[CF-Devel] And almost a year later...

[Tom Barnes-Lawrence]

Hi
>
     
     From: Peter Mardahl <
      
      peterm at tesla.EECS.Berkeley.EDU
      
      >
     
     <snip>
>>
     
     in order to get out an idea or two I had had regarding random maps
     
     >>
     
     (and my thoughts on a variation, random quests with random quest
     
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     None of that has gotten done yet.  It's sorta simmering at the
     
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     bottom of my mind at low priority.
     
     
  Actually, what I was trying to say was, that I had meant to
do a prototype generator as a kind of proof-of-concept, to let
the group see it, but that I basically haven't.

  I never expected you or any of the other developers to carry out
my ideas, I know you all do a huge amount on the game as it is!
(BTW- I tried connecting to some 0.96 servers a week or so ago, was
really impressed by the race+class thing, it looks very cool! But
I was using an old 0.95.4 client- Is the character supposed to
look like his race or his class?)


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       If you want to do it, I'll
     
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     advise you on how the random map generator works.
     
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     Since you came new layoutstyles have been added, mostly:
     
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     spirals, square spirals, snakelike layouts, and rogue-like layouts.
     
     
  Sounds very cool! But as I tried to explain originally, I kind
of meant the whole random *quest* thing as a different *use* of
random maps, with different requirements, and a different method
of creating, that as far as I could tell, would not work with
it (It wasn't supposed to be a new mode the existing random maps,
nor a replacement, rather an *alternative*, for very different
situations).

  I think I made that sound a bit obscure :P

  As it is pretty tough for me to explain (especially as when I get
to use the 'net its usually late night and I'm tired), I shall try
to write out a *proper* description of the "random quest" thing
AND the "random quest map" thing, plus stuff about their envisioned
implementation, and importantly *what they would give the game that
isn't available already*!  And then tommorowish I shall send it
either to the list, or to the incoming dir of ftp.uio.no, or
anywhere else you think would be more appropriate.


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     There are many of us who like the xpm-style better.
     
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     I'm currently in the process of converting the old xpm art
     
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     into pngs, so that they can be used as an alternate png
     
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     set of art.
     
       I heard you mention somewhere you were trying to copy over
the monsters from XPM unscaled... This sounds quite good for
short term, but:
(1) That will presumably leave a noticable gap between monster and
player during fights;
(2) What can you do with multi-tile monsters?
(3) Copying wall and floor tiles, etc unscaled wouldn't really
  work.
Is it possible I misunderstood this, or that you are now doing
something else? And what do you do where you can't copy without
scaling? Scale or leave out entirely?


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     If you want to help me finish it up, I can give you complete
     
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     images for all the monsters and many buildings.  They'll need
     
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     to be split back up again into png, and a way found for alternate
     
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     images to be used instead of the default png images.
     
     
  I've installed + looked at the archetype tarballs, but never
actually done anything to them myself nor run collect on them,
nor worked with the images. BUT I'm fairly sure I could do some
basic menial processing of them. Please explain more clearly what
you'd want me to be doing tho(splitting into 32x32? doing something
else entirely?).

  Or are you suggesting I might edit some of the images myself?
I wouldn't mind redrawing a few, but I should warn you I got an
E in GCSE Art+Design ;)   Luckily, however, I got a grafx tablet
for xmas, which I found I could draw with far better than with
a pencil or a mouse!! Unluckily, I lost the stylus a few weeks
back :P   If I manage to find it, I may attempt redrawing a
scaled up version of an existing XPM image to see if I'm at all
competent, and then submit for trial by flame...

  When you say a way must be found to use alternative ver. PNG tiles,
do you mean should it be done entirely client side, or should the
client request the alternative set from the server? As long as
servers currently support clients using XBM, XPM, PNG sets, and
must send appropriate ones, surely this scheme can be extended to
cover alternative png tilesets? Have I misunderstood?

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     I agree with you completely.  Others also have said that the
     
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     png set right now has serious problems.
     
       As long as a number of people are dissatisfied, it is unlikely
those tiles will continue looking weird and wrong, so that's
taken a load off my mind.
Cheers,
Tom Barnes-Lawrence (AKA Tomble)
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