17 replies to this topic

[Moosh]

So recently I was looking over the latest Screenshot of the Week and in particular, the reaction to Russ's screen got me thinking. A few of the responses were somewhat lukewarm because the darkness takes up so much of the screen, but to me that was entirely the point. New elements were added to the game in order to make most of the screen obscured like that and something else new can be seen peeking out of the shadows. It's the type of thing that would really pique my curiosity, had I not written both the scripts being showcased. When I was new to ZC and still developing LQftH1, scripts like these would've blown my tiny little mind. Point is I like scripts and I like looking at them in motion. That's me. The most likely reason for the screen's reception was that most people aren't me and just judge screenshots as screenshots, not slices of gameplay. Nonetheless, it put me on an interesting train of thought as to a second possibility: Are scripts just starting to be taken for granted?

From the perspective of a player, it makes sense that the first time something cool is done in a quest leaves the biggest impression. DMap boss flags did some cool things in quests like Hero of Dreams and BoaB, not so much talked about today for multiple reasons. Multi-state dungeons have been done to death. I remember seeing some of the bosses in Lost Isle glide around the screen with FFCs and being wowed at how fluid it looked. Going back to the dark room script, quests like A Tribute to Yeto's Quest and Promised Lands have done dark room scripts before, so now it's considered something of an old trick. Even though I've been working on rewriting and improving my script over time, other people have beaten me to it. And I won't lie that I myself don't groan a bit when seeing an ice block puzzle in a quest because of how massively overused that script is. The more a feature gets used, the less it stands out. In the words of a certain smug fast food twitter account, "Tell us the fourth person to walk on the moon without googling it." I worry that ZScript as a whole might be going the same way. With more and more new scripts being written, the excitement we get from seeing them in action dies a little more each time.

Then looking from my perspective as a quest designer, I've let myself become disgustingly dependent on scripts. I remember I used to work my butt off thinking up creative ways to do new things with what the engine gives us when working on LQftH1. Now whenever I'm even remotely challenged, I think up a new gimmick and script it. I'm not sure if I could even finish a quest without scripts, not to mention working in something as restrictive as 2.10. Yet at the same time, I constantly find myself whining and moaning about ZScript when it won't co-operate. "Why can't ZScript do X? Why does it gotta do Y? This is so stupid I can't even." If the question here is "Does Moosh take ZScript for granted?" the answer is a definite yes, and I hate it. People were able to work without this stuff, I was able to work without it. What changed?

[Haylee]

Personally, I disagree. Generally speaking, I feel that scripts have a tendency to be lorded over a bit too much, especially with how many times I've seen people judge a quest negatively simply because of a lack of scripts. I don't exactly think the screen in SotW is too good of an example either. I get that it's suppose to represent gameplay, but I feel the point of a well taken screenshot is also to look aesthetically pleasing. now, I'm not saying Russ's screen isn't, but I feel that if that there's less to look at, more people are generally going to find it less notable than what its contest is.

 

Scripts are definitely an important part of the ZC community now, but I don't exactly think they're being taken for granted, but rather, because of how long they've been around, I like to think of it as simply a standard part of PureZC. It's about the natural progression of things, really. I feel like the best example I would have is comparing something like that to how the opinions on something like video games change over time. Sometimes when a game is first released, people absolutely love it, but as time goes on, it just simply becomes a standard for people to like it, but not feel as strongly about it, if that makes sense.

 

All in all, I'd say we're not taking scripts for granted, but rather, just have accepted them as a normal thing in Zelda Classic, thus don't have as much of a "Wow!" reaction when seeing them.

[Architect Abdiel]

I believe everything gets taken for granted to a certain degree. And the more exposure something gets, the quicker things get taken granted. I haven't been around all the time, but I imagine there have been phases throughout time where certain things were more popular in the community, and now don't get talked about so much.

It doesn't make those things. It just comes to a point where you can't just use the "cool thing", you have to know how to use it.

I actually voted for Russ' shot this weak, cause the screen intrigued me as to how the quest will play. Same with Avataro's. I can appreciate any shot for what it brings, but that's the thing. It's what THEY bring. Individually.

An excellent quest quest can still be excellent without being special, but ambition and originality will do much more, as long as the execution is good.

I think what's more imoportant than having a script that's cool, is having a script that you have a plan for. Some scripts are incredible because they can be used for anything. Your NPC script and Boss script, as well as the item pickup message.

Others may be there in a more cool sense. Or be only usable in specific instances. Not bad at all, but still.

Basically, everything is taken for granted. A good quest is still a good quest, but something with its own identity can make a game.

[Avaro]

If you've seen Saffith's mega man level or your Hollow Forest, no scripts can wow you anymore.

 

Half joking. But yeah, I can relate with what you're saying. Things have just changed. For example I remember watching this video of key to the heavens and thinking no way this is possible in ZC. Now I can't see anything exciting there anymore. Instead I find the fairy and the video quality annoying.

 

My projects and quests are heavily scripted too. I use scripts way too much. But without them, many of my ideas weren't possible, so I'm fine with it, even if some scripts take a lot of effort.

 

Now about the dark room gimmick, I actually feel uncomfortable with those. If they are used, I hope it's just used well and fairly. Awkward quirks with the script should be ironed out too.

Edited by Avataro, 21 July 2017 - 11:03 AM.

[cavthena]

I think it depends on the person. Quest makers that use a script just to have a script, even if it clearly doesn't fit into their quest, definitely take them for granted. I'll even go so far as to say those who use them but don't even attempt to learn the basics of setting them up and rely on the scripting community take them for granted. However people who are picky and only use scripts to add, fix or achieve an unique mechanic, feature, or style that fits into their quest correctly definitely don't take them for granted.

[Anthus]

I don't think scripts themselves are taken for granted, but I feel like good scripters can be. What I mean is, the people who actually make scripts. It takes a lot of time, and the amount of requests vs amount of people who accept them is not 1 to 1.

Scripts have been around for a long time, so as someone above mentioned they may have lost that wow factor even though many people still find them essential. They are used more and more, and people almost expect them but not everyone can make them.

As for Russ' screen, yeah, tbh, in a screenshot contest based solely (and shallowly) on appearance, people probably won't vote for a screen that is 2/3 obscured by darkness. Screens like that have a pretty consistent track record of not drawing in votes in spite of being cool ideas. I don't think that reflects on the scripts used though it's just how people can be (edit:) in the context of that particular contest.

[Naru]

Reading this makes me aware of how few script-heavy quest I have played so far. I don't understand, how you can take scripts these days for granted or not, they are just part of today's ZC. One problem might be that the ones used to scripts are obviously used to scripts while the ones that aren't used to scripts don't understand the limitations of ZC and what stands behind a script.

I have to say though, that it is not exactly like people only depend on scripts to improve their quests, more like they improve their skills to use scripts together with their skills to use the ZC-Editor. Avataro and jamian are good examples, they both use scripts quite a lot, but they both also use the ZC-Editor very well with many unusual and great ideas.

[Zagut]

If you've seen Saffith's mega man level or your Hollow Forest, no scripts can wow you anymore.

 

 

Except possibly, these, by blueknight11b.

https://www.youtube....MZpjC84Pc&t=31s

https://www.youtube....h?v=uojW--JZSsA

[Shane]

Perhaps. I personally always have stuck to my belief that people should use scripts if they can design well with them in mind and if these scripts benefit the mechanics and experience. I personally want to avoid using novelties as a cheap way to wow people. Not saying anyone specifically but I feel there's a mentality that scripts alone can make a quest good or impressive. I feel if (theoretically) a poorly designed quest uses and mostly relies on scripts to be considered good, it's just a shallow attempt at making something in the hopes that the scripts will support the entire quest and wowing the audiences the first few times would shadow the questionable design choices.

 

I just feel there's more to scripting than the script itself, the implementation is a crucial factor that I feel can easily be ignored. The script itself might be impressive but you're adding it into the bigger picture once it's in a quest. I feel people take scripting for granted in some ways, but as long as we care about execution and why we use scripts for our quests, it shouldn't be a concern. There's nothing wrong with using old tricks, but it could help to outdo by making it better implemented or more creative. Sure the concept behind the script might of lost originality, but I'm sure there's ways to make it even just a bit unique through design.

[Cukeman]

I figured something script-like was happening, but wasn't entirely sure what. You can't really judge the gameplay from a still image, trying it yourself is best, seeing a video is the second best option. You could be doing something awesome in real life and the camera man you hired doesn't take a clear photo of what's happening, you're judging the snapshots rather than what happened to you that day. Even great action movies are criticized for being shot too close so you can't see all the action.

[Timelord]

I figured something script-like was happening, but wasn't entirely sure what. You can't really judge the gameplay from a still image, trying it yourself is best, seeing a video is the second best option. You could be doing something awesome in real life and the camera man you hired doesn't take a clear photo of what's happening, you're judging the snapshots rather than what happened to you that day. Even great action movies are criticized for being shot too close so you can't see all the action.

 
File this under 'Empire'.

              

@Moosh: The SotW crowd rarely factor in any visual effect that requires more than one still frame; however good it might be. There was yet another, far more interesting layered darkness entry back in January, and no-one seemed to care. That one used bitmap translucency, with stacked, layered bitmaps to draw distinct levels of darkness and shadow around different illumination sources.

 

 If you want to see an 'Effect of the Month' or 'Script of the Month', I have long advocated for those types of contests. I think they will be no more than a slugging match between five or six members, but, I suppose that is all that SotW is on a regular basis. I have not looked at it without being linked by someone else to a specific post, for three years, on the basis that many entries (back when i regularly viewed the topic) were completely impractical, or that the user submitting them would not design an entire quest using the same level of aesthetic detail.

 

In short, they have nothing to do with gameplay, or game design; but they are an art show, and the bar is set rather high by the regular participants, so basing an entry on how it affects things related to game design, rather than absolute pure aesthetics, is simply a waste of time. If you aren't using a shaded, complex, 16-colour or 8-bit tileset, you may as well walk away before wasting your energy, too, IMO.

Edited by ZoriaRPG, 21 July 2017 - 11:24 PM.

[Anthus]

 
File this under 'Empire'.

              

@Moosh: The SotW crowd rarely factor in any visual effect that requires more than one still frame; however good it might be. There was yet another, far more interesting layered darkness entry back in January, and no-one seemed to care. That one used bitmap translucency, with stacked, layered bitmaps to draw distinct levels of darkness and shadow around different illumination sources.

 

 If you want to see an 'Effect of the Month' or 'Script of the Month', I have long advocated for those types of contests. I think they will be no more than a slugging match between five or six members, but, I suppose that is all that SotW is on a regular basis. I have not looked at it without being linked by someone else to a specific post, for three years, on the basis that many entries (back when i regularly viewed the topic) were completely impractical, or that the user submitting them would not design an entire quest using the same level of aesthetic detail.

 

In short, they have nothing to do with gameplay, or game design; but they are an art show, and the bar is set rather high by the regular participants, so basing an entry on how it affects things related to game design, rather than absolute pure aesthetics, is simply a waste of time. If you aren't using a shaded, complex, 16-colour or 8-bit tileset, you may as well walk away before wasting your energy, too, IMO.

 

Are you talking about Dimentio's entry when that bitmap feature was added? I remember that shot, fwiw, I think I actually voted for that one.

 

I'd totally be cool with seeing a "script of the month". That sounds really fun, even though I'm obviously not entering, since the only thing I've ever scripted myself, from scratch was an item that shakes the screen, and kills all enemies while playing a sound.

 

And for your last point, you are generally right, but I won Screenshot of the Year 2012 with a Classic shot.

[Moosh]

Personally, I disagree. Generally speaking, I feel that scripts have a tendency to be lorded over a bit too much, especially with how many times I've seen people judge a quest negatively simply because of a lack of scripts. I don't exactly think the screen in SotW is too good of an example either. I get that it's suppose to represent gameplay, but I feel the point of a well taken screenshot is also to look aesthetically pleasing. now, I'm not saying Russ's screen isn't, but I feel that if that there's less to look at, more people are generally going to find it less notable than what its contest is.

 

Scripts are definitely an important part of the ZC community now, but I don't exactly think they're being taken for granted, but rather, because of how long they've been around, I like to think of it as simply a standard part of PureZC. It's about the natural progression of things, really. I feel like the best example I would have is comparing something like that to how the opinions on something like video games change over time. Sometimes when a game is first released, people absolutely love it, but as time goes on, it just simply becomes a standard for people to like it, but not feel as strongly about it, if that makes sense.

 

All in all, I'd say we're not taking scripts for granted, but rather, just have accepted them as a normal thing in Zelda Classic, thus don't have as much of a "Wow!" reaction when seeing them.

See I dunno, I think the reason some people (and I've been at fault for this as well) judge some quests for not having scripts is because of scripts being treated as "normal." Normal in this case would be lower than any other aspect of quest design. You don't see quests being rated lower because they don't have custom music or graphics, do you?

 

Also I could've done a lot better to make it clear the SotW thing was just a starting point for the topic, not the point itself. If I wanted to make a "B'awww, SotW doesn't conform to my personal standards" topic, I'm sure I have several rants worth of that pent up.

 

 

If you've seen Saffith's mega man level or your Hollow Forest, no scripts can wow you anymore.

Oh no! It was all my fault! I diiiiid thiiiiis!

 

Funny enough I feel like Hollow Forest flew under the radar somewhat and got outwowwed by Rite of the Storm. And rightfully (RITEfully??) so.

[Russ]

Huh. Well, it's cool that my screenshot became a starting point for a big discussion. I just find it kinda funny since I submitted the shot knowing full well it had no chance of winning; I mostly just wanted to stick to my goal of showing a screenshot every week of the contest and thought, since I was gonna lose anyways (Jared and Sheik in the same week, what hope is there?), I'd show off a gimmick.

As far as the main point here, I do think that, to an extent, scripts are taken for granted. For example, when I recently played Jamian's Tabula Rasa, I wasn't constantly flipping out over every cool thing he did (such as changing graphics for the entire quest when a single item pickup) like I would have a few years ago. I just accepted it for what it was.

That last point is the important bit, and why I think this might actually be a good thing, oddly enough. When scripts were new, there was a huge wow factor. They didn't have to be good, just there, and people would fawn over them. Now that things have been demystified a bit, people care more about the underlying concept and the execution. In that sense, since scripts are no longer an automatic "best quest 10/10", people can once again judge quests on their artistic merits.

On the point Sean brought up, there is certainly some truth to scripted quests being viewed in higher esteem than non-scripted ones. But, I don't think that's necessarily due to the scripts, per se. When I look at quests, there's a few key things I look for.

1. Is it original? I love seeing original ideas, even if they're not the most well-polished, cuz there's novelty there, and it's exciting.
2. Are they fun? I know I just said I value originality, but I'll take a retread of tried and true if it's a really enjoyable retread.
3. There are some other things like story and whatnot but they're less relevant to this discussion so moving on...

So now let's look at a typical, non-scripted quest. It has big hurdles to clear. ZC's been around since 2001; some of ya'll weren't even born when 1.0 was released. That's quite a long time. Long enough that most of the stuff ZC can do out of the box has already been done. Sure, there's some new stuff you can do, and it's all the more creative for it. But it's challenging. And as far as point 2 goes... I've played with ZC's base features for so long that most are no longer that fun to me, partially due to them being so mundane. Oh, crap, my points are overlapping... OH LOOK A DISTRACTION!

Back to what Moosh was saying about ice blocks, I view it this way. The ice block doesn't get extra points for being a fancy script. It gets points for being sorta new. Sorta. The script is popular, and ice block puzzles have become fairly widespread (though thankfully not as much as the standard ZC push block puzzles, when make me die a bit on the inside whenever I face one). If an ice block puzzle does something new, props to it. If it doesn't, it's in the same category as any other gimmick that's past its prime, script or no.

To wrap up this argument, let's look at Moosh's Hollow Forest, since it was specifically mentioned. Four years ago? I'd have given it a 6/5 and probably attempted to do lewd things with the script file because HOLY COW Z3 SCROLLING IT'S A MIRACLE. Now? With the veil lifted, I feel I can appreciate it much better for what it is. It gets huge points not for being scripted, per se, but for doing things I've never seen done in ZC (survival horror elements, for example). It also gets points for being fun, but then loses some for having a certain section around the game's midpoint that, while a technical masterpiece, is somewhat tedious. Now that we take ZScript for granted, I can truly enjoy the quest for what it is while fairly criticizing its shortcomings. And that's a good thing.

[TheLegend_njf]

There's so much to read here, so I'll post right now responding to the OP and then finish the rest of the topic immediately after and maype provide further input.

 

There's a reason I say that the 2.50 train has passed and the novelty of new age ZC is dead. This is the reality we live in now, but it has it's good and its bad.

 

The bad is that most of the excitement you seen in PureZC the past few years is coming to a bitter end. Just the sheer "wowness" is becoming part of the norm, and it's the driving factor I believe that's caused people to lose interest in our beloved contests and Zelda Classic in general. 

 

Now granted, there is still a lot of love for Zelda Classic and new quests, but rarer will we capture the same charm that quests like Link's Quest for the Hookshot 2, Isle of Rebirth, and Banana Blood God did in a hit after hit basis. 

 

However, the good is that we can now see Zelda Classic as an evolved tool with it's potential recognized. We know what it's capable of, and we still try to push that potential barrier more and more. It puts people who script at a huge advantage still.

 

However, people like me can also take advantage of this coming new age too by recycling old ideas in intuitive ways. For example, TRIFORCE is a complete meshmash of recycled ideas, but from the feedback I hear (including your own feedback Moosh), I still somehow manage to keep it fresh. I don't entirely know why this is, but I feel the answer comes down to how I'm executing it now. 

 

Bottom line, it's okay for scripts to become more standard, necessary, and even recycled at times without the "wow" factor. We are entering a new age where intuitive design is becoming more important than even the fanciest of scripts. I mean, this is entirely your fault Moosh. Literally turning ZC into a friggin rave party. 

 

Spoiler

I mean seriously, this is Zelda Classic on Mooshtacy...