I'm not saying people are wrong to want better tools. I'm saying that a lot of really good stuff already exists, and not enough people utilize the new stuff that has been developed because they think officially released software (GraalEditor, Graalshop, etc.) is the only thing that exists.

not everyone is aware with everything that has been created by players and posted in the official forums/graal wikis. Going off on people aint really helping the situation. If you know where some of these player made tools are it would help more if you link them the sources.

Just remember that the next generations success depends greatly on the generation they're replacing. Pc developers had guys like fp4 to guide them while the iphone developers dont really have anyone.

I'm venting at no one in particular. Relax. :p

Anyway, some users who have a decent working knowledge of a lot of the tools out there think they can do better by working on stuff in other languages, claiming they can make something way better, and often show up again empty-handed or with really primitive projects when they could have just stuck with scripting on Graal and learned a lot about more advanced concepts that carry over into other languages instead.

(I didn't quite write that in on my last post because I was kind of in a rush this morning, but really, I've already written it a few times already, in different ways.)

i understand where you coming from and what you mean. i was referring to your comment about player made tools. A lot of people here could probably benefit from them, but I doubt they would know where to find them.

Graphics library work is probably the hardest thing I've encountered. For something like Graal (let me limit this to clientside work for now), you need to create file formats for levels, player/NPC animations, and general state. You need to write code that interprets those files. You need to write code for systems that control animations and level transitions. You need to write code that controls movement and hit detection. You need to write code that interprets the controls the player uses (e.g. keyboard, mouse). You need to build levels and graphics. You need to provide purpose to the game's environment, be it through scripts for puzzles or battles. You need to write controllers for when those scripts are initiated.

Then consider the layer of player communications and interactions in an online game. It has to have a server. Your server can be the relay point, or players can form connections to one another via protocols to help speed things up. You have to design actual protocols.

With Graal I've written higher-level scripts for hit-detection, movement systems, camera systems, animation systems, input systems, etc. I've created ganis, levels and graphics. Aside, I've written my own file formats and interpreters for them. I've done socket programming over TCP. I've written simple programming language interpreters. Probably the hardest problem with all of it is getting it all to work together efficiently. It takes a lot of time.

I typically work with text editors that provide syntax highlighting and nothing more. There's a lot that already exists that can be improved upon. The biggest hurdle is probably reliable scripting.