In my personal non-developer opinion (Hi! It appears Gmail was automatically archiving ohr-dev mailing list posts, I thought people had stopped posting to it since november)
It all depends on what you guys want to do. Personally, I'd like to see CUSTOM become a Windows-GUI style editor, with the parent window and each editing thing are children windows, allowing people to multi-task much more easily. Imagine how much easier it'd be if you could pull up all the tag names in one window while editing a hero's tags (or anything else that requires tags). I did up a quick prototype a long time ago to show to TMC: http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/fyrewulff/ohr_gui_mdi.png This would also have the end result of more people willing to use it, and I'm pretty sure there's multi-OS (gtk I think?) ways to build a GUI like that. All I ask is that the file format code/programming/format are more open licensed (MIT for example) so people that want to write their own frontends can have a no-strings-attached DLL to work with under windows, or a MIT-licensed lib for OSX/Linux. Perhaps your Z* release could be the final revision, if the decision were to be made to start work on a new engine. Just make sure if you decided to all start working on the new framework or a new engine, set realistic goals for release - you don't want to end up as perpetual vaporware. On Feb 19, 2008 8:01 AM, Ralph Versteegen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Feb 19, 2008 7:01 PM, James Paige <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 12:44:58AM -0500, Mike Caron wrote: > > > TMC and I were talking this evening about improvements to the OHR > > > (specifically, tile animation), and a thought struck me like a > > > lightening bolt. Not inspiration, per se, but a sudden realization of > > > something we all know, deep down inside, but would be afraid to > > > acknowledge. > > > > > > The OHRRPGCE is old, and it shows. It dates back a decade (or more?), > > > and in fact relied on outdated technology when it was new. Everything > > > about it hearkens back to the 16-bit era. The 20x20 tiles, 16-colour > > > palettes, plotscripting, etc. And, although we've made attempts at > > > modernizing the OHR, such as porting it to Windows and Linux, updating > > > HamsterSpeak to 32-bit, and so forth, much of it would simply not be > > > worth the effort. Heck (and I quote), "It would be easier to start > > > over". (I just checked, and although that's not in the FAQ anywhere > > > that I could find, I know it used to be!) > > My philosophy on OHR work is this: it's not worth fixing up bad code > without a reason (or you'd never get anything done). James has been > doing a LOT of rewritting/refactoring lately, nearly all work I would > have thought was not worth the effort. Of course, he did add > Mark/Clone, but I wonder what other features the sprite editors might > see. They weren't very buggy. > > > > > > > So, why don't we? > > > > > > Don't get me wrong, I don't want to say that all of James', TMC's, > > > Neo's, Simon's, and even my own work were for nought. Far from it. > > > Thousands of people use the OHR (or, they did at one point anyway). > > > But, it's time to move on. Hell, we're even running out of silly > > > codenames :P > > I continue work on the OHR for 3 reasons: it's what I know; I want to > continue to support existing OHR users (they still demand a lot of > features); and thirdly... I hope to make some serious attempts at > making games with it someday :P > > > > > > > We could create a new RPG engine, with the same goals as the OHRRPGCE, > > > but done right. If we start from a new codebase, we can ensure that it > > > stays clean, that it's flexible enough to move forward, make > > > bugfixing... a pleasure? No, that's a stretch. But, it would be less > > > of a nightmare. > > > > > > We could write it in any language we please! C++ would be my first > > > choice, but I'd be willing to learn Python even. Or, Java. Or > > > whatever. Doesn't matter. The point is that if we pooled our > > > resources, we could create the Ultimate RPG Engine. Hell, we could > > > call it URE. Or URPGE (pronounced 'urp-age'). > > Mike's first choice? What is the world coming to! > > > > > > > I know that there are other projects going on. Jormungand, OHRFMF, > > > etc. But, I don't want to rebuild the OHR, I want to start from > > > scratch, using what we know collectively, and build something that the > > > OHR never could be. > > Jormungand is officially dead (pity, I think a replacement for Custom > would have been wonderful) > > > > > > > Am I insane? Or, would this be something worth pursuing? > > > > You are not insane. > > > > How about http://motherhamster.org as a starting point? The editor > > framework needs a whole lot of work, but the capabilities of the > > frontend are already quite good. > > Wow, you've been pulling a lot of projects out of your sleeves lately > (that was definitely a blank page last I checked)! And there's a lot > of work done here! A pity I don't know Python yet, so won't be playing > around with it (just yet). Why must everyone continually remind me to > learn Python? Still, this code looks very pleasing. > > What exactly is HamsterWheel again, a (programming not required) > editor and player for (generic 2D?) games, using the MotherHamster > library? I guess not: it looks to me like MotherHamster is at least > part of that. > > > > > > I can't make any predictions as to how much I will (or won't) be drawn > > in to a new from-ground-up project, but I can agree that you are not at > > all insane for suggesting it. > > > > --- > > James > _______________________________________________ > Ohrrpgce mailing list > ohrrpgce@lists.motherhamster.org > http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org > _______________________________________________ Ohrrpgce mailing list ohrrpgce@lists.motherhamster.org http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org
