SyS is me

Hello everyone,

I came to this forum not because I notably enjoyed the game (though I played it, and you obviously did an amazing job, congrats) but rather for other reasons.

Indeed, I'm a huge supporter of the open-source cause; I also would like to become a video game designer (as an independant). I know C (CSFML, a bit of OpenGL), some Python and a bit of HTML/CSS/JS. It's been several years now that I have been following the indie video games (and notgames) scene, and one of the various form an indie video game could take shape is through modding. Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable, Garry's Mod, Counter Strike, Thirty Flights of Loving, ... Those are all mods of popular and commercially known games, especially Blendo Games' games (Thirty Flights of Loving, Gravity Bone, etc... ), built using a fork of the Quake 2 engine (kmquake2). Nexuiz/Xonotic combines both aspects, that's why I choosed Nexuiz/Xonotic and the DarkPlaces engine in order to make my own games.
I made some searches through the web, and, to my despair, found very few resources on how to get strated modding Xonotic. But, before asking any questions (as it may not be an appropriate location), I'd like to thank you for all what you did and I'm grateful to see that this forum is still active.

Congrats!

PS: where to ask beginners-related questions ("where to start?, what is that?, ...")?

Hi and welcome. You can always check out the developer channel on IRC: #xonotic at freenode. Quite some people with valuable technical knowledge about Xonotic linger there and might be able to help you.

There are some topics also on this forum that might be interesting, and you might find valuable stuff on the wiki (which is, however, not very detailed nor up-to-date...): http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic/wiki

Oh, and a note: In case you're planning to do a mod, please be aware that Xonotic is licensed under GPLv2, which will have to apply to derivative works you create unless you can separate your mod data and license it separately. However, all Xonotic parts of anything you plan to distribute will have to be under GPLv2. Just for clarification :o)

Good luck :o)

Thanks!

Oh, and a note: In case you're planning to do a mod, please be aware that Xonotic is licensed under GPLv2, which will have to apply to derivative works you create unless you can separate your mod data and license it separately. However, all Xonotic parts of anything you plan to distribute will have to be under GPLv2. Just for clarification :o)

Yes, I'm aware of that. But this does not mean that I can't charge for it, right? GPL does not mean free-of-charge, right? Plus, I would like to sell it as a pay-what-you-want thing (starting from 0$).
And, as for the DarkPlaces engine, what license does it use?

Hello there.

You may charge for it, GPLv2 does not forbid selling. But you must ship the source code of software of the GPL'ed parts that you used and derivative works you created from it and you may not restrict others to distribute those parts under GPLv2 at no cost. If you develop standalone content or data that is to be used with the GPL'ed software, then you can choose to license such standalone content or data under another license (dual licensing).

Darkplaces is licensed under GPLv2, too, I believe - since Xonotic in its entirety is licensed under GPLv2 as I understood and Xonotic ships with darkplaces.

Welcome!

You may charge for it, GPLv2 does not forbid selling. But you must ship the source code of software of the GPL'ed parts that you used and derivative works you created from it and you may not restrict others to distribute those parts under GPLv2 at no cost.

Yeah, I see. That's what Blendo Games did for Thirty Flights of Loving, a very successful indie game (nominated for the last Independent Games Festival 2013 in Excellence in Narrative, Nuovo Award, and even the Seumas McNally Grand Prize): http://blendogames.com/thirtyflightsofloving . So I guess the main point is to make a game as good as possible.

Still, I lack a basic understandment of how the DarkPlaces engine works. I'm gonna ask those questions in another part of the forums.

pretty much everyone lacks basic understandment of how the DarkPlaces engine works

:3

pretty much everyone lacks basic understandment of how the DarkPlaces engine works

So, it's not really modders forums here?
Indeed, I have been able to understand certain things by looking at the structure of the code source, such as the qcsrc/ dir containing QuakeC files that process the game logic, the fteqcc/ being the folder of the QuakeC compiler.

Well, this is the official Xonotic forum. Here you'll find all sorts of people that have something to do with Xonotic: trolling on the forums, having joined the community but somehow never hopped off again, discussing balance topics, creating random content that might find its way into Xonotic eventually... some of us actually play the game, too, and there are tourneys being organized thanks to a couple of very committed people. Modding is not such a big topic here yet, as the core game needs some more attention in the first place (player base is small). But there are already mods available, such as the Overkill mod...

Modding is not such a big topic here yet, as the core game needs some more attention in the first place (player base is small).

Oh, I see your point. I guess I'm more into buidling a DarkPlaces-based game (or a Nexuiz mod) than a Xonotic mod. But Xonotic and Nexuiz may not be too different, are they?

Well Nexuiz and Xonotic both make use of the darkplaces engine. Xonotic is basically the successor of Nexuiz, and while they share the same basis, a lot of things have changed and got improved over how Nexuiz handles stuff. So if you are into building a DarkPlaces-based game, you can of course utilize code parts from Nexuiz and/or Xonotic (within the license limitations), whereas Xonotic has more up-to-date features. You can of course also build a DarkPlaces-based game from scratch, using only the engine :o)

Welcome!