Freedoom maps: Vanilla compat or not -- (Potential) Contributors only

[myk]

wesleyjohnson said:
Most of that last "argument" misstates everything that I said.

Making a generalized statement about my comments, using quotation marks to imply they're beneath an argument, without addressing my points, helps your case? If you check the wording, my last statements don't refer to what you think in particular, and are assessing motivations behind advocating Boom for the levels in general. They apply even from the very first days of Freedoom, which occurred long before you came by, like eight years ago.

I think that it would be easy to support Vanilla-Freedoom and Boom-Freedoom as they will be the exact same levels with only a few changes.

No, and especially if Boom features are used freely instead of simply being tacked onto a vanilla base. Boom can allow much larger levels and add effects that can alter the general functionality of the levels, especially if you abuse voodoo dolls. And remember, Boom and all offshoots run vanilla levels perfectly fine, so these engines don't need Boom stuff on the levels. That's not valid in reverse.

I am trying to find a solution that does not fracture the group. I have seen this happen before when some faction decides they are going to redirect the project.

Yet, as I noted above, you're suggesting we fragment the mappers into vanilla and Boom, producing two sets instead of one.

You have no justification for making wild accusations at me, just because I point out what should be obvious.

"Should be obvious" according to something you heard from someone else, as you noted. The reason I worded that strongly is precisely because it contradicts the evidence, and I pointed out how.

[NiGHTMARE]

The idea Boom compatibility scares aware vanilla mappers is rather silly - as already stated, any potential mappers wouldn't HAVE to use Boom features; they could even make sure their own maps work fine in the vanilla .exe if they wanted to. A couple of existing maps even sneakily make use of ZDoom features (try playing MAP07 in ZDoom, and you should see what I mean) :).

On the other hand, vanilla compatibility would certainly scare away many potential mappers - there are several people in this community (myself included) who still have nightmares of trying to prevent VPOs and HOMs in their levels and are glad that those days are over.

And then there are the countless level designers who have joined the community after the source was released, and who have only ever mapped for Boom, Legacy, Eternity, ZDoom, Skulltag, or whatever... I can imagine many such people would go switch back to mapping for their limit removing port of choice within 20 minutes of trying.

Anyway, seeing as there appears to currently be precisely zero people even interested in developing new Freedom maps, regardless of compatibility, this discussion seems rather moot ;).

In fact, with the current lack of mapper interest, I would be tempted to simply go on the ID Games archive and gather together the best of those pre-existing levels that allow modification & re-use, and use minimal or no new resources. Then it would just be a matter of putting them in a logical order and tweaking the gameplay so there's an appropriate difficulty curve.

[myk]

NiGHTMARE said:
The idea Boom compatibility scares aware vanilla mappers is rather silly - as already stated, any potential mappers wouldn't HAVE to use Boom features;

By scaring I particularly meant saying something like "few people will map for vanilla, it will fail!" I mean, I know some guys don't like mapping for vanilla and those won't likely submit in that case, but like I noted above and others said, the community is damn good at delivering maps, so we'll manage to complete the IWAD in that sense well before other resources are done, regardless of engine specs.

But to a point it also applies, in a related manner, even in the sense of scaring away potential mappers, not because they can't use their favorite specs, personally, but because when they notice the project is less universal, they may consider it less worthwhile. This neutralizes or diminishes the net loss of mappers due to a lack of advanced features. Some people step out for one reason, some step in for the other.

So, even if we assume Boom would bring more designers, we're weighing or choosing between "some more mappers might show up" and "it will work with any Doom engine whatsoever." For many, more private or independent projects, using Boom is fine and dandy, but for something aimed to be free and for everybody, full vanilla compatibility only makes the free game more usable and portable to any system. See what I mean?

[Gez]

Let's not forget one thing when we're talking about vanilla compatibility, it's that some vanilla stuff are not compatible with hardware renderers. For example, the underwater areas in Perdition's Gate maps 31 and 32. Not even GLBoom+ manage to display anything else than a series of HOMs. Works fine in software renderers, though.

Using clever, but unportable hacks such as this one could seem for some a good way to compensate for the lack of editing features imposed by vanilla compatibility.

[myk]

Yeah, I agree relatively straightforward, unhacky levels are the best choice for something like this.

[E.J.]

I didn't vote, because I'm not a mapper.

But I would like to say, it'd be nice to have compatiblity with any port ever made, by making it vanilla friendly.

Maps, mods, even the plain ol' Freedoom default levels...