Xpm error in crossedit

[martinm@sps1.phys.vt.edu (Michael B. Martin)]

	Hello to everyone!  This is my first post on this list.  I
got my first copy of crossfire three months ago, and I really love it.
Kudos to the authors!  I've been looking for a game like this for some
time.  However, I have noticed a few problems, and I thought I'd report
them in the hopes that they might be fixed.  For starters, I am playing
crossfire 0.91.7 on an i486-33 machine with 8 MB RAM running Linux 1.0.9
(and XFree86 2.1).  Occasionally I get error messages printed to the shell
window saying things like "object x has no speed", but I can't be any more
specific than that at the moment.  Also, when running 0.91.5, the game
would sometimes crash (immediately exit without a warning or error message)
within a few minutes after starting it when I tried to go from one map to
another.  For example, sometimes it would mysteriously quit when I tried to
leave the inn where I saved my game.  I recently upgraded to 0.91.7, and
while I haven't played it much since then (school always seems to get in
the way of the important things ;), it has crashed once or twice on me
(but seeming less than before, which was perhaps 1 in 3 or 4 times or so
under version 0.91.5).

	But my real reason for this post concerns a problem with the
editor.  Crossfire runs fine using the Xpm color graphics, but the
editor does not.  Running "crossedit -p -xpm" loads the editor just fine
with the nice Xpm graphics, but if I click the (middle) mouse button to
select a square on the map, the editor quits immediately, with the
following message:


X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  93 (X_CreateCursor)
  Serial number of failed request:  20462
  Current serial number in output stream:  20467


I am currently using the latest version of the Xpm library (3.4c).  I
just upgraded from a slightly older version (3.4a, I think) and it had
the same problem.  I did not see anything about this in the 
documentation that came with the source, but I suppose I could have
missed something.  I am hoping someone more knowledgable in the realm of
X/Xpm programming might be able to fix this in a new version.


	I would also welcome any suggestions regarding useful techniques
for mid-level players.  I have my character almost to 10th level, but it
is getting harder to progress.  Using the editor, I've "previewed" some
of the maps, and it looks like they are either easy (even for a single
player) and thus with little reward (experience and treasure) or really
hard (challenging for a party of mid- to upper-level players).  Are there
some maps that might be challenging (but not especially difficult) for a
single (no networking ability at the moment) 10th-level player?  I am
considering making my own maps if I can find the time later.  Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Considering how hard some of
the quests are, I am also interested in multi-player games.  I think I
could probably join on one of the servers mentioned in the README, but I
would appreciate any opinions regarding them that other players may have.
If you would like another player for your party, let me know and I'll see
if I can find the time to join in.

Sorry for the length of this, but I just had so much to say!  (Actually,
I have more, but I'll save the rest for another time.)

-Michael