- numerous formatting corrections (i.e. linkification) and content updates still necessary
Crossfire is a multiplayer graphical arcade and adventure game made for the X-Windows environment. It has certain flavours from other games, especially Gauntlet (TM) and Nethack/Moria. Any number of players can move around in their own window, finding and using items and battle monsters. They can choose to cooperate or compete in the same “world.”
You need a client, and to choose a server to connect to. There are a number of public servers that you can play on, you will be able to choose one of these from the metaserver list when you start a client. Each server has it's own 'world' so if you want to play the same character over a period of time, you will want to pick one server and stick to it.
Alternatively you can run your own server, see section 4 of the FAQ for how to do this.
Go to the Crossfire Client Page and choose a client that is suitable for you.
There are 2 'official' clients which are developed as part of the main crossfire project.
There are also a number of unofficial clients which you can use as long as they speak the crossfire protocol, but you'll need to contact the developers of those for support.
Note that many *nix distributions include crossfire in their package repositories, so you can get a client from there too. (although these may be released some months after the main project)
Yes, there is. Visit the Win32 GTK Client page to find out more.
The JX Client is also available and runs under Windows.
The official releases of crossfire can be downloaded from the web (2.4.1).
If you want to be on the bleeding edge then try checking out from svn (2.4.2).
Primary:
Secondary:
Bear in mind that the SVN repository contains new features being added constantly, so it may at times contain additional bugs (or even not compile at all). If you want to use it, and are experiencing any
The general commands to check out a module (archtypes, client, maps, server map editor, et al) had been the following:
Since the SourceForge Migration the URLs have changed :
Note: It is also possible to use the native svn:// protocol :
svn co svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/crossfire/code/arch
Server compile instructions can be found at http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/crossfire_compile_guide
Client compile instructions can be found at http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/crossfire_client_compile_guide
If you still have problems, try mailing the Crossfire mailing list with your problem, make sure to include what system you are trying to compile on.
For detailed information about characters visit the characters page First, a summary of the seven primary stats are:
Primary stats have a “natural” range between 0 and ~20. The actual upper limit on each primary stat is set by the chosen character class (see character classes.) You can raise your primary stats by drinking potions up to your class natural limit.
As for which stat is the most important - many would say Constitution. One can never have enough Hit Points, and survival is a key aspect of they game.
The secondary stats are:
The official website has a entire page Race & Class Recommendations designated to answering this question, but it's also summarized here.
Recommendations for selecting a race & class before starting
The big question, “I'm new. Which race and class should I play?”
Selecting a compatible race and class combination can make the difference between repeat & numerous deaths or level progression/accomplishments and a positive “newbie” experience.
This guide is to help you pick a compatible race and class combination with a summary as to why. Or for those seeking a challenge - a combination that may prove enjoyable in a different way.
NOTE: This guide is meant to provide someone who is new to Crossfire the best starting chance to the path of success.
The “safest” combination of race(s) & classes to start out with and learn how to play are:
Why?
Also, when starting out, it's easiest to learn how to play Crossfire as one of the warrior/fighter classes. The core skills (movement coordination, attack strategies, map & level progression) apply to all classes, but have a shorter learning curve with the “melee” classes. Learning and using spells (especially offensive spells) is a step up from these core skills. After all, once the spell caster runs out of grace or spell points - they are going to have to fight their way out to safety.
Whenever I use the save command it seems to work fine but when I quit the gave the player is deleted! What gives?
The save command is to provide an emergency backup in case of a game crash. To save your player at the end of your game session you must find a “Bed to reality” and move your player over it and apply it (“A”). These beds can usually be found in the inns and taverns dotted around the maps (especially in cities). This prevents you just saving anywhere and forces you to finish what you are doing and return somewhere safe.
Your player will advance when his score reaches the following values for the first 10 levels:
Level | Exp | |
---|---|---|
Level 1 | 0 | |
Level 2 | 2000 | |
Level 3 | 4000 | |
Level 4 | 8000 | |
Level 5 | 16000 | |
Level 6 | 32000 | |
Level 7 | 64000 | |
Level 8 | 125000 | |
Level 9 | 250000 | |
Level 10 | 500000 |
Visit the Experience Table page to see a complete list of required experience for levels 1 to 110 using both the Classic System and Harder/Metalforge System.
TIPS on SURVIVING
Crossfire is populated with a wealth of different monsters. These monsters can have varying immunities and attack types. In addition, some of them can be quite a bit smarter than others. It will be important for new players to learn the abilities of different monsters and learn just how much it will take to kill them. This section discusses how monsters can interact with players.
Most monsters in the game are out to mindlessly kill and destroy the players. These monsters will help boost a player's score, after he kills them. When fighting a large amount of monsters in a single room, attempt to find a narrower hallway so that you are not being attacked from all sides. Charging into a room full of Beholders for instance would not be wise, instead, open the door and fight them one at a time.
For beginners, there are several maps designed for them. Find these areas and clear them out. All throughout these levels, a player can find signs and books which they can read by stepping onto them and hitting 'A' to apply the book/sign. These messages will help the player to learn the system.
One more note, always keep an eye on your food. If your food drops to zero, your character will soon die, so BE CAREFUL!
NPCs
Non Player Character are special monsters which have “intelligence.” Players may be able to interact with these monsters to help solve puzzles and find items of interest. To speak with a monster you suspect to be a NPC, simply move to an adjacent square to them and push the double-quote, ie. “. Enter your message, and press . You can also use 'say if you feel like typing a little extra.
Other NPCs may not speak to you, but display intelligence with their movement. Some monsters can be friendly, and may attack the nearest of your enemies. Others can be “pets” in that they follow you around and help you in your quest to kill enemies and find treasure.
SPECIAL ITEMS
There are many special items which can be found in Crossfire, of these the most important may be the signs.
CAUTION: Some items are perishable.
If for instance you shoot a fireball into a room full of scrolls, you will notice them going up in smoke! So be careful not to destroy valuable items.
A container is a generic term for a bag, chest, keyring, quiver, pouch, chest, etc. Here is how you interface with such a container:
Middle click or apply the container - that will make it active, meaning any and all items that are picked up will be inserted in the container. The text active will appear next to the container icon in your inventory.
Middle click or apply the container again - this will open the container and display all the items that are currently in the container. The text open will then appear next to the container icon in your inventory. Right click on each of the items in the container to remove them (as in place them back in your regular inventory.)
Middle click or apply the container yet again - this will close the container and “hide” all the contents of the container from your inventory window, freeing up display space.
Basically, as you middle click or apply the container it will go from closed → active → open → closed.
Take for instance, you have 5 longswords but they appear in multiple piles such as 3 longswords and 2 longswords.
There are multiple reasons why items may not initially stack into a single pile. Some of the items may be cursed (or worse) or magical and so they stand out - this should be a nice hint for you.
Other times, the items will not stack for non-obvious reasons. Some ways around this is to pick up all the items in question and then drop them again - did they merge into a single pile that time?
Sometimes leaving all the items in a pile on (for instance) the floor of your apartment can help the stack to merge. This may take a while though.
While such an issue can be annoying, the items in question are all valid items and not something that requires immediate DM intervention to resolve or investigate.
There are multiple methods to identify items. They include:
A character can learn skills which allows one to identify items and in some cases craft items too (ie, blacksmithing lets one craft armour at a forge.) These skills are either granted to a character due to their race or class. Other skills can be learned by successfully reading a skill scroll. Regardless of how these skills are acquired, the easiest method is to bind all of them to a single key stroke. Here's the list:
use_skill sense magic;use_skill sense curse;use_skill literacy;use_skill alchemy;use_skill smithery;use_skill woodsman;use_skill bowyer;use_skill jeweler;use_skill thaumaturgy
Note: The skills are limited as to what they will identify. For instance, thaumaturgy will ID rods, staffs and wands but will not work on (for instance) bows, armour, books, potions, et al.
The sorcery spell known as identify allows one to use the spell on any and all unidentified items. There are also scrolls of the spell, Identify which works the same way. There is also a rod, which is part of a quest, that will also invoke the identify spell. Higher level casting of the spell will identify more items per casting.
Note: Unlike the skills, identify magic will work on any and all unidentified items.
Some (okay, nearly all) magic shops contain Identify Tables that will identify the top most unidentified item in your inventory stack – for a price. It is a fixed cost per item and can very quickly add up. The table will identify cursed items, non-magical items and magical items. It is entirely possible to spend your hard earned fortune to identify items only to sell them to a shop and not make any profit.
When you’re restoring spell points (SP), grace or hit points (HP), your food consumption increases. Items that are +Regeneration also increase food consumption rate.
Middle click an item to put it to use. Middle clicking a scroll will read the scroll. Middle clicking a weapon will wield the weapon (or display a message about why you can't wield the weapon.) Middle clicking a food item will eat or consume the food item.
Locked items can not be dropped accidentally, to lock an item shift & left click on it. To unlock the item, shift & left click on the item again. Items that are locked will show an asterisk (*) next to it in your inventory.
Yes. You can copy and paste in the command line (aka, the text input box.) To copy text from the information windows (such as the chat window), select it, then middle click on the command line, and the text will be copied to the command line. This is the case with the GTK clients for *nix and MS Windows™.
Sometimes there may be a stack of items on the ground or in one's inventory, and it is desirable to pickup or drop a specific number of items instead of all of them. Before using the mouse or a command to manipulate the stack of items, specify how many by entering the number in the “Count” spin-button control found in various clients.
For a command-line equivalent:
'get 10 platinum
This is done via a series of scrolls that you may find or buy in shops. The procedure is done in following steps:
Note that some of these scrolls will also require a “sacrifice” to be made when they are read. To sacrifice an object just stand over it when you read the weapon scroll.
Scrolls for weapon enchantment are:
WARNING: Something to keep in mind before you start enchanting like crazy - you will add to the item power of the weapon with each enhancement. It is entirely possible to enchant the weapon above your level and you won't be able to use it!
Enchantment of armour is achieved with the Enchant Armour scrolls. Each time you successfully use a scroll, you will add a plus (+1) value and reduce the item some fractional amount of weight.
You may only add enchantments up to the max allowed in the server's config.h (#define ARMOR_MAX_ENCHANT) file. By default, this is +5.
Armour, weapons, shields will encumber a wizard and cause spell failure. Light equipment causes no failure at all whereas heavy equipment causes mondo failures.
The reasoning is that the bulkiness of objects, not their weight exactly, is what causes failures. So the basic idea of encumbrance is that items get in the way more than they weigh down. Unfortunately, our only measure of “getting in the way” was the weight.
Encumbrance points are tallied only from applied objects. Weapons give 3x their weight in kg in encumbrance points. Shields give 1/2 their weight in kg in encumbrance points. Armour gives its weight in encumbrance points.
There's an allowance of encumbrance points which all players get before they start losing incantations, this was about 35-45, not too much.
The formula works like this: You make a roll of 1-200. You compare it to a failure threshold. This threshold is: encumbrance + incantationlevel - caster level - 35
For example, lets say a 4th level wizard is casting a 5th level incantation . The wizard is wearing plate mail (100 kg), a 20 kg shield and wielding a 15 kg weapon. His encumbrance is 100 + 10 + 45 = 155. Thus, his threshold for failure is 155 + 5 - 4 = 156 or just about 3/4 failure rate.
There is no special bonuses for using magical equipment, although, it is clear that magical armour and weapons make things better through their weight.
Some items will have numerical values such as +1, +2, +3, etc. trailing their names. These magic values indicate that the item is enchanted, and in some way may be better or (if the value is negative) worse than ordinary run of the day items of its kind.
Partial Resistance (pr) is how much damage will be subtracted from successful hits made upon the character by the listed attacktype. For non damaging attacktypes, the resistance value affects saving throw and reduces duration. Higher values are better.
Partial resistance uses the following formula:
So if you have 20% resist cold, and wear a ring 50%, you get ( 100 - 20 ) * 50% = 40 points more, that is 60% cold resist. Or, with 45% resist fire, a 60% resist fire ring would give ( 100 - 45 ) * 60% = 33, for a total of 78% fire resist.
A potion will on the other hand grants 90 or 95% total.
The only way to have immunity is thus to have straight 100%
Penalties cap your maximum resistance. Thus, if you have -30 modifier (race, item, cult, etc.) the max resistance you can obtain is 70. If it's -100, your max is 0.
Hit Points are slowly regenerated over time at a cost of Food Points. Items that are +Regeneration increase Hit Point Regeneration. Note, higher Regeneration rates cause faster Food Point consumption.
Spell Point regeneration is usually hindered by heavy equipment (such as all forms of armour, shields, and some weapons.) Identified items will list a value of “Spell regen penalty <value>” Items that are +Magic increase Spell Point Regeneration.
Grace Points are regenerated by the character actively praying. It is possible to obtain as much twice the normally allowed Grace Points by praying on an altar of the character's chosen god.
Certain races and classes can also tweak hit point and spell point regeneration rates.
Certain attacks (spells, weapons, monsters, et al.) have more then one attack_type. For instance, Comet has the attack_types of Physical, Fire and Weaponmagic. Now, lets say your character gets hit by the Comet spell. Your character has a Armour score of 70 (30% of the Physical damage still get's through) You're wearing Dragon Mail +3 (allows for 40% resistance to Fire, so 60% of the damage gets through) but you have no protection from Weaponmagic - so you take 100% of the damage from that. For simplicity, if the Comet spell is capable of 100 points of damage, your character would lose 100 life points.
What if you had resistance to Weaponmagic as well?
Then the whatever damage that would effect you the most would apply minus Partial Resistance.
item_power measures how powerful and item is. This information is only relevant for items that are equipped - one time use items, monsters, walls, floors, do not use this.
When a player tries to equip something, the code goes through all the objects the player currently has equipped and sums up their item_power. The item_power of the object the player is trying to equip is also added. If this total exceeds the characters level, he is not allowed to equip the item.
In simple terms, the sum of all the players equip items item_power must be less than the characters level. The skills ('skills) command will display your current and maximum item_power. For instance: Your equipped item power is 25 out of 101
Left click on an identified item to see it's item_power. For instance: That is cloak of intermediate protection (ac+2)(item_power +1)
Powerful items have a higher item_power value. This basically acts as a way to balance the items. It also prevents gifts from high level characters to newbies from being very useful - the item_power may prevent the low level character from equipping this items.
For items automatically generated by the treasure code, the following formula is used:
# Enchantments | Power | |
---|---|---|
0 | 0 | |
1 | 0 | |
2 | 1 | |
3 | 2 | |
4 | 3 | |
5 | 5 | |
6 | 8 | |
7 | 11 |
An enchantment is:
While the item_power field in the object structure is signed, in general, there should not be objects with a negative item_power. However, negative effects an item has may reduce the item power. Eg, a 'sword +4 (str +2)(wis -3)' would really be 3 enchantments.
As your character gains levels in various skills, they also receive a random number of health points (1-4), spell points (1-3), and grace (1-3.) As you can see, it is possible to only gain 1 point in each category when you level. By consuming multiple Improvement Potions, eventually those 1's will become 2's; 2's will become 3's and so on. Once you are Perfect (you will see this message after drinking 24 Improvement Potions), all these random numbers will be maxed out. Essentially, Improvement Potions allow you a second chance at “better numbers.”
Party or shared experience works like this; The server creates a number of “shares” which is the total overall levels of every player in the party, plus 4 for each player. Then the experience is divided up by how many “shares” each group member adds to the total number. That means the experience of the monster has to be at least the sum of the party member levels added together plus 4 * N, where N is the number of members in the party.
Example: (Level 109 + Level 11 = 120) + (4 (for the level 109 character) + 4 (for the level 11 character)) = 128; the party needs to kill monsters worth at least 128 XP in order to gain experience
If the monsters that the group is killing give too little (or low) experience to start with, rounding might cause you to be getting no experience.
Also remember that all members of the party need to be on the same map in order to “share” experience.
- need to check for accuracy, update for clarity
Wearing multiple items that make you Attuned to a specific spell path do not stack. Simply stated, you are Attuned – there is no double Attuned, triple Attuned, etc. The Attuned property only applies once.
Wearing items that make you Attuned and another item that is Repelled to the same spell path balance each other out. You have “normal” access to that spell path. Wearing yet another Attuned item will not make you Attuned to the spell path. The Attuned property only applies once – which is “against” the Repelled.
Any time you are Denied to a spell path, there is nothing that you can wear that will allow you to cast spells from that path. Basically, Denied always over rules Attuned.
The scrolls of Remove Curse allows you to remove or unwear an item that is cursed, only if you have accidently worn or used said item. It will not remove the cursed property of an item in your inventory or on the ground.
To remove the curse property of an item, certain conditions must be met.
Remove curse works on any and all items - from weapons to potions. Make sure you have the cursed item in your inventory while praying on the altar though.
A consumed Potion of Life restores lost or depleted stats (Str, Dex, Con, et al) due to player death or monster/weapon attack. The potion *only* restores lowered stats - not experience.
How a Potion of Life works has now changed (2007-Apr-20; server r6071 for trunk and r6072 for branch). There are different types or kinds of Potion of Life.
Which one you need (to restore depleted stats) depends on your character's overall level.
Summary:
If you are level 6 or higher, a Minor Potion of Life will not work on you.
If you are level 31 or higher, a Medium Potion of Life and a Minor Potion of Life will not work.
If you are Level 51 or higher, only a Supreme Potion of Life will work for you.
Summary, from a different perspective:
Character Level | What potions will work for you |
Level 1-5 | All potions |
Level 6-30 | Medium Potion of Life , Major Potion of Life and Supreme Potion of Life |
Level 31-50 | Major Potion of Life and Supreme Potion of Life |
Level 51+ | Supreme Potion of Life (only) |
Magical attacktypes from a bow will only apply to non-magical arrows.
For instance, Arrows of Fire (attacktype: fire) with a Bow of Thunder (attacktypes: slow, paralyze) will only result in fire damage.
The item with the lifesaving property needs to be worn by your character. When your character reaches 0 (zero) hit points, the item immediately casts the heal spell on you, thus restoring your hit points to full health. At this time, the item is also consumed. Meaning, it only works once.
Use the command ‘bind prevkey’ and then press the key that you wish to use to access your command history. This is just like the up arrow under most command line interfaces (CLI)
You erase the writing and runes on existing scrolls by dipping them in a fountain.
Stand on any of the many fountains found within the game world. Use the mark (shift & middle click) command to specify the scrolls or stack of scrolls. Then use the dip ('dip) command to erase one of the scrolls. Repeat as necessary.
You find them. You can write in scrolls that aren’t blank, but you can’t erase what is already written in a scroll. The library in northeast Scorn is a good place to find them.
Post office sells them, so does Scorn library.
How do I kill these suckers? Stakes don't touch them when wielded.
Lightning, firebolt, burning hands, holy word, these spells work very nicely if you have enough spellpoints. Especially holy word, the vampire is sometimes running away.
I dunno what the deal with stakes is. I honestly think you're better off with some artifact weapon such as Darkblade or Demonbane.
I was zapping one vampire with my rod of firebolt and my rod of small lightning for ages, and he just wasn't going down! Do I need to be more patient? They don't have THAT many hps though, at least, according to the spoilers…
You will never kill a vampire with rods. A wand might do it. Vampires have a high constitution, and HEAL QUICKLY. You've gotta pour a large damage/time into the vampire quickly, via spells, or you'll never kill him.
Rods take too long to regenerate, you can't cause damage fast enough with one.
Player presence causes monsters to go from “sleep mode” to “attack mode.” Each monster has a specified zone or (square shaped) radius that when a player enters, it will cause the monster switch modes. So, you want to be as far away from a monster as you can when you try to get past them using Stealth - which could be very difficult in a hallway that is only 3 squares wide…
Technical Note: The monster's WIS score determines how close a player needs to be before the creature wakes up. This is done as a square, for reasons of speed. Thus, if the wisdom is 11, any player that moves within the 11×11 square of the monster will wake the monster up. If the player has stealth, the size of this square is reduced in half plus 1.
You should be in a city square with a few sign posts in the middle. Move over the signs and apply them (“a”) to read what they say. Other suggestions and ideas can be found in the Crossfire Handbook.
Check the following:
When checking the higscore list in the game, you may see a listing like this:
36 351708075 Asgoth the human was killed by a dungeon collapse on map Reception, Fire Level 3 <299><246><76>
First, the player has not actually died! So, no loss of experience or stat points happened.
This message could mean any of the following:
To start a server run:
crossfire-server
There are a number of options you can pass to this which you may find useful, pass -h
to see the full list of these
if your server is intended to be public, then look at the metaserver section below for how to announce your server to clients. If you only want your server to be used privately, then give the ip address or hostname to the other players you want to permit to join.
To start a new client run:
crossfire-client-gtk2
Then choose your server from the metaserver list (if it is a public server) or enter the hostname/ip address (if it is not) you may also use the server option to bypass the metaserver list, eg
crossfire-client-gtk2 -server localhost
will connect directly to a server running on localhost
Yes.
SVN sources compiled under Windows, executable is here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=13833&package_id=99312
After you installed your server, there is a file called settings
in the share
folder with the following settings:
Update the file with the following:
Be sure to update the host and comment fields with the relevant information
Add Metaserver 2 listing requirements.
After the server is installed and as needed, modify the following entries in the metaserver2
file found in the share
folder:
Update the file with the following:
Be sure to update all fields with relevant information.
Crossfire needs TCP port 13327 open
Metaserver needs TCP port 13326 open
Check the website for any of the available metaservers. In the Version column, you will see information such as:
1.12-beta-r17660M Or v1.75.0-1046-gc8d4b6
The first set of digits relates to the tagged release (i.e., 1.12 or 1.75.0)
The middle number of informationi (i.e. 1046) includes a commit number. - This is the number of commits since the tagged version release. That way the versions can still be sorted in chronological order
The last string of text indicates a subversion (marked with a 'r') commit (i.e. r17660M) while the letter 'g' indicates a git commit (i.e, gc8d4b6). Note: The project is no longer using subversion
To look up the specific git commit related to that version, exclude the letter 'g' from your search. So release gc8d4b6 would be commit c8d4b6
Check to see if the server is already running with this command:
ps aux | grep cross
If you installed the server using one of the many distro specific packages, that will automatically start the server once the install is complete.
Server time tracking is found in:
include/config.h says "#define MAX_TIME 120000".
This is in microseconds. Therefore: 120ms or 8.3ticks/second.
So, for instance, a spell that has a duration of 2 ticks would last around 16 seconds.
You need to edit the spell_params file in your libdir. Have a look in the file Crossfire/doc/spell_params.doc for more information.
Typing 'quit will permanently delete your character. This command works in all clients. With the GTK Client you can also select File → Quit Character.
IMPORTANT: Making this changes requires the server to be recompiled!
This change is made at the server level and requires admin access and other security rights on the server to do so.
Find the file called settings (located in lib/settings) and change permanent_experience_percentage 50 to permanent_experience_percentage 100 - This means Permanent Experience is now at 100%. Which means no levels should be lost upon player death. The attack type drain still causes a player to lose experience and levels though.
Now find the file called config.h (located in include/) and change #define PERM_EXP_GAIN_RATIO 0.50f to #define PERM_EXP_GAIN_RATIO 1.00f and change #define PERM_EXP_MAX_LOSS_RATIO 0.50f to #define PERM_EXP_MAX_LOSS_RATIO 0.00f
Recompile the server for this change to go in to place. Launch the server per normal methods.
There are several approaches you can use, and which will be most appropriate will depend on the type of thing you are asking and who is able to respond, these are:
Crossfire development discussion takes place on the #crossfire channel on irc.freenode.org If you are new to IRC Channels, then you will need to get an IRC client and use it to connect to the freenode server then 'join' #crossfire.
It would also be worth your while reading a guide to IRC
Note that the people who are active in this channel all live in different time zones, so there can be periods of several hours where nothing happens, if you have a question that doesn't get an immediate response, it may be too specialised for anyone who is currently active on the channel, so the mailing lists may be a better bet.
There is the * Crossfire Mailing List - when you see a reference to *the* mailing list, it means this one. This list is used for general discussion and questions, answers, and latest changes and updates. Gmane mirror
The Gmane mirrors hold the old messages to a list, and allow you to browse through them.
There are other mailing lists as well, which have more specific functions
Each list has it's own, unique email address to send messages to and can be found on the introduction or summary page found at the URLs above.
The Crossfire forum can be found here. The forum tends to contain less focused conversations than the mailing list, and is often closer to the IRC channel in character. Do note though that not all of the developers read the forum regularly, so if you have a technical question, then one of the other two options should be taken.
There are a number of trackers on the sourceforge project page, These are:
Bugs Feature Requests Patches Support Requests
The tracker is a good place for putting complex information, but in many cases it is worth following up with a short post to the mailing list, especially if your title won't alert a particular developer that this tracker item is something they should look at.
Assuming you've read the Map Guide and know what to do (and as equally important - what not to do!) download Gridarta and follow the documentation in there. Feel free to send any questions to the Crossfire-Maps mailinglist, the web forum or stop by the Crossfire IRC channel for help.
After testing, announce that you've created a map intended for official distribution on the Crossfire-Maps mailinglist. Depending on the (file) size of the map, a diff may be created and mailed directly to the list or other arrangements may be made to make the map accessible via FTP (like on Sourceforge, for instance.)
Send your idea to the Crossfire-List mailinglist or stop by the #crossfire IRC Channel. In the past, people have always wanted to see a graphical representation of new races/spells/ monsters/etc. before really discussing implementation.
Can you replicate it? If so, use the bug tracker at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=13833&atid=113833
If the bug is tough to track down, see if anyone else is experiencing something similar by sending an email to the Crossfire mailing list or by asking on the Crossfire IRC Channel or by posting on the Crossfire Forum.
See the Graphics Guide for information relating to Crossfire art.
Client Side:
Linux/Unix Server:
…/crossfire/lib
and enter make collect; make
…/crossfire
and run make; make install
Download the archetype definitions from the CVS in the server source directory '<crossfire-source>/lib/arch'.
Modify the picture files you want to change (or create new archetypes if you want to add additional objects to the game)
Then, go to the directory <crossfire-source>/lib
, do a make collect.pl && perl ./collect.pl arch
(make sure you did the configure step before). This will collect all archetype from arch directory
Finally do a make && make install
, this will build the image collection files and install them in the crossfire install directory. And don't forget to restart the server.
The “old” map scale allowed for easy travel from one side of the world to the other (in less then a minute, actually) and was getting rather crowded. After discussion on the mailing list, it was decided to increase the scale and update the layout of the current world map. Now, the Big World map is referred to or used as the standard mapset (.
The SVN Directory at Sourceforge is: http://crossfire.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/crossfire/maps/branches/1.x/
Additional link information is available on the World Map page: http://crossfire.real-time.com/world_map/index.html
Use the following SVN Checkout command:
The best way to get help or assistance is to login to the Crossfire IRC] or Discord channel for assistance on problems, general questions, gameplay discussion or other game related topics.
Just in case you encounter an issue like this with the Windows GTkv2 Client.
Error message is “could not load main window, check that your layout files are not corrupt”
The gtk2 client on windows stores those settings in the client.ini file.
If you see messages such as:
east east north use_skill literacy south west
And so on.
The option to echo commands to the message window has been enabled.
To disable this function: In the client window, click on Edit → Preference → remove the check in front of Show sent commands in message window → click Apply button
To enable this function: In the client window, click on Edit → Preference → place a checkin front of Show sent commands in message window → click Apply button
If you encounter numerous lines of text output when walking over items such as:
1 NEWMODE 1 DEBUG 0 INHIBIT 0 STOP ..... 0 FLESH 0 CONTAINER 1 CURSED
You are running in debug pickup mode.
To disable: 'pickup -debug
To enable: 'pickup +debug
Example: skipping time over by 106 ms
This message is normally informative. Usually it means that the server tick overshot the amount of time it was supposed to take to process. The most common cause is that a map had to be saved or loaded, and the whole server stalled while that happened.