Strife Editing

[Patrick]

Just curious to know, is there any Strife editing community out there anywhere? I know that we recently dug up a Chex Quest/Wolf3D editing community (which was surprisingly large and active no less) I have never seen a project made for strife, or that uses strife features. (other than CIF 3. lol) Does such a thing exist?

[Graf Zahl]

There's precisely 3 Strife levels in /idgames but I think this is it. Don't forget that this game was virtually forgotten before a few source port implemented support for it.

[Kirby]

Yeah, like Graf said, there's less than a handful over here (all done by Kaiser, I believe). Other than that, there doesn't appear to be an active community anywhere else

[Creaphis]

Let's make an unofficial sequel with similar high-quality but cartoonish voice acting.

[Nuxius]

Creaphis said:

Let's make an unofficial sequel with similar high-quality but cartoonish voice acting.

Good luck with that. :p

[Technician]

Creaphis said:

Let's make an unofficial sequel with similar high-quality but cartoonish voice acting.

I have Billy West on my speed dial.

[printz]

I'm afraid Strife only has scripting when characters and dialogue are concerned, not everywhere, like Hexen has. Sure you can try making Strife maps for ZDoom, but then what would be the fun or challenge having all the ACS power ready?

Does SvStrife support Sehacked patches?

Will Sehacked support code-pointer changing?

Is there any Strife TEXTURE1/2 data editor?

Is there any way to use the Sehacked/SS_START/S_END trick in Strife as well? I tried it there, but I still had to use DeuSF to make the new monster (Blood Fiend) to work in vanilla Strife.

Are these SvStrife bugs fixed? -->
- hopping on a ledge next to you doesn't work in SvStrife
- health and armour items aren't automatically used in SvStrife: but I'm not sure whether it's a bug, because I like having to use those items myself, it adds to the interactivity.

[Graf Zahl]

printz said:

I'm afraid Strife only has scripting when characters and dialogue are concerned, not everywhere, like Hexen has. Sure you can try making Strife maps for ZDoom, but then what would be the fun or challenge having all the ACS power ready?

Does SvStrife support Sehacked patches?

As it stands you have 3 choices when mapping for Strife:

- Use vanilla features only
- Use ZDoom (or Vavoom) and use the extended features. This won't work with SVStrife.
- Use Sehacked and limit yourself to the DOS executable and SvStrife (which does support Sehacked patches.)


I'm quite certain that by using Sehacked you will lose the largest part of the potential audience.
I'd say the vast majority who play Strife with a source port are using ZDoom and the use of Sehacked will inevitably limit a project to Strife.exe and SvStrife unless you do it like Kaiser and provide a DECORATE based alternative for the changes you made.

Will Sehacked support code-pointer changing?

It should, considering that it is directly based on the Dehacked source.

Is there any Strife TEXTURE1/2 data editor?

Not that I know of.

Is there any way to use the Sehacked/SS_START/S_END trick in Strife as well? I tried it there, but I still had to use DeuSF to make the new monster (Blood Fiend) to work in vanilla Strife.

The base for Strife.exe was Doom2.exe 1.9. And most of the low level code was left unchanged so any such trick that works in Doom should work in Strife as well.

[DaniJ]

I would suggest that if you plan to develop a map for an already small niche community that it makes sense to do so in a way that makes it playable by as many people as possible, i.e. make it work with vanilla Strife, no ACS, no SeHackED.

[Patrick]

I just found strife to be really frustrating, i never liked RPG games. i wouldnt map for it unless I did something like do a Doom RPG TC...

[jute]

What about a Strife deathmatch or CTF 32in24? I'd love to have some multiplayer maps for Strife, and they would be a lot easier as a start to Strife editing than single-player maps would.

[printz]

Patrick Pineda said:

Doom RPG TC...

Use ZDoom for doom2.wad for that. I think you get all the wonder from it: inventory (Heretic), hubs, classes (Hexen), non-player characters and some experience system too (Strife).

[Necros20]

What level editor would be good for creating strife maps?

[Creaphis]

I thought that Doom Builder and XWE could handle Strife modding. Am I wrong?

[printz]

For Doom Builder I had to consult Gokuma's already made cfg, from the editing zip, from his website, to know each thing's sprite frame and copy it into Doom Builder's Strife.cfg, because by default the things lack map graphics and it's annoying this way. Here's a modified STRIFE.CFG whose things now do have Doom Builder editor graphics: Strife.cfg.

To make XWE use the correct palette, you'll have to copy PLAYPAL from strife1.wad to your pwad. With XWE I wasn't able to edit the TEXTURE1 data, as it made errors. DeepSEA clarified that the format is different to Doom's. Maybe if I try DeepSEA to make new Strife textures? Unchecked yet.

To make dialogue scripts (which involve "token" given invisibile inventory items triggering quests), get Kaiser's KSSC.

For the rest of the Strife editing help I'm having, get these.

[jute]

Nice resources! I really think a 32in4 for Strife would be great fun, and much easier than a single-player community project.

[printz]

I figured out the Strife TEXTURE1 lump format; maybe others have done too. It's like the Doom format, but without some useless data. EDIT: I still don't know what makes whichever texture make what door noise when opened.

The texture entry (18 bytes):
(1) The name: 8 chars, zero-padded
(2) 4 zeros
(3) 2 bytes: width
(4) 2 bytes: height
(5) 2 bytes: number of patches (NO MORE 4 ZEROS BEFORE THIS)

Each texture's patch entry (6 bytes):
(1) 2 bytes: x offset
(2) 2 bytes: y offset
(3) 2 bytes: 0-based PNAMES patch index
NO MORE 4 BYTES AFTER THIS.

More into it, does ZDoom modify any bit of Strife behaviour, making the game significantly easier or harder under certain circumstances?

As an example, ZDoom makes Hexen monsters pushable by Cleric's and Mage's melee weapons, rendering them much easier to defeat, and this is an oversight I'd like fixed, as it makes the game easier when ambushed by Ettins or Centaurs, than normal... If I'm not playing as a Fighter and I'm cornered by an Ettin, on skill 5, I'm supposed to take more damage and hope the monster dies soon enough. Well, this is no more of a problem if played in ZDoom, making Ettins way too easy.

Any similar oversight in Strife-Zdoom?

[Enjay]

printz said:

DeepSEA clarified that the format is different to Doom's. Maybe if I try DeepSEA to make new Strife textures? Unchecked yet.

DeePSea can open and edit texture deinitions in Strife and then save them in a way that is readable to Strife. I just checked.

[printz]

Thanks for taking your time. :)

Now to find out whether the door sounds-by-texture are hard-coded...

[Necros20]

Uh Printz, the mage doesn't have any melee weapons. :p

Edit: Unless your sig says otherwise. X_X

Back to the topic,I was thinking that if we ever did a Strife project it would be like an add on pack consisting of 10-14 levels give or take. The story would be of the player mopping up the remains of the order.