[Announce] Poschengband 3.0.0 Released

[getter77]

It was the Google page, which seems to be up just fine now with beta v3.0.2---awesome.

[Flauterfiddle]

A FAQ for PosChengband/Variant Angband?

Keep coming up with more questions, wondered if there was a more appropriate place to ask them than spamming this thread :=)

Such as, e.g., "Can you die in the Arena?". I guess YES is the answer, but since there is no info on the Arena anywhere (AFAIK), I am not 100% sure. I have been ploughing through monsters with my highly useful possessed Giant Tarantula, but after a Dark Elven Lord did in fact use magic when it is supposedly banned (or is it just the player who cannot use magic?) I decided to leave off monster bashing until I was sure that all combat was to the death.

As said, I need a FAQ - or would be happy to start/run one.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Zul's Inn (assuming it has one) should have an option to teleport to the other 4 towns. I don't see why not.

[chris]

Oh, and one more feature request or question: a Recall scroll for getting back to the safe haven of a town would be really neat. Once, surrounded by a bunch of tough critters in the Wilderness, I recalled to a dungeon, recovered and then recalled back out, only to find myself still in the Wilderness with all the lovely nasties around me that I'd tried to escape. Since recall depth can be reset, a new scroll to reset recall to a town would be very useful. If you can reset depth, it would be useful to reset target as well... Word of Town Recall? Word of Safe Haven? Or is this a deliberate penalty? I generally like the Wilderness in this version, though. The Zangband wilderness got insanely dangerous very, very quickly, as I recall (pun intended)...

There currently is a Sorcery spell, Teleport to Town, which would do what you like: Casting it in the wilderness prompts the player to choose a town they have previously visited, and teleports them thither. I wouldn't mind adding a scroll to do the same.

[chris]

The site seems to have been down the past couple days now.

Which one?

I currently can get to both https://sites.google.com/site/poschengband/ and https://github.com/poschengband/poschengband. I haven't noticed any problems recently, but I rarely visit the google site. Google has had multi-day outages in the past, though (at least, code.google has).

[getter77]

The site seems to have been down the past couple days now.

[Flauterfiddle]

The sinking feeling...

Thx for the tip on quest feelings, Arjen.

I guessed it might be something like that, and I do like the dynamic feature, I must admit. It makes sticking around on a level much more interesting. The help text needs updating though, since it states that the feeling is generated once per level, when you enter. The colouration (bottom right) is also a very, very neat feature.

And I guess shafts (rather than stairs) take you up more than 1 level sometimes? Or down more than one? I also have no idea why I sometimes go back to the exact same dungeon level.

So much to discover. Well, I only beat Angband once in a lifetime of playing it :=) High-Elf Mage, of course...

Oh, and one more feature request or question: a Recall scroll for getting back to the safe haven of a town would be really neat. Once, surrounded by a bunch of tough critters in the Wilderness, I recalled to a dungeon, recovered and then recalled back out, only to find myself still in the Wilderness with all the lovely nasties around me that I'd tried to escape. Since recall depth can be reset, a new scroll to reset recall to a town would be very useful. If you can reset depth, it would be useful to reset target as well... Word of Town Recall? Word of Safe Haven? Or is this a deliberate penalty? I generally like the Wilderness in this version, though. The Zangband wilderness got insanely dangerous very, very quickly, as I recall (pun intended)...

[Arjen]

Oh, and one other gripe. I possessed a clear hound in one of the quests, more out of desperation than anything else (I was out of my depth in that quest anyway). And then found that clear hounds cannot see other clear hounds. Surely some mistake? Invisible creature does not have see invisible?

That surely is funny, as they are capable of forming groups.

Still navigating through a number of other new features I'm not accustomed too, though. Is there a general announcement covering things like level feelings and quests?

I've notice the level feelings seem to change dynamically, i.e. one minute you're feeling lucky, the next minute the feeling changes, even though you are still on the same level.

When the feeling changes something has happened on the level, like you killed so many monsters the level became "boring" or a out of depth unique with escort spawn and suddenly "you fear for your life" kind of messages are spammed. If you are feeling lucky and later you don't, you might have picked up a nice item which no longer is on the level as you did pick it up.

And with quests, my three quests from the mayor were level 5, level and then ... level 48. Is the mayor trying to tell me I'm not welcome in his town any longer? :=) :=) The pub also gave me Old Man Willow for starters, which is 22. Both Outpost naturally. So my 13-level Warg is gonna need to find someone else to work for. I like the idea of quests btw, they give the game a nice narrative structure, which scumming dungeon levels does not...

Yeah, don't do the level 48 Haunt House quest, you will die.

But at the beginning only the Thieves and Wargs are doable, even that Old Man Willow quest is tough untill level 25-30, depending on who you are. Try conquering some dungeons or travel to other towns for some extra work. (You can travel over the worldmap pressing '<' while on the surface.)

[Flauterfiddle]

Yes, the possession aspect is truly nifty, opens up an entirely different kind of gameplay IMHO.

Minor gripe, however. Since you cannot gain exp past your body's max. level (or max. level + 5, it could be made clearer when you will stop gaining exp. The monster memory tells you the level of the current body, sure, but a gameplay option/message on the lines of you "feel tired of this body", or "you feel you have seen it all", i.e. experience maxed out, would be good. I kept checking the exp when I slowly realized I was no longer levelling with a novice something-or-other.

On the other hand, the level parameter as the base for exp is very good. There are some "weaker" monsters that occur lower down who can be possessed for longer, since their higher level offers more room for exp. My current choice of warg is a good example, base level 14 offers plenty of room for levelling early on. Even though wargs are not the most powerful thing out there at level 14.

Oh, and one other gripe. I possessed a clear hound in one of the quests, more out of desperation than anything else (I was out of my depth in that quest anyway). And then found that clear hounds cannot see other clear hounds. Surely some mistake? Invisible creature does not have see invisible?

Still navigating through a number of other new features I'm not accustomed too, though. Is there a general announcement covering things like level feelings and quests?

I've notice the level feelings seem to change dynamically, i.e. one minute you're feeling lucky, the next minute the feeling changes, even though you are still on the same level.

And with quests, my three quests from the mayor were level 5, level and then ... level 48. Is the mayor trying to tell me I'm not welcome in his town any longer? :=) :=) The pub also gave me Old Man Willow for starters, which is 22. Both Outpost naturally. So my 13-level Warg is gonna need to find someone else to work for. I like the idea of quests btw, they give the game a nice narrative structure, which scumming dungeon levels does not...

[Raxmei]

Thanks! I wish I could take credit for the Possessor idea, but its been around for quite some time. I think Posband had it first but I'm not sure.

The first I recall seeing it was Pern.

[chris]

I just uploaded another tiny update here. Source code can be found here.

* The main change for this release was a reworking of monster AI to better handle passwall characters as well as anti-summoning corridors.

* Some minor additions including giving Hrus (Race = Giant, Subrace = Hru) the option to use innate shatter based attacks. These attacks are only available if the player is not wielding a melee weapon.

[chris]

Just wanted to say hi to the Angband forums and a huge thankyou to Chris for Poschengband.

In what must be nearly 20 years of playing (I've been with the game since Angband), this has to be one of the most fun variants, and I mean the Possessor...

Hugely enjoyable at the moment ... from CL10 wild rabbits onwards (shades of Monty Python) and it's so great to see the 'Band story going on and on and on...

Thanks! I wish I could take credit for the Possessor idea, but its been around for quite some time. I think Posband had it first but I'm not sure.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Just wanted to say hi to the Angband forums and a huge thankyou to Chris for Poschengband.

In what must be nearly 20 years of playing (I've been with the game since Angband), this has to be one of the most fun variants, and I mean the Possessor...

Hugely enjoyable at the moment ... from CL10 wild rabbits onwards (shades of Monty Python) and it's so great to see the 'Band story going on and on and on...

The fun doesn't stop there...wait until you possess bodies like Kenshirou the Fist of the North Star, Nidhogg the Hel-Drake, Wahha-Man the Golden, and so on...

[Flauterfiddle]

Just to say thankyou...

Just wanted to say hi to the Angband forums and a huge thankyou to Chris for Poschengband.

In what must be nearly 20 years of playing (I've been with the game since Angband), this has to be one of the most fun variants, and I mean the Possessor...

Hugely enjoyable at the moment ... from CL10 wild rabbits onwards (shades of Monty Python) and it's so great to see the 'Band story going on and on and on...

[chris]

Why is that? For playtesting purposes?

Well, obviously if you have multiple characters running simultaneously, then you need multiple savefiles. I've had as many as twenty at a time running (mostly for playtesting purposes)!

As for starting a new character, creating it with a new savefile is just easier and cleaner. Your macros and customized pickup preferences get reset to the defaults. Also, I like my monster memory to reset as well. The only exception is if I am quick starting after an early death (This is actually quite common now that I think about it).