cgeorge wrote:
Are you saying its impossible for map items to exist under each other?
Yes. Plain and simple. Only static items can be place Under/over a single map tile.
cgeorge wrote:
Static items are still frozen in and loaded from files on the players computer not the server right? So why would that be a problem?
Not as bad as sending from the client, but there is an issue of computer lag as well. The more items on the screen, the more the comptuer has to work. I even notice this on the OSI map with the 3d client on my half way decent computer (AMD 1.7GHz, 1GB Ram). The 2d client isn't really too bad though.
Ryandor wrote:
This, along with the fact that player names being seen across levels, and line of sight issues, is why you want to use the dungeon area.
cgeorge wrote:
Easily fixed by having players turn off there name pop up.
They would want this too because otherwise it would be confusing. Anyways the target shards would be more mature RPing shard not immature "313t" shards.
Quicksilver tells me it would be very easy to do a little customizing of the client so that names don't show without direct line of sight.
Then you run into the issue of restricting what client the player uses, and enforcing it. I've yet to see any shard where something isn't taken advantage of. Granted, catering to a specific type of player (RP in this case) helps a lot, but how do you keep everyone conpletely honest? As far as forcing name popup off, I, personally would hate that. I relied on it too much, and would never turn it off by choice. But then that's just me.
cgeorge wrote:
The reason is because it opens up doors for cool affects like being able to walk a narrow ledge with a dangerious fall below you.
Floors that collapse under you. Being able to see stuff below you. Like your walking across a bridge and below is a hord of monsters from the other floor(which with a bit of programming could be set to only chase those in line of sight)
Everything would match up too. And you would be able to have a bigger map/more places to put stuff. Other reasons as well. Basically by using Z more I would be turning a 2d world into a bit 3d like living in a pop up book instead of a piece of paper.
All this is possible using statics. But you just can't do it with more "map".
The "world" is "3d" as it is. It consists of 6144 x 4096 x 256 (x,y,z) spaces. In each x/y there can be one, and only one map tile at any z. In each x/y there can be as many static items as you want at any z (I don't think there is a technical limit). That's what you have to work with. I'm just worried about the practical aspects of this.
I don't question your wanting to do this. I question how much of the map you are going to cover doing this. That's the issue I see. All your points are valid (except for multiple map tiles), and you can work around them all to an extent, but just how much effort is this worth?
I'll finish with this:
You can have one "map" tile per corrdinate. Period. There's no way around that short of reprogramming the client AND creating a new file format for the map*.mul.
And finally, all versions of the client (unless you modify that part of it too) have the unwalkable black line between the "world" and the "dungeons", so you might as well use it to your advantage.
-Ryandor