Eclipse Origins v2 Beta

[Joyce]

Hmm, I thought only the more recent ones did that.. Wouldn't it make more sense putting everything in *.dds format rather then *.bmp? Or does VB6 just fail at directly parsing *.DDS formats?

[Robin]

I'd need to run some speed tests to find out exactly what VB6 does with them.

Sometimes something will seem like it should logically run faster one way, but VB6 is as temperamental as a woman on the rag.

[Joyce]

Would be nice if it runs the same, or even better.. Considering they're half the size of *.bmp images.

[Robin]

They can be compressed or uncompressed.

[Adulese Games]

Agreed. PNG support would be ideal for many people. I know they preserve a lot of pixel detail, where bmp doesn't do it THAT well.

- Adulese

[Robin]

Pixel detail?

BMP and PNG are both lossless.

[Adulese Games]

Eh, it's probably the way I save it I suppose. Whatever. xD

- Adulese

[Fadoulou]

Robin , you can make a graphic encryption (for my custom tiles)

Tanks , Fadoulou

[Robin]

No.

Tanks , Robin

[Ertzel]

@Fadoulou:

> Robin , you can make a graphic encryption (for my custom tiles)
>
> Tanks , Fadoulou

If Robin made a encryption system with EO, it would be the same for everyone, so anyone from Eclipse would be able to un encrypt the graphics and it would be pretty useless.

[Marsh]

Not if you added a encryption key of some sort that was user interchangeable.

[EclipseCommunity]

If you understand how it works, you can figure out how to crack it.

[azure]

He's not going to do it, so it's not worth discussing. If you care that much to get him to do it, privately offer him money and move on, otherwise do it yourself.

[Godlord]

Encrypting graphics is as useful as a scripting engine.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[cody4camp]

But, Eclipse Origins has a scripting engine. It's called vb6\. Anything you could do with a scripting engine can be done in vb6, and you can do a whole lot more.

[shadowwulf]

Small annoyance/bug. try and lay a tile when you have attributes picked… sometimes gives RTE13 mismatch.

[unknown]

A scripting engine is useful for quick updates.. Say you have like 20 people on your server and you want to run some special event (like a trivia that reads from a giant txt file on the server). I think it's kinda silly that you have to take the server down, recompile the server and put it back up for something that simple.

Sadscript was implemented poorly but I still think scripting engines have their purpose.

[Robin]

@unknown:

> A scripting engine is useful for quick updates.. Say you have like 20 people on your server and you want to run some special event (like a trivia that reads from a giant txt file on the server). I think it's kinda silly that you have to take the server down, recompile the server and put it back up for something that simple.
>
> Sadscript was implemented poorly but I still think scripting engines have their purpose.

Plan your events. If you're going to host those kinds of things, add the code in way before it's going to happen.

Sadscripting does not have a use in that respect, you're just being shortsighted.

[unknown]

It's so much more convenient and fast to just script it in… I see it as similar to an in-game map editor. Sure, we could have an external map editor and just create an update whenever there are new maps but that's a lot more work.. Imagine you forget a wall or something on a map, the dev has to fix it and everyone has to update again.

Back to scripting, what if there are bugs in the compiled version.. Imagine you are adding the trivia code & you screw something up and don't realize it until production. It could have just been a simple script fix but instead it's going to be another update.

For little things like that, I'm convinced scripting is better..

[Robin]

@unknown:

> It's so much more convenient and fast to just script it in

My point still stands. Short sightedness.

I'm not going to sacrifice speed just because some kids want it to be more 'convenient'.

Game development isn't convenient.

[Mikekan13]

> Game development isn't convenient.

Amen. Quite possibly the most intelligent thing I have heard on these boards.

Edit:Why not just write your own scripting system if you want it so bad.

Double Edit: or like this?  :azn:

[Robin]

You really should get into the habit of editing your posts rather than double posting. xD

[unknown]

@Robin:

> @unknown:
>
> > It's so much more convenient and fast to just script it in
>
> My point still stands. Short sightedness.
>
> I'm not going to sacrifice speed just because some kids want it to be more 'convenient'.
>
> Game development isn't convenient.

If you code it in the right way it won't sacrifice speed. This is an engine, there's a tradeoff between convenience and speed/memory. That's why there are object editors, map editors and all sorts of other junk in the client executable that don't need to be. It's more convenient to use these tools while the game is running just like it's more convenient to write small code snippets while the game is running.

[Robin]

@unknown:

> If you code it in the right way it won't sacrifice speed. This is an engine, there's a tradeoff between convenience and speed/memory. That's why there are object editors, map editors and all sorts of other junk in the client executable that don't need to be. It's more convenient to use these tools while the game is running just like it's more convenient to write small code snippets while the game is running.

Yeah, good luck with that. Believe me, I've looked into scripting and unless I write my own parser, it'd just be too damn slow. VB6 just isn't good enough for doing this stuff.

I acknowledge your argument, but I simply don't agree that scripting anything other than unique events (Special item effects, spells, quests etc.) is better than hardcoding it.

Oh, and I've been planning on removing all client-side game editing for a while now. My ultimate goal is to make a dumb terminal.

[Joyce]

Mind you, you can easily add a modScripts.bas file.. And simply compile all your scripts in there. :huh: Which also gives you far more control since you can move about NPCs, Players and whatnot.