[crossfire] Crossfire 2.0+ features/priorities

[Mark Wedel]

Gabriele Dini Ciacci wrote:

> Me and lalo did lot of discussion about that, and we ended up with a design
> to still use in-game creation system (that I personally do not like, but 
> many seem
> to like it in cf comunity) withotu sacrifing flexibility.

  For the record, I think an in game creation method is desirable.  One thing to 
keep in mind in this discussion is ease for new players.

  I'd tend to bet a person unfamilar to crossfire may download the RPM and fire 
it up and try to start and play.  But the amount of time they'd spend before 
saying 'this just isn't worth the effort' could be less than 5 minutes.  So a 
method that is easy and intuitive is pretty high on the feature list.

> Lalo created different rooms for class selection each with a different 
> wall and
> decoration layout based in yoru race. Those rooms can miss the
> conflicting/owerpowered race/class combos too.
> (many rooms are allready created, work just need to be finished)
> 
> Race selection is done in another room before this one, with each path 
> that has
> a decoration that matches the one used in the class selection.
> Each "way to a race" has a magic mouth that tells you the stat mods, so the
> player has just to step on it to read the description of that race.

  One problem I have with that method, and which exists in the current method, 
is it isn't clear to effect of all these choices on the character.

  Choosing a race affects your stats in some way.  Choosing a class also does 
so, yet you can't really know that effect until you've chosen your race.


> 
> After that, each race receive a cerain ammount of tokens (non dropable 
> inventory
> item) to spend on skills. Each class is teleported in a different room 
> with many paths,
> each path rapresent a skill, at the path start you get a magic mouth 
> that explain you the
> use of the skill and what you will be able to do with it.
> Each skill cost a different amount of tokens, based on class (room is 
> per class as said
> above), then the player chooses one skill stepping on the teleporter at 
> the end of the
> path, if he still has tokens he get the skill and then is teleported 
> back in the room to
> choose another skill.

  this also seems to increase complexity in creating a new character, which I'm 
not really sure is desirable.  Going back to that new to crossfire player, are 
they really going to be able to make good decisions on skill selection?


> There is a special teleporter that bring you to startgin point directly, 
> converting all your
> tokens in money (like 500gp per token), this is for players that prefer 
> having no skills,
> but more startign money.
> Notice that only common skills are here, skills for casting are not 
> supposed to be bougth
> in this room, this is for "professional" skills like smithing, woodsman, 
> mountanering and
> so on

  I wonder if it would make more sense to just set up a mini store and give the 
players the money in the first place (that mini store could also stock some 
first level spellbooks, and some armor and weapons).  Then just give that player 
the money to spend on what they want to spend.

  Note I'd forsee this mini store to be staticly defined items - nothing random, 
but rather a store with set objects.  Thus, prices can be adjusted, and object 
given special flag to make learning the spell or skill automatic.

<snip>

  Overall, this seems to make the character creation much more complex, both 
from a map point of view, as well as a player point of view.

  OTOH, I'm firmly in the camp that I'd like a nice popup window on the client 
where the player chooses his stats, race, class, and if we want to go in the 
direction of choosing skills, that also.  I think from an interface solution, 
this is much better, as player can easily see what changing race or class does 
to stats as well as skill selection.  Thus, they can easily play around with 
stuff, yet one could still create a character pretty quickly.

  The downside is that all the client(s) need to support this interface.