The SSRG-XF2 Suggestions Thread

Well, I've been asking this on the Discord/IRC a few times, so I figure I'd put this to the whole board to see and mull on.

As part of the work on the next iteration of SSRG's board, I've been tossing around (with the staff and others) the idea that we get some serious community input on where they want to see SSRG go from here. This place has been going aimlessly in the same direction for a long time, and it's past-time we really start putting in some much-needed love to revitalize the place from the stagnancy it's been riding on for awhile now. Problem is, the staff team's not exactly creative enough to pull this off on our lonesome. Besides, this place, at the heart, is about you lot. Without all of you, this place wouldn't exist.

So, what do all of you want to see change? Big things, little things, additions, removals, changes, whatever. We want to hear them all. We're not promising anything except that we'll listen and consider. Doesn't matter if you think the suggestion will be popular or not. Hell, we (or the crowd) may surprise you and like it. We just want to hear what all of you want out of this place. How you want this place to grow and develop. Let's get the gears moving again, and make this place move forward.

Bring it on, and don't disappoint. For reference, disappointment would only be if you lot don't take advantage of this opportunity, so please don't.

 

We could probably have more competitions that let people improve on their hacking skills, like the SMPS Competition in some way. For example, maybe we could have a level layout competition and/or an art competition so people can develop in their skills in those areas whilst having fun competing against others. These things sure helped me improve with SMPS. Another way we could improve is maybe to set up some regular "hacking workshop" streams or something of the sort, so everyone can learn tips, tricks and techniques to further their own projects.

 

This may be far fetched but I guess redo tutorials who has been done before but updating them to the latest disasm. Since I have been using outdated ones since I started. Just to let people hang on to new disassemblies. Also open source projects which I started aka telephone hacks would be fun!

 

Just to slip in a comment on that, there is a major problem with defining what disasm(s) to use. Your point actually has its roots in a much deeper issue. I'd be curious to hear what people think about how to move forward with what to standardize for disasms, even if that means starting from square one with them.

 

All I really can think of is a Dark Theme. SSRG blinds me.

As for disasm, at least for Sonic 1 I think starting over or at least fixing the git disasm would be best (fix it by making stuff not hard coded anymore and fix the organization of it to make more sense)

 

I have had the idea of a Community Universal Disassembly for a few years, with the aim to make every game's disassembly compatible with each other (same labelling, variables, etc) - just not managed to get it off the ground. It would be a lot of work, but quite rewarding in the end. People just need to start agreeing on things, as many people want things their way, even if it means over complicating disassemblies for other people. Not everyone is a professional programmer, the way some disassemblies are right now are outright putting people off from using them.

A lot of people prefer using the older disassemblies because they work without various nonsense, the Sonic 1 Git disassembly has been nothing but a disaster ever since it was on the SVN. Sonic 2 doesn't have much issues but the way the RAM address handling was changed can cause issues for some people.

 

one of the biggest problems with Sonic 2 and K disassemblies are that they use AS and are littered with nonstandard nonsensical garbage that pretty much forces you to use the godawful assembler and there is no hope of ever fixing that apart from starting over.

 

Which reminds me...

...Ordos! Where's Wacky Workbench? *runs*

 

Hence why I said that is far fetched. But to be fair I think it would help more people get on here then anything else.

 

Heh, yeah, we hear you on the dark color scheme, and we'll have some more options when XF2 rolls out. No more XF1 theme haphazardly slapped together with a color scheme in a few hours.

 

Speaking of disassembly rewrites...

As some of you may know, I've been working on a heavily documented and rewritten form from the Sonic 1 disassembly. While I've put it into temporary rest, I have completed most of the main engine, including the sound driver, and multiple reused subroutines. In fact, the only thing that's left to comment and document, are a huge series of objects (they take up majority of the game), and some clean up here and there. But, there is a standard put in place, how they should be commented, and so forth.

Once it's complete, would you all be interested in using it as a standard? There are a few things that need to be considered, such as macro usage, etc, but I'm sure we can come to some agreeable solution.

What I'm personally interested in, is consistency and organisation in how the code itself is presented, I'm interested in code where, you just have to look at it at a glance and can pick up almost immediately what it is. For example, the use of "pascal case" in labels, equates, and macro names:

SuchThatTheLabelHasEveryFirstLetterCapitalised

Ifitdoesnothavethisitbecomesdiffculttoseeitonfirstglance.

Another example, all RAM equate names are prefixed with "R_", all constant values are prefixed with "E_" all macros are prefixed with "M_" and so forth. Standards like this I think would benefit people more, it saves time if they can see what it is quickly, without having to squint eyes and carefully read three times to get the message, or, having to search for it to find out if it's a variable (RAM equate), constant, macro, or just a regular old label.

This might need a separate topic of its own, but, I'd be interested in providing something when it's ready, to give you all a head start at least.

 

Come on, people. I know you lot have more in you! Suggest away! And yes, we're definitely discussing a possible new disassembly project. Markey's got a definite point about the necessity of standardization, and it would probably be good to have a stewarding team responsible for standardizing formatting so that we don't have a disjointed mess.

 

i have ideas but I've already told them elsewhere, unless you want me to be a broken record for you once again?

 

Yes, please be a broken record again.

 

If you've said it somewhere else before, please do put it down here as well, because knowing me, I'll have forgotten it. Not trying to say anything about anyone, my memory's just flaky as shit.

 

Standardization will always be an issue regardless, because what some people consider a great standard might be an awful nightmare to others. A great example is that some people love the Git disassemblies, whereas others think they are shit to work with. The only thing that can be standardized with minimal complaints really are the label names and the addressing naming structure for RAM and such. When it comes to macros, splitting data and all that sort of thing, you'll never please everyone and you'll be pissing in the wind. It's the reason my S2 disassembly is sat half completed, because the feedback I was getting back was clashing too much to make informed decisions. In the end, I left it as something I was happy to work with and nothing else.

By sheer coincidence, I had the same idea as Markey where I was splitting all the major data for zones and grouping together in their own folder once split, and I even gave each object it's own folder containing all the code, mappings, art and such relevant to it. If people are interested I'll continue it, but I've got a feeling the reception will be as mixed as it is now with our current ones.

 

I have a suggestion...remove the ability for people to change their usernames on the fly. While having a username history can help to keep track of who's who, it becomes bothersome when people abuse the feature constantly. As a compromise, make it so users can request staff or admins to change their usernames as the higher-ups see fit.

 

I think that's actually an awful idea. Because then you'd get to the point where you won't be able to change usernames at all like on Retro.

As for more suggestions, decided to go all out and suggest everything that comes to mind:

• Remove the subforums for approved utilties and tutorials (moving all threads into the regular subforum), because no one moves threads to it anymore and most of the guides there have broken formatting anyways.
• Turn the Mod Database Subforum into a finished hack subforum. Where if your hack is beatable from start to finish and the mods thinks it's ready then your hack goes into there. This will showcase the finished hacks better. Also moving it out of Submissions and to the front page under SSRG Projects would probably be good also.
• Improved search that would let you search for things like "Sonic CD" and "Sonic 1/2/3" with support for "" which means search for full phrase.
• Ability to disable other people's sigs on a individual basis. In case someone has a completely ridiculous sig and the staff haven't gotten to it yet.
• Have a counter for new posts today, last hour.
• Site events that happen every once in a while like holiday events.

That's all I can think of. I know many are unlikely but better to say something at all really.