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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory Public Source Released 60

Posted by simoniker from the poking-in-the-coding dept.
DeadBugs writes "According to Blue's News: 'The public source code for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is now available from id Software, Activision, and Splash Damage (the developer working on Doom 3's multiplayer content), offering modification authors the resources to create mods for the free multiplayer shooter.' First they release a free game, and now free source code for it - there are download links at Splash Damage's files section."
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Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory Public Source Released More

Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory Public Source Released

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  • First Post, and stuff.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WFFS ( 694717 )
    :p

    This just gets better and better. I ran a networked ET session for high school kids earlier this month, and it was a hit, but having the source just makes it better, as I can now get my students to play with it as well.
    • Ah, I was trying to do exactly this with my classmates in high school. I figured it'd be the perfect game as the "shoot em ups" like UT and Quake were getting tiresome. You can only do one thing, an dthat's never fun.

      ET provides you with missions that actually add some slight strategic play while keeping that "shoot em up" state. I just can't get enough of it, even those first 6 maps I still enjoy, it's always fun when both sides are competing equally.

      While, I never got the chance to finally install ET a

  • I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sirmikester ( 634831 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @11:13AM (#8113311) Homepage Journal
    While I'm all for releasing a game and its source for free, I don't see how a professional game studio can exist without selling anything. Maybe they are trying to prove themselves as a legitimate development house so that they can get paid projects later. Interesting strategy if that's the case, sort of like professional mod makers.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rogueMonkey ( 669464 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @11:18AM (#8113354)
      The way I understand it, they make their money by creating the multiplayer part of ID's games. That is where their money is. Now, giving away the source code to ET will only create great mods, great community feelings and positive publicity.

      The cost? An aging engine. They are working on DOOM 3... Unlikely that they (Splash) will be selling any more games based on the old engine. This is a win(the community)-win(splash for free publicity)-win(splash for possibly finding new talent in the community a la CounterStrike) situation.
      • > giving away the source code to ET
        > will only create great mods

        Indeed... you can find some ROM hacks of ET on AtariAge [ http://www.atariage.com/ ]. But even those can never change the fact that it was one of the most awful games for good old 2600.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @11:57AM (#8113766)
      It is Activision giving the code away. Splashdamage got paid for Enemy Territory because they kept up their part of the contract. They are now working on at least some part of the multiplayer for DOOM 3.

      Background to ET:
      Enemy Territory was originally to be a retail expansion for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, including both singleplayer (by MadDog IIRC) and multiplayer, developed by Splashdamage. Increasing scope of ET led to it later being announced to be a full, standalone retail game. However, there was problems with the singleplayer portion - perceived within the Wolf communities to be due to the singleplayer supporting bot's AI. Left with no working singleplayer, but a working multiplayer, Activision decided to release it, presumably to at least gain some PR (for both Activision and Splashdamage) out of what they would have to pay for regardless.
  • ET is a really good game, lots of fun, great gameplay, nice graphics. Even an OSS zealot like me felt really happy when this came out as a free binary. Now the source, too? This is just fantastic. I eagerly await the amazing mods to come.

    • Re:Wow! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Deraj DeZine ( 726641 )
      Except this is only the source for making mods. The source that most games release shortly after the game is in stores. The game cannot be ported and the engine cannot be used for other projects.

      That headline's misleading and this isn't really news...
      • I would absolutly consider mods as a different project.

        Natural Selection can hardly be called the same project as half life. Or am I wrong here?

  • What I'd really like to see .. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    .. is the source code for the original two Wolfenstein games, though I suppose that they were written in 6502 assembly. (For the kiddies: Castle Wolfenstein is over 20 years old.) I loved those games, but if I could change anything about them I would get rid of 1) the annoying flicker effect when you ran into the walls, which could get you killed/captured very easily and 2) the damn time that it took to open up all of the treasure chests! (Who the hell wants to wait 60 seconds to find a vat of sauerkraut?)

  • Read closely, kids (Score:5, Informative)

    by AndyBusch ( 160585 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @11:16AM (#8113341)
    Ahem, the public source code was released, not the engine code (obviously, but...). This is just for modmakers. Really cool, but the engine's still viable business for id.
    • What makes a public source desireable then? What I mean is what can you do with a public source and what can you do with the engine source, the difference between them. For example since this isn't the engine source does that mean lets say you can't change the way the 3d animation system works? But you can say, add the ability to have a wider range of animations to choose from?
  • Considering the game was released for free, there isn't too much to gain by keeping the source locked up. It also shows the ID thinks the source is past its prime, as they tend to release their older engines when they have been replaced by the next big thing.
  • I only see an windows executable (.exe) file for download on the links. Is the same source code used for Windows and Linux?

  • Wolf Fan say DejaVu (Score:4, Interesting)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @11:49AM (#8113686)
    Ok last time they released the source for the original RTCW, there were a ton of cheaters spawning out of nowhere. Then punkbuster and a million different patches came. It was DLL hell everytime.

    This time, wolf ET is a free game with no finanical backing or any development attention as a matter of fact. Some bored 15 year old is going to create new aimbots and player-kicker scripts using the source.

    As if activision isn't ignoring and neglecting this game enough.

    • Re:Wolf Fan say DejaVu (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @12:02PM (#8113805) Journal
      As the wise Justin Timberlake once sang, "Cry me a river." They totally and 100% gave the game away. No charge. Gratis. If you are unhappy with the product please cease playing the game immediately, uninstall the application, and return it to you point of purchase for a full refund.

      Ungrateful bitch.

      P.S. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory includes punkbuster so if cheating ever becomes a problem, use the methods outlined on Evenbalance.com [evenbalance.com] to report your findings and complain to them. OR since the mod source is out, write your own anti-cheat. Or you know what, keep whining on random internet message boards, I'm sure that might help too and will definitely encourage other companies to give games away.

    • Re:Wolf Fan say DejaVu (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @12:26PM (#8114087)
      Aimbots and wallhacks are made using OpenGL hacks, the source code is not at all necessary, and largely irrelevant. The actual engine code (different to source code, and not released) could be used for some fairly elaborate cheats. Sourcecode however cannot, at least not unless the cheat is installed on the server (in which case you can be amply screwed anyway).

      There has always been very little cheating in RTCW, verging upon nil since Punkbuster took effect. There are however many amazingly skilled players, perhaps you were... a little confused?

      ET however, has had plenty of cheats avilable, mainly aimbots, wallhacks, ESP, cham hacks and suchlike. Free games seem to attract kiddiez, you'll find the same with Americas Army (it's even worse there). According to the cheater forum I frequent to keep track, all of the ET cheats are currently detected by Punkbuster.

      That is, all the widely available ones. Cheaters who keep their hacks private are unlikely to ever be detected unless fingered with the PB screenshot facility.

      Releasing a game for free, then paying for Punkbuster, then releasing an update patch... "As if activision isn't ignoring and neglecting this game enough." Yeah, OK.

      - DG
      www.rtcw.co.uk
      • That is, all the widely available ones. Cheaters who keep their hacks private are unlikely to ever be detected unless fingered with the PB screenshot facility.

        If Half-Life set any example for the cheating community, the cheaters will start (or already have) releasing the source to the cheats, which essentially puts a lot of custom cheats out there. Hopefully PB's adjusted their detection (and screenshot) methods significantly in the last couple of years to make it a lot harder for cheaters to bypass it.
      • I've been playing a good bit of ET with punkbuster and have only seen a couple of times when I was sure someone was cheating. One was pretty funny because there was an axis character who would not die. Another allies player and I stood over him and shot him and shot him. He would fall down, then in a couple seconds he would come back to life as if a medic had revived him. We must have put him down 6-7 times before we just toasted him with grenades...

        On the other hand, I have been on several teams that wer

        • Bah, who would ever play on non-FF servers?

          Anyways, look for servers with the shrub-mod. Usually (unless the admin is a complete idiot) they allow you to push characters with your action button (default 'F'). So, if you are in a choke point right after a spawn you just 'F' a couple times and they are out of the way.
        • I've been playing a good bit of ET with punkbuster and have only seen a couple of times when I was sure someone was cheating. One was pretty funny because there was an axis character who would not die. Another allies player and I stood over him and shot him and shot him. He would fall down, then in a couple seconds he would come back to life as if a medic had revived him. We must have put him down 6-7 times before we just toasted him with grenades...

          It's likely that he was cheating, but not in the way t

          • That's exactly what he was doing. I did see !revive in the chat area a couple of times...

            So I guess he was "legally" cheating... ;-)

            Realistically the best way to say it was that although he wasn't technically cheating, he wasn't playing fairly. Poor sportsmanship. Like spawn-killing. No rule against it, but not socially acceptable...

            • Like spawn-killing. No rule against it, but not socially acceptable... Spawnkilling is socially unacceptable? You have 3 seconds of invulnerability after spawn. If someone's spawncamping you should hunt him down and beat him :) But yeah admins probably shouldn't be doing !revive commands unless everyone knows they're fooling around. There are also a lot of other server-side admin commands for shrub...don't be surprised if you see admins flying around the map when bored :)
      • "Cheaters who keep their hacks private are unlikely to ever be detected unless fingered with the PB screenshot facility."

        I'm suprised no ET/RTCW cheat has done what the most famous HL hack(OGC) does: hook screenshotting, and toggle all hacks off then back on. Its so fast you don't even notice, but its a lot easier on hl as server side is just execing the snapshot command, but I'm sure you could find a way to hook PB's screenshot in addition to the game.
        Also, I'm suprised there arn't any hacks based entirel
    • So, people created OpenGl hacks for Call of Duty with out the source.
    • Do it on lan then? While I don't play ET anymore (Fun game, but gets boring), I know for a fact it doesn't take the sourcecode to cheat. First off, its opengl so any asus wallhack would work, giving you transparent walls. Second off, its quake3 based so writing an aimbot is only as hard as adjusting a few things in one of the many q3 bots. The sourcecode won't change anything.
    • RTCW was the last game I'm ever buying from id/activision, as the CD key never let me connect for multiplayer, and I emailed about it and never got a response.

      Sorry, just wanted to bitch.

  • Now about about some new maps? (Slightly offtopic) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @12:01PM (#8113799)
    There are only 6 official maps and they get boring, very quickly. Why? Close quarters and open areas along with the ability to call in airstrikes/artillery and panzerfausts (for some reason the Allies use them too) means just two or three field ops or soldiers can bottleneck an entire team. Oh and I wouldn't recommend you stand around in your spawn for too long. Most players have figured out exactly where and at what angle to fire mortars into opposing spawn areas. Hopefully we'll see some more mods and maps which steer players away from this kind of spawn killing.
    • There are plenty of servers set to prevent spawnkilling and limit powerful explosives. With the servers I play on, it's been awhile since I've seen things like that. Bottlenecking can still occur, but only when the teams are very uneven.
      • Not really. On maps like Gold Rush, 2 or 3 fieldops on the Axis team can bottleneck the entire Allied team since they have to escort the tank literally less one coordinate away from the Axis spawn. I've seenen airstrikes called in by the Axis which take out 3 or 4 players all at once. Running away from it is not an option due to the tank's slow speed.

        Its the same with other maps. Rail Gun? 2 soldiers can completely stop the tug with a panzerfaust into the tug driving controls. Oasis? Airstrike the old city

        • The servers I regularly play on have heavy weapons usually limited to one of each weapon per team, artie strikes weak enough that it can't realistically kill more than one or two until you have four ranks in it, and not enough planes to support more than two field ops per team.

          However, even when I play on public servers without those limits, that doesn't happen too often.
          On Gold Rush, serious bottlenecking of the Allied doesn't happen (except on the rare occassions when they can't move the tank at all)
    • Oh and I wouldn't recommend you stand around in your spawn for too long. Most players have figured out exactly where and at what angle to fire mortars into opposing spawn areas.
      Did you know that if you press 'G' when you launch a mortar, the map will pop up and a target will appear where the mortar hit? It makes it very easy to pinpoint the enemy spawn.
    • There are only 6 official maps and they get boring, very quickly. Why? Close quarters and open areas along with the ability to call in airstrikes/artillery and panzerfausts (for some reason the Allies use them too) means just two or three field ops or soldiers can bottleneck an entire team. Oh and I wouldn't recommend you stand around in your spawn for too long. Most players have figured out exactly where and at what angle to fire mortars into opposing spawn areas. Hopefully we'll see some more mods and ma

  • The License seems a little restrictive. (Score:5, Informative)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @12:20PM (#8114004) Homepage Journal

    In particular I noticed these prohibited acts...

    section 2 (prohibitions)

    One may not --

    h. reproduce or copy the Software (except as permitted by section 3. hereinbelow);

    i. publicly display the Software;

    j. prepare or develop derivative works based upon the Software;

    you are allowed to distribute the software but
    section 3 which describes permitted uses;

    basically rules out everything except distributing the unaltered code without commercial gain.

    To me, it really doesnt seem worth looking at with these kinds of restrictions. And presumably the mere fact of looking at the code could potentially lead to IP Violations if you were to develop a similar game.

    I'll post the full licese as an AC after this message, but I'd like to here your views / interpretations of the license because it seems rather restrictive to me.

    • This is not the source, and not Open Source (Score:5, Informative)

      by smcv ( 529383 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @01:43PM (#8114842) Homepage
      "Public source" seems to mean the header files to compile against, and the source code for the RTCW:ET-specific bits of the game (i.e. not the engine). This is the same sort of thing as the Half-Life SDK which the original (pre-commercial) Counterstrike was based on.

      (For Debian users: if this was in Debian, it'd be a binary package called something like rtcw-enemyterritory-dev :-)

      As for the licensing (Polyp2000: thanks for posting the text), many game SDKs have restrictive EULA-like licenses (presumably the publishers insist on them) which mean that the majority of distributed mods for those games are likely technically illegal, as are many activities which an average gamer would probably consider perfectly reasonable.

      In this case, among other things, the EULA asserts that you can't back up the SDK to a CD (only to "one (1)" hard disk), and that commercial distribution of a "New Creation" (mod) is not allowed (so magazines which distribute "RTCWstrike", or whatever the next big mod is called, on their cover CDs are potentially in trouble).

      This isn't Free Software, it's not Open Source, and indeed the "non-commercial distribution" stipulation probably means it wouldn't even make it into Debian's non-free section.

  • Finally some good mods for ET (Score:4, Informative)

    by freidog ( 706941 ) on Wednesday January 28, 2004 @01:28PM (#8114714)
    ET is an excpetional game (arguably the best team based shooter around)
    but none of the vitals were scripted in the .pk3 files. Only cosmetic things like sounds and models can be changed.
    The actual game play stuff, rate of fire, damage, splash damage, weapon type and class, objective types, player classes ect were hard coded. Which pretty much prevented us from making and underlying changes to the actual play of the game.
    Hopefully this source will change that.

  • OT:Doom 3 Multiplayer (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Xenolith ( 538304 )
    I remember someone from ID saying that the DOOM 3 multiplayer was going to be peer to peer instead of client/server. Is that still the case? Did I hear that wrong? Thanks
  • ...is all I need for now to be happy :) Getting tired of various workarounds for 32bit OpenGL apps. Btw, I wonder how long it will take for the project to appear on icculus.org when the full sources will be actually released? :)
  • i tried to compile the source on os x. hm.. there is a problem with gcc and some variables. as far as i know et was designed as addon for rtcw. could the code work as mod under rtcw if it compiles on os x?
    • i tried to compile it under os x and linux x86. there are the same errors. did anyone get it to work? sh: line 1: /lib/libc.so.6: No such file or directory Enemy Territory version 2.56 cpu : x86 OS : Darwin libc: configured for debug build, in directory debug-x86-Darwin- CFLAGS: -pipe -fsigned-char -DMISSIONPACK -D_DEBUG -g -Wall -O sh: line 1: gcc-2.95: command not found Ignoring missing script "/Users/mz/WET_Source/src/extractfuncs/Conscript" (script::Build in Construct, line 334) at cons line 749. cons
    • i tried to compile it under os x and linux x86. there are the same errors. did anyone get it to work?

      sh: line 1: /lib/libc.so.6: No such file or directory
      Enemy Territory version 2.56
      cpu : x86
      OS : Darwin
      libc:
      configured for debug build, in directory debug-x86-Darwin-
      CFLAGS: -pipe -fsigned-char -DMISSIONPACK -D_DEBUG -g -Wall -O
      sh: line 1: gcc-2.95: command not found
      Ignoring missing script "/Users/mz/WET_Source/src/extractfuncs/Conscript" (script::Build in Construct, line 334) at cons line 749.
      cons: error in
  • From what I heard, Shrub had the full source to ET(prior to this story). They made some mods here and there, making it into a really fun game. The "push" option to get other players out of your way is very handy. Double jumping has made some maps more interesting(making sniping more fun).

    If it weren't for so many servers running Shrub(and more importantly, new maps), I wouldn't be playing ET for 2 hours every night.

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