3.0.9b initial questions

[roustk]

Thanks very much!

No problem. Downloaded r838 and compiled -- looks to work fine.

Lots of compiler warnings for types.h, lines 73 and 74, where we talk about "lib/edit/*" inside a comment. Maybe rephrase those comments.

Kevin

[Lebannen]

Awww... I really liked the monogram

The only other problem I have with Mr Att is that the hit target has become much smaller, as the background is transparent. In addition, with transparent/translucent docks these days, the simple line art is rather lost on complex backgrounds... could we keep the old white-circle on red-square from the old icon, perhaps, and have Mr Att framed in that?

(Attach a screenie of my dock, and a suggestion of the kind of montage I'm thinking of - that doesn't look right either, but not sure what else to do...)

[chem]

No-one ever reads the changelists. This is intentional. I'm undecided whether this should be changed or not in the 3.1.x branch; it just means you have to sell some things to the black market instead of the GS.

Not selling in the GS is intentional? I'm baffled. It makes it the only store that doesn't buy things, which just seems strange. The black market is still used sometimes to sell things; particularly high value items such as ego armors or weapons, when the corresponding normal store has a low max value shopkeep. I would still like to be able to sell in the GS. This change doesn't seem to add to gameplay.

Another store question: why the change so that purchases in a store must have the item selected before the purchase keystroke? This is different from basically anything I've played before, and also inconsistent with the keystrokes for selling items. To sell: hit 's', pick item. To buy: pick item, hit 'p'. I much preferred the normal, standard, "hit 'p', pick item" routine.

I don't know when that was changed :P

My character just found BoS +9 at 550' from either a snaga or the floor. We'll see how long he lasts.

[chem]

Hmm, another probable bug. I have u/i/o keymapped to 4/./6 and j/k/l keymapped to 1/2/3 (all for easy movement). When I enter "look" or target select mode, all the directions behave as normal except for "6" (the 'o' key). I have no idea why. It just does nothing. The right arrow key works, so I have to use it as a substitute.

[roustk]

Hmm, another probable bug. I have u/i/o keymapped to 4/./6 and j/k/l keymapped to 1/2/3 (all for easy movement). When I enter "look" or target select mode, all the directions behave as normal except for "6" (the 'o' key). I have no idea why. It just does nothing. The right arrow key works, so I have to use it as a substitute.

The 'o' is probably being interpreted as a request to switch mode from 'm'onster targetting to 'o'ther targetting. If the "look" command has it's own keypress interpreter, you may not be able to get around this with either macros or keymaps.

Kevin

[chem]

The 'o' is probably being interpreted as a request to switch mode from 'm'onster targetting to 'o'ther targetting. If the "look" command has it's own keypress interpreter, you may not be able to get around this with either macros or keymaps.

Yeah, you're probably exactly right, and I think that's bad/buggy behaviour. When I keymap something, it should use my keymap for the mapped input anywhere in the game, regardless of subcommand. I have another key mapped to 'o' for when I need it. I have no idea how difficult it would be to change this behaviour.

Does anyone else agree with me on this one, or am I wacky?

p.s. I have no strong preference on the angband icon, but the one that L. suggested/photoshopped looked good. I have not seen the cvs version.

[roustk]

The only other problem I have with Mr Att is that the hit target has become much smaller, as the background is transparent. In addition, with transparent/translucent docks these days, the simple line art is rather lost on complex backgrounds... could we keep the old white-circle on red-square from the old icon, perhaps, and have Mr Att framed in that?

I run my dock a lot smaller than you do, and Mr. Att does seem to disappear there. When I looked at it last night, it seemed that it was still sufficiently identifiable, even on my (fairly opaque) dock and dark desktop. Your dock looks fairly transparent, and it is harder to identify there.

As for the target issue -- I missed how bad this was because I usually have my Finder windows in List mode, so I don't actually need to hit a colored part of the icon.

Is it easy enough to hit the shield of the larger Mr. Att? If that is okay, then we might be able to get around this by putting only the small icon on a background.

Or, maybe the icns file format permits a mask that differs from the icon. The tool I used is far too simple to do this, but maybe GIMP can do it. I'll poke around. Creating a circular clickable area covering the entire @ would be great.

Kevin

[roustk]

p.s. I have no strong preference on the angband icon, but the one that L. suggested/photoshopped looked good. I have not seen the cvs version.

These are the two versions that were used. The @ with a helm is used for 32px and smaller icons, the fully-equipped @ is used for larger icons. Only the black and white regions are currently clickable.

Kevin

[roustk]

Or, maybe the icns file format permits a mask that differs from the icon. The tool I used is far too simple to do this, but maybe GIMP can do it. I'll poke around. Creating a circular clickable area covering the entire @ would be great.

This is easier than I thought it might be -- ellipse select an area matching the @ and flood fill with 1% opaque black. It is nearly transparent, but clickable. This doesn't fix the appearance problem, but creates a larger mouse target. Someone with a sense of aesthetics should make a decision (i.e., not me).

(It appears that partially and fully opaque pixels are clickable, but fully transparent ones are not.)

Kevin

[Lebannen]

Yeah, you're probably exactly right, and I think that's bad/buggy behaviour. When I keymap something, it should use my keymap for the mapped input anywhere in the game, regardless of subcommand. I have another key mapped to 'o' for when I need it. I have no idea how difficult it would be to change this behaviour.

The only problem with what you suggest is that in things like lists, you really want to keep "o" meaning "o". So it makes sense for keymaps not to work in commands, as it is now ("y" and "n" would also be interesting ones!).

Ideally it sounds like you want a way to map specific commands... but that's harder

Click-to-look is one solution to what you suggest, anyway, which is coming soon-ish.

Roustk - ah, good trick with the 1% opaque! I think I only have quite such a problem with the dock because I have mine hidden normally, so windows overlap the "dock area".

[chem]

Not selling in the GS is intentional? I'm baffled. It makes it the only store that doesn't buy things, which just seems strange. The black market is still used sometimes to sell things; particularly high value items such as ego armors or weapons, when the corresponding normal store has a low max value shopkeep. I would still like to be able to sell in the GS. This change doesn't seem to add to gameplay.

Another store question: why the change so that purchases in a store must have the item selected before the purchase keystroke? This is different from basically anything I've played before, and also inconsistent with the keystrokes for selling items. To sell: hit 's', pick item. To buy: pick item, hit 'p'. I much preferred the normal, standard, "hit 'p', pick item" routine.

I don't know when that was changed :P

My character just found BoS +9 at 550' from either a snaga or the floor. We'll see how long he lasts.

bump because I think those comments may have went missed in the other noise.

also, that character died to a balrog in a jigsaw GV around 1500'.

[roustk]

bump because I think those comments may have went missed in the other noise.

I didn't comment because most of your points had been rehashed repeatedly since 3.0.9 was released. *Especially* the switch from verb-noun to noun-verb in shops. I hate it. Lots of people on r.g.r.a and here seem to hate it. But Takkaria seems set on it, even though the main defense of noun-verb seems to be "it makes playing with a mouse easier".

Please do not restart that pointless argument.

You also questioned (no) selling in the general store. For the most part, the other shops are restricted to buying things that they could also sell. Would you find value in a general store that could buy only food (not mushrooms), torches, ?WoR, cloaks, shovels, and ammo?

Kevin

[roustk]

You also questioned (no) selling in the general store. For the most part, the other shops are restricted to buying things that they could also sell. Would you find value in a general store that could buy only food (not mushrooms), torches, ?WoR, cloaks, shovels, and ammo?

Re-reading chem's initial version of the general store question (halfway down page 1), it appears that he was trying to sell torches and pebbles. Thus, a better defense is needed. These are three weak reasons:

1) Realism: the general store now sells very standardized items. It seems inefficient for the shop to buy a torch with 2658 turns, when they apparently get 3000-turn (or 6000-turn) torches in bulk. I think that you can still get enchanted ammo, so the argument is less relevant for ammo.
2) Little loss: if the general store bought items, they generally would be worth a few gp. You can get 20gp for your 20 (+0+0) pebbles at the BM or the weapon shop. You may not be able to sell torches at the BM, but 1gp for 3lbs is a fairly bad trade.
3) Training: I'm coming around to the argument that selling is dangerous (because it encourages you to slow down your dive). By closing the general store, we make a few more shallow items worthless -- torches in particular. Preventing the sale of torches also encourages players to find other uses for them -- 'F'illing is more important now (with the Phial deeper, lanterns unavailable, and mostly-full torches giving radius-2 light).

Kevin

[takkaria]

All releases since at least late 2.7.x series have had it.

The only thing broken about it is self-healers, and that is because the monster magic system isn't even vaguely symmetric to the player. There's a lot of broken AI that's fixed by turning on ai_smart, so I recommend at least trying playing with it on.

I'm interested in improving the V monster AI but right now am pretty clueless about it. I've been having a scan through Zaiband to see what you're doing there but given I've not really looked into AI much before I'm a little lost. I would be interested in where I could remove adult_ai_smart checks, though.

[rdermyer]

I might be in the minority (and seem to be), but I like the JRRT monogram over the Mr. Att. The fact that it's Tolkien/Middle Earth (albeit loosely) is one of the reasons I like this game.