[crossfire] Platform statement

Tue Dec 23 12:06:35 CST 2008

ok... let's address your specific points.

quoth Kevin Bulgrien as of Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:28:01 -0600:
> 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.

thanks.

>> Gameplay
>> ========
>> 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.

I *don't* want to toss item power.  I want to toss overall level and 
still keep item power somehow.  But I'm not sure about tossing overall 
level yet.  We'll see.

>> 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.

Well the details of the money system were a bit of a tangent, I got 
carried away.  It can be summed up in three points:

- give money more granularity (by spacing prices more, or in other words,
  making the lowest coin -- the arch "value" attribute -- worth less)
- go through every arch and re-think prices for realism and game balance
- make the coins more "realistic" and, well, in-setting.

>> 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.

It means starting a new world (maps and arch) from scratch, porting 
things from 1.x as appropriate.

And I think we owe everyone an explanation here.  It didn't occur to me I 
had to give it, but your message highlighted an important point.

As I see it "rebootworld" is _not_ trunk.  Trunk would go on being 1.x 
maintenance, and it's even possible there will be more 1.x releases after 
1.12; same, if I understand Nicolas' intentions correctly, goes for 
server.  (BTW, since it seems to be in fashion to assign roles -- do you 
want to be "officially" in charge of the "clients" tree?  Which really 
mostly means gtkv2... I'm in favour of dropping the other two unless 
someone steps up to maintain them.)

The development of 2.0, meaning C++ server, "rebootworld" maps and 
"rebootworld" arches, would be in wholly new trees.  We've been even 
talking of git or bzr.

So no, 1.x isn't dead; development on it will only stop a little after 
2.x is playable.  And that's both server and content.  Just no major 
changes anymore; those will be on 2.x.  But small improvements, and 
bugfixes, will still happen.  And people are free to submit maps or map 
changes for 1.x/bigworld, although I'd strongly prefer they do for 2.x/
rebootworld instead :-)

>> Technical
>> =========
>> 
>> 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.

Wait wait, that's not even up for a vote :-) I play with the keyboard 
exclusively as well, and I'd scream and leave the project before agreeing 
with mouse-only UI.  No.  What I mean is that the existing mouse UI is 
awful, bordering on unusable.  The keyboard UI is fine as it is (although 
we'd have to think about how the "follow" mode would be activated from 
the keyboard).

> Honestly, "Technical" seems pretty thin on detail.
> there are far a lot more aspects of Crossfire that need technical focus
> and depth...

Sure... but those belong on Nicolas' yard :-) I'm running for "content" 
leader, not project leader.  That, I believe, remains mwedel.

> :-) 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).

If every home gnu/linux/bsd/solaris/etc user who is also a gamer played 
crossfire, we'd still have a ridiculously small user base.  And by simply 
having quality and regular releases, we wouldn't be anywhere near those 
results.  The problem is that a lot of people who would love the game 
even as it is now, have never heard of it.

But I'm not focusing on marketing, not now.  Just wanted to mention it, 
because I do plan to focus on it... later.

> 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.

Agreed :-)  Well for me not the only... like an addict I'll play every 
new gameboy pokemon game that nintendo and gamefreak put out... what can 
I do, it's my dirty little vice.

best,
                                               Lalo Martins
-- 
      So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
       then they seem improbable, and then, when we
       summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
                           -----
                  http://lalomartins.info/
GNU: never give up freedom              http://www.gnu.org/