Crossfire Archive
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Re: CF: client image loadiing

On Mar 10,  1:57pm, Robert Brockway wrote:
> Subject: CF: client image loadiing

> 1)  No images (in any graphic format) are ever transmitted over the net,
>     only the raw text map data gets transfered.

 What happens when new images are added to the server?  Since any server can
add new images, some mechanism for download is needed.  Would you rather
download the 5 new images (5 K maybe) over the net during play/start up, or
download the entire image archive (2500K) for each server that has different
image sets?  Having each server maintain just diffs for each possible starting
point creates a lot of work on that server admin.

>
> 2)  This allows for a wide variety of clients, as it is all done client
>     side.  I could write a text based client if such a scheme was enacted,
>     making it look alot like a morie/nethack game.

 You could try that right now.  You are not required to download the images -
with the cache mechanism, it will send you that image 300 is forest - up to you
to find a forest image or figure out how to represent it.

>
> 3)  Related to 2, the users may personalise their map as much as as little
>     as desired.  Editing graphic icons to suit their tastes.

 No problem - can already be done with teh caching method.

>
> It does have a disadvantage in that all the images would need to be on the
> client.  That problem could be alleviated by allowing the server to reuse
> an image code (which would map to an image on the client) for a new
> item/monster introduced to the game by a server.  Eg, the server simple
> tells the client that a borg is on the map, and that it should use image
> number 37 (normaly for Ogres) as an example.

 But suppose client 2 has a borg image that I want to use?  We don't want the
server to be keeping track of all sorts of alternate images depending on what
the client may have.

 In the above case, the borg.arc would need to have something like image
borg.111, secondary_image ogre.111 - this can create a lot of hassles as new
images are added.



>
> I have considered some of the issues relating to client-server of the
> years and this does seem the best alternative to me.

 You have to remember the images in crossfire are very dynamic - they change
each release to some extent or another.  At some point, I see client releases
slowing down or maybe even stopping (after all, the client is really only a
display mechanism for data provided by the server - new spell effects,
monsters, maps, etc all are server side - only time client would need to be
updated is changes in how the server sends data to the client or the server
sending new types of information to the client.)

 But as such, you could have a case with the last client version is 0.94.1, but
the server is up to 0.95.0, with lots of new images.  The requirement that the
player update the client each time new images comes out is a bit of a pain.


-- 

-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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