Quick question about Win KQ6 mouse pointers

[m_kiewitz]

I'm not demanding my own personal way. I just think that a game should be represented in its original form with all optional aesthetic enhancements disabled until the user wants to enable them. That's the safest route to not tick anybody off with. Even the people who disagree with my distaste of undithered mode agree with that.

And that's why there is a -devel discussion about enhancements in general.

You just want undithering not on by default. Maybe someone really likes the original sierra save/restore dialogs. That's replaced on default as well, which actually removes part of the game. It's exactly the same as with all the other enhancements. Those are all changing parts of the game.

Again: there is an option. ScummVM is also open-source. You are free to fork it and do your own MusicallyInspired port.

Actually, I have done that and when I expressed my intention to do such a thing I had quite a positive response from those who were interested in my port just so that dithering was the default setting. This was before I realised about the fix you can add to the scummvm.ini file, but the reaction alone should tell you something.

I guess this has just to do with us not adding a GUI option in 1.2.0. If it's just about having another default, it would be pretty weird.

No one is forcing anyone to use anything. Actually you try to force your taste/opinion upon everyone else.

I'm not forcing my opinion on everyone else. Everyone else agrees with me except for you and a couple other devs. You, on the other hand, are forcing everybody ever who uses ScummVM to play these games in a way that they never were before by default.[/quote]

Again: I DO NOT.
Repeat: I DO NOT. Is that so hard? It was a team decision. I did not switch undithering on default just because of my own opinion.

Also we wasted lots of time and we were also not paid a dime for it. Oh yeah, that's a big screw you from us, right.

What are you doing right now by talking to me this way if not saying "Screw you." I've not done anything to deserve that kind of attitude. You just disagree with me and somehow deduce that I deserved to be attacked for that.

You actually said

are just getting a big "screw you" from the ScummVM team because their opinion matters more than their's.

So it's a "screw you", because the current default is different from the one that you would like.

In that case, I prefer PC Speaker sound. So I'm getting screwed, because the default is something else? Don't tell me, that I can just switch to PC Speaker.

It would be a "screw you", if there was no option at all.

The backgrounds are actually almost 256 colors. We do not invent those colors. The colors are there.

I think you're assuming too much here. Technically the colours are there. Artistically they most definitely aren't there. An artist doesn't think technically, they think artistically. Especially where visual art is concerned.

I'm assuming and you are stating facts, right?
You are assuming based on your opinion/taste and I'm assuming based on the data. At least I definitely know, that they wanted more colors. The dithering was a workaround to get those more colors. That's a fact stated in the LSL book.

IT DOESN'T MATTER how many more colours you can interpret from it. They're not the same colours.

Since WJPs gamma correction change yesterday, no - those are actually now the exact same colors. The colors are mixed correctly now.

Yes, for the seventeenth time I see that. That's great. Hurrah. But that doesn't excuse the argument of whether or not ScummVM should be enabling such features by default.

And that's a global decision. Some engines have enhancements already enabled on default for now. It's currently discussed on -devel. I personally don't really care about the outcome. Anyway, I will fully accept the outcome and I hope you will do so as well.

Easy solution? Keep the original as default so people can play as they remember it from the get go and add the colour enhancement as an optional toggle if they want to spice things up. Having it the other way around just ruffles too many feathers as is happening here.

The easy solution is to wait for the result of the -devel discussion. Maybe it will ALL be disabled on default. Which I actually hope.

So you drew those backgrounds?

What about the backgrounds I have drawn? What about the backgrounds of other SCI fangames?[/quote]

Fangames are not really supported at all currently.
But yes, for those cases of course you have the full voice about how ScummVM operates ON THOSE GAMES ALONE.

So if the -devel decision is enable enhancements on default, I will gladly disable undithering for the games you drew backgrounds for.

I would really happily talk to some Sierra artists about it. If they (or one of the game creators) said, they didn't like it, I would immediately remove it and probably even throw the undithering code away.

Talking to the original artists doesn't make a shred of difference to the point I'm trying to make.[/quote]

What?
You don't respect the opinion of the original artists?
That's pretty bad.

You can visually SEE in those examples I've posted how dithering worked to their advantage in hiding harsh and abrasive lines. And again, what about the artists of fangames? How come their artistic expressions don't matter?

that's your opinion.
If Roberta Williams says "I like it", would you accept it? After reading your latest lines, I have to assume that you wouldn't and that's a shame.

In the version that I own on floppies, there is no soundblaster driver. Only ADL.DRV, which is Adlib. Which doesn't support samples.

I already got Codename: Iceman, which came out much later. It also doesn't include any soundblaster driver.

Then why are the samples even in the game resources?

Why are the actual undithered colors in the game resources and not just the dithered endresult? And also why are the backgrounds drawn instead of just saving them like plain 16-color views?

And why does it work with the correct sound blaster driver?

Maybe it was hacked together later by fans. Maybe it was produced later by Sierra. Fact is: the original release did not include it. At all.

Quest for Glory 2 has a Soundblaster driver. But this game is SCI1.

In DOS? It shouldn't work if it wasn't meant to be that way, but it does. Your argument holds no ground here.

I got the original floppies. There is no soundblaster driver on them. That's a fact. The packaging even doesn't specify Soundblaster to be supported at all.

I guess we muck with their nostalgia, because we didn't implement every possible option and feature into the interpreter on first release free of charge.

I'm not blaming you for not having every feature available at launch. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you enabled a feature that wasn't in the original game.[/quote]

Yes and exactly that's decided fully by -devel now. It's about any enhancement in general.

And you enabled it by default.

the commit for enabling it was done by me. But it was not my decision alone. Stop saying that.

It's not representative of what the artists originally wanted. If they actually had that palette they'd have created those graphics with other methods. Are you even an artist? Do you understand this concept?

Like I already said - the only people that can say anything definitely about this are the original artists and/or game creators. No one else.

You remind me of OS/2 users. Instead of being happy, that they get something really nice for free, they complain and complain. And then wonder, when everyone leaves them.

If you would stop labeling me as being demanding and unreasonable and start listening to what I'm saying you'd know that that's not my stance at all.

Oh, you are demanding pretty much.
I have already listened to your opinion about the default. Fact is some other people actually like the undithering.

And instead of just taking one side, I'm currently waiting for the outcome of the -devel discussion. And like I already said - I personally hope that we just disable all enhancements on default, but I really don't care. I won't participate in the -devel discussion at all.

I already also said that I would immediately remove the code completely, as soon as one of the game creators/artists say that he doesn't like it at all. So what shall I do currently? Just change the default of the SVN build without waiting for anyone else? Is that fair to everyone else? I don't think so.

Anyone who wants add-ons and enhancements should have to enable them if they want not the other way around. It's just common sense.

Windows for example goes the other route. You have to disable enhancements instead.

That's great, I'm just saying it might be a good idea to include the fans in this discussion as well since they're the ones ultimately who are going to be affected the most by it.

I really don't get this.
We are talking about a freaking default. As if clicking on a button to disable/enable something would change the whole world.

Again with the labeling. If someone else has a problem with the way the original game was designed then they can enable an enhancement. It shouldn't be the other way around.

And exactly this hasn't been decided. There is no guideline currently at all about this and that's what getting decided on -devel.

Because I worked lots of time on the whole code for free.

Maybe you shouldn't do it for free anymore if you can't take criticism? Or if you just can't take the fact that people just don't like your undither feature?

Why can't you accept that we wanted to discuss it internally first, before making any changes? (hint: the discussion wouldn't be needed at all, if we (or I) wanted to leave it as it is per se)

I just want to wait for the result of -devel. You just want your change. So actually you are disrespectful. And that's exactly the way to demotivate and piss off people.

I don't want it to get disabled because 2 people whined.

It's not just 2 people it's basically everyone. Almost everybody who posted in this thread doesn't think it should be default.

Do you really honestly believe that less than 100 people are using ScummVM?

So you're so proud of your option that you force everyone to see it whether they like it or not?

Again: I did not force anyone. I did not decide by myself at all.

flamebaits

Yeah whatever. Who is taking this personal?
The default was decided AS TEAM in december 2009. Where were you at that time? Not here? Ok. So that default made it into 1.2.0. Ok. So now you don't like that. Ok. But you can't accept that the TEAM wants to discuss it internally, before making any changes. Ok. And you also can't accept that anyone defends that feature at all. Ok. And it seems you also wouldn't respect Roberta Williams / sierra artists opinion about it, because you just don't like it. But I'm taking it personal? lol

Did you? More importantly, are you an artist? Do you understand the importance of preserving the medium of which a piece of art was prepared for? Of course you do, you're a programmer. If somebody went in an mucked up your undithering code because they didn't like the way it was presented and programmed it in a way that altered the display of backgrounds in a way you didn't like you'd be just as upset. You are upset.

I'm upset because you don't respect any other opinion (which would even include the original game creator/artists and this doesn't make any sense) and you also don't want to give the actual developers of the scummvm sci engine the right to discuss a change to the defaults internally, which is rude. You are acting like you are the boss of us (and a bad one as well).

Like I said several times - I fully respect the opinion of the original game creators/artists. Which means in your case - as soon as -devel decided - I will happily remove undithering from your fangames and even make it impossible to use undithering at all on them. BUT you are not one of sierras artists. You are not one of the game creators. And I would definitely weight those opinions higher than yours. In fact those are the people, who should decide. They are not here though.

For now I will try to contact Roberta Williams. It won't matter to you, because you already said that you wouldn't respect such opinion, but it matters to me. If she says that she doesn't like it, I will immediately remove the whole code altogether.

[m_kiewitz]

I have a problem with just changing the default, because a few people complain.

*cough*

No double standards please. I seem to recall it being argued that the console only had a few complaints too, and technically the current default is show console.

Please don't cut out half of the things I said. I actually said that there should be a guideline about enhancements in general and we also shouldn't just make changes without any proper discussion. Cutting out just this one sentence changes the whole meaning completely.

I also honestly don't know where the double-standard is supposed to be. On -devel I was just asking politely to name the icons the other way round. I thought it was accepted that most users don't want and don't use the console. With this in mind, I'm thinking about the average user, who would just select "ScummVM" and not look for a special "ScummVM (without console)".

But in fact you see the differences there. For the console removal, no one just removed it asap after getting a complain. It was discussed fully on IRC, wiki and -devel. And it also seems that the users involved accepted and respected this instead of even denying the possibility of having an internal discussion first.

[ScottT]

Please don't cut out half of the things I said. I actually said that there should be a guideline about enhancements in general and we also shouldn't just make changes without any proper discussion.

IMO, they're separate issues - 'There's no guidelines, so we can't change the default since it doesn't make sense to the user' is a non-argument to me, and there's no reason we (the ScummVM 'we') can't decide what to do in this instance without setting in stone a guideline.

I also honestly don't know where the double-standard is supposed to be. [...] I thought it was accepted that most users don't want and don't use the console.

Ignoring the part above about a guideline, in both instances it's been suggested there's only been a small handful of complaints, and in both instances we're changing what was originally the default.

I do agree though that the current -devel thread needs to be resolved with what to do in this instance.

[m_kiewitz]

For now I will try to contact Roberta Williams. It won't matter to you, because you already said that you wouldn't respect such opinion, but it matters to me. If she says that she doesn't like it, I will immediately remove the whole code altogether.

Okay, this was a quick one.
I sent out the e-mail some minutes ago and I just received:

----------------------------------------

They look great to me. I'll have roberta look at them later today and let
you know what she says. It's tough to believe she won't think it's a step
forward!

-Ken W

----------------------------------------

Please note: I have sent several undithered+original screenshots of King's Quest 4 + Laura Bow 1 made with the latest build, which means including gamma correction added by wjp yesterday.

[Raziel]

For now I will try to contact Roberta Williams. It won't matter to you, because you already said that you wouldn't respect such opinion, but it matters to me. If she says that she doesn't like it, I will immediately remove the whole code altogether.

Okay, this was a quick one.
I sent out the e-mail some minutes ago and I just received:

----------------------------------------

They look great to me. I'll have roberta look at them later today and let
you know what she says. It's tough to believe she won't think it's a step
forward!

-Ken W

----------------------------------------

Please note: I have sent several undithered+original screenshots of King's Quest 4 + Laura Bow 1 made with the latest build, which means including gamma correction added by wjp yesterday.

Nice

Great to see the original devs still care for their work

[KuroShiro]

That's pretty cool that you got a quick response from the Williams. Honestly, now that there is a clear and easily accessible GUI toggle, I would say the only remaining step would be to either: add a note about dithering to the readme, or have a GUI notification pop up the first time a user runs a game that would be undithered making note of the change (or both).

If that is done, I fail to see how anyone could have anything to complain about, and the team can move on to bigger and more consequential aspects of the engine.

[Seldon]

I'm not a fan of undithering, but m_kiewitz worked hard on this and SCI engine in general. Few years ago, having SCI games supported was unbelievable, and now it's a fact. So I suppose he deserves some respect and I prefer his opinion over suggestions of people, who just sit and complain about lack of some trivial features. I'd prefer, that devs, instead of wasting their time on answering these complaints, rather spend it on removing bugs, supporting new games or just relaxing (to gain energy for more work .
Anyway, hereby I would like to kindly thank everyone involved in supporting SCI games - for me that's the biggest achievement in last few years.

[LordHoto]

And finally it's also interesting that I MYSELF didn't write one word about the thing at all on -devel. Which actually means I didn't have a strong opinion on it. However, I do have a strong opinion about just changing the default on one call and it also doesn't make sense to have all sorts of enhancements everywhere, but then disable one of those, because some people don't like it ALTHOUGH it's possible to disable it.

It might be noteworthy that this discussion took place in September 2009, which was the month you had your first commit to the project, so I am not sure whether that is a strong argument for you not having a strong opinion about dithering being on by default.

There had been traces of you since July 2009, but then again you weren't an official team member then IIRC and of course your undithering code hadn't been there.

EDIT:

First of all, I was talking about the internal discussion of all the sci developers on IRC. I was NOT talking about any -devel conversation.

A perfect example why such discussions should be on -devel, even if it only affects a engine sub-team. Now we have virtually no easy way to verify that or read up on it again easily, since I guess you don't know by chance on what day it happened so we could check the IRC logs right?

[m_kiewitz]

Now we have virtually no easy way to verify that or read up on it again easily, since I guess you don't know by chance on what day it happened so we could check the IRC logs right?

First of all most, if not all, of this discussion was private and it happened of course right before my commit to change undithered to default in october 2009 - it actually wasn't even in december, it was october - the change is over a year old. We had the same discussion right before enabling new gfx and sound code on default. And we also had the same type of discussion right before deleting the old FreeSCI code in that aspect. Also the same happened right before replacing the save/restore dialogs with ScummVM dialogs on default.

If you really want to verify my claims, I have to believe you think I'm lying - nice to know. In that case, you could simply ask the remaining people of the sci team. IF I would have changed this all by myself, a) the other sci team members would have noticed of course and voiced their objection at that time - that change is kinda obvious and anyone working on the engine would have noticed immediately and b) my opinion about this now wouldn't match at all.

The original cause why undithered backgrounds were not enabled in FreeSCI were the rare situations, where views are embedded into the background and that looked awkhard. Walter talked to me about this even prior merging greg's gfx code. I had the idea at that time of undithering the views by using heuristics, which I implemented r44880 on 10/10/2009. After this, everyone active from the sci team agreed to enable it on default (at that time for the newgfx code only), which was done r45125 on 15/10/2009.

[Serious Callers Only]

MusicallyInspired is obviously trolling.

What's the part of "it's a config option" don't you understand.

Grow up. You are not the coder that did the work, you have a option to permanently disable it, you created walls of text about the "original intention" of Sierra.

[LordHoto]

Now we have virtually no easy way to verify that or read up on it again easily, since I guess you don't know by chance on what day it happened so we could check the IRC logs right?

First of all most, if not all, of this discussion was private and it happened of course right before my commit to change undithered to default in october 2009 - it actually wasn't even in december, it was october - the change is over a year old. We had the same discussion right before enabling new gfx and sound code on default. And we also had the same type of discussion right before deleting the old FreeSCI code in that aspect. Also the same happened right before replacing the save/restore dialogs with ScummVM dialogs on default.

Well too bad about the private bits then. I remember some talks in public about the other topics you mentioned though.

If you really want to verify my claims, I have to believe you think I'm lying - nice to know. In that case, you could simply ask the remaining people of the sci team. IF I would have changed this all by myself, a) the other sci team members would have noticed of course and voiced their objection at that time - that change is kinda obvious and anyone working on the engine would have noticed immediately and b) my opinion about this now wouldn't match at all.

Well let's not go over the top and say we assumre you're lying. It's rather a bit strange that you say all the SCI people agreed on enabling it by default and on the other hand so far virtually nobody apart you voiced himself when it comes to the recent disable it by default discussion.

Apart I don't see why just because of that I want to read up on it myself makes you think I think you're lying. I mean just because I want to read up on the original facts when I read something in the newspaper doesn't mean I don't trust them, it's more that it shows I am more interested in the details.

So either only a few SCI people were really focused on enabling it by default, while the otheres were more in the "I don't care" stance, or nowadays they just changed their views and think it's fine to disable it by default. And now since there's no logs of the discussion that is hard to find out.

In any case all this very defensive position about changing the default now, ableit nobody seems to have a strong feeling for having it enabled by default just looks a bit odd, especially as every SCI developer agreed to enable it by default as you said.

The original cause why undithered backgrounds were not enabled in FreeSCI were the rare situations, where views are embedded into the background and that looked awkhard. Walter talked to me about this even prior merging greg's gfx code. I had the idea at that time of undithering the views by using heuristics, which I implemented r44880 on 10/10/2009. After this, everyone active from the sci team agreed to enable it on default (at that time for the newgfx code only), which was done r45125 on 15/10/2009.

Yeah I heard that FreeSCI had some mode by default which used dithering but extended the palette range (at least according to waltervn).


Anyway seeing that it seems the SCI developers remain more or less silent about whether to enable or disable dithering by default now, the fact that you just didn't want to change the default without any prior discussion (which I think is a good idea just btw.) and the fact that [md5] now disabled undithering by default with r54090, it seems that most of this discussion starts to make less sense than it did before.

Though actually I am still not convinced that r54090 should've been done right now, but rather all the other devs (wjp, etc.) should've been given a bit more time to state their views on undithering on -devel.

[clone2727]

MusicallyInspired is obviously trolling.

What's the part of "it's a config option" don't you understand.

Grow up. You are not the coder that did the work, you have a option to permanently disable it, you created walls of text about the "original intention" of Sierra.

Whoa. Completely out of line. Forum Rule #4.

[Serious Callers Only]

MusicallyInspired is obviously trolling.

What's the part of "it's a config option" don't you understand.

Grow up. You are not the coder that did the work, you have a option to permanently disable it, you created walls of text about the "original intention" of Sierra.

Whoa. Completely out of line. Forum Rule #4.

Telling it like i see it. I guess this forum -like most others- prefers the "political correct" mode of "aggression"*, that is just as fucked up, but less clear. Don't tell me there wasn't that in this very thread.

*

[Lambonius]

Another point from the pro-dithering crowd:

Comparing the choice between dithering and undithering and using MIDI or PC Speaker is totally invalid. The choice between sound types was ALWAYS part of the game. When you installed the original way back in the day, you had that choice. The undithered filter is an artificial addition that alters the way the game was originally intended to be viewed.

Also, you can't compare the replacement of save/restore GUIs, which is a completely minor alteration to one little element of the game to dithering/undithering, which is a MAJOR aesthetic change to the entirety of the game's graphics. The two are completely different.

We're not talking little bug fixes and interface tweaks, we're talking majorly changing the way the game actually LOOKS. It's totally different. It should be an opt-in option, not a default.

[clone2727]

Telling it like i see it. I guess this forum -like most others- prefers the "political correct" mode of "aggression"*, that is just as fucked up, but less clear. Don't tell me there wasn't that in this very thread.

*

So far, your only contributions to the discussion have been to use DOSBox or change the config... or call people trolls. You have added nothing to the argument. There are disagreements between people and people argue for their side, that's how things work in real life too. You don't just come in and call people names.