RE: [Xenocide-programming] game stats via XML followup

[Mamutas P. <ma...@pr...>]

Hi all,

I just read the discussion about stats and their relations to the game and
XNet. 

I need to say that I agree with Breunor and others on that we need to have a
separate stats file which should be used both for game and XNet. The modding
of such file will be very easy - just change value in XML.

Earlier I thought that stats should be the part of XNet file, but now I
favor a separate file idea.

There was a work done on XML file for XNet but not finalized yet. I do not
have anything that I can show you here. So, I think we can consider this
issue open. I would like very much to resolve that issue as soon as
possible.

Cpt. has finished his research tree XML, which is very likely to interweave
with XNet. If you and Breunor can put your heads together, than maybe you
can reuse parts of research tree XML and finish the XNet one too.

Regarding, one big file for XNet texts or not, I personally do not have any
preferences. Just remember, that we XNet definition file (the one that
describes names of models, images, sounds, videos, etc. as well as text
description) should uniquely identify the text to be displayed.

Regards,
Mamutas


-----Original Message-----
From: xen...@li...
[mailto:xen...@li...] On Behalf Of
Breunor
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 5:53 PM
To: xen...@li...
Subject: [Xenocide-programming] game stats via XML followup

I think most everyone would agree that the X-Net info should call from the 
stats file that is called by the game code, that makes the most sense if 
the data is either in the same format or can be converted by each. Based on 
what I've been reading on calling data from XML files, if all the various 
stats are compiled together and used for every item, even if it doesn't 
pertain to it, then that data can be filtered out easily enough. For 
example every item would have a <speed> and <damage> attribute, and it 
would just be 0 where it doesn't apply. Then you could call what you want 
from there. So all the stats would be in a single XML file like a catalog, 
but what about the descriptive text you'd read in the X-Net? Some of the 
texts are as large as the entire stat file combined, so I wonder if that 
would affect performance? Probably, so IMO having a second file for the 
descriptive text would be a wise idea. I'm not too hot on having a seperate 
text file for every entry however, as you could just have all the entries 
in 1 without hurting anything IMO. My reasoning would be that it makes it 
easier to mod/translate, because when you search for a particular name 
you'll catch all occurances at 1 time, rather than having to check every 
file. I'm sure you can probably search multiple files just as easily, so I 
guess it's a personal preference. What are other's opinion on this? If 
you're not opposed to a single description file, I can create a rough draft 
as part of an online viewer project in the works as X-Net eyecandy.

Adios,
Breunor

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