User-overridable save and automap blocker (MAPINFO)

[dpJudas]

GTA was just an example. What I'm trying to say here is that if you are making a Doom map, then clearly blocking the save dialog or trying to hide the automap is just plain stupid. But if you are making a total conversion the whole thing gets a lot less clear as different games have different trade offs and goals.

I only used the word politics as essentially in a large community each individual has different reasons for why they play or use GZDoom. I don't think anyone in this thread is technically wrong - they just have different goals. All I meant to say there is that if save blocking isn't allowed by mods, then certain game genres will be less suitable for GZDoom. Whether that is a problem or not I'll let you decide.

[Graf Zahl]

All I meant to say there is that if save blocking isn't allowed by mods, then certain game genres will be less suitable for GZDoom. Whether that is a problem or not I'll let you decide.

My stance on that has always been clear: GZDoom is an engine that is primarily meant to run Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest and mods for these games and this will always be the focus of development.

If someone wants to do something different with it, fine, by all means do - but never forget that if you step out of the comfort zone defined by these original games, please don't complain that the engine's feature set doesn't exactly match your needs. Trying to maintain an engine that is this generic is beyond my interest, and that also goes for most features aimed at such projects.

[Rachael]

Rachael's melodramatic reasoning only reinforces my belief that this has no place in the engine.

Regarding the automap, one thing I noticed recently is that any HUD overlay will obstruct the automap - intentional or not - so I was already seriously considering adding a switch that simply disables all custom 2D rendering when the automap is active. The mod where this bothered me was Enjay's Burghead mod where in the end you run with a gas mask on through the bunker labyrinth and the gas mask overlay makes it very hard to see anything on the automap at all.

Personally I think that adding this feature sends the completely wrong message to our modders and that's why I'm going to wait a bit to see what the discussion here brings out.

Concerning the level compatibility, I am already evaluating some means to have one RNG seeded in a way that allows retrieving this before loading a savegame so that randomizing levels this way can be done without killing savegame support.

You aren't the one who has to deal with the CONSTANT arguing and bickering about it. It happens in one place or another every time the topic comes up. Even when I am not involved, both sides tend to be fairly brutal toward one another on this.

[Graf Zahl]

Guess why I disconnected myself from those channels. There's parts in this community where I honestly believe they deserve nothing less than taking away the engine from them.

[RiboNucleic Asshat]

...ok, so, someone feel free to call me a complete idiot here, but I literally do not see a problem with "A malicious user could force the player not to be able to save!!!!". If it's an actual, legitimate mod, there's going to be a reason saving is disabled (and I would say it's fine to leave an override in anyway, making this whole thing moot). If someone decides to disable saving for troll-ish reasons, you can just... not use that mod... It's not even a security risk, if a mod disables saving and forces it upon you with no optional override you can just not use it, in fact most people would probably call that... drumroll please... a bad mod!

Having an override that's on by default makes a feature like this literally useless. The player has to intentionally activate it anyway, so there's no difference between an incredibly limp-wristed request from the engine itself not to save and someone writing "do not save pls thx" in the .txt file accompanying their mod. Not to mention, there's plenty of stuff in the engine that can abused yet it has been allowed to stay. Someone could make a custom post-processing shader that's on by default and makes the screen painfully strobe, should that justify the removal of custom shaders? What bout the ability to make a sound that hurts your ears?

[Graf Zahl]

My main worry is that adding this feature, despite going against everything Doom stands for, would open a can of worms I do not want to get opened.

[Rachael]

From my perspective that can of worms is already long since opened. This is why I was very staunchly in support of having an override switch for it. At least then, people who don't want to be affected by the feature aren't.

[RiboNucleic Asshat]

I genuinely don't see what can of worms would be opened, though. A mod that requires disabled saves probably wouldn't appeal to those who insist on being able to save in the first place, so I don't see what the point of complaining about something you probably won't ever encounter anyway is.

It's easy to just not play games that you don't like. Why doesn't the same apply to Doom mods?

And if I come off a little aggressive here, I'm sorry. It's not my intention to appear obnoxious, but intent can be a bit hard to convey via text. Think of my posts being said in a confused tone, not an annoyed one.

[Enjay]

You aren't the one who has to deal with the CONSTANT arguing and bickering about it. It happens in one place or another every time the topic comes up. Even when I am not involved, both sides tend to be fairly brutal toward one another on this.

I take it such people simply don't respond well to "it's not happening, end of discussion"? No? Didn't think so.

On the subject of compromise, sometimes a compromise just means that you have two unhappy people instead of one.

If such a feature did appear, being off by default is the only way I would want to see it done - I understand people's reservation saying that makes it absolutely useless. However, as Graf said, saving is part of the user experience. So I feel that the user should be able to opt into such a feature, rather than opt out. I wonder if there could be a message added for when trying to save in a mod where the MAPINFO says that saving should not be allowed? i.e. The setting is off by default, so the user can still save, but when they do, a message could pop up saying something like "this mod discourages user saves, do you still wish to save?" Then there could be three settings: 1: let the mod decide, 2: off but with messages [default], 3: unconditionally off.

Regarding the automap, one thing I noticed recently is that any HUD overlay will obstruct the automap - intentional or not - so I was already seriously considering adding a switch that simply disables all custom 2D rendering when the automap is active. The mod where this bothered me was Enjay's Burghead mod where in the end you run with a gas mask on through the bunker labyrinth and the gas mask overlay makes it very hard to see anything on the automap at all.

Having some easy way to prevent something like the gas mask obscuring the automap would indeed be nice. It wasn't particularly intended that it would do that in the Burghead mod, and I would rather that it hadn't. Personally, I rationalised it as it would be difficult for the player character to read his automap with a gas mask on - but it's probably one of the few times in the mod where the automap would come in really handy, and that's exactly the time when you can't see it properly. I *guess* that I could have fixed within my ACS script but I didn't even think abut such a possibility at the time.

It's easy to just not play games that you don't like. Why doesn't the same apply to Doom mods?

True, true.

If I came across a mod that was trying to prevent me saving, I'd probably just bin it unconditionally.

[Rachael]

A mod that requires disabled saves probably wouldn't appeal to those who insist on being able to save in the first place, so I don't see what the point of complaining about something you probably won't ever encounter anyway is.

I'm sorry but this is patently false on so many levels.

First it makes a broad assumption about players and paints them all with very broad paintbrushes and separates them into different groups with no overlapping or nuance whatsoever.

The truth is, people are very dynamic and varied and there is no specific key that fits into any specific lock to them. That's actually not the bug - it's the feature. It's why we enjoy mods created by other people - to have a little variation. Whether it appeals to us or not is irrelevant, we may still want to try it because of what we've seen in screenshots. But some of us (as players) DO like to have very tight control over our virtual worlds and there's nothing wrong with that. The whole intent of this feature, from my perspective, is not much different from disabling jumping/crouching/freelook - it's more of a guard rail to say "hey, you're not supposed to do this" but the engine is in your hands so you can override the engine to do it anyway.

[RiboNucleic Asshat]

That's why I say an override should be allowed, though. If not being able to save in a mod you still want to play annoys you, just turn it off in the settings! If the mod does some tomfoolery that makes it impossible to override, just... edit the mod.

There are already mods that intentionally break themselves when loaded with Brutal Doom. Any hypothetical person who is so petty that they lock you out of saving in every way possible probably isn't making the best mods anyway, let's be honest here. The only reason a feature should be declined on the basis that "someone might do something rude" is when it's an actual security issue that can harm their computer.

Though, I guess I realized that I proved to myself what can of worms would be opened by continuing to argue in this thread. I suppose I'll stop now, though I'm not sure if I've expressed my point properly. That's not a generalization I meant to make but I can see how it could be read that way; I'll use other games as an example: If someone hates losing progress and starting over, they probably wouldn't enjoy a roguelike, no? I just mean that if a mod or game is based entirely upon something that annoys someone, I feel that they wouldn't be very attracted to it anyway.

[Xaser]

I wonder if there could be a message added for when trying to save in a mod where the MAPINFO says that saving should not be allowed? i.e. The setting is off by default, so the user can still save, but when they do, a message could pop up saying something like "this mod discourages user saves, do you still wish to save?" Then there could be three settings: 1: let the mod decide, 2: off but with messages [default], 3: unconditionally off.

Now that's not a bad idea -- it's a lot like the opt-out-cvar proposal, but with a prompt to the user the first time they encounter the situation. I imagine such a dialog would have "Yes", "Yes (don't ask me again)", "No", and "No (don't ask me again)" as options, so the user can set the flag right there and never have to dig through the console.

[Rachael]

My goal in this thread is to find a compromise that makes everyone happy. The mere fact that this issue keeps coming up means that there's something clearly wrong with the status quo - and I am sorry but that's not a good sign, to me. I actually have an interest in solving problems here, not blindly shutting people up so that they can cause me problems later.

And to say that people who are so argumentive deserve to have the engine taken away from them is - no offense - incredibly petty. Life is about a little give and take, and the truth about this feature is that unless you specifically enable it - nothing changes on your end. You wouldn't even know it existed unless you specifically went and looked for it.

Arguably that makes such a feature useless - well, I would say, no it doesn't. Again, that goes with the guard rail analogy, again. It's perfectly fine to say "don't save at these points". It's not fine to say "you flat out can't save."

Like I said - I am in favor of this implementation, if at least it gives both sides a little bit of what they want. Though to be quite frank, the "I must always have my saves available" side comes out as the clear winner here, even in this implementation. And I am sorry - but there is NO CONSIDERABLE WAY that I would support blocking saves unconditionally from a mod, itself. I made myself clear in the other thread about that issue, and I have not changed on that stance.

[dpJudas]

If such a feature did appear, being off by default is the only way I would want to see it done - I understand people's reservation saying that makes it absolutely useless. However, as Graf said, saving is part of the user experience. So I feel that the user should be able to opt into such a feature, rather than opt out. I wonder if there could be a message added for when trying to save in a mod where the MAPINFO says that saving should not be allowed? i.e. The setting is off by default, so the user can still save, but when they do, a message could pop up saying something like "this mod discourages user saves, do you still wish to save?" Then there could be three settings: 1: let the mod decide, 2: off but with messages [default], 3: unconditionally off.

This won't really solve the fundamental problem. In the larger indie market, GZDoom as an engine has some advantages newer more complex engines often do not: simplicity. For such games there may be cut scenes or other things that they feel should behave differently from the rather basic Doom model. What is a perfectly normal save model for Doom can be considered cheating in different genres. Asking if you really want to save anyway is like if I try switch to a weapon that I don't have yet and Doom then asking "you don't have the shotgun, do you want to switch anyway?"

IMO this feature basically boils down to how much baseline GZDoom should care. Graf already explicitly said he thinks it is out of scope for GZDoom itself (correct me if I'm wrong, that's how I read it). Which only really leaves two logical conclusions: either this feature is completely rejected, or it is allowed with the explicit purpose of reducing merge conflicts of downstream projects.

I guess we'll just have to see what Graf decides to do here.

[RiboNucleic Asshat]

I actually agree 100% with what Enjay and Xaser are saying, now. I don't know why, but I hadn't considered the possibility of setting it as a choice with a message.