Tomatenquark

# Goodbye!

Just 6 months ago we wrote a blog post here detailing why we created Tomatenquark.

Together with other core contributors I have decided to end the experiment called Tomatenquark. I will detail some of the reasoning behind this decision and it's effect on the community.

# Cutting at the community

Tomatenquark has often been accused for cutting at the community of Sauerbraten. While the Tomatenquark client is "only" a revised version of the original Sauerbraten client, we have quickly expanded and modified every aspect of the game. Most players told us that it is in fact "not the same as Sauerbraten", by the looks and feels. This is exactly what we liked to achieve. We never intended to cut at the community of Sauerbraten but wanted to build our own.

# Fast-paced arena shooters are hardly a niche genre nowadays

With that premise it is hard to build a community around a fork of a game. Even more so, because Tomatenquark is an open-source title, and not a studio (AAA) product. As such we don't have the time and resources that it would have taken to promote and establish a new community. We think that this is one of the biggest issues facing anyone daring to create an open-source arena shooter.

# Some achievements

Even though we did fail with this experiment, lots of good came out of it.

  • There is a functioning, open source implementation of Steam Workshop for Cube-based engines
  • We created an up-to-date, browseable version of the documentation. Cheerio!
  • We demonstrated how to use vcpkg to significantly reduce maintenance burden
  • All the assets will now be free of charge forever, here for other projects to be consumed once they need them!
  • We had a fun ride brainstorming, implementing, testing all the things that we wanted to work on and became an amazing team in the process

# Consequences

Effectively next week (11.10.2020) we will:

  • shut down the TQ master server
  • archive repositories

This ensures that no damage / vandalism can be done to the sources, and signals to the public that the project has been terminated. Unless there are significant forces interested in keeping the Tomatenquark logo / trademark alive, the project will also be taken down from Steam on 31.10.2020.

Thanks everyone for everything. May this fork rest in peace. Also, may Sauerbraten finally get it's last release.