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DASI-I

No cheating allowed

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gemini09 said:

It's not a matter of players still finding ways to cheat.

It's about my creative control over my own mod. It has nothing to do with those who made ZDoom, and their personal preferences.

I understand that ZDoom is a personal project for the group involved, and they are certainly free to shape it as they see fit.

I think it would be healthy to recognize the fact that modders come before a programmer's personal preferences.


Absolutely not. It is the programmer's right to do what he or she wants to do with their own project. Sure, they can listen to suggestions from modders and the people who will use their project; but they are in no way obligated to do so. You are also not entitled to feel hard done by or stifled creatively, simply because the developers have made the decision not to include a feature that you would like.

If someone wants complete creative control (outside what a particular source port is capable of) then it really is their responsibility to either use a source port that allows them that extra level of freedom, or to write their own source port instead.

Your personal preferences do not come before those of the developers of the source port. You contradict yourself in saying that the ZDoom developers are free to shape it as they see fit, yet you then say that they must recognise that the opinions of modders come before their own. To summarise, it appears that you're saying that you're fine with the ZDoom team doing what they like with their own project, as long as the design decisions they make are aligned with the beliefs of the community and, in particular, those developing mods which use ZDoom.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that anyone holding this belief could be accused of having a distorted, over-inflated sense of entitlement. ZDoom is the personal project of a dedicated team of individuals, and they can develop it however they wish, with no conditions stipulated by anyone.

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why would you want to force cheats being disabled? that just seems really, really dumb. pointless. why

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Gez said:

Why?

Why is it a fact?

Why would it be healthy to accept it as a fact?


It's a fact when it comes to how it works in the game industry.

There is nothing of personal preferences involved when company A that designed an engine, license it away to company B for the creative process.

I acknowledged the fact that ZDoom is not a business but a hobby.

It would be healthy because it benefits the modders, and modders are as much (if not more) of a target audience as players are.

Engines typically go from programmers to designers - not directly to players. That's what I'm trying to get across. Modders come before players, and certainly before personal preferences of a programmer's.

That's my stance on it. I don't really have anything more to say.

Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

You can't disable cheats, but you can prevent players from using it.



You can give the +WEAPON.CHEATNOTWEAPON flag on weapons to prevent them from begin obtained by IDKFA

The +NOTIMEFREEZE flag will prevent monsters from being affected by the freeze cheat.

The +NOFEAR flag will prevent prevent monsters from being affected by IDCHOPPERS cheat.

Remember that any thing that does a damage of 99999 can instantly kill anything, even players in god mode. Make use of it with a custom-made rocket, and make the Cyberdemon always kill the player when hit, even if cheating.

Place some sectors with instadeath around and outside regular sectors to prevent IDCLIP, but you cant prevent players to cross locked doors with it. For doing this, you will need to create an invisible actor that will fire a hitscan attack of 999999 damage right after it sees the player, and place it behind the locked doors. And instead just locking the doors with keys, you will need to make the door line call an ACS script to detect if the player has the key, then open the door, and destroy the actor with the deadly hitscans that guards it.

But, this would require a lot of knowledge in DECORATE and ACS.


Hehe.. ;) :)

zarkyb said:

Absolutely not. It is the programmer's right to do what he or she wants to do with their own project. Sure, they can listen to suggestions from modders and the people who will use their project; but they are in no way obligated to do so. You are also not entitled to feel hard done by or stifled creatively, simply because the developers have made the decision not to include a feature that you would like.

If someone wants complete creative control (outside what a particular source port is capable of) then it really is their responsibility to either use a source port that allows them that extra level of freedom, or to write their own source port instead.

Your personal preferences do not come before those of the developers of the source port. You contradict yourself in saying that the ZDoom developers are free to shape it as they see fit, yet you then say that they must recognise that the opinions of modders come before their own. To summarise, it appears that you're saying that you're fine with the ZDoom team doing what they like with their own project, as long as the design decisions they make are aligned with the beliefs of the community and, in particular, those developing mods which use ZDoom.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that anyone holding this belief could be accused of having a distorted, over-inflated sense of entitlement. ZDoom is the personal project of a dedicated team of individuals, and they can develop it however they wish, with no conditions stipulated by anyone.


Eh, okay.....

I'm just saying that it's for the GREATER GOOD that modders have total control. John Carmack wanted people to be able to mod Doom - I don't believe he'd have any interest of having any obstacles for modders to overcome in order to craft exactly whatever it is that they wanted to.

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gemini09 said:

I'm just saying that it's for the GREATER GOOD that modders have total control. John Carmack wanted people to be able to mod Doom - I don't believe he'd have any interest of having any obstacles for modders to overcome in order to craft exactly whatever it is that they wanted to.

I've just finished reading Masters of Doom which gives a great deal of background concerning the development of Doom. John Carmack is reported as being pretty stubborn about the decisions he made while programming his engines; one particular example was that when programming the Wolfenstein engine, Romero and the rest of the design team had to practically beg Carmack on several occasions to include sliding walls before he included them. Carmack made decisions like these and the design team had to abide by them.

Let's also keep in mind that the vanilla Doom engine isn't entirely modder-friendly. Sure, the data files it uses allow for additional maps and textures to be included without overwriting the originals; but back in the day, you had to edit the executable directly in order to change most of the game's behaviour. It was made easier by the developers of third-party tools such as Dehacked. Carmack didn't include any easy direct ways for modders to change the engine's behaviour, but he wasn't trying to stifle creativity or limit modders in any way.

Comparing the development of ZDoom to development in the commercial games industry is a little like comparing a professional graphics artist to someone who makes levels for a game as a hobby. In the games industry, programmers and designers are generally paid salaries to create content, be it a game engine or game assets. On the other hand, hobbyists are doing it on the side: in most cases (I'm fairly sure this is the case for ZDoom) they expect and will receive no financial recompense for their efforts. For many, it's a personal project that they do for themselves. From my point of view, I design Doom levels the way I want them to be: I appreciate feedback, but I will not make changes just for the sake of a group of players who want to play it "their way".

I guess we're going to disagree on this, which is fine. But in order to allow complete (and I mean complete) creative freedom so that modders can do anything they like, the ZDoom developers would have to rewrite the engine so that anything is possible; should a level designer be upset and feel his creativity is being crushed because he cannot build perfect spheres in software mode? Should he request that the developers implement mechanics for complete open-world gameplay akin to the Elder Scrolls RPGs? Some things just can't be done. If you want complete control, make your own engine with the features that you do want.

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zarkyb said:

If you want complete control, make your own engine with the features that you do want.


That's not my field.

If I didn't get my point across now, I never will.

Sure - we'll agree to disagree.

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You sound entitled as fuck. "That's not my field."

Well, if you really want to do things that the Doom engines out there do not let you do; it has to become your field.

Players do come before modders. There wouldn't be any modder if the game wasn't played in the first place. A modding scene only develops if there are enough players to sustain it.

Total control for the modders isn't even a good idea. As the saying goes, art is born from constraints, thrives on struggle, dies from liberty. Pop-quiz: why do so many people still work on vanilla-compatible mods, having to fit within Doom's static limits? Or why did everybody jump on the 1024 bandwagon? Why where there successful projects like 10sectors, 2sectors, 1monster?

Because these guidelines brought constraints. It limited what the modders could do. It forced them to concentrate on what was absolutely necessary to convey their ideas.

You cite "how it's done in the game industry". Let's look at what happens in the game industry, really.
1. Designers came up with super cool ideas.
2. Technical limitations and time constraints cause them to cut just about everything superfluous
3. The game is released, sells, and they get paid.

Alternatively, what if you decide that the designers get to overrule the programmers, and that the game will take as long as it needs so as to perfectly realize the designers' perfect vision? Well, then, you get stuff like Daikatana or Duke Nukem Forever. Yes, this is how it works in the game industry. When design gets to have total control, the game takes super-long, is constantly delayed, and when it is finally released it sucks and becomes an eternal symbol of ridicule.

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Gez said:

You sound entitled as fuck. "That's not my field."

Well, if you really want to do things that the Doom engines out there do not let you do; it has to become your field.

Players do come before modders. There wouldn't be any modder if the game wasn't played in the first place. A modding scene only develops if there are enough players to sustain it.

Total control for the modders isn't even a good idea. As the saying goes, art is born from constraints, thrives on struggle, dies from liberty. Pop-quiz: why do so many people still work on vanilla-compatible mods, having to fit within Doom's static limits? Or why did everybody jump on the 1024 bandwagon? Why where there successful projects like 10sectors, 2sectors, 1monster?

Because these guidelines brought constraints. It limited what the modders could do. It forced them to concentrate on what was absolutely necessary to convey their ideas.

You cite "how it's done in the game industry". Let's look at what happens in the game industry, really.
1. Designers came up with super cool ideas.
2. Technical limitations and time constraints cause them to cut just about everything superfluous
3. The game is released, sells, and they get paid.

Alternatively, what if you decide that the designers get to overrule the programmers, and that the game will take as long as it needs so as to perfectly realize the designers' perfect vision? Well, then, you get stuff like Daikatana or Duke Nukem Forever. Yes, this is how it works in the game industry. When design gets to have total control, the game takes super-long, is constantly delayed, and when it is finally released it sucks and becomes an eternal symbol of ridicule.


There's such a thing as being creative within a frame, and being creative with total freedom. The first one is indeed stimulating, but it's still a freaking constraint on the creation - is it not??

ALWAYS CONSTRAINING THE CREATIVE PROCESS?

ALWAYS HAVING ARBITRARY, 3RD PARTY CONSTRAINTS, IS ACTUALLY A GOOD IDEA???

Is that what you're saying??

I freaking hate when people tell me the obvious.

I know there wouldn't be modders if there were no players. Technically I could be a moron and claim modders are players too. My point was that the chain of creation goes from programmers to modders to players. Programmers should appeal to modders, and modders should appeal to players.

zarkyb said:

I've just finished reading Masters of Doom which gives a great deal of background concerning the development of Doom. John Carmack is reported as being pretty stubborn about the decisions he made while programming his engines; one particular example was that when programming the Wolfenstein engine, Romero and the rest of the design team had to practically beg Carmack on several occasions to include sliding walls before he included them. Carmack made decisions like these and the design team had to abide by them.


I don't know about that. I will read that book, though. But there could be technical reasons for Carmack's reluctance? Instability, difficulty to code, impractical, or the like?

zarkyb said:

Let's also keep in mind that the vanilla Doom engine isn't entirely modder-friendly. Sure, the data files it uses allow for additional maps and textures to be included without overwriting the originals; but back in the day, you had to edit the executable directly in order to change most of the game's behaviour. It was made easier by the developers of third-party tools such as Dehacked.


And the BINGO was DEHACKED!

It was made to make modding easier.

ID Software didn't do so because their aim was a game. Source ports are a different matter. BOOM was made for modding. So was ZDoom - no?

Gez said:

You sound entitled as fuck. "That's not my field."


I'm debating for a better foundation to mod from.

I'm not the one who is arrogant.

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Pure Hellspawn said:

There's still a way to cheat around that. Once the player dies, they use RESURRECT.


Give the player an custom inventory item during his death state. During his spawn animation, keep checking if the player has said inventory. If he has it, it means that he resurrected, so, jump to Xdeath state.

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"No cheating allowed“ … I think it is enough that you cannot jump anymore in newer wads, but let the cheaters cheat :-P! I only cheat, when I don’t know how to go on in a level.

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This conversation is completely asinine. You say it makes sense that the developer should give more control to the modder, but the modder should take control away from the player?

If you don't want people to cheat, howzabout you put that in your readme. Then people will see how creative you are.

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Great arguments.

One says I should make my own engine, and another says I should put nocheating in the text file.

Thanks for the input, qoncept.

You truly are one with perspective on things.

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Tango said:

why would you want to force cheats being disabled? that just seems really, really dumb. pointless. why

Ah, someone shares my views on this.

Stripping away and disabling cheats will only alienate a large majority of users. I don't cheat, but it would annoy to simply know that something like this has been implemented and exists. There's also the fact that, in all likelihood, some anonymous player would go out of the way to upload a version of the wad with the cheating reinstated, just to spite the author. This is the internet, after all.

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Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Give the player an custom inventory item during his death state. During his spawn animation, keep checking if the player has said inventory. If he has it, it means that he resurrected, so, jump to Xdeath state.


It won't help with buddha.

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DASI-I said:

I was wondering how I could disable cheats in my custom WAD so that, under no circumstance, can anybody use stuff like "no cliping", "give all weapons", etc... This WAD will have to work in GZDoom. I know that it can be done because I've played WADs that won't let me use stuff like IDKFA or IDCLIP.
thanx ^_^


This question has been asked before for various source ports. I'm not a strong user of cheat codes, but I have to ask. What is your reasoning to completely disable cheat codes?

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TheDarkArchon said:

What exactly will the ability to disable cheats allow you to do, aside from demonstrating that you are a massive control freak?


I'm not going to explain that.

But I don't think I have come across as unreasonable during my posting in this thread. So, you may assume that I have no reasons at all, or you may explore the idea that I possibly do.

Snakes said:

Ah, someone shares my views on this.

Stripping away and disabling cheats will only alienate a large majority of users. I don't cheat, but it would annoy to simply know that something like this has been implemented and exists. There's also the fact that, in all likelihood, some anonymous player would go out of the way to upload a version of the wad with the cheating reinstated, just to spite the author. This is the internet, after all.


The anonymous player wouldn't have the distribution right to my mod.

As for alienating a large majority of users --- eh, so, a large majority of Doom players actually cheat..? Are we all 10 years old here?

I know the advantage of cheats. If you have a semi-decent wad, and just want to explore what's there without investing any time, then cheats are great.

But what if, say, Halo, was built on the Doom engine? Say that it used ZDoom.

Would it be appropriate for Halo to have an IDKFA cheat that suddenly brought in weapons and keys from an entirely different game?

What if my mod is something that uses 0% of Doom's resources? None of the Doom weapons, keys, enemies, or anything are used - all is new.

Would it be appropriate - or desirable, for my new game, to have cheats from ANOTHER game?

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If your mod is a stand-alone TC; it is a stand-alone TC.

Using IDFA in, say, Harmony, does not give you the Doom weapons.

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Setting it so that pressing sequences of buttons you need to press in order to activate cheat codes crash port you are currently using should do the trick. In case player doesn't get it and despite the obvious clue that he/she is not supposed to do that, pack a malware or two into it that'll get unleashed after repeated uses of cheat sequences. That should teach em', sleazy bastards.

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gemini09 said:
As for alienating a large majority of users --- eh, so, a large majority of Doom players actually cheat..? Are we all 10 years old here?

Don't worry about alienating people by disabling cheats. You've already got that covered.

I know the advantage of cheats. If you have a semi-decent wad, and just want to explore what's there without investing any time, then cheats are great.

And that's it? What if the game is too hard? What if you just want to kill as many monsters as possible without scrounging for ammo? It might not be the way you intend the game to be played, but I don't see how restricting the player could possibly be construed as a good thing.

But what if, say, Halo, was built on the Doom engine? Say that it used ZDoom.

Would it be appropriate for Halo to have an IDKFA cheat that suddenly brought in weapons and keys from an entirely different game?

What if my mod is something that uses 0% of Doom's resources? None of the Doom weapons, keys, enemies, or anything are used - all is new.

Huh? Why would a new game use the Doom engine and add weapons without just replacing the existing resources? If your game has a Fleshlight and no pistol, REPLACE the pistol.

Would it be appropriate - or desirable, for my new game, to have cheats from ANOTHER game?

Who knows? If someone wants to play the game as it's intended they aren't going to cheat.

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Or you could (although I really don't know why you would) make the cheats do bad things rather than good ones.

Bit like typing IDDQD or IDKFA in Heretic

EDIT: (Ah crap, this has pretty much been said already, sorry)

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At the end of the day, the player is going to decide how he wwnts to play a PWAD. He might load other guns that replace yours, he might replace some of your monsters, he might decide to hear his own music or sound fx, he might load super-weapons patch, and he might even use a completely different IWAD (like Freedoom, or in my case a slightly modified Freedoom). Even more extreme: he might be running a modified version of ZDoom. But (and this is key!), none of that concerns you. You're not responsible for what happens if the player chooses to go outside the recommended configuration. So long as you clearly state in the TXT file what game and engine the PWAD is for (and you actually tested that it works that way), then you've done your job properly. If it really bothers you, add a disclaimer to the TXT file that states you're not responsible for what happens if the player chooses to play the game under non-standard configuration (if it breaks, they keep both pieces, etc.) That's pretty much all you can realistically do.

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qoncept said:

Don't worry about alienating people by disabling cheats. You've already got that covered.


Oh, a jab. I didn't know we were boxing here.

bra - vo... clap, clap, clap...


And that's it? What if the game is too hard? What if you just want to kill as many monsters as possible without scrounging for ammo? It might not be the way you intend the game to be played, but I don't see how restricting the player could possibly be construed as a good thing.


Huh? Why would a new game use the Doom engine and add weapons without just replacing the existing resources? If your game has a Fleshlight and no pistol, REPLACE the pistol.


Who knows? If someone wants to play the game as it's intended they aren't going to cheat.


I'm going to sleep! I'm going to count me some sheep!

One qoncept! Two qoncepts! THREE QONCEPTS! FOOOOOOUR ZZZZzzzzzz.....

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qoncept said:

Good luck with your mod.


Thank you.

I'm putting a lot of effort into it, and I'm designing it as best as I can, and in the process I intend to delete the cheats.

If players don't find it fun, and fail at cheating and proceed to quit the game, it's fine. I will delete the cheats for my next mod as well, and take the short-comings of this mod into consideration.

It will hardly fail because of the removal of cheats alone.

DASI-I said:

I was wondering how I could disable cheats in my custom WAD so that, under no circumstance, can anybody use stuff like "no cliping", "give all weapons", etc... This WAD will have to work in GZDoom. I know that it can be done because I've played WADs that won't let me use stuff like IDKFA or IDCLIP.
thanx ^_^


Tag me out

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And that's why I love ZDoom and GZDoom. Because I can CHEAT. After a long day of work, I want to release some frustration and not get frustrated in the process.

Also in order to avoid control freaks, I always check inside the wads and pk3s and look for things I don't like, obviously, I edit or remove them. And as you can imagine I already have my custom made super weapons mod which is, of course, way unbalanced in my favor thanks to decorate and acs. (Don't worry, I won't release it, too many people will scream and cry precisely because it is a super cheat... Duh!).

So, Mr control freak, no matter what you do in ZDoom, I will always be able to cheat since my real life profession for many years has been Systems Programmer / Analyst and after so many years of decorate and acs, I got you covered.

BTW, it was ID Software the one who started the cheats with the infamous "IDDQD", isn't it ? So, what the heck are you even daring to tell us ? That you are better than us ? LOL !!

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lzvk25 said:

And that's why I love ZDoom and GZDoom. Because I can CHEAT. After a long day of work, I want to release some frustration and not get frustrated in the process.

Also in order to avoid control freaks, I always check inside the wads and pk3s and look for things I don't like, obviously, I edit or remove them. And as you can imagine I already have my custom made super weapons mod which is, of course, way unbalanced in my favor thanks to decorate and acs. (Don't worry, I won't release it, too many people will scream and cry precisely because it is a super cheat... Duh!).

So, Mr control freak, no matter what you do in ZDoom, I will always be able to cheat since my real life profession for many years has been Systems Programmer / Analyst and after so many years of decorate and acs, I got you covered.

BTW, it was ID Software the one who started the cheats with the infamous "IDDQD", isn't it ? So, what the heck are you even daring to tell us ? That you are better than us ? LOL !!


You can't jump into an opera, and scream at them to speed it up, because you're frustrated inside.

I suspect you're not sincere.

You begin every wad-playing by checking technical stuff? Yeah, you have me fooled and worried.

So long, my friend.

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An opera is one thing; as it is a live performance in front a crowd. A social event. Kinda like multiplayer; except multispectator instead. However, if you're watching a recording of that opera, you have a fast-forward button on your remote.

Cheating during a multiplayer match is a big deal. (Competitive demo recording being considered a sort of multiplayer here.) Cheating during a single-player game, meh; nobody really cares.

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lol, that's true...

we don't need to be dead serious ALL the time :)

but it's important that we understand each other's opinions, motives, intenions, etc... in order to know for certain whether we agree or disagree

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And BTW, Mr Control Freak, is your mod even worth our time and bandwith to download it ? Or is the typical n-th recreation of the Doom I episodes only this time with "no cheats" allowed, with the standard textures and a big MP3 file so it will look that you did a lot ? Will you be "asking" (read "begging") for help from the other members ? Or even worst, putting them to work on your wonderful "ideas" while taking all the credit ? Of course "no cheating allowed". LOL !! Then again, in order to avoid seeing horrible '95 style levels and even worst code, I should skip this mod.

PS. You better be really good, even better than Tormentor667 himself to be preaching to us this way. Something that I really doubt.

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