Re: [Adonthell-devel] Ideas from yesterday's meeting

[Lakin Wecker]

> This means the server has to keep a trace of what information it sent to
> who. When I arrive to the door the server must think "Uh, this guy
> doesn't know the door is opened" and notify my client. This is quite
> some extra work for the server, and it must keep trace of all data for
> all clients. Unless you know of an efficient way to implement this?

Not really.  When you first get to the point where the door is open, the 
server sends you a notification that the door is there, however with this 
notification it sends the fact that the door is open.  

Say I was the one who opened the door, if I leave,  when I come back i can't 
be sure that the door is still open.  Someone may have closed it etc.  At 
that point I will also need to know the state of the door, so the server 
_always_ sends the state of the door along with the original notification 
that there is a door there.



> Another issue, however, is that if the client doesn't know about the
> entire map (I mean, the map itself, not the characters), re-creating the
> small map parts you get from the server when you move will be quite
> time-consuming. The rendering is quite fast because map datas are
> sorted, organized a way it allows the renderer to make assumptions about
> the order to draw things. But placing a new object on the map needs
> quite a lot of work for the software, so I fear doing so is not really
> elegant. Characters doesn't suffer from this, however. Would it be bad
> if the client only knows about the entire map terrain? Could a player go
> far in cheating because of that?

Again, I'm not sure how the map engine currently works.  So this seems almost 
feasible to me.  Does terrain include  Houses, and possibly Items lying on 
the ground?   If not then it's ok with me.
But if at any moment there is a house in the haunted maze like woods that the 
player needs to find, and they have the whole map at their disposal, then you 
will have to trust that this player won't write his own quick version of the 
map renderer so he can find the house easily.   It'll be the same with the 
single player local version.  

I think kai came up with a workable solution that is fine by me.

I'm going to try and familiarize myself with some of the code later on this 
week.  I'll let you know what I think. 

Lakin