Skulltag Version 97D Released

[Mechadon]

AlexMax said:

Interesting suggestions.

I like that sound of that as well. Would you mind if I went ahead and made an offical feature request thread about it?

[SyntherAugustus]

with suggestions like those it wont be long when hitsounds are in skulltag. (not like that's a bad thing, I'm used to it)

[LexiMax]

Carnevil said:

All good suggestions, Alex. Hopefully Rive or someone else on the dev team will think about those. I too have seen a need for more things of that nature when playing in those private CTF matches.

By OSP, you mean this, right?

Actually, if you're looking for a reference implementation of a mod with great competitive game play support, you're probably better off looking at the modern continuation of OSP called CPMA.

Boring background follows if you're interested: OSP and CPMA were two competitive mods that used to be rivals (OSP was concentrating on giving vanilla game play competitive features, CPMA did the same thing but was also open to gameplay and physics changes from the base game and routinely implemented them). However, the last version of OSP came out in 2002, and because of this CPMA has taken it upon itself to provide support for vanilla gameplay, and most old OSP players have switched to CPMA. At this point, CPMA has every single feature that OSP had (except for a few 'oldschool' bugs that a few older players can't get over...sound vaguely familiar? :P), and is still being updated, so if you're looking for ideas for new skulltag features relating to competitive play, CPMA is positively the best mod to examine.

Mechadon said:

I like that sound of that as well. Would you mind if I went ahead and made an offical feature request thread about it?

About OSP/CPMA features in general? If you can beat me to it, sure. I was going to do it myself (since I'm unbanned0, but I decided to wait to see if anyone paid attention in this thread first, and didn't want to seem like i was spamming my ideas everywhere.

[Mechadon]

Oh, ok then...nah I'm really too lazy to anyways. So by all means go right ahead :D

[Crusader]

My only problem with Skulltag as-is is the fmod dependency, which makes it a pain in the ass to play on Linux x64 :/

[exp(x)]

It's not that hard if you have a nice /usr/lib32 directory.

[kristus]

my problem is that most people only seem to play Coop.

[Mechadon]

kristus said:

my problem is that most people only seem to play Coop.

Gah, I know. You hardly see any good FFA or Skulltag games anymore :(

[LexiMax]

Mechadon said:

Gah, I know. You hardly see any good FFA or Skulltag games anymore :(

Consider this. Coop is Skulltag's "Killer App" at the moment. If you want to play coop, no other source port has the features or stability to support coop. On the other hand, FFA and all the rest of the 'basic gametypes' (exempting things like skulltag) are all gametypes that exist in ZDaemon, and ZDaemon has the advantage of both having the population to support tons of those types of games concurrently and also has the reputation for supporting the 'classic' gameplay, even if most of its support consists primarily of half-working hacks.

What I suspect is that most people don't really care for the extra weapons and powerups that Skulltag brings. Most people don't realize that Skulltag is perfectly fine for playing classic Doom, and if you're anal-retentive about classic behavior then you're probably better off playing doom2.exe or chocolate doom as the only alternative is only marginally better at emulating the weird behavior. It might be a good idea, therefore, to bring back the 'classic' nomenclature. Except instead of trying to make 'classic' as close as possible to doom2.exe, simply designate servers that disable freelook and jumping as "Classic" in their server name. Or, if you wanted to get fancy, you might extend the server browser to flag 'classic' servers in a special way, along with an 'instagib' and 'buckshot' flag so people know what they're joining (perhaps modify the gametype column to say "Classic Duel", "Buckshot LMS", etc.).

It's more of a branding issue than anything, and parhaps a modification to the home page and features list that denotes that Skulltag is perfectly capable of playing these classic wads with classic-ish behavior might be a good idea.

[Hekksy]

kristus said:

my problem is that most people only seem to play Coop.

True, but that does not mean Team games are rare, you just have to get them going if you want to play. I've been seeing a CTF roughly every day for the last 4 months. Just today and yesterday I waited in an empty CTF server, and less than half an hour later it was a crazy 6 vs 6 with 3 spectators.

[myk]

Skulltag has less players, and more playing modes. The latter dilutes its player base since there's less concentration on specific playing modes. You have to have a huge community to take advantage of many playing modes on a public level (outside some chaps using them privately), and the Doom community is not really growing these days. Compared to that, give or take a few bugs or enhancements, it doesn't matter much as long as they don't break the engine. In fact, after a time a player base gets used to an engine's particularities and glitches (including a number of bugs) so they really aren't a problem.

Why does ZDaemon have most of the active players? Because it was there first and concentrated on providing relatively basic Doom games, plus one essential team mode (CTF). Skulltag found a niche providing alternative modes, which can attract some players but not the majority, which was already standardized on ZDaemon.

I don't think it's a branding issue, but that it depends on what player groups have chosen to use in the long run due to the way things developed.

[LexiMax]

myk said:

Skulltag has less players, and more playing modes. The latter dilutes its player base since there's less concentration on specific playing modes.

I don't really agree with you here. You don't dilute a playerbase with small communities and large numbers of gametypes, in the case of that, some gametypes get played a whole bunch and some don't see any play at all. See Unreal Tournament 2004, it is the most often used example of a diluted playerbase due to gametypes, but take a look at what happened, people started playing some gametypes a whole bunch and others (Bombing run, Double Domination) don't get any play at all. It all works out in the end.

I do agree with most of the rest of your post, but I'm not sure that change is out of the question if Skulltag plays its cards right. For one, ZDaemon has been stuck at 1.08 for a very long time, and the 'newschool' crowd is very likely to switch over simply because Skulltag probably fulfills many 'feature requests' that ZDaemon is incapable of meeting. The biggest hurdle is the competitive scene, but I beleive that the implementation of tourney features may not only entice some ZDaemon players to try Skulltag, but also entice some players of newer games to give it a try as well, since the features that they are used to are now in a Doom source port natively.

And again, if major tournaments such as the IDL switch over, players are likely to switch over as well, similar to how major Quake 3 tournaments changed from OSP to CPMA and the community switched with it.

[Carnevil]

Skulltag is fine guys. Who cares if it's not #1? I don't think things are a failure and need improving if they aren't #1. It just typically means that they're more specialized and niched. I know that I certainly wanted ST to be #1, but that was probably an unrealistic expectation given what people in the Doom community by and large want in a port.

Besides, there's plenty of people playing at virtually all times anyway, and in numbers very comparable to ZDaemon. If you want a game, you can most certainly find a game.

[LexiMax]

Carnevil said:

Skulltag is fine guys. Who cares if it's not #1? I don't think things are a failure and need improving if they aren't #1. It just typically means that they're more specialized and niched. I know that I certainly wanted ST to be #1, but that was probably an unrealistic expectation given what people in the Doom community by and large want in a port.

That is an excellent attitude to have. My feature requests stem more from taking some time off from doom and giving the Quake-likes a spin for the past year or two, more than "argh, i'm a bitter zdaemon vet, you need to beat them so i have a place to play, argh", because you're right, I don't have any trouble finding a place to play when it comes to skulltag.

[exp(x)]

Carnevil said:

Skulltag is fine guys. Who cares if it's not #1?

Well, that's certainly a healthy change in attitude from you.

[leileilol]

exp(x) said:

Well, that's certainly a healthy change in attitude from you.

Yeah I was about to link to those old posts about him being UGH IM NOT #1 THIS SUCKS I QUIT but i decided against it

[Mangetsu]

leileilol said:

Yeah I was about to link to those old posts about him being UGH IM NOT #1 THIS SUCKS I QUIT but i decided against it

/facepalm.
Stop nailing with your crap, you're one to comment about attitudes.

[exp(x)]

Who the hell are you?

[Mangetsu]

exp(x) said:

Who the hell are you?

You best be trolling if you're refering to me.

[exp(x)]

Cute, a skulltag fanboy.

[LexiMax]

He's completely right though

[Csonicgo]

Mangetsu said:

You best be trolling if you're refering to me.

Ooooooh shit it's on now

[Mangetsu]

Csonicgo said:

Ooooooh shit it's on now

Wait, what...what just happened.
Well, I don't want you to keep trolling the Thead, I want it to die peacefully, you see...don't mind me...