Help summ up AGS pros and cons

[Crimson Wizard]

I was contacted by a representative of a team, which is making a list of 2d game engines:
http://www.slant.co/topics/341/~what-are-the-best-2d-game-engines

He asked me if I can give him a summary of pros and cons of AGS.
I do not feel like doing this only by myself, because I am not a game developer and have a rather "narrow" view on the program.
Could you help me in making a list of most important points so that I could send it back to them?

EDIT: replied sent; if you want to add more cons and pros, register at their webpage and do it yourself:
http://www.slant.co/topics/341/viewpoints/66/~what-are-the-best-2d-game-engines~adventure-game-studio

[cat]

Pros:
Active community
Active engine development
Successfully used for big and commercial projects
Free, open source

Cons:
Engine a bit dated regarding scripting language, platform support, but getting better

[Snarky]

Along the same lines as cat:

Pros:

• An all-in-one, easy to learn tool
• After 18 years of development and having been used for thousands of games (including a number of high-profile commercial releases), is very extensively featured and proven in its capabilities
• Relatively well documented, with manual, tutorials, code samples, and one-on-one community support
• A library of hundreds of free script modules to help simplify complex tasks
• An active community that can help with every aspect of game making (including art, voice acting, moral support, etc.)
• Active development that addresses bugs found in the engine
• Free and open source (with a permissive license)

Cons:

• Limited support for non-Windows platforms
• Engine somewhat dated, with certain technical limitations (e.g. saves incompatible between game updates) and performance problems (esp. with graphics-intensive work) - some of these limitations are visible to users (e.g. many settings can't be changed while game is running)
• A custom scripting language that lacks some useful features (particularly pointers to custom data structures)
• Workflow very tied to the editor and custom file formats, which can cause problems for bigger, more professional projects (intefering with source control, parallel development, automated builds, etc.)
• Most of the current engine development is being done by one single person, putting future support at risk
• 2D only, no support for 3D or shader effects

[xil]

Snarky's pretty much hit the nail on the head but I'd probably make a big song and dance about the built in functions:

• A library of hundreds of completely free script modules to help simplify complex tasks like Saving, Loading, Dialog Trees, Tween Effects, Smooth Scrolling & Parallax, Adventure Game Style Inventory, GUIs, Walkable Areas, Masking for characters walking behind objects and scenery, Simple Particle Systems and so much more!

My reasoning for expanding on Snarky's sentence about the free script modules:

If you booted up Unity, you'd sink a fair amount of money into buying the assets to be able to do all those things. Even products like Stencyl and Construct struggle to produce all of that functionality out of the box. As much as you can call AGS dated, it really is one of if not the best truly free 2D engines for prototyping that exists, and as long as you can put up with certain caveats, it's perfectly fine for full & commercial games as well.

[Joseph DiPerla]

My own personal pro's and cons:


Pros
*Completely Free
*Easy to use
*Great little functions and features not found in other engines(Run AGS Game within a game, backwards compatibility, etc..)
*Great Modules
*Great Scripting Engine, despite how others feel.
*Great Community
*Great Games


Cons:
*Lack of an interaction editor. - this was very useful for me before I was able to program and is a drawing point for many people to choose Visionaire.
*No way to compile and package games from the editor for Android or iOS.
*Lack of ports for systems such as Blackberry, Windows Phone, etc..
*Needs improved room editor/drawing tools
*Support for 3D Characters
*Support for built in Paralax Scrolling
*Confusing to have AGS 3.3.4 and 3.4.0.5. Needs to be combined into one.
*Compiler should be a command line tool so that people can make their own editing tools(Especially for Mac without using special software to run it)

[Snarky]

*Confusing to have AGS 3.3.4 and 3.4.0.5. Needs to be combined into one.

Actually, up until yesterday, the latest release of AGS was 3.3.3. (Still hasn't been updated on the main site - someone should take care of that.)

Higher version numbers than the official release are development branches (which you have to dig into github or the AGS development boards to find), and if you're not desperately in need of one of the features or an AGS expert who wants to help with testing, you probably shouldn't be using them. This is common practice for open source projects.

[TheBitPriest]

Just adding the current missing feature that was bugging me today.

Pro
* Built-in debugger

Con
* Lack of some common debugging features such as "watch variable"

[Crimson Wizard]

Thank you all. I sent the reply to website representative (trying to be honest), and they have already made an update.
You may review it here: http://www.slant.co/topics/341/viewpoints/66
I believe that you may register on website and vote for particular cons or pros if you consider them significant for yourself.

[selmiak]

Con:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

please add
Pro:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ= more control

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

[Crimson Wizard]

Con:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

please add
Pro:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ= more control

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

TBH I do not think that not having an alternate way to make scripts, which may be easier for particular people, is an advantage.
But if you think it is, I believe you may register on their website and suggest new pro or con directly.
I was simply sending them this info because they asked me. I do not really want to maintain that list.

[Gilbert]

I don't think the absence of a visual editor is a pro either, as we can have both at the same time, which is a better world. Not to mention that AGS did have a visual editor, but wasn't updated frequent enough to keep up with the features and so it was scraped.

[Monsieur OUXX]

It's just an objective comparison point with other editors: Unlike Unity and some others, AGS doesn't offer visual programming.

Everything has been said in Snarky's and Joseph DiPerla's posts.
My two centes: For professional development, the data structures thing can be easily addressed by using the Lua plugin. However it's hard to work around concurrential (multi-users) development.

[proximity]

Con:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

please add
Pro:
No visual editor for scripts†ˆ†ˆ= more control

You have to actually write all scripts yourself.

Actually, there was a visual script editor in the versions of AGS 2.72 and before. You were simply choosing a command (like MoveCharacter) and placing it to a object's pane without involving in any scripting. But when things got complicated, you're eventually ending up with coding in a script window. You have more freedom and control of your game in the new style. Believe me, you don't wanna go back to those days

[dbuske]

Pros
The direct connection between the editor and scripting.
The scripting language is underated. Helpful to beginners. Alot less hard to use than engines like flash which is geared towards programmers.
Thus geared mored toward artists and graphics.
A lot less problems with indentation than in c++, c#, and all the hardcore programmimg languages.
Handles png and transparency very well. Some engines don't use png.
Of course support for inventory.

[ollj]

its old , free and newbie friendly.
you can still do some quality stuff with it.

but its scripting language, with every new limitation to lists and structs i come closer to thinking that it is more an insult to c.

[Dave Gilbert]

Having experimented with other engines (and not being a "professional programmer" type), I will say this for AGS. It knows EXACTLY what you are trying to make, and takes a ton of the grunt work out of the process. Most other engines require you to create logic for things like characters, hotspots and objects. Whereas AGS has that logic already embedded with it. There's a lot to be said for that. Of all the engines I've played around with; AGS is the easiest to learn, most pleasant to work with, and can pretty much create anything I want.

That said, it's rapidly becoming outdated on modern systems. Ironically, the more powerful and souped up your PC is, the more likely it will have trouble running an AGS game. Dual screen setups cause no end of trouble. AGS games despise the Steam overlay (often causing unpredictable results when activated). It has unpredictable effects on certain brands of mouse (specifically logitech). You can't switch from fullscreen/windowed mode from within the games themselves (a really bizarre thing in 2015!). The list goes on.

Basically, it's a great engine to WORK in. But sadly, actually playing the games is becoming more and more problematic. I've been meaning to make the switch for years, but I'm so familiar with the system that I keep coming back.

[Klytos]

Using the engine professionally I have the same issues Dave posted above. Honestly, I've been toying with switching to a different engine too because of the same reasons, and the same reasons keep me from changing. I could spend six months learning a new engine and fine-tuning it to make games or I could make a new game. But one day in the not too distant future that tipping point will come and I'll switch. If I could fix three things to make my games more user friendly they would be

* Save game compatibility between versions. This is the single biggest issue we get complaints about, hands down.
* The ability to switch between full screen / windowed mode and change resolution from within the game. This isn't even a new idea, it's been standard in games for over a decade.
* Support for non-Windows operating systems. Mac and Linux in particular.

[Dave Gilbert]

Using AGS's default save system does NOT work. If we continue to use AGS, we'll make our own. This is totally possible to do using the current scripting system. It's just ridonkulously complicated.

#3 is possible it just takes a LOT of fiddling.

#2 is the biggest issue. And the one that gets us the most complaints. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet.

[Monsieur OUXX]

#2 is the biggest issue. And the one that gets us the most complaints. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet.

There was a module where you'd change the graphical settings in-game and the game would "reboot" itself and immediately reload the autosave it did before quitting.

[Klytos]

I've toyed at making my own save system as well Dave, and I am in full agreement! Possible but damn it's complicated! I'll stand by my comment with QFI our biggest complaint was backwards compatibility with saves. Not that changing res while in game isn't an issue, but with the ease of patching via steam now it's easier to throw out a fix and if the saves worked after even a tiny change then that would make life easier and the end-user experience a hell of a lot better.

Our biggest port issue is Mac on Steam. That's just a complete MOFO.

[Crimson Wizard]

#2 is the biggest issue. And the one that gets us the most complaints. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet.

Because I do not have enough feedback. I am being asked to make this or that change all the time, but some developers talk to me, and others don't, and its hard to understand, which problems affect everyone, and which affect only few games or few players.
I also almost never see the end-user feedback on games themselves, I get only limited parts of it, filtered by game developers.


In general, I think it is safer to assume that AGS will never be fixed. Fixing its core flaws requires a lot of time to plan and design. Some of these would require to just rewrite half of the engine maybe. It all requires time, and not just total summed up time, but a period of time when a person can focus on the task from start to finish without anything else distracting him for several months.
Otherwise, it will be limited to small changes here and there, as we do now.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

It would probably be nice if users were sensitive to the fact that there is a very small team of volunteers working on the engine when they make complaints... But not all are going to know this fact. We'd all hate to see AGS fade away into obsolete, but only a limited number are skilled enough to help Crimson.
Dave and WadjetEye set a good example when providing the community help with the IOS port challenge, it would be nice to see those skilled developers who make commercial games support the development of the engine. Just saying, they might have the ability to help takle some of the needed fixes 

P.S. Thanks Crimson Wizard! Thanks for keeping AGS on life support!

[Dave Gilbert]

Dave and WadjetEye set a good example when providing the community help with the IOS port challenge,

Just to make it clear, that should be "Janet and WadjetEye." Janet did the whole thing. I just had the strenuous task of tweeting about it.

[m0ds]

A little bit off topic but seems fitting for my annual donate button question: Perhaps that AGS donate button could finally be put on the front page (and on the forum menu above) so that the AGS developers can earn from their work and requests? I understand "for the love of it" and all that but imagine if Dave, me or any other commercial dev went by that, we'd all be broke and unmotivated I'm sure they, me and us all that enjoy the features, updates and fixes would chip in donations from time to time. There are also a number of other good deeds it could do, like AGS game fund for struggling developers or whatnot.

[Monsieur OUXX]

We're working on a tool that automatically brings back the player to a given place in the game (that's easy) but with a full console that allows you to enable or disable inventory items and logical quest variables (e.g. HasSpokenToMerchant).
We also have a script language that you can store in external txt files that automates all that so that the player would never have to deal with the script himself/herself.
This, combined with a small wizard meant for the player ("in your saved game, have you spoken to the merhant? Yes/No"), would be a workaround to "recreating" lost game progress after applying a patch.

[AGA]

A little bit off topic but seems fitting for my annual donate button question: Perhaps that AGS donate button could finally be put on the front page (and on the forum menu above) so that the AGS developers can earn from their work and requests? I understand "for the love of it" and all that but imagine if Dave, me or any other commercial dev went by that, we'd all be broke and unmotivated I'm sure they, me and us all that enjoy the features, updates and fixes would chip in donations from time to time. There are also a number of other good deeds it could do, like AGS game fund for struggling developers or whatnot.

There is a donate page and has been for years.  It's just not made a fuss about.  If people did donate (and they don't), most of the money would go towards Peder for his hosting the site.  Of course anything left could be spent on the community.

However, how do you apportion money for something like the AGS development, which has a load of different contributors?  Like CW coordinates all the releases, but he of course doesn't do *all* the work.  How the hell do you work out a fair payment plan?

[Snarky]

This, combined with a small wizard meant for the player ("in your saved game, have you spoken to the merhant? Yes/No"), would be a workaround to "recreating" lost game progress after applying a patch.

Mmm, that seems unnecessary. If you're storing game state in your own, custom format, you can just ensure that updates/patches are backwards compatible, able to read and restore old savegames.

[m0ds]

AGA, from what I can see the public link is hidden away in the "community" .co.uk page - it just took me 5 minutes to find it, it's hardly visible so there's no wonder people don't donate in any capacity. I haven't visited the .co.uk page for months, just visit the forums and the games list perhaps - so presumably that donation link is aimed at people who've only just found AGS, why would they donate?! Maybe others still go and read the general "community" page on the .co.uk site frequently, I don't know. Having a donate button link on the forums is the stronger point here.

Generally, you try something to learn what works and doesn't. Fail, progress, etc. Because it's never been tried how am I supposed to know exactly how it would work? I don't. I just think it's worth trying, in some capacity. Perhaps the developers would log how many hours they've put into certain fixes and what not, perhaps once in a while when it reaches a threshold you would just divide it up equally amongst all the contributors. There are certainly methods to explore.

AGS doesn't need to be a business, but it'd be cool to say "Can we have XXX? Here's 1000 dollars from the AGS fund to make it happen." I know some don't/won't accept it, but the offer should be there - our money for your time. It's only fair?

[Dave Gilbert]

We have offered to pay people to fix problems with AGS before (things that are problems for us specifically, not the community as a whole), and the responses have always been no. It's a hobby for most of the folks here, so we don't hold it against them.

[Joseph DiPerla]

If I Can make a suggestion regarding donations and assistance... If anyone has ever used http://3drad.com/ , the developer made the software free. However, every suggestion that was ever asked or made would be put in a forum thread. In the topic title he would estimate how much it would cost to achieve such an update and then the end user would contribute X amount of money to the feature of choice.

For example:

A user makes a suggestion such as "Release a Playstation Port". The developer on 3D Rad then estimated that this would cost $1200. So he opened a thread and titled it like so, reflecting the amount of donations received for that feature request: "Playstation Port: Goal $1200 / Total Funding received: $150". Then in the description he would write what the feature was, what work would go into it and how much time he would need to achieve it(Guestimate - could always take longer). The features and engine were always free. But he would provide free beta updates to the engine to anyone who donated about $30.

Now, he didn't just have one feature request on the forum. He had several. A user was allowed to donate money to one or more features. The next feature to hit 100% would then get implemented next. It worked well and had rapid and frequent updates.

In terms of obtaining more assistance and programmers to help out... Try www.fiverr.com - its a great place to find programmers (And actually game artists, musicians and such) to do services for you starting at the cost of one gig: $5. Just a thought.

[Snarky]

If the devs don't have the time to implement the features, offering some cash doesn't really help. You can't assume someone is willing to give up their job to live off community donations.

[m0ds]

Nice example Joey!

[AnasAbdin]

I know talking about financial stuff is a little bit "not nice" around here. However here are my 2 cents..

Whether we are creating commercial or free AGS games, playing AGS games, or using AGS for any purpose, we are all benefitting from the hard work of professional and respectful programmers whom we are taking their hard work for granted.  Haven't it ever occurred to your minds that those people working on developing AGS never asked for any kind of return? I think we are obliged to support them financially. I am 100% with the idea of paying the developers and even the mods keeping AGS and the AGS forums running. If you want AGS to stay on top of other games engines then you should know that you are dealing with a market.

[Stupot]

Isn't it time for another Bake Sale?

[cat]

I think you are missing the point. AGS developers have already stated that they don't want/need money. And I fully understand that. Now it is their hobby. It's great that they do it and spend their free time to work on AGS so people benefit from it. But as soon as they get paid for it, it's not a hobby, it's work. If you get paid for it, you are responsible, you can't just take a hiatus when you feel like and people expect permanent commitment.

AGS is open source. You could actually just do like Dave & Janet Gilbert did: Write some code yourself (or pay an external programmer to do so) and provide the changes and features you made to the community.

If there is money needed for server hosting or something like that, of course I'll donate (Bakesale anyone?), but I don't want to force people to give up their hobby and work for AGS. I don't think "because you can go and update/fix it yourself" is a particularly strong reason myself.

[m0ds]

Where did they state that? I think it's still pretty open water. I know one of the devs probably wouldn't say no to being paid to fix things. And CW's quote above

In general, I think it is safer to assume that AGS will never be fixed. Fixing its core flaws requires a lot of time to plan and design. Some of these would require to just rewrite half of the engine maybe. It all requires time, and not just total summed up time, but a period of time when a person can focus on the task from start to finish without anything else distracting him for several months.
Otherwise, it will be limited to small changes here and there, as we do now.

is literally screaming "budget = this could happen". It wouldn't be particularly hard to raise someone 20,000 to take 3 months off to re-write AGS from the ground up (or whatever is needed/necessary, you can't just say it won't work/happen without exploring it!)

I don't think those in support of a more ambitious AGS fund have missed any point, as far as I can tell the resistance is pretty much strengthening it.

If no-one wants to be responsible for AGS, that's a sad time. We know that they do which is great, but not convinced funds harm or distort the levels of responsibility. I can't understand why NOT having a fund is more advantageous than having one. But I'm all for being enlightened on that. I don't think "Because you can fix/update it yourself" is a particularly strong reason myself, and whilst there are certainly flaws with involving funds, you just don't know how bad (or good) it could be until you try.

This goes beyond server and development costs, to the way AGS has a role in a very, very financial industry. Currently only a select bunch of developers take on that financial role. And this is why in the mainstream AGS is perhaps seen as a bit of a "joke" engine. But it could be a very strong, key player, and perhaps organizing a fund to make that happen is good for its longevity, if there is to be one - other than it just being a hobbyist thingamebob. The devs are certainly capable and in its current form fair enough, I CAN understand it as a hobby project and its great that they do. But to assume that's finite is naive, one day, people won't want to work on it just for the love of it, because it won't even run on whatever OS exists then

[Radiant]

* Support for non-Windows operating systems. Mac and Linux in particular.

This is the biggest deal for me, and the most common request for Heroine's Quest by a long shot.

I can understand people wanting to 'hot switch' screen resolutions, but in practice that's something that annoys a player once, then he sets the setting to what he likes, then he's done with it. But if you want to play an AGS game on Mac and Linux, well you basically can't.

[AnasAbdin]

With all due respect to every opinion on the board, I will stop discussing whether the developers of AGS should be paid or not. I will only think of ideas about the process of payment.

- Assigning a 'pot' where everyone may add funds to.
- We as AGSers should vote on who should be on charge of the pot.
- The amount of money and transactions must always be visible all the time. I also encourage an option to show who adds funds.
- We should consider the programmers' payment methods (flexible between: task oriented, man hours... etc)

Now some people may not agree with the following, but in order for AGS to survive the current market:

- Porting Andriod or iOS AGS games must require an account with a reasonable fee to be placed in the pot.

I hope no one misunderstands this, AGS will remain free for all with all its functionality except for some porting options. There will still be tons of freeware. AGS would only be faster developed and updated. Porting to multiple platforms only requires a paid account to ensure the seriousness of the developers intentions towards the AGS engine.

[Dave Gilbert]

is literally screaming "budget = this could happen". It wouldn't be particularly hard to raise someone 20,000 to take 3 months off to re-write AGS from the ground up (or whatever is needed/necessary, you can't just say it won't work/happen without exploring it!)

Like I said, we've offered this and more to fix the problems with AGS and nobody is biting. At least, within the community. We've approached engineers from outside the AGS community, and it costs a heck of a lot more and the time frame is much longer than "a few months." You'd basically be asking someone to dive into a code structure that's over a decade and a half old (which uses lots of outdated libraries), figure out how it all works, parse the problems with it, and completely change how the engine works without breaking anything. It's no small task.

That said, I'm sure there's an answer that we haven't thought of. We haven't pursued it as aggressively as we could have because this is more Janet's area of expertise and she's been very ill this year. Otherwise we'd be more on top of it.

[Snarky]

Where did they state that? I think it's still pretty open water. I know one of the devs probably wouldn't say no to being paid to fix things. And CW's quote above

In general, I think it is safer to assume that AGS will never be fixed. Fixing its core flaws requires a lot of time to plan and design. Some of these would require to just rewrite half of the engine maybe. It all requires time, and not just total summed up time, but a period of time when a person can focus on the task from start to finish without anything else distracting him for several months.
Otherwise, it will be limited to small changes here and there, as we do now.

is literally screaming "budget = this could happen". It wouldn't be particularly hard to raise someone 20,000 to take 3 months off to re-write AGS from the ground up (or whatever is needed/necessary, you can't just say it won't work/happen without exploring it!)

Crimson Wizard in particular explicitly said no to being paid here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50121.msg636483480#msg636483480

Of course, if there's a developer who's familiar with the AGS codebase, who has some ideas for things to fix, who is a proven coder we can trust, and who would be willing to devote their full-time efforts to it for a few months, then sure, it's worth giving it a go. I'm not sure it would actually be that easy to raise 20,000 (GBP? USD? EUR?), but if someone wants to have a go at it, nobody's stopping you.

[Crimson Wizard]

E: nevermind...

[Crimson Wizard]

I do not know if I should mention this, for this is yet uncertain. But for the last half of year I was seriously considering leaving my current job. This was not only because of AGS, but because I was not doing what I would like to do in general; was feeling that my life goes into wrong direction.
It was about this spring when I decided that if it happens, I could dedicate first few months to AGS, before looking for another full time job (or something else). It went so far that I actually spoke to the department head about leaving. Now, problem is that I am doing the part of work that they cannot put anyone else on at the moment. So I chose to stay for little longer (For some reasons I feel obliged to the team I am working with).
The task I am working on right now will be complete (hopefully) somewhere in August-September. I am going to try again then...

[Dualnames]

I would wholeheartedly donate monies your way.In fact I'm sure that the community could rally behind Snarky's suggestion.

[Crimson Wizard]

I would wholeheartedly donate monies your way.In fact I'm sure that the community could rally behind Snarky's suggestion.

Well, when I was making that decision I assumed that I will get no payment by default. In past years I have made savings that make it not very possible that I get into finanical troubles too fast.
I cannot make any plans on payment also because it is not obvious how good results will be. I cannot judge by current state, because until now I was working in an unregular schedule.
This will also depend on whether I will be working alone or not, because I will have to learn many new things if working alone on AGS (well I would have to do this anyway).

[Snarky]

I would wholeheartedly donate monies your way.In fact I'm sure that the community could rally behind Snarky's suggestion.

Wasn't really my suggestion, but if CW wants to devote a few months to AGS I would certainly chip in. Would be good news for the engine!

I understand your reluctance to "make any plans on payment", CW, but maybe if you think of it more as a stipend that would enable you to devote the time to it, not as a salary or contract that comes with an expectation of specific deliverables? No telling how much we'd raise, anyway, but it would be at least some compensation.

[Dualnames]

I don't mean to force a situation, but I know how hard it is to work on something and have no financial support, and what I'm trying to say, is I, personally, wouldn't mind sending money your way, whether you're opting for that or not, it's something I feel would be right, knowing you'd spend so much time working on this. I'm not saying you're a money kind of guy, or that you would do this only for money, i just feel in this case, money would work as a facilitator, making things easier. If it's pictures of cat you want instead, I would gladly take pictures of my kittens, if that helps you in your task.

I appreciate all your efforts so far, and you've given so much, and i'd like to give something back, whatever that is.

[m0ds]

Totally. Though don't quit your job to work on AGS for free, you need to eat...!

So my initial proposition is this: The website (loominus, Darth, AGA version) has served us well as things have been, I think the most recent version came about around 08/09? I may be wrong, some of the threads regarding the redesign seem to be gone or off limits. No matter, it still feels like some years since then. The homepage in particular, has done it's job, been a landing page mostly for new visitors. But it's old and relatively underworked. The blog has been abandoned making the top right a bit of a ghost town... JIM

With Berian and communities permission, I'd like to re-work the AGS homepage, calling on the talents of certain people to make it a place even us forumites want to visit regularly. Or at least, semi-regularly. Without going into too much detail on the technical aspects, there would be things to see and do there and some active fundraising with the ability to split your donation to the AGS related cause you want to support (alongnside adding to a charity pot). Depending how CW and the other developers feel about it, the main 2 causes will be "AGS 4"... yes, a re-written AGS built with futureproofing in mind that exports to other OS' and you can change the resolution in-game This fund will be ambitious, no less ambitious than AGS 4 would be itself.

The second fund would be "Community", this would include server costs, developer funds, and any other community/ags related items. How you slide your bundle style slider will determine which cause you add the most to. Maybe one day you have $10 and want to give 9 to AGS 4 and 1 to the community, and another day the opposite. That kind of thing, the full logistics and of course the actual dealing of finances behind the scenes are not concrete as of this post... If not AGS 4 then an AGS that is updated to the standard been discussed in posts in this thread. But AGS 4 is going to capture the attention of outsiders more than 3.6.1.2. In fact, let's go the whole mile and give it a gimmick to capture more media attention: AGS 4D. You decide what the D is for. For me, it means 4 Developers. But it can also mean an experience like the Back To The Future Ride It's cheesy but cheesy sells, and people will remember charity X got such and such an amount because of AGS 4(D).. The shelf life of this particular homepage maybe 3 years? Maybe more. Though it'd be good to raise the necessary funds before then! (This would also require some discussion on the costs to be covered etc).

So it (homepage) would still have clear links to the games database, the engine info page and the forums. But the space would be more thoroughly used and more regularly updated, including realtime stuff, like retaining the "latest forum threads" bit, game showcase and of course, realtime funds. The art will be more fun, animated pixel art (think: Mr Frith) with occasional subtle changes to spot. Plenty of space for bake sale stuff if necessary. Also a feature spot for AGS commercial games or such, it only need be small like 1 showcase spot. I'd hope to work (and support financially if necessary out my own pocket) Peder to implement these features which I think he nearly had cracked for his bundlit system. Or anyone capable, interested and willing if Peder is not. If Peder can crack the technicalities, someone else can handle the graphic design.

All that changes is the homepage though, the landing page, index.html, adventuregamestudio.co.uk page. Nothing else needs to change. The current color scheme would be kept as much as possible. But random people will want to start looking at it let alone AGS members, and more people may be tempted by the call of an epic new version of AGS (that suitably caters for the commercial devs and freeware ones).

I'm happy to give this a go, put my time, energy and some funds if necessary to try and enthuse the right people for it to exist. I'm not looking to get into a community-back-and-forth about what it should and shouldn't be though, as mentioned before, just go with an attempt, and if it doesn't work, it can easily be pulled and put back to what it is now. If there's support then I'd want to just get on with it and try and make it happen and ask that people have a little faith and wait for an unveiling. This is pretty much where I wanted to take things back in 2012 when we had "that vote" though, remember? AGS is an engine, a legacy, a community, yes! But it's also a brand, an under-served and marginally tainted brand, by its own admission of being "lol a hobby trinket here and there". But it can be more than that and can stand for more than that, everyone on this board can benefit from it and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

That's about my capacity round here. I can't do what AGA does (server side), nor what CW does and many others, but I'm pretty good at keeping websites in check and theoretically, driving people toward the site with kooky and contemporary features and making them part with their hard earned bitcoin. Or your 1 euro if you ares JIM

So that's my idea on the plate. And that idea is a summation of my previous points in this thread. Rather than pushing money at an individual, having an "AGS kickstarter" etc the above idea caters for interactivity & a fund that can cover a few things at once. I'm more in support of a ground up remake of AGS than a "try and fix CJ's AGS" so personally think its worth being that little bit more ambitious about how we achieve that. Take the best bits, refresh, make it so people can do maintanence to the engine easily in the future, update the libraries or whatnot so developers have more to work with and ultimately, the people who develop it nowadays, have a real tie/connection to it.

To sum up, a more maintained and fun homepage can lead to more funding which can lead to a better AGS... perhaps?

Feel free to discuss

[Dualnames]

I'm no longer part of the AGS Blog, btw, I left in December, and I have absolutely no intention of coming back to it. Reasons concerning my leave, I'd rather keep personal. So concerning the blog, since I'm no longer affiliated with it, perhaps you should bug SSH about it.

[Snarky]

No offense to Mods, but I have a few concerns about the home page plans.

1. If it means making the AGS site design more like the Screen 7 design in some ways, I'm not convinced that's a step forward.
2. If we want to make fundraising more central to the site (and I'm not convinced that's a good idea in the first place, since I think it makes more sense to raise money within the community, and therefore on the forums), we really need to clarify who will be managing the money, distributing it, and how they will be held accountable for it. (Of course, we should do that anyway, if we start raising significant sums.)
3. I think a redesign of the AGS homepage should only be undertaken along with a redesign of the whole site. Whether this is a good idea depends on a) the visual redesign, b) the information structure redesign, and c) the quality of implementation. To approve a redesign without knowing any of these things seems precipitate.
4. Various disagreements about the plans for the engine, and with tying the webpage so closely to a not-yet-existing version rather than to all AGS actually has to offer.

Adding more "live" refreshes of the home page is a good idea in principle. Of course, part of the problem with it has typically been that people for various reasons stop updating (whether it's a blog or game of the month or whatever), and then you need to find someone to take it over, or you're stuck with outdated "live" content that makes the site seem abandoned. Perhaps Mods is the right person to ensure this doesn't happen. But it might also be good to rely more on auto-updating stuff, like e.g. displaying recent tweets with "adventuregamestudio" in them.

[Crimson Wizard]

On a side note, I would like to point out that this thread was completely derailed from original topic... where is mods looking... .

[Joseph DiPerla]

Should a new topic be created for this then?? Quick question CW... Based on all the "Bringing the engine into a more modern state", etc... Would having AGS ported to Allegro 5 help tremendously in that? It seems a lot of these modern limitations may be in part due to AGS still using Allegro 4. If that is the case, perhaps we can then raise funding to hire an outside developer to port AGS to Allegro 5 and then the community could take it from there. Don't know, just wondering and thinking out loud...

[Crimson Wizard]

Sorry, I have no intention to discuss fundraising or bringing AGS to Allegro 5 now. As I said, this thread was derailed. I kepts answering by inertia. I did not want to participate in another instance of "lets upgrade AGS quick" thread.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Hi CW,

I completely understand your point of view and would like respect that. So I ask this, to make sure we all respect your choice here, but do you not want to discuss this in this thread? Or do you not want to discuss this at all? Because if it is something that the community is allowed to discuss, then lets go ahead and create a new thread and bring this one back on topic.

[Crimson Wizard]

I completely understand your point of view and would like respect that. So I ask this, to make sure we all respect your choice here, but do you not want to discuss this in this thread? Or do you not want to discuss this at all? Because if it is something that the community is allowed to discuss, then lets go ahead and create a new thread and bring this one back on topic.

How could I not allow the community to discuss something??! I do not own this thread, the community, nor AGS. You also are not oblidged to respect my choice.
You were asking me a question, and I answered that I do not want to discuss this now. That is all. I am leaving this thread, because its purpose was fullfilled a week ago.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

I'm prob not qualified to weigh in on this, but I've been kicking around here for a while and I didn't know there was a donate button  I knew about Bakesale.. Although I was inactive during the last one.
So from over here in casual-land, a little redesign of the home page wouldn't hurt.
I know this thread is way off topic, but we were done with pros and cons weren't we?? And good conversation always come about naturally anyways 

[Joseph DiPerla]

I completely understand your point of view and would like respect that. So I ask this, to make sure we all respect your choice here, but do you not want to discuss this in this thread? Or do you not want to discuss this at all? Because if it is something that the community is allowed to discuss, then lets go ahead and create a new thread and bring this one back on topic.

How could I not allow the community to discuss something??! I do not own this thread, the community, nor AGS. You also are not oblidged to respect my choice.
You were asking me a question, and I answered that I do not want to discuss this now. That is all. I am leaving this thread, because its purpose was fullfilled a week ago.

You are absolutely right. But even though I am not obliged, I would still like to show respect to a community member, developer and we all appreciate what you do for AGS. But you are also right, we are a community and need to discuss things we have on our mind. I ported the off topic talk to this thread here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=52504.0

[Snarky]

On a side note, I would like to point out that this thread was completely derailed from original topic... where is mods looking... .

I think we mods tend to deal with thread derailment differently depending on context. Sometimes we shut it down, sometimes split it off into a new thread, and sometimes just allow the conversation to take whatever turn it takes. There's no hard-and-fast rule, just what seems best on a case-by-case basis. In this case the original topic seemed to be more or less concluded, but if you as the thread starter don't like the drift in topic, we can split off the later posts.

[Crimson Wizard]

* The ability to switch between full screen / windowed mode and change resolution from within the game. This isn't even a new idea, it's been standard in games for over a decade.

I made a small experiment, and was able to make AGS switch between fullscreen and windowed successfully several times in a row.
By "successfully" I mean that it did not crash...
However, there are couple of noticable issues, one of which makes game barely playable after switch.

To clarify the situation, the main issue here is not the change of display mode on its own, but that AGS was written in such a way that never suggested that something of graphics mode may change at runtime. Data and game objects initialization is spread across multitude of functions inside AGS code, and it will take time to pick out ones that depend on resolution.

Main work is to untangle the code.