crossfire problem/idea

[Pascal Molli <>]

	First, be tolerant for my poor english ...

	I  play   with crossfire from   v-0.4 to  v-0.88.0-001. The  game was
	a   gauntlet-like   game but now   we   can  feel ultima-5 sensations
	playing with it.

	I  play for hours  and  hours  with a  lot of   pleasure but I  think
	the game need few things now to become a wonderful game.

**** ON MONSTERS

	If  you  read Tolkien,   you can see  that   a  small hobbit  defeats
	the  great evil   in  Mordor. If  you watch  Willow,   it's  a simple
	illusion wich (i     must  take my   dictionnary)  deludes  Bavmorda,
	and i think that's a part of the charm of the fantasy.

	In  crossfire  (and others games),   all  the monsters   want to kill
	you,  that's too  simple.   For    exemple, in litterature,      dead
	monsters  want to  kill  undead  monsters,   not you especially.   So
	you can use basic instincts of monsters to kill others.

	I  think  all   monsters must  possess a   weakness   that make  them
	vulnerable, but   dragon,    demon  lord   and  titan   seems  to  be
	really strong.  A  way  to  kill  these monster   may   to draw  them
	towards    natural  traps. For exemple      if you  have  a  levitate
	spell you can  fly  other  a pit  or   you can shut  dragon  in place
	with magic  bullet  wall  but this   action  must increase  your  EXP
	points.

**** ON EXP
	
	Perhaps  EXP    point   should be  relative      to user  level.  For
	exemple you are  a  mage  level 2,  if  you  succeed to kill   a  big
	troll     (yes it's possible with paralyze      spell ...) you should
	recieve more   EXP points than  a  barbarian  level 15.  It  may be a
	good  thing to  have  memory of   killed   monster, so you can   have
	extra-damage bonus during a second fight.

**** ON TREASURES
	
	It seems   to  me   that   treasures must  be  coherent   with  their
	guardians.  For   exemple if  you  kill  several   pudding  or slimes
	you must  find  item  that can't  be  dissolved  in  acid.  Treasures
	must   be  nearly proportional   with difficulty   to  get them.  For
	exemple,  if you  destroy  a  titan  to  found  a plate  mail+2,  you
	are  frustrated,   I think  you  must  find a   great  weapon. But it
	can be good to keep a small probability to have incoherence.

	NOTE: i  can't  find  great item  (holy avenger   +5, mythril  armour
	+3)   in version  0.88.0-001   of game.   Is   it normal ? (i  browse
	nearly all maps in DM mode)

**** ON GENERATORS 

	Always    the problem of  monsters  generation.  Is it  always a good
	thing  ?  Often  it   makes  the game  boring.   It  may be   a  good
	things  to  have  for each generator   a max   limit (dynamically set
	?) ?

	There  is   a  problem  when   you  take   transporters and  starting
	rooms is   full when you   want   to come   back.  Perhaps that's   a
	feature,  perhaps   that's    a  generator   problem,  perhaps  spell
	should  operate    throught   transporter,   perhaps  it's  a     map
	construction problem ???
	

**** ON SPELLS

	Crossfire have already several good spells.  But i think it
	miss   possession    and   illusion  spells     (and   cure  poison).
	Imagine  you succeed to  possess  a titan  to  attack a  dragon  ? or
	you  project   your  image  in  a   place   where there   are chinese
	dragon and troll ?

	What    do  you   think about    spells    to  turn handles  througth
	gratings   ?    or   magnetic   repulsion  so   monsters   can't  use
	metallic weapons against you ? or more classic stone skin ?

**** ON SCROLLS

	Perhaps   it  could be   a  good idea  to   have  great  scrolls (not
	corresponding to  a spell),  like    'kill, or  'invincibility    and
	less of others.

	NOTE: How to indicate direction when using summon X scroll ?

**** ON MAPS

	Why   can't    we use bow,   crossbow,    spells throught  gratings ?
	What do  you   think  about   the avabaility  to   turn handle  whith
	arrow throught  grating   ?  or to  throw   item  upon a pit    to  a
	button that open a door ?

**** ON TOWN AND SHOP

	In Ultima,  each  town  possess  its  own  personnality, magic   shop
	of    this  town  make great  bracers,    armour   shop of that  town
	produce enchanted mail ...
	
**** ON PERSISTENCE	

	I don't  try to   understand the code   of   crossfire but  it  seems
	to  me   that  you  keep   visited  maps  in   /tmp.  Why  don't  you
	consider  this like a  persistent  state  of  the  game. Suppose  you
	keep   them in  the  user   directory and  you don't    clean them at
	the end   of the session.  When the   user restart  the game you  ask
	him   for  which  game he  wants   to play   and   like that you  can
	restart a game in the state you leave it ...


  Well,  I know, that's  easy to  imagine  things and  much harder  to
  realize,  but it's a constructive  proposition, maybe there are good
  and  simple things to do,  surely there are  stupid ideas, but if it
  can be useful to produce a wonderful game, that's OK.

  PS: Is it possible to have scroll enabled by default ?