There is Blasphemer - but why not a Free Hexen?

[Frost-Core]

So blasphemer is a game based on the open source heretic source code, but is there a free hexen clone like blasphemer but with hexen's source code? does it exist? i just wan't to know some of this stuff, because the hexen and heretic source codes were released in 1999.

[Gez]

There is. Like five seconds on the Doom Wiki would have told you that. https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Zauberer

 

Just like "hexen" is German for "witches", "zauberer" is German for "sorcerer".

 

It is also in an even direr state than Blasphemer. Like 0.1% complete, last active 4 years ago. So you can tell there's a lot of enthusiasm about all these free IWAD recreation projects!

[Frost-Core]

1 minute ago, Gez said:

There is. Like five seconds on the Doom Wiki would have told you that. https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Zauberer

 

Just like "hexen" is German for "witches", "zauberer" is German for "sorcerer".

 

It is also in an even direr state than Blasphemer. Like 0.1% complete, last active 4 years ago. So you can tell there's a lot of enthusiasm about all these free IWAD recreation projects!

The project seems kinda dead, no IWADS, can we remake it somehow?

[Gez]

21 minutes ago, Frost-Core said:

The project seems kinda dead, no IWADS, can we remake it somehow?

Sure.

 

First thing, though, is to do a post-mortem analysis of why it's dead. And then find out how to remedy the problem. Otherwise you'll just create a new dead project to compete with the old dead project.

 

The problem IMO is that:

1. There aren't that many contributors who are interested in such a project. Even Freedoom is struggling.
2. Hexen is a game that is a lot more complex than Doom. Several character classes, scripted maps, hub system, etc.
3. It's obvious there's a lot less interest in Hexen than in Doom. Just compare the community output for both games...
4. People with the talent to make what is essentially a free game are much more interested in making their own thing instead of a clone of an old game.
5. Anyways, good luck recruiting volunteers that will not flake out in the first week!

[Frost-Core]

Just now, Gez said:

Sure.

 

First thing, though, is to do a post-mortem analysis of why it's dead. And then find out how to remedy the problem. Otherwise you'll just create a new dead project to compete with the old dead project.

 

The problem IMO is that:

1. There aren't that many contributors who are interested in such a project. Even Freedoom is struggling.
2. Hexen is a game that is a lot more complex than Doom. Several character classes, scripted maps, hub system, etc.
3. It's obvious there's a lot less interest in Hexen than in Doom. Just compare the community output for both games...
4. People with the talent to make what is essentially a free game are much more interested in making their own thing instead of a clone of an old game.
5. Anyways, good luck recruiting volunteers that will not flake out in the first week!

I'm not gonna be hosting it, since i have absolutley NO knowledge of compiling IWADS, nor drawing art. and 2 imo is kind of true

[rzh]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

It's obvious there's a lot less interest in Hexen than in Doom. Just compare the community output for both games...

This is the biggest hurdle, because it means that on one hand, less people will be contributing to a FreeHexen-type project, but even more importantly there's less justification for such a project to exist since the "main" reason for FreeDoom existing is to enable people to play community .wads without owning Doom.

I think there's like 3-4 good PWADs for Hexen.

Also the game is just as cheap as Doom.

There's barely any point to creating a free replacement for every asset which will take years of labour just to allow someone to play about 10 mods that all take a few hours at most to beat.

[dasho]

Quote

The project seems kinda dead, no IWADS, can we remake it somehow?

 

Quote

I'm not gonna be hosting it, since i have absolutley NO knowledge of compiling IWADS, nor drawing art. and 2 imo is kind of true

 

Crux of the problem right here, you think it's a worthy endeavor but not enough to dedicate any time or effort to it. How many other "idea guys" are in the same boat?

[7Mahonin]

Not trying to stir things up but I fail to see any appeal whatsoever with these free IWAD projects. All the explanations on why such a thing is so great just sounds like excuses for being either too cheap to pay the low prices on Steam or GOG for the real games, or just trying to solve a problem that nobody needed solved to begin with because it isn’t like finding the holy grail to get your hands on the WAD data anyhow. So I don’t know, just seems like a huge waste of time, talent, and resources when like Gez said, it makes a lot more sense to just make a new game if you’re already changing everything that made the game you’re ripping off great in the first place. 

[tomas7777]

43 minutes ago, 7Mahonin said:

Not trying to stir things up but I fail to see any appeal whatsoever with these free IWAD projects. All the explanations on why such a thing is so great just sounds like excuses for being either too cheap to pay the low prices on Steam or GOG for the real games, or just trying to solve a problem that nobody needed solved to begin with because it isn’t like finding the holy grail to get your hands on the WAD data anyhow. So I don’t know, just seems like a huge waste of time, talent, and resources when like Gez said, it makes a lot more sense to just make a new game if you’re already changing everything that made the game you’re ripping off great in the first place. 

In practice, yes, most people just use the commercial IWADs. I think part of the appeal of having such a thing as a "FOSS" Doom is the same as that of other FOSS projects: it being free as in "freedom"; which means you can do whatever you want with it - distribute, modify, distribute modified versions, use resources for other projects, etc. - without running into legal issues. Sure, you can distribute the shareware IWAD, but technically it's still copyrighted, non-free content, you can't modify it, and I can imagine apps like Delta Touch would be in a grey area if they came bundled with that IWAD, especially it being a paid app.

[RagnarRandom]

i totally agree with tomas7777 about the foss appeal. for some of us that is minor thing, for others it is a major consideration in choosing software.

i also think that while freedoom's "main" objective is to let ppl play community wads, it has since become it's own thing in alot of ways. i have said elsewhere that i prefer playing wads with freedoom iwad. except when the wad only modifies certain sprites and not the full animation set, which results in imps turning into serpentipedes when they die and things like that. textures in freedoom are almost universally better. and i also enjoy playing freedoom phase 1 & 2 as their own games.

i personally think talent would be best directed where it is needed, ie some of the freedoom enemy sprites and alot of the blasphemer enemy sprites, as opposed to trying to make zauerberer playable. but talent will go where it wants to, and as Gez said most talented people are wanting to do their own thing, especially since the hipster kids are currently all agog over retro fps games.

look at hedon bloodrite, age of hell. they are basically doom TCs. freedoom is as much a foss TC as it is a way for cheapskates to play doom wads. i can't imagine anyone not being able to afford the gog versions anyways. and i think in 2006 when freedoom project began, digital versions of those old games were harder to come by, unless senility is kicking in again. i think most of us that like freedoom and blasphemer like them for reasons other than wanting to play wads without buying the old games.

Edited April 13, 2022 by RagnarRandom

[kalensar]

I'm bumping just because this is a good topic that may be good read for others too.

 

So as not to reiterate the previois posts, but yeah the Hexen reasons are completely understandable for not reviving a Free_Hexen Project. It is freaking complex compared to everything before it. I say this as GZD mod releaser for Hexen for all of ONE project. And thats with the easy language of Dec at disposal for a gameplay mod. Hexen is batcrap insane for it's complexity only beaten out by Strife. Hexen itself is the BEDROCK of ZDoom, and make no mistake about that.  Everything from most the ACS protocols and the highly appreciated UDMF format all came from Hexen( iirc**). So making a Free-Hexen requires almost Quake level Knowledge to implement worth beans and proper like, and that is a precious commodity even for Boom+ lovers like myself.

 

Making Hexen stuff for ZDoom is easy; making it capable for Choco-Hexen is quite another ball park entirely. It amounts completely to a vast waste of effort for no gain at all. FreeDoom and Blasphemer were much easier to implement and started years early enough to see to fairly easy fruition. Taking on Hexen from scratch is comparable to making a Free-Diablo-One game, and yeah they are both on par with each othrer for their respective complexity.

[magicsofa]

On 4/13/2022 at 11:36 AM, 7Mahonin said:

Not trying to stir things up but I fail to see any appeal whatsoever with these free IWAD projects. All the explanations on why such a thing is so great just sounds like excuses for being either too cheap to pay the low prices on Steam or GOG for the real games, or just trying to solve a problem that nobody needed solved to begin with because it isn’t like finding the holy grail to get your hands on the WAD data anyhow.

 

Many people don't have the privilege of being able to make an online purchase, or are otherwise prevented from acquiring the game (even illegally). For them it wouldn't be about being cheap - it could be the only option.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

It could also be useful for game developers needing some extra assets or something to base on.

[Herr Dethnout]

On 12/15/2022 at 11:57 PM, magicsofa said:

 

Many people don't have the privilege of being able to make an online purchase, or are otherwise prevented from acquiring the game (even illegally). For them it wouldn't be about being cheap - it could be the only option.

That only seems good if we are talking of Freedoom, for a FOSS Hexen doesn't have much sense, theres a lack of interest of modding the actual game, so a Free version seems pointless. Even Blasphemer falls into this although there few mods.

[ludicrous_peridot]

Dunno, I would appreciate being able to include an IWAD with a Hexen source port, similarly to how Freedoom can be included with a Doom source port - just to make sure end users could try it out and test without any commercial dependencies. Not that I could even estimate the effort required for making this happen :(

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Freedoom, Blasphemer and Zauberer is essentially Duke Nukem Forever all over again, and it's too bad.

[ApprihensivSoul]

Honestly, Freedom from what I've seen still makes pretty good progress, and I'm sure that at least a portion of the people interested in Freedoom are also interested in the other two, but it won't see real growth until the Doom one is done. I'm sure I don't know what I'm talking about, but there's always just a prioritization factor to consider. 

In general prioritization is a huge thing anyway. I wouldn't mind at all contributing a map or a hub to Zauberer myself, as HeXen is the best (fight me) Doom engine game, but I also have priorities, or I would have done it already. I'm sure everyone else interested (the vast majority of which are far more talented than I,) have to deal with that problem as well.

[Amiga Angel]

a free strife would be interesting.. mostly because it would be interesting to see what levels, rpg mechanics and monsters and stuff that would be included in such a project

 

however it wont happen for the same reasons that free hexen wont happen

[Ferk]

On 12/27/2022 at 10:39 PM, ApprihensivSoul said:

I'm sure that at least a portion of the people interested in Freedoom are also interested in the other two, but it won't see real growth until the Doom one is done.

 

To be honest, I feel Freedoom is pretty much feature complete already. Of course there are things to improve, but a project like this will likely be forever improving.

 

I'm sure there will always be tweaks to do or maps to improve, but as long as you can play Freedoom as an IWAD without having floating placeholder letterboxes or maps that are either impossible to complete or 1-room switches, I would consider it a complete game. With things to improve, but complete.

 

I feel like contributing to projects like Blasphemer should me more interesting for new contributors already if what they wanted is to leave a helpful and impactful mark on the project. And yet the progress isn't really there.

 

I feel it might also be a problem of marketing. I was a bit sad when the Blasphemer thread on this forum was unpinned, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of new people only discovered the project because of it being pinned here. Much in the same way, this thread shows how the Zauberer project isn't very well known either.