Let's talk about Zone Doctor.

I saw a thread from a few months back and it made me think about the program and that it is disappointing to me that it did not take off as much as I feel it should have.  It definitely has some quirks and bugs but I feel like it has helped me as far as editing is concerned and with learning the pointers and commands pretty well.  I think it is good to learn to event edit manually but this is a tool that is very usable to edit events albeit you have to do things a certain way to avoid bugs.  In the end I believe that using the program has made things faster for me personally.

I tried quite a while ago to create a guide but that kind of fell through...my question is do you guys want a guide? I have alot more time on my hands and I can work something out if people want it. I have used the program alot so I have worked out alot of quirks of the program.

In any case, if anyone has any questions about the editor let me know.

I'm not sure if I'll ever feel completely comfortable using it, but a thread like this could be handy for the people who are new and don't want to dive into the hex right away. When people are asking about Zone Doctor and why it's causing problems I'd prefer to be able to point them here rather than saying "Zone Doctor is scary, do things manually".

Personally I kept running into limits with what ZoneDoctor would let me do, or something extremely simple (even by newbie standards) to do in hex that required workarounds in ZoneDoctor.

I admire the program, but I still say its bad to get dependant on it due to its limits. Sure, use it, learn, get a feel for how an event should work/flow but its like comparing a coloring book with the lines already drawn to a blank canvas and pencil/brush.

Okay, maybe not THAT extreme, but to an extent all editors are like that. Dependancy on them really limits the creative flow. "I can't do that using (insert)? Okay guess I'll move on to something else."

Course, clearing that obstical is up to the person doing the hacking. So I'll have to agree with Lockirby on the point of it would be nice to be able to point new people in the direction of a useful guide. Considering how few people that know Zonedoctor's event mode well enough to offer help, yeah it would be useful to have a guide for those that do choose to use it.

I think the level editor is on solid bases being built on FF6LE. I can't say the same of the event editor. I remember it still being in a sort of beta mode when giangurgolo disappeared from the map. To be honest I tried a few things with it and that resulted in two crashes of the program (or rather two errors).

However if you come up with a FAQ or guide that can make a user avoid these errors or that describe in general event editing with that utility, it would be a good document for newbies and veterans as well. I believe an event editor has a faster teaching potential than just look at the event command list for each thing you want to input, if a document can describe how to use it it's for the best.

Right now, I can only point out that Zone Doctor's event editor is unstable and to be safe the best thing to do is using a hex editor. This could change with a proper guide.

Thanks for the input.  After reading over the thread a made a while back I think that although I hit most of the points I wanted to its not quite the right approach.  If I do something it is probably going to be an extensive document I draft up with several photo examples.

The thing I think that many new to this type of editing won't understand off the bat is that no matter how you go about it, you have to put work in.  Anyone that is wanting to get into event editing should read the information that is out there to get the basics down because even using the editor you really need to understand what you are working with and looking at.  It is far from FF3usME with regards to editing.

I feel that it does well to bridge the gap and can help someone really understand what things look like while also being able to edit hex within the program.  For me personally having that visual aid really helps me learn as opposed to studying the huge text documents of pointers and commands.  Of course I have used those just as much in hacking the game but any way we can try to streamline the process I feel is beneficial.