I think Verge is slowly self-destructing.

It seems to me that the vision of Verge from way back in the time of V1 has been lost with all this open-endedness and "spiderweb" releases.

I'm talking about how V2 has spawned somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 different offshoots, all with their advantages and disadvantages, and how V2 itself has been opened up so far that we have to become programmers in order to make our games.

I'd like to make a few suggestions that would hopefully get Verge back on track (this, of course, would require contributions on the part of the dev team):

Think back to the days of V1. If you can't remember, download it, or any V1 game :-)

V1 had a nice, almost-fully-implemented menu system. Suggestion: make a few data files (like those used for parties, items, etc.) in which we can change the titles on all the menus, and the number of entries. Each entry links to a specific data file.
These menus would still be a little limited in function. Basically, they'd work just like V1 menus did (but with all the options working.) But by changing the titles, you can create an illusion of an entirely different function.
For example, the Magic menu could be renamed to "Skill" and your "magic spells" would really be skills. They work the same, but the player gets a whole different idea.

Free movement would be a nice addition to the engine, as an option set in the user.cfg. Also, party followers should be an option, because that was really cool in V1.

V1 had functions for every major RPG "thing" you ever wanted to do: screen transitions, text boxes, shops, menus, entity handlers (more on that) etc. You could pick up the engine and start your game.
As it is now, we have to program all these functions ourselves before we can develop anything.

More on that entity thing: in V1, I could use a simple entityMove function to set up nicely elaborate scripted sequences, and it was that easy. In V2, entityMove won't move the entity unless I manually suspend the engine and process the entity. PAIN IN THE ASS!

My ultimate suggestion is this: go back to V1, fix the bugs, and expand a few areas. KEEP IT SIMPLE, and keep it Verge. Then maybe we'd see all those demos everyone's bitching about.

--Invicticide

P.S. Opinions and flames are welcome, but back them up. Otherwise I'll flame you back for being an idiot without a cause :-)

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You're right - v2 is the reason there are not as many demos. I always wondered why no one still used v1. About a year after v2 was released I still suggested that new people start with v1 and builf up from there.

But v2.7 should be the answer you're saying we need. It will have the ease of v1 with functionality exceeding that of v2. So it will be up-to-date and on-par with other similar engines, but we'll actually get to see simple demos here and there.

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That's what v2.7 is going to be, except not. ;)

v2.7 will be a higher level v2, with included library scripts that you can use to acheve v2's flexibility, v1's ease of use, and anywhere in between. The window drawing and menu libraries have already been coded, and more are on the way. These libs will be included with the engine, and if you insist on not using them, then it's your own fault if you condemn yourself to becoming a vapour king. ^_^

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'Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.' -F. Scott Fitzgerald

I still say what pulls us all to Verge is that we want to do Squaresoft quality games but on our own, using our storylines and ideas, but with the ease of not having to spend 4 years on a 52+ man project to get something out. But I still say the only thing V1 was really missing that I would suggest improving on, is 1) Hi Color capabilities, via Map, Sprites, and Images. 2) Editable menus and/or understandable documents that specifically state how a random visitor to Verge would go about trying to edit the pre-made ones. 3) Customizable Sprite size, one HUGE benefit of a V2 or higher. 4) A few sample styles of battle systems that the gurus and random players can create to pack-in. Battle systems take everyone eons to program, the sheer number of if statements alone can be overwhelming, letalone when you want to get graphically flashy with leaping and jumping, or making transitions between character files and gifs or pcxs that animate. I want to emphasize that this suggestion is in no way related to the thought that I'm referring to an RPG Maker type battle system, where everything is laid out, and there's no lenience to it, that you just plug in names and run it. This is the one area I'd say that probably could be left off completely, but it'd still be another nice feature that'd make everything drastically simple. And lastly, 5) IT, MOD, XM, and S3M compatibility that works. V1 would crash randomly for me, I don't know about anyone else, on 3 different popular soundcards if making transitions from one song to the other via the engine's MapSwitch(); command that stopped one music and started another. I still say that Music makes up 80% of the game's overall emotional draw to it, and it really sux if you find the perfect song that's .MOD like the doc files claim you need, and it doesn't work. I have never and probably will never take a peak at the raw source code of V1 or anything later, but I'd hope the compatibility issue changes with V2.7, or in this collaboration of ideas.

I'll say this much though, regardless of how many great ideas are exposed here, the bottom line is that I don't see anyone in this community really doing a whole lot, except talk. Everyone's busy, obviously, but the only one working on code or Verge that I'm aware is Speed Bump, though the versions of Verge claim that others work on it too. I would never want to tell a guy who's making V2.7 which'll be the incarnate of all our game's hopes and dreams to stop what he's doing to appease our wishes. But my thought in earlier posts, and Invicticide's does hold some merrit, to anyone who is programming Verge. The whole reason we come here is because we want to make games, but don't know C++, or other languages well enough to write our own code, we need an engine to make that aspect of it a lot easier, a dummy version, so to speak, to help curb our talents. I'm a computer science major, so I work with code 24/7, straight C++, and some assembly, but I'll tell you, for me, I'll still never admit that I know how to program a simple cancel button. ;p No matter how many friends have explained how simple the concept is, that algorithm to me is as tangible as the cosmos. I do think V2 and higher really gets ahead of the group's ideas for an engine, by trying to emphasize originality and freedom, all of which is good, but everyone says to read the DOC files, and the READMEs, and the TEXT files, all of which I've skimmed, and some I've read in detail, and none of which explains anything half as clearly as the 32 pages of text I printed out a year and a half of go which explained every V1 function in detail. V2+j comes packed in with a V2.5 function list, and nowhere on that list does it list a Delay() or Wait() function which seems to appear in every version of Verge. Something as simple as that is overlooked.

So to Speed Bump, or other future engine writers, my 1 suggestion that should definitely be heard, regardless of your take on my other posts, or my above suggestions, is that ALL files/documents/utilities should be packed into 1 zip file, and posted on this website, verge-rpg.com, so that there is NO confusion, or board posting trying to find the tile editor for the high color capabilities of this version or that version. ^_^ Please, please, please! Like I mentioned to McGrue in an earlier post on here, everyone sends you to the Verge Source, which ironically is not the site that sponsors the engine, or has the engine files to download. 6 files for V2 exist on this website under the Engine heading, whereas on VergeSource, 16 files exist. I guess my teacher had a good phrase once that will summarize all my thoughts better than my rambling ever could. KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. ;p

~Blade Dragon

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Yeah, before V2 came out, I had massively hacked and re-formatted the source... not that I'm a masochist or anything :)

I even started porting it to Allegro once a long time ago, but got fed up and quit. I should add though that Allegro is a lot more robust now then it was then. In fact, Allegro would be a pretty good choice, because then you could just recompile and build binaries for windows/dos and linux.

/w

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In order to not be a fool, you must first gain experience being one.

v1's source code is messy and constricting. :)

Coding an engine from scratch would be a much better solution.

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'Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.' -F. Scott Fitzgerald