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CF: Suggestions and bugs



Hi,

here is YASM (yet another stupid mail), divided into sections :-)

1) Suggestions

1a) Skills 

Right now, reading a scroll of piety or ledgerdermain is actually a
bad thing to do (and characters who have no choice are handicapped
because of this). Since some (or all?) of you don't seem to _play_
crossfire, you may not have noticed :-) so here is why: if you don't
read such a scroll, crossfire will _automatically_ apply a holy symbol
or talisman; after you have aquired the skill, crossfire will no
longer automatically apply a holy symbol or talisman. Now, there are
talismans and holy symbols with some neat features, like the talisman
of unified mind, or the totem of the fire god. Applying these
automatically is very good, and this does not happen for characters
who have learned the skill. These characters would have to apply these
items manually, which is a pain and therefore usually isn't done. All
in all, learning the skills is a _bad_ thing, not a good thing like it
should be.

Suggestion: if the player has a talisman or holy symbol, apply it
even if he has the skill.

If this problem gets fixed, consider changing the classes that start
with praying/wizardry: give them one scroll of the skill, marked as
startequipment, and change the reading code so that reading
startequipment never fails. Give them the skill items, too --- that
way they can choose which way to go.

1b) Gods

Obviously there is a problem with the gods in crossfire --- players
kill monsters of their gods without being punished. Of course, we
cannot add punishment for killing certain monsters as this doesn't fit
into the way crossfire currently works. The obvious idea to not let
monsters attack you if you are a follower of their god won't work
either since monsters have keys and items, and followers of Lucifer
(for example) wouldn't be able to get any experience.

However, how about
a) a "weapon of foo" refusing to hurt foo's monsters ("Your long sword
   of Lucifer refuses to hurt the skull!")
b) a character possessed by foo being unable to hurt foo's monsters?
   Maybe exchange places like the avatar.

1c) marking runes

Change marking runes --- if casted by a player, make them last until
the map resets. Add an insult file, and when monsters cast marking
runes, add something from the insults file. (This is actually a
temporary fix --- monsters should never cast marking runes).

1d) fortune cookies

How about nethack style fortune cookies? I'd even make some
fortunes...

1e) Doors

I'm not sure whether this is done on purpose, but it is rather
difficult to leave a room with many spells on the door (basically you
have to blindly click into the look window, hoping to finally hit the
door. The same applies to autopickup: spells or fog will prevent
you from picking up things, so you have to explicitely 'get all'.

1f) Containers

Currently I'm offering an "item exchange" --- drop a Lepred's bag, and
get a Lepred's pouch. I'll probably add the same for boxes, luggages
and the linen bag --- but a better solution, of course, would be a
command to let a player turn some container into a pouch.

Crossfire already has containers for gems/money, arrows, bolts and
keys --- can we have containers that contain only rings, weapons,
books etc?  In this case the player should be able to specify which
items should go into the container.

1g) Polymorphing

I guess this was done to prevent abuse, but contrary to the nethack
polymorph, polymorphing in crossfire is completely useless since the
items can only get worse. It is even flawed --- items stay in their
category (except for fog), but you can get items that are never
genrated randomly. While this is fun (like a saw with slay tree, a bag
of popcorn or sizzling weasels on a stick), there are some items that
should not be generated: skill objects can turn into invisible
(non-pickupable) skills ("You can't pickup a flame touch"); bolts can
turn into acid spits; bows can turn into acid spitters or boulder
throwers etc.

1h) Daylight and Nightfall

Hey, these spells are fun :-) But how about considering real time for
the world map, the cities and inns? In the evening the maps get
darker... at night they are completely dark... right now we like to
cast nightfall in the evening, so Scorn gets a little darker.  Add a
"realtime" flag to the maps to turn on the feature.  Be careful to not
loose adjustments made by players; it seems an absolute level of
darkness should be set when the map is loaded; when the map is loaded
from a temp map or already in memory, relative adjustments should be
used.

Of course, I'd also like the haste and "regenerate spellpoints"
spells. But I guess there is no way for players to obtain these :-(
A spellbook of enchant armor would be fun, too :-)

No shockwave spellbook either :-(

1i) Probe spell

The probe spell seems a good candidate for the top ten list of the
most useless spells. Now, lets think a little bit about the player/
monster interactions. Players can transfer mana to monsters; can
they heal monsters as well? Can they cast fire immunity or holy
possession onto a monster?

How about a new item, a nethack-like stethoscope? Or improve
the probe spell to give some information.

1j) Long operations

Some things take quite a while:
  - logins (esp. using xpm)
  - character logins for characters with quite a few items
  - entering or leaving apartment maps
  - dropping or picking up a lot of things
  - identifying a lot of things
  - alchemy a lot of things

Now, one might consider to check the execution time for certain
things, such as loading maps, or transferring xpm image data.
If the time exceeds 2 seconds, a message should be written to
all sockets and all player windows, so players know that the
server is not currently crashing.

----------
   The following suggestions are still serious, but not that serious
----------

1k) Gaining exp

What categories do we have?

Personality: currently there is no way to score there, except via
   parties. Perfect abuse fix.
Physical: takes some time, but reasonably easy. No need to party.
Wisdom and Magic: takes a long time (being follower of Jehova helps
   somewhat for wisdom), but is generally a pain beyond level 30
   or 40, and definitely beyond 50. Seems that parties are required
   beyond 50.
The other skills are even more difficult to get --- at least one
of them has an abusem, though.

Parties are probably less effective now --- I suppose the cone spell
abuse has been fixed.

Now, what does this mean? Crossfire doesn't have enough monsters
giving experience --- there aren't enough Jessies, or even Dragon
Lords. Quite a few demiliches, but they don't give anything at higher
levels. Seems some maps for higher level characters are required ---
log in, kill the Jessies, log out isn't that much fun. One could even
write a program to do that :-)
Or lower the default max reset time

1l) We need some funny messages in the game.

Some ideas:
- randomize messages when a player is killed, like
    "You suddenly feel very dead" or
    "You have a weird feeling for a moment" or
    "You feel like a piece of crisp" (when killed by fire)
    etc.
- the <foo> makes funny faces (when you miss a monster several
  times in a row)
- "Fonz is now going to meet Lucifer" instead of just
  "You killed Fonz". Randomized, of course.
- "Oppie looks very suprised." (for highlevel monsters)

Something like that. Add some more fun :-)

Along the same lines: get confused for some time when drinking too
many bottles of wine within a certain time :-)

Maybe add some insults from monsters when they attack you.

1m) This is probably too weird...

Add cooking: put a dragon steak into a cauldron, add a pile of salt,
cast fire onto it, and get some steak that tastes good :-)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

2) Bugs

2a) The library card

The library card seems too expensive. It used to be a good way to make
a little (not much) money, but this has been taken out, for whatever
reason. But now the card seems too expensive, considering that you only
need it right after you start. Once you get a little mental experience
it is of no use; we have always thought that the library card was
there to let you get your first few mental levels, esp. for characters
that don't have identify skills.

Heck, the free money in Santo Dominio is still there! Take it out,
people should kill for their money. How about the free food in the
city hall? Geez... have to take that out immediately.

2b) Pupland flaws

There are several things that might be considered flaws... and they
probably are, since we _love_ them, and all the features we love turn
out to be abuses or bugs... I'm trying to explain things so people
won't be spoiled, but those who know the maps should be able to figure
out what I'm talking about.

a) I have already "reported" the earthwall problem in the evil tower
   to one of the pupland designers; no need to repeat it here.
b) Idaten boots 1: instead of dropping the proper items at the start,
   you can drop any items of the same archetype.
c) Idaten boots 2: instead of using the correct item at the end, you
   can use the normal item (again, same archetype...). In this case,
   you have to lie, which yields the funny message "You are honest." :-)
d) Ever talked to Siegfried in the past? Probably not... he'll say
   something along the lines of "Don't kill me. I'll tell me everything".
   I guess that second "me" should be changed to something else :-)
e) The map that leads into the past has a flaw in the direction
   hints. At some point, you are told to go N then S then N then S...
   which doesn't really take you anywhere. IIRC you have to go E instead
   of S. I have already reported this to one of the pupland people,
   though --- but just in case :-)

2c) Teleporter problems

This is an oldie :-) The teleporters that cause the most crashes are
a) the 2nd Kashu teleporter (the one taking you into the tower)
b) the Takisis teleporter
c) the Kurte-Key teleporter (the one you cannot get onto without the key)

Funny enough, recently a server (where I still need exp) crashed when
I tried the Takisis teleporter --- I was quite happy about this since
it meant another level, but when the server came up again, the map was
not resetted. Apparently the temp map was written out before the server
crashed, which in turn means that the server crashed after leaving
the map. On the other hand, the server once crashed due to the Kashu
teleporter; when it came back up, the wizard tower was not resetted,
which might indicate that the crashes occur between leaving the old
map and entering the new map.

Also, the only (obvious) things that these teleporters have in common
is the fact that they all lead into a different map. Kashu and Takisis
are activated via a password, but the Kurte teleporter is always
active (blocked by a checkinv). However, I wonder what the main
difference between a teleporter and a door is? Most doors lead into
different maps, but I don't remember any crashes due to using doors.

2d) World map problems

This is another oldie. Just there to remind you that the problem is
still around :-)

a) Sometimes people end up in the water. Very bad for newbies.  If I'm
   around I can summon people, but if I'm playing on another server with
   no dm around, I have to crash the server no matter what (I hate to die
   because of a bug)
b) on the road from Scorn to Navar: go west until the bend to the north.
   When you go back to Scorn on this road, sometimes you cannot cross
   the map border (this is the only place where we have experienced
   this) --- you'll beam north a few fields, and if you keep running
   you'll still be unable to cross the border (the server seems to hang
   for the other players while you do this). You'll have to cross the
   border further to the north.
c) When going to Brest, you can get onto the river via the border crossing
   mechanism. Not a serious problem, though.
d) when you try to dimension door across the world map, you don't leave
   the section you are on. This probably cannot be fixed since the current
   implementation of dim door probably doesn't allow dim doors across
   map borders. However, to keep the illusion of one big map, there should
   be invisible exits at the map border taking you into the next map (so
   dim door will at least take you across the border).

2e) Dimension door and movers

Yet another oldie, but many people don't know it. The interaction between
the dimension door spell and player movers is flawed. Best place to try
this is pupland: go to Eureca castle (don't enter it, of course). Go east
and south; this should take you to some little tower. Now, try to dimension
door to the island, from various places. Sometimes your spell will just
fail, sometimes it will work, you'll end up in the water between, and
you'll keep getting messages "Your spell failed" "Your spell failed"...
"You don't have enough mana"... "You don't have enough mana"...

Only way to get out of there is to be summoned by the dm, or kill your
window; when you kill the window and log it, you'll be in the place
where the movers take you.

2f) Running and movers

Again, pupland is a good place to show this. In the room where the
"Kabuto of Geisha" is to be found, there is water with movers. If you
hold down the ctrl key while being moved, you'll be moved _very_ fast
:-)

2g) High Dow

He should give some experience.

2h) Map reset

There is a serious bug in the map reset system, which is reproducable.
We have experienced this several times, but now we have a "proof"
(i.e. a situation that is most definitely caused by the bug). The story:

- somebody cleared out the wizard tower and saved himself in the room
  with the dragon masters by killing the window (around 10pm).
- during the night, nobody was playing
- I had to do some work on the server the next morning (10am), so
  I "rm *" the crossfire/tmp/ directory (to remove all temp maps)
  and shutdown the server, then restarted it
- The player mentioned above came back (around 11am), logged in, and 
  found the map empty. No dragon lords, the same stuff that he left there
  was still there. Maximum reset time on my server is 3600.

Theory: since nobody was playing during the night, the map didn't get
swapped to disk. I deleted all the temp maps, and when I shutdown the
server, the wizard tower map was written to disk, and reloaded when
the player came back. Apparently the server didn't notice that the
map was idle (no player in it) for more than 10 hours!

One of my players thought that the reset time is not realtime (as the
comment in the config.h file suggests), but somehow based on playing
time or even CPU time --- if people don't play, maps won't reset. This
is not a good thing, so please don't fix the problem by changing the
specs :-)

2i) Perceive self

If you use a (heavy) rod, it always says "you worship no god".
If you cast it yourself, it tells what you god you worship.

2j) Shield of deflection

This one is strange... I keep finding random shields of deflection,
but they don't deflect anything. Bug?

2k) Gods and armor

Certain useless gods don't allow players to wear armor. However, if
you convert to such a god, you will not loose all of your armor; you
just can't put it back on when you remove it.

Have to hide now... some people will be killing me for telling this :-)

2l) 0 Hitpoints

When you reach 0(?) hitpoints, the kill message will be sent, but you don't
die yet.

2m) Reincarnation etc.

Why do you get these spells (reincarnation and raise dead... might be
a third one I don't remember right now)? It seems like an leftover
from older days... can't even raise zombie corpses or anything like
that, so I guess they are used to raise dead players...

2n) Quaffing potions

When you use a potion of magic power (or whatever it's called... the
one that regenerates your mana), the selected spell will be taken
away. Why? It doesn't happen when you use a glowing crystal.

Of course, the _technical_ reason is (probably) that the potion casts
the regenerate spellpoints spell, but this is an implementation
problem, and should affect the players (after all, players quaff
potions, they don't cast them).

2o) Invisible things (no, this is _not_ the show invisible bug)

When you click onto a field with nothing on it (left mousebutton),
you'll get a message that you see woodfloor (or whatever) there.  If
you click onto a field where something invisible is located, you get
the message "You see nothing there". No need to see anything, I still
know where it is :-)

2p) Speedballs and singing

"You calm down the speedball". This actually happens every now and
then, but I didn't see any speedball afterwards (does it dissolve or
what?) Too bad there aren't enough speedballs in the game --- I want
to try if I can calm one down and orate it :-)

2q) "Apartment" lock files

The server doesn't compile with those stupid lock files turned off.
Hit that trap every time a new version shows up... "oh, cf has an
option to turn the lockfiles off... great, why didn't I notice that
before?....<compile>... ah, now I remember" :-(

2r) Weapon improvements

If you don't use enough potions, it says something like "You need 4
potiondex". I don't think it's a good idea to use the archetype name.

2s) Create food

Similar to the previous bug: it's not a good idea to have people
specify the archetype, since a _player_ is not a _server_admin_ ---
players don't know archetypes.

2t) Ring of Ruling

The ring doesn't tell that it makes you invisible.

2u) Random encounters

Luckily most servers seem to have this turned off, so I don't have
that much experience with it (only know one server where it is turned
on --- very annoying). I always hate it if people use the default
config (since it turns of the party kill log, which makes it more
difficult to determine how much score monsters give), but in this
particular case I'm quite happy if they do :-)

However, besides being an annoyance, it's seriously flawed. Every now
and then dropping out of an random encounter will take you across the
world map. To make things worse, random encounters are also possible
in maps such as the 9th hell --- a map with mountains and grass, and a
jessy. When I went there (without good equipment) I hit a random
encounter, and casted word of recall because I couldn't risk to drop
out the encounter right in front of Jessy (or even _on_ Jessy).

This is the most annoying compile-time feature in the game. Please
don't document it to prevent people from using it.

I'd like to see more randomness, but that's the wrong way to go.

2v) The infamous strange ring

Hm... making it more common makes the game more boring. If you think
that random artifacts are too easy to get, please take into account
that most of them are newbie items; the only essential random
artifacts are gauntlets of dexterity, the two helmets; and levitation
boots; all other random artifacts have been replaced by special items.
Some of them are still useful as intermediate items, but it's probably
much more boring now to get, for example, a polished shield since
you'll find more strange ringe (since many random artifact locations
are not reachable for newbies, or they are not worth going to since
the artifact is random, and now the chance of getting nothing is even
greater).

2w) The infamous fragment of chaos.

This is sort of funny :-) In the past I have often reported the "bug"
that the ebony thief guild doesn't accept the fragment of chaos. Since
somebody said that the floating castle _does_ exist, Steve tried to
find it by checking all the Lake Country maps with the editor, to find
maps thst we don't know. No success. However, what he did find was
rather surprising --- he found a fragment of chaos which apparently
is the one required by the old thieves guild :-) Since it was in the
towers of luck we didn't try to get it, but I suppose it is the one
that the map designers had in mind :-)

2x) The great wyrm of chaos

The dragonbane is a good weapon --- unless you prefer the Axe of B1FF,
of course (for those who don't play crossfire: this is not a typo.
The Axe is really called B1FF), so it might be acceptable to let the
great wyrm have it (esp. since the chaos sword is rather useless).

However, things are entirely different for the Power Dragon Mail.  By
the time somebody gets to the great wyrm, he already has Power Dragon
Mail (I haven't checked out the new shop that has replaced the smith
in Lake Country, but there is at least one map where Power Dragon Mail
can be found, and it's probably a good place, since it is _reasonably_
difficult to get there). In fact, he might even have discarded Power
Dragon Mail already, even if he didn't solve Pupland yet.  Power
Dragon Mail is newbie armor --- easy to get, and not particulary
powerful. Before pupland was added, mithril chainmail of winter was
the best choice of armor, and if somebody hasn't solved pupland yet,
he has a good chance of obtaining mithril chainmail of winter before
getting to the great wyrm --- why would he even _want_ Power Dragon
Mail?  The great wyrm is most definitely the wrong place to put the
Power Dragon Mail.

How about putting the Power Dragon Mail into some easier map? One map
that comes to mind is the castle in Brest. It is reasonably difficult
(electric dragons, wizards, fire, chinese dragons), resembles the idea
of the old Mopoon quest (bring me 99 dragon scales to prove you are
worthy...), and doesn't have a special item. Ditto for the 9 hells.
Enigme seems about the same difficulty as the castle, so it could
be another choice.

Currently it seems like some people think that certain things are too
easy to get (hint: anything is easy to get, if you _know_ where
_everything_ is); please don't give everything to the great wyrm.
Those who think that something is too easy to get should spend some
time and make a better map, instead of just giving everything to the
same one or two monsters; but they should not forget that there are
true newbies (people who don't know crossfire)... it's easy to give
things to the great wyrm if you can kill him in no time.

Also, eyeshields and dragon mail used to be good items to have for a
few levels; this probably has to be reconsidered since they are now
rather expensive --- they might no longer be worth getting at all,
depending on the price.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

3) The fun section

Want some fun? Summon fog and polymorph it...
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