Wirehead Studios

All the way down in the "List of changes" section in the .99f manual there is a short list of "Proposed Gameplay Modes" for the future 1.0 version.
One of them is 'RESURGENCE'. Now, I realise that we're not at version 1.0 yet, and that it's only a list of ideas, with no guarantee it'll actually make it into Generations. Nevertheless, can anybody tell me a bit more what this game mode would be about? :D
Especially the sentence "This gameplay mode has been cleared with Id Software" sparked my curiosity. I'm probably hoping for too much now, but does that mean we'll get some (semi-)authentic Wolfenstein/DOOM/Q1/Q2 monsters to fight? :D

Resurgence was/is a planned true single-player game type for Generations Arena. There was a "proof of concept" version, I think for version .99b or .99c, and it was exactly that -- a single-player game. Monsters, keys, exits.

It's something that, if it's done, will have to wait until after 1.0. Too much has to be done/changed between now and then.

If it ever happens, we'll never be able to (officially) release monsters for it, mind. That's what got  every other single player nostalgia game shut down ;]

So what was exactly cleared with iD then?

Us: "Hey, can we add a mission format to Generations Arena; providing we don't include any models of the original monsters?"

id: "Sure thing."

lol... oh, ok.
I didn't know things like that had to be cleared with id as well.
(Oh well, better too careful than not enough, it would be horrible if Gen met the same fate as Q2 Generations. :S)

I'll just wait and see what Resurgence will be about, if it ever gets included. Sorry for being impatient, but it just sounded really neat. ;)

The way Resurgence would be legal is that it would feature Hunt's "plug-in" monster scripting.  If someone had the Arachnotron player model, and used a monster script that pointed to that model, then the scripted monster would look like an arachnotron, behave somewhat like an arachnotron, have the same health, etc, and fire a Generations-type plasma weapon, etc.  The script could use any model, it could be TankJr's model for all we care.  Since we're not literally making monsters that resemble Id's intellectual property, we're legal.  All we're doing is adding code that enables people to script monsters that use third-party player models AS monsters.  At least, that's the general concept.  The Reborn mod was trying to create actual Doom monsters.

Id told them they could not do that, since it violated their intellectual property.  The models looked very good, and they pleaded with Id to at least allow them to release them as Q3 player models.  That's how models like the Arachnotron showed up on Polycount, etc.  Since Id said it was ok for those to be player models, and Resurgence would be capable of plug-in loading of player models for any scripted monster, then we're not breaking any rules or violating any precedents.  LeeMon cleared all this in advance with Todd H. to make sure we would be legal.  If Id were to change their mind at some point, we will naturally respect their ownership over intellectual property.

As for the technical considerations, it IS fully feasible, Ward had coded a working system into the .99b codebase.  The problem was that Gen was going to go through so many changes to the player model system, weapon animations, weapon behaviors, etc, that trying to code core functions underneath model code was going to introduce far too many variables into the game and we'd end up with a bug-laden mess, since one major change in the player model system might do very bad things to the monster model handling, etc.  We decided it would be better to concentrate on the multiplayer portion of Gen first, get all the classes working right, all the weapon frames working properly, etc, and then add Resurgence over the top of a stable and completed codebase.  That's why it's taken so bloody long and some people joke that it'll never happen.  Hey, life's uncertain, and good work takes time.