OpenArena Message Boards

Hi all,

We are a group of people who frequently play the original Q3 in our LAN. We all have licenses for Q3.

Now, we would like to switch to OpenArena, as apparently it has some improvements over the original Quake3 (in our case mainly the random map switching option, but also others like no-camping or getting a frag when kicking someone into the void). However, we would like to continue using the Quake3 maps, models, sounds, weapons and so on, which I think shouldn't be a problem legally, since we all own Quake3.

How can this be best accomplished? I am actually pretty surprised that I didn't find a wiki article or more about this in the forum, since I assume many people here own Q3.

I can simply put all the files of the original baseq3 folder into the baseoa folder, then start openarena.exe and play the original maps. But there are a lot of drawbacks to this, like
- I can ONLY play the original maps, the OA maps are not available
- under game options there are only the original options, not the OA options
- when creating a multiplayer game, I get the old Q3 screens for setting up the game, not the OA ones. Especially I can't select stuff like One Flag CTF etc., only the original modes are available
- gamme correction does not work from the options menu and everything appears way too dark

I got some of this fixed, but only through a horrible trial-and-error procedure of combining pk3's from original and OA, deleting some pk3s and even deleting some files inside some pk3s.

Is there a better / documented way, to get this accomplished?

We cannot provide such info because it's copyright infringement. Also, IANAL, but what you're asking breaks also Q3 EULA. That's all.

If you just want to have Q3 with the features and fixes introduced by ioquake3 (http://ioquake3.org/improvements/), you may try ioquake3 directly. http://ioquake3.org (brief infos here: (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Q3A/ioquake3).
This would allow to use some features like stereoscopic view, per-user settings, OpenAL support.
Many extra features added by OpenArena, instead, would not be available.

You may want to try to play Q3 as a mod in OpenArena. As mentioned in (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/ModCompat#Trivia, a quick test I did years ago proved that worked, although with some error notifications in console and few strange graphic effects. Anyway, I did not went further into that, due to the fact it may not be allowed by Q3 EULA (I'm not sure), and because I didn't see a lot of scope in that, due to this:
(from (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Manual/Using_Mods)
In other words, doing that you would use OpenArena engine, but Quake3 gamecode. No DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Special_game_options]special game options (http://([b) introduced by OA, no additional DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Gametypes]gametypes (http://([b).

If you wanna use original Q3 maps in OA, but using OA gamecode (game logic), you should have pk3 files containing the maps only (.bsp, .aas, etc.), but without Q3 gamecode. I think there are (or were) available for download somewhere across the internet, some packages containing original Q3 maps (I think someone already did the work of creating new pk3, extracting Q3 maps)... but I don't have links and I never tried them. You may try googling. Even if I had them, I think I would have not posted such links in the wiki, because I suppose they are copyright infringments.
Anyway, take in account that some of the additional game types would not work correctly anyway, because those maps would lack some gametype-specific items (e.g. Domination points for Domination gametype).

I don't see a real use for using Q3 weapon models instead of OA models. They look different, but work the same.

Further reading:
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Quake_III_Arena
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/ModCompat
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_use_maps.2C_models.2C_mods_made_for_Quake_3_Arena.3F
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/FAQ#Maps_designed_for_Quake_3 (mentions links to download Q3A2OA texture compatibilty packs)
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/FAQ#Mods_designed_for_Quake_3
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/FAQ#Models_and_bots_designed_for_Quake_3
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Manual/Voice_chat

PS: Anti-camp features in "baseoa"? Are you sure? Or was it a mod maybe?  ???

I do not like this topic.  Indeed using Q3A content other than the retail version of Q3A is a violation of their EULA.

About this, I always wondered if the main ioquake3 thing (intended to be used as an advanced engine for Q3A/TA, instead of as an engine for other FOSS games as OpenArena) is theoretically allowed or not...

At least where I live this is definitely not true. I own a legal copy of Quake3 and no EULA can prevent me from accessing its files. Every time I run a virus scan, checkdisk, defrag or simply copy the folder, I also access these files. If they put anything disallowing this in the EULA, its simply not valid. They can put lots of stuff in there, but that doesn't mean it's legally valid. Next thing you tell me is that I'm not allowed to open Taunt001.wav (comes with Age of Empires) in any other program than AoE itself, thus playing it in MediaPlayer would violate copyright? I don't believe such terms would hold up in any court in the world.

There are other parts of the EULA that are not legally valid either, for example that you're not allowed to sell your Quake 3. There have been many court rulings stating this as invalid, and if you have a look on eBay you'll see that selling used Quake 3 is common practice, even in the US.

There is no easy way to solve this issue because you need a mix of q3 and oa and it seems that nobody tried it before.
You should switch to oa and enjoy the community ;)

Remember Generations for Q2? That TC was cease & desist'd for using Doom and Quake content in Quake2.  Similarly, direct Quake and Quake2 map conversions to Q3A have come under fire as well.  Using Quake3 content in OA is no different.

EULAs are valid and they do still apply.    If Q3A were free to exploit in this way, then OA wouldn't have a point.


If you really want the OA features in Q3A, the least you can do is download the OAX mod (which OA uses as its gamecode), throw a copy of ioq3 in, and run that as a mod to Q3A (baseq3). (I haven't tried this, but in theory this should work, and is more legal than using Q3A content in OA)

I give up on openarena

As i said before: just play OA and enjoy!
It is the easiest way ;D

@fromhell: EULAs are not valid just because they are EULAs. Whatever is in there has to be valid be local law in order to apply, as law stands above EULAs. Also, there is a HUGE difference between accessing a file you have a license for and distributing it. Distributing q3 maps, for example, is not legal, of course.

After reading a bit about custom map creation, everyone can see what the problem is with combining q3 and OA maps: Inside the PK3s in the scripts folder is a file called arenas.txt, containing the names of all maps. Of course in q3 it containts the Q3 map names, in OA the names of OA maps. The game always uses the latest version of that file it finds in the PK3s inside the baseoa folder. So you always get either q3 or oa maps, not both.
You can open the OA PK3s with 7zip and edit that file, of course. Adding the q3 maps will not help, though, as OA ignores the file if it's bigger than 8K. So have a look at what all custom maps do: they have a .arena file in their scripts folder, instead of using arenas.txt. So simply rename the original arenas.txt to whatever.arena and OA will show both, q3 and OA maps.

@Jakash3: I don't even need a mod, I can put the files in the baseoa folder, named zzz.pk3, so they get loaded last and thus "overwrite" the corresponding OA files. Works for maps, models etc.,, the only thing I'm stuck at now is the ammunition packs: they are a mixture of OA and q3 graphics :-)

Which baseOA folder? there's 2 of them.

You've bumped a year old thread to ask a question to someone who hasn't visited in 18 months.