[crossfire] NPC respawning

[Mark Wedel]

Otto J. Makela wrote:
> Mark Wedel wrote:
> 
>>   One could even see the tavern closing down (people can not enter it), which 
>> would force a reset sooner.  Could be said that new workers need to be found, 
>> damage repaired, etc.
> 
> I assume this would apply also to stores where the merchant is represented by
> a NPC inside the store (for example in Pupland)?

  I would think so.

> 
> Sounds like it could be a possibility for players to get stuck inside "closed"
> locations without normal players being able to help them from the outside.

  Some mechanism to relocate players, etc, would probably be needed.  But this 
is a complicated situation - for some of the reasons you mention.  But also some 
taverns/shops/whatnot also have dungeons beneath them - it wouldn't be too 
uncommon for someone to be in those dungeons with their exit (to the tavern) now 
closed.

  In retrospect, closing the building probably isn't a good idea, as it could 
also be used as a DOS attack by players, eg, player goes in, kills some NPC's, 
gets kicked out of the building, when it reopens, he repeats,and effectively the 
building is never usable by anyone.

> 
> Tread carefully unless we are sure none contain structures (like door
> mechanisms which can only be opened from one side or that require payment or
> special items) where one can get stuck. Maybe players could be ejected from
> the area when this happens, but this is again a bit risky as some special
> stores have monsters etc. around them?
> 
> Apropos, have we been thinking of general solutions to situations like this,
> even spells like word of recall (which not all players have) can be unusable
> in no spells areas? For example, I've once become stuck inside the Devourers'
> temple cellar, when I mistakenly re-flipped the door opening lever and ran
> through the closing door into the vampire hideout. Yes, I can see how having a
> lever also on the inside would mean the curious vampires would sooner than
> later use it, but it was a bit of a bummer being stuck in there with vampires
> on the outside (so I could not just create a new character to open the door),
> and nobody else on the game to give me a hand...

  There are probably many areas where players can become stuck.  Some are 
intentional, most are probably bugs.

  A solution is also to just log out, and after some amount of time, if you log 
back in, you'll be back at your last savebed location.  Annoying, especially if 
you want to play the game - you don't have to wait an hour (I'm not sure if that 
is the time limit) before coming back in.

  It probably wouldn't be too hard to add some ingame command to do that - 
something like 'returnhome' (better name needed).  Put a 60 second (or 
something) timer on it, so you can't use it to immediately get out of 
combat/death.  One could also make it so you can't do any 
movement/combat/spellcasting during that sixty seconds either - otherwise the 
returnhome is cancelled.  In that way, you can't use it to prepare for 
combat/something dangerous.

  There may be a few maps where getting out is meant to be the hard/dangerous 
part (I think the power crystal map/fire temple is such a case), but with the 
savebed reset, there are already ways around it - it just takes an hour to wait 
for the reset.

  However, in most cases, buggy maps should be identified and fixed - put a 
lever on both sides of the door.  In that vampire example, the vampires could be 
modified so they don't activate the levers - IIRC, one of the flags controls 
that, and it could just be cleared.

>