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Bloodshedder

The /newstuff Chronicles #372

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I agree with John.

I can also agree with Gez 100% but only after arbitrarily redefining the definitions of some of the words in his post to suit my preference :P

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The part which nobody read (or was too dim-witted to remember by the end) was right at the beginning.

Gez said:

Everything can be argued to hell and back.

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Gez said:

The part which nobody read (or was too dim-witted to remember by the end) was right at the beginning.

Gez said:
Everything can be argued to hell and back.

This really seems an awful lot like a get-out-of-jail-free card to prevent anyone from disagreeing with the generalized assertions you've made. While calling anyone who did so an idiot. :-\

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It was a reply to Myk:

myk said:

Because Creaphis' post redefined "Boom compatible" to contradict that.


I mentioned the issue of the definition of "Boom compatible" as it surfaced in another recent thread, from which I'll quote a relevant excerpt:

myk said:

That's debatable because "Boom compatible" WADs with non-Boom stuff are appearing.


And then it was said that no, actually, everybody has a perfectly clear idea of what "Boom-compatible" means and all mods that are presented as being Boom-compatible are strictly compatible with Boom.

So, everything's cool.

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Gez said:
from which I'll quote a relevant excerpt:

That reply to essel was saying that a lack of specific terminology and engine standards were warping (new) Boom WADs, making them incompatible. In other words, what I'm arguing here. Written text doesn't translate quotations without context, that you aren't using in your comparison. In the newer post, the marks are a quote (akin to a term but in the sense that people say it, since were all using the term) and in the earlier one, the adjectival use is ironic, in the way Gez is "smart."

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myk said:

That reply to essel was saying that a lack of specific terminology and engine standards were warping (new) Boom WADs, making them incompatible. In other words, what I'm arguing here. Written text doesn't translate quotations without context, that you aren't using in your comparison. In the newer post, the marks are a quote (akin to a term but in the sense that people say it, since were all using the term) and in the earlier one, the adjectival use is ironic, in the way Gez is "smart."


So people have been releasing ironic mods, by releasing Boom-incompatible mods that intentionally cannot run in Boom. Cool. You're "clever" and "consistent" too. And you "got the point".

The quote signs had nothing to do with the point, though you decided to focus on the coincidence of them being used on both of your posts rather than on what this actually meant.

Either your "ironic" mods aren't appearing, and your point in the other thread is thereby false, or they are, and your point in this thread is the one that's wrong.

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Gez said:
The quote signs had nothing to do with the point, though you decided to focus on the coincidence of them being used on both of your posts rather than on what this actually meant.

Coincidence? My sentences, taken out of context, seem to contradict* each other, but they aren't using the terms in the same way. This could, for instance, inspire a pedantic buffoon to try to weasel his way around their use, out of ignorance or otherwise. The fact that some WADs produced have been tagged as "Boom compatible" yet with this or that feature incompatible with Boom, critically or not, is not being debated. What's being argued is that the combined terms, which serve informative and normative functions when used in documentation, are best used to indicate WADs that are compatible with Boom, and that this should be encouraged, because otherwise they are not associated to a specific object people can refer to (as other "Boom compatible" ports vary and aren't even necessarily compatible with each other and in some senses even Boom) unless further clarifications otherwise specify what the WAD is for more exactly. Even then, Boom compatible but isn't that great, as the use will tend to reiterate itself in similar contexts while possibly losing that but.

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* In the older sentence, the quotes are there specifically because compatible contradicts Boom. In the newer, because the term is being questioned. A defined term could use italics, while a term open for debate is better placed in quotation marks.

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anyone else cringes every time the word 'mod' is used in place of the traditional term 'wad'? i thought gez meant moderators and wondered what the hell was he raving about, heh.

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Funny, I was just thinking about various terms that stick in the community, with their baggage of meaning; mainly as an offshoot of this discussion ("Boom compatible" getting some extra baggage to some.) One of those was the mod and WAD distinction. We have historically tended to use mod to denote game-changing add-ons other than WADs, yet WADs are modifications, too. Our forum "WADs & Mods" seems to distinguish them, but it can also be read as "WAD modifications and other modifications in general." WADs kind of feel "separate" by the way they are distributed, compared to a strict patch (as in DeHackEd or specific engine alterations as seen in one of the source ports sections.) Nowadays the distinction became more blurred because most "patching" comes in WADs. WADs are "patch WADs" but patch the game during execution instead of more permanently before use. They change or modify the game, but don't modify the (previous) game files.

But yeah, the ironic moderators have been unleashed :p

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myk said:

The fact that some WADs produced have been tagged as "Boom compatible" yet with this or that feature incompatible with Boom, critically or not, is not being debated.


How very convenient for you to exclude from the debate the facts that do not go toward your argument.

The entire point of my "everything can be argued to hell and back" rant was that Creaphis' redefinition could be understood given the existing confusion about what exactly "Boom compatible" covers. This confusion arises from the simple fact that a number of modders and testers are no longer using Boom but instead one of its successors, notably PrBoom+ or Eternity.

So mods made for Boom-compatible ports may not be Boom-compatible themselves. And for the reasons listed by Creaphis that developers may very well decline to port Boom's bugs when they port Boom's features (or may clone these features based on specs, which are not necessarily accurate), mods made for Boom may not be compatible with Boom-compatible ports. These two elements combined make it so that "compatible with Boom" and "compatible with Boom-compatible ports" do not overlap perfectly, neither set being fully included in the other.

One could think this wouldn't be so hard to understand.

This is an issue that exists and that is probably not going away. As long as the community lives and some ports continue to be maintained and extended, many people will continue to base their standards on these moving targets. You can rage against it but you'd probably need to do better than passive-aggressive ad-hominems for that. Things that could be done: a Chocolate Boom for testing mods, and an "acid test" wad with a few maps and demos for testing ports. Both would have to be continually maintained to be sure that they illustrate and embody Boom-compatibility as exhaustively as possible.

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Gez said:
How very convenient for you to exclude from the debate the facts that do not go toward your argument.

It's funny because the facts you have mentioned are incorporated in my discourse and have appeared repeatedly, just that I am giving them a different value. Seriously, how am I excluding something that I'm considering a known fact and using on parts of my arguments?

Things that could be done: a Chocolate Boom for testing mods, and an "acid test" wad with a few maps and demos for testing ports. Both would have to be continually maintained to be sure that they illustrate and embody Boom-compatibility as exhaustively as possible.

Pardon the expression, but you're excusing yourself here from the perspective of a source port elitist. Things done hardly depend only on what's done with the source and even include this so-called "raging". Many things that end up in the source are demands by players and mod makers. Hence it's smart for mod makers to use clear and concise terms to say what their WADs work with and not actively encourage vague and inaccurate ways to convey such information, which can occasionally be called off with colorful and fitting epithets.

A "Chocolate Boom" wouldn't be a problem but it's not necessary, with the existence of PrBoom v2.02 for Windows (a plain port of Boom for the most widely used OS) and (the highly portable and maintained) DOSBox to run Boom itself. Keep in mind that, other than critical issues that may cause terminations, PrBoom+ pretty much deals with everything else like Boom if set to the corresponding compatibility level, so you don't normally need to use the older engines for most of the testing. This faithful capability is what prompted the "nah" from Andrey and myself when Quasar proposed that level 33 mnemonics be added as part of BEX in advanced ports, at least for the PrBoom line.

Besides, testing is only part of the deal. If you're not going for Boom compatibility, you call it something else, whatever it really is you're going for: "Boom features in ZDoom and Eternity" or whatever.

These two elements combined make it so that "compatible with Boom" and "compatible with Boom-compatible ports" do not overlap perfectly, neither set being fully included in the other.

And you know what? In one case, Boom is a specific engine with a narrow functionality only a bit more variable than vanilla when it comes to how it behaves. In the other, you're referring to various ports* with a vast range of settings and variations, and you are not even specifying which. You need to replace "Boom compatible ports" with which (sort of) Boom compatible ports, and may need to indicate roughly what features in said ports are used, to give an idea of what is required, perhaps with a general "using Boom features and [insert some other extra stuff if required]."

PS: You're like a guy trying to argue the pointlessness of traffic lights because sometimes some people ignore them.

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* Including any ports independently based on the Boom source code, which may have nothing to do with these "advanced Boom compatible" ports you are thinking of, yet would still be able to refer to Boom in respect to any differences.

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Yeah...I think that is several, several words that are the same as GreyGhost's "Tested With" point. I think.

My goodness I can't even follow it anymore. The over-intellectualized babble over the word; "compatible".

Luv you, guys! <----Ban-Evade of a dim-witted idiot. ;)

I'm disappointed at Herculine's handling of his 'situation'.

Do the right thing, Herculine. Did you use it or not? Clear it up. C'mon.

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bytor said:
Yeah...I think that is several, several words that are the same as GreyGhost's "Tested With" point. I think.

Well, I proposed that addition to Ty, as it's more objective than "required" or "may not run with". Amid all their babble, these over-intellectualized types sometimes also contribute useful and practical bits and pieces :p

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/newstuff Chronicles would not be the same without heated debates about the meanings of words. Somehow I'm just not surprised to see flame bait being cast about here.

Can I just say I enjoyed Dutch Devil's Evil, and leave it at that?

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myk said:

PS: You're like a guy trying to argue the pointlessness of traffic lights because sometimes some people ignore them.


Then the point really flew miles over your head.

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Maybe when you think by yourself in a void your can determine "the point" but I'm afraid this is a public debate. Whatever it is you think "the point" was, it also translates to that. The whys for this have already been gone over various times by more than one person, so perhaps you can just stay in that void of yours for now. Time will teach you better.

Your critiques in regard to the strict "Boom compatible" meaning apply even more so to the flaccid alternative (mods will even more easily be incompatible with a port that just claims to be compatible with something else). Modifications introduced in ports demand clear labels on different files to distinguish sets and standards to reinforce compatibility between the files. That varied WADs that use Boom features appear is a reason to be more specific about the differences that cause incompatibilities, which is why (three) extra identification entries were added to the WAD template.

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Gez said:

So mods made for Boom-compatible ports may not be Boom-compatible themselves. And for the reasons listed by Creaphis that developers may very well decline to port Boom's bugs when they port Boom's features (or may clone these features based on specs, which are not necessarily accurate), mods made for Boom may not be compatible with Boom-compatible ports. These two elements combined make it so that "compatible with Boom" and "compatible with Boom-compatible ports" do not overlap perfectly, neither set being fully included in the other.

The notion of "Boom-compatible-compatible" being a legitimate classification really weirds me out. Are there really enough wads out there that ignore or rely on Boom bugs or implementation details to justify it? Most of the inconsistencies I've seen are of the type where an alleged "Boom-compatible" wad uses a feature or quirk that doesn't actually exist in Boom (say, an MBF linetype), in which case it would be more fitting to refer to said wad as "MBF-compatible" or whatever it may be.

myk said:

Our forum "WADs & Mods" seems to distinguish them, but it can also be read as "WAD modifications and other modifications in general."

I'm sure it was all about the catchy forum title over anything else. Rhyming is cool. ;)

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I admit I put "boom compatible" for some of my wads even after myk tells me they aren't compatible with boom.exe. I guess I didn't really mind since I always put the "tested with" line. But yeah, if someone only uses boom.exe to play boom compatible wads, and they try to play one of those maps, it won't work and they'd be like "wtf this isn't boom compatible".

Herculine: We're just curious how you made your maps, because it looks like Oblige was used in some way, but it wasn't mentioned in the txt file.

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myk said:

Maybe when you think by yourself in a void your can determine "the point" but I'm afraid this is a public debate. Whatever it is you think "the point" was, it also translates to that.

No, you're just putting words in my mouth, and reading what you think I'd say rather than what I'm actually saying. It didn't seem that subtle or byzantine to me, rather simple actually, but you still get it completely wrong.

myk said:

Your critiques

Another proof of that. There was no critique. Only a comment on the confusion that does exist, explaining why Creaphis' interpretation of what "Boom-compatible" is could make sense to some.

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It's good to hear you're not making the critique I described. It wasn't clear, though, from various details including some comments, such as "compat bile" or the logic in various paragraphs, and the redundancy of making such an argument when most of us know well it occurs, particularly among people who get the idea of "Boom compatible" from secondary sources, but argue against it simply for normative or objective reasons, not absolute theoretical ones.

Your "argue to hell and back" was also ambiguous as it can be interpreted as "for such effort, a like effort" rather than any intent to argue for fun, for arguing's sake or for purely descriptive purposes, especially in a discussion that tended more toward an argument around an issue than a mild and careless chat on a debatable topic for curiosity's sake.

After all, by that logic, the KDIKDIZD team should be tempted to renounce their objective as redundant because KDIZD, not being required to be "compatible with vanilla.exe," can be played with various "vanilla compatible ports" (understood only as ports that can run most vanilla WADs), making it "vanilla compatible". Heh.

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In all fairness, It only crashed because I was playing it on my shitty 1999 laptop. I tried it with prboom, but I couln't even get it to run.

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I have seen that my map was reviewed(yes, sorry I've seen it a bit late, got caught up with enrolement to university and stuff) and well i'd like to thank the reviewer for his work :)
I'll try and take notice of what you said next time I do a map.

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