Add Blade of Agony as IWAD?

[AFADoomer]

Can the upcoming release version of Blade of Agony be added to IWADINFO?

The dev version is fully capable of running as a stand-alone project as of today.

The IWADINFO entry would be something like this:

Code: Select all

IWad
{
	Name = "WolfenDoom: Blade of Agony"
	Autoname = "boa"
	Game = "Doom" // or "Hexen" for startup screen?
	Config = "BoA"
	Mapinfo = "mapinfo/doom2.txt"
	MustContain = "BOALIB", "C1M1", "Episode3", "MSPUB0"
	BannerColors = "E3E3E3", "E3E3E3"
}

...with a filename of 'wolf_boa.pk3' added to the names list. This works for me when I make the changes in my local gzdoom.pk3.

I've picked one 'MustContain' value that I know wasn't in the original release (which was *not* capable of loading as an IWAD).

Assuming this is approved... This does raise a separate question: Is there a way in IWADINFO to specify the startup type as Hexen but keep the internal game type as Doom? The internal GAMEINFO file seems to be ignored when the file is loaded as an IWAD - I'd change 'Game' to "Hexen" for BoA in order to keep our load screen graphic, but then we have to work around sprite renaming and all of the other minor changes that kick in when gameinfo.gametype is GAME_Hexen... We can do that if we have to, but it seems like a situation that just hasn't come up, yet.

[Rachael]

If this is done it should just go in its own section, imo. Not Hexen, Not Doom, just WolfBOA.

[Enjay]

Being able to specify startup type for custom IWADs is something that a few people have asked about. I'd be quite interested in it myself. I understand that the way things are loaded makes this problematic though. I guess if the necessary information is in gzdoom.pk3 rather than the IWAD it might be simpler? However, that wouldn't help out people who want to do this without a modified engine exe or PK3.

[Rachael]

An ability to "register" an IWAD externally to GZDoom is something that is long overdue, as a feature, in my opinion. Even if it's a simple text file in the GZDoom folder (least preferable), or just establishing a special extension to be scanned when GZDoom starts up, allowing GZDoom to query the IWAD's own IWADINFO.txt file for the needed information, to be parsed as an additive lump to GZDoom's own internal IWADINFO.txt. (Proposed extensions include .iwad, .ipk3, and .ipk7)

[Caligari87]

As I've noted before, I fear such a feature may lead people (modders and users) to abuse it as an easy "autoload" like the skins folder. I dunno, it just seems like the concept of officially-recognized IWADs should be sacrosanct? Maybe that's just me.

[Enjay]

[minirant]Personally, I have always had an objection to the use of PK3 as an extension. It's a zip.

If it's structured properly internally (like so many "PK3"s aren't - they're not meant to just be a dumping ground for WADs) then I can see merit in giving it a unique extension. But that's kind of my point: unique. PK3 is for idtech 3. As far as I know it's called PK3 because of that and because PAK was Quake, PAK (in a different format) was Quake II, PK3 was Quake III etc and PK4 was for Doom III etc. So what on Earth does PK3 have to do with ZDoom?

I quite liked the idea of PKZ being a suitable extension i.e. PKZDoom. But why does it even need to be PK at all? It could have been anything ZDD for ZDoom Data or ZDZ for ZDoom Zip or ZD7 for the 7zip flavour, whatever. Why limit it to 3 characters?

So, yeah, probably trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted but I really wish we, as a community, had specified a proper, unique extension for our zip-based resource files rather than, basically, accidentally falling into a convention because people started using it for... well, I'm not really sure why. [/minirant]

Ahem...

What I really meant was, yes a unique IWAD/Izipped resource extension that triggered that special handling would be a good idea IMO.

I dunno, it just seems like the concept of officially-recognized IWADs should be sacrosanct? Maybe that's just me.

I think we're kind of getting past that now. There are quite a few fully independently created stand-alone games that have their own IWADs. It's becoming more common to have these officially supported too. However, each time that is done, the source (albeit only a text file in gzdoom.pk3) needs to be altered. Surely it would be easier if game creators could simply make their own IWADs that behave in the way they want?

As I've noted before, I fear such a feature may lead people (modders and users) to abuse it as an easy "autoload" like the skins folder.

Personally, I don't see that as a particularly valid fear in as much as users can already abuse things in other ways to achieve the same ends and if a mod does something stupid, people can just stop playing it and a mod won't do anything genuinely harmful to a person's system.

[Rachael]

It should also be noted that while GZDoom would theoretically scan for .iwad .ipk3 .ipk7 .ipkz .izdd .i_whatever_the_fuck, it will not actually load that file - instead, it simply scans for an "iwadinfo" lump inside that file and appends it to its current IWADINFO processing along with the name of that file to appear on the startup dialog. That's it.

If you somehow find a way to abuse this to autoload things, please tell me this method. I'm all ears.

[Graf Zahl]

No ipk7's. Period. Opening a 7z file takes too long and will delay the startup quite considerably. Opening WADs, Zips or PAKs is fast but 7z needs to do a significant amount of decompression before being able to analyze the content.

[Caligari87]

Eh, my "abuse" fear is probably unfounded TBH.

Is it really too late to make a filename convention change? To my knowledge the extension doesn't even really matter as the engine parses for the correct data structures regardless, so perhaps we should decide on something more official and "deprecate" the use of .pk3? I kinda like the idea of of .wad/.pkz for mods and .iwad/.ipkz for IWADs. Of course perhaps this would be change for sake of change since .pk3/.ipk3 is perfectly serviceable, if a little annoying like Enjay said.

[Rachael]

It's not too late for something like that - the biggest problem is community adoption at large. But as you stated, GZDoom could load something that says "doom.whatsapk3fileanyway" in the filename and as long as its internal structure is wad/zip/7z it will load it in just fine.

[Graf Zahl]

Of course we can try to adopt a new extension, but PK3 will remain PK3, it was the force of the community to make it stick and I haven't seen that go away.

[Enjay]

Of course, naming the support file for the engine "zdoom.pk3" might have helped cement the officialness of it. I think that if Randi or you had wanted to object to the PK3 name, and had done so vocally, it would have unstuck but I guess one, other or both of you were happy enough to go with the flow. No crime in that, it's just my own personal problem with the name I guess but it really bugs me to an irrational level for some reason. I've gone on about it before though so I'll shut up because that's not really what this thread is about.

I know that compressed PK7s (what happens when idtech 7 is a thing huh huh? - OK, really shutting up now) take an age to decompress when loading into *ZDoom but, as a matter of interest, is there such a thing as a 7z with no compression like you can get with zips and, if so, would they load as fast as an uncompressed zip or a WAD?

[Graf Zahl]

It is not possible to detect an uncompressed 7z without opeining it, so allowing that would allow compressed ones, so everybody would use the compressed version because - well - to some people size does matter in ways that are not productive.

[Enjay]

Fair enough.

Just out of interest again, presumably GZDoom checks for some kind of header or something in the file so that it knows how to deal with the rest of the opening? I guess I mean I'm asking how far down the rabbit hole does GZDoom have to go before knowing it's dealing with a 7z and therefore how to proceed from that point?

Perhaps I'm completely misunderstanding the process. I don't really know how programs open/identify supported file types.

[Graf Zahl]

It's easier to just say 'no 7z for IWADS' than making matters unproductively complicated. A compressed Zip is better than an uncompressed 7z, which is ultimately pointless and redundant.
Keep in mind that Zips are opened by ZDoom code. 7z are opened by the 7zip library, i.e. in code outside our control.