AGDInteractive - Sierra Adventure Game Remakes Forum

Just FYI for all game makers - AGS v. 2.72 is out. Less bugs, more functions!  ;)  Downloadable in www.bigbluecup.com (and probably in a bunch of other places as well).

Thanks for the FYI man, I hadn't yet noticed this.

Just a quick question for the AGD's, do you guys transfer all the stuff you've done on QFG2VGA into the new released versions of AGS?

Kurdt wrote:Thanks for the FYI man, I hadn't yet noticed this.

No problem. I just went to bigbluecup, can't even remember why, and then suddenly i see current version: 2.72 at the top-right of the screen.
Man, I love updates. For anything. Whenever there's an update to something, I gotta download it (and so I did with this as well).

Just a quick question for the AGD's, do you guys transfer all the stuff you've done on QFG2VGA into the new released versions of AGS?

You don't really transfer anything. You simply replace your copy of the AGS editor with the new one.

Oh so you just open the game in the new version. I thought you had to start form scratch again. Copy and paste everything.

Not even that. When you open AGS after you installed 2.72, it automatically does the required changes (or some of them) to change the loaded game from 2.71 to 2.72, such as making a 'sound' directory and moving sound files into it. I'm not sure whether or not it changes functions which are obsolete in 2.72, though.

If you made your game with version 2.62 or earlier, you're going to have to change some code names as a major overhaul was done to the function names.

Sorry to bring back this thread from the land of the dead, but I wanted to toy with the AGS Editor and the new versions require the .NET framework (which is something I would prefer not to install if able).

I want to know if there are any substantial changes between 2.72 and 3.1.2 that make 2.72 obsolete/not worthy of consideration, or if 2.72 is still a good place to start learning the scripter.

2.72 won't limit you in many ways. We created the QFG2 remake with that version, after all. You won't be able to take advantage of some of the newest 3.0+ features such as Theora video playback, but for learning the ropes 2.72 is more than sufficient.

In fact, I would actually recommend using 2.72 for beginners, as the learning curve isn't quite as steep as the newly remodeled AGS editor. At present, I also find the 2.72 engine faster to navigate through, and also less processor-intensive when looking through sprite intensive folders.

2.72 is what I use. It is easier to get started with, I use 3.x now, but if I'd started with it, I'd have run away from AGS.

I don't know what you guys are on about. I started on 3.x and thought it was quite easy. If 2.72 is any easier it must really be quite the cakewalk.

In AGS 2.72, I personally find that the menus were very intuitively placed and layed-out optimally. This meant that most actions required minimal mouse movements and clicks to achieve the same outcome; whereas in the newest editor, more time is required to navigate the menus, more mouse clicks are required to open them (since things like Views etc. now open in an individual tab and individual scripts take longer to access than they did with the old Interaction editor) and so forth. It all has to do with the increased amount of distance the mouse now takes to travel across the screen from area to area (and the extra button clicks), which is known as Fitt's Law.

When making a smaller AGS game, it may not be obvious that shaving a couple of centimeters off mouse movements, or reducing a couple of button clicks here and there to open various menus would be much of a big deal. However, when you're spending a very long time developing a game over the course of multiple years, all those extra centimeters of mouse movements add up to kilometers. And the additional button clicks probably reach into the millions. The net effect is that it ends up taking longer to finish making your game because of the collective amount of extra time you spend just moving the mouse around featureless areas of the editor to get to locations of interest.

2.72 is also significantly speedier, at least on my system. I would probably continue to program games in 2.72 for the huge speed advantage, and only covert them to 3.0+ once they're nearing the final stages so that they could also make use of the newer engine features. This has the benefit of a faster production time, as well as being able to take advantage of 3.0+'s excellent features. If AGS3.0 utilized exactly the same side-menu system as 2.72 does (and re-implemented the Interaction Editor for scripts), however, Fitt's law wouldn't be an issue.

Ok, so it takes longer and is a little more annoying. But that doesn't mean it's harder or has a steeper learning curve.

Maybe a newer version should have the option to change "skins" or "schemes" between the old and new layouts.

I guess the biggest thing was the removal of the Interactions editor. That was the thing that helped me learn the ropes of the engine and without it, I think many new users will get overwhelmed since it eliminates their ability to experiment with how things are done. A lot of people aren't very technically minded when they first discover AGS and probably need to first experiment by clicking through something visually, so that they can understand what's being done before they will attempt the alternative of scripting it. The Interactions Editor in 2.72 allowed you to make a game without having to script any code at all. Even after I'd learned AGS2.72 back-to-front, I really liked the speed at which the Interactions Editor "Run Script" feature could be used to access individual room scripts. The way this is handled in 3.0+ is painful IMHO, as it requires switching between many editor tabs and always moving the mouse to the bottom-left/right of the screen, rather than keeping it positioned in the center (the Fitt's Law thing again). Also, the editor defaults back to the main panel every time you finish editing a script, requiring additional button clicks and mouse scrolling to get back to the scripts panel.

Now that 3.0+ forces users to learn the scripting language, I think it will limit the appeal for newcomers who will find that approach overwhelming. Having had no scripting experience before using AGS, I know that if the engine had been this way when I first started using it, I probably would have found it too daunting to continue with. Trust me, the learning curve really is quite a bit steeper in 3.0+.

Ah, that's fair I suppose. Still, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it'll weed out all the really...er....interestingly-challenged games that seem to dominate the AGS scene.

Then again, scripting the game really is only part of the whole design process, the writing of which is the real problem there.

Ok. So it seems that the move to .NET really affected perfomance as suspected. I'm not fond of the latest compilers from Microsoft, the previous ones worked much better, even though they were 'too intelligent' and fixed in compilation very badly programmed code, which shouldn't have been allowed to compile in the first place. About AGS 2.72, I'm looking right now at the plugins page to see how many of them I can download before the links become an error 404 page.

I also have heard about the removal of the interactions editor. It seems it was done to prevent bad habits and because it was a pain to maintain. That's the main reason I asked here about the differences between both versions, as I don't know if creates bad habits like the Visual Studio compilers, or it's just a commodity like code completion.

I think it just makes you think the engine is simple, then you try to make your gaem using ONLY interactions, and it sucks.

Anonymous Game Creator 2 wrote:I guess the biggest thing was the removal of the Interactions editor. That was the thing that helped me learn the ropes of the engine and without it, I think many new users will get overwhelmed since it eliminates their ability to experiment with how things are done. A lot of people aren't very technically minded when they first discover AGS and probably need to first experiment by clicking through something visually, so that they can understand what's being done before they will attempt the alternative of scripting it. The Interactions Editor in 2.72 allowed you to make a game without having to script any code at all. Even after I'd learned AGS2.72 back-to-front, I really liked the speed at which the Interactions Editor "Run Script" feature could be used to access individual room scripts. The way this is handled in 3.0+ is painful IMHO, as it requires switching between many editor tabs and always moving the mouse to the bottom-left/right of the screen, rather than keeping it positioned in the center (the Fitt's Law thing again). Also, the editor defaults back to the main panel every time you finish editing a script, requiring additional button clicks and mouse scrolling to get back to the scripts panel.

Now that 3.0+ forces users to learn the scripting language, I think it will limit the appeal for newcomers who will find that approach overwhelming. Having had no scripting experience before using AGS, I know that if the engine had been this way when I first started using it, I probably would have found it too daunting to continue with. Trust me, the learning curve really is quite a bit steeper in 3.0+.

This is the single greatest and most correct post ever posted at AGDI forums. I bow in reverence at the awesomeness of what is said.

The learning curve is steeper in 3.x because they removed the interaction editor and force people to learn the language and syntax from the beginning instead of progressively like in 2.72. I can guarantee KQ3 wouldn't exist for IA if I'd had to learn AGS from 3.x instead of 2.61 (at the time... or 2.63 maybe, I can't remember...)

In short, AGD2 is correct about everything he said, I couldn't agree more.

In shorter still, 3.0+ sucks donkey balls.

Klytos wrote: In shorter still, 3.0+ sucks donkey balls.

I think it's a good engine, it just is very hard to learn, as AGD2 said. I use it now, but I HATED it when I 1st got it!!