Experiences with Frog-knows

[thapper]

I found something I would think is Frog-Knows (named angband-24f-win) here

[Malak Darkhunter]

I found something I would think is Frog-Knows (named angband-24f-win) here

That's it but it's unplayable for me, it's in dos terminal window, getting alot of graphical corruption, I might need to make a windows me platform to play these older games.

[Timo Pietilä]

just do be curious, are you guying playing this in a dos port, or did you re-compile for windows? I like the older games, I played Moria extensively, but never got to experiment with versions of angband older than 3.0.3, and would like to give it a whirl.

can you recompile that old a version for windows?

Funny thing with (very old) Frog-Knows binary is that it runs without problems directly in 32bit XP, but there was some graphics problem with floor so I run it in dosbox.

[Magnate]

That's it but it's unplayable for me, it's in dos terminal window, getting alot of graphical corruption, I might need to make a windows me platform to play these older games.

Google for dosbox.

[Magnate]

Modern polymorph is too boring to ever use.

I've always wondered why this is the case. I presume it's because in order to avoid instadeath it ends up terribly boring. I think this boosts my case for fixing #572 properly - if we could guarantee that a polymorphee would never get a move before @, we could open up the range of possibilities again, because you'd get at least one turn to get away from the Great Storm Wyrm.

[Jungle_Boy]

I've always wondered why this is the case. I presume it's because in order to avoid instadeath it ends up terribly boring. I think this boosts my case for fixing #572 properly - if we could guarantee that a polymorphee would never get a move before @, we could open up the range of possibilities again, because you'd get at least one turn to get away from the Great Storm Wyrm.

I never use polymorph because it seems like any monster I would want to change into something less dangerous is immune to it.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Google for dosbox.

I've used dosbox before and have made directorys for it, but I totally forgot it existed, thank you guys for reminding me, occasionaly I like to mess around with the older games.

[buzzkill]

I've always wondered why this is the case. I presume it's because in order to avoid instadeath it ends up terribly boring. I think this boosts my case for fixing #572 properly - if we could guarantee that a polymorphee would never get a move before @, we could open up the range of possibilities again, because you'd get at least one turn to get away from the Great Storm Wyrm.

Ploymoprh doesn't just happen. A deliberate action must be taken by the player before anything gets polymorphed. Why then, are you as a maintainer, worried about insta-death. It seems that your trying to circumvent player stupidity, which aside from being a fools task makes for a boring game.

Back in the old days, in Rogue IIRC, polymorph always transformed the target into something commonly found somewhat deeper, and therefore likely more dangerous to the player. It wouldn't change an orc directly into a wyrm, not that you couldn't get there by using a whole wand full of charges. Why not revert to something like that.

Here's a pitch: A LoS polymorph trap would be neat.

[kaypy]

I was using the one from

http://rephial.org/release/2.4.fk

or rather, one just this side of frogknows

http://rephial.org/release/pcangband-1.3

1.3 is where non-cardinal targetting got introduced, which was kinda my minimum UI requirement. Macros I can do myself at the OS level.

Public service announcement: ancient versions of angband do not have recovery saves, but do have bugs. At very least manually exitsave-and-restart periodically if you don't want your character do learn why glitches are more dangerous than Great Storm Wyrms.

[Derakon]

Buzzkill: remember that polymorph can happen from chaos attacks too. That's such a rare case that I don't consider it worth worrying about though. And of course we could also have different rules for player-initiated and monster-initiated polymorphs.

[Magnate]

Ploymoprh doesn't just happen. A deliberate action must be taken by the player before anything gets polymorphed. Why then, are you as a maintainer, worried about insta-death. It seems that your trying to circumvent player stupidity, which aside from being a fools task makes for a boring game.

For the simple reason that if there's the smallest chance of instadeath resulting from an action, nobody will ever take that action. That's what makes the game limited and boring.

Back in the old days, in Rogue IIRC, polymorph always transformed the target into something commonly found somewhat deeper, and therefore likely more dangerous to the player. It wouldn't change an orc directly into a wyrm, not that you couldn't get there by using a whole wand full of charges. Why not revert to something like that.

Here's a pitch: A LoS polymorph trap would be neat.

Sounds good. Happy to revert to something like the old behaviour, with the insurance that no polymorphee gets to move before @. It's the same principle that says that IDing staves by use should not result in instadeath from summonees.

[Timo Pietilä]

I've used dosbox before and have made directorys for it, but I totally forgot it existed, thank you guys for reminding me, occasionaly I like to mess around with the older games.

If you like older games and have ever played MoO2 (and liked it), get original MoO a try it. I'm completely hooked to both, but original MoO requires less micromanagement and is more random.

Good thing is that dosbox works even in 64bit Win7 which probably will be my next computer OS (Or Win8. Don't know for sure if it has lost the infant diseases before I need to buy new computer, this one starts to be rather old).

[Magnate]

If you like older games and have ever played MoO2 (and liked it), get original MoO a try it. I'm completely hooked to both, but original MoO requires less micromanagement and is more random.

Good thing is that dosbox works even in 64bit Win7 which probably will be my next computer OS (Or Win8. Don't know for sure if it has lost the infant diseases before I need to buy new computer, this one starts to be rather old).

DosBox also runs Master of Magic, which is the only game I ever enjoyed more than MoO.

[buzzkill]

It's the same principle that says that IDing staves by use should not result in instadeath from summonees.

Really? I frequently get killed by ID-by-use of items of summoning, but I rarely play V. The player really gets first move vs. summonees???

[Magnate]

Really? I frequently get killed by ID-by-use of items of summoning, but I rarely play V. The player really gets first move vs. summonees???

Not at the moment, no. The best we can do is set the energy of all summonees to 0, but they might still move first.

We only need to ensure the first move to encourage ID-by-use. Once an item is ID'd, you deserve everything you get. Summoning traps don't need to guarantee @ the first move either, otherwise there'd be little point to them. But nobody will ID stuff by use if there's a chance of instadeath, so we have to ensure that beasties summoned by unID'd scroll, staff or polymorph will not get the first move.