UDMF vs ZDooM vs GZDooM vs Vanilla?

How 'OK' is it to create maps using the UDMF format, that allows so many creative-unconstraining things, like scripting, for instance, rather than any of the other formats?
I've been suggested by another forum member to port my maps to boom compatible format. I don't play with either BooM nor prBooM, and have no idea what's good about them.
I do play with zDooM and love it, and just would love to have the opportunity to use 3d floors and scripts in my wads. Would that cripple out my projects leaving 'a lot' of potential players out? Do 'most people' use BooM? can we really know, 'for sure', what 'people' play with? would any opinion be heavily biased by self experience/self-fulfilled prophecy, in a mass-media/fox news-y way?
Should I just stick to what 'I' like and do maps 'for myself'?
To be.. or not to be....es...pee.....heheh

pablogener said:

Should I just stick to what 'I' like and do maps 'for myself'?

Yes.

Speedrunners / demo recorders typically play with PrBoom-plus because of its great demo compatibility which ZDoom based ports lack (ZDoom demos are incompatible with other ports or even between versions of the same port). Making vanilla up to MBF compatible wads can make the players who happen to be demo recorders interested in them to play and to record demos on (and post them / archive them). That's what you may or may not take into consideration when making wads.

If you want to use scripting and other advanced stuff there is really no point restricting yourself to Boom's features. You'd be shooting yourself in the foot that way.

But if you use ZDoom features only for convenience but your map barely exceeds what Boom can do, it makes very little sense to use a ZDoom-exclusive format.

But ultimately it comes down to what YOU want to do. If the map is good, people will play it, regardless of engine.

pablogener said:

I do play with zDooM and love it, and just would love to have the opportunity to use 3d floors and scripts in my wads. Would that cripple out my projects leaving 'a lot' of potential players out?

I doubt you'll lose much audience, apart from some niche stuff zdoom is a great all round port and I'd be surprised to find someone who won't have it installed.

pablogener said:

Should I just stick to what 'I' like and do maps 'for myself'?

Yeah.

Besides, there have been a lot of popular and acclaimed ZDoom maps, so it's not like the potential audience will be small anyway.

Its better to just stick with what you like the best.

If you do make your maps in UDMF, read through the features carefully and do actually use em where they fit to get maximun use out of it, so it doesn't go to waste.

If your maps are simple enough and you don't aim for fanciness that requires zdoom/gzdoom, you can just use boom format, which will attract slightly more audience from the vanilla/speedrunner side, but it really isn't that needed.

There really isn't that much specific need to pander in that area if you don't want to, in the end, the average player that plays for fun most likely uses modern sourceport, and as long as its fun, thats what matters, but again remember; it can be silly to use a more wider format to make something you can make with more simpler format, so plan your map features wisely.

pablogener said:

I do play with zDooM and love it, and just would love to have the opportunity to use 3d floors and scripts in my wads. Would that cripple out my projects leaving 'a lot' of potential players out?

ZDoom is a great all around port that a lot of people use.
Just use the format you prefer :) it is your creation after all.

If this helps:

While I cannot tell you some definitive download numbers because not every location has a counter, the forum links of

GZDoom 2.1.1 show 11000 downloads
GZDoom 1.9.1 show 2600 downloads
GZDoom 2.0.5 show 77000 downloads
GZDoom 1.8.10 show 15000 downloads

So it's not that ZDoom's audience is small. I think you can safely add half of that again to the numbers, if not more, for ZDoom users or those who got them from elsewhere, e.g. the Github site or some third party downloads.

Everyone has summed up the key points well so I'll just throw in that my preferred source ports are prboom+ and chocolate/crispy doom, and I'll only try out g/zdoom wads if they really look exceptional and utilise the (impressive) extra functionality that platform provides. Yeah, yeah I'm a dinosaur, I'm only mentioning it because I hadn't seen someone else with a similar view. zdoom has a massive amount of users so I don't think that should even be a concern in your decision.

ZDoom maps could also potentially find an audience of coop players in Zandronum (then again, so could could Boom maps).

Szymanski said:

I doubt you'll lose much audience, apart from some niche stuff zdoom is a great all round port and I'd be surprised to find someone who won't have it installed.

This is true. Even I have it installed.