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Death Egg

Source port creators, what source port do you prefer?

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This question is aimed at anyone registered on this site who actively develops a source port.

I've been curious lately, do most source port creators use their own source port almost exclusively for mods because it's their own creation, or do they prefer any other source ports over their own? I also ask this to contributors to any one or multiple source ports. I imagine you must play your own a lot for bug testing but it'd be interesting to not have it be your main port for playing.

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Just like I usually just warp to my own map when playing a community project with a map of mine in it, I also prefer using the port I'm developing most often. And if I make a mod for the port, I also tend to add features specially for it (hasn't happened yet).

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With some of them it seems like they don't even really play anymore and just update their ports from time to time. Maybe just my impression. But yeah, I imagine it takes a lot of time to maintain that stuff.

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Let's just say: I created GZDoom because there was no port that had everything I wished to have in my engine of choice. So yes, obviously I prefer my own creation.

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Memfis said:

With some of them it seems like they don't even really play anymore and just update their ports from time to time. Maybe just my impression.

Maybe they just tend not to talk about playing games.

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scifista42 said:

Maybe they just tend not to talk about playing games.



Actually, I think one can quickly see by what they do to their ports, who actually plays the game and who doesn't.

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Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?
Favorite weapon?
Favorite monster to fight?
Least favorite monster to fight?

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rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?


ZDCMP 1+2, KDiZD, Cold As Hell

Favorite weapon?


Depends on the situation, Doom has no bad weapons.

Favorite monster to fight?


Again, highly dependent on the situation, except for...

Least favorite monster to fight?


Reveants, if the come in packs.

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Being biased, I would say ReMooD. Once it gets complete enough I would likely just play that and such, especially when I implement bots for Coop and DM.

Other than that, I either play Chocolate Doom or PrBoom-Plus.

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rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?

The ones I grew up with: Alien Vendetta, Crusades, Dawn of the Dead, Hell Revealed 1.

Also KDiZD. I was older when I played it, but it implemented a lot of what I wanted to see in a mod when I was younger. Its execution may not be perfect, it has low replay value, but it delivered. It was also the first time I saw modern ZDoom's features in action.

Nowadays I admit I play much less Doom, because megawads tend to be the same old thing. I'm designing a new megawad (or more) however. I spend most of my Doom time coding or mapping, less time playing others' wads. I get bored easily.

EDIT: TOTALLY forgot about AutoDoom. It counts as a port, even though last time when I posted about it here, my thread got wrongly moved to "Wads & Mods" to die swiftly.

So yeah. I tend to play newly downloaded wads in cooperative, with my bot. He's often quite helpful to lead me towards the exit, especially in large confusing levels. But he's only good in vanilla Doom 1 maps. That's why I didn't release builds of AutoDoom. Playing coop also means I no longer have to worry about dying and wasting my time.

Favorite weapon?

The plasma rifle. This is why I like Doom 1, because (until you get the BFG, which should be late) it's the only good weapon to combat heavy monsters (EDIT: forgot rocket launcher. But anyway, there's no SSG).

Favorite monster to fight?

Perhaps the arachnotron or spider mastermind.

Least favorite monster to fight?

Perhaps the revenant, because it's too punishing. Yet my megawad is full of highly punishing new monsters...

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Since I've added true color software renderer to DelphiDoom I can not play 256 colors anymore (I'm not fun of OpenGL).

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printz said:

I usually just warp to my own map when playing a community project with a map of mine in it,


That's funny, I often like to see how my map fits in the context of the entire project.

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Graf Zahl said:

Actually, I think one can quickly see by what they do to their ports, who actually plays the game and who doesn't.


Any examples of this?

jval said:

(I'm not fun of OpenGL).


I think you meant "fond". :]

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I prefer my own port, QZDoom. Almost all of my testing and playing comes exclusively on that port, which has seen massive stability improvements since it first started.

To be honest, I usually play in OpenGL mode on it (which pretty much just makes it GZDoom, anyway) but I do a lot of testing and playing on the software modes that were made for it, too.

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These days I'm using QZDoom as well. It contains all my code changes for both ZDoom and GZDoom, making it the natural choice for me. Although even here there are compromise choices that I'd have done differently had it been tuned for me only.

Originally I picked ZDoom because it was the first port I came across that looked close enough to Doom for me to consider it. Some of the first ports I tried had showstoppers like mouse lag, or just not having light remotely close to the game I remembered from 1993.

I still haven't really tried all the ports - I might have chosen differently had I searched in a different order. I had to spend considerable amount of time repairing the windowed mode of the ZDoom family to make it what I wanted.

As for what I play - mostly Doom 1's first two episodes, or the 8 first maps in Doom 2. Occasionally I launch some mod for testing purposes. I tend to not bother with mods because ZDoom has terrible support for making it easy for me to try them out. If it were up to me, the launcher part of ZDoom would be considerably improved to download and play mods with the click of a button.

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dpJudas said:

As for what I play - mostly Doom 1's first two episodes, or the 8 first maps in Doom 2. Occasionally I launch some mod for testing purposes. I tend to not bother with mods because ZDoom has terrible support for making it easy for me to try them out. If it were up to me, the launcher part of ZDoom would be considerably improved to download and play mods with the click of a button.

I'm really fond of right-click->Send to. No need for a third party launcher, no need to drag-and-drop. Just use a normal file explorer, and send to *ZDoom.

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Graf Zahl said:

Launchers are so overrated.

GZDoom -file file.ext rules... :D


Command line is so overrated.

gdb program
break main
r
print argc = 3
print malloc(sizeof(*argv) * argc)
print ((char**)0x12345678)[0] = argv[0]
print ((char**)0x12345678)[1] = strdup("-file")
print ((char**)0x12345678)[2] = strdup("file.ext")
print argv = ((char**)0x12345678)
c


Sadly I cannot do this anymore really.

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Either Doom Legacy or 3DGE. Mostly 3DGE though, gotta fix all those bugs and stuff :-)

It is definitely getting more comfortable for me to play Boom compat maps in 3DGE, now that we are improving support on both it and Vanilla stuff.

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I used to think it's weird we're in the third millennium and we still use command line, and I disliked that I still had to start the DOS prompt to play Doom properly -- and I really wanted ports to support dynamic loading of mods (which Eternity has thanks to fraggle, dunno if GZDoom has any). Unfortunately my job made me really tolerant to the command-line method, so I guess I'm back in the early 90s.

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Graf Zahl said:

Let's just say: I created GZDoom because there was no port that had everything I wished to have in my engine of choice. So yes, obviously I prefer my own creation.

Same. Although I still make regular use of and have a lot of respect for other source ports - PrBoom+ and ZDoom in particular.

rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?

Espi's Suspended in Dusk is probably my favourite of all time; BTSX is definitely in my list of top favourites.

rdwpa said:

Favorite weapon?

SSG

rdwpa said:

Favorite monster to fight?

Who doesn't love the Cacodemon?

rdwpa said:

Least favorite monster to fight?

Toss-up between the Revenant and the Archvile.

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Kind of avoided this but, here goes:

rdwpa said:

Favorite mapsets?


Well I like AV.

rdwpa said:

Favorite weapon?


Plasma Rifle.

rdwpa said:

Favorite monster to fight?


Cacodemons.

rdwpa said:

Least favorite monster to fight?


Arch-Viles and Cyberdemons.

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I just stick with Eternity for now, seeing as if I want anything from it, I can just add it to that. Plus it's not like I can play splitscreen on ZDoom.

rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?

BTSX. Zen Dynamics gets honorable mention only because I like annoying Xaser with how much he needs to make another.

rdwpa said:

Favorite weapon?

SSG & Plasma

rdwpa said:

Favorite monster to fight?

Archvile

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Gez said:

I'm really fond of right-click->Send to. No need for a third party launcher, no need to drag-and-drop. Just use a normal file explorer, and send to *ZDoom.

Which is exactly why I haven't even bothered. I already know such a change would require ANOTHER fork. :D

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bzzrak said:

I think you meant "fond". :]


Spelling error: I meant fan - enthusiast.

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Somewhat expectedly, my most-used port is Eternity, though I'll fire up PRBoom+ for testing if Boom-y stuff works corss-port, and I'll fire up GZDoom to see if a more advanced feature I put in that G/Q/ZDoom has behaves exactly the same as GZDoom (I see parity of the same features as important).

Whilst I used to use ZDoom for general gameplay of ZDoom-specific mods, which happens a decent amount due to the wealth of astounding mods specifically aimed at it, I use GZDoom nowadays.

rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?
Favorite weapon?
Favorite monster to fight?
Least favorite monster to fight?


BTSX E2, Ancient Aliens, standard fare really. A special mention for a non-mapset, which is Zharkov Goes To The Store, which was my first real mod I tried that did anything remotely new.

The Rocket Launcher, I love how much fun it is to fire at a group of enemies and hear the sound of multiple gibbing, even of those not in my line-of-sight; I also like that it punishes you for poor use. No other weapon can lead to quite so many hilarious scenarios, and I can't help but laugh whenever I experience Good At Doom moments.

Revenants (and Viles that aren't placed where I have no cover), I love the way they force me to move.

Pain Elementals. Doesn't help I don't really enjoy fighting Lost Souls. If they had to deal with infighting targetted at them then maybe I'd loathe them less.

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rdwpa said:

Impromptu interview for Graf (and other source port maintainers):

Favorite mapsets?
Favorite weapon?
Favorite monster to fight?
Least favorite monster to fight?

Mapset: Unloved

Weapon: DB Shotgun. Rocket launcher in a pinch.

Most Fav Monster: Cacodemon. There's just something so elegant about it.

Least Fav Monster: Archvile, probably.

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