Which version of Doomsday do you use primarily?
It would be quite helpful for our release schedule planning to gauge a little where we stand with the currently available releases. Please, pick the version you are using from the poll. If you use the older versions, could you also elaborate on why you haven't upgraded to a newer one.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Comments
Weekly updates is a bit too much for me as I don't play Doom all the time and installing an update takes time. I did keep up with builds for two weeks but then got tired of it. I get new version of my primary port when I need to report a bug, or every few months otherwise.
In Vanilla Doom all scenery mobjs had a height of 16 because rather than bother setting heights for scenery mobjs, ID simply relied on the fact that the engine never allowed mobjs to pass over/under each other (a.k.a infinite Z height).
Hence, projectiles could pass through most of a scenery item in Vanilla Doom; only the bottom 16 pixels block projectiles.
When Dday and other ports (pretty much every main port) first removed this limit, the solution was to give scenery mobjs real heights; this has remained this way since, leading to pretty much every new wad being designed with the fact that scenery mobjs block projectiles.
Recently, ZDoom added an additional mobj field allowing one to set a separate 'projectile pass through' height for scenery. This pass through height is set in the mobj def and the user can then use a menu option to enable/disable the use of this field. By default it's disabled.
As it sounds it allows the mobj to have a real height and also allows projectiles to pass through them, as in Vanilla.
That said, ZDoom doesn't have an option as far as I am aware to prevent mobjs from passing over/under each other. Doomsday has this option, accessible via the console (probably should be added to the gameplay menu due to it's importance).
A complete imitation of how Vanilla Doom handles scenery items and mobj blocking requires both.
audio.
The load times are also very slow in 6.9 and the unstable builds; I eagerly await the day I've been told about in the past, that the map converter can save the results, like 1.8.6 stores GL Nodes as GWA files, to avoid rebuilding them every time you launch the map or even die and respawn. On large maps the converter can take minutes to convert a map, sometimes crashing Dday due to the converter not yet being able to handle every wacky mapping quirk out there, that takes 10 seconds at most to load in other ports.
The game speed of 6.9 and the unstable builds also leaves alot to be desired against 1.8.6. But that's down to bottlenecks from half finished code (once that is done, 1.8.6 will be the slower).
Doomsday is by far my preferred port for Doom/Heretic/HeXen playing, but increasingly, Boom is becoming the lowest common denominator for new Doom maps (though there are many instances of mappers using a mapping format and then not using anything from it that Vanilla Doom can't do). Though I have no real interest in Boom editing myself (while Boom is much easier to use and understand, XG is more powerful), I find myself slowly but surely, having to more often use other ports for new maps because they need Boom. As mentioned though, there are still lot's of limit removing maps made and lot's of classic maps to play in Dday.
I will say though, that beta 6.9 and even more so, the unstable builds do look a lot sharper visually than 1.8.6 and once you are actually in a map, are more stable.
I will say that I am a Windows user; 1.8.6 on Linux and Mac were beta, not stable builds, therefore I would guess that 99.9% of all Linux and Mac users of Dday use 6.9 or an unstable build.
I think when I finish the megawad I'm playing, I'll upgrade to a newer build. The first half of the megawad I played with non smoothed lights and at level 15 I turned on the smoothed lighting + some light range compression to get the lightlevel about the same as without smoothed lights.
when that happened i reverted back to the 1.9.0-beta6.9 build which i always used before. its perfect for heretic which is what i use doomsday for mostly.
and for hexen, but sadly theres still always some serious bugs in hexen which completely break the game and make you unable to finish it
for doom i personally prefer using risen3d instead since it has better models and cuz it supports doom mods, which doomsday doesnt.
maybe idea to add this to doomsday too? that itll support doom monster mods and such
Dday and Risen3D use the same model format, hence one can easilly transfer models between them with only a tiny bit of work. Here we have some of the Risen3D models in Dday:
We want better model format!
Who remember on old jDRP website jDRP 1.1 announcement with screen of AMAZING IMP model? =D>
no it doesnt.
ive often tried loading mods into doomsday which alter monster behaviour or weapons or which add monsters or such,
and when trying to start doomsday with a mod wad selected it'll just crash with an error
If you encounter problems loading mods that should work with Doomsday then please do report the issue and we'll investigate.
I think many computers these days can handle much better if your hardware is more modern, maybe even 2 years old. I guess the current Doom port code is severly limited even for model detail and won't allow for much better looking models. I heard normal maps aren't even possible and polies are so limited for now, at least. But thankfully I heard that in the future, the Doomsday code will allow for normals, at least.
The Snowberry system...and I know you all love it & it won't be changed...for a plain-ol'-end-user is just completely non-intuitive.
Like many gamers I play Doom-stuff repeatedly but infrequently,as much as I love it...let's say once-twice/month.
Each time I have to read the long set of instructions on making doom addons (& hexen addons,etc..) work with Snowberry-its just too damn complicated.
Going thru the long snowberry instructions on using -deh files as an example...to this day I still can't retain memory for that...and with all the folders (Data,Run-on,Doom,Hexen,etc...its not like its immediatley obvious,you know?
With 1.86 everything is intuitive...I almost never have to refer to any readme.
Also....and I knwowyou know this...I wish/wish/wish Doomsday was more 'Boom' compatible with all of today's addons...in fact from the get-go,this seems to have been the priority of every single engine OTHER than Doomsday...the motivation?
Without doubt...and by a huge margin...the visiaul sheer magnificent B_E_A_U_T_Y of playing each & every addon of Doom/Hexen/Heretic is what makes Doomsday great.
No other engine,opengl or not...even comes close.
Every time I see any Id-game addon Doomsday is the very 1st thing I fire up...and so often it fails (or the readmes just tell you flat-out you need zDoom or some other)
But alas,as its just not compatible enough with today's addons (basically everything after Alien Vendetta).
i try each and every addon with Doomsday 1st...they fail about 1/2 the time...then I use zDoom...which works 99% of the time.
If I had my wish...?
the oldest version of Doomsday,pre 1.86 blows-away every other latest engine in the beauty of the visuals...why not just work on enhancing modern compatibility vs. 'tweaking' all the other stuff you've 99% accomplished?
You wonderful developers must know this,no?
I am so curious as to your motivation to not make this the priority?
thanx for listsening...advice meant to be helpful,even if it didn't come across as such. :-(
ericjmz
I am confident that we'll achieve this goal sooner or later, however a complete technology overhaul was necessary before we could really even begin down that road. This is the whole purpose behind the 1.9.x series - to stabilize the foundation so we can move forward and build upon it. We are doing a lot more than simply tweaking a few things
Thanx for answering my not-totally-maturely thought out excessively long inquiry with an intelligent answer.
Really...thank you.
Second...
best of all worlds is a wonderful goal...who could argue..?
But you've nailed the visuals S_O_L_I_D...I cannnot overemphasize how everything Id looks so beautiful in every version of Doomsday as long as I can remember...as I said before,no other engine even comes close; Doomsday rules...
If this was the Miss America competition lets just say its a given you won the swimsuit competition....what we need is to win the talent competition!
Which brings me to...
3rd and last...
Full Boom compatibility... if you sent out an inquiry as to what 'features' end-users want I bet dollars to donuts this is what most want...because you have the visuals down so well.
What if you concluded the opposite,just as a logical argument to consider? You could add or improve feature after feature but you would still be stuck playing only the oldest of wads/addons again and again (Hey...not that that's bad...I've played Eteranl 3 times!)
ericjmz
PS: Has to be a PS....for simplification if a doom add-on has a -deh file where's the best place to put it/best command to use it for Doomsday?
thanx again
ericjmz