almost bug free?

franpa wrote:The problem I see, with 2 teams, is that by the time one of the teams finishes, the other project might be so far along that it is nearly impossible to get familiar with.

Well, this thread has already put some ideas in to my head about this potential new engine that is not related to ZC in any way except in spirit, so...

Maybe someone should lay down a bit of foundation first, before a team of the world's best coders goes to town on it. I mean, imagine a situation where twelve carpenters all try to lay down the first brick (or, whatever it is that carpenters do!)

Mason's lay brick, carpenters drink beer and fart a lot ;O)
If all these programmers are sitting around waiting to be called for that project..... why don't they just jump in and finish the one at hand in the mean time ;O)
I've always found it's better to be concerned about what is, not what if.

Freedom wrote:If all these programmers are sitting around waiting to be called for that project..... why don't they just jump in and finish the one at hand in the mean time ;O)
I've always found it's better to be concerned about what is, not what if.

Anyway, I am committed to seeing a stable release... very soon. Before the end of the year, to celebrate the (real) end of the decade!

I have no way of ensuring I meet that goal, but I can only hope that the other guys are with me on this!

franpa wrote:The problem I see, with 2 teams, is that by the time one of the teams finishes, the other project might be so far along that it is nearly impossible to get familiar with.

I call dibs on team name: "Ninja Assassins Mega Battery and Lycanthrope Ass-kicking team!!" ..or team NAMBLA for short.

pkmnfrk wrote:Well, this thread has already put some ideas in to my head about this potential new engine that is not related to ZC in any way except in spirit, so...

Maybe someone should lay down a bit of foundation first, before a team of the world's best coders goes to town on it. I mean, imagine a situation where twelve carpenters all try to lay down the first brick (or, whatever it is that carpenters do!)

Dude you totally read my mind. 😊 That's why I started on this last week already!

int main()
{
  //code goes here
  return 0;
}

Go team NAMBLA!

(I rated this thread 5 stars) ;o edit: ok, I guess not. ..what the heck happened to the rating options... D:
..I know they're there because someones been rating the bug threads!.haha.

Gleeok wrote:I call dibs on team name: "Ninja Assassins Mega Battery and Lycanthrope Ass-kicking team!!" ..or team NAMBLA for short.

Dude you totally read my mind. 😊 That's why I started on this last week already!

int main()
{
  //code goes here
  return 0;
}

Go team NAMBLA!

(I rated this thread 5 stars) ;o edit: ok, I guess not. ..what the heck happened to the rating options... D:
..I know they're there because someones been rating the bug threads!.haha.

#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
  if(0 == rand() % 100) {
    int i = 0;  //introduce difficult to reproduce bug
    return 1 / i; //bypass compiler warning
  }
  return 0;
}

Freedom wrote:Mason's lay brick, carpenters drink beer and fart a lot ;O)

If all these programmers are sitting around waiting to be called for that project..... why don't they just jump in and finish the one at hand in the mean time ;O)

I've always found it's better to be concerned about what is, not what if.

EDIT: If we were to make a webcomic out of this, I would call it "Return 0" 😛

I do prefer making jokes but just to clarify:

There is no multiple dev teams. Getting 2.5 done is still #1 on the TODO list. No one is going to abandon ZC before getting something out the door (Unless real life dictates otherwise). ZC devs work on ZC.

While were on the subject though, truth be told that after 2.5 I would probably like to work on a project less (how do I put this) ..melodramatic. 😛

Well, this thread has already put some ideas in to my head about this potential new engine that is not related to ZC in any way except in spirit, so...

Maybe someone should lay down a bit of foundation first, before a team of the world's best coders goes to town on it. I mean, imagine a situation where twelve carpenters all try to lay down the first brick (or, whatever it is that carpenters do!)

I'd think that the scripting engine would be the first thing to go in. Then perhaps support a secondary scriping language, like Lua. Then you'd have scripts that compile to C++ code for speed, and scripts that could be changed at runtime for level/enemy/item layouts etc. Basically the same as professional game companies do it. Get rid of the crappy software rendering in favor of 3D acceleration and you've already got something 3x faster than GameMaker.

EDIT: If we were to make a webcomic out of this, I would call it "Return 0"

You guys do make some good points about the potential problems of there being a second team. I appreciate hearing all the responses. But hey, at least it got people thinking, right? I couldn't ask for more in regards to the responses. Better I speak my mind and people disagree with it than to not speak my mind to begin with and forever wonder. At least it could potentially spark some ideas come the day that 2.5 becomes stable, as useless as it would be right at this moment.

Moving right along then...

As for the progress on 2.5 specificially, I do agree that bug fixing needs to be not simply the #1 priority, but rather the "only" priority, assuming that is feasible. More neat stuff to add doesn't need to be done anymore, since we already have plenty of that; more than any reasonable and aware person would ever ask for. It is already migrating far from the original Legend of Zelda (that game being my motivation for discovering Zelda Classic back in 2004), despite the skyscraper being built on that house foundation.

pkmnfrk wrote:That is more or less what I was trying to say, several posts ago. And, you did it without getting sidetracked on what if! Truely, you are a better public speaker than I.

As eminently frustrating and nagging as he can be, Freedom is still very respectful in his complaints and his demeanor seems to stem more from the unfortunate circumstances themselves as opposed to any ill will towards any person or persons in particular. It is rather annoying to people like him when I say I'll do one thing and don't follow through due to being distracted!

One thing I do think needs to be addressed that isn't related to 2.5 proper: some form of consistent documentation that won't require people to A) look at a tutorial or B) comb through old forum posts. I recall the ZCWiki was supposed to fill this need, but I imagine some sort of packaged documentation would be preferable for the final product. Fortunately, that's something that can be addressed by the community at large, developers included, over the next [insert random time period here]

nagging... ROFLOL
You better be extremely careful who you marry, you're liable to go absolutely insane.
I come in and bust yer balls what... about once every six months?
It's just who I am, a grumpy old biker bastard, who tells it like he sees it, regardless of ruffling a few feathers here and there.

You are correct, I have no I'll will towards anyone here, and think you developers do great work, and maybe I should say so more often, but the more pressing issue seems to be the fact that the project has been stalled without a release for so long, so that seems to take priority on what gets commented on the most.
the community is drying up.
It's like watching your favorite dog die.

Freedom wrote:nagging... ROFLOL
You better be extremely careful who you marry, you're liable to go absolutely insane.
I come in and bust yer balls what... about once every six months?
It's just who I am, a grumpy old biker bastard, who tells it like he sees it, regardless of ruffling a few feathers here and there.

I suppose I remain single for a reason then! :P

I would just like to say that right now there are less than 20, (including some but not all of the old threads which probably are already fixed) that's right, less than 20 bugs left! 😊

Which brings up an old issue as well: So how good is good enough? Something of this nature will always have minor quirks to it. Where do we start drawing the line on what's a bug and what's just "not finished yet"? -As it will probably never be finished. It's never-ending. 2.5 will still be 'incomplete' 2 more years from now. Then 2.6...2.7...and so on.

Here's some food for thought: What IF (and I stress if) all new bug threads (non-critical bugs) came with a mandatory poll. :evil: Let the anxious bug testing users determine just how trivial some of the bugs are. Wouldn't THAT be a test of will? Do you want it released with all the current features stable and playable, or do you want it so every little issue that pops up (there will be lots) is looked at, or do you just want it now?

I believe, that poll idea is a good one. Also, we are likely waiting on a decision on whether or not you will focus only on bugs or not before we all get back to beta testing >.>

Yeah like the one we already had in 2007
Here :uhoh:
That also didn't work out yet ..............did it ???
Its all been there done that talk over again .............and meanwhile the community is dieing

I have to agree, it's 3😮o Sunday afternoon and the only other member here right now is DarkDragon.
the direction over the last few years has killed this project and forum.
better do CPR fast.
You developers have worked really hard for many years now, seems a shame to let it die a slow agonizing death now.

Freedom wrote:I have to agree, it's 3😮o Sunday afternoon and the only other member here right now is DarkDragon.
the direction over the last few years has killed this project and forum.
better do CPR fast.
You developers have worked really hard for many years now, seems a shame to let it die a slow agonizing death now.

Anyway, last I checked, whining about the community doesn't have any magical properties to make a release happen sooner.

I assure you, we're working as fast as we can, and we're down to the bugs that are really obscure (in terms of fixing them).

I'm not whining, I'm stating a fact.
BUT... if you want to get in to name calling, mud slinging, and insults, we can do that, I think you'll find I'm real good at it, even though I prefer not to go that route.
And.... as for it not working.... well nothing else has worked either.

@ Elise

I believe he meant, have a poll presented for each bug report (presumably a forum mod would automate injection of poll's into newly created bug reports). We use these polls to determine the importance of each individual bug.

Okay, I'm adding polls to see how well the idea plays out. Even if a bug receives no "yes, fix it now" votes, we may still fix it if it's something that we immediately know the cause of and can fix quickly.

oh it gets REALLY scary when you start seeing ZC developers doing things like politicians.
nothing like a poll to see what people think about bugs.

Want a poll?
Do one for.... how many want to see an end to the additions in scripting that have bogged this project down for 4 years now, and just fix the bugs and release the puppy.
bet ya get some votes on that one.

edit....
you know how this is going to work....
everybody will want "their" bugs fixed and screw everybody else's

You guys know, or should know, what are critical and important bugs, don't you use it too?
The esc. tabs disappearing is minor, where the items moving around when you warp to no subscreen is pretty serious.

If I have to report bugs, and then also fill in a poll to see if it can get fixed, then I'm wasting my time.

You're right Freedom, we know what is critical and what is not. And we're not going to let something critical slip by if it's fixable regardless of some stupid poll. The point I was trying to make was that it is virtually impossible to fix every little issue that pops up and that at some point some of those issues are going to have to be deferred until post 2.5 if we want a release sometime soon.

It could be an interesting experiment though, to get a better insight as to how the majority looks at some of these bugs if nothing else, albeit a short lived one.

edit: Actually they are kind of annoying as the poll graphic overrides the bug icons. <_<

If something can clearly be left until after 2.5 (there's a reasonable work around), the person making the report may say it is important, but whats the bet several others will vote against that one person? Likewise for seemingly critical reports.

Considering how there aren't many idiots (if any) on this forum these days, I doubt there would be too much of a problem (if any).

After working with it hard the last couple of weeks I don't believe it's anywhere near as stable as some would have you believe.
I've had all kinds of quirky behavior with it, from changing combo properties, to changing timed warps, crashing when viewing maps tab in dmaps, crashing with mp3 files that have worked in there for years, moving items in the subscreen, and a lot more.
I believe there hasn't been a stable release because they simply can't get it stable, or anywhere even near stable yet they continue to add more to it.

Like old Scottie said on star trek, the more pipes you add, the quicker you stop up the plumbing.

Did any of that happen after copying stuff from across multiple quest files etc.? (http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?44961-copy-paste-across-quest-files-can-crash-zquest)

That sounds like zquest wasn't designed for that and was creating an unstable environment where any kinda data would be written to the QST file instead of what you wanted.

The way I did that franpa was I opened the robinhood quest, and then copied a screen, and then opened swansong which closed robinhood and then pasted and saved.
I don't believe it caused any problems.
The only thing I noticed after doing it was after closing zquest it would black my desktop out and it would come back in sections.
I've had zquest do that without opening additional quests too.
sort of like how a java page will effect your screen sometimes when moving on to something else.
I don't believe any of the problems I've had with 1099 have anything to do with that, and the only "new" problems I've really had since that are with the mp3's
I've been doing that since the 163 beta.

[SIZE=+2]

Next Build (Unreleased)

* Fixed a few potentially fatal bugs that might occur trying to copy, paste, or undo across multiple loaded quest files. This is no longer possible. That's what the export map function is for!

When you copy a screen, a copy of the screen isn't actually stored in memory, just a reference to that screen information. When a new quest is loaded, all screens are set to unused and then they are filled in and set to used as the quest is loaded. So, when you paste the screen, it's pulling data from memory that *should* have been cleared during the quest load but for some reason wasn't. It was just overwritten partially, it seems, possibly leading to corrupt/invalid data.

Wait, people were copy/pasting information between quest files?

I didn't even realize that was previously possible.

if you remember back when..... the import export options didn't work. well this was the standard work around
;O)