Special Behaviors

[Sphagne]

The problem that I foresee with the majority of your suggestions, Sphagne, is that they're going to require an awful lot of work to implement, and (agreeing with Graf Zahl) I have trouble seeing how they're really going to be useful enough to justify this labour.

But Graf and I have reached the conclusion in this case, it is not the case.

More often it will be denied because it requires too much work. That's not the case here (it will most likely be forgotten because I don't expect that the new level format required for this will ever go beyond the planning stage - but this is something where I'd like to be proven wrong.)

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Currently I am on the black list and most of my posts here would be answered by Graf in a way that would result in an argue between him, and me, so that nobody else would want to join in and add comments to the suggestion, resulting that the thread would loose all the benefits of a forum.

I thought about the problem and reached a probable solution, and this formula can help others as well:

Well, his posts have some good points in them and not all the answers are bised arguments, and most of them have some degree of common sense in them, as I said before nothing in this world is just 0 and 1.

So I can stick to the good points of his argues and ignore the rest, and treat the thread as if they were not posted at all, and try to change the thread back to normal forum discussion, and continue to comment on the original suggestions.

This way I have not argued with him, and hopefully, it would not result in open war of words between the two sides, and if other people would join in, that would help a lot in changing the atmosphere to normal forum discussion.

So please let’s help each other to be able to take full advantage of a feature suggestion forum.

By the way, wildweasel, on the second look, there was nothing covert about your help. You were just wise enough to cut the argument with someone who does not want to see your point.

Thanx again.

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Dear Graf, there are lots of suggestion threads in this forum, that you have VETOed in the bud, and some of them were useless, so there is no problem there, but some others might have reached to a useful stage, and even some of them might be useless originally, but if you had let them to go on, they might have resulted in another useful idea, who knows.

So please quit VETOing the suggestions it the bud unless it is fully obvious that the thread is useless and would not reach a useful conclusion. Even in such a case, you can let the people around here to play with useless ideas, no harm there.

You can just ignore them, and do not forget that some of these people are a lot younger than yourself, so let the young play around, and the future is in their hands, and these playings around would result in more experiance, not to mention a more lively forum.

If you have some suggestions and arguments to help them around and guide them to the correct path regarding their ideas, then go on, and I do not deny that you have helped them around before, but please do not VETO the threads that are useless in your oppinion, Randy can lock any thread that he wants to, if it gets out of hand.

And correct path for the ideas is not "Find yourself a programmer that would do a job." or "Do it yourself.", because if we wanted to and could do this, we would have not posted the thread in the first place, and what is this forum for?

Heil Hitler!

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As for my original suggestion, I have thought about it and reached the conclusion that it can be implemented, even if we do not have a complete change of map format, by just implementing my suggestion about “SPECIALS” lump.

Has anybody thought about the possibilities *if* those specials and misc. states were to be implemented? I am excited just by thinking about them.

If my other suggestion about separating the “Hate Target” from “Destination Target” were to be implemented as well, then wow, by combining the two suggestions together, we could infuse lots of fake artificial intelligence into our dumb monsters, (Via some ACS scripts).

Ask me how, if you like.

Cheers.

[Zippy]

Currently I am on the black list and most of my posts here would be answered by Graf in a way that would result in an argue between him, and me, so that nobody else would want to join in and add comments to the suggestion, resulting that the thread would loose all the benefits of a forum.

Actually, I'll be honest. I don't really read your posts because they resemble the essays I write in school in several ways. Being very long is the most notable thing. Having something that is a clear, concise, and straightforward summary of the idea would do a much better job of getting my attention and interest, and then if I was interested in it I would try to get into the futhur complex details. Basically I think if you had your ideas better seperated into a kind rough summary (which would address the basics, some examples, and quickly try to prove how this would be really useful), with the complex details seperated somewhere else (seperate post, seperate page, spoiler tag, past some bold delimiter, whatever) everything would be more presentable and more convincing for me to take my time to read through it.

And I think I can be pretty objective about this. I haven't been on these forums for that long, so I have no previous history with "who's who."

[Sphagne]

Thanks for the tip, I know, I have a lot to say and I can not manage them in the right way.

[Graf Zahl]

And correct path for the ideas is not "Find yourself a programmer that would do a job." or "Do it yourself.", because if we wanted to and could do this, we would have not posted the thread in the first place, and what is this forum for?

That wouldn't be the case if 90% of your feature requests wouldn't necessitate a complete rewrite of some basic engine code. Doom is not an RPG and the engine is not designed to handle an RPG. RPG elements are vastly beyond the scope of what Doom (and Heretic and Hexen and even Strife) stand for and (not just) in my opinion are far too specialized to invest any work in. Fact is, you need them but most likely nobody else. So if you want to do an RPG you have 2 choices:

1. Make it for an engine that natively supports such elements.
2. Extend the engine yourself (or find someone who does it for you)

but in such a case you do NOT:

endlessly bug the programmer of a source port to add this and that and whatever because it's 'so cool' and 'everybody might appreciate it'.

The fact is, most Doom mappers map for Doom exactly for the reason that Doom is a simple-minded action game. You don't have much control over the enemies and those enemies have a rather basic AI that is aptly described with the word 'cannon fodder'.
Rewriting the AI code (even for more or less trivial things) is not an easy matter due to side effects of the changes which might break many existing maps. Just look at MBF. Its AI enhancements are cool on the surface but in reality many of them make some maps impossible to finish because the monsters no longer behave as expected. So they have to be switched off and become useless.

Heil Hitler!

Now that's [censored word]. Please don't do that again or I get real angry.

As for my original suggestion, I have thought about it and reached the conclusion that it can be implemented, even if we do not have a complete change of map format, by just implementing my suggestion about “SPECIALS” lump.

Has anybody thought about the possibilities *if* those specials and misc. states were to be implemented? I am excited just by thinking about them.

I believe you. But that still doesn't change the fact that it is a feature that will only have limited use. For the 2 or 3 actual monsters where you need it you still can as easily create a monster that handles it directly in the DECORATE states. The one thing we most definitely do NOT need for this is yet another lump that has to be maintained while editing a map.

If my other suggestion about separating the “Hate Target” from “Destination Target” were to be implemented as well, then wow, by combining the two suggestions together, we could infuse lots of fake artificial intelligence into our dumb monsters, (Via some ACS scripts).

Now there's the big problem. This would necessitate a significant rewrite of lots of interconnected code throughout lots of files if you wanted to implement this cleanly. It may be cool (because admittedly the current 'goal' code sucks big time) but don't you think Randy wouldn't have done it as it is if it was that easy?

[Sphagne]

I did not want to answer such a biased response, but I thought that it may seem that I was persuaded that my suggestion was total crap, which is not the case so I decided to answer them, but dear Graf, please cut it now and ignore this thread after this moment.

Please do not make the mistake, because almost *all* my suggestions are geared toward enhancing the level designer's hold and control over the environment and the monsters, and have nothing to do with RPG elements.

Some of those suggestions may help developing RPG elements but they are all general purpose, and can be used in any other project.

So please do not throw that "RPG: word at my face again, and if you want you can search my previous posts for the proof, so Strife and other programs are out.

As for the "complete rewrite of the engine" part, some of my posts are about more than one additional feature for ZDoom, and each part would not require too much of work, but the sum may become complicated.

And that is not the case for all my posts, but a portion of them, and the phrase "90%" is just a random number that you have thrown in, to stress your point, I gather.

I can only remember 3 major and far fetched threads that now I know, they were not very logical. Those were about: DoomScript, Universal Level Structure, and New Monster AI.

As for all the other suggestions, I can still vote for them if needed be.

These suggestion would not change the monsters' AI logic, but would give the levels and monster designers the option to enhance them if they liked, and please do not speak for other doomers about their tastes for dumb monsters, because this may not be the case.

And none of these suggestions are about changing the AI code directly, but give the level designers the options to bypass some of them and infuse some fake AI via some ACS programming and environmental designs. so please dont stress about changing the AI code, because that is not my suggestion.

Except for that "Monster Sight Calculation" suggestion that could have been done with about 20-30 lines of code scattered through out the entire code. Just 1 or 2 for AI change.

And maybe this about seperation of the hate target from the destination target, and those would not break any current map because these are just options that could stay unused like in the current maps.

And how many time should I stress that almost *all* the current ZDoom features are used by just a postion of the level designers, so this one can be added to them.

And please do not repeatr that if these additional specials are available, all the level designers may use them at most only 2 or 3 times in a level, because that is just your opinion, and I can response that maybe they would be overused so that it would cause some computer speed issue in those levels.

And I dont think that many of the level designers may want to make new decorate monsters to just add this feature for a single monster, but if it was available in the level structure, ready to be used on any current monster, they would use it extensively.

As for adding another lump to implement these features, please let Randy decide about it. This is his port.

Lots of these features may not be too hard for Randy to implement, and maybe he has not thought about them, or may have nt enouigh free time to spend on them, so I write about them to be there so that maybe he would eventually reads them and say "Hey, lets try this one!".

Summary: please do not speak for Randy and other people in these forums, are you their advokate, and representive?

As for that "Hitler" thingy, sorry if that has hurt your feelings, and I would not do it again, but if you do not want to get hurt again, please stop hurting other peoples feelings.

I think a lot and come out with some bad and some good ideas and represent them here just to be answered by an extremely biased person that dislikes me so much that can not answer me fairly.

What's more, he would say me "Nobody likes your posts." "All the people here think this or that", "Randy would not do this.", and so on...

And that would piss me big time. My advise, do not do it again.

[Graf Zahl]

I did not want to answer such a biased response, but I thought that it may seem that I was persuaded that my suggestion was total crap, which is not the case so I decided to answer them, but dear Graf, please cut it now and ignore this thread after this moment.

No, I won't ignore it.

Please do not make the mistake, because almost *all* my suggestions are geared toward enhancing the level designer's hold and control over the environment and the monsters, and have nothing to do with RPG elements.

Some of those suggestions may help developing RPG elements but they are all general purpose, and can be used in any other project.

So please do not throw that "RPG: word at my face again, and if you want you can search my previous posts for the proof, so Strife and other programs are out.

The fact that they might be used in other projects doesn't counter their RPG origin. Oh, I have seen most of your suggestions. They are mostly highly specialized stuff that either necessitates significant rewrites of existing code or requires more work than it is worth.

As for the "complete rewrite of the engine" part, some of my posts are about more than one additional feature for ZDoom, and each part would not require too much of work, but the sum may become complicated.

See, there's the problem. It's mostly badly structured masses of texts with a heap of suggestions - some good, some not so good and some simply not doable with a reasonable amount of work. And you are wondering that nobody cares anymore?

And that is not the case for all my posts, but a portion of them, and the phrase "90%" is just a random number that you have thrown in, to stress your point, I gather.

It's a random number that represents my impression of your suggestions.

I can only remember 3 major and far fetched threads that now I know, they were not very logical. Those were about: DoomScript, Universal Level Structure, and New Monster AI.

Let's not talk about those. You didn't help your cause at all by posting them in the first place.

As for all the other suggestions, I can still vote for them if needed be.

These suggestion would not change the monsters' AI logic, but would give the levels and monster designers the option to enhance them if they liked, and please do not speak for other doomers about their tastes for dumb monsters, because this may not be the case.

And none of these suggestions are about changing the AI code directly, but give the level designers the options to bypass some of them and infuse some fake AI via some ACS programming and environmental designs. so please dont stress about changing the AI code, because that is not my suggestion.

Nobody ever said it's impossible. But let's be honest.

1. Randy seems to be more interested in other parts of the engine than altering the monster AI or enhancing DECORATE. (Randy, if I am wrong plese correct me. )
2. The long delays between versions (like 2.0.63->2.0.90 and 2.0.96->?) make it very hard to motivate myself to submit more complex stuff. Without it I could have done much more enhancements to DECORATE as I have. Too bad that in the 2 months between 2.0.90 and 2.0.96 I didn't have much time. And now we're back to a long wait and again nothing important will happen for the following months.

Except for that "Monster Sight Calculation" suggestion that could have been done with about 20-30 lines of code scattered through out the entire code. Just 1 or 2 for AI change.

And maybe this about seperation of the hate target from the destination target, and those would not break any current map because these are just options that could stay unused like in the current maps.

Except for the fact that the code is a mess that is severely prone to side effects.

And how many time should I stress that almost *all* the current ZDoom features are used by just a postion of the level designers, so this one can be added to them.

Wrong. That's only true if you count all of the Doom mapping community. ZDoom mappers make good use of what is there. Granted, there are some that aren't used that frequently but those are the ones with limited functionality or which have been added due to personal feature requests (like Thing_ProjectileIntercept. It was made for Daedalus and so far nothing else has used it.)

And please do not repeatr that if these additional specials are available, all the level designers may use them at most only 2 or 3 times in a level, because that is just your opinion, and I can response that maybe they would be overused so that it would cause some computer speed issue in those levels.

And I dont think that many of the level designers may want to make new decorate monsters to just add this feature for a single monster, but if it was available in the level structure, ready to be used on any current monster, they would use it extensively.
[/qupte]

No, they won't. The currently available death special isn't even used that frequently because it isn't that useful after all. And a monster's death is a much more noteworthy attempt than going into an attack, pain or whatever state - something you normally really don't care about - except in highly specialized situations like boss fights.

As for adding another lump to implement these features, please let Randy decide about it. This is his port.

This won't be added as a separate lump. It's way too much baggage for way too little benefit. As part of a new level format (if it ever comes) it might have some merit but as soon as you start adding more bloat to support little useful features you will lose the interest of most mappers for sure.

Lots of these features may not be too hard for Randy to implement, and maybe he has not thought about them, or may have nt enouigh free time to spend on them, so I write about them to be there so that maybe he would eventually reads them and say "Hey, lets try this one!".

Don't overestimate your importance. Most likely your posts will be ignored - like they have been in the past.

Summary: please do not speak for Randy and other people in these forums, are you their advokate, and representive?

I don't speak for Randy, I am just expressing my point of view about this. And what I don't see right now is a good cost-to-benefit ratio - especially if you had to add more and more new lumps to the game.

As for that "Hitler" thingy, sorry if that has hurt your feelings, and I would not do it again, but if you do not want to get hurt again, please stop hurting other peoples feelings.

You know, if in real you'd say something like that to me, you'd be in trouble. Being compared to Nazis is something most Germans don't tolerate whatsoever.

I think a lot and come out with some bad and some good ideas and represent them here just to be answered by an extremely biased person that dislikes me so much that can not answer me fairly.

Oh, you poor little boy. Now go home to mama and cry your eyes out.
Seriously though, it's not you I have problems with. It's the way you present your ideas.

There are 4 kinds of feature requests:

1. Short and precise descriptions of a feature. Those are most likely being accepted or dismissed based on their practicability. If those can be done they will most likely be done.
2. Vague descriptions of a concept (like 'I want a dodge state', or 'ZDoom should have auto-update. That would be cool'.) Now, if for some reason it can be done, no problem. But expect some heated discussion if there are reasons why it can't be done as easily as it can be said.
3. The 'Here's the code' kind (my favorite ) Seriously, what prevents a programmer from accepting these and adding them. This way you can even get complex and work intensive stuff in the game.
4. The Sphagne kind (Yes, I'll name it in your honor ): Long winded treatises of more or less useful stuff. But in the end the usefulness doesn't matter because it's just too much to digest in one piece. Like it or not, there is a high probability that these are just being ignored, especially if the programmer who has to do it doesn't see the merit behind all this. So, thus I repeatedly suggested to you to go the '3.' way. If you find a programmer with the necessary enthusiasm and time to do it for you you just need to submit the finished code and everybody will be happy.

What's more, he would say me "Nobody likes your posts." "All the people here think this or that", "Randy would not do this.", and so on...

And that would piss me big time. My advise, do not do it again.

Then be pissed. Sorry, I can't help you there. If nobody likes your posts you'd better think why they don't like them.

[Sphagne]

First thing first: I wonder, in your real life, do you always speak for other people and would not let them to speak for themselves? You do not like Nazzis but your hunger for domination is a bit like them.

OK, I have come to a decision: I will change my method. Let's see if this feature suggestion forum can become a little more useful than the current state.

In the real life I am a programmer and if I suggest a feature, I could have done it myself in a moderately organaized Pascal-based program without much hassle, but I do not know any C, (not much as it would count anyway), and I do not know about the Doom code.

You are often telling me to ask a programmer to do the job, so here is my suggestion: (dear Graf, please budge off and let other people have an opinion)

For any of my suggestion, I know how to implement them in a moderately organized program, but I do not have the time and means to change the doom code directly, so:

Meet me in the thread: (Lets develope: "Monster Sight Calculation")

It would be coming soon, and with other people's help, hopefully would add some stealth features to ZDoom.

[Graf Zahl]

In the real life I am a programmer and if I suggest a feature, I could have done it myself in a moderately organaized Pascal-based program without much hassle, but I do not know any C, (not much as it would count anyway), and I do not know about the Doom code.

Being a programmer doesn't help much. At least you admit that youz don't know Doom's code and from most of your suggestions this is obvious. So, since you already know Pascal it shouldn't be too hard to go to C(++) from there. I needed less than a week to familiarize myself with that language and after getting used to the different syntax I had no desire to go back to Pascal's rigidness. If you do that you can start to analyze the (Z)Doom source and maybe do your great features yourself.

You are often telling me to ask a programmer to do the job, so here is my suggestion: (dear Graf, please budge off and let other people have an opinion)

For any of my suggestion, I know how to implement them in a moderately organized program, but I do not have the time and means to change the doom code directly, so:

Knowing how to implement it in another program doesn't help much. Let's not forget that Doom's source is not the cleanest and most organized code available. On the contrary: Parts are rather messy and heavily depend on global variables and other stuff one should not use in organized code.
I think it's obvious that this makes it much harder to add complex stuff to these parts of the engine.
I can't speak for Randy but aside from messing around with Doom I have to program other stuff to make a living and I don't think it looks differently for Randy. So that leaves not much time to develop new things to add to Doom. And now make a guess which kind of features gets dismissed first in such a situation. It's really not that your suggestions are unreasonable as such but think about when someone who isn't really interested in doing so has to spend a few hours each day for weeks on it. Believe me, it won't work.

Meet me in the thread: (Lets develope: "Monster Sight Calculation")

It would be coming soon, and with other people's help, hopefully would add some stealth features to ZDoom.

If you can pull that off without breaking anything else so it becomes usable I'll be impressed. And that would be a useful new feature which I think many mappers would have liked on occasion. The only problem is that the current AI system isn't really suitable for it - but before .90 it would have been even harder because any sound made by a player persisted forever in a level.