From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Sat Aug 14 06:11:14 2010 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:11:14 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] X-rays and infravision Message-ID: <201008141311.18260.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Hello. When a player is in the dark, using x-ray, should there be an attack penalty against monsters? I just fixed the code to remove that penalty, considering it's a bug, but I'm not totally sure actually. I think there are really two things slightly messed, x-ray and infravision. From what I understand, x-ray lets see through walls - but shouldn't affect night vision. On the other hand, infravision should enable to see in the dark - but not through the walls. Does that seem ok? If so, it could be worth ensuring behaviours are correct - I wonder if x-ray doesn't enable to see in the dark anyway. Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20100814/d202ed41/attachment.pgp From archaios at archaios.net Sat Aug 14 17:31:48 2010 From: archaios at archaios.net (David McIlwraith) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:31:48 +1000 Subject: [crossfire] X-rays and infravision In-Reply-To: <201008141311.18260.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008141311.18260.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: Hi, Well. Given the behaviour of X-rays in the real world, one would imagine that X-ray vision would imply seeing through walls, and additionally seeing objects in absolute darkness. Infrared vision (which appears to be contracted to merely "infravision" in-game), incidentally, also permits one to "see through walls", given the correct wavelength and the sensitivity of the detector... there is self-evidently area for confusion here. Indeed, I question whether it is worthwhile even _having_ both behaviours here. Regards, - David McIlwraith On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Hello. > > When a player is in the dark, using x-ray, should there be an attack penalty > against monsters? > > I just fixed the code to remove that penalty, considering it's a bug, but I'm > not totally sure actually. > > > > I think there are really two things slightly messed, x-ray and infravision. > > From what I understand, x-ray lets see through walls - but shouldn't affect > night vision. > On the other hand, infravision should enable to see in the dark - but not > through the walls. > > Does that seem ok? > > If so, it could be worth ensuring behaviours are correct - I wonder if x-ray > doesn't enable to see in the dark anyway. > > > > Nicolas > -- > Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org > > _______________________________________________ > crossfire mailing list > crossfire at metalforge.org > http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire > > From mwedel at sonic.net Sat Aug 14 23:12:29 2010 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:12:29 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] X-rays and infravision In-Reply-To: <201008141311.18260.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008141311.18260.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4C67692D.8080306@sonic.net> On 08/14/10 04:11 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Hello. > > When a player is in the dark, using x-ray, should there be an attack penalty > against monsters? > > I just fixed the code to remove that penalty, considering it's a bug, but I'm > not totally sure actually. > > > > I think there are really two things slightly messed, x-ray and infravision. > > From what I understand, x-ray lets see through walls - but shouldn't affect > night vision. > On the other hand, infravision should enable to see in the dark - but not > through the walls. > > Does that seem ok? > > If so, it could be worth ensuring behaviours are correct - I wonder if x-ray > doesn't enable to see in the dark anyway. I suspect it is really an artifact of the way xray is implement - it just sets the 5x5 (iirc) area to be visible, and as such clears any darkness information, so effectively the character can see in the dark. This is probably reasonable behavior - if you are on a map that uses darkness, xray vision wouldn't let you see much if it didn't clear darkness - you can see through the wall, but since there probably isn't a light source, you don't see anything. crossfire doesn't have infravision, IIRC, but instead the 'you can see in the dark' without really explaining the mechanics behind it (which is fine IMO). IMO, that shouldn't let one see through walls with see in dark - it should basically just attune yourself to be able to see in the dark (I suppose think of night vision goggles - it just means you are more sensitive) - plus in crossfire many walls are quite thick, and any wavelength of light that would get through them would probably pass through everything else, which wouldn't make it all that useful as an image source. From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Sat Aug 28 02:24:47 2010 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:24:47 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes Message-ID: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Hello. I've been playing on Invidious, so here are some notes and opinions on the leveling up and gameplay experience :) I've been using the following characters: * Kismar, Fenx, priest, Gorokh ; level 13, praying 12, dam 11, wc 18, arm 39, ac -1 * Kaori, dragon, monk, Gaea ; level 56, praying 54, dam 26, wc 6, arm 38, ac -20 * Ghusta, wraith, paladin, Devourers ; level 65, praying 60, dam 34, wc 14, arm 56, ac -16 Ghusta received some help from Khaleh, to reach level around 10 in many skills. Skill-specific notes =========== One handed weapon (Ghusta) ----------------------------------------- Not too bad to level, but the life stealing from Devourers is a real life saver. Many monsters hit badly, doing like 30 or 40 damage (earth elementals, for instance), which is hard when you have 80hp. Ghusta uses a Devourers broadsword, and is level 26. He can kill wyverns and various dragon hatchlings, but not chinese dragons in the dark - the 5 wc penalty is bad. Given the level, it's starting to be nice to have death attacks. Two handed weapon --------------------------- Kismar is level 2 two handed weapons, and can at overall level 12 take and kill three air elementals (summoning traps are bad, or good to fight such monsters) provided he can flee to another level to heal many times. Ghusta is level 10 only, and uses a Flametongue of Devourers, giving life stealing which comes in handy. Clawing (Kaori) --------------------- Didn't yet level up much, but shouldn't be hard since I have 3 elemental attacks already (working on cold). Praying ---------- Easy for Kaori (undead pit in Wolfsburg) and Kismar (Valriel's church in Scorn), though they don't have yet banishment (seems hard to find). Ghusta had a bad time, denied turning and holy word. So he used cause minor (then medium then major then many from Devourers) and base diseases (leprosy) to gain enough gr to get special prayers. Then red death and cause many wounds, which will happily destroy many things, as well as finger and face of death. Command undead could have been an alternative, but didn't really use it. Summon cult monster and avatar (level 20) didn't offer much. The summoned monsters, at level 6, couldn't hit much. Didn't try at higher levels. Summoning (to get create earth wall and create food) ----------------- Only Ghusta leveled up, using the various golems and elementals. It's a real pain. The main issue is that golems are weak, and they don't resist much. So to really fight tough monsters and gain decent experience, your own character should be able to resist hits during casting the golem again and then having the golem hit. Other option is to use a safe leveling map like Raffle, which takes ages to reach high levels. Dancing sword, at level 12, is really nice on the other hand, and can kill many monsters rapidly. Though it suffers from the golem syndrom, in which you have to be overall tough to resist monsters while casting your golem. Sorcery (to get town portal) ------------- Again only Ghusta leveled up. He only used magic bullet, against wyverns in dragon nest (after some nightfall to have'em be quiet). Being denied steambolt (wraith can't use fire spells), the other only option was animate weapon (level 7). But it requires many weapons in inventory, and it doesn't seem that powerful. Maps used ======= I'm quite conservative, and didn't yet experiment many maps - fear of instant death isn't a strong motivational factor :) Kaori probably started in Scorn (this character was created months ago, not used much at first), then rapidly moved in Wolfsburg for the undead pit. Once equipped with a ring of Free Action courtesy Ghusta, then an amulet of Shielded mind (bought in a shop), the undead pit is a festing place for Gaea followers. Makes for decent items too. Kismar just started, and only went to Valriel's church. He got some equipment (ring of Free Action) from Ghusta, and mostly uses praying spells. Ghusta started in Scorn, and did Resir's house, bloodwell, and Raffle. He then moved to Navar, from where he did slave pit 1 and 2 and twin towers (Wolfsburg), elemental quest (fire part is supposed to be for 2 players but can be done alone) and Raffle 2 (Darcap), then Dragon Nest (road from Scorn to Navar, easy to reach using levitation to go fast). He did two times dark temple, to get glowing crystals. Future maps I'll visit are the Wizard tower in Lake County (to get some Luggage for map looting), maybe some Zorn maps in Brest, and then I'll experiment various maps. Overall, many maps could benefit from an overhaul, and being included in some quest, if only to inform the player of their existence. Knowing a map exists can be a challenge. Small bugs or fun things found =================== One disease-related bug: when a monster is infected, and you leave the map, it will swap to disk after a few minutes, preventing the disease from actually having any effect. Even reentering doesn't seem to make the disease "run" again. Another swap-related bug: cast an earth wall, exit the map, wait a few minutes for it to swap, come back into it - the wall disappeared. Not confirmed, but seems to happen. Navar claims to reject undead (at entrance), and still has a necromancer tower. Also Ghusta can enter all he wants. Killing guards at exit doesn't prevent you from exiting either. Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20100828/4b22742d/attachment.pgp From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Sat Aug 28 02:59:11 2010 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:59:11 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes In-Reply-To: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <201008280959.14544.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Complement about attacks and diseases :) Confusion is really bad for a character. You can't use the cure confusion spell (since you'll cast a random spell), so you need to have scrolls or wands/staves/rods. If you're immune, that's fine, of course :) If the confusion casting monster also uses other spells, you can get in a bad situation you have issues escaping since confused. Paralyzis is bad too, since being hit when you can't move isn't nice, of course. Acid is damaging to items. Diseases aren't too unbalanced. Minor ones like eggs or vomit don't matter much. Kaori caught leprosy many times (lich are bad for that), and that one is nasty. She didn't have any cure spell, so just had to endure - until finding a book ;) Poison is bad generally, but Ghusta is immuned, and Kaori being a dragon regenerates enough to fight it. Ghusta, wraith, had a -20 fire resist, but that wasn't too bad with the life stealing weapon. Cold issues weren't a problem either. Kaori just gained natural resistances to many things. Nicolas Le samedi 28 ao?t 2010 09:24:47, Nicolas Weeger a ?crit : > Hello. > > I've been playing on Invidious, so here are some notes and opinions on the > leveling up and gameplay experience :) > > > I've been using the following characters: > * Kismar, Fenx, priest, Gorokh ; level 13, praying 12, dam 11, wc 18, arm > 39, ac -1 > * Kaori, dragon, monk, Gaea ; level 56, praying 54, dam 26, wc 6, arm 38, > ac -20 > * Ghusta, wraith, paladin, Devourers ; level 65, praying 60, dam 34, wc 14, > arm 56, ac -16 > > > > Ghusta received some help from Khaleh, to reach level around 10 in many > skills. > > > Skill-specific notes > =========== > > One handed weapon (Ghusta) > ----------------------------------------- > > Not too bad to level, but the life stealing from Devourers is a real life > saver. Many monsters hit badly, doing like 30 or 40 damage (earth > elementals, for instance), which is hard when you have 80hp. > Ghusta uses a Devourers broadsword, and is level 26. > > He can kill wyverns and various dragon hatchlings, but not chinese dragons > in the dark - the 5 wc penalty is bad. > > > Given the level, it's starting to be nice to have death attacks. > > > > > Two handed weapon > --------------------------- > Kismar is level 2 two handed weapons, and can at overall level 12 take and > kill three air elementals (summoning traps are bad, or good to fight such > monsters) provided he can flee to another level to heal many times. > > Ghusta is level 10 only, and uses a Flametongue of Devourers, giving life > stealing which comes in handy. > > > > Clawing (Kaori) > --------------------- > Didn't yet level up much, but shouldn't be hard since I have 3 elemental > attacks already (working on cold). > > > Praying > ---------- > Easy for Kaori (undead pit in Wolfsburg) and Kismar (Valriel's church in > Scorn), though they don't have yet banishment (seems hard to find). > > Ghusta had a bad time, denied turning and holy word. So he used cause minor > (then medium then major then many from Devourers) and base diseases > (leprosy) to gain enough gr to get special prayers. > Then red death and cause many wounds, which will happily destroy many > things, as well as finger and face of death. > Command undead could have been an alternative, but didn't really use it. > > Summon cult monster and avatar (level 20) didn't offer much. The summoned > monsters, at level 6, couldn't hit much. Didn't try at higher levels. > > > > Summoning (to get create earth wall and create food) > ----------------- > Only Ghusta leveled up, using the various golems and elementals. It's a > real pain. > The main issue is that golems are weak, and they don't resist much. So to > really fight tough monsters and gain decent experience, your own character > should be able to resist hits during casting the golem again and then > having the golem hit. > Other option is to use a safe leveling map like Raffle, which takes ages to > reach high levels. > > Dancing sword, at level 12, is really nice on the other hand, and can kill > many monsters rapidly. Though it suffers from the golem syndrom, in which > you have to be overall tough to resist monsters while casting your golem. > > > > Sorcery (to get town portal) > ------------- > Again only Ghusta leveled up. > He only used magic bullet, against wyverns in dragon nest (after some > nightfall to have'em be quiet). > Being denied steambolt (wraith can't use fire spells), the other only > option was animate weapon (level 7). But it requires many weapons in > inventory, and it doesn't seem that powerful. > > > > > > > Maps used > ======= > I'm quite conservative, and didn't yet experiment many maps - fear of > instant death isn't a strong motivational factor :) > > > Kaori probably started in Scorn (this character was created months ago, not > used much at first), then rapidly moved in Wolfsburg for the undead pit. > Once equipped with a ring of Free Action courtesy Ghusta, then an amulet of > Shielded mind (bought in a shop), the undead pit is a festing place for > Gaea followers. > Makes for decent items too. > > > Kismar just started, and only went to Valriel's church. He got some > equipment (ring of Free Action) from Ghusta, and mostly uses praying > spells. > > > Ghusta started in Scorn, and did Resir's house, bloodwell, and Raffle. > He then moved to Navar, from where he did slave pit 1 and 2 and twin towers > (Wolfsburg), elemental quest (fire part is supposed to be for 2 players but > can be done alone) and Raffle 2 (Darcap), then Dragon Nest (road from > Scorn to Navar, easy to reach using levitation to go fast). > He did two times dark temple, to get glowing crystals. > > > > Future maps I'll visit are the Wizard tower in Lake County (to get some > Luggage for map looting), maybe some Zorn maps in Brest, and then I'll > experiment various maps. > > > > Overall, many maps could benefit from an overhaul, and being included in > some quest, if only to inform the player of their existence. Knowing a map > exists can be a challenge. > > > > > > > Small bugs or fun things found > =================== > > > One disease-related bug: when a monster is infected, and you leave the map, > it will swap to disk after a few minutes, preventing the disease from > actually having any effect. Even reentering doesn't seem to make the > disease "run" again. > > Another swap-related bug: cast an earth wall, exit the map, wait a few > minutes for it to swap, come back into it - the wall disappeared. Not > confirmed, but seems to happen. > > > Navar claims to reject undead (at entrance), and still has a necromancer > tower. Also Ghusta can enter all he wants. > Killing guards at exit doesn't prevent you from exiting either. > > > > Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20100828/13f38f2d/attachment.pgp From mwedel at sonic.net Sun Aug 29 00:23:44 2010 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:23:44 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes In-Reply-To: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4C79EEE0.7030308@sonic.net> On 08/28/10 12:24 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Summoning (to get create earth wall and create food) > ----------------- > Sorcery (to get town portal) > ------------- The current spell stuff isn't great - the split of of one 'spellcasting' skill into 4 made a couple of the skills unequal - summoning and sorcery. I had mulled the idea to redo those skills again - perhaps into fire/air (electricity)/water (ice)/earth - not sure if that would be better. In practical terms, probably is, since there would pretty much be damage spells for the 4 elements. The idea behind the initial switch was the number of spells kept growing and growing, making mages better and better to play (since there was no limit to number of spells one could have). I've had other idea for level/skill advancement, but that is outside this discussion. > Small bugs or fun things found > =================== > > > One disease-related bug: when a monster is infected, and you leave the map, it > will swap to disk after a few minutes, preventing the disease from actually > having any effect. Even reentering doesn't seem to make the disease "run" > again. > > Another swap-related bug: cast an earth wall, exit the map, wait a few minutes > for it to swap, come back into it - the wall disappeared. Not confirmed, but > seems to happen. Both of those are likely related - any spells/objects which are 'owned' by the player (in terms of using get_owner()) are cleared on map save. The reason behind this is that the ownership is a pointer to another object, so at first glance, not a good way to save it. One could look up the player name of the object, and save that out, and look up that player when the map is reloaded. If that player is no longer on-line, something would need to be done for these objects. Note that one can also do weird exploits with this design - a character of moderate level creates a bunch of disease spells on map, wait for it to swap out, then delete that character and create a new character with same name, and have that map swap back in and get a bunch of exp - so one needs to do more than just check for name. I also vaguely recall that the objects owned by players were removed (instead of becoming owned by no one) because players were doing things like setting up bullet walls or other things to kill new players, then log out, resulting in PK'ing without any good way to track down who created the object in the first place. > > > Navar claims to reject undead (at entrance), and still has a necromancer > tower. Also Ghusta can enter all he wants. > Killing guards at exit doesn't prevent you from exiting either. The gate at Navar is really on the honor system - if you say you won't do necromancy, good enough for them IIRC. I'm not actually sure how good it would be to restrict certain races from various towns - I'm not sure if there are enough about, such that blocking out an entire town would remove a lot of play opportunities for the character. My take on Navar having a necromancy tower and that check at entrance is that they are related - a necromancer (in that tower) did all sorts of terrible things, so they don't want any more about. I can't remember for sure, but I thought the townhall had a basic 'quest' (in the old term of quest in that an NPC tells you it exists) to go remove that necromancer/track down that problem. From mwedel at sonic.net Sun Aug 29 00:30:20 2010 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:30:20 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes In-Reply-To: <201008280959.14544.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> <201008280959.14544.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4C79F06C.2040002@sonic.net> On 08/28/10 12:59 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Complement about attacks and diseases :) > > > Confusion is really bad for a character. You can't use the cure confusion > spell (since you'll cast a random spell), so you need to have scrolls or > wands/staves/rods. If you're immune, that's fine, of course :) > If the confusion casting monster also uses other spells, you can get in a bad > situation you have issues escaping since confused. > > > Paralyzis is bad too, since being hit when you can't move isn't nice, of > course. Agree on both of those - I think paralyze would be acceptable if the duration was much shorter (say for 1-5 ticks) - confusion could perhaps last a little longer, but same thing, if it was a short duration, that might be OK. I suppose the fact you need scrolls adds some use for inscription :) But I think that is also the reason that immune to confusion/paralyze items are so popular, because they are so annoying (and potentially deadly). I also think that there are 'issues' in the way spells also move - it isn't like your character has to make one saving through and is set - because the way cones move, you probably get hit by the spell many times, so are almost sure to be affected. > > > Acid is damaging to items. Yes - the amount of damage it does, and/or the fact that there is no way to repair them. I think experienced players know the monsters to look out for and use other methods to kill them - but this is probably a real annoyance for new players. > > Poison is bad generally, but Ghusta is immuned, and Kaori being a dragon > regenerates enough to fight it. I've found in many cases, if you have some amount of healing (or potentially enough food), you can outlast it that way also. It really depends on how many hp you have when you get hit by it, and how quickly you can get to someplace where you want take any damage other than that of the poison. From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Sun Aug 29 02:58:45 2010 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:58:45 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes In-Reply-To: <4C79EEE0.7030308@sonic.net> References: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> <4C79EEE0.7030308@sonic.net> Message-ID: <201008290958.45469.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> > The current spell stuff isn't great - the split of of one 'spellcasting' > skill into 4 made a couple of the skills unequal - summoning and sorcery. > > I had mulled the idea to redo those skills again - perhaps into fire/air > (electricity)/water (ice)/earth - not sure if that would be better. In > practical terms, probably is, since there would pretty much be damage > spells for the 4 elements. Or there needs to be more damaging spells in those skills :) > Both of those are likely related - any spells/objects which are 'owned' > by the player (in terms of using get_owner()) are cleared on map save. That's not necessarily bad, but maybe some workaround could be thought of. Note that even if the disease was somehow restored, it would have to run its course for all missed ticks at once... > I'm not actually sure how good it would be to restrict certain races from > various towns - I'm not sure if there are enough about, such that blocking > out an entire town would remove a lot of play opportunities for the > character. I would turn that into a quest. If you're an undead, and wish to enter Navar, then you need to prove you're worthy entering, by doing some chore - go kill bad monsters somewhere? > My take on Navar having a necromancy tower and that check at entrance is > that they are related - a necromancer (in that tower) did all sorts of > terrible things, so they don't want any more about. > > I can't remember for sure, but I thought the townhall had a basic 'quest' > (in the old term of quest in that an NPC tells you it exists) to go remove > that necromancer/track down that problem. Time to convert to the new quest system, then :p Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20100829/f9f5ed06/attachment.pgp From mwedel at sonic.net Sun Aug 29 19:27:16 2010 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:27:16 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Gameplay notes In-Reply-To: <201008290958.45469.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008280924.51111.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> <4C79EEE0.7030308@sonic.net> <201008290958.45469.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4C7AFAE4.2010008@sonic.net> On 08/29/10 12:58 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: >> The current spell stuff isn't great - the split of of one 'spellcasting' >> skill into 4 made a couple of the skills unequal - summoning and sorcery. >> >> I had mulled the idea to redo those skills again - perhaps into fire/air >> (electricity)/water (ice)/earth - not sure if that would be better. In >> practical terms, probably is, since there would pretty much be damage >> spells for the 4 elements. > > > Or there needs to be more damaging spells in those skills :) Maybe, but that can be hard if one still tries to keep within those boundaries of the skill - sorcery is a bit easier since many misc things can go there, but summoning is trickier - one can add more summoning spells, but it may just be that summoning itself is going to be less powerful than shooting up a fireball. > > > >> Both of those are likely related - any spells/objects which are 'owned' >> by the player (in terms of using get_owner()) are cleared on map save. > > That's not necessarily bad, but maybe some workaround could be thought of. > Note that even if the disease was somehow restored, it would have to run its > course for all missed ticks at once... I'm not sure it would be correct to run all ticks at once - just as right now, the rest of the map does not run all ticks at once (monsters regaining sp/hp, generators generating, etc). It's never really explained from an in game perspective on why nothing happens when the map is swapped out, but many games do that (I'm single player games here, when the player leaves an area, in general, it will be the same when the player returns, even if that is a quite a while). Trying to run all ticks at load time would likely create performance problems, as now you have to do all that processing at once. A better (and simpler solution) would just be to increase the map swap out time to something like 10 minutes - most likely, if a player doesn't return within 10 minutes, unlikely to do so (or if they do, that is probably still long enough any spells/diseases they created have run their course). That would also have some performance impact - more memory and cpu time to process that map while in memory, but that is probably not a problem for most modern systems - the amount of memory systems have has gone up dramatically - the cpu one might be more an issue. > > > > >> I'm not actually sure how good it would be to restrict certain races from >> various towns - I'm not sure if there are enough about, such that blocking >> out an entire town would remove a lot of play opportunities for the >> character. > > I would turn that into a quest. > If you're an undead, and wish to enter Navar, then you need to prove you're > worthy entering, by doing some chore - go kill bad monsters somewhere? That works - there could also be hidden entrances (sewers, smugglers, etc) which would entail some amount of work to get in. From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Mon Aug 30 15:12:51 2010 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:12:51 +0200 Subject: [crossfire] Item merging bug Message-ID: <201008302212.54341.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Hello. On trunk there is a merging bug with items in eg a unique map. How to reproduce: - enter a unique map - drop some item - reset the map - drop more of the same item Dropped item won't merge with the one on the floor. But if you pick both items, they correctly merge. Tracing the issue, it's because of FLAG_OBJ_ORIGINAL which is set on the item on the map. That flag is cleared when the player picks up the item, so items can merge. On the other hand, when dropping, that flag is not ignored, so items won't merge. From what I can gather, this flag is used with overlays, to distinguish between items on a map initially (and thus which will be restored later) and others added to the map. I admit to not being sure of the fix here. One solution is to ignore that flag when merging, ensuring it is cleared after merge. This would mean that, if there are 5 platinum coins on a map, and I drop 3 more, the map resets, those 8 coins would stay, and I'd get 5 more because of the initial map... That doesn't seem too strange, especially considering that merely picking those 5 coins then dropping them means they will indeed be restored. I'm not totally sure of the possible other side effects, though. But the flag is not used too much, so it shouldn't be too bard. Other solution is to remove overlays totally. Not sure if they are used or not. Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/attachments/20100830/3da2be07/attachment.pgp From mwedel at sonic.net Mon Aug 30 22:55:13 2010 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:55:13 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Item merging bug In-Reply-To: <201008302212.54341.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201008302212.54341.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4C7C7D21.4010705@sonic.net> On 08/30/10 01:12 PM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Hello. > > > On trunk there is a merging bug with items in eg a unique map. > > > How to reproduce: > - enter a unique map > - drop some item > - reset the map > - drop more of the same item > > Dropped item won't merge with the one on the floor. But if you pick both items, > they correctly merge. > > > Tracing the issue, it's because of FLAG_OBJ_ORIGINAL which is set on the item > on the map. > That flag is cleared when the player picks up the item, so items can merge. > On the other hand, when dropping, that flag is not ignored, so items won't > merge. As I briefly look at the code, I'm not sure if that flag is really being used properly, but I'm not really sure what it is used for now. At one time there was the addition of overlay maps to the server, but I don't think that was ever really used. It seems the only time that makes a different is if SAVE_FLAG_NO_REMOVE is set, and that is set when making backup saves of the player file. And in that case, FLAG_OBJ_ORIGINAL should already be cleared, because as you note it is cleared when something is picked up. > > > From what I can gather, this flag is used with overlays, to distinguish between > items on a map initially (and thus which will be restored later) and others > added to the map. Yep, but I don't think overlays are in use anymore (I could be wrong). But even if that was the intention, it seems broken that it gets set on unique maps - if I drop an item in my apartment, I wouldn't think that flag should get set on next load, since that object is hardly original (and I don't think original to this load was the intention) > > > I admit to not being sure of the fix here. > > One solution is to ignore that flag when merging, ensuring it is cleared after > merge. This would mean that, if there are 5 platinum coins on a map, and I > drop 3 more, the map resets, those 8 coins would stay, and I'd get 5 more > because of the initial map... That doesn't seem too strange, especially > considering that merely picking those 5 coins then dropping them means they > will indeed be restored. > > I'm not totally sure of the possible other side effects, though. But the flag is > not used too much, so it shouldn't be too bard. > > > > Other solution is to remove overlays totally. Not sure if they are used or > not. That would be the approach I'd lean to, but may be harder. But no reason to have unused code sitting about that creates complications.