[crossfire] Crossfire bots

[Aaron Baugher]

Mark Wedel <mwedel at sonic.net> writes:

> Alex Schultz wrote:
>> Nicolas Weeger (Laposte) wrote:
>>> Of course, we could make the newbie area more mandatory, too :)
>> IMHO also a good idea and perhaps even somewhat necessary.

>   As I mentioned, that would seem like a good idea.
>
>   Some other random ideas:

I like all those; a few more:

First of all, combine the Beginner houses and newbiehouse into one
area in some way, since now they duplicate some things but not others,
and newbies might be confused into thinking that completing one makes
the other unnecessary.  Make the Newbie portal in the Nexus go
directly to this combined area (to newbiehouse or directly into
Beginner1), and make the sign pointing the way to Scorn more serious
about warning newbies that they REALLY should go the other way first.

If the Beginner houses are kept (and any unique features from
newbiehouse incorporated into them), put them in an out-of-the-way
area of Scorn, perhaps down a fenced-off alley in the SE corner.  Put
Beginner1 at the far end of the alley, then a magic mouth saying
"Let's see what's in this next building," then Beginner2, etc.  Force
the player exiting Beginner1 to at least walk over the other Beginner
houses and be told about them before venturing into the rest of Scorn.
Or as someone else suggested, put a password in each house, and
require those passwords to exit into the world.

The exit from Beginner1 could put the player inside Beginner2, and so
on, through however many Beginner houses there end up being, but that
could be very inconvenient for experienced players with new
characters.  Still, it would only have to be traversed once with each
character.

Make the Beginner maps more linear, with hallways forcing the player
to at least pass by all the signs, instead of a wide hallway that
allows the player to wander and miss signs and do things out of order.
Perhaps add a magic mouth once in a while reminding the player to read
the next sign or do something in particular.

> - Looking at the 2 beginner maps, they don't go over some of the
> more basic points of the game, as mention in the tracker item:

>    - nothing about eating food (and the fact that monster remains
> can typically be eaten also

Yes, I had no idea about this for a long time.  When I accidentally
ate some because it was on top of a chest or stairs when I hit 'apply,
the message about how bad it tasted made me think it was harmful --
not just potentially poisonous, but always bad to eat.

>    - Nothing at all about using shops.  A very small shop, with
> perhaps a basic detect curse/detect magic/identify altar on the map,
> with some cursed/magic items on that map for them to use/try out
> (maybe make those altars very cheap, but make this map a 1 way
> journey - once you exit, you can't get back)

I like this idea.  If the beginner area were off-world like
newbiehouse or somehow inaccessible, with an exit to Scorn, characters
could only pass through it once, so very cheap tables wouldn't be a
problem there.  (An aside: I think maybe money-changing altars should
be changed to tables, to eliminate any confusion with god altars.
When I was a newbie, I was unsure at times whether an unfamiliar type
of altar would offend my god.)

>    - Maybe some mention about chat/shout and the etiquette on using
>    the

Also some mention of the mail and bulletin board at the post offices
for communication, to encourage in-character communication and
discourage the use of chat for everything.


-- 
Aaron -- http://aaron.baugher.biz/