Cesti?

[d1sc0nnected]

I wasn't sure what cesti actually were, so I wiki'd it, and found the following:

"A cestus is an ancient battle glove, sometimes used in pankration. In effect, it is the Classic World's equivalent to brass knuckles.

The Latin word caestus (plural caestūs) [1] is derived from verb caedere, meaning "to strike". It is unrelated to the similar noun cestus (plural cestī), that refers to a kind of belt worn by women in Ancient Greece. [1]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestus

Sooooo... are we wearing women's belts on our hands? It seems from this article that they should be named caestus?

[Nick]

However, later in the same article they describe them as cesti - which fits my understanding of Latin plurals.

[d1sc0nnected]

tou'che. I figured it was just wikipedia being unclear, but thought i'd point it out.

[Djabanete]

According to the University Of Notre Dame online Latin Dictionary and Grammar aid, we really have been wearing girdles this whole time.

C(a)estus, c(a)estus (plural c(a)estus), m. 4th declension noun - boxer's gauntlets

Cestus (or cestos), cesti (plural cesti), m. 2nd declension noun - a girdle

Not all Latin nouns ending in -us form the plural with an -i; those of the 4th declension actually form the plural with an -us. Caestus is one of those 4th declension words.

This means that many of the winners on the ladder are using the Girdles of Fingolfin --- on their hands. I wouldn't mind seeing this fixed in future versions.

EDIT: Link.

[Nick]

Not all Latin nouns ending in -us form the plural with an -i; those of the 4th declension actually form the plural with an -us. Caestus is one of those 4th declension words.

Ah, yes. Thank you.

This means that many of the winners on the ladder are using the Girdles of Fingolfin --- on their hands. I wouldn't mind seeing this fixed in future versions.

From the description, it doesn't actually seem like they'd be very good for using with weapons, either. I suggest the top level gloves be just made of better material - mithril gauntlets, maybe.

[d1sc0nnected]

And Wikipedia is redeemed. Kind of. Pretty funny that this has gone unnoticed so long.

[Anne]

Just a small suggestion, but in future releases of ZAngband (I hope I'm posting this in the proper place), I would dearly love to see the item descriptions give at least a vague idea of what an item is. There's often no clue as to whether something is weapon, armor, or other item. It's inconvenient to have to look things up in a dictionary in the middle of playing, in order to find out what something is... and sometimes the resulting definitions still give no clue (like with the Cesti and the Tanto).

Just something simple that says what type of item it is would be a great help.

Taking that one step further, it would be even more wonderful if the description told a tiny bit more information. If it's a weapon, what type of weapon it is (polearm, long sword, launcher, etc) ... or at the very least whether it's an edged weapon, blunt weaopn, or missile. If it's armor, what slot it occupies.

I've only been playing ZAngband for a couple of weeks, and I'm greatly enjoying it. My thanks to all those whose efforts went into developing it.

[d1sc0nnected]

Anne - generally, topics regarding Zangband or other variants would be in the "Variants" forum as opposed to vanilla, which is re: plain old Angband.

Regardless, I've been thinking along the same lines lately, and I don't see any reason that this shouldn't be imp'd in Vanilla or zAng.

I thought a Tulwar was some type of hammer for about 5 years until I finally looked it up.

[Anne]

Ah, thank you, d1sc0nnected. Normally I don't post until I've looked over a forum to see what goes where, shame on me. The funny thing is that I was googling cesti and it led me here. Quite the lucky coincidence, really. As it happens, I downloaded Angband on the same day I did Zangband, so I'll be giving it a whirl here shortly too. Coming from having previously only played Nethack, these 'next generation' games are a very pleasant find for me!

[Djabanete]

Coming from having previously only played Nethack, these 'next generation' games are a very pleasant find for me!

Although really, *Band is not the next generation of *Hack. It's a whole separate branch with a very different feel. It's nice to try out both branches.

[Anne]

I think I'm confused as to the ladder for these games. I was under the impression that Dwarf Fortress was also an Angband variant, but I don't see anything about it here, which leads me to believe that it might not be the case. This is getting fairly off-topic from the original subject of this thread, I know, but would you happen to know a link where I could find some sort of a ladder/tree that listed what games branched off from the different forks?

[zaimoni]

Dwarf Fortress not only is not an Angband variant, it pushes the limits of what a roguelike is (although Adventure mode does qualify)

The Balrog site for the genealogy of almost all roguelikes appears to be down, as does the Variant FAQ. Ugly (I don't have those locally mirrored).

[kathoum]

This is getting fairly off-topic from the original subject of this thread, I know, but would you happen to know a link where I could find some sort of a ladder/tree that listed what games branched off from the different forks?

http://users.tkk.fi/~eye/roguelike/

It's a bit outdated but there's a nice-looking tree.

[priji]

Checkout the wikipedia.