[CF-Devel] Make Crossfire more Popular

[Michael Toennies]

Hi

Well, i think like all of us that crossfire is a great game.
Its fun, its complex, is action.

Sadly, it is the biggest non public open source project i ever see.
Imagine, thats CF is one of the oldest running open source games
ever. Only nethack and some of them are really older.

And now look what we have. we have more open servers than playing user!!!!!
Go through the server list, count the player online, we have often more
servers
open then players on it - on all servers! Its a shame.

You ever look at 
     
     http://www.mpogd.com/
     
      ?
Its the Multiplayer Online Game Directory.
Search for crossfire.
Cross...what?

Also hard stoned unix gurus on my university, playing never a non unix game
don't know crossfire.

Why?

There are a few reason. I will not talk about why this happens in the past
and
what it effect. I will talk about why it NOW not is and what we must change
to
get more people on it.

First: Why should we have more people?
After all, that this is a game for people, there is one major reason:
More people= more potential supporters of the game, more potential artists,
more potential map maker = better and growing CF!

Second: How we can get more players?
The points i will list are "not for discussion" (ok, you will do it ;).
But aLL projects, all games needs to hail the points i will list.
I work for 3 years as game programmer, i know it because i learned it.
Skip one or more of this rules and you will be spanked for it.

1. simply access
start and play.
Thats the first rule. Players are idiots. User are idiots. They want play.
They don't want think
about anything else then the game itself. They don't want compile it first.
They don't want set
it up first.

So, thanks to MW, we have in the future the meta server. This is one of the
big points. Start the
programm, get an autolist of the servers, look at the ping to get the best
(to avoid lag = no fun=
player drop CF) and start playing.

2. A Release
For CF it means, we should build a 1.0 Version. Ok, ok, i know it what you
will say, but really:
CF is about 10 years old. There SHOULD be a 1.0 version. Lets make the next
version to 1.0!!
Why? People don't like to play beta! If you give it to them as 0.98 all
people, also sites like
MPOG will tell about CF as beta. Beta means more than not finished. It means
not complete.
CF is not finished but it is nearly complete. More complete than many other
programms with much
higher version numbers.

Don't think that this point is not important. The player honors programmer
who say: "this is version
1.0 but now stay tuned for version 1.1 where we will show you xx and yy".

But they hate the programmers who never find an end, who always drop the
last things the programm
needs to be good, like a simple login screen (because there are other things
to do which are
more important). On programmers side there are ALWAYS more important things
to do than a simple
login screen or some like the meta server. But for the player, he will need
weeks to make that
the great BOOM spell don't kill the greyred dragons in the right way.
But every day, he will get mad about the unfinished login screen.

3. PC and MAC client version
Well, well. We have talk about it. But you wanna see some artist for CF?
then you need an
PC or MAC client. Artist hate unix. They have no use for it. They are dumb.
They are want
a computer like a MAC. Turn on, klick here, klick there, turn off. No
console, no text to type,
no knowledge about the computer, the running system (unix? what is unix?
windows? you mean the windows
on the screen with the fancy icons, right?).

In real, most artist use MACs. about 40-60%. the rest use most times PCs
with windows. Not why they
like them, but most used renderers and gfx programms needed for them (and
there work) run on it.
Only about 5% use linux or unix. And these guys are freaks or programm to or
something.

Also, you want players and map makers? read above.

4. PNGs as default, better sound
Yes, yes. But i have now work me through the pngs and have make about a few
hundreds new or
set the palette right. You know that most of the ugly pics are because the
transparent color
is not set right? For all grass, mountains and others full pics the color is
false.

I will give it to CVS when i finished the dx client. But really, now my png
grafiks looks better
then the xpm stuff!! Rework some of the items to original size and look
looks great as png!

For sound, i will out some better sounds i collect.

5. Maps
We need a better map editor! We need it for PC and/or MAC too!!
Many people like to make some maps when they play CF, but they will not work
for
years on it. So we must give them a nice and easy Tool for maps, collecting
the maps
and put then in the game!

6. More public
Bring crossfire to MPOG and other gaming sites. On no one i know you will
find CF!
Simply do a searchmashine search and look what poor you get.
Change it= more player, more server, more... You got the point.

Ok, i have more points, but these are the most common.
Lets make the PR changes and rework some maps.
Lets me finish the DX client and rework the server/client issues i list.
Put the meta server on.
Then make Version 1.0 and bring it on the start to mpog and others.
And then i swear you will see a nice list of servers with about 50-200
player on it.

You don't believe? Look at MPOG and how many players there a good public
game has.
CF can beat many there!

MichToen