Z+Angband 0.3.0 beta released!

[Mangojuice]

Hey folks.

Z+Angband 0.3.0 is now available, at

http://tinyurl.com/5pq2bd

The new program is savefile-compatible with the old one. Again, there's a .tar.gz source package and a .zip Windows executable, and I'd love it if anyone could compile on other systems, but this is all I've got.

This revision is a substantial one: the magic system has been changed and substantially expanded. Briefly, players will now have to choose the spells they want to learn, rather than being able to eventually learn every spell available. In addition, you can "focus" spells, using multiple spell slots on one spell in order to improve its power, mana cost, and failure rate. A new magical school has also been added (Illusion), and many new mechanics have been included for the expanded spells. The "z_faq.txt" file details the changes, and a tutorial can also be found on the web page at http://tinyurl.com/68a38x

Other than that, there are some other changes worth broadly announcing: First, Humans have been improved, and should now actually be a good choice for a beginning player (the benefits are mainly informational benefits that wouldn't help an experienced player as much). Second, a bug was fixed that led "plus-shaped" rooms to often make levels disconnected. Half the time, these rooms were meant to have an interior room or solid block, but the code was wrong, and drew a rectangle encompassing the entire room instead. This should help with level disconnection issues.

Rods of Sense Monster have been discontinued, but the staff is still available. These were way too easy to obtain; they grant you an ability almost as good as Telepathy. Instead of making them lower or rarer, I decided to eliminate them, since Rods of Detection exist a bit lower in the dungeon. Staves of Sense Monster are still available.

Recharging is more dangerous now: still less dangerous than in Z, but much more than it was. Also, I fixed a critical bug that made Runes of Protection completely unbreakable. Other changes are detailed in the download file and on the website.

This version includes Buzzkill's working pref file for the David Gervais tileset. Most of the basics work properly, but it's still a work in progress.

Please let me know any issues you have with the new release, but do check the changes file so you know what I intended to fix. Hope you all like it!

As always, thanks very much to all those who have been playing, and thanks for the bug reports and other feedback, it's been very helpful.

[ekolis]

Well, while I wanted to try out the new magic system, instead I'll be the first to report a bug again

When I start the game I get an error saying something about parsing r_info.txt... something on 15782 about an unknown monster-flag called "DUN_CAVE" - and I can't continue

[Mangojuice]

Well, while I wanted to try out the new magic system, instead I'll be the first to report a bug again

When I start the game I get an error saying something about parsing r_info.txt... something on 15782 about an unknown monster-flag called "DUN_CAVE" - and I can't continue

Fixed, download it again.

[takkaria]

When compiling this on Linux, I got a large(ish) number of warnings, which I've fixed in my local copy. Do you want the patch?

When V 3.1 is out the door, I might try porting across the SDL port from it so that Linux users have a decent frontend, too.

[Mangojuice]

When compiling this on Linux, I got a large(ish) number of warnings, which I've fixed in my local copy. Do you want the patch?

When V 3.1 is out the door, I might try porting across the SDL port from it so that Linux users have a decent frontend, too.

Sure. Did any of them stop it from compiling? Some of the warnings I get on one machine are from operations that don't do anything, like "(void)dummy;" which I gather were put in to avoid other warnings about unused variables or inputs.

--MJ

[takkaria]

Sure. Did any of them stop it from compiling? Some of the warnings I get on one machine are from operations that don't do anything, like "(void)dummy;" which I gather were put in to avoid other warnings about unused variables or inputs.

No, I had no problems with compiling. There are a couple of logic bugs, but they're nothing particularly bad; the rest are just things GCC likes to warn about. Will attach a patch this evening.

[RogerN]

Interesting changes to the magic system! I look forward to trying them out.

[ekolis]

Ooh, another bug I think... when hitting invisible monsters it tells me how much damage I'm doing! Must have left some debug stuff in there!

[Rasit]

Found two related bugs so far.

1. Playing a Draconian Paladin: Different behavior between "G" and "b"->select a book->Shift spell letter.
   With "G" you do not get to choose what spell you want to learn. It asks you if you want to learn the first availible spell you have, if you choose n it instead automaticaly learns a random available spell in the book.
   
   If you use the second method you can choose freely like a mage.
2. Playing a Draconian Paladin: At level two you the interface says that you can learn two prayers, "Detect evil" and "Cure Light wound" should be available but if you hit "G" it says "You cannot learn any prayers in that book".
   
   You can still learn them by using the ""b"->select a book->Shift spell letter" method
   

That's it for now.

[edit]
The "Magic missile" spell in the first conjuration spellbook "Tricks for beginners" have the description of "Trap / Door Destruction"

Chaos book 1: "Touch of Confusion" is missing a space/  after the spell description
[/edit]

[ekolis]

Oh, also... Humans are supposed to start with more gold? They don't, unless you reduces the starting gold of other races! :P

On a related note, why is it that you can spend a whole bunch of stat points in character setup without making a dent in your gold, then suddenly it drops a whole bunch? I think there might be a rounding error or something going on...

[Mangojuice]

Ooh, another bug I think... when hitting invisible monsters it tells me how much damage I'm doing! Must have left some debug stuff in there!

Not a mistake. You must be playing a Human. I gave Humans that ability, to make up for them otherwise sucking and being a lousy race choice for a beginner (which is what, IMO, they are meant for).

[Mangojuice]

Oh, also... Humans are supposed to start with more gold? They don't, unless you reduces the starting gold of other races! :P

On a related note, why is it that you can spend a whole bunch of stat points in character setup without making a dent in your gold, then suddenly it drops a whole bunch? I think there might be a rounding error or something going on...

The game takes away some of your gold if your stats are good. You never notice this happening with the autoroller, but I hadn't tried it with point-based generation...

I've confirmed the Human starting gold thing is working. With social class 1, I got 218 gold; with 99, I got about 900. That's substantially more than other races.

[Mangojuice]

Found two related bugs so far.

1. Playing a Draconian Paladin: Different behavior between "G" and "b"->select a book->Shift spell letter.
   With "G" you do not get to choose what spell you want to learn. It asks you if you want to learn the first availible spell you have, if you choose n it instead automaticaly learns a random available spell in the book.
   
   If you use the second method you can choose freely like a mage.
2. Playing a Draconian Paladin: At level two you the interface says that you can learn two prayers, "Detect evil" and "Cure Light wound" should be available but if you hit "G" it says "You cannot learn any prayers in that book".
   
   You can still learn them by using the ""b"->select a book->Shift spell letter" method
   

That's it for now.

Under "b", this doesn't let you learn the spell, it just lets you learn about it. I checked it out, this is behaving properly.

[edit]
The "Magic missile" spell in the first conjuration spellbook "Tricks for beginners" have the description of "Trap / Door Destruction"

Chaos book 1: "Touch of Confusion" is missing a space/  after the spell description
[/edit]

Touch of Confusion description will be fixed in the next version.

The magic missile thing, though, is a serious bug: not only does the description match Trap/Door Destruction, the spell actually casts that one as well. I'm updating the package to fix this, and will also include the one file that needs altering. (I hope you haven't learned the spell, you won't get the slot back: you will continue to know Trap/Door Destruction. But it sounds like you might be playing Chaos/Conjuration, which would end up okay.)

[pampl]

I had the same sort of problem as a Paladin (either Klackon or Spectre, I forget)- I was able to learn new spells but sometimes it would say I couldn't learn a new spell from that book, but trying again a few turns later it would let me learn a spell from it. It might just be a problem with the first Life book, I haven't gotten high enough level to see if it still happens with others.

[mrnukem]

Hey folks.

Z+Angband 0.3.0 is now available, at

http://tinyurl.com/5pq2bd

The new program is savefile-compatible with the old one. Again, there's a .tar.gz source package and a .zip Windows executable, and I'd love it if anyone could compile on other systems, but this is all I've got.

This revision is a substantial one: the magic system has been changed and substantially expanded. Briefly, players will now have to choose the spells they want to learn, rather than being able to eventually learn every spell available. In addition, you can "focus" spells, using multiple spell slots on one spell in order to improve its power, mana cost, and failure rate. A new magical school has also been added (Illusion), and many new mechanics have been included for the expanded spells. The "z_faq.txt" file details the changes, and a tutorial can also be found on the web page at http://tinyurl.com/68a38x

Other than that, there are some other changes worth broadly announcing: First, Humans have been improved, and should now actually be a good choice for a beginning player (the benefits are mainly informational benefits that wouldn't help an experienced player as much). Second, a bug was fixed that led "plus-shaped" rooms to often make levels disconnected. Half the time, these rooms were meant to have an interior room or solid block, but the code was wrong, and drew a rectangle encompassing the entire room instead. This should help with level disconnection issues.

Rods of Sense Monster have been discontinued, but the staff is still available. These were way too easy to obtain; they grant you an ability almost as good as Telepathy. Instead of making them lower or rarer, I decided to eliminate them, since Rods of Detection exist a bit lower in the dungeon. Staves of Sense Monster are still available.

Recharging is more dangerous now: still less dangerous than in Z, but much more than it was. Also, I fixed a critical bug that made Runes of Protection completely unbreakable. Other changes are detailed in the download file and on the website.

This version includes Buzzkill's working pref file for the David Gervais tileset. Most of the basics work properly, but it's still a work in progress.

Please let me know any issues you have with the new release, but do check the changes file so you know what I intended to fix. Hope you all like it!

As always, thanks very much to all those who have been playing, and thanks for the bug reports and other feedback, it's been very helpful.

Started playing this tonight and have to say it looks and plays great so far! Thank you for your work on this! Now I am off to delve deeper.