[quake3] Re: non-cheatable game

[monk at rq3.com]

> Hello,
>
> Someone had mentioned in an earlier reply that this list wasn't related to
> ioquake3 so this threw me off a bit.
>
> But since I now see that it is about ioquake3, I'd like to know what
> development is actually taking place?
>
> Thanks,
> Chris

Well, looking at: http://ioquake3.org/

Since December, a reminder of Thilo's existing MDR/MD4 patch and how to
enable it.  And a patch for cell shading.  A link to some MD3 playermodels
from polycount.  And 2 mods went standalone using ioq3 as a base.  Amusing
that under the cell shading patch's "reason for denial" it has
"Cel-shading is perfect for authors to add to their own games using this
patch."  Um... that's a hell of a justification to keep it out of the main
source!  Heheheh.

1.34 has been pending as beta for the last 6 months.  Dunno if there are
any specific areas it needs testing in or what.  I do know I need to get
off my butt and figure out how to enter a bug on the OS X behavior of
config files after I properly document it.

1.35+ looks like mainly code cleanup with only one usability enhancement,
the OS X mod loader.  From what I can tell, IPv6 support is mostly done? 
But not included yet for some reason and is mostly a nerd-pleasing patch. 
Game of the future, supporting IPv6 but 8-year-old animation/model
formats.  hrm.

2.0 has what I could consider to be an EXCELLENT feature if someone were
to bother to port it back to the Dreamcast.  4-player split screen. 
That's an excellent console-centric feature to have and I can't for the
life of me see it of being much use on a desktop computer.  4 mice?  4
gamepads (plausible)?  Maybe as an enticement for using ioq3 as a base for
XBox Live development, but what are the odds that MS would go through the
hassle of having a separate download for the GPL-required source?  And how
hard would it be to port it to XBox's environment?  XNA required, or
something else?


Looking at the mailing list...

Since December, 6 months of being on the list:

172 emails

40 related to the recent cheating/GPL topic
27 related to toggleconsole and international keyboard support
24 related to a request for a full-featured demo playback function/player
22 related to how to compile/make ioq3 (mainly mac questions) or porting
to another language (python, c++)
7 related to me trying to drum up interest in additional model support
7 related to server passwords stored in cl_consoleHistory
5 related to Irix
5 related to TAB completion
4 related to Carmack talking about ASM
22 related to misc, i.e. removing "impotent code"?, FYI on ioq3 on Vista,
bugs (related to bots and mapcycles), freetype support, "advanced admin
authentication", measuring frame rate, ioq3 not working with a demos
option, invisible players being shown by award icon over their heads, etc.


40 emails amounted to pretty much, "stop spamming the list".
27 emails amounted to tjw finally committing a patch after people going
back and forth about the ergonomics of even allowing a console.
24 emails amounted to pretty much, "yeah better demo manipulation would be
neat; someone should do it someday."  Freezetag bloke thought he had some
mostly-done code but he had lost the good bits he wanted to share.
22 emails about compiling, heck, put up a "how to compile ioq3 for mac"
bit in ioq3's website's FAQ and half those mails would probably disappear.
 Or, the responses would be "rtfm" perhaps.
7 emails re: model support was basically, thilo's stuff should be good
enough for mod/game authors, there's no interest in broadening support, do
it yourself if you care enough.  Valid point, nothing wrong with thilo's
work, just the wrong solution to the problem posed.
7 emails amounted to tim implementing the proposed changes in regards to
storing passwords in cl_commandHistory, though under dissention.  I guess
programmer mindset versus real-world usage and usability was the conflict
but feature/bug was addressed.
5 emails about the bloke working on getting an Irix compile, yay!
5 emails about a code question re: editing the tab completion in console.
4 emails about Carmack, an FYI
22 emails about randoms stuff, some FYI, some valid concerns, some not so
much.


I hope that answers your question about what development is actually
taking place?  Honestly, I think some momentum has been lost.  I mean,
it's not as if some of the main contributors don't already have their
hands full ( http://ioquake3.org/?page=games ) with their own projects.


I've harped on it before, but "Our permanent goal is to create the open
source Quake 3 distribution upon which people base their games and
projects."  It's kind of a willy-nilly effort and it HAS produced a very
solid game base.  But that seems kind of like where it's stagnated.  I
think the finished standalones are either using existing content (Star
Trek models from EF, not newly-generated, UrT seems to have rolled their
own model system from way back) or are using basic MD3s (Tremulous and
Padman?).

What ioq3 does seem to have done is provide a good base for other projects
to actually extend Q3 into a better modern platform.  Yes, I know many
people dismiss this as fly-by-night fluff, but XreaL (
http://xreal.sourceforge.net/xrealwiki/CodeChanges ) and Evolution (
http://evolution.quakedev.com/screens.php ) at least are trying to update
support for the latest and greatest.  I mean, Doom 3-class graphics (
http://xreal.sourceforge.net/xrealwiki/ScreenShots ) (
http://evolution.quakedev.com/revolution/screens/shot0002.jpg ) in a free,
open engine that many people have experience with?  Yes, please!

We ( www.rq3.com ) had been looking at ioq3 as a base for a standalone for
quite some time.  Nothing really wrong with it.  However, lately some of
our content creators have been more interested in what they could do with
the "fluff" of XreaL and Evolution.  Yes, total conversions like Padman (
http://padworld.myexp.de/index.php?media&gallery=action ) and Tremulous (
http://tremulous.net/screenshots/ ) look pretty good.  But they also look
like Quake 3.  My content creators point to XreaL screenshots and say, "we
want to do THAT."  They could just as easily point to Doom 3 or UT2K4 and
say the same thing.  It's not just about enticing and pleasing the
programmers when making a solid development platform, it's also about the
users and content creators.

As someone trying to continue work on a mod/game, it's hard enough to
retain content creators working for 4+ years on something for the payment
of "nothing".  It's even harder when there's nothing really new for them
to do.  They are stuck with the same technology and abilities from Quake
3, 7 years ago (give or take; I didn't bother looking it up).  For a while
it was ok.  I think our mod was the first to release something that took
advantage of ydnar's "new" (at the time) lightmap blending support in
q3map2.  And it looked great.  But for a while now, measured in years,
people have had the ability to manipulate skeletal-based models and
animation in-engine.  And have had good support through the entire content
creation toolchain for other game engines.

I may find people who are proficient in Lightwave or Maya or 3DMax.  Or
even someone willing to give their existing content created for another
game, say Half Life or Unreal Tournament 2004.  But there's no real good
way to integrate that stuff with an ioq3-based project.  The entire
content creation pipeline becomes a kludge.

I honestly think ioq3 is really good enough at being a solid base.  But
there's no desire or motivation for anyone to try and extend it into being
a solid MODERN base.  With all the programming talent involved in this
project, it would be great if ioq3 were extended with a graceful fallback
depending on hardware.  Have the traditional Q3 renderer for old, slow
computers.  But hey, got one made in the last 5 years?  Why, enable
bumpmapping and dynamic-light everything.  Instead to get something like
that, one would have to look at another project that is going that way but
might not be as portable or as clean.  A tradeoff, I suppose.

And then there's always the opensource response of, "if you care that much
about it, do it yourself."  True.  But a rather sad and ignorant response
with a project that claims, "Our permanent goal is to create the open
source Quake 3 distribution upon which people base their games and
projects."

I guess it's a success.  I mean, you got 5 games there.  6 if you count
another I know about (though not sure if they use ioq3 or a real Q3
license).  But it's boring and seemingly stagnate.  It's a project for
coders, not for users.  Enhancements that non-programmers would care about
seem to be shot down, ignored, or only grudgingly accepted.  It's
interesting and solid from a programming standpoint, but not necessarily
for any new cutting edge projects.

Well, sorry I went off on a rant.  It's probably something y'all have
heard other people whine about before and I would assume those who didn't
just trash the email after the first few lines skimmed and dismissed or
are already preparing the scathing replies.  ;)

I'll slink back into my hole now.

Monk.