Doomsday won't run any mods

I have the most up-to-date edition of Doomsday/Snowberry. But there's a problem...

If I open a mod, especially one that's supposed to modify the 'episode select' menu, nothing will happen. Take 'Visions Of Eternity' for example - that serves as a fifth episode, and is meant to slot in at the bottom of the list. In other source ports, it does. Doomsday, nothing. The only way to play it is IDCLEV51.

Likewise 'No Rest For The Wicked', which usually gives you a "Choose Episode: Hell On Earth..., etc." menu, far as I know. Not in Doomsday.

Any way to fix this?

OK, it's been an eternity (no pun intended) since I played with Doomsday, but maybe I can help.

TheLazenby said:

Take 'Visions Of Eternity' for example - that serves as a fifth episode, and is meant to slot in at the bottom of the list. In other source ports, it does. Doomsday, nothing. The only way to play it is IDCLEV51.

I haven't played Visions of Eternity, but not every "new-extra-episode-wad" has the "workarounds" needed to be recognized by a given sourceport, or it may not be compatible (at some degree) with that specific version of Doomsday, so you have to "cheat" to play it.

TheLazenby said:

Likewise 'No Rest For The Wicked', which usually gives you a "Choose Episode: Hell On Earth..., etc." menu, far as I know. Not in Doomsday.

I think you are talking about No Rest For The Living (I think No Rest for the Wicked by ReX Claussen, replaces MAP27, hence not an episode [but to be honest, NRFTL isn't technically an episode], and there's another one, by Boomer T, that replaces E2M1 - neither an episode). I'm not sure about Doomsday, but I think ZDoom (or was it Legacy?) has some support for it at the menu, which I assume is what you want.

I hope that helps.

EDIT: From the No Rest For The Living Wiki article:

The Eternity Engine has built-in support for the episode if the entire doom2.disk file from the Xbox 360 version is loaded, or if a path is configured to point to the BFG Edition PWAD file. It uses the metadata.txt included in the diskfile. ZDoom and GZDoom recognize NERVE.WAD by its size and MD5 sum and allow to play it as a Doom II episode.

Vision of Eternity uses ZDoom and Eternity modding features to add the new episode to the menu. Doomsday currently doesn't support these methods or have it's own equivalent menu modding features.

Doomsday also doesn't support No Rest for the Living (well, it can play the actual maps...). It's on the cards to add support for it once other new features are complete.

TheLazenby said:

one that's supposed to modify the 'episode select' menu

These need some sort of MAPINFO thing to work, and will not work with vanilla, Boom, PrBoom+, and other ports without a MAPINFO feature. It will also not work with ports like Legacy where map information is part of the map itself, because then there's nothing to tell the engine about the extra maps. It will also not work with ports that do have a MAPINFO feature but which wasn't used in the mod. Like if you only have ZDoom ZMAPINFO, then you can't load it in Eternity and expect it to work.

Yeah, "No Rest For The Living".

I am curious - say I wanted to do something similar to what that 'Doom Anthology' did, and insert mods into a game as separate episodes I could choose from for convenience sake.

For example, having a menu in ZDoom when I load Plutonia that includes Plutonia, Plutonia 2 and Plutonia Revisited in one easy list.

How would I do that?

That's not possible without editing the mods to remove or rename clashing content.

Even for NRFTL it has to change the episode's map names in order to work - but since it's just 9 maps and nothing else it's a relatively simple thing. But once you have to consider textures, sounds, string tables etc. it will get too messy.

TheLazenby said:

Yeah, "No Rest For The Living".

I am curious - say I wanted to do something similar to what that 'Doom Anthology' did, and insert mods into a game as separate episodes I could choose from for convenience sake.

For example, having a menu in ZDoom when I load Plutonia that includes Plutonia, Plutonia 2 and Plutonia Revisited in one easy list.

How would I do that?

None of the episodes included in that compilation are compatible with any sourceport that isn't ZDoom of GZdoom, since Doomsday does not support MAPINFO and most of that is in Zdoom Format you will have to rewrite it in a more neutral format to at least load the maps.

P.D.: Check your Inbox.

There are mods that include optional bonuses to users of certain ports.

For instance, a map might be playable in Vanilla Doom, but include a MAPINFO lump that changes non-essential things like the par time and map name, in ports that support said lump.

For instance, the Heretic Treasure Chest will run on any limit removing port. But it also includes optional MAPINFO lump, Map Info definitions and Light Decoration definitions for ports that support them. Ports that don't support any of these will simply ignore them.

If you run the Treasure chest in a port that supports some or all of these, you will get slight, but non-essential enhancements when running the mod.

Well, the No Rest For The Living version included in 'DOOM Anthology' won't run under any other sourceport that doesn't read MAPINFO lumps; even those that are able to read the NRFTL wad file as add-on IWAD (like VOICES.WAD from Strife.) won't read it.

It is true that Doomsday, currently, neither officially supports NRFTL nor has anyone yet written an interim Map Info def (Dday's equivalent to MAPINFO) for it, but the actual maps have been playable without issue on Dday (and all limit removing ports) since NRFTL was released.

Deng Team are working on other things and hence haven't had the time to add official support for it.

Working on it :) -- If anyone want it, PM me. Of course, I cannot distribute it because the same reasons as 'DOOM Anthology'.

Moktar said:

Working on it :) -- If anyone want it, PM me. Of course, I cannot distribute it because the same reasons as 'DOOM Anthology'.

Announcing that you're distributing it privately by request is still distributing it. Doomworld is not a warez site.

@Moktar - Why do you need to change the original in any case? Simply create a DED file containing the necessary MapInfo definitions and then distribute that instead.

DaniJ said:

@Moktar - Why do you need to change the original in any case? Simply create a DED file containing the necessary MapInfo definitions and then distribute that instead.

That then. -- I'll only distribute the DED packed in a wad file.

You don't need to put the DED inside a WAD, to distribute it for use with another WAD. Thats rather awkward and makes it less user friendly. A DED file can be thought of as an addon in its own right (like a DEH patch). There is no requirement to put it inside a container.

Well, I don't know so much about how Doomsday load files, but, is there any way to make a file be recognized by the engine at startup? -- Like /skins folder in ZDOOM derivates.

DaniJ said:

You don't need to put the DED inside a WAD, to distribute it for use with another WAD. Thats rather awkward and makes it less user friendly. A DED file can be thought of as an addon in its own right (like a DEH patch). There is no requirement to put it inside a container.

Yes, there is a requirement. Not only Map Info will be needed to make NRFTL to work properly, there will be more DED files than only Map Info, there's InFine and other scripting files too. As I see: 1 file is better than 3/4 separated files.

P.D.: I'm trying to find info about episode defs in Doomsday, there are some mentions about episode definitions in DEW, but nothing more.

Yep, there are a few ways to autoload addons in Doomsday. The most obvious method are the /auto folders in the data and defs folders.

The need for multiple definitions does not inherently mean multiple files are required. You could put them all in a single DED file.

Anyways, I'll butt out and leave you to build it however you want.

There are no "episode" definitions in Doomsday, as mentioned earlier in the thread.