Any plans for Boom support?

Vermil

Are there any plans for Boom support in Doomsday?

I posted a 2.1 release thread over at Doomworld and it quickly became about Dday's Boom support.

skyjake

At this point I think the most reasonable way to have 100% complete and correct support for Boom features is to create a new game plugin for Doomsday based on PrBoom.

The existing jDoom/Heretic/Hexen code base as (d)evolved into quite a mess. This means that introducing new gameplay features (or even just cleaning up the code) will come with a high risk of introducing new regressions and the development work will be slow and tedious. It is much easier to start from a clean slate and just do a new game plugin.

The downside is of course that the Doomsday-specific integrations (DED / Infine customizations etc.) would not be there on day 1 but would have to be added over time. Of course, a mod targeting Boom wouldn't require anything Doomsday specific anyway.

This reflects my current line of thinking to aim toward simpler and smaller code. I would be happy to be able to place the old Doom/Heretic/Hexen plugin codebase into legacy/maintain-only status. The main benefit being that I could use the time that I have working on the project more effectively.

So, to summarize: yes there are plans, but I'm shifting my strategies and thinking when it comes to games in Doomsday. There are deep interconnections with the new renderer work here, as well — a new and clean game plugin is easier to get to play nice and work elegantly with a new renderer.

deus-ex

I can fully relate to the situation you are describing from my own experience. Sometimes you have to be bold and get rid off old stuff, which had cost you lots of blood and tears to build and therefor has grown close to your heart. It's quite surprising what one can achieve by rewriting certain parts from scratch, partaking on experience gained from previous exercises.

I think it's fair to say that everybody interested in Doomsday is holding their breath for the new renderer anyway, so I'd vote to move on with your proposed strategy to start from a clean state.

Vermil

So Doomsday is going to become a renderer for other ports?

skyjake

@deus-ex Indeed, one cannot move forward unless one lets go of some things of the past.

@Vermil That is the direction I'm thinking, although putting it that way sounds like Doomsday would have no other features to offer. I would say my vision for Doomsday is to become a platform on which other ports could run on.

To be more accurate, the direction is to enforce a complete separation between the games and the renderer (+rest of the engine) so that it is possible to support multiple variants of Doom, for instance. With the current code base and approach, this would be quite impractical.

I expect the jDoom/jHeretic/jHexen code base will continue to hang around, and even work with the new renderer within the capabilities of the old code.