My Personal To-Do List

[_L_]

I have to confess: my current priority task has been playing... er, researching a certain quest called "Twilight Princess" (What? ZC developers are required to be all up ins on the canonical games!) But rest assured that working on ZC isn't far from my conscience. I mean, mind. So, in the interests of full transparency, here's my list of things I'm personally ensuring will be in 2.5.

Also, I hereby assert that, until the final 2.5 is released, I will only work on these tasks, and I will not add tasks to this list.*

Note: these are, in fact, subject to cancellation if I deem it necessary.
Note 2: hey, other developers, I won't take offense if you decide to implement any one of these yourselves after deciding that I'm being too laid-back and summertime about them. The previous sentence is not reverse psychology.

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* Bottomless Pits and Drowning (currently in progress)
Rating: Mostly Easy
Desirability: High
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Mostly low

This requires one new Link sprite, one new combo, and one quest rule. The tricky part is getting the Stepladder to work. (If put under pressure, I'll just have to make the Stepladder incompatable with them...)

* Sideview Stepladder (currently in progress)
Rating: Easy
Desirability: Medium
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

Link can use the stepladder on the edges of platforms in sideview. This lets him cross one-block gaps, or shorten a gap which he must jump over. This would also entail some MISC: sprites depicting the ladder (and, while I'm at it, the raft) when viewed side-on.

* Choose fonts in the String Editor
Rating: Easy
Desirability: High
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Minimal

This requires a font-selecting menu similar to that in the Subscreen Editor. The slightly tricky part will be making that font displayed in the preview pane. (Owing to the nature of jwin, this information isn't immediately "visible" to the preview pane code.)

* A few more String Control Codes
Rating: Easy
Desirability: Mostly low (I've made the most vital codes already.)
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

People have asked for a "Give item" code, but I'm also thinking of a "Player name" code, where the name of the player's save file is inserted into the string at runtime.

* Translucent string panes
Rating: ???
Desirability: Medium
Chances of producing difficult bugs: ???

I'll have to look a little harder at maps.cpp before I can gauge the difficulty of this.

* Signpost combos
Rating: Easy
Desirability: Required!
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

This requires six new combos ("Signposts A-F",) and five new Message Strings per screen. When you walk into a signpost combo, the appropriate screen message string is displayed.

* Ladder combo
Rating: Easy
Desirability: Required!
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

This requires one new combo which enforces restrictions on Link's movement when he's on it, and one new Link sprite.

* Bugfixes (yes, this is in progress as well, of course.)
Rating: n/a
Desirability: Required!
Chances of producing difficult bugs: n/a

This is the domain of all developers. However, I suppose I ought to take more responsibility for bugs of my own doing.

---

COMPLETED TASKS:


* Solid Damage Combos
Rating: Mostly Easy
Desirability: Medium
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

I can already make solid damage combos that hurt Link when he walks into them straight-on. The slightly annoying part is dealing with diagonal movement, as well as "shimmying" along a row of them - but nothing that about an hour's work couldn't overcome.

* Quest Rule: Messages disappear

When this rule is set, pressing the A button when a completed string is onscreen makes the string disappear. (What it will actually do is make the string "Next" to the zero string.)

* Making the Lens of Truth sounds play when you toggle it on and off.
Rating: ???
Desirability: Mostly low
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Minimal


* Making the screen shake when you use the quake hammer.
Rating: ???
Desirability: Mostly low
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Minimal


---

If you wish to argue for the abandoning of any of the above tasks, feel free to state your case!

*Escape caveat: silly little alterations that take half an hour to implement from inception to conclusion and can be scientifically proven to be bug-free (like, for example, the Wealth Medals) don't count.

[Nimono]

Come on, _L_, just admit it: YOU'RE CAUGHT UP IN THE TP CRAZE. I, however, am not, seeing as I don't even HAVE the game. :p

Do you count the Sideview Ladder as part of the Ladder combo?

I think you should forget a few of those ideas for now. Namely, the one that allows the Quake Hammer to shake the screen. However, if you complete that, you'll only make a NEW suggestion arise- A Screen flag that makes the screen shake the moment you enter it. Then people will also bug you and the other devs for a way to deactivate and activate that Flag AT WILL with a script or something. Think Subrosia from OoS, here- Volcanoes erupted on some screens in that game, and the screens shook when they did. When they stopped erupting, the shaking stopped... until they erupted again. But yeah, unless you want people bugging you and everyone else EVEN MORE for that, don't make the Quake Hammer shake the screen unless you plan on making a Screen Flag to let us shake the screenon screen entry. :p

[_L_]

Do you count the Sideview Ladder as part of the Ladder combo?But of course!

Also, I hesitate to call TP a "craze". But certainly it serves as a conveniently timed mass distraction from how little the ZC developers are working nowadays. The previous sentence is not not sarcastic.

[ShadowTiger]

This requires six new combos ("Signposts A-F",) and five new Message Strings per screen. When you walk into a signpost combo, the appropriate screen message string is displayed.Only six? ... Actually, I have two suggestions for this one:

1) The general average amount of these suggested is a multiple of four, usually to both fit perfectly into the combo page, (Despite that 6x2 = 12, i.e. three rows in the combo page, if you want to make two visually separate signpost entity groups side by side in the combo page.)
2) Six doesn't fit around a screen as well as eight. (Actually six DOES "Fit" better hexagonally than octagonally, but I'm speaking in a practical view rather than a screen design view. :p )

So these messages which can be displayed when you press "A" into a signpost combo will be decided on the fourth (Or Fifth?!?) page of the Screen Flags dialog, right?



When this rule is set, pressing the A button when a completed string is onscreen makes the string disappear. (What it will actually do is make the string "Next" to the zero string.)This will make the upper half of the screen walkable? People need some way of doing that, I think.

Oh, and a combo which goes --> Next after the string has finished displaying. :p Useful for direct autowarps to the same screen in which the string has already displayed and vanished so you're free to walk in the back of the room.

[redmage777]

* Bugfixes
Rating: n/a
Desirability: Required!
Chances of producing difficult bugs: n/a


Not discoruage you from fixing bugs, but one of Teachers used to say "Half the time, fixing old bugs leads to new bugs."

I notice the Item drop editor has been "dropped" if this is true the we will at least need some new Item sets. Namely Ammo related, And perhaps some sets centered around Item Value as well as Item Type.

[Nimono]

By the way, you're going to need more than 1 Bottomless Pit combo. You'll need different combos for the Damaging, and you'll also need some for warps. Remember, not all pits are truly bottomless! Some lead into a new screen! Same goes for drowning, too (The multiple types, that is). You'd need some that you drown in unless you have flippers, and identical ones that you drown in regardless of whether or not you have flippers. This way, we can truly recreate drowning water and LAVA. Remember, in OoA and OoS, Link "drowned" in lava, even if he had the Flippers!

[Shoelace]

Sounds good _L_. I will bugtest the heck out of them too. Hopefully like you said nothing more will be added to the list as I want this to be released soon. Anyways, one thing about the signpost is the limitation of of the combo having to be 5 tiles from the top. Because if you are 5 tiles from the top, that invisible wall will cage you in.

Edit: Oh wait, I had just though that it would most likely be the A button to get rid of the invisible wall, so maybe the invisible wouldn't get in the way on that one. I still hate it though. lol

[Freedom]

Personally I don't believe there will be a bug free stable release a year from now, even if you threw your Twilight Princess in the trash right now.
How anyone else can believe for a minute that there will be, is beyond me, it's obvious they're just not looking at the actual state of the program at this moment.

It would take an army of programmers to get all of those bugs out, and that would be IF no new ones were added.

It's been hard for me to just walk away from it after the 5 or 6 years that I've been a part of it, and given how hard I see Jman working to actually make something out of it, but I know as sure as I'm sitting here, when I pop my head back in a year from now there still won't be a solid stable BUG FREE release, so knowing that makes it a little easier.
But that's just where I'm going, to take my long vactation from this frustrating environment.
I started to tuff it out and hang around because of Jman's efforts, but the truth is, Jman can't fight both within and without, he's fighting a losing battle.
The engine, at this point, is so bad I couldn't continue with my quest even if I wanted to, so there isn't a chance in hell I'm going to start something new, and that's why I was here in the first place.
Good luck with it, even though I think it will end badly.

[DarkFlameWolf]

The item drop editor should be included with the enemy editor, would make things more flexible with the enemy editor. Wonder why it was partially made and then dropped?

[Dlbrooks33]

Most of them seem interesting and some of them I just stared at like "Who wanted that?"

[Kingboo30]

Hey, Uh.......whatever happened to only adding in one more feature and then fixing all the bugs until there is none left? Do suddenly need to add a kazillion more features in this already bugged program? Just fix these bugs, release it as a stable release then go back to adding features? Wasn't that the plan? Sounds like a good one to me. If we are going to keep fixing a handful of bugs while adding a large handful of features we are going to get no where.

[jman2050]

The item drop editor was dropped? News to me :P

[The_Amaster]

Those all look pretty good. All I ask are GENERIC ITEM CLASSES. It would take about 5 minuites to do, and there arepretty much no forseeable bugs. (Having said that, if you implement them, the irony gods will put a super crippling bug in there)

[Nicholas Steel]

i would rate bugfixes as "Very High"

and i also dont see the need for much of the stuff you listed... only things i see important are things to do with other things... like the string editor...... but aside from that (only reason is because the string editor is already there... so lets add some basic functions to it) im in the same boat as KingBoo30, DarkFlameWolf, Petoe, Freedom and possibly more people.

ive stopped learning zquest ages ago because a) the midi bug in 2.10 and b) random crashing in betas prior to 2.10 and crashing in 1.90 but the crashes appear to only occur on winXP computers... so yea... im after a stable build for winXP.

[Petoe]

Personally I don't believe there will be a bug free stable release a year from now, even if you threw your Twilight Princess in the trash right now.
How anyone else can believe for a minute that there will be, is beyond me, it's obvious they're just not looking at the actual state of the program at this moment.

It would take an army of programmers to get all of those bugs out, and that would be IF no new ones were added.

It's been hard for me to just walk away from it after the 5 or 6 years that I've been a part of it, and given how hard I see Jman working to actually make something out of it, but I know as sure as I'm sitting here, when I pop my head back in a year from now there still won't be a solid stable BUG FREE release, so knowing that makes it a little easier.
But that's just where I'm going, to take my long vactation from this frustrating environment.
I started to tuff it out and hang around because of Jman's efforts, but the truth is, Jman can't fight both within and without, he's fighting a losing battle.
The engine, at this point, is so bad I couldn't continue with my quest even if I wanted to, so there isn't a chance in hell I'm going to start something new, and that's why I was here in the first place.
Good luck with it, even though I think it will end badly.

Amen.

Even though I love what jman has done lately and he realkly seems to try getting rid of bugs, sometimes it seems like our certain deveLoper has different plans behind his back... I dunno why I am still torturing myself with this awful program that used to be the best thing on earth. But I can't give up hope because if there never will be a stable release then the quest I've so hard worked for won't be released ever. Don't wanna see that happen so gotta test test test and just have faith in the devs.

[Nicholas Steel]

thats another thing im concerned about... never being able to play petoe and DFW's joint quest.

[Love For Fire]

Whoops... I misread that. They are talking about the item DROP editor not the item editor XD.

[_L_]

The item drop editor was dropped? News to me :P

I thought you'd implicitly volunteered to do it!


Item drop editor was already planned. The enemy editor is really incomplete without it.

Well, anyway, I officially pass the item drop editor buck to.... whoever else wants to do it.


This will make the upper half of the screen walkable? People need some way of doing that, I think.You don't understand - the invisible wall isn't caused by message strings; it's caused by the Guys themselves (including the Empty guy but excluding the Fairy guy). However, since prior to this point Guys were the only way to display message strings, people have connected aspects of one to the other.

[Nicholas Steel]

where does jman acknowledge the loss of the item editor?

[Love For Fire]

Edited my original post. I misread what was previously said.

[*b*]

* Signpost combos
Rating: Easy
Desirability: Required!
Chances of producing difficult bugs: Low

This requires six new combos ("Signposts A-F",) and five new Message Strings per screen. When you walk into a signpost combo, the appropriate screen message string is displayed.

Any chance of that being changed slightly, so that pressing A while facing the combo itself activates it? And naturally, the planned feature just after this one is a must for Signposts to work correctly/as they should

[_L_]

Sideview stepladder is going even better than I'd planned. Now, not only can you use the ladder as an extended platform, but you can also climb up it to extend your upward jump, or scale a "staircase" of combos without jumping. Now, all that's left is dealing with those half-walkable combos...

[redmage777]

Next to jman you seem to be the most visable (or Imfamous) developer at the moment, It could very likly end up being you who everybody veiws as being the head (or at least the spokeman) of the team.

In light of jman resigning are you going to add the Drop editor to the list, or is one of the other developers going to pick it up?

A lot of people have been taking jabs at you recently, I just want encourage you to get these features wrapped up so you can focus on the Bugs. Best of Luck. :)

[_L_]

Quest Rule: Messages disappear is completed!

All I had to do was change three to four lines. Try it out when the next build is released.

[Nimono]

_L_.... I think you may want to switch around you list. Bug Fixing is your top priority, right? (If not, I think you should make it your top priority to make people like Freedom happy. :)) Well... Some people think that since it's at the bottom of your list, it's your lowest priority. But you don't have that list in any particular order, do you? I think you need to let people know that you ARE concerned with fixing all the bugs that have popped up. Come on- You know those features can wait until a few bugs are busted... ;)

[Petoe]

Quest Rule: Messages disappear is completed!

All I had to do was change three to four lines. Try it out when the next build is released.

Hurrah! :)

Not many features left to do eh? ;)

But after those are done, can you promise that it's all bugfixing from there to the release of Zc 2.5? I mean, the temptation of adding even more cool new features must be big, but I just wanna hear it straght from your mouth that you promise not to add any more features, not even small ones after your list is completed.

if that list really is true, then I can rest in peace. ;)

[DarkFlameWolf]

/me kills Petoe so he can rest in peace! XD

But yeah, bug fixing and stable beta is paramount for many questers to complete their projects.

[Nicholas Steel]

_L_.... I think you may want to switch around you list. Bug Fixing is your top priority, right? (If not, I think you should make it your top priority to make people like Freedom happy. :)) Well... Some people think that since it's at the bottom of your list, it's your lowest priority. But you don't have that list in any particular order, do you? I think you need to let people know that you ARE concerned with fixing all the bugs that have popped up. Come on- You know those features can wait until a few bugs are busted... ;)
why do you think he rated it N/A? it was so HE won't have to fix the bugs made by him :) joking again.

[_L_]

Hey, it's not like I'm not fixing bugs in addition to working on those tasks. F'rinstance, within the past two days I've fixed the Cross Beams bug, the "hitting enemies with charged sword" bug, and the bug where shop items fall down in sideview. (I'm using Kid Icarus shops as the basis for this not happening.)

Also, I seem to be the only person who's keeping tabs on reported bugs. (http://www.armageddongames.net/showthread.php?p=1105345#post1105345)

[beefster09]

Yeah, you do keep tabs! I posted the eyeball-ffc thing like 2 hours ago! :o

[_L_]

Well, I've finished that Twilight Princess game. Also, I've added a new message control code: \4\X\X - Goto if random. When the game reaches this code, there is a one-in-[argument 1] chance of the game switching to string number [argument 2].

[The_Amaster]

I think this time I'm going to sing.

Ohhhhhh.....(To the tune of "All I Want for Christmas is My 2 Front Teeth")

All I want for 2.5 is my custom item classes...
my custom item classes
my custom item classes
All I want for 2.5 is my custom itme classes,
so I can dooo trading sequences.

[_L_]

I thought you wanted custom item classes so that you could equip scripted weapons.

[Love For Fire]

Scripting weapons/items and actually being able to use them without leaving out other things works for me.

[_L_]

Okay, today I not only succeeded in making the Lens of Truth sounds play when you toggle it on and off (a somewhat trivial task, comparable more to a bugfix) but I also added the much-desired Screen Flag "No Link Marker in Minimap." I'm certain that nothing bad can come of it.

[Shoelace]

Awesome, one of my old suggestions! Thanks for adding that one! :P

[The_Amaster]

Come to think of it, we need them for that too. What if you have an item scripted from scratch, like Pikaguy's Cane of Somaria script.

[Nimono]

Something tells me you guys are going to beg that my script be put into ZC as an "offical" item. :mad:

But yeah, we need custom item classes AND the following:

-Flag "Can Slash"
-Flag "Can Shoot Magic"
-Flag "Able to Charge (Sword)"
-Flag "Able to Charge (Hammer)"
-Other stuff like that

[redmage777]

Why only magic? How about rocks, arrows, fire, and sword beams?

[Din]

How is it going with the list _L_? Whish one(s) in the green?

[_L_]

I'm, uh, fixing the enemy structures at the moment. And, apparantly, adding an "Edible" checkbox to the Item Editor. But, now that you mention it, I'll give that "Making the screen shake when you use the quake hammer" thing another look.

[Petoe]

But, now that you mention it, I'll give that "Making the screen shake when you use the quake hammer" thing another look.

Hmm... if this screen shake thing becomes a reality, would it be hard to make a "Screen Shake" screen flag that you can check for a screen and make it shake. Now I am very strongly against new features but only if it wouldn't be a hard thing to add (that screeen flag that is) then it would be very nice effect for earthquake sequences etc. ;)

[ShadowTiger]

Brief reminder regarding screen effects: If you pause the game (F3 or F4) during these screen effects, the screen effects don't pause, but kind of let the screen dissipate and wander offscreen entirely. :p (It's a pretty cool effect, but obviously still a bug.) Sorry to be a bother; just wanted to be thorough and head it off before it gets a chance to occur.

[Nimono]

Speaking of screen effects, I don't recall there being a Screen Flag for that Underwater Wave Effect. Do you mind adding that as a screen flag? It'd save us some DMaps where we have screens on it that we WANT to have the Wave effect on, but also have screens WITHOUT IT. But I can see a new "Impossibility" spawning from this- The ability to have the effect appear at certain points on the screen. XD

[_L_]

Hmmm... for some reason, the expected crashes inherent in Making the screen shake when you use the quake hammer don't seem to be appearing of late. I think I'll leave it enabled in the coming builds, and consider it implemented if nobody finds fault.

[The_Amaster]

Soooo..does this confirm a "Screen Shakes" screen flag as well?

[_L_]

It will certainly lead to a ZScript variable at some point.

[Din]

Well, it looks good for 2.5! Just 9 more things!

[The_Amaster]

9 more things....?

[Din]

Right, on the list, then it is 2.5 time!:D :D :D

[Din]

Anymore progress? :p

[Pineconn]

..Um, that's a big sig.

[Din]

Yeah, it is.

[_L_]

Just completed Solid Damage Combos. (Actually, one tiny bug remains to be overcome, but I'm going to consider it finished.)

[Din]

Yay! Not many features left. Great job!

[C-Dawg]

Meaning, combos that are solid but damage link when he's touching them? How sensitive are they?

[ShadowTiger]

Probably depends on the screen flags prompt on the fourth page.

I just wonder what we would do in the case of having to have multiple sensitivities on the same page.