The future of Freedoom

[Amarande]

Basically a couple of questions -

1) Do you think the project will at this point survive to be released as the full 1.0 IWAD as was intended?

2) Should we take what we have of Freedoom, especially if we don't think the project will survive, and turn it into a traditional megawad so the level effort in particular will at least be salvaged? (I suppose I can just do this myself anyway, since the Freedoom license would permit us to do whatever with the resources, but I suppose I'm trying to gauge interest in such)

3) If making it into a general megawad, do we in general prefer the original DOOM textures, or the Freedoom ones? (I'm pretty sure only a few maps actually require the Freedoom textures/flats, and in some cases that can easily be fixed - for instance the star in the cavern area on map05 where I for some perverse reason selected a Freedoom-only frame of the blood texture instead of one of BLOOD1-3 ...)

[Jon]

Amarande said:

Basically a couple of questions -

1) Do you think the project will at this point survive to be released as the full 1.0 IWAD as was intended?

2) Should we take what we have of Freedoom, especially if we don't think the project will survive, and turn it into a traditional megawad so the level effort in particular will at least be salvaged? (I suppose I can just do this myself anyway, since the Freedoom license would permit us to do whatever with the resources, but I suppose I'm trying to gauge interest in such)

To be honest, I think a lot of the levels are the resources least worthy of salvaging.

[DoomCup]

I hear ya. Some don't even have exits. And I can't count how many times I've had to idclip my way out of some levels...

[Jim Rainer]

Jon said:


To be honest, I think a lot of the levels are the resources least worthy of salvaging. [/B]

Yeah. I mean, some levels (map01, 07, and 30 come to mind) are pretty good, but other than that some are pretty shitty.

[samiam]

Jon said:

I think a lot of the levels are the resources least worthy of salvaging.

You know, this is generally true, but some of the FreeDM levels are actually quite good; I just spent this last weekend making a Heretic conversion of map06 from the FreeDM set of levels.

In terms of salvaging FreeDoom, I was thinking maybe making a megawad of mostly Oblige levels, where we take all of the levels that don't have an exit or can't be finished and just dump them.

- Sam

[Jon]

I agree about the freedm levels actually; I'm quite fond of freedm, I'm tempted to throw a few of my unreleased dm levels into the mix and/or tweak a few of those ones.

In SVN at the moment we've moved a bunch of the doom1 maps into the doom2 set and dropped a few of the doom2 ones, which improves the general map quality a bit.

[Linux Doom]

Is FreeDoom dead/ It would appear to be by the way you are talking.

[Jon]

Linux Doom said:

Is FreeDoom dead/ It would appear to be by the way you are talking.

Define dead? We're still working on it, there's a release in the offings (see 0.6-rc1 thread), but there are very few new resources coming in. There has to be a change of direction I think, after 0.6 (which is a maintenance release) to attract contributions.

[chungy]

Freedoom needs:
1. Definite sense of direction. Instead of the current "whatever the hell people came up with at the moment"
2. Good levels. People will like to play IWAD levels, and the current ones make it seem more like Freedoom is only good for PWADs :/
3. Make some monsters not look like shit, eg Demon and Imp. Also the zombie should be more easily distinguished from the sergeant.

Freedoom could use:
* Change of name. "Freedoom" makes it sound too much like a drop in replacement for Doom. This also goes with the lack of direction... once a theme is decided, the name could probably be related to it. It will make it seem much more like its own game, and not just a rip of Doom.

Freedoom might be able to benefit from vanilla compatibility with the levels. Not all engines are completely Boom-compatible; IIRC neither Doomsday nor ZDoom had complete Boom compatibility. This is not a necessity though, since few people are going to dislike the GPL enough to not simply use PrBoom :)

[Reckoner]

I think Freedoom's current development style is counter-productive. If you don't allow anyone to contribute resources that have already been replaced, then the first ones that are submitted will make it in and you'll likely end up with mostly low-quality resources. Since no one can work on better replacements until everything else is replaced, you're left with a game of fairly low quality, and that lack of quality discourages people from working on the project because they're unsure if it will ever really go anywhere. In addition, by waiting until all resources are replaced before choosing a specific theme and style for Freedoom, there is little sense of direction and many resources will probably need to be replaced again at the end to keep consistency, which is again discouraging.

I understand that getting all of the resources replaced is important, but I think that by providing specific goals and requirements for the creation and design of Freedoom's resources to maintain a consistent theme and style, and by allowing people to modify or replace existing replacements to improve overall quality, we could greatly stimulate Freedoom's development because there would be a better sense of progress with each contribution.

[Linux Doom]

For Multimedia, I think FreeDoom needs to work on these areas:
1. Better Music. Some tracks are okay, but some could use editing to make less depressing. Maybe change the Instruments.
2. Better enemies. They seem more like aliens than demons. Maybe get graphics that are closer to the Doom originals.

I would prefer it if the levels did not get to complex. I like the first episode of Doom's levels complexity, but they went insane in the second episode. Maybe if I get skilled enough with Yadex I will contribute some levels.

Maybe change the story from the Doom II one please. Nothing to complex, this is a Doom clone not Doom3.

I agree that a little more uniformity in design would be good. My favourite episode of doom is Episode One because it was very uniform, each level was the same style as the previous.

The name Should remain FreeDoom, because it states the goal of the project. We are making Free Software artwork and levels for the Free Software Doom engine.

The engine does not really matter, since you can just download it. It is not like you have to buy anything. I dont care as long as it is in the Fedora Repository.

BTW, Dont all Doom Source Ports have to be GPL?

[Reckoner]

Linux Doom said:

I would prefer it if the levels did not get to complex.

Definitely. I don't really think that complex maps would be bad from a user standpoint, but the nature of the project necessitates that things be kept reasonably simple in order to encourage more contributions and to keep development from growing unwieldy.

I also agree with keeping the name "Freedoom," if only because of its similarity to the word "freedom" as well as it being a good description of the product.

[chungy]

Linux Doom said:

BTW, Dont all Doom Source Ports have to be GPL?

Technically, no. It was originally released under the Doom Public License, which prohibits commercial use and doesn't require the source code to be released. Since sometime in 1999, port authors could optionally use the GPLv2 instead, which allows commercial use and requires the source code to be released (so kind of the opposite of the DPL); most ports decide to go with the GPL, though some (ZDoom is one) choose to stay with the original.

In a more hypothetical situation, you could write an engine entirely from scratch (no code from id Software whatsoever) compatible with Doom, and release it under whatever license you like, be it the ISC License, GPL, or a proprietary one.

[leileilol]

Linux Doom said:

get graphics that are closer to the Doom originals.

this is a Doom clone

no


no


no

[Linux Doom]

leileilol said:

no


no


no

Okay then, if this is not Free Software Doom then what is it?

[esselfortium]

A free game using the Doom engine, which is compatible with Doom addons.

It's not intended to be a Doom clone; the monsters shouldn't strongly resemble the Doom ones, etc.

[fraggle]

Linux Doom said:

BTW, Dont all Doom Source Ports have to be GPL?

The Doom source code is dual licensed under the GPL and the non-free Doom Source License, so no.

[myk]

Linux Doom said:
Maybe get graphics that are closer to the Doom originals.

You could say that as the artwork stands, many of the graphics were made by careful examination and imitation of the original (and propietary) artwork. That invites friction with derivative works laws and may not be wise for a free software project.

Browse the Freedoom forum, you'll see a lot of discussion (years) affecting the direction this thread has taken, and information on why some of the things you're proposing may not be possible or convenient (from legal and creative points of view).

[Linux Doom]

I would still prefer better quality enemy graphics than the ones available. If I could make better ones I would try.

[Joe]

Drawing enemies = drawing a fuckton of frames.

This is why there aren't many completely original enemies, people just decide that making a purple striped cybercacoimpdemon would be easier and get to work copy-pasting limbs.

Also related:

Making good points = an activity requiring something resembling intelligence and a knowledge of the situation.

Looks like you're shit out of luck on both counts there.