A lot of this depends on the changes to the maps in questions. In lots of cases, updating the maps won't cause any problem - the new maps might have new exits, but those not being available until reloaded isn't a problem.
The only time I can see it being a problem when map files are renamed, such that the exit of a map currently in memory doesn't go to the right destination. That doesn't happen that frequently. However, even in that case, a simple solution would be to load a copy of the new map, see if there is an exit at/near the exit we are trying to use, and use the destination for that. IF there are major changes to maps, there really isn't a very good solution, other than the idea of mapsets as tchize mentions. But in that case, the server would have to load all the maps of a mapset (or at least make a copy of them), as otherwise you could still get the case that player enters map A, explores around, map is changed such that exit to map B now puts him in solid rock, etc The idea of a secondary (new maps) directory would work, but also has the same issues as above, and you can't necessarily copy over new maps just one one resets locally because there may be dependencies. Note also there are other issues. New maps may have new archetypes, which exist in the latest server, but perhaps not in memory of the running server. So you now get the case of needing a mechanism to read in new archetypes, images, treasurelists, etc. All in all, seems a lot simpler to just restart the server than try to sort all of this out. _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
