From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov  1 19:51:09 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Message to those interested in gods (leaf)
Message-ID: <20011102125109.A11381@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

I have added another god given relic. This time to Ruggilli, the proud new owner of the first whip in the game (with it's own attack messages >=), thanks garbled).
stats:
Object burningtail
name Burning Tail of many lashings of Ruggilli
dam 40
resist_cold 25
resist_fire 15
attacktype 4101 (fire, paralyze, physical) this is the real ouch of this weapon, fire and paralyze.. 
magic 15 (burning tail +15)

Its attack speed is quite slow though at
speed 0.4

it is really hard to get.. (from treasures)
arch god_grace_limit_high
more
  arch god_spelldirect_retributive_strike
more
  arch burningtail
    chance 2

also there are some bracers for gnarg, not very exciting to get and again hard to get..
arch god_grace_limit_medium
arch bracers_gnarg
  chance 2
	      
Str 2
resist_physical 30
resist_cold 20
Dam 15
hp 1

dnh
ps. I am very open to suggestion on anything I commit =)

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov  1 21:29:44 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Dragon powermail
Message-ID: <20011102142944.B11381@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

If no one objecs I will replace the Powermail grapics in the standard set with that of the alternate set. While the powermail isn't that bad, the one in the laternate set fits much better with the style of the robe, midnight robe, wdsm. (plus the animation is cooler =))

dnh

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Fri Nov  2 08:48:57 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack messages and GTK client
Message-ID: <20011103014857.C11381@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Two feature requests.
1) the ability to set a maximum scrolling buffer size on the gtk client so as to avoid the crazy memory and performance problems associated with lots of messages (try casting a few burning hands in the titan castle.. eeek.. my client slowed down.. It took me a while to realise it wasn't the game but the client!)

2) have the ability to turn attack messages off. Though I love them and will continue to use them, I KNOW modem users will NOT!. It will probably use alittle to much bandwidth and thus detract from the actual game.

dnh

From leaf at real-time.com  Fri Nov  2 12:17:27 2001
From: leaf at real-time.com (Rick Tanner)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Message to those interested in gods (leaf)
In-Reply-To: <20011102125109.A11381@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0111021157100.3871-100000@enchanter.real-time.com>

The Crossfire Pantheon page has been updated with this info

http://crossfire.real-time.com/CF_Handbook/AppendixC/crossfire_pantheon.html

Thanks for the alert! ;)

- Rick Tanner
leaf@real-time.com

On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, David Hurst wrote:

> I have added another god given relic. This time to Ruggilli, the proud new owner of the first whip in the game (with it's own attack messages >=), thanks garbled).
> stats:
> Object burningtail
> name Burning Tail of many lashings of Ruggilli
<snip>

> also there are some bracers for gnarg, not very exciting to get and again hard to get..
> arch god_grace_limit_medium
> arch bracers_gnarg
<snip>



From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Sat Nov  3 12:01:04 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] arch bug
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCMENHDCAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

In the arches are chole_1.arc and chole_2.arc .

Inside, both are Object chole_1 .

Should we change one to chole_2 or should we remove it?


From mwedel at sonic.net  Sun Nov  4 01:05:03 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] arch bug
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCMENHDCAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <3BE4E89F.E6CC3307@sonic.net>

Michael Toennies wrote:
> 
> In the arches are chole_1.arc and chole_2.arc .
> 
> Inside, both are Object chole_1 .
> 
> Should we change one to chole_2 or should we remove it?

 chole_2 (the file) should be listed as being chole_2 in its name.  I've fixed
it in the arch directory, but haven't run a collect on it.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Mon Nov  5 02:34:35 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack messages and GTK client
References: <20011103014857.C11381@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BE64F1B.E7067ACC@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Two feature requests.
> 1) the ability to set a maximum scrolling buffer size on the gtk client so as to avoid the crazy memory and performance problems associated with lots of messages (try casting a few burning hands in the titan castle.. eeek.. my client slowed down.. It took me a while to realise it wasn't the game but the client!)

 This is possible with the -triminfowindow option in the gtkclient.  Note that
the scrollback buffer is currently hardcoded at 100k.  Also note that there are
some reliablity problems with it, but interesting enough it was fairly stable
when I tried it tonight.  I think there may be some case of the delete lining up
on some specific boundary (end of line, or one character before or something). 
This can be fixed - I just need it to trace down if that is really the case.


> 2) have the ability to turn attack messages off. Though I love them and will continue to use them, I KNOW modem users will NOT!. It will probably use alittle to much bandwidth and thus detract from the actual game.

 Is it really possible to play over the modem now?

 I think a bigger point is that while having tons of configuration options may
be nice, it is more a pain to code.  For just the attack messages, this is not a
big deal, but I could see other things like 'I don't want XYZ, so how about
being able to turn that off because it saves 50 bytes/second of download', etc. 
Most messages seem to be pretty integral.

 OTOH, what could perhaps be done is that I believe there is a random factor to
decrease these messages.  Maybe remove that, and let the user control what
portion of the messages they see (ie, if set to 10, they see every 10'th
message, if set to 1, they see every message).  This is probably more
predictable than using random values, and also allows a better level of control.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Mon Nov  5 02:58:45 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] SDL client and debian/linux
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEKPDCAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <3BE654C5.D81D2AD7@sonic.net>

Michael Toennies wrote:
> 
> Hm, when you guys has tried it with the ^M inside and you don't has tools
> to handle it, you has problems.

 The issue isn't what was the right thing that should have been done in the
history of computers and OS's, as that is something no one can really change (or
most people are not willing to change OS's, and even if it was, then you get
into what OS is the right OS).

 Certainly there are ways to strip the ^M out of the files.  The issue here is
that it is more a bother.  Simply put, if the code is a pain for people to use
(because of the ^M's, or it uses non standard extensions, or whatever else),
people will probably not work on it.  You will have to ask yourself if that is
your intended goal or not.


> There are more bad points, where unix really sucks when it tries to do other
> things then
> the standard ones - cvs is totally crappy in working with windows ascii
> files or binaries.
> Notice, that in the real big world (banks and other big data handling
> companies) most count cvs
> as "not useful for professional use".

 I think that is a spurious argument.  Many big instutions consider open source
programs in general not useful for professional use.  Yet that is what we are
doing here.  Should we pack it all up because of that?


> 
> Btw, under windows, every slightly good shareware tool (text editor or
> compiler) can handle all
> this stuff. The point is, that i DON'T SEE in windows any difference in
> editor or VC between a
> windows or unix file - they handled 100% in the right way. You can even mix
> unix and windows text-
> it will shown right.

 The ^M is more of an issue of just being obnoxious than anything serious.

 The // issue is serious - simply put it is not legal ANSI C code.  Sure, people
can go off and find compilers that may take it, but if I have a working ANSI C
compiler on my system yet can't compile because of special extensions, I think
it is fair to complain about the code.  And in fact, at my old company
(pyramid), there was no option except to use the C compiler they provided, as
GCC had not been ported.  And the pyramid C compiler was strictly ansi
conforming, hence various changes so that function parameters did not match the
same as typedef structures, as that is illegal, but most compilers don't have a
problem with.

 AT some level, you can write whatever you want, and if its something seperate,
like the SDL client, not a big deal.  Yet at the same time, you should then not
be surprised that no one else is working on it when they can't even compile it. 
I'm willing to spend a few minutes fixing a configuration file, but I'm not
willing to spend a bunch of time fixing up non standard code just to see how it
works.  And I think others may have similar feelings.

> 
> Ok, we should set for the source there some rules. In all ways, this above
> is pur trivial.

 There are some in doc/programming_guide.  A couple points from it:

9) Assume all names use one namespace.  For example, if there is a
struct called spell, don't make the name of an optional parameter spell.
This will break on ANSI C compilers that follow the spec strictly
(gcc does not, even with -strict -ansi)

10) As a followup on 9 above, don't use nonstandard gcc extensions
(// for comment lines, ability to nest functions, declare arrays with
variable bounds, etc.)  Likewise, don't use special system functions - don't
assume the target system will be bsd or svr4 - if using a potentially non
standard function, add checks in the autoconf script and include a version
of the function in case it is not on that system.  They key word here is
portability - don't assume everyone else has the same system as you do.

> 
> To the source - remember i hacked the flat mode in 4 hours. And some is
> ripped from dx client.
> For other system you don't have to compile it - you have to implement it.
> This is the stage the source go to alpha - is even pur work source yet.
> So don't expect a non warning/error compiling in the first steps.

 That is perfectly fair.  In that case, just giving some warning like 'this is
experimental, it may not work, let me know of any bugs'.  It is often very
difficult to know the status of code without it explicitly being said - I always
had a problem when people posted patches to the mailing list, and I learned that
I had to explicity ask the person posting the patch if they were intending for
that patch to get included in the source, or if that was an 'alpha' level patch
that they put out for other people to test.

 Do note that modification to the CVS repository is meant to at least be alpha+
level code (ie, it compiles, is portable, and has gone through at least some
testing).  But if your making your own code, putting it up someplace for people
to download, it seems people deserve what they get (but you may want to give
better status of the code).  IMO, such an approach may be better then committing
potentially buggy code into CVS, OTOH, it may not get used as much.

 I will say that if you do look at committing such code into CVS, look at the
tagging facility - tagging a distribution then allows people to easily go back
to code prior to the changes just be giving the right tag (eg, cvs tag
snapshot_2001_11_03 would then allow anyone to easily get all the files as they
were at the time of the snapshot - in the above case, I used a date, typically,
someting more descriptive like 'pre_new_iso_code' or something would probably be
better.

From root at garbled.net  Mon Nov  5 11:46:39 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack messages and GTK client
In-Reply-To: <3BE64F1B.E7067ACC@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011105104639.root@garbled.net>

On 05-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>  OTOH, what could perhaps be done is that I believe there is a random factor
> to
> decrease these messages.  Maybe remove that, and let the user control what
> portion of the messages they see (ie, if set to 10, they see every 10'th
> message, if set to 1, they see every message).  This is probably more
> predictable than using random values, and also allows a better level of
> control.

Actually..  I was thinking of letting the player set a multiplier for the
random factors.  or perhaps an additive.

The random factor works out alot better than what you suggest IMHO, because
then you have to track what message number you are on in each player. 
Additionaly, I can tune messages with the random factor by messagetype, because
some are more frequent than others.  The random values really are predictable..
because basically.. we are expecing that if a message is displayed 1/6 times,
overall you will get 1/6th the messages.  It's done on a per-message basis.

My idea.. is currently I do something similar to:

if (rndm(0, 6) == 0) show_message();

to change to:

if (rndm(0, 6+player->message_factor) == 0) show_message();

so a player could 'setmfactor 99  and pretty much wipe them out.

Either way..  I make no assertions that the current random values are perfect. 
I am tuning still, and will continue to do so.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Sun Nov  4 23:35:18 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 387] New - configure complains about gnome Makefile, and doesn't compile
Message-ID: <200111050535.fA55ZIq22606@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=387

*** shadow/387	Sun Nov  4 23:35:18 2001
--- shadow/387.tmp.22603	Sun Nov  4 23:35:18 2001
***************
*** 0 ****
--- 1,24 ----
+ +============================================================================+
+ | configure complains about gnome Makefile, and doesn't compile              |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |        Bug #: 387                         Product: Crossfire               |
+ |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
+ |   Resolution:                            Platform: PC                      |
+ |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
+ |     Priority: P2                        Component: GTK client              |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |  Assigned To: crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com                          |
+ |  Reported By: john.cater@eng.monash.edu.au                                 |
+ |      CC list: Cc:                                                          |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |          URL:                                                              |
+ +============================================================================+
+ |                              DESCRIPTION                                   |
+ I use "configure --disable-gnome" and get the output
+ 
+ configure: creating ./config.status
+ config.status: creating Makefile
+ config.status: creating gnome/Makefile
+ config.status: error: cannot find input file: gnome/Makefile.in 
+ 
+ The client does not compile.
\ No newline at end of file

From bugs at real-time.com  Mon Nov  5 02:10:01 2001
From: bugs at real-time.com (bugs@real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Your Bugzilla buglist needs attention.
Message-ID: <200111050810.fA58A1B24163@crusader.real-time.com>

[This e-mail has been automatically generated.]

You have one or more bugs assigned to you in the Bugzilla 
bugsystem (http://bugzilla.real-time.com/) that require
attention.

All of these bugs are in the NEW state, and have not been touched
in 7 days or more.  You need to take a look at them, and 
decide on an initial action.

Generally, this means one of three things:

(1) You decide this bug is really quick to deal with (like, it's INVALID),
    and so you get rid of it immediately.
(2) You decide the bug doesn't belong to you, and you reassign it to someone
    else.  (Hint: if you don't know who to reassign it to, make sure that
    the Component field seems reasonable, and then use the "Reassign bug to
    owner of selected component" option.)
(3) You decide the bug belongs to you, but you can't solve it this moment.
    Just use the "Accept bug" command.

To get a list of all NEW bugs, you can use this URL (bookmark it if you like!):

    http://bugzilla.real-time.com/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&assigned_to=crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com

Or, you can use the general query page, at
http://bugzilla.real-time.com/query.cgi.

Appended below are the individual URLs to get to all of your NEW bugs that 
haven't been touched for a week or more.

You will get this message once a day until you've dealt with these bugs!

  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=368
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=369
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=374
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=379
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=381
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=382
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=384
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=385
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=386

From mwedel at sonic.net  Mon Nov  5 18:24:53 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack messages and GTK client
References: <XFMail.011105104639.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <3BE72DD5.84EA927C@sonic.net>

Tim Rightnour wrote:

> 
> The random factor works out alot better than what you suggest IMHO, because
> then you have to track what message number you are on in each player.
> Additionaly, I can tune messages with the random factor by messagetype, because
> some are more frequent than others.  The random values really are predictable..
> because basically.. we are expecing that if a message is displayed 1/6 times,
> overall you will get 1/6th the messages.  It's done on a per-message basis.

 Ok.  Didn't realize that some messages would appear more often than other based
on random type.  Tracking one or two values in the player structure of how many
messages we have not sent out would not be hard, but if there are 20 different
categories, that is more of a pain.

 Vaguely related to this, at some time I do want to redo how messages are sent
to the client.  Instead of the server specifying color, it would instead specify
content (eg, NDI_SPELL_LIST, NDI_PLAYER_KILLED_SOMETHING, NDI_PLAYER_WAS_KILLED,
etc, although maybe not that refined).

 Then the client (player) can decide how to display those messages.  For
example, maybe the player decides he wants the messages that when he killed
something to be in blue, but have level gains be bold black or the like (no
reason the selection for what each message looks like can't include a font -
this is especially useful for things like lists which the server does try to
format, although perhaps those should be redone so that the server just puts a
tab or the like for the seperator in columns,and the client (knowing that
message type) formats appropriately.

 Reason this is vaguely related is that if such tags are done, then perhaps also
a importance tag could be added to the new_draw_info calls, and the player can
set something like 'ignore messages below priority 12' or the like.  Perhaps
under such a scheme, the random factor could be the priority, so some would end
up really high, others really low.

 I'm not planning on doing this immediately (at least a few other things of
higher importance on my list), but it could be reasonable to keep that in mind
so when that is done, it will be easier for whoever is doing that to figure out
the priority (or, right now, you could define a simple function that takes the
priority, but just discards it as it calls new_draw_info without that)

From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Mon Nov  5 18:14:40 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 387] Changed - configure complains about gnome Makefile, and doesn't compile
Message-ID: <200111060014.fA60Eel02084@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=387

*** shadow/387	Sun Nov  4 23:35:18 2001
--- shadow/387.tmp.2080	Mon Nov  5 18:14:40 2001
***************
*** 2,9 ****
  | configure complains about gnome Makefile, and doesn't compile              |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |        Bug #: 387                         Product: Crossfire               |
! |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
! |   Resolution:                            Platform: PC                      |
  |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
  |     Priority: P2                        Component: GTK client              |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
--- 2,9 ----
  | configure complains about gnome Makefile, and doesn't compile              |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |        Bug #: 387                         Product: Crossfire               |
! |       Status: RESOLVED                    Version: CVS                     |
! |   Resolution: FIXED                      Platform: PC                      |
  |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
  |     Priority: P2                        Component: GTK client              |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
***************
*** 22,24 ****
--- 22,28 ----
  config.status: error: cannot find input file: gnome/Makefile.in 
  
  The client does not compile.
+ 
+ ------- Additional Comments From mwedel@scruz.net  2001-11-05 18:14 -------
+ configure.in, configure: Modified so that if not compiling the
+   gnome client, we don't create the gnome Makefile.  MSW 2001-11-05

From mwedel at sonic.net  Tue Nov  6 00:40:55 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:45 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] poisoning
References: <20011031002128.A3096@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BE785F7.A7E61918@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Hi ya again,
> just been playing around with gnarg and I have found that weapons blessed by him, although gaining (poison) do not actually poison. I am not sure whether it is this specific case or just poisoning on weapons in general but it is fairly annoying. Anyone see any obvious problems? want me to do further testing?

 This should now work - I'm not positive if you are reporting the same bug in
bugzilla, which you don't get experience for monsters that you kill via poisoned
weapons (the poisoned kill them).  I made a simple poisoned weapon, and the
creatures were getting poisoned, just you weren't getting experience until the
fix below (now in CVS):

common/object.c: Modify copy_owner so that if a player is passed in
   as the object to copy, we properly set that player as the owner of the
   object instead of returning.  This fixes the lack of exp when poison
   inflicted from a weapon kills something.  MSW 2001-11-05

From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Tue Nov  6 00:44:50 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 369] Changed - Kills via "sword of poisoning" don't assign any exp
Message-ID: <200111060644.fA66iot06089@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=369

*** shadow/369	Mon Jun  4 02:38:27 2001
--- shadow/369.tmp.6085	Tue Nov  6 00:44:50 2001
***************
*** 2,9 ****
  | Kills via "sword of poisoning" don't assign any exp                        |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |        Bug #: 369                         Product: Crossfire               |
! |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
! |   Resolution:                            Platform: All                     |
  |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
  |     Priority: P2                        Component: server                  |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
--- 2,9 ----
  | Kills via "sword of poisoning" don't assign any exp                        |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  |        Bug #: 369                         Product: Crossfire               |
! |       Status: RESOLVED                    Version: CVS                     |
! |   Resolution: FIXED                      Platform: All                     |
  |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
  |     Priority: P2                        Component: server                  |
  +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
***************
*** 19,21 ****
--- 19,30 ----
  any exp.
  
  PeterM
+ 
+ ------- Additional Comments From mwedel@scruz.net  2001-11-06 00:44 -------
+ 
+  Fixed in CVS:
+ 
+ common/object.c: Modify copy_owner so that if a player is passed in
+    as the object to copy, we properly set that player as the owner of the
+    object instead of returning.  This fixes the lack of exp when poison
+    inflicted from a weapon kills something.  MSW 2001-11-05

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Tue Nov  6 19:11:18 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] poisoning
In-Reply-To: <3BE785F7.A7E61918@sonic.net>
References: <20011031002128.A3096@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <3BE785F7.A7E61918@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <20011107121118.B17956@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Ahh okay this would explain it, thanks for that Mark.
Another quick question about poison, I recently hacked a player on my home computer server to have the spell poison cloud. I found, though it ABSOLUTELY rocked in terms of coolness, it didn't do much. This was because it hardly infected anything even at level 35 (ogres and orcs I am talking about..). Is there someway to increase the speed of infection for poison?

dnh

On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 10:40:55PM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
> David Hurst wrote:
> > 
> > Hi ya again,
> > just been playing around with gnarg and I have found that weapons blessed by him, although gaining (poison) do not actually poison. I am not sure whether it is this specific case or just poisoning on weapons in general but it is fairly annoying. Anyone see any obvious problems? want me to do further testing?
> 
>  This should now work - I'm not positive if you are reporting the same bug in
> bugzilla, which you don't get experience for monsters that you kill via poisoned
> weapons (the poisoned kill them).  I made a simple poisoned weapon, and the
> creatures were getting poisoned, just you weren't getting experience until the
> fix below (now in CVS):
> 
> common/object.c: Modify copy_owner so that if a player is passed in
>    as the object to copy, we properly set that player as the owner of the
>    object instead of returning.  This fixes the lack of exp when poison
>    inflicted from a weapon kills something.  MSW 2001-11-05
> _______________________________________________
> crossfire-devel mailing list
> crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com
> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-devel

From attila at civ.hu  Wed Nov  7 05:58:20 2001
From: attila at civ.hu (Beno Attila)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] crossfire vs mud
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.02.10111071242520.7781-100000@ab.irisz.hu>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

hi,

I'm new to the list, and although I browsed through the archives by
subject, this question may have already come up. If so, sorry.

I come from a mudding background, and am used to having 100+ users on the
same server. Looking at the metaserver stats, there are max 2-3 people
online at a time on a crossfire server. I don't assume there is a
technical reason for it, right?

So why do all running servers have the out-of-the-box maps? Again, please
exuse me, I'm fairly new to crossfire, but fell in love with in pretty
quickly. :)

With an out-of-the-box mud, the situation is the same, there are max 2-3
people online. But with unique servers, that have maps that you can not
play elsewhere, many people start joining, and it all becomes more fun.
You can form parties etc.

So is it, for some reason required that you use the original maps? (I've
only seen one server that had EXTRA maps, but even that had the original
set.)

Question #2. :) I'm thinking about starting a crossfire server in a
different language (Hungarian). Writing the maps is no problem,
translating the server is no problem, translating the X client is no
problem, but the Windows client is more tricky. (For one, I use linux, and
have no idea how to compile stuf that runs under Win :), and two, I don't
even remember seeing the source.)

Is there a way that this can be done, or should I just forget it? :)

For the server, I was thinking about a script that goes through the
source files, and changes the texts, so the server itself can be upgraded
anytime, and still have the correct translations. (This could work for any
other language as well hopefully.)

Thanks for any replies. :)

Attila

...........................................................................
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those
we don't like? -Jean Cocteau, author and painter (1889-1963)

- ---
Public key: http://civ.hu/attila.asc



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From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov  8 07:09:22 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
Message-ID: <20011109000922.A1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Okay, regardless of your opinions I have posted a few updates to convert all the 2x2 avatars to 1x1 avatars. The 3 are:
Gaea: Ent -> Panther
Ruggilli: Burning head thing -> fire elemental
Gnarg: Big troll -> little one
This is for two reasons, firstly because they sucked and secondly because they were broken (or at least were on my server). Don't be alarmed, I have kept a full backup of the gods. If or when the bug is found, or it is found that my update is wrong, I will fix them np's.

In terms of changes I have edited the animation and face and _reduced their hp by half_. This means:
Gaea: 1000 -> 500
Ruggilli: 650 -> 400 (not half, but that avatar really sucked)
Gnarg: 1000 -> 500

Leaf if no one no one wants this changed back please update the webpage.

dnh

ps. Any thoughts on making fire repelled on wraiths? denied does make it very difficult, perhaps even attuning it to cold?

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov  8 07:18:07 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] ALERT!
Message-ID: <20011109001807.B1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

ALERT!
Has someone edited anything in the transports dir in the archs? We have losts this .arc files and images:
Warning: failed to find arch big_galleon
Couldn't find archetype big_galleon_2
Warning: failed to find arch big_galleon_2
Couldn't find archetype big_galleon_3
Warning: failed to find arch big_galleon_3
Couldn't find archetype big_galleon_4
Warning: failed to find arch big_galleon_4
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit_2
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit_2
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit_3
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit_3
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit_4
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit_4
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit_5
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit_5
Couldn't find archetype dragon_exit_6
Warning: failed to find arch dragon_exit_6
Couldn't find archetype fishboat
Warning: failed to find arch fishboat
Couldn't find archetype fishboat_2
Warning: failed to find arch fishboat_2
Couldn't find archetype galleon
Warning: failed to find arch galleon
Couldn't find archetype longship
Warning: failed to find arch longship
Couldn't find archetype longship_2
Warning: failed to find arch longship_2
Couldn't find archetype rowboat
Warning: failed to find arch rowboat
Couldn't find archetype rowboat_2
Warning: failed to find arch rowboat_2
Couldn't find archetype s_ship
Warning: failed to find arch s_ship
Couldn't find archetype s_ship2
Warning: failed to find arch s_ship2
Couldn't find archetype s_ship3
Warning: failed to find arch s_ship3
Couldn't find archetype s_ship4
Warning: failed to find arch s_ship4
Couldn't find archetype wagon
Warning: failed to find arch wagon
Couldn't find archetype trap_blades
Warning: failed to find arch trap_blades

I don't have these files on either of my cvs dirs (hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au and home). Can someone please check this out, and if so re commit the missing files. I am now going to scan through the cvs logs.

dnh 9/11/01

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov  8 07:27:20 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] uhh ohh
Message-ID: <20011109002720.C1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Messages haven't been getting logged because:
Cannot open file /cvsroot/crossfire/CVSROOT/commitlog for append.

This is a big problem, I have commited a few small patches or late (fixed avatars, fixed some typos etc). I don't know what everyone else has been doing but I have no way of checking cause there aren't any logs. CHAOS!

this reminds me of a classic goodies episode...

Panic, Panic, Panic all over the place. I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!
=)

dnh

From root at garbled.net  Wed Nov  7 13:36:05 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] crossfire vs mud
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.02.10111071242520.7781-100000@ab.irisz.hu>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011107123605.root@garbled.net>

On 07-Nov-01 Beno Attila wrote:
> hi,

Hello.

> I come from a mudding background, and am used to having 100+ users on the
> same server. Looking at the metaserver stats, there are max 2-3 people
> online at a time on a crossfire server. I don't assume there is a
> technical reason for it, right?

It's a popularity thing.  Also word of mouth.  Crossfire has long been
unix-only, so that hurt us too.

> So why do all running servers have the out-of-the-box maps? Again, please
> exuse me, I'm fairly new to crossfire, but fell in love with in pretty
> quickly. :)

Maps aren't the easiest thing in the world to write.  Very few people write
maps.  If more people wrote maps.. more people would play.  The problem is that
the reverse is true as well.  Generally, we try to encourage new maps to be
submitted to the repository.  IMHO, the more maps that show up in the base
tree, the more popular and fun crossfire will be.  Once you reach a critical
mass of players, what you describe will happen on it's own.

> For the server, I was thinking about a script that goes through the
> source files, and changes the texts, so the server itself can be upgraded
> anytime, and still have the correct translations. (This could work for any
> other language as well hopefully.)

So, having spent some time in the past doing things like i18n, I really have to
suggest you don't take that approach to the server side.  Thats going to cause
a zillion little problems.  There are two generally accepted ways of i18n'ing
something:

1) Use catgets and catalog facilities.  This is actually really easy.
2) Use gettext and friends.  I've heard this is easy, but never done it.

The problem is.. if you just convert it all to hungarian, then every time we do
any work on the server, you will have to manually apply our patches to the
server.  Now you could also do the mud thing, and branch off completely.  But
personally I think that would be a mistake.  Besides.. if you do one of those
methods, when someone wants to come by and translate it to french, they won't
have to repeat your whole excersize.

As for the windows client.. umm.. yeah.  There is no source for the DX client. 
It will be solved eventually when replaced with the SDL client.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From mwedel at sonic.net  Thu Nov  8 23:36:29 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] uhh ohh
References: <20011109002720.C1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BEB6B5D.547C783F@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Messages haven't been getting logged because:
> Cannot open file /cvsroot/crossfire/CVSROOT/commitlog for append.
> 
> This is a big problem, I have commited a few small patches or late (fixed avatars, fixed some typos etc). I don't know what everyone else has been doing but I have no way of checking cause there aren't any logs. CHAOS!
> 
> this reminds me of a classic goodies episode...
> 
> Panic, Panic, Panic all over the place. I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!

 This should be fixed - I can't easily confirm it since it always worked for me
(not positive why it would for me but not others - must be an ownership thing on
the server).  For now, I've just removed it from adding to the commitlog, since
that wasn't really being used anyways, and it will still generate mail messages
even without writing to that file (or so the docs suggest).

From mwedel at sonic.net  Thu Nov  8 23:41:52 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
References: <20011109000922.A1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BEB6CA0.81F8935B@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Okay, regardless of your opinions I have posted a few updates to convert all the 2x2 avatars to 1x1 avatars. The 3 are:
> Gaea: Ent -> Panther

 May be beter to have made this one of the small trees?  Or even just shrink
down a big ent into a single space monster just to keep appearances the same?


> This is for two reasons, firstly because they sucked and secondly because they were broken (or at least were on my server). Don't be alarmed, I have kept a full backup of the gods. If or when the bug is found, or it is found that my update is wrong, I will fix them np's.

 Yeah - I recall previous discussions that multi part archetypes really suck. 
One reason being that so many maps are only single space wide (which suck for
other reasons).

> 
> In terms of changes I have edited the animation and face and _reduced their hp by half_. This means:
> Gaea: 1000 -> 500
> Ruggilli: 650 -> 400 (not half, but that avatar really sucked)
> Gnarg: 1000 -> 500
> 
> Leaf if no one no one wants this changed back please update the webpage.

 Note that I think some playbalance on the gods was related to how good/bad the
avatars were.  So at some level, all the avatars do not need to be equal - if
some gods have really good higher level spells, the need for a good avatar is
dimished.

> 
> ps. Any thoughts on making fire repelled on wraiths? denied does make it very difficult, perhaps even attuning it to cold?

 At some level, it is a player choice what race/class to choose.  Wraith is
definately one of those more special classes - at some level, I would prefer to
have some things more difficult just to make life a little more varied.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Thu Nov  8 23:59:57 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] crossfire vs mud
References: <Pine.LNX.4.02.10111071242520.7781-100000@ab.irisz.hu>
Message-ID: <3BEB70DD.C5445ED3@sonic.net>

Beno Attila wrote:

> I come from a mudding background, and am used to having 100+ users on the
> same server. Looking at the metaserver stats, there are max 2-3 people
> online at a time on a crossfire server. I don't assume there is a
> technical reason for it, right?

 Probably several aspects in addition to popularity:

1) Lag is probably more relevant for crossfire than muds, simply because of the
much faster action (a do or die battle may only be 5 seconds), and because much
more data is being transmitted.  Playing on a slow link more or less amounts to
death.

2) Because of the amount of data and additional calculations the server does,
the load a server can handle is also likely to be smaller than that of a mud. 
But to be honest, except for some bad bugs/maps, I don't know if the cpu or
network has yet to be saturated by most of the public servers out there.

3) Crossfire is likely to be much more playable on a solo server than other
games - as you mention below, most all maps are available, so many people may in
fact be players on solo servers or on private lans/whatever else.   Same
probably can not be said for muds, as you won't get much with just the server.

> 
> So why do all running servers have the out-of-the-box maps? Again, please
> exuse me, I'm fairly new to crossfire, but fell in love with in pretty
> quickly. :)

 As said:
1) Making maps is somewhat time consuming.
2) I think most of the developers figured there would be greater good in
contributing the maps they do to the common pool, increasing the size of the
set.  There may also be some peer pressure - if you do come up with a really
cool mapset, you'll probably get some people saying 'that is really cool - you
should contribute it to the main set'.

 There are obviously good reasons not to do so:
1) Non public maps can not be examined by other people, so people can't easily
find out how to navigate it/passwords/powers of customized monsters, etc.
2) differentation of servers - If my world looks nothing like yours, it means
each server has a new play experience.  Unfortunately, due to possible lag, it
may not be feasible for people to play your server simply because it would be
too painful.


> So is it, for some reason required that you use the original maps? (I've
> only seen one server that had EXTRA maps, but even that had the original
> set.)

 No requirement.  Just a bit of work to come up with your own set.  Probably an
easier solution would be to start with the standard set, but move thing around. 
Maybe have characters start in navar city, move dungeons here and there, etc. 
Experience is still somewhat the same, but a bit different (as that tough dragon
at the end may now be a different type than people expected, etc).

From mwedel at sonic.net  Fri Nov  9 00:09:23 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] poisoning
References: <20011031002128.A3096@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <3BE785F7.A7E61918@sonic.net> <20011107121118.B17956@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BEB7313.B00E35D2@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Ahh okay this would explain it, thanks for that Mark.
> Another quick question about poison, I recently hacked a player on my home computer server to have the spell poison cloud. I found, though it ABSOLUTELY rocked in terms of coolness, it didn't do much. This was because it hardly infected anything even at level 35 (ogres and orcs I am talking about..). Is there someway to increase the speed of infection for poison?

 There are three variables for poison:
1) How much damage it does
2) How much time elapses between each does
3) How long it lasts for.

 Certainly, poison cloud can be beefed up somewhat.  OTOH, you have to remember
that anything the players can use can also get used against the players - if you
make poison cloud too nasty, it may kill some players.

 Poison against players is rarely deadly on its own - often, it is combined with
something else (like nasty monsters) that actually results in death.

 One problem about using it against monsters is the same as against players -
the regen rate for the creature may very well be faster than what the poison
does.

 What may make sense would be to modify the code so that additional damage is
sustained for creatures within the poison cloud.  Right now, typically, once
poisoned, you really don't care if your in the poison cloud - this could
certainly be changed so there is incentive to get out of the poisoned area - in
some sense, it would be a bit like a fireball.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Fri Nov  9 00:36:45 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
Message-ID: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net>

 I've given some thoughts to the world map redo.  May basic plan is:

1)  Expand the world map by a factor of around 30
2) Use the new map tiling to join the maps, so they appear correctly if playing
with larger map windows.  Also fixes things like dimension door.
3) Remove the city icons, and instead they get placed on full scale on the world
maps.  Some other dungeons may be similarly put.  This reduces crossfire to a 2
scale system, but also gives some other benefits (different ways to enter/exit
the city, etc.
4) I'm not completely decided on the size for each piece - I'm thinking
something a little smaller (30x30 or so) - this is small enough that one could
view the entire segment on most standard monitors when editing it.

 Something ideas I've had:
1) Make the game a little less blocky - do this by putting some curved type
objects for things like trees, roads, etc,  I'm really not sure how useful this
will be unless there are a lot of different curved type pieces.  This is purely
cosmetic change.  Related here would be to make some 'edge' cases for the forest
- ie, at the edge, you would see the tree trunks.

2) add an outdoor flag to these maps.  Currently, this would not have any use,
but could be used in the future to know that the map should have weather effects
or get adjusted via setting sun, etc.
3) Random generation on these maps.  these maps could generate random objects -
the frequency could be controlled via an attribute in the map header.  this can
be useful for generating some random monsters in the world maps, but can also be
used to generate other random objects, like random herbs in swamps or
forest,random minerals in the mountains,etc.

 I personally think it would be sort of cool to go hunting in the forest looking
for some herb you need for that potion.  The problem is that this really won't
be much of a search - if your playing with a 25x25 map, you'll be able to spot
that special plant from a good distance.  My thoughts on this:

a) use something like the rune code - if you search for it, you may find
something (if there is in fact anything), but if theres nothing around, you
don't find it.  This may not be very useful.
b) Redo stacking - eg, instead of forest being one object, it would instead be
grass and then the trees.  The the special plants could get put between those
layers, making it harder to see.

I figure that for the random generation, the type of terrain would determine
what type of thing is generated.  For areas with cities, the encounter chance
would be 0.  Alternatively, a bunch of different encounter lists could be used,
so for things like cities, it would be benign stuff.  I really don't want to get
into 'this batch of squares shouldn't have anything generated, but this batch
should'.

4) Maybe add some partial line of sight blockage, eg, maybe a total of 4 is
needed to completely block line of sight.  A row of trees/forest has a blocking
factor of 1, so it would take 4 rows to completely block sight.  Jungle may have
a value of 4 for example, so one row blocks it.  I'm not sure if this is worth
it or not.

 Just some thoughts.

From root at garbled.net  Fri Nov  9 01:04:24 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] poisoning
In-Reply-To: <3BEB7313.B00E35D2@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011109000424.root@garbled.net>

On 09-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>  Poison against players is rarely deadly on its own - often, it is combined
> with
> something else (like nasty monsters) that actually results in death.

Heh.. Try playing as a elf worshiper of lythander.  Poison for me means run
like hell, sit in a corner praying and healing like mad until it's over.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From John.Cater at eng.monash.edu.au  Fri Nov  9 04:05:16 2001
From: John.Cater at eng.monash.edu.au (John Cater)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
Message-ID: <85e30186434d.86434d85e301@mail1.monash.edu.au>

Hear hear!

I'd agree with you on every point, and I hereby offer myself to
contribute to this effort - though it would be nice if we could use the
GTK editor... :-)

At the same time I'd like to shift a few of the existing maps around.

e.g. Fold Port Joseph into Scorn port area, and move beginners 2 into
Scorn central.

I suggest a new CVS directory, where the new maps go as we create them.
Maybe start-off with a blank canvas for the world, and go from there.
Personally, 32 x 32 appeals to me as a map size or maybe 24x24?

At the same time, I'd like to see the directory structure for the maps
rationalized, so that maps in similar places were grouped together.

What happened to our Map Czar?


> 1)  Expand the world map by a factor of around 30
> 2) Use the new map tiling to join the maps, so they appear 
> correctly if playing
> with larger map windows.  Also fixes things like dimension door.
> 3) Remove the city icons, and instead they get placed on full scale 
> on the world
> maps.  Some other dungeons may be similarly put.  This reduces 
> crossfire to a 2
> scale system, but also gives some other benefits (different ways to 
> enter/exitthe city, etc.
> 4) I'm not completely decided on the size for each piece - I'm 
> thinkingsomething a little smaller (30x30 or so) - this is small 
> enough that one could
> view the entire segment on most standard monitors when editing it.



From John.Cater at eng.monash.edu.au  Fri Nov  9 04:08:47 2001
From: John.Cater at eng.monash.edu.au (John Cater)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
Message-ID: <861913864a92.864a92861913@mail1.monash.edu.au>

I've got a funky idea for the maps. What if monsters could apply exits?

I can imagine some fun, when the monster you have been teasing follows
you outside - imagine being chased by a Balrog around the city!

At least monsters should follow you up stairs etc. I've noticed tons of
people dropping down stairs, letting off all their mana and then
applying the stairs again to regenerate. Maybe only single-square
monsters that apply things (like vampires) could apply the stairs too
and follow you.




From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Fri Nov  9 03:28:29 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:46 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 388] New - Fireborns can't seem to go invisible
Message-ID: <200111090928.fA99STv21403@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=388

*** shadow/388	Fri Nov  9 03:28:29 2001
--- shadow/388.tmp.21400	Fri Nov  9 03:28:29 2001
***************
*** 0 ****
--- 1,18 ----
+ +============================================================================+
+ | Fireborns can't seem to go invisible                                       |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |        Bug #: 388                         Product: Crossfire               |
+ |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
+ |   Resolution:                            Platform: PC                      |
+ |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
+ |     Priority: P2                        Component: server                  |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |  Assigned To: crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com                          |
+ |  Reported By: john.cater@eng.monash.edu.au                                 |
+ |      CC list: Cc:                                                          |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |          URL:                                                              |
+ +============================================================================+
+ |                              DESCRIPTION                                   |
+ Fireborns are only momentarily invisible after casting one of the two spells
+ (invisibility, improved invisibility), then they reappear.
\ No newline at end of file

From root at garbled.net  Fri Nov  9 09:56:34 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
In-Reply-To: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011109085634.root@garbled.net>

On 09-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
> 2) add an outdoor flag to these maps.  Currently, this would not have any

Yay.

> 3) Random generation on these maps.  these maps could generate random objects
> -
> 
>  I personally think it would be sort of cool to go hunting in the forest
> looking
> for some herb you need for that potion.  The problem is that this really
> won't
> be much of a search - if your playing with a 25x25 map, you'll be able to
> spot
> that special plant from a good distance.  My thoughts on this:
> 

So.. I'd be more inclined to do it differently than you suggested.  Perhaps a
skill such as mining, or herbalist.  A herbalist could go out into the forest,
use his skill, and poof plants appear.  Perhaps this could just be another
effect of wood-lore.  Miners could go out (a pick axe or shovel might grant the
skill) and mine rock, and find chunks of gold or gems.  That way the items
aren't just lying out there for all to find.. you have to go into the forest
and look for them.

> 4) Maybe add some partial line of sight blockage, eg, maybe a total of 4 is

Neat.  Perhaps it could work like light dark.  As you look into the trees, it
gets hashed until it's black.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Fri Nov  9 11:29:15 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
In-Reply-To: <3BEB6CA0.81F8935B@sonic.net>
References: <20011109000922.A1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <3BEB6CA0.81F8935B@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <20011110042915.B21710@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 09:41:52PM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
> David Hurst wrote:
> > 
> > Okay, regardless of your opinions I have posted a few updates to convert all the 2x2 avatars to 1x1 avatars. The 3 are:
> > Gaea: Ent -> Panther
> 
>  May be beter to have made this one of the small trees?  Or even just shrink
> down a big ent into a single space monster just to keep appearances the same?

The small tree looks really evil actually, I don't think it looks appropriate.
Shrinking images is generally a bad idea, I would be more inclined to rework the whole image, but this takes time...

> > This is for two reasons, firstly because they sucked and secondly because they were broken (or at least were on my server). Don't be alarmed, I have kept a full backup of the gods. If or when the bug is found, or it is found that my update is wrong, I will fix them np's.
> 
>  Yeah - I recall previous discussions that multi part archetypes really suck. 
> One reason being that so many maps are only single space wide (which suck for
> other reasons).

This patch was actually put in because multitiled monsters seem to be broken abit right now. For example, you can hit a titan with an avatar of gnarg (friend of giants) if you hit on the right side, and the lower parts. If you try to hit its head it tells you that it avoids damaging the titan. Multitiled monsters don't seem to be hitting correctly, some monsters simply don't hit on some angles (see mich's post about trolls, or maybe that was irc.. hmmm). This meant that the avatar of gnarg was only hitting on certain angels, which coupled with the fact that gnarg's avatar can't hit most exp giving monsters in standard maps, and that multitiled avatars are harder to steer meant it was close to unuseable.

> > 
> > In terms of changes I have edited the animation and face and _reduced their hp by half_. This means:
> > Gaea: 1000 -> 500
> > Ruggilli: 650 -> 400 (not half, but that avatar really sucked)
> > Gnarg: 1000 -> 500
> > 
> > Leaf if no one no one wants this changed back please update the webpage.
> 
>  Note that I think some playbalance on the gods was related to how good/bad the
> avatars were.  So at some level, all the avatars do not need to be equal - if
> some gods have really good higher level spells, the need for a good avatar is
> dimished.

This is certainly a good point. Firstly I tend to take the roll of fixing balance problems (see many additions of weapons, resistance changes etc.). I have been playing through all the less popular gods (and some popular ones). I have found that on the whole there is a large gap between the favorites, and the unpopular. Devourers for example is really bad right now, I simply didn't find any fun in it at all (vun to fire! and denied fire!). Anyway my point is that this change is part of that balancing process. I don't feel that gnarg, gaea or ruggilli players are getting a very fun experience because there is very limited options for what to use to kill things at many points throughout the game. The good thing about avatars is they tend to fix these holes, sadly the 2x2 avatars weren't.
Infact I am considering further changes to gnarg in particular (current god) to make it alittle more fun and playable.

> > 
> > ps. Any thoughts on making fire repelled on wraiths? denied does make it very difficult, perhaps even attuning it to cold?
> 
>  At some level, it is a player choice what race/class to choose.  Wraith is
> definately one of those more special classes - at some level, I would prefer to
> have some things more difficult just to make life a little more varied.

When was the last time you tried one out? =). It certainly isn't like a fireborn or Q, those two actually have some really nice positives, currently wraiths don't have a favoured god (like fireborns -> gaea, Q's -> ruggilli). In terms of making the game fun, it is important to make some things possible simply to be able to at very least complete maps. How do you kill a dragon, when you have no ice spell and vun fire? you have to wait. If there are enough negatives in key areas a player is effectively starved of any choices. I think for every character (not including god chosen) there should be a fairly balanced or close to balanced level in all races and classes. If players want a challenge above doing maps which a particular char may not be strong at, let them choose a new god, the ultimate challenge, devourers fireborn swashbuckler!.

The point is, something has to be fun, I suppose it is subjective as to what fun might be.

dnh

> _______________________________________________
> crossfire-devel mailing list
> crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com
> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-devel

From smurf at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU  Fri Nov  9 12:45:30 2001
From: smurf at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Scott MacFiggen)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
In-Reply-To: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net>; from mwedel@sonic.net on Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 10:36:45PM -0800
References: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <20011109104530.A62831@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 10:36:45PM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
> 
>  Something ideas I've had:
> 1) Make the game a little less blocky - do this by putting some curved 
> type objects for things like trees, roads, etc,  I'm really not sure how 
> useful this will be unless there are a lot of different curved type pieces.  
> This is purely cosmetic change.  Related here would be to make some 'edge' 
> cases for the forest - ie, at the edge, you would see the tree trunks.

I was actually considering taking this problem on for my next project. There
are some good articles on gamedev.net that go over ways to implement this.
The one I was going to try was adding a fringe layer to the maps. 
Although the biggest problem with this is it breaks the new map command since
there are not enough bits left to add another map layer. Anyway the basic
idea is you have terrain precedences and a fringe bitmap for each 
terrain border. So to take an example from the article, if you had
a forest and a grassland border, the forest would have precedence
over the grassland and stick out a bit into the grassland tile. 

It is a short article, URL is 
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article943.asp 

And I agree with all of your other comments.

 -Scott

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 10 13:50:11 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
References: <20011109000922.A1460@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <3BEB6CA0.81F8935B@sonic.net> <20011110042915.B21710@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BED84F3.53DE0360@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:

> The small tree looks really evil actually, I don't think it looks appropriate.
> Shrinking images is generally a bad idea, I would be more inclined to rework the whole image, but this takes time...

 Ok.  Of course, there are the small trees (used in the countryside).  But it
probably doesn't make a big difference what the avatar looks like.


> This patch was actually put in because multitiled monsters seem to be broken abit right now. For example, you can hit a titan with an avatar of gnarg (friend of giants) if you hit on the right side, and the lower parts. If you try to hit its head it tells you that it avoids damaging the titan. Multitiled monsters don't seem to be hitting correctly, some monsters simply don't hit on some angles (see mich's post about trolls, or maybe that was irc.. hmmm). This meant that the avatar of gnarg was only hitting on certain angels, which coupled with the fact that gnarg's avatar can't hit most exp giving monsters in standard maps, and that multitiled avatars are harder to steer meant it was close to unuseable.

 that should be fixed in CVS (I put a fix in a few days ago which fixed the
problem of monsters not attacking if your not next to their head).  Now I
haven't tested multipart on multipart combat. 


> The point is, something has to be fun, I suppose it is subjective as to what fun might be.

 that is certainly true.  For some people, fun might be having resistance 90+ to
everything and just being able to go through and slaughter everything in sight. 
But I think we can all agree that is not balanced or good for the game.

 I guess my worry is that if the wraiths become too similar to some of the races
already in the game, it doesn't add a lot.  But even with your changes, I don't
see that happening real soon.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 10 14:20:27 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
References: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net> <20011109104530.A62831@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Message-ID: <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net>

 I'm going to reply to all the responses in one post.


John Cater wrote:
> 
> Hear hear!
> 
> I'd agree with you on every point, and I hereby offer myself to
> contribute to this effort - though it would be nice if we could use the
> GTK editor... :-)

 Great.  This is certainly a task that can easily be split up among several
people - different people can take different areas of the world and fix it up. 
I'll take care of expanding and the initial tiling (simply because that will be
done by scripts).

 Of course, people should communicate what map areas they will be working with.

> 
> At the same time I'd like to shift a few of the existing maps around.
> 
> e.g. Fold Port Joseph into Scorn port area, and move beginners 2 into
> Scorn central.

 Certainly some shuffling can be done.  Certain areas are not very large.  I've
always disliked the number of 'small' places that you get to by boat - they feel
disconnected from the rest of the world.

> 
> I suggest a new CVS directory, where the new maps go as we create them.
> Maybe start-off with a blank canvas for the world, and go from there.
> Personally, 32 x 32 appeals to me as a map size or maybe 24x24?

 Yes - a new cvs directory is probably appropriate.  Something like 'maps-new'
or the like - dunno - I would like to keep maps in the name, but generally
dislike the idea of using relative terms like 'new'.  As then a couple years
from now, someone will say 'what is new about these'.  Maybe maps-bigworld or
the like?

 Each tile size is a matter of debate.  There is no reason the tile size has to
be a power of two (or nicely factored).  Making the size 25 then means that the
math is easy if you want to figure out how many spaces away something on another
map is.  I would prefer to keep the maps square also for simplicity.

The main considerations for a map size are:
1) Number of objects.  Making each map 100x100 would mean a lot of objects -
thus longer load/save times, and more memory consumption.  Given current
hardware, both of these may not be that big a deal.
2) Ability to edit and have the entire map on the screen.  The editors do have
scrollbars - perhaps the point here is that it would be annoying to size
something so that it is just a few spaces larger than will appear on your
screen.  I have no idea the typical resoluation people run out, but if you
presume 1280x1024, that means that vertically, you are talking 32 spaces
presuming no adornment for the editor at the top or bottom. 
3) If some things like random encounters/objects showing up based on overall map
attributes (and perhaps other random things based on total map attributes), you
want the map such a size that the attributes describe an area of reasonable
size.

 Now one thing I just thought of - if the world is expanded by 30, and the size
of each map is also 30, that basically means each space on the current map would
become an entirely new map.  I'm not sure how useful the auto expansion would be
in that case (other than to use as landmarks).

> 
> At the same time, I'd like to see the directory structure for the maps
> rationalized, so that maps in similar places were grouped together.

 Agree.  I would think that maps should be sorted based on where they are
located, not on author.


> I've got a funky idea for the maps. What if monsters could apply exits?
> 
> I can imagine some fun, when the monster you have been teasing follows
> you outside - imagine being chased by a Balrog around the city!

 Note that monsters will follow players across maps that use map tiling.  So for
example, if you met a giant in the hills and decided to run back to town, it
would follow you (presuming the speeds are roughly the same)


> At least monsters should follow you up stairs etc. I've noticed tons of
> people dropping down stairs, letting off all their mana and then
> applying the stairs again to regenerate. Maybe only single-square
> monsters that apply things (like vampires) could apply the stairs too
> and follow you.

 I think all this will do is change the strategy players use.

 The other problem is that the logic here can be difficult.  If the vampire is
no longer on the same map as the player, it is difficult to know how the vampire
should get to the player.  If its standing on an exit, then yes, it could see if
it leads to that same map.  But if it is 10 spaces away, you would need to add
code to have it search for exits.  And different people may have different
opinions on what monsters would really know the layout of the dungeon (eg,
something like a black pudding probably would not, but a vampire should).  But
if the player now puts an extra map between him (eg, goes up two levels), this
of course gets very difficult.

 The other potential problem is that if monsters follow players too far, they
may end up where other players do no expect them.  Think for example of monsters
following some players out of houses in some of the cities.  New players showing
up may not be very appreciative of there being some nasty things about (and of
course the player who lured them there, knowing he is out classed, may have
decided to save hoping for a map reset or someone else to take care of them)

Tim Rightnour wrote:
> So.. I'd be more inclined to do it differently than you suggested.  Perhaps a
> skill such as mining, or herbalist.  A herbalist could go out into the forest,
> use his skill, and poof plants appear.  Perhaps this could just be another
> effect of wood-lore.  Miners could go out (a pick axe or shovel might grant the
> skill) and mine rock, and find chunks of gold or gems.  That way the items
> aren't just lying out there for all to find.. you have to go into the forest
> and look for them.

 That could work - using the skills lets you find them if they are there.  And
of course you would get some small amount of exp for doing this.  Of course, if
nothing has been generated in that area (or someone else has come through and
grabbed what stuff was there), your out of luck.

> 
> > 4) Maybe add some partial line of sight blockage, eg, maybe a total of 4 is
> 
> Neat.  Perhaps it could work like light dark.  As you look into the trees, it
> gets hashed until it's black.

 Yep - that could get done.

Scott MacFiggen wrote:
> (my comments about making the game less blocky ommitted)
> 
> I was actually considering taking this problem on for my next project. There
> are some good articles on gamedev.net that go over ways to implement this.
> The one I was going to try was adding a fringe layer to the maps.
> Although the biggest problem with this is it breaks the new map command since
> there are not enough bits left to add another map layer. Anyway the basic
> idea is you have terrain precedences and a fringe bitmap for each
> terrain border. So to take an example from the article, if you had
> a forest and a grassland border, the forest would have precedence
> over the grassland and stick out a bit into the grassland tile.
> 
> It is a short article, URL is
> http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article943.asp

 That article does not seem to describe anything about terrain, but more overall
game design.

 Note that the protocol/map currently supports three layers.  So if you
currently have something like FP spaces (F forest P plain), the layers as sent
to the client for each would be something like forest, blank, blank then plain,
blank, blank.

 You could put in a 'fringe', and then the stacking would be forest, plain
fringe, blank, etc.  There are already some maps that use something like this -
rounded water spaces - look at wolfsburge/piratetown.

 The water of course is pretty easy - you just chop the image where needed. 
Doing forest would be trickier, as you actually need it to tile correctly with
the piece adjoining it.  But I would think that the same type of thing could be
used without much trouble.

From smurf at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU  Sat Nov 10 17:32:39 2001
From: smurf at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Scott MacFiggen)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
In-Reply-To: <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net>; from mwedel@sonic.net on Sat, Nov 10, 2001 at 12:20:27PM -0800
References: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net> <20011109104530.A62831@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <20011110153239.A88884@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>

> It is a short article, URL is
> http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article943.asp

Opps, that should be:

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article934.asp

	-Scott

From andi.vogl at gmx.net  Sat Nov 10 22:13:53 2001
From: andi.vogl at gmx.net (Andreas Vogl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
In-Reply-To: <20011110042915.B21710@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBMECJCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>

dnh wrote:

> [...] I tend to take the roll of fixing balance problems (see many
> additions of weapons, resistance changes etc.). I have been playing
> through all the less popular gods (and some popular ones). [...]

Most of your stuff is quite nice, really.
I greatly appreciate your creativity and effort.
What bothers me a little bit though is that every one of your checkins
makes CF a certain degree easier.
One-square avatars, more resistances, added artifacts
to the random lists, increased god bonuses... - As long as there
is no compensation, all this stuff makes the process of beating
the game faster and easier.

I'm not sure how others think about this point. However, I'd be
happy if we could maintain some basic difficulty level for CF without
doing branch-offs.

Andreas V.

From root at garbled.net  Sun Nov 11 00:50:53 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
In-Reply-To: <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011110235053.root@garbled.net>

On 10-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>  I'm going to reply to all the responses in one post.

And I'll reply to this.


If we are going to be undertaking a massive map workover.  Can I please beg a
request?

Can we *please* get the special "map items" out of the map files, and placed
under arch?  It would make things *sooo* much cleaner.  Right now, on my
current project of twiddling all the weapons to have the right messages.. I'm
going to have to go on some wild crusade through all the maps to find the
various daggers/etc buried within and fix them.

In addition, it gives people the ability to instanly look over the weapons and
know what we have available.  There are also lots of strange silly-items like
the dwarven keyring, etc.  In future overhauls, these will be very difficult to
hunt down and fix.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From tchize at mailandnews.com  Sun Nov 11 09:50:48 2001
From: tchize at mailandnews.com (tchize)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
In-Reply-To: <20011110153239.A88884@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
References: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net> <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net> <20011110153239.A88884@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Message-ID: <01111110504800.01861@Pikachu.Maison>

Le Samedi 10 Novembre 2001 18:32, vous avez ?crit :
> > It is a short article, URL is
> > http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article943.asp
>
> Opps, that should be:
>
> http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article934.asp


Thisdis quite interresting since it doesn't need work on the server side. 
Only the client should ask for pictures in the corners. However. This mean we 
need to draw the graphics. And to do so we need drawers! Don't forget the xpm 
to PNG process is not yet finished and we lack drawers. If you can send 
terrain transitions, am ready to do the work oon the client.... (GTK)





From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Sun Nov 11 10:32:45 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] 2x2 - Avatars
In-Reply-To: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBMECJCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>
References: <20011110042915.B21710@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBMECJCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <20011112033245.A7897@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

On Sun, Nov 11, 2001 at 05:13:53AM +0100, Andreas Vogl wrote:
> dnh wrote:
> 
> > [...] I tend to take the roll of fixing balance problems (see many
> > additions of weapons, resistance changes etc.). I have been playing
> > through all the less popular gods (and some popular ones). [...]
 
> Most of your stuff is quite nice, really.
> I greatly appreciate your creativity and effort.
> What bothers me a little bit though is that every one of your checkins
> makes CF a certain degree easier.

Everything we add adds more options and in a way, makes the game easier. The changes I make are to very specific things, for example I change Gnarg, I change wraiths and I change random shields and gloves. Why? because after playing through with these gods, with these races, I find that comparitively they are not even close to balanced. Now I understand that to a degree many things should be alittle harder, alittle bit less powerful, but there is a range. If something is to hard, we may scare people away, if something is to easy people may get bored and leave.

When was the last time you played a wraith out of interest? When did you last play gnarg to level 110? Was it any fun? I certainly didn't find it so. Now this is my own subjective view, and it may well differ from others. That is why I always ask peoples opinions on a commit and invite people to change as they see fit. I do not add these items with the express wish of leaving my change as final. In many cases I add things which I want people to change.

In terms of avatars I certainly didn't make it easier in a few ways. Firstly I halved their health. Try using the avatar of gnarg, its rubbish.. but it least it is bug free and uses a pretty image =). Same for gaea and ruggilli but to a lesser extent.

Making things hard certainly isn't the answer to making Crossfire fun and more than making it easy is. We could make kobolds have dragon breath, and goblins cast healing spells. It wouldn't be any fun at all, things like this need alot of balancing regularly to keep them up to date compared to the rest of CF, otherwise more items will be added instead, or a new spell will be added. Alot of things in CF have been all but forgotten, when was the last time anyone used archery?

> One-square avatars, more resistances, added artifacts
> to the random lists, increased god bonuses... - As long as there
> is no compensation, all this stuff makes the process of beating
> the game faster and easier.

Apart from the fact that I haven't touched god bonus for about 2 months, I simply don't agree with this. I finished CF alot faster before PR and I enjoyed it immensly, as you to did AV. I am finding I don't enjoy pupland so much now that it is so hard and fast. I am not saying you have made a mistake or that this is all your fault, but I really do think it is important to keep this sort of thing in perspective. Vun of -40 fire??? How the heck would you manage to play the game that long that you could be bothered actually finishing it? ;)

> I'm not sure how others think about this point. However, I'd be
> happy if we could maintain some basic difficulty level for CF without
> doing branch-offs.

Well the level of difficulty certainly hasn't been maintained, I don't know why it is suddenly so important.. ? Perhaps I missed something? If you think these are errors on my behalf, I will revoke my work.

dnh

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sun Nov 11 17:44:20 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
References: <3BEB797D.61F20C89@sonic.net> <3BED8C0B.E1A40C6D@sonic.net> <20011110153239.A88884@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> <01111110504800.01861@Pikachu.Maison>
Message-ID: <3BEF0D54.31F45B36@sonic.net>

tchize wrote:
> 
> Le Samedi 10 Novembre 2001 18:32, vous avez ?crit :
> > > It is a short article, URL is
> > > http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article943.asp
> >
> > Opps, that should be:
> >
> > http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article934.asp
> 
> Thisdis quite interresting since it doesn't need work on the server side.
> Only the client should ask for pictures in the corners. However. This mean we
> need to draw the graphics. And to do so we need drawers! Don't forget the xpm
> to PNG process is not yet finished and we lack drawers. If you can send
> terrain transitions, am ready to do the work oon the client.... (GTK)

 This can only really work on the client side if the client knows the content of
the images.  EG, if you have image 543 and 865 together, that provides no
information if blending happens.  But if you know that 543 is plains and 865 is
forest (numbers all hypothetical of course), then you can do blending.

 Now if the client is caching images, it does have the image names, and it
probably makes sense to let the client do the blending.  Personally, I would
think that any images the client needs should be distributed with the client. 
There has been a lot of discussion about images on the server and so forth - the
simple summary is that the server needs to be able to provide images so that all
clients don't need to get updated if some new images are added.  But if the
client must have the image, and in fact the client is the only thing that will
use it, it might as well be distributed with the client.

 I'm not sure what you say when you mean "Don't forget the xpm to PNG process is
not yet finished".  I'm guessing your are meaning that some of the png images
are really just scaled up xpm images and in fact should be redrawn properly?

Scott MacFiggen wrote:

> I was actually considering taking this problem on for my next project. There
> are some good articles on gamedev.net that go over ways to implement this.
> The one I was going to try was adding a fringe layer to the maps.
> Although the biggest problem with this is it breaks the new map command since
> there are not enough bits left to add another map layer. Anyway the basic
> idea is you have terrain precedences and a fringe bitmap for each
> terrain border. So to take an example from the article, if you had
> a forest and a grassland border, the forest would have precedence
> over the grassland and stick out a bit into the grassland tile.

 As tchize mentions, this can all be handled on the client.  I can't actually
see any reason that it could not be.  And there are certain advantages to
handling it on the client - less server complexity (and cpu cycles to figure
that out), less bandwidth, and in fact no change needed to the protocol.  You
also have the advantage that all maps basically get updated instantly with this
new feature vs people having to redo them.

 Now I could very well be overlooking something - there could certainly be
reasons why this could not be all client - the only one I could really think of
is if you really did not want blending in some cases (eg, you really wanted the
sharp corners).

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sun Nov 11 17:55:57 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] World Maps Redux
References: <XFMail.011110235053.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <3BEF100D.E5329AE4@sonic.net>

Tim Rightnour wrote:

> If we are going to be undertaking a massive map workover.  Can I please beg a
> request?

 You can always make requests.  If they get answered may be a different story :)

> 
> Can we *please* get the special "map items" out of the map files, and placed
> under arch?  It would make things *sooo* much cleaner.  Right now, on my
> current project of twiddling all the weapons to have the right messages.. I'm
> going to have to go on some wild crusade through all the maps to find the
> various daggers/etc buried within and fix them.

 If the items on the maps are done properly, it should not be an issue - those
items should inherent all proper information from the arch they came from.

 Now it is possible that some items are not derived properly (eg, they took the
hammer arch, gave it a ne face and abilities).  In that case, it should be fixed
on the map to be the dagger arch.  But I don't think there are any cases where
that really happened.

 
> In addition, it gives people the ability to instanly look over the weapons and
> know what we have available.  There are also lots of strange silly-items like
> the dwarven keyring, etc.  In future overhauls, these will be very difficult to
> hunt down and fix.

 at one point do you determine if a dagger is different enough it should be a
new arch vs a variation of what we have?  If I give dagger fire attack, should
then be a new arch?  What about ability bonuses, etc.

 The problems I see with all derivations becoming archs:
1) A lot more archs - so many more that looking through them to see what is
there may not be all that feasible.
2) More difficult to add new maps - you now need to update the archs.  This may
not be terrible, but is certainly more a pain if someone says 'check out this
cool map I did'.
3) It can reduce uniqueness.  Eg, if I create a map and put a custom weapon on
it, it is unlikely someone else will make a weapon of the same abilities.  OTOH,
if this is now an arch, much more likely some other map maker will see it and
say 'ahh - that meets my needs', and puts it in there map - especially if it
saves the effort of them having to make a new arch.


 It has long been my policy that something only needs to be an arch if it adds a
new face/animation - if all that is happening is that the objects abilities are
being changed, no need for a new arch.  I think you can see that if this same
idea (don't customize monsters in maps, instead make them archs) was applied to
monsters, it would be pretty outrageous in terms of number of monsters all
pretty similar.

 I would be interested in knowing in more detail of what you are trying to fix
and why the archetype inheritance does not work.  One of the really good things
about using archetypes and deriving differences is that if the arch is changed,
all the objects based off it should change.

 Thus for example if it is realized that some resistance on trolls is wrong and
altered, all trolls on all maps will get that new value instantly by changing
that one arch (the exception is if some trolls already have a different value
for that stat).  In comparision, if you have 20 different trolls because that is
how many customizations, all of those would need to get modified

From reeve at ductape.net  Mon Nov 12 13:27:06 2001
From: reeve at ductape.net (Scott Barnes)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Gnome Client
Message-ID: <20011112142706.A6677@asellus.localnet>

I'm the guy who created the Gnome client, and I'm thinking it should be 
dropped now.  The main advantage of it was image scaling and now the 
GTK client does that, so I propose that we drop the Gnome client and 
I'll focus my efforts on the GTK client from now on.

-- --
Reeve the cat
-------------
-----BEGIN FORTUNE-----
BOFH excuse #410:

Electrical conduits in machine room are melting.
------END FORTUNE------
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d? s: a? C++++ UL++++ P+ L++++ E- W++ N o K- w--- O M-- V-- PS+++ 
PE Y PGP t+++ 5 X+ R+++ tv+ b+++ DI++ D+ G e* h-- r+++ y** ------END 
GEEK CODE BLOCK------

From mwedel at sonic.net  Tue Nov 13 22:34:47 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Gnome Client
References: <20011112142706.A6677@asellus.localnet>
Message-ID: <3BF1F467.25B07B84@sonic.net>

Scott Barnes wrote:
> 
> I'm the guy who created the Gnome client, and I'm thinking it should be
> dropped now.  The main advantage of it was image scaling and now the
> GTK client does that, so I propose that we drop the Gnome client and
> I'll focus my efforts on the GTK client from now on.

 It currently does not compile, and does need work.  I don't think anyone
actually plans to work on it, but my personal thought is there is no harm
leaving a copy of that source in CVS.  Invariably, the question comes up 'I
heard about XXXX - where I can find what work was done'.  So keeping that around
at least solves that problem as far as the gnome client goes.

From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Wed Nov 14 00:23:55 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 390] New - 'Darkness' blocks cone spells
Message-ID: <200111140623.fAE6NtW03478@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=390

*** shadow/390	Wed Nov 14 00:23:55 2001
--- shadow/390.tmp.3475	Wed Nov 14 00:23:55 2001
***************
*** 0 ****
--- 1,22 ----
+ +============================================================================+
+ | 'Darkness' blocks cone spells                                              |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |        Bug #: 390                         Product: Crossfire               |
+ |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
+ |   Resolution:                            Platform: PC                      |
+ |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
+ |     Priority: P2                        Component: arch                    |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |  Assigned To: crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com                          |
+ |  Reported By: john.cater@eng.monash.edu.au                                 |
+ |      CC list: Cc:                                                          |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |          URL:                                                              |
+ +============================================================================+
+ |                              DESCRIPTION                                   |
+ The spell darkness (only a level 2 spell) stops the propagation of cone spells
+ (ice-storms etc). So a relative newbie can stand near some bad/powerful monsters
+ and not take damage.
+ 
+ The spell creates a line of black areas, not a cone. Perhaps it should be called
+ 'Wall of Darkness'
\ No newline at end of file

From bugs at mail.real-time.com  Wed Nov 14 00:20:55 2001
From: bugs at mail.real-time.com (bugs@mail.real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] [Bug 389] New - Ruggilli's Whip doesn't disappear when dropped
Message-ID: <200111140620.fAE6Ktx03463@crusader.real-time.com>

http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=389

*** shadow/389	Wed Nov 14 00:20:55 2001
--- shadow/389.tmp.3460	Wed Nov 14 00:20:55 2001
***************
*** 0 ****
--- 1,18 ----
+ +============================================================================+
+ | Ruggilli's Whip doesn't disappear when dropped                             |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |        Bug #: 389                         Product: Crossfire               |
+ |       Status: NEW                         Version: CVS                     |
+ |   Resolution:                            Platform: PC                      |
+ |     Severity: normal                   OS/Version: Linux                   |
+ |     Priority: P2                        Component: server                  |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |  Assigned To: crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com                          |
+ |  Reported By: john.cater@eng.monash.edu.au                                 |
+ |      CC list: Cc:                                                          |
+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |          URL:                                                              |
+ +============================================================================+
+ |                              DESCRIPTION                                   |
+ Ruggilli's whip is a god-given item, and should be returned to the god if
+ dropped. This is probably a small change to the arch.
\ No newline at end of file

From aashenfe at bright.net  Thu Nov 15 11:57:13 2001
From: aashenfe at bright.net (Adam Ashenfelter)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:47 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
Message-ID: <200111151757.fAFHvDQ01771@localhost.localdomain>

I suggested a similar Idea a couple of months ago, but I thought I would 
suggest it again before everybody started working on the huge outdoor map.  
My idea was to generate a procedural map to help ease the development time, 
as well as save storage space that would be used by a huge map.  Here is how 
it would work.

A huge map would be a procedural texture type of thing.  Look up Perlin 
noise on a search engine to see how this kind of thing works.  Basically low 
values below a certain level would be ocean,  a value between that and a next 
higher value would be plains. The next higher range would be foothills.  
Anything above that would be rugged mountains.  Forestation could ten be 
decided by a secondary Perlin function modified not to happen in mountain 
terrain.  Even monster populations could be decided in such a way

When the server loads a area of the outdoor map from coordinates (x,y) to 
(x+wid,y+depth),  it would first calculate the map using the procedure.  It 
would then load the map file for that block.  Any changed in the map file 
override the object that the procedure has already put there.  Thus the Map 
designers can come in, and instead of creating all the details, they just 
make changes(i.e.  Cities, Caves, Rivers, Lakes, Mountain passes. Mazes, 
Volcanoes, Towers) to what's already there.

NOTE: wid and depth are a constant value that determines how much of a map a 
client loads at one time.  x is divisible by wid, and y should be divisible 
by depth.  Thus laying out a nice grid.  Map change files could then be named 
world{X},{Y}

Advantages.
1.  Infinitely huge and detailed maps can be mathematically generated, with 
none to very little drive space used to store the map.
2.  Ability to easily increase the size of the outdoor map at a later time.
3.  Map would be an adventure for everyone, because of areas unexplored by 
everyone.
4.  Autosmooth possible.  After generating the map, Tiles could automatically 
be replaced by transition tiles to remove the blocky-ness from the maps.
5.  The map would use a universal coordinate scheme.  Thus monsters could 
track players through map block without worrying about map transitions and 
portals.
6.  Map design times could be shortend.  Depending on how many changes a 
designer wants to make to a certain area.  If the designer wanted to change 
everything, then procedural generation could be skipped, and the change file 
would be the whole map.

Disadvantages.
1.  Don't know exactly what kind of hit generation a map block on the fly 
would cause to the server.  May result in a pause for everyone when a person 
moves across maps.  



Other features I would like to see:  In (client/server) map design(I don't 
need the server setup or the map editor to design maps, just a client, and 
someone to give me design permissions for their server),  Large maps loaded 
as tiles.  this would be the best for the above map design scheme, Multi 
server capability(Different maps run on different server, One server is 
authority on player stats)

Oh well I don't know how great any of these ideas are, but I hope they at 
least push things in an interesting direction.  Sorry for the long windedness.

Thanks
Adam Ashenfelter 

From root at garbled.net  Thu Nov 15 22:42:12 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <200111151757.fAFHvDQ01771@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011115214212.root@garbled.net>

On 15-Nov-01 Adam Ashenfelter wrote:
> 1.  Infinitely huge and detailed maps can be mathematically generated, with 
> none to very little drive space used to store the map.

I actually like the idea of generating the outdoors by altitude, and letting
the client or server side do all the work.  This would have some decided
advantages especially when you tag in the weather code I've been thinking
about.

Say for example, the maps of the world were just vast expanses of numbers.. not
generated on the fly, but perhaps generated by a program.  You let altitude
determine everything.  You start by having simple effects, like low altitude is
ocean, high altitude is mountains, etc etc.

Then, you throw in my weather engine, and this is where my idea gets kinda
wonky, so stay with me here.  The engine (which is nearly ported over)
automatically determines weather based on a number of factors, altitude being
one of them.  Now, you add the ability for the engine to save average rainfall
and temperature on the map, and suddenly, the map will self-evolve.  High
temperature, low rainfall, the area will slowly become a desert.  High
rainfall, tropical temperature, jungle.  Basically each square on the map would
have attributes:

avg rainfall
avg temperature (high/low/avg)
temperature modifier (off the base)
humidity modifier (proximity to ocean and large bodies of water)
altitude

Each "tile" would have a preference zone.  Forests require a temperature of
about 60-70, rainfall of 50inches a year.

Theoreticly, we just have the cities, and a small program that designs a random
worldmap.  We distribute those, and each server will have a unique layout. 
Each one evolving differently.

Ok.. it's pie in the sky.. but it's a nifty idea.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From mwedel at sonic.net  Thu Nov 15 23:57:10 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
References: <200111151757.fAFHvDQ01771@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <3BF4AAB6.CF4A8FA8@sonic.net>

 The idea is interesting.  One question obviously is - is it easier to set up
something like that, or jsut expand the map by hand/script?

 The main problem is the resulting map that may get generated and how it mixes
in with quests and the like.  Some quests say 'find the caves near the south
edge of the main mountain range' or the like - if that mountain range is now
someplace else, or does not really exist, such messages become pretty useless.

 You also need make sure the map generated fits in - you probably don't want a
case where the world now ends up as a bit of islands and no easy way to get from
one to another.


> Advantages.
> 1.  Infinitely huge and detailed maps can be mathematically generated, with
> none to very little drive space used to store the map.

 Note that the current world map uses about 700k (and I note that probably 10%
of that is overlap spaces).  So even if the new map is 100 bigger, that amounts
to 70 MB - yes, a bit of space, but on most any modern systems, I can't see that
being much a bigger.

> 2.  Ability to easily increase the size of the outdoor map at a later time.

 Well, maybe.  The world map is obviously going to have entrances to dungeons
and the like - these dungeons need to lead back out to the same place - they
need to use some coordinate to do that.  IMO, a bit of the effort in expanding
the world map is not increasing the scale, but updating all of those exits to
the new paths.

> 3.  Map would be an adventure for everyone, because of areas unexplored by
> everyone.

 Debatable.  Presumably, no matter what the scale/generation, people know that
they want to go to certain places (eg, the dungeon that is located there, or the
south east corner, or whatever).  So while the terrain the player is travelling
through may end up being different, the important pieces will remain in the same
places (eg, dungeons, etc).  And unless the map is infinitely large, in any
case, places will probably get explored.  And while that is an interesting idea,
unless there are interesting things on all areas of this infinite map, you
really want care.

> 4.  Autosmooth possible.  After generating the map, Tiles could automatically
> be replaced by transition tiles to remove the blocky-ness from the maps.

 This of course could get programmed into the editor.

> 5.  The map would use a universal coordinate scheme.  Thus monsters could
> track players through map block without worrying about map transitions and
> portals.

 With the new map tiling code, this currently works.


> Disadvantages.
> 1.  Don't know exactly what kind of hit generation a map block on the fly
> would cause to the server.  May result in a pause for everyone when a person
> moves across maps.

 Other thoughts:

 The map as a whole has to be consistent.  If you have a player starting in the
far east, and another in the far west, the system must be such that as they move
(and new map gets generated), if they meet, the transition makes sense.

 Second, it would seem most likely that each server would generate this world
map (or areas) once, and not again.  Otherwise, it is hard to explain why that
mountain range that used to be there is not there anymore.

 Third, computer generated maps are pretty much never as good as human ones. 
Presuming you do as you say and some features (eg, rivers and the like) are put
in the over ride maps, you know have the problem that a river may run through a
mountain range because the generator put a range where a river was running.


> 
> Other features I would like to see:  In (client/server) map design(I don't
> need the server setup or the map editor to design maps, just a client, and
> someone to give me design permissions for their server),

 This basically involves putting pieces of the editor in the client and/or
server.  the problem I see is that it doesn't really gain anything - presuming
for the editor to do much useful, the lcoal side (client) will need to know
about most of the arch's.  Whats the difference of having the client download it
over its linke to the server vs the user download it via ftp?  

>  Large maps loaded
> as tiles.  this would be the best for the above map design scheme, 

 This can be done in the new map scheme.  Note that the user has to make the
different tiles - the server won't load just a portion of the map.  Doing the
latter doesn't make a lot of sense, as it makes loads and saves a lot harder and
more time consuming, resulting in possible pauses in the server as it process
that.

> Multi
> server capability(Different maps run on different server, One server is
> authority on player stats)

 I have yet to see a compelling reason to do this, and lots of reasons not to
(complication, syncrhonization, more points of failure)

From aashenfe at bright.net  Fri Nov 16 11:28:55 2001
From: aashenfe at bright.net (Adam Ashenfelter)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <3BF4AAB6.CF4A8FA8@sonic.net>
References: <200111151757.fAFHvDQ01771@localhost.localdomain> <3BF4AAB6.CF4A8FA8@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <200111161728.fAGHSuu01790@localhost.localdomain>

On Friday 16 November 2001 12:57 am, you wrote:
>  The idea is interesting.  One question obviously is - is it easier to set
> up something like that, or just expand the map by hand/script?
It's debatable, I'll try to write a map generater with some extra time I have 
this weekend.  I don't know enough about the engine to modify it, but I can 
right out a map format.

>  The main problem is the resulting map that may get generated and how it
> mixes in with quests and the like.  Some quests say 'find the caves near
> the south edge of the main mountain range' or the like - if that mountain
> range is now someplace else, or does not really exist, such messages become
> pretty useless.
>  You also need make sure the map generated fits in - you probably don't
> want a case where the world now ends up as a bit of islands and no easy way
> to get from one to another.
I would guess that the map builders would have to worry about this with the 
new map anyway.  Plus  a number of different numbers could be plugged into 
the generator until it generates a map the similar to the current map.

>  Note that the current world map uses about 700k (and I note that probably
> 10% of that is overlap spaces).  So even if the new map is 100 bigger, that
> amounts to 70 MB - yes, a bit of space, but on most any modern systems, I
> can't see that being much a bigger.
I hear a lot of talk of increasing map detail so that outdoor maps are the 
same scale as the  cities.  If this turns out to be the case, the map could 
easily be 100 times bigger in each dimmention.  In this case, the map will 
take 7GB if stored on disk.  Yes, I have that much free, but it's still a lot 
to use up for one map.

>  Well, maybe.  The world map is obviously going to have entrances to
> dungeons and the like - these dungeons need to lead back out to the same
> place - they need to use some coordinate to do that.  IMO, a bit of the
> effort in expanding the world map is not increasing the scale, but updating
> all of those exits to the new paths.
Not increasing the scale, increasing the size by allowing players to pass 
beyond  the border to whatever may be there.

>  Debatable.  Presumably, no matter what the scale/generation, people know
> that they want to go to certain places (eg, the dungeon that is located
> there, or the south east corner, or whatever).  So while the terrain the
> player is travelling through may end up being different, the important
> pieces will remain in the same places (eg, dungeons, etc).  And unless the
> map is infinitely large, in any case, places will probably get explored. 
> And while that is an interesting idea, unless there are interesting things
> on all areas of this infinite map, you really want care.
Interesting if you care about looking at scenery.   Or fighting generated 
monster populations.

> > 5.  The map would use a universal coordinate scheme.  Thus monsters could
> > track players through map block without worrying about map transitions
> > and portals.
>
>  With the new map tiling code, this currently works.
Cool


>  Other thoughts:
>
>  The map as a whole has to be consistent.  If you have a player starting in
> the far east, and another in the far west, the system must be such that as
> they move (and new map gets generated), if they meet, the transition makes
> sense.
>
>  Second, it would seem most likely that each server would generate this
> world map (or areas) once, and not again.  Otherwise, it is hard to explain
> why that mountain range that used to be there is not there anymore.
Perline Noise functions are deterministic.  I can ask the terrain function 
for one x, y location on the world map, and it would return the same exact 
result every time I call the function.  I suggest the following site for 
Perlin Noise info.

http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/models/m_perlin.htm

>  Third, computer generated maps are pretty much never as good as human
> ones. Presuming you do as you say and some features (eg, rivers and the
> like) are put in the over ride maps, you know have the problem that a river
> may run through a mountain range because the generator put a range where a
> river was running.
See above.  The map designers would know what the map looked like as they 
made changes and I hope would not run a river straight through a mountain, 
and could fix any mistakes the terrain engine made.

> > Multi
> > server capability(Different maps run on different server, One server is
> > authority on player stats)
>  I have yet to see a compelling reason to do this, and lots of reasons not
> to (complication, syncrhonization, more points of failure)
OK maybe on doing this on such a scale is not a good idea right now.  But  
maybe taking the image server out of the main server, and putting them on 
authoritative image servers around the internet would have some benefits.

Later
Adam

From mwedel at sonic.net  Fri Nov 16 21:54:55 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
References: <200111151757.fAFHvDQ01771@localhost.localdomain> <3BF4AAB6.CF4A8FA8@sonic.net> <200111161728.fAGHSuu01790@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <3BF5DF8F.27C9A86B@sonic.net>

 I had a fairly long discussion with garbled last night on this topic, so rather
than responding on specific points, let me put out the proposed idea.

 An external program will use the perlin function to generate elevation data. 
That program would then figure out appropriate terrain types based on things
like elevation, and write the data out in tiled map format, which is the same
format as used by the rest of the maps.

 The server admin can then very easily modified these generated file to his
desired needs.

 To make this easier, there would be a few other files in the map directory. 
One would describe maps that should get inserted into the main map (eg,
navar_city, east coast, bay to north), etc.    For simpler ones, which are just
exits (eg, dragon cave, castle arg), there may be other hints, like 'within 200
spaces of navar city', or 'near center of the world'.  I'm using broad english
terms here, this would become a much more formalized language that will make
parsing and figuring this data out.

 There would also be a file generated that contains symbolic exit locations, eg,
something like 'peterm_dragonquest:world_50_23:18:14'.  This would be used for
two things - one, npc scripts would be able to query this file, so that it can
formulate messages that give some hint of the location (you can do a coordinate
translation, so can easily know if the map is to the north, east, ... from where
you are now'

 The other thing would be that maps could use these symbolic names.  Thus, the
dragon cave could have something like 'slaying @peterm_dragonquest', which would
then figure out that it should lead to world_50_23, at 18,14.  In this way,
dungeons can be located anywhere on the world without much trouble.

 Garbled plans to contribute weather effects to this, some of this is done in
the server.  Thus, the difference between a plains and desert becomes the amount
of rainful the two areas get.  The world would also evolve somewhat - areas that
are frequently travelled between would develope paths (by tracking the number of
times a player visits a space, and when beyond some point, trails, and then
perhaps, roads evolve. At the same time, there is some decay factor, so if a
path does not get used, it decomposes back into solid forest.  Related, forests
could spread if the climate is right, and they could die back from various
effects (eg, fire balls or the like), and then grow back over time.

 My personal thought is that if you rainful in areas, you can determine where
rivers may be (eg, you can figure out how much water accumulates on a space,
figure where it runs to, and when it gets to a certain point, you have  a small
river).  Figuring the coarse of the river is pretty easy - once you figure out
what space it is on, find the adjacant space near by with the lowest elevation,
and put the river there, and repeat.  Eventually, you will either reach and
ocean, or you will get to a point where all the terrain around it is now higher,
the end result is a lake, that keeps spreading until it gets to a point that it
can break out and continue.

 A lot of this may be for a second or third pass approach.  I also was going
look at least at doing a phase one implentation sometime in the next few days
(eg, use the function, that then generates out a set of tiled maps).

 The advantages of this approach:
1) Main generation removed from the server, keeping the server simpler, and not
needing to worry about possible cpu times to generate the world.
2) With the maps written out in standard map format, very easy for the server
admin to inspect and modify various areas.  If you just have something which
overlays on top, with the server making the underlying terrain, that is
difficult as what that terrain is only maintained as mathematical format.  The
server admin could more easily identify a high area of mountains that they want
to locate some secret city in for example.
3) A pre made version could be distributed for those that don't want to spend
the effort to generate one.

 Disadvantages:
1) Disk space for the maps.  Note that the maps can be compressed, and the
loader will run gunzip or zcat or whatever is needed.  That doesn't complete fix
the problems, but the maps are very compressible (IMO, I would rather leave the
maps in text format and compress them vs trying to come up with a more efficient
binary format).  The server admin could provide size specifications when
generating the world - thus, if they don't have a lot of space, the specify a
smaller world, if they have a larger one, perhaps they specify a much larger
world.

 There may be other disadvantages - that is the main one I can think of.

From root at garbled.net  Sat Nov 17 00:52:48 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <3BF5DF8F.27C9A86B@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011116235248.root@garbled.net>

On 17-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>  I had a fairly long discussion with garbled last night on this topic, so
> rather
> than responding on specific points, let me put out the proposed idea.

I'll just respond to a few minor points.

>  My personal thought is that if you rainful in areas, you can determine where
> rivers may be (eg, you can figure out how much water accumulates on a space,

Note that this means rivers will have a direction of travel.  Theoretically, a
boat placed on a river could be given momentum.
 
>  The advantages of this approach:
4) every server has the ability to be totally unique with regards to the world
layout.

5) A server can choose the size of his map, anywhere from vast to tiny.

6) Eventually, more complex things can be added, such as actual moving rivers,
the concept of special herbs or flowers that only grow in specific climates. 
Priest spells that affect the weather.

Most of this doesn't have to happen right away either.  It can all be slowly
added once the basic engine is in place.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From andi.vogl at gmx.net  Sat Nov 17 06:04:35 2001
From: andi.vogl at gmx.net (Andreas Vogl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.011116235248.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBOEDGCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>

Sorry to say, but I think random-generated worldmaps would suck.

(That doesn't apply to the weather effects thing suggested by
garbled. That might be pretty nice, but we can have that just
as well without a random worldmap)

Why do I think random worldmaps would suck? Because they'd be
boring. Randommaps can never compete with maps created by humans.
Take lake country for example. The whole map is designed in
a connective way: There are quests and npcs/books etc referring
to certain places. We've got the wiztower in the swamp to the sout-east,
the chaos lair in the mountains to the north, butakis fortress
on a small river-island in the middle etc.
Something like that can never be created at random.
Or think about pupland, and imagine what it would be like if it
was randomly generated.

I admit that the current main-continent worldmaps really don't have
much content (unlike lake country or pupland) - But that was the main
reason why we wanted to redo them, remember?

And one thing I don't understand about the whole random-worldmap
thing anyways:
You obviously have to link in the non-random maps (like cities,
caves, castled etc.). How is that supposed to happen? If you link them
in at random locations the players are completely des-oriented and
there's no way to create a reasonable quest on the worldmap (because
you can't tell the player where to find the places to go).
So, if you link them to non-random places, that actually means the
whole thing really isn't a random-map anymore. And why code a huge
random-generator if the outcome is a non-random map in the first place?

Well, just my thoughts.

Andreas V.

From root at garbled.net  Sat Nov 17 09:57:23 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBOEDGCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011117085723.root@garbled.net>

On 17-Nov-01 Andreas Vogl wrote:
> And one thing I don't understand about the whole random-worldmap
> thing anyways:
> You obviously have to link in the non-random maps (like cities,
> caves, castled etc.). How is that supposed to happen? If you link them
> in at random locations the players are completely des-oriented and
> there's no way to create a reasonable quest on the worldmap (because
> you can't tell the player where to find the places to go).
> So, if you link them to non-random places, that actually means the
> whole thing really isn't a random-map anymore. And why code a huge
> random-generator if the outcome is a non-random map in the first place?

I'll make two points.. rather than trying to convince you here.

1) quests.  They will still work just fine.  As Mark had mentioned in his
email, there will be a coordinates file that is generated as the cities and
locations are placed randomly on the map.  Things such as signs and NPCs who
say "go to the east, to navaar" will be given a function that uses the
coordinates to calculate the distance and direction of the place.  In addition,
there will be a contraints file given to each placed map (cities, towers,
caves, etc) which say things like "I should be right near an ocean, preferrably
on a mountain, within 50 squares of navaar".  Yes, they will be on a different
location, thus on each server, the exploring will begin anew.

2) Random vs Hand Generated.  This does not preclude shipping a hand generated
world map.  But I think alot of the reason random maps suck, is the generation
routines are very simple.  Take our random map generator for example.  It
simply throws together walls and floors in simple geometric patterns.  But some
of the more complex games, like wargames that autogenerate maps, like
civilization, actually generate really good maps.  By using a perlin, or
similar function to generate a topography map, and then by coding in real-world
effects on the back-end engine, the world will actually be very similar to a
natural world, and indeed evolve.  Through the effects of weather, and other
similar factors, forests will slowly grow and decline, or deserts will spread
out.  I agree that random maps built from geometry don't really work out, and
cannot compete with hand-drawn maps.  But the maps in games like civilization
have allways impressed me as being very realistic.

It's a random function, and yes.. it has the ability to screw up and produce a
really crappy map from time to time.   But there will be a few tuning options
available to the DM, to allow him to regenerate a few times until he is happy
with it.  I also intend to write up a few simple DM commands that allow basic
editing of map squares, such as meddling with altitude, or weather in a
location.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From andi.vogl at gmx.net  Sat Nov 17 11:22:09 2001
From: andi.vogl at gmx.net (Andreas Vogl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.011117085723.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBAEDICBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>

Tim R. wrote:

> I'll make two points.. rather than trying to convince you here.
>
> 1) quests.  They will still work just fine.  As Mark had mentioned in
> his email, there will be a coordinates file that is generated as the
> cities and locations are placed randomly on the map.

This is a poor workaround for the problem. If I want to make a plot,
I need a map. And I need to know what the map looks like.
Do you think Tolkien could have written his books with a coordinates/
constraints file about Middle-Earth?

> 2) Random vs Hand Generated.  This does not preclude shipping a hand
> generated world map.  But I think alot of the reason random maps suck,
> is the generation routines are very simple. [...]
> By using a perlin, or similar function to generate a topography map, [...]
> the world will actually be very similar to a natural world, and indeed
> evolve. [...] I agree that random maps built from geometry don't really
> work out, and cannot compete with hand-drawn maps. But the maps in games
> like civilization have allways impressed me as being very realistic.

This is not civilization. CF players don't build cities on the map and
make warfare to neighboring nations by harvesting their squares.
CF is an RPG fantasy game - and as such, terrain by itself is completely
unimportant.
Evolving forests and such seems a bit of an overkill for a simple RPG
like CF. If forest has no meaning - what exactly is the purpose of
evolving forest?
Do you really think this would add a lot of gameplay value?

Besides, are you planning to replace Lake Country and Pupland outdoor
maps by random generated stuff? I bet not.
And why not? - Because it is obvious that a random map could never
suite these places.

IMO, the mere suggestion to replace the main-continent worlmaps by
random ones indicates how much we need to redo them - By hand.


Andreas V.


From yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com  Sat Nov 17 12:49:46 2001
From: yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com (Yann Chachkoff)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
Message-ID: <3BF6C08D@MailAndNews.com>

Just some thoughts about world random-generated maps...

1. I do not see clearly what would be the advantages of random-generated 
worldmaps. Of course, this may mean that we'll not have to make the 
long-waited larger worldmaps "by hand"; besides this, I do not understand.

2. On the other hand, I do see better random maps generation algorithms as a 
major progress - as long as it concerns only the current random maps system.

3. Technical question: do you plan to make a brand new generator subsystem, or 
integrate it into the current random_map engine ? I would prefer the second 
solution, as it would keep the code cleaner but that's just my opinion of 
course.

4. Suggestion: implementing map-generation algorithms in the editor. I think 
this could be quite interesting, since it could be of a more general purpose 
(if you want to make a new worldmap, start by generating one, and then 
customize it as you want).

5. Now for the weather system: good idea, although a decent weather system 
would require quite a lot of work and deep thinking before starting coding it 
(because of the great number of game parameters it could possibly 
need/affect).

Chachkoff Y.

-----------------------------------------
Visit http://www.chachkoff.f2s.com for
a journey into a fantastic world !
(But don't expect too much...)
-----------------------------------------


From mwedel at sonic.net  Sun Nov 18 02:01:21 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
References: <3BF6C08D@MailAndNews.com>
Message-ID: <3BF76AD1.1F24B7C7@sonic.net>

 This only responds to Yann's points, but I have some notes/thoughts at the
bottom which pertain to the entire thing.

Yann Chachkoff wrote:
> 
> Just some thoughts about world random-generated maps...
> 
> 1. I do not see clearly what would be the advantages of random-generated
> worldmaps. Of course, this may mean that we'll not have to make the
> long-waited larger worldmaps "by hand"; besides this, I do not understand.

 The perceived value is that by having the world map randomly generated, it
would be much easier (and likely) for maps to differ server to server.  Eg, if
all I have to do make a new world map on a server I am setting up is run a few
commands I'm much more likely to do it than if I have to create an entire world
map by hand.

 But I guess the big question here is how important is that value?  If the
general consensus is 'who cares if the world map is the same or different', then
its probably easier to either just expand the current world map by hand, or
create a new world map via function, and then fix it up/populate it as needed.

> 
> 2. On the other hand, I do see better random maps generation algorithms as a
> major progress - as long as it concerns only the current random maps system.

 I'm not sure if something like the perlin generation will really help up much
for dungeon.  Even then, the dungeons lack the thing hand maps have - the
balance of good quests and good items.  All the random maps/quests you get sent
on from the castle in scorn are not 100% random - the rewards for the quests, as
well as the final map for each quest are hand done.

 
> 3. Technical question: do you plan to make a brand new generator subsystem, or
> integrate it into the current random_map engine ? I would prefer the second
> solution, as it would keep the code cleaner but that's just my opinion of
> course.

 It depends.  In not a lot of work, I was able to get the perlin function to
generate values and write out a image file in ppm format (this was mostly so it
is convenient to see what it came up with and how tweaking values may effect
things).  It would be very easy (less than an hour) of work to extend that to
write out a series of files in crossfire map format (as to write the format, it
only needs to know what objects to put where).  So if this was desired to be
used as a method to start a world map from, it would be quite easy.  This would
not include pasting other maps into it and so forth - for that, I was thinking
that it would need to get integrated into the random map code (since it already
has that logic).

> 
> 4. Suggestion: implementing map-generation algorithms in the editor. I think
> this could be quite interesting, since it could be of a more general purpose
> (if you want to make a new worldmap, start by generating one, and then
> customize it as you want).

 This could also be useful just for dungeons.  EG, your making a dungeon, you
know the quest, and you know the finishing point, but you want to toss some
other levels in between.  Call up random map maker to make some for you, you can
still tweak as necessary (adjust monsters, move some walls around), but that is
easier than creating the entire intervening maps by hand.

 For outsid maps, I'm less certain what I want to do.  Some of the maps AV
mentioned (pup land, lake county) are very fine maps.  But one problem is that
they are dissassociated from the world as large - you hop on a dragon or boot,
and appear.  And there are others - wolfsburg and its surround land, port
joseph, maybe one or two others.

 I can understand some reason to do this, some for quests, some because the
person making want all control, etc.  We really need to figure out what to do on
these if we make the world bigger.  I would say for example dtabb land should
get back on the main continent. 

 Some of those areas could perhaps be on islands off the main world.  While
right now you would still use boats/dragons to get to them, I hope at some point
to changing the way those objects work, eg, you hop on a boat, and it lots you
move over water and you can sail it where ever you want (think of the older
ultima games here).  This then adds the oceans as a place to explore. 


> 5. Now for the weather system: good idea, although a decent weather system
> would require quite a lot of work and deep thinking before starting coding it
> (because of the great number of game parameters it could possibly
> need/affect).

 As someone else said, it really depends on what it does effect.  Realistically,
terrain has little importance in crossfire (you move slower through it, some
blocks sight or passage).  Having forests replace plains would not likely to
have any big effect.


 My general thoughts:
 If people generally do not want to have a randomly generated map unique to each
server, let me know.  It is certainly simpler to have a static world map (don't
need to worry about special exit code, placing exits, or putting certain maps
onto the world map.

 Simply put, if people are not going to use, or don't care about a feature,
there is no reason to do it.  Unfortunately, it is very hard to know what people
want - if I say 'lets make the entire world a static map', some people will
likely say it should be dynamic.  If I say it should be dynamic, other people
say it should be static.  Trying to meet both is a bit of a pain (certainly
possible), but certainly more works.

 My current thought is that if a static world is done is to use something like
the perlin function to generate a good base map, and work from there.  The
reason I say this is that expanding the current world map by say 25 times will
just result in huge blocks of the same thing, which is not useful.  Using a
perlin function should get a more dynamic map, eg, more varied terrain, and
probably not blocks 25 times wide.  From this generated map, all the various
exits and so forth could be placed by hand.  My thought is that since we
probably want a basic continent surrounded by water, the effect is likely to
look the same in most any case (eg, high points in the middle).

 Note that when I refer to static above, I am really meaning the base map. 
Whether and how weather effects the basic static map is another question.

 In another message, I'll pose the questionare.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sun Nov 18 02:26:24 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: New World Map Questionaire, was Re: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
References: <3BF6C08D@MailAndNews.com>
Message-ID: <3BF770B0.FA1A30A2@sonic.net>

 Since there seems to be no clear opinion just from mail what approach should be
taken, here is a questionaire.  Note that some questions are applicable no
matter what main approach is taken.  To prevent to much unneccessary traffic
that is not likely meaningful, please respond directly to me.  I'll tally the
results probably sometime Wednesday evening (which is -8 GMT for me).  Note that
some questions are more relevant than others - I just figured that if I'm
putting this out, might as well get some additional input.

 Please try to keep the response short (eg, don't write 'well, if it was done
this way, and if that was done, and ... I'd go for X, but if .. and .., I'd go
for Y'). 

1) How should the world map be generated.  Choices:
a) completely by hand.  Except for the editor, no computer aids really used.
b) computer base design, but extensive hand additions/customizations.
c) completely computerized, allow each server to have a unique map.

2) How large should the world map be (please just specify size in spaces). 
Current world map is roughly 110 x 100:

3) How dynamic should the outdoor map be, eg, effects from both players and
weather.  Choices:
a) very dynamic - depending on weather patterns and spells players cast, forests
show grow/die, grass turn to desert, etc.
b) slightly dynamic - the terrain itself will not change, but special plants may
grow given the right conditions/spells, and there may be effects on creature
production in the wilderness.  Trails may form and decompose based on where
players travels.
c) not at all - player dropping equipment would really be the only way for any
change to happen on the world.

4) How cohesive should the world be:
a) Very.  Everything should be on the main world map and be relative to each
other, but boats/dragon transports would still be shortcuts to reach some of
them.
b) somewhat - maps that work much better seperated out (due to npc's or style of
the map) can remain so, but an effort should be made to bring most of the maps
onto the main continent.
c) not really - people can toss stuff wherever, including making their own mini
continents.

5) Thoughts on more than one continent (note that the main continent will like
have islands around it).  Second continent here would be another big body of
roughly the same size of the first (eg, answer to #2)
a) Why bother - everything should fit on the main one with space to spare.
b) Given a good reason (eg, different culture/style/terrain, or current
continent starting to get filled up), sure. 
c) never - we should really try to make sure this one continent will cover
everything we need.

From andi.vogl at gmx.net  Sun Nov 18 07:02:32 2001
From: andi.vogl at gmx.net (Andreas Vogl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] BUG: order of activating altars changed
Message-ID: <MBELJHPFJCNOCIPKBCDBMEDLCBAA.andi.vogl@gmx.net>

If there is more than one altar at a square, these get
activated one after the other, in a certain order (which used to
be top to bottom).

It looks like this order of activation has changed lately.
An example for this case is the map "mak/MainFloor". There is
a line of altars to the north, and below them each is another altar
with the same slaying but different connection.
The altar above is connected to the gate, the altar below spawns
a small flame. The altar above is meant to be triggered first, but
this is no longer the case.

Does anyone have an idea what caused this and why?

Please be tremendously careful when touching anything like an "order of
activation", buttom timing etc. By altering any of that stuff only to the
smallest detail, instantly a bunch of maps gets broken.


Andreas V.

From tchize at mailandnews.com  Sun Nov 18 15:07:33 2001
From: tchize at mailandnews.com (David Delbecq)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: New World Map Questionaire, was Re: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <3BF770B0.FA1A30A2@sonic.net>
References: <3BF6C08D@MailAndNews.com> <3BF770B0.FA1A30A2@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <01111816073300.01526@Pikachu.Maison>

Here follow my point of view (given as shortly as possible)

>  Since there seems to be no clear opinion just from mail what approach
> should be taken, here is a questionaire.  Note that some questions are
> applicable no matter what main approach is taken.  To prevent to much
> unneccessary traffic that is not likely meaningful, please respond directly
> to me.  I'll tally the results probably sometime Wednesday evening (which
> is -8 GMT for me).  Note that some questions are more relevant than others
> - I just figured that if I'm putting this out, might as well get some
> additional input.
>
>  Please try to keep the response short (eg, don't write 'well, if it was
> done this way, and if that was done, and ... I'd go for X, but if .. and
> .., I'd go for Y').
>
> 1) How should the world map be generated.  Choices:
> a) completely by hand.  Except for the editor, no computer aids really
> used. 
> b) computer base design, but extensive hand additions/customizations.
> c) completely computerized, allow each server to have a unique map.
>

--> d) some people have already started creating a whole coherent world. We 
should use it.

> 2) How large should the world map be (please just specify size in spaces).
> Current world map is roughly 110 x 100:
>

--> very large (about 10 seems good but higher sizes could be used too)

> 3) How dynamic should the outdoor map be, eg, effects from both players and
> weather.  Choices:
> a) very dynamic - depending on weather patterns and spells players cast,
> forests show grow/die, grass turn to desert, etc.
> b) slightly dynamic - the terrain itself will not change, but special
> plants may grow given the right conditions/spells, and there may be effects
> on creature production in the wilderness.  Trails may form and decompose
> based on where players travels.

--> terrains and creatures evolving ok. Randomly having to fight creatuer in 
some maps too.

> c) not at all - player dropping equipment would really be the only way for
> any change to happen on the world.
>
> 4) How cohesive should the world be:
> a) Very.  Everything should be on the main world map and be relative to
> each other, but boats/dragon transports would still be shortcuts to reach
> some of them.
> b) somewhat - maps that work much better seperated out (due to npc's or
> style of the map) can remain so, but an effort should be made to bring most
> of the maps onto the main continent.
> c) not really - people can toss stuff wherever, including making their own
> mini continents.

-->  The maps linking should be coherent but dungeons and cities should stay 
as now (separate maps)
>
> 5) Thoughts on more than one continent (note that the main continent will
> like have islands around it).  Second continent here would be another big
> body of roughly the same size of the first (eg, answer to #2)
> a) Why bother - everything should fit on the main one with space to spare.
> b) Given a good reason (eg, different culture/style/terrain, or current
> continent starting to get filled up), sure.

--> increasing the size of continent or creating new one should be possible. 
But it has to be interresting too (why creating a whole continent if it is to 
put 3 towns and 7 quests?)

> c) never - we should really try to make sure this one continent will cover
> everything we need.


From root at garbled.net  Sun Nov 18 09:56:20 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: New World Map Questionaire, was Re: [CF-Devel] Suggestion.
In-Reply-To: <01111816073300.01526@Pikachu.Maison>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011118085620.root@garbled.net>

On 18-Nov-01 David Delbecq wrote:
> --> d) some people have already started creating a whole coherent world. We 
> should use it.

Just one thing I'd like to note to everyone here, and that is that the world
generated by the perlin function will be a standard format.  We will still have
to ship a base map with the game to allow people to fire it up without
fiddling.  There is no reason we couldn't ship a hand drawn map as that base
map.  The random map would be an option for those servers who want to try
something different.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Tue Nov 20 07:26:11 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:48 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Terrain generation
Message-ID: <20011121002611.A29509@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

After looking at some of garbled's (Tim's) attempts at making a topographic map, njh told me to look at a program called terraform. For debian users apt-get install terraform, for the rest of the world http://terraform.sourceforge.net/.

It creates topographic maps with heaps of cool options, you can use:
Perlin Noise
Spectral
Subdivision
Random

All of these look very convincing =). You can specifify x and y, and can even apply filters like erode. Not to slow down the work done by Mark and Tim, but isn't this sort of what you are trying to implement? Perhaps you could take some iedas from this or even use it =).

dnh

From mwedel at sonic.net  Tue Nov 20 23:07:30 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Terrain generation
References: <20011121002611.A29509@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <3BFB3692.89F4C924@sonic.net>

David Hurst wrote:
> 
> After looking at some of garbled's (Tim's) attempts at making a topographic map, njh told me to look at a program called terraform. For debian users apt-get install terraform, for the rest of the world http://terraform.sourceforge.net/.
> 
> It creates topographic maps with heaps of cool options, you can use:
> Perlin Noise
> Spectral
> Subdivision
> Random
> 
> All of these look very convincing =). You can specifify x and y, and can even apply filters like erode. Not to slow down the work done by Mark and Tim, but isn't this sort of what you are trying to implement? Perhaps you could take some iedas from this or even use it =).

 A lot depends on what method we eventually go with to make the world.  A tool
like that is most useful if the world is completely generated, unique to each
server, as it lets the admin preview and tweak the worlds quite easily.

 other concerns I have would be how easy it would be integrate what we want it
to do (eg, write out map files).  In some sense, a perlin function is a perlin
function, so how it gets generated is not that big a deal.  At some level, a
command line utility that writes out a map file can be handy as someone can say
'try using these values', and everyone can do so.  Being that terraform is gnome
based, it can limit the number of people that want to use it (if you don't have
gnome installed, you may not want to just for that.)  And in some sense, it may
be overkill depending on what we want to do (eg, my simple program that writes
out ppm files is something like 100 lines long).  OTOH, if terraform supports a
method to write out elevation data in a simple format, then it would be easiest
to just write a program that then reads that out and writes out crossfire maps
from that data.  But in a quick glance, I didn't see any doc on the web page
which says what formats it writes out.

From root at garbled.net  Wed Nov 21 01:39:59 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Terrain generation
In-Reply-To: <3BFB3692.89F4C924@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011121003959.root@garbled.net>

On 21-Nov-01 Mark Wedel wrote:
>  A lot depends on what method we eventually go with to make the world.  A
> tool
> like that is most useful if the world is completely generated, unique to each
> server, as it lets the admin preview and tweak the worlds quite easily.

I tried to use the program, but was totally unsuccessful in compiling it.

However.. it might have some algorithims we can use.  I've been playing with
some of my own, and the perlin function.. but haven't really gotten anywhere.

The perlin function generates great basic rolling shapes, but I haven't been
able to get it to make complex ones, like fjords or sudden peaks and valleys.

I think what we really want is something that runs from the command line, and
spits out a map.  I'd rather not get into the mess of relying on someone else's
software.

However.. maybe the terraform program has some nice algorithims we can steal..
I did find a nice one to do smoothing on the web.  So far by playing with both,
I can get perfect shapes for the continents, but like I said, I cannot get
complex shorelines or mountain ranges.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From tanner at real-time.com  Wed Nov 21 02:57:09 2001
From: tanner at real-time.com (Bob Tanner)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] FYI on CHANGES file
Message-ID: <20011121025709.R26949@real-time.com>

I was browsing the CHANGES files and have this to add it it.

If you are an emacs user, emacs can help maintain the CHANGES file, here are a
couple commands to make your life easier:

use "control-x v v" to commit one file if required
use "control-x 4 a" while positioned in changed source to add to CHANGES
use "control-x v =" to produce a diff on that file vs CVS

You can also use rcs2log to get the info from cvs for the changelog.



-- 
Bob Tanner <tanner@real-time.com>         | Phone : (952)943-8700
http://www.mn-linux.org, Minnesota, Linux | Fax   : (952)943-8500
Key fingerprint =  6C E9 51 4F D5 3E 4C 66 62 A9 10 E5 35 85 39 D9 


From jbontje at suespammers.org  Wed Nov 21 04:26:47 2001
From: jbontje at suespammers.org (Joris Bontje)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Terrain generation
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.011121003959.root@garbled.net>; from root@garbled.net on Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 12:39:59AM -0700
References: <3BFB3692.89F4C924@sonic.net> <XFMail.011121003959.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <20011121112647.A1389@freebsd.localdomain>

> [Terraform]

I tried to download this program.
I couldnt get it compiled. It is a typically linux only program. They use symlinks to
automake files like config.guess and other stuff... If you want to get it working you
need to do some porting... Therefore I think that project isnt usefull at the moment.

Marks hybrid create-o-world looks promising, but maybe we can look on map generation
routines that simular opensource projects use, like WorldForge or FreeCiv.

Joris Bontje

-- 
Gpg Key: Id=0xF19326A9 / http://mids.student.utwente.nl/~mids/jbontje.pub
Key fingerprint = 730D 9B3A F406 F28A 957D 6397 31E8 6D4C F193 26A9
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From opiate49 at hotmail.com  Wed Nov 21 05:57:57 2001
From: opiate49 at hotmail.com (The Tool)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Turban Bug
Message-ID: <F1385m2Z7C9JgcYHTk00001ce0a@hotmail.com>

Hey all,
The Turban of heaven (that one you get at the end of Mak) has a problem. In 
the dxclient, it comes up in the picture as a ring. it's classed as a 
ring...
Very weird stuff. it's supposed to be a hat.

^TooL^

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp


From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Wed Nov 21 08:10:34 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

Hi

I had changed the paralyzed effect on players some time ago.

Most effects work like this:

In the game, effect like blind or disease are objects insert in the
inventory
of the player or monster. This invisible object are applied to the inventory
and
invoke their effect. Non permanent effects has a ticker inside. Runs this
ticker out,
the object get destroyed and the creatures is free from the effect. Blind
works so.

Paralyze wasn't included like this.
It had worked like this:

I noticed, thats paralyze has no effect flag. Means, if you get paralyzed
through the spell
or effect, you got not marked as paralyzed. As i look in the code, i see
that the effect was
triggered only by setting the speed value of the object. Means the "you has
no speed left"
counter is set up by a high value. Thats very bad, because every speed
effect like encumberence
or land tile effects use this value too.

That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
no "remove paralyze"
in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
paralyze but also a
different effect.

Ok, in a first step, i added a FLAG_PARALYZE. Now, every time you stand
under the effect, you has
so long the FLAG_PARALYZE until you can move again.

That have a positive effect - the server knows now that you are paralyzed -
it can be shown and we
can include a remove paralyze spell.

Bad effect is, that i don't change it so much, that we use a paralyze_force
object. Because the
paralyze effect still use the speed value adding, you can't heal paralyze by
yourself - the server
never allows your object any action until your speed is set - even animation
and internal stuffs of
your player object are stopped! So be careful to insert new features using
values in a object.

Also, i find some strange stuff in the paralyze function.
Anyone knows why and how this is inside?

Michael


void paralyze_player(object *op, object *hitter, int dam)
{
    float effect,max;
    /* object *tmp; */

    /* This is strange stuff... someone knows for what this is
     * written? Well, i think this can and should be removed
    */

    /*
    if((tmp=present(PARAIMAGE,op->map,op->x,op->y))==NULL) {
	tmp=clone_arch(PARAIMAGE);
	tmp->x=op->x,tmp->y=op->y;
	insert_ob_in_map(tmp,op->map,tmp,INS_NO_MERGE | INS_NO_WALK_ON);
    }
    */

    /* Do this as a float - otherwise, rounding might very well reduce this
to 0 */
    effect = (float)dam * 3.0 * (100.0 - op->resist[ATNR_PARALYZE]) / 100;

    if (effect==0) return;

    SET_FLAG(op,FLAG_PARALYZED); /* we mark this object as paralyzed */
    animate_object(op); /* set the right animation for paralyze when needed
*/

    op->speed_left-=FABS(op->speed)*effect;
    /* tmp->stats.food+=(signed short) effect/op->speed; */

    /* max number of ticks to be affected for. */
    max = (100 - op->resist[ATNR_PARALYZE])/ 2;
    if (op->speed_left< -(FABS(op->speed)*max))
        op->speed_left  = (float) -(FABS(op->speed)*max);

/*      tmp->stats.food = (signed short) (max/FABS(op->speed)); */
}



From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Wed Nov 21 19:07:57 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
In-Reply-To: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <20011122120757.A15829@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Ahh =)

I never liked how it was impossible to do anything once paralyzed. Basically if you fight any really high level monsters, it is effectively game over because you cannot do anything. I remember the old trick was to quit the client, but this seems completely dodgy. Perhaps some more thought as to exactly how paralyze should work is in order here. It seems sort of logical that you can't cast spells etc when paralyzed, because once paralyzed you can no longer control muscles. Perhaps though you can still cast prayers (which have little/no encumberance)? Then perhaps then a revive, or heal paralyisis or something would be good. I remember when we added -20 resistance to paralyze on mostrai. People complained that the game became impossible.

I suspect it is similar to drain, because resistance to paralyze has become so 'common' (it isn't really common, but when you get free action its 100) you can effectively forget about it. This is true also of drain, forget a ring protection drain and try to fight something with drain, 10 levels gone in 1 second =). Perhaps this is good, but I always thought of drain as being a slow but steady sucking of life force (hp, sp, grace, food). I once proposed changing drain to have hp stealing as well but nobody thought it would be possible to balance. What are peoples thoughts on drain and paralyze, are they okay or do they need to be revised?

dnh

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 03:10:34PM +0100, Michael Toennies wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I had changed the paralyzed effect on players some time ago.
> 
> Most effects work like this:
> 
> In the game, effect like blind or disease are objects insert in the
> inventory
> of the player or monster. This invisible object are applied to the inventory
> and
> invoke their effect. Non permanent effects has a ticker inside. Runs this
> ticker out,
> the object get destroyed and the creatures is free from the effect. Blind
> works so.
> 
> Paralyze wasn't included like this.
> It had worked like this:
> 
> I noticed, thats paralyze has no effect flag. Means, if you get paralyzed
> through the spell
> or effect, you got not marked as paralyzed. As i look in the code, i see
> that the effect was
> triggered only by setting the speed value of the object. Means the "you has
> no speed left"
> counter is set up by a high value. Thats very bad, because every speed
> effect like encumberence
> or land tile effects use this value too.
> 
> That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
> no "remove paralyze"
> in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
> paralyze but also a
> different effect.
> 
> Ok, in a first step, i added a FLAG_PARALYZE. Now, every time you stand
> under the effect, you has
> so long the FLAG_PARALYZE until you can move again.
> 
> That have a positive effect - the server knows now that you are paralyzed -
> it can be shown and we
> can include a remove paralyze spell.
> 
> Bad effect is, that i don't change it so much, that we use a paralyze_force
> object. Because the
> paralyze effect still use the speed value adding, you can't heal paralyze by
> yourself - the server
> never allows your object any action until your speed is set - even animation
> and internal stuffs of
> your player object are stopped! So be careful to insert new features using
> values in a object.
> 
> Also, i find some strange stuff in the paralyze function.
> Anyone knows why and how this is inside?
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> void paralyze_player(object *op, object *hitter, int dam)
> {
>     float effect,max;
>     /* object *tmp; */
> 
>     /* This is strange stuff... someone knows for what this is
>      * written? Well, i think this can and should be removed
>     */
> 
>     /*
>     if((tmp=present(PARAIMAGE,op->map,op->x,op->y))==NULL) {
> 	tmp=clone_arch(PARAIMAGE);
> 	tmp->x=op->x,tmp->y=op->y;
> 	insert_ob_in_map(tmp,op->map,tmp,INS_NO_MERGE | INS_NO_WALK_ON);
>     }
>     */
> 
>     /* Do this as a float - otherwise, rounding might very well reduce this
> to 0 */
>     effect = (float)dam * 3.0 * (100.0 - op->resist[ATNR_PARALYZE]) / 100;
> 
>     if (effect==0) return;
> 
>     SET_FLAG(op,FLAG_PARALYZED); /* we mark this object as paralyzed */
>     animate_object(op); /* set the right animation for paralyze when needed
> */
> 
>     op->speed_left-=FABS(op->speed)*effect;
>     /* tmp->stats.food+=(signed short) effect/op->speed; */
> 
>     /* max number of ticks to be affected for. */
>     max = (100 - op->resist[ATNR_PARALYZE])/ 2;
>     if (op->speed_left< -(FABS(op->speed)*max))
>         op->speed_left  = (float) -(FABS(op->speed)*max);
> 
> /*      tmp->stats.food = (signed short) (max/FABS(op->speed)); */
> }
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> crossfire-devel mailing list
> crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com
> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-devel

From mwedel at sonic.net  Wed Nov 21 21:43:07 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <3BFC744B.801C76B0@sonic.net>

Michael Toennies wrote:

 I should mention as a preface that I am all for making paralyze a force
object.  But I just want to correct and add a few things.



> 
> Paralyze wasn't included like this.
> It had worked like this:
> 
> I noticed, thats paralyze has no effect flag. Means, if you get paralyzed
> through the spell
> or effect, you got not marked as paralyzed. As i look in the code, i see
> that the effect was
> triggered only by setting the speed value of the object. Means the "you has
> no speed left"
> counter is set up by a high value. Thats very bad, because every speed
> effect like encumberence
> or land tile effects use this value too.

 Incorrect.  

 you are correct that when you paralyzed, your speed left is set to some
negative value based on your current speed (so that you are effectively
paralyzed for X ticks).  However, encumberance does not effect it because it is
effect * current speed, so if your current speed is slow, it is the same number
of ticks.  terrain does not effect it either - that just affects the speed left
as you move on terrain.  It does not effect your actual speed, and if you are
moving, it also has no effect.

> 
> That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
> no "remove paralyze"
> in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
> paralyze but also a
> different effect.

 I think the bigger reason is because if you are paralyzed, you can't cast
spells, so there isn't much reason for such an item.  But it is a multiplayer
game, so you could add that spell on the basis someone else could cast it on
you.  This of course could be done now (if speed_left is some negative value,
assume it is paralyze or related, and just set it to zero, but using a force
does make more sense and is more consistent with the rest of the game).

> Bad effect is, that i don't change it so much, that we use a paralyze_force
> object. Because the
> paralyze effect still use the speed value adding, you can't heal paralyze by
> yourself - the server
> never allows your object any action until your speed is set - even animation
> and internal stuffs of
> your player object are stopped! So be careful to insert new features using
> values in a object.

 In theory, a player should not be able to do much.  It could also be dangerous
to actually heal while paralyzed - if you run out of food, you could die simply
because you have nothing more - even if you might have some in a bag, or a horn
of plenty, or a pile just a square away.

 Now it could be enhanced such that paralyze just doesn't process commands for
the client (or ignores most) - that wouldn't be too hard to do - probably the
commands table could be examined - if a command takes time, don't allow it.  But
that would need to be carefully examined - certainly, things like use_skill or
apply or many others should not be allowed.

> 
> Also, i find some strange stuff in the paralyze function.
> Anyone knows why and how this is inside?
> 
> Michael
> 
> void paralyze_player(object *op, object *hitter, int dam)
> {
>     float effect,max;
>     /* object *tmp; */
> 
>     /* This is strange stuff... someone knows for what this is
>      * written? Well, i think this can and should be removed
>     */

 That block adds a paralyzation image when you are hit (I guess like detect
magic, eg, a little thing flashes).  Of course, if you are paralyzed, you don't
see it.  the present is so that only one is inserted - no reason to insert
another if one is already there.

> 
>     /*
>     if((tmp=present(PARAIMAGE,op->map,op->x,op->y))==NULL) {
>         tmp=clone_arch(PARAIMAGE);
>         tmp->x=op->x,tmp->y=op->y;
>         insert_ob_in_map(tmp,op->map,tmp,INS_NO_MERGE | INS_NO_WALK_ON);
>     }
>     */
> 
>     /* Do this as a float - otherwise, rounding might very well reduce this
> to 0 */
>     effect = (float)dam * 3.0 * (100.0 - op->resist[ATNR_PARALYZE]) / 100;
> 


David Hurst wrote:
> 
> Ahh =)
> 
> I never liked how it was impossible to do anything once paralyzed. Basically if you fight any really high level monsters, it is effectively game over because you cannot do anything. I remember the old trick was to quit the client, but this seems completely dodgy. Perhaps some more thought as to exactly how paralyze should work is in order here. It seems sort of logical that you can't cast spells etc when paralyzed, because once paralyzed you can no longer control muscles. Perhaps though you can still cast prayers (which have little/no encumberance)? Then perhaps then a revive, or heal paralyisis or something would be good. I remember when we added -20 resistance to paralyze on mostrai. People complained that the game became impossible.

 Presumably, most prayers would require chanting or other verbal actions, which
if muscles are frozen, should not be allowed either.

 But I do agree that paralyze and drain are two attack forms that are annoying
at low levels (before you get the things that main you immune to them), and
after that point, you ignore them.

 A couple things that could be done:

 drain: Put in a force object that contains the negative experience totals (eg,
how much you have lost).  Allow potions or high level spells to restore this. 
An alternative would be to store the higest total you had. 

 The difference here is that in the first case, you lose nothing by the drain. 
In the second case, any experience you gain before getting restored is not
really gained - if you gain a whole much, your total will go above what
restoration gives you.  IF you gain a little, the restore puts you to your old
total, so you get nothing from that little you gained.

 Another idea, which could also apply to drain, would be items you wear that
have charges and absorb the losses.  Eg, an amulet of paralyzation absorbing,
which absorbs 500 ticks or something of paralyzation effects.  Drain absorbing
could absorb something like 20 full hits (so if your 80% protected, you then get
100 drain hits).  IF these are added, the objects that give 100% protection
should of course get removed.  

 Arguably, all 100 permanent protection items could/should get removed.  At
best, this could be available by potions.  The problem is that main times things
like grim reapers are hidden, and you open a door, and 5 of them are there, and
its too late to drink that potion of drain resistance. 

 which monsters also have these effects should be looked at.  I know some
monsters have it but it doesn't make a lot of sense - it was mostly like 'give
this creature every attacktype simply so it will be difficult'.  Same is true
for protections on some.

From root at garbled.net  Wed Nov 21 23:30:34 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
In-Reply-To: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011121223034.root@garbled.net>

On 21-Nov-01 Michael Toennies wrote:
> That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
> no "remove paralyze"
> in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
> paralyze but also a
> different effect.

In my wholly honest opinion, it should be impossible for a player to be
paralized.  Using my mud as an example again, we had to remove the ability to
paralize players for a number of reasons:

1)  It's not *fun* to be paralized.  You are stuck, can't do squat, you just
get to witness your own death and feel helpless about it.  Death sucks, but
unavoidable death sucks alot worse, and leaves a lasting anger in the player.

2)  It really becomes a problem when lots of players are around, some people
aren't nice, and would paralize newbies to just be mean.

3)  Players who have never had it happen got confused, and thought the server
blew up, or the network died on them, and would disconnect.

4)  The worst case, is usually, player gets paralized, and the doorbell rings. 
this is almost allways a complete lose for the player.  You have no way to save
your game, or get out of wherever you are.. you are just stuck, and it sucks. 
Add to that the ability in crossfire to die, and then re-die over and over to
starvation, and things get pretty bleak.  (Thats a different issue, which I do
plan on solving soon)

In my experience, it is a very cool spell, and provided a very realistic and
cool experience, but the negative aspects of it were so bad, that it was
driving players away.  Nothing is more frustrating to a player than dieing in a
situation like that.  More often than not, players that were bitten by it, fell
into the "quit for good" category.

Basically on the mud this was solved by making the spell non-functional against
players, so you could still paralize monsters.  In addition, we implemented a
"hold person" spell.  The hold person spell had the same effect as being
braced, but being unable to shut it off.  A player affected by that could
recall away, and then wait it out.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov 22 00:25:12 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.011121223034.root@garbled.net>
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCEEIKDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net> <XFMail.011121223034.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <20011122172512.A16467@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

> > That makes it impossible to remove paralyze - thats the reason why there is
> > no "remove paralyze"
> > in the game - the server never knows why the speed is decreased . It can be
> > paralyze but also a
> > different effect.
> 
> In my wholly honest opinion, it should be impossible for a player to be
> paralized.  Using my mud as an example again, we had to remove the ability to
> paralize players for a number of reasons:

I disagree I love it as a spell and getting paralyzed is kind funny, but I think it is overly powerful.

> 1)  It's not *fun* to be paralized.  You are stuck, can't do squat, you just
> get to witness your own death and feel helpless about it.  Death sucks, but
> unavoidable death sucks alot worse, and leaves a lasting anger in the player.

Woah this is an excellent point. This comes back to making a game fun, crossfire being the game it is is fun. But some things are not as fun as they could, for example paralyze and drain. I also feel some classes/races are perhaps chosen by newbies, when they really are not designed to be fun for newbies. Q's, fireborn and wraiths, are by far the most popular races for newbies, and yet these are the three hardest!

> 2)  It really becomes a problem when lots of players are around, some people
> aren't nice, and would paralize newbies to just be mean.

Funny for the person doing it, very very unfunny for the victim.

> 3)  Players who have never had it happen got confused, and thought the server
> blew up, or the network died on them, and would disconnect.

Yeah, I remember I thought this when I first got paralyzed. I thought it was bad lag and got really peeved =).

> 4)  The worst case, is usually, player gets paralized, and the doorbell rings. 
> this is almost allways a complete lose for the player.  You have no way to save
> your game, or get out of wherever you are.. you are just stuck, and it sucks. 
> Add to that the ability in crossfire to die, and then re-die over and over to
> starvation, and things get pretty bleak.  (Thats a different issue, which I do
> plan on solving soon)

Yeah true again

> In my experience, it is a very cool spell, and provided a very realistic and
> cool experience, but the negative aspects of it were so bad, that it was
> driving players away.  Nothing is more frustrating to a player than dieing in a
> situation like that.  More often than not, players that were bitten by it, fell
> into the "quit for good" category.

Agree here.

> Basically on the mud this was solved by making the spell non-functional against
> players, so you could still paralize monsters.  In addition, we implemented a
> "hold person" spell.  The hold person spell had the same effect as being
> braced, but being unable to shut it off.  A player affected by that could
> recall away, and then wait it out.

This is a very interesting, what about we make paralyze brace the player, and only allow them to use_item and use_wisdom? Thus they can heal, recall and use equipment that might lesson the problem.. before they die. I really like this idea.

From peterm at tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU  Thu Nov 22 02:44:08 2001
From: peterm at tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Mardahl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Nov 2001 17:25:12 +1100."
             <20011122172512.A16467@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> 
Message-ID: <200111220844.fAM8i8926841@tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>

Paralyze?  Leave it the way it is right now, except remove
the -20 from Mostrai....

Paralyze is all or nothing, and so it makes sense for
defense of it to be all or nothing.

I think the game is too fast to allow anything more than
split-second paralysis, because otherwise, you may
as well make paralyze an instant deathstrike.

Also, I disagree with arguments that "the game should be slower".
It's no fun if it's slow.  Who likes slogging through
molassas?

PM

From jbontje at suespammers.org  Thu Nov 22 04:29:21 2001
From: jbontje at suespammers.org (Joris Bontje)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] BUGREPORT:  gcfclient -sdl (reported by Darth_bob)
Message-ID: <20011122112921.A4424@freebsd.localdomain>

Silly me sending it to the sourceforge list :(
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From opiate49 at hotmail.com  Thu Nov 22 09:52:44 2001
From: opiate49 at hotmail.com (The Tool)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
Message-ID: <F107IiRc2PlJtmKCq0r00018f67@hotmail.com>

Ok, my friend James Dominguez has finished colouring his picture of the red 
dragon.
you can look at it through the link below, first he has requested i post 
this disclaimer:

All images submitted for use in Crossfire by James J. Dominguez are 
copyright.
The makers of Crossfire have free and unlimited permission to use these 
images in the game for an indefinite period.
The images are provided as-is and may not be altered.  This includes concept 
images, outlines, large coloured preliminary images, and the finished icon 
images.  Images may not be edited, recoloured, or altered in any other way 
without express written (including emailed) permission.
If Crossfire ever becomes a commercial venture, and is no longer a free 
product, then this permission will become void and all images by James J. 
Dominguez may no longer be used unless a new agreement is reached.

Ok, see the pic at mids.student.utwente.nl/~tool/images/JD/dragoncolour.jpg

^TooL^

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp


From root at garbled.net  Thu Nov 22 12:32:26 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
In-Reply-To: <F107IiRc2PlJtmKCq0r00018f67@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011122113226.root@garbled.net>

On 22-Nov-01 The Tool wrote:
> you can look at it through the link below, first he has requested i post 
> this disclaimer:

It's a good picture.. I can't say anything bad about it.  But I wonder if
perhaps the license is a bit draconian.  Are those lisc. terms acceptable to
the project?  (I actually don't know.. I'm still kinda new here)

Personally speaking, seeing the number of images we umm.. appropriate from
other free games, it would be kinda rude to say back to them that ours are
protected.  But thats just my opinon.. if nobody else cares.. then thats the
last you will ever hear of this from me.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From root at garbled.net  Thu Nov 22 12:34:31 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
In-Reply-To: <200111220844.fAM8i8926841@tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011122113431.root@garbled.net>

On 22-Nov-01 Peter Mardahl wrote:
> I think the game is too fast to allow anything more than
> split-second paralysis, because otherwise, you may
> as well make paralyze an instant deathstrike.

I don't have a problem with split-second paralysis, thats not so bad.  As long
as you can't get yourself into a box where you are getting paralized repeatedly
and can't do anything about it.  Long drawn out paralysis is harsh though.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From jbontje at suespammers.org  Thu Nov 22 14:18:52 2001
From: jbontje at suespammers.org (Joris Bontje)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
In-Reply-To: <F107IiRc2PlJtmKCq0r00018f67@hotmail.com>; from opiate49@hotmail.com on Fri, Nov 23, 2001 at 02:52:44AM +1100
References: <F107IiRc2PlJtmKCq0r00018f67@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20011122211852.A20960@freebsd.localdomain>

On Fri, Nov 23, 2001 at 02:52:44AM +1100, The Tool wrote:
> Ok, my friend James Dominguez has finished colouring his picture of the red 
> dragon.
> you can look at it through the link below, first he has requested i post 
> this disclaimer:

Its a very nice image, although it is currently a bit too big to be included in
the game :)


> All images submitted for use in Crossfire by James J. Dominguez are 
> copyright.
> The makers of Crossfire have free and unlimited permission to use these 
> images in the game for an indefinite period.
> The images are provided as-is and may not be altered.  This includes concept 
> images, outlines, large coloured preliminary images, and the finished icon 
> images.  Images may not be edited, recoloured, or altered in any other way 
> without express written (including emailed) permission.
> If Crossfire ever becomes a commercial venture, and is no longer a free 
> product, then this permission will become void and all images by James J. 
> Dominguez may no longer be used unless a new agreement is reached.

Although I don't have the intention to start a lenghtly discussion about the
acceptence of this license, I don't quite agree with it on first sight.
I would agree with a restriction that the images should be used only for the
intended purpose, The Opensource game named Crossfire. But the additional
rules don't feel good. They forbid to include them in logo's and banners.
And we have no way to keep using them when we need a change after James has
'left' the project. Unless they are all delivered 'PixelPerfect', lots of
little editing is needed, asking permission for all the individual changes is not
usable in my oppinion.

What would be a better license?

I don't know, it's the authors work ofcourse, but also non 'makers of Crossfire' should be
able to use them in their crossfire editors, tools, clients and websites.
Maybe something like: "Free usage in Crossfire and Crossfire related projects using
an opensource license. Propper crediting to the author should be given included
a clear announcement of made modifications."

Joris Bontje / mids
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From mwedel at sonic.net  Thu Nov 22 14:17:16 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
References: <XFMail.011122113431.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <3BFD5D4C.1D7742F8@sonic.net>

Tim Rightnour wrote:
> 
> On 22-Nov-01 Peter Mardahl wrote:
> > I think the game is too fast to allow anything more than
> > split-second paralysis, because otherwise, you may
> > as well make paralyze an instant deathstrike.
> 
> I don't have a problem with split-second paralysis, thats not so bad.  As long
> as you can't get yourself into a box where you are getting paralized repeatedly
> and can't do anything about it.  Long drawn out paralysis is harsh though.

 Thats the difficult part.

 IF paralysis just lasted say 5 ticks (a bit more than half a second), it is a
pretty big disadvantage. If you happen to get paralyzed and then some damage
spell is cast, that will hurt.

 Note that protection from paralysis could effect that (eg, if you are 60%
protected, it is now 2 ticks).

 The difficulty is preventing the case where you just continually get
paralyzed.  If you are just fighting one monster with the spell, chances are you
are OK (because the monster will probably choose some other spell to cast or you
may make your saving throw or whatever).  The problem is lots of maps have like
20 beholders, of which a non trivial portion will cast paralyze, making it so
you may constantly get hit by it.

 Making it so it prevents movement could be interesting (eg, paralyzes your leg
muscles only).  This means you could still drink those potions or cast those
spells (including remove paralysis) to survive it.  This would make it similar
to confusion right now in some sense.  However, if this option is chosen, then
it should still have a longer duration.  For monsters, it could still completely
paralyze them.  Putting in code to do this would not be that difficult - just
need to check to see if the player is paralyzed in the movement routines.

From peterm at tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU  Thu Nov 22 15:24:52 2001
From: peterm at tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Peter Mardahl)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Revival of old paralysis proposal
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Nov 2001 12:17:16 PST."
             <3BFD5D4C.1D7742F8@sonic.net> 
Message-ID: <200111222124.fAMLOqG27735@tonks.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>

Repeated paralysis (even of short duration, like 2 ticks)
is still a problem if you're bathing in paralysis spells.

Long ago I proposed a scheme like this:

1)  If person gets paralyzed, when he recovers, he is
safe from paralysis spells/attacks of equal or lower level
for a certain amount of time

2)  If he saves from paralyze, he is safe from paralysis
spells/attacks of equal or lower level for a certain amount
of time

3)  Protection should *also* reduce paralyzation duration.

This won't be hard to implement.  Whenever you hit
someone with paralysis, you put a force into him 
(if not already present).  If a paralysis spell detects
this force at equal or higher strength, it won't paralyze.

Then, after you check/place the force, you check to see if the
player makes his saving throw or not.

If not, THEN you paralyze him for a few ticks.

This can work similarly for monsters, except they'd (to make
the game fun) be paralyzed for more ticks.

A similar approach is also sorely needed for deathstrike spells
such as banishment and face of death.  These spells hit many times,
and each time they have a chance of causing instadeath.  Each
spell should get ONE chance to instadeath a monster, not dozens.

I really think this approach can save the paralysis attack from its present
irrelevance, and bring a far better balance to the various deathstrikes.

PM


> Tim Rightnour wrote:
> > 
> > On 22-Nov-01 Peter Mardahl wrote:
> > > I think the game is too fast to allow anything more than
> > > split-second paralysis, because otherwise, you may
> > > as well make paralyze an instant deathstrike.
> > 
> > I don't have a problem with split-second paralysis, thats not so bad.  As l
>ong
> > as you can't get yourself into a box where you are getting paralized repeat
>edly
> > and can't do anything about it.  Long drawn out paralysis is harsh though.
> 
>  Thats the difficult part.
> 
>  IF paralysis just lasted say 5 ticks (a bit more than half a second), it is 
>a
> pretty big disadvantage. If you happen to get paralyzed and then some damage
> spell is cast, that will hurt.
> 
>  Note that protection from paralysis could effect that (eg, if you are 60%
> protected, it is now 2 ticks).
> 
>  The difficulty is preventing the case where you just continually get
> paralyzed.  If you are just fighting one monster with the spell, chances are 
>you
> are OK (because the monster will probably choose some other spell to cast or 
>you
> may make your saving throw or whatever).  The problem is lots of maps have li
>ke
> 20 beholders, of which a non trivial portion will cast paralyze, making it so
> you may constantly get hit by it.
> 
>  Making it so it prevents movement could be interesting (eg, paralyzes your l
>eg
> muscles only).  This means you could still drink those potions or cast those
> spells (including remove paralysis) to survive it.  This would make it simila
>r
> to confusion right now in some sense.  However, if this option is chosen, the
>n
> it should still have a longer duration.  For monsters, it could still complet
>ely
> paralyze them.  Putting in code to do this would not be that difficult - just
> need to check to see if the player is paralyzed in the movement routines.
> _______________________________________________
> crossfire-devel mailing list
> crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com
> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-devel

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Thu Nov 22 19:56:47 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
In-Reply-To: <XFMail.011122113226.root@garbled.net>
References: <F107IiRc2PlJtmKCq0r00018f67@hotmail.com> <XFMail.011122113226.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <20011123125647.E25205@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

> It's a good picture.. I can't say anything bad about it.  But I wonder if
> perhaps the license is a bit draconian.  Are those lisc. terms acceptable to
> the project?  (I actually don't know.. I'm still kinda new here)

I can't see anything wrong with them. Of course if someone takes that image, and we discover it somewhere else a quick warning email is all it would probably take to remind them. It is of course the image owners privledge it put on it the license and while it may not exactly be GPL'd I don't see a problem with it.

> Personally speaking, seeing the number of images we umm.. appropriate from
> other free games, it would be kinda rude to say back to them that ours are
> protected.  But thats just my opinon.. if nobody else cares.. then thats the
> last you will ever hear of this from me.

Mmm, actually we don't take many images at all from other games. i can think of only a few, most are taken from artist sets, who specifically say 'these are free to use by anyone as long as my name is put in the credits' type stuff. Of course that fact that we still don't have a list of artists included is probably important at this point ;).

dnh

From root at garbled.net  Thu Nov 22 22:34:23 2001
From: root at garbled.net (Tim Rightnour)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
In-Reply-To: <20011123125647.E25205@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <XFMail.011122213423.root@garbled.net>

On 23-Nov-01 David Hurst wrote:
> Mmm, actually we don't take many images at all from other games. i can think
> of
> only a few, most are taken from artist sets, who specifically say 'these are
> free to use by anyone as long as my name is put in the credits' type stuff.

I have no problem with that.  In fact, my problem with the proposed liscence is
twofold:

1)  "only for a game named crossfire".  Sure, it's free to us, but thats not
very open-source-friendly of us.  My point there is that it's not nice to use
other free images, and then put a sign on one of ours that says "you can't have
this one"

2)  Non-modification is a bit much. What constitutes modification.  If I
animate it, is that modifying it?  What if I shrink it down or expand it?  What
if I want a green dragon? Is it worth having this picture, if we have to tippy
toe around it?  Do we want to have to deal with this kind of thing in the
future, and accumulate more liscenses like this?

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
NetBSD supported hardware database: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/hw.cgi

From mwedel at sonic.net  Fri Nov 23 01:42:32 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New Dragon Pic
References: <XFMail.011122213423.root@garbled.net>
Message-ID: <3BFDFDE8.2677AF73@sonic.net>

 My personal thought is that all pieces of crossfire should be under the GPL. 
This includes images, maps, code changes, etc.

 I have several reasons:
1) Consistency with crossfire as a whole - having a potentially large number of
images/maps/whatever with different policies would prove very annoying.  Just
trying to notify people that this image is restricted but that is not.  Could
you imagine if this was the protocol with some xpm images when we converted them
to png?  In theory, we would need to require the authors permission for that.

2) Consistency with open source principals.  It seems at least somewhat possible
that if people can attach limitations to what they contribute, more people may
do so.  I can't give precise examples, but I am sure crossfire has borrowed
various pieces from other open source applications - it would be somewhat
facetious to do that and say other people can't use pieces of our software.  I
would also have to check, but sourceforge may have rules about what they host
(eg, opensource applications, and not those with specific redistribution rules)

3) Maintainability - if you have to check with people to make changes, or even
need to check various files to see if something might be encumbered, it could
prove to be a real pain.

 I would also thing that some aspects of his copyright would be highly suspect. 
Is use allowed in the client?  Suppose someone makes a different server, which
is a pay per server, but uses a compatibile client protocol?

 For those reasons,  I really think anything in CVS should be under GPL.  Now
you could very well have some sets of maps or images with more restrictive rules
that people could download if they want to.

From opiate49 at hotmail.com  Fri Nov 23 20:44:22 2001
From: opiate49 at hotmail.com (The Tool)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Re: JD disclaimer
Message-ID: <F72AbKspCaSaWxyDu8C00018031@hotmail.com>

ok. i'm gonna reply to mwedel directly, since he is the main man :)
But this is kinda to everyone.
JD wrote that disclaimer off the top of his head in about 2 seconds. he 
didn't think about most of it.
JD is happy as long as: If we modify his picture (this does not include 
resizing or changing the format) he wants us to ask his permission. And yes, 
maybe someone will steal the image, but as long as, if any of us find it 
somewhere else we send them an e-mail to the admin asking them to take it 
down.
JD is also happy (i just spoke to him on the phone and confirmed this) that 
the picture can be used for anything that is part of the opensource game 
Crossfire. This includes source, clients, webpages, logos, etc - as long as 
picture looks the same.
90% of the disclaimer was not legal. If we misuse his picture, JD is not 
going to sue or take legal action, he will just ask us to either change it 
back or remove it. OR ask for his permission to change it.
JD says there is absolutely no need to put any kind of warning or copyright 
statement on the game. Just as long as people respect that it is HIS art, 
and it will remain HIS art.
As far as animations go. JD is currently working on animated them to about 4 
frames. And if we want additional or modified animation, we ask him to do 
it, and if he's too busy - he will give us permission to do so.
JD is literally shocked at the responce he has got, because he didn't really 
mean his disclaimer as a legally enforced strict agreement. He meant it as a 
sign of Respect for his art.

I hope this has cleared things up for you all.

^TooL^

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp


From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 24 03:08:38 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Re: JD disclaimer
References: <F72AbKspCaSaWxyDu8C00018031@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3BFF6396.C19961AE@sonic.net>

 That sounds much more reasonable. One problem is that I don't really want to
having something like 'crossfire is distributed under the GPL except for these 5
images'.  This could also prove problematic for him - the fact that many files
say the crossfire is distributed under the GPL - someone could easily grab it,
think that the image is in fact under GPL (and in fact, there may be nothing
that actually says it is not).

 Ironically enough, if crossfire was in fact closed source, various restrictions
would be more agreeable to me simply because the control of the files is higher
- easier to know that other people are not modifying it for example.  

 One thing you may also want to mention to him is that there are somewhere
around 3000 images total and a lot of maps.  So while his restrictions from his
standpoint may not seem like a very big deal, from my standpoint, it could get
to be really annoying (suppose there are 10 image contributors with different
policies for example).

 I think the biggest problem I have is potentially making a promise that may
prove difficult keep.  
What I could agree to:

1) Image is only for the game as crossfire.  Image can not be used in any pay
version of the game (I don't think there will likely be a pay version, but who
knows, and of course, that only changes distribution at that point - old free
versions can never be revoked).  This does not include things which are at or
near media cost redistributions of archives (ie, a cdrom of some archive or say
a bunch of linux packages).

2) A notice will be included which says when those particular images are
modified, he should be notified, preferably in advance.  Note that we can
include a version of the images just as we get them from him, and include them
as well as a pointer saying that those were the originals.  I personally do not
want to have to watch to make sure that no one does anything unauthorized with
various images.  If the image is found to have been modified not to his liking
or without notification, at his request we will revert the image back to its
original form.

3) While the images may only be for crossfire, he should understand that there
are certainly cases where the image may 'leak' out without its owner and
restrictions being listed (eg, screenshots or web pages).  This may create
confusion since the game is generally listed under the GPL.  However, my
personal understanding is that unless the web page with the screenshot or the
like specifically give permission to re-use the image, it is under implicity
copyright.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 24 03:25:30 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Results of New World Map design questionare.
Message-ID: <3BFF678A.16916F8D@sonic.net>

People who voted:
Yann Chackoff, Tim Rightnour, Andreas Vogl, Rick Tanner, Joris Bontje, David
Hurst, David Delbecq, Mark Wedel

Results:

1) How to redo world map:
2 - All by hand (a)
4 - Computer aided (b)
1 - All computer, unique per server (c)
1 - None of the above (use world some people are working on)

 Computer aided is preferred by a small margin.  But this gets related somewhat
to #2 below - the smaller the map, the more feasible A is.  Also, I think even
with going with B, things will continually get touched up, so at some point it
may result in almost a completely hand done map.

 I'd be curious to know more about this other world map people are working
on.

 As an aside, it would be really nice if developers used the mailing list
to keep others apprised of what they are working on.  I don't mean just the
map - there are lots of things that I see are done/committed with never really
hearing much about it until it is done.  This reason for this is many fold. 
This lets others know what is being done so they don't duplicate it, and
also presents a place where suggestions and flaws can be mentioned (better
to find out a scheme won't work before you write 1000 lines of code and find
it can't be used because of some fundamental flaw).  If its a big project,
perhaps send out a status once every week or two.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) How large it should be

1 - 300x300
1 - 512x512
3 - around 1000x1000 or larger (these three responses did not specifically state
    that, but there were three responses with the map around 1000x1000 or a bit
    larger than that, so I codensed them here)
1 - 1000x1000 -> 3000x3000
2 - 2500x2500

 Other than it being at least 1000x1000, not a lot can be drawn from this.
My personal thought is bigger is better - simply so it doesn't have to get
redone at a future point when people say it is small.  My thought is also 
that the city icons would get removed and the buildings themselves get placed
at actual scale, and doing tha with 1000x1000 means the cities will end up
taking more space than they currently in some cases (a 3x3 city icon
would be 30x30 spaces).

 If you want to do the math, there is roughlu 8 ticks/second.  If the world
map is 1000 spaces wide, and you can move with speed 1 through the entire
thing (say on a road), it would take about 2 minutes to cross.  You can
easily figure out how a larger/smaller map affects this, as well as speed
(eg, if speed is .2 due to terrain and equipment, it would be 5 times longer,
or about 10 minutes).

 This is of course both a plus and minus - taking 5 minutes to get to the
entrance of a dungeon could be annoying.  OTOH, this could make some of those
teleport spells more useful.  Perhaps also something analogous to shortcuts
could be done?  Have something like a shortcut teleporter in the town/apartment,
and if you step on it, you get teleported to wherever some object in
your inventory says so.  Thus, at the start of dungeons, you could have
these objects that then create a shortcut (different discussions on whether
this should be invisible, can only have one, or details on how this is
done).  But this could mean for example that once you get to it once, its
no big deal.  It could also make shop hunting more difficult, but IMO some
things could be done to reduce the need to hunt all the shops looking for
things (like have a unlimited stock of potions of life/fire resistance/cold
resistance in the magic shops).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) How dynamic it should be:

3 - Highly dynamic, forest grow/die, grassland may turn to desert, etc (a)
5 - Slightly dynamic, base terrain remains same, but special plants and
   trails may show up. (b)
0 - not dynamic (c)

Since presumably doing 'b' will have to be done before 'a' can be done, this
provides guidance.  Also, a run time option can be done to control
how dynamic it ends up being.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) Cohesiveness of new maps
0 - everything on main continent (a)
5 - somewhat cohesive, try to keep on main continent (b)
2 - put wherever needed (c)

 Somewhat to be expected.  This probably means that some of the
smaller areas (port joseph for example) should probably get merged in,
but bigger ones, like pup land should probably remain seperate, or at least
an island.  The problem with many of the small areas (like lake county) is
that they are a small area with constraint of movement, eg, you see just
plains or forest to the north, yet you reach a black edge and can't move
further).

 I'm also not sure what to do with dtabb land.  That sort of got started
for a new continent since the current one was starting to get filled up.
If dtabb land is still desired, a full continent should probably be
made for it - perhaps but some of the real high level stuff, like brest 
there, simply so it takes some work to get there (for that matter, you
could use npc logic so that ships won't take someone to that continent
unless they are some level)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) More than one continent (Looking back on this, I worded it badly, and 
two of the answers were basically the same, so no wonder that b is the heads
up winnder)

6 - If a good reason is given (b)
1 - Many if computer generated world map (NA)
1 - Not a big deal to have more than one (NA)

 This wasn't a very important question either.  it was mostly so I could
see peoples opinions.  So down the road, this perhaps gets expanded
with a new continent the same size of the first.

From yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com  Sat Nov 24 11:52:28 2001
From: yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com (Yann Chachkoff)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
Message-ID: <3C010B31@MailAndNews.com>

Some thoughts about this...

Some underlined problems with possible corrections:

1 - I got paralyzed and I think it is a server problem, resulting in a savage 
disconnection.

Can't we simply add a message or something telling the player that he's 
currently paralyzed ? This could solve the problem in most cases.

2 - You are paralyzed and you need to leave the game for some reason, but 
can't.

I don't think this is a specific paralyze problem - you may need to leave the 
game abruptly at any time. Either we allow a way to leave the game anywhere 
you want (effectively rendering the savebeds useless) or we implement some 
kind of "paused" mode. Another thing to do here is to be able to use some 
commands even if you're paralyzed (mostly "quit" and "save").

3 - Players paralyze newbies "just for fun".

That's the risk in any "unrestricted" game environment. If we prevent the use 
of paralyze on other players, we also need to prevent any other harmful spell. 
My opinion: if you are a newbie and feel repressed by some bad boys, either 
make a league against him or report it to the server maintainer. This will not 
require again more code in the server and could also promote teamplay 
somewhat.

4 - I'm paralyzed but I want to be able to save my character from 
monsters/starvation/door bell syndrome

Isn't paralyze supposed to prevent you to do anything with your character ? Or 
maybe it has another meaning in English ? Isn't paralyze one of the things 
that can add more risk to the adventurer's life ? And if players are still 
able to do some things like using items or casting some spells, why would not 
the monsters also be able to do so ?

Except for the first point (sending a clear "paralyzed" message/status report 
to the player), I see no reason to change the way paralyze currently works - 
sounds like the game would take care a little more of me, and I don't want it: 
I love living dangerously :)

Chachkoff Y.

-----------------------------------------
Visit http://www.chachkoff.f2s.com for
a journey into a fantastic world !
(But don't expect too much...)
-----------------------------------------


From yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com  Sat Nov 24 11:54:33 2001
From: yann.chachkoff at MailAndNews.com (Yann Chachkoff)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New project ?
Message-ID: <3C0110CB@MailAndNews.com>

>You have no way to save
>your game, or get out of wherever you are.. you are just stuck, and it sucks. 
Add >to that the ability in crossfire to die, and then re-die over and over to
>starvation, and things get pretty bleak. (Thats a different issue, which I do
>plan on solving soon)
...
> Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>

mmm...
How do you suggest to solve that ? Can you inform us a little please ?

Chachkoff Y.

-----------------------------------------
Visit http://www.chachkoff.f2s.com for
a journey into a fantastic world !
(But don't expect too much...)
-----------------------------------------


From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 24 15:41:29 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:50 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Paralyze
References: <3C010B31@MailAndNews.com>
Message-ID: <3C001409.41838FAA@sonic.net>

Yann Chachkoff wrote:
> 
> Some thoughts about this...
> 
> Some underlined problems with possible corrections:
> 
> 1 - I got paralyzed and I think it is a server problem, resulting in a savage
> disconnection.
> 
> Can't we simply add a message or something telling the player that he's
> currently paralyzed ? This could solve the problem in most cases.

 This would be easy enough to do.

> 
> 2 - You are paralyzed and you need to leave the game for some reason, but
> can't.
> 
> I don't think this is a specific paralyze problem - you may need to leave the
> game abruptly at any time. Either we allow a way to leave the game anywhere
> you want (effectively rendering the savebeds useless) or we implement some
> kind of "paused" mode. Another thing to do here is to be able to use some
> commands even if you're paralyzed (mostly "quit" and "save").

 This isn't really a problem.  If the client disconnects from the server, you
will get saved where ever you were.  The unix clients actually have a disconnect
option that will do just that.  I'm not positive what the behaviour is when that
happens (eg, where you re-appear when you re-join) - I think the case is that if
you are in a no magic spot (like a treasure chamber), you will re-appear at
home.  Otherwise, you will re-appear wherever you were when you disconnected. 
Random maps are a little different in some of the handling I think.


> 3 - Players paralyze newbies "just for fun".
> 
> That's the risk in any "unrestricted" game environment. If we prevent the use
> of paralyze on other players, we also need to prevent any other harmful spell.
> My opinion: if you are a newbie and feel repressed by some bad boys, either
> make a league against him or report it to the server maintainer. This will not
> require again more code in the server and could also promote teamplay
> somewhat.

 Yep.  Players setting up lightning walls, or hitting newbies with drain
attacks, or anything else can be done (steal from them while invisible or
something).  And the term newbie here may be incorrect - it is really anyone of
low level, which could still be experienced players without the proper
protections.

> 
> 4 - I'm paralyzed but I want to be able to save my character from
> monsters/starvation/door bell syndrome
> 
> Isn't paralyze supposed to prevent you to do anything with your character ? Or
> maybe it has another meaning in English ? Isn't paralyze one of the things
> that can add more risk to the adventurer's life ? And if players are still
> able to do some things like using items or casting some spells, why would not
> the monsters also be able to do so ?

 The above is correct.  The problem is that paralyze can basically be a death
attack if you get paralyzed with nasty monsters around.  So everyone gets the
amulet/ring of free action when they can, which makes them 100% immune to this,
so at level 10-15, paralyze is now meaningless (as is drain).

 Note that at least in case of the doorbell issue, you could disconnect your
client.  But your not supposed to be able to save yourself from the doorbell.


> Except for the first point (sending a clear "paralyzed" message/status report
> to the player), I see no reason to change the way paralyze currently works -
> sounds like the game would take care a little more of me, and I don't want it:
> I love living dangerously :)

 As said, the problem is more that most will not live dangerously - you get that
immunity to it, and its no longer a big deal.  The only real issue is if you
take that amulet off and put something else on because you do not expect to be
fighting anything with that attack immediately, and would rather have some other
effect.

 I think the real goal is to still have paralyze in the game, but in such a way
where immunity to it is not a requirement to effectively play.

 My personal thought is to make the duration very short (less than 10 ticks,
further adjusted by protections).  This duration is not re-lengthened if you are
hit while paralyzed, eg, if there is only 1 tick until you are unparalyzed and
you get hit by paralyzation, it does not change anything - only getting hit when
you are not currently paralyzed makes a difference.  In this way, you should at
least get one action before you may get hit again.  I also like Peter's idea of
only needing to make one save against the spell.  This fixes some things as
often you will get hit multiple times from the same spell due to the overlapping
nature of it.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Sat Nov 24 15:50:37 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] New project ?
References: <3C0110CB@MailAndNews.com>
Message-ID: <3C00162D.96D3AD36@sonic.net>

Yann Chachkoff wrote:
> 
> >You have no way to save
> >your game, or get out of wherever you are.. you are just stuck, and it sucks.
> Add >to that the ability in crossfire to die, and then re-die over and over to
> >starvation, and things get pretty bleak. (Thats a different issue, which I do
> >plan on solving soon)
> ...
> > Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
> 
> mmm...
> How do you suggest to solve that ? Can you inform us a little please ?

 I thought there was already something so that you would not die of starvation
on a savebed space, which in general should be where you appear when you die?

 This does not help out if you have no food around, and can not get food soon
enough (eg, to a shop).

 Now in the case of the apartments at least, some of this can be solved by the
player - put a pile of food next to your savebed.  I do notice that if you died
of starvation, you come back with 900 food.  But this doesn't help if you die
from one thing (eg, spells), have 20 food left when you re-appear and have
nothing near by.  That check should probably be something like if food is less
than 200, give them 900 food (or maybe just in all cases).  Death is already
painful, so its not like giving them 900 food is any sort of a bonus.

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Sun Nov 25 00:35:59 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] GTK client
Message-ID: <20011125173559.A24752@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Look Scott or whoever recently has modified the GTK client. After Scott's last commit my client is broken. mids has already posted a bug report but this is getting out of hand. While I know the CVS is meant for developmental code, there is currently NO GTK client that works with the cvs. The old client 1.0.0 doesn't support the metaserver or something and gives:
ReadPacket got an error.: Bad file descriptor
ReadPacket got an error.: Bad file descriptor
ReadPacket got an error.: Bad file descriptor

The cvs gives:
4629        gcw = gdk_char_width(gtk_rc_get_style(gtkwin_root)->font, '0') + 4;
when run through gdb.

It is unacceptable that a change is made and when a bug found is not fixed within the week. I cannot continue with any of my CF development until the client is fixed. It is holding up my work, and wasting time. 

On a secondary note, crossedit is falling to bits. the attributes command no longer works so you can't edit any of the map size attributes or similar. This to is holding up my work. As debian currently doesn't have a decent java package, and I choose not to install unsupported packages (it kinda voids the whole point of debian if I do), it leaves me with no choice. Is there going to be some work on crossedit or a new editor coming out within the end of the year?

it is tiresome that alot of projects are posted on this list. For what reasons I can only guess, but it makes life harder than it could be =).

dnh

From reeve at ductape.net  Sun Nov 25 07:34:23 2001
From: reeve at ductape.net (Scott Barnes)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] GTK client
In-Reply-To: <20011125173559.A24752@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>; from dnh@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au on Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 01:35:59 -0500
References: <20011125173559.A24752@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <20011125083423.A19641@asellus.localnet>

On 2001.11.25 01:35 David Hurst wrote:
> Look Scott or whoever recently has modified the GTK client. After
> Scott's last commit my client is broken. mids has already posted a bug
[snip]
> The cvs gives:
> 4629        gcw = gdk_char_width(gtk_rc_get_style(gtkwin_root)->font,
> '0') + 4;
> when run through gdb.
[snip]

What font are you using?  Are you using libgdkxft?  What version of GTK
are you using?  Has anyone else seen this problem?  I haven't been able
to recreate the problem, that's why I haven't fixed it.  I apologize
that my changes broke it for you, but you don't have to get an attitude
about it.  So if you could tell me more about your setup it would help
greatly, and again I'm sorry that it broke for you.

-- 
Reeve the cat
-------------
-----BEGIN FORTUNE-----
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
and you would not have been informed.
------END FORTUNE------
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d? s: a? C++++ UL++++ P+ L++++ E- W++ N o K- w--- O M-- V-- PS+++ 
PE Y PGP t+++ 5 X+ R+++ tv+ b+++ DI++ D+ G e* h-- r+++ y** ------END 
GEEK CODE BLOCK------

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Sun Nov 25 08:04:58 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] And now for something completely different
Message-ID: <20011126010458.A28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Thanks to the competitors in 'The first official #Crossfire trivia night/day/afternoon/morning... thing'. The final scores were:

^TooL^: 95
mids 113
philc: 24
gros: 80

Congratulations goto mids for holding out and reaching the maximum score of 110 first (113 was rounding problems). Look out for future events in #crossfire ;)

dnh

From reeve at ductape.net  Sun Nov 25 10:55:43 2001
From: reeve at ductape.net (Scott Barnes)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] GTK client
In-Reply-To: <20011126013931.B28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>; from dnh@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au on Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 09:39:31 -0500
References: <20011125173559.A24752@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <20011125083423.A19641@asellus.localnet> <20011126013931.B28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <20011125115543.A24357@asellus.localnet>

On 2001.11.25 09:39 David Hurst wrote:
> > What font are you using?
> Good question after asking around, no one seems to know how to change
> the default font =(.

If you use GTK themes, they can change the font.
And of course Gnome's theme-selector offers a nice GUI way to change
it if you use Gnome or at least have the Gnome libs.

> 
> Are you using libgdkxft?
> No I just apted it then (libgdkxft0)
> 
> What version of GTK
> 1.2.10

Ah, Debian :)  That's exactly what I'm using.

> 
> Has anyone else seen this problem?
> No one else has updated their CVS to my knowledge.

Ok.  Well I'll continue to investigate.

> > but you don't have to get an attitude
> > about it.
> Well I mean no offense, I posted the bug report awhile ago and got no
> response at all. Right now gros (yann) is currently looking at it. I'm
> sure he'll post his findings =).

I understand, I just figured it might be annoying to respond with
nothing more than "I don't know"

> 
> So if you could tell me more about your setup it would help
> > greatly, and again I'm sorry that it broke for you.
> I personally am VERY greatful you have continued your work on the GTK
> client. I understand the CVS is for testing code, and as you couldn't
> cause a crash decided to commit. It was the lack of reponse which got
> me urked but in hindsight I can see your position and have no hard
> feelings against you. Please continue your good work =).

I fully intend to :)

> If you want a feature request or two =) I am a great source ;).
> For example, don't suppose you could make the items panel resizeable
> so that you can display the full text of the items. I use a 1600x1024
> or so monitor so it is alittle bit annoying that you can't do this =).

I'm welcome to feature requests.

> pop into #crossfire and have a chat sometime wont you =)

I haven't been on IRC for quite a while, but I've been meaning to :)

> dnh
> 

-- 
Reeve the cat
-------------
-----BEGIN FORTUNE-----
Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes.
------END FORTUNE------
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d? s: a? C++++ UL++++ P+ L++++ E- W++ N o K- w--- O M-- V-- PS+++ 
PE Y PGP t+++ 5 X+ R+++ tv+ b+++ DI++ D+ G e* h-- r+++ y** ------END 
GEEK CODE BLOCK------

From dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au  Sun Nov 25 22:46:23 2001
From: dnh at hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au (David Hurst)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Fixed client
Message-ID: <20011126154623.A2914@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>

Mark has fixed the bugs concerning the recent problems with the GTK client.
At least for me he has =).

dnh

From reeve at ductape.net  Mon Nov 26 10:10:17 2001
From: reeve at ductape.net (Scott Barnes)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] GTK client
In-Reply-To: <20011126112402.C28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>; from dnh@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au on Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 19:24:02 -0500
References: <20011125173559.A24752@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <20011125083423.A19641@asellus.localnet> <20011126013931.B28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au> <20011125115543.A24357@asellus.localnet> <20011126112402.C28331@hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <20011126111017.A32000@asellus.localnet>

On 2001.11.25 19:24 David Hurst wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 11:55:43AM -0500, Scott Barnes wrote:
> >
> > On 2001.11.25 09:39 David Hurst wrote:
> > >> What font are you using?
> > >Good question after asking around, no one seems to know how to
> change
> > >the default font =(.
> >
> > If you use GTK themes, they can change the font.
> > And of course Gnome's theme-selector offers a nice GUI way to change
> > it if you use Gnome or at least have the Gnome libs.
> 
> Ok I think I have changed it to 'clean'

The 'Clean' GTK theme or the 'clean' font?

> 
> > >Are you using libgdkxft?
> > >No I just apted it then (libgdkxft0)
> What is the benefit of libgdkxft?

Anti-aliasing.  I asked because it overrides GTK's normal font routines.

> 
> > >What version of GTK
> > >1.2.10
> >
> > Ah, Debian :)  That's exactly what I'm using.
> A wonderful dist no? =))

I don't know how I ever lived without it.

> 
> > I'm welcome to feature requests.
> ahhh goody =).
> What abou some way to show more resistances like the gnome client?
> Currently it stopps at 6 or so, but as mentioned my monitor can
> certainly show alot more than that np =).

I was actually thinking of doing that soon :)

> 
> > >pop into #crossfire and have a chat sometime wont you =)
> >
> > I haven't been on IRC for quite a while, but I've been meaning to :)
> Ahhh well here is where your problem lies ;). You have to come and
> visit us =).

Yeah, next time I have a chance I'll be there.

> 
> dnh
> 
-- 
Reeve the cat
-------------
-----BEGIN FORTUNE-----
Women reason with the heart and are much less often wrong than men who
reason with the head.
		-- DeLescure
------END FORTUNE------
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d? s: a? C++++ UL++++ P+ L++++ E- W++ N o K- w--- O M-- V-- PS+++ 
PE Y PGP t+++ 5 X+ R+++ tv+ b+++ DI++ D+ G e* h-- r+++ y** ------END 
GEEK CODE BLOCK------

From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Mon Nov 26 19:38:55 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack patch (list was down, i resend this)
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCOEMEDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

Hi

As i talked about, i had done the bug fixing and changing in the attack
routines.

Because this code depends in several ways from other code parts,
every single change invokes more changes in other modules.

Also, i found several bugs & strange things in this way.

Aside some "code lifting" (removing redundant code and so on)
i fix some bugs, change some basic game and add 3 neu arch commands.

History:

I started this, because i find out that the STAND_STILL cmd not works
as it should. It seems that it was not implemented right. Also, there
was some strange things in the way, friendly object was handled.

So don't fight a friendly object back when it was attacked by an monster and
the player don't fight the same monster.

In the time i fixed this, i found some more bugs. Here a short list of what
is new:

New arch cmds
-------------
NEUTRAL <bool>               Object is neutral. It will not attack others
and will not be attacked
NO_ATTACK <bool>             Object NEVER attacks in any way!
NO_DAMAGE <bool>             Object NEVER can be damaged (and never dies).

With this 3 commands, we can make real NPC. The neutral cmd is only for make
the stuff round.

Throwing
--------
The throw code/part of CF is a sad thing. Player never use it and the code
was somewhat broken and
senseless. I changed this: Monster now never throw any item without
IS_THROWN is set. So, they don't
throw money or special objects anymore. This makes throw tougher! Be
careful.

Also, there was a major bug: about 50% of all throw or missile action, the
monster step in his missile
or hit herself. Then the monster was his own enemy and it started to kill
herself. Thats the reason why
some major monsters are killing herself after some time.

Because we run in heavy intern engine problems to sync a monster with his
missile, i changed it so,
that a owner never can be hit from his own missile. Also, a object can't be
his own enemy anymore.

This has some inpact on game play.
TODO: if a missile was reflected, i will include a flag and then a owner can
be hit again from the
missile but will not marked as own enemy.

To avoid any discussion about this: If someone don't like this, he is free
to code some more clever
solution. But be warned, this is a major project and will change alot of the
core code. My solution
will maybe not perfect, but i counter a real senseless problem (you fire a
arrow and then you make a
fast step that you will be hit from it?) with a small one.

This bugfix makes throwing much more sensefull and dangerous. Also, we
remove the suicide problem with
it.

Pushing
-------

Pushing was broken too. It only asks for unaggressive monsters. Make a
object friendly 1 and unaggressive 1
and you was be able to attack it - very senseless and that was the reason
why the NPC system makes so
much problems (they start to attack you).

I changed it so:
- you never can push a stand_still monster (you got a message about it)
- you can't attack friendly or neutral monsters with pushing anymore
- if you MOVE in a evil, unaggressive monster, you push it
- if you RUN in a evil, unaggressive monster, you attack it

Sleep
-----

Because the problems above, some guy start to insert a SLEEP 1 in every
monster arch. This avoid
senseless moving (stand_still broken) or senseless attack (hitting
yourself).

Of course, its senseless to make all monster sleeping as default.
Pets having a problem when starting sleeping (code will remove it).

I had insert a warning message in the arch paser when a arch still has sleep
1 as default.
If you want make a object sleeping, this should include in the map.

Please remove all SLEEP 1 from monsters.

Notice, that it will make later a big difference, that a monster sleeps or
not.
The advanced mapcmd/client will draw sleep sign above sleeping monsters and
skills/spells
like invinsible,stealth or hiding will make use of it.

I had fixed several problems with "not awakening monsters". Sometimes they
got hit to death and don't
awake.


Attackers & friendly object
---------------------------
As part of the way CF was coded, friendly monsters don't attack non friendly
monsters. There was a small
hack, that they maybe attack the enemy of a player. But in many ways, a evil
monster start to kill the
friendly one, and the friendly one can't attack back.

Now, every time a monster attacks another, it marks itself inside the others
as attacker.
The attacked monster then use this ptr if it has no valid enemy to attack
back.

Now, you can make a map, where royal guards guard a entry and attack the
incoming monsters.
Also, if you throw a fireball at a friendly object, the object attacks short
back!

I avoided fights between objects of same kind. Non friendly objects don't
attack non friendly objects,
and friendly not friendly. Thats needed, because when this is not set, every
spell from a monster will hit
many others and then all start to fight against the others.

Look at this code to check it out:
        enemy->attacked_by = op;       /* our ptr */
        enemy->attacked_by_count = op->count; /* our tag */

Misc fixes
----------
- Monsters now cast spells again on objects next to them (find_player_path()
was return a 0 if
  object was in direct space to attacker)
- alot i can't remember or simply get fixed as side effect :)

Well, this are alot changes.
I need some serious testing now.
As i tested it out, all works fine.
But report me any "strange" action you notice.
And be careful - it should be harder now!

Michael


From mwedel at sonic.net  Tue Nov 27 00:03:44 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] attack patch (list was down, i resend this)
References: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCOEMEDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>
Message-ID: <3C032CC0.A500C207@sonic.net>

> -------------
> NEUTRAL <bool>               Object is neutral. It will not attack others
> and will not be attacked
> NO_ATTACK <bool>             Object NEVER attacks in any way!
> NO_DAMAGE <bool>             Object NEVER can be damaged (and never dies).

 As I said to you in irc, I would prefer if the last one was in fact 'resist_all
100' or the like, with other values of 100 being possible.  All that would need
to be done for that is to make the resists field one larger (so the last element
holds the resist_all value as loaded).  When it is loaded, all the resists
fields are filled with the value.  When saved, if the resist_all field is set,
only that is saved and none of the other resist_fields are saved, otherwise, the
other resist_ fields are saved, and not the resist all.

 This gives a more general approach.



> Throwing
> --------
> The throw code/part of CF is a sad thing. Player never use it and the code
> was somewhat broken and
> senseless. I changed this: Monster now never throw any item without
> IS_THROWN is set. So, they don't
> throw money or special objects anymore. This makes throw tougher! Be
> careful.

 This is reasonable.  I'm not sure if it is set, but they should throw furniture
also, but I don't think that has the throw value set.  OTOH, I don't think the
monsters will generally pick up furniture either, but it wouldn't be too hard to
make it so that if they don't have anything to throw in their inventory, they
look to see if they are standing on anything like furniture that they can then
throw.

 I think the problem with players throwing stuff is the amount of bother to do
so, eg, there is no convenient/quick way to really throw a lot of stuff
quickly.  If something nasty need 50 arrows to kill it, almost certainly you are
not going to have 50 decent throwable objects in your inventory.  I guess this
is really a client issue - there are clever ways to make this easier (eg, drag
it from your inventory to the map, and the client figures out what direction it
is and issues appropriate command or something).

> 
> Also, there was a major bug: about 50% of all throw or missile action, the
> monster step in his missile
> or hit herself. Then the monster was his own enemy and it started to kill
> herself. Thats the reason why
> some major monsters are killing herself after some time.

 The big problem here is that most things move too slowly.  I think most players
can actually outrun a lightning bolt, but how realistic is that (or does it even
make any sense)

 
> This has some inpact on game play.
> TODO: if a missile was reflected, i will include a flag and then a owner can
> be hit again from the
> missile but will not marked as own enemy.

 IMO, if a missile is reflected, whoever reflected it should probably become the
owner so they can get exp for any kills that it might give them.  But in the
case of players, I'm not sure if it would go into any reasonable experience
category.  Alternative is to just clear the owner, but I'm not sure if that
might stop the propogation of the spell (I know when an owner dies, the spell
stops, but that might be because the spell has an owner that no longer exists. 
If the spell just had no owner, I would think it should work, as spell walls
placed on maps obviously do fire their spells and don't have a real owner)




> I changed it so:
> - you never can push a stand_still monster (you got a message about it)
> - you can't attack friendly or neutral monsters with pushing anymore
> - if you MOVE in a evil, unaggressive monster, you push it
> - if you RUN in a evil, unaggressive monster, you attack it

 I'm not positive I like that or not.  But maybe its just a matter of confusion
on my part - how does an evil yet unagressive monster exist?  I would think any
evil monster would become agressive towards the player.  If not, it sounds
pretty neutral.  OR is evil unagressive basically the same as just an
unagressive monster in the older code?

 Also, since push is basically the same as move, how can I actually attack a
neutral monster?  Do I have to hit them with a range attack?


> Sleep
> -----

> Please remove all SLEEP 1 from monsters.
> 
> Notice, that it will make later a big difference, that a monster sleeps or
> not.
> The advanced mapcmd/client will draw sleep sign above sleeping monsters and
> skills/spells
> like invinsible,stealth or hiding will make use of it.
> 
> I had fixed several problems with "not awakening monsters". Sometimes they
> got hit to death and don't
> awake.

 Is there currently any way for monsters to get put asleep other than setting
the attribute in the map (I personally don't recall any skills or spells that
will put something to sleep).  Not a big deal, just somewhat curious.

From mwedel at sonic.net  Tue Nov 27 00:13:14 2001
From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Client ideas.
Message-ID: <3C032EFA.426264EE@sonic.net>

 Off topic, but I think a cool feature would be a tag in the item which contains
player specified data.  This is just a 32 bit field which only the client sets
and the client uses.  It gets cleared when an item is dropped or otherwise
leaves the players inventory (unless in a container).  Things this would get
used for:

1) Item locking - this is really in the client control.  dropall could be made
client, and the client then examines the currently activated list and sends a
drop for all objects in that list.
2) Custom lists.  You could have 4 (or however) many inventory tabs, and you
could control what tabs the items are in.  Thus, you could have a tab for things
you wear a lot, so you want them handy, etc.
3) custom naming of items.  Client could track numbers, and lets player name an
item for their convenience (so if you know that wand is fireballs, you could
call it that).  Client would do this by recording the name in a file (and what
number goes with it) and updating its global count so that the next one gets the
next in the sequence.  Even if just 16 bits is used for this, that provides
65535 names, which unless the player has a lot of different characters, I would
think this should be more than enough.

 The main reason to put this on the server (object) is so that it gets saved
with the character so that it is much more fullproof.  And it should be quite
easy to add something like 'C->S: updateitemflag <tag><flags><tag2><flags2>...' 
And the flag gets sent with the object (requiring a minor update on that).

 The nice thing about this is that the client can do anything with the flags it
wants.  A simple implementation could just give each object a unique id and then
know what flags/name to associate with it.

From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Mon Nov 26 19:39:37 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] arch commands npcs (list was down, i resend this)
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCCEMFDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

dvanced Flag Description NPCs
------------------------------

friendly <bool>          : O. is a friendly O. and will not attack the
player.
                           Non friendly or neutral monsters will attack this
object.

neutral <bool>           : O. will not attack and will not attacked by
others.

unaggressive <bool>      : O. will not start attacking when not attacked
first.

sleep <bool>             : O. is sleeping

stand_still <bool>       : O. will not move and can't be moved or pushed.

no_attack <bool>         : O. can't attack even when other O. attacks.

no_damage <bool>         : O. don't get any damage or die = invulnerable.

only_attack <bool>       : The O. will vanish (die) when it can't target
something.
                           This is funny and useful to flag a special kind
of summoned monster,
                           which will vanish until it has killed his foe.

one_hit <bool>           : The O. has only one attack, after this attack it
will be destroyed.
                           This is used for example for "explosive" monsters
like acid spheres.

hitback <bool>           : Monster attacks automatically back when they got
hit by a attack. Good
                           example is the acid sphere. If a player hit it,
they get cut and splashed
                           him with acid. For the acid sphere, there is also
a <one_hit 1> added to
                           the <hitback 1> to be sure that they got
destroyed with this action.

no_strength <bool>       : Player: Adding O. strength bonus to the arrow
damage of a range weapon.
                           NPC: Adding the O. level as bonus to the arrow
damage.
                           (Both only to the damage, not to the wc like
described elsewhere).

random_move <bool>       : O. will move at random. This will be overruled by
stand_still.

attack_movement <value>  : O. does special moves like attack from distance
or cirlce the enemy.
                           (We need more instruction here)

Examples
--------
>none<                   : default monster (will attack players)

>none<
+ unaggressive 1         : like above, but will only attack after it was
attacked first

>none<
+sleep 1                 : monster sleeps and will attack when it awakes

>none<
+ sleep 1
+ unaggressive 1         : like above, but will only attack after it wake up
when it was attacked first

>none<
+ no_attack 1            : Monster will never attack something but will
handled as default monster

>none<
+ stand_still 1          : default monster, it will attack but will not move

neutral 1                : monster will not attack players

neutral 1
+ unaggressive 1         : same like above

friendly 1               : friendly npc. Will not attack player. Will be
attacked by default monsters

friendly 1
+ unaggressive 1/0       : same like above (TODO: search & attack default
monster when unag. 0)

friendly 1
+ stand_still 1
+ no_attack 1
+ no_damage 1            : NPC will not attack ever and can't be hurt. Used
for quest NPCs which
                           should not get killed or move away.

Never used cmds:
----------------
(this commands are in loader.c and effect monsters but are not used )
move_state
random_move (also not parsed)


From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Tue Nov 27 22:54:15 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Anim25 patch
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCGENDDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

Hi

I will write tomorrow a doc to the patch.

Well, the whole thing is not very complicate (you can even with 3 pictures
setup a full usable
anim25 animation). The result is even better i hoped.

You must see the new animation system in work to believe it.

Michael


From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Mon Nov 26 12:59:45 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:51 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Attack Patch
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCMELNDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

Hi

As i talked about, i had done the bug fixing and changing in the attack
routines.

Because this code depends in several ways from other code parts,
every single change invokes more changes in other modules.

Also, i found several bugs & strange things in this way.

Aside some "code lifting" (removing redundant code and so on)
i fix some bugs, change some basic game and add 3 neu arch commands.

History:

I started this, because i find out that the STAND_STILL cmd not works
as it should. It seems that it was not implemented right. Also, there
was some strange things in the way, friendly object was handled.

So don't fight a friendly object back when it was attacked by an monster and
the player don't fight the same monster.

In the time i fixed this, i found some more bugs. Here a short list of what
is new:

New arch cmds
-------------
NEUTRAL <bool>               Object is neutral. It will not attack others
and will not be attacked
NO_ATTACK <bool>             Object NEVER attacks in any way!
NO_DAMAGE <bool>             Object NEVER can be damaged (and never dies).

With this 3 commands, we can make real NPC. The neutral cmd is only for make
the stuff round.

Throwing
--------
The throw code/part of CF is a sad thing. Player never use it and the code
was somewhat broken and
senseless. I changed this: Monster now never throw any item without
IS_THROWN is set. So, they don't
throw money or special objects anymore. This makes throw tougher! Be
careful.

Also, there was a major bug: about 50% of all throw or missile action, the
monster step in his missile
or hit herself. Then the monster was his own enemy and it started to kill
herself. Thats the reason why
some major monsters are killing herself after some time.

Because we run in heavy intern engine problems to sync a monster with his
missile, i changed it so,
that a owner never can be hit from his own missile. Also, a object can't be
his own enemy anymore.

This has some inpact on game play.
TODO: if a missile was reflected, i will include a flag and then a owner can
be hit again from the
missile but will not marked as own enemy.

To avoid any discussion about this: If someone don't like this, he is free
to code some more clever
solution. But be warned, this is a major project and will change alot of the
core code. My solution
will maybe not perfect, but i counter a real senseless problem (you fire a
arrow and then you make a
fast step that you will be hit from it?) with a small one.

This bugfix makes throwing much more sensefull and dangerous. Also, we
remove the suicide problem with
it.

Pushing
-------

Pushing was broken too. It only asks for unaggressive monsters. Make a
object friendly 1 and unaggressive 1
and you was be able to attack it - very senseless and that was the reason
why the NPC system makes so
much problems (they start to attack you).

I changed it so:
- you never can push a stand_still monster (you got a message about it)
- you can't attack friendly or neutral monsters with pushing anymore
- if you MOVE in a evil, unaggressive monster, you push it
- if you RUN in a evil, unaggressive monster, you attack it

Sleep
-----

Because the problems above, some guy start to insert a SLEEP 1 in every
monster arch. This avoid
senseless moving (stand_still broken) or senseless attack (hitting
yourself).

Of course, its senseless to make all monster sleeping as default.
Pets having a problem when starting sleeping (code will remove it).

I had insert a warning message in the arch paser when a arch still has sleep
1 as default.
If you want make a object sleeping, this should include in the map.

Please remove all SLEEP 1 from monsters.

Notice, that it will make later a big difference, that a monster sleeps or
not.
The advanced mapcmd/client will draw sleep sign above sleeping monsters and
skills/spells
like invinsible,stealth or hiding will make use of it.

I had fixed several problems with "not awakening monsters". Sometimes they
got hit to death and don't
awake.


Attackers & friendly object
---------------------------
As part of the way CF was coded, friendly monsters don't attack non friendly
monsters. There was a small
hack, that they maybe attack the enemy of a player. But in many ways, a evil
monster start to kill the
friendly one, and the friendly one can't attack back.

Now, every time a monster attacks another, it marks itself inside the others
as attacker.
The attacked monster then use this ptr if it has no valid enemy to attack
back.

Now, you can make a map, where royal guards guard a entry and attack the
incoming monsters.
Also, if you throw a fireball at a friendly object, the object attacks short
back!

I avoided fights between objects of same kind. Non friendly objects don't
attack non friendly objects,
and friendly not friendly. Thats needed, because when this is not set, every
spell from a monster will hit
many others and then all start to fight against the others.

Look at this code to check it out:
        enemy->attacked_by = op;       /* our ptr */
        enemy->attacked_by_count = op->count; /* our tag */

Misc fixes
----------
- Monsters now cast spells again on objects next to them (find_player_path()
was return a 0 if
  object was in direct space to attacker)
- alot i can't remember or simply get fixed as side effect :)

Well, this are alot changes.
I need some serious testing now.
As i tested it out, all works fine.
But report me any "strange" action you notice.
And be careful - it should be harder now!

Michael


From michael.toennies at nord-com.net  Mon Nov 26 14:07:12 2001
From: michael.toennies at nord-com.net (Michael Toennies)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:52 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] arch commands npc
Message-ID: <NEBBKOGKCLMFOIIHBOJCIELPDDAA.michael.toennies@nord-com.net>

Advanced Flag Description NPCs
------------------------------

friendly <bool>          : O. is a friendly O. and will not attack the
player.
                           Non friendly or neutral monsters will attack this
object.

neutral <bool>           : O. will not attack and will not attacked by
others.

unaggressive <bool>      : O. will not start attacking when not attacked
first.

sleep <bool>             : O. is sleeping

stand_still <bool>       : O. will not move and can't be moved or pushed.

no_attack <bool>         : O. can't attack even when other O. attacks.

no_damage <bool>         : O. don't get any damage or die = invulnerable.

only_attack <bool>       : The O. will vanish (die) when it can't target
something.
                           This is funny and useful to flag a special kind
of summoned monster,
                           which will vanish until it has killed his foe.

one_hit <bool>           : The O. has only one attack, after this attack it
will be destroyed.
                           This is used for example for "explosive" monsters
like acid spheres.

hitback <bool>           : Monster attacks automatically back when they got
hit by a attack. Good
                           example is the acid sphere. If a player hit it,
they get cut and splashed
                           him with acid. For the acid sphere, there is also
a <one_hit 1> added to
                           the <hitback 1> to be sure that they got
destroyed with this action.

no_strength <bool>       : Player: Adding O. strength bonus to the arrow
damage of a range weapon.
                           NPC: Adding the O. level as bonus to the arrow
damage.
                           (Both only to the damage, not to the wc like
described elsewhere).

random_move <bool>       : O. will move at random. This will be overruled by
stand_still.

attack_movement <value>  : O. does special moves like attack from distance
or cirlce the enemy.
                           (We need more instruction here)

Examples
--------
>none<                   : default monster (will attack players)

>none<
+ unaggressive 1         : like above, but will only attack after it was
attacked first

>none<
+sleep 1                 : monster sleeps and will attack when it awakes

>none<
+ sleep 1
+ unaggressive 1         : like above, but will only attack after it wake up
when it was attacked first

>none<
+ no_attack 1            : Monster will never attack something but will
handled as default monster

>none<
+ stand_still 1          : default monster, it will attack but will not move

neutral 1                : monster will not attack players

neutral 1
+ unaggressive 1         : same like above

friendly 1               : friendly npc. Will not attack player. Will be
attacked by default monsters

friendly 1
+ unaggressive 1/0       : same like above (TODO: search & attack default
monster when unag. 0)

friendly 1
+ stand_still 1
+ no_attack 1
+ no_damage 1            : NPC will not attack ever and can't be hurt. Used
for quest NPCs which
                           should not get killed or move away.

Never used cmds:
----------------
(this commands are in loader.c and effect monsters but are not used )
move_state
random_move (also not parsed)


From bugs at real-time.com  Fri Nov 30 02:10:01 2001
From: bugs at real-time.com (bugs@real-time.com)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:01:54 2005
Subject: [CF-Devel] Your Bugzilla buglist needs attention.
Message-ID: <200111300810.fAU8A1m21971@crusader.real-time.com>

[This e-mail has been automatically generated.]

You have one or more bugs assigned to you in the Bugzilla 
bugsystem (http://bugzilla.real-time.com/) that require
attention.

All of these bugs are in the NEW state, and have not been touched
in 7 days or more.  You need to take a look at them, and 
decide on an initial action.

Generally, this means one of three things:

(1) You decide this bug is really quick to deal with (like, it's INVALID),
    and so you get rid of it immediately.
(2) You decide the bug doesn't belong to you, and you reassign it to someone
    else.  (Hint: if you don't know who to reassign it to, make sure that
    the Component field seems reasonable, and then use the "Reassign bug to
    owner of selected component" option.)
(3) You decide the bug belongs to you, but you can't solve it this moment.
    Just use the "Accept bug" command.

To get a list of all NEW bugs, you can use this URL (bookmark it if you like!):

    http://bugzilla.real-time.com/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&assigned_to=crossfire-devel@lists.real-time.com

Or, you can use the general query page, at
http://bugzilla.real-time.com/query.cgi.

Appended below are the individual URLs to get to all of your NEW bugs that 
haven't been touched for a week or more.

You will get this message once a day until you've dealt with these bugs!

  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=368
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=374
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=379
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=381
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=382
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=384
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=385
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=386
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=388
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=389
  http://bugzilla.real-time.com/show_bug.cgi?id=390

From Kimmo.Hoikka at Digia.com  Sun Nov  4 11:11:18 2001
From: Kimmo.Hoikka at Digia.com (Kimmo Hoikka)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] ruggilli
Message-ID: <3BE576B6.9030402@Digia.com>

I wonder if ruggilli is working correctly, since I changed from gnarg to 
ruggilli and was able to keep my armour on, according to the website 
ruggilli should be no_armour. Also I could not figure out how to get 
immolation? ruggilli does not seem to give such a skill...

-- 
-Kimmo Hoikka
+358407380747
-wwwhoikkacom
-kimmo@hoikka



From willyrulz at hotmail.com  Sun Nov 11 03:40:39 2001
From: willyrulz at hotmail.com (W i l l y)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Newbie Questions
Message-ID: <F102OIkUqLpHkatd4gm00000421@hotmail.com>

Okay I think these questions would have already been asked, but I looked 
through the archives and couldn't find any answers so...
How do I get back stats that I've lost from dying?  I've tried the 
restoration at the house of healers.
How do I get new skills, like praying in particular?
How do I reset the server's maps etc.?  I do run my own server, but the 
levels that I've done once are not resetting, and my other characters can't 
do much now.
Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll get at least some answers.

Enigma
willyrulz@hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp


From lukasdi at gmx.de  Mon Nov 12 17:20:16 2001
From: lukasdi at gmx.de (Luke)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Newbie Questions
References: <F102OIkUqLpHkatd4gm00000421@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3BF05930.70608@gmx.de>

W i l l y wrote:

> Okay I think these questions would have already been asked, but I looked 
> through the archives and couldn't find any answers so...
> How do I get back stats that I've lost from dying?  I've tried the 
> restoration at the house of healers.


Its enough to know that you should use the potion of restoration insead 
of using the altar of restoration in the house of healers.(there are 
other possibilities too to get your stats back....you got to expore it 
by yourself)

> How do I get new skills, like praying in particular? 


U can use skill-scrolls available in the magic shops. They cost more than other scroll in common.


> How do I reset the server's maps etc.?  I do run my own server, but the 
> levels that I've done once are not resetting, and my other characters 
> can't do much now.


You don't need to reset maps if you don't want to cheat yourself...
There are enough places you can get easy exp in the beginning.


> Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll get at least some answers.
> 
> Enigma
> willyrulz@hotmail.com
> 


Hope it helps you.


Luke


> crossfire-list mailing list
> crossfire-list@lists.real-time.com
> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-list
> 
> 




From jandersen at striva.com  Thu Nov 15 04:23:54 2001
From: jandersen at striva.com (Jan)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Loss of stats
Message-ID: <3BF397BA.7070406@striva.com>

Hi,

This is probably an elementary question, but I couldn't find anything in
the FAQ file. What can I do about losing my stats (in v1)? I start a new
character, play for a while, use the best protection I can find, but
after some time, my stats are totally down, and then I keep dying; like
getting killed by birds, mice and ants, which takes some of the fun
away. Is there a way to regain stats?

/jan


From jbontje at suespammers.org  Thu Nov 15 09:11:22 2001
From: jbontje at suespammers.org (Joris Bontje)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Loss of stats
In-Reply-To: <3BF397BA.7070406@striva.com>; from jandersen@striva.com on Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 10:23:54AM +0000
References: <3BF397BA.7070406@striva.com>
Message-ID: <20011115161122.A319@freebsd.localdomain>

On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 10:23:54AM +0000, Jan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This is probably an elementary question, but I couldn't find anything in
> the FAQ file. What can I do about losing my stats (in v1)? I start a new
> character, play for a while, use the best protection I can find, but
> after some time, my stats are totally down, and then I keep dying; like
> getting killed by birds, mice and ants, which takes some of the fun
> away. Is there a way to regain stats?

Buy and quaff a potion of life, you can find them in the Church of Healing in Scorn.

Joris Bontje / mids

From jandersen at striva.com  Fri Nov 16 07:16:24 2001
From: jandersen at striva.com (Jan)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Loss of stats
References: <3BF397BA.7070406@striva.com> <20011115161122.A319@freebsd.localdomain>
Message-ID: <3BF511A8.7040505@striva.com>

Hi,

Thanks; as simple as that, then? But I thought potions only worked for a
short time?


/jan

Joris Bontje wrote:

>On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 10:23:54AM +0000, Jan wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>This is probably an elementary question, but I couldn't find anything in
>>the FAQ file. What can I do about losing my stats (in v1)? I start a new
>>character, play for a while, use the best protection I can find, but
>>after some time, my stats are totally down, and then I keep dying; like
>>getting killed by birds, mice and ants, which takes some of the fun
>>away. Is there a way to regain stats?
>>
>
>Buy and quaff a potion of life, you can find them in the Church of Healing in Scorn.
>
>Joris Bontje / mids
>_______________________________________________
>crossfire-list mailing list
>crossfire-list@lists.real-time.com
>https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/crossfire-list
>
>
>.
>



From Michael.Keuchen at hamburg.de  Wed Nov 14 10:08:46 2001
From: Michael.Keuchen at hamburg.de (Michael Keuchen)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:06 2005
Subject: [CF List] Newbie Questions
References: <F102OIkUqLpHkatd4gm00000421@hotmail.com> <3BF05930.70608@gmx.de>
Message-ID: <3BF2970E.421BEBF@hamburg.de>

Luke wrote:
> 
> W i l l y wrote:
> 
> > Okay I think these questions would have already been asked, but I looked
> > through the archives and couldn't find any answers so...
> > How do I get back stats that I've lost from dying?  I've tried the
> > restoration at the house of healers.
> 
> Its enough to know that you should use the potion of restoration insead
> of using the altar of restoration in the house of healers.(there are
> other possibilities too to get your stats back....you got to expore it
> by yourself)

The "potion of life" restores the stats.



From lembark at wrkhors.com  Fri Nov 30 18:11:58 2001
From: lembark at wrkhors.com (Steven Lembark)
Date: Thu Jan 13 18:04:07 2005
Subject: [CF List] Need installation help (please?)
In-Reply-To: <000a01c17ad3$1e973a40$0101010a@lionsden>
References: <000a01c17ad3$1e973a40$0101010a@lionsden>
Message-ID: <52300000.1007165518@dizzy>


-- Lyle Bergman <lbergman@mninter.net>

> Hi all!
>     Crossfire looks like an excellent game, but I'm running into nothing
> but roadblocks trying to get it installed. I'm a bit of a linux newbe;
> please bear with me.
>
>     I'm running Red Hat linux 7.1 and want to play crossfire without
> connecting to any external server. (So I have to run the server locally,
> I believe?) I downloaded the three main tar files
> (crossfire-1.0.0.tar.gz, crossfire-client-1.0.0.tar.gz, and
> crossfire-maps-1.0.0.tar.gz) and extracted all the files. For the server,
> when I try ./configure, I get a message basically saying it can't find
> the file. The same happens when I try the client.
>
>     I checked and I have all the GTK libraries installed, however xpm is
> nowhere to be found, not even on the installation disks. I downloaded and
> attempted to install the xpm library version that was in the old RH 6.1
> version, but got a message saying it conflicted with some other installed
> packages (something like XFree86, if memory serves) and refused to
> install. Unless xpm was incorprated into another package, it seems XPM
> just isn't possible for Red Hat 7.1. I don't know if that's the source of
> the problem or not.

You can get the xpm libs off of the redhat distribution
media. I don't remember which of the RPM's has it. To
perfrom an exhaustive search of the RPM's on your media
if no other tools are avialable use:

    mount /dev/cdrom /mnt;
    cd /mnt/RedHat/RPMS;
    mkdir /var/tmp/$$; # wherever you put large scratch files.
    pushd /var/tmp/$$;
    for file in ~-/*rpm; do
        echo -e "\n$(baseneme file)\n";
        rpm2cpio < $file | cpio -it
    done 2>&1 | tee rpmlist;

This will leave you with a catalog of rpm file names and their
contents. less it and search for "libXpm" (notice the capital 'X').


--
Steven Lembark                               2930 W. Palmer
Workhorse Computing                       Chicago, IL 60647
                                            +1 800 762 1582