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Also, what of outdated guides?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 I wouldn't say 'Outdated' since at least half of the guides around here are outdated (old disasms).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)

Okay, I wasn't demanding that a guide be written, I was simply asking about it and stating that it was a new feature and could go there if it ever did get written, which now isn't going to happen, I can see. I understand now what you mean about the music expansion guide, but the fact that you have to provide your own music was on my mind. RetroUser 15:55, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

If I can say anything, I meant nothing malicious by removing your category, it's nice to see someone making changes around here, but as I was following up on my changes mentioned in the above 'Categorization' section, I had a very difficult time distinguishing feature from alternate design choice. For example, the Air Speed Cap Removal guide, was it a feature that you could exceed a certain speed whilst airborne, or was it changing the design choice of having it limited? One of the few reasons I thought for the Expansion-worthy guide going under Sound Features was that this was the case with the Sonic 1 guide, though looking at it now, there's a sound driver bugfix in the Bugfix category, and not in the Sound Features one. Since the drivers are the same thing, only in different games, I'm thinking of adding a separate group, solely for the 68K sound driver. It'd get very messy having a Sonic 2 variant of every guide for the S1 sound driver thanks to the Clone Driver, and only worsened when I begin adding more guides for the thing. Clownacy 15:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I guess I wouldn't have many objections (if any) for a section solely on the driver, as things wouldn't have to be spread out as much, and there would be less debate about where a guide for it would go. Also, I'd like to thank you for stating that you meant no harm when removing my category, and I'd like to say that I was only trying to make things easier by adding new sections. I didn't mean to have things so messed up, and I'll try to be more careful in the future. RetroUser 00:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Clone Driver 2.1.2 Setup Guide

Clownancy,

Ok, so I've downloaded and checked out the Sonic 2 Clone Driver 2.1.2, and I find it to be awesome, but is there a setup tutorial out there, or are you working on that? RetroUser 23:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That's being asked here? There's one right on the thread's first post, right underneath the download. At some point, I plan to edit this guide to support it. Right now, I don't really want to. I'll probably have to have the page's name changed and completely rewrite it... Actually, I think I'll just move it to the proposed 'Obsolete' category and make a brand new page. Speaking of obsolete, I'm surprised no one's noticed that the Enigma Credits guide is broken: The download links are external, and the host has long since deleted the files. Flamewing's S2 Special Stage DPLC guide appears to be broken also, but in a different way, in that I can't get it to work, though that could just be me. It's been a while since I last tried, and that was before I got familiar with DPLCs and mappings, so I'll give it another shot. Don't know what to do with the Enigma Credits, I can't find a mirror to the files, which leaves it a dead guide. Wait a minute... Clown-nancy?! Clownacy 18:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Whoops! Guess I saw the name incorrectly...sorry =/ RetroUser 23:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It's Clown + Lunacy, pronounced "Cloonacy". Think "Clown" pronounced with a strong accent (Scottish?). A recent message from a Clone Driver V2 (I need to find a way to abbreviate this thing) user gave me an idea to make the Driver update-friendly, the guide will also contain a 'how to update' section. Going back for a minute, by "setup" you meant "installation", right? How are you signing your posts, anyway? The wiki doesn't seem to like it, I have to keep fixing it. Clownacy 08:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, my signature should be fixed, but before now, I would click on the "Treat signature as wikitext (without an automatic link)" box and use html code or whatever to color it and give it a font (think FrozenNitrogen). What do you mean by the wiki not liking it, though? Would it just show weird code? Also, as for the guide, yes, I mean installation, however, when I went to the topic to download the driver, I didn't remember seeing the guide, so I just had to ask that question without checking it again. -RetroUser 19:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)