ioquake3

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ioquake3

Developed by	ioquake3 Team
Written in	C
OS	Cross-platform
Available in	English
Genre	game engine
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or newer
Website	http://www.ioquake3.org/

ioquake3 (or ioq3 for short; formerly known as icculus.org/quake3, which also used to be the URL of the project's website) is a game engine project which aims to build upon id Software's Quake 3 source code release. The source code was released on August 20, 2005 under the GPL.

The project's goal is to create a bug-free, enhanced open source Quake 3 source code distribution upon which new games and projects can be based, as well as an improved version (in relation to the original binaries) of the engine for playing Quake III: Arena, the Team Arena expansion pack and all the popular mods.

So far, ioquake3 has been ported to new platforms, given support for off-server data packs downloads via HTTP using cURL and sound rendering with OpenAL, as well as an Ogg Vorbis decoder, among other things.

While the PunkBuster anti-cheat software is not supported (it is commercial software), the security level is increased thanks to the bugfixes which aren't present in the original executables.

Ioquake3 has been the basis of several id Tech 3-derivative games, including both stand-alone game projects, as well as former Quake III modifications exploiting the opportunity to become stand-alone thanks to the source code release. Examples include OpenArena, Tremulous, Urban Terror and World of Padman. There are also other engines based on ioq3, such as Evolution Q3, a Star Trek Elite Force engine recreation project or OpenMoHAA.

[edit] History

Contrary to what the name might suggest, the ioq3 project was not started by Ryan "Icculus" Gordon, but by Zachary "zakk" Slater, shortly after the release of the original Quake III version 1.32 source code release by id Software. Icculus actually maintains only a mentor role and provides some of the web services necessary to run the project, namely the mailing lists and the SVN repository.

Many well-known figures from the Quake engine modding community joined the project team, such as Ludwig Nussel, Tim Angus, Thilo Schulz and Tony "tjw" White.