Granger wrote:Your server can extrapolate movement, so why shouldn't you be able to ramp speeds (instead of binary switching between the gears) and limit turnspeed of the horse (or the character, or bull infront of a wagon) depending on current inertia factor (which would come from a lookup table)?
Well, the main problem is not so much the movement pattern in and of itself, but rather everything else that builds upon it. Like, for example, if horses had a more advanced pattern of movement that required them to handle inertia, how does that affect such things as right-clicking an herb to pick it? Should the horse implement some sort of "AI" to try and find the optimal pattern of movements to reach that herb, then? Similarly for combat pursuit movement, which would however require a quite different set of movements, and there are a few other movement "goals" as well.
I've likewise thought that it would be far more fun if the main mode of locomotion for rowboats were if one clicked in a direction, and the response was for the character to do one stroke of the oars to propel the boat towards that direction, rather than change direction entirely. But on the other hand, that would still require yet another "AI" for all the various movement goals that are in use in various mechanics here and there.