Id Tech 4 Source Code Released

I didn’t want to make any predictions on when the Doom 3 source code would be released – because I somehow knew it would be sooner than I thought.

The deed was done on the evening of Tuesday, November 22 and was widely reported yesterday on several gaming  and technology blogs – after several years of waiting. News and speculation surrounding the release of the id Tech 4 source code began as far back as 2007.

As I’ve been reading online, we can expect to see graphical overhauls for Doom 3, mods being turned in to standalone games, and even entirely new games being developed – although only for non-commercial purposes. Sounds exciting to say the least.

The id Tech 4 engine is far from being completely obsolete. Titles such as Wolfenstein used it as recently as 2009, and the upcoming Prey 2 uses the engine, much like its prequel, released in 2006.

One wonders what will become of The Dark Mod in the future.

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Source: Joystiq

TDM Comments on id Tech 4 Source Code

Over on Twitter, the TDM team thanked John Carmack of id Software for his dedication to releasing the id Tech 4 or Doom 3 engine source code.

“The Dark Mod thanks you for your dedication getting (sic) the D3 source code in to mod teams (sic) hands. Knowledge should be shared!”

As you may know, The Dark Mod is a thief-inspired mod for Doom 3 and so naturally uses the same engine. There has been talk in the past about the TDM team focusing on working on TDM as a standalone game at some point in the future, with all the complications that would involve having been discussed at length in the forum. The TC wouldn’t need Doom 3 to run, and therefore the space requirements needed on one’s HDD would drop. The limits with building upon Doom 3 as of right now would very likely be lifted, and the possibilities would become nearly endless as to what could be achieved within the modding community with this near 10-year-old engine.

If one looks at what the guys in the Duke Nukem community have done with the Build engine, which is over 15 years old, then one can only imagine…

It was believed for a long time that the id Tech 4 engine would be made open source after the release of Rage (which utilises id Tech 5). And true to his word, Carmack said after Rage was released, in October this year, that they just had some final legal issues to work out before the source code was released – but reassured the masses that it would happen.

This month it was reported that Carmack is working on replacing some code inside the engine seeing as there was some work borrowed from another company used for free when the game was released. Now that it’s due to be re-released, that code needs to be taken out to avoid any legal woes, it seems
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Resources:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/numb-thumbs-blog/2099819/id-software-release-doom-source-code
http://www.linuxgames.com/archives/9374
https://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack/statuses/136614459887202305

TDM FM Updates: Business as Usual and The Siege Shop

I was over at ModDB the other day, and saw that there are some updates for a couple of great mods for The Dark Mod. First off, as the title suggests, “The Siege Shop” by PranQster has been updated to version 1.2. The Siege Shop is one of the latest FMs released for TDM – it was uploaded back in about June this year. And if you haven’t played it yet – you should. It boasts originality that will wow you.

The other FM is “Business as Usual” by Bikerdude. This is quite an old FM that’s easily over a year and a half old now. It was also BD’s first mission for TDM, released under the Grand Christmas Contest (GCC) of 2009. It’s not that big of a mission, but it has plenty to explore. And playing it, you’ll probably get a Thief: Deadly Shadows feel – but TDS done right, that is. BAU has been updated to version 2.0.

So you can download the new versions of these FMs from the TDM forums (look under ‘Fan Missions’, taffer). There should be threads with the titles of these missions right in plain view. I’d link to them, but what sort of a thief are you if can’t find them for yourself, anyway? You’ll have to uninstall any existing versions of these FMs you have in your Doom 3 directory. Just delete the folders with the names of these mods (careful to select the right ones). Then you can just copy and past the new pk4 files into the FMs folder inside the doom3/darkmod directory. Easy.

This should tide you over, perhaps until we start to see the new entrants in the Halloween contest ‘2011. By the way, Bikerdude was announced as the winner of the Spring Seasons Contest, for his entry, “Alberic’s Curse”. It’s not too shabby. He beat out Jesps with “Rake-Off”, Fieldmedic with “Reap As You Sow”, and the absolutely dismal “Winter Harvest” by Shadowhide.