playing with sell on (WARNING:MEME)

[Carnivean]

all these way before they become available in normal dungeon diving.

Disclaimer: I don't care how you choose to play the game.

The sentence above is indicative of a limited point of view. Taken out of context it's actually quite ambiguous, in the same way that the phrase "average earner" is. If you define "way before" in terms of dungeon level, as you clearly have, then you might be correct. There are other ways of defining before.

If you're clearing every level twice, by clearing 1 level, going to the next, 2x WOR, clear that level again and move down, then game turns and time played are more than double what other players are doing (even those that aren't any good at the game).

In game turns, clearing a level wastes a ton of them.

In minutes played, you're wasting a ton of them too.

Your example of PowerDiver will have accumulated your list of items in 1/10th of the game turns and minutes played.

The question I think you should ask yourself, is what is your time worth?

PS I don't care what the answer is. Your decision is for you. I've already made mine for myself.

[Pete Mack]

@sky--
The only thing commonly appears before finding them in the dungeon is big stacks of valuable potions or scrolls--and that's because such stacks don't occur at all in the dungeon. Everything else, there's a better chance of finding it in the dungeon first. Sure, there's the occasional exception like PDSM in the store, but it's something like 1% of all PDSM finds.

[Sky]

look gyuys, i don't want to descend into an argument, i just wanted some tips on how to mage. i appreciate the advice.

i'll point out - just once, then i'm out - that when i play the games *i* am good at, i don't teach new players game techniques that require experience and skill, because i know they can't pull it off. power diving is something you do when you're good at the game, something that i'm not.

i'll start again with a gnome mage and i'll try to play the way you recommend. this guy is dead anyway - i took a step towards a mob, and a great wyrm i had just TO from inside a vault gpt teleported barely outside of it. i thought i was in a clear area while instead i got breathed on from offscreen.
further irony, i had just found Taratol.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

li'll point out - just once, then i'm out - that when i play the games *i* am good at, i don't teach new players game techniques that require experience and skill, because i know they can't pull it off. power diving is something you do when you're good at the game, something that i'm not.

Watch some of Fizzix's "Let's Play Angband" series on YouTube, then dive away. Your learning curve will be steep, but you'll learn quickly. When a @ dies, you won't have spent as much time on the game, so the loss isn't as poignant. Just consider what lesson is learned from the death and dive again. You'll soon be winning regularly.

[Monkey Face]

i took a step towards a mob, and a great wyrm i had just TO from inside a vault gpt teleported barely outside of it. i thought i was in a clear area while instead i got breathed on from offscreen.
further irony, i had just found Taratol.

Try to cast Reveal Monsters frequently. If you teleport other or something you're fighting blinks away it's a good idea to cast it to see where they went.

[Sky]

well, i'm going to say something obviously wrong now .. so get ready.

too much casting.


it's just not ... mentally easy to play a mage. you have to be paranoid about everything, and while with a HT-W you can just brutalize mobs and chug potions, with the mage i found myself meleeing mobs because i was like "ugh .. more cast spell, closest target, repeat".

i guess i should get into macros ..

[debo]

I don't know how it would be possible to play a mage without using keymaps or macros, it's way too much.

[Pete Mack]

Yep. Inscribe your books and make keymaps for most common attack spells (you may change which spells are mapped during the game.) Mage is unplayable without it.
Use '5' as the target in your maps. You will be asked for a target if you haven't chosen one. Otherwise it will repeat using the same target. You may also want a keymap for spear of light or rods of light if you don't have ESP.

[Derakon]

i guess i should get into macros ..

Absolutely, categorically yes. This isn't even a question of preferred playstyle like all our arguments about selling or dive speed; playing with keymaps is objectively better than playing without.

Use the { command, select your first spellbook, and inscribe it with "@m1!k!d!v", without the quotation marks. The "!k" means "prompt me for confirmation before squelching this", and likewise !d and !v mean to prompt for confirmation before dropping or throwing (you can also use !r for reading, !q for quaffing, etc. and !* to prompt before doing anything with the item).

The "@m1" means "when using the m command, I can select this item by pressing 1 instead of the letter of the slot this item is in". That means that even if the book changes what slot it's in, you can still use 1 to refer to it.

Now hit = to bring up options, then 'k' to edit keymaps ("macros" no longer exist in modern Vanilla; it's all keymaps). Create a new keymap, assigned to the ! key (that is, shift-1), and type in "*tm1a$", again without the quotation marks. With this keymap, when you hit !, you will automatically fire Magic Missile at the closest monster. Note that it does require you to have the "Use old target by default" option set (in the User Interface options).

I recommend making similar keymaps for your most commonly-used attack spells, as well as keymaps to cast your detection spells, Light Area, Resistance, Haste Self, etc.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Create a new keymap, assigned to the ! key (that is, shift-1), and type in "*tm1a$", again without the quotation marks. With this keymap, when you hit !, you will automatically fire Magic Missile at the closest monster. Note that it does require you to have the "Use old target by default" option set (in the User Interface options).

I use m1a5, which fires magic missile at my last CHOSEN target, or if no target is yet chosen, prompts me to pick the target. Firing at the closest is not always optimal.

[Sky]

see, im a total nab, i didn't even know what spear of light did and did not even study it until CL30 during a very long fight with Lokkak.

i will eventually study how to macro but i'm taking a break now because i'm job hunting.

what release were we playing around 2007/2008? was it 3.2? i remember getting showered by major artifacts in GVs. i miss that nab friendly version that gave everyone everything and you could just walk into demon pits for xp.

[Pondlife]

what release were we playing around 2007/2008? was it 3.2? i remember getting showered by major artifacts in GVs. i miss that nab friendly version that gave everyone everything and you could just walk into demon pits for xp.

It was 3.0.9 in 2007/2008. 3.2 didn't come out until quite a bit later.

[Grotug]

Thanks Derakon, et. al. for the macros help. I want to try Mage sometime, too, but haven't yet due to the same reasons as Sky.

Sky: here are versions 3.0.9, 3.0.9a and 3.0.9b

Click here for are all the previous versions.

[Grotug]

I tried making some keymaps on a Macbook air and now when I press the [up] key it says "Type '?' for help" instead of moving @ up. I did a query for keys mapped to [up] but it didn't find any. So I tried to map [8] to [up] but now [8] no longer moves @ up either, instead it says the same: "Type '?' for help." I removed [up] as a keymap, but it still gives the message, so now [up] and [8] both aren't moving @ up.

EDIT: I reinstalled Angbanad and its working normal again. I tried again to map keys and I don't even know what I pressed but I just wasted another charge of my wand of TO which had the ` key mapped to the keypresses:a9 I didn't press [`] or [a] or [9], but somehow I aimed the wand of TO and executed the command for it to TO something.

[Pete Mack]

It's the other way around. You need to delete '8', and map 'up' to '8'