Z+ 0.3.3 released!

[Mangojuice]

I also have that daylight bug.

In addition, another light bug: I sometimes find myself above ground at night having a radius 4 light that comes out of nowhere and stays even if I unequip all light sources. I've seen this on 2 characters so far. It disappears if I go into a dungeon. I'll try to find out what conditions it appears under, I didn't really take note at the time.

That's a feature, though it's possible it's not working properly. You have this radius 4 light because of what time it is. A little later, it becomes radius 2, then radius 1, then disappears. (Or, if it's near dawn, it goes the other way.)

[buzzkill]

That's a feature, though it's possible it's not working properly. You have this radius 4 light because of what time it is. A little later, it becomes radius 2, then radius 1, then disappears. (Or, if it's near dawn, it goes the other way.)

That's cool. Does wielding a light, in a dark environment, reduce stealth?

[Jude]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so...my character right now has Chaos Rank stealth and the Phial of Galadriel and I can sneak past basically everything I'm encountering.

Also, 8x13 font stopped working, then I was using 9x15 for a while. Then that stopped working. Now i'm on 9x15 bold. I wonder how long till that craps out too...this is extremely weird. Also the lag is back.

Is there a certain depth I should be cruising around if I want to find stat gain potions? For some reason I have the 30s in my head, but I have no idea if that applies in this mod or not. I've barely seen any.

Finally, my god am I having a hard time getting to level 26. I think I've had it within my reach about 6 times, and each time I've either gotten "Thou didst not deserve that, slave!" and blasted back half a level, or else, one time, I got polymorphed from a male human into a female high elf, knocking me all the way back to level 23, and then on my way up from there, I had a couple more "Thou didst not deserve that!"'s. Jesus. I'm 2k experience from it now but I'm sure something else is going to happen to ensure I never get the Energy Beam spell.

[Mangojuice]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so...my character right now has Chaos Rank stealth and the Phial of Galadriel and I can sneak past basically everything I'm encountering.

Also, 8x13 font stopped working, then I was using 9x15 for a while. Then that stopped working. Now i'm on 9x15 bold. I wonder how long till that craps out too...this is extremely weird. Also the lag is back.

Is there a certain depth I should be cruising around if I want to find stat gain potions? For some reason I have the 30s in my head, but I have no idea if that applies in this mod or not. I've barely seen any.

Finally, my god am I having a hard time getting to level 26. I think I've had it within my reach about 6 times, and each time I've either gotten "Thou didst not deserve that, slave!" and blasted back half a level, or else, one time, I got polymorphed from a male human into a female high elf, knocking me all the way back to level 23, and then on my way up from there, I had a couple more "Thou didst not deserve that!"'s. Jesus. I'm 2k experience from it now but I'm sure something else is going to happen to ensure I never get the Energy Beam spell.

Or, like just happened to me, you'll get polymorphed into a half-orc and then suddenly be level 29.

Stat potions: these are best found around level 40 or so. The rarity of a useful stat gain potion (that is, not Charisma) is:
33/6, 39/6, 43/3, 53/3. You can always look in lib/edit/k_info.txt for this kind of info.

Light radius has no effect on stealth. This is why Illusion's "Luminosity" spell is a cool one.

[Mangojuice]

Ironically, I've also been playing a spectre mage and noticed the same thing. I'll let you know when I've got a fix up.

Okay. I've done yet another update of the release, it's on Sourceforge now.

The problem turned out to be that the number of game turns in a day is not divisible by 48. So from now on game days are a little longer: 11520 turns at normal speed instead of 10000.

This is the last time I'm changing what v0.3.3 is. And having faced this lesson many times before, I'm making a new years' resolution: from now on any new release will be called a "preview" until I'm willing to commit to making no more changes to it.

[Mangojuice]

Looking forward

So now I'd like to start talking about ideas for v.0.3.4.

On my to-do list:
1. Dungeons need names. It's silly that they don't have them.
2. The player should get warned when they discover a dungeon entrance in the wilderness.
3. Tavern rumors - could be a waste of time and gold, but can also give you useful information
4. "Travel to" mode, which routes a player to a given space automatically, via running. Like mouse click in other variants except not using a mouse interface, and also will provide a way to move around the wilderness more simply.

And some things I'm considering:
1. I think Z+ has an object-filtering problem... too much junk. And I'm not a huge fan of ID-by-use, it's not Z+'s style. So I had this idea that maybe *ID* could be modified so that once you *ID* (say) a Long Sword, any Long Swords you come across from then on start out identified (but not *ID*'ed, in case they have hidden powers). You could do this on wands or staves, too, so you always know charges when you find new ones. Does this sound reasonable? If it does, I think Sorcery's "Mass Identify" spell (in its 2nd book) becomes somewhat less impressive so I'd probably want to replace it with a comparably powerful spell.
2. Throwing weapons. I would like to add these - basically, launcher-less ammo. But I want to make them a viable alternative to launcher/ammo combinations, at least for some characters at some stage of the game. Any ideas? Do any 'bands have appealing throwing weapons?
3. A back of my head thing - I feel like priestly (Priest/Paladin/Monk) magic is too much like normal magic. The only difference is that you learn prayers at random (and thus can't specialize), and that priests get the blunt weapons restriction. It seems to me that what's missing is the concept of a deity - some kind of a higher being that you have to keep happy in order to have access to your magic. Any ideas?

[Jude]

So now I'd like to start talking about ideas for v.0.3.4.

4. "Travel to" mode, which routes a player to a given space automatically, via running. Like mouse click in other variants except not using a mouse interface, and also will provide a way to move around the wilderness more simply.

I like this. Traveling across the wilderness just becomes tiresome because a bunch of stupid Novice Rangers start shooting arrows at me for like 2 damage but it slows things down and I have to kill them all, only to have another crowd descend on me...or are you not suggesting a "fast travel" thing?

Honestly the idea of traveling through wilderness in ASCII format just doesn't appeal to me that much. If it's Morrowind, it's one thing, but this is just *band...

And some things I'm considering:
1. I think Z+ has an object-filtering problem... too much junk. And I'm not a huge fan of ID-by-use, it's not Z+'s style. So I had this idea that maybe *ID* could be modified so that once you *ID* (say) a Long Sword, any Long Swords you come across from then on start out identified (but not *ID*'ed, in case they have hidden powers). You could do this on wands or staves, too, so you always know charges when you find new ones. Does this sound reasonable? If it does, I think Sorcery's "Mass Identify" spell (in its 2nd book) becomes somewhat less impressive so I'd probably want to replace it with a comparably powerful spell.

I like this...never saw that much point in cursed items unless the curse is as a drawback to a very powerful item (and I think there's a lot of potential for developing things in that direction). And, I never thought having to identify everything served that much purpose in gameplay either; it seems to just be there as an artifact of DnD that nobody has gotten around to excising. How about having it like Diablo, where you know if an item is unique or ego, but you have to ID (or *ID*) it to know all its powers? Or there could be different levels of IDing, so more interesting powers would stay hidden (and maybe not active) unless you applied all the levels of ID to it.

Or maybe, just get rid of cursed items (but still have some powerful items have "curse" drawbacks), but have all items have their basic information shown, and then even if you don't ID you can start discovering if it has powers. So if you find a broadsword, it's just 2d5 (+0, +0) but then you hit a monster with it and realize it's actually (+5, +10). You keep using it and realize it has a chance to confuse a monster that's hit with it. You keep on using it and as more of its powers are revealed you eventually realize it's the artifact sword So-and-So, which also drives up its monetary value.

3. A back of my head thing - I feel like priestly (Priest/Paladin/Monk) magic is too much like normal magic. The only difference is that you learn prayers at random (and thus can't specialize), and that priests get the blunt weapons restriction. It seems to me that what's missing is the concept of a deity - some kind of a higher being that you have to keep happy in order to have access to your magic. Any ideas?

Nice idea. And of course it could also apply to Chaos Warriors which is my jam.

The first thing that comes to mind is conduct requirements - banning certain items, consumables or tacts, or being forbidden to harm certain monster types, or being required to kill certain monster types (so if your god hates, say, mushroom patches, then you have to hunt down ALL those fucking Magic Mushroom Patches if you come across them, or else face some kind of punishment. I think Nethack has a bunch of optional conduct requirements.

Or you could have to sacrifice items/other valuable things to the god. Or they could have certain items/sets they demand that you use/wear.

And of course they could grant you special favors (such as unique items or spells) on leveling up, or allow you to teleport cheaply to their temples, or stuff like that.

[Mangojuice]

I like this. Traveling across the wilderness just becomes tiresome because a bunch of stupid Novice Rangers start shooting arrows at me for like 2 damage but it slows things down and I have to kill them all, only to have another crowd descend on me...or are you not suggesting a "fast travel" thing?

Honestly the idea of traveling through wilderness in ASCII format just doesn't appeal to me that much. If it's Morrowind, it's one thing, but this is just *band...

In Z+, wilderness travel will not ever be abstracted away; I'm trying to make an interesting world to explore and therefore I don't intend to make the wilderness just an idea rather than an actual place you have to deal with.
The wilderness is dangerous for a substantial part of the game. Early on, the wilderness is really dangerous, and long into the mid-game the most dangerous parts of the wilderness still pose a threat (not to mention things like the quest pits or dungeon entrances). Later it becomes safer.

My aim is to make it less irritating, without fundamentally changing the style of the wilderness.

Here are two other ideas I have on these lines:
1. Most townfolk (I'm thinking everyone but the agent of the black market, maybe street urchins) and peaceful wildlife should be "neutral" - they won't attack unless provoked, and they won't disturb you while running unless they've been attacked. That way you can run around the town without murdering everyone just because they exist. (Heck, maybe some should be "friendly.")
2. Magetowers already provide a way to hop around the wilderness quickly. In v.0.3.4 and beyond, towns with a magetower you can use will be shown in purple on the map. This will help you make use of them without going through a lot of work to remember where they are.

[buzzkill]

TY for not changing the wilderness too much. Z+ has my favorite wilderness implementation. It seems very natural for being randomly created, in fact at first I thought it may have been a static map.

Maybe you could give an option to 'ignore' enemies who's native depth is less than xx, or squelch certain enemies (not eliminate them, just ignore them for purposes of disturbance).

[Snarka]

Hello,
Happy New Year everyone : )

Dear Mangojuice, thank you for a very interesting variant! I just started to play Z+A 0.3.3, and I like it very much : )

The only problem... well, the only problem that seems like a big problem: I cannot play it with sound. Sound is turned on, I copied all wav files into lib\xtra\sound directody. There is a line "sound=1" in the ini file. And still... silence. I hear only the warning sound at low hp (which is a windows alert sound), but nothing on hits, kills, etc. Also I can play these wavs normally via winamp.

Is it only my machine, or its a known bug? And what is the solution?

Thank you!

[Mangojuice]

Hello,
Happy New Year everyone : )

Dear Mangojuice, thank you for a very interesting variant! I just started to play Z+A 0.3.3, and I like it very much : )

The only problem... well, the only problem that seems like a big problem: I cannot play it with sound. Sound is turned on, I copied all wav files into lib\xtra\sound directody. There is a line "sound=1" in the ini file. And still... silence. I hear only the warning sound at low hp (which is a windows alert sound), but nothing on hits, kills, etc. Also I can play these wavs normally via winamp.

Is it only my machine, or its a known bug? And what is the solution?

Thank you!

You know, I've never bothered even checking about the sounds.

EDIT: I don't even have the files in my development directories! You could copy the files from another 'band but if that isn't working for you, I'll check it out for the next version. But if this is an OS-specific issue it might be beyond me.

[Snarka]

You know, I've never bothered even checking about the sounds.

EDIT: I don't even have the files in my development directories! You could copy the files from another 'band but if that isn't working for you, I'll check it out for the next version. But if this is an OS-specific issue it might be beyond me.

Thanks for such a quick answer : ).

That is very strange... The sound works fine in Zangband 2.7.4c right here at my machine, with my os (Win XP SP3). If you changed nothing - then it must work also in ZpA. What files do you mean for me to copy? I copied wav files (i.e., hit.wav, eat.wav, and all them). There is a sound.cfg file in your ZpA zip which refers to these wav files. It looks like the Z274c cfg file.

P.S.: I just replaced your sound.cfg with the same file from Z274c. Now the "sound" directory is exactly same as in Z274c. The sound works in Z274c and doesn't work in ZpA033. So the problem is probably in the main game file... somehow...

Unfortunately I'm not a programmer and can't inderstand the code at all...

[EpicMan]

10 characters

[EpicMan]

If you're looking for a more different priest magic system you might want to look at how DCSS does religions. It has a variety of religions with different rules and benefits.

You could also trade mana for piety. Have Piety regenerate much more slowly (or not at all) and then have certain actions/activities boost piety, which can then be spent on various abilities or result in being granted a gift from the gods. TOME 2 had a system like this for priests but underdeveloped it and forced priests to either be warriors or to max mindcrafting to be viable.

[Therem Harth]

Err, Is it just me, or does the source tar.gz archive have some really strange permissions? If I untar it I can't read any of the directories generated, and can only delete them as root - and that's when I DON'T preserve permissions. When I do, ls -l shows a long series of ? symbols for all the permissions... What is going on?