TCs, Add-ons, PCs....

[Shaviro]

This is driving me crazy!

-TC=TOTAL CONVERSION! Which means everything will be changed...!
-PC=PARTIAL CONVERSION! Which means some of it will be changed Gameplay wize...
-ADD-ON=Something that adds to the old story!
-Map, level, wad=A wad that doesnt change anything excpet some maps!
-Megawad=A wad that contans 32 maps!

Now stop calling Everything TCs.........

[Sir Fragsalot]

I too wish that people would distinguish between those. I think that you can only call something a TC if it has NOTHING from the original game. It should have entirely new textures, sprites, music, weapons, and even sounds.

Incidentally, I'm working on a third-person RPG with the Doom engine. Remember my posts way back in the mists of time (a few months ago) about Ani-Doom? Well, I'm trying to make it the most ambitious TC ever. Release date: about 1 year from now. Hey, I'm recoding the Doom engine to add full statistics, conversations, and turn-based combat, so it will take a while. This is my last pitch for it until I release a short demo, so I'm not turning into a Mechaspam.

[NiGHTMARE]

Your reasoning has some flaws. First of all, all of those things are wads, not just single/few level wads. Secondly, you forgot to mention mods. Thirdly, you can have wads that only have a few levels as you say, but they can also have new textures, flats, music, etc, for example, if the Darkening E2 didn't have enough levels to be a mega-wad it wouldn't be a PC.

[stphrz]

Isn't mod short for modification? Modification of what? Levels? Code? Graphics? Any of the above? All of the above?

[Shaviro]

Maybe mods like ZDooM!

[Guest spacedog]

Zdoom, legacy, edge etc are SOURCE PORTS
SkullTag, CSDoom, Cajun, and Dwars are mods, these alter the gameplay and provide a different style of play
wheras source ports keep the same style of play and enhance it

Or something...

[prower]

How I see it...

TC - Total Conversion - The vast majority of gameplay is changed. Sprites, sound, graphics, etc. are new. I'd consider something like Strain a TC.

PC - Some new maps and some new monsters/weapons. I'd say Osiris is a PC.

Level - Generally, it's just a .wad with a map in it. Might have some new graphics and sounds, but still uses the same ol' monsters and guns.

Megawad - A bunch of levels stuck together in one wad.

Source Port - .EXE modifications that enhance the engine, but do not actually change maps/weapons/monsters/etc.

Mods - .EXE modifications that enhance the engine and also change the gameplay, such as SkullTag.

[NiGHTMARE]

Just a thought... Is Eternal a PC or a TC? There's only one new enemy, but it doesn't have that "Doomy feel".

[Guest spacedog]

Sir Fragsalot said:

I too wish that people would distinguish between those. I think that you can only call something a TC if it has NOTHING from the original game. It should have entirely new textures, sprites, music, weapons, and even sounds.

Incidentally, I'm working on a third-person RPG with the Doom engine. Remember my posts way back in the mists of time (a few months ago) about Ani-Doom? Well, I'm trying to make it the most ambitious TC ever. Release date: about 1 year from now. Hey, I'm recoding the Doom engine to add full statistics, conversations, and turn-based combat, so it will take a while. This is my last pitch for it until I release a short demo, so I'm not turning into a Mechaspam.

If that's how you define a tc, then i don't think there are any, Batman doom comes close, but it uses a few origional textures, then there's hacx, but that only has 21 levels and they kept the revenant sounds but made it invisible so no-one would notice (i did)

[Guest Ty Halderman]

Okay, nothing (yet) is a TC then. Happy?

Ragnarok has absolutely nothing from the original IWAD in it, including even the sprite names. But it is just a work in progress at this point, and if it ever does get done it'll probably be done differently since there's so much you can change externally now. At the time, there was a lot you couldn't do any other way, but there's no point in hacking the wad to that extent any more.

We still were going to have to do something to force it to look for an original (i.e. purchased) IWAD, or it'd have been an illegal release. A super-PWAD gets around that issue as well.

Incidentally, only WADs with 20+ levels go in the megawads/ directories on cdrom.com, though I've been thinking of reducing that requirement to 10. Still haven't cleaned up all the ones that came in before megawads/ was added as a directory tree level, so maybe it doesn't matter. People have links to the original locations so I hate to do any mass moves.

[myk]

spacedog said:

Zdoom, legacy, edge etc are SOURCE PORTS
SkullTag, CSDoom, Cajun, and Dwars are mods, these alter the gameplay and provide a different style of play
wheras source ports keep the same style of play and enhance it

Or something...

Hmm.. all the "source ports" you mention are actually mods, according to your own words... they all add freelook and jumping (at least), that alter playability radically. It's really just a question how applicable the EXE changes are... the more general, the more chances it'll be called a port. ST, for example, could be taken for a port if it weren't released with an accompanying map WAD. Anyway, "source port" is a misnomer... and should really only be applied to changes in OS or language. So, a mod could include anything that alters the engine's functionality (from dehacked patches to "source ports").

[deathbringer]

I call it a pc if theres still some noticible doom stuff in the levels (wall textures/weapons excluded),like if its still in hell-i call things like anarchy a t.c because its nothing to do with hell,and you dont fight any demonic monsters or stuff (also-anarchys only gonna have about 15 levels-and 13 are done!