10 replies to this topic

[Strato]

What are your views on the almost screenshot-centric community we have?

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I call it screenshot-centric because we have/had 4 separate contests at one point in time devoted to the art of crafting screenshots/maps with the winner of SotW being posted up on the homepage every week; our arguably most active topic is a topic devoted to screenshots; and many of us primarily use screenshots to showcase our projects.

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Note: Your mileage may vary with what you view as a "good screen". I think my screenshots are good enough, but that doesn't mean that the sentiment is ubiquitous.

My personal views have been built up over my 5 years of failing to create quests because I was too concerned about the screenshots over the gameplay value of my projects. I'd always end up scrapping the project because, well, interest in my screenshots would wane across the community. This is a problem of my personal attitude, but I feel a lot of us here feel in some way that is similar as well.

My biggest mistakes:
http://img822.images...23/zelda023.png
http://img505.images...ockfinalpq4.png

I call these my biggest mistakes because I spent far too much time making these. The top map is the product of an entire summer's worth of work. I won a SotM with a screenshot from that map I think, that's all I have to show for that effort.
The bottom map took quite a bit of time as well, I was far too concerned with the appearance of the screens that I neglected an important aspect:

These areas just sucked to play through. They were incredibly boring and not functional. They ended up just beings works of art rather than a game you could play.

So many people here are so concerned with screen design, but is it truly that important? In my personal experience with my own projects and many projects I have seen over the years is that it's not as important as we think it is. This brings me to my latest project, something I am legitimately happy with:

http://img600.images.../2103/map2w.png

I didn't spend hours upon hours making this, I made the entire map in about 2 hours because I didn't spend egregious amounts of time making every screen pretty. I wouldn't submit these to SotW, but I feel like they're perfectly suitable screenshots for a quest.

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Long story short, I think a lot of the community is too concerned with showing off their pretty screenshots rather than making good quests. There are of course exceptions to this, but that is just what I see.

If you can make a good quest with boat loads of gorgeous screenshots, props to ya, but I don't think any average ZCer has the time/patience to do that.

[Migokalle]

Well thought-out post, and I agree with most of it, except:

I personally think that making a screen functional, and good gameplay-wise, is as much a part of 'screen design' as making one look pretty. But I still think your point stands, because I do think that people should consider spending more time thinking about that side of screendesign as well.

[Nick]

You beat me to this, Nuvo. I had a rant typed up on the subject, but I was going to hold it off until after the expo.

But since there is a topic for it, here it is.

 [/hr]

zscreen-w.exe problems

Hey, everyone. I've been having some issues with ZScreen in Windows 7 lately, so I thought I'd see if anyone else has encountered anything similar.

First off, I seem to be having this weird problem with my latest screen collection file. It allows me to have more than 7 layers! This is clearly a bug, since they are even mistakenly labeled as "maps." I think there is some sort of overflow or something going on for it to error out this horribly.

I've also noticed that enemies seem to move around and even attack me at times. This completely gets in the way of making screenshots for some of the threads since I have to wait for the enemies to get into a nice position on the screen, so I can only see it as a bug. Seriously, is this necessary? Developers, please make enemies not move around the screen and attack anymore.

Also, weapons only seem to be on the screen for a brief amount of time. This makes it really difficult to get some of those nice timing screenshots where Link is attacking an enemy. It's almost like it's supposed to be that way, but that can't be right. I would really like weapons to stay out forever until I can get off a really cool screenshot.

Since I'm calling out the developers of ZScreen, I have some interesting ideas of things that could be changed about the program to make its primary purpose easier to achieve for everyone. While I admire how ambitious you guys are about adding features, I can't help but feel that a lot of the features are bloat that could be removed:

• Why can I move Link around the screen? He should just stand around awkwardly until I place him in a nice screenshot position.
• Most of those "quest rules" are weird. What's a "quest," anyway? It's certainly not a screen collection file, though people might get confused if you try to add that weird quest concept to it. Is this one of those buggy 2.50 features you never bothered to remove?
• Many features, such as that warping and scrolling nonsense, have no graphical merit in screenshot threads or contests. Because of that, I have to wonder why they were even included.
• Why is ZScreen split into two programs? I should be able to instantly construct a screenshot applicable for a screenshot contest in the screen designer program.

But while I've suggested a lot of features to cut out, there are also some features I think that ZScreen could really benefit from having.

• I think ZScreen should include a random tileset rotator. Basically, it would give me a different tileset to use in a new screen collection file daily. That way, I can enter a nice variety of screenshots in different contests and threads without stressing over which tileset to use for the day.
• ZScreen needs a daily tip like dialog. But instead of being a daily tip, it would be a list of arbitrary conditions I could fulfill on a screen that are randomly generated.

Am I the only one having these problems with ZScreen?

 [/hr]

The above was a parody, obviously. However, I think it demonstrates some of what Nuvo was getting at. The community is way too screenshot centric.

Screenshots are meant to be representations of an overall project you are working on. This could be a quest, a tileset, a script, or whatever. They are meant for showing off a bigger picture. After all, a screenshot is just a still picture of the action happening in a quest.

However, I have noticed that many people lately have been using quests as "screenshot collection files" instead of actual playable games or demonstrations. I've noticed several people that switch tilesets on a weekly or daily basis in the screenshot critique thread. I've noticed people that design multiple screens without even thinking of them as part of a quest file.

I suppose you could argue that screenshots are an art that should be expressed. And you would probably be correct. However, the program is called ZQuest, not ZScreen. While there is nothing wrong with showing off what you are doing, I can't help but feel that using ZQuest as a screenshot mockup tool is overkill.

This type of focus by the community also encourages The Nick's. The primary symptom of The Nick's is creating tons and tons of quest projects within a short amount of time and never finishing any of them. This is not good for productivity.

[Strato]

There's a certain level of screen design quality that I think we should aspire to, but I think many of us invest too much into the "contest" quality or even "screenshot thread" quality that a lot of quests end up dropping dead just because of the amount of effort required to make such screens. There's also just an attitude of "must get praise for my screenshots" that I think is present in some abundance here as welll

I think ZC should be used to make games, not mock-ups. While I've never finished a quest, this is an attitude I aspire to.

@Nick, I agree with you, wholeheartedly.

Would it be too much to ask for an experiment where we hold 4 expos a year rather than 2? I feel expos capture the spirit of questmaking over screenmaking.

Edited by Nuvo, 29 February 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Sheik]

Would you tell an artist that he should stop working with paint and move to coloured pencils instead and that instead of painting portraits he should be drawing stick figures?
Trying to make pretty screens is the fun part about ZQuest-ing for me. I probably won't let go of that habit.

[Rambly]

The sentiments expressed in this thread are part of the reason why I kind of wanted to see the extraneous screenshot contests (Screen Rebirth, Screenshot: Challenge Accepted) killed off.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind if Screenshot of the Week were removed as well, but that's probably asking for too much, especially considering that Screenshot of the Week still serves some remote purpose (publicity for when the expos aren't being ran, mainly).

But yeah. I agree with and have long agreed with pretty much everything said in this thread so far.

Would you tell an artist that he should stop working with paint and move to coloured pencils instead and that instead of painting portraits he should be drawing stick figures?
Trying to make pretty screens is the fun part about ZQuest-ing for me. I probably won't let go of that habit.

If you want to make art, why not just make mockups of Zelda games in some image editing tool or something and be done with it? You'd cut out the middleman and probably save yourself some time. You could probably accomplish a whole lot more in that medium, too. It'd be less restrictive.

Edited by Rambly, 29 February 2012 - 06:43 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

Hi. My name is ShadowTiger, and I'm horrible at making speeches.

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Yep. Anyway, I very very very recently started a quest in a classic tileset just because I wanted a way to make a really interesting dungeon without getting too caught up on graphics. I do like classic quests. I do! I thought I wouldn't because when I first got Zelda Classic in 2000, I was enthralled with BS Zelda graphics "Look, mom, it's like the game we played a long time ago, but with better graphics! COOL!" and then when newfirst came out, oh boy was that all kinds of awesome. Hell, I could work with that.

Now, we have maps like Nuvo's first, and I just for the life of me can't get anything done that I want to! I know it looks nice, but I just don't have that kind of time.

You can either hunt around a well designed, interesting, varied overworld for fun and exciting items and defeating challenging enemies, or you can wander around my little tiny world of whimsy and wonder full of custom graphics that I designed and only managed to make six screens out of and then died from the total and complete lack of sunlight.

So for now, I think a nice item hunt is in order. Something like the Castlevania series. It will be in the classic tileset, and I won't have any super-fancy graphics to get in my way.

[LinktheMaster]

Would it be too much to ask for an experiment where we hold 4 expos a year rather than 2? I feel expos capture the spirit of questmaking over screenmaking.

I honestly don't think the community would handle that very well. At the moment, I'm not entirely sure the community will be able to handle 2 a year. If there's too many, PZC will become over saturated with them and each one will only have a few entries.

However, something I have thought about trying out was something sort of like a monthly review type of thing to posted in QPD where everyone could submit a short blurb about their quest and what they've done that month along with maybe a couple screenshots or a video. Think of it like a tiny expo.

I've posted this a few times but never got any sort of response.

Would you tell an artist that he should stop working with paint and move to coloured pencils instead and that instead of painting portraits he should be drawing stick figures?
Trying to make pretty screens is the fun part about ZQuest-ing for me. I probably won't let go of that habit.

Well, the issue isn't that people make pretty screens. If you like doing that, that's fine. I think all of us would support that.

The issue is that the community as a whole stresses it. People have started to (well, they have for a long time) feel that if their screenshots don't meet a certain quality then their quest is meaningless. And because of this, you get a lot of people who begin to spend so much time on screenshots that they just start to feel overwhelmed and tired of working on their quests, thus leading to them starting a new project and not finishing what they've started.

All of the screenshot competitions don't help. While I do like SotW (because it really premotes showing off screenshots of your actual projects), Screenshot Reborn and Challenge Accepted are two huge examples of this issue. You're forced to make screenshots that most likely don't fit into your quest.

Basically, people need to realize that they should make quests in a way they actually enjoy and not do everything just for attention (I'm not saying that you can't desire peoples' attention, but it shouldn't be your primary focus). If people enjoy working a long time on their screenshots, then more power to them. But if you don't enjoy doing that, then don't force yourself to do it because you think the community will shun your project for it not looking as fancy as others. Take it from someone who has been around the community a long time: it doesn't work that way. People will try out your project no matter what tileset you use for the most part, and they'll continue playing it if they have fun.

That's my two cents, at least.

[Russ]

I just want to add my two cents here. I do agree, we get too caught up in screenshots sometimes. But, that isn't always a bad thing. For example, Nuvo's map. I had more fun looking at it, analyzing it from an artistic standpoint, then I have playing most games. Call me crazy, but I like appreciating good maps.

The sentiments expressed in this thread are part of the reason why I kind of wanted to see the extraneous screenshot contests (Screen Rebirth, Screenshot: Challenge Accepted) killed off.

While I do like SotW (because it really premotes showing off screenshots of your actual projects), Screenshot Reborn and Challenge Accepted are two huge examples of this issue. You're forced to make screenshots that most likely don't fit into your quest.

Might as well address these, since they were both brought up. Since SR and S:CA have been consolidated, that's one extraneous contest you don't have to worry about. But, let me ask this. Why is it extraneous? Who says the screenshots don't fit into the quest? I dunno about you guys, but I've used/am using every screenshot I've ever submitted to those two contests in one of my quests. Just because you're making a screen for a contest doesn't mean it cant be used in an actual quest.

[LinktheMaster]

If you're forcing a screen into a quest, you're doing it wrong. A screen should naturally fit into the quest. If it just happens to work with your quest, good for you, but then that's almost exactly like SotW.

[Supindahood]

I have seen few topics/posts about this before, and most of it is true, but I wouldn't have a screen/map in my game that I didn't like, I always refine and rework my screens/maps until i like them, that's how its always worked for me.

I also think a lot of people are trying too hard to make screens look good, that's how the community works after all these screenshot contests. Keeping things simple and functional is seem to work better.