Zelda Classic 2.11 Beta 16

beefster09 wrote:The only major problems that could come of Z3 scrolling are:

• Enemies. How would they be constrained?
• What if you want an irregular shape, such as a cross?
• Rooms. How are they distinguished?
• Warp returns. How will you be placed?

1: They'd probably be loaded the moment you get within range of their screen.
2: Just keep people from getting to certain screens!
3: LttP's scrolling didn't have one big screen that scrolled- IT WAS MANY SCREENS LINKED TOGETHER! Fascinating, huh? In the dungeon maps, any free-scrolling rooms were shown on the map to be bigger than others. Granted, some scrolling rooms were actually one single room, but that was because of LttP's max room size and the size of the TV screen (Remember, this WAS a console game, after all) If you tried to fit the whole screen into the TV screen at once, every sprite and tile would be small. So the rooms are distinguished as normal rooms, but the bigger ones are (of course) bigger on the map.
4: See above. The rooms are individual, but you scroll between them, so even though it's one big scrolling screen, it's made of individual ones, so depending on what screen you're in, the warps are checked differently. However... This means you get MORE WARPS. Think about it. A 2x2 box of 4 screens that scroll together means that for the giant screen they make, YOU GET SIXTEEN WARPS. But still only 4 warps per screen? I already said how warps would be distinguished, so no need to ask. 😉

Well, this is how it was explained to me:

1. The enemies are all spawned within the same room, all at the same time.

2. Not possible, but why would you want a little cross as a shape anyway? Aside, you can just make 3x3, and make the rooms outside of the cross have ceiling combos.

3. You set one room as a "Z3 room" in screen data, then next to it is the number of screens to link, in length and width, with that screen being in the top-left corner. With scripting and x/y positions, they just carry over. Same thing with everything else: The x/y is merely expanded.

4. Exactly the same as always, except the camera would center around Link when he arrived. Screens still work exactly the same, it's just an x/y expansion and a camera.

Z3 scrolling would be awesome, but I don't see how cutscenes would work. I mean, we usually have to make an identical screen and it that way, but if the screen was centered around Link, it would be hard to warp to an identical screen.

I personally love the idea, however, with Z3 scrolling you would really need to add things like Global triggers and such, plus I can just think of all of the bugs this would bring. Even though I would love to see this, I would rather you guys wait after the stable release before you put this in. Because again, with Z3 scrolling, you would have to add a lot of other features for it to work out the way everyone wants. It seems it would take a long while to get it worked out too. And a lot of people just want to see a stable release. However, it is your guy's decision, and I will back you up either way but if you were to ask my opinion, then I would say stable release first.

I personally like the idea Amaster supplied about have 2.6, then 2.7 for each major feature. It would make things much easier to navigate. And if you don't want to download the new version just because you have dial up. Then DON'T. Wait until a later release has 'enough' of the stuff you want to use in your quest and download that.

Shoelace wrote:Z3 scrolling would be awesome, but I don't see how cutscenes would work. I mean, we usually have to make an identical screen and it that way, but if the screen was centered around Link, it would be hard to warp to an identical screen.

Not really. Just set the screen you warp to to also have Z3 scrolling. Granted, it wastes more screens, but... That's the price you have to pay for such a great feature. Besides, they're supposed to add more maps, so we'd be able to waste those screens.

By the way, since they increased the DMaps and plan to increase the Dmaps, do you plan on making a 2.5 "DX" version of your quest? If I remember correctly, you said you left out a lot of stuff in your quest because you ran out of maps and/or DMaps. With all the maps and DMaps we'll have...You could do everything you originally wanted to do with your quest, plus more! 😉

My first idea was sane, so please don't disregard it due to the possible sheer complexity of what this may entail seeing as I know nothing about programming. For those of you with slow net, to reduce download times what if ZC was reconfigured so that all the basic data was in one file, and you would download much smaller files that went in and modified only what was new, instead of a whole new program. This may be really simple, maybe not. To use a Zelda analogy, in LttP, in order to store all the Light world and Dark world on one cart, they kept the basic data the same and only programmed the differences. (Most digital image files work on a similar concept.)Thus the space was drasticly reduced. If this is totally not feasable, feel free to tell me.

DarkFlameWolf wrote:I personally like the idea Amaster supplied about have 2.6, then 2.7 for each major feature. It would make things much easier to navigate. And if you don't want to download the new version just because you have dial up. Then DON'T. Wait until a later release has 'enough' of the stuff you want to use in your quest and download that.

...Then a quest you have been waiting months to play is released in the new version the next day.

Not really. Just set the screen you warp to to also have Z3 scrolling. Granted, it wastes more screens, but... That's the price you have to pay for such a great feature. Besides, they're supposed to add more maps, so we'd be able to waste those screens.

By the way, since they increased the DMaps and plan to increase the Dmaps, do you plan on making a 2.5 "DX" version of your quest? If I remember correctly, you said you left out a lot of stuff in your quest because you ran out of maps and/or DMaps. With all the maps and DMaps we'll have...You could do everything you originally wanted to do with your quest, plus more!

I get that, but I mean things, like the invisible wall with strings has to go. What would that do in a cutscene in Z3 scrolling? What sucks is I usually make every screen have a secrets and secret combos are used. That is why I think Global triggers would have to be used, unless I am overlooking something.

But you have to admit, if there was Z3 scrolling a lot of bugs and features would have to be added. That is all I was saying. I don't mind that much, but I know a lot of people do because they are awaiting a stable release.

Also, I do plan on making a 2.5 version of HoD. It won't have that many differences and no I won't add things that I left out of the game, because I actually made the storyline different so I could take things out to fit it in. And I can't change the storyline now, after I released the game. So new things would just be a easier HoD, clearer storyline, and a new extra level most likely. Nothing big though, it is just basically for the easier gameplay.

...which is why I'm suggesting my probably infeasable update method, which would reduce file sizes of around 4MB to probably less than 200 k.(For those of you bad at math, that's about 1/20th the file size)

EDIT: Dang Shoelace, you posted at the same time I did. Now my ... doesn't make sense. Just put my post under Revfans mentaly.

And Z3 scrolling does worry me for cutscenes, because up until this point most cutscenes I need to make I've been able to fake with warps and secrets, but with Z3 scrolling, I'd have to resort to *gasp* Scripting! which I totally SUCK!! at.

Would all of this really matter IF there was a stable release that could be used right now to actually build quests in?

I don't think so... :shrug:

Edit,
I really meant for this post to go here "A New Beta Philosophy?" but I guess it fits in here too.

Amaster42 wrote:...which is why I'm suggesting my probably infeasable update method, which would reduce file sizes of around 4MB to probably less than 200 k.(For those of you bad at math, that's about 1/20th the file size)

EDIT: Dang Shoelace, you posted at the same time I did. Now my ... doesn't make sense. Just put my post under Revfans mentaly.

And Z3 scrolling does worry me for cutscenes, because up until this point most cutscenes I need to make I've been able to fake with warps and secrets, but with Z3 scrolling, I'd have to resort to *gasp* Scripting! which I totally SUCK!! at.

Umm... That is an easy problem with an easy solution: Put cutscenes on only one screen. The way I described it above is the way Jman planned to implement it, meaning that you CAN still use just one screen (in terms of size, anyhow).

Aside, 200K is still a bit to download, and I wouldn't want to have to make new downloads every day. On the terms of stable releases, I think it's working just fine as it is. Although I do agree that such a system would work for beta releases that wouldn't be seriously used for questmaking.

I don't think it would be every day. I mean, you can't think of, implement, and totally DBug a feature in a single day. I was thinking along the lines of between four days to two weeks, or something.
Don't forget, this is still following under the assumption that A.) The devs actually decide to do this, and B.) That theres a way to reduce file size like I said.

Revfan, you're bandwidth can't possibly be that bad. Isn't it 56k? So, four seconds for 200kb? I never remember a megabyte taking an hour to download back when I had dial up. (A LOOOOOONG time ago)

Anyway, I don't really care whether I use Z3 Scrolling or not, but it won't be used in AMN. It's just too much to take at this point. I might test it with a classic mini-quest, though. Unless you can just combine screens.

It's actually 24.6k, and that is Kilobits, not Kilobytes. So in Kilobytes that is 3KB, and that is only when the server is blazing fast.

To answer your only question: The way it was planned, yes. All you can do is "link" screens together in a rectangle, max size being 8x8.

Actually, thinking back, the essence of my idea was only to concentrate on one feature exclusivly in a systematic approach. The only reason I suggested releasing them as stable versions was because, being presumably bug-free, there was no reason not to.

beefster09 wrote:The only major problems that could come of Z3 scrolling are:

• Enemies. How would they be constrained?
• What if you want an irregular shape, such as a cross?
• Rooms. How are they distinguished?
• Warp returns. How will you be placed?

I figure the Scrolling rooms would be a set of rooms grouped together and would share enemys, items and warps as if they were a single room. They would simply be acting as 1 Big room. Further more they would have to be constrained to a Square/Rectangle shape to prevent unused rooms from becoming an issue.

Example Range (0,0)-(2,2) are one 3x3 room, which all use the Data from room (0,0)

Given the fact that they would be sharing all this stuff, making the rooms too big wouldn't make much sense.

Hey, jman (and the other devs), I'm working on a Cane of Somaria script (and it's almost perfect). If I can perfect it, will you put it in ZC? The way I see it: If it's possible with scripts, you can put it in ZC.

Yeah, Pikaguy, I've sen the script your working on, and while I can't code myself, I know enough to tell what you have so far is pretty sweet. My only concern is the fact that your script requires an extra FFC on each screen. I'm sure that can be worked around, though.

All I'm really saying is for us to use a feature by feature aproach instead of the amalgam 3(or so) new features, a slew of bugfixes, and more bugs beta aproach we've had so far.

I'm not sure if I'd use Z3 scrolling if it meant being confined to rectangular rooms, though. That gets rid of a lot of the usefullness. My idea is to somewhere, in DMap data or somthing, have a blank list of 255 "rooms" and be able to define each room as a set of screens, for example, screens 25, 26, 27, and 37 for an L shaped room.

I'm still thinking the 56k thing is a crutch excuse for not wanting to wait a few minutes to download extra stuff. But personally, the editor is fine as it is, any more new features is asking for trouble. So as it stands, wrap it up, bug test the hell out of it. Release it before the end of the year and we're good to go!

I agree. We need 2.5 now, because it's been far too long. Like I said, my idea was for after 2.5 anyway.
And DFW, I'm pretty sure no matter how long it took, at this point, 2.5 would be out at the end of the year.

pikaguy900 wrote:Seriously, I figured that's what it'd be, but... I NEVER THOUGHT THE DEVS WOULD TAKE THE TIME TO TRY MAKING IT!

The devs implemented the Roc's Feather. It was just a matter of time before they did something like this. At this rate, the devs are going to wind up making every hideously oversuggested, improbable idea we've all suggested, JUST to make us go 'WTF?!' :P Seriously, Z3 scrolling, spin attacks, and the Roc's Feather are three of those 'pipe dream stfu n00b' suggestions, asked 500 billion times...

Stungun wrote:The devs implemented the Roc's Feather. It was just a matter of time before they did something like this. At this rate, the devs are going to wind up making every hideously oversuggested, improbable idea we've all suggested, JUST to make us go 'WTF?!' :P Seriously, Z3 scrolling, spin attacks, and the Roc's Feather are three of those 'pipe dream stfu n00b' suggestions, asked 500 billion times...

And for the record, 499.9999 billion of those asks would be me bugging jman about it over AIM, which I'm sure he'll agree

Speaking of, it's been over a minute since I last did! I'm getting slow

I think I can honestly say that I don't care what happens anymore. I've downloaded and tested every beta I could get my hands on, to the point where I just want to finish my quests and be done with it.

Well in my opinion Z3 scrolling is a natural progression of the program and I would love to see it. However it may be a good idea to finish 2.5 first and make it the big new feature for 2.6, something very cool to look forward to. This would allow every aspect of ZQuest to be upgraded and tested for use with this powerful new feature without delaying 2.5 and a new "public" stable release.
However, I do think that in the current Zquest some limited scrolling is already possible through script and will be even better once the current features are fixed. Speaking of which, what is the status of the script drawing functions? Do DrawCombo/Tile work with the new format, and what is the new format?

Freedom wrote:Would all of this really matter IF there was a stable release that could be used right now to actually build quests in?

I don't think so... :shrug:

Yeah... and after reading about these big plans for a Z3 scrolling... I just feel ZC will never be stable again. Even if the Z3 scrolling doesn't make it to the 2.5, some other "cool" feature will instead and likewise ruin everything. When do the devs stop? Apparently never?

Oh well, what can I do? Nothing but whine. Well whining is over for me. If even one new "revolutionary" feature is added to the 2.5 betas, I'm gonna join Freedom and go to a long vacation far away from ZC...

Jman did a great and convincing job at getting rid of some very annoying and longtime bugs just a while ago, but that's just not enough. Even though the newest betas seem to love Lost Isle (the quest works fine on those betas) I still am afraid that a new feature will come and ruin that wonderful feeling...

Well I'm gonna sit back and see what happens. Nevertheless, I still find the strenght in me to keep on testing aggressively no matter how faithless I currently feel. :P

well the main issue it seems with the current betas and Lost Isle is the subscreen and how items keep mysteriously disappearing when others are acquired. The rest of negligible or too small right not to focus on. (that and Like Likes eating your shield whole and LI set up the way it is, we don't have regular shields for sale, kinda sucks)

also, I've been playing quests on this version and other than the major issue mentioned above, so far, its been doing 'pretty good.'

The problem, from what I understand after talking with jman for a week or two, is that the bug list is huge, really huge and not well-organized right now, and when there are only 3 people actively and regularly developing ZC, it becomes off putting to see a bug list that large.

As I said to ShadowTiger in chat, it's like seeing an enormous meal put in front of you, and when you see all the food piled up like that, you pretty much know you're not going to finish that plate and "give up" on the prospect of finishing it right then and there. That's really analogous to what's going on here, and it's human nature, nothing more. Thus comes the idea of the incremental beta, or the snapshot release as I like to call it. Going back to that analogy, if you tackle that dish in small nibbles, you will have a better chance at finishing it than trying to take it in all at once. That's the premise behind these. They aren't meant to be normal betas. They are just there to make a few fixes in a short amount of time rather than a larger amount of fixes in a large amount of time.

Then there's the understandable issue that bugs are nowhere near as fun to fix as adding in new features, especially if the said bugs aren't even reproducible on the developer's platform. I've run into that a lot myself, and it's nerve-wracking and time-gobbling to fix bugs like those.

The root of the issue here is that the current devs (the 3 I was talking about) have too many bugs to fix and not enough manpower to fix them and would like to see another full-time developer join the team. Such developers are at a premium nowadays, but you never know when such people will pop up.

Go Eli, I think you about nailed it.

Something else is that the engine is dated, and people are asking for more and more stuff, eventually we will get to the point where the engine cannot support more features.

While I think the crew is doing a great job, it might just be time to finish and fix what is there, than build something new and better.

Eliwood wrote:The problem, from what I understand after talking with jman for a week or two, is that the bug list is huge, really huge and not well-organized right now, and when there are only 3 people actively and regularly developing ZC, it becomes off putting to see a bug list that large.

As I said to ShadowTiger in chat, it's like seeing an enormous meal put in front of you, and when you see all the food piled up like that, you pretty much know you're not going to finish that plate and "give up" on the prospect of finishing it right then and there. That's really analogous to what's going on here, and it's human nature, nothing more. Thus comes the idea of the incremental beta, or the snapshot release as I like to call it. Going back to that analogy, if you tackle that dish in small nibbles, you will have a better chance at finishing it than trying to take it in all at once. That's the premise behind these. They aren't meant to be normal betas. They are just there to make a few fixes in a short amount of time rather than a larger amount of fixes in a large amount of time.

Then there's the understandable issue that bugs are nowhere near as fun to fix as adding in new features, especially if the said bugs aren't even reproducible on the developer's platform. I've run into that a lot myself, and it's nerve-wracking and time-gobbling to fix bugs like those.

The root of the issue here is that the current devs (the 3 I was talking about) have too many bugs to fix and not enough manpower to fix them and would like to see another full-time developer join the team. Such developers are at a premium nowadays, but you never know when such people will pop up.

With all due respect, this is a corner that the devs painted themselves into, there are many of us that asked them for a stable release BEFORE all the new features, well before this ever happened.
The 2.11b10b was actually a very good release with only a few minor bugs, and then from there they went wild and added a ton of stuff along with so many bugs that it is now IMPOSSIBLE for me to even test betas any longer, since I can't even get off the start screen without crashing.

Before that it was IMPOSSIBLE to test new features like items, that were there, but would crash you if you tried to put them in your subscreen, IF you can't get it in there, you can't test it.

How long are testers going to be expected to continually test without getting a stable release for their trouble?
WHY ELSE do you think they are doing it?

I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it's turning out just like I said it would, ZC is now so screwed up from additions, that trying to fix it is overwhelming and nobody wants the task of doing it.

Anyone wanting to build a quest might as well go back and build it in the 190, yea, it doesn't have all the cool new crap. BUT it works.

Lotus_Eater

What you are saying is Perhaps they should call Zelda Classic "Finished" as of the next stable releace, and the perhaps start work on a whole new engine. One built from the ground up with the Quest Maker in mind, rather then recreating an old classic from 1986?