Advice on project's difficulty

[ERROR_Bad_User]

Hi,

A while back I picked up a book called DOOM GAME EDITOR by Joe Pantuso, hoping to create some fun new things using one of my favorite classic games. I got excited about the idea proposed in the book of making a "new game" out of DOOM--which most people would call a source port. However, the book doesn't really tell you how this is done in detail.

I'm wondering how difficult you guys would consider making a source port to be. I want to change the weapons, enemies, sounds, music, and levels--but potentially keeping the same wall textures. I have some programming experience, but none in C++. I have recently been looking for a COMMENTED copy of the doom source.

Which brings me to another of my questions--if I were to make the port, would I want to use the latest version of the old engine, or should I use an updated engine? I like the pixelated crappiness of the old engine, and I somewhat dislike polygon rendering, plus i figure it would probably be harder to work with. I'm not sure if the old engine works on most computers nowadays. (Specifically, my computer will run the old doom just fine, as long as i turn off the sound. Otherwise, it lags. I think it's an unrelated soundcard conflict, but figured I'd run it by you guys.)

So, if any of the experts in source ports could either-- A.) offer their encouragement or B.) frag my dreams into oblivion-- I'd greatly appreciate the info. I need to know what I'm potentially getting into.

--Daniel

[FATAL]

Instead of making your own source port, which would be quite a feat, you should make a mod for some of the existing source ports. jdoom, legacy and zdoom, for instance, along with many other ports, support such mods, I believe.

You should familiarize yourself with one of these source ports, and make a mod for it. Making your own source port would be a bit of waste.

[ace]

Most ports--while they do change many aspects--do not make Doom a "new game", in a sense. Some focus on making doom look pretty (Doomsday, Risen3D), some are about adding functionality in the way of arcitechture and add scripting (ZDoom, Legacy), some focus on Deathmatch enhancement (Skulltag), and some are just... out... there (Vavoom)...

Total conversions, on the other hand, which use new graphics, story, weapons, enemies, etc. can be for any port of any kind, or even the original Doom(2) executable. Making a source port to make a TC would be a complete waste of time, in my opinion. Mapping for something like Legacy, which allows scripted events, 3D floors and water, corona/dynamic lighting effects, or ZDoom, which allows slopes, scripting, water, custom monsters/weapons, etc. would be great for making a TC. Or other ports if you want, too (perhaps make custom models and hi-res textures for a jDoom TC for example).

Besides, I would imagine making a source port just for this is a bad idea that is very time consuming. I personally have no experience with programming (unless you count ZDoom's ACS, which is based off of C programming), but I imagine this would be quite a feat. For this kind of thing you would have to make menus, console commands, levels, graphics and an engine for which these graphics are produced (unless you stick with the originals), create the AI for monsters/bots (unless you stick with the original AI (not on bots of course)) etc, then you have to work out all the bugs, make updates, and so on.

In other words, ports are for evolving the Doom engine to make it LIKE a new game. It's the mods for the ports that makes it feel like a new game.

[FATAL]

Alien dimension total conversion for jdoom must be most significant thing I've played on any doom port so far. It has clips, recoil, crouch and many other kinds of things. Wonderful, bloody wonderful.

[ERROR_Bad_User]

Well, I never said I wanted to make a "source port" necessarily, because I know that would mean altering (or completely rewriting) the source code so it will run on a different system. While the compatibility of the original game is a concern of mine, I know my limitations. I wouldn't be able to port the code.

Now, you've mentioned that there are some source ports out there that have successfully made the game compatible with OS's beyond Windows 95, and I'll probably use one of these to alter and build upon--since I use Windows XP. It sounds intriguing that some of the ports (I gathered from what you wrote) allow a person to modify the enemies, etc. relatively easily (a GUI, I pray?). The only stipulation I have is that I want the graphics to look like the old game.

Which (if any) of the new source ports have graphics and gameplay which are completely faithful to the old version of Doom?

p.s. I don't care about deathmatch updates at all, and updated features like mouselook and jumping are unimportant too. I wanna make my mod play just like Doom--easy, fast, uncomplicated; and be a totally new story. My focus is on the story, levels, weapons, enemies, sounds, and music; and won't strive to make any innovations on the old gameplay. I'd actually prefer a source port that didn't do anything except update the game's compatibility with windows.

[Danimetal]

Hmmm... ZDoom allows you to extend a lot of things and change them beyond what Doom was. In my opinion, it doesn´t quite feel like Doom like other ports, but still has a Software renderer and a nice Wikipedia where a lot of knowledge has been gathered.

[rustyslacker]

Which (if any) of the new source ports have graphics and gameplay which are completely faithful to the old version of Doom?

Chocolate Doom adds only compatibility with Windows XP. No new graphics or features.

PrBoom adds improved graphics and tweakable stuffage, but is pretty close to doom.exe.

The rest of the ports have tons of graphical enhancements and gameplay tweaks. If you want faithful gameplay, go more toward Legacy, prBoom, or Chocolate Doom. Stay away from jDoom, though.

[ERROR_Bad_User]

Thanks guys! If and when I start working on my mod I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.

[ace]

If you ask me, what you are trying to acheive sounds very possible to be created as just a plain old Doom(2).exe level that runs on any port (or for that matter a Boom level). Considering you aren't planning on changing much it seems to be the way to go, in my opinion.

[rustyslacker]

If you're new to the source port game, I reccomend that you make this project for Doom(2).exe or wait a while until you pick out a port that you really like.

But it seems to me that you want to use Chocolate Doom. (http://chocolate-doom.org)

[Aliotroph?]

Man, that thing goes a bit too far with the vanilla stuff. It doesn't even up the visplane limit! When I think of vanilla I typically don't go older than BooM. All the stuff it adds work well with the classic feel of DooM.

[iori]

Yeah it was intended to mimic doom2.exe in (nearly)every aspect, even the limits.