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Re: Client binaries



>>>>[From Eric A. Anderson]
    
    Well, a client can be designed to make it easier to turn, make your
    shots more accurate, etc.  Similar problems will occur in crossfire
    once you give the client more information.  For example, I'd like to
    see more of the map at a time.  No problem, just make the window on
    my client larger and keep around more information.

Won't work. The server will only be updating what you can see.
On the the hand, I think it's a FEATURE that you could scroll around and
see roughly where you've been. An auto-mapping feature.

    I could design auto runaway, indeed, I could design
    auto-play.  Want to collect a kagillion experience, find yourself a
    generator, wait in front of it.  Kill the monster, wait, kill, wait,
    kill, etc.  No person is likely to have the patience to do this, but
    I can set up a computer to do it for hours -- Lots of free
    experience, all I need is the create food spell.

Whereas otherwise, really bored people just do it themselves. i don't
think this is any big deal.

On the other hand, if it isn't implemented already, you should not get
ANY experience points from killing monsters that are 10 levels below you.


    That is the problem, even if you don't give the client any
    information they shouldn't have, the clients can still do more
    intelligent things than the X thing that is forced onto people's
    screens in the current implementation. 

The current implementation isn't intelligent enough anyways. that's part
of the problem ;-)


    Yea, I do have shared libraries, but I've also used machines which
    don't, and the option of just use shared libraries may not be
    available for those machines.  For example decstations running ultrix 4.x
    

Tough noogies. Don't go for the "8086 compatibility" goal.

    This assumes that we've also gone to client server at the same time.
    I believe that client server will fix the problem of clients dying.  I
    do not believe that Xaw will fix the problem of clients dying.
    
No. but using Xaw under the current server-based paradigm would be
absurd. In fact, I am not sure it is feasible at all.

    here was a place down inside of Santo Diago,
    that you got to past the giant beholder down into a hole, where the
    second room you got into was packed with monsters.  This room by
    itself could make my machine relatively slow.  Now it was doing both
    the display and the monsters, but still, there were hundreds of
    monsters that had to take actions more than once a second.
    Crossfire's basic model may make it very hard to support lots of
    people.

Excellent point. It's all a matter of how far you let a monster's
'vision' be, I think.
I haven't checked in the source, but i believe that a limited-range of
vision is already implemented in some fashion. It should be augmented by
having low-level monsters, and most kinds of other monsters, having
really short-range vision. Then the problem will fix itself, I think.

(of course, if some map-maker is stupid enough to put
 100 "clairevoyant mind-flayers, speed 10" in a room together, nothing
 you can do :-)