[crossfire] Platform statement

[Kevin Bulgrien]

First and foremost, the platform sounds great.  Not having put as
much thought into it, I can't say I fully grasp the finer points.

<snip>

> Gameplay
> ========

<snip>

As I read "Gameplay", it all sounds good.

If there was one game that I was impressed with (but abandoned
when it went non-free)  it was Dransik.  I think it is now
called Ashen Empires.  All the positive things about that game
seem already on the table.

> I don't know... strongly tempted to kill overall level entirely.
> What is it really good for anyway?  I like the concept of item
> power, but I'd replace it with something you get from quests.

I admit that it felt as if the "overall level" and "item_power"
paragraph did not have the same appeal as what was present in the
rest of this section.  I'd definitely suggest more confidence
before tossing these aspects of the game.  I am pretty sure I
recall the instantiation of item_power, and I do not (yet?) see
what the problem with an overall level and the balancing aspects
of item_power are.  It is, granted something I am not that
familiar with (never having leveled very high), but I have
definitely had to better plan out my game play since it came
around, and that, I think, is a sign it is not something to be
lightly tossed.

> Loot and money
> --------------

<snip>

The whole loot/money discussion seems well thought out and good.
I am not sure I see how this all fixes the current situations,
but as aspects of the money problem concerning low and high
characters is mentioned, that helps the faith aspect of what
might occur so long as it remains under consideration.

> Setting
> =======

<snip>

This is section also seems well thought, though I distinctly
feel that the "rebooted from scratch" is rather a good way to
ensure that trunk is not reasonably playable for a very long
time...  Maybe it is just not clear what a "reboot" will look
like.  Perhaps it would be good to describe what a reboot
means before we go off disagreeing about whether or not to do
one.  The concept of a reboot is not really unreasonable, but if
done without addressing the logistics and details of how, it
seems hard to accept carte blanche.  I find myself assuming that
what is meant is a mass delete of "substandard" maps, and this
begs the question about whether anyone has really considered the
cost and what it means considering the (lack of?) resources that
are presently on project.  If there is one thing that seems odd,
it is to have someone not presently very active in development
of this or that (content), to be so quick to say this and that
(content) are being thown out (no matter what).  Some of us do
not care to play on a dead branch, but to develop on a reasonable,
if unpolished, trunk, since there is a sense that this group is
made up of player/developers.  Perhaps one suggestion is to not
forget that it is not given that a reboot implies a reformat of
the disk.

Did pupland branch ever get merged back?  If not, what's to
stop a "reboot" from falling to the same fate?

The point is not to bash the idea of a reboot, but to challenge
more communication and thought about how to pull it off without
sacrificing the ability save in the event that available people
are not able to keep up with the vision.

> Visual
> ======

<snip>
 
> WRT how to do it, I like the "tallworld" idea: don't increase the
> face size to 64, rather make the objects use more cells, which
> would reduce the "klunky" feel of the gameplay.  I'd even go so
> far as reducing the cells to 16 or 8 pixels.

And, for the record, I like the tallworld idea myself.  I believe
it was recently construed that I did not (and also FTR, I do not
deny a "client-breaker" comment made on IRC might have led to that
thought).  This does not mean I do not have serious concerns about
the impact to the client I happen to be very strongly attached to.
As long as the tallworld proponents do not embark on callous client-
bashing, which tends to quickly demoralize development and
participation, it is likely things will work out somehow, and I
would rather be stretched than to insist that nothing must change
just because it is difficult - though it would be nice to see some
support in at least keeping the GTK-V2 usable.

<aside>
FTR, if there is any question about client flexibility here, note
that the move to GTK-V2 was not easy.  As a die-hard GTK-V1 user
who felt forced to move to GTK-V2 because of ongoing threats to
discontinue V1, recent attitudes toward non-jxclients were pretty
tough to take on a regular basis when they came from the people
assuming the responsibility of designing things that would break
these clients.  With no GTK experience, I took on the GTK-V2 client
to address its shortcomings and make it more likely to be adaptable
to different player preferences.  This experience is helping me
learn how Crossfire works, so in retrospect it was a good thing,
And I can see doing the same with jxclient someday, but not today.
The reasons for such are not relevant to this thread.
</aside>

<snip>

> So here's the plan:

<snip>

As with the other sections, the response is go-for-it.  With
collaboration, it seems success can be had with what is
presented.

> Technical
> =========
> 
> See in "Gameplay" for comments on combat system and leveling up.
> 
> I'd like to request two huge features that I think would improve
> the feel:
> 
> Re-hauled movement UI
> ---------------------
> 
> Moving around with arrows only is so last century!  I'd like PCs
> to have basic pathfinding, so you can click where you want to go
> and the character will get there.
> 
> Then of course, I found that people expect that clicking on a
> monster will attack it.

Last century or not,  I vote against a mouse-only interface.  IMO,
Daimonin failed in its appeal partly due to making the move to such
mouse-intensive gameplay though probably a key contributing factor
was the incredible slow-down of gameplay.  It made one feel like
those dreams where you can run, or feel the way one feels trying to
run in the swimming pool.  I'll take the dead-before-you-know-what-
happened over the waste of time that I felt Daimonin made out of my
limited gaming time budget.

BTW, don't underestimate "retro".  Not that long ago, I think a lot of
people would have mocked the idea of "texting" with cell phones.

This is not a "no UI re-haul" petition, but it is a request to take
special care when working this aspect of the game.

> Finally, I'd like to add a "follow this road" mode; basically you
> set your character on a road and he will go on until (a) it ends,
> (b) it forks, (c) it's too dark to see (or for or whatever), or
> (d) the character is too tired/hungry to proceed.  (We don't have
> "tired", but a time limit on using this feature would work.  Not
> sure what happens then, it's up for discussion.)
> 
> Maybe "follow" is only available to transports... that would be
> fine if that's how we think it should be.

Ok.

Honestly, "Technical" seems pretty thin on detail.  Frankly I think
there are far a lot more aspects of Crossfire that need technical
focus and depth: sound, global ID for maps (and all that that makes
possible), replay management, and much more)  I think it would be far
more productive to look for technical issues that relate to content
management, than to start with surface issues like mice vs. keyboard.
Forcing mouse use is "so Microsoft", and IMO, will kill a lot of CF
appeal.  The movement UI, IMO, is sadly lacking, but not that it is
keyboard based; rather that it is prone to classic keyboard buffer
problems, etc.  Apparently Daimonin  developers addressed this
successfully based on comments on IRC or the ML by michtoen (that
largely seemed to go ignored) though I have not played it in ages
because it lost my interest after only a few weeks of play due to
other massive changes away from what CF was.

> True multi-scale
> ----------------

<snip>

Seems reasonable, though I can't say that I "understand".
 
> Community
> =========
> 
> Even in its current state, this game seriously rocks, especially
> compared with a lot of online games I've been playing recently.
> It amazes me that it doesn't have more players and that nobody
> has heard of it.  We need more marketing, and I have a few ideas
> in this direction, although I'll keep those for later, to avoid
> drawing the discussion away from the points above.
 
:-) Ok, though "marketing" seems an odd thing to focus on.  All
the marketing in the world won't fix what lack of releases breaks
in the free and open source world...  Build a good, fun game,
make regular releases (that are timed at basically around the
release frequency of several main OS distributions, be responsible
about fixing issues, and it is doubtful that marketing will be much
of an issue.  Imbalances in bug-fixing/releasing/feature/content are
all well known problem in Crossfire.  IMO, releasing is the big
ticket item in addressing the community issues.  The rest is small
potatoes (IMO).

> best,
>                                                Lalo Martins

The main personal priority I have is that I believe one of
Crossfire's best qualities is that one can play it off and on...
for years.  I am not sure I can put my finger on why, but it is
the only game I keep coming back to.  When I say only, I mean
only.  I do not keep gameplaying as a top priority, but I have
a fair number of PC games from the Pre-Windows ME era, all the
Nintendos except the DS, and have given a try to get into some
of the Linux offerings.  Only CF gets me everytime I feel a
hankering to get into gaming.  The others have less of a draw
even if they pique interest from time to time.  Personally, I'd
like to see it stay that way - not that there is any sense it
will not, based on this statement, but just to underscore how
strongly I feel that this game should not turn into yet another,
fill-in-the-blank.  Part of the reason is that it is a good
combination of play, learn, and develop (hobby), which might
point to the underlying draw of the game (learn).  I find that
I lose interest in anything that does not involve learning
from beginning to end.

All, in all, I hope it is clear that this is a supportive response,
though the volume of some comments are meant to encourage more
thought, or to document some difference of opinion about where
the problem areas are.

Kevin