Announcing: Quake2Live.Net

[quadz]

Well, aren't they using the shareware version of the game for this project? Or does that not make a difference?

To my knowledge there was no Q2 shareware release.  There was the Q2 demo, which only contains three maps: demo1.bsp, demo2.bsp, and demo3.bsp.  These are essentially the base1, base2, base3 maps with some slight differences.

The key question, as I understand it, is how do you get any copyrighted Q2 game data installed onto the user's machine?  The only sure way I know of is to have the user run the actual id Software Q2 demo installer and Q2 3.20 point release installer .exe's.


But again, I Am Not A Lawyer...

[peewee_RotA]

Well, aren't they using the shareware version of the game for this project? Or does that not make a difference?

To my knowledge there was no Q2 shareware release.  There was the Q2 demo, which only contains three maps: demo1.bsp, demo2.bsp, and demo3.bsp.  These are essentially the base1, base2, base3 maps with some slight differences.

The key question, as I understand it, is how do you get any copyrighted Q2 game data installed onto the user's machine?  The only sure way I know of is to have the user run the actual id Software Q2 demo installer and Q2 3.20 point release installer .exe's.


But again, I Am Not A Lawyer...

There's a post on the q2live forums (here)that blew all of my previous posts out of the water. I was treating the demo as if it were shareware in all of my posts previous to this one. Basically the license that comes with the demo doesn't allow a demo user to play custom content. In order to see custom content you are supposed to buy the full version.

However there is one option available. That's to replace all content in a new distribution with a brand new build of the client, and not include any original maps. Not even q2dm1-8. You'd have to run any "official" quake2live servers without the original maps. That way a user MAY choose to join server containing content they didn't buy and take it on themselves to do something illegal. That's basically the attitude that zdaemon has. They give you a game that just so happens to load doom wads. If you choose to get an illegal copy of doom.wad or doom2.wad then that is your own responsibility.

From my understanding there are enough custom paks, high res textures, high res models, and attempts to recreate the assets that we could put one together with these existing projects. The one thing that does throw me for a loop is the sounds. I know that a large number of the sounds used in quake 2 were free license sound effects when id used them. I've come accross a few of them by chance and had a good laugh with paril. I guess if all else fails we could use Mouth Quake2... LOL



To jump back to your question Quadz, yes I remember back when you could not download things from paks. It played hell for players connecting to a server running a mod that was packaged using a .pak. I'm fairly certain that is the reason why it was changed by whoever changed it. It was not uncommon for a server side package to be a directory tree instead of a pak or for a server admin to have to extract files for any new clients. I'd say that the occasional person downloading an SP map is a fair trade off to the unfriendly nature of people not being able to download mod data from a server in those cases.

[[BTF]adam]

Probably a dumb question but why don't yall just contact Mr Carmack and ask him nicely if you get use DA SHIT for DA PROJECT.

[Whirlingdervish]

well, DA Carmack now works for DA Zenimax, who prolly now holds DA liscence, whose child companies rarely release DA source code, much less DA assets.

 

[QwazyWabbit]

da source is GPL. Da content (graphix, sounds, environment) is copyright idSoftware. You can distribute da code, you can modify da code but you can't make money from it widout a license from idSoftware or whoever owns the content now. Carmack doesn't own the rights, idSoftware does and that's more than just John Carmack. You cannot distribute da content, anyone playing online is supposed to have da original game CD. The point that quadz was making is that installing da demo and then installing the 3.20 full update makes a full content game, direct from idSoftware.

idSoftware distributed da GPL source in da 3.21 release but reserved the rights to da content. Their generosity with the source code was a major factor in Q2's longevity online. Any for-profit venture using content or code from the game needs a license from idSoftware or it's assigns. They way I read it any non-profit, GPL'd use of the code is free, however you may not distribute the copyrighted content as part of your operation, the users must get it from idSoftware.

[[BTF]adam]

Da brain has understood da predicament. Da wonders what you will do about this pickle now, for da quake 2 live is bound to be da bad without da q2dm1-8.

[peewee_RotA]

Da brain has understood da predicament. Da wonders what you will do about this pickle now, for da quake 2 live is bound to be da bad without da q2dm1-8.

Oh a client can connect to any existing quake 2 server that they want and can take it upon themselves to download it from a server or install it themselves. Basically the discussion in the q2l forums is that if you already have the game installed then you can point to that path. Otherwise there will be a quickstarter style package containing only custom content.

[[BTF]Jehar]

And really, I don't mind the installer pointing to a legit download purchase of q2 as you're installing. I just wish steam wasn't the big dlc provider right now. :\

[sfranzyshen]

Quake2Live has been updated to version 0.2. This is the initial release of the client side application (game server browser and game launcher)

[peewee_RotA]

So awesome, checking it out now 

[sfranzyshen]

Quake2Live has been updated to version 0.3.