We need convenience

[frithiof]

Sodaholic said:

FWIW I like the Zamanthyte concept (though it took a little while to grow on me), I just thought the powerups were too cheesy.

I was actually a little confused when some of the powerups showed up since I couldn't figure out what they did at first glance.

I also saw this. Cool :)

[andrewj]

fraggle said:

Although having a compatible IWAD is a cute technical achievement, and I'm touched to see that there are people in this thread who play WADs this way, the fact is that most people who are going to play Doom levels are going to do it with Doom.

Put bluntly I think there's a deep cultural issue in the project that we need to fix to take it to the next level: the "compatibility" thing is one example, but it's even right name in the project name "Freedoom". If you're talking about "Freedoom Phase 3" you're not getting it. What's needed is a top-down reorganization and reimagining of the whole project and a fork is probably the best way to do it.

esselfortium's plan for rebooting the project sounds like a solid one.

For me there is nothing to "fix" -- Freedoom exists to provide compatibility, that is what it *is*, and has achieved that goal very well.

Freedoom can also be a good game in itself, with the restrictions imposed on it (enemies and weapons that behave exactly like they do in DOOM, etc). This secondary aspect keeps improving, and it's great to see. New textures and better maps would also be great to see.

Essel does not seem to be proposing to reboot *this* project, but to start a new game with some new assets (perhaps bootstrapped from Freedoom assets) and that sounds really cool too, and if some good resources trickle back to Freedoom then that is great, *but* such a project has marginal bearing on Freedoom's development or future I think.

[chungy]

You actually have it in reverse: the compatibility goal is the secondary one.

[Da Werecat]

Strange to hear that, considering that FD lacked any serious creative direction for many years.

[Blastfrog]

Da Werecat said:

Strange to hear that, considering that FD lacked any serious creative direction for many years.

Probably because the contributors were more focused on that goal than the maintainers. Also probably to make sure the compat stuff was good quality before moving on.

[frithiof]

chungy said:

You actually have it in reverse: the compatibility goal is the secondary one.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but the website itself clearly states that the project has two goals, but it does not specifically place priority over one or the other.

A free FPS action game

The Freedoom project aims to create a complete free content first person shooter game. But Freedoom by itself is just the raw material for a game: it must be paired with a compatible game engine to be played. The download page lists some recommended ones.
id Software released the source code to their classic game, Doom, under the GNU General Public License. This means that the program code that powers Doom is free; Freedoom complements this with free levels, artwork, sound effects and music to make a completely free game.
Freedoom is actually three games in one, consisting of two single player campaigns and one set of levels intended for multiplayer deathmatch (FreeDM).

A compatible free replacement

There is a massive 20 year back catalog containing thousands of Doom levels and other “mods” made by fans of the original game. Freedoom aims to be compatible with these and allows most to be played without the need to use non-free software. The video to the right shows a well-known fan-made Doom mod running under Freedoom.
Just as the GNU project was started to develop a free operating system to replace Unix, we aim to provide a free replacement for Doom. If you have artistic skills (visual, musical, or maybe you just like making levels!) then you can help us achieve that aim by contributing to the project!

It also mentions artwork:

A collection of reusable artwork

Freedoom contains hundreds of original textures, sound effects and music tracks that can be reused royalty-free by Doom level authors and other independent game developers.
Freedoom is liberally licensed under the BSD license - all that is required is that you include a short copyright statement that credits the Freedoom project.

I think people will be impressed by 0.10 when it gets released. In many ways it is a huge improvement over 0.9.

[duh]

Odamex seems to be the port of choice. I recommend a testing session on build 5216, since it records vanilla demos properly and does not have weird weapon bobbing glitches, and it is network compatible with the current Odamex release. Here are the links to said build:

http://devbuilds.drdteam.org/odamex/odamex-5216.7z
http://devbuilds.drdteam.org/odamex/odamex-x64-5216.7z

These are some annoying bugs affecting the latest builds, keep an eye on them, I guess.

http://odamex.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1148
http://odamex.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1150

We should decide which install script we should work upon, although I did one script, it does not obey the current github directory structure, as you can see here:

https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/issues/110#issuecomment-139375658

(OP updated)

[MrFlibble]

Why not use one of the ports as a basis for a dedicated, cross-platform executable for Freedoom? It is my understanding that there are no legal objections to this, and the IWADs will still be playable with other ports.

Besides, that way it will be possible to add custom cheat codes and exit messages (not a super important thing but nice anyway).

[andrewj]

Custom cheat codes was already possible via DEHACKED / BEX. I presume there was a decision to not change them from Doom's.

[MrFlibble]

They are? Didn't know that, thanks :)

[duh]

Nevermind, the latest revision (5426, reports as 5420) seems fine when compiled using TDM-GCC 5.1.0-2 (didn't try the latest version yet). This is a 32 bits build, test it if you will.

https://mega.nz/#F!E0JSHC7Y!oHDdNtYjvGgB-Nlatg1frg