Jace Hall's Dream: Blood Lives Again!

[Hendricks266]

This quote has been circulated in the past:



Well, just an hour ago, I believe we were visited on the Posty IRC channel by none other than Jace Hall himself, who is also an new member here. He is very interested in knowing what the community has to say. Here are quotes of his plan from his discussion.

<jacehall> I've come to this website because I was thinking about bringing blood back
<jacehall> wanted to see what the community thought of that idea
<jacehall> not a reboot
<jacehall> the original
<jacehall> exactly
<jacehall> i have the source code
<jacehall> if I wanted to release the source i could of course
<jacehall> however, i am not sure if that is the best thing considering what I would like to do
<jacehall> so i have some ideas and I need to know what the community thinks

<jacehall> ok first of all I need you all to understand that I am not looking to try to make money with what I want to do
<jacehall> everything I am talking about is intended to be free for everyone


<jacehall> ok. Are you all familiar with ZDAEMON?
<jacehall> well zdaemon is a really cool enhancement to doom that offers better networking, options, etc.

<jacehall> so i want to talk about this in 3 parts
<jacehall> The first part is the game BLOOD itself
<jacehall> The game BLOOD is awesome. AS IS. It has great gameplay and excellent ideas and is super fun to play. Can we all agree on that?

<jacehall> Ok. Part one of what I want to do is make it so that BLOOD is made to work NATIVELY on current computers (Mac/PC) without any special drivers/mods/etc. and that all platforms can play against each other on the same server.
<jacehall> the graphics would remain the same, except higher resolutions would be possible and there would be some enhancement options added (but not required)

<jacehall> ok. So imagine this updated but ORIGINAL perfect working copy of BLOOD.
<jacehall> Now add all the standard network capability that you would expect in a modern game. Just like what ZDAEMON adds to Doom...

<jacehall> OK. Now here is PART 2
<jacehall> Now imagine that all of the things that matter in game, like frags, # of secrets found, time to complete a level in single play or co-op play, hit/miss shot percentages, battles won, etc. ARE ALL TRACKED in a universal BLOOD database that can be accessed by users and the information displayed
<jacehall> Now imagine that this database can not be cheated or hacked so you know that the information in it is always accurate
<jacehall> Now imagine tournaments of every kind that the community can have. From who can play levels the fastest, to who is the best at bloodbath, etc.
<jacehall> and all the records are accurate
<jacehall> Certainly, anyone can make maps and levels for general use that dont get tracked, but imagine being able to submit your level into the system and have it be part of the official available set...
<jacehall> Imagine the CTF tournaments and etc. all of which can be part of a total blood gameplay experience
<jacehall> Suddenly, if you are investing a lot of time and skill into Blood, you can be recognized for it.
<jacehall> Achievements can be set and clans can have official skins

<jacehall> so imagine now playing single player and having your achievements there be reflected in the database so other single players can try to compete with your accomplishments

<jacehall> Ok. so now lets talk about source code
<jacehall> when source code is released in enables cheating/hacking greatly
<jacehall> especially for something like what I described
<jacehall> When source gets released, it can sometimes really cause a community to break into small factions for all the different versions. This is what happened to DOOM

<jacehall> Well, these are the thoughts I have about Blood....
<jacehall> I will eventually figure it out...
<jacehall> but at least you can know that there may be more hope for Blood still. I've always loved the game.
<jacehall> please share what I have said with the community here. I am interested in hearing what everyone has to say...
<jacehall> thanks guys.
<jacehall> Stay great!

I'm sure your minds are just as blown as mine is right now.

Full conversation transcript links: without timestamps (easiest to read), with timestamps.

So, what does the community think? Please read the full transcript, and let's hear some feedback!

[Daedalus]

I want to believe. I am prepared to kneel and offer this man a full analysis and speech on what I think, but it is my experience that if something sounds too good to be true, it likely is. In a community with a history of liars, impersonators and the insane, I think I can be forgiven for being skeptical as to the true identity of this user. I am hopeful, but I will withhold my enthusiasm until such time as we have more substantial confirmation.

If I am wrong, I shall repent and perform self-flagellation.

[Hendricks266]

Agreed, Daedalus. We have some reason to believe. "jacehall"'s IP in IRC traced back to the Road Runner ISP, coming from Beverly Hills, CA.

I will continue with this post as I originally wrote it, assuming the best.

I wish to express my utmost thanks, Jace. It's very exciting to know that the fans have an ally.

From Jace's quotes, we can ascertain that any development of Blood will have two aspects: bringing the original game to work natively today, and extending the game to incorporate modern advancements. The second cannot happen without the first. Here is a developer's perspective: (This is a rather longwinded wall of text...)

As many of us know, if the Blood source code were to be released, it would be the third game based on the BUILD engine to have a proper source release. 3D Realms released the source code to Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior under the GNU GPLv2.

Spoiler: show

(This does not count the releases of the source code to Witchaven, Witchaven 2, TekWar, or the barely started Corridor 8 prototype. The developer of these games, Capstone, has long since gone under, and these releases were personal ones from the programmer and stand in murky legal water.)

To port the original game to modern architectures, operating systems, and hardware, there is no man better suited than JonoF. His port JFDuke3D is the basis of EDuke32. When 3DR wanted to release SW's source code, they contacted JonoF before the public release because they needed help, leading to JFSW.

Assuming that a Blood source release following the pattern of Duke and SW would take place, the first component of a reborn Blood would meet and likely exceed expectations. The second component, including vastly expanded network features, brings the concern of hacking and cheating. These are valid concerns. I don't mean to fixate too much on the point of open source, but it needs to be said.

By definition, having an open source rather than closed source game removes one very large hurdle from the prospective cheater. However, the game can be both secure and open source. The community's best work can only be achieved when the source is open for everyone to contribute. The design and implementations of the TLS/SSL cryptography schemes are open source and remain fundamentally secure. In terms of the game, hacking does happen even on closed source games (and closed systems too!). Mechanisms can be put in place to secure the game. Let me give a concrete example.

Say someone wants to cheat on a leaderboard of the fastest time to complete E1M1 on Extra Crispy. So, they modify the game source to report a time of 000001 instead of their actual time, and send that value to the server. Voilà, they just completed the level in 1 ms. That is an insecure way of recording such a value. Here is how I would implement a solution, after 15 minutes of thinking. Instead of simply reporting a value, if the client's recorded time record is less than what is recorded on the server (as an optimization; a less-optimized version would always do the following), then it sends a demo of the player's input at the exact times of the playthrough of the level, with internal aspects like pseudorandom variations accounted for, to the server, and the server plays back the input log on an unmodified copy of the game itself and uses the value it comes up with at the end as the official time record. This may not even be as resource-intensive as it sounds: If video and audio output is not utilized on the server code, the core game logic alone should not take an insurmountable amount of processing power and time. There may be better solutions, but that is mine. Two side effects are that this will require adherence to the most up-to-date version, and that the demos of said record-breaking playthroughs will be available for watching and for examination.

Furthermore, if the source remains closed, what happens if 10 years down the line, the system is closed? As technology progresses, Bloodites will again have to turn to methods such as DOSBox to play our beloved game. Or, if the new source port comes with some form of DRM as is unfortunately common today, it could stop functioning. (However, that is a worst case scenario, and not one I would take too seriously. )

At the very least, a solution like the relationship between Chromium and Google Chrome would be desirable if we could not have the source code both ways. However, I do think that such a thing is possible, and I myself would help if I am capable.

Thank you again, Jace, for your continual interest in the game and in the fans!