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Poll

What kind of project do you want to see as the next CP?

Tandem "GM Universal Zelda Engine" development and a game that uses it.
- 9 (23.1%)
Some form of an online zelda game.
- 4 (10.3%)
Ressurection of OOT2D or a similar 2D conversion.
- 6 (15.4%)
Recreation of a previous game? LTTP? OOS? OOA?
- 7 (17.9%)
Development of a zelda project / engine in an "advanced" language (C#, C++, etc) for teaching.
- 4 (10.3%)
Generic zelda game with a unique storyline.
- 9 (23.1%)

Total Members Voted: 35

Voting closed: March 18, 2009, 09:35:37 pm


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Author Topic: Community Project Redesign  (Read 20086 times)

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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #20 on: March 10, 2009, 11:11:28 am »
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Personally I think you need to go for something that actually draws people in instantly. A generic zelda fan game of some sort or another requires the user to read the story and see where the game is heading for people to even get intresting. Doing something like "Zelda Online", "OOT2D", etc, etc, gives people an automatic reaction that they want to see it and be a part of it.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #21 on: March 10, 2009, 04:52:25 pm »
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Niek:

A community project should be something that the community can work on, be interested in, and get benefits back from. The previous community project failed on at least one or two of those conditions and has now been demoted to a team project - however, the likelihood is that it will be moved to the Archive as there has not been work on it in a while.

I do not like speaking ill of the dead though, so I will just elaborate on what the new project would do better. Because the game part of the community project would be a remake, the first thing to do after getting a basic engine together would be to start making what was at the beginning of the game and then onward. Other areas could be worked on in advance because the areas of the game would already be defined. Other objects such as enemies and NPCs could be worked on because the engine would be separate from the game - those working mostly on the game would not be too distracted with what they could work on next.

As for my insistence on the Minish Cap style, it is the best style to use on the project for a number of reasons. This is mostly because it is modern and would be something that would be the most interesting to do the game with. I am not saying that the game has to be entirely done with rips. I am recognizing though the more customs a game has, the slower its development is. But really, the Minish Cap style already has good customs, edits, characters remade from previous Zelda games, and rips. I am not saying that all community projects should be Minish Cap style and done with Game Maker, just that this one should be so it is easy enough to do.

Infini:

Exactly.
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gm112

Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #22 on: March 10, 2009, 05:09:57 pm »

4Sword. It could be me, but from your replies it seems as if you want to constrict every fan game to MC style and only use the stuff that can be ripped from the game.
Minish Cap itself is a great art style to use. It's more modern that ALTTP. I respect 4swords decision on the Minish Cap style.

Quote
PS: what ever happend to the current one (King of Thieves), if it is dead I would like to see if I can brew a decent concept for it, which might bring it back on track again. That is if someone were to give me some of the latest info on the game.
Er... As you can see, the community project is still just an idea. >_<;;


So, how will everyone keep their engines up to date? SVN? Checking a topic? :S.. Or some other method that's similar to SVN, perhaps? I dunno since it's being done in GM, SVN isn't really necessary as its just one big file.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #23 on: March 10, 2009, 05:43:45 pm »
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Just one thing... I think it would be better to have 3 community projects: one engine, one Zelda game and one Indie game.
I remember 2 years ago there were people who didn't want to work on the community project because it was a Zelda game, and not an "original" game.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #24 on: March 10, 2009, 06:32:40 pm »
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No, having three community projects after the addition of the Indie game would not work. Having contests for it would draw time and attention away from the Zelda community project and the game would mostly be worked on by a minority of active forum users. It is not something that most of the community could take part in.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #25 on: March 10, 2009, 09:24:35 pm »
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So, how will everyone keep their engines up to date?

Assign parts of the engine to be completed by each person working on it.  When each of them  is done, bring them all together into one gm file.  Then reassign more parts, rinse and repeat.  This way no one will have to worry about not having the most up to date version. 
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #26 on: March 10, 2009, 09:38:45 pm »
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So, how will everyone keep their engines up to date?

Assign parts of the engine to be completed by each person working on it.  When each of them  is done, bring them all together into one gm file.  Then reassign more parts, rinse and repeat.  This way no one will have to worry about not having the most up to date version. 

Needs a rating system, perhaps? Everyone rates eachother's stuff until there's nothing left to fix up.

So it seems what we've established so far...

-Game Maker
-Engine part, game part
-Resource gathering
-Separate topics for info and data. (Forum revision? Add subforums?)
-"Community Staff" to maintain order of operations

If there's anything else that needs discussing, I'm all open. On the resource gathering though, there is one major part and one minor part. The major part is the graphics. I agree with 4Sword on doing MC style, but I think also that it be good to work with a new style after that. This way, the can continue building engines and resources for all styles.

The minor part of the resources is the audio. Easily done, for many sites out there have plenty of sound effects from the other games. But the true gathering here is going to be mixing the audio for a certain game to fit the style that the game is being redone to.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #27 on: March 10, 2009, 10:12:02 pm »
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With the music, specifically Minish Cap-styled music, in many cases it will be as simple as creating a comparable midi to the original music and sticking a Minish Cap soundfont on top, then tweaking to get the final product.

That's not to say creating music is an easy task by any means, but similarly to reusing MC graphics or creating new graphics in the style, we have a musical style to start with and the ability to retool old music and make new music as is necessary.
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gm112

Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #28 on: March 10, 2009, 11:12:16 pm »
Quote
So, how will everyone keep their engines up to date?

Assign parts of the engine to be completed by each person working on it.  When each of them  is done, bring them all together into one gm file.  Then reassign more parts, rinse and repeat.  This way no one will have to worry about not having the most up to date version. 

Needs a rating system, perhaps? Everyone rates eachother's stuff until there's nothing left to fix up.



This is what the maintainers are for. I'd say Infin, but I don't think he wants to be managing GML(I don't blame him, either). It's up to debate who'd manage.
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #29 on: March 10, 2009, 11:13:41 pm »
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Or people could, you know, volunteer.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #30 on: March 10, 2009, 11:34:37 pm »
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Not to be someone who jumps in a project when i just joined the forum, but i have to ask, why programm this in game maker, i mean it exist alot better platforms to make a game in.

just asking, not trying to jump anyone or something
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #31 on: March 10, 2009, 11:39:02 pm »
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Because Game Maker is a program almost everyone here has been using the last five or six years, maybe longer.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #32 on: March 10, 2009, 11:40:16 pm »
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Because Game Maker is a program almost everyone here has been using the last five or six years, maybe longer.
alright, its not the best program to spend 5 6 years in, but hey thats just me
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gm112

Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #33 on: March 11, 2009, 12:18:40 am »
Or people could, you know, volunteer.

It's up to debate who'd manage.
>____________________>;;..... Or people could, you know, read.

Because Game Maker is a program almost everyone here has been using the last five or six years, maybe longer.
alright, its not the best program to spend 5 6 years in, but hey thats just me
^^ I agree.

Quote
So, how will everyone keep their engines up to date?

Assign parts of the engine to be completed by each person working on it.  When each of them  is done, bring them all together into one gm file.  Then reassign more parts, rinse and repeat.  This way no one will have to worry about not having the most up to date version. 

I guess that would work. For every "milestone", a "full source" build can be made.

So.. I guess now all that's left is for the staff to discuss it in the staff forums(I'm only assuming that they are) before any wheels can begin to turn?
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #34 on: March 11, 2009, 01:23:53 am »
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I agree with the last post.

Also, maybe what 4Sword said about it being demoted to a team project is not necessarily a bad idea. It just depends on how we want to progress with the project.

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Pyrazor

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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #35 on: March 11, 2009, 04:17:31 am »
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To be honest, I'd be surprised if you get anything but image and sound contributions from the community and maybe have a few staff or project leaders working on the engine even with the open source aspect.

You might call it pessimistic but most people are already working on their own game and would likely have little to no interest in just jumping on this unless the commitment was very low and the return was reasonable.

The fact that Game Maker is horrible handling different versions of a game doesn't help the least bit either. 
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I C'Z U
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #36 on: March 11, 2009, 04:59:31 am »
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The engine part of the community project is something that could be handled easily. Most of the standardization could be handled by a few people and adding to an engine established Zelda game mechanisms would not be as difficult as inventing new ones. Also the engine part would not require that many images because it would just be an engine: gathering tiles for it would not be a heavy requirement.

The game part of it would be interesting enough. Working on this would not be that difficult either since the game would most likely be a remake using the engine from the other part of the community project. It doesn't ask anyone to go above and beyond and a lot of people could easily work towards a goal because the goals themselves would be able to be defined. This community project idea is very simplified compared to other ideas.

And it is easy to criticize Game Maker but it is still what most people know here. I am not sure of what you mean by different versions of a game, but it seems like you are blowing that out of proportion. Otherwise it is snooty to condemn something without altering a better alternative.
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Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #37 on: March 11, 2009, 05:15:49 am »
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With the music, specifically Minish Cap-styled music, in many cases it will be as simple as creating a comparable midi to the original music and sticking a Minish Cap soundfont on top, then tweaking to get the final product.

That's not to say creating music is an easy task by any means, but similarly to reusing MC graphics or creating new graphics in the style, we have a musical style to start with and the ability to retool old music and make new music as is necessary.
I decompiled the MC rom ages ago and found almost all the sounds in it, including the instruments. If I can dig it up I'll turn it into a soundfont.
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Pyrazor

PUMP UP DA JAMS!
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #38 on: March 11, 2009, 05:50:38 am »
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And it is easy to criticize Game Maker but it is still what most people know here. I am not sure of what you mean by different versions of a game, but it seems like you are blowing that out of proportion. Otherwise it is snooty to condemn something without altering a better alternative.

For example, you are working on a Bow for the engine and I am working on Bombs.  We both finish what we set out to accomplish but then we have to put it all together and update the engine source.  This can become cumbersome when trying to merge and can cause issues as you can have multiple people working on different features that potentially can end up interfering with each other and having no real way to manage it.

In terms of industry, Game Maker is really only used for prototyping and for good reason.  It is quick and simple for the purpose of a technical demonstration but is not particularly durable enough to support a large team or open source project for a diverse engine.  Really Game Maker is more akin to a scripting tool then actual programming.

I'm not saying Game Maker is necessarily bad.  I'm saying it's not suited to or designed with large projects, let alone large open-source projects, in mind hence why I feel there will be problems in both maintaining the engine and getting people to contribute. 

Is there an alternative?  Not really because the large majority of the user base doesn't have the experience to use more flexible programming languages that you can use version control software with like XNA or just straight up C++.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2009, 05:56:12 am by Pyrazor »
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: Community Project Redesign
« Reply #39 on: March 11, 2009, 12:47:33 pm »
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As much as Pyrazor is right, there is no alternative. I've seen a lot of the same thing being said over and over, and I think it's about time to wrap up this particular discussion and start on the stuff we're going to do. The last thing we need to do before we end this one though is how multiple people will work on the engine, brought up by Pyrazor's point.

So far, it seems we're making a MC engine and remaking Seasons and Ages in MC style. Why both? They go hand in hand. Can't have one without the other. Well, you can, but it wouldn't be as good because a lot of the game revolved around passwords.
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