The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Discuss anything ZDoom-related that doesn't fall into one of the other categories.
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Rachael
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Rachael »

Yeah, it looks like I can't easily implement left-side profiles in this style set. I just grabbed it because I was in a bit of a hurry and I wanted to have something usable quickly. The thing I don't like about Artodia's styles is he overcomplicates them and they break easily between phpBB versions.

The price you pay for easily being able to set your own colors with no hassle.

I feel confident enough in this one to leave it though. So if anyone else wants to use it, go ahead. This is the source here: link
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Nash
 
 
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Nash »

^ Looks nice to me! :D

EDIT: Using ZDoom blue right now. It's definitely friendly to my eyes. :D

Only 2 things:

1) The ZDoom logo at the top doesn't look too good against the blue bar
2) I'm gonna miss the left side panel, but I understand that's not easy
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Skwirl »

I know I don't have a lot of weight here in the community, let alone any engine-related programming skill, but having only used the Zdoom derivatives as a base for my work in a little over a year, my only real suggestion would be to start a roundtable discussion with all the developer heads on all these zdoom-based sourceports, towards unifying everything these sourceports have to offer, into one ultra-capable, all-purpose, no-bs, maybe even totally overhauled, system.

The way I see it, Zdoom was designed on a pre-1999 codebase, and ever since then had to stay that way. As I learned it, it wasn't meant to make games on, but to keep the game itself, and mods for the same game alive, 20 years later. This is noble. But it brought up what I believe may be an issue: age, and bloat.

To get GL support, it had to be forked. To get multiplayer support, it had to be forked. To have all the licenses removed so it can be applicable for commercial use, it had to be forked. Other sourceports use even older versions of it entirely. Now we have a whole bunch of sourceports that have different features so you would have to swap between one and another.

To remedy this, I say consolidate absolutely everything and keep these new features focused to make the same system better... If you want to take it to an unnecessary but damn useful extreme, consider rewriting the entire codebase like OpenRA did. The entire thing was done from the ground up in C# and uses absolutely none of the original code. Download the content because it's free, and you are up and running with a whole slew of new and old features from the original game. This would be great, but I realize how insanely large a project this would be. Still, it makes for a continually-updating highly-moddable platform.

I also highly support purging all of the non-libre materials. Both GLOOME and GZdoom-GPL have proven that the game can still run and beautifully without that code. In the new age of FOSS, it's silly to hold on to the 1997 DSL when people are making completely out-of-this-world mod projects that aren't even remotely similar to the Doom experience and could probably be great commercial titles.

Of course without a doubt, keep everything that makes modding fun and possible, and upgrade that as it goes. GZdoom gives us GL support, QZdoom gives truecolor, Zscript is on the way soon, and who knows, maybe either make ACS way more flexible or use another language entirely in its place so you can do things you normally can't in ACS (ie: multi-value parameters).

Finally, slap in the multiplayer code bases of both Zandronum and ZDoom. One offers having a lot of players, one offers better network logic/speed, as I understand it. I would definitely say make it so it's entirely inside runtime, so you don't have to rely on launcher settings or scripted batch files to do something as straightforward as setting up lobbies or whatnot.

tl;dr - start fresh and unify what has been proven
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Kinsie
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Kinsie »

"Hey guys, why don't you just completely rewrite nearly two decades of code from multiple often-contradictory forks from scratch while maintaining compatibility with over a decade of mods? I mean, it's so obvious!

...

What? No, of course I won't be contributing. I'm the ideas guy!"
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Skwirl »

Kinsie wrote:"Hey guys, why don't you just completely rewrite nearly two decades of code from multiple often-contradictory forks from scratch while maintaining compatibility with over a decade of mods? I mean, it's so obvious!

...

What? No, of course I won't be contributing. I'm the ideas guy!"
But I'd love to contribute. Those would be the absolute first things I'd jump on if I could.

Except maybe the mod compatibility thing. Now that it's not being developed anymore, everything here on in can be turning-point.
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Graf Zahl
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Graf Zahl »

The new color theme is mostly fine. A few suggestions:

The administrator red and developer purple for the user names really clash badly with the background. Please change that color, if possible.
And of course this [censored word] 'User info at the right' needs to be resolved. I still wonder what the morons at phpBB were thinking.
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Nash »

While Kinsie could afford to be nicer in his post (something I suspect would require all planets to align ;)), he's right.

ZDoom is a DOOM engine first. The ability to make new games is just an added bonus (thanks to Hexen, ACS, and DECORATE, in that order).

No one will go out of their way to rewrite ZDoom from scratch just to make things convenient for a few people.

The source code is always open and you're free to modify it to your heart's content (what some people are actually doing right now as we speak).

If all else fails, there's Unreal Engine 4... or Unity...
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Graf Zahl
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Graf Zahl »

Skwirl wrote:I know I don't have a lot of weight here in the community, let alone any engine-related programming skill, but having only used the Zdoom derivatives as a base for my work in a little over a year, my only real suggestion would be to start a roundtable discussion with all the developer heads on all these zdoom-based sourceports, towards unifying everything these sourceports have to offer, into one ultra-capable, all-purpose, no-bs, maybe even totally overhauled, system.
Sorry, that won't happen, some explanations below.
The way I see it, Zdoom was designed on a pre-1999 codebase, and ever since then had to stay that way. As I learned it, it wasn't meant to make games on, but to keep the game itself, and mods for the same game alive, 20 years later. This is noble. But it brought up what I believe may be an issue: age, and bloat.
Changing this will change the soul of the game. So, clearly no. All that old code is absolutely necessary to play Doom the way it was designed.
To get GL support, it had to be forked.
No, it had to be forked because I was unwilling to deal with a release schedule that was decided by random decisions and because I wanted to have control over my own releases.
To get multiplayer support, it had to be forked.
And the reasons for that are still valid. A multiplayer-centered port needs an entirely different development strategy that will always be at odds with the mainline so it's best to be kept separate.
To have all the licenses removed so it can be applicable for commercial use, it had to be forked.
It had to be forked because the code base needed to be compromised to change the license. And to allow something completely free of potential issues it also had to change some of the base resources in gzdoom.pk3 which we are unwilling to do for the base engine.
Other sourceports use even older versions of it entirely. Now we have a whole bunch of sourceports that have different features so you would have to swap between one and another.
So? What does that have to do with ZDoom?
To remedy this, I say consolidate absolutely everything and keep these new features focused to make the same system better...
... and destroy what most people use the engine for. I have absolutely no interest in making an engine that deviates too much from the original game.

If you want to take it to an unnecessary but damn useful extreme, consider rewriting the entire codebase like OpenRA did. The entire thing was done from the ground up in C# and uses absolutely none of the original code. Download the content because it's free, and you are up and running with a whole slew of new and old features from the original game. This would be great, but I realize how insanely large a project this would be. Still, it makes for a continually-updating highly-moddable platform.
Good luck finding people who would undertake such a thing. And it wouldn't really solve anything. The old code needs to remain because it's what makes Doom. It may be translated into another language but the bad decisions that cause all the quirks cannot be removed without destroying everything.
I also highly support purging all of the non-libre materials. Both GLOOME and GZdoom-GPL have proven that the game can still run and beautifully without that code. In the new age of FOSS, it's silly to hold on to the 1997 DSL when people are making completely out-of-this-world mod projects that aren't even remotely similar to the Doom experience and could probably be great commercial titles.
Of the 3 things that still pose a problem:

- FMod may be refactored into a plugin, this is certainly something I'll investigate, now that Randi is no longer calling the shots.
- the OPL player may need to be replaced, but this will require some investigation because I do not know much about MIDI programming.
- some resources in gzdoom.pk3 will have to be replaced - and this is where it gets problematic. I am entirely unwilling to do this because some of these are essential for making GZDoom look and feel right - like the font being used for level names.

So, I think the engine can be GPL'ed, but the whole package would have to be split up, so that there's one version for playing Doom et.al and another one for making free games.
Finally, slap in the multiplayer code bases of both Zandronum and ZDoom. One offers having a lot of players, one offers better network logic/speed, as I understand it. I would definitely say make it so it's entirely inside runtime, so you don't have to rely on launcher settings or scripted batch files to do something as straightforward as setting up lobbies or whatnot.
[/quote][/quote]

This will most definitely never happen.
Accensus
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Accensus »

The "View Your Posts" is missing. That's the button I apprecited the most, lol. Can we have it back?
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Tormentor667 »

I need that as well :)
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Accensus »

Also, notice the vertical orange line. Also there on Messages.
Image

I like the new style, though! Gonna take me some time to get used to it, but great job nevertheless!
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Kinsie »

Yeah, this new skin... I appreciate the gesture, but I can't really say that I like the bright orange. It kind of breaks from the blueness of the rest of the scheme in a blunt way.

No real biggie, though - I'll just cling bitterly to my Prosilver Brown until I have to be dragged away from it, kicking and screaming. :V
Accensus
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Accensus »

I'll try my hand at a theme. Maybe have a theme contest, lol.
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by Accensus »

Faded blue theme.

Will try to make another one later today cause I have to run soon.
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Re: The future of ZDoom, GZDoom, and QZDoom, and this site.

Post by TechnoDoomed1 »

Kinsie wrote:No real biggie, though - I'll just cling bitterly to my Prosilver Brown until I have to be dragged away from it, kicking and screaming. :V
Thank you. :wink:

I'm not alone in there, I see. Prosilver brown is the most pleasing to my eyes, and I've grown used to it over the years I've been visiting this forum. Nothing bad in having a soft but bright color scheme. To be honest, I always found the colors on Doomworld and DRD to be depressing.
Last edited by TechnoDoomed1 on Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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