First off, I hate Gantry and MarquisEXB. I really didn't intend on doing anything else with my editor, since I thought we'd found everything we were going to find, and DBatch's editor does pretty much the same thing. Now we've found more things to edit, and I have more ideas. For example ...
- Removing ERA and batting average restrictions, to allow any ERA or BA to be used.
- Changing the batting data each pitcher uses, or ...
- Entering batting data for each pitcher, so that they finally don't all bat the same
- Changing the "bonus" a pinch hitter gets on their first at bat
- Changing all the display strings in the game (copyright message, etc)
- Changing other game colors (field/dirt color, maybe others)
I have a few other ideas floating around in my head also, but I'm still working on those. My thing is, I'm primarily a linux user, and it's been years since I've made any kind of executable software for Windows. So, anything I do will most likely be a web-based application again.
Does anyone use my editor or have you switched to DBatch's? If a new version of my editor provided additional features, would you use it, or would you prefer to use a windows application? I'm not fishing for compliments or anything here, I just want to know if it's worth the time to start working on the editor again. Obviously, if no one would use it, it's not. :) No offense taken from anyone who uses another editor; I just want to see if this would be used by anyone.
Any major changes to the editor would involve a complete re-write from scratch. I could incorporate new features into the existing editor, but there are things I'd like to do differently with it anyway, and it wouldn't be much more of a pain in the ass to start over. So, since I'd be starting fresh, I'm open to suggestions.
- The look and feel of the editor will change completely. I really do like the "RBI" look of the editor now, but it doesn't translate well to other browsers and other operating systems. Something more traditional that isn't dependant on fixed-width graphics would be a better idea.
- I'd like to finish the "site around the editor," which originally was intended to be a full-fledged RBI ROMs site. I'd like people to be able to see a list of what ROMs are available, who wrote them, and what's popular. Maybe even a simple rating or comment system.
- I'll also be making changes to the "ROM-building engine." There are things being done in Javascript now that I think I can do more efficiently in perl. As an end-user, the editor wouldn't "lag" as badly.
- I also want to finish the option to view a "text dump" of all the players, stats, and options in created ROMs.
So, any thoughts?
Nightwulf
I think these are all great ideas. I prefer the uniformity and consistency of a web application. I use so many different computers that the browser method is incredibly handy for me. I've honestly never used DBatch's editor...
And I think a web-based application would make the full-fledged site a much smoother transition. Everything can be handled via the same site, no uploading or manual submission...
In all honesty though, either method works for me. The reason for a windows app is time - if you made a Windows-only program I would assume that you'll be much more efficient in your coding. Though I'm not really a programmer, I'd have to think it would take much less time to get a Windows app going over a web one. Though ignorance with the GUI may shorten things...
I say go with the web unless you are going to lose lots of man-hours by reinventing the wheel with a web app...
I would use the new one.
If I had to make changes to your online editor, the only thing I would do is:
1. Allow an import/export funciton. I still use my editor for this, because I can make a tab delimited file & quickly throw it into Excel for editing.
2. Allow to edit the ERA range. I don't like the idea that you would change the rom to store where the ERA is kept. It really seems uneccessary. I mean for the most part pitcher's ERAs will be between 1.5 and 4, or 2 and 4.5 or 1 and 3.5, depending on the era. We're only taking the best 4 pitchers on the best 10 teams. However allowing the builder to change that range is important enough for a minor change.
3. The team letters. I know this is going to sound dumb, but I also use your editor for the team tiles. However when you get to that screen they are evenly spaced throughout so it's hard to tell where the teams divide especially near the middle. Also I like the overlapping quality of the original rom (Bo, Dt, Ho, etc.). There are a few things we can do about this. We can make tiles that are high/low, or I can make a bunch of tiles for commonly named teams. Honestly I have a bunch in my roms already, so doing the latter wouldn't be that hard.
4. Other text. I also use my editor to change this. Usually I just updated the year, and change the "10 teams of the tengen league."
5. Other than that I'm a bit opposed to the other changes. The game is how it is & is very competetive as a two player game. If you wanted to make as an option simple changes like give the pitchers an overall hitting boost, the bonus a pinch hitter gets, etc. I would be for it.
If you're going to go further than that, you might as well make an updated version of RBI. For that I would image at the top of the list would be a real box score (that you can save to disk!), the ability to have more than 10 teams, injuries, a season mode, a draft mode, etc.
Honestly I like your editor the way it is & I like the game the way it is. These small tweaks would be maybe a final touch for RBI, if you don't change the entire game.
Mike
Adding something like season stats would likely be a major overhaul. Things like ERA without ranges would be easy to implement and touches a small part of the code. Adding teams like I said before would be a much larger project and might not even be possible....
I personally feel the more features you can add, the better. As long as we don't actually affect what's happening during the game itself. We're not talking about changing the way the game plays. Everything we've talked about would have little effect on the actual gameplay of RBI. ERA and Average ranges are strictly cosmetic but still nice to have. And having more teams would be the ultimate boost...
And like everything else, it's an editor. You can choose to add/remove the features you want. If you don't want ERA changes you don't have to use them...
Wulf, Marquis, and Gantry, you guys are studs.... let me just say that off the bat.
the work you all put into this stuff makes this the game take new life and has given me a purpose now at work.
i would certainly use the new editor. i like marq's suggestion of overlapping the tiles, gives it the classic look.
i like all of wulf's suggestions too and i'm wondering if dbatch's has more colors??? not sure, but it seems like it. if the color palet could be expanded it would be great, but i understand if it is limited.
would there be any way to make the field look like grass instead of turf where there could be dirt and a grass infield?
anyway, like i said the work you all are doing and have done to host this site, create roms and create and editor has been tremendous! i'm sure well all would thank you and certainly we owe a debt of gratitude.
One feature that would be awesome would be the ability to pick what kind of ROM you want to output - specifically, the overstuffed one that DBatch's editor requires.
Here's why:
There's a program for Palm OS 5 devices called NesEm. One guess what it does... It will play RBI, and it will play edited ROMs, but only works correctly with the overstuffed ROM. It's a truly awesome way to kill hours, not to mention the hands-down best baseball game for the Palm imaginable.
Also, speaking as someone who's a big fan of "All-Time" teams, being able to include BA's up to, say .450 or so and ERA's down to 0.86 would be kind of useful for us Hugh Duffy and Tim Keefe fans...
My apologies in advance; this is a long nasty reply. I tried to touch on everything I wanted to respond to. If this post is too long and annoying, please just hit "Reply" and call me The Matrix.
Quote from: Gantry on 01/27/04, 08:36:04 PMThe reason for a windows app is time - if you made a Windows-only program I would assume that you'll be much more efficient in your coding. Though I'm not really a programmer, I'd have to think it would take much less time to get a Windows app going over a web one.
Honestly, I probably would be less-efficient as a Windows coder, for no other reason that I've used perl almost exclusively since I started working with it 6 or so years ago. I simply haven't had an instance any time recently when I needed to write and use my own GUI. The last time I messed with any kind of Windows programming was back in the Visual Basic 4 days.
Quote from: MarquisEXB on 01/28/04, 09:06:05 AM1. Allow an import/export funciton. I still use my editor for this, because I can make a tab delimited file & quickly throw it into Excel for editing.
This is a great idea, and one that shouldn't be tough to implement. Care to provide a sample exported file from one of your ROMs?
Quote from: MarquisEXB on 01/28/04, 09:06:05 AM2. Allow to edit the ERA range. I don't like the idea that you would change the rom to store where the ERA is kept. It really seems uneccessary. I mean for the most part pitcher's ERAs will be between 1.5 and 4, or 2 and 4.5 or 1 and 3.5, depending on the era. We're only taking the best 4 pitchers on the best 10 teams. However allowing the builder to change that range is important enough for a minor change.
There's actually a good amount of "dead" space in the ROM. Code changes made would involve replacing original RBI code with an instruction to jump to my code located somewhere in "dead" space, load and display ERAs using my format, and jump back to the original code. The downside of course would be that resulting ROMs would be "broken" with regard to other editors. Naturally, I'll provide documentation of my changes so that others can find and/or change ERAs with a hex editor, or include the same change in an editor of their own.
I'm also looking at this change from an end-user point of view. Using an "ERA Offset" field may be confusing for some users, and I'm not 100% sure how to handle invalid ERAs if the offset is changed after ERAs have already been entered. My current line of thinking is to allow any ERAs to be entered into the editor, and the ROM building engine will determine if the original storage method (whether changing the offset or not) will suffice, or if ERAs should be converted to three-byte fields. Transparency to the end-user is always good for user-friendliness.
Quote from: MarquisEXB on 01/28/04, 09:06:05 AM3. The team letters. I know this is going to sound dumb, but I also use your editor for the team tiles. However when you get to that screen they are evenly spaced throughout so it's hard to tell where the teams divide especially near the middle. Also I like the overlapping quality of the original rom (Bo, Dt, Ho, etc.). There are a few things we can do about this. We can make tiles that are high/low, or I can make a bunch of tiles for commonly named teams. Honestly I have a bunch in my roms already, so doing the latter wouldn't be that hard.
I also like the overlapping quality of original team icons. Unfortunately, it's not something that'd be easy to implement. Offering a selection of "commonly-named" team icons is a great idea. I'm currently kicking around ideas to allow even more detailed editing of the icons. If it doesn't pan out, adding a larger selection of tiles is definitely a great idea.
Quote from: MarquisEXB on 01/28/04, 09:06:05 AM4. Other text. I also use my editor to change this. Usually I just updated the year, and change the "10 teams of the tengen league."
Agreed. I intended to make these fields editable in the original editor, but just never got around to it. Are there any other text strings which you (or any ROM hackers, for that matter) change? Things like "TIME" or "STRIKE" could obviously be edited, but I don't see any reason that anyone would want to. I need to compile a list of strings which are commonly changed by the ROM hackers.
Quote from: MarquisEXB on 01/28/04, 09:06:05 AM5. Other than that I'm a bit opposed to the other changes. The game is how it is & is very competetive as a two player game. If you wanted to make as an option simple changes like give the pitchers an overall hitting boost, the bonus a pinch hitter gets, etc. I would be for it.
If you're going to go further than that, you might as well make an updated version of RBI. For that I would image at the top of the list would be a real box score (that you can save to disk!), the ability to have more than 10 teams, injuries, a season mode, a draft mode, etc.
Honestly I like your editor the way it is & I like the game the way it is. These small tweaks would be maybe a final touch for RBI, if you don't change the entire game.
Again, the changes I've proposed really aren't earth-shaking. These involve identifying areas of code, changing them to instead jump to small routines written by me, then returning to original code. Changing the method in which pitcher batting data is loaded is a fairly simple process within the framework of the original game; "injuries, a season mode, a draft mode, etc." are not.
I'm not any more interested in changing the gameplay engine than you are. I wouldn't really classify a change such as individual pitcher batting stats a change in gameplay, but obviously that's only my opinion. Any other thoughts on the matter?
Quote from: Teddyballgame113 on 01/28/04, 10:00:21 AMi like all of wulf's suggestions too and i'm wondering if dbatch's has more colors??? not sure, but it seems like it. if the color palet could be expanded it would be great, but i understand if it is limited.
It can't. ;) The NES doesn't use an RGB pallette like you're probably used to. I really don't fully understand how it works myself, so here's a selection from the NES Technical FAQ (http://nesdev.parodius.com/NESTechFAQ.htm) ...
55. Is the NES palette RGB or what?No. I wish it were, but it isn't. The NES really works on the NTSC colour concept, with luminance (brightness) going in one direction, and chrominance (hue) going in another. Barring the colour values after $xC, the palette in the NES does on average a 30° rotation in hue for each step of the lower nybble that you take. Furthermore, the palette increases in luminance for each step of the upper nybble that you take. So, the palette really operates on hue and brightness in each direction, not RGB in each direction.The method in which colors are determined gives 64 possible colors. The colors you see in emulators are a close approximation of what a real NES would display. Either way, unless the DBatch editor is providing custom palette files (which would be emulator-dependant), it can only allow you to choose from an approximation of the 64 colors the NES can display (which is also how my editor works).
Quote from: Teddyballgame113 on 01/28/04, 10:00:21 AMwould there be any way to make the field look like grass instead of turf where there could be dirt and a grass infield?
That's a good question. The colors can obviously be changed, but as far as the actual look, I'm not sure. Either way, it's not something that could be incorporated into an editor easily. You're better off making changes to tiles in a tile editor, such as Tile Layer Pro (http://www.zophar.net/utilities/graphutil.html).
Quote from: Dryden on 01/28/04, 03:59:43 PMOne feature that would be awesome would be the ability to pick what kind of ROM you want to output - specifically, the overstuffed one that DBatch's editor requires.
There's a program for Palm OS 5 devices called NesEm. One guess what it does... It will play RBI, and it will play edited ROMs, but only works correctly with the overstuffed ROM. It's a truly awesome way to kill hours, not to mention the hands-down best baseball game for the Palm imaginable.
I don't own any Palm device, and have never heard of NesEm for that reason, but when I can I'll see if I can find out why it won't play all ROM sizes correctly. Best educated guess is that the emulator does not handle the MMC3 mapper correctly. I'm curious .. does the game load at all and glitch at some point, or not even start?
That said, this wouldn't be a hard feature to implement. I never even thought of adding such a feature because no one ever asked for it. :) It'd be easy enough to have the ROM building engine finish a ROM, then throw in everything from the "overstuffed" ROM also.
Excellent suggestions and discussion. Many thanks. :)
Nightwulf
- Removing ERA and batting average restrictions, to allow any ERA or BA to be used.
Removing ERA and BA restrictions would be awsome. I hated tracking down everybodys era, and then having guys with a high on, just to enter in 3.55. I always thought it would be cool to get around this, though I never thought it possible.
Is there a way to edit the pitchers batting data and also display another name while he bats? Im sure it's not, but then it would be RBI, with the DH on...
Changing the display strings would be very handy. After yours, and then dbatch's editor came out, it makes hex editing that much more irritating, knowing that somebody out there can set up a program to do that, making it much easier.
I prefer the windows app, just because, for whatever reason, im sure something im doing wrong, im not good at getting my roms to save using your manager.
A few ideas I have, mostly based on experience using TSB editors....
In the TSB managers, they have "radio buttons" that makes it easy to slide guys up and down the roster, or what it would be in RBI, the lineup. This would especially be useful to RBI Sim/online leagues. Somthing similar to make it easy to swap players between teams(ie trading) would be nice too.
In TSB there is a program http://www.famssu.com/tecmo/TecmoStatExtractor2-5.zip that extracts information based on where the saved state is in the game. Then the file is used to upload into a database, keeping track of stats. In RBI there are only team stats, but it would be nice if there was a way to easily keep track of them, either for a sim/online league.
The Roster Extractor is a must have. I would much rather be able to dump the rosters and throw them into a file/webpage, then have to manually have to type all the info out.
Whatever you decide, keep up the good work. It's very appreciated.
(snip)
Quote from: nightwulf on 01/28/04, 10:21:41 PM
I don't own any Palm device, and have never heard of NesEm for that reason, but when I can I'll see if I can find out why it won't play all ROM sizes correctly. Best educated guess is that the emulator does not handle the MMC3 mapper correctly. I'm curious .. does the game load at all and glitch at some point, or not even start?
Nightwulf
It loads fine, and it plays, well, sorta ok. At some point, the graphics get horribly corrupted to the point that it's basically unplayable. I can post some screenshots, if that's at all helpful. But the ROMs outputted by RBI Manager work 100%.
You will need ze followink programs (cackles evilly)...
The overstuffed licensed rom (from Gantry's site, http://dee-nee.com/rbi/roms/RBI-Overstuffed.zip (http://dee-nee.com/rbi/roms/RBI-Overstuffed.zip)
The converter to make the .nes file a .pdb file (for windows only...) http://www.kalemsoft.com/RomInstaller.zip (http://www.kalemsoft.com/RomInstaller.zip)
NesEm - can be purchased from www.kalemsoft.com, you will need at least version 1.3.
It's in active development right now, so checking in with the developer for better RBI specific features is definitely worthwhile.
Hope this helps.
Nightwulf, I put a txt file that is outputted from my program in this post. (http://forums.dee-nee.com/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=1475) It's attached at about the third post down.
Mike