Enemy Editor Discussion and Questions

[Petoe]

Jesus man, calm down! I'm sure that it can be salvaged. Unless ALL your enemies are custom (or something similar that would be affected by the enemy editor DIRECTLY), you shouldn't get all worked up and pissed off. :shakeno:

*waits for Peteo to flame the crap outta me*

Ok, I'm an emotional guy and maybe I overreacted and did go a bit too far, but really, why did it take so long for him to announce that the old custom enemies won't work in the new build? Yeah yeah i know these are betas and things constantly change, but I've been politely asking if the developers would make sure Beta18 would be compatible with b254 so that all my work on LI wouldn't go to waste.

I just wonder what else won't be backwards compatible than the custom enemies... and I'm not gonna apologize unless I misunderstood _L_'s post somehow or if he (or someone else) will release beta 18 that is backwards compatible with b254. Otherwise I've got shitloads of things to fix in the quest, and since I don't have much time to work on LI anymore, it would mean it would never get released. I think that's good enough reason for my frustration...

[DarkFlameWolf]

And he's got a lot of custom enemies already implemented too deep into the quest to simply take out now. So its kinda make or break for LI just based on betas alone. Beta 254 seems to be quite stable for Lost Isle to play on, but Petoe has the specifics on what needs fixing currently to make it perfectly playable. So maybe a willing dev might step in to assist Petoe with this project so that this 2 year quest doesn't get tossed into the can.

[Pineconn]

AH! I've been waiting for the release of LI since it was first announced! No need for a cancellation. I'm sure--what was it... ah-- "one very friendly developer" will be able to salvage it.

And, no need to pull a Freedom, either. Y'know, Freedom signed the QDB petition, so he has obviously not completely abandoned ZC.

And a piece of friendly advice for devs: Zelda Classic should be a project for the fans made by the devs, not a project for the devs made by the devs.

[AmazingAmpharos]

Is the new enemy editor really going to be in the next build? I haven't seen that announcement, and he's always said that whenever it's finished that the old enemy editor stuff will be reset. Unless I completely misunderstand how it will work, it will probably still have stuff like e203 as an enemy in room 21 on map 12 so it would just be going through and reassigning attributes and stats which, while tedious, shouldn't completely ruin you. From what I gather, most of this forum is looking forward to said quest too so, if you don't have the time, I'm sure you could find someone to do the mildly tedious task of going through and manually converting your custom enemies just by comparing the b254 version to the whatever build version. It's mindless work so I think you could trust it to someone else.

I suppose it should also be asked exactly what is getting reset with the new enemy editor. Misc. Attributes are an obvious thing, but would stuff like step count and HP go as well? Most importantly for someone looking to convert an old quest, are the custom enemy names going to be retained? If that alone is retained, even converting a massive epic quest to the new editor could be done in under 2 hours, and that's assuming you have to change the stats on hundreds of enemies which is very unlikely for a two-year-old quest. While I know it's hard to get excited over "just" a few hours of tedious work, I don't think that's the end of the road for a quest that had been in development for a few years. If I'm completely misunderstanding how this will work, my post is void I guess.

[Pineconn]

Plus, it's not like you have to use custom enemies. I mean, take MMDWR and IotW: two great quests, but they (of course) use regular enemies.

Ah well, we learn from our mistakes. Next time, let's release far fewer, more stable betas for 2.6 or whatever.

[4matsy]

but really, why did it take so long for him to announce that the old custom enemies won't work in the new build?

and he's always said that whenever it's finished that the old enemy editor stuff will be reset.

Indeed. This 2-and-a-half-month-old thread says:

...so it's likely that your Enemies will revert to the defaults in a coming build. Just so you know.

And there's NO way to convert the current custom enemies to the new format?

Not unless you guys want to change all the Misc. Attributes for all of the enemies in your quests by hand...

Incidentally: my custom enemy changes aren't going into the builds until they're all done. So, your quest's custom enemies aren't going to be erased yet.

...I stopped messing around with custom enemies when I saw the thread title, really. :p

...Then again, I have to wonder if this idea didn't work out...

Well, okay, maybe I could make a routine wherein it takes the old enemies and automatically reassigns their types and misc attributes based on their misc10 and their enemy type... I'm just not entirely sure how complex it will get. Apart from changing the meanings of misc. attributes and shortening the number of types, I've also fixed some default data bugs (such as Darknuts being immune to hammers.)

...actually, now that I've written it down, it doesn't sound as difficult as I thought.

[Nimono]

I beginning to think that _L_'s not listening to what the fanbase wants, but instead what HE wants. I bet he won't even TRY to get backwards-compatibility with older custom enemies if it means more work he doesn't want to do.

_L_, PLEASE listen to us. Either make backwards-compatibility with custom enemies from previous betas/builds, or just drop the whole thing altogether! (Or maybe I'll just have to go in that code myself to get that darned backwards compatibility! I mean, if you won't do it, someone else should!)

[_L_]

Oh... very well, then. It seems that once again my hand has been stayed. Evidently I have been too long in producing these changes. Thus, I must add backwards-compatability.

But in my defense, here is my reasoning: the "current" enemy editor only really allows you to edit six numbers, the projectile, the item drop, and the enemy's sprite. Nearly all of the copious Flags are useless, and the Misc. Attributes are so tremendously limited in their possibilities. I was under the assumption that any custom enemies produced under such limitations would thus be easily and quickly reproducible under a new system. But... I suppose I'd be too greedy to ask that of ZC's beta testers.

I humbly apologise.

[Petoe]

Let's just say I were to move my quest to use the new build with this new enemy editor. What would happen to my current custom enemies that were made with the b254 enemy editor? Would they all get erased/completely reseted, or would only their misc attributes get reseted? If I have set custom enemies to a screen, would they disappear from the screen? What exactly would happen?

But whatever the case is, it still doesn't feel right that you just do stuff behind everyone's back and try to make ZC the way you want it to be, not the way us quest developers want it to be.
And in this custom enemy case you could have at least warned people that after b254 all your custom enemies will go useless. I really was in the belief that Beta18 would be backwards compatible with b254, and then suddenly I see all these changes to the next upcoming build and learn that my custom enemies won't work anymore. But I'm positively surprised that you said you would add backwards-compatibility. Though I don't think that would be necessary if you could somehow remove/hold back all your recent additions from the upcoming build/Beta 18 and that way making the next few versions compatible with the best build ever, b254. After that I really don't care what happens.


And to prevent any confusion I'll sum up my thoughts once again about all the new features and ZC developement:
_L_'s ideas are mostly great and this new enemy editor sounds kick arse, but not for ZC 2.5. I know, it's the same old song that everyone has heard from me and Freedom, but what would be best for ZC would be to stop with all the new features and just get b254 (or whatever good beta) fixed. Why don't any of the developers realize that it has been too long without a full stable ZC. We were so close to it somewhere around christmas, but then _L_ went crazy with all his additions. Again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with his additions, but the community needs a full stable ZC before all these cool new features. Sigh. Right now the developement is in a never ending cycle...
let's fix these few bugs, yeah, now ZC is almost stable!
Oh wait, let's add these few little changes, oops, more bugs were born!
Repeat...

[_L_]

Let's just say I were to move my quest to use the new build with this new enemy editor. What would happen to my current custom enemies that were made with the b254 enemy editor? Would they all get erased/completely reseted, or would only their misc attributes get reseted? If I have set custom enemies to a screen, would they disappear from the screen? What exactly would happen?

What would happen is that all of the enemy data would return to default. Ah! How harsh it seems when out of my mouth it comes.

We were so close to it somewhere around christmas, but then _L_ went crazy with all his additions.

I would rather put it that we had "the veneer of optimism". But, even back then ZC lacked many "essential deliverables" - like the manual and a complete NewDefault tileset. And - ahahaha - the ever-vital signpost combos (which I have not forgotten about, but thank you).