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shadow1013

Vanilla Freedoom

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If some other people are willing to contribute, I'd be willing to make a few maps specifically for a Vanilla Freedoom map set. I'm not going to do it if I'm the only one, though.

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It might also be a good idea to ask the "Doom the Way Id Did" contributors if any of them would be willing to allow their maps to be used in FreeDoom. Those are low-detail vanilla maps in the classic style and should work quite well.

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From a previous post I feel they should be a separate megawad, that happens to have maps under Freedoom's license. People could play the megawad with any iwad they wish.

Just need to convince people to release some maps with Freedoom's license. They do not even need to be in a megawad or for any specific purpose.

Here's an example: http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/levels/doom2/a-c/cato_01.txt
Actually, that map has the license and is vanilla. It could go right in with no problem...I will adjust the skill levels though. Already one map closer.

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fraggle said:

Correct, although funnily enough, the WTFPL is apparently a perfectly valid free software license.

It's funny, but not at all surprising. The WTFPL grants you all rights to do what the fuck you want to. :)

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Perhaps it's worth mentioning that the recently released Double Impact's text file contains this permission: "You MAY edit and release any maps contained in the WAD as you wish under the conditions that the original authors and Unidoom are credited." I can't help but think that this would be good for FreeDoom.

http://doomworld.com/idgames/?id=16419

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Double Impact isn't really pure Vanilla though, as it needs a limit removing port to avoid bombing out in several places (which I learned the hard way when I failed to read the readme upon its release).

The maps could always be tweaked to bring them back under the limits, but for the effort that it would take to undertake (and test) such a task, I imagine that we might as well just de-Boom the existing Freedoom maps, or build new ones from scratch. Dunno.

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You could always use the Double Impact maps for episode 1 of the Boom IWAD. They're high quality, at least as good as the stuff that's in the IWAD right now (which are really just dups of the Doom II maps).

Wasn't one of their UniDoom maps sets going to be used for the FreeDM IWAD?

Also DI has good music and cool intermission screen. :)

Well after playing further, it looks like the rest of the tracks are just music from Doom. I liked E1M2 a lot though.

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hex11 said:

You could always use the Double Impact maps for episode 1 of the Boom IWAD. They're high quality, at least as good as the stuff that's in the IWAD right now (which are really just dups of the Doom II maps).


This is what I was thinking. Catoptromancy?

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I feel somewhat uneasy about blatantly reusing stuff that's already out. It is not hard to imagine (some) players having a reaction of "ooh, this is different—no wait I've played this before" followed by grumbling about filler and/or ripping off other projects, even if the actual authors are fine about it. On the other hand I might just be paranoid, of course.

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One possibility is to use some of the DI (or other PWAD) maps as placeholders until original, high-quality Ultimate Freedoom maps are finished (which will take a long time, unless you're John Romero...)

Right now some episode 1 maps are dups from Freedoom II, some are empty (1-room + exit switch), and one looks like the layout is all done but has no things (E1M6). The other episodes look pretty empty too...

Personally, as a player I feel more let down with those problems. It would be an improvement if you used some existing quality levels, so long as they're placed in a way that makes sense (no hellish themes in episode 1...)

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Obviously new content would be ideal, but, equally obviously, new content is not exactly pouring in. In that case, I can't see FreeDoom doing much better than using existing high-quality maps like Double Impact. Players would be happier, certainly.

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Creating a vanilla-Freedoom derived from the existing or new FreeDoom levels makes sense. Copying some other existing wad and then calling it FreeDoom does not. Call it Vanilla-Double-Impact if you want to do that. I agree that re-issuing some outside maps, as FreeDoom, is misleading and irritating.

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It's only misleading if you use some existing maps and don't give credit to the authors, or if you use some maps against the author's wishes (some don't want their stuff anywhere but their own PWAD).

There is already a precendent of making compilations of both single and deathmatch PWAD maps. This is not that much different.

Also, I think the whole reason some authors say you can re-use their stuff is so that somebody eventually does re-use their stuff (either in whole, or as a base to build upon). Think about it... :)

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I think he means misleading and irritating to the players, not the creators. At least that is how I see it. Regardless of who designed them, I hate playing maps that are duplicated between projects (as they are automatically 'stale'). Of course, if somebody wants to use them as placeholders, or something, I don't see a problem with that, but I'd honestly prefer the 'empty box' placeholders until real maps are created (from a player's perspective).

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One thing's for sure: no matter what direction Freedoom takes, not everyone will be completely satisfied. I'm sure that if I pulled a fresh, sweet megawad out of my ass and called it Freedoom Vanilla, at least one person on the Internet would tell me that my shit stinks. Hey, I've seen that shit before! Hey, your shit's style is wrong! Hey your shit's too easy/hard! Hey your shit has bugs that made chocolate-doom coredump! What is this, some random SLIGE shit? :P

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Misleading and irritating as in getting a CD of Doom levels only to find out that all but 10 of the levels are ones you have already. Or to download a new megawad only to find out later that it is old stuff under a new name.
There are not many good reasons to package existing levels under a new name. This is not one of them.

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There could always be two (or even more!) different vanilla Freedoom IWAD...

One with 100% original maps. I guess you could label this as the "official" vanilla IWAD. However, may be some time before it's finished.

Another that use existing maps either in whole or in part. You could call this the "alternative" vanilla IWAD. This could be finished very rapidly, and packaged with Chocolate Doom, etc. Of course, the website and documentation would mention that this IWAD isn't 100% original work, but the forthcoming "official" IWAD will be.

Then when the official one is finished, deprecate the other.

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I suggest the best course of action to make a Vanilla-compatible Freedoom IWAD is to make FreeDM be Vanilla-compatible. Then you achieve the goal (Vanilla compatible IWAD) while staying within the confines of the project (not a fork). There's the added bonus that it's also much easier to make deathmatch maps than it is to make single player maps. The 32in24 guys have managed to put together a complete set of 32 deathmatch levels within a 24 hour period on multiple occasions.

As I see it this would be much more straightforward and less wasteful than any of the other options available (creating a new set of single player maps, reworking all the existing maps to be Vanilla compatible, forking Freedoom into a Vanilla compatible offshoot, etc). I have to say that I dislike the idea of a "Vanilla Freedoom" offshoot; it would be a shame if there was a divide like that when Freedoom already has difficulty enough in attracting contributors.

FreeDM has been in need of some love and attention for quite a while now, and this would be a neat solution to both problems.

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I actually had some thoughts of making a FreeDM level (not right now), and I was not planning on staying Vanilla.
Also, it will not serve as a substitute for a single player game that can go with Chocolate Doom (which I would not expect to make a good Deathmatch platform).

Need a good answer to what the limits would be on sectors, linedefs,
visplanes, etc. It is hard to look at MAP09 and MAP13 and consider if they could be converted, or would have to be sectioned.
If this is for Chocolate Doom, then don't we need to know the Chocolate Limits, and not Vanilla. That would make it Chocolate-FreeDoom.

If we can assume a single player (no coop, no deathmatch), then we can use tricks like walkovers raising and lowering sectors, to replace some of the effects (which ruins the effect if a second player should see the mechanism in action). Without explicit agreement on that, I would have to assume that the levels need to be multiplayer compatible too.

It is the nature of these projects that they are uncompleted. Even if you only got 5 levels, at least you would have a 5 level wad to package with Chocolate Doom.

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wesleyjohnson said:

Also, it will not serve as a substitute for a single player game that can go with Chocolate Doom (which I would not expect to make a good Deathmatch platform).

Chocolate Doom has multiplayer functionality; however, a Vanilla IWAD is usable in essentially any source port.

If this is for Chocolate Doom, then don't we need to know the Chocolate Limits, and not Vanilla. That would make it Chocolate-FreeDoom.

What do you mean?

It is the nature of these projects that they are uncompleted. Even if you only got 5 levels, at least you would have a 5 level wad to package with Chocolate Doom.

Realistically I'm not really interested in "packaging" FreeDM with Chocolate Doom, although a link could certainly be provided to it on the website. I am interested in there existing a free Vanilla IWAD of some kind, as this would allow Chocolate Doom to be distributed in Debian main - it is currently only allowed in Debian contrib, because it depends on an IWAD, and there are no free ones that it can work with.

It would fit much better with Odamex, though. I may be wrong but I believe Odamex doesn't support Boom effects. I can certainly see the Odamex and FreeDM fitting together as a nice package.

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Odamex is supposed to support Boom extensions. At least that's what their FAQ says. And stuff like the bridge on E1M3 works fine... Also there's a couple Odamex servers running the Freedoom IWAD, at least one in deathmatch and another in coop mode. There rarely seems to be anybody playing though (the odalaunch tool typically shows 0 connections across all servers...) Maybe if it gets packaged in major linux distros then more players will join.

I liked how easy it was to compile, and the full-screen HUD is nicer than PrBoom (simpler, less confusing). It has some extra functionality like jumping, which is funny when you jump out of a window on a level and there's no path to get back in.

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Of course, there is also this FreeUDMX project:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/freedoom/50285-freeudmx/

I'm not sure what its reason for being is, unless it's to replace the current FreeDM IWAD. Still, everything in that PWAD (textures included) is free to re-use, according to the permissions in the TXT file. Well OK, maybe not the Castlevania music on MAP17...

BTW, although the current FreeDM is pure DM, it wouldn't take much effort to make it SP-compatible by carefully adding some monsters (use -nomonsters for pure DM). The goal in SP then becomes 100% kills instead of just fighting your way to the exit. Old classic DM PWADs like the Danzig and Igor series did exactly that. It's not as great as something designed from the start for SP, but it's better than nothing.

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hex11 said:

Still, everything in that PWAD (textures included) is free to re-use, according to the permissions in the TXT file.


Except not really, since a lot (or most?) of the textures and sounds (I didn't check the music) in UDMX are based on modified Doom assets. The text file's permission isn't enough for Freedoom if the PWAD's author doesn't actually have the right to grant the resources under the modified BSD license.

By the sounds of that thread (which is focussed on only the maps themselves), the UDMX maps need at least a limit-removing engine, too, so therefore wouldn't be all that useful for a vanilla IWAD.


[edit: I haven't taken a peek at FreeDM since well before 0.6.4, but fraggle's points are quite persuasive, and I wouldn't mind spending some time to tune up the existing FreeDM/FreeUDMX maps for Vanilla compatibility, or make some new ones, as the situation warrants. Simplifying the extant maps for Vanilla might well be a messy affair though, so I'm not going to start hacking them apart without being told do do so.]

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I semi-gave up FreeUDMX. Meaning I just started doing it all myself.
I can figure out which maps are already done and update the thread.
To clarify: Only UDMX maps are allowed, nothing else. They will need to be almost fully retextured. Other resources may say "allowed to reuse" but most are not 100% fully from scratch, so will not go into Freedoom. Maps are 100% from scratch and fully satisfy the Freedoom license.

Also there are already 16 FreeDM maps. With minor changes they can be converted to vanilla and spiffed up bit.

Also, Chocolate-Doom is an awesome DM and Coop port.
EDIT> Choco doesnt -iwad with freedm.wad well.

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Catoptromancy said:

EDIT> Choco doesnt -iwad with freedm.wad well.


This works fine for me (I'm using v1.5):
chocolate-doom -iwad freedm.wad

I noticed some HOM effects on MAP05, just after climbing the first set of stairs on the left. But no crashes or anything like that. Haven't visited all the levels though.

Is there a way to run CTF type games in vanilla, with some creative use of known hacks or something?

Edit: I tried to run a basic PWAD, like this:
chocolate-doom -iwad freedm.wad -file the_pool.wad
And all the monsters are identical humanoid shadow creatures made up of a single sprite frame. Guess the IWAD needs more resources...

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Actually I forgot I got a ton of DM maps(almost a megawads worth), unreleased and vanilla. Most need some fixing, a few need major work, and some are ready to be released.

I would rather do this than use already released projects for maps. The old FreeDM maps are almost vanilla, they use little if any useful boom features.

One thing, I have more maps that have been in released compilation wads. I am not sure if I can rerelease them under Freedoom's Modified BSD license.

The old FreeDM maps I am going to remove all the teleport spawns. They just dont feel right, and modify a very few other areas.

EDIT> I think I broke the FreeDM on repo awhile ago. Shouldnt be hard to fix.

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As far as I know the main problems are:

  • the gimmicky conveyor belt-teleport deathmatch starts (even Rellik said they were a silly idea and should be removed)
  • a couple of levels that have VPOs.
  • errors with texture processing on startup (column without a patch etc)
A few months ago I was experimenting with the comp-dm.deh patch and made a WAD that contains some vanilla-ized FreeDM levels, so you may want to reuse those.

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hex11 said:

And all the monsters are identical humanoid shadow creatures made up of a single sprite frame. Guess the IWAD needs more resources...

This is deliberate

; In FreeDM, all monsters are replaced by a simple silhouette.  When
; the monster is killed, it just disappears.  These are all single
; frame graphics. It is assumed that most deathmatch levels are played
; without monsters, but it is helpful to have these silhouettes
; for people that forgot to set -nomonsters.

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You plan on leaving it like that though?

BTW, really loving the comp-dm.deh hack! :)

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