Z+ 0.3.3 released!

[Mangojuice]

What things will keep the same now? Monster memory is the same, and I get a message like "one of your ancestors killed 10 such monsters..." But what about cities and quests?

Basically, only your character will be the same unless you're in Competition Mode, in which case the game will start in exactly the same state: same wilderness, same quests, same RNG state, same initial position of monsters, same number of turns of light in your torches. The only thing that changes is that object flavors get re-randomized.

Whether you use rebirth/competition mode or not, the game preserves monster memory when you load a dead character. Rebirth is just about skipping past character generation.

[Snarka]

Since you answered 'no' to the rebirth question, I'd assume it was a normal birth and thus new everything, except monster memory.

IIRC, the choice was between Rebirth or Competition mode. Having said No to rebirth, I automatically entered the competiiton mode. Or I am wrong?

[Mangojuice]

IIRC, the choice was between Rebirth or Competition mode. Having said No to rebirth, I automatically entered the competiiton mode. Or I am wrong?

The only way to switch from normal rebirth to competition mode rebirth is if you (1) load a dead character file, (2) decline rebirth, (3) set birth options to turn competition mode on, and then (4) escape from character creation. If you did that, you would end up in competition mode.

[Snarka]

So, if I did only this: "(1) load a dead character file, (2) decline rebirth" - it means, I am now in normal mode?

Fine, then : )

[Snarka]

Good stuff to know then. I just discovered the Zymurgist, who proceeded to fuck up and consume my staff of teleportation in wild magic, then still charge me 200-odd gold for it. Surely THAT shouldn't happening...

Sorry, no refunds!

Well, at least the Z guy shouldn't charge us for such "service"! It looks like an evil mockery : )) The high technology is risky, yes, but it is NOT a kind of service one would willingly pay for. Those 200 gp were unrealistic, imho.

2. The player should get warned when they discover a dungeon entrance in the wilderness.

Oh! A very useful feature : )

BTW, what about Strygalldwir? Does he still roam the wilderness? He was a source of many YASD's, virtually unavoidable. When a 6 dungeon was mapped, it meant almost certain death for low-level chars. Actually, I usually hacked this monster: reduced it's sight. And changed it back when I was prepared to enter the dungeon 6.

If we get a warning about this dungeon, we would have a fair chance to run away asap : ). Then I wouldn't need to hack the poor beast... I don't consider this a major cheat, because Stryga in the wilderness is clearly very unbalanced - but if we get a warning, the balance would be ok.

So I actually have an even better solution for #2 in mind. Instead of having guards outside, where you get wasted just for wandering too close, why not have an antechamber? That way you don't face the guards unless you deliberately decide to. The antechamber would be underground, but at dlvl 1, and you can't descend except via the staircase. (Teleport level will always send you upwards). There's no treasure, and there are lots of guards at similar difficulty to what they are currently, and the dungeon is wide open with basically no walls and the staircase down in the middle of the guards. The stairs up are far away so it's not easy or safe to farm for XP. Once you've passed the antechamber "test" it's just like it is now once you've gotten into the dungeon: you don't have to face them again (and the stairs go straight past the antechamber from then on).

A perfect solution!! : )

Oh... actually, it's a perfect solution for Strygalldwir, but I would rather miss some other guards, like Zs around dugeon 4... they kinda give some flavor to the wilderness. If all guards disappear, this would make wild much safer (which is not too good, imho : ). OTOH, there are always camps, some even more dangerous then Z-packs.

I'd say, first remove Stryga, then think about anything else : )). Maybe without him, all other guards around dungeons are ok.

3. Tavern rumors - could be a waste of time and gold, but can also give you useful information

Very nice : ). Tavern quests also could be nice: in a fantasy setting people share their ideas in taverns, which means quests too. I recall Daggerfall fondly for this - taverns and inns were indeed some local centers of life.

As I remember, in Daggerfall many tavern quests were either to escort a person somewhere, or carry a parcel. Enemies engaged you at some moment trying to kill the person, or take the parcel, and you had to defend it. Or (that was unique to Daggerfall, i think : )) - you could actually sell the parcel or person to these enemies! : ) Which sometimes could be more profitable. I remember, once I was transporting notes for some guild, and the rival guild offered to buy the notes or kill me. I usually behaved as a honest person should, but this time I just wanted to see what would happen. So I sold them the notes. They gave me other notes, explaining that it's some disinformation : ). I delivered them and got reward from the employer guild! Two rewards at once. (Of course it was not so simple - Daggedfall was never simple. There were reputations with every faction, and some factions had alliances or rivalries, so any decision influenced many aspects of the game at once. Sorry for offtopic : ).

Well... this maybe too much for a roguelike, but a combination of carrier and fighter type of challenge could be fun, I think. Especially fun, if you take several quests and forget about them, and then you are suddenly surrounded with foes in the middle of a routine trip from the dungeon : )).

Also in Daggerfall you could sometimes talk to a drunk and get a hint about some dungeon. You have to pay to get more information, and eventually after some talking and paying this dungeon was noted on your map. Then you could enter it.

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.

Nice! : ) But... maybe we need random encounters then? Like in many RPGs, when you travel via overhead map. Perhaps these encounters could be optional (but the default option would be on ; ). Else, the teleport towers would be absolutely useless.

I also recall now my idea of many years ago, about Scrolls of *Teleportation*. They may be usable only on the surface (not in dungeons), and teleport for some distances like half of the whole map. They would be rare and expensive though : ).

You could do this on wands or staves, too, so you always know charges when you find new ones. Does this sound reasonable?

It sounds wonderful!! : )

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?

I think, simple rocks could be a weapon (not a very strong one, of course). Or bricks (as uber-rocks : ). They could be quite common in dungeons, just lying on the floor. Or maybe bricks could be gained via tunneling walls?

Some bomb-like things could play role of strong weapons. Like flasks of oil - maybe flasks with various kinds of magic liquids, all explosive, most with area effect, some with continuous damage (fire, or poison, for example). There could be even a special shop for such things (something like a Pyromaniac's shelter : )).

Spears and daggers now are virtually useless, because it's incredible tedious to run and take them back every time. And they don't stack in the inventory, so u cannot just stand and rain an enemy with daggers. Throwing daggers (darts, javelins, or whatever) must be stackable. There could be also shurikens (or some fantasy variant of them - pretty strong stackable throwing weapon, maybe something like Diamond stars of Piercing : ). And how about poisoned needles which could be spitted out of mouth? Also stackable, for sure.

Also, I think more things like hammer of returning would be nice: boomerangs, or the like. (Mighty Magical Yo-Yo comes to mind : )).

But I want to make them a viable alternative to launcher/ammo combinations, at least for some characters at some stage of the game.

LOL, my last char found some bolts at 50 ft on the first trip, having no launcher at all. He threw them at enemies, and it was quite effective! He even killed a Kobold hero with this weapon : )))

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.")

Nice idea also! Though it kills a big part of challenge at low levels, when a Battle scarred veteran is a very serious threat. Maybe make it level-specific? As a char grows, people start to respect him/her, and even veterans greet this hero : ). Idiots and drunks could be friendly from the very start, other town people at level 10, and Battle scarred veterans at 20 or like that. As to filthy street urchins, I'm thinking of something more... devious... Perhaps they would be friendly (from the start), but STILL try to steal from you : ). Would be closer to reality...

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.

Another solution would be just garantee a mage tower in every town : ). Including the starting town. Actually, then you won't need any other way of map-travelling!

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).

A good idea, I think! Hate those centipedes...

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.

I play a MMORPG Runescape. For the skill Prayer there is prayer points there instead of mana. They do not regenerate with time, you have to refill them either praying at an altar (which are scattered around the world), or drinking potions, or via a special attack of some rare weapon.

[Mangojuice]

I think, simple rocks could be a weapon (not a very strong one, of course). Or bricks (as uber-rocks : ). They could be quite common in dungeons, just lying on the floor. Or maybe bricks could be gained via tunneling walls?

Thanks for all the feedback, I'm just not going to respond to most of it.

Currently what I'm thinking about throwing weapons is this. The main conundrum is about what value they'd have compared to ammo; my solution is that you get all the benefits of ammo (they come in stacks and you can put them in quivers), plus you don't need a launcher, they're affected by acid rather than fire, and most importantly, they don't break.

As for bombs: there are already some things that work this way (e.g. Flask of Oil, Potion of Poison) but it's so simple to add a few more.

[Jude]

You get that info if you're human. The idea was to make human a good race choice for beginners: though they don't get other abilities, humans have no XP penalty and get the exact damage info in combat, plus better pseudo-id than others.

Aaah, that explains it. My one character got turned into a high-elf, which must have been why it stopped all of a sudden.

[Snarka]

An idea of artefact throwing weapon: Mandor's Steel Balls. It is Mandor Sawall's unique weapon: tree balls of (or looking like) dark steel. They levitate around him, fly at an enemy and do some nasty things... and then, surely, fly back to their master.

Here is how they look at Mandor's Thrump card: "He was dressed all in black, save for a bit of white collar and sleeve showing beneath the glossy tight-fitting jacket. He held three dark steel balls in his right hand." Unfortunately ATM I cannot find a quote how Mandor fought with them. I remember there was a terrific scene, when Mandor was at Merlin's side, and they fought some very strong enemy... can't recall the details, but ut was really impressive! : ). I'm going to reread the series soon, and maybe then I'll find it and post here (well, in a month or so : ). Can't find the correct keywords to find the scene on the net...

[Snarka]

Here are some quotes from the book "Knight of Shadows":

As I fled the burning, crumbling Keep there at the Citadel of the Four Worlds, a falling timber caused me to dodge to my right, trapping me in a cul-de-sac of crashed masonry and burning beams. A dark metal ball flashed past me then, seeming to grow as it moved. It struck the wall and passed through it, leaving a hole one could dive through - a hint I was not slow in taking. Outside I jumped the moat, using my Logrus extensions to knock aside a section of fence and a score of troops, before I turned back and shouted, "Mandor!"
"Right here," came his soft voice from behind my left shoulder.
I turned in time to see him catch a metal ball, which bounced once before us and dropped into his extended hand.

With a quick underhand toss he cast the metal ball across the ditch toward the burning building. It struck the ground and with each bounce thereafter it seemed to increase in size. It produced a cymballike crash each time it hit, entirely out of proportion with its apparent mass and velocity, and this sound increased in volume on each successive bounce. It passed then into the burning, tottering ruin that was the near end of the Keep and for several moments was gone from sight.
I was about to ask him what was going on when I saw the shadow of a large ball pass before the opening through which I had fled. The flames - save for the central tower from the broken Fount - began to subside, and a deep rumbling sound came from within. Moments later an even larger circular shadow passed, and I began to feel the rumbling through the soles of my boots.
A wall tumbled. Shortly thereafter part of another wall fell. I could see inside fairly clearly. Through the dust and smoke the image of the giant ball passed again. The flames were snuffed. My Logrus vision still granted me glimpses of the shifting lines of power which flowed between Jasra and Sharu.
Mandor extended a hand. A minute or so later a small metal ball came bouncing our way, and he caught it.

She handed me the ball. I took it and weighed it in the palm of my right hand. I had no idea how the things functioned. The metal balls were to Mandor what Frakir was to me - a piece of idiosyncratic personal magic, forged out of his unconscious in the heart of the Logrus.

Perhaps the artefact could serve not only as a weapon, but also as a ranged shovel? : ) You point - and it digs some distant wall... Could be quite an interesting tactic tool, in vault taking or alike...

[Snarka]

A bug! I was experimenting with a quiver, inscribing it in attempts to make looking into it more convenient. When I did the command "d 1" -
it just disappeared. Here is what I got:

You drop a Small quiver {@I1@k1@d1!k$R} (p).
There are no more Small quivers {@I1@k1@d1!k$R}.
In your pack: 28 Iron Shots of Returning (4d2) (+3,+15%) (20/40) {@f7!k$R} (s).
There are (nothing).

Those iron shots were inside the quiver. They are now in my inv, but there is no quiver on the ground. It happened in the wilderness, some snow forest.

The question is, how could I look inside the quiver fast, not reading the list of items and finding what letter it is now? I'd like to make a macro, but again I need to inscribe it in some working way... When I inscribe it "@1", commands like "I 1" just don't work: "illegal". When I inscribe @I1 and do "I 1", it shows the description of the quiver ("a container for ammo", or alike), not its contents. Same with "k", and a bug with "d".

The idea of containers is absolutely great!!! I like the quiver very much, despite those complications : ). If you manage to make some bags or backpacks or whatever, it would make dungeon crawl much more sane and fun : ). Some of rare or artefact containers may even have a feature of reducing weight - like the Bag of Holding in AD&D. And if a container becomes cursed... it just won't give back anything! : )

[Snarka]

Well... I hope I don't annoy you too much with my tons of feedback... But I have some questions.

1) I didn't find an option of merge_discounts (Merge discounts when stacking, as it is in last versions of Zangband). In Z+A it is by default Yes, and I would like it to be No. As it is now, if I don't want all my scrolls to accidentally become 90% off, I need to drop not duscounted ones, inscribe them with "a", then buy a duscounted one and inscribe it with "b" and then pick those from the ground to get two different stacks. And YES, I do this! Because at low levels money is important. And the aboundance of various shops with nice items will probably make it important always : ).

2) What is WILD_WALK ? I've found some Boots of Wild, and cannot figure out what is their purpose : ).

3) I would like to change the game background. As I recall, it was not black in some verions, but textured. There was a line in the angband.cfg like "background = background.bmp", and one could change this file. I would like the background to be dark-gray: when I make tiles max size, the screen text becomes huge and the black/white contrast really hurts my eyes... If it possible to change the background? I mean not floor, but messages, lists, etc.

[Jude]

I've been noticing that I have a really hard time finding basic necessities a lot of the time - ?teleport, ?identify, ?WoR, !CSW type of thing. As in, I'll go to like 3 or 4 towns early in the game and not be able to find any of them. Might you add some kind of guarantee that the starting town, at the very least, will have some those type of items in stock? I almost never am able to find all of them in my starting town, and quite often I can find only one or none of them.

Also, I assume the physical character descriptions (i.e. you have long black hair. your dad was a blacksmith. or whatever) were removed since they're totally pointless, but I kinda liked having them. Did you get rid of the code (or whatever it is) for them, or is it still there somewhere? If so would it be hard to add them back in? I just thought they added a bit of flavor to the game. but obviously it's not important at all just a personal whim of mine.

Also, I just tried playing as a Skeleton for the first time...not so great for Chaos Warriors due to the intelligence hit, but quite an interesting race. When you drink potions, they "spill", having I think the same effect as if they'd exploded - i.e., affecting monsters all around you. So if you drink a healing potion, all the monsters around you get healed also! Am I right about that? If so it seems like a pretty horrible setback - although of course you can also exploit it by chugging potions of poison to hurt everybody else while enjoying your immunity...

I like the huge number of races in Zangband. I used to always play as a vampire because having natural light freed up an inventory slot early on, the drain life ability kicked ass, and the stat bonuses were sweet. Now I'm trying out a Beastman and I'm covered in warts, my muscles are withered, I have an extra pair of legs (no clue how THAT must work, physiologically!) and a couple other bizarre things...pretty awesome.

[Snarka]

I've been noticing that I have a really hard time finding basic necessities a lot of the time - ?teleport, ?identify, ?WoR, !CSW type of thing. As in, I'll go to like 3 or 4 towns early in the game and not be able to find any of them. Might you add some kind of guarantee that the starting town, at the very least, will have some those type of items in stock? I almost never am able to find all of them in my starting town, and quite often I can find only one or none of them.

AFAIR, the stock is NOT guaranteed even in Vanila Angband. I may mistaken, because I played vanilla some 10 or 15 years ago. But I do remember waiting for some insane amount of time, like 10k turns, to get some ?WOR or alike. And I'm pretty sure, that in Zangband nothing is guaranteed. With so many stores to buy from, and so many houses to keep all kinds of spare stuff - it is not such a heavy problem, imho.

The obvious solution is to store spare scrolls at home. I usually buy some 20-30 ?WoR, tele, phase door (dimension door in Z+A), some healing stuff, flasks of oil, food. Just buy them when you see any. If you already have access to 3-4 towns, this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, at first you have too little money to buy even 10 WOR (~1k gp), but at first you don't need even 1 : ). Walk down and up the dungeon and get some starting money, then some 3-4 spare WOR wouldn't be a problem. Same with teleport: buy 3-4 and take 1-2 with you to the dungeon. If there are none in the stores - then make the first trip without. When you have more money and more health to brave the Wild, then you stock up some spare scrolls.

I think it is a feature of most *bands... Or, in case Mangojouce would make some guaranteed stuff, I would ask it to be optional! We need some diffictulties, the life shouldn't be an easy walk...

[zaimoni]

Right...Vanilla general store was tweaked ~3.0.9 to have guaranteed stock (including ?WoR), but no other store does.

[Snarka]

Oh sorry, probably I played an earlier verion of vanilla (as I said, it was very long ago : )