Re: Creating a code free RPG using Sable(video 14), by Ebon Sky Studios
@lemm
Just out of interest, why did you decide to write this tool in BGT in the first place?
I mean, it looks brilliant from what I've watched and read ETC, you already know you've got the interest, the sheer number of posts on this thread is testament to that, and you're saying that the current version - which is already breaking hearts and causing wet dreams all over the internet - is only a prototype, and will be completely obsolete at some point?
Wouldn't it have been easier to start off with a stack that's more mainstream (pretty much anything else really), rather than buggering about spending loads of time, energy and resources on BGT, and losing any chance at backwards compatibility in the process?
If you weren't happy with some elements (I appreciate things like audio libraries - certainly in Python - leave something to be desired), you could have just created abstractions until you found a better system. Maybe used the money from your crowdfunding to pay someone else to write you some bespoke system for stuff you weren't 100% comfortable with.
In addition to all of this, there's the time and energy you're going to have to spend learning all the tools and idiosyncrasies of whatever language the final version will be in. I'm guessing BGT is your primary language, otherwise you wouldn't have started with it, so there's no converters out there that'll expedite the task. You'll have to learn (or polish up on) the language, tools, libraries, learn to dump and load files, presumably eventually build EXEs, re-think code obfuscation, a new sounds library, events system, probably rewrite whatever menu and mapping system you use, window system... The list goes on. That's days worth of time spent on Google or Stack Overflow.
The first post on this thread will be 20 months old in 2 days time... It probably won't take you all that time for the rewrite, but even if it takes you half that, and you start today, you're still looking for a launch in the summer of 2021. Great news for me BTW, it'll be my birthday!
While you're working on that, either your games team twiddle their thumbs, or you fix the bugs they identify in old Sable, in the process of working to create a game that'll be running on legacy code before it's even released. Presumably you'll then be selling this game (which is already obsolete by this point because it's not going to take much for the two systems to diverge, and make it difficult or impossible for you to backport bug fixes you make in the new version.
All of this while the possibility that something could change in Windows to relegate BGT to the history books hangs over your fledgling game. Now, in addition to allowing your program through their antivirus (which sounds like a litigation nightmare), your users have to run it in compatibility mode, maybe even go all out and install a legacy version of windows.
I'm sorry, I firstly see no logical reason for writing such a massive system in such an antediluvian programming language, and secondly don't believe it'll be feasible for you to make the promised rewrite, which means you'll keep maintaining yet more code written in a language which not only keeps audiogames in the dark ages (something I assume you'd like to see changed), but also renders any computers running Sable - not to mention computers running the games created with Sable - vulnerable.
What happens when Sable gets dead popular, and some bright spark hacker thinks it'll be a great idea to doctor a version with some worm or other, then offers up their adulterated version as a "mirror"? If you could slip ransomware in there, it would probably be a pretty good money-earner. Certainly in the UK, a high proportion of VI / blind people are in receipt of benefits, so it's not even like you're nicking hard earned cash.
Second most importantly for us users, if I buy Sable version 1.0 (which I won't on principal, because I morally object to BGT), will I get the new version for free? Will all the games I've spent hundreds of hours working on still work with the new system? Or will I have to create them all over again?
I'm really sorry if this has all been asked before. I haven't read through the sheer mountain of messages, but the ones I've been reading are mostly full of starry-eyed wonderlust. That's great for your future user base, but not entirely realistic, given your proposed roadmap I feel like.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I've been pondering this stuff for a while, and I thought someone might ask these questions in a more tactful manner, and save me opening my gob, and putting my foot in it.
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