website/sotc/2000/0518

<H2>"Standards are great ... uh, we don't have to follow them do we?"</H2>
	<P>I must say I am a bit peeved.  Some of the mod projects out there
	are doing a number of things to the engine source, which they intend
	to be completely incompatible with anything anyone else is doing
	with the engines.  So far as I understand, these projects are
	planning to <STRONG>SELL</STRONG> their mods, which is their
	justification.

	<P>If you're one of these people and you're reading this, let me be
	quite frank with you:
	<OL>
		<LI><STRONG>NOBODY</STRONG> is going to buy a Quake1 engine
		today.  If you can produce a solid game for the engine, one
		which does not use Id Software's original game data or
		trademarks in any way (which some of you are not bothering
		to do), then maybe you might possibly have a chance.  But
		making your own engine which completely violates standards
		just so it's different and other people have to use yours is
		frankly stupid of you.
		<BR>&nbsp;

		<LI>Without exception, every single project doing this is
		targetting win32 (ONLY!) with Linux a mere afterthough, if
		even that.  This is no big deal if your engine follows
		established standards.  Since the standards group is open to
		anyone working on an engine to contribute ideas and working
		code, you have no excuse to not even try to be involved with
		them.  There are a lot of people out there using a lot of
		other operating systems.  We won't be playing your game if
		it doesn't run on our OS.  And we'll be telling people who
		run win32 exactly why we can't and they shouldn't either.
		<BR>&nbsp;

		<LI>Some of you have even been talking about finding ways to
		keep from releasing your source code in order to keep other
		engines from being able to play your mod.  If you release an
		engine which has no source code and turn down requests for
		that source, you are violating Id Software's license on
		Quake - the GNU General Public License - and they
		<STRONG>WILL</STRONG> sue you to defend their Copyright.
		<BR>&nbsp;

		<LI>When John Carmack released the Quake source code, he
		asked primarily for one thing:  Keep compatibility and share
		your work (on the engine at least) for the benefit of all.
		Far too many of you have said you are looking for ways to
		"get around" those limits so you can more easilym have
		somerhing you can make a profit on.  If you have to try and
		circumvent Id's license or John's requests so you can turn
		around and sell it, then you don't deserve a profit.  Talk
		about biting the hand that feeds you.  Those of you doing
		this just suck, period.
		<BR>&nbsp;
	</OL>

	<P>I realize the above does not apply to a lot of engines out there,
	and if it doesn't that's good!  The above comments are not directed
	at you anyway.  I also am perfectly aware that the mods doing some
	of the above things are not doing all of them.  If you're doing any
	of them though, it's a bad thing and you really should stop and
	think about what you're doing real hard.

	<P>Am I against selling stuff based on the Quake source?  Not at
	all, I think it's cool if someone produces a game worth selling.
	Half Life, after all, is based on the Quake1 engine and look at it
	today.  It has a few features that are <STRONG>BETTER THAN</STRONG>
	features found in Quake3, and people are still buying it today.

	<P>But what I do have a problem with is trying to keep secrets in
	the engine.  As I said, a lot of you are targetting Win32 (why not,
	it's a big market after all..)  That is FINE as long as you're not
	trying to keep other engines from being able to play your mod under
	Linux or a Mac or who knows what else.  There's nothing you can add
	to the engine that someone else couldn't add to another engine.
	Trying to keep it all a secret and ignoring the standards groups is
	just a good way to make things incompatible.  The problem is some of
	you believe that will lead you to more profits.  You're wrong.  Dead
	wrong.

	<P>Most players do not want to have 5-6 Quake engines laying around
	on their drives, even if they do play 5-6 Quake games.  Speaking
	from my own engine's perspective, this is one of the biggest reasons
	why QuakeForge uses "base" now by default for its game directory
	rather than "id1".  All you will have to do is pass on the command
	line a simple <TT>+set fs_gamebase id1</TT> and you'll be able to
	play the original game.  Simple right?

	<P>Well no, the problem is that it's not so simple and I know it.
	That's why you want your own engine.  But I can write a win32 batch
	file to do that in QuakeForge real fast.  I could put Nehahra's
	files in "nehahra" right next to id1 and pretty easily write a
	script or batch file that would start up that mod for me, no problem
	at all.  You're not giving us that opportunity.  And you want us to
	pay for the privelege of helping you do exactly what John Carmack
	asked engine developers not to do?

	<P>If this message has managed to convince some of you that what
	you're doing is a bad idea, please contact me and I'll try to help
	get you in contact with the QSG people.  Suggest your ideas and
	engine enhancements to the QSG list and we can talk about how best
	to make it work.  Not just for our engines, but for your engine as
	well.  A few really good ideas have become even better as a result
	of the group hashing over them and finding the best way to make it
	happen.  The standards group isn't about limits, it's about
	enhancing the engines in ways that don't step on other people's
	toes and giving us all a chance to support the same things.