Abstract Works - Copyrights, trademarks, patents and other materials of an intellectual nature that are protected by law to allow their creators to be recognized for their works and to rightfully profit from them. I use this term in place of the inaccurate and misleading term "intellectual property", a term which implies these works should be treated the same under the law as physical property, a view which I oppose for reasons that are beyond the scope of this FAQ.

Q: What is Dark Nova?

A: Dark Nova is an alternative game engine for Starcraft game content. It's specifically designed with the Modding community in mind, providing features that go beyond what Starcraft supports to allow the creation of Mods that are limited only by the imaginations of their creators.

Q: Is Dark Nova an emulator?

A: No. An emulator attempts to exactly match the behavior of an existing system. While Dark Nova renders much of the same content, it may differ significantly in how that content is rendered. I'll use the metaphore of a web browser to explain...

Most people who view the web these days us Internet Explorer (IE). However, there are other browsers out there that some would argue are better for viewing web content. One of these is Mozilla. Now, in spite of the fact that Mozilla can render web content that was designed for and tested using IE, we do not consider Mozilla an IE emulator. Why? Because the focus of Mozilla is to provide standards compliant web browsing, not to exactly duplicate the functionality of IE.

Similarly, Dark Nova is not a replacement for Starcraft. It is designed to compliment the existing game engine by providing an alternative means of playing Starcraft game content that doesn't suffer from the limitations of the original game engine.

Q: What are the system requirements for Dark Nova?

A: You'll need the following to run Dark Nova:

• Unaltered installations of Starcraft and Starcraft: Broodwar
• A legal CD-ROM for Starcraft or Starcraft: Broodwar
• Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
• DirectX 7.0 or better
• For SDL/OpenGL graphics rendering, a graphics card with complete hardware-based 8-bit palettized texture support (example: Nvidia GeForce 256).

When running in SDL/OpenGL rendering mode, Dark Nova can run on graphics cards without 8-bit palettized texture support, but the performance is significantly degraded. We are currently working to solve this problem in a later release.

If you've significantly altered your installation of Starcraft, and you're having trouble with Dark Nova, you may need to reinstall Starcraft.

Q: Does Dark Nova use Blizzard executable code?

A: No. Dark Nova not access any of Blizzard Entertainment's executables or libraries. The only things even remotely approaching executable code that Dark Nova uses are the Starcraft IScripts.

Q: Did you reverse engineer Starcraft to create Dark Nova?

A: While we did some minor work to improve existing file specifications, the vast majority of Starcraft's file formats and features were documented years ago. Our team simply engaged in Internet data-mining and used the information collected to create our engine.

Blizzard Entertainment is already aware of the extent of this documentation. They have, on their website, given their public blessing to the creation of total conversions for Starcraft. That kind of game modification simply isn't possible without access to proprietary Blizzard file formats and game data structures. Dark Nova is fundamentally based on the technology necessary to create such modifications.

Q: Can I make a commercial product using Dark Nova?

A: A commercial product could be made using Dark Nova, but there are a few things to bare in mind. First, no Blizzard content or file formats could be used in the game. That means you'd have to reengineer the data structures and file loading to eliminate all dependance on Blizzards abstract works. (In other words, stuff like GRP and MPQ support would have to go.) There also might be patent issues on portions of the user interface. In other words, creating a commercial game using code from Dark Nova would take a significant effort, but may still be better than starting from scratch.

Q: Will Dark Nova have multiplayer support?

A: We plan to add multiplayer support at some point in the future, but it will be entirely incompatible with Battle.net and the standard Starcraft client. Supporting Blizzard's multiplayer network protocols presents legal and technical problems that simply can't be overcome.

Q: Will Dark Nova be ported to operating systems other than Windows?

A: Yes. We already have working code in Linux, and we may add support for more operating systems in the future. Programmers out there should feel free to port Dark Nova to other platforms themselves.

Q: Why write a new game engine for Starcraft? What's wrong with Starcraft.exe?

A: Starcraft's game engine was never really intended for add-ons and modifications. Some effort was put forth in the form of the Starcraft Campaign Editor, but true campaigns and new content require special tools developed by the community. Furthermore, some things just can't be done with the engine, like adding units.

By writing an engine from scratch, we avoid the pitfalls of the existing architecture and can add whatever features we want. We can also add enhancements that are simply not possible for Starcraft.exe, like true color graphics.

Q: Can Dark Nova extract files from an MPQ to disk?

A: No. Dark Nova's MPQ support is only designed to load files within an MPQ into a buffer in memory. I suppose modifying it to write such data to disk would be trivial for a seasoned programmer, but why bother when you can simply use Storming, MPQEdit or WinMPQ? Futhermore, extraction programs can easily be written with StormIL, StormLib, lmpqapi and SFStorm. Also, D2dem can be modified in a similar fashion.

The bottom line is that the MPQ format is completely dead as a secure format.

Q: Couldn't the source code for Dark Nova be used for illegal purposes, such as piracy?

A: The information and tools necessary to for the improper and illegal use or distribution of the abstract works in Starcraft existed literally years before we began this project. Our code is neither designed with such activities in mind, nor is it unique in its support of specific features. In short, Dark Nova is of little use to those intent on pirating Blizzard's abstract works.

Q: Can we create a custom version of Dark Nova that will add special feature X to our Starcraft modification?

A: Absolutely. It's one of the primary goals of the Dark Nova project.

Q: Is Dark Nova legal?

A: As legal as utilities like Stardraft, Stargraft, TileEdit and the like. Blizzard would be within it's legal rights to terminate this project, if they so desired, but this would be highly inconsistant with its business practices regarding previous game utilities and the add-on community. (A list of precidents for Dark Nova might span several pages.)

Q: What happens if Vivendi Universal finds out about your project?

A: We are prepared for this possibility. Each member of our team has a small poison gas capsole inside a false tooth which they can bite down on in the event that they are captured by Vivendi lawyers. We will all have a quick and merciful death instead of the many years of unbearable torture that has become the fate of the authors of Bnetd.

Seriously, if we're contacted by Vivendi, we will simply try to work things out with them in a patient and civilized manner. They are simply businessmen trying to protect their investment. So long as they don't perceived us as a threat to that investment, there's no reason to believe something can't be worked out.

If we can't work something out, then... Well... (* CRUNCH! *)

Uh-oh! Now I'm in trouble with the Frank Herbert estate lawyers!

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