MrFlibble

In C2M2, it is possible to entirely skip the red key section by jumping to the exit door from here:

Sodaholic said:

I really don't like their new coloration, but yes, consistency is needed.

I'm also not sure if I like the bright green colour. It certainly improves visibility, but they look like some sort of test tubes with yellow caps.

I've quickly checked Google Images for what colours shotgun shells can be in real life, because I have no idea. It turns out that aside from various shades of red, which seems to be the most commonly used colour, there are also dark green, dark teal, blue and yellow, and black. I'm guessing that the colours may actually indicate certain differences (and indeed this seems to be the case), but this is largely irrelevant to the game I suppose.

That said, blue seems like a nice, neutral colour that should be pretty visible.

Do you still have that SSG sprite?

The current colours of the status bar digits are incompatible with the option to use colour-coded digits available in Boom and derivatives:


Also the shotgun shell image/icon is still grey on the status bar whereas the actual shells are now green.

raymoohawk said:

and as for the episode you proposed, the author mentioned he used maps from the id games archive, do you know if he got permission to use them?

I assumed that he did, since he was proposing that as the Episode 1 replacement. If the maps were originally released with a permissive license by the authors, this can be checked.

chungy said:

I just still fail to see the purpose of a demo version for a free game, sorry. Just can't get over that fundamental fact :P

I know that demo versions are often perceived as free limited versions of otherwise non-free software. However the free vs. non-free aspect seems to obscure the real purpose of demo versions, which is to demonstrate a product, and serve as an incentive to obtain the full version.

It has been observed that back in the 90s shareware developers following the Scott Miller/Apogee model often tried to put some of their best stuff in the shareware release to show off their game, and make the registered version attractive to the prospective buyers. Essentially, the purpose of a demo or shareware release is to present the game in the best light possible, and to show its strongest features while underplaying or hiding possible weaknesses, or things that have not been developed yet.

That said, basically, I'm hoping that the users who play an all-round polished, quality shareware/demo release may get an adequate impression of what the project aims to be, as opposed to what it currently is in its WIP state.

When people criticise Freedoom's quality, it is natural to ask for their understanding that the project is still work-in-progress, collaborative effort by volunteers made in their free time (e.g. in this example). This is probably the only right approach in such situations. However, I'm concerned that while people may accept Freedoom for what it is, this reasoning may also lower their expectations of the final game. The misconception that quality work can only be expected when it is paid for is, sadly, quite persistent.

I believe that a release only featuring the upsides of the project in its current state could change that attitude - that is, if people play it, like it and find no obvious flaws. I'm not sure that the daily builds are really suitable for this purpose (more on that below).

raymoohawk said:

the problem with your shareware idea is that the daily builds already fulfill that purpose. the most updated and completed assets are in it

The front page still shows v0.9 as the latest release. The daily builds are quite obscured at the download page, and to actually learn the scope of the recent updates, a user would have to either read through the forums here, or browse the repository. Neither is an obvious course of action, and both require a lot of patience to be honest. There are equally no easily accessible screenshots or videos showing progress beyond the latest stable release.

As a result, the a fresh user may likely get the first impression that the project hasn't been updated for almost a year. This could be somewhat remedied by adding text like: "Freedoom is constantly developed and updated, you can check the daily builds with newest features at the following locations" (basically what the download page says about development snapshots, but on the front page). The main page could also use some news items about what specifically was changed, or at least links to the changelog at GitHub.

Assuming that a user went past these obstacles and got the daily builds, these will certainly not make the same impression as the theoretical shareware/demo. First, when getting a daily build, the user already expects to get a work-in-progress, possibly unstable version - even before they actually play it. The content of the builds is likely to reinforce this impression, because new, high quality assets are intermixed with older ones.

For example, out of the basic enemies the new humanoid opponents are alongside the old serpent monster. I understand that raymoohawk as the artist may wish to improve the quality of his serpentipede, but the current working version is certainly of higher quality than the old sprites.

There are issues with levels as well. In Phase 1, many are still missing, with no indication to the player as to which ones are available and which are not. There isn't a lot of fun in completing a level to only find that the next one is simply a room with the exit switch. The difficulty is not always balanced.

All of this is of course understandable because of the WIP status of the whole project. My point however is that such presentation does not exactly serve to emphasize the quality standards which Freedoom is ultimately aimed at.

In my opinion, while checking out a daily build may cause a player to think, "there's definitely a lot of improvement in some areas", a more concentrated demo version consisting only of polished, high-quality content should raise the users' expectations for the whole game.

Of course, I might very well be wrong here. I do not know the psychology of an average Freedoom player. However, I do think that a quality demonstration version could increase the appeal of the game to the general public.

HorrorMovieGuy said:

There was also a touch-up of the SSG, but I don't remember who made it.

Did you mean this?

raymoohawk said:

my attempt at editing the ssg, i dont really like how it turned out, but oh well

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/raymoohawk/sprites/sfxzwfw.png

The image is no longer available though.

chungy said:

Even as a side-project, I don't see the point. Phase 1 and 2 should always be the proper representation of Freedoom as a single player game, and as part of the main build system, will always contain the most up-to-date resources. If a demo or "shareware" IWAD was reintroduced, it would either have to be part of the main repository as a new target, or it would be quickly outdated without even more maintenence work. Using an entirely different set of 9 levels wouldn't be a good representation for the 100 levels in the main IWADs, either. The poor quality of the existing maps should be improved instead of a distraction like this.

I get your point. However, it was never my intention to suggest a shareware IWAD that would be regularly updated. On the contrary, I was thinking of a one-time build for demonstration purposes. Such build will certainly get outdated as the development of the main game progresses, but its value as a playable, stand-alone game will not diminish because of that. It wouldn't need to be synched to the main repository, because it would not be a "real" shareware game in the Scott Miller model sense, where updates were needed to ensure multiplayer compatibility with the registered version, and/or to introduce changes to the game code, which is irrelevant in Freedoom's case anyway.

For the same reason, I thought that completely different levels would be perfectly acceptable for such a demo, especially since the main game's content is subject to change/addition/replacement anyway. In fact, demo versions of quite a few games feature levels that are not included in the retail release, and if you need a pure shareware example that would be Rise of the Triad: The HUNT Begins.

With Shadow1013's episode, you have a readily available set of levels that may only need some minor tweaks, and provide a satisfying playing experience. It is my understanding that Shadow1013 took effort to tweak difficulty settings to make the game more friendly to new players on the default skill level (as mentioned here). Also vanilla compatibility of the episode means that a release featuring them could be played "out of the box" with any source port (e.g. Chocolate Doom), potentially increasing the audience of the game.

Again, Shadow1013's episode does not need to be then used to replace the main project levels. Having a different demo episode can increase the novelty factor for new players, both those introduced to Freedoom via the shareware/demo and those who are already familiar with the game.

As for not being able to play PWADs with the shareware/demo IWAD, I believe that would actually indirectly emphasize its value as a stand-alone game. Isn't that one of the project's goals, to be more than just ersatz for the original Doom?

To sum up, the advantages of a shareware/demo would be as follows:

• showcase the progress with lots of new, improved assets, while not including resources that still need to be updated
  
• provide a complete, stand-alone game that does not have a WIP feel
  
• bring novelty to players familiar with the project not only with updated art, but also new/different levels
  
• possibly reach a wider audience by increased out of the box compatibility with source ports (if vanilla compatible levels are used)
  
• low effort cost for the community as most required assets are already completed

Provided all the resources included with such a shareware IWAD were checked to be error-free, you would actually not need to bother about updating it upon release. As a demo, it will "work" by itself, providing an introduction to the project for new players, as well as a playing experience on its own.

I would not worry about the resources in the shareware/demo getting outdated, provided they are of sufficiently high quality in the first place. In fact, there's an entertaining effect of its own in the discovery of new features ("hey, they changed that monster!"), and such noticeable changes will create a sense of improvement, increasing the value of the main game for the players.

However if you feel that such a proposal is unsuitable for the project, or indeed has downsides I have not thought about, then please forgive me as I might have gotten carried away a bit with this.

chungy said:

It's still not as much as it should be... the requirement to seek out an engine separately is a large obstacle. At some point in the future, I want to make a Windows installer that includes Odamex and makes Start Menu shortcuts for all of them; XCOPY has made his own distribution that bundles the two in a Zip file, which isn't quite the direction I want to go but it's a fine interim thing.

Speaking of which, why doesn't Freedoom have its own set of dedicated executables? Are there there some legal objections to that?

Catoptromancy said:

http://www.geocities.ws/catodemos/freedoom/screenshots/powerupsdoom01.png

While the new powerups are well done and look great, they do not feel like they should be in Freedoom.

It has suddenly occurred to me that perhaps one of the Zamanthyte powerups could be repurposed as the menu selection indicator? I think it would fit quite well with the current font.

My principal consideration when proposing this was that there is already a lot of new, high quality content to show, but at the same time there are still many incomplete things.

I just thought that an interim shareware release could help the updated game to reach a wider audience, and be something with a sense of completeness (e.g. most if not all monsters, weapons and items replaced with new, higher quality versions). I had the impression that some people are put off by Freedoom being "incomplete" and do not realise its true potential because of this. I thought that perhaps a small showcase could help increase interest in the project.

It is not once that I have heard criticisms about Freedoom being incomplete and/or its assets being of insufficiently high quality. Recently thanks to all the efforts of the people here there has been a significant improvement in many areas, which I'm very happy about. However, the project's main page still shows the previous milestone release, and the majority of users may not know about the development snapshots and/or may not be going to choose them over the "stable" release. I'm not even sure if many people outside the Doom community are aware of the recent developments.

This is why recycling the shareware concept seemed like a good idea to me. It can emphasize the significant progress that has already been made in an interactive manner, and without drawing attention to things that are yet to be completed, or do not exactly match the new assets in quality. Also I should say that I personally like the idea of vanilla compatible maps.

I'm sorry if in making this proposal I misunderstood the situation, or did not take the established development cycle of the project into account. Still, I believe that the psychological effect of a small-but-complete "shareware" game, with the novelty factor of different levels, could help raise interest to Freedoom and hopefully increase its popularity.

Since the latest official milestone release, lots of improved and updated content was added to the project. I was wondering if the once used shareware IWAD concept could be viable again to showcase the new stuff? The shareware episode would concentrate a lot of recent updates such as the digitized weapons, sidebar and new pickups while completely avoiding many of the old assets that still need polishing.

I believe that the advantage of the shareware IWAD is that it essentially offers a complete, stand-alone (albeit short) game which can function as the "demo" of the project but at the same time does not necessarily need to be further updated when the main IWADs are. In fact, the shareware version could include completely different levels.

To make things a bit more interesting, perhaps the shareware IWAD could feature Shadow1013's episode? (There appear to be some bugs in certain levels though, according to the review here at least). Maybe it would make sense to add orb monsters to showcase them too, at least to the secret level? Also personally I would appreciate the current serpentipede being featured as well (it is my understanding that this one is the most recent complete version, right?).

Scuba Steve's pistol, in my opinion, is an excellent example of Freedoom art. It manages to capture the feel of the original game while being completely different from its Doom counterpart.

However, while making comparisons I've noticed something:


To the left is a Freedoom image without aspect correction. The central image is from Doom with aspect correction, to the right, Freedoom with aspect correction. All screenshots were made in MBF running with DOSBox, and aspect correction was accomplished using the built-in DOSBox function.

It seems to me that the image on the left (without aspect correction) is more similar to the proportions of the Doom pistol as it looks in-game (with aspect correction), whereas the image in the right is overly stretched.

What do you think? Should the sprite be "squashed" to appear as it does on the left image when the game is run with proper aspect ratio?

Those are very nice! I think I like WGBR3 and WGBR4 most.

Catoptromancy said:

I also mentioned pwads with specific resource sets. A full set of frames for a specific gun or monster would have its own pwad. People can quickly tested out single sets resources.

Yup, I read your suggestion recently and I completely agree. I think it would be nice to have a gallery with the option to download PWADs with those resources.

Speaking of which, single resource PWADs have been also uploaded by some of the contributors, but not all such files are available anymore. For example, there's a Super Shotgun submission by Fredrik made in early 2004, however the PWAD file is no longer accessible and there are no preview images either. Is that an earlier version of the current Super Shotgun (which I presume is the same as this; again, the PWAD file is not accessible), or something completely different?

Weapon tweaks by Minigunner: modified pistol and the old Plasma Rifle, which became the basis for robotdog1's SKAG version.

HorrorMovieGuy said:

There was also a touch-up of the SSG, but I don't remember who made it. IIRC they never finished it anyway, so, whatever.

While trying to track down that edit you remember I found this shotgun by CaptainW. I think the concept is quite nice and original, although I guess the sprite could be touched up to fit the style of other weapons more I guess. Perhaps this could work as a double-barreled shotgun with the two barrels positioned vertically (or is that complete nonsense)?

I also like the colour of the gloves on that sprite. I was thinking that maybe the gloves in the game should have a different colour because they are pretty similar to Doom in their current state.

raymoohawk said:

i already contacted zrrion about editing the cool down frame, he says he will see what he can do

Thank you!

As for Eriance's weapons, maybe a permission could be obtained to use the full set of them (e.g. like those included with the female marine sprites) and release them, without the UAC logo and otherwise adapted to Freedoom, as an alternate weapons PWAD the players can choose to use with the main game? I suppose that would remove any objections for the content being too similar to Doom, as this would be a "mod" and not part of the IWAD. It also seems logical to use those assets as the "core" game files that were specifically created for the project.

A while ago I have played through the entire first episode of the freeware version (I wanted to compare the city-temple episode to its early demo counterparts, and did not figure out I could just use the level warp cheat :P). Gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of Hexen: you often have to flip a switch, which opens up a new area of the level, explore it, flip another switch which will open up yet another area, or give you access to a switch that opens up a new area etc. Monsters frequently respawn, but they are pretty weak in the full version (or, at least, weaker than in the demo) and do not pose much of a threat. Some parts of the city-temple episode are even more like Hexen, with castle-like structures and open courtyards. One level in the first episode does not have any objectives to collect, just to score a certain amount of points by picking bonus items and defeating enemies. While the idea itself is quite interesting, especially for a 1995/1996 game, it gets boring pretty soon because of weak monsters.

Bonus items are spawned entirely randomly and only remain in the level for a limited amount of time (you have a countdown timer on the HUD). This is probably more interesting in a multiplayer game. It might be that items are spawned within a certain radius of the player, but this does not take the actual level topography into account, and as a result sometimes it is not possible to reach the item in time. It seems that picking items (or reaching a certain amount of score points) also heals up the player and/or recharges the shield.

The HUD is pretty clunky and not very user-friendly. There's a separate counter for ammo units and for actual shots that can be made with the currently selected weapon (some weapons use more than one ammo unit per shot). The least convenient thing is the shield meter. It's the blue ring surrounding the health meter. When he shield is up, it absorbs 100% damage taken by the player. The brightness of the blue ring is supposed to reflect the shield status, and there seems to be no other way to check it. The shield meter very quickly goes from very bright to some indeterminate shade of blue, after which it's hard to tell how much shield you have remaining. The only way to know it's entirely depleted is when your character starts taking damage. I'm not sure if the shield recharges slowly on its own or not.

HorrorMovieGuy said:

I think freedoom's weapon designs are prefect as it is. The sprites just need a little polish. And actually, I have seen many people polish Freedoom's weapons before. Some of them posted here, others posted only on the ZDoom forums. Maybe we should track those down and ask the authors if we could commit them.

The ones I know of are:

• fixed frames for the current SKAG by robotdog1 (a.k.a. Flynn Taggart at ZDoom Forums)
  
• tweaked Angle Grinder with widescreen support by robotdog1
  
• alternate SKAG based on the old Freedoom Plasma Rifle by robotdog1
  
• tweaked Polaric Energy Cannon by zrrion the insect (incomplete?)
  
• "cooldown" frame for the Polaric Energy Cannon by Minigunner

BaronOfStuff said:

Okay now everyone shut the fuck up because the BFG is now blue and paletted for all the whiners. The projectile used ingame is Eri's this time around, although the original Freedoom sprites are also in there if anyone wants to see how that looks when lobbed from the gun (albeit they've been re-repaletted from green back to blue).

Someone else can mess with GLDEFS and other required lumps for ports such as Doomsday and EDGE to get all the lights, decals and particles working properly though.

Thank you! As for GLDEFS, robotdog1 took care of this already.

I've taken the liberty to start a separate thread in order to not hijack raymoohawk's thread any further.

raymoohawk said:

now i do realize that the rest of the freedoom weapons look different from the DE weapons, but that is because the freedoom sprites are of a lower quality.

I wouldn't say that quality is the main reason. It's just that all weapons by Eriance are drawn in the same style. Scuba Steve's pistol is also hand-drawn, but in a different style. Sodaholic's weapons are digitised photographs etc.

From a theoretical standpoint, it would be logical to use all weapons by Eriance so that the art style would be consistent. However, there's another point:

jute said:

The Freedoom weapons are more distinct from Doom's than the DE weapons, too.

Eriance's weapons are essentially the original Doom weapons redrawn in very high quality. It is my understanding that Freedoom design has always been aiming to be "same but different", that is, to use something original but with the same function as in Doom.

The current SKAG for example may not have the best artistic quality, but it's something original and clearly different from the BFG. The super shotgun, the graphics of which could certainly be improved, is some high-tech thingy, as opposed to the original double-barrelled shotgun.

I would assume that this is the established direction in which Freedoom is going. Don't get me wrong, I like Eriance's weapons, they have great design and high quality. Maybe, if there's already permission to use them, have a separate "add-on" PWAD with these weapons to be used with the main game IWAD?

fraggle said:

Depends on the reason for rejecting. For example if submissions are rejected for legal / licensing issues then Freedoom should really just have nothing to do with them.

Yes, I certainly did not mean anything rejected for legal reasons. Sorry I didn't explicitly mention that in the first post - I assumed that it goes without saying that such material should be excluded from the project.

But for everything else, there seems to be a growing collection of assets that can be used (e.g. by modders or other developers) but without proper archival these resources can just vanish, and there's no telling if the Wayback Machine will preserve what has been uploaded to image hosting services.

On a side note, I would also appreciate if there were screenshots from older versions of Freedoom on the screenshots page, similar to the presentation of The Battle for Wesnoth for example. That would help illustrate how the project is developing.

What about Sodaholic's digitized missile launcher?

For the BFG edit, are you going to recolour the energy in blue to match previous SKAG versions?

HorrorMovieGuy said:

I think it has more to do with giving Freedoom "it's own identity", so to speak. I like the idea of having special items as powerups instead of orbs, but for the sake of keeping Freedoom as compatible as possible with custom pwads, I think having Spheres would be ideal. Some mods give the powerups sparkly effects and give them the bobbing effect that Hexen items have, which would look weird if they were non-magical types of items.

I was thinking, maybe keep the colours (especially considering this observation) of those items but change the geometrical shape? A rotating cube or a pyramid/prism?

robotdog1 said:

I think what really bothers me about the SSG is how the pickup sprite doesnt face left-to-right like all the other weapons. it's a small nitpick but it's trivial because almost all other doom and doom engine weapons do the same.

It is my understanding that the pickup sprite was flipped to match the positioning of the red lights on the side of the barrel.

A while ago I played some C-evo, which is a game heavily inspired by Civ2 (but not a straightforward clone). It is very well thought out, and pretty challenging, but a playing session can drag on for really long (at least, with my relatively modest experience in playing).

There's also Freeciv, which supposedly follows the first two games in the series more closely in terms of rules and gameplay mechanics. I haven't played it extensively though.

Additionally, awhile ago I discovered a Finnish freeware game called Great Nations, which is a very nice clone for Win32 and Amiga, primarily designed for multiplayer games. The authors planned to include the AI but abandoned development before this was implemented.

Sorry for bumping this, but maybe someone will be interested in the early demo versions of the game. These not only play rather differently from the final release, but also have almost entirely different monsters, as well as sprites and textures.

Demo releases up to v2.0 contain three levels from the city-temple episode, which was apparently planned as the first episode of the game at that stage of development. All the levels have counterparts in the final version, but they have some layout differences and are arranged in a different order.

The earliest known version is v1.016, dating back to late August 1995. The monsters in this version include the archer ("Veek Warrior"), the priest and a monster that is apparently not present in later versions (screenshot), possibly called a "Veek Lord". Another notable difference is the order of musical tracks, which was changed in subsequent releases.

The episode introduction text makes a reference to another game by Channel 7 Software, Iron Seed. This reference was removed in later demo versions.

As most demo versions, this one includes an introductory sequence in the form of pre-rendered stills with captions. The stills come from the game's actual intro cinematic (although the shape of the ship was changed for the final release). In later demo releases, several frames from the intro were replaced with different pre-rendered art, which are not featured in the cinematic. For example, the scene where Mooman takes the cup from the vault is replaced by an image of him dragging a large pile of stuff to his ship.

Some features still don't work properly in this version. The player clone item, when activated, creates a clone that will attack the player but ignores the monsters. That was fixed in later releases. This version also tends to crash randomly.

I've made some screenshots of this version and uploaded them here.

This demo might have been distributed with a Channel 7 installer but I've only found plain files on a gaming magazine coverdisk. The zipped files can be downloaded here: greed.zip

The second demo is v1.020, released in early September. Monster sprites have been updated, and the "Big Head" monster is now present in the game. The "Veek Lord" seems to have been removed. This version also adds a multiplayer-only level with no monsters, which uses space station textures.

This release was found on the Interactive Entertainment Episode 18 CD, with the IE's installer (a Win3.x programme). The zipped plain files can be downloaded here: greed102.zip

The next release is v2.0, with date stamps from late September 1995. It is quite close to v1.020 overall, but some of the textures have been updated, and the level files have standardised names now. The level format also seems to have been changed between the versions. The level warp cheat code seems not to work in this version, while it does in the previous demo releases.

For this version, the original Channel 7 installer is available. This version can be downloaded here.

Subsequent demo releases already feature the first three levels of the prison station episode, with graphics, textures, sounds and level layouts largely the same as in the final game.

The early demo versions are not only interesting because of removed or changed graphics and monsters. They also play rather differently compared to the final game. The monsters are quite a lot tougher, and unlike the full game there are no close-range and/or low health enemies at all. You have to conserve ammo and often have to resort to items such as mines and grenades as well. With the need to frequently revisit item spawn locations this creates a quite an intense playing experience. Because the ammo is pretty limited, the player also depends on the randomness of spawned items.

While gameplay is far from perfect in these early versions, I think the developers toned down the difficulty too much in the final game. As a result, almost the entire first episode for example consists of fights with weak monsters, with abundant ammo, weapons and items that aren't really needed expect maybe during the boss battle.

raymoohawk said:

ive decided to give up on making the sphere replacements, my imagination has been pretty dry as of late. if you guys want you can revert the powerups to the previous sprites, or if you want i can talk with eriance to see if the sprites linked below are from scratch and to see if he will let us use them

Wouldn't these be too similar to the original Doom assets, even if made from scratch?

I know it's a bit of a cliche already, but maybe the powerups should symbolically represent their function? E.g. the invulnerability powerup in the shape of a shield or a helmet, the invisibility maybe a figure fading in and out? That, or the Strife or HacX style approach with items like some medical serum that boosts the player's health, an energy shield generator, cloaking device etc.

raymoohawk said:

i was thinking that maybe we could also get his double shotty, rocket launcher and bfg added (weve had to edit the uac logos out of them, and possibly replace hand tho)

More resources is always nice, however I'd say that the current SKAG design and the one based on the old Plasma Rifle are also quite neat IMO.

The new status bar is great, however I'm not sure if the colours of the digits for weapons that are available and those that haven't been yet acquired go well together:


Also the digits aren't centred on the "buttons", is this intended?