Software needs to refocus on one thing, making great engines with tech-demo games (Doom 3) or great games with outdated engines because all they are doing now is tech-demo games with outdated engines (Rage). The id Tech 5 engine was first shown at the WWDC 2007, RAGE was released just a month ago. So there's a four year disparity. Also, the engine (or at least, RAGE) lacks features like HDR, which are present even in the (old, but updated) Source engine.
      • I'd mod you up if I had points.

        I like the Doom 3 engine, but the game itself was lack luster. It does say a lot that the game still looks pretty good years later, but the gameplay hasn't aged well at all. I still get a blast out of playing Wolf3d, Doom and Quake, but Doom 3 was a serious snore. As much as people complained about DNF, it was at least fun to play and funny.

        • Re:Carmack's Reverse (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lord_Jeremy ( 1612839 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @09:14PM (#38143614)
          IMHO the best thing about Doom 3 was that it lead to Quake 4, which is definitely one of my favorite single player games. Hell, Q4 is also one of the few games that had both worthwhile single player and multiplayer.
          • Actually... yes.

            I hated Quake 3. Really loathed and despised it. Lazy game design without the artistic style of earlier id games. Enjoyed the first few hours of Doom 3, until I had all of its tricks figured out, after which it was kind of boring. But with Quake 4, Raven actually put out a decent game. The singleplayer campaign was a decent length (roughly twice the modern average, I would guess), had a tolerable (if cliched) storyline, quite a bit of atmosphere and plenty of variety. It was also (despite th

      • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        Id has already said that they're going to shorten the period between games significantly, because their current timeframes aren't sustainable. This is their first game since Doom 3, which means RAGE has had a 7-year development time. They recognize that this is a problem and intend to avoid it in the future.

    • You're overstating it a bit on Rage. It's an OK game with a good FPS engine behind it which was buggy on release but has since been fixed.

      • Buggy on release, but since been fixed.

        Nothing new here, move along.

        This is standard operating practice in the deadline centric software industry.

        • by am 2k ( 217885 )

          If you remove the deadline, you get something like Duke Nukem Forever. A game is never "done", so you have to make a cut somewhere.

          • In order to meet a deadline, you should drop features, not quality.

            I guess this is something that really determines how good the project lead is...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    when the comment says /* ... //FIXME: This is pretty much wrong. won't access data in most situations. ...
    */

    The function in question is idInterpreter::GetRegisterValue in neo/game/script/Script_Interpreter.c

    A lot more FIXMEs in other source files. Fun to read.

    • That's just the nature of big projects like this (and I love reading them!). Most of them are insignificant which some higher up signed off on being not an issue. For that one it looks bad but it's just for debugging which isn't a priority for a shipping game.

      I love the few projects where developers are swearing at each other. Haven't seen any yet in D3 but I'm still looking. I think the HL2 source code had some developers angry at each other in the comments.

  • Anyone going to cook some up?

    I may or may not do it because I personally loath MD5's lack of precalculated normals.

    Quake4 source is obviously not included so no OpenArena4. Probably something coopey and SPey would be in order (OMG A LINUX FIRST?)
  • The Dark Mod! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nbohr1more ( 2039034 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:16PM (#38143162)
    The Dark Mod, a Doom 3 total conversion which turns the game into something similar to the "Thief" series games, will now be able to optimize and fix render, AI, and physics. This is a day for celebration! www.thedarkmod.com http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod [moddb.com]
  • i think. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Truekaiser ( 724672 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:25PM (#38143232)

    considering id is now owned by besthesda, that this is going to be the last release of their engine source as they now have final say. and when was the last time they even acknowledged the existence of linux let alone treat pc gamer's well?

    • Bethesda has treated PC gamers very well with the Fall Out and Elder Scrolls games. Releasing API's to allow fan made mods to their games are one of the reasons I enjoy playing them.

      But like just about everyone else these days, if I get the game day 1 i'll be paying $60 to beta test for them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by X3J11 ( 791922 )

        Bethesda has treated PC gamers very well with the Fall Out and Elder Scrolls games.

        If by "very well" you meant "released buggy games and a few patches that fixed a small percentage of those bugs, and then left it to the community of players to fix everything else" then yes, you are correct.

        For example, there is the Unofficial Oblivion Patch [tesnexus.com]

        This mod is a joint effort to fix the vast amount of bugs currently existing in Oblivion v1.2.0.416, fixing over 2,200 bugs so far!

        For another example, there was the Fallout 3 1.4 patch, issued three months after the previous patch, with folks compla

        • When something crashes on exit, it's usually due to some form of memory leak. Those aren't always trivial to investigate and fix. It's not as brain dead simple as you seem to imply.

        • by am 2k ( 217885 )

          Bethesda has treated PC gamers very well with the Fall Out and Elder Scrolls games.

          If by "very well" you meant "released buggy games and a few patches that fixed a small percentage of those bugs, and then left it to the community of players to fix everything else" then yes, you are correct.

          How is that different to the console versions (minus the option for community patches)? I'm currently playing Skyrim on the PS3, and it has crashed on me three times now, and had multiple visual and AI glitches inbetween, one of them forcing me to reload the last savegame so I'm able to progress in the quest. Console games should NEVER crash, the console makers usually reject games that exhibit this behavior (I wonder what happened there...?).

      • Bethesda has treated PC gamers very well with the Fall Out and Elder Scrolls games

        yes, tying vertical mouse sensitivity (horizontal doesnt change) to FPS timer is an excellent example of that!

    • Sounds more like the opposite. This would be the first engine source release with ZeniMax having the final say.

    • Re:i think. (Score:4, Informative)

      by petman ( 619526 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @10:36PM (#38144202)
      Minor detail: id Software, as well as Bethesda Softworks, is owned by Zenimax Media. In other words, id and Bethesda are sister companies.

      Now please mod me informative.
      • >>Minor detail: id Software, as well as Bethesda Softworks, is owned by Zenimax Media. In other words, id and Bethesda are sister companies.

        Zenimax = Bethesda. Look at the founders of it, then look at the owners of Bethesda. They're the same.

      • Doesn't really mean much when Beth Softworks founded the company. You make it sound like Zenimax came in and bought Beth Softworks which isn't the case. They simply created Zenimax to do all the legal mumbo jumbo and keep Beth Softworks out of the press when they sue people.

    • This is the third code release since the Zenimax acquisition (the first being the DOOM Classic iOS source and the second being the Enemy Territory source).

      Also, just prior to the Zenimax acquisition they released Wolfenstein 3D Classic on iOS, a port which would not be possible (or at least nearly as easy) had it not been for open source. Someone took the Wolfenstein 3D source and the Quake 2 source and combined them to make an OpenGL port of Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack used this for a base. He also used prBoom

  • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @08:30PM (#38143292) Journal
    Recall the Pathways into Darkness mod for D3 based on the old Bungie game from 1993?
    http://rampancy.net/reviews/pathwaysredux [rampancy.net]
    • Hah! I literally just started playing through that incredible gem (the original Pathways, that is) on a 68k Mac emulator. I had wondered if there was a remake, thanks for the insight!
  • Useless (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sigvatr ( 1207234 )
    Doom 3's shadowing technology is what made it stand out at the time. What good is yet another FPS engine being released open source when its distinguishing feature is removed?
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not removed, it's been reimplemented in a slightly more inefficient way to dodge patent issues.

    • What would happen if the offensive code was simply commented out, allowing downloaders to easily add the offending code back in?
      • What would happen if the offensive code was simply commented out, allowing downloaders to easily add the offending code back in?

        The technique is well known, I am sure there will be a patch. Actually, it would be a lot more interesting to shadow mapping added. I would not be surprised at all. Again the techniques are well known.

  • iodoom3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Time Doctor ( 79352 ) <zjs@zacharyjackslater.com> on Wednesday November 23, 2011 @01:04AM (#38145086) Homepage Journal

    If anyone is interested I've created iodoom3 [iodoom3.org] to follow on from the ioquake3 project [ioquake3.org] my team put together.

    Let me know what you'd like to see in a modernized Doom 3 Engine!

  • by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2011 @05:30AM (#38146476) Homepage Journal

    I've not checked out the source yet - but I assume it can be compiled for linux since there was a Doom 3 version.
    This brings me to another question - Are there any commercial games out there also using the same engine that could now be ported to Linux?
    Obviously this would involve some work and use of "legally owned" data files etc.

    This could be really good news for gaming on alternative platforms

    N...

    • The only other games that use this engine that I know of are Quake 4, Prey and ETQW, all of whom have Linux versions available already. Wolfenstein 2008 and Brink use modified versions of the engine with different renderers, so they shouldn't be compatible.

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