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| Doomworld: Will the merger have DOSDoom's DDF, or will this be replaced by a more general form of scripting? |
| Ty: Don't know. We want to start at a higher design point than that, and work that out as we get into more specific implementation. There will be subteams working on different aspects. I don't think we are thinking of DDF (a definition technique) as being the same as scripting (an action modification technique) anyway. |
| Randy Heit's ZDoom is planning, in its next version, to include full Boom support. It also has or will have other such features as mlook, high resolutions, jumping, limited TCP/IP, and colored lighting. While the Boom source was released for just such a purpose, do you feel that other source ports such as ZDoom, if allowed access to all of your source code, will make the merger either less necessary or less wanted? |
| Not at all.
We welcome this sort of thing, and as you say, that's why we released our
source. We've learned a few things from Randy and others too.
The merger isn't just a matter of taking DOSDoom and BOOM and ramming them at full speed and finding out what results. We're trying to do something quite different, and may in fact not even use much if any DOOM code directly unless it's just the best way to do it. I'm not saying we're starting over, but there are a lot of things in DOOM and even Boom and DOSDoom that are based on the original needs of the DOOM game and not done with expandability and flexibility in mind. |
| When did Ragnarok first begin? |
| About 1923, I think. Seems like it anyway. It's been going on a couple of years, really since Icarus was done. |
| Was the original plan for Ragnarok to make it a complete graphic conversion? |
| Yes, it's always been a complete conversion--all monsters, sounds, music, textures, etc. |
| Was Ragnarok always scheduled to be a Dehacked/source modded TC? |
| We've always been going to do a complete mod, including EXE. Our philosophy on Evilution and Icarus was to not use Dehacked, but Ragnarok is totally different. Besides, nowadays you can either make your own engine or load .DEH/.BEX files at the command line, so it's not the taboo thing it once was. |
| How much of Ragnarok would you say is done? |
| 25% if I were to put a number on it, but that's deceptive because of all the work that has gone into the planning and designing stages so far. Even the palette is different, so it's a pretty complex process, much more than just adding levels or textures. I'm just more pessimistic in my estimates nowadays because of all the extra "invisible" work that goes into a project this size. |
| Ragnarok was, I believe, originally scheduled to be released in 1997. It now is almost certain to be pushed back to 1999. Are you confident that Ragnarok will eventually be released? |
| Yes, in fact recent work has been very encouraging. We hit some dead times and lost our momentum, but we're back now. |
| Is TeamTNT making full use of the Boom engine's capabilities in Ragnarok? |
| And then some. It'll be a Boom mod as well. |
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