Unangband - some testing results

[Anne]

Well, I think I spotted something a little off.

New Gervais tileset weirdness - stairs sometimes show as the opposite direction when character is several tiles away or when viewed on the map. I can't be absolutely positive that it never happened before this release, but I never noticed it, and it seems pretty prevalent now. It doesn't seem to happen with any other tileset or ascii.

I've also noticed that when you leave the immediate area of any stairs, it's replaced by a more generic graphic where the direction is unclear unless you get closer or view it on the map (examine identifies the direction of course). Considering that this generic stairs tile even exists, I have to wonder whether maybe it was meant to be used this way all along. If that's the case, and if the game is trying to do that now, maybe some sort of glitchiness in that coding was cleared up but not all of it, leading to the wrong graphics showing at times for the stairs.

As far as the options go, I'm just doing some basic gameplay with them to see whether anything obvious jumps out. I've tried enabling the various interface and display options, and none seem to be causing any problems so far. I'll be trying the other options sections tomorrow.

[Anne]

Aha! Getting some crashes now upon exiting the game. I'll report once I've narrowed down which option might be causing it.

Got it. Enabling either show_sidebar or show_itemlist causes a crash upon exit.

[Anne]

Alright, the stairs thing is no longer happening. Beats me, I haven't changed a thing, no options, nothing. It was happening all last night, and not one since this morning. You're the programmers, maybe you can tell me. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. For instance, when the last new version came out, those black bars still appeared a couple times and then were never seen again. And this has happened from time to time with other unrelated programs too. So, is it possible that some weirdnesses can occur only when a program is first installed, as if it needs a little time to settle into the system (or maybe a reboot to help the machine digest things)? Heck, maybe it works that way only on some machines such as mine.

By the way, I noticed that you've included those notes in the current knowledge. Nice! That will be very helpful to the newer players!

And I've tried playing with the other options (except for the birth ones) - no problems there that I can find. Yay!

Okay, on to some more goodies...

Scroll of Dark Rituals: "When read, it drains life from you and adds mana to you." This is another one that could use a little tweaking to be more specific. As I recall, you changed that to 'replenishes mana' on something else (mushroom, maybe). I don't know if that means it would changed on all related items or just that other one, and I haven't seen this scroll in the game since I installed the unofficial beta.

Mushrooms of Blindness - "and blinds you" is repeated twice in the description.

Mushrooms of Paranoia - "and makes you afraid and scares you." Is that repetition or does it mean different effects?

Magic Book of Bushcraft - the last three spells don't fit on the index screen when you Peruse the book (Dragonslaying Shot, Dark Shot, Mighty Shot). Would it be possible for extra long books such as this to be coded with a 'more' option to see the rest?

About that CLW spell that cures blindness... you can't cast spells if you're blind. So I imagine that's kinda pointless. lol

Spell of Temporary Displacement - has that problem where there's a line out of place in the description that runs into the real beginning.
Typed exactly as it shows:
"for 1d10+10 turnsWhen cast, it marks this grid as a destination for later return and teleports you away for 20 distance on average."

Spell of Probability Travel - same problem in description as for Temporary Displacement -
"for 1d10+100 turnsWhen cast, it marks this grid as a destination for later return and teleports you away for 100 distance on average."

Spell of Psychometry - in the description, after the word 'one' there's a space and then a period, which probably means another word was meant to show there.
"When cast, it can identify the kind, ego-item and artifact names on one ."

Song of Protection from Evil -: "When cast, it protects your from evil monsters for 1d25 turns." Should be -you- rather than -your-.

Boots of Stability - description mentions none of the special effects, but I wasn't sure whether it's supposed to or not.

Shield of Sustain Wisdom didn't sustain my wisdom when attacked by a mushroom patch. Does wearing that only increase the chance of fending off such attacks or is that wonkiness?

And a couple of questions...

When enchanting armor or weapons, is there a chance of it destroying the item?

What does high resist mean? I noticed that phrase on a Scroll of Enchant Armor To-Resist. Is that a stronger form of normal resistance, or does that mean resistance to higher-level types of attacks like nether/nexus etc?

[Anne]

A few more tidbits...

Purchased one arrow from the shop marked as (+0,+0). The sales confirmation message left off the numbers in parentheses, and when I looked at it in my inventory or when I wielded it, still wasn't identified and it didn't stack with my other average wielded arrows.

Torch on dungeon wall - message when bumping it reads "(Floor: . for burning torch on a granite wall, ESC) Get which item?" It -looks- like another missing word but it isn't. Using '.' let me take the torch, but I found that I can repeatedly hit the same spot to keep getting more torches. I got 31 torches from that same wall before I stopped trying.

The Gauge Magic problem relating to exorbitant sale price seems to only occur with wands that turn out to be Spark. It's happened with all three characters I've tried it with. Two were 20,000 gold and up, the other sold for 15,000.

[Bandobras]

Wow, thanks a lot. I'm very busy right now, so I don't have time to count the gold pieces properly, but in a few days I'll look into it and also finally steal a good long play (melee character, for sure). I've just finished the overhaul of the level feeling system and quite possibly this will mark a feature freeze for 0.6.2 --- only bug fixes and balancing as long as 0.6.2 is supported (and that is probably as long as 0.6.3 is not finished and reasonably stable).

[Anne]

Ah that's alright, take your time counting that gold. Or instead of that, you could always put in a good word for me with the shopkeepers. Maybe they'll stock something juicy for me.

By the way, I encountered some forest fires today, several times in a row, and couldn't figure out why it was happening when I never did before. Finally I figured it out - I was causing it myself by casting a Torch spell in the woods! What a cool little feature. I'm really loving this game.

[Bandobras]

Got it. Enabling either show_sidebar or show_itemlist causes a crash upon exit.

Can't reproduce. Could you try if it happens with ASCII, too? I wonder how to turn tiles on on my Linux version...

Alright, the stairs thing is no longer happening. Beats me, I haven't changed a thing, no options, nothing.

I've reported it on the bug list and we'll just wait patiently until it dares to appear again for anybody.

You're the programmers, maybe you can tell me.

Yeah, that's a standard nondeterministic behaviour of an averagely intelligent computer. Reinstalling the program may bring back the symptoms, yet it may not. We are long past the point when programmers could predict computers. But we can still explain afterwards, if we obtain enough evidence.

> Scroll of Dark Rituals: "When read, it drains
> life from you and adds mana to you."

Already fixed, fortunately.

> Mushrooms of Blindness - "and blinds you" is
> repeated twice in the description.

Well spotted. Will fix.

> Mushrooms of Paranoia - "and makes you
> afraid and scares you." Is that repetition
> or does it mean different effects?

A repetition. Will fix.

> Magic Book of Bushcraft - the last three spells
> don't fit on the index screen when you Peruse
> the book (Dragonslaying Shot, Dark Shot,
> Mighty Shot). Would it be possible for extra
> long books such as this to be coded with
> a 'more' option to see the rest?

I guess we'd rather make the book smaller. Reported.

> About that CLW spell that cures blindness...
> you can't cast spells if you're blind.
> So I imagine that's kinda pointless. lol

Added to the relevant report. The spell is probably the same in a potion and from a book, so in a potion it makes sense, but we'll come up with a better solution

> Spell of Temporary Displacement - has that
> problem where there's a line out of place
> in the description that runs into
> the real beginning.
> Typed exactly as it shows:
> "for 1d10+10 turnsWhen cast,
> it marks this grid as a destination
> for later return and teleports you away
> for 20 distance on average."

Will fix, the same for Probability Travel.

> Spell of Psychometry

> Song of Protection from Evil -: "When cast,
> it protects your from evil monsters for 1d25
> turns." Should be -you- rather than -your-.

Will fix.

> Boots of Stability - description mentions
> none of the special effects, but I wasn't
> sure whether it's supposed to or not.

If they were *Identified*, this is a new bug. If only Identified, an old one.

> Shield of Sustain Wisdom didn't sustain my
> wisdom when attacked by a mushroom patch.
> Does wearing that only increase the chance of
> fending off such attacks or is that wonkiness?

Should keep you 100% wise. Reported.

> When enchanting armor or weapons,
> is there a chance of it destroying the item?

Nope.

What does high resist mean? I noticed that phrase on a Scroll of Enchant Armor To-Resist. Is that a stronger form of normal resistance, or does that mean resistance to higher-level types of attacks like nether/nexus etc?

The latter. That's a fine example of the jargon, which should be somehow dealt with...

> Purchased one arrow...

Reported.

> Torch on dungeon wall

The infinite torches are probably a bug I've introduced in the unofficial version, already reported. Do you have any ideas to improve the iffy UI for picking up embedded items? How to organize it better? Actually, wait for a floor with pebbles or something else embedded in the floor and not on the walls and test then with items dropped on the same spot (hint: normally to reveal the embedded item you have to 'I'nspect' them).

> The Gauge Magic problem relating
> to exorbitant sale price seems to only occur...

Does it still occur in the unofficial version? I can't remember if I fixed it...

[andrewdoull]

Well, I think I spotted something a little off.

New Gervais tileset weirdness - stairs sometimes show as the opposite direction when character is several tiles away or when viewed on the map. I can't be absolutely positive that it never happened before this release, but I never noticed it, and it seems pretty prevalent now. It doesn't seem to happen with any other tileset or ascii.

It may be getting the ATTR_LITE flag, which is something I hackily use to choose whether or not to change to a 'darker' square.

Andrew

[andrewdoull]

> About that CLW spell that cures blindness...
> you can't cast spells if you're blind.
> So I imagine that's kinda pointless. lol

Luckily, I plan for you to be able to cast spells whilst blind. You'll end up forgetting the spell as a part of the process some of the time.

Andrew

[Anne]

Can't reproduce. Could you try if it happens with ASCII, too? I wonder how to turn tiles on on my Linux version...

I checked it with all tilesets and ascii tonight. The results are the same for all of them. This appears to be more of a problem with show_itemlist enabled - it seems to always crash. But with show_sidebar enabled, a crash only occurs now and then.

> Boots of Stability - description mentions
> none of the special effects, but I wasn't
> sure whether it's supposed to or not.

If they were *Identified*, this is a new bug. If only Identified, an old one.

I believe they were just regular-identified. I later tried a scroll on them... Legend Lore, I think (but I'm not positive now), and the true description did show up then.

> Torch on dungeon wall

The infinite torches are probably a bug I've introduced in the unofficial version, already reported. Do you have any ideas to improve the iffy UI for picking up embedded items? How to organize it better? Actually, wait for a floor with pebbles or something else embedded in the floor and not on the walls and test then with items dropped on the same spot (hint: normally to reveal the embedded item you have to 'I'nspect' them).

I'll keep my eyes open for floors with embedded things, but I've never come across that yet. Do you mean that they appear as normal floor tiles? That could be why I've never seen one yet - I rarely examine them. I'll see what I can find tonight.

> The Gauge Magic problem relating
> to exorbitant sale price seems to only occur...

Does it still occur in the unofficial version? I can't remember if I fixed it...

Yup, the third instance happened in the unofficial version. I made a fresh character shortly before I posted that, just to check it again. That one sold for 15,000.

=========

EDIT --

The infinite torches are probably a bug I've introduced in the unofficial version, already reported. Do you have any ideas to improve the iffy UI for picking up embedded items?

I've been spotting some descriptions with a space and then a '.' that indicates a missing word, which made me automatically assume at first that this was another case of that. But my prime goal is spotting problems; playing is secondary. So I'm keyed toward seeing things from that standpoint. Chances are that regular players won't be confused by using '.' as a selector. I wouldn't even worry about it unless other people start mentioning it.

And regarding those embedded tiles - I imagine this is one of those hidden things that are left for players to find out for themselves. So along those lines, it goes without saying, but you're always welcome to shoot me a private message if there's anything hidden that you'd like me to be able to test. You know me, I enjoy the testing - it won't spoil anything for me.

[Anne]

Still having no luck finding any of those floor tiles with things embedded in them, but I'll keep looking. In the meantime...

Tile "Impassable tree trunk" - In the description, "You can bash it to make it tree trunk and cover the surrounding grids with branches and expose the surrounding grids to daylight." is repeated twice.

Leather Gloves of Power (+3,+1) [1,+1] (+4) - no description of its additional effects after using regular-identify on it. But it does appear once you wear them.

Ring of Mind did not preserve my character's stats against attacks. Dexterity and agility were lowered from a Dungeon Crawler attack, Intelligence lost from a mushroom patch. I had fireproofed that ring, but as far as I know, that shouldn't have interfered with its abilities.

Little typo - Noticed this on Brass Lantern of Man - "It may be an ego item or artifat." Should be spelled 'artifact'.

In my inventory, I have:
a Light Blue Mushroom of Mana
a light Blue Mushroom
I would imagine they should both be Mana since they're the same color. Maybe related to the arrow that unidentified itself after purchase and wouldn't stack with the others?

[darkdrone]

trust me, you wouldnt want to eat that NON mana Light Blue mushroom.

applying any other runes to a Ring appears to mess up the abilities, might even "curse" the item.... as happened to my Ring of SUstain Strength and Size after i applied a Rune to it from a Shrine.

[Bandobras]

I checked it with all tilesets and ascii tonight. The results are the same for all of them. This appears to be more of a problem with show_itemlist enabled - it seems to always crash. But with show_sidebar enabled, a crash only occurs now and then.

I still can't reproduce it. Could you post a savefile where it consistently crashes? Thanks!

I'll keep my eyes open for floors with embedded things, but I've never come across that yet. Do you mean that they appear as normal floor tiles?

Yes, walkable terrain tiles. But never just a dot '.' floor, I think, regardless of colour. And when you 'l'ook at such terrain it says at the end, after too much barely interesting babble common to all floors, that you can obtain an item from such a floor. It's never reasonably valuable, IIRC, just pebbles, berries, etc. but I've never dived past DL30, so who knows...

Yup, the third instance happened in the unofficial version. I made a fresh character shortly before I posted that, just to check it again. That one sold for 15,000.

Reported. That's too easy life for the newbies, so I'll fix it quickly.

[Anne]

Here you go. The only option changed on this one would be one of the two that causes the crash - I can't remember which one I tested last on it.

[Bandobras]

Here you go. The only option changed on this one would be one of the two that causes the crash - I can't remember which one I tested last on it.

No crash when exiting for me, so this may be Windows specific. Reported.