ZC [2.future] Development Plans [To-Do]

[DarkDragon]

Theoretically, it can do pretty much anything; it's just a matter of making the functions available to it. For scrolling and subscreen stuff, it's more a question of putting those features into the engine. I expect both will happen, but nothing's definite right now.

I'm not really sure what a gradual change would mean. We need to replace the whole sprite class, and continuing to support ZScript after that means making a separate version of the script engine to work with the new classes. Changing the combo system would mean all the scripts using Screen->Combo* or Game->Get/SetCombo* break. Same deal for flags. The whole itemdata type depends on the current weapon implementation. There are all sorts of weird little things; weapon->DeadState, screen flags, the behavior of directions outside the range of 0-7... How far do we go to keep existing scripts working? And if we're okay with breaking scripts, why go to any trouble at all when only the most trivial will keep working?

Maybe it will become clear in time. It's not like this is something that's going to happen overnight.

Well, those are good questions, but let's look at the case of combos specifically. In my mind the "right" way to implement combos would be to have them all be scripted, with users selecting from a palette of pre-written combo scripts, rather than a palette of hard-coded combos (which is what we have now). How might this be implemented? The first step would be to introduce a "scripted combo" combo that uses AngelScript scripts that do not interact in any way with ZScript. New users who pick up ZQuest make their quests entirely out of these "scripted combos" and are none the wiser that anything else ever existed before, but the hard-coded combos are still supported (for backwards compatibility with old quests). ZScript can try to use Screen->Combo* but these function do not do anything interesting for the new "scripted combos" (I suppose ComboD returns a generic ID indicating that the combo is a scripted combo).

Similarly hard-coded enemies can be replaced with scripted enemies, same thing with items, etc.

[ZoriaRPG]

Well, those are good questions, but let's look at the case of combos specifically. In my mind the "right" way to implement combos would be to have them all be scripted, with users selecting from a palette of pre-written combo scripts, rather than a palette of hard-coded combos (which is what we have now). How might this be implemented? The first step would be to introduce a "scripted combo" combo that uses AngelScript scripts that do not interact in any way with ZScript. New users who pick up ZQuest make their quests entirely out of these "scripted combos" and are none the wiser that anything else ever existed before, but the hard-coded combos are still supported (for backwards compatibility with old quests). ZScript can try to use Screen->Combo* but these function do not do anything interesting for the new "scripted combos" (I suppose ComboD returns a generic ID indicating that the combo is a scripted combo).

Similarly hard-coded enemies can be replaced with scripted enemies, same thing with items, etc.

Honestly, if people want to do a rewrite as ZC v3.x, backward compatibility is going to take a hit one way or another. I was originally in favour of continuing 2.xx development, and allowing a rewrite (3.0) to be clean, possibly working on platform stability in future 2.x updates, and working out some way to make a 2.x quest 'player' in the 3.0 engine, that handles all these quirks directly through new, clean code.

The alternative is a big case statement that reads the quest header, and does A if it's 3.x, or B if it's 2.x, for just about everything.

There's no reason that 2.x has to die for this to work, and there's no reason to abandon the community using 2.x to allow a rewrite. I don't really think tha tthe userbase has ever really been consulted on any of this, and insofar as deprecating ZScript, the community opinion has been unfavourable to this outcome.

An important factor, is that ZC is no longer the only game in town. I'm unsure if @DarkDragon has looked at the Solarus engine. IMO, that is the right direction for ZC3. Every object in Solarus is scripted... If you went that route, and you had easy to use attribute editors so that scripting is not a mandatory requirement to use the flipping thing (note that Solarus does not yet do that, but it's on @Christopho ' s plan), you would have something that can hold up to the test of time.

You could even allow stock Z1 style questmaking, by setting the bitmap scrolling areas to one-screen regions, and adding a scripted subscreen bar. ...but the reality is, that ZC3 should be something that keeps up with the other gamemaking engines, instead of the arcane and antiquated methodologies that it employs at present, and in so doing that, you pretty much relegate old quest compatibility to a side-programme. Other utilities do this. Hell, Apple did it when they came out with OSX, running older programmes in a VM that sort of invisibly ran in the background.

That might be the thing to do, for 2.5 compatibility in the future: Some kind of invisible background process that runs the quest on top of the new engine.

All this not withstanding, in my ehttp://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?97486-ZC-2-future-Development-Plans-To-Do&p=912319#post912319w3stimate, we're five to six years away from such a thing being viable. In the interim, I choose to work with 2.50, adding things that people want, fixing what can be fixed, and trying to smooth out some ruffles. I have yet to see any kind of plan for a rewrite, or ZC3, that I feel is viable; nor have I seen the kind of staffing or dedication it would take to accomplish it. We realistically would need ten or more core developers, and a suite of contributors, or it'll take 12 years, like Solarus, or pretty much 2.5.

We do however, have people willing to work on 2.55, and 2.60. It's possible to keep this thing alive using these resources, while we develop a plan for the future. If you actually need a list of references on why not routinely updating something kills it, I can provide that: History is a good teacher here. Without working on 2.55 and 2.6 as continuations of 2.50--even if that means biting it, and continuing to work on a dinosaur API with a zany assembler that has its own C-type interpreter,--ZC is pretty much a dead duck, as the present userbase will die out, and no new userbase will exist to supplant it.

You also have to take the contributors, and new developers that you can gain, and avoid thwarting ever ambition that they may have, isolating them, and turning them away in the process. I know that @Tamamo pretty much abandoned ZC Dev because everything she wanted to do was rejected; and while I was not in favour of some of it, the same thing is happening with the three of us that are willing to work on this beastie.

[Tamamo]

Honestly, if people want to do a rewrite as ZC v3.x, backward compatibility is going to take a hit one way or another. I was originally in favour of continuing 2.xx development, and allowing a rewrite (3.0) to be clean, possibly working on platform stability in future 2.x updates, and working out some way to make a 2.x quest 'player' in the 3.0 engine, that handles all these quirks directly through new, clean code.

The alternative is a big case statement that reads the quest header, and does A if it's 3.x, or B if it's 2.x, for just about everything.

There's no reason that 2.x has to die for this to work, and there's no reason to abandon the community using 2.x to allow a rewrite. I don't really think tha tthe userbase has ever really been consulted on any of this, and insofar as deprecating ZScript, the community opinion has been unfavourable to this outcome.

An important factor, is that ZC is no longer the only game in town. I'm unsure if @DarkDragon has looked at the Solarus engine. IMO, that is the right direction for ZC3. Every object in Solarus is scripted... If you went that route, and you had easy to use attribute editors so that scripting is not a mandatory requirement to use the flipping thing (note that Solarus does not yet do that, but it's on @Christopho ' s plan), you would have something that can hold up to the test of time.

You could even allow stock Z1 style questmaking, by setting the bitmap scrolling areas to one-screen regions, and adding a scripted subscreen bar. ...but the reality is, that ZC3 should be something that keeps up with the other gamemaking engines, instead of the arcane and antiquated methodologies that it employs at present, and in so doing that, you pretty much relegate old quest compatibility to a side-programme. Other utilities do this. Hell, Apple did it when they came out with OSX, running older programmes in a VM that sort of invisibly ran in the background.

That might be the thing to do, for 2.5 compatibility in the future: Some kind of invisible background process that runs the quest on top of the new engine.

All this not withstanding, in my ehttp://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?97486-ZC-2-future-Development-Plans-To-Do&p=912319#post912319w3stimate, we're five to six years away from such a thing being viable. In the interim, I choose to work with 2.50, adding things that people want, fixing what can be fixed, and trying to smooth out some ruffles. I have yet to see any kind of plan for a rewrite, or ZC3, that I feel is viable; nor have I seen the kind of staffing or dedication it would take to accomplish it. We realistically would need ten or more core developers, and a suite of contributors, or it'll take 12 years, like Solarus, or pretty much 2.5.

We do however, have people willing to work on 2.55, and 2.60. It's possible to keep this thing alive using these resources, while we develop a plan for the future. If you actually need a list of references on why not routinely updating something kills it, I can provide that: History is a good teacher here. Without working on 2.55 and 2.6 as continuations of 2.50--even if that means biting it, and continuing to work on a dinosaur API with a zany assembler that has its own C-type interpreter,--ZC is pretty much a dead duck, as the present userbase will die out, and no new userbase will exist to supplant it.

You also have to take the contributors, and new developers that you can gain, and avoid thwarting ever ambition that they may have, isolating them, and turning them away in the process. I know that @Tamamo pretty much abandoned ZC Dev because everything she wanted to do was rejected; and while I was not in favour of some of it, the same thing is happening with the three of us that are willing to work on this beastie.

[ZoriaRPG]

Oh, right. I was being somewhat polite, there: 'everything she wanted to do was rejected'.

i.e., You wanted to do things, and we all went into bicker mode, every time.