Re: A quick draft of a preliminary proposal for a possible version of the crossfire protocol

[Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho>]

++--- Kjetil T. Homme:
|| BTW, I think there should be a protocol response for damage.
|| DAM <object damaged> <object doing damage> <number>
||
|| That way a client can present it graphically, not just spew out a
|| stream of text. Since the client knows the names, it can make up the
|| text itself if it wishes to.
||
+--- Carl Edman:
| Sounds fine to me with the exception that I'd add a string to the
| end of the DAM command which gives some text description like
| e.g. "burns" or "hits %s terribly with darkblade.".  Just saying
| 'Foo damages bar for 5 points' sounds a little bland.

Fine, but leave it optional. Keep in mind that the server currently
just maps damage levels to verbs like "graze", "hit very hard". The
client could do this itself until the server is enhanced to allow more
advanced messages specified in archetypes (?).

+---
| As much as I like lighting in principle your proposal requires that
| in the common case where the player carries a light source, you send
| MAP commands for almost every square in the viewport every time the
| player takes a step.  Do you think you could live with a system in
| which every square is either lighted (i.e. MAPed) or unlighted
| (i.e. UNMAPed) ?

A server which hasn't implemented shading, should be free to send MAP
messages with just 0 or 9. Perhaps even if the server did support
shading, the client could request to turn it off to reduce bandwidth?

+---
| It is nice to see that at least one reader agrees on at least one
| part of my proposal. :-)

FWIW, the only point where I disagree with you is the MAP
command. FLOOR is more general and has obsolensce built out.(*)


Kjetil T.

*) Guess what computer I preferred back in 1985?