leileilol wrote:

The thing is, Youtube's a very powerful tool, and as a showrunner, you bear the responsibility of having an opinion that many younger fans would find and treat as the authority.

This is part of the reason why I have an "Additional Information and Corrections" section in the video description of EVERY ADG episode because I'm very liable to make mistakes, anyone would be, so there needs to be a way to correct them after the fact and with YouTube, that's my only option really.

The EXTREME IRONY being that NOT correcting myself and letting the comments section fill up with people making the corrections themselves multiple times over would improve my positioning in YouTube's algorithms. I don't wanna be THAT guy though. :P

krcroft wrote:

Rediculous disputable opinions are certainly more harm than good.

In the grand scheme where everyone is factored in, yes. For the individual creating said content on YouTube, nope. The system's designed in such a way that being like that gets you more comments, more hits, better exposure, and ultimately, MUCH more ad revenue. My recommended videos are often FILLED with clickbaity-type stuff getting hundreds of thousands of hits on topics which, quite frankly, could be answered in 10 seconds with an answer that's completely uninteresting. Stooping that low would go against my own morals and ethics though so you're never going to see me do that. (Unless I went clinically insane or something.)

I always try to keep in mind too that opinions are subjective and that it's important to respect that certain people are going to like certain things where other people don't. It's a big part of why I don't attach numerical scores to my reviews. :P

krcroft wrote:

Given the feedback, I suspect Kris would additionally coordinate with the various build authors regarding common or recommended settings as well.

AFAIK, no such database exists and there's kinda not a really good reason for it to.

Every version of DOSBox out there has default settings it can save to a brand new config file. Heck, the way programming works it's pretty much impossible NOT to have default settings. (I mean, you technically could, but your program would probably be crashtacular.) I would assume the authors have a good understanding of what the best defaults are. I'd say about three out of every four games I've covered on ADG either work perfectly fine with the defaults or only require one or two changes, almost always to the cycles setting.

Alternatively, there's the compatibility list on the DOSBox website which is more-so just a measure of how well particular games function in each version of DOSBox, but people can post their recommended settings in there too. Having that work as a community-driven effort makes the most sense. :B

Well said, and I agree; your integrity shows in your content!

Regarding recommended settings, I'm only mentioning this so authors can give you a heads up as to any other "big levers" to mention or test in your next video, like was mentioned in this comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ftSujKFr20&l … gLji4P1B4AaABAg

Edit: sorry, I'm not sure if that link actually drills down to the intended comment (worked on my desktop but not on my phone). Comment was about how -X defaults to normal core instead of dynamic to prioritize cycle-rate accuracy.

krcroft wrote:

Edit: sorry, I'm not sure if that link actually drills down to the intended comment (worked on my desktop but not on my phone). Comment was about how -X defaults to normal core instead of dynamic to prioritize cycle-rate accuracy.

I've already spoken with DOSBox-X's author about this one because altering "auto" behaviour on different branches seems like a bad practice, as it creates a situation where a particular setting shared by both branches may need to be set differently between the two for different games.

The way "auto" is supposed to work for the core is to stick with the normal core most of the time but switch into dynamic if 32-bit protected mode is engaged. I've recommended altering X's behaviour to go back to doing that for sake of consistency. :B

leileilol wrote:

The thing is, Youtube's a very powerful tool, and as a showrunner, you bear the responsibility of having an opinion that many younger fans would find and treat as the authority. I've had situations where my first-hand experiences were disputed by someone parroting misinformation from a DFRetro video before.

What misinformation?
I usually have high respect for Digital Foundry, but I get the feeling myself that their PC-oriented analyses, especially the retro ones, fall somewhat short.

Ancient DOS Games Pro 9 - Standard Galactic Alphabet - Commander Keen is online!

OK yeah, making a video on this topic is in a way, entirely pointless, as anyone can just type in "Standard Galactic Alphabet" in an image search and bam, dozens of translation keys right away. :P

But, that's not the point of an ADG Pro video. The point is to try and figure stuff out on our own and come to our own conclusions, since many of the resources which exist now DIDN'T back when these old DOS games were relevant! Thus in this video, we attempt to decipher the Standard Galactic Alphabet without external assistance, then use it to figure out what everything in the original trilogy says... finding out some curious pieces of info along the way! :o

Ancient DOS Games Mod 5 - Level Editing - Descent 1 & 2 is online!

The fact that Descent is able to do what it did way back in 1994 is pretty impressive, given the limited power of computer systems and the kinds of 3D and texture mapping the engine was pulling off. Well, part of how it was able to make this work with any level of performance was by making the levels entirely out of CUBES! 8O

Now, not cubes in a Minecraft sense where they represent perfectly symmetrical, solid boxes, rather instead, cubes of any shape or size which represent the interior space of the levels that you fly within, with matching cube sides connected to form the portals tracked internally to determine what to render and what not to.

This video is less a tutorial and more an overview of how to get started with Descent and Descent II level editing, as well as tips on using the Descent Level Editor (DLE), with the end result being a fully functional level you can download from the video description over on YouTube! :D

Great episode! As soon as you said “cubes” in the last one, I knew what game it was gonna be, but it was fun to watch all the wrong guesses in the comments (to be fair, Tomb Raider 1-2 was also a pretty good guess.)

I'll leave a LONG comment here, as these games WERE my jam back in the day & I was pretty big into the whole modding scene when they were current. Actually it was my first real foray into a wider modding community, and my first experience with one having a complete, utter implosion & meltdown over community drama a few years later. (But that’s all water under the bridge now - I hope - people can carry on stupid grudges over bullshit on the internet for far longer than I ever would have imagined!)

A while ago I posted a big pack of my unreleased/unfinished Descent 1 maps on here - and then promptly took it down because I decided I wanted to finish a few of them and put together a mini mission for people to play. 😉 So yeah, I dusted off all my old editors and started messing around with some 20-year-old maps again. The thing’s actually done now, but I’m still tidying up the MIDI music. If you or anyone wants to try a “release candidate -1” and give me some feedback on how it plays, shoot me a PM! Once it’s out there it’ll be the first thing I’ve completed for this game in about 19 years, so that’ll be pretty cool to have done.

I tried to do the same thing for Descent 2 quite a few years ago, but still didn’t finish [the third iteration of] my long-unfinished magnum opus campaign I started in, like, 1997. I also made about 10x more content for D2 than D1 back in the day, so going through & sorting it all ended up being a big slog.

What the hell - just to demonstrate how far you can push the cube-based geometry engine, here’s the first map of said Descent 2 campaign I was working on. Please do NOT distribute this beyond here just yet! It’s still totally unfinished (no robots, no exit) and it has a bunch of problems caused by me straining the geometry engine way beyond what it was meant to do, but I think it looks pretty cool. This link is only gonna be up for a few days, so grab it now if you want to take a look. (There’s custom MIDI music in there too but don’t expect it to work on OPL3.)

(The D1 set looks nothing like this, and is a lot more conventional - and shorter.)

Incidentally I’m still using all my 100% original-era tools - DMB2, Devil 2.2, DTX, BriefEd, Hoggle, etc. I’ve mostly been play-testing on Dxx-Rebirth (0.56 on Win98, 0.58 on XP) but all my stuff should be 100% vanilla-compatible too. The re-learning curve for those editors was surprisingly low.

--

Comments on the ADG episode itself: that “auto centering” behavior is part of the reason I never migrated to DLE - it makes far too many assumptions about what you want to do, and then does them without asking (even some things that break compatibility with legacy DOS D1/D2 if you’re not careful.) The creator of DLE is also the creator of the very-non-vanilla D2X-XL source port, and I kinda get the impression he doesn't care about any issues you have if you're not using HIS port. I remember him being a pretty caustic & argumentative figure from the old mailing lists & forums, but maybe he's mellowed out.

(That said, original DMB2 and DEVIL also have PLENTY of quirks and severe limitations, being 20-year-old software.)

Having robots drop red keys in D1 should be completely fine, I did it lots of times, even in one of my recent maps. It seems to work everywhere, and none of my editors report any problems, so maybe this is an issue DLE has. Several original maps that shipped with the game had robots dropping keys, although I don’t remember if the red one was an exception.

Getting the escape sequence to work requires a few extra files in the HOG, including some parameters set in a text file which then needs to be converted to “binary text” (TXB - same as a briefing.) You also have to structure the exit tunnel a certain way (the player needs to enter and exit the final cube on the right sides & orientation.) It’s a little fiddly, and those parameters aren’t very well documented, but there’s plenty of examples around.

It’s worth noting that Overload uses a cube-based engine very much on purpose (look at who the devs were!) and comes with its own editor. I’ve fired it up a few times and it seemed awfully familiar from the get go. Might have to make something one of these days...

@Gemini: really enjoying the ADG MOD & PRO series! Hope you continue them for next year. It’s great content & it’s nice to see stuff that’s not really covered on other gaming channels.

I wonder when Kris will do a video on making Unreal maps.

I could go into ridiculous detail about that having done it for five plus years...

DracoNihil wrote:

I wonder when Kris will do a video on making Unreal maps.

I assume you mean the later first person shooters and not the original Unreal from 1991? Probably not anytime soon. I didn't play anything related to those games until well past their prime and only touched level editing a little, though enough to know that it works on the principle of boolean subtraction, where your level starts as one massive, infinite expanse of solid material and you essentially cut out the interior of your level using various shapes coupled with a boolean subtraction algorithm.

xjas wrote:

@Gemini: really enjoying the ADG MOD & PRO series! Hope you continue them for next year. It’s great content & it’s nice to see stuff that’s not really covered on other gaming channels.

The whole reason for starting the Pro and Mod videos was to be able to go back to the games I enjoy the most and tinker with them more, and the view counts for them so far suggest that I should continue making them, so I will! :D

And yes, I read the entire length of your comment here, just don't have anything else to say in response... though that is definitely a long time to be making a single pack of levels for... :o

Gemini000 wrote:

though enough to know that it works on the principle of boolean subtraction, where your level starts as one massive, infinite expanse of solid material and you essentially cut out the interior of your level using various shapes coupled with a boolean subtraction algorithm.

Funny thing about that. Unreal originally was additive and subtractive. The default mode was additive, and towards the later development cycles it was changed to subtractive and the additive mode "silently disappeared" so the engine remained subtractive until Unreal Engine 3 and above where the additive mode returned, but then the subtractive mode was the one to disappear suddenly.

Despite being in additive mode originally, the CSG operations worked the same, except the entire world started as "carved out" rather than "filled in". So if you fell through the level, you'd technically fall forever.

DracoNihil wrote:

Funny thing about that. Unreal originally was additive and subtractive. The default mode was additive, and towards the later development cycles it was changed to subtractive and the additive mode "silently disappeared" so the engine remained subtractive until Unreal Engine 3 and above where the additive mode returned, but then the subtractive mode was the one to disappear suddenly.

So basically, the devs couldn't decide how they wanted their worlds to be constructed and just tried everything. ;D

Ancient DOS Games Pro 10: Spell Effects - TES II: Daggerfall is online!

I find it very unusual that there's so little information about Daggerfall's spell effects online and mostly instead, just a lot of assumptions or casual copying of what the game says about the effects without any attempt to explain what the effects really do, so I felt going through all 37 of them to try and discern what they were ACTUALLY doing was a good idea... and yeah, found out a lot of things about Daggerfall's spells I either didn't know about, that other people didn't know about, or were flat out WRONG from the sources I did find with any info on this stuff! :O

And yeah, 37 spell effects makes for kind of a long video... ^_^;

Most of these well known exploits with Daggerfall will be fixed in the "Daggerfall Unity" project, so good choice using the original Daggerfall for this.

I kinda wonder with all the "Patches" Bethesda ended up releasing for the game, if the spell effects changed significantly from patch to patch, maybe fixing one thing broke several others?

DracoNihil wrote:

I kinda wonder with all the "Patches" Bethesda ended up releasing for the game, if the spell effects changed significantly from patch to patch, maybe fixing one thing broke several others?

When the game was first released, some spell effects simply crashed the game instantly when attempted. :P

Gemini000 wrote:

some spell effects simply crashed the game instantly when attempted. 😜

Nice!

I know the Wabbajack effect loves to crash the game a lot too, even on the latest patch.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 260 - Microsoft Adventure is online!

I know I said once before I wouldn't normally be covering text adventures on the show, but I had to make an exception for this one once one of my fans sent me a copy because there was a ton of detail to go into outside of the game itself, not just the media and manual but the history as well, given that this is primarily just a port of Colossal Cave Adventure, the first piece of electronic, interactive fiction, ever conceived! :O

A bit late to the party, and youtube will bury my comment, so I'll ask here: is there a specific reason you chose VGA mode for this footage? After all, when this game came out the only options were CGA and MDA. That may sound like an unhealthy degree of splitting hairs, but I can't be the only one who finds 40-column VGA text to be an eyestrain-inducing mess. 😉

Thoroughly enjoyed the in-depth coverage, regardless!

VileRancour wrote:

A bit late to the party, and youtube will bury my comment, so I'll ask here: is there a specific reason you chose VGA mode for this footage? After all, when this game came out the only options were CGA and MDA. That may sound like an unhealthy degree of splitting hairs, but I can't be the only one who finds 40-column VGA text to be an eyestrain-inducing mess. ;)

I actually debated with myself prior to starting recording if I should go with CGA or not for sake of the font. I ultimately decided against though there wasn't really any concrete reason, just opinionated ones. I don't mind the 40-column font in VGA and it's higher resolution than what you'd get on a CGA monitor and similar to what you'd get with an MDA, so I went that route. Really though, either would've worked. :B

Ancient DOS Games Filler #79 - End of 2019 Update is online!

This is just a quick update to talk about what to expect for the rest of the year as ADG goes on its usual two-month hiatus and also to discuss a few things which came up over the course of the year and what to expect for 2020! See you all again in January! (Or in Shovelware Diggers or my Sunday livestreams as those will continue throughout the next two months!)

Ancient DOS Games Episode 261 - Captain Comic II: Fractured Reality is online!

Happy New Year, everyone! I decided to kick off the next set of ADG vids with a game I thought I would enjoy a bunch given what I'd seen of screenshots and how much I liked the original game... only to discover that same feeling Japanese children had going from the original Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. 2... the increase in difficulty is INSANE. o_o;

That said though, the difficulty itself, mostly due to the level design, was the only major issue really, so it's one of those things you can adapt to with enough practice, so that alone doesn't make the game bad, just frustrating on the first run through. :P

...also got to show the box and all its contents and I even accidentally encountered something few legitimate owners of the game will have ever seen! :o