[CF List] Player building (was Re: Castles and houses)

[Mark Wedel]

Andreas Vogl wrote:
<snip>
>
     
      Believe me, a command-line editor for Crossfire maps is
     
     >
     
      outright impossible. I mean you can create one, sure,
     
     >
     
      but it won't work.
     
     
  If 'in map' design was really desirable, it would probably make more sense to 
add a facility for players to to be able to upload maps.

  How you charge the players for those maps get tricky.  Presumably, this 
feature would only be available to wiz players or the like.

  Of course, why go to that effort of doing it in game?  Why not just say 'make 
a map with the editor, and send it to ...'

  Your point was one reason why I suggested that if you buy a house, it at least 
has the basic layout (walls, staircases, etc), as doing those with in game gets 
tricky.

  While I think it may be somewhat possible to make a basic interface to create 
maps, I have a feeling that anyone using it would get quickly frustrated.

  I have a feeling that we have gotten caught in creeping features to this idea. 
  The original idea of people being able to buy residences isn't that hard to 
implement.  The idea to allow some customizations isn't very hard easier.  But 
the idea of being able to create an entire map becomes much more complicated.

  IMO, this is mostly because of what details a properly made dungeon needs - 
monsters, treasures, items, gates, buttons, etc, which require trickier support 
- in many cases, much trickier.

  That is probably one major difference between MUDS and crossfire - as said, 
MUDS are created from the inline tools, as the layout can pretty easily be 
abstracted, and being able to 'merge in' dungeons may be tricky.

  Crossfire is very different - each map is largely standalone.  As has been 
seen, if a user can design some maps, and except for the linking into the other 
maps to make them accessible, these maps don't need/rely on any other maps in 
any way.