Two rhetorical questions

[jupiter_ex]

I've contributed to the project in the past, and I've been playing Freedoom again lately, and I wanted to pour in here two thoughts that recently popped in my head:

 

Question 1:

What's the identity of the monsters in Freedoom? What are they? Demons? Aliens? Mutants? What do the enemies in Freedoom have to look like?

And the answer to this one in my opinion is: The only rule is they need to be different from the monsters in Doom. That's all that matters. Cohesive? Sharing a common theme? Just not the same as the ones in Doom. Replacements for those in Doom.

 

And this brings Question 2:

How much can we change the graphics then so it doesn't simply turn into another game?

 

I think the Freedoom community has made a better job with the wall textures than with enemy sprites. If you see what I mean: the walls just stray a little from the originals in Doom, to the point where you can still tell which is which, what surface is what. As a matter of fact some of the walls in Freedoom are even better than the Doom originals.

 

I know there have already been discussions on what the enemies in Freedoom are (back when the imagination was starting to go rampant and more and more different enemies started to appear). I also have in mind that the enemies in Doom hardly all look like straight up demons (Archvile, Caco, a plethora of monsters with technoimplants...).

But like I said, I've been playing Freedoom lately, and so this came to mind. The feeling that the monsters as a whole are losing personality, due to the only mandate maybe being "don't be the same from Doom", and if you say we can take our imagination as far as we choose, what would stop the game then from just turning into a different total conversion.

 

EDIT: Just my opinion, please don't get mad

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by jupiter_ex

[MrFlibble]

18 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

I think the Freedoom community has made a better job with the wall textures than with enemy sprites. If you see what I mean: the walls just stray a little from the originals in Doom, to the point where you can still tell which is which, what surface is what. As a matter of fact some of the walls in Freedoom are even better than the Doom originals.

I believe that an apparent greater degree of consistency in respect to original Doom in textures and flats was dictated by the need to maintain PWAD compatibility, so that texture replacements would not produce poorly matched arrangements or even errors in custom levels. Monster sprites are not directly influenced by this so there's more freedom (no pun intended) in their design.

 

Yet I have to disagree with you about what you say concerning monster design. I think there's a great deal of consistency in the monster roster, starting with the art style set by raymoohawk for the majority of new creatures. It's been discussed several times that there's a certain Lovecraftian vibe in the new designs, although the attempt to introduce more lizard-like creatures fell through. The drawing style is also very coherent, thanks to it having been one person - raymoohawk - who created most assets, and current refinements and additions by others generally follow the same or similar drawing style (BTW, make sure you play the nightly builds as they contain the most up-to-date versions of all assets).

18 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

and if you say we can take our imagination as far as we choose, what would stop the game then from just turning into a different total conversion

Actually I believe that this is the preferred direction of development, since Freed∞m's value as a free game on the Doom engine now takes priority over the purpose of playing PWADs, now that buying original Doom is not an issue like it used to be 20 years ago.

[jupiter_ex]

On 12/16/2021 at 1:56 PM, MrFlibble said:

Actually I believe that this is the preferred direction of development, since Freed∞m's value as a free game on the Doom engine now takes priority over the purpose of playing PWADs, now that buying original Doom is not an issue like it used to be 20 years ago.

 

I thought the idea was more like playing a free version of Doom, with similar looking enemies (since they already behave like the originals). I have issue sometimes realizing which enemy is each so I know how to deal with them (sounds silly, but happens to me). For instance, the revenant, I think is the one that looks like a black goblin or something. First time I saw it I thought was an imp. Then he shoots a fireball and I think it's an imp. Then the fireball is homing and I realize is the revenant.

Similarly I still can't tell the Baron of Hell from the Hellknight. I like better for instance the arachnotron, which remains as a spider thing (it could use a more marked death sound like the original, so you can tell when you killed it).

 

As you can see, I'm more towards a Freedoom that's more like a slightly changed version of Doom, so you can (as it was before) "play Doom" or wads for free. Probably just my opinion.

 

I didn't remember about raymoohawk's work and I didn't mean it as a disrespect at all. Also, I'm sure this subject was already endlessly discussed.

[luckypunk]

20 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

As you can see, I'm more towards a Freedoom that's more like a slightly changed version of Doom, so you can (as it was before) "play Doom" or wads for free. Probably just my opinion.

There are legal problems with copying Doom's monster designs.

[jupiter_ex]

"Copying" as in "Copying the doomguy's face into that of Karl Urban at the bottom of Fredoom's bar" is what I mean. Making something similar

[Doom House]

in the Freedoom mythos, the army you face against are considered instect-like aliens, and you travel to their home hive (akin to hell in the Doom series). This leads me to wonder how the Zombies came to be. Extraterrestrial virus? I do agree the textures look better than monsters can when they all blend in together, but there is a decent place for them. Regardless, I replace them with the Doom assets to make a pwad of sorts for just plain old Doom quite often. (The glories of modding to taste) In a way, i am thinking it may be a good thing it strays from the original Doom games as far as they may, considering the current climate with current-era Id Software/Bethesda. Hell, even the name is cutting it close. They sent a cease and desist to a band called Doomscroll because it had the name Doom in it. Easy solution if such a scenario happens would be to remove one O and call it Freedom while keeping the premise intact.

[MrFlibble]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:36 AM, jupiter_ex said:

For instance, the revenant, I think is the one that looks like a black goblin or something. First time I saw it I thought was an imp. Then he shoots a fireball and I think it's an imp.

This is an already retired version, the new Revenant counterpart looks entirely different.

 

It will probably not surprise you to learn that the old "dark soldier" was originally created as an imp replacement, but it turned out too tall, and after editing it got into the revenant slot. The tall version can be still found in v0.7, and it is now reused as the Undead Warrior replacement in Blasphemer.

 

On 12/18/2021 at 3:36 AM, jupiter_ex said:

As you can see, I'm more towards a Freedoom that's more like a slightly changed version of Doom, so you can (as it was before) "play Doom" or wads for free. Probably just my opinion.

Well, the objective of the project is not (and never was) to create a "slightly changed" version of Doom, but a free stand-alone open content game on the Doom engine.

 

There's already a project by another user who became discontented with the current art direction, but there hasn't been a lot of activity recently:

 

[unraveler]

How the new Revenant counterpart looks like?

Edit: Oh, is it this one?

Spoiler

Looks really awesome, better than the Dark Solider IMO

Edited December 22, 2021 by unraveler

[jupiter_ex]

On 12/20/2021 at 3:08 PM, MrFlibble said:

This is an already retired version, the new Revenant counterpart looks entirely different

 

I just bought a laptop for a project last month and I downloaded Freedoom for playing in my spare time. I swear that black-imp-revenant was there :puzzledface:

 

On 12/20/2021 at 3:08 PM, MrFlibble said:

Well, the objective of the project is not (and never was) to create a "slightly changed" version of Doom, but a free stand-alone open content game on the Doom engine.

 

Point taken. Still, a free stand alone game where I can play all the Doom wads (master levels, sigil) and where much of the wall work will look so much like Doom's. It's even called Free Doom. The gun progression (sawy thingy, pistol, shotgun-ssg, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma, acronym-number gun) is even that of Doom. The AGM stands for the UAC. For an entirely different game in the Doom engine you have for instance Hacx where none of this is true

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, maybe I'm wrong and the Dark Soldier sprites have not been replaced yet. They are to be replaced though, anyway.

On 12/23/2021 at 4:50 PM, jupiter_ex said:

The gun progression (sawy thingy, pistol, shotgun-ssg, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma, acronym-number gun) is even that of Doom

That's because it's how it is coded in the engine, not in the game data. It's a consequence of how the game is structured, i.e. which parts went into the IWAD and which were put in the binary, and hence in the source code.