From crossfire-request Wed Mar 15 10:35:25 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:35:23 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA17848 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:20 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA10466 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:19 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA27199; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:17 -0800 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:17 -0800 Message-Id: <199503150935.AA27199@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Skills & stuff. Status: RO Some quick thoughts. Skills are a nice idea. However, unless the idea of what classes/races are right now is completely rethought, tying them to certain classes/races is a little pointless. That viking can know just as many spells as a mage. And depending on how the viking and mage distributed their stats at startup, they could have the exact same stats (would be stupid to do so, but that is not the point.) If skills are going to be added, then all the classes will need to get certain skills, to keep balance (the special classes could be an exception - the immunities they have oculd be considered skills of a different nature.) AS for compile time option: Keeping them as compile time options often is done because it is much easier to do that way than to actually have special statements in teh code. But more than that, many of the options are things that should remain prety constant game to game. For example, with the new improve weapon code. The game only needs to be run without it once, and the players could create the old super weapons quite easily. For the life of the server, you probably don't want to change that. --Mark From crossfire-request Wed Mar 15 10:18:41 1995 Return-Path: Received: from gyda.ifi.uio.no (2037@gyda.ifi.uio.no [129.240.78.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id ; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:18:40 +0100 From: Frank Tore Johansen Received: (from frankj@localhost) by gyda.ifi.uio.no ; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:18:40 +0100 Message-Id: <199503150918.6298.gyda.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Subject: Re: Power Gaming Bug To: krisb@seattleu.edu (Kristofer M. Bosland) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:18:39 +0100 (MET) Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no In-Reply-To: from "Kristofer M. Bosland" at Mar 14, 95 06:58:55 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 574 Status: RO Kris Bosland wrote: > Thru Monsterous Cheating, I have discovered that there is an upper > limit to how much "stuff" you can slap into a magic item. I have been > fooling around with the editing, and I created a > Super-Every-Thing-You-Could-Ever-Want-Or-Put-In-A-Ring. The problem I > have is that when I try to identify the ring, the game freezes up and > dies. Any ideas? I have included the ring for your enjoyment. Sounds very much like buffer overflow. Try replacing MAX_BUF with a huge number (16000) in common/item.c, line 157, function ring_desc(). -Frank. From crossfire-request Wed Mar 15 09:49:13 1995 Return-Path: Received: from bach.seattleu.edu (krisb@bach.seattleu.edu [199.237.224.11]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 04:03:15 +0100 Received: by bach.seattleu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10412; Tue, 14 Mar 95 19:04:05 PST Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 18:58:55 -0800 (PST) From: "Kristofer M. Bosland" Subject: Power Gaming Bug To: CrossFire Mailing List Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Thru Monsterous Cheating, I have discovered that there is an upper limit to how much "stuff" you can slap into a magic item. I have been fooling around with the editing, and I created a Super-Every-Thing-You-Could-Ever-Want-Or-Put-In-A-Ring. The problem I have is that when I try to identify the ring, the game freezes up and dies. Any ideas? I have included the ring for your enjoyment. -Kris Bosland krisb@seattleu.edu arch ring name ring face ring.110 Str 10 Dex 10 Con 10 Wis 10 Cha 10 Int 10 hp 10 sp 25 food 2 dam 20 wc 5 ac 15 armour 75 x 28 y 28 speed 10.000000 type 70 immune 2687 material 2 value 500 weight 20 magic 10 reflecting 1 reflect_missile 1 reflect_spell 1 xrays 1 lifesave 1 stealth 1 end From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 23:53:49 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mailgate.Cadence.COM (mailgate.Cadence.COM [158.140.2.1]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 23:53:46 +0100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by mailgate.Cadence.COM (8.6.8/8.6.8) id OAA29316 for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 14:52:50 -0800 Received: from cadence.cadence.com(158.140.18.1) by mailgate.cadence.com via smap (V1.0mjr) id sma027229; Tue Mar 14 14:36:09 1995 Received: from pluto by cadence.Cadence.COM (5.61/3.14) id AA19133; Tue, 14 Mar 95 14:34:57 -0800 Received: by pluto (5.65+/1.5) id AA14890; Tue, 14 Mar 95 17:36:02 -0500 Date: Tue, 14 Mar 95 17:36:02 -0500 From: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) Message-Id: <9503142236.AA14890@pluto> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) Status: RO PeterM writes (in response to me): > >It seems unnatural to me that any character can pick up any sort of weapon > >and immediately use it to it's full efficiency. > > Tell me what is natural about playing a Wraith to go beat up on Goblins, > trolls, and Faerie Dragons. The game is supposed to be fun, not realistic. > Let us not lose the playing simplicity by installing a morass of skills > and bookkeeping. First of all I think it should be clear that everyone who bothers to play, modify or comment on Crossfire thinks it is fun and should continue to be fun. We may differ on what particular features we find more or less fun, but to date much of what's in Crossfire is a compromise among a variety of desires, and this will probably continue to be the case. As for whether Crossfire should be realistic, well this is a fantasy role-playing game--realism is not the point. That said, you might notice that I didn't say instant weapon proficiency is "unrealistic", I said it was "unnatural". Since to some extent the objects and activities which make up the Crossfire universe are based on the real universe the issue of "natural" behavior is already a large part of the game, and, in fact contributes to the simplicity of play by leveraging everyone's knowledge of their own universe. For example, some care has been taken to assign weights to all of the various weapons which are fairly accurate in a real world sense, and more importantly the ratio of various weapon weights is as expected. I'm willing to bet that if I created a "giant solid lead battle club" archetype that only weighed 10 grams the readers of this list would gripe about it, and players who had become accustomed to big, dense things being heavy would wonder why it was so light. I don't think anyone would be satisfied if I simply replied "This game is supposed to be fun, not realistic." Such an object is simply unnatural--it conflicts with our general understanding of our universe and the Crossfire universe. As to your comments about code complexity, the weapon skills I describe would be no more complex to maintain than spells are today. This doesn't exactly make them simple, but if we're seriously committed to making it worthwhile to play the fighter classes it seems like a reasonable price to pay. --Ken +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Ken Woodruff | "In every jumbled pile of person | | woodruff@cadence.com | there's a thinking part that | +------------------------+ wonders what the part that isn't | | Disclaimer: What tote | thinking isn't thinking of." | | bag full of $20 bills? | --They Might Be Giants | +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 15:53:46 1995 Return-Path: Received: from post.demon.co.uk (post.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.72]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 15:53:43 +0100 Received: from wtl1.demon.co.uk by post.demon.co.uk id ab08799; 14 Mar 95 14:52 GMT Date: Tue, 14 Mar 95 14:48:43 GMT From: Jason Lowe Message-Id: <9503141448.AA01682@wtl1.demon.co.uk> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: crossfire software Status: RO i have recently read you article on crossfire and i am intrigued to know what sort of game it is if it is possible i would like to see a demo version of the game with a view to buying the game, if one is available. the subscribing infomation is somewhat puzzleing me do you require users to test the code that you write or do you require actual programmers. if it is the former that you are after then i will me most interested by if the latter is required then i am afraid i know very little about games programming. could you please put me straight if i have my wires crossed (i am good at that) thanks in advance Yours, Jason Lowe ---------------------------------------------------------------- Man who upon seeing a police car does not apply the brakes is probably parked !!!!! ||||| o o | \_/ --oooO----Oooo-- ------------------ I didn't do it, Nobody saw me do it, You can't prove anything !!! From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 12:45:03 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 12:44:57 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id GAA03517 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 06:44:54 -0500 Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 06:44:54 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503141144.GAA03517@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: SKILLS HACK (AGAIN) Status: RO Hi again, I see that there has been alot of new discussion of skills lately. I really don't have much to add to the current debate: really, only my points of view. For me, skills are an equalizing factor for the 'fighter' classes. I like to compare them with spells that the magic-users possess. Skills should be about as useful, and like spells, there are no real limits on who may learn the skills. Now, for the real reason I am posting... I have patched the skills code from last time. The new patch may be acquired from ftp.astro.psu.edu in /pub/thomas via anonymous ftp. It is called skills2.tar.gz. Several things were done: 1) Minor flaws were corrected. 2) New skills were added. Now the roster includes 11 skills. I have all of the 'fighters' starting with at least 1 skill. List of the skills and who may start with them: (a % means random chance it will be equipped at start) Skill Description Class starts with it? Alchemy Ident potion/amulet/ NO containers Bargaining Add 10 to Cha for NO buy/sell in shop (cha 30 max) Bowyer Ident bow/xbow/missles Elf Hiding Can hide. Similar to Ninja,Thief(%),Human(%) Invisibility, but movement can spoil it Jeweler Ident gems NO Jumping Player can jump 1-2 Barbarian, Warrior, spaces Viking,Human(%) Literacy Ident spellbook/scroll NO Lockpicking Can open normal doors Thief(%),Swashbuckler(%) Smithery Ident arms/armour NO Stealing Can steal Thief,Swashbuckler(%) Thaumaturgy Ident wands/rods NO 3) "Scrolls of knowledge" were created. Reading them allows the player to use the skill. These scrolls will appear as treasure and in shops too (albeit rarely). COMMENTS == I have 'playtested' the code pretty well in terms of its functionality. However, in terms of play balance -- well, that will take time. I certainly passed out the starting skills in a semi-addhoc way (I neglected to pass out the most powerful skills like Smithery and Bargaining, but why should the Viking be great at "jumping"??--remember the knight in Nh? :). Indeed, probably other skills might be more appropriate, please play around with it and let me know your results. I assigned values to the scrolls of knowledge based on what I felt their value to be. The cost ranges from 2x weapon enchantment scroll to about 1/5th. Again, I am not entirely sure what a fair value for these should be. I have tried to be conservative :) Finally, the new code is a patch for UNPATCHED code. DONT try to patch non-release code with it UNLESS you know what you are doing. As before, please let me know about any bugs that might pop up with this code. Thanks, b.t. thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 08:16:03 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tel1.tte.vtt.fi (tel1.tte.vtt.fi [130.188.12.3]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 08:16:02 +0100 Received: (from hat@localhost) by tel1.tte.vtt.fi (8.6.10/8.6.10) id JAA11046 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 09:15:31 +0200 From: Tero Haatanen Message-Id: <199503140715.JAA11046@tel1.tte.vtt.fi> Subject: Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 09:15:31 +0200 (EET) In-Reply-To: <199503140257.SAA01074@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> from "Philip Brown" at Mar 13, 95 06:57:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 1074 Status: RO From: Philip Brown > You have hit upon the key thing. SOME people like it that way. Others do > not. I'm one who would like to see more special skills. I don't see much problem of bookkeeping, since players can decide in beginning of the game what style they play and ignore the extra skills. > It would be nice to have it server-configurable. Yes, each option that affects game play would nice has configurable if it can be easily made so. The only problem is that is hard to test how each options work together and that can cause more bugs. > Note that, IMO, it should be a RUN_TIME option, NOT a compile-time option. > Most things should be. I think this depends how/where you use the server. If you are running server where everyones can connect, you probably want more compact binaries where unneeded options are turned off, but if you start server yourself then it nice have test the different options without compiling. But IMHO, it not very useful turn skills on if you have played your character to level 20 without them. -Tero From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 03:58:04 1995 Return-Path: Received: from soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.43.52]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 03:58:03 +0100 Received: (philb@localhost) by soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.10/PHILMAIL-1.11) id SAA01074; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:57:45 -0800 From: Philip Brown Message-Id: <199503140257.SAA01074@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> Subject: Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) To: peterm@csua.berkeley.edu (Peter Mardahl) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:57:43 -0800 (PST) Cc: woodruff@cadence.com, crossfire@ifi.uio.no In-Reply-To: <199503140051.QAA12575@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> from "Peter Mardahl" at Mar 13, 95 04:51:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL5] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 469 Status: RO >>>>[From Peter Mardahl] 3) You force each player to keep track of his skill levels in all the weapons. Some players LIKE spending a lot of time looking at their players stats, but *I* like to explore, not bookkeep. You have hit upon the key thing. SOME people like it that way. Others do not. It would be nice to have it server-configurable. Note that, IMO, it should be a RUN_TIME option, NOT a compile-time option. Most things should be. From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 03:22:05 1995 Return-Path: Received: from bnr.ca (x400gate.bnr.ca [192.58.194.73]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 03:21:51 +0100 X400-Received: by mta bnr.ca in /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 21:20:12 -0500 X400-Received: by /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 21:20:05 -0500 X400-Received: by /PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/; Relayed; Sat, 11 Mar 1995 21:20:00 -0500 Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 20:20:00 -0600 X400-Originator: /dd.id=1627294/g=tuan/i=t/s=doan/@bnr.ca X400-MTS-Identifier: [/PRMD=BNR/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/;bcars735.b.434:14.02.95.02.20.05] X400-Content-Type: P2-1984 (2) Content-Identifier: Re: Weapon Sk... From: "tuan (t.) doan" Sender: "tuan (t.) doan" Message-ID: <"19451 Mon Mar 13 21:20:07 1995"@bnr.ca> To: peterm@csua.berkeley.edu Cc: woodruff@cadence.com, crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) Status: RO In message "Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack)", 'peterm@csua.berkeley.edu' writes: >In message <9503131621.AA07248@pluto>, Ken Woodruff writes: >> >>Part of this discussion seems to be a reinvigoration of the Magic-User/Fighter >>balance problem, the difference this time being how to empower the fighters >>rather than how to cripple the MUs. On this subject, and the subject of skill > >Bad things about tying a fighters skills to one weapon: How about tying it to a class of weapons. As I remember the (A)D&D rules there are basically three classes: 1. Slashing 2. Bashing 3. Thrusting There would be three major classes of weapon skills that ones has to mastered. A weapon can be associated with any of the classes (ie: sword (1) and (3), axe (1), dagger (3), hammer (2), etc...) It's simple and it should give more realism to the game. I suggest the following classes be added 4. Throwing 5. Special Class (4) is obvious. Class (5) is used for weapon such as - whip - net/snare You can give certain character classes advantage for certain weapon classes. For example, thieves would excel at (3) and (4), warrior at (1) and (3), cleric at (2), etc... >1) We would need to add a new skill for each weapon and maintain > a skill level for each player for each weapon. complexity++. > >2) It would suck to know one weapon very well and know others only a > little. When you find that Super Artifact and it is an Axe but > you know swords, you lose. This sucks. > >3) You force each player to keep track of his skill levels in all the > weapons. Some players LIKE spending a lot of time looking at > their players stats, but *I* like to explore, not bookkeep. IMHO > it makes the game less fun. complexity++. > >>It seems unnatural to me that any character can pick up any sort of weapon >>and immediately use it to it's full efficiency. A rapier, for example, requir > >Tell me what is natural about playing a Wraith to go beat up on Goblins, >trolls, and Faerie Dragons. The game is supposed to be fun, not realistic. >Let us not lose the playing simplicity by installing a morass of skills >and bookkeeping. Balance is the word. No one like a pure fantasy world without physical law to obey by and no one like a pure physical world without fantasy creature and magic. >Regards, > >PeterM Anyone know where I can get the source for 'patch' used in patching source codes? Regards, __ __/ / / __ / | / Tuan T. Doan / / / / / / | / IEC Layer Testing and Advance Technology / / / __ / / | / 2201 Lakeside Blvd. P.O. Box 833871 __/ ______/ __/ __/ __/ __/ Richardson, TX 75083-3871 "It's a kind of magic" -Highlander Phone: 214-684-4575 Fax: 214-684-3716 Internet: tdoan@bnr.ca WWW: http://47.53.64.96/tdoan/tdoan.html From crossfire-request Tue Mar 14 01:51:40 1995 Return-Path: Received: from soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.43.52]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 14 Mar 1995 01:51:36 +0100 Received: from LOCALHOST (LOCALHOST [127.0.0.1]) by soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.10/PHILMAIL-1.11) with SMTP id QAA12575; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 16:51:20 -0800 Message-Id: <199503140051.QAA12575@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> To: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 13 Mar 1995 11:21:46 EST." <9503131621.AA07248@pluto> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 16:51:17 -0800 From: Peter Mardahl Status: RO In message <9503131621.AA07248@pluto>, Ken Woodruff writes: > >Part of this discussion seems to be a reinvigoration of the Magic-User/Fighter >balance problem, the difference this time being how to empower the fighters >rather than how to cripple the MUs. On this subject, and the subject of skill Bad things about tying a fighters skills to one weapon: 1) We would need to add a new skill for each weapon and maintain a skill level for each player for each weapon. complexity++. 2) It would suck to know one weapon very well and know others only a little. When you find that Super Artifact and it is an Axe but you know swords, you lose. This sucks. 3) You force each player to keep track of his skill levels in all the weapons. Some players LIKE spending a lot of time looking at their players stats, but *I* like to explore, not bookkeep. IMHO it makes the game less fun. complexity++. >It seems unnatural to me that any character can pick up any sort of weapon >and immediately use it to it's full efficiency. A rapier, for example, requir Tell me what is natural about playing a Wraith to go beat up on Goblins, trolls, and Faerie Dragons. The game is supposed to be fun, not realistic. Let us not lose the playing simplicity by installing a morass of skills and bookkeeping. Regards, PeterM From crossfire-request Mon Mar 13 18:21:28 1995 Return-Path: Received: from thuk.dtek.chalmers.se (d1mag@thuk.dtek.chalmers.se [129.16.30.17]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:21:28 +0100 Received: (from d1mag@localhost) by thuk.dtek.chalmers.se (8.6.10/8.6.9) id SAA09275 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:21:09 +0100 From: Christian Magnusson Message-Id: <199503131721.SAA09275@thuk.dtek.chalmers.se> Subject: Crossfire BUGGGGGS To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:21:07 +0100 (MET) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2380 Status: RO Hi all.. It was a long time since I followed the discussions here, but I had some bugs to report. I have no time to correct them by myself but I hope somebody could make the patches for me... On our school we run Solaris 2.4, and there seem to be some different difference on the XKeysymToString function here... I've noticed that some server in norway had the same problem. Unfortunatly the keypad has some keys without any names. XKeysymToString converts the key symbol to a NULL string, and a later function tries to make a strcpy or sprintf on this string... pufff and the server goes down.. I had to exchange all function calls to XKeysymToString to Xkeytostr (or anything else) and make a define like this: #define Xkeytostr(keysym) ((XKeysymToString(keysym)==0) ? "KP_Unknown" : XKeysymToString(keysym)) or the function... char *Xkeytostr(KeySym keysym) { char *tmp; if(!(tmp = XKeysymToString(keysym))) return tmp; return "KP_Unknown"; } Every calls to XKeysymToString are made from commands.c, and I think there are 5 or 6 of them... Perhaps it's better to make the NULL string check on every place where it is used, but I hope you understand where the problem is. One other MAJOR bug is that it's possible to have unlimited spellpoints. If you wield a heavy rod, and after that invoke a spell like destruction or heal, the spellpoints will turn negativ and then you can continue to invoke spells forever... That is called cheating... So I hope that could be patched as soon as possible... One other cheat could be made with all unpaid things... If you die in a shop with all unpaid things, you could easy polymorph them and make them sell- and useable.... A tips for all who wants to try that: Create a character with CON 1-3 and walk into a poison cloud. Enter the shop and pick up everything. Wait until you die and polymorph it... It's also possible to create many dragon mails and attack the smith. So the big problem is that polymorph is changing the (unpaid) flag. Please correct this someone..... BTW. I haven't patched my source code lately, so I wondered when there will be a new version released... After what I've seen, there are lots of new things now... Mag -- | Christian 'Mag' Magnusson Computer Science and Engineering | Internet: d1mag@dtek.chalmers.se Chalmers University of Technology | Amiga Programmer: VoiXEL, HP28S-Com From crossfire-request Mon Mar 13 17:22:22 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mailgate.Cadence.COM (mailgate.Cadence.COM [158.140.2.1]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 17:22:19 +0100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by mailgate.Cadence.COM (8.6.8/8.6.8) id IAA01175 for ; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 08:22:03 -0800 Received: from cadence.cadence.com(158.140.18.1) by mailgate.cadence.com via smap (V1.0mjr) id sma001156; Mon Mar 13 08:21:50 1995 Received: from pluto by cadence.Cadence.COM (5.61/3.14) id AA06228; Mon, 13 Mar 95 08:21:00 -0800 Received: by pluto (5.65+/1.5) id AA07248; Mon, 13 Mar 95 11:21:46 -0500 Date: Mon, 13 Mar 95 11:21:46 -0500 From: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) Message-Id: <9503131621.AA07248@pluto> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Weapon Skills (was Re: Skills hack) Cc: woodruff@Cadence.COM Status: RO Part of this discussion seems to be a reinvigoration of the Magic-User/Fighter balance problem, the difference this time being how to empower the fighters rather than how to cripple the MUs. On this subject, and the subject of skills, I've been thinking about the introduction of a special set of skills--namely proficiency with particular weapons/weapon categories. It seems unnatural to me that any character can pick up any sort of weapon and immediately use it to it's full efficiency. A rapier, for example, requires years of training in effective use. Daggers may be simple to stab with, but the art of active knife-fighting is quite complex. A two-handed sword requires skills quite different from those needed for a one handed weapon. Shield use, especially in combination with a weapon, is not simply a matter of fastening some straps. Additionally, all weapons have individual characteristics: weight, balance, size, etc. A character should be more proficient with the sword she's used for years than the one the orc just dropped on the floor. The main advantage I see that a fighter class should have over a magic-user class is an understanding of and a level of skill in the use of weapons. Just as a MU learns more spells at higher levels, a fighter can learn more weapon skills. These skills could be both "category" and "weapon" oriented, e.g. a "Blade" skill covers all bladed weapons, while the "Two-Handed Sword" skill covers only that kind of weapon. The category skills could server as necessary prerequisites for the individual weapon skills. By granting the "race" level skills only at character creation, you can instill an interesting level of variation between the various fighter classes. By denying any of the major skills to the MU classes you can ensure their proficiency with weapons will always be limited. As a broad guideline I see a maximum proficiency with any weapon for which you do not have a category skill as ~33%, and for any weapon for which you do not have a particular weapon's skill as ~67%. These proficiencies would affect both damage and chances to hit (weapon speed). If we implement proficiency for individual instances of weapons I see a modifier ranging from -50% for a weapon you just picked up to +25 for a weapon you've used for years. Note that this could have the effect of it no longer making sense to immediately drop whatever weapon you start with and grab the first one dropped by a goblin. --Ken +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Ken Woodruff | "In every jumbled pile of person | | woodruff@cadence.com | there's a thinking part that | +------------------------+ wonders what the part that isn't | | Disclaimer: What tote | thinking isn't thinking of." | | bag full of $20 bills? | --They Might Be Giants | +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From crossfire-request Sun Mar 12 19:01:39 1995 Return-Path: Received: from surt.ifi.uio.no (1232@surt.ifi.uio.no [129.240.76.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 19:01:38 +0100 From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme Received: (from kjetilho@localhost) by surt.ifi.uio.no ; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 19:01:38 +0100 Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 19:01:38 +0100 Message-Id: <199503121801.6193.surt.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Unsubscribe -- sorry Status: RO Ack, I didn't notice it was sent to the wrong address until it was too late. He should have received this note instead: You have just sent your request to hundreds of people worldwide instead of using the proper channel. In order to unsubscribe, you need to send the message to crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no, so that it reaches the person that takes care of administrative requests for the list. The separate "request" address is a convention for most mailing lists. I hope you will take this to heart, and never mistake the mailing list address from the request address again. Oh well, Kjetil T. From crossfire-request Fri Mar 10 22:47:11 1995 Return-Path: Received: from phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk (phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk [137.73.4.24]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 22:47:08 +0100 From: sjg@phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk Received: by phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA07486; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 21:50:49 GMT Message-Id: <9503102150.AA07486@phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: unsubscribe X-Mailer: exmh version 1.5delta 8/30/94 Date: Fri, 10 Mar 95 21:50:43 +0000 X-Mts: smtp Status: RO unsubscribe From crossfire-request Fri Mar 10 20:00:49 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:00:46 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id OAA02207; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 14:00:16 -0500 Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 14:00:16 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503101900.OAA02207@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: master@rahul.net, crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Skills hack Status: RO Hi again, > > The fireborn, quetzalcouatl and wraith are quite unique, just as they get > some penalties or bonuses (like immunities or vulnerabilities.) > > I think the problem is that there are 12 'normal' classes. While there are > a lot more than 12 permutations that can be done on the 6 stats, it would > probably be hard to justify more than about 6 different classes - after that > they do start becoming pretty similar. > I agree with this totally. My efforts are directed towards distinquishing the 'fighter' classes from one another. I never thought about giving the 3 'special creature' character races any skills. At the risk of getting carried away with this, I am working on some other skills: -Jumping (character 'skips' forward 1-2 squares, dependant on str/weight carried) -Throwing (rocks for now, items later?? -- damage inflicted calculated based on weight of object thrown, and character strength-- This could be a real bugaboo however. not all objects go 'thud' when they hit something - ex. potions. They should immediately effect the target if they break. *sigh*, this might take a while to get right.) Rhetoric - pacify hostile creatures of lower level (depends on player level, map difficulty, and player/monster stats). Ideally, you should be able to 'calm' a creature down 1)who can understand you 2) you havent attacked - ie no endless cycle of attack, pacify, attack, pacify, etc.. until the happless creature dies ... Probably need to find a monster flag to set to prevent this ...) If there is interest - I will release these too. BTW, a (minor philosophical) question I have had a while -- both the quetzalcouatl and wraith seem to have monster equivalents, why arent there any 'monster' fireborns?? +++> Also, why don't the special creature classes find other monsters of same type hostile (ie 'player' wraiths must fight all 'monster' wraiths). Gee, I guess they ('player' creatures) must all be renegades .. :) b.t. From crossfire-request Fri Mar 10 10:12:12 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 10:12:09 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA17090 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:02:44 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA16794 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:02:44 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA22100; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:02:42 -0800 Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:02:42 -0800 Message-Id: <199503100902.AA22100@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, thomas@astro.psu.edu Subject: Re: Skills hack Status: RO Actually, your summary of classes is mostly true. The other thing that makes some classes different is starting items. A character that starts with a spell(book) will obviously start casting spells right away. A character that starts as a fighter is going to end up waiting a while before they will be casting spells (just because of the cost of the spellbook.) The fireborn, quetzalcouatl and wraith are quite unique, just as they get some penalties or bonuses (like immunities or vulnerabilities.) I think the problem is that there are 12 'normal' classes. While there are a lot more than 12 permutations that can be done on the 6 stats, it would probably be hard to justify more than about 6 different classes - after that they do start becoming pretty similar. --Mark From crossfire-request Fri Mar 10 01:08:37 1995 Return-Path: Received: from nexus.astro.psu.edu (nexus.astro.psu.edu [128.118.147.20]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:08:36 +0100 Received: from tuva.astro.psu.edu by nexus.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Nexus-1.3) id AA24091; Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:08:32 EST Received: by tuva.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Client-1.3) id AA08380; Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:08:31 EST Date: Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:08:31 EST From: "Brian Thomas" Message-Id: <9503100008.AA08380@tuva.astro.psu.edu> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: FTP directory Status: RO Opps! forgot to mention the directory to find skills.tar.gz - its in /pub/thomas on ftp.astro.psu.edu. b.t. From crossfire-request Fri Mar 10 01:05:23 1995 Return-Path: Received: from nexus.astro.psu.edu (nexus.astro.psu.edu [128.118.147.20]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:05:22 +0100 Received: from griffle.astro.psu.edu by nexus.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Nexus-1.3) id AA24075; Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:05:19 EST Received: by griffle.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Client-1.3) id AA26048; Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:05:19 EST Date: Thu, 9 Mar 95 19:05:19 EST From: "Brian Thomas" Message-Id: <9503100005.AA26048@griffle.astro.psu.edu> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Skills hack Status: RO Hi all, I have noticed that some classes of characters are often played more than others. WHy? My best guess- as the game stands now there is little difference between the 'non-magican' characters excepting the stat limits they have. A thief, for example, is just a fast, intellegent, weak, unhealthy fighter. Often, players will opt for the more powerfull classes of characters like the barbarian, (viking, or warrior) which have stats limits most favorable for fighters. It should'nt be this way (IMHO). There should be greater playability and desirability in the other classes. One route to this goal is through giving appropriate skills to some classes to distinguish them. I have made a small attempt to do this based on the orginal skill code for 'stealing' written by njw@sarc.city.ac.uk. This is a more generalized code, which (hopefully) allow expansion of the number of skills (if desired). The code is available in the compressed tarfile skills.tar.gz on ftp.astro.psu.edu (anonymous ftp). Instructions for applying this patch are included. I have the following skills impletmented: - stealing -can take items from others (uses the preexisting code from njw@sarc.city.ac.uk) - hiding -limited invis. Movement can 'unhide' you, attacking definitely will. - lockpicking -can open normal doors w/o key The following classes of characters now may have skills: Thief -stealing; lockpicking or hiding Ninja -hiding Elf -hiding Swashbuckler -stealing or lockpicking You utilize the skills w/ 2 new commands: - 'skills' == this lists your availble skills - 'use_skill' == changes your current skill All skills are preformed as a 'ranged-attack' (ie -direction). Hopefully, players of CF will now find more use for the 'alternative' and 'challenging' classes of the ninja, elf, thief, and swashbuckler :). Please let me know about any BUGs and such associated w/ this patch (I have tested it for a week, but Who knows what might pop up later?? :) b.t. (thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu) From crossfire-request Thu Mar 9 00:56:21 1995 Return-Path: Received: from nexus.astro.psu.edu (nexus.astro.psu.edu [128.118.147.20]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 9 Mar 1995 00:56:16 +0100 Received: from griffle.astro.psu.edu by nexus.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Nexus-1.3) id AA19990; Wed, 8 Mar 95 18:56:11 EST Received: by griffle.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Client-1.3) id AA22199; Wed, 8 Mar 95 18:56:10 EST Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 18:56:10 EST From: "Brian Thomas" Message-Id: <9503082356.AA22199@griffle.astro.psu.edu> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Invisibility bug?? Status: RO Hi, I just noticed that when (playing in -pix mode) I am returning from being invisible, the game will update my character icon position, but will not remove the old faux-positioned one until I move onto a different terrain type. This cant be intentional - it is definitely confusing to see two character icons showing up at the same time :) b.t. From crossfire-request Wed Mar 8 03:40:08 1995 Return-Path: Received: from staff.cs.su.OZ.AU (staff.cs.su.OZ.AU [129.78.8.1]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 8 Mar 1995 03:39:52 +0100 Message-Id: <199503080239.21349.ifi@ifi.uio.no> Received: from basser.cs.su.oz.au by staff.cs.su.OZ.AU (mail from ftww for crossfire@ifi.uio.no) with MHSnet; Wed, 08 Mar 1995 12:39:46 +1000 Subject: Re: ULTRIX V4.4 To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 12:39:42 +1000 (EST) From: "Fred the Wonder Worm" In-Reply-To: from "Ed Phillips" at Mar 7, 95 07:02:27 pm X-Face: )\c`u_%V|7EQUDUt%5v'IJ?=@^Wf^<#,~CjzL`/2q0=-O6XW/Z8A2j.kgg:| 7|YZPSxy}rIuw8qD|/cQZ9^6kb:1XLleXhOl-U>(c~d`bC)%7FItZOUEw?=x%TBQ~NFJ,U|3wi[jzXd5-bMC Reply-To: ftww@cs.su.oz.au Content-Type: text Content-Length: 846 Status: RO Ed Phillips wrote: > > On Tue, 7 Mar 1995, Scott Romine wrote: > > > I do not have gcc available on my machine and I usually use cc > > compiler. Any suggestions? > > Find ForceCC in config/crosssite.def and change it. Then rerun > imake (xmkmf), etc. Unfortunately, this may not be good enough. Crossfire makes use of string literal concatenation in several places, so your compiler will also have to be capable of that. (Regrettably, mine isn't, and gcc has been incorrectly installed here. So no crossfire for me. :( ) Cheers, Geoff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geoff Bailey (Fred the Wonder Worm) | Programmer by trade -- ftww@cs.su.oz.au | Gameplayer by vocation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From crossfire-request Wed Mar 8 01:02:38 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chopin.udel.edu (chopin.udel.edu [128.175.13.17]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 8 Mar 1995 01:02:37 +0100 Received: (from flaregun@localhost) by chopin.udel.edu (8.6.10/8.6.6) id TAA13053; Tue, 7 Mar 1995 19:02:28 -0500 Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 19:02:27 -0500 (EST) From: Ed Phillips To: Scott Romine cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: ULTRIX V4.4 In-Reply-To: <9503071649.AA03239@wiltel13.wiltel.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO On Tue, 7 Mar 1995, Scott Romine wrote: > I am having problems compiling crossfire on ULTRIX V4.4 (Rev. 69) . I get the following when > I try to run make. > > making all in ./common... > gcc -ansi -Wall -Dmips -DMIPS -Wf,-XNh2000 -Olimit 2000 -I/usr/include -I../include > -DFONTDIR=\"/usr/users/sromine/crossfire/fonts\" -DFONTNAME=\"crossfire\" > -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/users/sromine/crossfire/lib\" -c arch.c > sh: gcc: not found > *** Error code 1 > > Stop. > *** Error code 1 > > Stop. > > > I do not have gcc available on my machine and I usually use cc compliler. Any suggestions? > > Find ForceCC in config/crosssite.def and change it. Then rerun imake (xmkmf), etc. Hope this helps, Ed /****************************************************************************/ /* Ed Phillips flaregun@udel.edu University of Delaware */ /* Jr Systems Programmer (302) 831-6082 IT/Network and Systems Services */ /****************************************************************************/ From crossfire-request Tue Mar 7 21:37:17 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mccaw.com (nwestwall.mccaw.com [198.180.219.27]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 7 Mar 1995 21:36:44 +0100 Received: from nwestmail.entp.mccaw.com ([155.176.15.34]) by mccaw.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12447; Tue, 7 Mar 95 12:34:23 PST Received: from axys69.nwest.mccaw.com by nwestmail.entp.mccaw.com (4.1/McCaw SUN-RMR Mailer, SMI-4.1) id AA16089; Tue, 7 Mar 95 12:34:22 PST Received: from vishnu by axys69.nwest.mccaw.com (NX5.67d/McCaw NeXT-MS Mailer, NX3.0M) id AA28886; Tue, 7 Mar 95 12:34:22 -0800 Message-Id: <9503072034.AA28886@axys69.nwest.mccaw.com> Received: by vishnu.nwest.mccaw.com (NX5.67d/McCaw NeXT-SS Mailer, NX3.0X) id AA04175; Tue, 7 Mar 95 12:34:22 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2) Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.118.2.RR) From: Jason Fosback Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 12:34:20 -0800 To: Scott Romine Subject: Re: Compiled on NeXT?? Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no References: <9503071919.AA03741@wiltel13.wiltel.com> Status: RO Yes, I've compiled it many times on NeXT boxes; you can actually create a 'fat' binary that will run on both m68k AND 80x86 hardware. -jason _____________________________________________________________________ Jason Fosback, Sr. Software Engineer | Magic: The Gathering --- Paradigm Systems Corp --- | 'Uhhh, who'd spend lot's of Internet: jason_fosback@psca.com | money on a stupid card game?' NeXT mail: jason_fosback@psca.com | 'Shut up Beavis, Magic's cool!' Begin forwarded message: From: Scott Romine Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 13:19:21 -0600 To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Compiled on NeXT?? Does anyone know a sucessful compiling of crossfire on a Intel NeXT station? From crossfire-request Tue Mar 7 20:17:58 1995 Return-Path: Received: from wilgate.wiltel.com (wilgate.wiltel.com [165.122.210.70]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 7 Mar 1995 20:17:56 +0100 Received: from wiltel13.wiltel.com by wilgate.wiltel.com with SMTP id AA24942 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 7 Mar 1995 13:20:00 -0600 Received: from nxtul88 by wiltel13.wiltel.com (NX5.67c/NX3.0X) id AA03741; Tue, 7 Mar 95 13:19:22 -0600 From: Scott Romine Message-Id: <9503071919.AA03741@wiltel13.wiltel.com> Received: by nxtul88 (NX5.67d/NX3.0X) id AA02047; Tue, 7 Mar 95 13:19:21 -0600 Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 13:19:21 -0600 Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.100.RR) Received: by NeXT Mailer (1.100.RR) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Compiled on NeXT?? Status: RO Does anyone know a sucessful compiling of crossfire on a Intel NeXT station? From crossfire-request Tue Mar 7 17:48:02 1995 Return-Path: Received: from wilgate.wiltel.com (wilgate.wiltel.com [165.122.210.70]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Tue, 7 Mar 1995 17:47:58 +0100 Received: from wiltel13.wiltel.com by wilgate.wiltel.com with SMTP id AA22357 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 7 Mar 1995 10:49:56 -0600 Received: from nxtul88 by wiltel13.wiltel.com (NX5.67c/NX3.0X) id AA03239; Tue, 7 Mar 95 10:49:16 -0600 From: Scott Romine Message-Id: <9503071649.AA03239@wiltel13.wiltel.com> Received: by nxtul88 (NX5.67d/NX3.0X) id AA01667; Tue, 7 Mar 95 10:49:15 -0600 Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 10:49:15 -0600 Received: by NeXT.Mailer (1.100.RR) Received: by NeXT Mailer (1.100.RR) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: ULTRIX V4.4 Status: RO I am having problems compiling crossfire on ULTRIX V4.4 (Rev. 69) . I get the following when I try to run make. making all in ./common... gcc -ansi -Wall -Dmips -DMIPS -Wf,-XNh2000 -Olimit 2000 -I/usr/include -I../include -DFONTDIR=\"/usr/users/sromine/crossfire/fonts\" -DFONTNAME=\"crossfire\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/users/sromine/crossfire/lib\" -c arch.c sh: gcc: not found *** Error code 1 Stop. *** Error code 1 Stop. I do not have gcc available on my machine and I usually use cc compliler. Any suggestions? From crossfire-request Mon Mar 6 15:45:27 1995 Return-Path: Received: from cripplecock.sarc.city.ac.uk (cripplecock.sarc.city.ac.uk [138.40.91.253]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 15:45:26 +0100 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by cripplecock.sarc.city.ac.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id OAA10987; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 14:45:03 GMT Received: from Messages.8.5.N.CUILIB.3.45.SNAP.NOT.LINKED.cripplecock.sarc.city.ac.uk.i386.bsd via MS.5.6.cripplecock.sarc.city.ac.uk.i386_bsd; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 14:45:03 +0000 (WET) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 14:45:03 +0000 (WET) From: Nick Williams To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, Brian Thomas Subject: Re: Skills in CF In-Reply-To: <199503060330.WAA00950@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> References: <199503060330.WAA00950@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> Status: RO Excerpts from games.Crossfire: 5-Mar-95 Re: Skills in CF Brian Thomas@chaupher.gs (1182) > I did look at the code. All that is needed to use the stealing > skill is the player gaining the skill_stealing arch in their > inventory. It would appear that the basis for creating a full > fledged skill code already exists in CF (indeed, some of the skills > I suggested are suggested in comments in the skills.h file!) Indeed, although you managed to think up more skills than I in your posting. Unfortunately, some of the skills are a bit of a pain to implement (and hence why only the thievery code was fleshed out), typically the "more interesting" ones (to me) such as auto-identifying (e.g. librarian skills, allowing identification of all books and scrolls), which involve some radical rethinking of the manner in which objects get identified, from what I vaguely remember. > If having skills in CF is so contentous, why is the code there?? HoHum. I put the code there in one of my inspired "I want skills!" times. The code which got left in was fairly primitive and I fleshed out a much better&generic system after having a small echat with Mark Wedel, however that code got nuked during a diskcrash (sounds like a fisherman's tale, doesn't it... :) and I got very discouraged about working on it further after that. My idea was that any player/class could be trained in a particular skill (e.g. by paying loads of money to a thieves guild to get 'stealing'), but that particular classes might have innate skills, maybe only apparent at higher levels (c.f. nethack). In this manner, even magickery could be a skill which most people would have to start with. The advantage of having it as a skill was that the skill would erode over time if you didn't use it. You could even go to a guildhall and pay for extra training lessons and boost your skill rating... That was the idea, anyhow. Web: http://web.cs.city.ac.uk/finger/njw E-mail: njw@sarc.city.ac.uk (MIME and ATK) Work Telephone: +44 71 477 8551 Work Fax: +44 71 477 8587 From crossfire-request Mon Mar 6 13:29:30 1995 Return-Path: Received: from obelix.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de (obelix.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de [134.109.132.55]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 13:29:27 +0100 Received: from sunnyboy.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de by obelix.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de with Local SMTP (PP) id <23596-0@obelix.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de>; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 13:28:46 +0100 Received: from sunc6.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de by sunnyboy.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04357; Mon, 6 Mar 95 13:28:42 +0100 From: volker.hetzer@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (Volker Hetzer) Received: by sunc6.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (4.1/client-1.5) id AA01025; Mon, 6 Mar 95 13:28:39 +0100 Date: Mon, 6 Mar 95 13:28:39 +0100 Message-Id: <9503061228.AA01025@sunc6.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: unsubscribe Status: RO unsubscribe From crossfire-request Mon Mar 6 04:30:44 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 6 Mar 1995 04:30:44 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id WAA00950 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Sun, 5 Mar 1995 22:30:42 -0500 Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 22:30:42 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503060330.WAA00950@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Skills in CF Status: RO > There just never has been a clear consesus on what/how to change the > classes around. Many people like the present approach with classes only > really reflecting stat bonuses. Changing it to a skill system is a big > change, and not everyone agrees that that is a good idea. Hmm. I guess I didnt think that it would be that big a change. To me, skills are not to be the basis of play, rather a 'spice' to enhance play. Perhaps some classes might start with a skill, perhaps not. There would be no limitation on kind or number of skills aquired (and it just might be difficult to acquire them too). I would advocate have skills be about as useful as a nice magic item -- like a rod with a good spell. Really, my outlook would be to treat skills as 'treasure'. I did look at the code. All that is needed to use the stealing skill is the player gaining the skill_stealing arch in their inventory. It would appear that the basis for creating a full fledged skill code already exists in CF (indeed, some of the skills I suggested are suggested in comments in the skills.h file!) If having skills in CF is so contentous, why is the code there?? b.t. From crossfire-request Sat Mar 4 09:01:37 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Sat, 4 Mar 1995 09:01:36 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA11067 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:01:33 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA15932 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:01:32 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA00803; Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:01:31 -0800 Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:01:31 -0800 Message-Id: <199503040801.AA00803@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Skills in CF Status: RO skills and the general class approach has been discussed many times. There just never has been a clear consesus on what/how to change the classes around. Many people like the present approach with classes only really reflecting stat bonuses. Changing it to a skill system is a big change, and not everyone agrees that that is a good idea. From crossfire-request Fri Mar 3 23:25:08 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 23:25:07 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id RAA00346 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:25:04 -0500 Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:25:04 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503032225.RAA00346@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: More skills Status: RO Here's some more I forgot to include previously: Skill Description Rhetoric Can pacify hostile creatures. Oratory Can charm lesser creatures into servatude. Chance of failure, which can 'enrage' your opponent. Writing Can create a scroll of a spell you know. (needs parchment to do this). Chance of failure increases as attempted spell level goes up/gets near that of the writer's level. May need this skill to write the runes (ie cast rune spells) b.t. (thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu) From crossfire-request Fri Mar 3 23:10:35 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 23:10:34 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id RAA00339 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:09:44 -0500 Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:09:44 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503032209.RAA00339@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Skills in CF Status: RO >Mark Wedel writes: > stealing code was the start of adding various skills to crossfire. > I don't think the code is enabled in any ways, or at least using it not. >I think you can use it if the player or creature has the skill_stealing >archetype as their inventory. > The idea was that a variety of skills would be implemented as objects >inside of other objects (similar to the dragons ability to breath fire). Hmm. This got me thinking. If this can be made to work, then why not a host of other skills? The advantages would be many fold - but 3 come to mind right away. 1) some skills could be made to mimic spells (see below) 2) the skills could be used to gain access to some areas of the map via the check_inv trigger and 3) non-magicians would gain a bit more flexability that only the magicians currently have. Here's some possibilities I thought up (which seem fairly easy to code in): Skill Description ----- ----------- stealing (already in place?) picklock removes type 'door' just like key stealth gives stealth ability for period of time (like artifact stealth flag) throwing Very easy. Player can throw rocks like the giants. Find Traps Detect 'spell' for traps. Works better than just 'search', because operates on the room. --- Various selective Identifying skills --- Cooking/ Idents Food/drink Items. May need Woodcraft some new archs w/o identified 1. (like mushrooms, etc) Blacksmith Idents arms/armour Jeweler Idents gems Literacy Idents scrolls/spellbooks Thamaugragist Idents wands/rods/amulets Alchemist/ Idents potions Musician Idents horns (perhaps make other musical instruments too?) Other skills?? Just need to sit down and think about it!!! Players may start out with some skills (as appropriate) and also may gain them later in the game. One way is with skill_scrolls (new type), which when read become the skill. There may be other ways. Also, because the skills are just carried objects - appropriate monster attacks (ie drain or depletion) could take them away too (hee hee :). It would seem to me that there should be a new type for the skill --- this way it won't pop up in the players inventory like a carried item. Perhaps a new command to show the player skills could be added in. b.t. thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu From crossfire-request Fri Mar 3 19:56:33 1995 Return-Path: Received: from riou.univ-mrs.fr (riou.univ-mrs.fr [139.124.1.7]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 19:56:32 +0100 Received: from ylumin.univ-mrs.fr by riou.univ-mrs.fr (8.6.10/1.34) id UAA01875; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 20:03:08 GMT Received: by ylumin.univ-mrs.fr (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/100293.12) id AA11952; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 19:59:11 +0100 Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 19:59:11 +0100 From: alt@ylumin.univ-mrs.fr (LADENT Marc) Message-Id: <9503031859.AA11952@ylumin.univ-mrs.fr> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Info for create new server Status: RO I looking for some information about material configuration. If you could mail me all the detail about minimal swap file , disk space , CPU impact and how much memory i need . If i forgot something mail me so thanks :-). From crossfire-request Fri Mar 3 08:47:54 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 08:44:55 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA01957 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 2 Mar 1995 23:37:13 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA20475 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Thu, 2 Mar 1995 23:37:12 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA11919; Thu, 2 Mar 1995 23:37:10 -0800 Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 23:37:10 -0800 Message-Id: <199503030737.AA11919@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, thomas@astro.psu.edu Subject: Re: stealing?? Status: RO stealing code was the start of adding various skills to crossfire. I don't think the code is enabled in any ways, or at least using it not. I think you can use it if the player or creature has the skill_stealing archetype as their inventory. The idea was that a variety of skills would be implemented as objects inside of other objects (similar to the dragons ability to breath fire). From crossfire-request Fri Mar 3 08:34:34 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tel1.tte.vtt.fi (tel1.tte.vtt.fi [130.188.12.3]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 08:34:34 +0100 Received: (from hat@localhost) by tel1.tte.vtt.fi (8.6.10/8.6.10) id JAA22913; Fri, 3 Mar 1995 09:33:29 +0200 From: Tero Haatanen Message-Id: <199503030733.JAA22913@tel1.tte.vtt.fi> Subject: Re: Xpm error in crossedit To: martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu (Michael B. Martin) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 09:33:29 +0200 (EET) Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no In-Reply-To: from "Michael B. Martin" at Mar 1, 95 11:31:20 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 1506 Status: RO > Ok, but if this is not a real problem (?), then why does it show these > messages? Nobody hasn't yet removed them, but I think there is no reason why that can't be done. > Also, I find the "exit map" messages when moving from > one world map to another to be distracting. The main reason why they are shown is probably because they are same kind of exits like normal buildings and teleports, and nobody hasn't made them special cases. > I can run crossedit just fine with the font graphics. > The "XCreateCursor" crash only occurs when I run with -xpm. I did try it and there really is a bug in crossedit, but it has nothing with to do with color pixmaps or linux. You did mentioned in our first mail that you started editor with command 'crossedit -p -xpm' which causes the problems. That command tells editor use bitmaps and pixmaps, and only one (or none) of them should be used. The quick fix is start editor with command 'crossedit -xpm' and bug should be disappear. :) The better fix for the next version is add a check in AppCreate, where command line parameters are parsed to make sure if color_pix is true then use_pixmaps are false. Hopefully Mark add this in next version. Also usage message and man page could be updated to include these two options (-xpm and -pix). > Oh, also, is anyone running crossfire on a Linux box with the sound > effects? I haven't tried with the latest version of crossfire, but some older version sounds worked (and rplay works under linux). -Tero From crossfire-request Thu Mar 2 20:29:08 1995 Return-Path: Received: from nexus.astro.psu.edu (nexus.astro.psu.edu [128.118.147.20]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 2 Mar 1995 20:29:06 +0100 Received: from griffle.astro.psu.edu by nexus.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Nexus-1.3) id AA27858; Thu, 2 Mar 95 14:29:02 EST Received: by griffle.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Client-1.3) id AA10455; Thu, 2 Mar 95 14:29:01 EST Date: Thu, 2 Mar 95 14:29:01 EST From: "Brian Thomas" Message-Id: <9503021929.AA10455@griffle.astro.psu.edu> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: stealing?? Status: RO Hi, I was just browsing the server code and found the stuff on stealing. Is this enabled? I sometimes play a thief but I have never noticed being able to steal from other players or NPC's. There does exist a can_steal flag for monsters, but the one I created with it didnt seem to be capable of taking anything from me. It just attacked in the usual way. Anyway, as far as I can determine, the code looks like it is for players stealing. I think it is set up as some kind of special 'ranged' attack. b.t. From crossfire-request Thu Mar 2 03:18:58 1995 Return-Path: Received: from hpfcla.fc.hp.com (daemon@hpfcla.fc.hp.com [15.254.48.2]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 2 Mar 1995 03:18:55 +0100 Received: from inferno.fc.hp.com by hpfcla.fc.hp.com with SMTP (1.38.193.4/15.5+IOS 3.20) id AA09901; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 19:18:45 -0700 Received: by inferno.fc.hp.com (1.38.193.4/15.5+IOS 3.22) id AA13132; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 19:19:03 -0700 From: Nick Ingegneri Message-Id: <9503020219.AA13132@inferno.fc.hp.com> Subject: Any servers in the U.S.A. ? To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 19:19:03 MST X-Hpvue$Revision: 1.8 $ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Message/rfc822 X-Vue-Mime-Level: 4 Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Status: RO content-type:text/plain;charset=us-ascii mime-version:1.0 Are there any crossfire servers currently running in the U.S.? I don't seem to be having much luck with running on the European sites. Thanks, Nick From crossfire-request Wed Mar 1 17:31:40 1995 Return-Path: Received: from holodeck.cc.vt.edu (holodeck.cc.vt.edu [128.173.16.28]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 17:31:30 +0100 Received: from sps1.phys.vt.edu by holodeck.cc.vt.edu with SMTP (8.6.10/16.2) id LAA22553; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 11:31:27 -0500 Message-Id: From: martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu (Michael B. Martin) Subject: Re: Xpm error in crossedit To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 11:31:20 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3064 Status: RO >> window saying things like "object x has no speed", but I can't be any more >> specific than that at the moment. > >This is only a debugging message that is supposed to be printed if >there is an object on 'living items' list and it has no speed. But >there are sometimes objects like this and these have just stopped, but >not yet removed from a list. (Or something like that, I haven't looked >the actual code). Ok, but if this is not a real problem (?), then why does it show these messages? I did not specifically enable any debugging features during compile time. Although, come to think of it, I haven't played with 0.91.7 enough to recall for sure if it also displays these messages, so this may now be a moot point. Also, I find the "exit map" messages when moving from one world map to another to be distracting. It seems to me that they should only be displayed if debugging is specifically enabled. Does anyone else agree? >> Also, when running 0.91.5, the game would sometimes crash. > >Can't help with that, but make sure that you have enough space in >/tmp during the play, so that temp maps can be saved there. It >should not crash, but all items just vanish when you change the map. >Corrupted (and too old/new) maps can also cause crash, but usually >it should at least print something. Well, I am using the 0.91.7 maps, so I don't think that's the problem. I have an 8 MB swap file setup on my system (on its own partition so it won't be affected by user files). With the 8 MB of RAM I think I should have enough as (I think) the system with X and crossfire running requires about 10-12 MB, leaving me (hopefully) with a little margin). But I am admittedly running with an almost full fs (~3 MB free, I think), so perhaps the game is trying to write more to /tmp than is available. I will check this. Sometimes I mysteriously get a few MB of files just showing up in /tmp. >then mysterious crashes might happen. Crossfire uses quite a lot memory >when used with XPM's. Also have you tried with normal bitmaps? If these >work this would indicated that you don't have enough virtual memory. Well, the game is "less interesting" (or at least less appealing) running without the pixmaps, so I always run crossfire with -xpm (and with no graphics problems). I can run crossedit just fine with the font graphics. The "XCreateCursor" crash only occurs when I run with -xpm. (And even then only when I try to select on object on the map.) I can load crossedit with xpm and scroll through the archetype list with no problems. It looks to me like the error is originating in the Xpm library routines (or maybe a bad call to one of them). It looks like I may have to try to debug this problem myself (*gulp*). Does anyone have any suggestions? (I have little experience debugging Un*x programs, especially X apps.) Thanks to everyone who responed! Oh, also, is anyone running crossfire on a Linux box with the sound effects? I am curious about trying to run them, but am not sure if there is an rplay port for Linux. -Michael From crossfire-request Wed Mar 1 10:00:40 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 10:00:38 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA17961 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 1 Mar 1995 01:00:34 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA21279 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Wed, 1 Mar 1995 01:00:33 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA11616; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 01:00:32 -0800 Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 01:00:32 -0800 Message-Id: <199503010900.AA11616@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu Subject: Re: Xpm error in crossedit Status: RO the warnings about objects without speed can be ignored. They were initially put in as debugging messages, and just have not been removed yet. More detailed messages when changing maps would be nice (is there any error messages printed out before it crashes?) As for the problem with crossedit and xpm mode, my guess might be that the images are being created on some non standard visual or something. I have never had any real problems with crossedit -xpm on sun machines - my guess with the linux problem might be the fact that you have a 16 or 24 bit display, and crossedit isn't really expecting that. --Mark From crossfire-request Wed Mar 1 14:55:40 1995 Return-Path: Received: from maud.ifi.uio.no (0@maud.ifi.uio.no [129.240.74.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 14:55:40 +0100 Received: from ns1.unicomp.net (ns1.unicomp.net [199.1.42.2]) by maud.ifi.uio.no ; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 14:55:31 +0100 Received: from archer.home.com (unicomp7.unicomp.net) by ns1.unicomp.net (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10821; Wed, 1 Mar 95 07:56:34 CST Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 07:42:40 -36000 From: gcope Subject: Re: Xpm error in crossedit To: Mark Wedel Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu In-Reply-To: <199503010900.AA11616@foxtrot.rahul.net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Sign, Greg T. Copeland gcope@UniComp.Net *----------------------------------------------* | Ask me about Linux! The i386/486 Copylefted | | Unix. Oh ya, did I mention that it's free, | | and has X-windows (X11R5 X11R6), a dos | | emulator, and a Window's run-time package is | | is in developement! Your next OS just might | | be free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | *----------------------------------------------* On Wed, 1 Mar 1995, Mark Wedel wrote: > the warnings about objects without speed can be ignored. They were > initially put in as debugging messages, and just have not been removed > yet. > > More detailed messages when changing maps would be nice (is there any > error messages printed out before it crashes?) > > As for the problem with crossedit and xpm mode, my guess might be that > the images are being created on some non standard visual or something. I > have never had any real problems with crossedit -xpm on sun machines - > my guess with the linux problem might be the fact that you have a 16 > or 24 bit display, and crossedit isn't really expecting that. > > --Mark > If he's running under X, the means that it's XFree86. And that means that it's 8-bit! Later, Greg From crossfire-request Wed Mar 1 06:38:07 1995 Return-Path: Received: from holodeck.cc.vt.edu (holodeck.cc.vt.edu [128.173.16.28]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 06:38:05 +0100 Received: from sps1.phys.vt.edu by holodeck.cc.vt.edu with SMTP (8.6.10/16.2) id AAA14660; Wed, 1 Mar 1995 00:38:02 -0500 Message-Id: From: martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu (Michael B. Martin) Subject: Xpm error in crossedit To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 00:37:45 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3341 Status: RO Hello to everyone! This is my first post on this list. I got my first copy of crossfire three months ago, and I really love it. Kudos to the authors! I've been looking for a game like this for some time. However, I have noticed a few problems, and I thought I'd report them in the hopes that they might be fixed. For starters, I am playing crossfire 0.91.7 on an i486-33 machine with 8 MB RAM running Linux 1.0.9 (and XFree86 2.1). Occasionally I get error messages printed to the shell window saying things like "object x has no speed", but I can't be any more specific than that at the moment. Also, when running 0.91.5, the game would sometimes crash (immediately exit without a warning or error message) within a few minutes after starting it when I tried to go from one map to another. For example, sometimes it would mysteriously quit when I tried to leave the inn where I saved my game. I recently upgraded to 0.91.7, and while I haven't played it much since then (school always seems to get in the way of the important things ;), it has crashed once or twice on me (but seeming less than before, which was perhaps 1 in 3 or 4 times or so under version 0.91.5). But my real reason for this post concerns a problem with the editor. Crossfire runs fine using the Xpm color graphics, but the editor does not. Running "crossedit -p -xpm" loads the editor just fine with the nice Xpm graphics, but if I click the (middle) mouse button to select a square on the map, the editor quits immediately, with the following message: X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) Major opcode of failed request: 93 (X_CreateCursor) Serial number of failed request: 20462 Current serial number in output stream: 20467 I am currently using the latest version of the Xpm library (3.4c). I just upgraded from a slightly older version (3.4a, I think) and it had the same problem. I did not see anything about this in the documentation that came with the source, but I suppose I could have missed something. I am hoping someone more knowledgable in the realm of X/Xpm programming might be able to fix this in a new version. I would also welcome any suggestions regarding useful techniques for mid-level players. I have my character almost to 10th level, but it is getting harder to progress. Using the editor, I've "previewed" some of the maps, and it looks like they are either easy (even for a single player) and thus with little reward (experience and treasure) or really hard (challenging for a party of mid- to upper-level players). Are there some maps that might be challenging (but not especially difficult) for a single (no networking ability at the moment) 10th-level player? I am considering making my own maps if I can find the time later. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Considering how hard some of the quests are, I am also interested in multi-player games. I think I could probably join on one of the servers mentioned in the README, but I would appreciate any opinions regarding them that other players may have. If you would like another player for your party, let me know and I'll see if I can find the time to join in. Sorry for the length of this, but I just had so much to say! (Actually, I have more, but I'll save the rest for another time.) -Michael From crossfire-request Sat Apr 1 00:42:42 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mailgate.Cadence.COM (mailgate.Cadence.COM [158.140.2.1]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Sat, 1 Apr 1995 00:42:40 +0200 Received: (from smap@localhost) by mailgate.Cadence.COM (8.6.8/8.6.8) id OAA01937 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 14:42:26 -0800 Received: from cadence.cadence.com(158.140.18.1) by mailgate.cadence.com via smap (V1.0mjr) id sma001883; Fri Mar 31 14:42:03 1995 Received: from pluto by cadence.Cadence.COM (5.61/3.14) id AA21325; Fri, 31 Mar 95 14:40:40 -0800 Received: by pluto (5.65+/1.5) id AA17380; Fri, 31 Mar 95 17:41:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 31 Mar 95 17:41:57 -0500 From: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) Message-Id: <9503312241.AA17380@pluto> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Scale Status: RO Peter writes: >>> Scale: This is true. The problem is what is a decent solution? >>> Obviously, it should take much longer to walk between towns than shops. > > Obviously? The question we should be asking, is: does it make the > game more fun if we add realism here? I mean, who is going to ENJOY > slogging through boring countryside more than he has to? I agree that we shouldn't make the game boring by dramatically slowing down playing speed. Do you have a problem with the compromise I suggested--namely that food consumption should increase when travelling on larger scale maps? > If you guys make it painful to travel city-to-city then I'M going to set up > for-a-fee teleportation booths in the major towns. I think this is a fine idea, and ultimately I think it makes a lot of sense. If you want to get to the next town, take a horse ride. If you want to get farther, take a boat. If you want to get to the other side of the continent, take a dragon transport. As long as the face used for the teleporter appropriately reflects the mode of travel I think this would add to, rather than detract from the enjoyability of the game. --Ken +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Ken Woodruff | "In every jumbled pile of person | | woodruff@cadence.com | there's a thinking part that | +------------------------+ wonders what the part that isn't | | Disclaimer: What tote | thinking isn't thinking of." | | bag full of $20 bills? | --They Might Be Giants | +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From crossfire-request Fri Mar 31 20:46:35 1995 Return-Path: Received: from soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.43.52]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 20:46:29 +0200 Received: from LOCALHOST (LOCALHOST [127.0.0.1]) by soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.11/PHILMAIL-1.11) with SMTP id KAA01782 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 10:46:04 -0800 Message-Id: <199503311846.KAA01782@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Scale Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 10:45:56 -0800 From: Peter Mardahl Status: RO In message <9503301537.AA10599@pluto>, Ken Woodruff writes: > >Mark writes: >> Scale: This is true. The problem is what is a decent solution? >> Obviously, it should take much longer to walk between towns than shops. Obviously? The question we should be asking, is: does it make the game more fun if we add realism here? I mean, who is going to ENJOY slogging through boring countryside more than he has to? If you guys make it painful to travel city-to-city then I'M going to set up for-a-fee teleportation booths in the major towns. >If we want some small reflection of the differences from traveling from city t I think having outdoor-appearing maps is enough. > >I think adding a scale attribute to maps is a good start--once it's there >code can start to make use of it. I can envision eventually adding modes >of transportation to the game that affect a players speed at different What happened to client/server? It didn't seem done in 91.7. Regards, PeterM From crossfire-request Fri Mar 31 16:58:11 1995 Return-Path: Received: from noc.msc.edu (noc.msc.edu [137.66.12.254]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 16:57:24 +0200 Received: from uh.msc.edu by noc.msc.edu (5.65/MSC/v3.0.1(920324)) id AA01775; Fri, 31 Mar 95 08:56:49 -0600 Received: from localhost (brett@localhost) by uh.msc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.6) with SMTP id IAA13511; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 08:57:00 -0600 Message-Id: <199503311457.IAA13511@uh.msc.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: uh.msc.edu: brett owned process doing -bs X-Authentication-Warning: uh.msc.edu: Host localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: "Michael B. Martin" Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Scale In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 30 Mar 1995 15:19:53 EST." <199503302019.PAA10211@sps1.phys.vt.edu> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 08:56:59 -0600 From: Brett Rabe Status: RO >somehow (see below). I think this would make crossfire seem more "natural" >(as opposed to "realistic", which no D&D-style game could ever hope to be). As has been pointed out to me by a guy I work with on a particular mud, realism should not be used in the context of comparing your gaming environment to the world out here that we operate in. It should be used in the sense of testing your game for internal consistency. Do the classes make sense in respect to the other classes? Do the abilities of the players make sense in respect to the demands of the game? Etc. Just an idea to toss out . . . . --brett From crossfire-request Fri Mar 31 08:36:59 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 08:36:56 +0200 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA22368 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 30 Mar 1995 17:33:14 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA17556 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Thu, 30 Mar 1995 17:33:13 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA02875; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 17:33:13 -0800 Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 17:33:13 -0800 Message-Id: <199503310133.AA02875@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Scale Status: RO In theory, the only limit to a maps size is memory and cpu speed. Cpu gets affected because for each map in memory, all alive objects are processed. Thus, if you had a 1000x1000 map, you are first using a lot of memory (200 + megabytes, assuming 1 object/space), but for each tick, all objects on that map would need to get updated. And a map that size will probably have a lot of monsters on it. As such, it tends to be better to keep the maps small, and just overlap the edges. This is not that hard to do - the cut and paste in the editor makes it easy to get the edges, and I believe a simple script someplace exists to add all the exits along the edges. I agree that a lot of towns is not a good idea - things are much better now than they once were. But unless you make distances very time consuming (5-10 minutes to go from one town to the next), you can never really solve the problem. Right now, I would say there are about 3 scales right now: indoors (buildings, caves), cities, and wildneress. --Mark From crossfire-request Thu Mar 30 22:20:13 1995 Return-Path: Received: from sps1.phys.vt.edu (sps1.phys.vt.edu [128.173.176.53]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 22:20:09 +0200 Received: (from martinm@localhost) by sps1.phys.vt.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA10211 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 15:19:56 -0500 From: "Michael B. Martin" Message-Id: <199503302019.PAA10211@sps1.phys.vt.edu> Subject: Re: Scale To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 15:19:53 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4575 Status: RO > I agree that it would be annoying for it to take a lot of real time to > travel between towns, Well, the distances between towns needn't be THAT large. Has anyone on this list ever played Ultima 7? One of the more noticable map differences from Ultima 6 was that the towns took up much more space while the map itself seemed to shrink, leaving less room to travel between towns (I kinda liked it, even though it felt small after 6). Having played games like these, I find the "one-scale" map system to feel much more "natural". If you really worry about the distances being too large, you can always take some precautions to make sure that they aren't too large or can be crossed faster somehow (see below). I think this would make crossfire seem more "natural" (as opposed to "realistic", which no D&D-style game could ever hope to be). Plus, random monster encounters would be better. I find the current system to be somewhat lacking. I just don't like the idea of going to some place (like the church graveyard in the Tabbland town) and having the 'large' random encounter areas pop up (in fact, I find the map change accompanying such encounters a bit annoying). They should just appear when you're passing through an area, IMHO. And not on such small maps. Any change for a "one-scale-fits-all" map system gets my vote. Also, there has been some (good) argument against making lots of nearby towns which would allow wealthy adventureres to quickly buy whatever items they wanted by just "shopping around". If it takes a few minutes (of real time) to go from one town to the next, players would be more discouraged from doing this. Right now it requires very little time to visit Scorn, Santo Dominion, Navar City, and Tabbland in succession unless I am carrying too much junk. > and I don't reccommend changing "screen" movement speeds (i.e. squares Agreed. (Although there is no such consideration if only one map scale is used.) > per second) on the different maps. I do think that over time we could > significantly enhance the atmosphere of the game by tying other pieces of > game-play to the map scale, the two examples I can think of off the top of Again, this is something of a moot point if only one scale exists, but if you use something like the current multi-scale system, I agree. Lighting should also be easier (scale-less anyway) on a one-scale system. > code can start to make use of it. I can envision eventually adding modes > of transportation to the game that affect a players speed at different > scales, for example if a player owns a horse she could use it to move > more quickly on the world map than someone on foot but would have no > benefit inside a building (because she'd have to leave the horse outside.) > Magic carpets, stagecoaches, boats (for going up rivers) could all be > included for variety. Yes! The magic carpet in Ultima 7 was great. It allowed much faster travel (and was rather safe from monsters), but had it's limitations (couldn't land over rough terrain, for example). Boats are also a great idea. One of the map-making guides recommends against creating maps with remote islands which are only accessible by ship or dragon transport (which operate more like a teleporter right now than anything else). But if you had to use a boat to get to the island (and maybe talk to some people beforehand to find out where it was located), that would really enhance the game atmosphere. I think more "exploration" and "quest" features (more like a traditional adventure game) could be added to the game without detracting from the "arcade" features. And one last thing: how feasible would it be to have NPC's that sell "black market" merchandise? I am thinking that it might be neat to have someone (who you would have to find) that sold a few (maybe even only one, but changing every now and then) better-than-average magic items. With a substantial markup, no doubt (maybe 200% value or more). This would allow a character to buy items that might be a little more powerful than those found in normal shops (except maybe Lord of the Rings, where I once saw really nice ring but I just didn't have the 60000 platinum!), but with limited (rotating) selection and at higher prices. I guess this would be implemented like a small shop. Any thoughts? I think it would add a little more atmosphere. (If you really want more atmosphere, you could have "live" NPC's like in Ultima 6, but that would definitely add to the server's overhead in addition to requiring day/night changes.) -Michael From crossfire-request Thu Mar 30 17:38:36 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mailgate.Cadence.COM (mailgate.Cadence.COM [158.140.2.1]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 17:38:23 +0200 Received: (from smap@localhost) by mailgate.Cadence.COM (8.6.8/8.6.8) id HAA11749 for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 07:37:45 -0800 Received: from cadence.cadence.com(158.140.18.1) by mailgate.cadence.com via smap (V1.0mjr) id sma011726; Thu Mar 30 07:37:40 1995 Received: from pluto by cadence.Cadence.COM (5.61/3.14) id AA06632; Thu, 30 Mar 95 07:36:31 -0800 Received: by pluto (5.65+/1.5) id AA10599; Thu, 30 Mar 95 10:37:36 -0500 Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 10:37:36 -0500 From: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) Message-Id: <9503301537.AA10599@pluto> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: Scale Status: RO > From crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no Thu Mar 30 02:18:26 1995 > From: Mark Wedel > Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:35:57 -0800 > To: thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov, woodruff > Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Mark writes: > Scale: This is true. The problem is what is a decent solution? > Obviously, it should take much longer to walk between towns than shops. > But being multiplayer, you can hardly expect the player to spend 2 hours > to wander between the towns, with him moving once a minute. I agree that it would be annoying for it to take a lot of real time to travel between towns, and I don't reccommend changing "screen" movement speeds (i.e. squares per second) on the different maps. I do think that over time we could significantly enhance the atmosphere of the game by tying other pieces of game-play to the map scale, the two examples I can think of off the top of my head are the area spells effect, and lighting, although I think for the immediate future it would be best to assume all outdoor maps are always fully lit. If we want some small reflection of the differences from traveling from city to city versus room to room we could base food consumption on the map scale--you'll need to stock up if you're planning to travel across the continent on foot. > Scale in crossfire certainly isn't realistic. I just have not yet seen > a good way to handle it. I think adding a scale attribute to maps is a good start--once it's there code can start to make use of it. I can envision eventually adding modes of transportation to the game that affect a players speed at different scales, for example if a player owns a horse she could use it to move more quickly on the world map than someone on foot but would have no benefit inside a building (because she'd have to leave the horse outside.) Magic carpets, stagecoaches, boats (for going up rivers) could all be included for variety. --Ken +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Ken Woodruff | "In every jumbled pile of person | | woodruff@cadence.com | there's a thinking part that | +------------------------+ wonders what the part that isn't | | Disclaimer: What tote | thinking isn't thinking of." | | bag full of $20 bills? | --They Might Be Giants | +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From crossfire-request Thu Mar 30 08:36:07 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 08:36:04 +0200 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA18084 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:36:00 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA09661 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:35:59 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA19904; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:35:57 -0800 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:35:57 -0800 Message-Id: <199503300635.AA19904@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov, woodruff@cadence.com Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Status: RO The idea of arrays for light seems pretty good. The best would would be to mirror the line of sight rules - each map has an array associated with it. For the light array, you may actually want 2 arrays - one to represent permanent light sources, and the other to represent non permanent sources. For the permanent array, it would be pretty simple - for all squares being illuminated, set the value to true. The non permanet would be similar. EAch time a light source changes (either as player moves, or because it burns out), a funciton is called up update that secondary array. There are still complexities - what happens when two players are standing next to each other and move away - that entire area needs to be recalculated (you just cant set the fringe area that the light source moves away from to 0's, as somethign else might be illuminating it.) Scale: This is true. The problem is what is a decent solution? Obviously, it should take much longer to walk between towns than shops. But being multiplayer, you can hardly expect the player to spend 2 hours to wander between the towns, with him moving once a minute. A single player game has the advantage that each time the player moves, the game to say however minutes passed based on the scale (might take an hour to move one square in the wilderness, 1 minute to move a space inside a building..) Scale in crossfire certainly isn't realistic. I just have not yet seen a good way to handle it. From crossfire-request Thu Mar 30 05:05:28 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 05:05:26 +0200 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id WAA04540; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:05:19 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:05:19 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503300305.WAA04540@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: woodruff@cadence.com Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Status: RO Awk. My mailer is spasming out again. 1 more try :) .... > > I assume by darkness you mean blackness? Yeah. I agree greyscale graphics would be cool, but would add a deal of coding complication and really slow the execution loop (as you pointed out). Varying light source power can be simply simulated by an 'illumination' radius. Candles get 1 square away, lanterns get 2 and bonfires get 3, and etc... The greater the radius size allowed, the slower the line of sight calculation will get however, :< > > This would also add in uses for varying intensity light sources. If you are > > carrying an arc lamp through those dense bushes, you will still have light > > for a few spaces. But a candle even in some open area won't do you much > > good. > For now, I think it is best to 'ignore' the issue of variable transparentness of objects. Again, this really will slow down execution. > This touches on another feature of Crossfire which I think could use some > work--namely map scale. I see (primarily) 3 scales in existing maps, which I'll > term building, city and world. These seem to correspond (roughly) to 10, 100, > and 1000 feet per square. Adding a scale attribute to a map would enable > lighting code (and perhaps spell ranges?!) to be adjusted based on where > the user is (i.e. a torch should not light the entire left half of the > continent, but it should light a whole room.) Yeah a good point. I would suggest for now that only the insides of structures be dark -- ie dungeons, buildings, and deep dark jungles (etc,etc). Designation of these dark areas would be in the map field, say whether map->unlit == 1 or 0. If the map isnt 'unlit' then all light sources would automatically be ignored in the line of sight calculation. This global map lit/unlit would save headaches that would occur with local 'day' and 'night' areas in a map- ie the assumption of a map being *either* all dark or all lit squares really would speed up things. If you wanted a lit room in a 'dark' map then embbeding a few light sources (wall torches) in the map should fix things. Of course, the more embedded light sources - the slower the execution loop would get. Intelligent map construction/linking would be required not to goof up the game (alas...:) Hmm. This lighting code reminds me of some particle code stuff I did a while back... I am thinking of perhaps a lighting code that works like this: 1 - While loading the map determine map lighting status, if lit use the regular code. If unlit - search the map for permanent light sources and put into an array noting all the squares which fall into light source lighting radii for later fast access. 2 - Player (and temporary) light sources would be addressed by a player lighting array (only something like 14x14 - each player has one). This array is updated with every few ticks in the line of sight loop. Probably don't want players to have light sources brighter than 1 or 2 square radii. 2 - Characters with pl->map->unlit get modified line of sight. Probably, there are fewer lit squares than potential squares viewable (if were all lit) So... determine all lit squares in players 'viewing box' (from the map + player lighting arrays) -- including light sources > 5 squares distant whose lighting radius does fall into view. On this reduced set of viewable squares calculate the line of sight. Minor flaw: unlit areas between two viewable light sources would remain unlit. Pending the speed of this 'beta' loop, more features could be added in, like allowing monsters to have light sources, fireballs, lightning, etc could light up rooms, addition of player 'infravision', and monster modified line of sight (the above loop is only calculated for players!! all monsters were assumed to see in the dark!!), and so on.... > This raises another question... > why is it always daytime in Crossfireland? > Good point here. Tangentially, (also) why is there no weather? No seasons? (I actually tryed coding in seasonal changes to the CF0.91.4 code a while back....it was horribly slow. Maybe I will pick this up sometime again) b.t. From crossfire-request Thu Mar 30 03:20:32 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 30 Mar 1995 03:20:27 +0200 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA00920 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Wed, 29 Mar 1995 17:20:18 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA26990 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Wed, 29 Mar 1995 17:20:15 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA11657; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 17:20:08 -0800 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 17:20:08 -0800 Message-Id: <199503300120.AA11657@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, woodruff@cadence.com Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Status: RO Well, the next version may be a bit delayed - my hard drive seems to be having troubles, so I'll have to see if I can recover the code. As for light/darkness, the best suggestion I have seen to make it look better is to used stippled patterns to draw on top of the square. For example, if the square is half light, the image would have 50% black pixels, and the rest would be transparent. Several such stipple patterns could be made. This reduces the complexity a great deal (to change colors becomes much more complicated, and has the problem that most people only have 8 bit color maps.) --Mark From crossfire-request Wed Mar 29 18:22:55 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mailgate.Cadence.COM (mailgate.Cadence.COM [158.140.2.1]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 18:22:48 +0200 Received: (from smap@localhost) by mailgate.Cadence.COM (8.6.8/8.6.8) id IAA28146 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 08:22:43 -0800 Received: from cadence.cadence.com(158.140.18.1) by mailgate.cadence.com via smap (V1.0mjr) id sma028132; Wed Mar 29 08:22:28 1995 Received: from pluto by cadence.Cadence.COM (5.61/3.14) id AA01694; Wed, 29 Mar 95 08:21:33 -0800 Received: by pluto (5.65+/1.5) id AA09569; Wed, 29 Mar 95 11:22:24 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 95 11:22:24 -0500 From: woodruff@cadence.com (Ken Woodruff) Message-Id: <9503291622.AA09569@pluto> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Status: RO > [Mark and Brian discuss lighting] > A more general approach that would probaly be slower, but more interesting > would be for each space to have a light transfer value. For example, if > you are in extremely dense bushes, any light source you are carrying isn;t > going to illuminate much (low transfer value.) [...] > > There should then be some perception level. Perhaps below 50 it is just > darkness. [...] I assume by darkness you mean blackness? If speed weren't an issue graphically I think we could achieve a fascinating effect by using a gamma graded color map. Basically for every legal color in a crossfire pixmap (I think there's currently 28 or so?) we allocate say 4 gamma values, then choose the appropriate gamma based on the light intensity in a given square. If we use a percentage scale we could break the choice of gamma into quintiles, i.e. 0%-20% intensity is black, 20%-40% the lowest gamma value, 80%-100% full intensity. This would make it possible for certain creatures could be nearly invisible in low light conditions if colored appropriately (like a panther in a dense jungle). Beware the Grue... > This would also add in uses for varying intensity light sources. If you are > carrying an arc lamp through those dense bushes, you will still have light > for a few spaces. But a candle even in some open area won't do you much > good. This touches on another feature of Crossfire which I think could use some work--namely map scale. I see (primarily) 3 scales in existing maps, which I'll term building, city and world. These seem to correspond (roughly) to 10, 100, and 1000 feet per square. Adding a scale attribute to a map would enable lighting code (and perhaps spell ranges?!) to be adjusted based on where the user is (i.e. a torch should not light the entire left half of the continent, but it should light a whole room.) This raises another question... why is it always daytime in Crossfireland? --Ken +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Ken Woodruff | "In every jumbled pile of person | | woodruff@cadence.com | there's a thinking part that | +------------------------+ wonders what the part that isn't | | Disclaimer: What tote | thinking isn't thinking of." | | bag full of $20 bills? | --They Might Be Giants | +------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From crossfire-request Wed Mar 29 09:19:16 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 09:18:53 +0200 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA14170 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 28 Mar 1995 23:18:00 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA26844 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Tue, 28 Mar 1995 23:17:59 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA15307; Tue, 28 Mar 1995 23:17:58 -0800 Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 23:17:58 -0800 Message-Id: <199503290717.AA15307@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, thomas@astro.psu.edu Subject: Re: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Status: RO I should have a new release out by the end of the week, if not sooner. As for light sources: There other some other situations: 1) Case where an indoor space is next to an outdoor space (window or cave enterance). 2) Light sources that the character is not carrying (torches on the wall, for example.) A more general approach that would probaly be slower, but more interesting would be for each space to have a light transfer value. For example, if you are in extremely dense bushes, any light source you are carrying isn;t going to illuminate much (low transfer value.) But if you are in a room with white walls, ceiling, and floor, what little light you have will become useful. Things like walls would have a transfer value of 0, the above white room would be 100 (Effectively no light loss), and things that actually add illumination (torch on the wall) would be handled by some other special value. Open spaces would still have a light value less than 100 (just to take into account the distance.) The dense bushes might have a value of 25. There should then be some perception level. Perhaps below 50 it is just darkness. This would also add in uses for varying intensity light sources. If you are carrying an arc lamp through those dense bushes, you will still have light for a few spaces. But a candle even in some open area won't do you much good. The problem with the above is excecution speed. It would add a lot of atmosphere to the game, but might be too slow. This could perhaps be quickened up some by stating taht light transferrence values can not change, and make the same true for any lightsource that is not carried. In this way, only when the player moves would all the light need to be updated (and a call could be made to update the light when the players torch starts to burn out, for example..) --Mark From crossfire-request Wed Mar 29 08:52:27 1995 Return-Path: Received: from nexus.astro.psu.edu (nexus.astro.psu.edu [128.118.147.20]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 08:52:22 +0200 Received: from beast.astro.psu.edu by nexus.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Nexus-1.3) id AA25594; Wed, 29 Mar 95 01:52:07 EST Received: by beast.astro.psu.edu (4.1/Client-1.3) id AA22923; Wed, 29 Mar 95 01:52:05 EST Date: Wed, 29 Mar 95 01:52:05 EST From: "Brian Thomas" Message-Id: <9503290652.AA22923@beast.astro.psu.edu> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Subject: CF0.91.8??/lighting code ideas Status: RO Hi, I have some other hacks I would like to release to the community -- but have so far been waiting on the next release of CF (0.91.8?). Can anyone give me an idea when this will be? Any information on what has changed (client/server)?? I am interested (nothing done yet!!) right now on a 'lighting' code to modify the current line of sight code. -- Two types of floor archetypes would be needed (As I envision it): outside and inside. Perhaps the flag could be called "unlit". For inside floor squares unlit would be set. The effect of lighting would come into play when the player stood on a 'unlit' flagged square --then all squares in the field of view with type 'unlit' would become 'blocking' squares, unless the player had a light source. In that case the code would always treat the nearest squares as outside or unlit == 0 squares (ie no blocking line of sight). This simple scenario works for many cases, would be fairly fast to code, and should put minimal load on the execution loop. I do see 2 problems where it might fail though: - mixed inside/outside maps of complex geometry. (say a checkerboard-type layout of inside/outside squares. Not really 'realistic' layout, only a silly mapmaker would do this. But it is a consider -ation.) -Treatment of distant light sources in a unlit area. The code might be modified to account for this - but too many light sources could really slow down the execution!! Any comments/ideas/critism is welcome. :) b.t. From crossfire-request Mon Mar 27 06:55:01 1995 Return-Path: Received: from albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU (albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU [129.94.242.13]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 27 Mar 1995 06:54:59 +0200 Received: From cello04 With LocalMail ; Mon, 27 Mar 95 14:54:11 +1000 From: s2137876@cse.unsw.edu.au (Hue Ha) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 14:54:10 +1000 Message-Id: <950327045410.14713@cse.unsw.edu.au> Subject: client compiling part 3 Status: RO Hmm hope you guys don't mind answering one more question. Not much action in this list anyway... Well , I've finally compiled the thing and now when I run it the graphics are all mixed up. INstead of grass I have clerics etc. What can I do? From crossfire-request Sat Mar 25 02:44:06 1995 Return-Path: Received: from albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU (albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU [129.94.242.13]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Sat, 25 Mar 1995 02:44:05 +0100 Received: From cello31 With LocalMail ; Sat, 25 Mar 95 11:42:46 +1000 From: s2137876@cse.unsw.edu.au (Hue Ha) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 11:42:41 +1000 Message-Id: <950325014241.3376@cse.unsw.edu.au> Subject: client compiling II Status: RO Well I've overcome the other problems thanks to some helpful suggestions from some of you but now I can't seem to find this file /usr/lib/dlsym.o Does someone know where I can get it? From crossfire-request Mon Mar 20 10:35:36 1995 Return-Path: Received: from tango.rahul.net (root@tango.rahul.net [192.160.13.5]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 20 Mar 1995 10:35:34 +0100 Received: from bolero.rahul.net by tango.rahul.net with SMTP id AA15892 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Mon, 20 Mar 1995 01:35:30 -0800 Received: from foxtrot.rahul.net by bolero.rahul.net with SMTP id AA11252 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5); Mon, 20 Mar 1995 01:35:29 -0800 From: Mark Wedel Received: by foxtrot.rahul.net (5.67b8/jive-a2i-1.0) id AA04512; Mon, 20 Mar 1995 01:35:27 -0800 Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 01:35:27 -0800 Message-Id: <199503200935.AA04512@foxtrot.rahul.net> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no, martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu Subject: Re: Protection and magical items Status: RO First, multiple protection do no good. As for enchanting weapons, look at the doc/SurvivalGuide. IT gives comprehensive instructions on the creation of better weapons. Third, potions of fire/cold resitance actually do grant immunity, and not just protection. From crossfire-request Mon Mar 20 10:27:45 1995 Return-Path: Received: from albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU (albeniz.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU [129.94.242.13]) by ifi.uio.no with SMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Mon, 20 Mar 1995 10:27:30 +0100 Received: From cello28 With LocalMail ; Mon, 20 Mar 95 18:09:00 +1000 From: s2137876@cse.unsw.edu.au (Hue Ha) To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Mon, 20 Mar 95 18:08:57 +1000 Message-Id: <950320080857.17873@cse.unsw.edu.au> Subject: client compiling Status: RO when I try to compile the client (v 0.91.7) on my dec it gives me this % make gcc -ansi -Wall -Dmips DDMIPS -B/usr/local/bin/ -DDEBUG -ggdb -Wall -I. -I/usr/local/X11/include -DLONGJUMP -DXpm_Pix -I./eutl/include -DFUNCPROTO -c client.c gcc: DDMIPS: No such file or directory In file included from client.c:6: ./client.h:7: arglist.h: No such file or directory client.c:7: tcplib.h: No such file or directory gcc: file path prefix `/usr/local/bin/' never used *** Error code 1 Stop. Can someone tell me whats wrong? From crossfire-request Sun Mar 19 22:04:39 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 22:04:38 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id QAA05588; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 16:04:34 -0500 Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 16:04:34 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503192104.QAA05588@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu Subject: Re: Protection and magical items Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Status: RO > From crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no Sun Mar 19 15:58:58 1995 > From: "Michael B. Martin" > this make it too easy to create "super-weapons"? And finally: if > one applies the patch to enable enchanting of armour, is it possible > to add enchantments to special items (ones with names, like Ilrya, Uriel, > etc.)? > I wrote the code for the armour enchantment. As far as I know it is possible to enchant *any* piece of armour. The only limitation is your current level (sets how much armour and enchantment can be added). For example, in order to enchant the mithril mail of Irial (armour value 25) you would need to be 25th or higher level!!. Dragonmail is even harder...you need to be 50+ level. I know for a fact that Cloaks of protection can be enchanted. -b.t. From crossfire-request Sun Mar 19 21:06:04 1995 Return-Path: Received: from sps1.phys.vt.edu (sps1.phys.vt.edu [128.173.176.53]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 21:06:02 +0100 Received: (from martinm@localhost) by sps1.phys.vt.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA04715 for crossfire@ifi.uio.no; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 15:05:52 -0500 From: "Michael B. Martin" Message-Id: <199503192005.PAA04715@sps1.phys.vt.edu> Subject: Protection and magical items To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 15:05:51 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1977 Status: RO I have a few questions (if these are documented somewhere let me know). The first is this: does having more than one "protection" of a given type have any affect? For example, if you are wearing an eyeshield, will also wearing an amulet of protection from magic have any additional affect? (My guess is "no".) Also, I seem to recall reading somewhere that if you have both immunity and protection of the same attack type, then not only is your character immune, but your possessions are as well. Can someone clarify/confirm this? My second question is about enchanting items. I noticed in game play that it seems to be impossible to (further) enchant magical weapons. I looked at the source, and it seems that this exclusion only applies if a weapon is already enchanted with certain types of benefits (e.g. extra damage). Is this correct? (If so, what types of "magical" or special weapons could be enchanted further?) Has anyone considered the possibility of allowing characters to create enchanted items which have protections? For example, you might have to sacrifice a certain number (presumably high) of "cold resistance" potions to create an item which has protection from cold. Obviously, where to set the sacrifice level is the key question. (This could be an alternative to being able to enchant some weapon which already has a protection benefit.) Or might this make it too easy to create "super-weapons"? And finally: if one applies the patch to enable enchanting of armour, is it possible to add enchantments to special items (ones with names, like Ilrya, Uriel, etc.)? Oh, and one more thing. What about a scroll/potion/etc. which gives immunity (not just protection)? Obviously, the effect should last very briefly, but I could see a place for this in the game (you could guzzle a potion of cold immunity just before rushing into that room full of Chinese dragons and hope it lasts long enough for you to take out some of them). -Michael From crossfire-request Thu Mar 16 08:54:20 1995 Return-Path: Received: from chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov [128.183.8.36]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 16 Mar 1995 01:56:04 +0100 Received: (from thomas@localhost) by chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov (LHEA9404/940426.s1) id TAA04170; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 19:55:52 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 19:55:52 -0500 From: Brian Thomas Message-Id: <199503160055.TAA04170@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov> To: master@rahul.net Subject: Re: Skills & stuff. Cc: crossfire@ifi.uio.no Status: RO > From crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no Wed Mar 15 06:33:25 1995 > From: Mark Wedel > Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:17 -0800 > To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no > > Some quick thoughts. > > Skills are a nice idea. However, unless the idea of what classes/races are > right now is completely rethought, tying them to certain classes/races is > a little pointless. Yes, this is an excellent point. As I stated eariler - I have no real justification for the viking,warrior,barbarian having 'jumping' skill. More thought should be put into inital skills distribution. > > That viking can know just as many spells as a mage. And depending on how > the viking and mage distributed their stats at startup, they could have > the exact same stats (would be stupid to do so, but that is not the point.) Another good point. But this is precisely the reason that I put in the possibility for gaining skills (via scrolls) later in the game. > If skills are going to be added, then all the classes will need to get certain > skills, to keep balance (the special classes could be an exception - the > immunities they have oculd be considered skills of a different nature.) > I thought about this too, at one point I was going to give the magician characters (mage/wizard) a 'detect magic' skill (works only on stuff you pick up and handle --*not* like the spell) and a 'preaching' or 'rhetoric' skill to the cleric classes (priest/cleric) which could pacify hostile creatures once. Basically, I didnt want to implement this yet because I was afraid of a firestorm of dissent this might cause -- "skills for non-fighers??!!?, now magicians are twice as powerfull!!!" and etc.. Again, these skills could later be picked up by anyone later in the game. I do have a 'beta-beta' version of this going now, but its way too early to release it yet. If there is interest I will make it available next week, maybe. But really, perhaps more development is needed. My plans (for skills) code are: 1) I want to eventually give each class of character a unique set of starting skills to distinquish them. 2) Check out the Play balance -- scroll costs and the balance between the starting skills is very important. Since Magicans start with some spells, their starting skills should be less usefull than non-magicians. (BTW, I see nothing really wrong with not starting out a magician with skills -- spells should balance) 3) Investigate implementation of 'casting time' for skills. Not all skills are going to take time to utilize, but some of them should'nt be instantaneous. Interuption of the character while they are 'casting' their skill should ruin it. Once the above things are done, I would say that a beginning skills code will really exist. If the community really likes it, I hope it will become a regular feature of the game, but right now perhaps more development is needed. :) -b.t (thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu) From crossfire-request Wed Mar 15 20:36:45 1995 Return-Path: Received: from soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.43.52]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.10/ifi2.4) id for ; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 20:36:42 +0100 Received: from LOCALHOST (LOCALHOST [127.0.0.1]) by soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (8.6.10/PHILMAIL-1.11) with SMTP id LAA28476; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:36:33 -0800 Message-Id: <199503151936.LAA28476@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> To: "Kristofer M. Bosland" cc: CrossFire Mailing List Subject: Re: Power Gaming Bug In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 14 Mar 1995 18:58:55 PST." Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:36:27 -0800 From: Peter Mardahl Status: RO In message , "Kristofer M . Bosland" writes: > > Thru Monsterous Cheating, I have discovered that there is an upper >limit to how much "stuff" you can slap into a magic item. I have been >fooling around with the editing, and I created a >Super-Every-Thing-You-Could-Ever-Want-Or-Put-In-A-Ring. The problem I >have is that when I try to identify the ring, the game freezes up and >dies. Any ideas? I have included the ring for your enjoyment. > I know exactly what's wrong. The problem is that when you have so much STUFF on your ring, when you identify it, it overflows the buffer allocated to contain the enumeration of capabilities on the ring. Regards, PeterM