[Un]angband 0.6.2 beta 2 has been released!

[Arralen]

Crash:
If I maximize the main window and hit "l", the game crashes reliably on W2k. Any files needed ?
PS: I think I reported that before ...

Evil plot of M :
Looks like M. finally found a way to get rid of those pesky adventurers who kill his minions and himself .. in a current game, he sent out some agents to buy out the general store in Bree .. no food, no torches .. no way to get any further .. . IMHO some items should be guaranteed to show up in the stores ;-)

Bards Blues :
There was a time when mighty dwarven bards roamed Middle Earth, dealing devastating blows to those foes who answered their proud challenges.
Now, all that is left are cowardly elven bards shooting their victims in the back during sneaky ambushes, humming their awful elvish magic while they do so ..
Why where all the "blows" removed from the lower bard spellbooks and replaced by throwing/shooting booster spells? Completely ruined my dwarven bard! And we already have rangers .. is there really need for another bow-wielding magic user?

[thorgot]

I see "The Beryl Ring of Power Narya" in a vault.

If I somehow leave the level, will it be lost forever? And furthermore, why is it already identified?

[thorgot]

I think it's amusing that the spell Restore Mind also cures amnesia. I know it's that way so the potion cures it, but I can just imagining a hilarious situation where an amnesiac tries to cast the spell in a tight spot without realizing how futile it is.

[andrewdoull]

Posts like this make me happy... I added primitive dungeon and home knowledge because the API made them possible, not because I thought they would be very useful. I was just trying to make an exhaustive list of things that come in group-by relationships.

It's worked out really well... nice expandable menu design.

I've learnt a lot from the coding approach as well.

Andrew

[Pete Mack]

knowledge menu API

Very well just do it. You'll make lots of mistakes reordering dungeon.txt (I did when exchanging only 4 locations), but the bugs are quite apparent. Even better, add an additional location number for chronology and sort via the field in various menus. This way, when the map is extended in the future (though the starting area is probably complete) the order won't break.

Posts like this make me happy... I added primitive dungeon and home knowledge because the API made them possible, not because I thought they would be very useful. I was just trying to make an exhaustive list of things that come in group-by relationships.

[Bandobras]

Making it available only after killing the great mirkwood spider would be a bit better - though the spider is rather out of depth for appearing on DL 13 - it's supposedly native to DL 27.

Guardians are usually overrated. Oops, it heals and summons --- I guess the original idea was you evade him rather than kill him. If it proves too difficult, it can be toned down. However, some more work remains to block Lake Town, e.g. overhauling the town itself.

If I'm playing slowly (as I did when I first got to the mirkwood areas), I often find myself running out of food; no shop in Rivendell stocks food, and none of the other towns would restock because my home was in Rivendell. This seems a bit out of flavour, since Rivendell was supposed to be that place where food was always plentiful. I suppose that there's no way for the game to restock food in Elrond's house periodically, is there?

Nope. And it would be rather boring for all other 'quest shops', because many people (me!) would start playing hunter-gatherer instead of hero. Last time I killed and fried all Rivendell townsfolk, solving exactly that problem, but thematically it seems even worse. ;D

Unfortunately, none of the other shops there would really suit food stocking.

How about stocking potions of Slime Mold Juice and/or potions of Bloating in the Chemist (many of them, but sometimes only one kind stocked)? Anything else? I you like it, go ahead with coding.

Maybe reordering the dungeon.txt file so that they appear in approximately the right order in the dungeon knowledge screens, and reordering the "travel to where" prompt so that if you pick choice "a)" every time, you travel in a logical order. I've not played around much past the lonely mountain, so I'm not sure how the map's set up past that.

Very well just do it. You'll make lots of mistakes reordering dungeon.txt (I did when exchanging only 4 locations), but the bugs are quite apparent. Even better, add an additional location number for chronology and sort via the field in various menus. This way, when the map is extended in the future (though the starting area is probably complete) the order won't break.

PS. I think I've figured out all right how to commit changes to the repository. I'll see what fixes I can make.

I've reviewed them all and they are perfect. Keep making many but small commits; that's good style. BTW, do you release your changes under GUN GPL and Angband Licence?

[Anne]

Pete to the rescue, thanks!

It's obviously better than mine, but I'm not yet satisfied with this version.

Hmm, let me sleep on that and I'll post tomorrow. What you said gave me a clearer mental image of what you're going for, but I need to mull over how to phrase the smell part - my brain is already half asleep.

[Big Al]

I like the idea. Generally, we try to give a lot of breathing space to the player and significant non-linearity, but a few more constraints that agree with the books would be OK for me. If there are no vetoes for several days I'll implement that single change you propose. If somebody could make Lake-town shops more interesting now that it'll be accessible only after beating DL 26 guardian, that would be great, but take care to keep it different (and less rich) from Dale. One more question, should killing the surface guardian of Mirkwood be enough (as with Redhorn)?

If you make the player wait until killing the King of the Wood Elves on DL 26, then Lake Town becomes pretty useless - you're basically only going to go there once, because as soon as I've killed the wood elf king, I'm off for the lonely mountain. Making it available only after killing the great mirkwood spider would be a bit better - though the spider is rather out of depth for appearing on DL 13 - it's supposedly native to DL 27.

If I'm playing slowly (as I did when I first got to the mirkwood areas), I often find myself running out of food; no shop in Rivendell stocks food, and none of the other towns would restock because my home was in Rivendell. This seems a bit out of flavour, since Rivendell was supposed to be that place where food was always plentiful. I suppose that there's no way for the game to restock food in Elrond's house periodically, is there? Unfortunately, none of the other shops there would really suit food stocking. (Just for fun, I tried adding a service of satisfy hunger in Elrond's house, hoping to allow the player to indefinitely refill his stomach in Rivendell, but it didn't work.) EDIT: Oh yeah, the reason I bring this up is that if you cut off access to laketown, you cut off the closest food supply (and Bree is a long ways away).

Any ideas welcome. What about the locations that are neither or in both books? AFAICT, there are only 9 prevalently The Hobbit locations, counting also some Bilbo has not visited. Perhaps begin the description of each with "The Road goes ever on and on..."? Or only of those visited by Bilbo (7), plus Rivendell?

Maybe reordering the dungeon.txt file so that they appear in approximately the right order in the dungeon knowledge screens, and reordering the "travel to where" prompt so that if you pick choice "a)" every time, you travel in a logical order. I've not played around much past the lonely mountain, so I'm not sure how the map's set up past that.

PS. I think I've figured out all right how to commit changes to the repository. I'll see what fixes I can make.

[Bandobras]

On 'a road through Mirkwood the Great', the description is now showing up just find without any typos.

On the other hand now I get the bug, but only in the knowledge screen, not when entering Mirkwood. Reported.

As for the suggestion for the last part, here's what I came up with:

Dark shapes scuttle in the shadows on the right side of the road through Mirkwood the Great. The sweet, sickly odor of decay assails your nostrils, and clicking and hissing noises drown out nearly everything else. But an occasional errant breeze brings a faint, captivating melody.

It's obviously better than mine, but I'm not yet satisfied with this version. First, the sweet scent was supposed to be, I don't know, Elves' perfumes; or perhaps they smell so nicely; or perhaps their inner light or their magic tickles minds so that it feels like an exotic smell? I guess I've worded it wrong, but I still like the idea. I don't mind if people think, like you, it's the sweet odour of decay --- I imagine the hero would be confused as well. Second, you start with odours then say the sounds drown out everything. What 'everything'? The odours? Only in the subsequent sentence we learn about other sounds. BTW, I like that sentence (the last one) very much.

Having said all that, I'm not a native speaker so I may be spewing nonsense, in which case please tell me.

[Pete Mack]

As for the suggestion for the last part, here's what I came up with:

Dark shapes scuttle in the shadows on the right side of the road through Mirkwood the Great. The sweet, sickly odor of decay assails your nostrils, and clicking and hissing noises drown out nearly everything else. But an occasional errant breeze brings a faint, captivating melody.

Feel free to chuck that if it doesn't give the right 'feel' you were looking for.

And the password is XYZZY. I it's got that old-time adventure feel...

Does this mean I need to get rid of the old files and download the new from scratch? You know me, I barely know how to compile, so I'm not sure what 'make clean' means. lol

No. It means you need to delete all the compiled "object" files. (There is one for every .c file, ending in .o or .obj, depending on compiler and platform.)

There's usually a shortcut target in the makefile that you execute with:
C:\...\angband\src\> make -f Makefile.cyg clean


Or depending on what variant you are using,
make -f Makefile.win clean

To see what targets you can execute, look for lines in the Makefile like

default:
or
angband:
or
install:
or
clean:

Lines like
%.o: %.c $(INCS)
are dependency rules (patterns) for turning a .c file into a .o file, etc.

If you want the details on make, here's a tutorial.

[Anne]

On 'a road through Mirkwood the Great', the description is now showing up just find without any typos.

As for the suggestion for the last part, here's what I came up with:

Dark shapes scuttle in the shadows on the right side of the road through Mirkwood the Great. The sweet, sickly odor of decay assails your nostrils, and clicking and hissing noises drown out nearly everything else. But an occasional errant breeze brings a faint, captivating melody.

Feel free to chuck that if it doesn't give the right 'feel' you were looking for.

those of you who follow SVN, please make clean (clean project, etc.) because UnAndrew recent changes are not handled OK with recompilation. I suspect the missing letters in descriptions may be caused by recompiled sources (I've got some missing letters, too, until I did 'make clean').

Does this mean I need to get rid of the old files and download the new from scratch? You know me, I barely know how to compile, so I'm not sure what 'make clean' means. lol

EDIT --
Forgot to add that I like being able to use Lake town when I badly need something that Bree isn't stocking. Not that I'm married to the idea of keeping it as it is, and I may be the only one who'd particularly miss it. But it does come in handy in the early game if food or whatever is hard to find. Maybe it's just been so long since I read the books that the places available out of order doesn't bother me.

[Bandobras]

I didn't see this on berlios: If you have two identical rings, you can put them both on in the same slot (though you only get the effect from one). Possibly the same for amulets?

Last time I remember UnAndrew sold it as a (unique Un) feature. The only use that comes to my mind is when inventory-shuffling after looting a nice vault --- you are not tempted to put your 3 rings of Free Action in the backpack, to make room for that ring of Speed (+4).

Bug: Beef Jerky doesn't tell you how much nourishment you get from it, while all the other basic foods do.

I'm not sure but it probably depends on how much of the food you've eaten so far. E.g. for me, only Rations of Food give nutritional info. Feel free to investigate.

Also, Pink mushrooms show up as light blue.

Fixed.

Edit: those of you who follow SVN, please make clean (clean project, etc.) because UnAndrew recent changes are not handled OK with recompilation. I suspect the missing letters in descriptions may be caused by recompiled sources (I've got some missing letters, too, until I did 'make clean').

[thorgot]

Actually, you've already reported something like that, but I added the new info the the old report.

True.

I didn't see this on berlios: If you have two identical rings, you can put them both on in the same slot (though you only get the effect from one). Possibly the same for amulets?

If it makes any difference, it is two rings of Constitution (+2).

[Bandobras]

Examining a Gnarled Staff of Teleportation (Fire proof) worth 2970 gold pieces (1d6) (+0,...

While all the information I've learned is useful, it sure would be nice to know how many charges it has left.

Actually, you've already reported something like that, but I added the new info the the old report.

Suggestion: when you level up and improve your stats, you should gain the equivalent amount of stats to your "curr" stat as to your "best" stat. (eg. One stat is at 18/20 and it's drained down to 18/19. I choose to improve that stat: the maximum goes up to say, 18/30, but curr stat stays at 18/19. The "curr" stat should go up to 18/29.)

I think this is intentional, so that restoring stats is important even if you gain levels like crazy. But with stat restoration via '$', stat restore potions would still be junk, so they are removed, anyway. (Temporary) stat gain potions and mushrooms fill the gap.

Also, is there any reason that you can get to Lake town before clearing Mirkwood? Thematically, it doesn't make any sense, but maybe there's a game balance reason. I'm the type of person who feels it necessary to explore every location in the same order as the books though...

I like the idea. Generally, we try to give a lot of breathing space to the player and significant non-linearity, but a few more constraints that agree with the books would be OK for me. If there are no vetoes for several days I'll implement that single change you propose. If somebody could make Lake-town shops more interesting now that it'll be accessible only after beating DL 26 guardian, that would be great, but take care to keep it different (and less rich) from Dale. One more question, should killing the surface guardian of Mirkwood be enough (as with Redhorn)?

I'd kind of like it if it was clearer which areas are in the Hobbit campaign and which are in the LotR campaign, but I don't know what the interface would look like.

Any ideas welcome. What about the locations that are neither or in both books? AFAICT, there are only 9 prevalently The Hobbit locations, counting also some Bilbo has not visited. Perhaps begin the description of each with "The Road goes ever on and on..."? Or only of those visited by Bilbo (7), plus Rivendell?

Also, I might suggest toning down the XP gain for Beorn a bit - he's trivial to kill if you just light the forest on fire, and I just jumped up five levels (17 to 22) upon killing him. (Got to improve 7 stats for casting a single fire bolt and a half a dozen magic missiles to finish him off, yay!)

Be my guest. He now has 1/3 of the XP. But quite often he is no harmed by fire at all so it takes a bit of wilderness-scumming, which is not totally safe (if you land far from the edges), especially without free teleport and food creation.

Also, I just got a "too many ecologies" bug: I had just gotten to the lonely mountain and gone down the first staircase. I saved the game and quit; when I reloaded it, it complained about the too many ecologies and gave me several warnings about backing up my savefile. It restored my character fine, but the dungeon was lost. (I have the savefile if you want.)

Yes, please. Best just report it on Berlios, giving a link to the save file. Oh, and you have SVN access now, so feel free to fix bugs, as well.

[thorgot]

Examining a Gnarled Staff of Teleportation (Fire proof) worth 2970 gold pieces (1d6) (+0,...

While all the information I've learned is useful, it sure would be nice to know how many charges it has left.