Z+ 0.3.3 released!

[Mangojuice]

Merry Christmas!

After a lull of almost two years, a new version of Z+Angband has been released. The new version fixes all three known crash-causing bugs from version 0.3.2 and contains a few interesting features:

* Rebirth: Load up your dead (v.0.3.3) character's save file and you'll have the option of skipping character generation: you just get the same character you started with last time!
* Competition mode: Competing with others? Instead of copy/pasting the savefile, just load your dead character. In competition mode, you'll start over in exactly the same world... only the object flavors will be re-rolled, so you can't simply remember what that Elm Staff was...
* Blind accessibility: The game includes several features to make the game accessible to the blind, which involves ways to learn where certain types of tiles are relative to you other than directly navigating the terminal display. In particular, there is a new "list" menu accessible under the '$' command, which allows you to print lists of various sub-categories of map tiles (or wilderness tiles) with relative location information. There is a birth option for blind accessibility which makes you confused whenever you would have been hallucinating, and is overt about the direction you move when confusion causes you to move randomly. There is a display option "show_coords", which lets you see the exact vector to things on the screen rather than just distance.

Plus numerous bug fixes. Enjoy, and as always please email me any comments, questions, or bug reports.

--MJ

[Jude]

Nice, downloading now...one of the view things I can get on this third-world internet connection...rebirth looks like a nice option.

Couple questions I was wondering regarding a recently dead character - how do you get mutations removed? In the older versions of Zangband (when it was always the same exact town layout) there was a chaos wizard tower who would remove a random mutation for like 5 grand a pop...is there anything like that now, and where do you find it?

Also, does every dungeon staircase that's in a town go down all 100 levels?

[Mangojuice]

Nice, downloading now...one of the view things I can get on this third-world internet connection...rebirth looks like a nice option.

Couple questions I was wondering regarding a recently dead character - how do you get mutations removed? In the older versions of Zangband (when it was always the same exact town layout) there was a chaos wizard tower who would remove a random mutation for like 5 grand a pop...is there anything like that now, and where do you find it?

Also, does every dungeon staircase that's in a town go down all 100 levels?

There are four ways to lose a mutation and they're all pretty unreliable. If you find a potion of new life or a mushroom of cure mutations, they will get rid of all of your mutations, but those objects are really rare: 75/8,75/20,100/10. You can also get a mutation that causes you to lose mutations at random every once in a while, which I believe will remove itself when you have no mutations left. And finally, being exposed to chaos (via polymorph self, a chaos attack, a mushroom of chaos, or a mutatalist) can cause you to lose a mutation instead of gaining it, but this tends to be unlikely if you only have a few mutations. (Basically, if you "gain" a mutation you already had, you lose it instead.)

Dungeon staircases in towns typically bottom out, I believe at level 25. You can set the "dungeon_abyss" option, though, which removes the bottom of regular dungeons (hmm.. that should be a birth option but it isn't.)

[Phoenix21692]

I just downloaded Z+ 0.3.3 and gave it a test drive. First of all, it gives an error saying C:\ZPlusAngband_033beta_win\lib cannot be found. It needs the lib directory to work! So, I created C:\ZPlusAngband_033beta_win\lib and move the edit, file, help, etc. folders into ...\lib and then re-open the game. It then says ...\lib\bone cannot be found. I create the ...\lib\bone directory. After that, I re-open the game and it says ...\lib\data cannot be found. After creating the aforementioned missing directory, it says the same for ...\lib\info, ...\lib\save\, ...\lib\user, and so forth.

So, those directories (i.e., ...\lib as well as ...\lib\data\ and the others) have to be in place for the game to work.

Also, my newly created Z+ 0.3.3 Beastman High-Mage character crashed on me. I was on char lvl 3 (with 14 EXP needed to advance) fighting a Snaga near a wilderness river. I casted Magic Missile, which turned into a beam, at a Snaga. The game crashed afterwards. I was running Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit.

Some other details regarding the crash (which might or might not help in this case):
I was facing a snaga that was in a shallow water, but was blocked by deep water. The other side of the snaga had some normal ground before some water. I was in the deep water and I casted the finished magic missile and when the beam hit the snaga it went through, hit some normal ground, and it hit some deep water on the other side (as shown at the imageshack link). After that, it crashed. Unfortunately, I don't have a savefile for this as it was unexpected. I hope I gave enough details on how it happened.

http://img375.imageshack.us/f/72396354.png/

UPDATE:
Beam and non-beam bolt spells crash Z+ 0.3.3 when it hits a non-monster target, whether it is water, the dirt, or tree, etc.. This is very reproducible. That probably explains why the penetrating magic missile crashed the game after it went through the snaga. The last part of the beam hit the water, a non-monster target.

[Mangojuice]

I just downloaded Z+ 0.3.3 and gave it a test drive. First of all, it gives an error saying C:\ZPlusAngband_033beta_win\lib cannot be found. It needs the lib directory to work! So, I created C:\ZPlusAngband_033beta_win\lib and move the edit, file, help, etc. folders into ...\lib and then re-open the game. It then says ...\lib\bone cannot be found. I create the ...\lib\bone directory. After that, I re-open the game and it says ...\lib\data cannot be found. After creating the aforementioned missing directory, it says the same for ...\lib\info, ...\lib\save\, ...\lib\user, and so forth.

So, those directories (i.e., ...\lib as well as ...\lib\data\ and the others) have to be in place for the game to work.

Also, my newly created Z+ 0.3.3 Beastman High-Mage character crashed on me. I was on char lvl 3 (with 14 EXP needed to advance) fighting a Snaga near a wilderness river. I casted Magic Missile, which turned into a beam, at a Snaga. The game crashed afterwards. I was running Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit.

Some other details regarding the crash (which might or might not help in this case):
I was facing a snaga that was in a shallow water, but was blocked by deep water. The other side of the snaga had some normal ground before some water. I was in the deep water and I casted the finished magic missile and when the beam hit the snaga it went through, hit some normal ground, and it hit some deep water on the other side (as shown at the imageshack link). After that, it crashed. Unfortunately, I don't have a savefile for this as it was unexpected. I hope I gave enough details on how it happened.

http://img375.imageshack.us/f/72396354.png/

UPDATE:
Beam and non-beam bolt spells crash Z+ 0.3.3 when it hits a non-monster target, whether it is water, the dirt, or tree, etc.. This is very reproducible. That probably explains why the penetrating magic missile crashed the game after it went through the snaga. The last part of the beam hit the water, a non-monster target.

Preparing a live fix. That's bizarre about the directory structure though.

[Mangojuice]

Preparing a live fix. That's bizarre about the directory structure though.

Ok, the corrected version is up, with directory structure all correct and the projection crash bug gone.

Thanks for the quick feedback by the way.

[Phoenix21692]

Ok, the corrected version is up, with directory structure all correct and the projection crash bug gone.

Thanks for the quick feedback by the way.

Just tested the updated Z+ 0.3.3. The bone, data, save, and user folders are still missing from the ....\lib directory. But, that's easily fixable, by creating empty folders with those names.. The projection crash bug is still there, however. I just casted the Ray of Frost at an empty space. *game crashes* If you can fix the projection crash bug, I would appreciate it. That's the only thing stopping me from playing this variant, as I tend to play mage-like characters.

Thanks in advance.

[Jude]

OK, NOW I'm downloading. About the mutations - any plans to implement a more reliable way to get rid of them, like what I described?

Also, if the stairs max out at 25, how do I get to lower levels - through the "unusual thing" monster camps in the wilderness?

Edit: OOOOOOOK, weird. I created the empty folders as noted above, but all the text is black - I can still move the cursor around as normal but none of the text is visible. Awaiting fixes for all bugs...

[pampl]

Edit: OOOOOOOK, weird. I created the empty folders as noted above, but all the text is black - I can still move the cursor around as normal but none of the text is visible. Awaiting fixes for all bugs...

I think this might be the same bug that happens to me across variants. To fix it I have to reset or just switch fonts.

[Nick]

The bone, data, save, and user folders are still missing from the ....\lib directory. But, that's easily fixable, by creating empty folders with those names.

IIRC this happens with some variants of zip if you leave an empty folder; the traditional Angband solution is to put an empty file called delete.me in each of these folders.

[Jude]

Switching fonts worked...although when I go back to 8x13 (the default) it's still blacked out.

Also, are user-prf files compatible between versions so I don't have to go through and change all the # walls to solid blocks every time I get a new version?

[Jude]

Also, I'm getting a weird lag with this new version that I didn't have when I was playing the old version over the last few days.

[Mangojuice]

answering several questions

1. Hah, silly me. I compile a fixed version but then copy the unfixed version into my distribution. Corrected version is posted, but check the MD5 hash to make sure you're getting the updated one: its hash is ba99b80d1d1bd61a2f8ded45e1d86921. (You can check by going to https://sourceforge.net/projects/zpl...nd/files/dist/ and clicking on the 'i' in the black circle). I've tested it, it has all its directories and the projection bug really is gone.

2. Fonts: that's actually not the "known problem" across 'bands: IIRC that one had to do with block versions of walls showing up blank on some peoples' systems. I suggest re-downloading. If the problem persists, make sure you have the "xtra/font/8X13.FON" file. This may have to do with the directory structure issue?

3. Pref files: I didn't change that part of the code, so everything should work just fine. BTW, once you do get one that works, could you email me the .prf file? I used to include one and seem to have lost it.. and the solid blocks don't show up for me. (What I do, BTW, is use the "graf-winhack" workaround; see the website under "known issues".)

4. Mutations: Nope, no plans. It's not that hard to get a mutation but it's hard to lose one, which makes you think twice about it. Chaos mages can even cast a spell to give them mutations.

5. Dungeon depth: Explore the wilderness! There are other dungeon entrances out there that go deeper. If you want to get all the way down to 100, look for a dungeon that appears as at least a '5' on the overhead map. Also, you have to engage in quests in this variant: you can't find Oberon until you get a quest to kill him, which happens once you've cleared at least one keep/castle/town hall of all their other quests.

[Mangojuice]

Also, I'm getting a weird lag with this new version that I didn't have when I was playing the old version over the last few days.

Can you describe it in more detail? Is the game just slower?

[Jude]

Can you describe it in more detail? Is the game just slower?

It's a lag between entering a command and it taking effect. Less than a second, but given that it's usually instantaneous it throws things off a good deal.

I'm going to try the new version you uploaded and see if it happens there...and try again with the old version and see what happens. I'll post results in a few minutes.

Edit: OK, it's still there in the fixed new version. Can't really describe it any better than that though...

Edit2: Went back to playing .3.2 because the lag was too annoying, and realized that in .3.2, none of the fonts works properly except 8x13, while in .3.3 they all work fine EXCEPT 8x13. No idea if this is related to the lag or not. Did you change anything with the fonts at all?