Reply to Time to discuss 1.07 compatibility and the future of Dink
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So, it seems the community here is far more lively than the past few months, primarily because of Dink HD testing and the upcoming updates to the site.
Guess what? I decided to start a topic about politics! It has a worthy goal, you see, to make everyone hate each other. That's gonna be easy. Okay, seriously I'm not such a big troll yet, so let's see the actual topic.
Back in 2006, version 1.08 got released. Some changes in that version caused some D-Mod scripts to behave incorrectly or not work at all. To my knowledge, no D-Mod was made unfinishable by these changes. But here are we now, in 2017 (man, I feel like I'm getting old, despite being young by pretty much all standards) and Dink branched into three main versions:
1.08, which is considered one of the most compatible of all versions, but is getting old and has limitations, for example being limited to one platform, Windows. And as time goes, hardware changes. And so does software - that's the more important one for many old games. As time passses, OS and hardware manufacturers start to drop certain old features that older third party software use. And for those gamess that depend on such features, there are three options: a) the copyright holder and/or developer updates it to newer API's and instruction sets, b) fans create programs or files to make it playable, c) it remains broken, and the only ways to make it work are emulation or use of older hardware. 1.08 is over 10 years old, but the fact that it's so compatible that it sets a standard and the lack of a widely accepted version make it still relevant today.
Than there's FreeDink - a free software impletation of Dink. It's cross-platform up to date, and close to 100% comptatible. And it has a unique feature: it can run in a 1.07 compatibility mode. This might make it even more compatible than 1.08. Well, that sounds great, why not make it the standard? Well, there are two reasons why: a) since it's free software it's components need to be under such a license (ex. GPLv2) - but not all parts of Dink are compatible with such a license! The specific parts are the sound effects and music tracks. So in order to have the tracks they would be either replaced in a full installer or need to be placed in the Dink folder manually (or just replacing the 1.08 version of the exe with the freedink exe). And b) most players still use 1.08.
And finally, there's Dink HD. That's a wierd specimen. It's the latest offical Dink version, but it has notable problems. It is also cross-platform but properitary. Wait, if this is an offical version like 1.08, but more modern, why not usee that? Because has three major problems: a)compatibility: it has many issues with D-Mod compatibility, what worked in 1.08 might not work in Dink HD; b)bugs: currently a new version that seeks to improve compatibility is in it's beta stages. But that version has it's own set of bugs that don't appear in the other versions; c)accessibility of D-Mods: the current way to install D-Mods in Dink HD is, IMO bad, and not user friendly at all.
The point of the thread: What version of Dink should be the widely accepted one? What are we going to do with 1.07 compatibility and Dink HD's problems with D-Mods? Should we implement changes to the engine itself or existing D-Mods? Or both? I would like to use this thread to discuss the future of the game and the community.
Guess what? I decided to start a topic about politics! It has a worthy goal, you see, to make everyone hate each other. That's gonna be easy. Okay, seriously I'm not such a big troll yet, so let's see the actual topic.
Back in 2006, version 1.08 got released. Some changes in that version caused some D-Mod scripts to behave incorrectly or not work at all. To my knowledge, no D-Mod was made unfinishable by these changes. But here are we now, in 2017 (man, I feel like I'm getting old, despite being young by pretty much all standards) and Dink branched into three main versions:
1.08, which is considered one of the most compatible of all versions, but is getting old and has limitations, for example being limited to one platform, Windows. And as time goes, hardware changes. And so does software - that's the more important one for many old games. As time passses, OS and hardware manufacturers start to drop certain old features that older third party software use. And for those gamess that depend on such features, there are three options: a) the copyright holder and/or developer updates it to newer API's and instruction sets, b) fans create programs or files to make it playable, c) it remains broken, and the only ways to make it work are emulation or use of older hardware. 1.08 is over 10 years old, but the fact that it's so compatible that it sets a standard and the lack of a widely accepted version make it still relevant today.
Than there's FreeDink - a free software impletation of Dink. It's cross-platform up to date, and close to 100% comptatible. And it has a unique feature: it can run in a 1.07 compatibility mode. This might make it even more compatible than 1.08. Well, that sounds great, why not make it the standard? Well, there are two reasons why: a) since it's free software it's components need to be under such a license (ex. GPLv2) - but not all parts of Dink are compatible with such a license! The specific parts are the sound effects and music tracks. So in order to have the tracks they would be either replaced in a full installer or need to be placed in the Dink folder manually (or just replacing the 1.08 version of the exe with the freedink exe). And b) most players still use 1.08.
And finally, there's Dink HD. That's a wierd specimen. It's the latest offical Dink version, but it has notable problems. It is also cross-platform but properitary. Wait, if this is an offical version like 1.08, but more modern, why not usee that? Because has three major problems: a)compatibility: it has many issues with D-Mod compatibility, what worked in 1.08 might not work in Dink HD; b)bugs: currently a new version that seeks to improve compatibility is in it's beta stages. But that version has it's own set of bugs that don't appear in the other versions; c)accessibility of D-Mods: the current way to install D-Mods in Dink HD is, IMO bad, and not user friendly at all.
The point of the thread: What version of Dink should be the widely accepted one? What are we going to do with 1.07 compatibility and Dink HD's problems with D-Mods? Should we implement changes to the engine itself or existing D-Mods? Or both? I would like to use this thread to discuss the future of the game and the community.
