Is GZQuake possible?

[Enjay]

I think many of us would like a Quake port with GZdoom's input handling and video output, but the reality is, it's not going to happen. You've already heard from some of the people who really know the GZDoom engine inside out (not least of which is Graf Zahl himself).

Wishing it would happen, and restating those wishes over and over is not going to make it any more possible or likely.

Also, as Nash said, the Quake source port situation isn't as dire as you say it is.

[camper]

You should know one thing. I miss the old Quake mods, because they have that something that makes them special and that the current mods don't have, because mods like Air Quake, Kick Flip, Quake Rally, Galactix and a Diablo style mod whose name I don't remember change the gameplay completely and it seems that you are playing another game that is not Quake. And that's why I want there to be a GZQuake to bring back those kinds of mods. In fact I'm going to put a series of videos uploaded by Marv's F*cking Tomb where he shows several of these mods that I mention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U49rq9MZfx0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k929d3pc-pQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVSsToTYjDQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYB1OFaAK4Y

You might be interested in the Xash3D engine
https://www.moddb.com/engines/xash3d-en ... st-release

[phantombeta]

You should know one thing. I miss the old Quake mods, because they have that something that makes them special and that the current mods don't have, because mods like Air Quake, Kick Flip, Quake Rally, Galactix and a Diablo style mod whose name I don't remember change the gameplay completely and it seems that you are playing another game that is not Quake. And that's why I want there to be a GZQuake to bring back those kinds of mods. In fact I'm going to put a series of videos uploaded by Marv's F*cking Tomb where he shows several of these mods that I mention.
[snip]

A "GZQuake" existing won't bring those mods back. It has nothing to do with Quakespasm, it can play those mods you mentioned just fine.
The reason people aren't making many of those mods anymore is because they're not interested, plain and simple. The way Quake modding works means big mods that change gameplay generally need custom maps (so you need people who want to mod and map), and combining mods isn't a thing due to the way Quake modding works. (A huge amount of maps have their own code changes to add features, and those would conflict with other mods!)
Tacking on GZDoom's shared backend code wouldn't change this in any way, this is an inherent issue to how Quake modding functions. Fixing this isn't feasible and pretty much would imply breaking compatibility with existing mods and maps not made for such a theoretical port.

[JPC]

You should know one thing. I miss the old Quake mods, because they have that something that makes them special and that the current mods don't have, because mods like Air Quake, Kick Flip, Quake Rally, Galactix and a Diablo style mod whose name I don't remember change the gameplay completely and it seems that you are playing another game that is not Quake. And that's why I want there to be a GZQuake to bring back those kinds of mods. In fact I'm going to put a series of videos uploaded by Marv's F*cking Tomb where he shows several of these mods that I mention.
[snip]

A "GZQuake" existing won't bring those mods back. It has nothing to do with Quakespasm, it can play those mods you mentioned just fine.
The reason people aren't making many of those mods anymore is because they're not interested, plain and simple. The way Quake modding works means big mods that change gameplay generally need custom maps (so you need people who want to mod and map), and combining mods isn't a thing due to the way Quake modding works. (A huge amount of maps have their own code changes to add features, and those would conflict with other mods!)
Tacking on GZDoom's shared backend code wouldn't change this in any way, this is an inherent issue to how Quake modding functions. Fixing this isn't feasible and pretty much would imply breaking compatibility with existing mods and maps not made for such a theoretical port.

I think this can be solved with the creation of a format called UQMF (Universal Quake Map Format). So that there are no conflicts with other mods on maps with code changes. Besides this hypothetical UQMF could be compatible with most Quake source ports, including this hypothetical GZQuake.

[SanyaWaffles]

I think you have a misunderstanding of how GZDoom's internals work and how Quake's internals work. People have explained how both ecosystems work to you (mainly GZDoom's scripting language is modular, while QuakeC mods tend to not stack at all) and mappacks are usually written with their own QuakeC mods in mind, as I understand it.

Similar I think it is with Raze. It's essentially four-to-five codebases unified with the GZDoom rendering and VM backend. For example, at the moment, Duke 3D mods are not universal with Blood mods for Raze (or other Build engine games).

It's more than the mapping formats with these things.

[Nash]

I think this can be solved with the creation of a format called UQMF (Universal Quake Map Format). So that there are no conflicts with other mods on maps with code changes. Besides this hypothetical UQMF could be compatible with most Quake source ports, including this hypothetical GZQuake.

That is not at all how the Quake engine works. You're misunderstanding things in the same way someone would say, "I can use a coffee machine to make a chicken sandwich".

-----

The Quake mapping community (the Quake mapping community; where all THE content creators are) also seem to be unanimously not in dire need of new formats, new engines or anything like that. There are some engine-related feature wishlists here and there, sure, but nothing like what is being proposed in this thread.

They're fine there. If anything, it's those creators (and also engine devs) that you need to convince; not us here lol.

EDIT:

Reading that first post in this thread; honestly the engine that best suits the description, to be quite frank, is FTEQW. It has jokingly been described as "the GZDoom of Quake engines" sometimes by some community members.

[JPC]

I tried FTEQW and had problems running Quake remaster and its Mission Packs. That's why there should be a GZQuake for better compatibility with the Quake remaster and even be able to create a kind of Wadsmoosh for Quake that brings together the base game and its official addons in a single package and these are selected as if they were episodes of Doom.

[Rachael]

I really believe that everyone appreciates your passion and love for this idea and for the associated projects; however I think you should slow down and take a breath of fresh air. You're putting the cart before the horse and even without even realizing what's in the cart.

[Enjay]

That's why there should be a GZQuake for better compatibility with the Quake remaster and even be able to create a kind of Wadsmoosh for Quake that brings together the base game and its official addons in a single package and these are selected as if they were episodes of Doom.

I don't think you are listening. You've been told several times - by people who really know what they are talking about - why that can't and won't happen. Yet you keep on saying that it should happen.

It couldn't be clearer: the people who would be the ones to make it happen have said it won't. It may seem like a great idea to you, but it's not happening.

Every time someone explains why it won't happen, you come back with a comment that isn't much more than "yeah, but it should though".

It doesn't matter what you wish, what you feel should happen etc. If the people who know what they are talking about, and who would be the ones to do it if it could be done say no, then it's no.

You asked your question. You got your answer.

Feel free to keep discussing alternatives and the pros and cons of other engines but if you keep just coming back and saying that GZQuake should happen, you are adding nothing to the discussion and I will lock the thread.

[edit] Plus what Rachael said.[/edit]

[Rachael]

I can tell you this - if GZQuake ever were to happen then QuakeC as wholesale would be gutted and removed. That right there would remove compatibility with 99% of mods that change any gameplay whatsoever in the game. You can't have QuakeC and ZScript coexisting inside the same port peacefully, much less one that would be needed in order to do stacking compatibility as you so much want.

Even if we didn't do that, we'd have to emulate the x86 code from the idtech3 gameplay .dll's and from the UI .dll's, this would slow things down considerably. And if we went that route we still couldn't implement ZScript-side stuff.

Basically, Quake's own modding system is its own worst enemy for something like this to be viable or even to happen.

The games based on idtech3 that I know of are goldsrc(Half-Life 1), Hexen 2, Heretic 2 (i think?), Quake 1 and Quake 2.

[phantombeta]

and even be able to create a kind of Wadsmoosh for Quake that brings together the base game and its official addons in a single package and these are selected as if they were episodes of Doom.

So play using the Quake remaster? It already does that.

The games based on idtech3 that I know of are goldsrc(Half-Life 1), Hexen 2, Heretic 2 (i think?), Quake 1 and Quake 2.

id Tech 2. 3 was Q3A (arguably Quake 1 was "id Tech 1". id never put up an "id Tech 1" for licensing anywhere, and Doom's engine wasn't publicly advertised for licensing like id Tech 2 was. And it makes far more sense to consider Quake 1 as the first iteration)

Goldsrc is pretty far removed from Quake, so it'd be quite a lot of work for not that much benefit. It's also not open-source, and works through DLLs for game code... And HL1 modders tends to modify these even more than Q1 modders do, so that's a non-starter.
And also, Xash3D exists.

He also doesn't seem to realize how much effort it takes to do something like that. Raze works because the Build core is pretty similar between games, but the rest of the code is more akin to something like Delta Touch than it is to GZDoom.
GZDoom is the odd one out here, because the games are EXTREMELY similar internally and all extremely hard-coded. There's no significant conflict between implementations so all the features can either be added to all games (e.g., Hexen's mapping format, the action specials, Strife's Stamina and Accuracy features, etc.), enabled through flags, or compartmentalized through different classes.
This already isn't the case for the Build games (completely different game implementations), and much less for something like Quake. And that's even without getting into Quake 2 and the games made on its engine.

"GZQuake" is a pipedream and could never work like OP wants it to.

[JPC]

I can tell you this - if GZQuake ever were to happen then QuakeC as wholesale would be gutted and removed. That right there would remove compatibility with 99% of mods that change any gameplay whatsoever in the game. You can't have QuakeC and ZScript coexisting inside the same port peacefully, much less one that would be needed in order to do stacking compatibility as you so much want.

Even if we didn't do that, we'd have to emulate the x86 code from the idtech3 gameplay .dll's and from the UI .dll's, this would slow things down considerably. And if we went that route we still couldn't implement ZScript-side stuff.

Basically, Quake's own modding system is its own worst enemy for something like this to be viable or even to happen.

The games based on idtech3 that I know of are goldsrc(Half-Life 1), Hexen 2, Heretic 2 (i think?), Quake 1 and Quake 2.

So you can't create a compatibility layer yet? Well GZDoom has a compatibility layer for Boom based mods.

[SanyaWaffles]

Forgive me for being candid, we've explained this many times to you, and you keep insisting it can be done 'just by adding a compatibility layer' or 'a new map format'.

It's the equivilent of "just buy a new one" in game engine talk.



It seems you aren't really listening at how much work there is to be done to make this happen, by people who have no time on making it happen... if it's even feasible to begin with (which it sounds vastly difficult to do at best).

This is bordering on obsessive and to me, a bit creepy and pushy to say the least.

[Caligari87]

Yeah I think this thread has run its course.

Technically, it could theoretically be possible with lots of work and breaking everything that existing engines rely on. In real life, it's not likely to ever happen and there's plenty of other options to use. Please listen to people when they try to explain this.