What's new since v2.10

[eXodus]

Is there a Changelist anywhere? For end-users that is, not internals or anything. It's just that the docs are from v1.92 b182, and a lot of things changed between 2.10 and this beta have no clarification. I will list what I've found here and any questions I have:

Quest Rules


Bomb Hold Fix - What is it?
Expanded Link Tile Mods - Related to Link Tile Mods, which I still don't know what they are...
Invincible Link flashes - When the Clock is active or after you get hit, Link flickers
No Potion Combining - You can't buy 2 Blue Potions anymore...
No Bomb Pallette flash - What is it?
Combo Cycling on Layers - Wasn't this already available? It's tile flags and working combo types we need, isn't it?
Full Priority Damage Combos - What is this?
Warps ignore Arrival X/Y - What is this?
Slow Enemy Animation - What is this exactly? Anything even remotely useful?
True Arrows - The rule needed to use the Z3 Arrow items. Leave it unchecked for Rupee-based arrows.


Screen Data


Direct Timed Warp - Isn't this too good to be true?
Secrets disable Timed Warp - Now we just need a timer display or a sound effect...
Permanent Enemies -> Secret - What is this? Boss and Trigger enemies activate secrets even while other enemies are on screen?
Items Cannot be Reset - What is this?
Room State carry over - How does this work? What are the Next Screen and Map referring to?


Combo Types


Reset Room - What is this exactly?
Treasure Chests - How are these opened? Does it spawn the Room Item or give it instantly? How does more than one chest work?


Items


Arrow Quivers/Ammo - Do they work properly yet? It seems you actually have to pick up everything first, though...
Bomb Bags/Ammo - Do they work properly yet? Does the old Bomb item give the small Bomb Bag, or is it two seperate Max counters?
Stationary Fairy Item - How do you make enemies drop this instead of the moving one?
Link Tile Mod. - This was in previous versions, but I still don't know what it is. Wasn't it only on rings, though?
DMap Specific Keys - why isn't it finished yet? I see it has been started, but it should have been done ages ago...


Miscellaneous


New Subscreens - Z3 is discussed in other threads, but how do the BS Zelda ones work?
Combo Aliases - What are these? Are they related to the Relational Drawing mode?
Z3 Movement - Vertical, one-space passages act screwy, and it's hard to grab items...
Large Link Hit Box - Enlarges Link's collision size to the entire tile. Now can we have enemies that don't walk through anything with only the top half unwalkable?
Z3 Animation Style - How is this used, and how does it differ from the current styles? (BTW, I need a BS example too...)
Strict MIDI - What is this?
Enhanced Music - What is this? Doesn't look any more enhanced than the previous versions. And wasn't there a Tempo setting before?

[idontknow]

Quest Rules

* Bomb Hold Fix: Fixes a problem for when Link picks up a bomb; Not sure, but i think sometimes he doesn't hold it when he's supposed to.
* Expanded Link Tile Mods: Link tile mods are variables that you apply to items in the sprites->item menu. If left at 0, the item has no effect on Link's tiles. However, if a positive (+) number, Link's walking tiles only will shift to the right that # of tiles. If a negative (-) number, the tiles will shift to the left that number of spaces.

You can now make it so that, for example, when Link collects the bow, it appears on his back or when he gets a gauntlet, you can change Link's tiles to show it on his hand!

Expanded Link Tile Mods mean that now the modifiers apply to all of his sprites (walking, slashing, swimming, etc.)

* No Bomb Pallette flash: If left unchecked, the screen will flash a certain pallette after Link lays a bomb and it explodes (by default i think its initially a grayscale pallette, that you can later change but i'm not sure which exact pallette it would be) If this rule is checked, this won't happen.

* Combo Cycling on Layers: No, this never happened; but now that it does, it makes for nice effects, like things walking/moving on layers, such as an arrow being shot across a screen or something. And YES! We really do need combo types to function on layers. Though i'm not so sure what you mean by 'tile flags'

* Full Priority Damage Combos: I heard that it means if you appear on a damage combo after having warped there, the combo will take effect and damage you. If left unchecked, it leaves this problem in, the way it used to be where Link will appear on the damage combo unharmed.

* Warps ignore Arrival X/Y: Not sure

* Slow Enemy Animation: Not sure but it sounds like it slows down the animation for enemies! :P

Screen Data

* Direct Timed Warp: Yes, yes it is too good to be true! :)
* Permanent Enemies -> Secret: It means when you defeat all enemies on a screen and the secrets appear, they will stay there so when you leave & come back, the secrets will be there again without having to redefeat the enemies. Now, i'm not sure if this also means the enemies are permenantly defeated, or if they do return but with the secrets already activated. And i'm not sure if this functions on dungeon dmaps, which i'm crossing my fingers that it does.
* Items Cannot be Reset: Works with the "Reset Room" Combo. If the room is reset and this is checked, everything except the item will be restored to its original form. If this is left unchecked however, even the item will reappear.
* Room State carry over: This means that when you activate secrets on this screen, the secrets of the screen designated by the "next map" and "next screen" will also have their secrets triggered too. It also means that if you collect an item on this screen, the item on the next screen will be gone too. In other words, it allows you to have one screen that effects the status of another.


Combo Types
* Reset Room: When placed, everything about a room resets. All the enemies reappear. All the secret combos revert back to their original form. The item will reappear IF the "items cannot be reset' screen flag is left unchecked. Even push blocks will go back to their original location!
* Treasure Chests: To open them, walk UP against them. Note that they must be opened from underneath, therefore you need to make sure they are placed so Link can reach them from below. Normal ones open without a key. Others can be opened only when Link has a key or even the boss key. Also, you still need to place the armos->item flag on them in order for an item to appear inside & of course need to set the room's 'special item'. Note that these combos will go to the next combo in the list so you need to have the opened treasure chest next to a closed chest with the 'treasure' type.


Items

* Arrow Quivers/Ammo: Yes, they do work, but u need to pick up the following: Bow, Wooden Arrow (or silver or gold), Quiver, and ammunition before you can start shooting true arrows. Also, only the arrow counter appears when the Zelda 3 subscreen type is selected, which the tiles for are right now hardcoded into certain spots only (on page 54) so to get it set up right is kinda time-consuming. Additionally, quivers do not appear when set in initial data or checked from a cheat, thus you always have to pick it up manually until this is fixed.
* Bomb Bags/Ammo: I know bomb ammo does NOT work (although arrow ammo does) Collecting bomb ammo does NOT add to the counter. I also don't think that the bomb bags do anything yet, but they will eventually set the max. # of bombs you can carry at any point in time to a certain preset value (i think the small one holds 10, the medium 50 and the large 99) The bomb item is sorta the same as ammunition, except it exists so to recognize the bomb items from older quests.
* Stationary Fairy Item: Enemies don't drop this. Its so you can put this into shops so the fairy doesn't fly around, or you can hide this in chests or bushes, but it must be placed manually.
* Link Tile Mod: Already covered above.
* DMap Specific Keys: Patience is a virtue...


Miscellaneous

* New Subscreens: Not sure about these--i usually use the first 3 myself (original, revised, and revision 2)
* Combo Aliases: These you make by going to 'Quest->Graphics->Combo Aliases' and then you can change the size of the alias 9the number of combos) and what layers the alias is composed of. Then you add combos and make large objects that can easily be selected and placed with one click. By pressing 'O' 3x. You can have up to 255 aliases! The best way to see this is to experiment with it and you'll get familiar with it fairly quickly.
* Z3 Animation Style: I think it basically means that Link is now 2 tiles tall (like a head on a body)
* Strict MIDI: Not sure
* Enhanced Music: Not sure

[Dart Zaidyer]

"Z3 Animation style" means Link is able to use 8 frames of animation for walking, and one for standing still. Eventually it should carry over to slashing, swimming, stabbing, and so forth. This can be used with regular sized Link, or you can expand him to larger dimensions in the Link Sprites window. (A process which is prone to crashing at the moment, if you don't do it carefully.)

[jman2050]

Warps ignore Arrival X/Y:

There definitely should be a better name for this, but 99% of the time you shouldn't worry about it. Basically, the behavior of ZC would have it so that if you changed dmaps via a scrolling warp, the new room would become the new continue point (and in worse cases, the save point). For older quests that didn't design for this change, this meant that a lot of times they became unplayable because you would end up getting stuck in the corner of a room when you continued, since the arrival points of the rooms in question were not set.

The engine was changed slightly so that no matter what, as long as this flag is not checked if you enter a room that has its arrival point set to 0,0 (the default), it CANNOT be used as the continue point. The change hasn't been thoroughly tested, but it should fix older quests.

[C-Dawg]

Holy... crap. Jman, is all of this new stuff your doing? Some of this is just plain jaw-hammeringly cool. I havn't noticed these new changes, I'm still tinkering with 2.10.

Now, if only ZQ would stop crashing on my system...

-C

[jman2050]

Not all of them. I'm not going to go into a list of what I did and didn't do for this beta. it's unneccesary.

I WILL go on record and say that many of these changes were conceived and implemented for the express reason of simplifying the completion of a certain quest by a certain quest maker ;)

*hinthintwinkwinkyouknowwhadimean*

[eXodus]

This helps a lot, but I have to know something. On the subject of the Full Priority Damage Combo rule: how hard would it be to extend that to Tile Warps? Y'know - fix the old multiwarp trick? I'd imagine that it would be much the same problem as the Damage combos, and would probably be fixed similarly as well.

[C-Dawg]

Seriously though, Im having a huge problem with ZQ constantly crashing on my system I should probably log that in the bug reports, huh?

[jman2050]

yeah, you should. What OS are you running?

[Shoelace]

There definitely should be a better name for this, but 99% of the time you shouldn't worry about it. Basically, the behavior of ZC would have it so that if you changed dmaps via a scrolling warp, the new room would become the new continue point (and in worse cases, the save point). For older quests that didn't design for this change, this meant that a lot of times they became unplayable because you would end up getting stuck in the corner of a room when you continued, since the arrival points of the rooms in question were not set.

Just to make it clear. If I don't check the rule, then it would work like 2.10? Because I use and need save points and continue points to be made by Exit/Entance and scrolling warps. But I am taking if you check the rule it will work like 183 (the save points).

Or am I reading it wrong?

[jman2050]

Don't check the rule if you want the new behavior.

[C-Dawg]

yeah, you should. What OS are you running?

Xp home on a P4 2.6hz, running an A-Bit A17 mobo. Each and every version of Zquest will randomly crash at some stage. Sometimes after five seconds, sometimes after ten minutes; doesnt matter what Im doing.

-C

[Freedom]

Have you tried it with virus programs turned off?
AVG gives me some problems.

[C-Dawg]

I run NOD32, and I've had that entirely uninstalled at times. Same effect. Let's see, I have these other programs running too:

OpenOffice
InCD
Windows Cinema Manager
iTunesHelper

And a bunch of other usual stuff.

-C

[punkonjunk1024]

zomfg zomfg zomfg
I was looking everywhere for this.
I need to go clean the pittle off my leg.
All of this is amazing.

z3 animation.... = ZOMFG.
zomg.

[Exdeath]

Just to make it clear. If I don't check the rule, then it would work like 2.10? Because I use and need save points and continue points to be made by Exit/Entance and scrolling warps. But I am taking if you check the rule it will work like 183 (the save points).

Or am I reading it wrong?


This is an issue I have been giving a lot of thought. I was thinking, Why not make 2 different scrolling warps? One that acts like an entrance/exit warp, and one that acts like an insta warp (in terms of continuing)?

In the quest I am working on, I make use of scrolling warps in order to implement boss music rooms, but I do not want the player to be able to continue in the boss room if he dies. Yea, I could use the new quest rule to make it behave like 183, but then what if I also wanted to have a scrolling warp that was a continue point? I'm sure having both types of warps would be usefull to all quest builders.

Just a thought,

-Ex