[crossfire] The future of Crossfire

[Alex Schultz]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
> Lately, we've been too focused on code, I think, and not enough on features 
> making the game we want to make - we don't even really know what game we 
> want.
>   
Well I'd say that focus on code is the result of two things:
1) Much code being messy/unmodularized in the first place
2) The aforementioned lack of even vision for what we want to do in the
larger picture.

Both issues are important to solve (and some has been done in terms of
#1), but #2 is certainly a more fundamental issue (and unfortunately,
consequently often more tempting to try to push to the side instead of
dealing with it).

> <snip>
>
> Example, if we want to someday have more than 15 or 20 players, threading will 
> probably be mandatory. But threading for the sake of it isn't useful if we 
> don't want to aim for many players.
>   
Agreed on the logic of the how to define the importance of threading. On
this specific issue of how many players we want to aim for, personally
I'd say that given the nature of the maps as they are, it would be best
to aim for the 40 to 50 area on a server.

> So, what would be everyone's vision of the game?
>
> My goal is to have a fun game, with fun quests, items, skills, maps. Fun 
> meaning interesting, challenging, many many things :)
> Also multiplayer, eg collaboration and/or competition. Multiplayer spells (ok, 
> those exist, but haven't been much discussed), multiplayer quests, and so on.
>   
"What kind of gameplay" can be something difficult to define, but I'd
say your goal is good (though vague). In some ways, how I'd state my
vision of what sort of game, would be comparing it to the well known
area of Pupland. The maps of Pupland are often regarded as some of the
best in Crossfire, they have extensive cohesive lore which is well
integrated into the maps, it has lots of fun puzzles and quests, it has
some fun items, it has some strong collaborative maps, it even has
custom images (When playing, I found it neat to find something that I've
never seen a look-alike for before (i.e. red crown in the old city of
scorn, the fortune dagger and necromancer of ancient pupland)), and many
of the things you say. I'd say that in many ways, the direction I'd say
we should look in for Crossfire, would be in the direction of Pupland,
but look further than that. Despite it's shortcomings in some areas, I
would say that in many ways, Pupland is a good symbol for much we are
looking for.

I believe that Crossfire largely has the 'tone' of game that I envision
for it, it's just that this 'tone' is muddied in other things (i.e.
there are a significant number of little dungeons around with no plot of
significant and are just hack'n'slash things that often aren't even that
big). One thing I think, is that often we are too afraid of removing.
Frankly, I'd say there are a rather large number of dungons/maps that
are so lacking in plot that they might as well be removed. When playing,
I personally find things like Pupland's quests, or the arena, and other
things with more interactivity than hack'n'slash to be what keep my
attention. All too often I find I'd enter a building or cave or
something hoping to find something interesting or at least a little fun,
but oh, it was just another hack'n'slash or perhaps an inn in which
there were some quest clues, but too sparsely spread between a very
large number of NPCs to be useful unless something else directed me
there first.

> >From that we should decide what we plan to code - rewrite some obsolete stuff, 
> refactor, whatever.
>   
Well, I'd say some types of cleanup/refactoring etc. are important
regardless of what is decided for goals, but indeed we should pay more
attention to what we want for goals in the bigger picture.

> Sorry if the tone sounds harsh. I am concerned by where we are going - or 
> rather where we aren't really going, or not all together.
>   
It is something I would say that many of us, if not all, are rightly
concerned about.

Alex Schultz