AGS 3.0 Final - it's been a long road

[Ghost]

What about doing away with winsetup as it is now and adding some new gui controls in the editor to make a pop-up gui that can appear when you double-click the exe? 

I must say I like the sound of that idea. It would run down to being a "skinning tool", but it would really add to the tone of a game if the setup was made to fit the overall graphics style. I say since there's already such a lot of changes, and we actually have the 3.0, let's add that in if possible.

Wow. It's actually pretty cool to decide about other peoples workin time 

[Snarky]

This could have the added bonus of letting the designer create their own configuration file (and encryption for it) so people can't just alter settings through notepad.

I don't understand why this suggestion keeps coming up. Any player who's determined enough to hand-edit the cfg file probably knows what they're doing, and probably has a good reason for it. Is there really a rampant problem of players ruining games for themselves by changing the config settings?

As far as I can tell, the ability to change settings seems to be used mostly to make games that wouldn't otherwise run do so, and in cases where the developer sends out the game with some incorrect default configurations. But apparently, this failsafe keeps some people up at night.

Why give developers the ability to, for example, stop players from running 320x240 games in 640x480 mode? That's not a bonus, it's a guaranteed future headache. Save winsetup.exe!

[strazer]

I totally agree!

[GarageGothic]

Why give developers the ability to, for example, stop players from running 320x240 games in 640x480 mode? That's not a bonus, it's a guaranteed future headache. Save winsetup.exe!

I love how the people who want the ability to customize winsetup give perfectly realistic examples such as limiting a hi-res game from being run at half resolution (which in my case, due to the use of non-scaling fonts causes the custom linebreaking code to crash the game) - and those against will counter with some irrational example such as limiting lo-res games from running in hi-res (for the sake of argument, I could see a reason to at least block smooth scaling in such a case to keep a uniform style). Can't we just agree that some settings can be obviously "wrong" while others should be allowed for compatibility?

Incidentally, we already have this ability to limit these things - checking the resolution in game_start and preventing the game from running. But wouldn't it make more sense to not even give the player that option if it's not supported? I do think encrypting the .cfg file as suggested is being overly paranoid though, and it complicates reading/writing custom settings from in-game.

As far as I can tell, the ability to change settings seems to be used mostly to make games that wouldn't otherwise run do so, and in cases where the developer sends out the game with some incorrect default configurations. But apparently, this failsafe keeps some people up at night.

This certainly used to be the case, but with the introduction of the Direct3D engine, most people will benefit from using hardware accelleration while it may not be a good idea to have it as the default setting. So a lot of end-users will open up winsetup, see all the options and try to play around with them. Here the new filters are highly problematic as people have become accustomed from playing 3D games that higher resolution means higher quality, whereas in AGS it mainly means sluggish gameplay. I can easily imagine someone running a 640x480 game in 960x720 filtered, thinking they will get better graphics and in reality getting 320x200 with gigantic fonts and incredibly poor performance.

I argued all this in another thread but nobody seemed to get my point, so I'll just leave it at this.

Perhaps what is really required is some proper CJ-authored documentation of the file format in the Help file or elsewhere...

Yes, that would be highly appreciated.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I don't understand why this suggestion keeps coming up.

And I have a problem understanding why some people think the designer of a game shouldn't be in control of these settings and how they are presented.  Certain features (like resolution change) may exist in many games, but it is the developer who decides what features are necessary, what features are implemented, and how they are presented.  If someone has no intention of ever having translations for the game then why have a blank pull-down menu for it (the same goes for midi music)?  What if your simple graphics are distorted by certain filter settings and you'd rather they weren't available to avoid confusion?  What if you'd like to add a few options to the list yourself?  I'm not going to agree with a concept that the developer of a game doesn't have the right to decide what setup options should even exist for their game.

[GarageGothic]

Not being a Windows Vista user, I have another question regarding the setup program: Can Vista users somehow access winsetup.exe through the Games Explorer, or will they need to find the game's folder in the start menu like in XP?

[SupSuper]

Not being a Windows Vista user, I have another question regarding the setup program: Can Vista users somehow access winsetup.exe through the Games Explorer, or will they need to find the game's folder in the start menu like in XP?

The Games Explorer entry has a "Setup game" option.

I also approve for having a register/unregister option in the Setup program, much easier to work with and a lot of applications do it. Of course keep the command-line option for games that do have installers though.

As interaction (2.72), this was the behavior:
- Game runs dialog
- After dialog finishes, game switches rooms and changes character position

As the now-converted code (2.8), this is the new behavior:
- Game changes character position
- Game runs dialog
- After dialog finishes, game switches rooms

It's a good point, but realistically I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about it. Perhaps it just needs to be made clear in the Upgrading to 3.0 guide to watch out for situations like this.

Hmm.. any suggestions on how to change the code to work how I want?

Room fades don't match the room resolution (in my case, the rooms switch from 320*200 to 320*240 while fading)

Hmm, are you running in letterbox mode?

Nope, running a 320*200 game in its native 320*200 glory. I'm not sure if the rooms change exactly to 320*240, they just suddenly stretch beyond the screen during fades.

Issues with Direct3D mode: 320*200 won't work on it:

Looks like this is a limitation of your graphics drivers that they don't support 320x200 with D3D. I don't think it's a bug in AGS.

Blast, foiled again!

And this is just me being picky, but since the DOS engine has long been unsupported, shouldn't things like:
"Cross-Platform Support
(...)
MS-DOS: No"
Be removed from the helpfile? Think of all the bytes you'll save!

[VK Dan]

I just updated my game to version 3.0 beta 12, and the Events list is empty in all of my rooms. The list is also empty when I create a new room, but not if I create a new game.

The functions I wrote in 2.72 still work, I just can't add any new ones and link them to the correct events.

[Pumaman]

What about doing away with winsetup as it is now and adding some new gui controls in the editor to make a pop-up gui that can appear when you double-click the exe?  The designer could then make the gui look how he wants, add the options he wants (like play, config, etc) or not use one at all and have the game just run.

Problem is that the player is likely to want to run Setup if they can't start the game for some reason. If Setup used an AGS GUI it would need to start up AGS in order to display it, which would fail if the graphics driver was not supported or something like that and the player would be stuck.

1.  You might not want to use characters if your game has a lot of them (there are still static character limits, no?).

That's fair enough, however it would certainly be easier to remove the limit on characters than to make objects game-wide.

3.  From a logical standpoint, a laser pistol or pipe or golf club carried by a player is an object and not a character.  It's less confusing to have an object locked in a character's hand than another character locked in a character's hand (for the purpose of overlaid sprites).

Then name it "oPistol" rather than "cPistol" so that it seems like an object when you're scripting with it. I don't think this is a valid reason to overhaul the way that AGS works.

4.  The deletion system for objects is still the same as 2.72 I believe, such that if you delete an object between 0 and x the rest are decremented to fill the void, which messes with the existing scripts.  If the objects were more dynamic this wouldn't be as much of an issue since deleted/moved objects would just be removed and when a new one was created it would fill the empty slot.  This isn't strictly relevant to the discussion but I think it's important, since I've accidentally deleted mid-range objects before and had to go back and totally rework a room as a result.

Well, objects have had script o-names for quite a while now, so you shouldn't really still be using numbers to access them. The same argument applies to other things like GUIs and Fonts.

As far as I can tell, the ability to change settings seems to be used mostly to make games that wouldn't otherwise run do so, and in cases where the developer sends out the game with some incorrect default configurations. But apparently, this failsafe keeps some people up at night.

Why give developers the ability to, for example, stop players from running 320x240 games in 640x480 mode? That's not a bonus, it's a guaranteed future headache. Save winsetup.exe!

I completely agree with this. I can see the benefits of customizing winsetup to allow people to personalize the look of it for their games, but I wouldn't want to see people removing useful options just because they don't need to use the option on their PC.

Certain features (like resolution change) may exist in many games, but it is the developer who decides what features are necessary, what features are implemented, and how they are presented.  If someone has no intention of ever having translations for the game then why have a blank pull-down menu for it (the same goes for midi music)?

The thing is that most AGS developers aren't professional game designers. They might not understand that the "Force letterbox resolution" option is the only way to get the game working on some PC's, so they might remove it thinking it's useless.

And I know of at least a few games that were initially released with no translations, but then translations were made available later. If the game author had removed the option, they'd have had to compile a new version of the game to add it back, which would then mean they'd be less inclined to actually add a translation later on.

I also approve for having a register/unregister option in the Setup program, much easier to work with and a lot of applications do it. Of course keep the command-line option for games that do have installers though.

I'll look into this one.

Hmm.. any suggestions on how to change the code to work how I want?

I guess you could use a run-script in the end of the dialog script to run the rest of the script code?

Nope, running a 320*200 game in its native 320*200 glory. I'm not sure if the rooms change exactly to 320*240, they just suddenly stretch beyond the screen during fades.

I'll see if I can reproduce this.

And this is just me being picky, but since the DOS engine has long been unsupported, shouldn't things like:
"Cross-Platform Support
(...)
MS-DOS: No"
Be removed from the helpfile?

Well, you never know when it might make a comeback!!

I just updated my game to version 3.0 beta 12, and the Events list is empty in all of my rooms. The list is also empty when I create a new room, but not if I create a new game.

The functions I wrote in 2.72 still work, I just can't add any new ones and link them to the correct events.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that none of your interactions have been imported? You say you can't add any new ones ... what happens when you try? Do you get an error?

[VK Dan]

I just updated my game to version 3.0 beta 12, and the Events list is empty in all of my rooms. The list is also empty when I create a new room, but not if I create a new game.

The functions I wrote in 2.72 still work, I just can't add any new ones and link them to the correct events.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that none of your interactions have been imported? You say you can't add any new ones ... what happens when you try? Do you get an error?

All the interactions were imported, but the events list is empty.  Here's a screenshot to show what I mean.


I can write my own functions, and call them from the imported interactions, but I can't write any new interactions.

[Pumaman]

That's bizarre, has anyone else experienced anything similar?

[Meistari F]

I don't know if this question has come here before. But I have Windows Vista Premium and it can't read no longer chm help file because Windows Vista don't support it any longer.

So how can I read the help manual and all the help file and indstruction file wich is supported in that AGS?

Where can I find free chm reader wich can read chm file like the help file? 

[Cinfa]

I don't know if this question has come here before. But I have Windows Vista Premium and it can't read no longer chm help file because Windows Vista don't support it any longer.

So how can I read the help manual and all the help file and indstruction file wich is supported in that AGS?

Where can I find free chm reader wich can read chm file like the help file? 

Yup. chm should have a HTML base, maybe it's better to keep the html structure?

[Meistari F]

Where can I find that html file? Is it still available somewhere here?

edit- Will I no longer be able to preview how the the animations of the sprites works like in AGS 2.7  Menu/View in the new AGS 2.8

[Scummbuddy]

Online AGS Manual: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/manual/

[Meistari F]

Thanks. I noticed some helpfile are empty there. But thanks again.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

If Setup used an AGS GUI it would need to start up AGS in order to display it, which would fail if the graphics driver was not supported or something like that and the player would be stuck.

I see what you mean with this.

That's fair enough, however it would certainly be easier to remove the limit on characters than to make objects game-wide.

No arguments here!

Then name it "oPistol" rather than "cPistol" so that it seems like an object when you're scripting with it. I don't think this is a valid reason to overhaul the way that AGS works.

ok.

Well, objects have had script o-names for quite a while now, so you shouldn't really still be using numbers to access them. The same argument applies to other things like GUIs and Fonts.

There are times when accessing objects in the global script is useful, and script-o-names don't work in global.  object[1] does, however, but if you accidentally delete that slot then you get into trouble.

The thing is that most AGS developers aren't professional game designers. They might not understand that the "Force letterbox resolution" option is the only way to get the game working on some PC's, so they might remove it thinking it's useless.

And I know of at least a few games that were initially released with no translations, but then translations were made available later. If the game author had removed the option, they'd have had to compile a new version of the game to add it back, which would then mean they'd be less inclined to actually add a translation later on.

While what you're saying is completely true, the same argument can be applied to many aspects of designing a game in ags if you lack the understanding (scripting in particular).  It's like saying 'we won't do this because some people don't know what will happen', but there are a lot of mistakes you can make in ags through lack of understanding and not reading the help file or searching the forums properly.  I don't think you can ever go wrong giving a developer more control over their creation, in spite of the mistakes they can make, and a default gui that's essentially the same as the current setup would keep those without any interest in the setup file from being affected at all by the change .  Couldn't the pre-loader for the game do a quick video card resolution check and make certain minimum-playable settings automatically?  Thinking more about it, I don't think compiling the setup inside the game exe would be a great idea, but certainly having your created setup gui in the editor compile as a new setup.exe when you compile the game would be cool!

[SupSuper]

I don't know if this question has come here before. But I have Windows Vista Premium and it can't read no longer chm help file because Windows Vista don't support it any longer.

Erm, that can't be right, CHM is Microsoft's latest help format, every major application uses it. Vista only dumped support for the old Win9x HLP format (probably to help push CHM forward), and that can still be restored from Microsoft's site.

[SSH]

I don't know if this question has come here before. But I have Windows Vista Premium and it can't read no longer chm help file because Windows Vista don't support it any longer.

Erm, that can't be right, CHM is Microsoft's latest help format, every major application uses it. Vista only dumped support for the old Win9x HLP format (probably to help push CHM forward), and that can still be restored from Microsoft's site.

Wonkypedia says: "Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a proprietary format for online help files, developed by Microsoft and first released in 1997 as a successor to the Microsoft WinHelp format. It was first introduced with the release of Windows 98, and is still supported and distributed through Windows XP and Vista platforms. In 2002, Microsoft announced some security risks associated with the .CHM format, as well as some security bulletins and patches. They have since announced their intentions not to develop the .CHM format further, and will be moving to a new generation of Windows Help called Microsoft Assistance Markup Language in the Windows Vista operating system."

[Snarky]

While what you're saying is completely true, the same argument can be applied to many aspects of designing a game in ags if you lack the understanding (scripting in particular).  It's like saying 'we won't do this because some people don't know what will happen', but there are a lot of mistakes you can make in ags through lack of understanding and not reading the help file or searching the forums properly.  I don't think you can ever go wrong giving a developer more control over their creation, in spite of the mistakes they can make, and a default gui that's essentially the same as the current setup would keep those without any interest in the setup file from being affected at all by the change .  Couldn't the pre-loader for the game do a quick video card resolution check and make certain minimum-playable settings automatically?  Thinking more about it, I don't think compiling the setup inside the game exe would be a great idea, but certainly having your created setup gui in the editor compile as a new setup.exe when you compile the game would be cool!

Isn't the current situation, where developers don't need to distribute winsetup, but can write their own setup app that modifies the cfg file instead, all the control that's really needed? That way, developers can customize setup as much as they like, and if they break something there's still game.exe --setup or manually modifying the cfg file to fall back on.

I think you definitely can go wrong giving developers more control. That's why Alt-X always quits any game, and can't be changed. I see the ability to set the right compatibility settings as an equally crucial failsafe.