Greetings!

I'm recruiting volunteers to create an Open Source Quake1 (single & multi-play) alternative. Here are the main bullet points:

*Full Replacement Content
* Male & Female player models (no pornographic models please)
*The original Hammer
* A new full Single-Player Episode (8 levels)
* 10 new Multi-player levels
* An End-Boss for every episode (4 new bosses)
* Play as monster (single & multiplay)

Go to www.IconicIdea.com to register for the project, the site has forums and chat. There are still items being debated, such as the engine that will be used. Feel free to add input, or opinions. No one will be turned away who genuinely wants to be a part of this.

This project will have complete replacement content except for the original Quake levels which have been released to GPL. There can be NO derivative works of the original content. This means you cannot use the previous models, sounds, textures, animation, or AI as a template - we have to create our own. If you add copyrighted or derivative works, it will be deleted. This is an Open Source Project and as such needs to be free of such things.

We want the Hammer created as originally advertised by Id Software. The earliest information releases described "Quake" as a Thor-like character wielding a giant hammer, who knocks away enemies by throwing the hammer -complete with real-time inverse kinematics. This shouldn't be confused with the hammer that was provided in Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon. We want a full blown "Thor-Hammer" that can be thrown - and returns to you. This weapon should be effective but not Godly, it cannot return "clipping" through a walls, if it hits a wall the player must retrieve it.

The original levels will, of course, be used (as they've been released to GPL) - We'd like to have a completely new episode (8 levels) built into Single-Play (Aztec style?) and 10 new levels for Multiplay.

We want 4 (Single-Play) "Bosses" created, one for each episode (except the 1rst which already has a boss) with the difficulty increasing incrementally when facing each Boss.

Options to play as a Monster in single play and multiplay. For instance, the option to play a fiend, that can pick up armor, but no weapons, or an ogre that picks up armor and grenades but nothing else - etc. Or even muliplayer games pitting factions of monsters against the others. 

Let me ask the usual "why would this not fail" questions:

What will you do?

What is your game dev background?

Why will this attempt not fail?

What engine do you use?

The name is arbitrary and there is some free software project with the name already. 

@spirit, I think you will have to go to the specific forums to get the answers you want.

The start of the project has been discussed at QuakeOne over the last couple of weeks if you are curious to know more of the origin. 

Here you go Spirit.

What will you do?
I'm the one who got the project announced and will keep it together. Solve disputes, find talent, communicate with everyone, and keep everyone on course. Added to that, anything tedious, monotonous, and difficult thing on the project that the more specialized people don't have time for.

What is your game dev background?
I don't have any, I'm studying programming - I'm not "there" yet when it comes to developing - but I can get people together, and still make something. I motivate others.

Why will this attempt not fail?
That's.... not even logical. Any attempt can fail. "Attempts" fail because people fail to work together and communicate.

What engine do you use?
That's currently up for debate, if you want to be involved - or at the least put in your 2 cents, register at www.iconicidea.com and start talking.

The name is arbitrary and there is some free software project with the name already.

The name is not trademarked as far as I'm aware. Additionally, it's a 'filler' name. It's just something to get the project going.

Peace 

Usually these kind of projects seem to be a reoccuring theme withing the multiplayer communities, discussed or initiated in the deluded notion that there's a thousand potential new players around the corner just waiting for a free alternative to use (which isn't going to happen). It's a fairly egoistical thing at that, because rather than making a proper game for new players to experience and enjoy an FPS classic, it's actually all about the creators/multiplayers own benefit, yielding to new online opponents - nothing changes for them as they own the original game; yet the new players may well have to make do with a sloppy and barebone version which likely doesn't live up to the original in the slightest. This opinion is based on the countless examples of replacement content that has appeared over the years, much of which is either terrible in terms of looks or technical quality, or has a questionable legal/licensing status.
The original game can be easily obtained from various sources, either buying it in online stores (imo often overpriced, though) or downloading elsewhere.

Now, this project sounds a little different insofar as it's supposed to include single player mode and furthermore aims at recreating everything from scratch as opposed to a GPL collection based on Quake and its IP.
But I don't see the point. I guess it's okay as a creative endeavor, if people get together and enjoy making something new in a team. However, it can't replace the original Quake. Ever. Simply because it's a new game from scratch, with new models, sounds, textures - the very things that make the game what it is and create the atmosphere and style that everyone appreciates. An open source remake would be a game that may work like Quake, but it won't be Quake. Look at FreeDOOM for reference. It's a free Doom clone; you can even play many custom maps with it. But it's not Doom. I'd rather not play at all than use that to load any levels.

Apart from all that, creating all-new content is a huge undertaking that one must not underestimate. It requires a lot of time and skill to pull it off in a proper fashion. All new stuff has to be of a consistent quality and theme, not just a hodgepodge of free material from various sources. We're talking about dozens of sounds and models, and at least 500 individual textures. These things MAKE the game for the most part. It's even more difficult without a dedicated team, and currently I don't see the potential and determination anywhere around the Quake communities. Add to that the old "new guy has an idea, wants others to do most of the work" effect Spirit mentioned above and the project becomes even less likely to become reality. It sounds harsh, but this kind of thing has happened time and again throughout modding history and it showed it's not a good foundation for a project.

If anything, you should aim lower for a start. Try to make a completely free version of a single level, or theme (e.g. the base maps), and continue from there. If there is something to look at, a proof of concept, it should be less difficult to attract more supporters. As it stands, I don't see much hope for this beyond what's already been done elsewhere, sorry.

Btw. as a matter of fact, something like this has been attempted before with OpenQuartz. Didn't turn out so well. 

@negke: As far as i unterstood it, OpenQuartz was rather meant as barebone for development, than something to be played by istself.
Might still be wrong though.

But i agree in the rest of your post.
If a team wants to spent so much energy for creating new content, this energy would be more wisely used for a fresh concept, something surprising maybe even.
Maybe it's the fear of failing with something original, why some people stick with thinking of such "remakes". 

the immediate problem with that is that you will be compared to the original, and "failure" to meet all the different expectations and being faithful to the ad many different interpretations will be much more likely. 

"What is your game dev background?

I don't have any, I'm studying programming - I'm not "there" yet when it comes to developing - but I can get people together, and still make something. I motivate others."

This is going places. 

these open source remake things suck. If what you're remaking Quake into is a close reinterpretation of the original, then you're on shaky copyright ground anyway, and even if it turns out well, you might not be able to distribute it.

More likely it doesn't turn out well though, because the process of getting a whole set of game content together is a huge one, and you'll compromise and make do with anything that vaguely approximates Quake, and end up with an incoherent brown sludge of a game.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't be working on game projects though. You need an original idea that you're passionate about. Nothing that's ambitious beyond your means either. Use your organisational skills and programming skills to put together a modest prototype of your game, just a level or two which is unique or fun, or even both. If you have a small, FINISHED, high-quality slice of your game, it'll be easy to recruit more hobbyists to help you expand your scope. 

but why not just make a new game in the spirit of Quake?

Quake exists already. There are many different mods, engine ports, compile tools and editors. The gameplay is known and many people loved or still love it. Why try and copy something people can already play just to be open source? The Quake source is already open anyway, just not the assets, but I suspect most people wanting to do things with Quake only want to touch the code or make new content for it. Why not make a new game that attempts to capture the essence of what you most love about the game?

Is it really that much extra work to just make something new? 

i tried doing that. collision detection killed it. :P 

Necros can you elaborate? You mean you were writing your own collision detection and it was a ballache? 

 

lol, yeah, i never learned much about the types of maths involved with collision detection (planes basically) so it was a lot of googling.

I did eventually get collision detection working for like 80% of cases, but there were certain edge cases that were still messing up.

And then I realized I was just going to make Quake and that I already had that game... :) 

If you ever fancy taking it up again, buy "Real-time Collision Detection" by Ericson. It's a really good comprehensive book on the matter, and it got me up and running pretty quickly.

(Then after about 18 months I mothballed all my work and just bought the Unity engine lol) 

That's always been my experience. Works in most cases, fucks up constantly in edge cases.

I've always thought that Quake's solution with the point moving through the expanded hulls was downright brilliant. What a clever way to avoid most of the hassles. 

haha, I shall add that book to my list Kinn, but I'm starting to get a serious backlog of books I need to read. ^_^

Willem: Yeah, definitely it is a good method of doing it, but I was trying to do an engine that wouldn't really require any compiling and would just run off meshes so I was trying to implement the separating axis theorem method on bounding boxes and tris of a collision mesh. 

what were you making? Did Unity hold up? i've dabbled with it and it seemed decent, though a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. 

Sorry missed your question:

I'm making an online co-op action game - at a glance it might look a bit like Mass Effect in terms of camera position and action, but the gameplay is not primarily about shooting things, and I won't reveal the surprise here :}

Unity is really good. Really I haven't got anything bad to say about it. 

Will be good to see your game when you have something to show. Are you working on it alone or with others?

I hope you are still making Quake levels! 

Cheers - right now it's a 2-man project, I'm doing all the coding and level design, whilst I've got an artist doing all the art.

Dunno when I'll be pimping it. I estimate my savings will run out sometime this summer, so we might need to get Kickstarter funding to carry on developing it; if it comes to that I imagine we'll have to show off something fairly substantial.

Quakery has never left my mind, but I'm afraid it has taken a back seat whilst I have to concentrate on commercial stuff :{ 

I'm looking forward to seeing your game, Kinners! 

Same here! 

Cool. Sounds like a fun project. I hope you guys manage to see it through to completion. Did you quit your day job to work on it, or is it an on the side thing?

I would love to jump ship to do my own thing, but I'm afraid my balls are not large enough to keep me afloat :)