Competition 64

[Donald Jonker]

Since Nick wants to go with Entro for Comp 64 in the next few days, I thought we might as well start off the brainstorming. Although Chem ought to be the one contributing the savefile (the impetus behind the competition being his desire for feedback towards creating a new V3.1 + Entro variant), I thought I'd make the suggestion of a Ninja, since they're one of my favorite innovations of the Heng/Entro branch and really bring out what can be done by an inspired variant maintainer. Further, I find the experience of them to be unique not only out of all of the choices in Entro, but in *banding in general.

On the other hand they're so popular that perhaps they've been overplayed. I'm also at a loss for which race to pick, since I'm lazy to the point of choosing High-Elf in all instances. But for my part, I'd like whatever character is to be played to begin with 3-blows and have decent pseudo.

An interesting stipulation for the contest rules might be to require the winner to get the deepest in the dungeons - the Heaven and Hell dungeons being so hardcore. This might be a nice break from xp/turncount for our more completist brethren.

Other suggestions?

[Donald Jonker]

I'm going to take the lack of response as a vote of overwhelming support. I submitted a clvl3 Vampire Ninja (what's cooler than a Ninja who is also a Vampire? I submit: nothing.) who got a holy avenger dagger from the thieves' hideout quest to Nick. Dissenters should probably speak up.

[Zikke]

Is Entro still being developed? On the variants page it says the latest version is from 2005...

edit: and the Homepage link goes to a 404 error

[Donald Jonker]

Is Entro still being developed? On the variants page it says the latest version is from 2005...

edit: and the Homepage link goes to a 404 error

It's dead, but the former maintainer says he wants to start up a new project based on it and V 3.1. Out of the dead variants (and the live ones) though, Heng/Entro are the most complete games out there - I've never run into anything that really prompted me towards making a feature request...

[Zikke]

I just d/l'ed it for the first time to poke around. I haven't been able to find a way to dump preferences to a file so I don't have to keep making the settings when somebody dies. Also I need to figure out how to switch the "x" meaning empty space to just a blank space... it's driving me nuts.

[tigpup]

I had a quick look too.

Decided to try a Female Munchkin Cavalry Balrog.

No matter how hard it tries, my mind simply cannot generate a visualisation for that.

-Neil.

[Donald Jonker]

I just d/l'ed it for the first time to poke around. I haven't been able to find a way to dump preferences to a file so I don't have to keep making the settings when somebody dies.

*Assumes role as defacto Entro apologist* It is weird about there not being a pref dump command in the options menu... when I first started playing I remember the options reverting, but now they seem to stick. I think if you do conscientious testing you'll find that it works ok.

Don't know about the empty space thing - I don't get it on XP.

Also for those who so desire: Hengband Spoilers. (They should be correct in nearly every instance for Entro.

[Zikke]

Do you know of a list of mutations and what they mean? I got "You have a malignant black aura." No idea what that means..

[Donald Jonker]

Do you know of a list of mutations and what they mean? I got "You have a malignant black aura." No idea what that means..

Usually it explains it in the knowledge menu, but you've probably already checked that. (My nethack sense wants to tell you that it means something in your inventory's been cursed, but that's probably wrong :P.) I feel like I've run across a list of them all, but can't locate it at the moment. I know chem had Entro spoilers on his site that's 404'd - I've never seen them myself. When he makes his way back to oook it would be nice if he posted them somewhere active.

Unless, of course, someone else has a copy of the Entro spoilers and could send them to pav for posting?

[thapper]

what's cooler than a Ninja who is also a Vampire?

Ninjas on unicycles, that's what!

[Donald Jonker]

Ninjas on unicycles, that's what!

lol I stand corrected.

[Nick]

Competition 64 is now available at http://angband.oook.cz/competition.php?showcompo=64; it is an Entroband Vampire Ninja.

Note that comp 63 is not finished yet; we're trying out overlapping competitions.

For linux users, try the following incantations (from the entro-src directory, after unzipping the source package):
aclocal
autoheader
automake --add-missing
autoconf
./configure --disable-japanese
make
make install

[Donald Jonker]

Nick - I've noticed you've gone with the standard xp/turns again for Comp 64. I'd like to respectfully disagree for 4 reasons.

1. Entro dumps don't have turncounts.

2. Entro dumps have real-time counters.

3. Entro dumps have Game-day counters (not sure how this functions).

4. Only two people (including myself) on the ladder so far.

Therefore: I think we should (and need) to switch the rules to realtime or gametime. I favor realtime because it's cool and novel.

EDIT: If you go with real time, you should mention on the comp page that the char starts with 7 mins and change.

[Nick]

I think we should (and need) to switch the rules to realtime or gametime. I favor realtime because it's cool and novel.

EDIT: If you go with real time, you should mention on the comp page that the char starts with 7 mins and change.

Sounds fair. Any objections? No? pav, could you change that? It's labelled Play time in the dump.

[pav]

Sounds fair. Any objections? No? pav, could you change that? It's labelled Play time in the dump.

Nick, would exp/playtime be ok, or you want absolute playtime for winners? And what for non-winners?

Guys, reupload your dumps.