The Survey Thread!

[elfprince13]

I <3 summation fun idea!

[tr1p1ea]

Of course i would use it!

[Art_of_camelot]

Is there a downside to using combo items? If not, why wouldnt' you use it?

[DigiTan]

Nope! No downside, side effects, or nasty surprises. All you gotta do is grab 'em because they're gonna be pretty darn rare. :biggrin:

[Delnar_Ersike]

Well, if they're pretty rare, I think I will never use them. It's just that whenever I get something extremely rare or powerful in the game, I always reserve it for the final big moment, which sadly never comes for me. So basically I end almost every game with an overstuffed inventory. :biggrin:

[DigiTan]

Well, if you're ever between boss battles, feel free to try one out. "Negate" was personally my favorite in RW1. :biggrin:



On a related note, here's a concept pic for the new item list layout. Much like the Shop Interface, this format will go into effect without even pausing the action.

[elfprince13]

dude that's awesome, although I'm not sure I'd want to be rummaging in my backpack while fighting of flying cranes

[DigiTan]

NEW POLL! Automatic re-archive?

This week, I'm making the File Select menu for the 83+ version. The overall format is standard to most RPGs. You get 3 "slots" to store your progress to. The menu gives you a little cursory information about each file so you can tell them apart. And unused slots simply say "NEW" in their description.


Last year's concept for the file select screen.

First, let me say this poll only pertains the saved games that are archived at the time RW2 is run. Not ones found in RAM.


The Problem?
Since each slot is really an AppVar file, I need to accommodate gamers who have put their saved data in the archive. I want to do this the simplest and most effective way possible without turning this into a drawn-out GUI project. But I'm open to letting the gamer check-box their preference in some kind of options menu. If that's what it takes.

The flash archive can only survive so many writes per page before it's permanently worn. While this problem is rare, it could be a big issue for older calcs that have been flashed over and over again over the years. Here are a few pros and cons I see from this perspective...

- "Never. It should be up to the user to decide using TI-OS."
Pros: Simplicity of code, reliability, least Flash-intensive option
Cons: Confusing to new 83+ users, time-consuming for all

- "Off by default. Leave it open to experienced users."
Pros: Flexibility, user is in control, less flash-intensive than most options
Cons: Complexity, points out the problem rather than address it

- "On by default. Let the user disable this later if it's a problem."
Pros: Flexibility, user is in control
Cons: Complexity, more flash-intensive until user notices

- "Always. Do it without user intervention"
Pros: Simplicity of code, ease of use, seamless file retrieval
Cons: Most Flash-intensive option of all

[GloryMXE7]

well considering the pros and cons id say it should be either on or off by default or when the player first plays they should choose weather it should be on or off they should be told the pros and cons as well and then they can change it when ever they want

but what do I know

[bananaman]

I've never heard of a calculator's flash memory becoming destroyed by too many writes. I say automatically re-archive it. If the user is really concerned about his flash he can have the appvar unarchived before he runs robotwar and if I read you right, you wouldn't archive it anyways.

Make life simple on yourself for programming.

[luby]

How about giving the user an option of archiving the save file right from the save/load screen? It would make everyone happy.

[DigiTan]

Yeah. If it becomes an option, there will be a "config" option for the individual game files. Maybe a simple exit message like "your game was put back in the archive" wouldn't hurt either.

[Art_of_camelot]

I said leave it on by default and let the user change it if need be. Now that I'm thinking about it though perhaps you should just have 2 options.
Put a check box in for auto archive. If it is checked, that save file will always be archived after you quit. If it is not checked, the save file stays wherever the user had it. Default should be off. Hopefully that made sense, I'm a kind of tired atm so I'm not sure I explained it clearly.

[Mapar007]

I say "off by default". The number of garbage collects you save is so huge! I now have a GC about once a week, before I started programming and becoming a calc freak (read: when I still had MirageOS writeback option enabled), I had to do so every other day! The user must still have the option to turn it on, if he doesn't care about GC's. I hate GC's because there is a stupid bug with it if you have hidden files in your archive...

[Delnar_Ersike]

I voted on by default, as even though autosaving can become very handy (especially in later levels), the user should have a choice. Plus, put a warning somewhere in the program about the function. If a given player doesn't understand the warning, it means the player barely had to garbage collect in the past (since if he/she had to do a lot of garbage collects, at least he/she will at least know how annoying they can be).

But to be more specific: what's the big deal with garbage collects? Sure they take some time and *possibly* shorten the calc's life, exactly how, why, and how much do the garbage shorten the Flash memory's life? Also, what is there a precise definition of when a garbage collect takes place (ie. after a specific amount of writes, a specific number of written bytes, etc.).

Also, couldn't you circumvent the entire Flash writing issue by writing the AppVar to the RAM and only copying it the archive (note: copying, not moving, as it would make more sense to keep a backup copy of the AppVar in the archive when the other is in the RAM)?

[Iambian]

[DigiTan]

Very good inputs so far. I want to keep this poll going until I finish the executable here. So far, the 2 options screen categories have a definite lead, so I can't throw customization out of the picture.

In the likelihood we do with an auto-archive/no-auto option, each saved game can be configured for that individually. IE: If you transfer your saved stuff to another calc, or even trade it on the web, it will retain whatever the previous setting where. There are other options planned, and even though I kept the number to as few as possible, they're [s]all[/s] mostly based of previous polls from this sub-forum.

To throw a couple details out there, the "system" will allow 3 saved games slots in traditional RPG fashion. The game will display them using any 5-character name you choose. From there you have a few different options on what you can actually do with that file...

Play! - Loads the game of course. Your character LEVEL, TIME in "hh:mm:ss" format, and maybe the name if your current area/city or some icon to represent it.

Options! - Player Preferences...
* Dynamic Camera [high/low/off] (Do enemies draw camera attention?)
* ShakeFX [high/low/off] (Does the screen shake when things get hit or blow up?)
* Look-Ahead [high/low/off] (Not discussed yet)
* Auto-Rearchive [on/off] (pending)
* Lock [on/off] (I'll explain next)

Copy! - Allows you to overwrite of the 3 savegame slots. You can optionally Lock your own game to prevent this. To unlock, you just turn it off in settings. It's not a password system, just something to prevent accidents.

Paste! - Used in conjunction with copy.

Delete! - Can also be prevented by locking.

Undo! - Reverses past deletes or copy-pastes. So keep it simple, its history clears when you exit the main menu.

Anyway, all this is still in progress, but due to many time constraints (and trouble installing the sprite code) this has been delayed so far. Hopefully within a week or two, I'll release the executable of this menu so you guys can test it out rate it on a good/bad scale. To speed up production, this will likely be the last executable released until the game is complete. Hopefully this will flush out any bugs in the 82->83+ port so far.

[darkstone knight]

off topic: 9,999 views

on topic: amazing work

[Galandros]

Such an advanced options. This game is getting really great.

At this rate this could be compared to some GBA pocket games. (if not already, I only saw screen shots so far and read most posts)

Keep going DigiTan but the more important is having fun and don't push too much yourself with those freakin' awesome options.

[Art_of_camelot]

This looks like a really great setup for the options screen. Nothing else to say, it looks great!