glyph of warding makes items disappear?

[quarague]

So my priest build a summoning corridor, cast glyph of warding in it and then tried to drop some staves before fighting a charge drainer.
messages:
You drop 5 Staves of Speed (22 charges)
The Staves of Speed disappear.
mmh, what? where did they go?
Do items just disappear when dropped on a glyph of warding? If so there should be a warning in the spell description. Or is there something else I'm missing?

[Timo Pietilä]

So my priest build a summoning corridor, cast glyph of warding in it and then tried to drop some staves before fighting a charge drainer.
messages:
You drop 5 Staves of Speed (22 charges)
The Staves of Speed disappear.
mmh, what? where did they go?
Do items just disappear when dropped on a glyph of warding? If so there should be a warning in the spell description. Or is there something else I'm missing?

It should not disappear if there were space closeby in LoS, but it wont go around corner either, so if both blocks of the antisummoning corridor had runes they had nowhere to go.

So if there were free space, it is a bug. If not it isn't.

[quarague]

Well, looks like that is exactly what happened. I think this happens pretty much exclusively in selfmade summoning corridors and to me it feels like a 'gotcha mechanic' where the unknowing player is punished with no way of knowing beforehand.
Can we change the flavor text for glyph of warding so that it specifies that no items can lie on a glyph of warding?
If item drops by the player would disappear, a warning message instead of item disappearance would be nice too. I don't think a monster drop can ever cause this effect, because the spot where the monster stands is always permissible for items, so all items can just drop right there.

[Timo Pietilä]

If item drops by the player would disappear, a warning message instead of item disappearance would be nice too.

I vote for this. I would be nice if glyph and traps would not prevent items entering that block. OTOH sometimes it works like a warning that "there is something invisible there" when items dropping don't get there.

[Zireael]

A warning message would indeed be nice.

[Derakon]

It's also possible to fill up the stack of items on the floor; each stack has a maximum capacity. If every eligible tile has a full stack then items will disappear.

[Timo Pietilä]

It's also possible to fill up the stack of items on the floor; each stack has a maximum capacity. If every eligible tile has a full stack then items will disappear.

That's quite a big stack though. Don't remember seeing items disappear for that in ages.

[quarague]

It's also possible to fill up the stack of items on the floor; each stack has a maximum capacity. If every eligible tile has a full stack then items will disappear.

I think this is just a relic of long bygone versions. The stack size on each floor tile used to be 1, so that item loss was quite common. Nowadays stack size is so high that it is almost never reached in practice, but I don't really see a reason why any absolute limit on stack size is needed. Programmingwise this can be achieved by setting the max stack size to some very large finite number, which I think is pretty much the current situation.

[Werbaer]

I don't think a monster drop can ever cause this effect, because the spot where the monster stands is always permissible for items

Not if the monster is standing on a trap.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Not if the monster is standing on a trap.

True. Sometimes, if monsters are in a sea of traps, and you're interested in what they might drop, you must wait until they are out of the sea or disarm traps in their vicinity so there is room for drops.

[Cold_Heart]

The real question is, why an item and a trap can not share a tile?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

The real question is, why an item and a trap can not share a tile?

They can in FA, of which Nick is also the master, but it is a change for Vanilla, possibly considered a "game change". One troubling thing for me is that it's difficult to know if a tile with a trap also contains an item, even if Detection is used. When drops occur over traps in FA, there's no way to "see" that an item is there without clearing the traps (or using the "look" command and checking each trap tile manually).

[Nick]

The real question is, why an item and a trap can not share a tile?

A good point, well illustrated

Ingwe is correct that it's a game change, so won't happen for 4.0.

The main problem to be resolved is which do you see - the trap or the object? Obviously if the trap is unknown you see the object, but once the trap is discovered? I'm inclined to say the trap, but then it's a bit weird if you detect objects, but nothing changes because there's one object and it's hidden under a known trap. Still, no worse then Detection, I guess.

Summary of my stream of consciousness - seems possible. I'm going to post some more detailed plans for 4.1-4.3 soon which may influence the thinking on this too.

[Nomad]

The main problem to be resolved is which do you see - the trap or the object? Obviously if the trap is unknown you see the object, but once the trap is discovered? I'm inclined to say the trap, but then it's a bit weird if you detect objects, but nothing changes because there's one object and it's hidden under a known trap. Still, no worse then Detection, I guess.

Could we not implement a new generic "trap + object" symbol like the pile symbol or unidentified treasure-detected objects? In fact, the pile symbol in the same colour as the trap detection border would be a logical choice. And you could do the same if you have trapped doors and staircases - colour change indicates known-to-be-trapped.

[AnonymousHero]

The real question is, why an item and a trap can not share a tile?

I nominate this for the Best Post Ever award on the Angband forums!