sparhawk on 23/3/2005 at 12:26
Quote Posted by Kingers
While Shadow will follow the decisions made and become a complete suite for support of all Thief games. As a result I highly recommend the use of ZIP as the default archiving format as it makes integration so much easier.
I think which archiver is ultimately used is not really the big issue. Access to the files can be abstracted also and provide a simple filesystem class which hides the implementation details. This is also the way many games implement archiving because they also don't want to deal with a particular archiver and can easily exchange it. What we should agree upon, though is, to only support formats which are open sourced. I think this would rule out RAR though (not sure on this) but I would hate to be commited to a format which might change rules later.
Kingers on 23/3/2005 at 12:49
Unfortunately I am going to stop work on Shadow simply because it is to much of a hassle. I set out to create a small application to help the community and all I receive is complaints about:
1. My choice of development platform (so many seem to hate .NET, without having many genuine reasons for hating it.)
2. My Briefing setup, and a battle for TXT vs RTF vs HTML vs Others
3. The type of archives I use 7Zip vs Zip vs Rar
Now that a simple C++ loader is underway by DracFlamloc I have decided to stop work on this simply because I don't feel especially after the comments made that anyone would use it. :nono:
Since this project started the community has never been in agreement about even the smallest of things for Shadow. As such I hope you have better luck DracFlamLoc as I for one will not be dipping my toes into producing something for community for some time! :mad:
sparhawk on 23/3/2005 at 13:01
Quote Posted by Kingers
Unfortunately I am going to stop work on Shadow simply because it is to much of a hassle.
I'm sorry to hear that, but you shouldn't be frustrated so easily. Of course there is a lot of argument before you start this, if you plan to include the wishes of the community. But IMO it is better to have the argument right at the start and everybody agrees on, so that development can go smoothly, then having no arguments and once you are finished you realize that you developed something that nobody wants. So far I think the discussion is going pretty well. Personally I don't think it is a good idea from dracflamloc to start his own loader at this tage, because it is better to combine the efforts so we get something everybody is happy with, instead of wasting time and energy on many different apps all doing the same.
Having a lot of discussion is the start of ANY project worthwile to argue for. :) Guess how many discussions we had when we started on TDM. This went on exclusively for some time, before we really got down to business, but I think that helped a lot, because now we have resolved many issues already and we developed a steady workflow and most of the time we are in agreement what should be done and every team member knows what to do.
dracflamloc on 23/3/2005 at 13:46
I had been planning and working on this before Kingers started. I said the day the editor was released I'd create one.
I'd have no problem working alongside Kingers. If you don't like the HTML briefing rich text or plain text is always an option. Personally I couldn't care less which is used. At this point I'm just going to make RTF and HTML an option. A FM maker would just have to create both. Most programs these days can copy/paste to and from RTF and HTML so I don't think this will be a big issue to include both.
I think you're overreacting a bit Kingers but thats your choice. Developing software for a fickle community is always hard. You need to take it one step at a time. If you'd like to help me out with something other than the actual software development, how about figuring out a good layout for the FM INI files?
And anyone can do this: Figure out what steps are needed to install a FM with custom models, textures, sounds, briefings, etc, and post them here so that I can figure out how best to do this. Also document what files might need to be modified or replaced so that I know what to have FleshLoader backup, etc.
I don't care about zip or 7-zip format. Personally I'd like to use tar.gz since I plan on having this run in linux in the near future too, but many people don't like it for some odd reason.
I think we need a vote for the FM file format.
nomad of the pacific on 23/3/2005 at 14:21
Sorry to hear that you're stopping work on Shadow, Kingers. It looked very good. But I was
very unhappy to hear you say:
Quote:
I for one will not be dipping my toes into producing something for community for some time!
:eww:
Please, no hard feelings! The efforts of people like you are what make this community productive and rewarding! Don't let the chaos of our adjustment to having a new editor get you down. I hope you will reconsider that statement. WE NEED YOU!!! :thumb:
dracflamloc on 23/3/2005 at 14:30
Lets get this back on topic please.
dracflamloc on 23/3/2005 at 14:59
Revised Sample FM.fmi - Let me know if I'm missing anything
[FM]
Title=Drac's FM
Author=DracFlamloc
Icon=dracfm.ico
[Files]
;compressed archive for the fm
Archive=dracfm.zip
;if no archive then the files will be copied out of this directory
Directory=dracfm
HTMLDescription=dracfm.html
TextDescription=dracfm.txt
[User]
NormalComplete=1
HardComplete=0
ExpertComplete=1
LastPlayed=3/1/2005
Progress=3
Rating=6
Notes=awesome!!!!!
Vlad Midnight on 23/3/2005 at 15:36
I would like to see three check marks for completed. Normal Hard Expert I had to make my own software (in quickbasic :weird: :eww: ) to remember which ones I had beaten on what level.
For completed, instead of binary 0=unfinished 1=finished
I set it up like this
1=Normal
3=Hard
5=Expert
4=Normal+Hard (1+3)
6=Normal+Expert(1+5)
8=Hard+Expert(3+5)
9=Normal+Hard+Expert
That way you could store the data with just one variable instead of the need for three binarys.
date=3/10/2005 :confused: How would that work, wouldnt that be 3 divided by 10 divided by 2005. Darkloader counted the days from January 1,1900. Todays Darkloader date is 38434. It looks like to me we maually type in the last time we played?
I was actually glad to see last time played catagory. Pointless at first, then it turned out to be very cool. (You mean I havent played this FM for three years :wot: )
Another feature I had was pick a random FM button. This was unfair to campaign missions so they would get one seed for every mission in the zip.
Lets say you had 7 single mission FMs and one Calendras Legacy. It would then random a number between 1-10, 1-7 the singles 8-10 would be CL. :bored:
Do I ever shut up :p
dracflamloc on 23/3/2005 at 15:51
In the days of 200GB hard drives I doubt havng an extra 10 bytes taken by two more variables would matter :p
But yea I'll add difficulty specific completion.
Don't worry about the last played date. It works just fine as a string.
