[CF-Devel] Future of Crossfire

[Mike Ponicki]

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      There is one great points i agree on the debate we have on the list:
     
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        1) An attractive interface which mean beautiful graphics. An iso set becomes
     
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      urgent. This set should be more complete than the actual 2D set (more monster
     
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      orientations and animations). It is obvious the crossfire server could not
     
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      handle bandwidth for loading all these gfx, so we should create a standard
     
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      pictures naming and force the clients to download, via ftp for example, the
     
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      set before playing or allow the client to use an alternate ones. So we take of
     
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      this part of the job from the server.
     
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        2) a user friendly client. For the moment, most players have do do thinks
     
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      like bind cast ice storm   bind ...... This NOT attractive. We should have a
     
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      client which know most of the action which can be done on crossfire and give
     
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      player a list of these action with in front the associated key (like in most
     
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      other RPG or Quake likes) or allow binding like in diablo. This client should
     
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      be done for windows in priority and under GPL for faster developpement.
     
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      The current directx client is interesting and a lot of work seems to have been
     
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      done on it but am not sure this client could follow forever the server,
     
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      especially when importants changes are made (like if we run to iso gfx for
     
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      example) because his developper is alone for maintenance. Once again am saying
     
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      what a lots of developper are saying: "Michael Toennies make your client GPL,
     
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      it could become crazily good".
     
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     I agree whole-heartedly. We need new graphics, this is a big priority, if
we ever hope to enlarge the crossfire community. However, I still maintain
that performance is a big issue too, because as the community grows, we
will need improved performance to keep up.

-Sniper
     
     sniper at citilink.com