Bestiary at Angband.oook.cz

[Oraticus]

It's been a while since I played, but didn't there used to be a bestiary on this site? Did they remove it?

[Thraalbee]

Gone. Look at monster.txt instead. Not sure if a replacement is planned but I am working on something that might work out. We'll see

[Nick]

Yes, it got too out of date, and I don't think any replacement is planned. Any replacement replacement would be most welcome.

[Oraticus]

Ah... thanks for the reply. I was afraid that was the answer.

Fortunately, the monster.txt file you suggested shouldn't be to hard to convert into a file that could be imported into a database, or just a spreadsheet for that matter. Don't think I'd be able to do much about the bestiary on the site, though...

[bio_hazard]

The bummer is that I think the old bestiary had info for some of the variants too, didn't it?

[Oraticus]

The bummer is that I think the old bestiary had info for some of the variants too, didn't it?

Yeah, I believe it had info on mobs from many of the variants. Invaluable for a player who hasn't played Angband much (and has yet to win). I know there's a cheat to give full monster memory, but honestly I like collecting the information via encounters. The only problem is that I want to make sure the new and threatening mob I'm encountering won't just blow me out of the water in one shot. I don't mind learning through experience most of the time, but that's often not a very viable tactic in roguelikes where one mistake can mean an instant KO, especially ones that take time like Angband.

The monster.txt file has definitely helped for breath attacks, since the HP is provided in the same entry... "Is that Great Wyrm of Thunder gonna mow me down with it's sound breath?" *clicks keys to calculate breath damage* "Er... oh... best avoid that 'till I have some sound resistance."

It's not as helpful, however, for enemy spells. I can look up the spell damage in monster_spell.txt, but I end up using a large chunk of my game time flipping between docs.

I hope Thraalbee has some luck coming up with a solution.

[Sky]

well, by reading the monster spoilers you *are* cheating, you might as well make it official. create a character, use wizard mode to know all, then suicide. all characters following will share the full knowledge, but will not be marked as cheaters.



*i think*

[Nick]

well, by reading the monster spoilers you *are* cheating, you might as well make it official. create a character, use wizard mode to know all, then suicide. all characters following will share the full knowledge, but will not be marked as cheaters.



*i think*

If you're playing Angband 4.0.x, it's easier than that. If you copy monster.txt, rename it lore.txt and stick it in your user directory, you will get full monster lore.

[Oraticus]

Now I'm curious if anyone has ever gone the purist route and filled their monster lore by experience alone, eschewing the site bestiary and cheat options while suffering through the hundreds, if not thousands of deaths that inevitably came along with it. Possibly people who have been playing since near the beginning, when it was a smaller game, but I bet even they've had to look at change notes at some point when certain monster mechanics were changed to prevent getting broadsided by mobs that were previously an inconsequential speed bump. For a new player, this lack of information would probably make the game cripplingly difficult to pick up without turning to external resources like the forums...

If the logical solution to the problem of a lack of in-game knowledge is to "cheat" the info in, either by overwriting lore.txt, using a cheat option or looking up info on an online bestiary, is it possible that "learning" info on Angband monsters is obsolete? Granted, I find it fun to "learn" this info, but it's not a ton of fun to get a 4+ hour game wrecked by the lack of it. Who wants to avoid everything they see because they don't know if it's a one-shot threat?

[Pete Mack]

Yes. It is feasible if you play 'old school' angband and don't dive prior to stat gain.

EDIT: It's also easier to do this when playing priest, since you get Probing spell fairly early. This pretty much solves the whole problem of lack of monster knowledge.

[PowerDiver]

This is an old old discussion. FWIW I think the idea of monster memory is stupid, and have advocated for telling the players the rules of the game [i.e. full monster info] for more than a decade.

[Avenger]

If you're playing Angband 4.0.x, it's easier than that. If you copy monster.txt, rename it lore.txt and stick it in your user directory, you will get full monster lore.

Why not just borrow from TomeNET(and perhaps other variants, but this is the one I'm familiar with) and actually include a full monster lookup system ingame? Sure, that's an easy solution, but it could be even easier - and more accessible - and since there's already a way to do it as you described above, it should be a short step to actually including it organically.

[Carnivean]

Why not just ... include a full monster lookup system ingame?

Nick's solution allows players to do that optionally. Once you copy monster.txt to lore.txt you can look up the full information for all monsters. It also allows the players that don't want that to leave their monster memory in a learning state.

[Avenger]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, then, as I don't know exactly what Lore.txt is... from your post it sounds like it's the file that stores the monster memory, which means that the import toggles between spoiled and unspoiled. I had assumed Lore.txt was some kind of guide file which could be looked up, and replacing it simply offered a monster lookup instead of the original help file.

What TomeNET has is an online lookup completely separate from monster memory(it's possible monster memory doesn't exist at all - if it does I've never used it, since it's much less helpful in realtime), which allows players to look up monsters(and artifacts, and in fact the entire game guide) at their discretion, which is what I was suggesting - that way it doesn't spoil anything for players that do want to use the existing memory feature, but is available to anyone who does want to look up the information but isn't aware of the copy trick, and doesn't want to parse the raw .txt file for the information they're after(or isn't aware of that, either).

Just a thought, of course - I find it to be quite a useful feature in TomeNET, and it might be worth considering for addition in Vanilla.

[Carnivean]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, then, as I don't know exactly what Lore.txt is... from your post it sounds like it's the file that stores the monster memory, which means that the import toggles between spoiled and unspoiled. I had assumed Lore.txt was some kind of guide file which could be looked up, and replacing it simply offered a monster lookup instead of the original help file.

Lore text is where the monster memory is stored. It starts off empty, then is written to as you discover stuff about monsters. Or it can be fully populated by overwriting with monster.txt.

I'm not really seeing a huge upside in creating a completely different system, given the marginal difference it would provide. But then again, I'm not Nick, so maybe it will happen.