The /newstuff Chronicles #389

How many Castles of Combat are there, and are they all seriously named exactly the same?

Are you sure kashimir.wad is a vanilla Doom II map? I tried playing with Chocolate Doom and it's like a tutti-fruti special extravaganza, with some strangely tiled textures (esp. switches) thrown in for free. ;) I tried it in PrBoom also, which was better but still had some glitches here and there. The TXT file doesn't say what port was used for testing, but I'm guessing it was ZDoom.

Also, check out all these warnings at startup:
$ chocolate-doom -iwad doom2.wad -file kashimir.wad

R_Init: Init DOOM refresh daemon - [.......R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (AASHITTY@)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (ASHWALL3@)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BFALL2)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BFALL3)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BFALL4)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BIGBRIK1@)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BIGDOOR2)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (BIGDOOR4)
...
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (ZZZFACE7)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (ZZZFACE8)
R_GenerateLookup: column without a patch (ZZZFACE9)

Using -merge instead of -file doesn't help.

2hex11: it was tested in doom2.exe and Prboom-plus 2.5.0.9. Works fine for me.

Ok, then this is a Freedoom IWAD bug. I tried with the doom2.wad from the v0.7 release, and also the latest June 9 build, with identical results.

The map is actually playable btw, it's just that a bunch of textures are out of whack. It looks kinda psychadelic. ;) I took some screenshots, but img-url.com is down right now.

[warbaby.wad]

In vanilla Doom (ExMx), the no-clip cheat is technically IDSPISPOPD. The IDCLIP cheat may work in some ports (prboom supports both cheat codes), but not in others (chocolate).

The longer code is annoying to type (easy to make an error), and I'm guessing that's why id changed the code in Doom II.

An actual Quake-style console would have been even better. Too bad they didn't think of it back then. It would have been cool to have the ability to change all sorts of parameters on the fly.

hex11 said:
An actual Quake-style console would have been even better. Too bad they didn't think of it back then. It would have been cool to have the ability to change all sorts of parameters on the fly.

Among other reasons, I prefer DOOM over Quake because it has a more well-defined functionality instead of the possibility of altering it in a thousand ways internally.

Well the dehacked patching already allows changing lots of engine behavior. The console would just have been more convenient for developing/testing mods, especially when you consider that true vanilla Doom has no -deh option and you had to physically merge them into your IWAD.

hex11 said:

Well the dehacked patching

was never a vanilla feature.

You're slow today, I already covered that part. ;)

hex11 said:

true vanilla Doom has no -deh option

I was just saying that you can't bring exe hacking tools as a rebuttal to the assertion vanilla doesn't let you change its internal parameters.

Those tools exist because people wanted them to. Heck, originally there wasn't even a map editor. If it weren't for the tools, and the later source code release (effectively the ultimate mod), the Doom community would be only a very small fraction of what it is today. And all you'd have left is a bunch of old binaries that don't run in modern OS.

Sure, but if you take that sort of things into account, then Doom does have a console system and you have the ability to change all sorts of parameters on the fly -- just not in vanilla/Chocolate and other ice creams.

The reviews were relatively tolerable this week. Great job guys.

40oz said:

I've never seen Heretic's 'PAUSED' graphics until today.

Same here!

Gez said:

Sure, but if you take that sort of things into account, then Doom does have a console system and you have the ability to change all sorts of parameters on the fly -- just not in vanilla/Chocolate and other ice creams.

Well that requires the source code, so it still leaves you hanging in the early days when you had to manually patch your binary and merge into your IWAD, etc. I remember those days quite well, and how tedious and confusing it was.

With Quake things were much simpler. Every mod went into its own /id1/modname subdir and then you just started the game as "quake -game modname". I ended up playing a whole lot more Quake mods than Doom mods, up until more recent years with ports that had -deh functionality. And of course, Quake had a built-in console, for even easier testing/debugging.

The Green Herring said (in his review of TMP.WAD):
This WAD was the winner of a level design contest for the original Doom that was run by the late PC Zone in 1994. The contest entries were included in the cover disc for its December 1994 issue, which included 23 finalists and 94 other WADs. . .

. . .Is there anyone with a copy of the December 1994 issue of PC Zone willing to upload some scans?

The contest wads also appear on the October 94 cover CD (which arrived in today's post), so I'd say we can add that issue plus November and possibly September to the search list.

hex11 said:
Well the dehacked patching already allows changing lots of engine behavior.

Plus we have ports now, but I meant especially during runtime. Like, in Quake you can change anything from the view height to map gravity through the console, just typing map [map] to get it going. In (vanilla) DOOM you have nothing but the cheat codes and menu options. External parameters also allow alterations, although less immediately and more rigidly. The game specific console is an invitation to allow many more changes. Without it, a thousand new command line parameters would become awkward.

dew said:
all in all... it brings back the horror of being overwhelmed by hordes of weak monsters, a feeling you probably haven't felt in a looong time unless you play e1 or e2 on nightmare.

It does do that although some other recent WADs have done so as well, at least the 2nd Ganymede episode, although gameplay is somewhat different in style.

Hmm, I think I might give Strange a shot later. I tend to love levels with experimental and quirky gameplay, and the WAD definitely looks like it fits that description. Plus the visual style looks pretty smooth with its distinct coloring and interesting architecture.

40oz said:

I've never seen Heretic's 'PAUSED' graphics until today.

heh... look out how many things you can found, on \newstuff!

Baby Boonie Hood said:How many Castles of Combat are there, and are they all seriously named exactly the same?

here's a list: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?search=1&field=title&word=castle+of+combat&sort=time&order=asc&page=1

and yes, it's all called with the same title! (but different filenames)

Whatever, Double Impact is awesome.

Tried out Double impact... there must be something really wrong with me, but i don't have any desire to play it anymore after just beating the first level.
This first level had a very bullshit part in it that i beat only after a couple tries even after knowing exactly what was going to happen (the little slime place with slime that takes 10 health off and a spectre and a shotgun guy - it's just so freaking stupid, but i can't see a way to reliably beat that place without losing more that a little health and i really, really hate such areas - and then you press a switch and a horde of hitscanners comes out, which i had to run from since i was at low health and had no shotgun ammo). And i just can't stand playing a map when i know half of it already, it is only ever interesting for me on the first try, maybe a bit of the second. So i did beat the first map after dealing with that bullshit part but all interest in further progress was gone. I understand how silly it sounds but when i know all the enemy placement and items in half of a map beforehand, i really just feel like i'm cheating and having an unfair advantage. Unless it's a slaughter map of course, in which case i probably don't even try to play it at all JUST KIDDING in which case i actually think knowing the map IS the requirement to beating it, which i don't like, but can stand.

Edit: tried to return to e1m2 and it went much better, no deaths, but a lot of near-death experiences, just how i like it. Will probably play further now. Still, that place in e1m1 is bullshit.

So if you almost die, that's great, but if you do die, that's bullshit?

No, if i die a few times, i just lose interest.
But that one place that happened to cause me to die a few times was bullshit. Not every place that kills me is bullshit, but that one was. Clear now?