Enemy Editor Discussion and Questions

[DarkFlameWolf]

So exactly how much time would that be invested to re-creating the enemies if say we had oh.....15 custom enemies already? Would this new enemy editor changes/fixes also bring back the mirror robe's ability to get killed by its own magic when reflected by mirrors OTHER than the mirror shield?

[Nicholas Steel]

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.

read the stick'ies, and documentation, they clearly say

WARNING: THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC ALPHA BUILD
It is work in progress, released without careful inspection by the developers. It may be unstable, contain missing, partially implemented, or broken features, or corrupt your quests. Active development of quests on this build is not recommended.

***THE DEVELOPERS TAKE NO RESPONSIBILTY FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT THIS BUILD MIGHT DO TO YOUR COMPUTER OR YOUR QUESTS.***

you went against developer's advice and now your whinging that your quest is screwed. as such your case is i think different to freedom's.

YOU are blaming the developer's when it's the developer's that should be blaming YOU.

EDIT: i also would love to play LI, but i am just saying that you are IMHO being way too harsh towards the developer's.

[Petoe]

Wolfie it doesn't matter how much time it takes. It takes a lot of time in any case if all the enemies in the quest go to default and I have to set all the enmies up again and place them on screen. I have literally hundreds of custom enemies all around LI already, so it's either backwards compatibilty for Beta 18 (which seems to be possible because _L_ mentioned it) or then some friendly developer to come and help us get a LI specific beta done.

All would be well if _L_ would just ask people first what to do... or even warn them that "oh by the way, there's going to be a new enemy editor in the next build so beware!!!"
But no... With a few bug fixes b254 could have became a great Beta 18. But the devs just had to get all those changes in there and there's still no sign of a new build... >_<
I really want to release Lost Isle before this summer, but this custom enemy issue doesn't help amtters at all. Since the custom enemies work perfectly in b254 (no matter how limited they might be for _L_) why such a rush to get that new enemy editor in?

[Petoe]

YOU are blaming the developer's when it's the developer's that should be blaming YOU.

Heh. Well I've never denied that I'm a stupid prick, and yes, part of the blame is on me but even though you prbably can't put yourself into my position, at least try:

I want to get LI released before it's too late (soon I will have not much time for ZC).
Here we have a great beta, b254 and it has a great and perfectly working enemy editor. I realize the risks fiddling with an unfinished feature, but it was stable and good enough to make enemies on. And since the developers have hinted that a Beta 18 release is near and I've been asking/sugesting constantly that Beta 18 would be compatible with b254 quests and by the responses I got I understood that only small fixes will be made and a beta 18 should be ready, therefore how could have I expected that _L_ just goes and adds and changes shitloads of stuff right after b254 release and therefore ruins b254 quests?
I HAVE seen these warnings about the possibility of these current custom enemies not probably working on some upcoming builds, but why the fuck had _L_ ruin the backwards compatibilty so fast and without even warning?

EDIt - and can anyone really deny that me and Freedom have been right the whole time? There just will never be a full stable 2.5 if things continue to go like this. My posts may seem selfish and Li centered, but believe me, every time I whine I have the best interest of ZC in my mind. I can't help it, I've become too attached to ZC and it kills me to see how the developers are killing a great thing (and it doesn't help that AGN can't get shit done about the main site...)

[Pineconn]

EDIT - and can anyone really deny that me and Freedom have been right the whole time? There just will never be a full stable 2.5 if things continue to go like this. My posts may seem selfish and LI centered, but believe me, every time I whine I have the best interest of ZC in my mind. I can't help it, I've become too attached to ZC and it kills me to see how the developers are killing a great thing

I can definitely not deny you. I think that there is plenty enough in 2.5. Save everything else for a future beta. If you put everything in 2.5, there won't be anything to put in the next one, and it would therefore be boring. I personally would have been more than elated if a Dialogue Editor, the FFCs, the room state carryover, and maybe a few other minor features (like a fixation of 2.10's conveyors) would have been bundled into 2.11/2.5. I was overwhelmed when multiple tile warps were introduced. Now there are custom enemies, custom items, SCRIPTING... I feel that I need to take a few classes of C++ in order to keep up with everyone. And boss flag triggers were hard enough to learn.

So, I echo many people by saying: Do not add any more features to ZC. If you do, 2.5 will never get done. Set a reasonable release date, and let us beta test ZC for bugs and backwards-compatibility issues.

[splattergnome]

Since betas were always meant to help discover bugs and solicitate feedback from users on new functions, I think that -L- did no wrong when changing in-progress systems in order to add new functionality and flexibility which will benefit the program and future quests.

However - since the beta forum -has- admittedly been "open" all this time and many people are using it to make their quests instead of for testing purposes, it would be the best to add a converter to at least appease those using the beta builds. The converting tools can easily be removed again in future builds, since they will no longer be needed after everybody is updated to the new standard. :)

splatty

[beefster09]

Exactly! Let _L_ do his own thing. Remember his list? That's all he'll be doing after updating the editors.

Please, before you beat _L_ with sticks, think: would you rather just have ZC released now, despite all of the incomplete code and bugs? He's pretty much the only dev that's active in actually working on ZC most of the time. If it weren't for him, it would take at least 3x longer to get 2.5 out! In other words, you can either leave _L_ to his work or wait until Christmas 2008. From the way I see it 2.5 should be out by the end of September unless you keep bludgeoning _L_ to frustration.

[Master_of_Power]

-L- is not at fault, Peteo, and he's definitly not ruining anything, Zelda Classic may have quite a few bugs, but it comes with the territory. Considering this is, infact, a free program, the developers are spending they're free time on it, and you should be glad that this program is around, and that they are putting such time and effort into that. Stop whining, or buy a professional program you need to waste 3 years to fully understand. Theres my two cents.

[Pineconn]

EDIT: And just think, the more complicated, the more difficult it would be to revise the built-in tutorial! Which really needs to happen.

Okay. Stop the [albeit] minor flaming. Petoe has his right of frustration, _L_ has his right of freedom. End.

~Back to the Topic~

That really did help with the custom enemy making. I made a stupid green Keese that moved about 1 mph! :p

[Petoe]

Since betas were always meant to help discover bugs and solicitate feedback from users on new functions, I think that -L- did no wrong when changing in-progress systems in order to add new functionality and flexibility which will benefit the program and future quests.

I agree that it's not wrong what _L_ did, but what's wrong is the way HOW he did it and WHEN he did it. Once again, what happened to beta 18? Why did he had to go on in insane mode again and change craploads of stuff before a new Beta release? Was it really so hard to udnerstand that since b254 is so stable that maybe some people who are tired of waiting are actually building quests with it? I guess you all think that quest developement should just stop during beta testing? Well if that's the case, when will we see any new quests? Sigh.

I'm stupid for trusting the devs and building Lost Isle with the current betas, but what else could I have done? Wait for 2.5 and then continue building the quest? Well I don't feel like delaying the quest indefinitely so I had to use the betas/builds to build the quest as the developers are not cacapable of getting out a stable ZC release.


All you smartasses who tell me to shut up: It's oh so easy for you who build no quests for ZC to spit out such comments. Yeah, thanks to _L_ there are many new features, but thanks to _L_ there never will probably be a ZC 2.5. I know I'm not going to be popular by constantly bashing him (though I've never been popular ) what else can I do? I guess nothing. It's very nice to see that finally some people are starting to see what me and Freedom sees, but I guess that's not enough.

Unless this madness with ZC doesn't stop, I'm officially done as a ZC beta tester and as a quest developer. I will try to get LI released no matter what, that's a promise, but oh boy it won't be easy, lol.
If _L_ is really being such a good sport that he is going to make the new builds backwards compatible, then I guess there will be no problems, though I really cannot ask or demand anything like that from him no matter how disappointed I am with him. Oh well, we'll see what happens.