4.14.2: Loading a mod folder only loads contained .wad files

[Ihavequestions]

I've noticed in the current stable version that specifying a mod folder via -file or Autoload path will load the contained .wad files but ignore any .pk3 or other files. The error occurs on both Linux and Windows.

[Rachael]

The game loads the folder as if it were a .pk3 file, not as if it were supposed to load all the files contained within. So the same rules apply. You can't nest pk3 files, and thus you can't nest them in a folder in this case either.

A workaround is to simply name them all .wad (GZDoom only seems to care about the extension in this case), load each file separately, or merge the contents of the files together. In any case, this isn't going to change.

[Ihavequestions]

In any case, this isn't going to change.

Huh? And why not?
And BTW, I remember this used to work in earlier versions, or am I wrong here?

[Rachael]

Because GZDoom doesn't know that a folder is supposed to be a loose collection of mods, also this has been argued to death with Graf and he's [No]'d it every time that I can recall.

GZDoom treats the folder as a mod itself, so just throwing archives at it doesn't work because it thinks you're loading a single mod that happens to have .wad files nested in.

And the only reason the .wad file thing works is to allow you to download an /idgames zip file and run it directly without unzipping it.

[Ihavequestions]

Well, okay. Thanks for the explanation.