[Scummvm-devel] Game enhancements

[Florian Kagerer]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Johannes Schickel [mailto:lordhoto at scummvm.org] 
Gesendet: Freitag, 5. November 2010 00:40
An: scummvm-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
Betreff: Re: [Scummvm-devel] Game enhancements

On 11/05/2010 12:04 AM, Travis Howell wrote:
> On 5/11/2010 5:54 AM, Filippos Karapetis wrote:
>> So, the logical question to ask now would be: what should we do with
>> game enhancements by default?
> All enhancements should be optional, and disabled by default. So users
> are present with the original game experience.

I tend to agree here, that enhancements like the undithering (or 
not-dithering) in SCI, should be disabled by default.

On the other hand I think that enhancements in the sense of fixed bugs 
for example should be on by default.


Same opinion here. Major modifications to the outward appearance of a game
like SCI undithering might fit the specific taste of certain devs and users,
but surely not everybody's taste and shouldn't be set as defaults as if the
games were supposed to look like that (and yes, I have read the "roberta
williams wanted more colors" "argument"). We don't set graphics filters as
default either which have a similar (maybe even less obstrusive) impact.

It makes no sense to me to artificially make a connection between the
undithering option and other features like Simon the Sorceror subtitle
settings, SCUMM save dialogues, AGI mouse pointers etc..  Please keep in
mind that this whole debate is really about the undithering. I don't see any
good reason why other (unobtrusive, non-controversial) features have to be
turned off if we get rid of undithering as a default.

I also agree with Johannes that the current implementation of the related
checkbox is rather unfortunate (misleading).


Florian





>> Currently, we have the following game enhancements (these come to mind,
>> there could be others):
>> - Replacement of original save/load dialogs in SCUMM and SCI
> The original load/save screen in SCUMM games still aren't perfect,
> especially for COMI. Most of the SCUMM games used hard coded load/save
> screen anyway, rather than scripted.

I also always thought we replaced the SCUMM save/load dialogs, because 
they don't work correct. I remember when you saved in Indy3's dialog and 
tried to load it you would actually be in the dialog again after 
loading, which seemed odd. I didn't recheck whether that was changed though.

Of course others could say that our GUI doesn't match the original 
save/load of say MI2 etc. either, but well that's more because of the 
themes etc. I think say the GUI in 0.7.x looked similar enough to the 
original.

All in all I wouldn't consider those dialogs an enhancement, but rather 
a working replacement for the original ones.

>> - Undithering in early EGA SCI Games
> Already optional, should be disabled by default though.

I agree that it should be disabled by default.

>> - Mouse support in AGI
> Isn't this already optional though? users have the choice not to use the
> mouse.
>

I think the mouse cursor is always shown though, so I wouldn't really 
say it's optional. But yeah I would agree that it should be optional.

And honestly I never saw much of a use for that either (at least on 
desktop systems), it just makes you die even more often :-P.

>> There was an idea to have a "Disable enhancements" checkbox, which would
>> disable all of these. What do you think?
>>
>> And again, I'd like to bring in the topic of replacing save/load dialogs
>> by default. Personally, I find that for engines that don't have scripted
>> save/load, this is actually a very good enhancement, and can offer a
>> better experience to the end user, coupled with screenshots and an
>> increased number of savegames. What should we do with this? Offer an
>> option like "Replace original save/load dialogs"? For example, I would
>> like to replace the save/load system in Drascula, which is terrible, in
>> my opinion.
> Keep the original load/save screens by default, where supported and
> working. So users still get the experience of the original games.

Actually I think that the replaced dialogs in SCI are ok, but for 
consistency it would be neat to have the originals enabled by default aye.

I think I read sometime in #scummvm that the replacement also disables 
autosaves/quicksaves (can't remember what exactly) in some games. Is 
that true? If so I would really say we should definitely enable the 
original dialogs by default.

As for Kyra I would in no way want to replace the original save/load by 
a ScummVM GUI by default, even though the Kyra GUI is all hardcoded and 
thus easy to replace.

If people want to use a ScummVM GUI they should IMHO just use the GMM 
(and engines should try to support that if possible).

> Also a few games manage to offer compatibility with saved games from
> original versions, which would be lost, due to the additions (playime/
> screenshots) to save game formats.
>
> We could add an option to replace the original load/save screen in
> games, but it won't be available in all games (due to the way
> loading/saving is scripted), and that could lead to confusion.

As stated above I think the GMM is fine in case the users wants 
ScummVM's GUI. If on the other hand an engine can't support the GMM, but 
could replace the original dialogs, then we could add such an option to 
replace them IMHO.

// Johannes


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