[crossfire] Crossfire 2.0+ features/priorities

[Yann Chachkoff]

> But relatively to players and developers, what do people see as the top feature(s) that should be added (or things fixed) to make crossfire a better game.

Apart from the code cleanup idea, here's what I see as important:

- Better visual appearance. On the coding side, it means adding things like support for "smooth moves" (continuous move of characters and monsters between squares, instead of the current "direct jump to the next square" visual effect), or support for action animations (when I attack a monster, I expect my character to swing its weapon. When I wear a shield, I expect the shield to appear on the character displayed).

- Better scenaristic background. Currently, a lot of the maps are very "bash-n-slash" without little to no story behind. I think that more than software code additions, solid, interesting stories will keep people playing. Offering different starting points for each race, providing more interactions with NPCs, chaining quests, etc. would require no new code and would also help filling the Bigworld map.

- Friendlier client. The currently available clients are intimidating for newcomers: the cfclient looks rather primitive while gcfclient is crowded with options bars, icons and menus and leaves only a small patch in the middle to display the game playfield itself. I think that a friendlier design here that leaves more space for the game would make the game somewhat more immersive and enjoyable to play.

Those are the things that I see as top-priority. Apart from the first, I don't think they require massive code changes. I tend to think that - once cleaned - the current "game engine" of Crossfire is very good and includes a lot of interesting features, on par with many commercial RPG and that it mostly requires to offer better content to get much more attractive.