What to do

[fizzix]

For Tolkien reasons Gothmog, Charcaroth and Ungoliant should be deepest and very very dangerous. Huan should not be here at all (there is no need for it). Maybe replace with boosted Draugluin (recurring error: Draugluin, not Drauglin, you are missing an u). We don't need Kronos at all. Or any other of the giant uniques. They are basically just waste of time, and not belong to Tolkien universe anyway.

I was not basing my opinions on literature at all. The alternative is beefing up Gothmog, and I think that's certainly a reasonable option. Make him resist all the elements, and then give him another breath attack. Sound seems most reasonable.

Draugluin (sorry about the spelling) is kind of a mixed bag. Summon hounds can either be abandon-the-battle-NOW or sweet-this-will-be-a-piece-of-cake. Letting him breathe poison would help, because it'd clear out a lot of hounds and allow for more summons. (for when he summons wargs or something).

I kind of like that there are non-Tolkien monsters around. I'd be sad if all of them were removed. I wouldn't miss atlas or polyphemus at all, they're kind of lame, but kronos is tough, and he comes with an escort, so he's worth fighting.

IMO there should be some monsters that are too tough to handle at their native depth, and Azriel has been one of those forever. So I wouldn't move it anywhere.

Can't say I agree. I think everything should be at their appropriate depth.

[Timo Pietilä]

Draugluin (sorry about the spelling) is kind of a mixed bag. Summon hounds can either be abandon-the-battle-NOW or sweet-this-will-be-a-piece-of-cake.

I remember one time when I was fighting Dwar, Dog Lord of Waw. He summoned bunch of Light hounds and Vibration Hounds. Sound-breaths from Vibration hounds kept him stunned and Light hounds hurt him a lot (is vulnerable to normal light). That was piece of cake.

Draugluin has not been quite as easy, but he is a bit pushover at his depth.

Can't say I agree. I think everything should be at their appropriate depth.

Depth plays a big part in fear factor. Azriel would not be scary at all at 4900+' but totally killer at 2000'. There needs to be variable in danger levels, otherwise game tends to turn to grey mass which is boring. Of course he can't be too far from the "this would be where you can handle it" depth. Nobody would want to meet Azriel at 1000', but there can be some variation.

I remember one time when I was hunting Sauron when that coward teleported away again and bumped to Balrog of Moria. Didn't even bother to look what it was, just plain hit it and thought that "this is one tough Balrog" and then killed it. I didn't even realize it was Balrog of Moria immediately. It was just a speed-bump in my way to Sauron-hunt.

[fizzix]

I remember one time when I was fighting Dwar, Dog Lord of Waw. He summoned bunch of Light hounds and Vibration Hounds. Sound-breaths from Vibration hounds kept him stunned and Light hounds hurt him a lot (is vulnerable to normal light). That was piece of cake.

Draugluin has not been quite as easy, but he is a bit pushover at his depth.

3 times I've had Drauglin summon hellhounds when I had Imm fire. yeah...

Depth plays a big part in fear factor. Azriel would not be scary at all at 4900+' but totally killer at 2000'. There needs to be variable in danger levels, otherwise game tends to turn to grey mass which is boring. Of course he can't be too far from the "this would be where you can handle it" depth. Nobody would want to meet Azriel at 1000', but there can be some variation.

I'd rather have this be accomplished by a larger pool of out of depth monsters than monsters that are significantly harder than their depth indicates. Part of this is because I feel that the 'depth' in the monster memory should give a good indication to a new player about how difficult the monster is. If this is faulty, then I think it's bad. I think we want the same thing overall, just accomplished in a different manner.

[Adley]

Since i won for the first time, i wanted to play other variants.
However, Un and Z encounter the same problem as i did with V, and this time chmod does not work. Help?

[Nick]

Since i won for the first time, i wanted to play other variants.
However, Un and Z encounter the same problem as i did with V, and this time chmod does not work. Help?

Is it giving a "cannot create" message again, and if so what is it? I just tried downloading Un and running it straight from the disk image, and it worked fine (using Snow Leopard).

[Adley]

Mac os x.
Un : cannot create /var/empty/library/preferences/Unangband/scores/scores.raw
Z : cannot create
/~/library/preferences/Unangband/scores/scores.raw

[Nick]

Mac os x.
Un : cannot create /var/empty/library/preferences/Unangband/scores/scores.raw

I should think that

chmod -R 0755 /var/empty/library/preferences/Unangband

should work. What's happening is the game is trying to write the scores.raw file, and for some reason doesn't have permission - the chmod line ought to fix that. It doesn't explain why this is happening in the first place...

[Adley]

/var/empty is empty... no library in it...

[Nick]

/var/empty is empty... no library in it...

How are you trying to launch the game? I do the following:

[LIST=1][*]Download the .dmg file[*]Double-click on it to open the disk image[*]Double-click the Unangband icon[*]Click the 'Open' button when it asks you if you want to open something downloaded from the internet[*]Select 'New' from the file menu[/LIST]

and then the game goes through the birth process fine.

In my case, the path to the scores.raw file has my home directory where you have /var/empty - I don't know why that would be.

[Adley]

Yeah. i do that, and it bugs after step 4...

[Adley]

Strangely, FA works.

[Derakon]

Try doing

mkdir -p /var/empty/library/preferences/Unangband

before doing the chmod.

[Adley]

Works ^^
Question : what are these actually doing? (chmod and mkdir)

[Derakon]

mkdir creates a directory (a.k.a. folder) where you tell it to. Adding the "-p" tells it to also make all the directories that contain that directory. So for the path "/var/empty/library/preferences/Unangband", it first says "Does /var exist? If not, create it." Then it repeats that for /var/empty, /var/empty/library, etc.

chmod changes the permissions for a file or directory. Each one has read, write, and execute (a.k.a. "run") permissions, which can be set for the owner of the file, the group the owner is in, and for everyone. The syntax for how to specify permissions for each is a bit arcane; the practical upshot is that "chmod -R 0755" means "set the permissions so that the owner can do everything, and everyone else can read and execute but not write, for this directory and everything it contains".

[Nick]

Strangely, FA works.

I suspect that's because it has a more recent OS X port. It looks to me like there's something slightly odd with your setup that older ports don't like.