Is it worth mapping for Vanilla anymore?

I had a look and couldn't find this discussed in the last 6 months or so, though no doubt it's come up multiple times over Doom's sourceport history. Mr Chris and I were talking about Boom-spec linedefs, and I got thinking about something that's been on my mind for a while now:


I don't really see the point in mapping for Vanilla anymore. Sure, it's nostalgic and "leet" to say "runs in Doom.exe" but the Boom spec really does add important features that often feel frustratingly missing from the original specs. And who plays fulltime in Vanilla anymore anyway? PrBoom (and other Boom-compats like Eternity or jDoom) are ubiquitous, and ZDoom supports almost all of the Boom behaviours.

The lack of some linedefs seems like Vanilla was made by Romero going "I want the maps to do this", then Carmack implemented it without consideration for a similar action (sector down actions for every sector up, gunfire once triggers for every switch trigger, etc), which is fine when you're making a static linear game, but not so handy for open editing of varied maps.

If someone is making a mod with the specific aim of keeping within limits like KDiKDiZD or Suspended in Dusk then creativity can be pushed and the results can be very impressive, simply because Vanilla's spec and limits are so restrictive. But for most fun mapping, I would rather use at least Boom than Doom.

What do you think?

I think for ones that are new to doom mapping, they should try vanilla first. And when they feel that they have got the hang of it, then they can move to boom, and then once that is mastered, zdoom, risen3d etc ... etc ...

I prefer Boom for major projects, but mapping for vanilla can be a good exercise (no, I don't mean exercise in frustration) in learning and practicing the basics of layout and gameplay without other distractions.

I find it fun to try and keep within the limits and to try and make as good a work in the limitations. It also helps keep me focused as I don't wind up spending a ton of time fleshing out areas with intricate architectures.

Super Jamie said:

jDoom

Doomsday does not yet support Boom.

I'm no purist, but I still enjoy playing wads in chocolate/vanilla Doom. The thought of vanilla mapping going away completely saddens me.

DuckReconMajor said:

The thought of vanilla mapping going away completely saddens me.

Why? It's not like vanilla maps have any advantage over non-vanilla maps.

because

DuckReconMajor said:

I still enjoy playing wads in chocolate/vanilla Doom.

To me, mapping for boom is basically like mapping for the exes, as I was spoiled with jdoom and gzdoom/skulltag early in my sourceport transition. Sure boom has more editing linedef options and doesn't need a .deh for new weapons/monsters/sprites (textures?) but for me it still maintains the graphics and gameplay feel of the original doom (of course I always use prboom not glboom >.<) I have a discontinuity with doom2 though ... I actually bought that not too long after I got into sourceports, so I never had the 1994 doom2 experience. My dad had ultimate doom though, which is how I actually found my way into this hallowed community ;D

Khorus said:

Doomsday does not yet support Boom.

It does, partially. Some Boom features have been implemented.

That said, wasn't Risen3D originally called "Boomsday"?

Gez said:

It does, partially. Some Boom features have been implemented.

That said, wasn't Risen3D originally called "Boomsday"?

Doomsday doesn't support any of Booms line or sector types currently, just some of it's lumps (i.e animated, switches etc).

It may not support them for a long time either, as editing features are currently very very very low priority for Deng team during the rewrite. To the point that XG was actually largely disabled about 3 years ago (1.9 Beta5) and still is.

Risen3D's implementation of Boom wasn't satisfactory to Deng team because it only worked in Doom and not Heretic or HeXen.

Super Jamie said:

The lack of some linedefs seems like Vanilla was made by Romero going "I want the maps to do this", then Carmack implemented it without consideration for a similar action (sector down actions for every sector up, gunfire once triggers for every switch trigger, etc), which is fine when you're making a static linear game, but not so handy for open editing of varied maps.

Of course, why would they implement something they didn't get to use?

Putting those into it would be a waste of time for them and a waste of time is bad. Heh

Vermil said:

Doomsday doesn't support any of Booms line or sector types currently, just some of it's lumps (i.e animated, switches etc).

And some thing/linedef flags. And it does have one Boom line type: 85-Scroll texture right. ;)

Vermil said:

Risen3D's implementation of Boom wasn't satisfactory to Deng team because it only worked in Doom and not Heretic or HeXen.

Odd. I don't remember Boom working with Heretic or Hexen to begin with. And Doomsday didn't go to the ZDoom/Eternity way of integrating all features from all games together, so why would they want Boom stuff in the other games?

Torn said:

Putting those into it would be a waste of time for them and a waste of time is bad. Heh

Or they could have used a generalized system to begin with, like Raven Software and TeamTNT both did in their own ways for Hexen and Boom. Wouldn't have taken more time than a long list of special cases that needs to be extended every time a mapper wants a new effect.

As a newbie mapper, I'd rather use vanilla (well, limit removing). It just seems easier.

Most of the wads I enjoy playing and replaying are vanilla compatible ; I haven't seen many wads where port features greatly enhances the gameplay, either. Admittedly, that might be because I don't fully understand what goes on behind the scenes, but for now I enjoy vanilla.

Gez said:

And Doomsday didn't go to the ZDoom/Eternity way of integrating all features from all games together...

I think it's more a case of most major work on Doomsday's modding features stopping when the rewrite began (I say most because some major things, such as the material system have been added since the rewrite). Once the rewrite is done, I'd imagine Deng team will return to externalizing things to ded's like they did before the rewrite (and catch up with other ports in that regard).

Dday's ded features are fully available to both Doom and Heretic. HeXen has access to all ded features except XG.

Gez said:

...so why would they want Boom stuff in the other games?

I'm going to guess, but I could imagine that Deng team will probably attempt to support Boom's line/sector types in some sort of future "XG-like" system rather than physically adding them to the Doomsday code.

As in they will do something like adding all the required features to XG that are needed to re-create them and then a ded will be written containing XG line/sector types that mimic what X Boom line/sector type does.

Vermil said:

I'm going to guess, but I could imagine that Deng team will probably attempt to support Boom's line/sector types in some sort of future "XG-like" system rather than physically adding them to the Doomsday code.

As in they will do something like adding all the required features to XG that are needed to re-create them and then a ded will be written containing XG line/sector types that mimic what X Boom line/sector type does.

This is precisely how we intend to implement support for BOOM's approach to the generalized line/sector type concept (it is more or less a subset of Doomsday's XG functionality-wise), except that we'll not be using DED to define the types.

The main problem with vanilla is all the limits. Visplane, thing count, etc. If you really want to make maps for vanilla and use just vanilla line and sector specials, it would be a very good idea to make them for any limit removing port.

boris said:
Why? It's not like vanilla maps have any advantage over non-vanilla maps.

To me they do, as you can play (and record demos) with full Doom behavior, which I find more worthwhile than Boom features.

The limits also encourage clean and less detailed levels, which I appreciate, but that's more of an option as working within the original limits is more work. Although arguably now it's easier than before with tools like chocorenderlimits.

Whether any of these points can be considered an advantage I find very much debatable... ;)

They should certainly be debatable, as all tastes are personal, especially in something like a hobby, that's done for kicks rather than necessity.

In any case, I'm glad for you, that you found things so, or you'd have wasted all that time spent developing GZDoom :p

Everything I've read suggests that Romero actually programmed all of the line action system himself, so it wasn't a matter of Carmack only doing this or that ;)

Maybe it's not as worth mapping for vanilla DOOM as it is for vanilla Hexen or Strife. Those games have not had even close as much exposure as the Dooms have had before ports' debut. They need more vanilla examples. Hexen is like an albeit earlier ZDoom. It PROPELLED ZDoom, actually. Give it credit. I hope its original ACS is capable...

Point being: I find plain Hexen's features capable enough to map without a port. Strife is less capable (no ACS equivalent) but it has NPCs and Mission Objectives, which Hexen hasn't, and may still be turned into central mechanics. And it has SEHACKED too, for new/changed content [unlike Hexen], which thankfully is also supported by a port (which btw needs some fixes, such as giving jump control so you can climb).

And if I want to make a Partial Conversion with new monsters and crap, I'd probably choose Doom 2 anyway, and give the marine swords and maces from around the Doom web :)

Gez said:

wasn't Risen3D originally called "Boomsday"?

Yes.

Yeah I normally stick with Boom editing-wise. However, I agree that it is impressive to stay within the constraints of Vanilla, being 15 years after doom's release.

printz said:

And it has SEHACKED too, for new/changed content [unlike Hexen], which thankfully is also supported by a port (which btw needs some fixes, such as giving jump control so you can climb).

It's quite an appealing feature if the only port supporting it is the most obscure one that can run Strife... ;)

It's still a PrBoom derived port, so it's got potential for a user base... Strife is obscure, to begin with.

printz said:

It's still a PrBoom derived port.

So? Does that make it inherently better?

The current SVStrife version contains so much guesswork code that in the end ZDoom is still the more accurate one. Maybe that will change, maybe not.

printz said:

It's still a PrBoom derived port, so it's got potential for a user base...

I don't follow the logic. How is the parent port related to the user base potential? A port's attractiveness depends on what it offers itself, not on what its parent port offers. SvStrife lets you play Strife. ZDoom (and GZDoom, and Skulltag) and Vavoom let you play Strife as well. The difference is that you're likely to have installed ZDoom already because there are so many ZDoom mods, and because you can also use it to play Doom, Heretic, Hexen and Chex Quest; whereas SvStrife you'd have to hunt it down and install it first. Plus, there are virtually no mod for SvStrife (there are only three Strife mods on the idgames archives, and I'd wager you can play all of them on ZDoom or Vavoom), and SvStrife is not currently supported (Kaiser is working on other projects, such as Doom 64 Ex, which must not have a potential for a user base because it's based on Doom 3D).

Eventually, Eternity will have Strife support as well; and if Kaiser resumes working on Strife it'll be for a "Chocolate Strife" rather than on SvStrife.

Gez said:

I don't follow the logic. How is the parent port related to the user base potential?

Because those who choose PrBoom (instead of other ports, IF there's a choice) may do it because they're "purists". I hear a lot of PrBoom talk around here and there, even though there's another port, Eternity, which almost contains it. Yet they choose PrBoom. For similar reasons, SvStrife may be chosen instead of ZDoom or VaVoom. It may feel more vanilla-like to them. And it IS based on guesswork, but user input may help fix its inaccuracies in the end (should Kaiser resume work if he wants to).

Also it bears the name "Strife" in it, not "DoomEng #23.223". It wouldn't be hard to state in the text file "Requires SvStrife. Get it here:" and the Windows user download it to try the mod. Fortunately there aren't many map choices available for Strife, so the mod is not at big risk of getting shadowed among its peers. And there aren't enough tries done so far, so "stretching vanilla's limits" is not an overdone argument for Strife.

More simply, SvStrife may be chosen just as Boom is quite often chosen for Doom, instead of ZDoom. If Heretic and Hexen get their Boom equivalents, then nice. I hope it's not hard.

PrBoom is popular because it's a direct continuation of Boom, which is the offical TeamTNT standard. From what I've seen, Eternity is no more or less popular than other Boom derivatives like PrBoom-Plus (the only exception to this would be glBoom-Plus, which can smoothly run maps which make all other sourceports grind to a halt, so it fills a unique niche).

Strife in ZDoom is complete enough to be enjoyable, I've only played the first few maps in Vanilla Strife, but I couldn't tell the difference. I do know that Kaiser and Quasar have discovered much about the Strife engine since SvStrife 1.4, but that's all I know about that port, as the 1.4 source code download won't compile as-is on Linux.

Even as good as ZDoom's Strife is (or SvStrife may be), it's technically not 100% code complete. I think if one was going to be a Strife "purist", then actual STRIFE.EXE in DOSBox would be the only choice.

printz said:
Because those who choose PrBoom (instead of other ports, IF there's a choice) may do it because they're "purists".

They're players, not (necessarily) purists. Some of them are more or less purist because that facilitates consistency between all levels played, but others often use other ports when WADs demand it.

I hear a lot of PrBoom talk around here and there, even though there's another port, Eternity, which almost contains it. Yet they choose PrBoom.

The main purpose of PrBoom/+ is to play Doom and Boom (or MBF) WADs, and record demos in their formats. Eternity can't do the latter and can do the former, but not in such a straightforward manner. You need to keep track of a bunch of settings to get the behavior of the base engines. Both come from the Boom line, but PrBoom is playing and demo oriented (it doesn't really add level editing features past MBF and facilitates playability) while Eternity is editing oriented (it adds a plethora of level editing features to MBF's).

SvStrife may be chosen

Two things seem to be missing: SvStrife is rather obscure (unlike, let's say, PrBoom) while something like ZDoom is well known, and, unlike DOOM, Strife doesn't have a popular player base demanding game play consistency.

Super Jamie said:
Eternity is no more or less popular than other Boom derivatives like PrBoom-Plus

Eternity isn't too popular at this point because it's just starting to get mods, and enhanced mods are its main purpose. PrBoom+ is in some senses more popular than PrBoom, more so here at Doomworld. Perhaps it's less well known in general due to some distribution or historical purposes, but many use PrBoom+ instead of PrBoom because it's maintained much more regularly, cleaning up any bugs and optimizing performance, or because it offers extra demo-related features.