Rule/Credits/Info changes for ZScript

With ZScript in a very usable state, I think we should overhaul the rules and things for these various sections in the repository to account for this. There's also a few things, rules-wise, that have bugged me for a bit that I don't think are nearly as valid as they used to be. So here are my suggestions:

• Submission credits shouldn't be noted in the Credits lump in the wad itself. I think it's more of a book-keeping thing for the Repository itself; I don't think any modders really care who put it on the Repository, and it's nowhere near as important as who coded or sprited the thing.
• No longer require 256-color paletted PNG. I think a chunk of submissions use truecolor PNG anyway, and it's just a limit that doesn't really need to exist anymore. Of course, I'd still keep the overall PNG requirement for ease-of-use swapping between the different games, and Slade 3 can easily convert to PNG anyway.
• Take "Palette" out of info for all sections. I don't think it's really necessary, at this point. Made a lot more sense before we required that graphics be PNG.
• In all sections, change "Decorate" credits to "Code" credits. This one's a no-brainer; not all code is Decorate anymore.
• Change "Added States" info to "Added States/Functions." Virtual functions that we can override in ZScript open up a LOT that we can do. For example, for my Doom 3/4 resource project, I made an item that lets you double-jump, but it requires overriding the CheckJump function in the player class. Of course, I mean if it requires states or functions on OTHER actors; if a submitted monster has its own functions, they shouldn't count towards this because a modder has to do nothing extra to implement it.
• In Item Store info, specify that if an item lasts for the entire map (a la Berserk), it should say map, but if it lasts forever (a la Backpack) it should say infinite.
• Take "Documentation" out of info for the SFX Shoppe, and require documentation for how to use it.
• In the rules for ACS, we say "include a copy of the script(s) in the INFO lump." We should just require that all the scripts be in their own lump separate from everything else.
• I'd also suggest a new category for the Armory, for more real-life kind of weapons. If you click on Doom-style, these days, you end up with a lot of weapons that don't really fit in well with Doom's own weapon line up. In general, I think the categories are a bit of a mess right now, but overall the rest of that is a discussion for another time.

As always, any thoughts? Disagreements? Things I missed?

Also, once we've figured out any rule changes, I'm going to go through and convert the most popular and most usable resources in the repository to the new rules, and convert their Decorate to ZScript. I'll still keep a version of the Decorate in the wad (in a renamed lump, so it's not loaded as Decorate), for if users have to use Decorate for whatever reason.

(Before anyone offers help for that last bit, this is mostly to help me learn ZScript myself, so I'm happy to do it alone.)

Ghastly wrote:

• No longer require 256-color paletted PNG.

How about converting into palette mode if the graphic doesn't use many colors (more than 256 colors)?

• Take "Palette" out of info for all sections.

Personally, I like to know what palette is in use by a given submission.


As for the rest, I have no objection, apart from the armory one which I have no comment on.

Ghastly wrote: Submission credits shouldn't be noted in the Credits lump in the wad itself. I think it's more of a book-keeping thing for the Repository itself; I don't think any modders really care who put it on the Repository, and it's nowhere near as important as who coded or sprited the thing.

I think we might as well keep the submission credits in the Credits lump; it's only 1 or 2 extra lines in a text file. After all, somebody had to make the effort to present the submission, even if it was just a few minutes formatting a topic.

Ghastly wrote: No longer require 256-color paletted PNG. I think a chunk of submissions use truecolor PNG anyway, and it's just a limit that doesn't really need to exist anymore. Of course, I'd still keep the overall PNG requirement for ease-of-use swapping between the different games, and Slade 3 can easily convert to PNG anyway.

I'd be in favor of encouraging folks to stick with paletted PNG due to memory/storage savings, if not specifically requiring it. The majority of sprites don't really benefit from truecolor; those that require colors outside of the normal palette ranges can use custom palettes. I think paletted sprites also tend to fit the Doom games' art style better. That's not to say that I'd refuse to accept truecolor sprites even when they are appropriate--just that I don't think they're appropriate (or at least necessary) all the time.

Ghastly wrote: Take "Palette" out of info for all sections. I don't think it's really necessary, at this point. Made a lot more sense before we required that graphics be PNG.

For the above reason, I'd say we keep it. Or at least expand it to something like "Format/Palette" to cover more bases.

Ghastly wrote: In all sections, change "Decorate" credits to "Code" credits. This one's a no-brainer; not all code is Decorate anymore.

Agree!

Ghastly wrote: Change "Added States" info to "Added States/Functions."...

Agree!

Ghastly wrote: In Item Store info, specify that if an item lasts for the entire map (a la Berserk), it should say map, but if it lasts forever (a la Backpack) it should say infinite.

Agree.

Ghastly wrote: Take "Documentation" out of info for the SFX Shoppe, and require documentation for how to use it.

Mostly agree. I'd be open to keeping some documentation info on the SFX Shoppe, but mostly because I'm peculiar like that. Requiring documentation in the submission sounds great.

Ghastly wrote: In the rules for ACS, we say "include a copy of the script(s) in the INFO lump." We should just require that all the scripts be in their own lump separate from everything else.

Definitely agree! I didn't even realize we didn't require a separate lump for uncompiled scripts.

Ghastly wrote: I'd also suggest a new category for the Armory, for more real-life kind of weapons. If you click on Doom-style, these days, you end up with a lot of weapons that don't really fit in well with Doom's own weapon line up. In general, I think the categories are a bit of a mess right now, but overall the rest of that is a discussion for another time.

I'd agree with this too, though we might be opening up the door for untold numbers of CoD/Battlefield rip submissions. (Obviously we don't have to approve them, but they will probably happen.) Do we want to encourage multiple hand styles for generic/realistic type weapons if we aren't going to explicitly categorize them as "Doom" by default?

On a side note, do we want to have a specific category for Strife?

MagicWazard wrote: I'd be open to keeping some documentation info on the SFX Shoppe, but mostly because I'm peculiar like that. Requiring documentation in the submission sounds great.

I think what he meant is to remove the documentation entry from the INFO lump/Info tab and make documentation a requirement as opposed to being optional.

Blue Shadow wrote: I think what he meant is to remove the documentation entry from the INFO lump/Info tab and make documentation a requirement as opposed to being optional.

Yes, that's what I meant. Showing users "Does this have documentation? Yes" isn't really warranted if we require the answer to be yes in the first place.

MagicWazard wrote: On a side note, do we want to have a specific category for Strife?

We do on the Beastiary, but not the Armory.

Just in case you think you need my approval for this: I am all okay, the suggestions from Ghastly make sense in most cases and the other ones have already been discussed by Blue shadow and MagicWazard

As I am not active a lot here, just drop me a line to info@realm667.com if you need help with some changes in the Joomla CMS system, I can help you with that.

Thanks in general for this, it was about time to take care of some things that didn't age well.

Tormentor667 wrote: Just in case you think you need my approval for this

Well, I wouldn't want to make any huge changes without checking with the owner of the site first.

Anywho, yeah, I'll leave the current palette rules in place. Categories and stuff is probably a bag of worms that needs a bigger overhaul, so I'm not going to bother with the new Armory section right now.

I still want to make the change to the submission credits, though, because I feel like having the submission credits in the wad alongside the people who created the sprites and coded it kind of emphasizes the wrong thing. I feel like people might just submit things they didn't make just to get names in the credits. For example, I submitted the Super Shotgun, Grenade Launcher and Rifle from KDiZD, but I didn't do any of the work in actually creating those resources so why should my name be inside the wad next to the others? If I'm a modder who's using the KDiZD Rifle in my mod, why would I keep the Submitted field in the credits, since it really doesn't matter to my mod who put it on R667? I think it's important to keep on the Repository page itself, but I don't think it should be kept inside the wad.

Thoughts? Any other suggestions for changes?

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about people abusing submissions to gain credit for themselves. After all, they only get credit if the submission is accepted, so people can't build a positive reputation by submitting lots of trash. And like I said before, if someone puts forth the effort in preparing a valid submission that gets accepted, I say we might as well credit the effort.

And yeah, in regards to Documentation, what I was thinking of was having a full copy of the documentation in the SFX Shoppe tab (sort of like a "Description" tab that tells people what they are getting into on a technical level), not whether there was simply a "yes/no" field for submission. I absolutely think documentation should be mandatory, though I don't necessarily mind if it's in a separate lump or within the DECORATE/ZScript lump. So yes, I definitely agree with you on that one.

MagicWazard wrote: And like I said before, if someone puts forth the effort in preparing a valid submission that gets accepted, I say we might as well credit the effort.

But that's kind of what I'm referring to. We're crediting people for filling out a form and clicking a submit button, when the submission isn't important for modders using these resources; the resources are.

It makes perfect sense to keep it on the Repository page itself, for book-keeping, but I don't think it makes sense to put it in the Credits lump in the wad itself.

I actually do not care if we remove the submitter from the credits lump as long as we keep it online on the page. It's also important for backtracking, and for some reason I even think that people combining and submitting something should be rewarded for their support.