State of Zelda Classic 2.5

When I first started calling for a stable release, NONE of the problems that exist now were there then.
You've done exactly what I said would happen.
You went in and added and connected way too many pipes to the bowl, and now you've got the bowl stopped up, almost beyond repair and all your pipes are leaking uncontrollably.
Now, when you put a wrench on one pipe to stop it from leaking, the bowl is stressed to the point all the other pipes that you've repaired start leaking again.
It's now a never ending cycle of tightening pipes only to have others work loose when you do.

I hate to say it boys, but I told you so. 😉

Oh, yeah, I edited out what I said, because it was kinda convoluted. The metaphor at least gives you an image to go on. Heh.

Freedom wrote:When I first started calling for a stable release, NONE of the problems that exist now were there then.
You've done exactly what I said would happen.
You went in and added and connected way too many pipes to the bowl, and now you've got the bowl stopped up, almost beyond repair and all your pipes are leaking uncontrollably.
Now, when you put a wrench on one pipe to stop it from leaking, the bowl is stressed to the point all the other pipes that you've repaired start leaking again.
It's now a never ending cycle of tightening pipes only to have others work loose when you do.

I hate to say it boys, but I told you so. 😉

+100 for continuing the metaphor.

pkmnfrk wrote:Turns out, replacing 9+ years worth of work takes, well, 9 years. My replacement project never got off the ground, nor have any others, either ports of the original code, rewrites or independent projects. Only the original code base is still active.

Perhaps when you get to the rewrite you could just dump NES consistency altogether. And you could refer to and reuse old code, clean it up, port the editor and engine to native GUI, etc...

I mean...

When you make the new bowl, you could forget about making the bowl look the same and worry entirely on all the other functions of it. Then you could take dust from the sieve and reuse it in the ceramic for the new bowl and make it match cosmetically to any table it is put on.

A stable enough release is fine. The crashes and anything that would destroy a quest needs to fix of course. So what I mean is the big bugs are a must, but little bugs, we can live with them in my opinion. So the bowl will most likely still have cracks but at least the bowl's big holes are patched.

But the thing is, 2.5 is getting stabler than ZC has ever been. And that is awesome. But what I am worried about and kinda still am, is Large Mode. I am just thinking since Large Mode is still being made, it is going to take a lot time for you guys to finish it. Say for example you finish it in January (Large Mode), well, bugs are going to be coming from the new code so that is more bugs to deal with. I am just saying this, without Large Mode, I see ZC 2.5 being released sooner, because of the few bugs for it at this point. However, with Large Mode, I don't know how much time it is going to take as I don't know when it will be finished and what kind of bugs are going to come out of it.

And I am not saying to cancel Large Mode or anything like that. I am just saying this is the reason for the thread. I wanted a progress on what you think is going to come out of it. And thanks for replying, as I sorta have a better idea. So hopefully, all is going well with Large Mode as I want to help kill the bugs for it as soon as possible.

Also, I am the next Freedom/Peteo? If so, that is a good thing, as I look up to them a lot. XD

PS. pkmnfrk should be a new developer. *runs*

beefster09 wrote:It really could take less time, so long as you had more people to help you, but considering the current activity among the devs, it may actually take longer. Or shorter. _L_'s a mad genius after all.

Perhaps when you get to the rewrite you could just dump NES consistency altogether. And you could refer to and reuse old code, clean it up, port the editor and engine to native GUI, etc...

I mean...

When you make the new bowl, you could forget about making the bowl look the same and worry entirely on all the other functions of it. Then you could take dust from the sieve and reuse it in the ceramic for the new bowl and make it match cosmetically to any table it is put on.

Yeah, but the bowls original designer wanted it to be pretty instead of having lots of different compartments and stuff. Now the company he sold it to wants to completely redesign it with lots of compartments, a food processor, a mini fridge, and a back-scratcher to go with it. How do you think the bowls original designer feels? 😞

I am, of course, referring to Phantom Menace and his goal of creating a stable, accurate Zelda 1 clone.

Isn't that ZC 1.00?

I have honestly never seen such a complex bowl before. I keep thinking "This is truly the mixing bowl from hell." What an analogy... ... oy, lol.

At this point I think we already can make a pretty damn close enough clone of The original Zelda. Now it is evolving, and I don't think the future ZC's should keep being so limited by that. If someone would what a stable LoZ clone, I guess that will be 2.5, but beyond that, it is time for something new.

Well yeah, but it's still Phantom Menace's program. I think the devs should at least go let him know that we're gonna ditch NES consistancy, ya' know? Or, maybe we could just put 'Zelda Classic' to rest and when we rebuild it from scratch, we could call it 'Zelda Classic, But it's Not so Classic Anymore'. :tongue:

Me? I think it may be just a little too late for ZC.

Even if a stable 2.5 could come out tomorrow, what good would it do? Honestly, think about it for a moment. To be fair, I don't keep up with you all enough to make a complete, in-depth analysis of the situation, but as an outside observer one thing is clear, and it has been clear since long before I requested my ban from PureZC: The ZC community has poisoned itself from the inside out.

How many quest projects have been abandoned by the beta wait? Is it even possible to count them all? The general mindset amongst the community of "This is a beta version, so you shouldn't use it yet, even though everything new and exciting you can only get by using this new beta" doesn't help at all either. It's not a very good environment for new ZC users, since they look at this mindset and say "Well, if I use an old version, then my project will look like an outdated piece of crap. But if I use the betas, I'll run the risk of ZC magically corrupting all my hard work and forcing me to start over. I'm just not going to bother." As such, how many users have joined ZC since the beta marathon started? Maybe more than my imagination is guessing, but certainly far less than before.

Not to mention that the community itself has all but torn itself to bits. This was partially due to the "Wait for the stable" mindset, but mostly, it was our fault as a whole. Admittedly, I'm more guilty here than anyone else, but I'm pretty sure the ZC community can't possibly hate me any more than it already does, so I'm alright with that. Above everything else, what happened is that needless, mindless disputes broke out that did nothing but divide the ZC community, and these divided parts all collapsed under their own weight. Remember the whole Z3 Scrolling fiasco? _L_ suggesting to remove Big Link? Lost Isle? All of the other countless things that flared up (Freedom, Peteo, and I all had major parts in this)?

And so what if 2.5 is stable? For most questmakers, the betas were only so interesting because they had fun and exciting new features that they wanted to try out. Well, new features stopped being added long ago, and the "Wait for the stable" mindset has already convinced these people to put their projects away into a dusty attic where they've already been covered with toxic mold and been mostly devoured by rats. The excitement of working with the new features has already faded away from most, and the shiny new label of "Stable!" isn't going to respark any interests. Once more, many people have already left the ZC community almost entirely thanks to the "Wait for the stable" mindset, and their interests have turned to other things, and they probably have things other than ZC to think about now. To them, ZC is just an old hobby that crosses their mind once in a while, and a new "stable" version isn't enough to make them want to come back. I know that I'm not coming back.

A "stable" label on a new release will do hardly anything to rekindle ZC's dying flame, and what good is code if it isn't used? You can patch up that bowl as much as you like, but the table you're going to put it down on to eat dinner is lying in burning pieces on the floor, all the food in your fridge has spoiled, and your wife has already called for Pizza.

I believe Zscript needs to be dropped, all THAT has done was open the door to jillions of bugs! I'd be more then happy for you guys to restart from scratch, just make sure you do your research before choosing a new system to base it on (SDL, Allegro etc.) and choose one that best fits your needs!

Freedom's analogy is somewhat perfect in my eyes. fix the big bugs now! (excluding zscript which is currently in a evil incarnation!) and release a version then work on a new one from the ground up!

Why do you guys need so create so much drama for such a silly thing? You can make a fine game with any of the previous versions of Zelda Classic, and if you don't go in depth to many of the newer features, you can avoid a decent amount of the so-called crippling bugs. Even those though you can avoid as long as you make sure to make plenty of back-ups (I have a folder dedicated to daily backup saves).

You can do more with the program than ever before (Look in the scripting showcase), dev's are working as much as they can, and so are the committed users. You can be as pessimistic as you want about the future, but whatever comes out, we'll get. If they can figure out a way to remove the last 25 big bugs, than hurrah. They can take as long as they need to do it.

franpa wrote:I believe Zscript needs to be dropped, all THAT has done was open the door to jillions of bugs!

1) ZScript is not being dropped. Period
2) Those jillions of bugs are usually all the user's fault. Which is unavoidable in any sort of scripting system. I can add integrity checks of course, but it's really impossible to check for everything.

Revfan9 wrote:blah blah blah

Yeah, I never liked you anyway, and this is why.

jman2050 wrote:Yeah, I never liked you anyway, and this is why.

Kudos
Go gettum J man

Pointing a finger ain't going to get it done folks, the state of ZC is everybody's fault.
When the devs were busting ass, then people wouldn't test, and follow up on the bugs that they did report.
Others just kept whinning for more more more.
So now it is what it is, and those same people are bitching at the devs.
They gave you your chance and you sat on your asses.
NOW they have things to do in their lives, so go sit on your ass some more and STFU.

And Revfan, you've never brought anything but insult and misery to the community.

1) ZScript is not being dropped. Period

2) Those jillions of bugs are usually all the user's fault. Which is unavoidable in any sort of scripting system. I can add integrity checks of course, but it's really impossible to check for everything.

of course, I don't intend to pressure you pikaguy since you hopefully WILL be able to help out at some point in the near future.

Shoelace wrote:But the thing is, 2.5 is getting stabler than ZC has ever been. And that is awesome. But what I am worried about and kinda still am, is Large Mode. I am just thinking since Large Mode is still being made, it is going to take a lot time for you guys to finish it. Say for example you finish it in January (Large Mode), well, bugs are going to be coming from the new code so that is more bugs to deal with. I am just saying this, without Large Mode, I see ZC 2.5 being released sooner, because of the few bugs for it at this point. However, with Large Mode, I don't know how much time it is going to take as I don't know when it will be finished and what kind of bugs are going to come out of it.

Truthfully, I haven't really been paying too much attention to the community, but I do pay attention to the change log and to the ZC Development forum. In addition, I use ZQuest, Large Mode exclusively. And, I wasn't aware that Large Mode was broken.

Sure, there's a few things that need to be tweaked. Old dialogues need to be resized, etc. But, the major UI bugs I'm aware of (Init Data dialogue freezing, mouse wheel in the tile page, maybe others?) are not specific to Large Mode.

Shoelace wrote:PS. pkmnfrk should be a new developer. *runs*

QFT- er, I mean, naw. >_>

Well, since they already put Zscript in and it has been in for Quite some time, you can't just drop it now. That would cause so much destruction. So that won't happen. lol

Well yeah, but it's still Phantom Menace's program. I think the devs should at least go let him know that we're gonna ditch NES consistancy, ya' know? Or, maybe we could just put 'Zelda Classic' to rest and when we rebuild it from scratch, we could call it 'Zelda Classic, But it's Not so Classic Anymore'.

Well I am not saying to ditch it now. I am saying after this release, move on. Zelda Classic of the LoZ clone has come and gone, it is time to move on from it.

Edit: I so didn't refresh the page and there were a lot of replys. >_<

Anyways:

Truthfully, I haven't really been paying too much attention to the community, but I do pay attention to the change log and to the ZC Development forum. In addition, I use ZQuest, Large Mode exclusively. And, I wasn't aware that Large Mode was broken.

Sure, there's a few things that need to be tweaked. Old dialogues need to be resized, etc. But, the major UI bugs I'm aware of (Init Data dialogue freezing, mouse wheel in the tile page, maybe others?) are not specific to Large Mode.

I have been using Large Mode too. It is not broken at all. My point is it isn't finished. And I was wondering the time frame of when it was going to be completed so had an estimated time frame. Because once it is completed the only thing left is fixing the bugs for Large Mode. But we can't fix the future bugs now, and that was why I was wondering a time frame. But yeah, it works great as I hear now, just a lot of things need to be resized and such, like the tilepage. *awaits the new beta so I can work on tiles in Large Mode*

Shoelace wrote:Well, since they already put Zscript in and it has been in for Quite some time, you can't just drop it now. That would cause so much destruction. So that won't happen. lol

If Zscript was dropped, that would be a major regression. One which would actually cost me money (hey, domain names aren't free).

Shoelace wrote:Well I am not saying to ditch it now. I am saying after this release, move on. Zelda Classic of the LoZ clone has come and gone, it is time to move on from it.

I really thought this happened... Ages ago. An LoZ clone doesn't have a level 4 sword, a level 3 shield or boomerang, a hammer, flippers, magic, roc's feathers, >2 bit colour, hi-fidelity music... I'm running out of things to list, so I hope you get the idea by now.

Shoelace wrote:Edit: I so didn't refresh the page and there were a lot of replys. >_<

Edit: er, me too.

Shoelace wrote:I have been using Large Mode too. It is not broken at all. My point is it isn't finished. And I was wondering the time frame of when it was going to be completed so had an estimated time frame. Because once it is completed the only thing left is fixing the bugs for Large Mode. But we can't fix the future bugs now, and that was why I was wondering a time frame. But yeah, it works great as I hear now, just a lot of things need to be resized and such, like the tilepage. *awaits the new beta so I can work on tiles in Large Mode*

True, when you put it like that. Although, resizing windows shouldn't cause any major bugs, only little ones like "Why is that caption... uh, wayyy over there?"

I too await the next beta, so I can finally understand what _L_ says when he says "Note also that the font choice for the new dialogs shouldn't be considered final just yet."

Freedom wrote:And Revfan, you've never brought anything but insult and misery to the community.

That's what they pay me for, you know.

If ZSCRIPT was implemented properly, then they would just need to comment out some lines and it would be gone from the compiled EXE :P anyways, too many people demand it etc. so it isn't going to be dropped.

franpa wrote:If ZSCRIPT was implemented properly, then they would just need to comment out some lines and it would be gone from the compiled EXE :P

Smiley aside, you only wish it were that easy.

pkmnfrk wrote:Smiley aside, you only wish it were that easy.

Well, to be fair, with the design we established we'd only have to comment out a few lines to remove the scripting functionality from quest playing. All the residuals and the system itself would remain though :P

Well, I say to patch up whatever big cracks you've got in the current bowl, and leave it be. Enough work has been invested in this bowl, so you might as well start collecting another batch of clay the for the next bowl.

After all, I'm used to waiting now. If you are used to 2.10's bugs, then you won't have a problem dealing with 2.5's minor bugs (if they are present).

(On a side note, the new "bowl" should not be called Zelda Classic, but instead Zeldit, in my opinion.)

Maybe in the future, it would be better to only have a semi-open beta to prevent the kinds of things that Revfan was talking about. On the other hand, the beta would take longer to get out if you partially closed it off. Then again, considering that really only well-established members report bugs.

So ALL bug reports should be ignored unless they require one line to be changed or are critical or detrimental.

I am not really worried about large mode, other than the lag in said mode. We just need most of the menus expanded and tested.

Well, aren't the current builds we use actually Alphas? I remember the not-so-old days back when I first joined when Beta releases were big events, once a month type things with huge threads of comments.

*sigh* I kinda miss those days. On the other hand, the speed for updates that Shardstorm has given us has been awesome.

...so I'm kinda on the fence.

Well, aren't the current builds we use actually Alphas?

Yup.

I think we should fix the remaining bugs, and then re-write the whole program.

spyk99999 wrote:I think we should fix the remaining bugs, and then re-write the whole program.

That would be pointless. Plus, think about what you're saying.

"You should take the time and effort to resolve the issues that people have with this program... and then toss it out, and start anew."

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, rewriting the whole program is not easy, nor is is fast. And, it's not a cure-all either. If the design is fundamentally flawed, then it doesn't matter how many times you code it, the design will still be flawed.

Not that I'm saying the design is flawed, quite the opposite. ZC has achieved what it set out to do, and much, much more.

And, I'm also not saying that there aren't parts that probably should be written either. There probably are... In fact, I'd bet money that there are. Rewriting them should be done at the beginning of a development cycle, like after a major release.

I discuss the software development cycle about half way down this blog entry

In addition to taking a very long time, a complete rewrite probably wouldn't be compatible with current quests.

Well, to be fair, with the design we established we'd only have to comment out a few lines to remove the scripting functionality from quest playing. All the residuals and the system itself would remain though :P