[crossfire] crossfire traffic

[Brendan Lally]

One of the recurring things with crossfire is that it is often a long
time before new features are noticed or utilised properly, if at all.

I consider that this might be because there is no real form of public
communication from this project to the outside world. In order to
rectify this, I have attempted to create something I am provisionally
calling 'crossfire traffic', it's aim is roughly the same as that of
KDE's 'this month in svn' or 'kernel traffic'. - to summarise activity
in a way that is understandable to someone who hasn't followed this
project previously.

I have created a prototype version for january, which found below:

if it is felt that this is a good approach to presenting this
information, then I'll create a wiki page to hold the data for
febuary, and combine it at the end of that month into a similar form.

I'd like to think that this could become effectively a sort of press
release, a monthly showcase for the activity that has been ongoing
within the crossfire development community (as well as a regular
source of news for crossfire.real-time.com). Future versions then
could include the wider player community, I'd like to see details
about server updates and settings changes there too, (at the moment
this information is not really available in any reliable way, I know
that bratwurst updated last night, but only because the server admin
mentioned it on IRC).

NB: I know this list is probably incomplete, future versions, should
this idea be approved, would have data dumped in the wiki, I have
almost certainly missed some things doing this on my own. However I
hope that it will serve as a proof of concept.

=======

This is crossfire traffic for January 2006

Crossfire Traffic is a new attempt to create a means to communicate the activity
surrounding crossfire in an accessible and non-technical way, it is targeted at
those who are curious about what is happening with the project, but find
the existing mailing lists, CVS list. forum, wiki and IRC channels overly
complicated, scary, or
time consuming to read. As such it does not contain any background details, but
instead focuses only
on things that are or would be visible to those playing.



On the mailing lists this month (these are ongoing topics of discussion, issues
that were resolved/implemented are in the Changes section below):

This month has seen more traffic on the crossfire-devel list than there has been
for almost 3 years. The main topics of discussion:

* Modularising the server to allow internal plug-in like behaviour for objects
and other parts of the code.

* A new banner proposed for use throughout the crossfire project, it can
currently be seen at http://crossfire.real-time.com/demo/

* Reducing lag, and possible designs to deal with that.

* Move allow, as a way to counter move_block, and designs for transports
(horses, boats, etc)

* A general call for feature requests for crossfire 2.0, which is now being
tracked by the wiki: http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/dev_todo/cf2.0

* Renaming the binaries that crossfire uses, and whether to have a deliberate
compatibility break for 2.0

* Efforts to move pupland into the world map, concerns over the effect this
would have on the weather system.

* Possible changes to the banking and currancy system, including debit cards and
higher denomination coinage.

* A question about how to have objects do damage to a player when held.



Changes that occurred this month:

Gameplay:

* marking an item will now make the throwing skill throw that in preference to
  any other object.

* summoned pets won't teleport about so much on tiled maps anymore.

* servers can now disable stealing from other players

* spells work better in large areas.

* all orcknuckle messages now appear in the same place

* forked lightning will fork properly again.

* magic walls should work again.

* servers can now send lists of spells to clients that can choose how to display
  them.

* A server will now drop your connection if you fail to enter the correct
password too many times in a row. You will be able reconnect again, this is just
to prevent any scripted brute force password attempts.

In Bigworld:

* zorn's castle has increased in size.

* darcap has a new style of architecture

* shops in brest have some new doors

* navar has a prison of its own

* The dragon hanger network now extends to Nurnberg

* The easternmost dragon at pupland terminal will take players to Nurnberg

* The Forgotten town access pass in darcap works again.

* Lone town is now being served by the Imperial Post Office.

* There are now animating chandaliers

* New Floor types, red marble, white and red inlaid marble and white and pink
  inlaid marble


new monster:

* garden gnome


new items: - look out for these as you play.

* pink roses

* black roses

* zinc

* uranium

* uranium bar

* uranium hexafloride

* uranium oxide

* graphite

* steel bars

* hooksword

* nine ring sword

* butterfly sword

* sickle sword

* cudgel

* hanging firepot


Clients: - You will need to update your client to see the effect of these.

jxclient:
* works better with java 1.5

* fixed a panel display bug

* fixed opening containers

* reduce flickering in map display

* initial support for client-side scripts

* spell description panel added

cfclient:
* will now work for anyone running on a 64-bit processor

* no longer has a special mode for anyone running with a black & white monitor.

* is now a grey colour rather than its previous green.

gcfclient:
* close button is greyed out when it won't do anything

* skills display in a scroll pane

* a list of known spells can be shown on servers that support it by selecting
  'Spells' from the client menu

* The options window has been simplified and no longer has coloured inventory
and coloured text as options

gcfclient2:
* fix some OpenGL issues.