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Re: Whats the plan? (Was: Re: CF: Suggestions and bugs)

On Apr 24, 11:32pm, Galaxy Burrito wrote:
> Subject: Whats the plan? (Was: Re: CF: Suggestions and bugs)
> 
> 
> 	Hmm. Whatever happened to the development/stable scheme that was
> 	going to happen?

 Lack of time really on my part.  It also gets problematic in that there
are so many changes going on that the starting stable version pretty
quickly deviates from a stable release.

 IF someone else wants to be in charge of making 'stable' releases, please
do so.

> 
> 	Every once in a while, we discuss some plans for developing the
> 	server/client/etc, but mostly there doesnt seem to be any outline for
> 	getting from here to the magical version 1.0 (at least in terms of
> 	server development/features).

 Here is a brief outline from the TODO file:

0.94.0: complete client/server implementation (done)
0.94.x: Various refinements/fixes for the cs stuff above.
0.95.0: Remove all X11 dependant code - only client/server play supported
        at that time.

0.99.0: Start refining crossfire to be stable and balanced for 1.0 release.
        This means the only changes here would likely to be bufixes, and not
        new features.
1.0: First true public release - fully stable, and very well balanced.


 Note that there is a big gap between 95 and 99 and what features get
added in there.

> 	I think its a waste to playbalance the game before we finish adding
> 	new features. Are we at that point yet then? I personally would like
> 	to see a great deal of things added to the game. One of the most 
> 	important (and complex) is the interaction of the monsters with
> 	spells/items/skills, eg "the AI". Potientially a new, good AI can
> 	really improve the game AND add more playbalance. However in the 
> 	short term, development on this is sure to screw things up balance-wise.

 But some things can still be balanced even before then.

 I do agree that it doesn't make sense to go for a serious effort on
balancing until all the features are in.  However, in real life, no more
than a few new features are likely to get added in each release - getting
all the features in right away is unlikely to happen.  And even if
we do come up a list of all the neat features that should be added, 
new ones will come up at a later point.

 That being said, people who currently play are probably still going
to play with the developement versions (ie, some version adds incremental
protection code, and people say 'wow that's cool - I want it now'.  They
play around, and tweak the balnace some).

> 
> 	Whats the feeling about what is important to add to CF for version 1,
> 	and what developments can wait for version 2?

 I think one of the most major ones that will actually affect playbalance
is improved monster AI & npc code (there are a lot of other things that
I would like to see added, but they are not likely to shift the balance
much, since they are purely internal).

 But to do that, better understanding of spells are needed.  And if we
are going to redo the spells to have a better understanding, then we
might as well go with the spells as object idea as listed in the TODO file,
instead of just hardcoding in more values in internal arrays.

 So some things start to cascade.  However, a new npc interperter could
still be done before then (or new monster code) - it just may not be able
to have full potential until spells are redone. 



-- 

-- Mark Wedel
mark@pyramid.com
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