New version update of Zen Pinball 2: v1.02

[dilzeson]

But what if it isn't already in the client?

In my web development class at college, I made a website with a nice user interface but the backend was a different story. I decided to publish and continue to work on the site (for a few years after college) and man did I ran into some major problems. Making some changes that seemed simple enough (adding more pages, changing the name, update the side links), became difficult without doing a complete overhaul on the backend of the site.

The reason why is because I never thought of making any serious changes to the site when I was designing it.

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terms in my previous post, but I was speaking from my own experiences.

No, I never doubted you or thought you were wrong. I just wanted to point out that I wasn't speaking out of blindness.

To answer your question in the beginning of your last post, it's actually in the client.
I've suggested to add a couple of buttons to two game states (main menu & in-game) so that players can open up the guide, which is already in the game client as we know it. It is a matter of just adding an extra UI button object to a vacant part of the mentioned user interfaces.

Oh and when developing a software, including dynamic website content management systems, your experience is the exact reason why anything should be built around in minds that the content management must be dynamic. Because of this, I've never encountered a problem where I had to overwrite any existing codes or go through an overhaul of the main source code when any changes had to be made for new or improved features. This is one of the main reasons why I always avoid hard-coding even if it means I have to spend a couple of extra hours to find smarter, alternative ways to code targeted algorithm. So the actual changes were made as data, not as the actual page file, and the website mainly read those data to create/publish contents. This is how exactly modern publishing systems like blogs and forums, obviously, work hence we have scripts like PHP, PERL, etc. after HTML was invented.

Anyway, like I said, I just was suggesting to make the game more enjoyable with some convenient features.
My Vita gets played by multiple users and I kinda want the local score to be easier to be accessible so it gets competitive and exciting, but that could come later.

We are all enjoying this game so far. I just hope some discount sales for the older tables so I can collect 'em all!
There are tables that I would never get unless they go on sale.

[RabidShark]

reset my score i don't care we can all get that back more or less everything as changed anyway so it would make sense to reset
but i am mad that nudges got Nerfed to 2

[shogun00]

Although now I'm a game designer, I started my career as a programmer for 7 years and based on my experience on building user interfaces for various types of applications and game clients (in C/C++, Objective-C, Java; without any 3rd party interface builders) I can tell you that once everything is finished like Zen Pinball 2, it is not very hard at all to add another UI button object to direct and change the game state into something that's already there in the client. I just wanted to point this out so that I wasn't simply assuming, "it would be easy" without any prior knowledge to programming, and this was assumed without even considering a potential fact that Zen Pinball 2 uses any external libraries to build the UI.

But what if it isn't already in the client?

In my web development class at college, I made a website with a nice user interface but the backend was a different story. I decided to publish and continue to work on the site (for a few years after college) and man did I ran into some major problems. Making some changes that seemed simple enough (adding more pages, changing the name, update the side links), became difficult without doing a complete overhaul on the backend of the site.

The reason why is because I never thought of making any serious changes to the site when I was designing it.

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terms in my previous post, but I was speaking from my own experiences.

[caper_26]

And we won't likely reset it. People will get MAD.

< < < <

[Sparkdoctor]

It seems in PS3 the "automatic" nudge has disappeared. But still missing a "Screen lock option" in Vita.

Auto nudge, albeit is much better has not disappeared completely. At least it's good enough to play on...I had returned to the ZP and Marvel games ilo the ZP2.

[dilzeson]

Indeed! If anyone took a class in programing, website development or databasing you will learn real quickly, that it's really hard to add things to the user interface once the infrastructure is completed.

You think it would be easy to apply, but the backend of the program is where it gets complicated. It's not as pretty as the user interface is to the end user.

Although now I'm a game designer, I started my career as a programmer for 7 years and based on my experience on building user interfaces for various types of applications and game clients (in C/C++, Objective-C, Java; without any 3rd party interface builders) I can tell you that once everything is finished like Zen Pinball 2, it is not very hard at all to add another UI button object to direct and change the game state into something that's already there in the client. I just wanted to point this out so that I wasn't simply assuming, "it would be easy" without any prior knowledge to programming, and this was assumed without even considering a potential fact that Zen Pinball 2 uses any external libraries to build the UI.

We certainly can't implement every single suggestion that we get. We try to fix major bugs first, and then go down the list from there. Your suggestions for the UI were great, but not exactly easy to execute on an already complex game. Please don't assume that we ignored your suggestions, were we a bigger team, we'd be able to do much more.

I understand. Thanks for the heads up.
I'm happy to know my suggestions were not ignored and that it could be considered.
That's all I needed to know. Thanks!

[Rafie]

UNGRATEFUL!!!! Just kidding, I agree, would be cool

Wooo I got nervous for a sec. I thought you were about to go Bruce Banner on me...well more like Jenny Walters!

[BarbieBobomb]

PvZ leaderboard <i>hasn't</i> reset. I suppose you couldn't really, since everyone would be in uproar about it.

I don't think it will make a massive difference. You Have Mail doesn't score a huge amount of points. If anything, it means you can activate the main missions quicker and get to the wizard mode without always having to pause for You Have Mail all the time.

And we won't likely reset it. People will get MAD.

[BarbieBobomb]

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I would really like the feature the PBFX2 engine has that lets you see if your friends have the trophies you achieved, or didn't achieve. I thought it would have been standard to put that on there. I know it's no big deal, but when I see that most of my friends have achieved what I haven't...it motivates me to "join the club" so to speak.

UNGRATEFUL!!!! Just kidding, I agree, would be cool

[shogun00]

Your suggestions for the UI were great, but not exactly easy to execute on an already complex game.

Indeed! If anyone took a class in programing, website development or databasing you will learn real quickly, that it's really hard to add things to the user interface once the infrastructure is completed.

You think it would be easy to apply, but the backend of the program is where it gets complicated. It's not as pretty as the user interface is to the end user.

[BarbieBobomb]

That's why you guys decided to ignore my suggestions?

We certainly can't implement every single suggestion that we get. We try to fix major bugs first, and then go down the list from there. Your suggestions for the UI were great, but not exactly easy to execute on an already complex game. Please don't assume that we ignored your suggestions, were we a bigger team, we'd be able to do much more.

[snakeman07]

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I would really like the feature the PBFX2 engine has that lets you see if your friends have the trophies you achieved, or didn't achieve. I thought it would have been standard to put that on there. I know it's no big deal, but when I see that most of my friends have achieved what I haven't...it motivates me to "join the club" so to speak.

+1, you have my vote!

[Rafie]

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I would really like the feature the PBFX2 engine has that lets you see if your friends have the trophies you achieved, or didn't achieve. I thought it would have been standard to put that on there. I know it's no big deal, but when I see that most of my friends have achieved what I haven't...it motivates me to "join the club" so to speak.

[BarbieBobomb]

It seems in PS3 the "automatic" nudge has disappeared. But still missing a "Screen lock option" in Vita.

There's always been a way to lock it: Go to Settings, Video, and click "screen orientation." It will do either portrait, landscape or auto. Pick either portrait or landscape to set it so it won't flip around

[Rafie]

This is really exciting news. I'm very happy about the trophy requirements for the new tables.