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Hello openarena peeps!

I've been working on a new quake 3 content project, called xArena, which is based on a few observations:

There is lots of Quake 3 content, all free to distribute unmodified electronically in any way, but can't be put on CD (wierd license).

OpenArena's map quality is the major letdown: the maps just don't suit high level play.

High level players force enemy models, and use high pi_c_mi_p to see clearer: which means all those 500mb of textures are just pi_c_mi_p_pedaway.

So, xArena will be a quake 3 version targeted at high-level tournament vanilla quake 3 gameplay. All the map textures are basically single-colour; some well-known non-id-created tournament maps, such as blood run ztn3tourney1, will be distributed. The content license is anything that will let us redistribute, so not strictly GPL. The gun and effect models and sounds is either new-made, copied from openarena.

The program base will be ioquake3, and clan arena (rocket arena) and stuff like that maybe added later.

To sum it up, this is a not-so-GPL-arena-for-tournament-play.

This means, it is a fully quake 3 compatible content, just all the textures are non-existent ;). This means it should be compatible with quake 3 mods.

Also, as a feature, quake live content can be decrypted and thrown in (quakelive content is copyrighted and NOT distributed, you can merely just chuck pk3s in from your existing quake live folder), and it will load the content.

I'd like to see if the community could be interested in something like this.

(http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/7941/51010231.jpg)
bloodrun map
(http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2839/89688819.jpg)
quake live content copy pasted in

Hi, hm, seems like you could be friends with FreeQ3/Q3Min ... ( http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=3275.0 ; http://www.freeq3.com/ )

I could like some of the ideas of these projects, like :
However, a stripped down version of OpenArena would be enough to do this, and somehow the idea has already been launched, it's called OA486, so maybe you could contribute for that.

I don't see the point in bringing package contents from here and there, this is the best way to get an unclear license and be bothered with that. Let players choose the additionnal content they want on their servers, or eventually suggest an extra pk3 with the additionnal mess.

FreeQ3 is an openarena clone, this is an engine that uses solid colours and it comes default with tourney maps, and also game code modified a bit to account for subtle changes from quake live.

in my opinion, openarena is brilliant, except cut the fact that the maps aren't so brilliant. maybe the sound could do with some work, but mostly the maps are the weakest point of openarena.

You just can't get good games on horrible maps.

Then we invite you to help us (http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?board=41.0) in that aspect instead of simply saying "maps sucks period". :)

Solid colors, and content which is free to download as it is, but no modifications allowed: so you just making another Warsow (http://www.warsow.net/) but with the Q3 engine.

That's a fair enough point.

Although all quake 3 engine stuff is so similar you can say counterstrike is just half life with guns, warsow is just openarena with no textures, nexius is just warsow with textures shoved in, openarena is just warsow thats GPL and made using quake 3 engine, and so on.

On the maps: sorry, I didn't have enough time to make a huge post about possible map improvements, but I will if I find time.