How far did Valve's licence for Quake go?

[Individualised]

It's well known that Valve licenced the Quake engine for Half-Life, and developed it into GoldSrc and eventually, the Source engine.

 

In 2001, Valve released Deathmatch Classic, their own take on Quake 1's multiplayer deathmatch mode with Half-Life assets thrown in. The gameplay and presentation itself is pretty much identical to Quake, and it even uses Quake assets included Quake sound effects. To me, this seems like it goes a bit farther than just licencing the engine. They basically released their own Quake game without the involvement of id Software. Is there any more info on what Valve exactly were allowed and not allowed to do with not only just the Quake engine but the Quake assets?

[Redneckerz]

9 minutes ago, Individualised said:

It's well known that Valve licenced the Quake engine for Half-Life, and developed it into GoldSrc and eventually, the Source engine.

 

In 2001, Valve released Deathmatch Classic, their own take on Quake 1's multiplayer deathmatch mode with Half-Life assets thrown in. The gameplay and presentation itself is pretty much identical to Quake, and it even uses Quake assets included Quake sound effects. To me, this seems like it goes a bit farther than just licencing the engine. They basically released their own Quake game without the involvement of id Software. Is there any more info on what Valve exactly were allowed and not allowed to do with not only just the Quake engine but the Quake assets?

Well, they seemingly got help from code legend Michael Abrash.

 

As Goldsrc was essentially Quakeworld, i am going to hazard a guess and say Carmack's .plans probably reference a license activity to Valve around 1995/1996, if not earlier.

 

Other than that, chances are stuff is still under NDA because Source 2 still has quake roots.

[Individualised]

20 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Well, they seemingly got help from code legend Michael Abrash.

 

As Goldsrc was essentially Quakeworld, i am going to hazard a guess and say Carmack's .plans probably reference a license activity to Valve around 1995/1996, if not earlier.

 

Other than that, chances are stuff is still under NDA because Source 2 still has quake roots.

It does seem that the two companies were on pretty good terms with each other, as Deathmatch Classic is often said to be Valve's tribute to id Software.

 

Also, "TF2 is still in development" lmao. Checked and that page hasn't been updated since 2006. What a relic.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

I think Source being based on GoldSrc is a misconception. I believe they mostly started from scratch with it. 

[Individualised]

3 minutes ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

I think Source being based on GoldSrc is a misconception. I believe they mostly started from scratch with it. 

Thought it was the other way round, that it was started from scratch was a misconception.

[Murdoch]

I never played dmc but it's possible that like Doom, many of Quake's sound effects came from sound libraries. 

[Murdoch]

16 minutes ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

I think Source being based on GoldSrc is a misconception. I believe they mostly started from scratch with it. 

 

I think it's more a case that they changed so much they almost should have. 

[Individualised]

The GoldSrc and Source (originally Src) names originate from branch names for what was then just Valve's modification to the Quake engine, or simply, the Half-Life engine. When Valve realised not all features they wanted would be able to make it into the final product, the source code was split into 2 branches, GoldSrc for the final, polished product (hence the term "Gold") and Src to continue developing new features on. So unless they rebooted development of Source sometime after, then no.

[Biz!]

Aren't quake sounds stock sfx?

[Individualised]

Some of them are, yeah good point. I don't know which ones are and aren't though.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

31 minutes ago, Individualised said:

The GoldSrc and Source (originally Src) names originate from branch names for what was then just Valve's modification to the Quake engine, or simply, the Half-Life engine. When Valve realised not all features they wanted would be able to make it into the final product, the source code was split into 2 branches, GoldSrc for the final, polished product (hence the term "Gold") and Src to continue developing new features on. So unless they rebooted development of Source sometime after, then no.

My bad. Thanks for clearing it up. 

[heliumlamb]

Just now, Biz! said:

Aren't quake sounds stock sfx?

some, but not all. some are just verbatim stock sounds, other stuff like the axe hit for sure is a processed sample. in the axe hit's case it's a processed; layered/distorted sample from the korg m1. and then there's the various vocalizations (enforcer's "you there", "stop" - wizard's "no", shalrath's "rrrhehehe", quakeguy's "hruh" and "woo", etc) which i'm certain are not sourced from a royalty-free sound library.

 

29 minutes ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

I think Source being based on GoldSrc is a misconception. I believe they mostly started from scratch with it.  

from my experience... uh... Perusing the dubiously obtained 2003 leak of hl2 and tf2, as well as vtm: bloodlines, the pre-november '04 builds of source all feel strikingly similar to goldsrc, particularly in the way lighting was being baked and the use of early steam's boxy, sometimes green, menu interface, still present in the steam versions of the goldsrc games. source is definitely built upon goldsrc, but modular to a kludgy extent.

[Fiber Wire]

Many of Quake‘s sound effects were made by Trent Reznor and in-house by Id Software. 

[Individualised]

1 minute ago, heliumlamb said:

some, but not all. some are just verbatim stock sounds, other stuff like the axe hit for sure is a processed sample. in the axe hit's case it's a processed; layered/distorted sample from the korg m1. and then there's the various vocalizations (enforcer's "you there", "stop" - wizard's "no", shalrath's "rrrhehehe", quakeguy's "hruh" and "woo", etc) which i'm certain are not sourced from a royalty-free sound library.

Wasn't it American McGee who did the enemy voices?

[Fiber Wire]

It’s debatable. Romero could’ve had some part in some of the enemy sounds, too. At least, he certainly did for QTest.
 

Wolfenstein 3D, just about everyone on the team besides both Carmacks and Bobby Prince did sound effects for guard deaths, alerts, bosses, etc. Tom Hall, John Romero, and Jay Wilbur all had a role in making screams for the brown guard. Tom Hall and John Romero did most of the other lines for that game. 
 

So I think it’s possible some of the quake sounds were also done in the same manner, but all were selected and edited by Trent Reznor in the end from what I’ve read in the past, and Reznor himself did the all of the Ranger sound effects.

[Murdoch]

33 minutes ago, heliumlamb said:

source is definitely built upon goldsrc

 

The general feel is way too similar for it not to be the case. Similar to how Bethesda claimed the creation engine was all new but when i played Skyrim it was plain that gamebryo was still under the hood in some form due to certain quirks, particularly in the player's movement relative to the map geometry. 

[Individualised]

I'm pretty sure the whole thing about Source being built from the ground up comes from early press coverage of Team Fortress 2 mentioning that it would be built on a new engine rather than the Quake engine, as that was before GoldSrc had a public name. There was probably some confusion about what that meant.

 

This forum is old enough that you can probably find mentions of that from back when.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Individualised

[Jules451]

2 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

The general feel is way too similar for it not to be the case. Similar to how Bethesda claimed the creation engine was all new but when i played Skyrim it was plain that gamebryo was still under the hood in some form due to certain quirks, particularly in the player's movement relative to the map geometry. 

This, basically. I've played quite a lot of Goldsrc and early Source games and I have to agree that the "feeling" is very similar. This is especially evident in older builds of the Source engine, such as in the Half-Life 2 leaked beta. Besides, even a quick perusal at the publicly available code for Goldsrc and Source shows a lot of similarities between the engines. Heck, I even remember an article somewhere mentioning how there's still some leftover code from Quake in the Source 2 engine...ah, here it is.

 

As for what OP asked...on the one hand, DMC was originally distributed as a free mod, so there probably wasn't any need for any special permission to do that. Besides, it's not like DMC reuses any asset from the original Quake, as it's all completely new work. On the other, however, the fact that it is being sold as a game of its own on Steam nowadays when it is so clearly based on Quake is a little bit weird. They must definitely have received some kind of permission for that.

 

Anyway, there's admittedly little information online as to how the license was obtained and what the terms were. However, I remember a section in Kushner's Masters of Doom dedicated to describing the circumstances in which the Quake engine was originally licensed to Valve. It's especially interesting to read about since back then iD software had not yet begun to officially license its engines to third-party developers, so Valve could only get a license thanks to someone's recommendation (I don't recall who it was exactly at the moment).

[Individualised]

11 minutes ago, Jules451 said:

Heck, I even remember an article somewhere mentioning how there's still some leftover code from Quake in the Source 2 engine...ah, here it is.

Oh man I read this recently but totally forgot about it.

Quote

it's not like DMC reuses any asset from the original Quake

Sound effects are re-used, but it seems that the ones they re-used originate from stock libraries. None of the Trent Reznor sounds seem to be in there.

11 minutes ago, Jules451 said:

iD software had not yet begun to officially license its engines to third-party developers

Is this actually true? I know of a few games that run on licenced id engines from before then (that aren't Raven etc titles). Chex Quest probably being the most infamous.

 

As for the Steam release being paid... this is the description for the game:

Quote

Enjoy fast-paced multiplayer gaming with Deathmatch Classic (a.k.a. DMC). Valve's tribute to the work of id software, DMC invites players to grab their rocket launchers and put their reflexes to the test in a collection of futuristic settings.

So though it doesn't directly name-drop Quake I imagine there was probably some sort of deal made. Now I kinda want to see a "Deathmatch 2" that's an official crossover between Quake and Half-Life :P

Edited April 1, 2023 by Individualised

[Kinsie]

6 hours ago, Individualised said:

It's well known that Valve licenced the Quake engine for Half-Life, and developed it into GoldSrc and eventually, the Source engine.

 

In 2001, Valve released Deathmatch Classic, their own take on Quake 1's multiplayer deathmatch mode with Half-Life assets thrown in. The gameplay and presentation itself is pretty much identical to Quake, and it even uses Quake assets included Quake sound effects. To me, this seems like it goes a bit farther than just licencing the engine. They basically released their own Quake game without the involvement of id Software. Is there any more info on what Valve exactly were allowed and not allowed to do with not only just the Quake engine but the Quake assets?

I believe DMC was a separate project from the engine license, with its own permissions granted (period-era press mentions Gabe Newell directly getting permission from Carmack to release it).

 

My understanding is that the team that maintained the mod tools/support for HL1 got permission to do a Q1 DM recreation from Id (that they may have already been working on as an internal thing to fool around with on LAN over lunch...) then commissioned a bunch of European HL1 modders to help kick it out the door as a bonus thrown into a free patch in a couple of short months.

 

1 hour ago, Jules451 said:

It's especially interesting to read about since back then iD software had not yet begun to officially license its engines to third-party developers, so Valve could only get a license thanks to someone's recommendation (I don't recall who it was exactly at the moment).

Id definitely started doing engine licensing before Quake in limited form. I think the first instance was in... 1991-ish? Before Wolf3D was out, anyway, when Id invited various Apogee developers down to the Shreveport lakehouse they were working out of at the time to check out the Keen 4 engine and tools and consider it for their own projects. I think only Jim Norwood bit, and Bio-Menace was the result.

 

And of course, there was Capstone, Raven, Rogue, Digital Cafe etc. etc...

[Individualised]

3 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

I believe DMC was a separate project from the engine license, with its own permissions granted (period-era press mentions Gabe Newell directly getting permission from Carmack to release it).

 

My understanding is that the team that maintained the mod tools/support for HL1 got permission to do a Q1 DM recreation from Id (that they may have already been working on as an internal thing to fool around with on LAN over lunch...) then commissioned a bunch of European HL1 modders to help kick it out the door as a bonus thrown into a free patch in a couple of short months.

 

Id definitely started doing engine licensing before Quake in limited form. I think the first instance was in... 1991-ish? Before Wolf3D was out, anyway, when Id invited various Apogee developers down to the Shreveport lakehouse they were working out of at the time to check out the Keen 4 engine and tools and consider it for their own projects. I think only Jim Norwood bit, and Bio-Menace was the result.

 

And of course, there was Capstone, Raven, Rogue, Digital Cafe etc. etc...

This is the answer I was looking for. Thanks!

[Jules451]

9 hours ago, Kinsie said:

Id definitely started doing engine licensing before Quake in limited form. I think the first instance was in... 1991-ish? Before Wolf3D was out, anyway, when Id invited various Apogee developers down to the Shreveport lakehouse they were working out of at the time to check out the Keen 4 engine and tools and consider it for their own projects. I think only Jim Norwood bit, and Bio-Menace was the result.

 

And of course, there was Capstone, Raven, Rogue, Digital Cafe etc. etc...

Yeah, what I was trying to say is that until the mid nineties Id Software was still mostly just licensing its engines to companies that it was either in close partnership with (Raven Software) or other companies it was in contact with through its publishers. It wasn't until Quake II that a real deluge of games running on the latest iD Tech engines started pouring in.

 

But still, it seems like I was missing a fair amount of developers who had already licensed some of their engines in the first half of the nineties already. I had no idea that the Keen 4 engine was ever licensed, for instance. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Individualised]

For the record, Deathmatch Classic does include Quake assets (that aren't recreations), more than just the sounds, including a version of E1M2: Castle of the Damned:

And the program icon is the lambda symbol but Quake-ified. It's actually pretty adorable.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Individualised

[SiFi270]

I'm not sure when, but Quake's default multiplayer maps were just made public domain (probably not the correct term but the best I can do) at some point. That's why they're also in OpenArena.

 

EDIT: oh wait that's not a multiplayer map. I knew I should have waited for someone else to explain it better than I could.

[Kinsie]

10 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

I'm not sure when, but Quake's default multiplayer maps were just made public domain (probably not the correct term but the best I can do) at some point. That's why they're also in OpenArena.

 

EDIT: oh wait that's not a multiplayer map. I knew I should have waited for someone else to explain it better than I could.

Romero released the .map source files under the GPL, a license that probably doesn’t fit and that he probably doesn’t have the right to apply. Thankfully it’s never been tested in court on account of being solely used by Free Hobby Projects like mods.

[Gez]

On vendredi 31 mars 2023 at 11:56 PM, Individualised said:

Wasn't it American McGee who did the enemy voices?

Partly. Romero was also involved, as well as stock libraries.

https://www.quaddicted.com/interviews/americanmcgee