Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
EarthQuake

ZDaemon turns 109 today

Recommended Posts

Cool, the status bar got fixed, now it shows your color instead of always green around the face. I could tell immediately that the net code feels noticeably smoother than in 1.08. Nothing else I use was broken with the changes and additions so all seems well...

Share this post


Link to post

I usually go to Skulltag when I feel like multiplayer, but that's cool that they finally updated Zdaemon, maybe I should give it another shot sometime.

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

The ST devs are at least considering going open source after some issues are addressed, and a somewhat not-too-antiquated version was opened some times ago.

I don't expect ZDaemon doing the same.


Wasn't ST open source at one point?

Share this post


Link to post

Yeah, and ZDaemon too. Doesn't matter; what matters is that they aren't now and haven't been for a long while.

Share this post


Link to post

What matters is whether ZD is a quality gaming experience or not. It doesn't matter whether it is open or closed. The fact is that people have complained for years about it being closed off and about it taking so long for 1.9 to come out, but it was well worth the wait and the staff have absolutely delivered.

Share this post


Link to post

It should matter to him, because without open source. There would never have been a Zdaemon to begin with.

Share this post


Link to post

My point is that as long as the project is of a good standard then I don't care whether it's closed or open source. I think that is why the majority of people like myself who just want to play games don't really care either way. ZD is the premiere online DOOM port (before people get on my back, I think Skulltag is great, but it's more like a stand alone game engine that started off as a DOOM port) and that's all that matters, closed, open or otherwise.

People should stop whining imo and just enjoy playing. If you don't like ZD, don't play it, if there are people there you don't get on with, don't associate with them. Just try and have some fun, that's what we're all still playing DOOM and its various ports for.

Share this post


Link to post

Fun trip down memory lane, starting with Kilgore politely asking for the source so he can get an opportunity to work on it:

Kilgore asked in 2003:
Is it possible for Raider to make the Win32 sources available? I would appreciate it a lot.

Raider responded later in 2003:
Bottom line is we MUST make the source code available to anyone who wants it.

Kilgore explains why it's so important for ZDaemon to be open source:
Apart from the clear conflict between your proposed restrictions and the doom license, the restrictions on the source availability will be probably devastating to the zdaemon project in the long run; after all, the resurrection of doom and its adaptation to the internet is due to the release of the source code by id software.

For example, I'm very close to finishing the Team Deathmatch mode and it has already been tested quite a bit; I fixed several other (unrelated) bugs in the process; I'll contact Raider pretty soon about the details. If Duke4ever cannot continue with the CTF mode and people are interested in that mode, I can also try finishing it up. If the source code is not freely available, then nobody can contribute to the improvement of the software and pretty soon it wil die.

Are you willing to do that, just because some idiots want to cheat ? you can simply ignore them. Cheating on a game is not a life-threatening situation... After all, there is no way to guarantee fair play on the Internet, no matter whether the source code is available or not. There are too many things that you cannot control.

Kilgore talks about what the ZD administration and direction should not do in 2004. They now pretty much do all of his undesirable bullet points:
There have been several allegations about some individuals cheating one way or the other. This is not only bad because some people have been wronged by the cheaters, but it also poisons our entire atmosphere and results in other people being wronged as well by being falsely accused of cheating.

The problem is an old one and we've already seen it in other gaming communities as well (where it practically demolished those communities). It has been suggested to handle the issue with a human approach; that is, assign moderators to servers, people should send cheating complaints to them, and then they would decide on the issue and ban people accordingly. This is not entirely unreasonable, but it must probably be the very last resort. We cannot / should not rely on this for day to day operations because:

1. The idea of a "ZDaemon secret police" simply sounds wrong; it would only add to the already existing animosity and would open another can of worms about the impartiality / qualifications of the cheating investigators.

2. We would have far too many false positives / negatives; there are many cases where it's quite hard to determine if somebody is cheating or not.

3. For the same reason, only relatively few people would be qualified to serve as cheating investigators and it is highly unlikely that they could afford to spend all their waking hours tracking down and resolving cheating issues.

4. The "atmosphere poisoning" factor would be rampant.


Raider talks about what they don't want to do with the code, which is hide it in 2004:
This is an issue which has stirred much controversy over the question of keeping ZDaemon as opensouce or closing it. It's important to understand that we do NOT have a desire to hide the code from anyone. We do not in any way want to inhibit anyone from learning/looking/experimenting and especially contributing to the project. We believe that this solution will protect the honest players. At the same time, it will keep the door open for any new developer interested in joining the team, or simply tinkering around with the code.

Nightfang, the original project lead and programmer, expresses his desires for the project's direction:
So long as the source code is available enough for others to download and learn from it. Thats the whole purpose of having source code available and, I think you've covered that. I'll applaud this decision.

Kilgore makes a bold statement about ZDaemon source code immediately following the ZDaemon 1.06 release:
About source code availability: we always offer it as opposed to some other doom ports that come to mind; i don't think it's fair to complain about this when the new release is only 2 frigging hours old. As every new release, this one has problems too and we're in the middle of fixing them. Wouldn't you prefer to get the sources after those issues have been resolved?


ZDaemon 1.06 was the last ZDaemon source release, coincidentally. Just an interesting contrast to how Raider/Kilgore felt years ago at the start of their run compared to their now (seemingly) polar opposite views.

Share this post


Link to post

Wow Ralphis, how much free time do you actually have?

As I've been saying to you and others, it comes down to people having different ideas on how to run something. People are allowed to change their minds, and considering the number of people who have turned on the staff over the years, who can blame them?

How many times do we really need to go over this. You want ZD to be ran your way, well that's not going to happen so move on, is it really worth spending all this time and energy on something so unimportant?

Will you ever let this go?

Share this post


Link to post
Thadeuss said:

Wow Ralphis, how much free time do you actually have?

As I've been saying to you and others, it comes down to people having different ideas on how to run something. People are allowed to change their minds, and considering the number of people who have turned on the staff over the years, who can blame them?

How many times do we really need to go over this. You want ZD to be ran your way, well that's not going to happen so move on, is it really worth spending all this time and energy on something so unimportant?

Will you ever let this go?

Yeah, what a jerk that guy Ralphis is! It's almost like he's registering on forums he doesn't read solely for the sake of stirring up shit about people who disagree with him or something!

Thadeuss, if you seriously can't discuss this without resorting to ad-hominem attacks on your opponent, you might want to take your own advice and let it go.

Share this post


Link to post

You seem to keep insinuating that I am not letting something go. Will the ZD team ever let it go? As far as my free time, these posts were actually dug up by somebody else on IRC a few weeks ago and I just happened to book mark them. Even if I did want to spend my free time finding such posts, you spend equal free time registering for new forums to preach. I guess we're not so different (spiderman), you and I.

Who do you think you are to tell people that they shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions in a public forum (read: not my private #unidoom irc channel that you perennially complain that you got banned from about 38 years ago) because they aren't gung ho about what you like? Most people here do not like the way ZDaemon is administered and because this is one corner of the community that you and/or other like-minded individuals cannot moderate or entirely erase opposing views, your gears are obviously grinding.

NOT EVERYBODY LOVES ZDAEMON. If you don't like the heat that ZDaemon posts get on Doomworld, maybe you could take your own advice and not post about it. Of course, I'm not saying that you actually shouldn't post news like this here; I believe this news should definitely be posted. However, if you're going to wince like an infant when people don't bow down to the "premiere online DOOM port", then maybe you should stick to other, comfier forums that you seem to be better suited for.

Share this post


Link to post

Thad I believe your kilt is cutting circulation to your brain. In case you missed it:

Ralphis said:

Just an interesting contrast[/b] to how Raider/Kilgore felt years ago at the start of their run compared to their now (seemingly) polar opposite views.

Share this post


Link to post

Um, when did I attack anyone? I think you are all being way too defensive, like the post Ralphis made which started all of this back at the beginning of this thread, when all I said was that I thought this version was great.

I just think all of this is a massive waste of time. Also, when did I ever say people shouldn't be allowed to express an opinion? I'm all for people being able to say what they want.

As I've always said, everyone just needs to calm down. It would be great to see everyone get on, but it looks unlikely. Who knows. I've not once got angry, not once got pissed off at you Ralphis, or anyone else that's posted here. The truth is I only posted here and at altdeath about this because I felt people should hear more than one point of view, I have no ill will towards you or anyone else for that matter.

I'll happily bring this to a close so we don't all have to go around in circles. I won't post in this thread relating to this again, but I will continue to post on Doomworld, as I like it here :)

Feel free to post what you like about myself, or anything else ZD related. I won't respond, I've said my piece, and like I keep saying, this really is a waste of time.

Take it easy.

Share this post


Link to post

"It doesn't matter whether it is open or closed. What matters is whether ZD is a quality gaming experience or not."

To you. ZDaemon being open source matters to me, and I have good reasons for it.

"I think that is why the majority of people like myself who just want to play games don't really care either way."

If you really just wanted to play ZDaemon, then you wouldn't be a ZD forum mod, and you wouldn't run around evangelizing ZDaemon to everyone, and you wouldn't be defending the administration's actions all the time. Seriously, if you're a guy who just wants to play ZDaemon, then Sasha Grey is a girl who only fucks guys she loves.

"it [1.09] was well worth the wait and the staff have absolutely delivered."

I disagree. Not only can I not play 1.09 due to a lame faux-cheating ban, there are all kinds of features I would've liked, but instead 1.09 features things like a radar and zooming, features I couldn't care less about.

In this instance, I'm not unable to "let this go". You're putting forth an argument that ZDaemon's being closed source doesn't matter, and that 1.09 "delivered". I'm saying both of those things are wrong.

===

In Ralphis' case, he's also saying that you're wrong when you say "It doesn't matter whether it is open or closed", and he's pointing out that both Raider and Kilgore used to agree with him. Indeed, I mostly agree with the reasons they put forth, and haven't heard any good arguments against them yet, notably from Raider or Kilgore.

"and considering the number of people who have turned on the staff over the years, who can blame them?"

Closing the source is not an adequate defense against this - I'm assuming you're talking about the ST launcher DDoS and ZDHook. The DDoS had nothing (technically speaking) whatsoever to do with ZDaemon being closed or open, and ZDHook was written after ZDaemon was closed. There is no reasonable justification for ZDaemon being closed source. Lyfe (on the altdeath forums) says it's largely to prevent forking and cheating, but it doesn't prevent cheating and forking is only bad if people decide to use the forked version instead of yours - and then it's only bad for you.

===

So let's drop this whole "let's just play the game", "who cares if it's open source or not" routine. We can't just play the game because ZDaemon's being closed source prevents us from playing the game the way we want to.

Honestly I don't know why I keep responding to you Thad. It's not like you actually read anything anyone writes, or if you do, you certainly don't understand it at all. So I'll make a little list of things you need to make sure you're avoiding before you post something else:

- Am I arguing (for the 5000th time) that closing the source does anything good?
- Am I out of good arguments, and just resorting to reminding everyone that Ralphis is banned from ZDaemon?
- Am I assuming that no one cares about things I don't care about?
- Am I assuming that everyone cares about things I care about?
- Am I accusing someone on a hobby video game forum of having too much time on their hands (ROFL)?

Share this post


Link to post
Thadeuss said:

Um, when did I attack anyone? I think you are all being way too defensive, like the post Ralphis made which started all of this back at the beginning of this thread, when all I said was that I thought this version was great.

I just think all of this is a massive waste of time. Also, when did I ever say people shouldn't be allowed to express an opinion? I'm all for people being able to say what they want.

As I've always said, everyone just needs to calm down. It would be great to see everyone get on, but it looks unlikely. Who knows. I've not once got angry, not once got pissed off at you Ralphis, or anyone else that's posted here. The truth is I only posted here and at altdeath about this because I felt people should hear more than one point of view, I have no ill will towards you or anyone else for that matter.

I'll happily bring this to a close so we don't all have to go around in circles. I won't post in this thread relating to this again, but I will continue to post on Doomworld, as I like it here :)

Feel free to post what you like about myself, or anything else ZD related. I won't respond, I've said my piece, and like I keep saying, this really is a waste of time.

Take it easy.

Given that the passive-aggression in your posts has not been at all subtle, what you're claiming about your behavior here doesn't hold water. It's hard to stand on an imaginary high horse when you're making snide remarks about your opponents having too much free time or not letting things go simply because they want to bring up something you disagree with.

Really, if you're going to be a troll, at least be inventive about it. Acting offensively and then claiming to be the bigger man by calling off something that you yourself provoked and were the primary participant in is so old-hat.

Share this post


Link to post

I think people who don't care about programming and just want to play but have a computer running Linux, BSD, MacOS or something else that's not Windows would disagree that closed source is not important.

Odamex is open-source and multiplatform, offering pre-compiled builds for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BSD and Solaris. It can also be compiled on a lot of more exotic platforms.
Skulltag is closed source but still multiplatform to a lesser extent, offering builds for Windows, Mac and Linux (and server-only for BSD).
ZDaemon features a Unix server but is otherwise Windows-only, forcing non-Windows users to go through something like Wine to use the client.

This is all purely on a "delivering a quality gaming experience" level, for people who just happen not to have installed Windows on their computer. I'm not even going on the philosophical, moral and ethical issues of open-source vs. closed-source. Just one practical point: closed-source leads to lesser portability.

Share this post


Link to post

kristus said:
It should matter to him, because without open source. There would never have been a Zdaemon to begin with.

The ZDaemon developers put a lot of hard work into their port, why should they just give the source code for it away?

Besides the fact that id Software did it, I mean. And the ATBDoom and NTDOOM guys. And Randy Heit. And Raven Software. And Ken Silverman. And probably a bunch of others I've forgotten...

Share this post


Link to post
Thadeuss said:

Wow Ralphis, how much free time do you actually have?


Apparently not enough as the zdaemon spies have when they report dissenting opinions to their masters, which then hand out bans for having such opinions.

Share this post


Link to post
CODOR said:

Besides the fact that id Software did it, I mean. And the ATBDoom and NTDOOM guys. And Randy Heit. And Raven Software. And Ken Silverman. And probably a bunch of others I've forgotten...


How about Nightfang? :)

Share this post


Link to post

kristus said:
I can't tell if you're being serious or not.


Ralphis said:
How about Nightfang? :)

Yeah, I forgot that ZDaemon was once developed by normal people...

Share this post


Link to post

I don't comment on this stuff, but I used to know Thad as a reasonable person and he's apparently lost his fucking mind. So here I am. Please read this Thad.

Thadeuss said:

My point is that as long as the project is of a good standard then I don't care whether it's closed or open source.


Fine you don't care. Consider this though, a lot of other people do. It's very important when you look at the growth of the online doom community that things be shared and discussed openly. In addition to being beneficial to the overall community having an open source spurs development. Most programmers have some opinion or ethic about licensing and many of the competent ones don't work on closed source projects, especially not for free. Opening the source to the public would without a doubt increase the rate at which we see new and awesome features.

Kilgore and company don't open the source because they don't want people (in their words) stealing their ideas. It's selfish, stupid and hurtful to the community at large. Now, it's legitimate if they say they don't care about that, but then they need to be treated as such. If you don't care about helping us, fine, but we're the ones you're targeting. We play your game, our game. It's really really really unreasonable and, again, stupid.

I think that is why the majority of people like myself who just want to play games don't really care either way.

People should stop whining imo and just enjoy playing. If you don't like ZD, don't play it, if there are people there you don't get on with, don't associate with them. Just try and have some fun, that's what we're all still playing DOOM and its various ports for.


Fine but don't impose your lackluster involvement and care on the rest of us. Don't tell us to shut up and play regardless of circumstances. That is fascist and again, stupid.

ZD is the premiere online DOOM port


All the more reason they should grow the community around it. I don't know if you've seen the activity of ZDaemon lately. It's not great. The average server has 70% of it's players in South America, the forums are a wasteland, the ctf clan scene and the duel/tourney scene are dead. All of the competitive play happens on the outskirts on unadvertised servers and outside of ZD perview. Hell even the current Tourney admin (Dannyboy) hangs out in IDL looking for signups for his events.

And there are things being done to fix the idiocy that exists. There is a very active port in Odamex and people running leagues to keep competitive doom alive. 90% of the people running this stuff would have run it for ZDaemon but were ousted or turned away by the people who run it. The people who work and test for odamex came from ZD and ST, the people who play in IDL and ZDDL come from ZD and ST. It's not like it's too difficult to see ZDaemon is pushing out people who love doom and are willing to help it grow. Please stop defending them. They have no ground to stand on.

Share this post


Link to post

Well, apparently disagreeing with the ZDaemon team and criticizing them is enough to warrant a ban from both IRC and their forums.

Closing Link: tm512 (~tm512@zdaemon.user) has quit IRC [tm512: There is no need to be around a port you hate]


So yes Thad, I would absolutely love to "just play the game" as you so often say. However, 1.08.08 is the only version I can have a Linux build for, it plays like crap with the pings I often get, and it's being deprecated soon. 1.09 will not compile on either Linux or Mac OS X because there's anti-cheat code that won't work with it. And if I attempt to play it under WINE, my configuration will not save because it crashes upon exiting. If the source code was opened, I'd fix that myself, but you know how they are with the source code. To top it off, I'm banned from the majority of their services for criticizing them on the only places I can without my posts being "swept under the rug", so to speak. If they can't convince you that they're right, they'll just silence you in any way possible and pretend like you don't exist, I guess.

That being said, my suggestion is for people to go play Odamex, seriously. One of the most common criticisms I hear about Odamex is its lack of players, which can be easily remedied as long as it's a group effort to get games going. Maybe it takes a bit more work and patience to get a game going, but I believe it's worth it in the long run. The second criticism I hear often is that it's buggy, and not up to par with ZDaemon (or Skulltag), though I believe that if there's a strong player base pushing and helping get Odamex to the point where they want it, it will get there quicker than ZDaemon or Skulltag ever did.

Not that I see this happening any time soon, though. *shrug*

Share this post


Link to post

I don't think it's critical that ZDaemon or even Skulltag be open source to keep the community thriving, not unless you think the following Open Source ports are dying or insignificant?

ZDoom, GZDoom, Doomsday, Chocolate Doom, PrBoom, CSDoom (& Odamex) etc...

Is it really shocking to some of you that the two most popular online-multiplayer ports are closed source? When they were open source they were attacked with exploits, and cheating was rampant... Now that they are closed source they have stabilized, there are still attacks and cheating but they have effectively been reduced to the sound a mouse makes when you step on it.

I personally believe most of these people who cry it should be open source are just bent that they cannot gain access to the new netcode from zdaemon or other impressive features from both ports. The excuse that the community's future will suffer is a poor excuse and I see right through it, as should most people.

Share this post


Link to post

For those who don't know, ZD now automatically updates when the team releases fixes and enhancements. Due to this ZD will be updated often.

The 22 Beta has been released which includes the following fixes and enhancements (from the changelog):


243. New netcode for ACS GiveInventory and TakeInventory.

244. Fixed the ACS Spawn and SpawnSpot functions.

245. Made the sitrep display a bit more flexible: it's now an integer rather than a boolean CVAR and it can take the following values:
0 -> no sitrep
1 -> show health/armor only
2 -> show sectinfo only
3 -> show health/armor/sectinfo

246. New rule for individual DDOM scoring: +1 point when someone kills an opponent near a domination point and the killer's team scores within 2 seconds of the kill.

247. Clients are now notified of all CVAR changes on the server during a game.

248. Display health/armor in the PiP next to the player's name.

249. Joins in survival are now blocked when the last player dies and before the map restarts.

250. New server CVAR "survival_timed_spec_reset". It's a boolean. When it's "true" (the default value), the inventory of spectators will be reset at 60 seconds after the round starts (the start of the round is taken as when the first player joins: not when the map changes on the server). The idea is to prevent people from remaining spectators for the purpose of retaining weapon/item stock from previous rounds. The CVAR is forced to true for all public, non passworded servers.

251. New server CVAR "coop_telefrags". It's a boolean. It controls whether player-to-player telefragging is enabled in coop/survival modes. The CVAR is forced to false for all public, non-passworded servers.

252. Chaingun of other people sounded a bit too fast: fixed.

253. Heretic ambient sounds were mixed up: thx to Krawa for the report and debugging work.

254. Fixed 'ghost' lost souls on client.

255. Fixed drop into ledge when firing railgun at floor.

256. When someone dies in overtime in CTF and DDOM modes, he will be forced to remain dead for a period directly proportional to the time already played in overtime (2 seconds delay per minute played). This is intended to serve as a tie-breaker.

257. New client CVAR "cl_turndeathcam". If disabled then the view will NOT follow your killer. The default value for the CVAR is true.

258. New client CVAR "r_zdoomtrans" to toggle the transparency from the following doom actors: TeleportFog, ArachnotronPlasma, ArchvileFire,SpawnFire, BaronBall, CacodemonBall, DoomImpBall, PlasmaBall, BFGBall,BFGExtra, FatShot, RevenantTracer, BulletPuff, BlurSphere, LostSoul, ARocket (explosion). The default value for the CVAR is true.

259. The client CVAR "r_eyecandy" is now a pure 'meta' CVAR that overrides different CVARs to restore a classic doom2.exe look. When disabled it is the same as setting cl_maxdecals=0, cl_rockettrails=0, r_zdoomtrans=0, cl_chasedeath=0, cl_bloodtype=0,
cl_pufftype=0. The default value for the CVAR is true.

260. When a round starts in double domination (after a team score), all players are teleported to their team spawns. This is done to avoid camping on the dom. points.

261. Security and Aiming cameras should now work online.


Check it out by logging on or download it HERE

Share this post


Link to post
×