complains about redundancy
Source was originally made in 2003 by amateur Byond Coder.
totes dude
And you are still promoting those same bad practices today in 2015. That is the issue here. Your comment is meaningless.
Start acting your age.
Ss4gogeta0 wrote:
And you are still promoting those same bad practices today in 2015. That is the issue here. Your comment is meaningless. Start acting your age. | |
Rocknet wrote:
Ss4gogeta0 wrote: nope not really... I just like fucking with Ter every now and again. its quite fun tbh. anyway this isnt my main source that I always use. that would be the wonderful outbreak source that Strai released in 2005 which is when I started using it. honestly, only real reason I like Zeta is because of IALO. that game was a true masterpiece in my eyes. it turned something that was a pile of crap into true beauty. no idea why you are trying to make this seem like I am feeling threatened by ter. he is a creampuff. FKI wrote: Ss4gogeta0 wrote: it isnt really meaningless, I pointed it out in my earlier post that the source could be redone and re-released, but obviously its better to ignore that and play the blame game on the reason why people still use horrible coding. | |
Ss4gogeta0 wrote:
complains about redundancy You are moving goalposts, friend. You propped it up as a good example of an intro to an RPG, but it's just not. It's riddled with completely broken practices and outright wrong approaches. Not only that, but there are ZERO gameplay mechanics. The interface is basically non-functional, and what little gameplay there is in that game is ruined by a complete lack of balancing. I'm disagreeing with what you said earlier about zeta being a good example of a codebase when it's just straight up not. It's 12 years old now, and the bad practices are still being passed around and taught like they are completely fine. I just like fucking with Ter every now and again. Defend your argument or admit the argument was a bad one. Quit changing what you said after the fact, and quit pretending you weren't being serious. I pointed out a number of patterns that were wrong, and you didn't even recognize what was wrong with the worst one of the bunch. That pattern isn't even an advanced concept, it's CS 101 week 2. If you can't recognize that the if-chain I posted is entirely bad, you don't even have the most rudimentary understanding of programming that there is. Again, if you had dropped out of a CS program after two weeks, you'd have known that. | |
Ter13 wrote:
Ss4gogeta0 wrote: I know that, but the thing is, it has potential! sure it may be filled to the brim with bad syntax and redundant arguements, but its still simple enough for people to push out game after game like a taiwanese hooker pushes out babies. plus, while it was made with the goal of being a DBZ game in mind. it is still versatile enough to be modified into anything else a person wants (Bringing up IALO once more as an example) you just gotta look at things from different perspectives and angles. I could see an updated version of zeta being used for 1. A simulation type game 2. A dungeon crawler RPG 3. An RPG based in the Edo period of Japan (had a concept for it already written down in a notebook somewhere) 4. A GTA based game. Ter13 wrote: If you can't recognize that the if-chain I posted is entirely bad, you don't even have the most rudimentary understanding of programming that there is. Again, if you had dropped out of a CS program after two weeks, you'd have known that. Never said I was a programmer, infact I always tell people on BYOND that im probably the worst programmer on here. I tend to Icon every now and then when im bored (its something I am ok at, but I end up losing interest fairly quickly) and I like designing maps for games. but I am more of an ideas man. | |
Zeta is a terrible source. There's no "game" to it. It's a glorified chat room with awful stats and all of five verbs: "Punch", "Ki Blast", "Kamehameha", "Spirit Bomb" and "Power Up". It has absolutely nothing to do with the IP, at all. It's a lazy interpretation written by a novice but somehow worshiped by everyone with even a single thought of designing a DBZ game. Anyone who uses Zeta as a base or a reference is guaranteed to set themselves up for failure. No questions.
Disputing this information is completely useless. It's off-topic and counter productive to the discussion. We're here to think about ways of encouraging new developers to be more proactive, not defend their poor design practices. Do I expect new developers to be perfect? Absolutely not. But practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. If new developers are writing games and learning game development using the wrong practices, then it's only going to hurt them in the long run, as we can clearly see from the poor standard of games on the website right now, if games even get finished, that is. | |
Kats wrote:
Zeta is a terrible source. There's no "game" to it. It's a glorified chat room with awful stats and all of five verbs: "Punch", "Ki Blast", "Kamehameha", "Spirit Bomb" and "Power Up". thats what makes it so versatile, its bare bones to the extent where a person has a place to start but arent forced to stick with one direction of game design. it is akin to having a bowl of fruit on a pedestal and a blank canvas. am I the only person who sees this outside of just everything being about perfect coding practices? Kats wrote: It's a lazy interpretation written by a novice but somehow worshiped by everyone with even a single thought of designing a DBZ game. Anyone who uses Zeta as a base or a reference is guaranteed to set themselves up for failure. No questions. I dont worship him, I honestly dont even know him nor do I care. and to be real, last time I did work with Zeta was like 2009 or 2010. when I put out a DBZ rip with all kinds of other shit added in so that I could cash in on the popularity of fan games back then. | |
Ss4gogeta0 wrote:
Kats wrote: BYOND already does this... That's the point of the software is to make launching games quick and painless. Zeta serves absolutely no purpose other than to teach new programmers how to not program correctly. It can't be used as a base because 99% of it would need to be rewritten to be remotely suitable for real development in the first place. It would be far, far easier to just start from a blank project than it would be to modify Zeta into anything remotely close to a decent game. | |
You really don't know anything about game design or programming at all.
Protip: If you admit to being a terrible programmer, you probably shouldn't talk about what is and is not good code with someone who is easily one of the most experienced programmers here. | |
Ter13 wrote:
You really don't know anything about game design or programming at all. I admit to being the worst programmer "on Byond". I do GTA Mission Scripting and SCM coding for GTA Mods (which surprisingly, not many people can actually do) I also have been working with PBasic (for the robotics class I take in the summer), and I have been taking Assembly in my Microprocessor classes. so while I may not have all the skills that everyone else has with Byond. I still have an Idea of what I am talking about.  | |
so while I may not have all the skills that everyone else has with Byond If-else chains and basic logic aren't unique to BYOND. | |
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Okay this one has even me fired up. I can't believe this discussion is even happening. I'm going to try to restrain myself in this response so I can view things from both sides.
Yes, Zeta COULD be used for many things as you are saying Ss4Gogeta, but the point of the matter is it SHOULDN'T be because Ter and Kats are right it is a terrible source. It may be bare bones, sure, and easy to understand? Most definitely. However, all that easy to read, use, and modify code is the wrong way to do things. And not just in an oh there's a better way or three. Some of it is buggy and/or highly inefficient, other parts don't make use of new BYOND features where they should, and the whole thing isn't even a fraction of what any game on BYOND should be even though it makes young inexperienced developers think all of it is how its done. It shouldn't EVER be used because it teaches the inexperienced people wrong from day 1. They start off bad, and rarely have the experience or know how to realize it and step away from it, or struggle to cause they've worked with it for too long. Zeta, and most DBZ sources laying around for that matter, are so horrible that an immeasurably better framework with or without DBZ could probably be made within a days work by me, Kats, Ter, or quite a few others. Heck, last I heard HU was the best DBZ source available for download, and even that is a mess with barely any gameplay. That in its self is a problem. Almost any source someone downloads to use as a framework, or bare bones foundation is just a varied level of horrible riddled with some good things to learn, and a lot of bad things to learn. If people knew that, and would pick out the bad things and ditch them later that might be okay, but they don't. Few ever realize just how many bad practices they're learning, or which ones they are down the road. | |
Ter13 wrote:
so while I may not have all the skills that everyone else has with Byond I wasnt referring to if and else statements. I was referring to your statement about you guys being the most experienced programmers on byond. my god, not even silent is as pretentious as you and he is *THE* best programmer on GTAForums, so good he got a job with devolver digital just because he tweaked the coding for hotline miami 2 to work on Windows XP. Ter13 wrote: 'Cause wiggers need to be fake. whose a wigger? are you implying that I am white? cus if you are, then I got some bad news for you puto.  Toddab503 wrote: Okay this one has even me fired up. I can't believe this discussion is even happening. I'm going to try to restrain myself in this response so I can view things from both sides. That is the thing though. I never said that they didnt have valid points. I said it could be redone and released as a resource for newbies. The coding could be better optimized and all the bugs could be fixed... but of course people wanted to argue about coding instead of trying to understand what I mean by fixing it and making it better. | |
Alright, we're off the rails here and it's my fault.
I think the key issue with the current crop of fangames is threefold: Code Issues: Lack of polymorphic design Lack of simple generics Severely bad logic flow Reliance on deprecated features and outdated methodology. Control flow misapplied to the mob/client when it should be the other way around. Hamfisted in player state machine Incorrectly embedded behavior Interface Issues: Reliance on statpanels and verb panels Square viewports with no modal control Complete lack of user feedback and focus control Reliance on GDI-based prompts rather than context cues Gameplay Issues: Too little thought toward player enjoyment, too much focus on being accurate to the IP. Complete lack of content and progression. Reliance on "training" rather than progression. There's a reason why training is always a montage in movies --because staring at a guy doing pushups for ten hours is fucking boring. That's just for starters with what's wrong. As for how to fix them? That's the real question. I don't think the IP is the problem, as gogeta mentioned earlier. I think the way to fix these kinds of games is to first write an appealing and functional UI for the game and tie it in with solid gameplay mechanics that don't involve just spamming attacks and one-shotting everything. Then once you have the solid gameplay mechanics in place, it's time to design a metagame. Build content that progresses you through the meta. Once you have the metagame done, build another metagame. Add more content to get you through that meta. Once you have that metagame done, keep adding metagames until you are ready to move on. I'm not saying ditch the IP. I'm saying quit trying to conform the game to the IP. Conform the IP to your game. | |
Ss4gogeta0 wrote:
That is the thing though. I never said that they didnt have valid points. I said it could be redone and released as a resource for newbies. The coding could be better optimized and all the bugs could be fixed... but of course people wanted to argue about coding instead of trying to understand what I mean by fixing it and making it better. Right, and I understand that, but one of my main points is that numerous people around here could make something just as good or better than what would come of that; except from scratch and even faster than they could modify it. And new inexperienced programmers wouldn't have the experience, or know how to even know they needed to redesign it, much less be able to do it very quickly. That's enough of that though, I agree with Ter, things are getting steered off course. It really does come down to the issues Ter just mentioned in my opinion, the only problem is how few people know how to set things up that way, or whom even care enough to put in that much effort. Young inexperienced designers will almost always take the quickest and easiest course to something playable. That means they'll grab a source code then go with the flow of the vast majority while trying to make theirs a little better than what they SEE around here, and right now any source they grab or fan game they see is not a good thing for them to build off of. IP's aren't the problem, the standards, and the direction young new hobbyist developers are getting sent is. Although a lot of the hatred toward Naruto games is the whole "Oh no, not another one" thing that tends to happen around here when an IP is used to make countless games, rips, etc. Edit: It's like when the radio plays a good song too many times. You just get sick of hearing it. | |
We start with this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM
And then we end up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk | |
The topic is how can we fix. I think we're focusing too much on the problems and not enough on the how to fix aspect.
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That doesn't stop it from being bad, that wasn't the best work that could be done in 2003.
Do you feel personally attacked because you have used this source and thought it was great? Something close to that?