Menu based fighting sounds, to me, pretty interesting. The biggest problem, IMHO, is placement. For example, without using VT100 (or whatever), you can't make the menu and have the text scroll above it, while the menu remains in place. That's not terrible, you just need to replace the prompt, and add a variable on the descriptor (or char_data, since it's only for in-game use) for a substate. This will allow people in battle to still appear in the game when fighting, rather than creating a new CON_xxx state. CON_xxx states are annoying, because there are a lot of little intricacies to find in the code (which is not bad, but most people don't re-read their entire source code when making 1 change). There needs to be a timer involved, no more than TEN seconds, so that a player can't sit and make up to 10 other fighters wait on them. You also need some way of deciding what order players should get to go in. Use their stats for this, etc. Spellcasters with a quick, easy spell might go early, while if they cast a more difficult spell they take longer. Realize that these menus are going to be annoying when J. Random Spammer walks into the room and starts saying "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" (author's note: ugh) over and over again. Oh, and those menus are going to slow combat down quite a bit, although they balance out battle for people with slow connections, but that has become less of a factor these days. However, your exp tables may need to balance accordingly: one person would be able to kill substantially fewer creatures in a short amount of time. You'll probably want a structure of some sort for each 'combat' that holds data about all the fighters: who will go next, and whatnot, as the linked list used for the combat loop currently might not be as useful for this. -k., once more. -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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