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Why help complete this? If they would be willing to have an open source D2 out there, they can just release the original source code. It would seem even more "i

by pmilot 6y ago

Why help complete this? If they would be willing to have an open source D2 out there, they can just release the original source code. It would seem even more "ideal" to me.

mraison 6y ago
Fun (or sad) fact: they apparently lost a lot of the source code and assets. Looks like they were able to recover most of the code, but not the assets [1] [1] https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-diablo-2-was-almost-lost-and-why-a-remaster-is/1100-6471517/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-diablo-2-was-almost-lo...
- im3w1l 6y ago
  They said they lost the source code pre-release, but managed to reconstruct most of it. Given that it was released and that there have been many patches, I think the source code is fine. I think the only thing they really lost are the hi-def assets from which the lower-def ingame assets were created.
  - taneq 6y ago
    Are you sure the in-game assets were created from hi-def versions rather than just being pixel art?
    - unicornfinder 6y ago
      To be fair it wouldn't surprise me - this sort of thing was pretty common back then. You'd create high def 3D models and then render 2D sprites etc from them.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      They said "It would make it very difficult for Blizzard to do a Diablo 2 remaster because all the assets we used are pretty much gone. They'd have to make them from scratch." I can't think of any other way of interpreting it.
    - BolexNOLA 6y ago
      That’s exactly what the article says.
      - taneq 6y ago
        Can you point to where? I can't find it, and a quick search for "resolution", "high", "quality", "def" turned up nothing. They say they lost the art assets but a bunch of pixel art tilemaps would fit that description, especially if they were composited down during the build process.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  At least the source code they seem to have, as reasonably recently, they ported D2 from PowerPC to Intel on the Mac.
dmos62 6y ago
In an ideal world D2 would have been open source from the start.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  How would the devs pay their bills? I don’t think games are well adapted to open source. For starters, it’d be very hard to build an adjacent business like Red Hat, and there are very significant time and capital requirements even for smallish projects. These might be the reasons why the model never caught on like it did for generalist software.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    In an ideal world, people give back freely, when they received freely and think it was worth it and want to see more of it, in the future. In todays world most people only give, if they have to.
    - kingkawn 6y ago
      You cannot moralize against people for being human. Find a way to work with us as we are rather than condemn us for not being as you can imagine.
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        So you think, your specific set of habits and ethics is hardcoded to humanity in general? I doubt so, because I know enough people who act the way, I like people to act. In other words, I try to find a way to work towards change in culture. History shows that can be done and has been done multiple times. Every succesful open source project is a step towards that. Wikipedia is a step towards it. Blender. Inkscape. LibreOffice. Linux. VLC. And so on. I believe and hope we improve in that direction.
        kebman 6y ago
        If you work for free, I'd love for you to take a shot at my project! :D Nope, there's nothing in it for you, except the feeling of JOY to work on my plan on taking over the world.
throw1234651234 6y ago
What language is it written in? How accessible is game code to a modern web dev that understand memory management and such, but never really uses C/C++ outside of coursework? If I pull in Diablo / Half-Life / Shadows of Chernobyl source, am I going to see pretty clean files in an organized fashion that I can open with a modern IDE or a code dump?

by pmilot 6y ago

Why help complete this? If they would be willing to have an open source D2 out there, they can just release the original source code. It would seem even more "ideal" to me.

mraison 6y ago

Fun (or sad) fact: they apparently lost a lot of the source code and assets. Looks like they were able to recover most of the code, but not the assets [1] [1] https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-diablo-2-was-almost-lost-and-why-a-remaster-is/1100-6471517/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-diablo-2-was-almost-lo...

im3w1l 6y ago
They said they lost the source code pre-release, but managed to reconstruct most of it. Given that it was released and that there have been many patches, I think the source code is fine. I think the only thing they really lost are the hi-def assets from which the lower-def ingame assets were created.
- taneq 6y ago
  Are you sure the in-game assets were created from hi-def versions rather than just being pixel art?
  - unicornfinder 6y ago
    To be fair it wouldn't surprise me - this sort of thing was pretty common back then. You'd create high def 3D models and then render 2D sprites etc from them.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    They said "It would make it very difficult for Blizzard to do a Diablo 2 remaster because all the assets we used are pretty much gone. They'd have to make them from scratch." I can't think of any other way of interpreting it.
  - BolexNOLA 6y ago
    That’s exactly what the article says.
    - taneq 6y ago
      Can you point to where? I can't find it, and a quick search for "resolution", "high", "quality", "def" turned up nothing. They say they lost the art assets but a bunch of pixel art tilemaps would fit that description, especially if they were composited down during the build process.
_ph_ 6y ago
At least the source code they seem to have, as reasonably recently, they ported D2 from PowerPC to Intel on the Mac.

dmos62 6y ago

In an ideal world D2 would have been open source from the start.

arcturus17 6y ago
How would the devs pay their bills? I don’t think games are well adapted to open source. For starters, it’d be very hard to build an adjacent business like Red Hat, and there are very significant time and capital requirements even for smallish projects. These might be the reasons why the model never caught on like it did for generalist software.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  In an ideal world, people give back freely, when they received freely and think it was worth it and want to see more of it, in the future. In todays world most people only give, if they have to.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    You cannot moralize against people for being human. Find a way to work with us as we are rather than condemn us for not being as you can imagine.
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      So you think, your specific set of habits and ethics is hardcoded to humanity in general? I doubt so, because I know enough people who act the way, I like people to act. In other words, I try to find a way to work towards change in culture. History shows that can be done and has been done multiple times. Every succesful open source project is a step towards that. Wikipedia is a step towards it. Blender. Inkscape. LibreOffice. Linux. VLC. And so on. I believe and hope we improve in that direction.
      - kebman 6y ago
        If you work for free, I'd love for you to take a shot at my project! :D Nope, there's nothing in it for you, except the feeling of JOY to work on my plan on taking over the world.

throw1234651234 6y ago

What language is it written in? How accessible is game code to a modern web dev that understand memory management and such, but never really uses C/C++ outside of coursework? If I pull in Diablo / Half-Life / Shadows of Chernobyl source, am I going to see pretty clean files in an organized fashion that I can open with a modern IDE or a code dump?