Back when SRB2 1.0 came out, lots of brand new things were added, and most people didn't know how they worked. The development team was essentially responsible for publishing the information, even if clumsily. a441 had written a map making guide (for WadAuthor, no less), which was very clear on explaining how the level format worked. SSNTails made a custom character tutorial, with the incomplete example wad, Zim, ending up in a few releases of the game. Even Mystic documented the inner workings of SOCs, SRB2's new scripting language, in the MAINCFG of his mod, Mystic Realm.
But, to me, most importantly of all, there was a gigantic document detailing every single sector, linedef and thing type within the game and, for almost all of them, intricate descriptions of their details, functionality, and particular quirks. It was called the Specials Reference document, and it was "designed to be the ultimate reference for effects used in SRB2." How else were people supposed to know what a Boom Push/Pull thing was? There were still lots of stuff undocumented, like Zoom Tubes, Linedef Executors and NiGHTS mode in general. People had to headbutt the developers and see what would fall out, which is somewhat what Digiku had to do to SSNTails in order to make Botanic Serenity, later even making a full fledged tutorial on the game mode. Thanks, Digi :D
In late 2005, Spazzo coaxed Hotdog003 into making a wadding information repository for SRB2, in form of a Wiki. Like the tasteful chap he is it went through the names TNG2W (The Newbie's Guide to Wadding, or some similar tripe), STARS (which by now I honestly don't have a clue what meant), before steadying at the much more pleasant and descriptive "SRB2 Wiki". People (read: Digiku, DarkWarrior and SonicMaster) began adding stuff to it, essentially porting the existing content carbon-copy into a more streamlined, organized format, while other people wrote tutorials and guides of dubious quality. The wiki also expanded its horizon, and began encompassing all information about SRB2, and not only pertaining to its modification.
Up until 2009, all the releases of SRB2 were essentially bug fixes and polishing of existing content, so all the information was fairly relevant throughout. Some corrections here and there, but mostly everything still applied. That is, until SRB2 2.0 hit the streets. Not only did it reorganize almost every single resource in the game, it changed how a lot of things worked, and added numerous features, such as new sector, linedef and thing types, new SOC actions and even whole new architectures of special effects, such as new linedef executors, zoom tubes (which were never officially documented), rope hangs, slides, reverse gravity, thing scaling, and even polyobjects.
The bad part? None of these features were officially documented. The developers are the only ones who hold the information, and apart from asking them, all people can do is look at how the effects are used in the official maps, or go pry away at the source code. The former is what most people have been doing, which has resulted in poor excuses for tutorials which amount to nothing more than copy-paste jobs and laundry lists of steps to take instead of actually explaining what everything is doing. Some things aren't even detailed, such as the new bosses' behavior, polyobject movement routines like the flags in CEZ2, and the entirety of the laser miniboss in ERZ2.
So, what I ask is: what happened? Why have the developers stopped publishing documentation on the features they create since the Editing section of the website was removed in favor of the SRB2 Wiki? I feel we desperately need a new Specials Reference Document, and we need it badly.
But, to me, most importantly of all, there was a gigantic document detailing every single sector, linedef and thing type within the game and, for almost all of them, intricate descriptions of their details, functionality, and particular quirks. It was called the Specials Reference document, and it was "designed to be the ultimate reference for effects used in SRB2." How else were people supposed to know what a Boom Push/Pull thing was? There were still lots of stuff undocumented, like Zoom Tubes, Linedef Executors and NiGHTS mode in general. People had to headbutt the developers and see what would fall out, which is somewhat what Digiku had to do to SSNTails in order to make Botanic Serenity, later even making a full fledged tutorial on the game mode. Thanks, Digi :D
In late 2005, Spazzo coaxed Hotdog003 into making a wadding information repository for SRB2, in form of a Wiki. Like the tasteful chap he is it went through the names TNG2W (The Newbie's Guide to Wadding, or some similar tripe), STARS (which by now I honestly don't have a clue what meant), before steadying at the much more pleasant and descriptive "SRB2 Wiki". People (read: Digiku, DarkWarrior and SonicMaster) began adding stuff to it, essentially porting the existing content carbon-copy into a more streamlined, organized format, while other people wrote tutorials and guides of dubious quality. The wiki also expanded its horizon, and began encompassing all information about SRB2, and not only pertaining to its modification.
Up until 2009, all the releases of SRB2 were essentially bug fixes and polishing of existing content, so all the information was fairly relevant throughout. Some corrections here and there, but mostly everything still applied. That is, until SRB2 2.0 hit the streets. Not only did it reorganize almost every single resource in the game, it changed how a lot of things worked, and added numerous features, such as new sector, linedef and thing types, new SOC actions and even whole new architectures of special effects, such as new linedef executors, zoom tubes (which were never officially documented), rope hangs, slides, reverse gravity, thing scaling, and even polyobjects.
The bad part? None of these features were officially documented. The developers are the only ones who hold the information, and apart from asking them, all people can do is look at how the effects are used in the official maps, or go pry away at the source code. The former is what most people have been doing, which has resulted in poor excuses for tutorials which amount to nothing more than copy-paste jobs and laundry lists of steps to take instead of actually explaining what everything is doing. Some things aren't even detailed, such as the new bosses' behavior, polyobject movement routines like the flags in CEZ2, and the entirety of the laser miniboss in ERZ2.
So, what I ask is: what happened? Why have the developers stopped publishing documentation on the features they create since the Editing section of the website was removed in favor of the SRB2 Wiki? I feel we desperately need a new Specials Reference Document, and we need it badly.
