When will an SDK be released?

[mahsah]

I hope in game ads don't remove the possiblity of an SDK (especially that even at quakeworld the devs were touting it).

I, for one, give it less then a month before someone makes a fueldump clone :dance:

[Kamikazee]

It will be released shortly after the game ships. It was answered in the IRC Q&A, though I haven't seen the complete transcript being posted.

[jonny b]

a few weeks after the game is realease.

[mahsah]

I wonder if people will make modifications to the official maps that just have the ads removed...

[JAM]

That all depends on whether the maps ship with source files rather than just the compiled bsp - and probably some other factors too ;]

Personally I wouldn't remove the ads, because I don't want to remove SD's wage ;o

[Kamikazee]

No definitive answers here, just thinking of how the D3 engine worked.
Can we just scrap all the ad space when we are designing maps, or will we be restricted by designing maps with advertising in mind? The reason I ask is because I would like to do a few maps on Stroggos maybe, or perhaps in an amazon jungle, and there will be very few locations that can feature prime billboard advertising space.I don't see why you can't strip ads from a level or refuse to place billboards in your own map.

It depends how the ad bilboards work, it could be some texture which gets replaced or it could be some kind of entity doing all the logic behind your back.

Another question is will we be allowed to make custom ads that can be featured in our community server? I'm asking because I want to put some of my own ads up in-game to visit the community web site, or just something a bit more along the theme of the game. Since I'm paying for my server I'm hoping I will be given the ability to choose what ads will be run.I think this will not be possible, seeing how the ads are either
- streamed to the game server and from there to game clients
- or the game clients retrieve ads from a central ad server.

Will modders be allowed to make anti-advertising mods? Is there any other restrictions because of in-game ads?

Please, if you can provide definitive answers to these questions, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. :oppressor:"Allowed" might not be the right word. I believe there is technically no restriction on custom content, but it could be hard to create such an anti-advertising mod if special measures have been taken to always show them. (Eg. some shader built into the game engine to make ads always draw on top of other surfaces.)

Of course, the exact implementation details still need to be seen, but I can say that the vanilla Doom 3 engine was already quite powerfull in terms of scripting. Masking the billboards could potentially take just a few scripts packaged in a convenient pk4 file. (But if it's possible and if you're masking anyway, you can place your custom ads on top of regular ones.)