[MUD-Dev] Quake II has gone GPL

[Frank Crowell]

From: "Chris Jacobson" <chris at mainecoon.net>
> On 1/7/02 5:51 PM, Frank Crowell (frankc at maddog.com) stated:

>> Right now QII is the closest thing to a freely available, heavily
>> documented, community supported MM-whatevertherestofthisis core
>> candidate.  The closest one on the engine side, is Crystalspace.
>> Don't ask about virtual worlds, they have all turned into secret
>> govenment research projects I think.

> Unless you've seen the source.

> I've done a professional port of a Q2 engine game (the company I
> work for did Quake 2 for the Mac, and I did SiN for the Mac).

> It would take a lot of work to make it support a boatload of
> players and have seperate areas - that is just not how the engine
> was written to work.

Didn't say it was the perfect candidate.  But network support aside,
there are some plus to working with QII over almost anything else
that is available:

  -its not vaporware (the product really exists and your can do
  something with for more that two minutes)

  -it has a moderately okay license

  -graphics engine is decent and people are already working on
  bells-and-whistles for it

  -has a well-know level and model format and you don't need 3D
  Studio Max 4 to work with it

  -also has real development and building tools

  -has a method for animating bots, mobs, and objects

  -can actually allow more than one person in the same space

  -has sites with tutorial and user contributed material

  -has a documented network protocol and primitative methods for
  creating Quake movies

Actually the place that tipped me off about QII was the machinima
site. I was interested in seeing if Monolith had actually produced
that machinima editor or if it was just another piece of
vaporware. QII has great story-telling, virtual cinema potential.
Plus, something like Quake could be a great lab for those that want
to work on bots or NPCs.  You can put your best pathing theories to
work, it's just a matter of doing the pathing code rather than:

  main(){
  //put my whole MMORPG here
  };

Of course I am also one of the last hold outs for external bots, and
Quake 1 has an interesting one called FrikBot.  Since someone is
already working on the QII/QI integration, it's very like that
Frikbot will be running on Quake II soon.  And as a result of
looking at FrikBot I was also introduced to waypoints -- an editable
system of points and links for mob pathing.  Maybe waypoints are not
the most ideal for pathing, but it sure beats having a mob just
stand there cause there is no pathing, or pathing in very limited
ways.  I don't have enough experience with waypoints to get feel of
how good they are.  After all, where does a person find a registered
copy of Quake 1?

Even with some obvious limitations, I still put
Quake/Half-life/Unreal out front as the technology leaders for an
open virtual world.  When the time comes to proliferate thousands,
maybe millions of virtual worlds it won't be done with Blaxxun
servers and clients, it will be some mutant form of
Quake/Half-life/Unreal.

frank





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