101 replies to this topic

[Anthus]

This is really cool, and a lot of people will get a lot from this. Now, if someone can only fix the way palettes work

 

This is a new era of ZC

[grayswandir]

Any chance we could, you know, get the latest stable version as well? I was considering forking my own version of ZQuest and just mucking about with the ZScript compiler, the idea being the resulting .qst files are completely compatible with the old version.

For instance, I think it'd be trivial to get rid of the restriction on global pointers.

[Naru]

What exactly does open source mean? I also am not really aware, what github is.

[grayswandir]

I'm not too great with make, but ... is the makefile actually usable? I don't see it making any reference at all to the src directory, for instance.

[Deedee]

Creating a new Fork topic now.

[Saffith]

Any chance we could, you know, get the latest stable version as well?

Yeah, I'm sure it'll get added in.
 

For instance, I think it'd be trivial to get rid of the restriction on global pointers.

Probably doable, but you'd have to be careful using them. A pointer is just an ID number. After saving and restarting, the ID number may be reused, which would make the pointer valid again, though it obviously wouldn't refer to the same thing as before.
 

What exactly does open source mean? I also am not really aware, what github is.

It means anyone can see the game's code, suggest changes, and make their own version if they want. Github is just the site where it's hosted.
 

I'm not too great with make, but ... is the makefile actually usable? I don't see it making any reference at all to the src directory, for instance.

Yeah, the src directory didn't actually exist before, so it'll need updated for that. That'll be fun.

[kurt91]

Something just occurred to me. How is the site going to handle quests and whichever fork/version/build of ZC they require? I mean, is it going to be where there's an "official" build that quests can be uploaded as-is, and then any that require a specific fork will just have the player included with the quest?

[Anthus]

Something just occurred to me. How is the site going to handle quests and whichever fork/version/build of ZC they require? I mean, is it going to be where there's an "official" build that quests can be uploaded as-is, and then any that require a specific fork will just have the player included with the quest?

 

My guess is, it would become the questmaker's responsibility to package their homebrew version of ZC/ ZQ with the quest. A very valid question indeed.

[grayswandir]

We could maybe add a "nonstandard" zc version or something. I'd wait until the versions actually appeared, though.

[cavthena]

Something just occurred to me. How is the site going to handle quests and whichever fork/version/build of ZC they require? I mean, is it going to be where there's an "official" build that quests can be uploaded as-is, and then any that require a specific fork will just have the player included with the quest?

 

This is a very good point. Like I said when I gave my input about removing passwords, if I need to download a separate ZC for each quest I want to play then forget it. The way I see it we need to add a sub-forum to the scripting forum just for people working on the engine so we can pool our talents and effort and work on improving a single version of ZC.

[grayswandir]

Like I mentioned earlier, since ZQuest is the only thing that interacts with ZScript (the actual engine just uses the compiled ZASM), there are a lot of tweaks that could be made to it while keeping everything compatible with the current version. I suppose this also applies to ZQuest features in general. The two main features that I want that actually seem feasible are global pointers (which looks like you just need to delete 5 lines in the parser), and function pointers (which will take a bit more work). Both of those would make certain programming situations a lot simpler, and I'm sure there's a few other improvements I haven't noticed yet.

 

Mainly, I think this'd be nice because it's 1, not a lot of work, and 2, compatible with the existing engine. If you're trying to make a big change to the engine, you might as well wait for the proper version to come out (or even help code it).

 

The only thing that I think is worth pursuing are small changes that you know you're going to make use of within the next year or so.

[Kivitoe]

I have a question. If someone makes a groundbreaking (or atleast really good) feature with no bugs to ZQuest with the code, would Armageddon Games/Zelda Classic ask if they could have the code or do some kind of traid for the code with that person?

[Russ]

Doubtful, given that ZC 2.6 is going to be rewritten in a different language anyways.

[Saffith]

It's GPL, so there are some restrictions on what exactly you can do. You can add all the features you want if you keep them to yourself. If you publish the modified program, you must also make the code available in some way, and under the same license. That can mean submitting it back to the main repository (which we don't have to accept), publishing it in a fork of the repository, or at least emailing the changes to anyone who asks.

[Timelord]

Yeah, I'm sure it'll get added in.
 
Probably doable, but you'd have to be careful using them. A pointer is just an ID number. After saving and restarting, the ID number may be reused, which would make the pointer valid again, though it obviously wouldn't refer to the same thing as before.
 
It means anyone can see the game's code, suggest changes, and make their own version if they want. Github is just the site where it's hosted.
 
Yeah, the src directory didn't actually exist before, so it'll need updated for that. That'll be fun.

 

I'm with grayswandir on this. I'd much rather muck with the present 2.50.2+shardstorm-changelog-changes code. Do you think you could commit that as a separate base? I'm particularly afraid to tinker with anything ZScript related here, as changes to the AS engine may break what I plan to do. I had pretty much envisioned forking ZX 2.5x for the purposes of making some things easier to do without hackish tricks, as did a couple others in our little niche community.

 

I don't mind getting into AngleScript...later...but for the present, we have these massive game engines that rely on ZScript, that we just want to finish without porting them, and adding features into ZC to support our ideas would be ideal.

 

Also, you really should update the makefile, and project files. No-one seems particularly able to compile this ... ( thing ) ... at present. THat's the same problem that I've had for a while, and why I never perfected some of the tweaks that I had in mind. You get free 2.50.x fixes out of making it available properly, you know.

 

Most of what we have planned won;t break compatibility with older quests (running in our planned versions), although we won't be making our quest format / bytecode forward-compatible wit older players, meaning that version-x will be a minimum to run things made on version-x, but version-x will run version-w quests.

 

You might also want to start actually documenting your AngelScript changes, so that we know what components absolutely rely on AngelScript, and also, if those changes make it impossible to use ZScript to modify things.

 

 

I have a question. If someone makes a groundbreaking (or atleast really good) feature with no bugs to ZQuest with the code, would Armageddon Games/Zelda Classic ask if they could have the code or do some kind of traid for the code with that person?

 

Under GPL 3, anything that you make that is derived from the source, you are obligated to share. It means that you will need to commit your changes either to the main project, to a branch, fork, or whatever. You cannot control what people do with your changed code, but you must make it available.

 

Hint: Tamamo, DImentio, and I all have branches for ZC now. We each have our own priorities, and objectives, but most of mine are ZScript-related, which for this trunk, is legacy stuff. You should be able to view our branches on the ZC GitHub page.

Edited by ZoriaRPG, 27 January 2016 - 03:15 AM.