Re: Variations in creature stats (was Re: intro)

[Dan hursh <hursh@sparc.isl.net>]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2000 capmikee@martnet.com wrote:
> Each theme still requires an entry in themes.c, does it not? I'd like to 
> suggest that we make it possible to add themes without recompiling. Here are a 
> couple ways I can think of to do it:
> 
> * The theme info could be added to the NAMES file (or a similar text file), and 
> xarchon could search its data directory for subdirectories containing valid 
> files.

ICK.  System file editing.

> * instead of xarchon doing the search, the user could browse to a theme 
> directory and select it. (or pass a theme path as an argument)

  Better.  How about a system wide theme directory (in /usr/share/???) and
theme tree in a user dot dir (like ~/.xarchon/themes/???) where the user
can do overrides.  Any theme based search can look in the user's directory
and then the system theme directory.  This doesn't require a theme to be
added to a list.  You just unpack it.  
  It might be cool to allow a theme to specify an other one as a parent.
This way you can create a theme that is a delta of anopther.  You only add
the files you your theme that you wish to change and anything xarchon
can't find in the current directory will be searched for in the parent
(and then the parent's parent, etc.).  This is probably too much worry
about for now though.

> * the theme could be kept as an archive and temporarily unpacked at runtime. I 
> don't know how difficult or nonstandard that would be, but it would be more 
> convenient for the end user. 

  If you go this route, it might be better to use a library that can read
directly from an archive.  There are a lot of libs for reading zip files.
I've even seen one somewhere that will let you specify search list like I
meantion above.  This may also be something better left until later
though.  (But don't let me stop anyone who's in the mood to try. :)

> >   You know, if we go down this path too far, we will have to provide
> > per-side themes.  Folks could have tournaments using custom made 'teams'.
> > I'll make mine look like Hoskey players!  :)
> 
> If you really want to go that far, don't forget to add a third "side" for the 
> board and the elementals!

If we do go this route, we should probably add something that would be a
"Game Mode" that be like archon/adept/etc (maps, starting positions,
spells, 'points' per team, etc.), a team theme that would icons
and behaviors (i.e. 'point' allocation), and Game Theme that defines the
look of the board (or non-player) tiles.  But alas, this is all pie in the
sky.  We should concern ourselves with more practical issues for the time
being while trying not to make any decissions that might prevent us from
doing some more wild ideas later.  (Unless ofcourse someone really has the
inspiration to have a go at such things now.)


Dan