The evolution and state of Eclipse.

[DrNova]

Oh fuck off robin. So you posted a few pictures with anywhere from poor to pretty good mapping.
How does that prove the engine is being taken advantage of by the people using it? It doesnt. It shows some mapping.

Read through the first page of game in the WIP section, and you'll see the majority of them are nothing more then base EO, there is nothing really being done with it.

And its not nostalgia, its my opinion, and I know you can win arguments with the other little kids here with arrogant self rightiousness and articulate penmanship, but not me.  You havent changed anything I see just by saying "No its not like that its like this".

I was just bringing up a reasonable disscusion and you start throwing a temper tantrem on me and getting all personally offended, well tough shit. You arent the ego you make yourself out to be, and I respect your work and abilities, not the glorified forum robin.

It was still better having sadscript, it was a good foothold for people to start from and decide to move on with if they wanted to. JUST BECAUSE YOU can figure out coding doesnt mean everyone can, get that through your thick fucking skull.  Sadscript had everyone more involved and was better for the community.  I knew scripting pretty well, i just cant get coding to click. And dont sit there and tell me otherwise, cause you dont know shit.

Production around here is assuredly not better because of EO, your wall of screenshots regardless.  Nothing better has come from making the engine more difficult to use. Thats just the truth, and your massive ego can fuck off.  The reason the scripting board died off, is because a bunch of people who DIDNT KNOW BETTER other then to hop on the glossy cover of EO started reccomending it to everyone who popped in, and telling everyone not to use EE. Most of these people I would wager have never done anything with Eclipse before, nor did they after, so they didnt help the situation at all making suggestions.

EO was the wrong direction for Eclipse.  If people wanted to code, they'd go to VB gore.

Eclipse was based on and grew around being easy to learn, and had the flexability for the learning curve.  EO is nothing peial, its a bug free blank template basically. Thanks for debugging, great job.. And your ego is that big because you released something bug free? And it snot even bug free, is it? So what did you really do, Robin?

Deal with it, and fuck off

[Admiral Refuge]

Nova, there were just as many cookie-cutter generic mmos in the WIP board during the times of EE as there are now.  Heck, the reason I started Retarded Online back with EE2.7, was because there were almost all just general things popping up all the time.

But if doing:
Dim X as Integer
X = GetPlayerHP(Index)
Is harder than doing:
Dim X
X = GetPlayerHP(Index)
Then I'm sorry for your loss.

However, to reiterate my reply to you earlier, while it's not as simple as putting your code in a main.txt, it is as simple as using one of the source tutorials to make a "scripted tile" and put your code in the select case for those scripted tiles…  You know, code that's almost exactly like the ones you'd script.

Yes, I understand that the main.txt was one file, and I get it; if you want to execute code when the player attacks another player, instead of hitting ctrl+f in notepad and searching for the OnAttack sub, you now have to ctrl+f in VB6 and search for "PlayerAttackNpc" (or PlayerAttackPlayer, etc).  But I don't understand how anyone can be crying in here that they "just don't get it" -- especially if they knew how to script... unless they don't understand variable types or something.

And this is coming from someone who created an entire leveling spell system, turn-based battle system, gun core, and many more things, all in VBScript, and I could effortlessly port the same scripts into origins, which I did for several of them, using something similar to scripted NPS, scripted tiles, scripted items, etc.

[Ruins of Hell]

@DrNova:

> Dont see the relevance, nor does it contribute to the discussion. If you would like to get involved, talk, dont slap someone elses cartooon/picture up as a "reply". Always irritates me when people do that then think they are being clever and involved.

Rather than fighting ad hominem, why don't you actually try and dispute factual points of the discussion. Point of the comic was rather obvious (it's in red too): you're too busy complaining about how Eclipse is going to end that you're not doing anything to contribute to it, and instead making the problem worse.

Let's start at the beginning: when I joined this forum, Evolution was the de facto, and only, version. Out of fifty games, one of them used source editing. The result was that every game was a cookie-cutter copy of the next. No GUI changes, no new forms that don't look like crap (read: not those CustomMenu things that randomly errored and closed everything), and any features you had were basically based on about 30 or so commands.

Coming from a guy who once had a post of every topic of the scripting board for about two pages, I don't miss it. It was a terrible way of dealing with things. First of all, you were severely limited by what you could do. You claim about "making an RTS," but I'd bet a good amount that it was very buggy and mainly hacked together. The bugs in scripting were huge. If you warped somebody, there was always a chance that they would get the dreaded receiving map error. The idea of a cutscene was to stop player motion (or, use flash, but then you missed some things such as being able to use paperdoll). The commands that "moved" NPCs were simple warps. Hell, we used menus with SLASH COMMANDS, that's how terrible the CustomMenu feature was.

Speaking of the CustomMenu feature, here's my own personal nightmare with it: everything. First of all, the initialization was terrible. Then, there was the whole "index" nonsense, which you had to keep track of and painstakingly piece together. Also, CustomMenu would randomly throw runtime errors. So of course, I decide to go out and fix it. The only fix is a stickied topic in the Source section, so I grab VB6 and begin trying to fix it. No such luck, the fix compiles, but it still doesn't fix half the runtime errors I do get. I give up on it and end up just making a form in the source code myself, which I later replace with a better system.

However, the game is still plagued with the most basic of errors. Every time a player switches map, especially if they're running, the game gets stuck on Receiving Map… Speed and Magic don't work, changing Speed moves Magic and vice-versa. Most of the "documented" scripting commands don't work or do something completely different.

Bugging scripting was hell. There was a debug feature, but it consisted of freezing the server while it displayed an unimaginative error message that gave you no clue on what went wrong. Compare this to the actual IDE you get with Visual Basic 6 and you see why it's necessary.

Stable came in and it tried best to fix some things. I'd be lying if I said it didn't help, but it certainly wasn't a silver bullet. It brought a couple of bugs on its own with its inbox system and how it would give you points when you used them instead of taking them away! There also was the issue of how it didn't fix the Speed Magic issue. I take a look into the code and see that it's filled with magic numbers. Rather than using constants, the developers decided to use raw numbers. The order is messed up in packets sometimes and saved incorrectly in UDTs.

Now, you seem to think that Robin came in, said, "I'm going to take away your engine, here's one I think that's better." No. Robin made Origins. It had a mixed reception at first, but pretty soon there were very few who still wanted to use Stable. They mainly consisted of people who were unwilling to learn or had already invested so much time in it. By version 1.3.0, Origins was pretty much the main version of it all. People using Evolution or Stable used it because they know Origins was de facto by now.

So, we removed Evolution and Stable. It was a unanimous decision and I would have voted the same way. We didn't remove them from the server, we just moved them over to the Announcements section under "Old Downloads" (it's still as bad as I remember it.) This removed the confusion about which engine was currently in use.

This leads me to believe something, you don't want "the old Eclipse". You don't want scripting. You want the source code to be easier, perhaps with custom tiles or custom NPCs so you can easily get into it. That's not a problem, we could do that. Visual Basic 6 is one of the easiest languages alive, next to VBScript (SadScript, if you will).

[Jacquelinett]

Ahem… I know I said that im leaving, but, seeing this thread and see how people response, I hurried up, finish my Japanese homework, put the coding aside and writing this.
So, to Robin:
I really have nothing to say about you. You are a great man, I have admiration for you (and a little feeling too lol) and I read your comment with respect, I treat every criticism from you like a lesson, to improve myself, and I must say, I really have no feeling for ES.
To Bonk:
I’m sorry, don’t try to be a “cool” kid here. Hey, I have been here longer than you, and I know about programming more than you.
You said that you never hear Robin saying any positive thing? He complimented me that I had a great understand of how ship work (right Robin?), he gave me a little joke about I don’t have to say that I asked stupid question a long time ago when it was just like yesterday, he showed me (well, showed everyone) his suit and listen to me complimented him and said thank you, he listened to my music and tell me how to improve it, in an positive way. We had a talk about whether I should keep my virginity or not (HECK YA I STILL REMEMBER THAT TALK XD) and we had a great discussion, and of course, his comment was positive. Bonk, I’m sorry, but I have lots of respect for Robin, I know this going to sound a little creepy, but I see Robin as a leader, and I’m going to ask him whenever I’m troubled, and I know he will help me (if the problem is reasonable), and he will try his best to help, just like he helped Richy with Ambardia.
An EO with scripting? Blah, go do it yourself. I honestly think it is a bad idea since all you want is some simple feature :
Guild system: Simple and easy to make. Took me about 3 hours, and I was only an intermediate coder
Pet system: Hey… who is Lightning?
Bubble chat: Wait… didn’t I see a transparent thingy when I talk in CS:DE? RIP IT OFF!
Ah! You are saying Robin is selfish? Hmm… Let me see. Who the hell in here have something worthy that we can rip off? No one except Robin. Who the hell in here made some worthy code that we can rip it off and claim it as our own? No one except Robin. Think about it, Robin had a life, he made stuff with his friends, he have the right over his material. And if you think he is selfish, then stop using EO, it’s his.
See? I have enough information to prove you wrong, I’m sorry. You suck
To Gwen
I hail you my Queen, please make me as sexy as you xD jk
To Other People Who Think The Old Eclipse Is Better
I created this account for about less than a year ago, and obviously, I didn’t stay around the day back then. But I still remember the time I used EE to make a game, buggy, laggy, and I quit to move on to RPG Maker VX Vampyr’s net gaming.
About the community, I will speak up my opinion. You can’t compare ES back then with the current EO. The time are different. Robin is older now, he had his dad to take care, and he is poor, he will stress out in his real life and will yell at you to lower his stress. And other members, don’t you think that other people is busy too? I was a lonely kid, I usually from chatroom from chatroom to talk, I would hang out in NEaB (Nowhere-else and Beyond) for a little, then go to chathour, then go to facebook, then go to Eclipse, but hey, this forum made me laugh the most, and I really enjoy it here.
So… off topic a little: WHO ENJOY LISTEN ME SHOUT IN THE SHOUT BOX?
If someone say HECK YES, then, they will be in a situation like you, when im not there, they think im gone, and sometime they wont see me for a few day, they will be like… awww, she left, I have to find a new thing that make me happy. But they don’t know that im still active, im just a little busy and cant log on at the moment. Everyone is busy, which lead to conflict in the time each other meet => dead talk since no one that get along with each other log on at the same time.

No game that made in EO was noticeable? WIP in Eclipse project section are dead project? You are wrong, my friend. Look at OTLR by Lightning, look at Hero of Athena by Hyoku Riku (cant spell his name), look at Tales of Alderson (or something else) by Murdock, and last but not least: JRP Dragon Online (or Forgotten Realm) by me, it’s not dead, it had never dead and never will be dead. I stopped working on the game for a while because Im writing a new engine, but once the new engine is done, the game will be back. A game is never dead, take my word, someday in the future, maybe once you achieved something, and you accidently come across to the game that you made that was considered “dead”, you will open it, look at it, play it and smile, looked the good old time that you tried to make the game, trust me, it will motivate you will make the game, again. Nothing will be dead, (oh, don’t argue with me about when people aged they will die, cuz I don’t want to talk about religion here. I will use Buddhism to argue with you).

Dang, lol, this post is wayyyyyyy to long than I expected it to be… Well, I hope you guy enjoy your time here. Remember, Ecilpse is not dead, and EO should not have scripting, should never have scripting.

[Owen F]

I can't believe i just read _all these walls of text_ and this thread still hasn't been locked.

-edit-
@DrNova:

> Oh duck off robin. So you posted a few pictures with anywhere from poor to pretty good mapping.
> How does that prove the engine is being taken advantage of by the people using it? It doesnt. It shows some mapping.
> -snip-

No, it shows that games are being developed, and that eclipse isn't dead or not being used like you said so. Those pictures are taken from the WIP board, not the show off section.

[Bonk]

Tiana, you're a prime example of what we're talking about. Like Pinkamina said, it comes to you or it doesn't. You're another person who'd sacrifice another to glimpse at Robin's face. Your personal title was 'Robin is my dream prince', for God's sake. **That is not normal.** I remember when I tried adding different spawn points and you wrote that you laughed at my attempts to program. It might be a shock to you, but most of us here think you're messed in the head. I still can't believe how mental you went when you saw Robin in a suit. I bet he's scared of what you did with that photo.

You might think you've got a high social standing by imitating an idiot you saw a picture of over the internet, but you're in for a rude awakening.

[lel]

@Bonk:

> >! Tiana, you're a prime example of what we're talking about. Like Pinkamina said, it comes to you or it doesn't. You're another person who'd sacrifice another to glimpse at Robin's face. Your personal title was 'Robin is my dream prince', for God's sake. **That is not normal.** I remember when I tried adding different spawn points and you wrote that you laughed at my attempts to program. It might be a shock to you, but most of us here think you're messed in the head. I still can't believe how mental you went when you saw Robin in a suit. I bet he's scared of what you did with that photo.
> >! You might think you've got a high social standing by imitating an idiot you saw a picture of over the internet, but you're in for a rude awakening.

**@Bonk**
Maybe we, or most of us , think Tiana is messed in the head (MAYBE!); however, you've made a grave mistake now. You blankly insulted Tinana, something which was quite **unnecessary.** You know what? personally, I don't like Robins personality. Tiana is not a favorite of mine either! But the forums rules don't say I have to like either. The rules do say, you can't insult someone thou…. Maybe be a little careful.

On topic!
**I just had a few questions…..**
Has anyone ever played a game that worked perfectly, with no bugs, and hated that game?
Has anyone here played video games for a long time?
The point, You don't need to be here for a while to have a good opinion of Eclipse.

**Ok so facts!**
Anyone can be here for three years and get nothing done.
Anyone can be here for three years and still have a poor opinion. 
It won't hurt to be a little nicer around here.

[Sealbreaker]

> Has anyone ever played a game that worked perfectly, with no bugs, and hated that game?

that isn't possible. No game is EVER bugfree.

However, if people really wanted sadscript, they could've added it by themselves (maybe some could even figure out something that would work better (performancewise)) or just ripped the old systems if they didn't care about performance etc. I don't see the point argueing here and my opinion is that programming for eclipse is easier than scripting was (just think about bugfixing etc. Someone who really used sadscript alot wouldn't say it's better and it seems like you people just didn't really try to work with vb6\. You don't even need to know programming for writing features for eo because the functions etc. are already there, you only need a basic understanding of data-types and structure.)
And after all you can still get your hands on a version of those crappy engines you love so much (es, ee) if you want to. No problem there

-seal

[iSnow]

@Bonk:

> Tiana, you're a prime example of what we're talking about. Like Pinkamina said, it comes to you or it doesn't. You're another person who'd sacrifice another to glimpse at Robin's face. Your personal title was 'Robin is my dream prince', for God's sake. **That is not normal.** I remember when I tried adding different spawn points and you wrote that you laughed at my attempts to program. It might be a shock to you, but most of us here think you're messed in the head. I still can't believe how mental you went when you saw Robin in a suit. I bet he's scared of what you did with that photo.
>
> You might think you've got a high social standing by imitating an idiot you saw a picture of over the internet, but you're in for a rude awakening.

Leave Tiana alone D:

On Topic;

The fact you guys are complaining over something you are still using at this moment is ridiculous. Eclipse is fine how it is but you nostalgia-filled people and Bonk seem to hate it, yet still stay around.

[Jacquelinett]

Bonk. You are the one who is social retarded. Yes, I putted Robin in the custom title saying that Robin is my dream prince. Yeah, I did enjoy seeing Robin in a suit. But, you know what? I did not do anything with that picture. And for the title, it was just an example of how my dream husband would be, I have no intend to stalk him (although I searched him on facebook, found him but never send a friend request). You think I’m mental? Cool story, bro ;)  Think whatever you want. And hell yes, IT WAS FUNNY, if it was funny, then I said it was funny. Like Robin, if it was bad, he would say it’s bad. You don’t have to give out excuse by saying I’m messed in the head. You should know that unlike mostly people, I myself help newbie more than most of you (well, cant be helpful more than people who had stayed here for long), but, look, let me give out some example:
Chukillz: I helped him with programming, give out advice and such
Harvest24(did I spell her name correct?): I teach her how to program.
Chevemalibu: Helped with programming.
And many many other random newbie that asked random question.
God bless you, I did not helped only the newbie, I’m active to older member, too. Ask SnowGear, after he told me that he really have nothing to give me in return for coding and insist that I stopped coding for him, I was still giving him the guild system (although I haven’t finish giving him all the code yet, but wait, im still working on it ;) ). Ask Murdock, we are friends, we used to work with each other: He draw tileset for me, I write story and coding for him, although he is busy and can’t draw tileset for me anymore, we still talk and is still friend, and ask other people, too. Bonk, I know it’s hurtful that I laughed at you, so, if you want a sorry, I’m sorry, sincerity, from the heart, but, IMPROVE YOURSELF, MAN! IF YOU WON’T IMPROVE YOURSELF AND KEEP STICKING YOUR BUTT IN ONE SPOT, I WILL LAUGH AT YOU, AGAIN, HARD.
And Robin, do you afraid of me, really, at all? I don’t think so, I can guarantee with you that I never download any of your picture down, or print out any of your picture, or hug any or kiss any or do anything to it.
I’m a hardworking student, I would stay up to 3:00 am in the morning to finish a group project, I would help my friend whenever they need, I would give them half the meal I have if they are hungry, and I push myself, I’m an A student (although my grade is a little messed at the moment :-/) I’m a honor student. I’m sorry if you think I’m mental and messed up, you are wrong. You are the one who is messed up, I have a life, and it probably better than you.
1 last word:

Peace

[Robin]

@DrNova:

> So what did you really do, Robin?

Made the game engine, wrote the documentation, made the website, wrote the history, wrote the tutorials, helped anyone who requested it and cleaned up the forum every morning and still found time to mentor those who showed true talent.

I think the question here is what have _you_ done? You disappear for three years then come back and say that _everything that has happened since you left has been wrong._ Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?

@Bonk:

> Tiana, you're a prime example of what we're talking about. Like Pinkamina said, it comes to you or it doesn't. You're another person who'd sacrifice another to glimpse at Robin's face. Your personal title was 'Robin is my dream prince', for God's sake. **That is not normal.** I remember when I tried adding different spawn points and you wrote that you laughed at my attempts to program. It might be a shock to you, but most of us here think you're messed in the head. I still can't believe how mental you went when you saw Robin in a suit. I bet he's scared of what you did with that photo.
>
> You might think you've got a high social standing by imitating an idiot you saw a picture of over the internet, but you're in for a rude awakening.

So now you're judging yet another person based on your own standards. From what you've said so far I can only assume that you want a world where everyone is the same and no one is their own character.

Maybe you should stop criticising other people and have a long hard look at yourself. You probably won't like what you see.

@Yumi:

> And Robin, do you afraid of me, really, at all? I don’t think so, I can guarantee with you that I never download any of your picture down, or print out any of your picture, or hug any or kiss any or do anything to it.
> I’m a hardworking student, I would stay up to 3:00 am in the morning to finish a group project, I would help my friend whenever they need, I would give them half the meal I have if they are hungry, and I push myself, I’m an A student (although my grade is a little messed at the moment :-/) I’m a honor student. I’m sorry if you think I’m mental and messed up, you are wrong. You are the one who is messed up, I have a life, and it probably better than you.

Don't ever let anyone say you can't do something. Not even me. If you've got a dream then you need to protect it. If people can't do something themselves they want to tell you that _you_ can't do it. Ignore those people and do whatever the hell you want. Life is too short. Enjoy it.

[Admiral Refuge]

@Pinkamina:

> –snip--

And this is where I say enough is enough and lock the topic..