@AGS

[Calin Leafshade]

Well we've had this conversation in the tech forum once i think but essentially AGS is finished.. it does everything it was designed to do with a few fairly minor exceptions (full alpha blending support for instance).

If AGS were to be developed further I can see 2 possibilities:

A) it becomes much more open.. either open-source or the plugin interface is expanded.

or B) It has a major overhaul into the 3D or 2.5D domain.

I think that A is more likely than B since CJ will probably move to reduce his workload, not increase it.

[TerranRich]

So there are NO other features that AGS could ever possible add, and NOTHING else that AGS could have that would improve it? Ever?

A piece of software is never finished. Once it's "finished" that means it's been abandoned and nobody uses it anymore, nor do enough people care enough to see it updated again. AGS is nowhere close to that point. There's always something that can be done to improve upon it.

[Calin Leafshade]

No but remember CJ is but one man.

There are other features that AGS would benefit from but there becomes a point where the work required to implement the changes is greater than the benefit provided.

Plus it causes software to diverge and become more and more complex with features added that are only used by very few people.

[TerranRich]

Well, CJ has always been but one man, and he's been improving AGS for well over 11 years and counting. Unless he's getting burned out and I missed that fact.

[Calin Leafshade]

What else is to be done?

Custom pathfinding?
function overrides?
full screen shaders?

how many people would actually *use* those things?

Now don't get me wrong.. I would *love* all those things and they would be excellent features to add.

but look at it from CJs position.. would you spend literally *days* of time to implement and test those features knowing that only the hardcore coders would actually use them.

[Dualnames]

First Calin STFU NOOB!@12121!@

Now, Cal has a point AGS has managed to accomplish its purpose. But that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement. If there wasn't it would have stayed back to 2.72. Name one adventure that can't be made using 2.72 and was made using 3.xx.

[TerranRich]

People probably thought 2.72 was the pinnacle of what AGS could achieve. There is always room for improvement, and I'm not talking about the rarely-usable features you cherry-picked, Calin. Until CJ says himself that AGS is done and over with, there will always be more versions of AGS.

[Misj']

What else is to be done?

Custom pathfinding?
function overrides?
full screen shaders?

- Layered sprites (including the ability for limited animation)
- LucasArts Speech with lip-sync (implemented in the layered sprites)
- Variable movement-distance per frame (anti sliding)

and Yes, AGS was originally created to allow you to create your own point-and-click adventure games, similar to the early 90's Sierra and Lucasarts adventures, so some might say that it has accomplished its purpose. However, each of the above mentioned options were also part of (the late 90's) Monkey Island 3. And while some people here seem to think that adventure games ended in the low res era, it actually did not. And the limits that AGS currently has for high res keep me from putting serious time into the game I'm (slowly) developing (among with other things that take up my time of course).

So, no, I don't agree that AGS is finished in it's current form. And the argument

would you spend literally *days* of time to implement and test those features knowing that only the hardcore coders would actually use them.

goes for plug-ins as well. Adding the ability for plug-ins also probably took CJ so time, and it's also a feature that only the hardcore coders actually use. Yet I see quite a lot of users of that feature. So was it a waste of time? - Would AGS have been equally mature if CJ hadn't implemented it? - I think not...and I doubt you consider it a waste of CJ's time either.

So in short, there is still quite some crucial and relevant development into the realm of high res that will allow AGS to be better...features that may to be used by everyone (particularly those stuck inside the low res box), but they are important features non the less. I am, however, not trying to push this high res direction through CJ's throat, for it's in the end his decision and not mine (or any of us) as to which direction he feels AGS should take. And if that means that he believes AGS is finished than so be it, but I'll have to look somewhere else to finish my project someday...if I ever find the time <sigh>



Ps. regarding the original subject: I don't use twitter, and neither want to either.
Pps. my appologies if my tone is a little harsh, I've been under a bit of stress lately resulting in a bit of a short fuse. Also, I didn''t mean to rattle up the entire lowres vs highres (or pixelart vs traditional animation) discussion again (that we've seen for the so manyeth time here on AGS).

[Chicky]

I think Calin was just trying to say that AGS is perfect, further development is more of a luxury. CJ could walk away today feeling accomplished and satisfied with the program and community he has created.

[GarageGothic]

I seriously hope if CJ ever abandons AGS development that he will make the existing code open source - even if it would mean removing the resource file encoding/decoding bits to prevent ripping other people's games. While I do agree with Calin that the engine is fine as-is (also stated so in the AGS 3.2 thread), to be totally honest: if CJ declared definitely that he wouldn't be adding further resolution support or opening up the plugin API (or release the source) to allow us to extend the engine ourselves, I would be out looking for another engine straight away.

I love AGS, I love the community, but no way I would start developing a new game today using the engine if I didn't believe it would keep evolving.

(All of this totally off topic of course, but who gives a shit about tweets anyway? Death to Twitter, long live AGS!!!  )

CJ could walk away today feeling accomplished and satisfied with the program and community he has created.

Indeed... and blissfully unaware of the black van with the tinted windows waiting for him just around the corner  8)

[m0ds]

Until CJ says himself that AGS is done and over with, there will always be more versions of AGS.

Well he has said it plenty of times, he's been hinting at that since 2004! I just hope he doesn't pass it over to someone like earlier planned. I remember being pissed off when I found out he intended to give it to someone to work on who barely uses the AGS forums

I would be out looking for another engine straight away.

Really? Would you? You must be one of those 3.x people then, cos I'm fairly certain the 2.7ers would stick around. Why would you be off straight away, when you were happy to stick around beforehand for the functionality you have in the engine now to come around? I think "I'd up and leave if CJ stopped working on AGS" is a bit bolshy... You make it sound like AGS is only any good for its plugins ability and modern features. Well, I call you a silly tweet, sir!

[GarageGothic]

Really? Would you? You must be one of those 3.x people then, cos I'm fairly certain the 2.7ers would stick around. Why would you be off straight away, when you were happy to stick around beforehand for the functionality you have in the engine now to come around? I think "I'd up and leave if CJ stopped working on AGS" is a bit bolshy... You make it sound like AGS is only any good for its plugins ability and modern features. Well, I call you a silly tweet, sir!

Just saying that I have no interest in an engine limited for all eternity to 640x400 pixels as its maximum widescreen resolution. Didn't claim I would leave the community or anything, only that I would find an alternative engine. It was a very hypothetical statement of course, since it assumed a situation where CJ had made his mind up and there was no changing it - obviously in real life I would spend the first several months trying to convince him to reconsider.

Oh, and and since we're playing version apartheid, I'm one of the "3.x beta x people", btw .  Not sure what the point of sticking with an earlier version would be if keeping my engine version up-to-date helps CJ troubleshoot new fixes/additions. I've yet to experience any version transition issue that couldn't be solved by restoring my latest backup.

[Tuomas]

The problem is, I still can't read my e-mail with AGS, or do my groceries. Plus shouldn't AGS itself be a social website better than twitter. There's always more to do!

[Calin Leafshade]

- Layered sprites (including the ability for limited animation)
- LucasArts Speech with lip-sync (implemented in the layered sprites)
- Variable movement-distance per frame (anti sliding)

Actually I have done all 3 of those by scripting. (The 3rd one isnt finished yet and still a little shakey but I can see that it's possible)

The first 2 things are so simple that CJ doesn't need to implement them.

Lucas Arts style lipsyncing for instance is about 35 lines of code (I also used layered sprites so that the character could continuously animate and still talk without the talking animation fucking up the rest of the idle animation, causing it to jerk.)

The problem is, I still can't read my e-mail with AGS, or do my groceries. Plus shouldn't AGS itself be a social website better than twitter. There's always more to do!

this was very much my point

[Dualnames]

The 3rd is already done Calin, and recnetly by cheldon, or something, the guy with a 9 at his avatar.

[Calin Leafshade]

there we go then... all done.

[Dualnames]

Well, if you just take the theory for a genre that is considered dead since 95-96 AGS has accomplished its goal years now. Same goes for Wintermute. That doesn't mean there's no space for improvement.

m0ds: yes, it's true, but CJ changed his mind last minute, and didn't give me the crown.

AGS appears to be stable and that there's not much to put, cause CJ is busy having his life. I recall when I joined and up until recently that the updates were really often and at certain points ground-breaking.

Honestly, Lucas Art lip sync is very overrated these days.

[Calin Leafshade]

Honestly, Lucas Art lip sync is very overrated these days.

I disagree, it looks awesome

[Misj']

- Layered sprites (including the ability for limited animation)
- LucasArts Speech with lip-sync (implemented in the layered sprites)
- Variable movement-distance per frame (anti sliding)

...
The first 2 things are so simple that CJ doesn't need to implement them.

So you're able to quickly and easily set up a character from three dynamic layers (body, head, right-arm), where each of them are on different frame-rates, and sometimes the arm-layer is turned off because it's merged with the body for a certain set of frames? - and than after a certain number of frames the right-arm is back on again but shows the left arm... etc. All this of course with very few lines of code and simple and easy to use for the user (and simple and easy to organize in a larger project)... if not, then you haven't been able to do it (because it said 'including the ability for limited animation', and that's the way classical cell animation does things).

EDIT: are your layers hierarchically linked so the child's movement is based on the parent while the parent's movement is based on the player's interaction. Can you set this link graphically by linking a specific location of one frame to a specific location of another frame; where these frames can be of different sizes throughout the animation?

The problem isn't the first part: that it can be done. The problem is that it has to be done un-intuitively and moreover, on a big project it gets hard to keep things organized. And as long as that's the case there is a lot of room for improvement in AGS. Maybe not for lowres games...but why should I have to want to do lowres?

Lucas Arts style lipsyncing for instance is about 35 lines of code (I also used layered sprites so that the character could continuously animate and still talk without the talking animation fucking up the rest of the idle animation, causing it to jerk.)

Still, is the fact that you did it a reason why it shouldn't be implemented in AGS? - Should everyone reinvent the wheel just because it's simple?

EDIT:
if we deny features based on the fact that they can be (easily) scripted, then indeed AGS is finished. Moreover, since most of the features of AGS can be scripted/coded using C and the likes, AGS itself is a useless feature that shouldn't exist at all. On the other hand, since I consider AGS a valid application I completely disagree with the 'it can be scripted' argument, because it's absolute nonsense.

[LimpingFish]

I never really considered CJ stopping development on the program. I just figured he would devote less time to it. As it stands, we have a fairly regular and constant cycle of development.

But who can say? Would we all stop making games if 3.2 was CJ's last? I doubt it, but we might find more plug-ins and such been written to add features to the core program. As it stands, I'm not sure why more plug-ins aren't written* (it's not really that much of a hassle to have to include a few dlls with a game, is it?) to add features to appease the whiners.

*I know writing a plug-in isn't as simple as blowing the florets off a dandelion, but I'd still like to see people taking chances with what a funky plug-in could bring to the table.