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 _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire