Rise Of The Wool Ball :3 (v1.3 + Soundtrack)

[NightFright]

Really looking forward to this. Adding floor and ceiling/sky textures is already such a considerable improvement, it really feels like the transition from Wolf3D to ROTT (which was probably intended).

If you ever plan for another sequel (to get a trilogy), I suggest that Scott and Rebecca BOTH get abducted this time and you play a third (new) character that comes after them for the rescue. Would be a consequent and kinda logical plot development... ^^

[RichterBelmont12]

I am pretty certain that I will release version 1.1 of the game tomorrow.
My testers did a great job at finding all kinds of little quirks and bugs (a few of them are not fully finished with it, but they are still doing an awesome job at finding stuff), and I feel a little more comfortable with releasing it.

Really now? Well I've found my first Doom mod for Doom-December 2017 then. Now to find the second one...

[Wiw]

Coming this Friday!? Tomorrow, you mean? That was quick!

[MSPaintR0cks]

Aw man, I am so nervous about this ^^"
So here it is, just released v1.1! (smaller changes may still come in later versions)
I hope I can sweeten your weekend a little with this...

Clicke here! v1.1
The game runs with a standalone executable this time, for... well, technical reasons. Just launch the ROTWB.exe and you should be fine.

Also, on a side note...

If you enjoyed my work so far and want to help a wannabe game developer (me) survive while he is working on his next projects, feel free to donate a tinyyyy amount to my PayPal. Oh that would so make my day. ^^"

[FlappySack]

The mechanics introduced in the first level alone give the game more of a 3D platformer feel, which I am very excited about. This is looking very good already!

[Ed the Bat]

The game runs with a standalone executable this time, for... well, technical reasons.

Is it still compatible with gzdoom.exe, though?

[MSPaintR0cks]

The mechanics introduced in the first level alone give the game more of a 3D platformer feel, which I am very excited about. This is looking very good already!

Thanks Thats exactly what I wanted to go for!

Is it still compatible with gzdoom.exe, though?

Sadly, no. The game is actually pretty broken in newer versions of GzDoom or even QDoom, for reasons I cannot explain (actor movers and interpolation lines stop working randomly for example). So the best thing is to launch the thing with the given executable... its not cool, but hey, at least now it looks all fancy with its own icon. ^^

[Ed the Bat]

Sadly, no.

That's... really disappointing. Aside from the obvious inconvenience of having to redo all my user settings for it, this also means it's locked in to whatever bugs and missing features this version had. The timestamp on your executable seems to be February of last year?

Does it not seem like the sensible approach would have been to find out why it's not working in recent builds, and file bug reports if necessary so the developers are aware of the issue?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Awesome! Time for me to start anew...

Joking aside, would it not make more sense for the basic trooper to drop shells and the chaingun trooper bullets instead of the other way around?

[FlappySack]

Can freelook and autosaves be turned on?

Edit: I mean autosaves for each level. I died once and was sent back a few levels to the boss which was a little annoying

[_mental_]

Sadly, no. The game is actually pretty broken in newer versions of GzDoom or even QDoom, for reasons I cannot explain (actor movers and interpolation lines stop working randomly for example). So the best thing is to launch the thing with the given executable... its not cool, but hey, at least now it looks all fancy with its own icon. ^^

I don't really understand what's wrong with you guys. It's not the first time (and even not the second) when particular outdated version of (G)ZDoom is declared exceptional and newer stable builds are marked as broken.
Instead of posting bug reports in order to get help from developers you are limiting your users. What if I don't use Windows? What if this "right" version doesn't work for me?
If something works in previous versions but does not in 3.1.0 then report it. No matter how many problems you encountered report them all. It's better to get duplicate issues reports than to leave bugs without fixes.

[NightFright]

I also think that bundling a mod with binaries is not a good idea, especially if you know that it doesn't work with newer file versions. If something worked in a previous version and doesn't any more, you should report it and wait for a fix BEFORE you release your mod. It's much more convenient for users if they can just load the pk3 with any version of GZDoom they like. I am sure Graf Zahl would take a look if you filed proper reports for all your problems.

[Rachael]

I don't really understand what's wrong with you guys. It's not the first time (and even not the second) when particular outdated version of (G)ZDoom is declared exceptional and newer stable builds are marked as broken.
Instead of posting bug reports in order to get help from developers you are limiting your users. What if I don't use Windows? What if this "right" version doesn't work for me?
If something works in previous versions but does not in 3.1.0 then report it. No matter how many problems you encountered report them all. It's better to get duplicate issues reports than to leave bugs without fixes.

Pretty much this.

Bundling your own executable for the "coolness" of it is fine (like for Steam distributions and stuff), but never make your wad require it. That absolutely unequivocally never will be supported, at the very least for reasons _mental_ already mentioned if not more.

Also, since this is a more recently updated mod, it should be feasible, in addition to this, to simply build the mod itself on the newer versions of GZDoom, no matter how much "better" it worked in the old ones.

[SanyaWaffles]

I love how people are implying that this mod requires this executable. I can run it as a standalone iwad just fine using GZDoom 3.1.0.

MSPaintR0cks says some stuff doesn't work properly in the OpenGL renderer, but I've not found this to be the case in using both my custom builds and the stock dev builds of GZDoom. Perhaps there's reasons he's encountering glitches in the GL/QZDoom renderer, and I do agree he should fix it - but I feel people are not being constructive. Maybe he's using an outdated yet newer than 2.8.1 build of GZDoom.

And no one gave me trouble when my project did similarly releasing a custom executable with it (mainly to get the game up and running with minimal fuss). I feel there's some double standards going on here with his project.

I don't really think there's a problem with releasing binaries. Besides, what's the point of GPLing the source code of GZDoom if we're gonna start gatekeeping who can build binaries and for what purpose.

I know ZDoom is not GPL'd but GZDoom is, but on the other hand no one gave Scuba Steve any trouble when he released Action Doom 2.

I get that ZDoom is obsolete, and while I do agree MSPaintR0cks should try to make his mod compatible with GZDoom, I feel people are being way too hard on him.

[Rachael]

The GPL allows him to do whatever he wants, within the restrictions of the GPL license (as long as he uses versions past 3.0) - sure - but this is more of a community thing. And on that note, if he does use a custom GPL executable, a source release is required alongside it, as not doing so would be a violation of the terms of the GPL license.

No one gave you or Scuba Steve trouble because everything just worked. You didn't *have* to run the included executable - which you don't know the source, you don't know what's compiled into it, etc. This is a community that is very paranoid of executables that come from any random source - and you have to understand, that is with VERY good reason. The Doom community as a whole is no stranger to malware - even from sources we thought we could trust - official sources, even - there have been past examples where people have distributed executables that deleted doom2.wad, DDoS'd the ZDaemon master server, etc. I'm not saying that the author here would do that - I would say, you just can't be too careful in this setting.

Also, even today there still exists malware that attaches itself to an otherwise innocent executable. Not having your system cleaned regularly means that you have the possibility of unknowingly spreading that malware. Some people would really just rather not take that risk. And then there's the people who don't even use Windows - who would rather use native executables than be stuck with an API layer like Wine.