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Re: More Thoughts.




G'day all!  Just my $0.02 worth:

> Regarding combat-messages: Count one vote in favour of a graphical
> display. I know we have some good artists out there - nice bitmaps
> keep trickling into the game. This would however be a large
> undertaking.

Perhaps you could have another box like the food/hp/sp boxes, except
that it is usually blank, and when you hit something, it fills momentarily
up to a point to indicate how much damage you did.  e.g.

    +---+          +---+          +---+        +---+
    |   |          |   |          |   |        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |   |        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |   |        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |   |        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |###|        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |###|        |###|
    |   |          |   |          |###|        |###|
    |   |          |###|          |###|        |###|
    +---+          +---+          +---+        +---+

    miss        minor damage     average      maximum/lots

The maximum could be determined in several ways:

  a) the hit points the monster still has left
  b) the maximum damage you are capable of doing at the moment
  c) some pre-chosen number

a) would give you an idea of how damaged your opponent is.  When you
   start doing more damage, you can tell your opponent is hurting.

b) would give little information except possibly about the random
   number generator.

c) would be a little like lpmud combat -- each level corresponds to how
   much damage you've done, without telling you how damaged your opponent
   is.  Grazed <==> minor, hit <==> average, bone crunch <==> maximum

> Regarding magic mapping: Please do not put in any features which make
> it easier to play on a colour terminal only. Would it be possible to
> use dithering instead of colour on monochrome displays? (We do have
> colour terminals, but I'd rather not see them tied up by Crossfire
> players.  Gives us a bad name, see?)

BSXclient used 16 pixmaps of various patterns to simulate colour on
monochrome displays.  You could use these as the foreground pixmap instead
of the foreground pixel to draw the font in and get the desired effect.
For people using the pixmaps option, you could just use these pixmaps
directly.

Thoughts/Flames/Discussion/Spinach?

Cheers,
Geoff.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff Bailey (Fred the Wonder Worm)   |   Programmer by trade --
ftww@cs.su.oz.au                      |       Gameplayer by vocation.
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