[CF-Devel] Crossfire plugins

[Mark Wedel]

 I have some general questions about the plugin supports:

What is the long term idea behind the plugins?  It seems to me that if I am
designing a new map, I'm less likely to use features from the plugins unless I
know they exist in the servers that will be using my map.

 This then leads me to think that longer term, you end up with two main
possiblities:  1) Most every server has a set of core plugins they support, in
which case these are not really plugins anymore, but main features of the game,
or 2) Different servers may have completely different sets of plugins,
potentially creating very different game play enviroments.

#2 of course leads to all sorts of possibilities - if most everything currently
in the server directory becomes plugins, then choosing your plugins (and
archetypes) could really determine the type of game you have.  The only downside
I see on this is a pretty big fragmentation of developers - some may like one
environment more than the other.

 My other potential concern is basically the current status of the clients - a
bunch of different people write different plugins, but some fundamental code
change is made (say changing one of the structures), and now there are a bunch
of plugins that need to get updated (a lot of work).

 What I'm really looking for is some insight/thoughts on the long term use of
plugins.  The above are just some thoughts I've had.