After all the flurry
about open source Quaking on various news sites, I thought that this
would be an opportune time to mention a project that I started about 6
or 7 days ago, just after the release of the q1 source.
A few skilled programmers
/ cryptologists have banded together under the banner of the 'QuakeWorld
Forever' movement to design and implement a way of re-securing the
quakeworld multiplayer gaming system.
A few days ago we held
quite a frenzied meeting in #qwforever on gamesnet (as far as I know,
their DNS' are still down, so irc to 209.1.245.35:6667) that lasted for
about 6 or 7 hours. The end result being that we are going to try and
implement a Netrek type system of 'blessed binaries'. More information
on this system could probably be obtained by visiting the aforementioned
IRC channel.
This solution will remain
completely open source and our intent is to make it so it can be
integrated easily into other people's modifications so that they can
either initiate their own set of 'blessed' server/clients or be
'blessed' to be compatible with our future ones. Our model would also
support 'blessing' of proxies, for proxies such as qizmo, cheapo and
nitro so if they would like to come to the party too, they are welcome.
After all this, I don't
suppose the real point is whether quake 1 will die or not before we
complete our work, but whether it can be done in the first place. If
this system can be applied to such a high-data-rate multiplayer system,
it opens all new doors for developers.
As for the moment, I am
maintaining an info pool at http://members.xoom.com/cow0001/
until we can sort out our hosting options. Right now it has a
preliminary proposal / summary for people to get a quick idea of what is
to come, and a 4000 or so line log of the above IRC session (some nice
bed time reading for you ;).
We have already begun the
implementation of this system and will see how it goes in private tests
before releasing anything major. It's not our intent to impose a control
or a standard on the community, but if it works we hope that more
developers than just us will embrace it.