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Graf Zahl

A word about dealing with problems in ZDoom

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The following has been brought to our attention recently:

edward850 said:

Plus there's some opinion stuff about ZDoom's recent development. Watching from IRC conversations, I see a lot of mappers and modders eyeing the exits, and it'd be a bit silly (in my own eyes) developing a netcode for a Doom port that nobody who plays Doom actually uses. That's more of a wait and see thing, though.


It seems obvious that I can better address the people in question here than on the ZDoom forum:

Why are you complaining behind the scenes instead of reporting such problems? ZDoom cannot be fixed if you only complain in private without ever notifying the developers? ZDoom got a bug forum and it's these compatibility bugs that normally are given highest priority when they occur.

Of course I cannot guarantee that everything can be addressed to your satisfaction, but if we do not even know that an issue exists, it won't get fixed for certain!

If you feel something is wrong, please report it instead of complaining in secret in a place where the devs to not listen!

Thank you for your attention and I hope you change how to deal with these things!

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because the favorite trend of some doomers is complaining behind people's backs about how shitty the other forums/source ports are and how great their ones are. not just in regards to zdoom, but in regards to zdaemon, doomworld, newdoom (remember that?), odamex, anything really. unfortunately the doom community is factionistic like that. but the people complaining behind other people's backs are the very ones who made it factionistic in the first place.

[/agent provocateur ]

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Graf Zahl said:

It seems obvious that I can better address the people in question here than on the ZDoom forum

Why is that at all obvious? Any "mappers and modders eyeing the exits" are, by definition, using ZDoom currently, and we all know most DW posters are vanilla / PrBoom loving luddites.

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How can I stay angry about something if it gets fixed?

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"Our attention"?

You want to know the real problem? It has nothing to do with bug reports, as it has to do with transparency and the direction of the project as a whole. Even though ZDoom now has the source "open", the community is never asked for its two cents on anything. an IRC channel where no main devs are present is not a substitute for this.

I'm not talking about pull requests, I'm talking about major additions like DoomScript, removal of DEHSUPP (which broke countless weapon mods yet ZDaemon has no problem supporting this. This means that ZDaemon has mods that won't work in ZDoom, and vice versa. Oops!), and probably a heck of a lot more like wall running and basic Doom physics. Compare that with UDMF, for example: We all knew what was up, we didn't have to worry about our maps becoming deprecated, or, because of terrible documentation from a feature that was never documented properly, the map would refuse to play in future (because that's the community's job to document stuff they had no real say in!)

I, and many others, still know zilch about DoomScript,or ZScript, or whatever it's called now. A wiki page isn't discussion. It's as if we're going to be "told" what this script might look like, how we're supposed to handle it, what we can and cannot do with it -- This is a huge deal and to see absolutely zero discussion on it -believe me, I looked, nothing stickied about it anywhere on the zdoom forums - it's stupid, and it makes me feel that we have no say in the port we use.

Things like this. That whole thread - Removing a HUGE feature like DECORATE sounds like something that would require some community involvement, especially on how to transition mods to work with the new format - but that ain't here! If I'm working on a DECORATE mod, what do I do? Wait? Hope a converter comes along? Give up now? MajorCooke had to do this work for the community because he knew it wasn't going to be done otherwise - And none of this is stickied on the forums. I have to dig for it! Why?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Contrast that with Eternity Engine, where it takes less than 30 seconds to communicate with someone that knows how the project is going, and not from observation, but from active involvement with the project. Hell, even DaniJ and Chu are easier to contact than a few of the devs involved with ZDoom.

This, among many other valid reasons, is why ZDoom has the reputation it has. Especially since this just got brought up to your attention, when you had to have known this was going on - even going as far as to call this site's community The Doomworld Mafia - Why would we care to send any bug report at all?

This isn't the 90s anymore where a handful of "dudes" build on a source port and the community makes do on what they get. It worked for a while, but then when ports became so complex that they could cause near schisms based on the direction the port was going - it's proof to me that the old ways are no longer working, even if used under the guise of "hype". That works for Doom mods. It shouldn't be the same for Doom ports.

And one last thing: To see "This can't be done" and a feature request denied with a [no], only to see the same thread 3 days later reopened, the feature implemented, and the thread renamed [yes], because another dev from the team added exactly what someone asked for in less than five mintues -- is more than enough proof to me that the main devs of ZDoom do not communicate with each other. How the heck do you expect to get anything done?

This is, and will always be, ridiculous!

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Csonicgo said:

Contrast that with Eternity Engine, where it takes less than 30 seconds to communicate with someone that knows how the project is going, and not from observation, but from active involvement with the project. Hell, even DaniJ and Chu are easier to contact than a few of the devs involved with ZDoom.

That's cool for you users, but Eternity has near zero community. It's demotivating to spend some time on it (which sometimes is the kind of work that needs repayment) and then hear the crickets of silence.

Csonicgo said:

This isn't the 90s anymore where a handful of "dudes" build on a source port and the community makes do on what they get. It worked for a while, but then when ports became so complex that they could cause near schisms based on the direction the port was going - it's proof to me that the old ways are no longer working, even if used under the guise of "hype". That works for Doom mods. It shouldn't be the same for Doom ports.

Well it's precisely the human coordination and serious work I'm supposed to do on a port that is no fun. It's a wonder Graf Zahl is so dedicated to ZDoom already. He uses every little opportunity to update ZDoom. I did the right choice stepping back from activity, working at ten times less pace. One of the worst parts for me was fighting to keep up with and one-up Graf (and ZDoom) on portals. The other bad thing is Eternity's demo requirements. If I kept doing it like it was my second job, I'd stay all the time at home without even being given a cookie for my trouble.

EDIT: and if on the other hand I program a port that does NOT care about community or "standards", it will feel like I'm a kid playing with my toys by myself.

Sorry for hijacking the topic, but if you people are sports, just cut with the bullshit and instead post the bugs on the ZDoom forums.

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Let's go through this:

Csonicgo said:

"Our attention"?

You want to know the real problem? It has nothing to do with bug reports, as it has to do with transparency and the direction of the project as a whole. Even though ZDoom now has the source "open", the community is never asked for its two cents on anything. an IRC channel where no main devs are present is not a substitute for this.


Why are you all so hung up on IRC? I never used it, I never will use it. If you want to communicate with me, use something else. Just because it appears to be popular does not mean that others have to use it too.

I'm not talking about pull requests, I'm talking about major additions like DoomScript, removal of DEHSUPP (which broke countless weapon mods yet ZDaemon has no problem supporting this. This means that ZDaemon has mods that won't work in ZDoom, and vice versa. Oops!),


DEHSUPP was never an officially supported feature. It broke only a few months after the possibilities were 'discovered' and has not been used in ZDoom mods ever since. That was more than 10 years ago. Had we kept this it would have been a major roadblock because it would have forced us to keep some bugs in forever that couldn't be fixed without breaking that thing again.
And even if it still existed, it would be incompatible with ZDaemon.

and probably a heck of a lot more like wall running and basic Doom physics.


Old news. Very old news. If you cannot accept ZDoom's mission statement it's not enough to complain. I said countless times already that wallrunning in particular is so utterly dependent on completely broken movement code that it's either working physics or wallrunning. You cannot have both at the same time.

I, and many others, still know zilch about DoomScript,or ZScript, or whatever it's called now.


What do you want to know? It's not even close to a state that it may be usable! I've been working on this for a merely a month now and just got the basics done. There's also a discussion thread where questions may be asked.

A wiki page isn't discussion. It's as if we're going to be "told" what this script might look like, how we're supposed to handle it, what we can and cannot do with it -- This is a huge deal and to see absolutely zero discussion on it -believe me, I looked, nothing stickied about it anywhere on the zdoom forums - it's stupid, and it makes me feel that we have no say in the port we use.


How am I supposed to tell you what it can and will do when it's still work in progress? As for documentation - that's going to be a major undertaking, if I wanted to write that now I would not have any time coding this stuff!

Things like this. That whole thread - Removing a HUGE feature like DECORATE sounds like something that would require some community involvement, especially on how to transition mods to work with the new format - but that ain't here! If I'm working on a DECORATE mod, what do I do? Wait? Hope a converter comes along? Give up now? MajorCooke had to do this work for the community because he knew it wasn't going to be done otherwise - And none of this is stickied on the forums. I have to dig for it! Why?


Nothing gets removed. Deprecation means that further development on that feature will cease because it gets superseded by something that can do the same thing but is overall more powerful.
In clear English that means: Once scripting is working, we will no longer consider implementing new DECORATE functions, because you can do it yourself!

If this kind of FUDing and fearmongering is rampant it's no surprise that people are overreacting. For what kind of idiots do you take us? Are you actually believing that we nuke the entire base of what constitutes the ZDoom community? That'd be beyond stupid.

Contrast that with Eternity Engine, where it takes less than 30 seconds to communicate with someone that knows how the project is going, and not from observation, but from active involvement with the project. Hell, even DaniJ and Chu are easier to contact than a few of the devs involved with ZDoom.


That's only because you are using the wrong means of communication.

This, among many other valid reasons, is why ZDoom has the reputation it has. Especially since this just got brought up to your attention, when you had to have known this was going on - even going as far as to call this site's community The Doomworld Mafia - Why would we care to send any bug report at all?


That's maybe because you expect from everyone to use the same means of communication as you prefer. If nobody brings this stuff up to the people who need to know about it, what do you expect?

About the Doomworld-Mafia - thanks for confirming everything about my impression. Why do you think I used that term? Because some people here seem to prefer to harvest a grudge instead of seeing the problems resolved. And it always seems to be the same small group. The interesting thing is, that nearly everybody that got brought up as being among them stood out in one very interesting fashion: They almost never reported any bugs!

This isn't the 90s anymore where a handful of "dudes" build on a source port and the community makes do on what they get. It worked for a while, but then when ports became so complex that they could cause near schisms based on the direction the port was going - it's proof to me that the old ways are no longer working, even if used under the guise of "hype". That works for Doom mods. It shouldn't be the same for Doom ports.


Seriously, what do you expect here? All I can say that the masterplan for ZDoom still is the same as has been for the last several years: Finally get that scripting system to a usable state. It only took so long because I left it to Randi until last month and focussed on other things instead.

And one last thing: To see "This can't be done" and a feature request denied with a [no], only to see the same thread 3 days later reopened, the feature implemented, and the thread renamed [yes], because another dev from the team added exactly what someone asked for in less than five mintues -- is more than enough proof to me that the main devs of ZDoom do not communicate with each other. How the heck do you expect to get anything done?

This is, and will always be, ridiculous!


Here I have to agree. Can you imagine how frustrating it is for a developer, if the other major developer is not talking for several months at a piece? We've had this situation nearly once every year for the last 10 years - and I'll be the last person to admit that this isn't a big problem, unfortunately it's also one I can't do anything about. I have no direct control over the project. All I can try is to keep things from falling apart and that's stressing me out, to be honest. But if in such a situation I hear about people complaining behind our back and saying the engine is getting ever more broken - I'm sorry, that really infuriates me because it only compounds to the problem instead of alleviating it.

As for the feature requests: Well, sometimes it happens that one person thinks it might be too much work while the next one has that spark of inspiration how to do it quickly. But again, see the above paragraph: The lead developer rarely comments on feature suggestions and yes, this is a problem I cannot fix.

printz said:

Well it's precisely the human coordination and serious work I'm supposed to do on a port that is no fun.


I guess if it devolves to that most developers would quit. This, after all, is a hobby project, it's supposed to be fun, an opportunity to learn new things. Certainly not a continuation of the occasionally dry stuff I do at work and I want to get away from by doing Doom.

printz said:

It's a wonder Graf Zahl is so dedicated to ZDoom already. He uses every little opportunity to update ZDoom.


Let's be honest here: I also had long stretches where I took it easy and only fixed some bug here and there - and these phases will certainly come back. The intensity of work I put in this year is not something I could sustain for longer. Next year will certainly be different. (Of course I got to strike the two biggest items of my wishlist this year, so who knows what's next... ;) )

printz said:

If I kept doing it like it was my second job, I'd stay all the time at home without even being given a cookie for my trouble.


I think that applies to nearly everybody working on a Doom port.

printz said:

Sorry for hijacking the topic, but if you people are sports, just cut with the bullshit and instead post the bugs on the ZDoom forums.


No need to feel sorry, it's good to hear another developer's perspective and seeing that it's not that different from my own.

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Csonicgo said:

Especially since this just got brought up to your attention, when you had to have known this was going on - even going as far as to call this site's community The Doomworld Mafia - Why would we care to send any bug report at all?

well I mean, it's not like it doesn't go both ways, and it hasn't gone both ways for a long time, though. we can keep playing the game of "he attacked me first" though, if that's what people find to be constructive.

meanwhile, people like printz prove that peace in the doom community is not only a possible goal, but also one that should be encouraged. but, well, "this will always be ridiculous", I guess? come to think of it that almost sounds like a curse, describing the decades of doom community civil wars, with seemingly no end in sight. D'Sparil wishes his curse upon corvus had been that effective.

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I'm trying to understand this thread - People are complaining about ZDoom bugs without actually reporting them, is that what this boils down to? Where does the netcode discussion even come into this, what was the context there? What does 'eyeing the exits' mean? Why is printz talking about 'not being given a cookie for his trouble' even though that's a feeling 100% of Doom developers, mappers, site owners, server hosts, etc. are fully familiar with? Why is the overall tone in this thread so negative? What the hell is all this??

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Let me start off that I appreciate all the time and effort you've put into the various Doom ports, Graf.

That said, two things give me bad juju coming from ZDoom.

  1. I have no idea what ZScript is going to mean for Zandronum. It seems like it's going to be a huge sea-change that might introduce new warts that might make things difficult to sync between clients and servers.
  2. The decision to switch from fixed point to floating point math seems ill-advised. I know that in theory you can make floating point math consistent, but it seems like it's opening up a huge backwards compatibility can of worms where things that happened to work because of the way fixed point math shook out might no longer work.

    Also, potential Zandronum problems - will the change to floating point mess with physics to the point where stuff like classic rocket jumping is impossible, or the plasma bump hack stops working, or map bugs like the D5M1 BFG grab stops working, or...???
So yeah, my concerns are mostly Zandronum-related, but ZDoom is after all the upstream of a source port that easily cracks 100 concurrent players a night, and if a large fraction of the mods that those 100 players play might be messed up, that would really stink, so it does concern me a little what ZDoom is doing.

That is - of course - strictly from the ZDoom side. I have nothing but nice things to say about the GZDoom side. Thank you for the renderer rewrite, thank you for switching to a license that the OSI has actually heard of, thank you for merging the two renderers into one release.

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Doomkid said:

I'm trying to understand this thread - People are complaining about ZDoom bugs without actually reporting them, is that what this boils down to? Where does the netcode discussion even come into this, what was the context there? What does 'eyeing the exits' mean? Why is printz talking about 'not being given a cookie for his trouble' even though that's a feeling 100% of Doom developers, mappers, site owners, server hosts, etc. are fully familiar with? Why is the overall tone in this thread so negative? What the hell is all this??

Graf is annoyed because purists are lambasting ZDoom for moving even further away from vanilla when it comes to movement and other quirks. Also some recent changes broke a lot of things and people get disappointed instead of properly reporting bugs.

The lack of regular stable releases, feature creep, hacky old and new mods that are held together by bubblegum and gupsy tears and get broken by a slight breeze have annoyed some people. Personally I think many ZDoom modders go way over the top with their ambitions. And use whatever hacky workaround they can to make things work, not caring about future development breaking stuff.

Edeard850 seems disheartened by all this negativity and turned his attention to Eternity to try out his netcode ideas. Eyeing the exits means that modders are trying to find a more stable engine to mod for, or a less toxic community.

Printz has put in a lot of work but Eternity is behind the shadow of good ol' prboom+ mostly. So there is not much of a community to enjoy the fruits of his labour and it's a thankless undertaking.

That's how I perceived this. I think ZDoom should just embrace its mission, it is not Doom, it is a new engine derived from Doom and is supposed to be used for Total conversions, heavy duty gameplay mods etc. Not to play rocket jumping maps that rely on Dehacked bullfuckery. Not to record and share demos. Not to play multiplayer when there's a fork that is best suited for that.

Would you try gimmicky, hacky maps or mods with Doomsday or 3DGE? Do you expect vanilla movement from them or exploiting obscure map errors?

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VGA said:

Not to record and share demos. Not to play multiplayer when there's a fork that is best suited for that.


Zandronum tracks ZDoom upstream lagged by a couple of years. You can use it to play a reasonable facsimile of Doom where most (not all) bugs work, or you can use it to play crazy mods.

If the switch to floating point math and zscript manages to completely alienate the former crowd....you're saying tough luck, go play Odamex? And the alternative is that Zandronum is now permanently stuck at an old version of ZDoom?

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Because my cryptic one-liner from earlier isn't particularly constructive, some slight expansion:

I'm active on DW-centric IRC and am not aware of any sort of implicit anti-bugfinding sentiment. I was afraid of such a thing at first, but things seem to have worked out fairly well thanks to folks stepping in.

The grumbles folks have with ZDoom are largely community-oriented and pretty long-standing (even the recent stuff with DRPG+DRLA, at least from my perspective, without launching into any lengthy analysis) -- i.e. the sort of thing that isn't going to be remedied by a forum post or two.

As per my somewhat-unserious comment, though, threads like this tend to drive the wedge further. Hopefully I'm wrong on this particular case, but the worry-gears are turning again when they weren't before.

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AlexMax said:

Zandronum tracks ZDoom upstream lagged by a couple of years. You can use it to play a reasonable facsimile of Doom where most (not all) bugs work, or you can use it to play crazy mods.

If the switch to floating point math and zscript manages to completely alienate the former crowd....you're saying tough luck, go play Odamex? And the alternative is that Zandronum is now permanently stuck at an old version of ZDoom?

Zandronum has a specific mission and a strong community which is in touch with the developers. I am not worried about its future.

I don't think it will be "stuck" any time soon.

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AlexMax said:

Let me start off that I appreciate all the time and effort you've put into the various Doom ports, Graf.

That said, two things give me bad juju coming from ZDoom.
[list=1]

  • I have no idea what ZScript is going to mean for Zandronum. It seems like it's going to be a huge sea-change that might introduce new warts that might make things difficult to sync between clients and servers.
  • The decision to switch from fixed point to floating point math seems ill-advised. I know that in theory you can make floating point math consistent, but it seems like it's opening up a huge backwards compatibility can of worms where things that happened to work because of the way fixed point math shook out might no longer work.



  • Two things about this:

    1. The floating point rewrite was done for one reason mostly: The addition of portals severely amplified the risk of overflows. I ran into a handful of problems there that simply were not solvable with such a restricted data type. For 99.9% of the ingame math it makes no difference at all, there was precisely one spot in the entire engine where I had to remove some (compatibility optioned) fallback that lived and died with the inaccurate sine table Doom uses. In terms of how the game feels it makes no difference, at least if it really did, wouldn't you think that after so many months someone had reported it? This rewrite was also far less invasive than Randi's first attempt from 2005, I was very careful not to change math formulas - they were merely transformed. And the most critical thing of all values, that is the velocity vector needs to be clamped to fixed point range anyway, because if that wasn't done you'd notice.

    2. ZScript: Basically it is an extension of the new DECORATE anonymous functions, allowing more data types like object references and definition of virtual functions. The whole thing uses a different parser but the same backend. For Zandronum it may mean it will have to rethink where to do its netcode in a few situations, because modders are capable of going far more low level with their code than with DECORATE.

    Last but not least: If I had to review every feature for its impact on Zandronum, there wouldn't be anything ZDoom could do anymore. I am fully aware that scripting may clash in some way with how Skulltag originally did its netcode, but that's entirely a design problem on Skulltag's side which has been inherited by Zandronum.
    But this is something I cannot solve, I do not know the netcode well enough to define the scripting interface so that you can use it without problems. If the Zandronum team is worried about it, you have to participate in the development now that you can influence where this is going. If you sit this out and wait until it's done it may be too late with some conventions being implemented that may be hard to port.

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    Dynamo said:

    well I mean, it's not like it doesn't go both ways, and it hasn't gone both ways for a long time, though. we can keep playing the game of "he attacked me first" though, if that's what people find to be constructive.

    Any reason why you're sharing thefwf's whois info with the entire Internet, Mr. Moral Judgment?

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    dew said:

    Any reason why you're sharing thefwf's whois info with the entire Internet, Mr. Moral Judgment?

    it's removed, now.

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    Graf Zahl said:

    Why are you all so hung up on IRC? I never used it, I never will use it. If you want to communicate with me, use something else. Just because it appears to be popular does not mean that others have to use it too.

    [...]

    If nobody brings this stuff up to the people who need to know about it, what do you expect?


    Hi! I love G/ZDoom to death, thank you for your work on it.

    This problem here is the core problem of the ordeal, both sides of it.
    If the issue is that people aren't communicating with you, but you aren't opening up to the methods of communication that people are using, then no wonder communication is stifled.

    It's a two-way block. And it's easy to dismiss it as "it's not my problem" or "it's up to other people", but it's not.
    One of the most interesting industry horror stories I know of is during the development of Blood how much everyone hated working with Ken Silverman. Partially because he would not let himself be contacted except via phone calls with one person, which (among other reasons) made the ordeal a giant pain in the ass.
    The engine was wonderful, but communication was a pain in the ass and people eventually simply stopped.
    This is repeating itself in the exact same issue.

    Is it going to make it easier dealing with people? No, absolutely not.
    Is it going to make those services you don't entirely like suddenly better? No, absolutely not.
    Is this going to solve the other issues people have, like unrealistic expectations of the engines or attitudes butting heads? No, absolutely not.
    But will it be a big step towards solving this communication issue? Yes, absolutely.

    Just my opinion, hope this helps.

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    Well, if some people actually believe that one has to use IRC to reach them, well, they are out of reach for me. I prefer forums.

    You honestly do not compare that with someone who is shutting himself completely off, do you?

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    TerminusEst13 said:

    This problem here is the core problem of the ordeal, both sides of it.
    If the issue is that people aren't communicating with you, but you aren't opening up to the methods of communication that people are using, then no wonder communication is stifled.

    It's a two-way block. And it's easy to dismiss it as "it's not my problem" or "it's up to other people", but it's not.
    One of the most interesting industry horror stories I know of is during the development of Blood how much everyone hated working with Ken Silverman. Partially because he would not let himself be contacted except via phone calls with one person, which (among other reasons) made the ordeal a giant pain in the ass.
    The engine was wonderful, but communication was a pain in the ass and people eventually simply stopped.
    This is repeating itself in the exact same issue.

    The ZDoom Bug forum has for a very long time allowed you to post without an account. In other words, the prerequisite for posting bugs has literally been to open your web browser. No email required. No password required. Just a simple Q&A.

    If that's beyond the capability of some people, I am not sure their reports are worth investigating in the first place.

    Just my opinion. >_>

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    I don't see a problem with occasionally hopping on IRC to talk about stuff, even once a week or something. I'm not sure why people are adamant against it; maybe they lack the fortitude to confront opinions in real time??????????? Gotta give people a chance to write essays on forums, can't do that on irc :(

    Also I'm curious if discussions of how shitty something is constitutes complaining in secret places? What about public places like youtube, great video.

    Also do we have a potential "There, you have it! No more ZDoom!" coming up???

    I'm vaguely amused that this was posted here, seems more like an intentional trouble stirring post to me, bad troll

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    printz said:

    That's cool for you users, but Eternity has near zero community. It's demotivating to spend some time on it (which sometimes is the kind of work that needs repayment) and then hear the crickets of silence.

    Well it's precisely the human coordination and serious work I'm supposed to do on a port that is no fun. It's a wonder Graf Zahl is so dedicated to ZDoom already. He uses every little opportunity to update ZDoom. I did the right choice stepping back from activity, working at ten times less pace. One of the worst parts for me was fighting to keep up with and one-up Graf (and ZDoom) on portals. The other bad thing is Eternity's demo requirements. If I kept doing it like it was my second job, I'd stay all the time at home without even being given a cookie for my trouble.

    EDIT: and if on the other hand I program a port that does NOT care about community or "standards", it will feel like I'm a kid playing with my toys by myself.

    Sorry for hijacking the topic, but if you people are sports, just cut with the bullshit and instead post the bugs on the ZDoom forums.

    A good post, quoted in it's entirety for justice. You know, printz, I learned the hard way that you have to create your own satisfaction, 'cause depending on others to do it is usually a losing proposition. Eternity needs to recruit some mappers, and put on a few nice must-have wads, and it'll be right up there with the best. I saw a few really nice screenshots of some crazy portal maps, but I haven't seen much sense. I was really looking forward to playing some of those. That would really help. I appreciate your work, as well as Quasar's, SoM's, and whoever I inevitably missed.

    As far a ZDoom goes, I could write a book, but I'll tone it down to: ZScripters: Calm down with those semicolons - that'll be the source of untold amounts of confusion. Take that shit out.

    A few more thoughts:

    ZDoom: ZDoom is not Doom. ZDoom's goals are to be a generic, easily editable game engine...that happens to play Doom wads pretty well. Not as good as, say, PrBoom+ or Eternity Engine, but pretty well. And, by "not as well", I mean, not authentically, with the same feel as more-close-to-Vanilla ports. So be it. I do believe there are some undertones of sneakiness with a port that insists on snagging another (struggling for a user base) port's bread and butter features, before said port is even done implementing them (yes, portals and perfect polyobjects). But, what do I know? I cannot determine intent from internet text. (I know how I feel). But, all in all, ZDoom has gone it's own direction without asking (or being very concerned with compatibility or cross-port support), and that has allowed it to get closer to it's goal, of which is a benefit to most people.

    Graf: You tend to have a nasty habit of defending your views, right or wrong, until you are blue in the face, to your detriment. I have no doubt that you believe those views, but they also occasionally blind you from certain possibilities. If something is true, you don't need to so passionately defend it...it stands on it's own, if it's an actual truth. But your stubborn defense of your beliefs has caused you to miss out on some cool features that would have benefit your users, and yourself. I've seen you short-circuit conversations in a way that I cannot justify. You're a smart guy. But you're also amongst a bunch of other smart guys (and gals?). Stop shooting yourself in the foot, man. Do you really have that much to prove?

    You make a really good point, however: Doom port coding (and other Doom endeavors) should be fun. Yes, it's a hobby, and an escape, and it amazes me how these passionate debates arise from a fun hobby. You and others: Lighten up, it's supposed to be fun, you tards!

    By the way, what the hell is this thread about, anyway? Heh.

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    kb1 said:

    As far a ZDoom goes, I could write a book, but I'll tone it down to: ZScripters: Calm down with those semicolons - that'll be the source of untold amounts of confusion. Take that shit out.

    There's a bit of irony here, considering the entire purpose of a semicolon and this kind of context is to eliminate confusion about where a line ends.

    Y'only need to take one glance at the Decorate parser to see why this is a godsend.

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    No irony - line breaks work fine...and DECORATE's been just fine with them. This is going to confuse people time and time again. Use a line continuation character if you need multi-line stuff in a game-engine language. It's 6 of one, a half-dozen of the other. Sure, it could go either way, but the fact that it's been one way for years, and it's now changed, will be confusing, no doubt. Take that shit out.

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    kb1 said:

    I do believe there are some undertones of sneakiness with a port that insists on snagging another (struggling for a user base) port's bread and butter features, before said port is even done implementing them (yes, portals and perfect polyobjects).

    Come on. You can't seriously be saying that because one port started work on a certain type of feature that no other port is allowed to be inspired by a good idea. If that's the case, I'd like to say that if anyone does anything multithreaded in a renderer, then they are so totally ripping off QZDoom. :)

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    kb1 said:

    No irony - line breaks work fine...and DECORATE's been just fine with them

    hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahah

    ( fun fact: you can actually write the entirety of an actor in a single line with decorate - hell, you can do this with multiple actors )

    ( funner fact: the fact that you can do this makes other things utter ass )

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