Please remove lava from town

[Pete Mack]

The town is in a hidden valley on a shoulder of Thangorodrim, and regularly sees lava rivers. Only heroic efforts by the wizard of the magicke shoppe keeps its square clear.
There is a magical entrance to the pits of Angband used by adventurers and ambitious shopkeepers alike. Even the denizens occasionally try their hand. Supplies are brought in on eagle-back, or sold by returning adventurers. In so a remote and inaccessible a place, a natural monopoly has formed allowing astronomical prices, where even a biscuit costs a gold piece. The high prices allow the trade to contunue. And the adventurers keep coming. Most are wise, and eschew the depths, when even a hundred gold will set them up for life. But a rash few go deeper...

[Pete Mack]

The town is in a hidden valley on a shoulder of Thangorodrim, and regularly sees lava rivers. Only heroic efforts by the wizard of the magicke shoppe keeps its square clear.
There is a magical entrance to the pits of Angband used by adventurers and ambitious shopkeepers alike. Even the denizens occasionally try their hand. Supplies are brought in on eagle-back, or sold by returning adventurers. In so a remote and inaccessible a place, a natural monopoly has formed allowing astronomical prices, where even a biscuit costs a gold piece. The high prices allow the trade to contunue. And the adventurers keep coming. Most are wise, and eschew the depths, when even a hundred gold will set them up for life. But a rash few go deeper. To date, only one has returned from the greatest depths...

[Sky]

what i really detest about the town, is the placement of shops and facing of doors.

[Whelk]

As long as the lava isn't getting in the way of anything I'm routinely doing around town, I like it. Seeing it the first time changed the image of the town in my imagination from that point on, and that's neat. It's encouraging to me to see something was added for flavor and not much else. (Context: I've been pretty discouraged by the increasingly common direction of some other games I like axing flavorful content in favor of streamlining the mechanical aspects of the game.)

And while we're opining about the town experience in general: I'd love to be able to use my healing spells/items on sick townsfolk, (willingly) give gold to urchins/beggars/merchants, etc. to get the various meddlesome townsfolk out of the way instead of having to murder them on my way to the store. Granted the "RP" part of the RPG that is Angband means little if anything, but it still bugs me. Not something I ever expect to actually see since it'd be code effort for negligible effect on gameplay, but it's something I think about pretty much every playthrough.

[Sky]

Yeah, i mean, why would the vendors not buy Haste Monsters and Heal Monsters. they HEAL the townsfolk !!


but really, the simple solution is to have a birth option with "model village" town, where there is no walkable lava and the shops are spread out in a circle with all the doors facing the center of town; and maybe it could only have merchants and not rogues or urchins. And the layout is always identical.

[fph]

the simple solution is to have a birth option with "model village" town, where there is no walkable lava and the shops are spread out in a circle with all the doors facing the center of town; and maybe it could only have merchants and not rogues or urchins. And the layout is always identical.

There was an old proposal to have this 3x3 town layout:

123
4>5
678

But, as for me, i kinda like a little more color.

[Sky]

There was an old proposal to have this 3x3 town layout:

123
4>5
678

But, as for me, i kinda like a little more color.

yeah, you know, i am *sure* that Nick has a bit more artistic talent than that.
In my very wise and learned opinion even if the change was simply that doors must face the center, and still have everything else randomized, that would be good enough. Not to mention it would actually look better - like, you know, an actual village.

[Cuboideb]

We could have a key command in the store menu to access other shoppings.

Teleport to black market, now!

Cons:
1. No turns are consumed
2. No attacks from town people/animals.

[PowerDiver]

There was an old proposal to have this 3x3 town layout:

123
4>5
678

Another proposal that could be much better. The right town requires renumbering, as simple as labeling the alchemist shop #9.

789
4>6
123

[wobbly]

Alternative design

7#8#9
#[color="red"]###[/color]#
4[color="red"]#[/color]>[color="red"]#[/color]6
#[color="red"]###[/color]#
1#2#3

[Pete Mack]

Pretty sure the black market would be out of town, with door facing away. Possibly at the back of a seedy tavern.
@wobbly: excellent design. It really limits how often you can return to town.

[PowerDiver]

Pretty sure the black market would be out of town, with door facing away. Possibly at the back of a seedy tavern.

A "black market" with a fixed location makes no sense. I always figured it was a poorly named pawn shop.

[Estie]

Makes perfect sense - the shopkeeper has to markup the prices because of the high crime rate in the ghetto

[kineahora]

As long as the lava isn't getting in the way of anything I'm routinely doing around town, I like it. Seeing it the first time changed the image of the town in my imagination from that point on, and that's neat. It's encouraging to me to see something was added for flavor and not much else. (Context: I've been pretty discouraged by the increasingly common direction of some other games I like axing flavorful content in favor of streamlining the mechanical aspects of the game.)

And while we're opining about the town experience in general: I'd love to be able to use my healing spells/items on sick townsfolk, (willingly) give gold to urchins/beggars/merchants, etc. to get the various meddlesome townsfolk out of the way instead of having to murder them on my way to the store. Granted the "RP" part of the RPG that is Angband means little if anything, but it still bugs me. Not something I ever expect to actually see since it'd be code effort for negligible effect on gameplay, but it's something I think about pretty much every playthrough.

Yes, I would prefer there to be at least some option to have some positive quality of the townsfolk that doesn't cause them to do harm to the character if he/she chooses not to murder them...

[Grotug]

Would be cool if some townsfolk gave useful advice or info. You could even have some of them on a rare occasion give info that would even be useful to a veteran player, like "nickel-plated rods teleport monsters to the far reaches of the dungeon" or "scrolls of 'fugnas inus' are very rare, but very powerful, use them sparingly!" (for mass banishment scrolls) or "Look out for Pungent potions: they restore and increase every stat".