#254 Character face change shop prototype
This is an experimental mapset, for the idea of making a shop where players can change or buy other images for themself, so they aren't just stuck with one image all the time.
Attached is a .zip with the skeletal graphic shop lobby and room templates for each section of the shop, and a test map to demonstrate how I'm using class-changers to allow players to have their graphic changed.
Obstacles in the development of this idea:
*for some images, when you change your graphic using these class-changers, your animation doesn't get updated and your left animation-less, while for other images (leaving the changer identical otherwise), your animation does get updated correctly. After looking at the .arc files of some monsters, it appears that the only images that work are ones where their .arc file has a section at the bottom starting with the text 'More' followed by extra face/animation information. Could be something else though; more research needs to be done.
*it's hard to know how to restrict the shop, as in should any player have access to any graphic? I think not, cause then a fireborn could choose to buy a humanoid-looking graphic, etc. So if not, restrict it by race? Sounds good except not every race actually has a race (see the bug report about player races missing their race) that I could use detectors to manipulate. I was gonna use teleports with race-checking detectors set at really slow detection speed to do that, before i found out about missing races.
(one idea if people dont want to 'fix' races, is that every race has a unique hallofselection and gets a unique trigger marker there, which the shop could manipulate. This would allow different races to still be the same races , as in quetzalcoatls and serpentman, while still making it where the shop could prevent either from going to the other's section)
*if this shop actually got put in, and was based on race like I want it to be, it seems like then the hallofselection should be changed to not change your graphic, so your left looking like your starting race, and can then buy new graphics later if you want.
*someone would actually have to make new graphics in order for this idea to be implemented
Hopefully other people support this idea and help to make it work!
Note: the map 'graphic_change' isnt an actual part of the shop, thats just the test map. If someone wants to test these changers out, thats the map to look at. The actual shop doesn't have much to it yet.
experimental graphic change maps
Being as how characters don't automagically have cloaks and hats and such, it might even be cool to only let them upgrade their images to include such fancy togs by going to the image shop (which by the way I think is a nicer name for such a shop, better 'image', better marketing for the shop ;)) wearing such gear. Initially maybe make them a lot less well dressed. :)
I am thinking of making images that have the nation shields from FreeCiv pasted onto them, for easy identification of troops belonging to specific nations, so this graphic ('image' ;)) changing shop appeals to me ...
-MarkM-