[crossfire] building very old versions

[DraugTheWhopper]

> A question would be what exactly are you looking for in those old
versions? The retro graphics, old maps, old gameplay, etc?

Like many things Linux, I cut my teeth on whatever was included with SuSE
7.2 Pro. I think it was something in the .90 era, probably color. Some
highlights:

The layout of cfclient remains my favorite to this day. About the best
improvement since then was splitting the message window into high/low
priority. Sorry to whoever heads it up, I still can't bring myself to
stomach the JXclient.

The tileset was much more cohesive (than it is now), including the
environment, monsters, and items. The art style was simple, and the
isometric look was implemented well.

The gameplay was much different, even "twitchy". I'm sure this stems from
various reasons, including the metalforge-style melee balance, the lack of
latency when running the server on my own machine (no internet access back
in the day), and other quirks like spellcasting taking little or no time.
Regardless, I'd love to see a more responsive gameplay experience, although
I understand that there are such things as technical constraints and design
decisions.

Polymorph. Just polymorph. Although there were some interesting exploits,
like polymorphing your pets until you got a hyper kobold.

--DTW/Draug
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