[CF-Devel] Hey, slow down a bit!

[Tom Barnes-Lawrence]

Mark Wedel wrote:
>
     
     Preston Crow wrote:
     
     >>
     
     If the person developing the map doesn't finish it, someone else 
     
     >>
     
      >>can.(It's being distributed under the GPL, so that's fair game.)
     
     >
     
     yep - and certainly there have been cases in the past where this >has 
     
     >
     
     happened.
     
     
As I already have something in mind for about 90% of my mapset,
I would rather finish those parts myself, but if I were to stop
doings stuff with CF completely or drop dead or something, then
I'd certainly prefer my maps didn't just sit there and fester.

>>
     
     People can look at the new maps (in dm mode, someone can just jump >>in 
     
     >>
     
     and play).  This can provide a source of feedback for the map >>developer. 
     
     >>
     
       Also, feedback can be the best way to get someone to >>get around to 
     
     >>
     
     completing the map; it will get them thinking about
     
     >>
     
     it again.
     
     >
     
       True.
     
       Also, I haven't contributed anything to the game so far other than
a bunch of opinions, an idea or 2, and lengthy postings. If I were
to have my mapset in the game, it would make me feel like an actual
contributor rather than someone who just likes the sound of their own
posts. That would encourage me to look more thoroughly at the source
and so be able to help with actual useful stuff ;) And yes, I do
intend to finish my maps, but it'll take a while and so it'd be nice
for me to have others see it, as you both say.

  As was also mentioned, there are bits where I *could* do with
a bit of help from others, where stuff is complicated, but that's
only a little help with very few maps. Knowing others can use
my maps is more of a catalyst to me.

>>
     
     On the other hand, the unfinished maps that are in the main >>distribution 
     
     >>
     
     haven't seen much work in a long time.  Look at
     
     >>
     
     Skud's tower, for example.
     
     >>
     
     Or Lake_Country/Sunset_Lake.
     
     >
     
       Also true.
     
       And as you say, these maps are in the distribution... Last
time I checked, my mapset was far larger than sunset castle
(though certainly not as large as lake_country as a whole :P).

>
     
       I would suggest that maps far from being used/ready get put in
     
     >
     
     something like a maps/dev (or maybe an alternate distribution).
     
     >
     
     This will make it easier to include these extra maps from the
     
     >
     
     official distributions, and also keep it easier to know what maps
     
     >
     
     are in development and what are ready for playing.
     
       This sounds sensible, and personally I would be more than happy
if my maps were in an "in-development" directory (when there is
more to them).

>
     
       I don't really want 60 directories in /maps as everyone checks
     
     >
     
     in their maps which are not close to being ready.
     
       I can well understand that. When I asked that question before,
I didn't mean that I wanted my maps to go in as they are, because
like you say, they are not nearly ready.
...
I was asking mainly because we have the feature freeze, and I
wanted to know if there was also a new-map freeze: If I know that
my mapset could *possibly* go into the distribution some time soon
(supposing people think its OK), that would encourage me to spend
even more time on it.
It has mainly civic maps, IE- not very many monsters, little in way
of quests (though I am working on that), but it has (will have) some
things that AFAIK are nowhere else in CF, such as:
A player-run market, a slum with rentable rooms (a bit like the
scorn appartment rooms, but different), a castle (to live in, like
Brxls house in stoneville) that also has guest keys to give to
friends, a kennel (to keep pets in), and an Auction (40% done, 80%
planned, theory is fine, so should work!).And so on.
  Most of these aren't quite in keeping with rest of CF, but I
think they're neat ;). CF is supposed to be a graphical MUD, and
with V1 approaching I would expect many more players appearing; I
think these sort of things could go down well...

Tomble (Tom Barnes-LawrencE)
PS-Considering the tensions that seem to have been arising in recent
weeks with the feature freeze, I guess you're probably right to try
to get V1 out ASAP. I'd really just meant it was good to be sure
that anything awkward to fix should be done before saying CF is
stable- plus, we could maybe do with some small cosmetic improvements
before officially unleashing it?
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at 
     
     http://www.hotmail.com.