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dybbuk81

A neat idea

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Alright so there are source ports to play maps people make, and there is free doom which takes away the need for the WAD

 

WHAT IF...

There was an online java source port that allowed a player to start a new set of maps or load from stored ones online, which enabled weapon slot choices, all the enemies from realm667 which can be stuck into enemy slots or used as a whole, music selections, and said themes (trontech, etc) could have prefabs much like snapmap.

 

There could even be set themes with character and weapon sets already established, as well as the prefabs. ? :)

 

thoughts?

 

It would be based on id tech 1 but wouldn't necessarily be doom anymore. It would be stored multiplayer maps you generate or hell even an oblige plugin, but there would also be basic map pieces and new decorations for each theme.

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OR Not Java


Instead, a standalone version easier to edit for kids (and safe weapons too like chex quest in a kid-only version) with maybe a different wad format/extension?

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1 hour ago, Lokust Sun said:

online java

That alone would kill it because Java is normally disabled in modern browsers for being a significant security risk.

 

Javascript would be what this had to be written in - but the whole thing will fall apart because the website's operator would have to provide the game assets because access from web apps to the local computer is VERY limited. But this is not feasible unless Freedoom was chosen. Even using the shareware version in such a context had been shut down by the copyright holders in the past.

 

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I too was never a huge fan of Java. Especially when used on a browser!

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I think a web Doom is a great idea.  Technically it's pretty challenging, and as Graf pointed out the original assets are still copyrighted so you're limited to TCs and things that work well with Freedoom.  Hopefully we get there someday, but it's not a simple task :)

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Just as well as JavaScript.

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There's a bunch of things in the pipeline that might be useful like whatever is killing web assembly. They managed to get Quake 3 in browser after all

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But wasn't Quake 3 implemented with a custom,browser-specific plugin using the NPAPI, as Quake Live? It was after all pulled off at a time (2010) where a pure JavaScript implementation would be unthinkable on performance grounds alone. However, that approach bit them in the ass a few years later when NPAPI was deprecated. It also made the whole thing platform-dependent, and Linux/MacOS support had to be dropped.

 

FWIW, there's a pure JS implementation of Quake 3 Arena with a public server:

http://www.quakejs.com

But that's a separate, unofficial  project unrelated to Quake Live. The interesting thing here would be seeing how the assets are licensed, which is a bigger hurdle than the nuts&bolts.

 

As it has already been mentioned, the distribution of Doom's SW IWAD is the biggest issue by far, esp. now with Bethesda/Zenimax going all pointy-haired against anything remotely associated with Doom.

 

Maybe Q3A/Live had a more easy-going policy regarding it's game assets?

Edited by Maes

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Also the Quake 3 community is pretty much dead, with the exception of CPMA pickups. Quake Live, on the other hand, is still living on...

 

In hindsight, I wonder what would have happened if ID took that Java port of Quake 2, asked permission from its devs to be able to use the code in a closed source way, modified the code so it used .qvm instead of .dll, remove the single player and coop aspects, merge the ctf stuff and add new things...and released that as Quake Live instead of what we actually got...

 

On another note, Quake 3 has an equivalent to FreeDoom in the form of Open Arena...

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23 hours ago, Danfun64 said:

Also the Quake 3 community is pretty much dead, with the exception of CPMA pickups. Quake Live, on the other hand, is still living on...

 

In hindsight, I wonder what would have happened if ID took that Java port of Quake 2, asked permission from its devs to be able to use the code in a closed source way, modified the code so it used .qvm instead of .dll, remove the single player and coop aspects, merge the ctf stuff and add new things...and released that as Quake Live instead of what we actually got...

 

On another note, Quake 3 has an equivalent to FreeDoom in the form of Open Arena...

Not to get off-topic or anything but Quake 2 manages to get a decent amount of players these days on DM servers. Pretty fun actually, I'd say Q2 actually is more fun than Q3 when it comes to FFA.

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I checked out Quake 2 recently, and it seems to have the same issue of fake players that Quake 3 has...

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If Java was picked instead of a custom browser plugin, in theory they'd have better x-platform support until the plug was pulled from Java too, of course, so maybe 3-4 more years after 2013 (I don't know if the phasing out of Java only affects applets or also JNLP/Java Web Start apps. If not it could be a better long term alternative, unless an EmScripten/JavaScript port is considered more future-proof).

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On 5/2/2017 at 8:08 AM, Lokust Sun said:

OR Not Java

Who, me? I don't know anything about programming ;)

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On 5/20/2017 at 5:42 PM, Danfun64 said:

I checked out Quake 2 recently, and it seems to have the same issue of fake players that Quake 3 has...

Eh, I play it often on Tasty Spleen DM, there ain't (that) many cheaters.

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I wasn't talking about cheaters. By "fake players" I mean specially made bots designed to not appear as bots at first glance but all have the same IP (as noted on Gametracker)

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16 minutes ago, Danfun64 said:

I wasn't talking about cheaters. By "fake players" I mean specially made bots designed to not appear as bots at first glance but all have the same IP (as noted on Gametracker)

Aren't those usually given away by their unrealistically low pings as well? Aside from the corny canned chat, I mean...

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2 hours ago, Danfun64 said:

I wasn't talking about cheaters. By "fake players" I mean specially made bots designed to not appear as bots at first glance but all have the same IP (as noted on Gametracker)

Oh... those. Yeah there is usually one or two sometimes... I don't mind em cuz I get more frags off them.

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20 hours ago, Maes said:

Aren't those usually given away by their unrealistically low pings as well? Aside from the corny canned chat, I mean...

No, many of them give fake pings despite all being from the same place.

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15 hours ago, Danfun64 said:

No, many of them give fake pings despite all being from the same place.

Those devils, they really thought of everything :D

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That's pretty dishonest and lame. I'd rather deal with the disappointment of a dead MP scene than to be deceived into thinking that maybe there's still a few stragglers hanging about.

 

Anyway, what about that HTML5 port idea? I remember when it first got rolled out, there was that one (really inaccurate but nevertheless cool) remake of Super Mario Bros 1 in it. Nintendo didn't like it, heh.

 

I wonder if Zenimax can be agreeable when it comes to using the shareware IWAD if permission is asked on a case-by-case basis. Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to try, and the worst that can happen is we're forced to use Freedoom instead. (I'm not saying that like Freedoom is a bad thing, I'm a contributor to it!)

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5 hours ago, Blastfrog said:

That's pretty dishonest and lame. I'd rather deal with the disappointment of a dead MP scene than to be deceived into thinking that maybe there's still a few stragglers hanging about.

When it comes to fake players there really aren't as many as this thread makes it sound, I've honestly only seen a handful the past couple of times. When I type in chat people usually respond back. (Something bots wouldn't do.)

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The Unreal Tournament (1999) scene started doing this stupid fake players as real shit. The end result was that I quit the game because I was unable to use the server browser to find servers with active players.

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7 hours ago, Blastfrog said:

Anyway, what about that HTML5 port idea? I remember when it first got rolled out, there was that one (really inaccurate but nevertheless cool) remake of Super Mario Bros 1 in it. Nintendo didn't like it, heh.

 

I wonder if Zenimax can be agreeable when it comes to using the shareware IWAD if permission is asked on a case-by-case basis. Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to try, and the worst that can happen is we're forced to use Freedoom instead. (I'm not saying that like Freedoom is a bad thing, I'm a contributor to it!)

First of all, "HTML5" essentially means JavaScript in this context, since the ability to run complex and arbitrary code is what we're looking at here, and there's no other wonderful hidden mechanism or superior scripting language that HTML5 offers for achieving that.

 

So, realistically, one could try passing one of the existing C ports through EmScripten and see what comes out...which has already been done with the usual LinuxDoom v1.10 source ages ago.

 

OK, it works, but it had the problem of requiring an embedded IWAD to work, compiled along with the rest. In part, that was the fault of early EmScripten implementations (there was no "gateway" to user-supplied files or external URIs, everything had to be included in a premade embedded virtual file system etc.) but I now see the API allows access to more external resources, allow mixing "native" JavaScript code along with the generated C code etc. so it might be worth a go now.

 

Keep in mind that with EmScripten you're essentially cross-compiling and running C programs in a sort of virtual machine emulating a "neutral" C runtime environment and memory space, and maintenance beyond the proof-of-concept stage must be a nightmare, especially if bugs are discovered (no idea if it's possible to trace back to C code from the JavaScript blob EmScripten produces...which BTW is NOT meant to be human-readable).

 

A pure JavaScript port a-la Mocha Doom, developed from the ground up using only human-readable code, clearly defined objects mimicking those in the original code etc. instead of a VM cross-compilation might be more easily maintainable on the long run, but it requires a lot of ground work to get started.

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Well, gee, I feel dumb. I had assumed that HTML5 was some kind of "clean" replacement for Flash and Java. I suppose using Javascript on its own on a page isn't quite the same thing as running a full on Java VM or embedded application, is it? (yeah, I know Javascript is just a language and can be used in any implementation)

 

3 hours ago, DoctorGenesis said:

When I type in chat people usually respond back. (Something bots wouldn't do.)

That's not to say that they couldn't. Remember those weird conversation bots that try to respond to what was said? Could try to customize one to talk about Quake type things when on a Quake server.

 

Hell, I once got a spammer/scammer bot attempting to have a conversation with me on Skype (before I abandoned that ship alongside everyone else). Needless to say, this was an isolated and unsolicited contact attempt, and it took all of two seconds to figure out what was going on.

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23 minutes ago, Blastfrog said:

I suppose using Javascript on its own on a page isn't quite the same thing as running a full on Java VM or embedded application, is it?

You're tied to the HTML, but since you can both use WebGL or simulate software rendering on a Canvas element, in the end it's the same thing.

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