Zandronum bundled data resource/pk3

[Hypnotoad]

Wasn't there a thread started (cannot find it anywhere now) or some lengthy irc discussion some time ago about the idea of developing a decent new resource archive akin to skulltag_data to be bundled with Zandronum, only this time without any legal ambiguities or compatibility issues?

If the thread was just a figment of my imagination then yeah, we should totally do it. Skulltag_data was actually very useful in stopping your wad folder from exploding; by providing ample textures such that you do not have to keep bloating your wads if you wanted anything other than stock doom textures. A community project aimed at developing a decent set of textures with full permission from the authors, new monsters, new weapons, and maybe even new maps all taking advantage of Zandronum's features would probably be a good idea.

[infurnus]

I think if we were to do this, it would be best to have compatibility with FreeDoom or FreeDM.
I remember there were a few projects proposed before for this, but their resources were too specific to the projects and couldn't be easily reused in other maps.

It takes a lot of effort to create original resources that can easily be reused elsewhere, though I think we should make an effort to change the old tricks that were abundant in the days of Skulltag. One suggestion I have for that, is that instead of editing textures from Doom or Doom 2 themselves to create new or color variant textures, edit the FreeDoom versions instead, by doing that you're both giving yourself more freedom and complying with the legal license of FreeDoom.

Just thought I'd throw this out before the old argument of "but you HAVE to rip/steal textures! there's NO OTHER WAY!" that I've seen on and off over the years comes back from the dead.

[Blzut3]

For Zandronum 2.0 I would like to collect some bundled resource packs. It will not be auto loaded like skulltag_data.pk3 was nor will it be a single file, instead mod authors will be able to load included packs through GAMEINFO.

Ideally this will be supplemented with a tool for synchronizing with an official repository (tentatively named wad-get :P) based upon Wadseeker. But we'll see how far that goes.

[Hypnotoad]

That is a good idea, but there is something to be said for simply loading up Zandronum and having a bunch of cool new stuff being present right off the bat without having to manually load additional packages.

[infurnus]

That is a good idea, but there is something to be said for simply loading up Zandronum and having a bunch of cool new stuff being present right off the bat without having to manually load additional packages.

I don't think we're going to have things autoload, for a number of reasons.

Instead of autoloading it on start, maybe it could be done dynamically from the "Multiplayer" menu. I've heard talks of changing or otherwise updating the Multiplayer area for Zandronum (it hasn't been touched since ST) on the tracker.

This is probably more likely to happen than making it load on startup every time. It would obviously also be loaded when connecting to servers needing it.

[Ænima]

I like Blzut's GAMEINFO proposal, whereas there can be a few "core" resource packs, and modders can tell their mods to pull a specific pack as necessary. (SST already does this with skulltag_actors and skulltag_data via GAMEINFO.)