[CF List] Map reset time (was: New To Crossfire)

[Scott Wedel]

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     Introduce a new archetype for exits, which would change faces depending on
     
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     whether the target map is currently in memory (or swapped out) or if it
     
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     has been reset.
     
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      Absolutely a terrible idea.  The map reset logic should be utterly invisible
     
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      to players.  Players should only know that maps with dead monsters and so on
     
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      means another player was there recently.
     
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       But realistically, players do care about the status.  If a player is waiting 
     
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     for a map to reset, the fact that it is empty or not is apparant to them.  And 
     
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     they can always use the 'maps command to see when the map will reset or whatever 
     
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     else.
     
     
But that is an unfortunate artifact of the game's design becoming an user
interface issue.  The only place that changing maps should be obvious is when
going from outdoors to indoors (change in scale from a house being same size as
the character to becoming a large room).  It certainly should not be encouraged
to know where in a series of caves, for instance, are the boundaries between
maps.


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      As for the current kludge, it could be further kludged to extend the map reset
     
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      timeout only after a character makes some number of moves in the map.  That'd
     
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      allow a player to see that a map is unchanged and immediately leave without
     
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      changing the map reset timeout.
     
     

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       This could be done.  However, if the reset time for unoccupied maps is 
     
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      relatively short, players could literally guard the map - "don't enter yet - I'm 
     
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      waiting for it to reset".
     
     
How can any map reset logic avoid this issue?  There are unsolvable potential
conflicts of one player entering and leaving in an attempt to complete a set of
maps vs another player wanting the maps to reset in order to start that set of
maps.


The whole idea of maps needing to reset quicker because everyone wants to do a
particular map (presumably often for another time) suggests deeper problems
with the game.  Players should want to and be encouraged to explore, not do the
same map yet again.  Because the map reset time is known that allows players
to hang around waiting for it to reset.  Maybe the reset logic should instead
be that a map will never be reset until after a fixed time since most recent
activity and then a .1% per minute of being reset (and resetting adjacent maps
also idle for long enough).  That way once a map is cleaned out then players
are better off going elsewhere than waiting for a map to reset.