Is Eternity going to be like ZDoom?

I'm asking this because with the upcoming Hexen support, it will pretty much have features like the ones that made ZDoom grow. There'll be Hexen format maps, ACS scripts (possibly going along with Small scripts), hubs (possibly with another format than SMMU hubs), Hexen friendly minions (going along with MBF friends), SNDINFO together with Eternity's own EDF sound system and so on.

It's likely that Eternity maps by then will be done on Hexen format with ACS scripting (with ExtraData and Small scripting thrown in for good measure)...

Well, how would that be a bad thing?

Both ports will still have features the other do not, though.

And presumably, UDMF will be implemented soon enough not to have Doom/Heretic-in-Hexen become an Eternity staple.


Speaking of Hexen support, that'll require MAPINFO support; which mean it'll have to be able to identify whether it's Hexen-mapinfo, ZDoom-old-mapinfo, or ZDoom-new-mapinfo. Because there are mods out there with a ZDoom mapinfo which aren't ZDoom specific; for example Lost Episode or the first release of Plutonia 2. So the mapinfo parser will have to handle such things gracefully if it finds them.

printz said:

It's likely that Eternity maps by then will be done on Hexen format with ACS scripting (with ExtraData and Small scripting thrown in for good measure)...

That's highly unlikely, since Quasar been one of the main driving forces behind the UDMF format.

I hope Eternity becomes the 'new' ZDoom in the sense that it's the popular go to port. But that's because of my personal opinion and preference. I expect to see a lot of people making maps for Eternity in the near future because of it being all round awesome. As soon as 'vaporware' comes out, showing how Eternity stretches it's stuff.
I'm really surprised it hasn't happened already with all what Eternity already have to offer.
On top of being solid as hell and just better than everything else out there in every aspect. :p

Gez said:

Well, how would that be a bad thing?

Both ports will still have features the other do not, though.

And presumably, UDMF will be implemented soon enough not to have Doom/Heretic-in-Hexen become an Eternity staple.

Didn't mean anything about that being bad. Just a bit funny to have access both to MAPINFO and EMAPINFO, for example :)

Doesn't UDMF increase the filesize, unless the pack is an archive? I've got to read the specs to get convinced of what it can do though.

Are UDMF syntaxes parsed at the start, so the game still reads binary to run just as fast?

kristus said:

On top of being solid as hell and just better than everything else out there in every aspect. :p

Not in its controls. :/

printz said:

Didn't mean anything about that being bad. Just a bit funny to have access both to MAPINFO and EMAPINFO, for example :)

They're the same thing, really, just in different formats.

printz said:

Doesn't UDMF increase the filesize, unless the pack is an archive? I've got to read the specs to get convinced of what it can do though.

Increasing the size unless you compress it? Yes, of course. By a lot. But the average HD capacity has been increased by much more than that in the fifteen years that the Doom engine has been around.

printz said:

Are UDMF syntaxes parsed at the start, so the game still reads binary to run just as fast?

At the start of the game, or when the map is loaded, you mean? That'll really depend on the implementation, which isn't there yet.

Gez said:

Not in its controls. :/

Eh, what's wrong with it now? With the fixes that were made to it a few months ago, the mousecode seems pretty great to me (and customizable, with iirc three different mousecode acceleration options, including Choco's). Or is it something else?

Can't use the keypad at all, extra mouse buttons (such as mouse4) are identified as "space" and work only once (I have mouse4 bound to "use" and with that setup in Eternity I can open each door only once...). That's the main issues.

Gez said:

At the start of the game, or when the map is loaded, you mean? That'll really depend on the implementation, which isn't there yet.

Actually, nevermind. All the classic WAD-format level data is likely read at the map start, so the added complexity of parsing text data is no issue :)

I sure hope so, I like both ZDoom and Eternity, but I prefer how Eternity stays true to the original game while adding loads of awesome features.

Gez said:

Can't use the keypad at all, extra mouse buttons (such as mouse4) are identified as "space" and work only once (I have mouse4 bound to "use" and with that setup in Eternity I can open each door only once...). That's the main issues.

I can't help the extra mouse buttons thing. Either use a program that can map those buttons to keyboard keys, or convince SDL peeps to support mouse buttons in some more general way. As of SDL 1.2.13, it is still only possible to support mouse buttons 1-3 and the mouse wheel up/down through the SDL API. We're not going to reach below SDL and sacrifice portability without a really good cause.

Keypad being non-functional is a lingering DOSism which we're still working on fixing :)