[Scummvm-tracker] [ScummVM :: Bugs] #13933: Use “Enable game-specific enhancements” for Sierra bug fixes

[ScummVM :: Bugs]

#13933: Use “Enable game-specific enhancements” for Sierra bug fixes
-------------------+--------------------------
Reporter:  obskyr  |       Owner:  (none)
    Type:  defect  |      Status:  new
Priority:  normal  |   Component:  Engine: SCI
 Version:          |  Resolution:
Keywords:          |        Game:
-------------------+--------------------------
Comment (by dwatteau):

 Hi,

 Speaking as a contributor to the SCUMM enhancements which were mentioned
 several times here:

 * The various game engines supported by ScummVM are often maintained by
 different teams, and each engine has a different technical
 approach/background and has to deal with its own realities (different
 limitations, philosophy, player expectations, resources...).
 * ScummVM doesn't make a general promise on total accuracy. It's often a
 best-effort, with a lot of work being done, that's for sure. But if an
 engine concentrates on accuracy, or improvements, or tries to provide
 both, that doesn't mean that a different engine must do the same. For
 users, I agree that consistent behavior between engines is nice -- but
 again, no promise.
 * (What the SCUMM engine does with this "Enable game-specific
 enhancements" setting is still a bit of a work-in-progress playground, at
 the moment. Even in the SCUMM engine itself, we don't know if that's the
 best approach yet: some users may want a finer granularity over the
 different types of enhancements/bugfixes that we provide, but we don't
 if/how this is going to happen yet. Other engines handle this differently,
 as for Blade Runner.)
 * As far I know about Sierra games (I know very little about them, so I
 may be wrong), they require an order of magnitude more bugfixes than the
 LucasArts titles, and they're often quite important (for the reasons given
 by m-kiewitz above). In comparison, most of the original bugs/oversights
 that we fix in SCUMM are kinda minor (i.e. we find some very small script
 errors, and we fix them when we're almost sure that the authors intended a
 different behavior). We do fix some game-breaking SCUMM bugs, and those
 are hardcoded, but I think we only have a handful of them.
 * That metric is important; dozens of relatively minor enhancements
 (SCUMM) require less maintenance than dozens (hundreds?) of important
 bugfixes (SCI). Every time you add an ON/OFF button to a bugfix, you need
 to test both paths. And if you add a new bugfix, or fix a different part
 of the engine, you may need to test all your bugfixes/enhancements again,
 especially if they have side effects... So if's up to the engine
 maintainers to decide if it's worth it -- they know their context, and
 they're the ones who do the (free and volunteer!) work. It's not just
 about adding a flag, but it's also about maintaining it.
-- 
Ticket URL: <https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/13933#comment:17>
ScummVM :: Bugs <https://bugs.scummvm.org>
ScummVM