My observations on vanilla 3.1.1

[Magnate]

(re your first post - the descriptions of oil flasks were fixed in r1593)

- Bug: torch of brightness says radius 2 light in the description, but that's the same as
regular torches.

- Bug: inspected a quarterstaff of extra attacks in a shop and it said 1 attack/round.

Oooh. Both of those should have been fixed (r1559 and r1404 respectively). Which build are you using? Perhaps if you're giving observations on a new version you should use the one everyone else is downloading??

[will_asher]

I'm using the main 3.1.1 version. I have never downloaded a between-version build. (Though I may start since I heard that the ones after 3.1.1 tend to be less buggy than earlier ones). Is everyone else using between-version builds?

EDIT: There, I just downloaded r1599 (the one that's currently on the rephial page).

[PowerDiver]

I'm using the main 3.1.1 version. I have never downloaded a between-version build. (Though I may start since I heard that the ones after 3.1.1 tend to be less buggy than earlier ones). Is everyone else using between-version builds?

That's a fine approach. However, the "main version" IMO should be interpreted to be the one on the homepage of rephial, and that has been improved to r1599.

[Magnate]

I'm using the main 3.1.1 version. I have never downloaded a between-version build. (Though I may start since I heard that the ones after 3.1.1 tend to be less buggy than earlier ones). Is everyone else using between-version builds?

I think quite a lot of people here play the nightlies. This is why Takkaria added the build number to chardumps, so we can see exactly which version people are playing. I thought he'd done that before the first release of 3.1.1. I'm also pretty certain that the torch of brightness description was fixed by then too.

Whatever, you may have found a new bug with the extra attacks description. The fix to which I referred was older and may not have caught that. If you can reproduce it in r1599 or later, please file a bug.

[will_asher]

Whatever, you may have found a new bug with the extra attacks description. The fix to which I referred was older and may not have caught that. If you can reproduce it in r1599 or later, please file a bug.

If there's still a bug there, I doubt that I'll find it again before someone else does because I died in that game and now I'm going back to focussing on DaJAngband until I get the next version of DaJAngband out. When I get back to vanilla, I'll probably have to upgrade again before I start playing.

[wdvaughn]

My 2 cents

I've been playing nothing but O for the past couple of years so it was interesting to try Vanilla 3.1.1. Some comments:

1) I really like ID by use. In other 'bands, where curses are more common and ID easier to get, you never try out unID'd items, which makes cursed items basically pointless. ID by use encourages you to take a chance on unID'd items which I think is fun.

2) I like the new items, especially the rings that both good and bad at the same time (like Escaping).

3) I thought I was super lucky that I found +10 boots of speed at 1150' in my first game. Then I found another, and also saw a pair for sale in town for less than 10,000, and that was not a sale price. Has speed been discounted?

4) I love OAngband but in comparison to 3.1.1 its like beating your head against a wall. My first character, high-elf rogue, had +10BoS, Theoden, Balli Stonehand, Cambeleg, and Amrod before 1500'. I'm not sure what I think about the relative easiness compared to O - it almost feels like cheating.

5) O has a few user interface features I miss. For example when you're firing ammo, pressing Enter automatically selects the appropriate ammo with the highest damage, and when you're targeting pressing Enter again automatically selects the closest target. Makes firing ammo a lot easier. There are plenty of other examples which aren't coming to mind right now.

6) Agree with others, its annoying that when you want to destroy an item you first have to answer whether you want to squelch all similar items. I make lots of mistakes in this.

7) On OS X, when I rest it pegs out my CPU. Resting for a few thousand turns takes a LONG time, I see the turns click by 100 at a time in slow motion. Surely this shouldn't max out a Core Duo?

8) The store interface is confusing an inconsistent (unless I'm missing something). When I'm buying, I first have to select the noun then the verb. When I'm selling, its the opposite.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this game.

[Pete Mack]

3) I thought I was super lucky that I found +10 boots of speed at 1150' in my first game. Then I found another, and also saw a pair for sale in town for less than 10,000, and that was not a sale price. Has speed been discounted?

You were lucky, and yes speed has been discounted. Object pricing is an ongoing experiment. Were the Boots of speed for sale +10? (Looking at the code, they should be around 50K--still too low.)

[Magnate]

3) I thought I was super lucky that I found +10 boots of speed at 1150' in my first game. Then I found another, and also saw a pair for sale in town for less than 10,000, and that was not a sale price. Has speed been discounted?

There are two separate issues here. One is that speed boots are more common than in 3.0.x because of a change to ego item generation. This dates from 3.1.0 and I don't really know much about it. The second change is that prices are now calculated on a completely different basis, which means that speed is cheaper than previously. That said, the boots you saw for under 10k gold were not +10, I'm sure.

8) The store interface is confusing an inconsistent (unless I'm missing something). When I'm buying, I first have to select the noun then the verb. When I'm selling, its the opposite.

This whole noun/verb command thing is the subject of intense debate. In summary, the old verb-noun style has little going for it except familiarity. The new noun-verb style is the future, for mouse-driven play, handhelds, etc. That's the debate anyway - I'm pretty agnostic myself.

[wdvaughn]

I thought I saw BoS +10 for sale under $10K, but I must have been mistaken. I know I sold a pair to the armorer, maybe +6, and only got around $8K. I didn't pay enough attention to the specifics but I just remember being shocked how cheap there were.

As for the noun-verb issue, I don't have a strong opinion, I just don't think its good that there is a different order for buying than for selling.

And I shouldn't have made such a big deal about how easy this version was. It got a bit harder when I sauntered up to a drolem, with no poison resistance, and thought my 520 HP and +22 speed would make everything work out fine.

[azfalt]

My current character bought +10 BoS for around 50K from the armory. That might have been too cheap...

I may be unusually lucky, but RoS seem easy to find as well - I've found +8 and +13 rings, both dropped around 3500' or so.

[Pete Mack]

RoSpeed is just luck. I'm at 3900', and would really like speed better than "normal".

[Magnate]

My current character bought +10 BoS for around 50K from the armory. That might have been too cheap...

Yes. Another way to look at it is that BoS simply shouldn't appear in the armory ...

[Sirridan]

Yes. Another way to look at it is that BoS simply shouldn't appear in the armory ...

It's kind of nice that they do, but maybe they shouldn't start appearing until you've reached level 50 or deeper (75 for =speed depth?)

Once you start getting down there *theoretically* speed stuff should have dropped unless you're diving quite quickly, and it's nice to find a BoS in the armory from time to time in case the RNG doesn't let one loose in the dungeons.

[Pete Mack]

It's kind of nice that they do, but maybe they shouldn't start appearing until you've reached level 50 or deeper (75 for =speed depth?)

Once you start getting down there *theoretically* speed stuff should have dropped unless you're diving quite quickly, and it's nice to find a BoS in the armory from time to time in case the RNG doesn't let one loose in the dungeons.

I'm not a fan of making things available in the shops for "fairness." Angband is fun largely because it is not fair. Most games, I have to find a way to win without BoSpeed; when I do get them, it's a huge bump.

[Sirridan]

I'm not a fan of making things available in the shops for "fairness." Angband is fun largely because it is not fair. Most games, I have to find a way to win without BoSpeed; when I do get them, it's a huge bump.

True, and finding a BoSpeed on the floor down in the deeps is much more interesting than finding one in town.

Nix BoSpeed from shops (except BM at overinflated prices and get some more early sources for rPoison and call it a night!