Global Events

[Roseweave]

I just don't understand how you can create large, complex events without Global Qualifiers. As far as I can see it requires an awful lot of extremely inefficient code re-use.

The game I was making is still on pause because I just can't create such a game with multiple levels with such an incredible limitation.

When will this feature be added? Do Clickteam realise how urgent it is? I feel really let down, I bought 3 versions of Multimedia fusion and with 2 I can't even glitch the events, I feel like I've wasted my money until it's implemented.

I don't understand why every second thread isn't about this. What are people doing instead?

[Bernie]

Support for Qualifiers in the Global Events would be a great feature. It's been mentioned quite often on this forum but unfortunately I don't know if this will ever be added.

As a sort of workaround, you could look into running your whole game inside a single frame. Recent MMF2 updates make it somewhat easy to code level/area editors.

I used to work around this by testing the hell out of my code, adding every feature in a test frame and only then I'd proceed to add new frames. That can be quite tough and annoying.

[Roseweave]

Didn't it work in the Games Factory?

Not having level editors is removing one of the features I bought MMF for... also having all the code in a single frame for ALL frames would get so very long.

I'm just really angry about this. I can't see any excuses, they've had several years to get this right, not to mention enough money for in my opinion fairly minor(yet still essential in terms of fixing bugs) updates.

[Nifflas]

When will this feature be added? Do Clickteam realise how urgent it is? I feel really let down, I bought 3 versions of Multimedia fusion and with 2 I can't even glitch the events, I feel like I've wasted my money until it's implemented.

I can definitely see why this feature would be so useful and I really hope it will be a part of MMF3. However, the whole global qualifier thing in MMF1 wasn't intended, a bug caused it to be possible. That bug often caused instability, so I'm happy it was removed. I personally don't feel let down as I checked out what I got before I ordered MMF2 - a demo was available after all. I can't see how this was clickteam's fault.

Still, of course you can create complex stuff without global qualifiers. The method of adding each of your levels to different frames is only a method that's normally used until you learn to create your own custom level format and build the entire gameplay into a single frame. When you learn that, the whole need for global qualifiers won't even be a problem for you, and setting up a simple editor and level 'drawing' system shouldn't have to take more than a few hours to days (depending on the complexity of your game) which is very reasonable.

Consider learning that. It's a far better option than building each level into a separate frame - even if global qualifiers was supported.

Here's a simple level editor demonstration file I once created.

[Roseweave]

I've already create some of the levels for my game though - it would be awkward to change it now.

I don't have a good head for creating level editors. I get confused by certain things very easily. Otherwise I probably would have done my games in C using some kind of API, or one of the simple gaming languages like Blitzbasic. Animations, etc. are a lot easier to code than level editors.

[Roseweave]

I was thinking of setting up a small fund to convince extension developers to make an object that can do this(though it sounds like an unusual approach, read my thread in the Extensions forum).

Would anyone be interested in donating to it, and could we get someone trustworthy to keep the funds in one place?
If we could get together $50 or so it might be a good incentive for someone to get some simple method done quickly...

[Roseweave]

[Harvy]

I've posted on this multiple times (years ago I think).
The "put everything in one level and make your own level editor" workaround can work, but isn't a great solution. First, it leaves you with all the complexity of every level combined into one set of events and objects. You lose out on the ability to separate out things that are specific to levels (obviously). For example, a boss appears in only one level, and requires 12 objects and 30 events. Now maybe we have ten bosses in the game. We'd rather not include all those events and objects in the same frame.

Second, you lose most of the power of MMF2's frame editor! The frame editor is supposed to function as a level editor (as it has since KnP). Part of the attraction of Klik products is supposed to be that you don't have to waste time, as a programmer would, creating editors for everything. Besides, if you make your own editor, it's going to have a vastly reduced feature set compared to MMF2's frame editor.

Now, I don't agree with Roseweave's rather abrasive tone, but I do think much more effort should be put towards fixing this bug (or implementing the "feature" of combining qualifiers and global events in the same app). Frankly, I care more about that than either HWA or Java exporting. I love Klik products and have used them since Klik & Play, but as a programmer (and a user in general) I just can't stomach the thought of trying to do a large-scale app without this feature.

Incidentally, I did a medium-sized game in MMF2, but I used the "copy all the events into every frame any time you change them" method. Essentially this workaround is:
1) Make levels using the frame editor, as you normally would
2) Make a "common events" group that contains all your global events, but they are not "global" by MMF2's definition.
3) Edit these only in the last frame.
4) Any time you build the game, want to test it, etc. other than the last frame (most recently edited), copy the "common events" group into every other frame. It's tedious, but with keyboard shortcuts you can do it.
5) Now each frame has "Common Events" and "Common Events (2)". Delete the first group (old events).

Hey, it works, but it's extremely annoying. So annoying that I haven't made any games since. Here's my post lobbying once again for global events with qualifiers (and better qualifier support in general).

[Roseweave]

Yes, the problem with the level editor work around is that you have too much complexity all in the same frame. With real programming languages and scripting based game makers you can take a much more modular approach and seperate things out In MMF it gets messy no matter what you do.

I think people need to realise that a lot of the games using custom level editors are usually fairly simple, old school games.The majority of games created with MMF are, probably because of this.

There's nothing wrong with it(though personally I get bored with most MMF games I used to love playing Klik games but it's generally the same archetypes over and over at this stage), but not everyone is going to be making a game that won't get endlessly confusing - it would end up better coding a level editor outside of MMF, which defeats half the point of it. For me the point of MMF is to allow me to put my imagination more directly into my game without having to spend too much time working on method.

My game is pretty complex and there are many events that are hard to separate like that.

[Nifflas]

With real programming languages and scripting based game makers you can take a much more modular approach and seperate things out In MMF it gets messy no matter what you do.

I have plenty of experience with this as I programmed Knytt Stories, and if you are skilled enough it does not get the slightest bit messy or confusing. You can only really speak for what you'd be able to do yourself, but you can't say it's impossible to do it in a nice and clean way for everyone. To me, editors have in fact had the opposite effect. It makes the whole game programming simpler and cleaner, not the other way around.

Thing is, I do agree more than 200% that we need global events though, we're just recommending a solution that works until Clickteam has added that. I can't do anything about it anyway.

The "put everything in one level and make your own level editor" workaround can work, but isn't a great solution. First, it leaves you with all the complexity of every level combined into one set of events and objects. You lose out on the ability to separate out things that are specific to levels (obviously). For example, a boss appears in only one level, and requires 12 objects and 30 events. Now maybe we have ten bosses in the game. We'd rather not include all those events and objects in the same frame.

My solution to this have been to embed each object's events into it's behaviours, and disable/enable the group that contain it's control code whenever the object is present or not. I even have a system for child objects such as particles. That way, it's easy for a single frame to handle even many hundreds of different objects, each with it's own code, because not a single event is run when it's not needed. It even looks and feels uncluttered, since you open each object's behaviour to find it's own code. MMF2 is far better with this than most people think.

Second, you lose most of the power of MMF2's frame editor! The frame editor is supposed to function as a level editor (as it has since KnP). Part of the attraction of Klik products is supposed to be that you don't have to waste time, as a programmer would, creating editors for everything. Besides, if you make your own editor, it's going to have a vastly reduced feature set compared to MMF2's frame editor.

That's both true and false.

1: A custom level level editor specifically made for the game can often be a lot faster to work with than MMF2's own frame editor, since it's specifically built for the game's features.

2: When you deal with very advanced things, such as physics where you need to combine polygons and physical shapes with objects, it's more or less impossible with MMF2's own frame editor. My current project "Night Game" requires a specialized tool (made in MMF2), it would have been impossible to create the game otherwise. It's It's not like a more limited version of MMF2's frame editor, it's rather the opposite; it allows you to draw and assign physical shapes to graphical objects, link objects together with joins, and many other complex things. You can create complicated machines and vehicles built out of tons of parts. You can't do that in MMF2's frame editor, not as easy as with my editor at least.

Okey, again, this ain't easy and global events and qualifiers would be a great addition which would make life easier for tons of users. I do agree about the fact that we really need the feature that's requested here, the reason of this response is that I think you're pointing out limitations and boundaries with MMF2 that aren't really there.