SCHG How-to Talk:Guide

Categorization

After familiarising myself with the 'guide categories', I question why the entries under Sonic 2's Miscellaneous are there, as, to me, they appear to fall under Design Choices.

To be more specific, what makes them 'miscellaneous'? What makes them 'not Design Choice changes'? Why else would you change, say, the Special Stage ring requirements? It's not to fix a bug, and it isn't to allow for custom content, nor would it not have an immediate effect, as the description under S1's Extend category header. It even seems similar to Enable/Disable Tails in Certain Levels in that regard: why change that? They're for the same reasons, customisation of the original game, or for custom Zones/Special Stages.

Actually, it seems that many guides are in the wrong place. Port Knuckles, for example:

"Extending the game

These guides will prepare you to introduce new content in the game. Merely following these guides will usually have no immediate effect in the game; you will need to provide custom content."

UMM...

Also, what of outdated guides? I have a plan for a superior version of Expand the music index from $94 to $9F and Expand the music index to start at $00 instead of $80 that takes no cues from these guides. I don't want to just orphan the guides, and I can't credit their authors in mine since they had no hand whatsoever in it.

So the only logical solution I can think of is creating a separate 'Obsolete' category. I wouldn't say 'Outdated' since at least half of the guides around here are outdated (old disasms). Though I wouldn't argue against such a category for those, it'd give us a reason to update the old things to a level of presentability.

Anyhow, I just wanted to bring this by anyone reading before I go off making any relatively large changes. Anyone have any objections, suggestions? Anything? Clownacy 17:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I did not read the descriptions on the Sonic 1 categories when placing the Knuckles guide, I merely saw that it wasn't a design choice, so I figured it ought to go under extending the game. Perhaps if the "Design Choices & Features" category was split into two like Sonic 1, it would make more sense. MainMemory 17:24, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Homing Attack Guide

Hey, could somebody please write a homing attack/jump-dash guide for Sonic 1? That would be awesome! RetroUser 20:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Certain people would rather such a guide not exist, as they feel that it would be "too easy". I personally don't feel that way, but I only do Sonic 2. MainMemory 20:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok then, Sonic 2 would be fine. RetroUser 21:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and if a homing attack guide gets written for Sonic 2, it can go under the new "Adding features" category I added. RetroUser 23:12, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Since when did we make guides on command? I may just be full of pride, but that feels rude. Besides, haven't you looked around? This 'homing attack code' business has been a touchy subject for ages, and many like you have asked this same question many times before, though they've mostly gotten the same answer. It says something, that you haven't noticed, something bad. Also, you missed the Music Index expansion guide under Extending the game, you haven't removed the mention of features from the Design Choices & Features header, there are numerous Adding features-type guides that you haven't moved from Design Choices & Features, and you haven't changed the S2Howtos Template. If this is how you edit a wiki page, I'd hate to see how you edit code. No wonder you need a guide! But these guides aren't here to tell you how to do everything. Many, myself included, used and see these as an introduction. It's where you begin, with adding a basic move, enhancing a certain feature. Not where you reach the peak of Sonic hacking, where you program an alien ability that requires greater knowledge of the Sonic Engine's object system, physics, object status, collision handling, and even 68K Assembly itself! You can't condense that into a guide; instead, it must come from experience, lots of it. The only guide that the homing attack can possibly find itself in is a copy-and-paste guide, and that is unacceptable. Clownacy 03:47, 27 April 2014 (UTC)