[v1.5] Doom 64: Retribution

[Dark Pulse]

8 hours ago, Immorpher said:

I know Doom 64 EX doesn't run in GZDoom, and I dont think Absolution TC does either right? It's nice to have things in GZDoom for certain amounts of customizability and modding too. A few of my buddies are even talking about using Doom 64: Retribution to make a mapset honoring the 25th anniversary of Doom 64 since they can use GZDoom builder, as that is what they are used to using.

Absolution was specifically designed for a mid-2000s version of Doomsday, so yeah, wouldn't run without conversion at a minimum.

[Nevander]

On 1/2/2020 at 1:47 PM, roboticmehdi2 said:

Why make Retribution mod while we have those?

Because those do not use GZDoom. I wanted a proper GZDoom TC of Doom 64.

[VGA]

Retribution is better and more interesting than other D64 adaptations. And runs on the superior engine, which is ported to other systems, too. I had played a bit of it on my Android tablet!

[Devalaous]

I cant seem to download the D64MUS.wad. I guess I lost the original file on my old computer after making it.

 

[VGA]

18 hours ago, Devalaous said:

I cant seem to download the D64MUS.wad. I guess I lost the original file on my old computer after making it.

 

This one?

 

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/4baf26c8f75b141259b7d94799320a1d

[Devalaous]

I dunno, might be. I converted all of Aubrey's tracks to the OGG format the PSX Doom TC used, in case a D64 TC came along, offered them to Nevander who conveniently came along with Retribution :p Dont remember the exact filesize.

[CoTeCiO]

So I finally met with my friend again to finish playing the game. Unfortunately I can't play back the demo I recorded because apparently I need to run a netgame just to watch it because it can't detect the savegame has two players in it, so I'll report stuff just from what I remember.

 

We didn't have any problems in MAP21, so apparently your anticipated stairs thing worked fine, but there is an important instance of inability to progress in MAP22. Because in multiplayer you can only pick a map placed weapon only if you don't have it already, and you have to pick up a rocket launcher inside the blue door in order for the door inside to open, you have no way to progress if all players have the rocket launcher. We didn't fiddle with the configuration of the game and used the defaults of GZDoom, which keeps your inventory when you die, and it would have sucked to disable that and sacrifice one of us just to progress normally, so we just skipped to the next map.

 

I know you don't aim for 100% accuracy, but there's an important difference with vanilla Doom 64 in MAP15 with the SoulSphere puzzle. I checked the game in a real console because we were not sure of how to get the platform with the blue skull to lower and theorized we had to get that SoulSphere to lower it and discovered that the SoulSphere teleports twice as fast and does it 10 times in the console version instead of the 5 it does in here (and in Doom 64 EX too!), which makes it a lot more obvious what's going on there and how to solve the puzzle, since it repeats the sequence twice.

 

My friend got locked out at this point in MAP23, once someone enters, there's no way to open that door without clearing the room inside. I managed to do that on my own so we could carry on with the level, but if I had died, it would have been another skipped map.

 

Unfortunately, we couldn't get to any of the secret maps and we didn't go through the "fun" ones, so we didn't test those.

 

This time, there was only one instance of a key disappearing after being picked up, but I can't remember which one exactly.

 

Of course, to debug this right, we would need to test thoroughly looking for each place you could get locked out, and there are probably a lot more places, but this is what we could find playing normally.

[Nevander]

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

Because in multiplayer you can only pick a map placed weapon only if you don't have it already, and you have to pick up a rocket launcher inside the blue door in order for the door inside to open, you have no way to progress if all players have the rocket launcher.

Even if you don't have full ammo? I'll look into it regardless and figure something out.

 

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

the SoulSphere teleports twice as fast and does it 10 times in the console version instead of the 5 it does in here (and in Doom 64 EX too!)

Yep, I'm aware of this one. I find it strange that EX is wrong in this case. This will be fixed in 1.6.

 

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

at this point in MAP23, once someone enters, there's no way to open that door without clearing the room inside

Added to list. I've started a list of all locations in which a lock-in occurs so I can address them for co-op compatibility. I'd rather not fudge with geometry to add new teleports so I think I'll end up simply not locking players in if ACS detects it's in co-op. Seems it's the best approach given that co-op is already not the original method of play.

 

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

This time, there was only one instance of a key disappearing after being picked up, but I can't remember which one exactly.

I did some testing of my own the other day in solo net.

 

Keys which are originally placed on the map will remain where they are even after being taken, and will also stay in the new location if moved with Thing_Move. Scripts attached to the first key fortunately do not run again.

 

I didn't test long, but this must mean the key bug only affects new keys which are actually spawned in after the fact with ACS. In this case, the fix is easy. I'll just need to place keys in the map somewhere outside the play area and move them into the map when it's time instead of spawning. I imagine that will fix it.

 

Thanks for the new report @CoTeCiO! You and your friend have earned a thank you in the credits for testing and improving co-op! Please do give me a name I can use so he gets recognition as well.

[CoTeCiO]

1 hour ago, Nevander said:

Even if you don't have full ammo? I'll look into it regardless and figure something out.

Yeah! So the starting room in Watch Your Step is pretty useless since all the objects there at the beginning are weapons, and you can't pick them up even if you have no ammo at all, that makes co-op quite difficult at times because the ammo provided to you comes just in weapons and not in ammo objects, and that happens on vanilla Doom as well.

 

Maybe putting a box of rockets for co-op instead of a rocket launcher could work.

1 hour ago, Nevander said:

Thanks for the new report @CoTeCiO! You and your friend have earned a thank you in the credits for testing and improving co-op! Please do give me a name I can use so he gets recognition as well.

You are welcome! It was a lot of fun actually and considering this is a game that was not originally designed for multiplayer, it worked wonderfully! He told me that Uber G would be a good name for him.

[VGA]

Nevander, is a new version coming soon? I plan to do a full playthrough of Doom 64 for the first time ever :D

[Nevander]

I'd go ahead and play 1.5 if you want.

 

The hard truth is I'm not sure when 1.6 is coming. Been in a modding slump for a while and been taking a break in a sense. Sort of a chain of events situation, I'd not bore you with the details.

 

But never fear, the project is far from dead. When things start rolling again I will be posting updates to my Twitter. Thank you for your patience.

[Immorpher]

We are happy to wait for as long as you need. :)

[VGA]

Why is there an "Unable to load header" error in GZDoom 4.3.3? Everything seems to work fine but what is that error about?

[Nevander]

4 hours ago, VGA said:

Why is there an "Unable to load header" error in GZDoom 4.3.3? Everything seems to work fine but what is that error about?

Not sure. I don't know what that error could mean. Can you get a screenshot of the startup console showing it?

[VGA]

It simply has that error just after that string. I searched in GZDoom repository and the error may be the one in zmusic.cpp in this code snippet

 

if(reader->read(id, 32) != 32 || reader->seek(-32, SEEK_CUR) != 0)

{

SetError("Unable to read header");

reader->close();

return nullptr;

}

 

Is it trying to play a song and cannot find it? Is there supposed to be a song in the main menu? I hear nothing. Related to this variable?

titlemusic = "$MUS_MENU"

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by VGA

[CoTeCiO]

1 hour ago, VGA said:

It simply has that error just after that string.

Is it trying to play a song and cannot find it? Is there supposed to be a song in the main menu? I hear nothing. Related to this variable?

titlemusic = "$MUS_MENU"

If that's really what's causing the problem, then now they require the music lumps to be addressed directly in MAPINFO instead of using strings, or something like that. I haven't checked the changelog. Try changing $MUS_MENU for D_D64MNU and see if that works.

 

You could try playing this with an older version for the time being since this was released a while back, before GZDoom 4 came out. I have the mod in a folder of its own with GZ 3.5.0, which I think was the latest version at the time this came out and it works perfectly fine. I don't think you get any benefit by playing this mod on a newer version.

[Nevander]

3 hours ago, VGA said:

Is there supposed to be a song in the main menu? I hear nothing. Related to this variable?

titlemusic = "$MUS_MENU"

Yes, there should be. Does other music play? Is it just in the main menu?

 

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

If that's really what's causing the problem, then now they require the music lumps to be addressed directly in MAPINFO instead of using strings

I certainly hope not, that's a pretty big regression if so. The whole point of using strings is to allow the changing of music from SNDINFO which is a lot easier to manage than modifying MAPINFO and changing the music for each and every map.

[Nevander]

2 hours ago, CoTeCiO said:

I haven't checked the changelog.

Maybe this caused it from 4.3.2?

Quote

fixed resolving of music aliases with full filenames

No idea really. Maybe it was a side effect, not intended?

[VGA]

I think the menu music was just too low and I didn't even hear it, disregard that.

 

I think the error is in the command

SetMusic("D_SILENT");

 

I believe that 12-byte silent music lump does not have the proper header or something. Maybe you should find a more proper "empty MIDI" lump. Now that I commented it out and recompiled the script, there is no error message in the HUD and console.

Edited January 29, 2020 by VGA

[Graf Zahl]

The proper way to play no music is SetMusic(""), not trying to play a non-music lump.

 

[Nevander]

9 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

The proper way to play no music is SetMusic(""), not trying to play a non-music lump.

In this case, D_SILENT is actually referencing a copied and renamed dsempty if I remember right, which should play (or rather not play) fine, has in the past and in old versions.

 

@VGA

Does that message only appear when used with SetMusic? Because the secret sound is also dsempty in this TC. Also, check the INTERxx maps to see if it appears there.

 

If this is some new detection, possibly an inability to play dsempty as music, I will use a different approach to having no music.

 

As of now, it looks like it's caused specifically by using dsempty with SetMusic, based on this evidence.

[VGA]

Probably it is specifically about music. Because I don't see this error when finding secrets in normal gameplay. So better use an empty string for no music like Graf says.

 

Doesn't modern GZDoom at least launch on your PC?

[Nevander]

10 hours ago, VGA said:

Doesn't modern GZDoom at least launch on your PC?

Launch, at least up to 3.2.0 yes. I haven't tried anything newer.

[VGA]

Congratulations on this awesome mod, Nevander, outstanding quality! I finished the main game (missing all the secret maps) and I liked it so much, that I also finished the Absolution maps and now I am playing through Outcast, I can't get enough :D

 

I did not encounter/notice any bugs or glitches. GZDoom 4.3.3

 

I also messed around in the Test Facility, pitting squads of monsters against each other, Barons do not mess around! By the way, I have never seriously played D64 so I cannot comment on differences to the original. One thing I can say is that using a shotgun/SSG and not having a proper reloading/cocking animation SUCKS. D64 and Quake do this ... all good in Retribution though!

[Nevander]

Thanks dude. Glad you enjoyed it! I hope to bring even more features and new levels in due time.

 

12 hours ago, VGA said:

By the way, I have never seriously played D64 so I cannot comment on differences to the original.

The biggest differences will always be the tics for things, frame timings, and the lighting. Although eventually the lighting will be way more accurate. The 2.0 release will literally just be a lighting update for ALL maps.

 

Also with each update, it becomes more accurate since I've been playing my N64 copy and making notes of what needs to change. Got a whole new batch for 1.6.

[VGA]

Nice!

 

I have a question about the autoaim distance. I play with the mouse but with mouselook off. Often I am targetted by enemies that are far away, but not VERY far away. And my rockets don't autoaim. Did you set the autoaim distance for the mod or is it a GZDoom thing? Is it about the same as the vanilla D64?

 

I think in Doom the distance is greater. Then again, maybe it is because of the "scale" being different in D64?

[Nevander]

Probably a GZDoom thing. I don't think mods can modify autoaim behavior. I know vanilla D64 is a lot more accurate with autoaim, and it seems to connect more hits too in my experience.

 

Meaning, a shotgun blast from far away will actually very frequently kill Imps in one shot, unlike PC Doom. I'm not sure how this was done. Perhaps modified autoaim code in the D64 engine?

[VGA]

Maybe GZDoom is using proper randomization while vanilla D64 uses hardcoded tables. So the damage range is wider in GZDoom? 

 

Personally, I am more interested in the autoaim distance, any info @Graf Zahl ? Can it be set by a mod?

[NightFright]

Fixed TITLEMAP (removes "Unable to read header" error message) in attachment. In theory you can just load this after the Retribution wad to override the included map.

 

(For those interested: All I did was to change the map script from SetMusic("D_SILENT") to SetMusic(""), just like Graf suggested.)

 

titlemap.zip

Edited March 5, 2020 by NightFright

[Nevander]

That will be fixed in 1.6 when I can get back to it, but thanks for making a patch for the current version.