Back to shareware?

[MrFlibble]

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?).

[Blastfrog]

I don't see it as necessary, Phase 1 covers stuff just fine. Shareware Doom wasn't a unique product in its own right, just a cut-down version of the full game.

I'd prefer a consistent release schedule, and with many existing maps being crap, we don't need more maps outside of what's already planned in Phase 1 and 2. We should polish the salvageable ones, toss the hopeless ones, and fill the existing empty slots.

[raymoohawk]

i'm with soda on this one, the shareware version would distract from making the complete version

[Gez]

The so-called shareware target had only one purpose to serve, and it was allowing to focus on a reduced number of asset in a first time. This purpose is no longer relevant, and now only serves to muddy the waters and make things look more complicated than they are (there are already three different IWADs after all).

[Blastfrog]

I almost wonder if it'd be better for FreeDM to be a PWAD for Phase 2. There wouldn't really be much benefit or point to that, though, other than consolidation.

[MrFlibble]

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.

[Blastfrog]

I think it'd be better to wait until some more inconsistencies and rough patches get worked out, and do it all at once as another milestone release. Incremental improvements (as significant as these ones are) aren't worth a whole new release IMO, I fear that frequent releases may diminish their impact and that casual outsiders are more likely to pay attention to "big" announcements.

You're not wrong about the general public being put off by it, I share your concern. I just think it's better to attract publicity when there's really something to show.

[chungy]

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.

The shareware target was dropped originally in favor of the full Phase 1 IWAD. Source ports often respect the original wish of id that the shareware IWAD cannot be run with mods, which is a silly restriction on Freedoom, plus many Doom 1 PWADs purposefully use non-E1 levels just to prevent even that restriction being lifted.

Also, on the matter of FreeDM being a PWAD instead: it would introduce needless complication both for the build system, but more importantly, for players. Freedoom has attracted a sizable audience of causal gamers that do not play Doom, and usually have no clue how to run mods. Requiring Phase 2 just to run FreeDM is complexity that would diminish its usefulness.

Speaking of complexity, it should also be noted that we've gotten rid of a lot of old targets (even PWAD versions) just because they saw little use, were broken, and just made the download matrix more confusing. Presently we're settled on two Zips: Phase 1+2 and FreeDM. 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.

[raymoohawk]

chungy said:

Freedoom has attracted a sizable audience of causal gamers that do not play Doom

really? color me surprised

[chungy]

It's fairly well-known among free software and open source circles, and occasionally some indie game communities. These are frequently people that have not played Doom for years (likely since the 90s), if ever. Making things harder for them is out of the question.

Just a small anecdote: When moving to GitHub, someone had registered the name "freedoom" for themselves in 2009, but it was an inactive account. I emailed GitHub to ask if it was at all possible to relinquish the name for our own project. The reply occured within 10 minutes and the employee at GitHub said something like "THE Freedoom? I put in many hours into that game! Awesome to have you on board our site" along with statements that they had no problem relinquishing inactive names.

[raymoohawk]

pretty cool!
i honestly thought almost no one played it

[Blastfrog]

Yeah, my quip about FreeDM as a PWAD was just thinking aloud. I even dismissed it in the very same post.

I had assumed that outside the community, Freedoom was relatively well known (due to wide distribution) but not necessarily the most popular. Great to know that it's actually really popular.

[MrFlibble]

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?

[raymoohawk]

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

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?

[duh]

chungy said:

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.

The installer has been done. Is this good enough? https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/issues/110#issuecomment-139375658

[chungy]

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

MrFlibble said:

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

No legal objections, it just hadn't been done before.

XCOPY said:

The installer has been done. Is this good enough? https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/issues/110#issuecomment-139375658

I apologize, I didn't notice that you made it. It very well could be, I'll try to test it out.

[MrFlibble]

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.

[raymoohawk]

you do realize you can fork freedoom and make the shareware version yourself? it's just not reasonable to expect people to take time out of their own projects to put it into something redundant like this. and honestly i think it's much better to wait for the new monster sprites to be finished. the only updated monster in the shareware would be the serpentipede, that isn't going to surprise many people, specially because it has crappy animation, instead i think it will make people go "is that it?"
projects like this just take time to develop

[MrFlibble]

raymoohawk said:

it has crappy animation

Actually I should say that I like that animation. It makes the impression that the creature is uncomfortable moving on the ground, perhaps because it is used to living underwater or on a planet with a different gravity. The monsters should be unsettling, and its weird gait contributes to that.

I'm actually getting a sort of Lovecraftian vibe from your monster designs. Is that intentional? I suppose that it is quite fitting for the atmosphere of the game. There's that cycle in Lovecraftian lore that involves space-faring crustaceans.

[raymoohawk]

the lovecraftian influence is intentional, but i dont want to make creatures that look like they are crippled. it would make the freedoom guy look like hes abusing rather than defending.