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Fern, that is such an incredible resource I will need to check out, I had no idea Zoot was open source. Thank you so much! So funny that he just so happened to go by MadScientist.

Oh we had one of those although he was know as MadScientist and he created the original Zoot which Jay then improved on. http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=4773.0 Zoot is Open Source and the code is also available there.

Ah, got it. Yeah I wouldn't be too keen on anything breaking my game either, and I could not promise that whatever comes from this would not do the same--it's just the way about the nature of the game being so old and mods that use a custom API in general. That said, I don't plan on really changing anything about the game myself-only to abstract the assembly instructions that only the machine can read, which really just means: make the source code readable and accessible. In my case, just some of the source code; not all of it, as you'd have to be a mad genius to make sense of it all. Once an early version is out and people want to play with it, I would encourage anyone to make a backup of the exe file anyway. The Venn diagram of programmers and artists in the ZT1 modding scene at the moment seems to lean heavily in-favor of the artists so it may just be myself that gets a kick out of my API, so it might not be a problem in the end.

Not so much skeptical but wary as I have seen so many things over the years that have caused conflicts or game crashing. Jay and I have fixed quite a few files. So have others. Hacks have also caused problems since they often conflict with other hacks or ingame files. Some of ZTs ingame files are hacks. The guest.ai is one. The ingame Research Buildings are also a hack. The sequence for loading in the ini is important because ZT often overrode earlier files with an update when they released a new part. For example when the dinos were released they updated the original animals to be predator or prey for the dinos. The original guest.ai was updated for the new buildings like the dino putting green.

Woah, that's amazing! I've checked out a few of the ones you mentioned; jbl's Zoo Studio and Jay's knowledge of the innards of the game, I did reckon, would involve some sort of CS background. So happy to know we share (shared?) a career! Absolutely excited to explore what the other programmers have figured out, or found could not be done! I do research at university, so I've learned that it's always important to read related work before you could even dare make progress of your own. I don't see myself figuring this out in a vacuum; trading resources with other smart folk as yourself is what makes this so much fun and rewarding. 😊 I understand your skepticism. If it helps, I am just as skeptical as you are, and anyone reading this thread should be too until proven otherwise!

That would depend on the ZA link. The old link which was ZooAdmin .net does go to a phishing site. One of those malware sites bought that ZA site name when it was not renewed. I had to very quickly remove all the .net version links from DD when that happened. Same thing happened with the old Unleashed addy which was zox...... something. That also go bought by a malware site. For Zoo Admin you always want the ".org" link with is the current one. As for ZA being down there could be one or two reasons. 1. Bill not paid. Sites like Phoenix, ZA, DD, DG, ZKL are not free. They have fees that have to be paid for them to stay online. 2. Site hacked. For the second we are getting a lot of malware bots attempting to join ZKL, DD and DG currently to post links to malware, porn or other illegal sites. And over the years have seen several attempts to hack the sites. So I would assume that ZA are getting similar attempts.

Just ask in the request thread. Some of us have all the files.