Doom2.exe was created solely for being used with Doom2.wad.
Doom2.exe was never sold separatly from Doom2.wad.
Doom2 TC started by replacing and adding contents to Doom2.wad, I never heard of a Doom2 TC whose author build his wad from scratch and made Doom2.exe read only his wad and not Doom2.wad.
Doom2.exe had no features that were specifically programmed yet not used in Doom2.wad.
Basically, for Doom2, the engine was made for one specific content and never meant to be used with other another content. It happened, but wasn't made and sold for that.
Spring, on the other hand, aim at being a generic RTS engine, or at least people like Smoth feel so. You can download a TA-content free Spring:
from the http://spring.clan-sy.com/download.php page:
GPL content installer
24.9mb, added 2006-11-27 This installer comes without any TA content. It contains the mod nanoblobs which is licensed under GPL/Creative Commons.
When Smoth made his GundamTA, for use with totala.exe, it was a Total Conversion, because it was about replacing TA content with Gundam content.
However, when Smoth make his GundamRTS for Spring.exe, it isn't a total conversion because Spring comes with no pre-existing content to convert from. He isn't converting XTA to Gundam, he's making a game package for an engine that can use whatever content but comes with none.
Of course, technically GundamRTS content for Spring engine is the equivalent to Natural Selection content for Half-Life engine, and Natural Selection is still called a Total Conversion. The only tenuous difference being that in order to play Natural Selection, you had to buy the regular Half-Life package with Gordon Freeman, Black Mesa, HeadCrabs, etc...
However on the other hand, in the computer industry, there's people buying an engine, replacing the content, and selling as a new game without anyone raising an eyebrow. For instance Soldier of Fortune is based on the Quake 2 engine, yet you don't see it called a Quake2 TC.
And then of course nowadays Valve is taking successful mods and selling them as independent games: Few years ago I once downloaded for free and played an half life mod called Day of Defeat, and now the exact same thing is sold in its own box. There's been little to no technical change between DoD, the HL mod, and DoD, the game sold in store. Yet one is considered a third party HL mod, the other a full game in its own right.
Oh and I've seen many people call Spring a TA mod, which to me doesn't hold since to me a mod replace the content, not the engine.
So uh yeah, the terminology is quite blurry, and is more linked to the perception and the impression you want to make than on technical criterions. So Smoth wants GundamRTS to be considered a game in its own right and not a TA derivative.
- If you get an knife, then change the handle, then change the blade, is it still the same knife?
- If you get a rock band, then change the name, then change the musical style, then change the drummer, then the singers, then the guitarist, is it still the same band?
- If you get Totala Annihilation, then replace all the HPI/UFO/GP3, then replace all the exe and dll, then replace everything else, is it still TA?
Yet some people are allowed to change only the *.pak of Quake and sell it a new game?*
(In this post, "content" meaning models, textures, sounds, etc....)
* Most game that use engine from another game also do small modification to the engine, while all Spring games use the same Spring.exe. However, many new modification of Spring.exe are made only for one or two specific mod, and unused by the other older mods, so we can still argue that Spring's game get the same engine source modification than Epic / ID Software / Valve licensing of their engine.
Boirunner wrote:this will be true with the new engine the guys are working on. but spring was developed with the goal to run TA content. much of ta is hardcoded into the engine.
From the FAQ:
What is Spring?
Spring is a project to create the best RTS ever (no joke). There are three principle goals which we hope to achieve.
1. Reach a stage where TA Spring can flawlessly execute most of Total Annihilation's original gameplay, with its original units in their original format.
2. Add new features as we see fit, ...
3. Support the ....
4. Improving the already[/quote]So, you see, the goal of Spring is not to run TA content. That was only a first stage. The problem we have, is that Spring has long passed that first stage, but people fails to acknowledge it.
Gundam is not a tc of spring, but of total annihilation.
If you take the current GundamRTS, and drop it into your TA folder, I guarantee it won't work. And it's not just a matter of repacking into an ufo or simple stuff like that. Basically, all the models would have to be remade, half of each FBI/TDF would have to be changed to work again, all special effects would be simply impossible to port, etc... So GundamRTS isn't a TC of TA. Its ancestor GundamTA was, but GundamRTS isn't.
I don't think that the term tc is at all derogatory.
Yet it is. For instance no one would pay for Doom's Alien TC, even though it was sooo good and faithful to the movie. But a lower quality game labelled as a retail game would have sold .... I don't know the figures, but the awful Corridor 7 sold.
If you design a game, then build an engine around the game concept to fit it perfectly, then you made a game. If you take an engine, and build a game within the range of possibilities that engine offers, you made a tc (because the engine was built around a different game concept - TA in this case).
Like I said, Smoth also made changes in the C++ engine source code that he needed for his mod. And many commercial games companies buy an engine license, build a game with the range of possibilities it offers, and sell it. And sometimes it shows that the engine wasn't that adapted and that they were limited.
Pretty much everybody uses spring to play TA. Saying "TA-based mods are just one kind under many kinds of games for the spring engine" is, while (maybe) technically true, just silly.
We are on a crusade to change that sort of mentality. Thanks for the "while technically true" though, even if it would have been better without the "(maybe)".
