3.4.0 Release Candidate is available

[Derakon]

SOCKPUPPET!!

Curses! I've been found out!

Er, I mean...you can't prove anything!

[Magnate]

*wonders what "eekable" means*

I don't know, but the levels of sophistication involved in bolding parts of a quote and composing a coherent sentence referring to it are way beyond any of dos's previous posts, so I say

SOCKPUPPET!!

[Therem Harth]

Maybe the crash should be reported to Apple, once the source is determined? If an incorrect keypress in some application crashes the graphical server, that's basically the OS's fault.

[d_m]

It is the identify symbol command, but it looks like it doesn't handle things correctly, and dies if the next keystroke doesn't correspond to any object in the game. Haven't been able to reproduce crashing the graphics layer, but it looks like it does this with the non-numpad arrow keys, tab, enter and delete. The escape key looks like it actually functions correctly.

I don't get the spectacular white box and such, but I do see a crash when using keys like Tab, so I can reproduce the crash at least.

[ekolis]

*wonders what "eekable" means*

[dos350]

The Angband dev team is proud to announce the RC for 3.4.0. You can download the Windows or Mac autobuilds here. As always, source is available from github (Autobuilt RC is be2f579582).

A full list of the changes can be found in changes.txt in the main folder. I'll highlight some of the gameplay changes here.

• Shockbolt's 64x64 tiles
• Stack and quiver size is now max 40
  
• Fuzzy detection for everything but !enlight and rogue's detect object spell
• New pit types and allocation rates
  
• Angels are now Ainu (mostly a cosmetic change)
  
• Deep descent is a delayed effect that will drop you 5 levels
• Less stat points available at character creation
• Monster summons are dependent on summoner and summonee level.
• Various tweaks to monsters (AC, alertness)

In addition we are trying to get a cocoa port running for 3.4.0, so feedback on that would be helpful.

Please report any bugs here.

-Angband Dev Team

bolded are considered by 350 eekable , gl on release

[jujuben]

Sure. Here is my before and after.

[myshkin]

It is the identify symbol command, but it looks like it doesn't handle things correctly, and dies if the next keystroke doesn't correspond to any object in the game. Haven't been able to reproduce crashing the graphics layer, but it looks like it does this with the non-numpad arrow keys, tab, enter and delete. The escape key looks like it actually functions correctly.

Hmmm. Can you post a screenshot of what you see after pressing /?

[jujuben]

It is the identify symbol command, but it looks like it doesn't handle things correctly, and dies if the next keystroke doesn't correspond to any object in the game. Haven't been able to reproduce crashing the graphics layer, but it looks like it does this with the non-numpad arrow keys, tab, enter and delete. The escape key looks like it actually functions correctly.

[myshkin]

Speaking of bugs... Playing on a Macbook Pro, OS 10.6.8. Found a stuck door, used / + direction to try to open it (used to Sil at the moment), and realized this was incorrect for the V interface. Tried to get out of the / menu with the escape key, and everything crashed, including the graphics layer on my OS. Big white box on my screen made pretty much everything unusable until reboot.

Ouch. For me, / is the identify symbol command, and does not bring up a menu. What keyboard (QWERTY/AZERTY/other) and keyset (original/roguelike) are you using? What are the choices in your / menu? Is it the same as the menu that appears when you press Enter?

[debo]

Speaking of bugs... Playing on a Macbook Pro, OS 10.6.8. Found a stuck door, used / + direction to try to open it (used to Sil at the moment), and realized this was incorrect for the V interface. Tried to get out of the / menu with the escape key, and everything crashed, including the graphics layer on my OS. Big white box on my screen made pretty much everything unusable until reboot.

Your Mac failed a strength check and was stunned?

[jujuben]

It's the first Release Candidate. If it has no bugs at all, then yes it will be 3.4.0. But that's unlikely ;-)

In feature terms, yes it's the 3.4.0 feature set. We're just trying to find any nasty bugs before release.

Speaking of bugs... Playing on a Macbook Pro, OS 10.6.8. Found a stuck door, used / + direction to try to open it (used to Sil at the moment), and realized this was incorrect for the V interface. Tried to get out of the / menu with the escape key, and everything crashed, including the graphics layer on my OS. Big white box on my screen made pretty much everything unusable until reboot.

[Derakon]

Egavactip, I recognize that you don't like the change, but please realize two things:

1) v4 archery is broken (in the "useless" sense). You can't compare it to 3.4's archery, which uses the old damage calculations. Please play with 3.4 before declaring it broken.

2) The goal of the 40-items-per-slot limit is to keep us from having to eliminate the quiver altogether. It was breaking the game wide open before and absolutely had to be nerfed. It had nothing to do with fighting Sauron/Morgoth and everything to do with ensuring that the player cannot carry enough items to handle every situation, which is an explicit design goal for Angband play in general.

Also, if you're frightened, drink potions of Heroism. They give you temporary resistance to fear. They're standard kit for all of my melee-using characters until the midgame at least.

[fizzix]

>
Ostensibly the reason for this change is because it was too easy to fight Sauron and Morgoth with slay evil arrows.

That's actually not the reason for it at all. The reason (IMO) is that having a quiver with 99 arrows per slot is hugely overpowered, it makes archery the default for any class, even priests who are supposedly discouraged from arching. Remember this is closer to a reversion to older days where there was no quiver and each arrow stack went into its own slot. Arguably you are still better off in the endgame with archery than you were prior to the quiver. Not being able to buy 99 arrows from the general store is probably annoying since you've been used to it, but people used to complain about how easy this made the game for a long time. I'd consider making ammo drops more common in the dungeon, or even tweaking breakage chance as possible options if there's a consensus that this limitation is too onerous.

In my playthroughs I tended to find enough !Cure potions in the dungeon to get by. If I was limited in potions it was by what I could afford from the shops and how many they were actually stocking, not slots. Can you describe the situation where you are running out of !CCW in the midgame?

[Egavactip]

>Stack and quiver size is now max 40

I've been playing with this in recent days through V4 and I must say I don't like it AT ALL. It has necessitated me going up to replenish arrows and CCW far more often than before, unless I want to give up two additional slots. It basically forces me to have an inadequate supply of arrows--which is especially critical in the early to mid stages of a character when they may not be able to use their melee weapon because of fear.

Ostensibly the reason for this change is because it was too easy to fight Sauron and Morgoth with slay evil arrows. Changing the entire quiver and stack system to accomplish this very narrow balancing goal is IMO over the top. With game balance, the simplest and least intrusive solutions are almost always the best (which I say with some 25+ years of experience as a wargame playtester).