[TOPIC SPLIT] Map Development "issues"

[elmex]

Hi!
Here are just some thoughts i and schmorp had about the XP problem
and XP loss problem, and how to solve it in the short and the long run.

First of all, a game should be FUN and it should be INTERESTING. But most of all,
it should be FUN!

A player invests lots of time into crossfire to gain a certain level. Some people know
the game and level up fast, some others who are maybe new to crossfire take around
a weekend to gain a level.
Once they gained a level, they want to try out a new cool dungeon, go in, and propably
die at an instant or a little bit later. Then this nice message comes in red to your eye:

You are now level 57 in the praying skill.
You are now level 56 in the praying skill.
You are now level 55 in the praying skill.
You are now level 54 in the praying skill.
You are now level 53 in the praying skill.
You are now level 20 in the evocation skill.
You are now level 19 in the evocation skill.
You are now level 18 in the evocation skill.
You are now level 17 in the evocation skill.
You are now level 68 in the two handed weapons skill.
You are now level 67 in the two handed weapons skill.
You are now level 66 in the two handed weapons skill.
You are now level 78 in the summoning skill.
You are now level 77 in the summoning skill.
You are now level 76 in the summoning skill.
You are now level 75 in the summoning skill.
You are now level 94.
You are now level 93.
You are now level 92.

Congratulations, you just lost one week gaming and progress!!!

This is, except for masochistic people, who love mental pain, obviously NOT FUN.

So, there is a problem with this game, it punishes you for playing and trying out things.
(btw. ever tried to experiement with alchemy? i love the deathheads...)

So... where to start with the problems behind that....

The problem with loosing much XP at levels above 20 is that there are not as many
monsters after level 30-40 you can get much exp.
Have you noticed the sharp bend in the experience graph (see below)?
I've seen other games where the graph was completly exponentially. This
is not possible with crossfire, as there are not enough monsters beyond a certain level,
that give enough experience points.

Except some few special monsters there are not many hard monsters beyond dragons,
dreads and cyclops.

If there were more harder monsters beyond that, they could give more XP
and you could regain the XP. But this would also require adjusting the XP/Level graph
(see below), so that you don't jump up lots of levels if you kill such a monster.

I don't know what the problem is with making harder monsters which give more XP.
Propably it's hard to make harder monsters as dreads and dragons already cast
spells a lot and if the player is resistant agains them, he will propably also
be resistant agains the spells of the 'hard' monsters.

cf.schmorp.de decided to lessen the XP loss on death, and even made it possible
to loose no XP at death for the price of a successful minesweeper game.
In complement to that cf.schmorp.de adjusted the XP table and made it harder to gain
levels than on other servers. This way you don't end up at level 80-100 after you
are able to kill i.e. dragons with a blink of your eye.

This XP graph adjustment propably made it harder to kill the really special hard monsters
like Lorkas or Hanuk or the slug in pupland. But getting level 110 within 1-2 weeks
intensive playing with nothing left to kill except some special monsters isn't fun.
The aim was to make CF more fun for a longer time.

But the only real fix for the XP problem and the monster problem are
NEW and MORE MAPS and QUESTS! Levelling up consists only of going to the raffles
and training centres and repeating the same dull thing over and over again...
IMHO Quests should give more XP. Maybe the treasure of a quest could be XP itself...
It don't have to be real tricky quests like pupland or the prince quest. Just more
dungeons with interesting plots, lots of monsters and/or some riddle to solve.

So, why does noone make maps?

One reason for me was, that the existing map editors help you in now way.
It was long winded and cumbersome to make new maps. The GUI of CFJavaEditor
is not made for fast map making. There is no tool that helps you with connecting exits and connections in general. Making interactive maps is nearly impossbile, as the script
support is weird and the only thing to make some level-logic is to play around
with spikes and buttons until you got some turing-machine assembler like logic
for moving gates...

I dont know if anyone else had same problems with that, for me the bad map editors
were the barrier to make new maps. Writing a new map editor (i mean GCE: http://cf.schmorp.de/editor.shtml) which is a little bit more intelligent helped me.
(unfortunately i have no time now to make maps, as i'm so involved with coding for the
editor and crossfire in general)

It all comes down to this point: Crossfire lacks content: Monsters and
more interesting and interactive quests and maps.

The solution: People should make more maps.

[/url]

[Aaron]

good point. now make the map editor easier to use (ie gtk2, one window) and more people will start mapping.

[Leaf]

But the only real fix for the XP problem and the monster problem are NEW and MORE MAPS and QUESTS! Levelling up consists only of going to the raffles and training centres and repeating the same dull thing over and over again... IMHO Quests should give more XP.

Discussion has been brought in the past, but answers that were satisfactory were not found..

How would this quest XP be applied to the player who completed the quest?

What if multiple players solve the quest, how do they get XP?

What is or how can you prevent players from "ninja looting"?
Ex: 5 players solve the quest; one player quickly walks over the runes or grabs all the XP potions and drinks them leaving zero XP for everyone else.

What skill category does this XP apply to?
If it is a specific skill, what about players who do not or can not have access to this skill? (ex: 1H weapon experience for a Dragon PC)

How much of a concern is it for a player or players to make it all the way through the quest and then open a town portal to bring in a low level character who then collects all the reward XP and is essentially power leveled?

Maybe the treasure of a quest could be XP itself...

See above comments in regards to Quest rewards being XP.

It don't have to be real tricky quests like pupland or the prince quest. Just more dungeons with interesting plots, lots of monsters and/or some riddle to solve.

IMNSHO, riddles do not work well in CF maps. Use grep on the map file for the answer, view the map in an editor, etc.

A followup question - what is the definition (or a general opinion) of an interesting plot?

So, why does noone make maps?

What I have seen and can recall (in no particular order)..

A.) Criticism of the "final product" - feed back can be or is viewed as too "harsh"; over sensitivity of criticism and feedback.

B.) Maps lost due to hardware failure or user error; people then give up and quit.

C.) Maps that do not meet design standards (ex: greyshield maps)

D.) Seems everyone wants to create a massive city with 100+ dungeons, 100+ interactive NPCs, etc. before releasing to the public and seeking feedback. Usually results in any of the points above applying. =-(

E.1) People try to develop a map and find the editor(s) too confusing or too complicated

E.2) People not sure how to install/run a local server for map testing

E.3) People not sure how to integrate newly created archetypes with the existing server for testing their new maps

E.4) People not sure what to do with the maps once they are finished or ready for public review/feedback/testing

F.) The learning curve of CVS (or any revision control system) is intimidating

G.) The learning curve of creating a patch is intimidating

[cavesomething]

it strikes me that the proper way to deal with points E2-4 would be to have a special 'map-testing' server, one that would be able to allow someone to e-mail maps to a certain address and then have them run on the server (which would be publically accessible, and probably have its own revision control system for keeping track of what was submitted).

Of course setting all that up is very complicated, and quite a bit of effort to keep running smoothly, however a proper clearing area for maps could be very useful (especially if there were some scripts running on the server to record say's in each map and store them as comments against the map - then anyone could help with map development just by playing the maps and using their client).

[elmex]

@aaron: Are you talking about GCE?
I'm sorry, but we won't reimplement the broken MDI style (read and understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_d ... _interface) of
CFJavaEditor. Everyone who feels fine with GIMP will also feel fine with GCE.
And GCE is gtk2. And it is also easy to use (at least for me in comparsion to the other editors).
There exists a manual on how to use it, if you find it incomplete or hard to understand just
write a mail and tell us about your suggestions how to improve that documentation or what
was unclear to you. (or even improve the documentation yourself and send it in)

The editor is even easy to install, one binary, one click.

But i guess if you don't like the GIMP-style of window-management (leave the management
to the window manager (which is known to be bad in windows and good on other
systems)), you propably wont like GCE also. But thats nothing we will change,
and even microsoft agreed that MDI is the wrong approach: see the wikipedia MDI
article above.

[elmex]

But the only real fix for the XP problem and the monster problem are NEW and MORE MAPS and QUESTS! Levelling up consists only of going to the raffles and training centres and repeating the same dull thing over and over again... IMHO Quests should give more XP.

Discussion has been brought in the past, but answers that were satisfactory were not found..

How would this quest XP be applied to the player who completed the quest?

I have no idea. Propably by a well written script or extension?
(It should not be too hard to write a script which gives players on the map
equally much XP once).

What if multiple players solve the quest, how do they get XP?

By the same mechanism i described above.

What is or how can you prevent players from "ninja looting"?
Ex: 5 players solve the quest; one player quickly walks over the runes or grabs all the XP potions and drinks them leaving zero XP for everyone else.

I don't have to prevent that, as:
1. it is already possible in crossfire and it's not possbile to prevent
stealing.
2. the script that gives the XP would propably only work once and give one player
only once per resetted map the XP. Yes, the player could run and get all his XP and
the other players wont get anything.

There is no solution to players with bad manners, and no map can prevent you from
being betrayed by your party memeber.

What skill category does this XP apply to?
If it is a specific skill, what about players who do not or can not have access to this skill? (ex: 1H weapon experience for a Dragon PC)

I don't know, propably a random skill the player has? Or let the player select that skill
himself? Do you have a constructive idea?

How much of a concern is it for a player or players to make it all the way through the quest and then open a town portal to bring in a low level character who then collects all the reward XP and is essentially power leveled?

Quests that give XP can't fix the Town Portal exploid, because it's
not the duty of the Quest XP feature to fix existing balancing bugs.
It does also not introduce more balancing bugs, as what you say there is already
possible:
party join coolbuywithahighlevel
=> go to a high level dungeon
=> high level player kills lots of high level monsters
=> low level player gets quite some XP

IMNSHO, riddles do not work well in CF maps. Use grep on the map file for the answer, view the map in an editor, etc.

Yes, everyone is free to cheat. But thats a decision the player has to make
for himself: "Do i solve it on my own or am i too lazy?"
Also a map propably shouldn't consist of a riddle only, and the riddles shouldn't be too
hard, so that the player is not frustrated and wants to cheat.

A followup question - what is the definition (or a general opinion) of an interesting plot?

What is your definition of it? I've no idea. But there doesn't have to be a
damn-good-plot in every map. A map can also be interesting without a plot.

So, why does noone make maps?

What I have seen and can recall (in no particular order)..

A.) Criticism of the "final product" - feed back can be or is viewed as too "harsh"; over sensitivity of criticism and feedback.

Yes, the current cf developers have quite high standards with everything and
break the game, the code and the balancing on the other hand all time.

Also the most criticism i saw was destructive: "Thats bad and thats bad and also that
is bad..."
Criticism should be _constructive_ IMHO: "There is a problem, it should be solve,
for example you could ...." - sounds a lot more friendly and even gives new ideas
to the map developer.

I'm sorry if i insulted someone, and certainly not every developer is like that,
but it's the feeling i got...

B.) Maps lost due to hardware failure or user error; people then give up and quit.

Yes, that frustrating. This is a point only user experience can solve:
save your maps often, have backups if possible.
And propably the editor should have auto-saving... (... put that on the TODO for GCE now)

C.) Maps that do not meet design standards (ex: greyshield maps)

Well, a map should be a little bit balanced and should meet the existing recommendations
at least a bit. But IMHO the same as above applies here: Too high standards
are imposed by people who don't manage to satisfy to them themself.

cf.schmorp.de nearly takes any map as long as it is not too bad balanced
in some aspects.

D.) Seems everyone wants to create a massive city with 100+ dungeons, 100+ interactive NPCs, etc. before releasing to the public and seeking feedback. Usually results in any of the points above applying. =-(

Hm, i can understand why people want to do high-level dungeons: They recently got
level 100 and found no interesting dungeons anymore... so they want to create some
new ones.

Here applies my point about the level inflation. But if people want to make high
level maps, that fine. At least with cf.schmorp.de. I don't know about the other
crossfire developers... but they don't seem to make any maps and they
dont seem to be interested much in new maps... (at least to me)

E.1) People try to develop a map and find the editor(s) too confusing or too complicated

Yes, making maps is not an easy task. It's pain with CFJavaEditor and crossedit,
and for some it iis propably also pain with GCE propably .
(but for me it's less pain with GCE than with CFJavaEditor, and i also didn't
receive any complains about GCE yet)

At least the GCE developers are open to suggestions. I don't know about
the CFJavaEditor devs.

But even with the best map editor on earth: Map making requires still some work
and knowledge about crossfire and how it works.

E.2) People not sure how to install/run a local server for map testing

Thats a good argument. I don't know about windows... but at least with linux
and debian it's not too hard if one knows how to use his system.

Isn't there a tutorial or something that helps people with that?

E.3) People not sure how to integrate newly created archetypes with the existing server for testing their new maps

Well, people should propably prevent making new archetypes until there is a easier
system. It's possbile to make a nice map with existing archetypes.

But i completly agree: It should be a lot easier to extend the game.

I have already put some thought about how to make it easier for
map makers to introduce new archetypes easily. We would even introduce
a new system in crossfire+ (cf.schmorp.de), but that requires some time
we don't have at the moment.

The problem was and is: There are too many limits in the server and the client
that prevent addition of many archetypes. The client already exceeded his limit
with the recent additions of archetypes to cf.schmorp.de. We fixed the limit in the
server, but the current crossfire clients still have a limit.

E.4) People not sure what to do with the maps once they are finished or ready for public review/feedback/testing

There is a map mailing list? People should find it...
And with cf.schmorp.de: Just send them in, we will try to add the map to the existing
maps in our CVS and server or even give CVS access.

F.) The learning curve of CVS (or any revision control system) is intimidating

Yes, a simple map maker shouldn't have to use CVS propably. But i guess
thats also what the map mailing list is for? no?

G.) The learning curve of creating a patch is intimidating

Yes, thats also true... And with the existing bigworld and the standard that new
citys should be directly on bigworld is just broken IMHO.

You had a lot of good points, and i would wish that some people lessen their high
standards and lower the barriers you described.

I can only speak for cf.schmorp.de, that we try not to have too high standards with
everything. But it's certainly not the mainstream crossfire we are doing.
(We mainly setup our own server and CVS for crossfire as we like to try out new ideas.
And it's easier to implement the ideas than convincing everyone that it's a good
idea to implement the idea. We also didn't got many productive non-destructive criticism
from the devs...)

[Leaf]

What is or how can you prevent players from "ninja looting"?
Ex: 5 players solve the quest; one player quickly walks over the runes or grabs all the XP potions and drinks them leaving zero XP for everyone else.

I don't have to prevent that, as:
1. it is already possible in crossfire and it's not possbile to prevent
stealing.
2. the script that gives the XP would propably only work once and give one player only once per resetted map the XP. Yes, the player could run and get all his XP and the other players wont get anything.

You don't see this as an opportunity to fix a known problem? Or at least reduce the impact of a known problem?

What skill category does this XP apply to?
If it is a specific skill, what about players who do not or can not have access to this skill? (ex: 1H weapon experience for a Dragon PC)

I don't know, propably a random skill the player has? Or let the player select that skill himself? Do you have a constructive idea?

Not at the moment

"Discussion has been brought in the past, but answers that were satisfactory were not found.. "

How much of a concern is it for a player or players to make it all the way through the quest and then open a town portal to bring in a low level character who then collects all the reward XP and is essentially power leveled?

Quests that give XP can't fix the Town Portal exploid, because it's not the duty of the Quest XP feature to fix existing balancing bugs. It does also not introduce more balancing bugs, as what you say there is already possible:
party join coolbuywithahighlevel
=> go to a high level dungeon
=> high level player kills lots of high level monsters
=> low level player gets quite some XP

So, you are saying this is of no or very little concern to you. During the past discussion it was a concern.

You don't see this as an opportunity to fix a known problem? Or at least reduce the impact of a known problem?

A followup question - what is the definition (or a general opinion) of an interesting plot?

What is your definition of it? I've no idea. But there doesn't have to be a
damn-good-plot in every map. A map can also be interesting without a plot.

"Interesting plot" is too much of a personal preference.

I personally am not looking for a map set or a quest that rivals the story arc of "Lord of The Rings" - but some people are.

I prefer maps that have some main nemesis at the end, with an army of opposition located on several dungeon levels for me to clear my way through. If I have to pick up keys to unlock special doors in the process, or find specific items to open doors/gates on the way - great. It's nice when all the map elements tie together (ex: lich at the end, various undead trying to attack me, a ghost that request me to return some item to them for them to give me a key to get past a gate leading to the next level, etc.)

A.) Criticism of the "final product" - feed back can be or is viewed as too "harsh"; over sensitivity of criticism and feedback.

Yes, the current cf developers have quite high standards with everything and break the game, the code and the balancing on the other hand all time.

Do bugs happen? Yes.

Are bugs reported? Rarely.
Are bugs reported in a timely fashion? That is rare as well.

C.) Maps that do not meet design standards (ex: greyshield maps)

Well, a map should be a little bit balanced and should meet the existing recommendations at least a bit. But IMHO the same as above applies here: Too high standards are imposed by people who don't manage to satisfy to them themself.

D.) Seems everyone wants to create a massive city with 100+ dungeons, 100+ interactive NPCs, etc. before releasing to the public and seeking feedback. Usually results in any of the points above applying. =-(

Hm, i can understand why people want to do high-level dungeons: They recently got level 100 and found no interesting dungeons anymore... so they want to create some new ones.

Whoops, I'm not referring to the level difficulty of being 100+; I'm referring to the total count of maps. They want dozens upon dozens (each having several levels to explore) of maps to explore in their city. [/quote]

E.2) People not sure how to install/run a local server for map testing

Thats a good argument. I don't know about windows... but at least with linux and debian it's not too hard if one knows how to use his system.

Argument?!? I hope you mean point or something similar.

Isn't there a tutorial or something that helps people with that?

No one has written one yet.

E.4) People not sure what to do with the maps once they are finished or ready for public review/feedback/testing

There is a map mailing list? People should find it...

Yes, there is a mailing list. But it would appear people are not making maps though based on the list traffic.

F.) The learning curve of CVS (or any revision control system) is intimidating
G.) The learning curve of creating a patch is intimidating

Yes, thats also true... <snip>

You had a lot of good points, and i would wish that some people lessen their high standards and lower the barriers you described.

Hmm.. analogy time:
The "barriers" are a learning curve; it would appear that it's too high right now. How much further can that bar be lowered? I think no matter, the user is going to have to jump no matter what (ex: read online documentation, experiment, trial & error, etc.)

As for the perceived "high standards" without specifics - it's too much of a broad generalization to comment on ATM.

[elmex]

What is or how can you prevent players from "ninja looting"?
Ex: 5 players solve the quest; one player quickly walks over the runes or grabs all the XP potions and drinks them leaving zero XP for everyone else.

....
You don't see this as an opportunity to fix a known problem? Or at least reduce the impact of a known problem?

Oh, yes, fixing that problem would be nice But it would distract from the topic.
But okay... first you need to carify the problem for me, as i dont know 'ninja-looting'.
I can only guess:
Is it a party member running off to get the loot? Is it a non-party member?
What about players who followed the party or someone into the dungeon and get the
remaining or forgotten treasures?

What skill category does this XP apply to?

I don't know, propably a random skill the player has? Or let the player select that skill himself? Do you have a constructive idea?

Not at the moment

"Discussion has been brought in the past, but answers that were satisfactory were not found.. "

Propably the Skill should be selected by the map maker. So that the skill you get the
XP in is bound to the dungeon. And if the player doesn't have the skill, he could
get the XP added to his overall XP counter (i've seen that this doesn't seem to be only
the sum of all XP in all skills).

How much of a concern is it for a player or players to make it all the way through the quest and then open a town portal to bring in a low level character who then collects all the reward XP and is essentially power leveled?

Quests that give XP can't fix the Town Portal exploid, because it's not the duty of the Quest XP feature to fix existing balancing bugs. ...snip...

So, you are saying this is of no or very little concern to you. During the past discussion it was a concern.

You don't see this as an opportunity to fix a known problem? Or at least reduce the impact of a known problem?

Town portal is currently a big exploid around any map mechanisms...
I don't know why town portal was introduced. But thinking about it,
it propably should just go away or be restricted to special places:
I think of a town-portal hall in every city for example...
or special town-portal temples spread over the world?
I have no real clue here, i guess anything would be fine.

I know that removing this feature will hurt a lot of people who love this
feature, and even i love it. But it is propably too useful and spoils too much...

It is great to shorten the travelling from place to place, but it is even better to bring loot
to your appartment and go back where you left the dungeon.

"Interesting plot" is too much of a personal preference.

I personally am not looking for a map set or a quest that rivals the story arc of "Lord of The Rings" - but some people are.

I prefer maps that have some main nemesis at the end, with an army of opposition located on several dungeon levels for me to clear my way through. If I have to pick up keys to unlock special doors in the process, or find specific items to open doors/gates on the way - great. It's nice when all the map elements tie together (ex: lich at the end, various undead trying to attack me, a ghost that request me to return some item to them for them to give me a key to get past a gate leading to the next level, etc.)

Yes, this is also what i would call a nice plot. And it's IMHO not very hard to invent
a simple plot like this.

Yes, the current cf developers have quite high standards with everything and break the game, the code and the balancing on the other hand all time.

Do bugs happen? Yes.

Are bugs reported? Rarely.
Are bugs reported in a timely fashion? That is rare as well.

Yes, i agree.

D.) Seems everyone wants to create a massive city with 100+ dungeons, 100+ interactive NPCs, etc. before releasing to the public and seeking feedback. Usually results in any of the points above applying. =-(

Hm, i can understand why people want to do high-level dungeons: They recently got level 100 and found no interesting dungeons anymore... so they want to create some new ones.

Whoops, I'm not referring to the level difficulty of being 100+; I'm referring to the total count of maps. They want dozens upon dozens (each having several levels to explore) of maps to explore in their city.

Oops, sorry Misunderstood you.
I wonder why everyone wants to create a massive city as it is a lot of work.
I would appreciate more towns on the map, but building a whole town in one bunch
is hell of a lot of work...
Propably the people don't want to conflict with other people maps?

E.2) People not sure how to install/run a local server for map testing

Isn't there a tutorial or something that helps people with that?

No one has written one yet.

Okay, good argument Any volunteers? I'm busy with lots of other CF-coding stuff...

There is a map mailing list? People should find it...

Yes, there is a mailing list. But it would appear people are not making maps though based on the list traffic.

Scary.

F.) The learning curve of CVS (or any revision control system) is intimidating
G.) The learning curve of creating a patch is intimidating

You had a lot of good points, and i would wish that some people lessen their high standards and lower the barriers you described.

Hmm.. analogy time:
The "barriers" are a learning curve; it would appear that it's too high right now. How much further can that bar be lowered? I think no matter, the user is going to have to jump no matter what (ex: read online documentation, experiment, trial & error, etc.)

Yes, the user still has to do the work of making a map. And i don't see many hard
barriers there to start right away. The map editors are there, they can be downloaded
easily. The are quite fast and easy to install
(at least GCE, and also CFJavaEditor installation is not an impossible mission).

And there are even map guides which are IMHO very well written. Also the documentation that comes with CFJavaEditor, the XML file with all the descriptions,
is quite good (GCE also uses that XML file).

And after playing around with the editors people should be able to make a map.
I also dont see a big barrier to post the maps in a tarball to crossfire-maps,
as it happened with icecastle, which was included into the mapbase of
crossfire+ and crossfire-extended. (Even thought that there were some balancing problems, that were fixed in the crossfire+ map base)

As for the perceived "high standards" without specifics - it's too much of a broad generalization to comment on ATM.

yes, you are propably right, i can't pinpoint it, it is propably just me who perceives it like this.
I propably saw too much discussion without a final result or decision...

In the end every idea needs more work than just writing mails:
implementation and bugfixing.

[Leaf]

first you need to carify the problem for me, as i dont know 'ninja-looting'.

Here's a nice summary of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_looting

Ninja looting is when a player in a MMORPG takes treasure that was dropped from a fallen enemy, also known as loot, without first asking the other participants of the battle for permission to do so. Grabbing small treasures dropped from easy-to-kill enemies is usually not considered ninja looting. The line between ordinary looting and ninja looting depends on the dispositions of the players involved.

Is it a party member running off to get the loot?

Usually it is.

Another tactic after grabbing the loot is to drop their link only to login later to collect or benefit from the reward.

Is it a non-party member?

Sometimes; usually when a person who is invis or using stealth follows the group and then grabs the treasure and runs away through some means.

What about players who followed the party or someone into the dungeon and get the remaining or forgotten treasures?

Not sure what that is called, probably something along the lines of scaveging or scavenger. The key difference is it's treasure that is purposely left behind or very common treasure - not the quest reward/treasure that people are specifically looking for when the begin the map or quest.

[elmex]

Games can include mechanics to reduce ninja looting, or at least make it clearly apparent. An example of this is World of Warcraft's "Master Looter" looting scheme.

Thats quite a solution. I guess that would be implementable in crossfire.
Set a party-leader, and give him a force or propably only a flag that can be
checked by an inv-checker or a script (i love scripts you know, as crossfire+
got these neat and easy to use perl scripts .

Only maps need to be 'fixed' and that would be the major part of work here,
i even wonder if anyone is willing to touch so many maps to fix problems like this.

I can only say that i would invest a weekend or two to fix some of the exisitng maps
to fix ninja-looting.

But on the other hand, there seem to be quite some people who like the wild-west scheme in crossfire, see cat2...