Enemy Territory + Cube 2 = wOOt?

by ezombie on 01/19/2008 16:25, 258 messages, last message: 04/03/2008 21:39, 174109 views, last view: 05/19/2024 00:55

I made an actual thread for this, since we are still yacking about it. To bring the others up to speed:

"Some of us weirdos have been kicking around the thought of making a community edition of Enemy Territory (the FIRST one). I suggested the Cube 2 engine might be a good base...

This would be a straight port of ETPro gameplay to a standalone open source game, using new 'HD' assets. Nothing too fancy, just better graphics and netcode are what we would be looking for."

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#1: WHY?

by ezombie on 01/19/2008 16:35

As for why? Well, ET is still the 5th larget online FPS - even after 5 years. We are the CS/BF rejects, who like Quake style gunfights, but with some enforced strategy and teamwork. You even have to manually patch the EXE to play these days, yet it still goes strong.

SD will *not* release an updated installer. The mods (jaymod, etpub, etpro, NQ) are now running the show, but are straining the engine. There are almost a quarter of a million (!) people playing ET at least once a week - even with the week graphics (compared to modern engines like Cube 2) and average netcode.

ET:QW is fine, but the 'feel' is all wrong for most of us (ET numbers didn't even blink when it came out). Plus the specs are just too high for many.

Basically, the thought is to make ET 3.0 - and then have it supported by the community.

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#2: Re: WHY?

by JadeMatrix on 01/19/2008 17:53, refers to #1

Where have you "wierdos" been "kicking this around" anyway? Who else is involved?

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#3: ..

by makkE on 01/19/2008 18:55

No chance the et engine will be fully open-sourced one day? Coz I´d honestly rather wait for that before porting it to a diffrent engine alltogether.

I´d recommend, if at all to use a quake-based engine, because those in the et community who are potential devs will probably be a lot more used to it. Also, if you compare Sauer and Et, there are TONS of basic features missing that a quake-based engine would supply you with in a familiar way..

And furthermore, doesn´t ET still contain traces of the "buggy" line of quake-physics ? If so, you´ll hardly be able to get the same feeling in a "foreign" engine..

OC it would be cool to see such a project on Sauer, but it is extremely unrealistic to succeed (and be better than the original)...

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#4: ..

by RealNitro on 01/19/2008 19:25

I second makkE. ET is based on the Q3 engine, which already is Open Source. So using that to build an Open Source ET would make a lot more sense.

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#5: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix on 01/19/2008 21:35, refers to #3

AFAIK, id/SD made it "open source," but recently it was closed again. I'll check...

OK, Wikipedia says the game logic is available, but not strictly open source. They don't give the license, though.

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#6: Re: ..

by Quin on 01/19/2008 22:56, refers to #5

http://ioquake3.org/

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#7: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix on 01/19/2008 23:03, refers to #6

So W:ET's game logic code was released under GPL?

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#8: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 00:52

Yes, but not any part of the engine.

One could perhaps take the logic, then move it to ioquake3. Of course the original engine is a modified version of a modified version of the quake3 engine. And the logic code is pretty iffy. Looks like they hacked & slashed simply so people could make mods (SDK-in-a-jiffy).

iD & SD hasn't responded yet to using any assets or code for a play-alike. But if they don't, I don't think it will be a huge problem. The main 'stuff' in ET is the souped up netcode, better lighting, and some teamplay logic.

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#9: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 01:25

Hrm, the first suggestion *was* to use ioquake3. And it's still on the top of the list.

I personally wonder what exactly would we gain from using ioquake3. It would be ET with some shaders. That's it. And would the netcode be any better?

I want to play ET, but new ET. New skills to learn, but playing the same game. So having different movement isn't a deal breaker for me. Just as long as it's Quakeish (which Cube2 definitely is - reminds me of Quake2). QW is closer to BF movement then Quake 2. Not sure about the general public. Guess that is why I'm posting.

Easier to map - so there are more of them (who doesn't despise radiant at one point or another), less lag and ping sensitivity. Super smooth, fast play. Decent graphics that will run on low-spec machines. That's my list - what's yours?

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#10: Re: ..

by Quin on 01/20/2008 04:19, refers to #9

You quote about the netcode but seem to forget that it is more prone to cheating. Thick client, thin server. I hope you've taken that into account, as I assume that's why some have suggested iD tech.

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#11: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 04:44

Indeed... of course using ioquake3 (or any derivatives) does not get you any anti cheating support. Then there is the legion of hacks ready to pounce (most licensed engine = most hacked engine?)

My main goal is to ask about how appropriate using the Cube 2 engine for a ET knockoff would be. Good responses so far, thanks!

<sigh> I still haven't found anything with the same quality/FPS quota as Cube 2. Xreal (fanciest Q3 engine) looks very nice, but I only get 30-50fps @ 800x600 with medium detail and tiny maps on the reference system:

2.4Ghz Sempron
1GB DDR RAM
nVidia 6600 (vanilla)

This is about what the average ET user has. Some are higher, some are lower.

Any other suggestions?

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#12: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 06:06

I'm not married to quake. Whatever works is my motto. I have to say that Sauer is WAY faster/smoother then anything else given the graphics level.

Some of the art contributors might guffaw at a non-quake engine, but really it's the results that matter to most people, not the method. If Sauer is easy for the modelers, artists, and mappers to work with - I'm sure no one will nitpick for too long.

We got some strong Lua experience available, so perhaps me embedding an interpreter with full bindings into Sauer might get some 'feasibility trials' up and running. If you guys can use that as well, I'd be happy to contribute.

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#13: ..

by Julius on 01/20/2008 15:27

Cube2 already has a strong scripting language :cubescript. Wouldn't make sense to implement lua into it.

About the general idea. It would be possible to create a game *like* ET with the cube2 engine, bu it would be a lot(!) of work and the die hard fans of ET would probably not like it since it would not 'feel' exactly the same.

But yeah go ahead and do it (yourself!).

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#14: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 16:43

LOL - thanks for the vote of confidence. I like your healthy skepticism. I'm just casting around, doing some research on the idea right now.

And that begs a question. If one 'refactored' the player physics from one of the ET mods (let's say ETPro), could not one express them in the Cube 2 engine?

Or would it be easier to just mimic that part of it by gradually tweaking the existing code?

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#15: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 19:32

Sweet.

I have a game physics student available. I will have him to look at the sources (Sauer & ET mods) and tell me what he thinks.

Looks like assets will be the biggest hurdle (aren't they always?). I'll put the word out and see what's out there.

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#16: Dynamic lights?

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 22:30

Quick question... does Sauer have simple dynamic lights? (glow is all we would need)

Also, any particles/smoke? I'm thinking about the flamethower, arty, and smoke canister.

If not, I suppose we could do without for awhile.

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#17: ..

by ezombie on 01/20/2008 22:39

Ooops!

...duuuuuh

<bad monkey, bad bad monkey!>

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#18: Map editor.

by jsfdlconorhjfd on 01/21/2008 00:16

I am %80 sure that he wants to use this engine because of the easy to use map editor.

In that case, you can make a map in sauerbraten, then export the geometry only to the OBJ format, which could be converted i suppose.

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#19: ..

by ezombie on 01/21/2008 00:57

Actually, my push for using Cube 2 is 10% easy map creation, and 10% easy asset creation (just imported some stuff from various sources as a test, then whipped up a few textures and played with the world and object bumpmapping). Model import in RTCW/ET starts at difficult then quickly worsens.

Then 60% is speed, speed, speed - then some more speed. Nothing with the same/better visual appeal runs as fast on older hardware. ET comes close, but no kickin' shaders or other advanced stuff. And it's still slower.

The last 20% would be clean code. ET SDK is a spaghetti. You get nightmares about it after awhile.

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#20: ..

by Temp user on 01/21/2008 16:37

I would suggest darkplaces as the engine, nexuiz uses it, and in the upcoming release 2.4 you will see that it looks REALY great, and the netcode is very good too (and gets better with every release).
So, darkplaces is based on quake 1, but with a huge list of new features, most important, it looks better that quake3 (and ioquake of course). Its open source, which is quite important i think, and well, its under active developement, which means, you will get all the time new features, and you can expand your game over the years as new features get available.

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