I couldn't find anywhere else to put this question in, so I thought I would ask you, as I'm currently working on a game similar in some ways to planeshift and I was hoping I might be able to gather some wisdom for the tasks ahead of me. I've had a look at the crystal space engine, but that gives me no more indication of how you did things than a blank piece of paper would tell me how a masterpiece is written. Now, if I may be so bold...
How do you keep track of monsters? Is the general location of each group of creatures stored, but specific locations are only determined when the area becomes "in use", or is every monster tracked permanently, so someone with a bird's eye view could see every single one moving about?
How large and wonderful a server is required to keep everything in check? My game-in-development is NPCless, so does that help, or are they not much of a problem?
You are one of the few games out there that do xp based on actual activities, but does tracking so many different xp numbers strain the system? Simpler (and less awesome) systems have just the one, but you have to handle as many numbers as there are skills.
Do you guys know of any graphic artists going spare, looking for a new project, because I never thought those art-degree dossers would be so useful...
Thank you. (I only have time to post this because Planeshift is being a bit of a bugger right now...)
