Freedoom Article

[Arioch]

Bigdog has posted an interview with some of the people who are involved with the Freedoom project, which is a sort of a TC project that aims to provide a complete replacement of every single piece of data from the original IWADs. The article has a lengthy interview with Simon "Fraggle" Howard, the organizer behind the project, as well as some questions posed to several people who've contributed to the project, along with screenshots and links to the project and status pages.

[Guest Captain Napalm]

Just buy Doom you basrads. ;)

F1r57 p057

[geekmarine]

WHAT!?!?! These people are working on what is possibly the greatest Doom project ever attempted, and all you can say is "Just buy Doom you basrads."? Oh well, I guess everybody has an opinion (it's just that yours is wrong). Just kidding, but seriously, this is so totally cool, and every day is like Christmas because a new resource wad with more changes is released almost every day. I wish I had some editing talent and could contribute, because I'd love to help out somehow and get this project moving faster, but about the only field of Doom editing I feel I'm really capable in is Dehacked (pretty pathetic, isn't it?). Well, I hope this article raises public awareness of Freedoom, and attracts even more talented people to go and contribute somehow.

[geekmarine]

WHAT!?!?! These people are working on what is possibly the greatest Doom project ever attempted, and all you can say is "Just buy Doom you basrads."? Oh well, I guess everybody has an opinion (it's just that yours is wrong). Just kidding, but seriously, this is so totally cool, and every day is like Christmas because a new resource wad with more changes is released almost every day. I wish I had some editing talent and could contribute, because I'd love to help out somehow and get this project moving faster, but about the only field of Doom editing I feel I'm really capable in is Dehacked (pretty pathetic, isn't it?). Well, I hope this article raises public awareness of Freedoom, and attracts even more talented people to go and contribute somehow.

[fraggle]

First doomworld freedoom article!

[captmellow]

[b[/b]igdog:[/b] Who came up with the idea for Freedoom? How was it put into motion?

Fraggle: Several people seemed to come up with the idea for Freedoom independently. It really started as a thread on the Doomwmorld Forums, but I managed to get it really rolling by setting up the website and organising it.

LOL I like how he danced around that question & managed to turn the spotlight back onto himself.

[mewse]

captain mellow, he's completely right, a lot of people have had the idea but he's the one who got it rolling, it has nothing to do with the spotlight.

[Jon]

its a shame there was no mention of hi-res textures.

[fraggle]

From what I understand, cph, you and I all came up with the idea pretty much indepently. I realised that this was a touchy question and tried to answer it as carefully and truthfully as possible. It was certainly not my attention to "turn the spotlight on myself" and I very much apologise if this is the impression you have got from it.

[Guest Lament]

On the status pages, wy there's no mention of all those ZZZ textures?

[prower]

I am actually the one guiding the Freedoom project, through my all-encompassing hand and private paramilitary organization, Majestic 12.

And by that, I mean I might contribute a level or two.

[Enjay]

The site lists the patches in the texture, not the texture which may contain 1 or more of the patches listed.

e.g. ZZZFACE1 contains 1 patch called RWDMON4 which is on the site.

[Guest unfy]

an 'open' iwad would be great for the linux community (as well as other alternative operating systems) -- offering a good solid playable game for 'free'. i can see it now, doom in the slackware distribution, yahoo!

-unf

[captmellow]

No biggie. I know I have contributed very little to the whole thing myself, but I feel that my post did serve to catalyze events to finally get going. I am glad that (your) more capable hands have gotten things as organized as they currently are.

[Guest talon]

Why are they re-creating all the textures, in the original resolution?

Why not go right to 512x512 or larger textures in 16-bit? Make bumpmaps too!

Recreate the monster sprites as HIGH-POLY models!

Make DOOM a game that will look as good now to our eyes as it did five years ago! Why make the same thing again, I can pirate the IWAD if I want that.
It would be much better to simply petition ID to release the IWADS as free software!

What a fucking waste.

[Guest UAC PR Dept.]

That's why.

[darknation]

This is why developers don't release the sources for their games.

[fraggle]

uh, we are.

[NiGHTMARE]

How exactly do you think existing source ports, particularly doom2.exe, are going to use all that stuff?

If you think it's going to come with it's very own, brand new source port, you ibviously missed the entire purpose of Freedoom.

[NiGHTMARE]

Oh, and recreating the monsters hi-poly models, or even as sprites, would lead to legal trouble. That's why, as it says in the feature, there will be brand new monsters (and weapons).

[Hyena]

"Several people seemed to come up with the idea for Freedoom independently."

I know. The thought once occured to me, actually. I guess it's a popular idea.

[Guest Andrew Stine]

They do shitty tests near the place I've chosen to hide. Now my friends are dead and I have to stop an invasion army.
And you know what really pisses me off? The bad guys have killed the president of Earth before I had time to.
Believe me: They will all die!

[Julian]

That simple.
At last, a community project. Come and contribute.

[Lüt]

Forgotten prower's community project already, have we? :P

[mystic]

The point is it it can be used to run any pwads with a source port as the executable, dont you read the details. If you want polygons and bumpmaps etc there are games out there for eye candy junkies. We are talking about doom here, I think thats why we are at doomworld.

[Julian]

woops!
* Julian spanks Julian

[TheProphet]

How will we handle levels? New impressions of the old ones (with more detail and stuff) or completely new ones?

[Jon]

talon gets first prize for posting without checking his facts first :P

[TheProphet]

Uhm, sorry, that was already answered in the interview. Forget my question ;-}

[Guest talon]

I don't play doom for the way it looks. If I wanted to do that, I'd set my Geforce to some Quake 3 or other games with shiny walls.
I play doom because it can still scare the crap out of me, because there's still gameplay there.
But it doesn't have to be ugly! Every sourceport could support high res textures if they were put in. Poly-based models are also possible in software, hell steal some code from the also-GPL'd Quake 1 to do it!

Why spend so much time recreating a game in low detail? It won't be as good as the original...
Make it BETTER than the original, if such a thing is possible. Improve!