Conflicts with DEHACKED replacing the strings in ZDoom

[chungy]

11 hours ago, Jon said:

Fundamentally this seems like a (hard) ZDoom bug and should be fixed in ZDoom.

Agreed. If Graf Zahl doesn't want to fix the bug (presumably because it's very hard and ZDoom is only a hobby project for him), I can understand it, but doesn't really change the fact that it's a bug.

[Graf Zahl]

There's no bug. There's a conflict of features. That's a fundamentally different thing and that's what makes this so hard to change.

 

The same problem will happen everywhere when some broad and rigid can-change-all feature needs to be superimposed on a flexible engine implementation.

You'll get similar issues if you released an IWAD with dehacked based thing modifications and expected to run DECORATE/ZSCRIPT based mods on it. That won't work also, for the exact same reasons.

 

[Blastfrog]

With all this talk about things like UMAPINFO and DECOLITE, why not some kind of universal language lump as well so stuff like this can be done cleanly? A possible name for it could be "babel script" (BSCRIPT as a lump name).

[Xindage]

my sincere opinion i think of this need to be "linked" to zdoom foruns, so the developers can see a best way to apply this feature/fix.

[Gez]

VERY IMPORTANT BUG:  PLEAZE FIX GZDOOM IMMUDIATERLY

 

when I play impzone.wad with freedoom in GZDioom I get weird serpent things instead of imps, buit the wad is impzone not serpemt zone!!!!! Fix GDZooom so that it will display immps proprtly. THNAX AND GOD BLESS!!!!!

[Da Werecat]

This is kinda funny on the surface, but doesn't make a lot of sense. A correct analogy would be if a PWAD replaced imps with new butt monkey alien invaders, but GZDoom still displayed serpents in their place.

[Ferk]

This is one of the problems with making more of a Total Conversion out of Freedoom than an mere Doom asset replacement.

 

Choose one: "consistent but faithful" or "inconsistent but with its own artistic direction".

 

The strings are not really part of the WAD but part of the engine. Thus Freedom would have had zero copyright infringement regarding the use of those strings, so long as they are never distributed in the WAD, nor has any real control over what the engine that it's used may support (eg, you'll see the original strings in vanilla, no matter what, wouldn't you?).

This drive of making Freedoom different from Doom in its story, enemy concepts and atmosphere is gonna cause inconsistency, be it when PWADs are used or when an engine doesn't support changing the strings in the way you expect.

 

If you really want consistency and as much compatibility with PWADs and engines as possible, it'd say remove that string override, stick with trying to make Freedoom a replacement to Doom assets and nothing else, let the imps be called imps, the Hell knight be hellish, the textures of hell be hell and keep lost souls being lost soulish.

 

Otherwise, if you really don't want to follow that direction I'd say don't fight against keeping consistency and embrace the unavoidable problems with compatibility, state that "Freedoom-is-not-Doom" distinction has preference over PWAD theme compatibility, and answer all these bugs with a "won't-fix".

 

Edited July 22, 2017 by Ferk

[Blastfrog]

You don't understand, the issue isn't that the strings are replaced, it's that it's done in such a way that breaks mods that do their own string replacement.

[Graf Zahl]

To be precise, it breaks mods that use the native method to replace strings.

It won't affect mods that use Dehacked to replace strings.

 

There's also no guarantee that other ports may not be affected by it. For example, I don't know how Doomsday implements strings. If it got a DED feature to do this and there was a mod using that to replace them it'd most likely also be affected. (Well, of course there are no mods like this but that's another story...)

 

Ferk got a point, though, when saying that "The strings are not really part of the WAD but part of the engine.", meaning that copyright considerations do not apply here. The texts are not part of Freedoom and can therefore not affect its copyright - and this doesn't even consider that all of Doom's text has essentially been licensed under the GPL.

 

[Gez]

In this particular case, we're talking about a mod that could as well just define its own strings in the first place, given that it's a TC that has redefined pretty much everything else anyway.

[Ferk]

On 7/25/2017 at 3:02 AM, Blastfrog said:

You don't understand, the issue isn't that the strings are replaced, it's that it's done in such a way that breaks mods that do their own string replacement.

Yes, the issue is PWAD/engine compatibility and I'm talking about PWAD/engine compatibility. 

 

I understand the issue but I was talking in general. There are several inconsistency issues related to these strings, PWADs not being able to do their own string replacement in some engines when they use conflicting methods to replace strings is only a particular case of such problems.

I don't see why this particular issue is more important than any of the others.
Either live with it and acknowledge that Freedoom isn't Doom-compatible in terms of strings/story/ambientation (and that means, PWADS and engines will show inconsistencies in one direction or the other) or try to actually be equally compatible with PWADs and engines by sticking to Doom names and ambientation like the original Freedoom concept was intended. But fighting against this is a lost fight.

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Ferk