126 replies to this topic

[Hoff123]

Well, I just started taking into motion an attempt to get Zeldaclassic's popularity out there. I am taking action to get involved within message forums of many of the popular Zelda fan sites and spreading the world of Zeldaclassic within the frame of the rules and conditions those sites offer.

It would be counter productive getting the word out if I appear to be just advertising and have no interest for what these sites stand for. So I will make it my attempt to get involved with many of the communities that cherish the world of Zelda.

I hope this will help.

Zelda Dungeon is awesome, but there is also Zelda Universe.

EDIT I noticed at the bottom of Zelda Dungeon they have listed other Zelda sites, and PureZC is included .

Edited by Hoff123, 28 March 2013 - 05:11 PM.

[TheLegend_njf]

Oh, and some new news related to Zeldaclassic of 2013.

This guy

I don't know how popular he is, or any of you that knows him. But it's good to see 2.5 is starting to build a reputation.

[Omega]

We're not too far into the first stable release in long time. Things are currently growing, we need to continue spreading it around or give it time. With more people creating quests, making videos / Lps and such, things will grow even more.

[Schwa]

I have arrived to give my constructive, useful, invaluable input on the subject.

3) There is such thing as freedom in Zelda Classic, Schwa, blue_knight and other scripting geniuses proved it. You just got to work hard for it.

BWAHAHAHA, YESSSS

For the second, I agree with you somewhat. I don't want the interface radically changed on me cuz I'm used to it. Heck, I still use small mode, because I know it inside and out. However, more documentation would definitely be a good thing.

He really does, guys. I saw for myself at Starbucks with him, and I was like "whaaaaattttt whyyyy "

He also had the ZC Player and ZQuest open at the same time.

I was laughing so hard, oh my god Russ I can't wait until April

Sorry. I definitely don't intend for it to be just me. I don't have the time to focus on it that much. I just meant I wanted to make a push for it to happen. But again, I want a few things to happen first (the new site and a good comprehensive tutorial to be finished).

He's going to activate the subconscious programming Zelda Classic has slowly imprinted us with over years of staring at the screen and making or playing quests, and use us all as his obedient minions for world domination. Calling it now. (Hey, it WILL make ZC more popular, all things considered...)

ZC may be a game maker tool, but I would not call it a developer tool. It is POSSIBLE to make non-Zelda quests in it, in so much as you can change features and graphics, but it is still BEST at creating Zelda quests. Zelda is the default, and as you stray further from Zelda, it very quickly becomes frustrating to make anything else. Even with scripts.

All'a y'all are lightweights. I feel like the only pure-black-coffee drinker in a room of vanilla-latte drinkers. And it is one lonely paradise. But I won't judge.
Secret note: I'M LYYYYING ABOUT THE LIGHTWEIGHTS THING, ALL'A Y'ALL ARE HELLA COOL

And I'm a moderator here, but that doesn't give me permission to start making official ZC stuff.

I suppose that means you have to use... MODERATION! Ahahahaha

Edited by Schwa, 29 March 2013 - 02:17 PM.

[TheLegend_njf]

Just a general question, what interface does ZC 2.5 actually use? Forgive my ignorance because I am not quite understanding. But is ZC still dependant on a dos interface?

[Moosh]

You mean Allegro? I'm afraid I DOSn't quite understand computers.

[TheLegend_njf]

I figured that, I'm glad how quick you are to notice.

Because people still believe ZC uses dos.

It lead me to even question it myself, because though I've heard of the term Allegro many times, I am having difficulty understanding what Allegro actually is.

[Moosh]

I am having difficulty understanding what Allegro actually is.

Oh god, now I'm gonna have to resist the urge to make more shoops like this...

So yeah, I don't really understand the whole Allegro thing myself besides that it's apparently responsible for everything bad. So I'm not the best person to ask.

[TheLegend_njf]

I don't know if I'd want to represent Zeldaclassic in that way.

"Hey, Zelda fans, try Zeldaclassic, it uses Allegro, and it is responsible for everything that's bad!!" lol

[Russ]

As far as I understand, Allegro's the sort-of code base ZC's written with. Like, you know how when you write a script, there are all these pre-defined functions and variables and stuff. Allegro's like that, for ZC. The problem is that while Allegro works well for something like ZC 1.0 (i.e. a Zelda 1 clone), it really wasn't written with something like 2.5 in mind. It's like trying to develop Pokemon Red on the GB, then upgrading it and upgrading it til you get Pokemon X and Y, while still running it on a GB. The thing just wasn't meant to handle the bloated mess the game evolved into.

He really does, guys. I saw for myself at Starbucks with him, and I was like "whaaaaattttt whyyyy "

And I have no shame in it.

He also had the ZC Player and ZQuest open at the same time.

As for this, I'm not really sure why having both open at the same time is bad. I do it all the time, so I can do some work, switch to the player and test it, then switch back to the editor and bugfix. I don't see why it's a bad thing.

[LinktheMaster]

I figured that, I'm glad how quick you are to notice.

Because people still believe ZC uses dos.

It lead me to even question it myself, because though I've heard of the term Allegro many times, I am having difficulty understanding what Allegro actually is.

Well, I'll try to explain things for you.

Basically, almost every program uses something called libraries to perform tasks like display a user interface, draw things to the screen, interact with files, play audio, and do various other things. They're made so that programmers don't have to re-invent the wheel every single time they want to do those basic tasks that many programs require. In a sense, I guess you could say that a library is the paintbrush to an artist.

Allegro is the library that Zelda Classic uses for displaying graphics and playing audio, so it's pretty critical to ZC, and honestly would take a decent amount of time to switch away from. All calls to allegro would have to be changed in the code base. I'm not sure how in depth that would be, but I'm guessing it's pretty extensive. I also recall talking to Dark Nation years ago about it, and according to him, no other library he knew of was as good as allegro for playing midis. So if we want backwards compatibility, it may be impossible (or really difficult) to drop allegro completely.

So what makes allegro bad? Well, allegro in itself isn't bad. Well, it has a problem with hogging the CPU. That's an issue. But outside of that, it's not really a bad library. It can do quite a lot of things well. The main issue ZC has is that it's using an old version of allegro, which is why even today its support on Windows Vista/7 is kinda... well... shaky. If I recall correctly, years and years ago DN had to create a branch of allegro due to some issues that were going on, and that made it difficult to upgrade. I'm not sure if that's still the case, though. Saffith or Gleeok would be able to correct me on that. But still, the only real issue I have with allegro is its tendency to be a resource hog, and I hear the problems are even worse on OS X and Linux.

You may wonder why ZC uses allegro if it has those problems. Well, when ZC was originally made, allegro was really the best, easy option to be compatible with DOS (and in later versions Windows, though from what I hear the conversion was pretty difficult). Eventually, as ZC grew bigger and bigger, it just became more and more impractical to switch away from allegro to something else. So until ZC is recoded, we're basically stuck with allegro. But, it's really not as bad as people make it out to be. It's just sort of a scape goat.

Hopefully that explains things!

Edit: Oh, and no, it's not reliant on DOS anymore. If it were, we wouldn't have OS X and Linux ports.

[TheLegend_njf]

@LinktheMaster, I found your post to be the most resourceful, and have pretty much in my own words explained the very thing you just said to those who have been questioning Zeldaclassic's interface. Here's hoping that the responses I receive are just as helpful and not "ZC is for the dinosaurs" kind of argument.

I believe if people in the outside world (if their complaint is Zeldaclassic's interface) could maybe provide some insightful ideas, I would most certainly share their feedback. However, I am not even interested in humouring biases, and if complaints aren't useful or necessary, I'm choosing to ignore it.

LinktheMaster, do you believe that Allegro may be the permanent face of Zeldaclassic? Or perhaps there may be something we have not yet discovered? Clearly Allegro seems to be the best choice with what we know, but I am curious on what's out there today that just might be a suitable replacement for Allegro. (Not saying that we need it)

I'm interested in hearing your input on that.

Ps: The reason I find this important is because I've heard the ZC development staff branded as being "too lazy", which I don't believe at all to be the case. I actually find the notion offensive, but I feel if I am to attempt (in my own method) to represent Zeldaclassic, it is also important that these things do get heard and responded to appropriately. Representing ZC in this method is a personal endeavour, which doesn't have to be supported, and I am prepared to face any consequence and own up to any responsibility for taking things into my own hands this way. But it is just one of those things I want to do, and hope that is okay with those who are following my behaviour and actions and taking mental notes.

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 29 March 2013 - 11:25 PM.

[LinktheMaster]

Well, the design of the interface isn't limited by allegro. Basically the location of the screen, combos, the menu layout, etc. are all designed by the ZC Devs. I'll admit a lot of it is pretty poorly designed by today's standards. And a lot of the reason for that is because it basically is based off of a really old program. And I don't think the ZC devs were ever at a point where they wanted to completely scrap the interface in favor of a new one, either because of time's sake or in fear of current members getting scared away from a different interface (some people already don't care for the modern ZC interface).

As far as if ZC will always be tied to Allegro... I think it's doubtful. If a complete recode is done, I'm guessing the devs will try to avoid going with Allegro, at least for the graphics and user interface. For reasons I mentioned before, Allegro may still be required for midi support, but you can mix-and-match libraries.

Ps: The reason I find this important is because I've heard the ZC development staff branded as being "too lazy", which I don't believe at all to be the case. I actually find the notion offensive, but I feel if I am to attempt (in my own method) to represent Zeldaclassic, it is also important that these things do get heard and responded to appropriately. Representing ZC in this method is a personal endeavour, which doesn't have to be supported, and I am prepared to face any consequence and own up to any responsibility for taking things into my own hands this way. But it is just one of those things I want to do, and hope that is okay with those who are following my behaviour and actions and taking mental notes.

Oh, it was definitely not laziness. It was more a lack of time and manpower. For the last few years, it's only been around a max of two devs working on ZC at a time. And they all have their own lives. If they had tried to redesign the interface (or alternatively get rid of Allegro), the release of ZC 2.50 would have been postponed probably another year at a minimum. If we had a full staffed set of devs... then that might be a different story.

[TheLegend_njf]

And thus I see the catch. Sometimes it is difficult for people to understand in this high demand world that people are working at the best of their potential.

When things are not met with pre-existing expectations it's suddenly met with disapproval and hostility. That makes it very difficult. Especially difficult for us to say "Zeldaclassic is the best for Zelda fan games, but you may not like it" and gain some really positive results.

This is a "we are the best" world, for some reason people need to be convinced that before they even take the slightest interest. It's a cruel form of business, but one that is real, and sometimes difficult to accept or even tolerate, but that's the silly world we live in.

Perhaps, with that frame in mind, that we could try and get our quests out their first, unlike 10 years ago, our quests have become more well graced than the program which builds it. It is my belief with this approach, that people could than see through its quests what potential is in Zeldaclassic, than reclaim a new found interest in the program, which than lowers the chance of the interface being an actual problem.

I also believe we need more YouTube videos of quests we have, but not just YouTube videos, but a source, some "one place" that people could go to and see these videos. I strongly believe that videos of quests, scripted bosses, and of unique features (though I know they exist) should be collected and easy to located from one reliable source.

Correct me if I am wrong? But I believe I heard that's already being done. If so, I believe that will be your hook, because what people see will influence them much quicker than what they are told.

I am also curious, for research purposes what version of Allegro Zeldaclassic uses.

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 30 March 2013 - 12:13 AM.

[Hoff123]

If they're gonna make 3.0 from scratch...SFML... .