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This is a minor release, mostly to enable Odamex to find the iwads that are packaged with the release of DOOM + DOOM II on Steam and GOG. Odamex will find the DOS iwads as well as the modified iwads that include widescreen assets and green cross health pickups. Please note that the widescreen HUD will show up with glitchy textures, but widescreen HUD assets support is already implemented into the next release!

There are some other fixes involving MAPINFO and UMAPINFO, demo playback and voodoo dolls, and the Vanilla Doom scoreboard.

The Odamex 10.6.0 client is fully compatible with 10.0.0, 10.1.0, 10.2.0, 10.3.0, 10.4.0, and 10.5.0 servers, so you can join any 10.x server. We do recommend all server hosts update to 10.6.0 to have the most up-to-date stable release of Odamex for your players to enjoy.

Odamex version 10.4.0 has been released. This is to coincide with QuakeCon 2023, which many of the Odamex team are attending! Say hi!


Odamex 10.4.0 client is compatible with 10.0.0, 10.1.0, 10.2.0, and 10.3.0 servers, so you can join any 10.x server and play. There are some network changes involving conveyor belts though, so server/client discrepancies may vary if your map has conveyor belts. We recommend all servers update to 10.4.0 if possible to avoid this.

Odamex version 10.2.0 has been released. Notable changes include a new invulnerability effect, changes to the monster netcode to reduce frames going out of sync, map lighting being incorrect with some map resets, and lots of quality of life fixes to the Horde gamemode.

Odamex 10.2.0 is fully compatible with 10.0.0 and 10.1.0 servers, so you can join any 10.x server and play with no issues!

Yes, 10.0.0.  At some point in the past decade and a half, Odamex went from a beta, work-in-progress port to a port stable enough to have been used for tournaments, events, and even online leagues. So instead of releasing 0.10.0, we thought it was about time to get rid of that leading "0" in our version number.


There are so many testers, developers, and contributors involved, we cannot possibly thank them all individually. However, we do want to welcome two new members to the Odamex team:

KBlair - introduced MBF21 and DEHEXTRA along with Ch0wW. KBlair has been helping Odamex behind the scenes for years with server hosting, stats, and many other factors.

DeathEgg - namely implemented UMAPINFO, and many improvements to overall MAPINFO.

With this, welcome to the team guys! Thanks for making Odamex 10 as great as it is!

It's not just for looks, as this release is one of the largest in the port's history.  First, Odamex now has a brand-spanking new game mode, the first unique one since the port has been publicly announced.  We've also added support for many new modern extended MBF features such as DEHEXTRA and MBF21. We have added a brand new boot menu that isn't just for selecting IWADs. Our interface has taken its long-overdue first step beyond its Quake 2 inspirations.  Behind the scenes, our server-to client network protocol has undergone a complete rewrite - there is not a single network message left untouched.

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There are a lot of details with this release, but what you need to know is listed below:

New Features
   

• Horde Gamemode
  
  • Odamex now has a horde gamemode, which will be familiar to anyone who has ever played Killing Floor, Halo's Firefight mode, or Unreal Tournament's Invasion gamemode.  This gamemode is new and unique to Odamex, and is not compatible with Invasion maps from Skulltag/Zandronum.
  • Monsters spawn into the map in waves, and it's up to you and a few buddies to continuously thin their ranks until a big boss spawns in.  Beat the boss and you win the wave, reach the wave limit and you win the level.  Sounds easy, but the monsters spawn relentlessly only giving you the occasional breather, and the bosses have special boss properties that make them far more of a threat.
  • There are many ways to play Horde.  Play it in single-player straight from "New Game" or join up with a few friends online.  Play it on UV skill for the intended experience or dial the skill down a few notches if things get a little too hectic.  Online servers can either use either limited or unlimited lives.  There are also numerous variables that can adjust the size of the horde, the length of waves, and more.
  • Alongside Odamex 10.0 we are releasing our Odamex Horde map pack, which is as much an exploration of many different themes and shapes of Horde map as it is a selection of hellspawn-filled tempests.  This map pack also comes with a number of popular custom monsters like Arachnorbs, Stealth Aliens, and Suicide Bombers, with a few WAD-only wave defines to show them off in.
     
  
• A Boot IWAD Selector and IWAD Manager.
  
  • Starting Odamex for the first time now gives you a selection of all IWADs the port has found.  You can select and launch any one you prefer.
  • Is Odamex not finding your WAD files?  The launcher also allows you to manage your waddirs setting allowing you to add, remove, or move around directories that will be searched for WAD files.
  • The Boot window is supported on Windows, macOS and Linux.
     
  
• Kill Feed Obituaries
  
  • Odamex now has a brand-spanking new obituary feed in the top right hand corner of the screen.
  • This feed is much like the ones you might find in modern FPS games - instead of listing a textual obituary, the means of death is representated with player names and icons instead.
  • By default, old text obituaries no longer show up in the message line in the top left of the screen, although they do appear in the dropdown console.  If you prefer the old way, you can re-enable message line obituaries and disable the killfeed from the options menu.
  • All of the obituary icons are brand new art courtesy of Scuba Steve.  Thank you for your contribution!
     
  
• A 21st century server protocol
  
  • All of Odamex's server-to-client messages are now contained in shiny new protocol based on Google's Protocol Buffers. We can now add new network messages and add fields to existing messages without breaking protocol, allowing us much more flexibility to make protocol changes in minor releases.
  • One nice side effect of this is now that we can accurately measure how big a message is going to be before we write it, we can now fit many more messages into one packet. This means fewer opportunities for packets to be dropped or delivered out-of-order.
  • In the process of rewriting, many unused and "reserved" messages were removed. Others were consolidated or simplified. A few messages were even hoisted into the header of each packet as a fundamental part of the new protocol.
  • Either way, we expect this new protocol to function as base to further improve the netcode in future.
     
  
• Pistol-starting support.  You can now play through the game starting from a pistol on every level-switch.
  
  • Support for pistol-starting has been added to the difficulty selection menu.
  • g_resetinvonexit is the cvar, so-named because you can change your starting inventory with Spawn Inventory.
  • The -pistolstart command line switch is also supported, for parity with prBoom.
     
  
• A baseline-based netcode
  
  • Odamex has revamped in a major its way of sending monsters and objects to the client in a way that should feel much more "solid" with fewer mispredictions.
  • Based on an idea from Quake, we now send over a "baseline" containing an initial set of data to each client, and then for every subsequent update we only send over the fields that have changed between the baseline and the current time.
  • On average, this new baseline approach to object persistence is not only more accurate than the old 0.9 method, but also uses less bandwidth.
     
  
• We are quite eager to support the new Extended-vanilla and BOOM-based standards that have been coming to fruition as of late. To that end, we have implementations of the following:
  
  • UMAPINFO support. If your WAD has a UMAPINFO lump, Odamex should be able to parse and run it. Thanks to DeathEgg for the implementation!
  • DEHEXTRA support. More frames, more sprites, more sounds, more of everything. Thanks to Ch0wW and KBlair for the contribution.
  • MBF21 support, adding support for both the map extensions and extra DeHackEd codepointers, plus arguments. Again, you can thank Ch0wW and KBlair for the tag-team.
     
  
• That said, we don't want to forget about ZDoom features either:
  
  • MAPINFO now supports episode definitions.  Thanks to DeathEgg for the implementation.
  • Additionally, MAPINFO now supports boss actions, and special handling of EXM8/E4M6/MAP07 is now handled completely through this feature.  Again, thanks to DeathEgg for the implementation.
  • UsePlayerStartZ now works in ZDoom-flavored MAPINFO.  Thanks to Ru5tk1ng for the contribution.
  • Thing_Stop was added as a line special and ACS function.  Thanks to Ru5tk1ng for the contribution.
  • A long list of ZDoom line specials have been added, courtesy of DSDA-Doom.  Thanks to KBlair for the contribution.
     
  
• The widely used SR50 bind is now a built-in feature of the engine, available with a new setting: in_autosr50, which is enabled by default.
  
  • This does not require rebinding any keys, and simply changes +strafe to add the boost you get from turning left or right with strafe on automatically.
     
  
• Exiting a level via trigger now prints a completion time to the console.
• Pausing during netdemo playback now allows you to advance frame by frame using the right arrow key.
• A new setting: hud_demoprotos.
  
  • This allows you to examine the server messages that were received during a given demo frame.
  • By default the first message is "unfolded" and shows the packet contents.  You can select which message to unfold using Page Up/Page Down.
     
  
• A new setting has been added for cl_switchweapon which allows holding +attack to override player weapon order.
• A new font is available based on BOOM's digital font.  It is used in various places.
• New cheats:
  
  • MDK (Kills whatever the player's crosshair is pointing at)
  • TNTEM (Kills all monsters)
  • BUDDHA (Player health cannot dip below 1%)
     
  
• Added give function to console.
• Added support for the REKKR 1.16a IWAD.
• A bump to the major version number
  
  • As alluded to above, the numbers in our version have shifted right by one place, getting rid of the needless leading "0".
  • Compatibility of version numbers has shifted over one as well. A hypothetical Odamex 13.1 can connect to Odamex 13.0 servers, but not Odamex 13.2 or 12.0 or 14.0 servers.  If you see a release with a third version number, like 13.2.1, that number is reserved for optional updates and is ignored by clients and servers.
     
  

Fixes
   

• An instance where a corrupt patch could crash the game was fixed.
• Doomguy's head now looks in the direction of your attacker while playing online.
• A_Mushroom has been re-enabled and should be fully working, including the misc parameters.
• notarget now works online.
• Translucent graphics at 100% opacity no longer leak any of the background.
• Colored lighting now has the correct amount of brightness, instead of being over-bright.
• Music no longer starts over when loading a map with the same music track.
• Demos in an old demo format now produce an error when they're played.
• "Avatar" voodoo dolls can now telefrag.
• Running out of blue armor and picking up an armor bonus now correctly shows green armor when playing online.
• Several C++ conformance bugs have been fixed. If you had trouble compiling Odamex 0.9.5 on newer versions of clang, you should be good to go with 10.0.0.

Changes
   

• Cooperative modes are now scored according to damage dealt to monsters, instead of kills.
• The Spawn Inventory system now understands a new invul setting which allows you to set the amount of invulnerability time you get when spawning.
• sv_unblockplayers now allows friendly projectiles to pass through you.
• Online voodoo dolls (Avatars) can now exit the level.
• Many HUD-specific options have been added to a new HUD-specific submenu and organized better therein. A second setting shows just the FPS (the old counter)
• vid_displayfps has gotten a significant upgrade, showing a frame-time graph in the default setting.
• Odamex's BIGFONT now accepts color translations.
• Ingame cheats have undergone a significant rework and should now work much more consistently in online contexts.
• g_rounds and g_roundlimit now work in Survival as well as Survival Horde.  When enabled, the players have a limited number of attempts at any given map before the map is considered failed and the server switches to the next map.
• Odamex now handles Doom and Hexen map format specials completely independently instead of using XLAT to translate them to Hexen format.

Removed:
   

• hud_fullhudtype no longer exists, meaning that the "Odamex" version of the fullscreen HUD is now the only fullscreen HUD available

For this release, we had many contributors, both from inside and outside the team.  The Odamex Team would like to thank them all, no matter if you added a feature or two or significantly rewrote large subsystems in the engine.  It's amazing how far an active open source project can go in less than a year, and we couldn't have done it without you.

Odamex 0.9.1 is a minor release to address some bugs and opportunities found with version 0.9.0. While the team did feel that 0.9.0 was a very successful release, there were some loose ends to address, as well as some cool features being released here that did not quite squeeze into the 0.9.0 release. Take a look!

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New Features
   

• Spawn Inventory;
  
  • You can now give players almost any inventory you desire with a single console variable.  Health, Green Armor, Blue Armor, weapon inventory, starting weapon, ammo, and even backpacks and berserk, all modifiable from all game modes with just a single console variable.
     
  
• Wad Downloader Improvements;
  
  • When a WAD file is downloaded, if the hash doesn't match what the server wants, the next download site is now checked. If the WAD downloader tries to save a file and a file by that name already exists in your download directory, it will now save it as a WAD with a hash.  This means you can have two versions of the same WAD on your hard drive, and the correct one will always be loaded.
     
  
• Wad Hash Saving;
  
  • Odamex can now differentiate between multiple WAD files with the same base name but different contents based on a hash added to their name.
     

• A new `hud_bigfont` setting which changes several fonts in the HUD to use a bigger font.
• A new `cl_chatsounds` setting which allows you to disable sounds made when someone else on the server talks.
• A new `g_coopthingfilter` setting, which can suppress multiplayer things from being spawned.  It can also spawn everything except weapons.
• Arch-viles can now resurrect crushed monsters as ghost monsters, and there is a new `co_novileghosts` setting which can toggle the behavior.
• A `sv_weapondrop` setting much like ZDoom which has players drop their weapon on death.
• Dead players with no lives can now use spectator-specific buttons like mousewheel.
• We now use SDL 2.0's simple message boxes to show errors when available.
• Error messages boxes are now shown for recursive errors.

Fixes

• Conneting to servers should now be significantly more reliable for those on less-than-stellar connections (0.9.1 servers only).
• Some initial network messages were missing from demos recorded with `-netrecord` or one of the autorecord settings, now the data should be complete.
• Clearing the lives area of the original status bar while not in a lives gamemode.
• `lookdown` command was not found.
• Detection of IWAD's was too lax, leading to certain situations where a real IWAD was not being loaded.
• Incorrect default value for warmup autostart in duel games.
• Spectators were able to spy 0-lives players, now no longer.
• Dead players who are out of lives can no longer spycycle back to their own eyes.
• Recursive errors now always terminate the game, not just fatal ones.  This fixes being unable to quit after an non-fatal error.
• Crash while connecting to a server running a loose DeHackEd file.
• A null pointer changetag crash on failed WAD switch.
• Some MAPINFO tokens were interfereing with Odamex's ability to load MAPINFO.
• State cycles should be harder to trigger, and when they do a better error message is displayed.
• Teleport destinations in DOOM format maps were taking forever to xlat to Hexen format in certain circumstances (Sunlust MAP30), the code that handled this was replaced.
• DeHackEd string replacements now properly override built-in LANGUAGE strings in all cases, as well as properly accomodating non-english languages.
• Trying to load a map with zero-length nodes used to crash, now it errors out.
• Colors were not stripped from odasrv logfiles, now they are.
• Installing to Program Files was not properly triggering non-portable functionality, resulting in errors about a missing crashdir.
• Used to be possible to crash servers by trying to switch to an invalid team in certain circumstances, no longer.
• The minimum CMake version was too optimistic, now it is properly set to 3.13.
• Stack traces on Linux now have symbols again.
• Version strings should show up a little nicer in Odalaunch.

Changes

• DeHackEd patches located in PWADs can now coexist with externally-loaded patches.
• `ts.chaosunleashed.net` was removed from the default standard rotation of sites to download from.  If Odamex detects that you haven't modified that setting from the default while upgrading, it'll fix it for you.
• The BIGFONT plus sign is now smaller.
• The zone memory implementation has been changed to one that uses OS-native memory allocation and freeing functions without the "zone heap".
• Default write directory for portable Windows installations is now the binary directory, instead of the CWD.
• Crash directory error is now clear about what directory it was trying to write to.
• Odamex no longer supports recording Vanilla demos.  Playback of Vanilla demos is unaffected and is unlikely to ever be removed.

Special thanks to SapientLion and DCG Retrowave for the sv_weapondrop patch and vileghost patch respectively!

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Moving forward we already have plans for the next minor release and even the next major release after that. We hope our community will continue to contribute time and effort to make Odamex a better classic Doom experience with every release. Thank you all for being there with us! Please continue to report all found bugs on our GitHub Bug Tracker and please join our amazing Discord community to organize games and keep up with development.

Odamex defaults to the same mouse system as used by Vanilla Doom 2, and is designed for players to migrate their settings to Odamex. However, many players are from ZDoom or ZDoom-derived ports, and thus might run into issues trying to figure out the Odamex mouse. I have created this thread as an attempt to help solve some headaches for migrating players.


First, change your mouse settings either in the Odamex console or odamex.cfg to match these:

mouse_type 1                 // sets the mouse type to ZDoom
m_yaw 1
m_pitch 1
m_side 2                           // has to do with strafing. The default is 2 and should not be changed
m_filter 0                         // applies smooth mouse movement. Try it on and off to find what you like. I personally have it off
m_forward 0                    // turns off the mouse moving you forward when you move the mouse up. This is enforced in Vanilla Doom but most players turn it off
mouse_acceleration 0    //Makes the mouse move faster the more you move it. Was in Vanilla Doom but I recommend to turn it off to make the mouse feel more consistent
mouse_threshold 0        //idk wtf this does but it was in Vanilla Doom
mouse_sensitivity 1      // The default mouse sensitivity in ZDoom. It might not be perfectly 1:1 but it should give you an idea of what to change. This is the setting that should be modified for while the others remain the same
r_painintensity .1         //Turns down the red blood when you get shot. Some servers enforce it though.
After you have made these changes, try adjusting just mouse_sensitivity up and down to find a comfortable level.

I hope this helps!

This week we will be playing the legendary udm2.wad, an awesome but often overlooked entry into the UDM series of wads.

Nitro will only be having USA sessions until further notice due to our EU server having limited access right now.


EUROPE

On hiatus

USA SESSION

WAD: UDM2
Maps: 01-12
Players: 13 player deathmatch
Server: [NY] Vulture Culture
When: Sunday, April 7th @ 9pm EST


I am experimenting with the time slot this week. It will be moved an hour back in attempt to help players that are often late to the event.

Hey y'all, Hekksy here. Flags with fly in Europe this Sunday with ZDCTFMPX, a very large assortment of CTF maps merged together to create an awesome session. In the Americas we're going to have some TLSD2004 INSTAGIB because we're quakin' in our boots. Expect modified server settings like different aircontrol. We're still experimenting with it. It's going to be a one-hit blast though.

Have fun kids!



EUROPE

WAD: ZDCTFMPX
Maps: To be determined
Players: 8v8 Capture the Flag
Server: [BaseQ.fr • Phobos]
When: Sunday, March 17th @ 9pm GMT (4pm EST)



USA SESSION

WAD: TLSD2004 uigib13
Maps: 16 (map01 - map16)
Players: 16-player Instagib Deathmatch
Server: [NY] Vulture Culture
When: Sunday, March 17th @ 8pm EST


Traditional deathmatch will be back next week. Also it's worth mentioning that DoomJoshuaBoy will not be having an Aussie session this week because he is away from home. It will resume next week.