Classic stuff vs Ports' features

I'm guessing there were no web archiving projects to save entire things like the entirety of the Action Games forum back in the day? And do the modern web archiving projects mirror files that have some sort of "do not distribute" clause? What if the Odessa files were just uploaded on a site claiming to be "The beginning of the Action Games forum mirror archive"?

Wait, but Odessa 14 says "You MAY NOT distribute this WAD file in any format. Available only on Compuserve and CDROM.COM..."
and it's morrored in many places aside from those specified. Precedent?

Graf Zahl said:

but on the other hand turning a blind eye on actual copyright infringement (resource rips etc.)

you mean mods should just ban all zdoom projects from here?

Grazza said:

Unfortunately, Bob Evans included the following in his text-files for the first 13 (at least, the few that I have seen)

I am sure he would rather they be released, than never played again. He did not want his hard work stolen for shovelware CDs. Instead of his hard work lost forever. Ironically, most or all of those shovelware CDs got ripped and are hosted around the net to preserve the contents.

Also
"Available only on Compuserve for downloading."

I have a Compuserve account. It is perfectly within the license terms to host those wads on the current Compuserve forums. I am willing make a thread over there and host them. I feel that is pretty reasonable.

dew said:

you mean mods should just ban all zdoom projects from here?

If they were so serious about protecting intellectual property as they claim by honoring these obsolete permissions anything that contains any kind of copyrighted data that is used without permission it should be banned.

And what's this continuing bullshit about ZDoom infringing copyright?

Catoptromancy said:

I am sure he would rather they be released, than never played again. He did not want his hard work stolen for shovelware CDs. Instead of his hard work lost forever. Ironically, most or all of those shovelware CDs got ripped and are hosted around the net to preserve the contents.

The 14th contains an added permission to distribute via cdrom.com. Depending on whether you see the current idgames archive as a legitimate successor to cdrom.com or just a replacement it's either legal or not.

The sad thing here is that the only thing the author wanted was to prevent his work from being put on those cursed shovelware CDs, not getting lost forever by limiting distribution to the valid repositories of that time. Too bad that his language was too restrictive.

Catoptromancy said:

I have a Compuserve account. It is perfectly within the license terms to host those wads on the current Compuserve forums. I am willing make a thread over there and host them. I feel that is pretty reasonable.

I challenge any person who is of sane mind to find an issue with this at all. It seems perfectly reasonable and indeed like a great solution to me.

I don't normally chime in on these sorts of debates, but keeping wads like the Odessa series off of /idgames is absolutely ridiculous. The intentions of such licenses are very clear, to keep them off of crap cds from the mid 90s. Even beyond that, these wads are almost two decades old. These wads belong on the archives along with any other old ass historical wads.

For a community (as a whole) that can be so picky and choosy about what licenses or copyrights they choose to respect on any given day, sometimes you just have to toss it all out the window and use some common sense.

John Smith said:

I challenge any person who is of sane mind to find an issue with this at all. It seems perfectly reasonable and indeed like a great solution to me.

This.

I dont see any point in the mapset collecting dust and descending into obscurity, especially if someone can do something about it.

I'm no lawyer but the usage of ripped resources, be it from a commercial product, or snagged from someone else's doom wad is extremely distasteful. Mainly because when I play a wad and read up on the so-called author of it, I want to know what content in the wad was actually created by the person assuming responsibility for the wads existence. I can let a little bit of derivative work slide but usually if your wad is loaded with stuff you want but refuse to make yourself, then it's garbage in my eyes. ZDoom community seems to do a pretty good job upholding that reputation on a regular basis, with few exceptions. (Killian Reed FPS, while not my taste, is a wonderful example of someone making a ZDoom TC right)

But that's not what this conversation is about so I really shouldn't even be talking about it. That said, I prefer classic stuff. I like how software mode renders lighting by making things darker as they become more distant. Just looks cooler that way. OpenGL's stagannt lighting is weird to me. I also don't think the smooth high resolution dynamic lighting bodes well with the pixelated wall textures and flats. And of course sprite clipping which makes blood puddles invisible and revenants heads stuck in the ceiling. There's no reason for jumping and crouching. There's no attack you can avoid with crouching that you cant avoid by stepping to the side. Jumping is only available to break maps, so i dont even know why that feature was ever considered. Crosshairs are pointless when your guns are centered on the screen. Looking up and down is also useless because the game is not three dimensional, the direction you need to be facing is rarely in the floor or in the ceiling and autoaim will take care of any monster not standing at the same ground level as you.

40oz said:

Jumping is only available to break maps, so i dont even know why that feature was ever considered.

2 words:

Hexen
Strife


Any engine supporting these games needs jumping. Why it's on by default in Doom in all ports having jumping implemented, that's another question thouigh. But 10 years back for some reason I don't understand all new features were alayws implemented as opt-out instead of opt-in. If that had been done right by early ports I guess we'd have a lot less problems today.

40oz said:

I can let a little bit of derivative work slide but usually if your wad is loaded with stuff you want but refuse to make yourself, then it's garbage in my eyes. ZDoom community seems to do a pretty good job upholding that reputation on a regular basis, with few exceptions. (Killian Reed FPS, while not my taste, is a wonderful example of someone making a ZDoom TC right)

What other ZDoom TCs are there? Action Doom 2, Harmony, Chex Quest 3, Foreverhood... All full of stolen content not made by the author(s), I'm sure!

Taking resources from other games is mostly done in non-TC mods. And sure, you'll find stuff like ZBlood, the Wolf3D TC or the ROTT TC, but the reason those are ZDoom projects isn't that ripping is part of a supposed "ZDoom culture", but because they needed an engine flexible enough to mimic other games.

Did anyone ever made a big fuss over Mordeth, by the way? Or are vanilla mods allowed to rip to their heart's content because only ZDoom is evil?

40oz said:

And of course sprite clipping which makes blood puddles invisible

I fixed that.

40oz said:

Crosshairs are pointless when your guns are centered on the screen.

And they aren't always centered.

40oz said:

Looking up and down is also useless because the game is not three dimensional, the direction you need to be facing is rarely in the floor or in the ceiling and autoaim will take care of any monster not standing at the same ground level as you.

You should give Heretic a try some day...

But anyway, how about a shootable wall in a niche hidden up near the ceiling? Autoaim won't help you here, so you'll have to do weird contraptions like in MAP16: Suburbs.

dew said:

good 1on1 maps in zdoom format are so rare it's almost sad. actually all of them put together probably wouldn't fill a 32map megawad even with the bar being quite low. and no, it's not because they take that much longer to make.

That's cos multiplayer maps need the desire from the DM population to play them, as well as the desire from the mappers to make them...and they never had the former. Even after the NS tournaments started, most maps were already in existing wads (tlsd* etc.) or were vanilla format maps that happened to work with NS settings. Plus there were never any dedicated servers a lot of the time (just the tourney ones plus the odd exception) and the attempt to make a ZDDL-style NS duel wad failed to get going.

(NS duel maps aren't just zdoom format ofc, but OS duel maps in zdoom format are even rarer :p)

40oz said:

There's no reason for jumping and crouching. There's no attack you can avoid with crouching that you cant avoid by stepping to the side. Jumping is only available to break maps, so i dont even know why that feature was ever considered. Crosshairs are pointless when your guns are centered on the screen. Looking up and down is also useless because the game is not three dimensional, the direction you need to be facing is rarely in the floor or in the ceiling and autoaim will take care of any monster not standing at the same ground level as you.

Selective memory ftw...autoaim only works up to a certain range and height. Both of which are a lot more obvious in today's limitless maps.

If you ever saw me play you'd see what jumping, crouching and full freelook can do...the only thing I don't use it for is skipping areas of a map (ie "breaking" it). And I don't care if the maps are "not made for" those features, cos I play on settings that the maps are "not made for".

Graf Zahl said:

Sorry, but declaring such permissions sacrosanct even though they were obviously shortsighted actions but on the other hand turning a blind eye on actual copyright infringement (resource rips etc.) for me shows some seriously skewed view of things.

Textfile permissions in wads are generally taken more seriously in this community than other forms of permission, however common sense is needed here especially given the fact the authors are no longer contactable (and probably wouldn't even care nowadays let alone say no). Captro's solution of hosting them on his compuserve account seems perfectly reasonable IMO, given that the textfile can be interpreted that way.

Graf Zahl said:

And what's this continuing bullshit about ZDoom infringing copyright?

In other words: Hypocrisy at its best. Business as usual...

Gez said:

Did anyone ever made a big fuss over Mordeth, by the way? Or are vanilla mods allowed to rip to their heart's content because only ZDoom is evil?

Ofc they are...otherwise wads such as Epic 2 and Whitemare (both full of ripped resources) would be demonised instead of worshipped.

It has to do with immersion. The better the game simulates the actions the player wants to perform, the better the immersion.

Auto-aiming is not a good substitute for the player aiming the weapon.
It is constantly picking out a target that I did not intend.
Putting a missile in a wall opening or to the side of a pillar and getting them with the blast off the wall is something that cannot be done with auto-aim.

I do not play the latest wonder games with their fancy graphics, I mostly stick with Doom. All the fancy graphics look better, but do not make for better gameplay. On the other hand I will work to add play features to DoomLegacy, and will be adding more (as options).

Only the puzzles the levels are built upon are hurt by adding more freedom to player movement. If the player wants to play against the puzzle they should turn off the added movement features. They can
even turn off auto-aim if they want to play in that style.

Jumping: Because people can jump, for the same reason there is a RUN.
One of the first things added to other games; and the inability to jump was a repeated joke (on comedy shows).

Crouch and crawl: So as to have low openings that better imitate real things, and to give the ability to hide behind normally size objects in deathmatch. Level designs more and more try to imitate real-life objects and the limits have been reached (and sometime exceeded).
The minimum opening that a player can fit into is too large to simulate some of the openings we would like to model. With a crouch and crawl some crawl-ways can be sized more like real-life.

Climbing: People can climb. Why should a player be stopped by a waist high barrier that a 10 year could climb over. I know, some levels use that barrier as part of their puzzle, but such levels many times revert the gameplay to solve-the-maze, which is not Doom immersion. To be realistic, climbing needs to take into account the wall material and height. Needs info that wads do not supply. Has great potential for abuse (gecko-people). Difficult to do properly and keep gameplay on existing wads.

Gecko-people actually sounds interesting. Maybe it should require a new artifact (suction-cup-hands). :)

There is an NS-Style ZDDL WAD, it's called zddl3.1.wad and it's for ZDaemon, on which ZDDL is played. And I thought Duel32 or Duel16 or something worked great on Skulltag...?

And while I'm usually the first to be a hardass about copyright & licensing issues, I think I agree with Ralphis here. These days we have cool licenses we can use (Creative Commons, APL, etc.) but back in the day we didn't so you got dumb things like, "don't put my cool WAD on your shitty CD/web site you dick". While it's certainly against the licenses to post these WADs on /idgames I think that licensing them under CC BY-ND (attribution, no derivatives) or CC BY-NC-ND (attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives) and explaining the situation would preserve the authors' intent.

I deeply wish that WAD/resource authors would explicitly license their works using modern licenses and that /idgames would somehow enforce this from here on out. Odds of that happening are slim however, and I admittedly know little about the /idgames system besides.

Yeah. It can't be retroactively enforced, but I think it would be nice if future submissions had to be under some sort of open or free content license, or be public domain.

Quasar said:

Yeah. It can't be retroactively enforced, but I think it would be nice if future submissions had to be under some sort of open or free content license, or be public domain.

Er..."had to be"? I don't think so, not if you want people still using the archives.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

Selective memory ftw...autoaim only works up to a certain range and height. Both of which are a lot more obvious in today's limitless maps.

If you ever saw me play you'd see what jumping, crouching and full freelook can do...the only thing I don't use it for is skipping areas of a map (ie "breaking" it). And I don't care if the maps are "not made for" those features, cos I play on settings that the maps are "not made for".

That's a fairly poor attitude. Seriously, I turn the features on and off per whichever wad I'm playing. It's not a challenge. The only time the features annoy me is when the text file doesn't explicitly state that jump or auto-aim, etc. is needed. I won't turn them on, because that's how I'm used to playing Doom. That's the author's fault, though, not the feature. I ultimately try to respect the map in the way the author intended. Otherwise, my idea of that maps quality is going to be completely off.

Also, this shit about "vocal minority" has to stop. You know why? Because both sides of this argument are vocal minorities. You accuse 40oz and co. of hypocrisy, but in the same way, this statement is drowned in it. Your accusation of this "vocal minority" being overly-stubborn or holding source port based wads to a higher standard very well may be true, but many of your responses show an attitude that is capable of being both equal and opposite of theirs.

Snakes said:

That's a fairly poor attitude. Seriously, I turn the features on and off per whichever wad I'm playing. It's not a challenge. The only time the features annoy me is when the text file doesn't explicitly state that jump or auto-aim, etc. is needed. I won't turn them on, because that's how I'm used to playing Doom. That's the author's fault, though, not the feature. I ultimately try to respect the map in the way the author intended. Otherwise, my idea of that maps quality is going to be completely off.

I agree completely. Sometimes jumping and freelooking can break a level in a hard to recognize way. For example, you can be standing on a ledge over a pit filled with then-harmless monsters and point down and kill them, but the mapper may have originally intended that the pit raises up as a trap later on. Killing the monsters earlier takes away a possible fight later on as it requires no skill to point down and shoot.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

That's cos multiplayer maps need the desire from the DM population to play them, as well as the desire from the mappers to make them...and they never had the former. Even after the NS tournaments started, most maps were already in existing wads (tlsd* etc.) or were vanilla format maps that happened to work with NS settings. Plus there were never any dedicated servers a lot of the time (just the tourney ones plus the odd exception) and the attempt to make a ZDDL-style NS duel wad failed to get going.

(NS duel maps aren't just zdoom format ofc, but OS duel maps in zdoom format are even rarer :p)

I suspect that this is because there is no one universal definition of "NS settings". I was actually planning a follow-up to DUEL32 for Skulltag called NSDUEL16, but when I was looking around the ZDaemon forums for map suggestions it seems like every NS map had their own set of DMFlags or even their own weapons (cduel1). Heck, even on OS maps some players prefer specific non-standard settings on some maps (no autoswitch on dweller2 map11, for example). And then Skulltag makes things even worse by introducing yet another set of physics...people prefer Greenwar MAP20 with ST physics compared to ZDoom with 0 aircontrol (which is standard in ZDCTF at least) because the extra air momentum makes the jump from the two raised platforms a lot more convenient.

OS Dueling has standards. CTF has standards. Why not NS Dueling/TDM/Other Nonsense?

I wish ChainDM would have taken off. It was a good idea and a solid base for maps, just needed more of them.

Ladna said:

There is an NS-Style ZDDL WAD, it's called zddl3.1.wad and it's for ZDaemon, on which ZDDL is played. And I thought Duel32 or Duel16 or something worked great on Skulltag...?

DUEL32 uses the UDMF map format and ZDoom ACS scripting only for map selection, as well as a global script that switches back to the start map when both players spectate. The maps for the WAD were selected based on OS criteria; you can technically run DUEL32 with whatever DMFlags you want, but they were designed for OS play.

ZDaemon's "NS" standard is hardly newschool anymore. You can't jump/crouch or use mouselook. I agree that duel "standards" is a big issue, funny how I never thought about it before you brought it up though.

It would be really nice if maps could somehow specify what options they "should" be played with. I know there's an OPTIONS lump thing but that sucks somehow? I guess it would be up to engines/admins/players what options were actually enforced, and of course not all engines support all options, but it would be a big step in the right direction IMO.

Plus I know at least ZDaemon lets you specify configuration options on a per-map basis using cvar overrides. Surely ST has something similar?

That's a fairly poor attitude.

You accuse 40oz and co. of hypocrisy, but in the same way, this statement is drowned in it.

In what way...cos I explained how I like to play? Maybe it's the nature of the ZDoom ways (which are based on freedom and evolution instead of standards and compatibility) but I see nothing wrong or hypocritical about playing every mapset like that. (since I play everything with -fast, which no maps are designed for)

Your accusation of this "vocal minority" being overly-stubborn or holding source port based wads to a higher standard very well may be true, but many of your responses show an attitude that is capable of being both equal and opposite of theirs.

While I may prefer ZDoom wads, and those with new resources etc. I don't have the opposite attitude of those people. I don't go round saying that ZDoom is the only way, or start a flamewar every time a mapset with just the stock resources comes out, or post mapping theory threads that tell people to stop living in 1994. The closest I've come to that kind of thing was saying that most people here can't handle wads that require some learning along the way (ie. ZDoom wads with new stuff and game mechanics).

Ladna said:

ZDaemon's "NS" standard is hardly newschool anymore. You can't jump/crouch or use mouselook. I agree that duel "standards" is a big issue, funny how I never thought about it before you brought it up though.

It would be really nice if maps could somehow specify what options they "should" be played with. I know there's an OPTIONS lump thing but that sucks somehow? I guess it would be up to engines/admins/players what options were actually enforced, and of course not all engines support all options, but it would be a big step in the right direction IMO.

I tried the OPTIONS lump and I think it only worked in the Single Player campaign. Besides, it was a single lump, how could you determine the difference between "Enabled" "Disabled" and "Don't Care"?

Plus I know at least ZDaemon lets you specify configuration options on a per-map basis using cvar overrides. Surely ST has something similar?

At least in the map itself, there is no nice way to do this in Skulltag. In order to accomplish my start map, Supergod implemented a special "islobby" construct in the MAPINFO lump that flips a few specific bits if the construct is there.

I dislike cvar overrides being part of a map on principal because they're immutable and imply that you're going to have to support those cvars as they stand for the life of the port or else you risk breaking compatibility. I would much rather they be a serverside config variable.

Ladna said:

ZDaemon's "NS" standard is hardly newschool anymore. You can't jump/crouch or use mouselook. I agree that duel "standards" is a big issue, funny how I never thought about it before you brought it up though.

what! you might be mistaking true NS as seen in zdaemon 1on1 newschool tourneys which indeed includes a variety of advanced features, and the dubious north american "NS OS" which is basically the old deal without weapon switching and with symmetrical wallruns, crosshair and easier plasma bump on map01.

NS has no standard currently and i'm afraid specifying one would not work in a general sense. different maps work with different kinks, not to mention various specific hacks we've been using in the tourneys (e.g. faster chaingun and rockets or the pummel chainsaw). we've run maps with instant weapon switching, low gravity, railguns in vampire mode... how more ns does it have to get? :p

AlexMax said:

I tried the OPTIONS lump and I think it only worked in the Single Player campaign.

It's an MBF feature, which was never implemented in ZDoom (and I'd be relly surprised if it ever was), so I wouldn't assume it'd work with csDoom's successors.

From mbfedit.txt:

7. OPTIONS lump

The OPTIONS lump allows wads to set game options, such as Doom Compatibility
options, chat strings, and enemies options.

The OPTIONS lump has the same format as mbf.cfg: A text file listing option
names and values, optionally separated by blank or comment lines. mbf.cfg
indicates options which are allowed to be set in wads, with asterisks (*).

When OPTIONS are set from wads, they are skipped on the menu screens.

Wad authors are urged to use these options responsibly, because they should
not be used to limit players, but to enhance the game. Many options such as
automap colors are allowed to be set from wads, but they should only be done
so if there are strong reasons to do so.

Players who are offended by wads setting certain options for them, should ask
wad authors not to set them, or should consider playing other wads. As a last
resort, players can use Deutex/Wintex/NWT/etc. to remove or modify the OPTIONS
lump themselves. They can also create a dummy wad with its own OPTIONS lump,
which completely replaces any OPTIONS set in wads. An OPTIONS lump with nothing
but blanks or comments, can be used to effectively nullify earlier ones.

Some options must be set in wads for compatibility reasons (otherwise the
wad may not work and the player might even get stuck in a level), while many
options are not necessary for compatibility.

dew you are correct, I am referring to North American NS and have made the mistake that the US (although better than everywhere else in every way) is not the only place on Earth where Doom is played.

Gez said:

It's an MBF feature, which was never implemented in ZDoom (and I'd be relly surprised if it ever was), so I wouldn't assume it'd work with csDoom's successors.

Not even PrBoom+ supports it, which is very unfortunate when you want to enforce gameplay very relevant MBF compatibility rules, either by assuming people will use no -complevel, or if you're making an MBF mission pack.

Gez said:

It's an MBF feature, which was never implemented in ZDoom (and I'd be relly surprised if it ever was)

I think this is an issue of who has the power to choose options for the game: the PWAD author's choice vs. the choice of the person running the program.

I remember that Graf mentioned he coded in a special cheat to see lines on the automap, when the author of Legacy of Suffering tagged all the linedefs to be invisible on the automap. This makes it quite clear which side of the issue ZDoom takes. On the other hand, many on the old-school side seem to prefer playing PWADs in the manner the author intended, in order to preserve their integrity.

An OPTIONS lump would be putting more power back into the hands of the PWAD author, because it would be giving them power to restrict the user's choice. It seems to me like it would against ZDoom's philosophy, but would be quite nice in Boom's child ports.

Of course this is all speculation, but what do you think, Gez? I think we could compromise and preserve user freedom by letting users choose off/on/default for each DMflag, with default being either ZDoom's default or the PWAD's default, depending on whether the PWAD specifies a default.

Spleen said:

but would be quite nice in Boom's child ports.

It IS available in Eternity, and it's quite important considering the extensibility, but it's not in PrBoom or PrBoom+.

Gez said:

It's an MBF feature, which was never implemented in ZDoom (and I'd be relly surprised if it ever was), so I wouldn't assume it'd work with csDoom's successors.

Ah, I must have been confusing it with that specialized Skulltag MAPINFO entry that set dmflags.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

In what way...cos I explained how I like to play? Maybe it's the nature of the ZDoom ways (which are based on freedom and evolution instead of standards and compatibility) but I see nothing wrong or hypocritical about playing every mapset like that. (since I play everything with -fast, which no maps are designed for)



While I may prefer ZDoom wads, and those with new resources etc. I don't have the opposite attitude of those people. I don't go round saying that ZDoom is the only way, or start a flamewar every time a mapset with just the stock resources comes out, or post mapping theory threads that tell people to stop living in 1994. The closest I've come to that kind of thing was saying that most people here can't handle wads that require some learning along the way (ie. ZDoom wads with new stuff and game mechanics).

Plenty of Doomers out there (myself included) can play -fast without using freelook or crosshairs, etc. I don't see how that's a valid point. If the author designs a map without those in mind, it's important to respect their wishes. I will stand by this point until someone manages to convince me that it's not proper.

As for the second part, I admit there's truth to it... Well, up until the last sentence. That's the part I'm really talking about. Any point a lot of these guys try to make seem to fall on deaf ears a good portion of the time. Maybe they complain about shaky ascetics, or subpar gameplay, etc. The response? "You're just bitching because Zdoom, new mechanics etc." So instead of any legit discussion getting done, a flamewar happens. Both sides are at fault. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Spleen said:

I remember that Graf mentioned he coded in a special cheat to see lines on the automap, when the author of Legacy of Suffering tagged all the linedefs to be invisible on the automap. This makes it quite clear which side of the issue ZDoom takes.

The automap disabling in this WAD really pissed me off. It was totally pointless anyway because IDDT would have made the map visible. In hindsight it was wasted time anyway considering that I think this is one of the worst 'big' mods ever made.


My standpoint is that there's options that belong into a mapper's hand (e.g. the compatibility option to include the empty texture 0 when raising a floor by texture height) and other options that belong to the end user (e.g. wallrunning or disabling ZDoom's changes to the hitscan code.) That's why the former is available in MAPINFO and the latter 2 are not.