Size scale vs. time scale and new graphics (was Re: CF: the begining of crossfire)

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

dragonm wrote:
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Wedel
> To: crossfire mailing list
> Sent: 9/8/99 11:46 PM
> Subject: Re: CF: the begining of crossfire
> 
> <snip>
> 
>  I agree.  I think in the end, at least 2 scales will be used - indoor
> and outdoor.  Note one other suggestion which will likely be done is to
> increase the viewable size from 11x11 to 17x17 or something similar.
> ----------------
> <pounce>  While we're on the subject of increasing the number of tiles
> visible, how about increasing the size and color depth of the tiles as well?
> What we have now is still intensely affected by the font scheme that used to
> exist to display graphics.  That worked well 8 years ago, but isn't it time
> to update?  I think I mentioned the fact I know an artist who has expressed
> an interest in doing a rework of the graphics.  I anticipated a howl of
> resistance to that proposal, and disclaimed it even as I suggested it, but
> all I saw was stony silence.  Is that approval or disapproval?  :)

    Sounds good to me.  Two scales sounds reasonable.  Anybody here remember
Interplay's "Wasteland"?  That game had three size scales with three time
scales.  It was a single-player game, so it could change the time scale any
way it pleased.  Moving the same distance on one map as on a 10x larger map
took the same amount of game time, but 10x as much real time.  I don't think
that would be reasonable for crossfire.  It would mean reducing movement
speed on the world map by the ratio of the indoor and outdoor scales.  I
forget what was suggested for that ratio, but if we assume something on the
order of 20:1, a player with a speed of 1.00 (extremely fast) would be
reduced to 0.05 (agonizingly slow) and anyone with an average or slow speed
wouldn't move more than once per minute on a time-scaled world map.
    Of course, this is a game we're talking about, so the laws of physics
are subject to the designers' whim.  A world map with a spatial scale of
20:1 might have a time scale of only 2:1  Once transportation is
implemented, things like horses could be created with time-scale modifiers,
so that on foot a 20:1 map might have a 10:1 time scale, but a player with
an ox cart might get to move at 5:1 and a player on horseback 1:1, based on
the transport's speed and encomberance of course, not the player's.

    As for increasing the size and color depth of the tiles, I'm all for
it.  If you're thinking of increasing them to double their current size or
more, you might want to also keep the current image size for use as
inventory icons.  And you don't want to increase their size too much, or
performance on maps with unusual graphics will suffer.  If size is increased
at all, it might be a good idea to implement a server switch that requires
clients to cache a minimum number of images, if not all.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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