Animosity ("Freestrife")

So I got bored yesterday and was thinking about how awesome Freedoom and Blasphemer are, and I thought, "what if there was a 'Freestrife'?" And of course there's plenty of people who have thought of this before, and I'm sure a lot of people would put a "Freehexen" on a higher priority than a "Freestrife", but really, that'll probably be best to do once Blasphemer is done since it's a sequel and all.

Anyways, I thought one big thing people would need to do first is get a base IWAD out of the way, for people to get to work on, so I threw this together. Now, first off, it's still a PWAD, and second, it's still got quite a few things needing to be replaced... but all the maps are now just a simple test map, all of the sprites are a red X, all of the flats are replaced with temporaries, the patches are now silhouettes for the most part, all the logs are replaced, and the midi's are all just Freedoom's D_E1M1. It still needs the sound effects to be replaced, a new pallete/color map/etc, a new DEMO1, (Or something simple to replace it for now, since there is now map for the demo to be in.) the startup graphics need replacing, and it needs to be turned back into an IWAD.

One thing I'd like to answer before going into the possibility of the projct is "why 'Freestrife'"? Well, in comparison to free versions of Doom, Doom II, Heretic, and Hexen, the original Strife is not really available. You can't buy it from the original creators anymore, and in the US at least, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to resell PC games. There's always abandonware sites but that's not technically legal, either... So this'd be a good 'legal' alternative, I suppose.

Now, if people would be interested in starting a "Freestrife", there's some things that would need to be done. First off: it'd probably need a better leader than myself, somebody who'd be able to actually contribute to the project... I mean, I suppose I'd be able to do effects and small stuff but that's about it really. I don't have the best mapping abilities, I can't do textures/flats, etc... And I'm sure there's others who'd be able to lead better than me.

Second, there would need to be a decided theme beforehand for the project, along with at least a basic storyline that isn't ripping off the original's too much. The original has a lot of graphics and objects that are fairly specific to certain events and things from the original... I was thinking that a good overall theme for it could be steampunk. Not only would that blend somewhat well with Strife, but it's something that isn't seen very often in Doom mods, let alone too many games in general.

Third, there'd have to be some set things that'd need to be done first, but that's with every project. I'd think the best order of completing things would be the textures and flats first, then the music and sounds, then the main sprites, then begin putting together the story and making the rest of the sprites and maps and text around that.

Also, it needs a better name than "Freestrife". Just saying.

I think simply throwing something out there for people to work on is a bad idea, and would turn into a bit of a mess. I'd think some kind of design document explaining the art style, plot, weapons, etc would need to be written first. Perhaps Rogue could be a good title?

No, Rogue would not be a good title. People would confuse it with the oldschool dungeon crawl.

"Struggle: Stealing Thor's Thunder" :p

What is the Sigil? That's the ultimate weapon and an important part of the plot. The game mechanisms really emphasize its role and importance (several parts to collect, impressive effects, use health as ammo, only weapon able to damage certain enemies, etc.) so it will have to have an equally central plot in Freestrife's plot.

Target engine: vanilla, Chocolate, limit-removing (vanilla Strife already has some limits pushed away compared to vanilla Doom), more advanced? Currently, the choices for playing Strife are limited to vanilla, Chocolate, Vavoom, and the ZDoom family. (SvStrife is no longer maintained; Doomsday doesn't have a jStrife yet; Eternity is still waiting for the inventory code rewrite and new map format handling code; and of course the other popular ports are Doom-only or Doom+Heretic with no intent on changing that soon.)

Strife mapping is complicated by the fact not many people have bothered to learn how to use Strife's conversation system. Blzut's USDC will probably be helpful, but still.

Also: lots of art is needed for cutscene and convo screens.

Also also: voice acting.

Marnetmar said:

I think simply throwing something out there for people to work on is a bad idea, and would turn into a bit of a mess. I'd think some kind of design document explaining the art style, plot, weapons, etc would need to be written first. Perhaps Rogue could be a good title?

Yes, there needs to be a timeline as to what needs to be done made first, but before that I was hoping someone with better expertise than me would finish making the placeholder IWAD...

Gez said:

What is the Sigil? That's the ultimate weapon and an important part of the plot. The game mechanisms really emphasize its role and importance (several parts to collect, impressive effects, use health as ammo, only weapon able to damage certain enemies, etc.) so it will have to have an equally central plot in Freestrife's plot.

This is a very good point and something that will need to be thought up of within the earliest planning stages.

Target engine: vanilla, Chocolate, limit-removing (vanilla Strife already has some limits pushed away compared to vanilla Doom), more advanced? Currently, the choices for playing Strife are limited to vanilla, Chocolate, Vavoom, and the ZDoom family. (SvStrife is no longer maintained; Doomsday doesn't have a jStrife yet; Eternity is still waiting for the inventory code rewrite and new map format handling code; and of course the other popular ports are Doom-only or Doom+Heretic with no intent on changing that soon.)

I would go with Chocolate, personally. That would give it the widest compatibility range... Vanilla wouldn't work because I'm not sure if there'd be a way to run it vanilla. I could be wrong though.

Strife mapping is complicated by the fact not many people have bothered to learn how to use Strife's conversation system. Blzut's USDC will probably be helpful, but still.

Also: lots of art is needed for cutscene and convo screens.

Also also: voice acting.

Voice acting and cutscenes and convo screens etc. would be done much later into the development... I'd probably put voice acting last, in fact.

TrueDude said:

Yes, there needs to be a timeline as to what needs to be done made first, but before that I was hoping someone with better expertise than me would finish making the placeholder IWAD...

I'm probably completely missing the idea here and looking like a complete idiot, but why create a placeholder IWAD if you don't know what to put in it first?

Marnetmar said:

I'm probably completely missing the idea here and looking like a complete idiot, but why create a placeholder IWAD if you don't know what to put in it first?

It's best to set up now so it doesn't have to be done later on.

Gez said:

Blzut's USDC will probably be helpful, but still.

Going the Chocolate or vanilla way will be a good opportunity to test the USDC utility for bug-free vanilla compatibility.

I suppose this isn't a bad idea, but realistically, would people really contribute? I mean, I like the idea, and am willing to be the maintainer/leader of the IWAD, but I just wonder if people would really bother submitting stuff.

But yeah, aiming for Chocolate/Vanilla is a good idea.

Sodaholic said:

I suppose this isn't a bad idea, but realistically, would people really contribute? I mean, I like the idea, and am willing to be the maintainer/leader of the IWAD, but I just wonder if people would really bother submitting stuff.

But yeah, aiming for Chocolate/Vanilla is a good idea.

Yeah, I think some people would... It'd definitely go slowly, probably. I know I'd try and submit some things if it ever got up and running.

TrueDude said:
You can't buy it from the original creators anymore, and in the US at least, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to resell PC games.

The scumfuck publishers haven't managed this yet, but give them time, I guess...

I've tried looking Strife's publishers up, but I can't even find a website or wikipedia page. Strife was the last game that Velocity ever published though. But since Velocity doesn't exist anymore, and nobody bought the rights to Strife before they went out of business, Strife is kind of stuck in a legal limbo such that It can never be published legally in any medium.


Strife is abandonware and you can download a kind-of (?) legit free copy of the iwad, but it kind of(?) illegal.


EDIT BY MOD: This forum has a strict policy against copyright infringement. Do not link to or request full or leaked versions of games or content, magazine scans, ROMs, commercial software, or copyrighted media (such as music or movies). "Abandonware" is still copyright infringement.

Edit by me: Sorry for posting something I wasn't supposed to.

When Aboslute Order is (eventually) released, you'd be more than welcome to use the levels there as part of the "freestrife" campaign. Note, however, that they are limit removing.

Khorus said:

When Aboslute Order is (eventually) released, you'd be more than welcome to use the levels there as part of the "freestrife" campaign. Note, however, that they are limit removing.

Definitely will need to keep that in mind, those maps look great!

Oops, I posted something that I wasn't supposed to. sorry bout that.

Regardless, this sounds like a really neat project.

TrueDude said:

You can't buy it from the original creators anymore, and in the US at least, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to resell PC games.

Reselling existing copies on the second-hand market is OK (that's how I acquired mine), it's unauthorized republishing that'll get you in trouble.

TrueDude said:

Also, it needs a better name than "Freestrife". Just saying.

Would Cataclysm be a good name for it?

I've begun work on a base IWAD. What exactly do the COPYRITE and SERIAL lumps do?

And excuse me, but what do you intend to replace all those robots into -- other robots? Same goes with the specters.

Cataclysm sounds pretty good for a name.

Sodaholic said:

I've begun work on a base IWAD. What exactly do the COPYRITE and SERIAL lumps do?

Cool! Um, I'm not sure about what they're there for really, other than to show off the copyright.

printz said:

And excuse me, but what do you intend to replace all those robots into -- other robots? Same goes with the specters.

This will depend on the story that's made for the WAD... If it goes withe steampunk theme they would probably be clockwork robots of some kind. The spectres will probably have to be some kind of ghost/spirit/alien thing/whatever since they appear after characters die though.

If you'd like, I'd be willing to make up a kind of design document type thing for this.

Marnetmar said:

If you'd like, I'd be willing to make up a kind of design document type thing for this.

Okay, sounds good.

I personally think that we should go for something very similar, but not quite the same as the source material (like Freedoom and Blasphemer do). I think we should go for a combination of medieval/renaissance and very futuristic cyberpunk.

The missions should be clones of the existing missions in terms of objectives (the level layouts can be whatever one wants).

I dunno yet if I want to take a leadership position in this yet, mainly because I'm concerned about the lack of interest in contributing.

I think the steampunk idea is good. It manages to be unique while maintaining compatibility with the weapon/enemy code.

COPYRITE is never loaded or used in any way by the engine. The SERIAL lump was part of a time-limiting mechanism in a never-publicly-released alpha build (the code to load this lump is still in the released EXE, but is never called into).

Ah, I see. Those lumps' content doesn't really matter then.

I want to clarify the reason I want to have the mission objectives identical (not storywise, gameplayiwse instead) is to maintain compatibility with both the vanilla/chocolate engine, and also manage to support theoretical mods as well.

Sodaholic said:

Ah, I see. Those lumps' content doesn't really matter then.

I want to clarify the reason I want to have the mission objectives identical (not storywise, gameplayiwse instead) is to maintain compatibility with both the vanilla/chocolate engine, and also manage to support theoretical mods as well.

Yeah, this was somewhat assumed that this would be happening, since I'm all for vanilla compatibility... we'll have to find ways to work around it to make it more original at least though.

Paul D said:

EDIT BY MOD: This forum has a strict policy against copyright infringement. Do not link to or request full or leaked versions of games or content, magazine scans, ROMs, commercial software, or copyrighted media (such as music or movies). "Abandonware" is still copyright infringement.

Just what could possibly happen if I infringe on a work whose author entity disappeared? Someone claiming to be the author coming out of the blue and threatening me with legal action?

printz said:

Just what could possibly happen if I infringe on a work whose author entity disappeared? Someone claiming to be the author coming out of the blue and threatening me with legal action?

The FBI sending Predator drones to murder you in your sleep.

printz said:

Just what could possibly happen if I infringe on a work whose author entity disappeared? Someone claiming to be the author coming out of the blue and threatening me with legal action?

See that's the thing. Apparently, just because the copyright holder doesn't legally exist anymore doesn't mean that it isn't illegal to re-publish their work without their unobtainable permission. But I suppose this forum's policy is to obey the law regardless of what people think in order to keep the site's reputation and security in a good way.