Who wants a stable release?

[koopa]

I'm talking stop adding, anything incomplete be coded out, bugs fixed, stable version released now.

I wish it was that easy ... stop adding we might be able to do.
Get ZC stable overnight ... I wish we could.
Coding out ... I'd rather we left in what's already in or it'll only cause more problems if it's referenced elsewhere.

Basically, Freedom has a point but if ZC is buggy it's not because the developers want it that way.

[Nicholas Steel]

yes, and i note that in most of these threads Freedom makes, he points his grubby fingers at L for the bugs.

[CastChaos]

CastChaos signs up for wanting a stable ZC.

I see nothing more or less than bugs are fixed in every new alpha release. But I don't know if there are a set amount of bugs whiches are being kept pruned until they all vanish, oooor... a new alpha eliminates all previous bugs and these bugfixes create the new bugs?

I will probably finish my current quest with 2.10 even if 2.5 comes in the meantime (upgrading would be big work, whole quest needed to be redone), but still, there are people whos could use a stable version right... NOW!

The database's fix would be good, too. Why not delete the program line shards of the old one and create one from scratch? I thought a quest database is just a little HTML work, easy to do for beginners, too...

[Petoe]

yes, and i note that in most of these threads Freedom makes, he points his grubby fingers at L for the bugs.

No one can deny that _L_'s features are unbeliveable and he definitely is not to be blamed for every single ZC bug.
It's just that without _L_ there most certainly would have been a stable ZC release a long time ago. Why in the world couldn't he wait for a stable release before all the new additions that made ZC the buggy crap it still is.
Once again forgive me, _L_. I personally don't see you as a bad person even though it seems so. I just think you're perhaps overly confident in your skills and the way you seem to add stuff behind everyone's back is just... agh. Oh well, I guess it is just too tough to say no to all the people who want all these insane features instead of stability... it would just be nice to see you saying that you undestand and agree that the community needs a stable ZC release and that you will only focus on bugs. That kind of message coming from your keyboard would probably lift my PO'd attitude...

Basically, Freedom has a point but if ZC is buggy it's not because the developers want it that way.

Well of course developers don't want intentionally make ZC buggy... or at least that's what I hope, but during ALL these YEARS I have seen no real effort to get a FULL and STABLE ZC release done.

You guys are finally fixing bugs, or so it seems, but I wonder how soon there will be another moment when people will go "Hmm... ZC is quite stable now, oh shit, _L_ added a bunch of features and ZC is ruined again!". Can you really promise that this won't happen again? No new features, not a new thing??? And what was wrong with the enemy editor in b254? Sure it wasn't as awesome as it is in the current betas but it worked pretty well and with a few fixes it would have been a good enemy editor for ZC 2.5. But no, _L_ had to change the whole custom enemy system and ruin all compatibility and probably further delay the release of something stable.
What happened to Beta18 anyways? Wasn't there talk about something like that some time ago? But no, we develoeprs want to make additions additions additions additions and changes changes changes changes!

You are saying that your main focus is fixing bugs now. Well maybe yours, DarkDragon, but what about the other developers? Yeah... It is just impossible to believe it after the dozens of mistakes and stupid decisions the developers have made, not listening to the voice of reason but instead of listening to "more more more better better better, yes ZC is almost stable and thats good enough for me!!" people.


And all the people who think and make claims that Freedom and I are just impatient and want to pressure the developers into releasing a stable ZC right now, that's bullshit. All we want is stability, no more changes, no more additions. None of you newbies can understand the frustration of Freedom. After years and years of investing his valuable time to ZC testing in hopes of there being a stable Zc as Jman promised, and then to find out that new features keep getting added every time ZC seems pretty close to being stable and the release of stable ZC looks further away every single day... It makes me sick to think about all those wasted hours. >_<

What is so freaking hard to understand this perfect quote from Freedom:
GET a stable version, THEN add more with the builds, DON'T just keep adding bloat to something that doesn't work already.

[Beta Link]

The bug situation is certainly getting alot better. The change log was a very good thing! _L_ is not intentionally making ZC buggy. Sure, when he first started doing work on ZC, he was a little crazy with adding features, but he's much better with that now. At this point, he should just fix bugs, and put in the already-promised features (such as bottomless pits). I think he's been doing an excellent job with bug-fixing in any case.

[The_Amaster]

Petoe and Freedom, I think we do agree that if _L_ tries to add another huge complex feature, we will all attempt to kill him. Right now we have pretty much some bugs to fix(which the number of is rapidly going down), some features to clean up (Item editor, etc.) and some features that we need(Sideview ladders, Talk combos, etc.)

I personally am very happy with where ZC is going right now, in relation to where it was. One look at the changelog shows how many bugs are being fixed.

[Freedom]

Wait... do you think the current of level of bugfixing is an improvement, or not? I'd much rather go back to working on adding ZScriptable weapons (which many people have asked for) than continue bugfixing, if it's not going to make a difference either way.

When L first came here he said there was NO SUCH ANIMAL as bug free freeware.
If that's really his attitude, then he really will make no attempt to be part of releasing a bug free stable version.
IF that's the case, then NO you fixing bugs will make no difference, a buggy engine is a buggy engine is a buggy engine.
The most popular beta, the 183 still had serious problems, like the continue bug.
If the devs aren't going to try getting one out that's better than that, then why bother at all and why keep people believing and waiting for something that's not going to happen.

SO....
bugfixing is only important IF you are willing to see it through to its logical end, and so far that has never happened, not now, not with 183, not with 2.10.

What good are all these new features if you still can't make and complete a quest with the engine, and even if you did, nobody can or will host it?
Why is this simple truth so hard for some to understand?

Like I said above, look at the quest announcement forum, it's plain to see Zelda Classic is dying, you don't have to take my word for it.
It's dying for the very reason I've stated all along, no stable release in years, database screwed up for years.

[Petoe]

Freedom, I guess you cannot blame the developers for the state of the database, that's all AGN's fault. But yeah, everything else you say is so true it hurts.
ZC is dying, you don't have to be Einstein to realize that. But why only such a small amount of people realize that ZC is dead soon and has been dying a long time? Unbeliveable.

Why exactly is the current build "unstable"? If you go to the bug forum, you can categorize bugs roughly as follows:

Small NES compatibility quirks, often very old (many)
Unforeseen consequences of earlier bugfixing (several)
Unfinished/broken features that have never fully worked (several, often involving Z3 animation)
Bugs with item properties (several, but now tailing off)
Bugs from new features (few)

Actually critical bugs - ZC crashing or corrupting quests - are not the ones that linger for months.

It seems like you are having the wrong attitude. It seems like you're saying that only serious bugs are bad and that some minor bugs shouldn't really bother questmaking. Well every single bug, no matter how minor, is a bad thing! Even if you're able to build quests, there's no sense doing so if you cannot play them the way they're supposed to be played. ZC is not stable and bugfree enough if it has any compatibility issues or any other unwanted or weird behaviour.

And like Freedom said, there can never be anything stable if every one of you developers cannot commit to bugfixing and bugfixing ONLY.

[Freedom]

With all due respect...
The wrong turn was taken when L first arrive and started adding loads of features.

Adding features is fine, but a STABLE version had been promised first.
THen when L started adding, it made it IMPOSSIBLE for Jman to keep his word, and as a result Jman quit.

You say it's getting better, but what I see when I look at the bug forum is bugs being fixed that NEVER existed in the 2.11b10b which was the last real decent beta released before L's tirade into adding features.
So what you are really saying, weather you realise it or not, is it's getting better when compared to the depths it was taken from all of L's additions.

Additions are fine, but a stable release should have been done then as promised, because as it stands now, with all of your optimism, I still don't see one coming any time soon.

Petoe,
Of course I don't blame the developers for the database being down, that's warlords department, but it's still hurting Zelda Classic badly as a whole.
I don't blame L for adding a boatload of features, Dark Nation is the C.E.O. of the developers, it was up to him to set the schedule.
All in all, who's fault doesn't change anything, still no stable version, still no database.
What good does it do to point a finger at the guy that killed your cow, the cow is still dead anyway.
I wanna know...
Are they going to try and get another cow?

[C-Dawg]

Awful lot of whining going on in this thread.

I've been coming more and more around to understanding that it's the bug-testers, not the developers, who are mostly responsible for the lack of a stable release. There are likely tens of thousands of possible interactions between the various features of Zelda Classic, any combination of which might lead to problems. Some issues are obvious, and easily fixed. Other bugs are obscure and hard to detect. We have a few people making regular bug reports, but not enough to be testing everything. For example, there are probably only three or four people bugtesting scripting, and I'm the only one I know of now rigorously testing scripting's interaction with combo animation and screen flags. (Working fine so far, luckily).

I don't want to rag on the testers too much, though. I find the latest betas to be remarkably bug-free. Certainly none of the big obvious bugs like crashing during editing, items not working, etc. In fact, I don't think I've encountered a single bug in 356 that breaks my quests except the possible bug regarding carryover FFCs. (Your milage may vary). The new betas work very, very well.

So just be patient, and help bug-test rather than sitting on the sidelines from your older versions. You can make great quests with the old stable release, as Dark and Petoe are doing. Or you can bug test to help get the newer versions out. But this whining doesn't accomplish anything.

Ninja Edit - And as for ZC dying... what? The forums at AGN have always been slow-paced, I havn't seen much change in that. PureZC has always been a pretty cliquish site. It shouldn't be suprising that membership doesn't change much at either place. I grant you that newbies will find it easier if the updated ZC file was availible from the front page in big dumb letters. I also grant you that A COMPREHENSIVE TUTORIAL COMPLETE WITH PICTURES IS NECESSARY HOLY SHIT. But I don't see this "ZC is dying" complaint.