Treading on Dangerous Waters...

[Tamashii]

hello doomworld community. i have very little programming experience, but i love doom. recently, i fell in love with wildweasel's diaz weapon mod, and decided to tinker around with it, to see how it was coded and such. and then it really got out of hand when i started putting in bestiary from tormentor667.

the work isn't mine, but is it ethical and allowed by the community to put a link to the weapon mod (with some monster replacements) knowing and claiming that the work isn't mine? i give all credit do wildweasel for his diaz weapon mod, and tormentor and others for the various monsters made. i don't want credit for other people's work, but i do enjoy doom and would like to share what i've probed and modified.

if the community's ok with me putting up a download link, i'll do it.

[ellmo]

If you mention where did the original resources come from and give props to their authors, and - most of all - do not make your work commercial, then it is ethical, completely okay and happens often.

I might even say, that sharing your work with the others (even tho' it's not entirely your work) is a way, a polite man should act.


Here's what's this all about :
Most of the work around here is based on someone esle's work, modified hundreds of times for various results. Some of the art originate from Doom / Hexen / Heretic itself, other was created (or ported) by some devoted people.

You will often see that someone is making a map using textures from person A, with weapon replacements from person B, but with his own coding and modifications; music was extracrd from a WAD by person C.

Happens all the time, that's what the community is all about really. You can consider it a large public library as long as you don't forget to mention original authors.

[myk]

Tamashii said:
if the community's ok with me putting up a download link, i'll do it.

It's up to the person that released the work, rather than the community in general. If the text file of the files you're basing your work off of says you can modify the stuff (e.g. "you MAY use this file as a base..."), go ahead. If it says you can't (e.g. "you may NOT use this file as a base...") or it doesn't say anything, you'll have to contact the authors to do anything with it.

ellmo said:
You can consider it a large public library as long as you don't forget to mention original authors.

While a sensible thing to do when basing one's work on another's, giving credit is not a requirement unless it's noted as such in the original file's documentation. Also, using a file one doesn't have permission to use is not okay, regardless of any credit given.

Edit: BFP9000

[Tamashii]

thanks for the reply. very well then.

a couple of months ago, wildweasel was betatesting wwhc-diaz.wad on doomworld. i made some changes to it:

*minor modification to weapon damage and rearranged weapon slots to be more suitable for frenzied combat switching.

1: fists / colt1911
2: psiamp / marteba
3: shotgun
4: smg / skorpion
5: rpdhmg
6. frag grenades
7. rpg
8. neutralizer
9. mauser rifle


* added monsters from tormentor667's website
* modified some scripts on those monsters for balance
- replaced demon with blooddemonclone
- replaced cacodemon with cacolich, with guts spilling on death
- replaced mancubus with hellsfury
- replaced painelemental with hadeselemental, with guts on death
- replaced archvile with cyberbruiser, guts on death
- replaced mastermind with flying mastermind, guts on death
- replaced lost souls with ghosts
(*this is a neat monster, i found. i removed the attack and damage, made it clip through everything, and harass you and go into monster corpses and raise them. there's no way to kill them except for splash damage, or make it go into a corpse)


i've played and tweaked the mod over and over through the weeks, playing through:

*equinox
*genesis of descent
*titan
*vae victus2
*demons of problematique
*dark7 series
*phobos anomaly reborn
*epic

and have found the weapons to be fairly balanced. i've successfully gotten rid of the problem where the player had too much colt and marteba clips. former humans and such will drop health items, and occasionally lite-amp.


oh, and another thing. blood, empty clips, bullet casings, corpses, stay for a VERY long time. so after you clear a room, it's more in the "spirit" of what doom was all about. the mod seems to work with coop. tried it with friends during christmas break on lan.

couple of ongoing personal tweaks:

1. find a better replacement for archvile still (diabloist were too powerful)
2. find a better replacement for arachnotron
3. maybe change the imp sprite to "devil" on tormentor667's site?
4. keep tweaking the 'neutralizer' currently overpowered.


a HUGE thanks to wildweasel for his mod and inspiration.
a HUGE thanks to tormentor667 and the monsters he hosted on his site.

may the doom community live forever.

http://tamashiii.com/zdoom/wwt-diaz.zip


if wildweasel has objections, i'll remove the file.

[ellmo]

Tamashii said:

if wildweasel has objections, i'll remove the file.

Don't suppose he will. Knowing him, he would be supportive and glad someone used his resources.

Let's try this.

[deathbringer]

I think the entire idea of the Beastiary is that mod makers can take monsters from it for thier own wads... so long as they give credit

[Tamashii]

added some tweaks to monster script. added more hp to archvile replacement. droprate tweaks. i'm done playing around with the file.

http://tamashiii.com/zdoom/wwt-diaz.zip

[Jim Rainer]

I'm surprised nobody's said anything about this yet.
Awesome job! Great sounds, great sprites, great dehacked work (melee attacks=awesome).

[Tamashii]

credit will go to wildweasel, nash, and ppl who made the monster resource. i just put the various stuff together, and modified already existing code.

near-final version is here:

http://tamashiii.com/zdoom/CustomDiaz.zip


and

http://tamashiii.com/zdoom/XtremDiaz.zip

the second one's more wild and challenging. unfortunately, i dono what happened to wildweasel's beta diaz. or where he's been.

[Nick Perrin]

Hey, welcome to the Doom community haha... if only other people new to it could make as stunning and productive an entrance as you have! Wow! Keep it up!

[Tamashii]

thanks for the replies. but i feel bad coz most of this is already pre-existing code. i remember playing wildweasel's beta and found the zombies to be way too hard for me, so i toned them down, but added the lost souls resurrection touch to keep them still something to watch your backs for.

i've also have a version where the new monsters are removed, so it's just weapons, and it plays EXTREMELY well with Knee Deep in Zdoom, if you insert the weapons into that wad. idono if that's illegal/unethical or not. if people want to give it a try, and want to know how, i can post the info here.

i had a blast playing KDIZD with customdiaz

[Jodwin]

Tamashii said:

unfortunately, i dono what happened to wildweasel's beta diaz. or where he's been.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=14707

[Tamashii]

thanks for the link. amazing.


can anyone suggest to him about alt fire grenades, tossing 3? thanks.