Beta version of PWMAngband 1.2.0 released

[PowerWyrm]

"edited .cfg and added there new account credentials"

Need to look at this. I don't remember how the admin char works. Maybe it's a problem with case (must start with uppercase?).

"I would be fun to have an option to be able to go outside to the wilderness"

Impossible. No_wilderness means there's nothing outside town + dungeon. And there's no way to generate it in this mode.

"currently minimum rows are 5, not 4"

Then it'll be 5 (you can get 4 without add-on). Can't go lower, at one point this crashes the client (Angband has no limit, and if you try to reduce the window to zero, it crashes the game).

"autopickup incription doesn't work properly"

Known bug. This happens when you step on ammo while running. And I have no idea why this happens... Workaround: before picking up ammo, stop and just walk to pick up.

"player 'Lich' reported lags when monsters breath on them"

Yes, that's the client latency for displaying effects. It is a configurable option. Go to Options menu -> d) set base delay factor -> lower the value (40ms by default). Usually I put 10 or 20ms to keep the breathing effect, but lower the latency on the client. You can put 1ms if you don't want effect.

"troubles with game performance"

Always or that's because the time bubble (low hps)? Never tested with Linux so I don't know...

"very bad thing, no point to use it."

That's because you don't play high stealth characters. Sometimes you want to wake up something close without having to go melee range. Horns are there for "aggravation on demand".

"rearrange shops items a bit"

You can rearrange via the txt file. The original version will always stick with regular Angband. I'll try to implement a "semi permanent" mode for items, but that will be only for customisation. All customisation in Angband leaves enough possibilities for everyone to adapt their game (or server) as they wish.

"PowerWyrm, as a developer/maintainer please could you declare policy considering adding stuff to PWMAngband initial package"

Easy. I'll deliver a package that is conform to what I play and enjoy, because I like playing my own games in turn based mode too, then customisation is totally free on servers.

[tangar]

Thank you very much for answers!

"I would be fun to have an option to be able to go outside to the wilderness"

Impossible. No_wilderness means there's nothing outside town + dungeon. And there's no way to generate it in this mode.

I suppose then the easiest solution is just to use 'wilderness mode', but add there 'a dungeon' which would be the same as 'no_wilderness' town.. If server admin wish to use such setup - he could place entrance to this dungeon at Hobbiton (just generate object with & menu - staircase to this dungeon). It would be awesome solution.

"troubles with game performance"
Always or that's because the time bubble (low hps)? Never tested with Linux so I don't know...

It seems EdginLarsen fixed it atm. He also wrote a guide how to play on linux, but its in Russian (translation in progress).

"PowerWyrm, as a developer/maintainer please could you declare policy considering adding stuff to PWMAngband initial package"
Easy. I'll deliver a package that is conform to what I play and enjoy, because I like playing my own games in turn based mode too, then customisation is totally free on servers.

Dev Q&A continues.. Do you plan to put PWMAngband sources to github so more developers would be able to contribute the code?

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Server updates could be found @ http://angband.online/ (currently we rebalancing stores)
And don't forget to join our Discord, guys: https://discord.gg/zBNG369

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Suggestions:

1) Most important: please could you assign 'birth_no_selling' option to server .cfg; currently it's optional rule which player could define at chacater creation screen. Having players with both 'selling' options on server makes it almost impossible to rearrange economy balance.

2) is it possible in future to add an option to restrict magic mapping radius the same way as EPS now restricted? (limited_esp .cfg option)

3) is it possible in future to add more different flags for stores? Now there is 'always' flag (spawn 40 stack of 40 items) and 'normal' (ocassionaly spawn 1-10 times). It would be fun to have something like this:
- always (spawn 10-20 items) // currently having always 40 items sounds quite anti-RPG style, moar rng!
- normal (5-10 items)
- rare (1-5 items)
- unique (1 item)

4) add an option to customize XBM (expensive black market) price. Currently it's x15 and it doesn't fit our server balance.

5) bug: there is a problem with 'normal' flag in BM. It seems it doesn't work. 'always' works alright.

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Question:

in .cfg:
# Option: set the speed of the game, in frames per second.
# In 0.7.0, the framerate has been increased by a factor of five relative
# to the earlier game versions.
FPS = 75

Why fps was rearranged to 75 and how does it incluence gameplay? It I'll rearrange this value to 60, how it would influence the game?

[PowerWyrm]

1) In fact I was considering moving some options to server, not only birth_no_selling, because it's hard to have different modes for players. I'll start with no_selling in next version and I'll check others afterwards.

2) Radius of all effects is a parameter in the txt files. Can't change anything without breaking the whole system. If you want to change radius, you can still edit the txt files, but I wouldn't do that.

3) Already started to work on this.

4) I agree. XBM is a bit too expensive and I'll lower the factor a bit. Note: factor is halved when playing with ironman server. Other note: I've tried to lower the factor to 5 in the past, and found that the items sold were too good and too cheap and so were greatly imbalancing the game, as you could order almost anything for gold.

5) I'll check. I'm pretty sure the BM isn't designed for "normal" items...

[PowerWyrm]

Alright guys. Bad news...

I've changed some stuff in the savefiles for next version... and therefore saves in beta 3 won't be compatible with beta 2. Sorry...

This means I'll take a bit of time to add more stuff before releasing the next version... but it also means you'll have to finish up your chars by the time the new version is released. This also means new instance, so new town, so no more townies trapped inside that remote area

[PowerWyrm]

"Why fps was rearranged to 75 and how does it incluence gameplay? It I'll rearrange this value to 60, how it would influence the game? "

FPS = number of frames per second = number of times the game checks for input per second.

The default value in the code is... ONE. Yeah, this means if you forget to put a mangband.cfg file in your directory, ALL players will move ONCE per second.

FPS = 75 is the MAngband default (check every 13ms). If you lower to FPS = 60, you'll make the game slower (check every 16ms).

[tangar]

Thanks! =D

Alright guys. Bad news...

I've changed some stuff in the savefiles for next version... and therefore saves in beta 3 won't be compatible with beta 2. Sorry...

This means I'll take a bit of time to add more stuff before releasing the next version... but it also means you'll have to finish up your chars by the time the new version is released. This also means new instance, so new town, so no more townies trapped inside that remote area

It's alright! In fact, wipe was planned at our server anyway because of the new MAX_ACCOUNT_CHARS option, so it fits perfectly

--

There is kinda possible exploit: if you drink potion of salt water, you become starved and game kick you out from the game (without 30 second timer). Players could use this mechanics to avoid death - drink this potion as 'escape' option if they got dangerous situation, so next time when they relog to the game - they would have easier lvl or could ask other players for help.

[tangar]

It would be fun one day to port TomeNET music system or it's part (I've prepared huuuge fantazy pack: http://tangar.info/en/t/musicpack/ for TomeNET, it would be pleasure to reassign it to PWMA)

Currently I've tried to assign some music to \PWMAngband\lib\customize\sound.prf but it's got several problems, eg:

I've assigned

# Town during the day.
sound:ambient_day:09_Old_Tristram

# Town during the night.
sound:ambient_nite:02_Matt_Uelmen_Town

....

# Dungeon levels 1-20 (50'- 1000')
sound:ambient_dng1:03_Matt_Uelmen_Dungeon

1) when I enter the game - no music playing
2) I enter the dungeon - 03_Matt_Uelmen_Dungeon playing, but I can not hear other sounds (maybe track volume should be reajusted..)
3) when I exit the dungeon and come to the surface I hear two music tracks at the same time: ambient_dng1 (continues even after the dungeon) and ambient_day. Ouch D:

I understand that this isn't music system, but sounds. It's was just an experiment - is it possible to fit music tracks to the current system..

..which brings us to /rfe - to add primitive music system. Lets it would have only two main flags for now: town and dungeon All other complex flags are not really important right now - it would be wonderful just to have changing of intensive dungeons music to calm 'townish' to add more atmoshpere

[tangar]

Updated FAQ: http://angband.online/faq/

[PowerWyrm]

Ok I checked and here's my result concerning the BM:

1) You cannot put "normal" items inside, the code doesn't allow it. Black Market items are randomly chosen.

2) You can put "always" items inside, the code allows that for all stores. However, by doing this, you need to remove the items you add from all other stores (for example: if you add "Cure Critical Wounds" to the BM as a staple, you need to remove them from the Temple as "normal" items), otherwise the item would not appear in the BM.

3) Max store item is 24. This means that slots:max + number of "always" items in a store should never be greater than 24.

Hope this helps reconfiguring shops on the server.

[tangar]

Thanks =D

You cannot put "normal" items inside, the code doesn't allow it. Black Market items are randomly chosen.

Would it be possible to assign more flags to BM in next update (when new flags are comming)? %) I suppose TomeNET got 'Normal' flag in BM for speed pots, tele scrolls & etc; would be lovery to have flag for it too (maybe not 'normal', but 'rare')

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Server got an update: vigor mushrooms and magic mapping - http://angband.online/vigor-mushroom...magic-mapping/

[tangar]

New problem: as players do not swap places with each other (I like this mechanics, more realistic), one player could block other players completely by standing on tavern 'door' or staircase to the dungeon. It brings a problem when someone could occasionally stay afk in dungeon entrance and block other players (happened to me today).. And further on - to more dangerous issue, when malicious players could block others on purpose.

Suggestion:
to allow 'swap' between players under condition if one of them are standing on the starcase/tavern door.

Also maybe to prevent too much swapping and possibility of extra exploits during PvE - make it cost some energy and give certain CD, so after you swapped once, you should wait some time.

[tangar]

Solution to wilderness cheating

In next update I'm thinking to switch server back to wilderness mode (with adjusting Angband dungeon in Hobbiton). I so love dungeon-city (it's reminds me about Moria..), but it would be fun to give players more freedom - someone wish to travel around ME, some would like to dive right after they create a new character.

All this time I thought how to solve the biggest problem os wilderness 'cheating' with moving along the borders. I've also suggested some ideas there
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpos...0&postcount=28 , and got some more thoughts, but finally it comes to my mind, how to solve it.

Problem:
If wilderness option is on, players using 'cheating' possibility to move along the borders to be able to change location immideatelly as soon as they noticed dangerous monster. This vulnerability in gameplay mechanics gives players non-roguelikish endless 'escape' option from danger and makes wilderness kinda pointless.

Suggestion:
When player change location - he should appears not at the border, but in the center of new location.

Description:
Winderness locations lay from [0, 0] coordinates to [10, 54] (to see them - move your screen with 'shift+L')

Player moves from sector [0, 0] to the north and moves to the new location. Right now he would appear on [10, 0] and could continue his way on border and are ready to run from any monster to another location in any moment.

My suggestion is: when player moves from sector [0, 0] to the north, he appears in the center of next sector, ~ [5, 27]. From there player is free to go anywhere, but he can not immideately change sector to avoild danger.

Results:
- this would remove the weakiest, anti-roguelikish point of wilderness - cheating at borders (one of the main reason why I turned wilderness off).
- makes travelling faster (it's alone not a bad thing), more interesting, dangerous, fair.
- (in future) gives new opportunities for gameplay events, eg points of interests (in future every location could have a chance to spawn random point of interest in it's center, to spawn there something like 'vault' for wilderness: bandit's camp, orc's ambush, broken caravan etc). With currenty system (when you appear on the border) you won't even notice such stuff cause you continue to run along the border from one location to another without a glance to the center. But when you appear in the center of next location and you are surrounded by band of orcs or see a broken trader's cart ravaged by bandits - you would notice it So such mechanics could be foundation for RNG-wilderness-events system in future.

[tangar]

Also a question about some additional stuff:

1) how to setup our own metaserver? PWMA is a 'big boy' already, maybe it's time for us to get our meta server? Or at least it's interesting to understand how to do so

2) it would be fun to show server status on the website. there is source code for TomeNET meta made by Mikaelh: http://muuttuja.org/tomenet/meta.php?source=1 ; I've setup it at the website: http://angband.online/status/, but when I'm puttin MAngband metaserver address and port, MAngband refusing to give the data (it seems they got different format); so for now I've just used 'dirty way' and iframed status from mangband page

3) It would be also fun to have highscores the website, like this: https://mangband.org/scores ; I'll write to MAngband devs, maybe they could share the code Aaand I'll write to TomeNET devs about their ladder code: https://www.tomenet.eu/scores.php

[PowerWyrm]

" one player could block other players completely"

IIRC that's not possible. If you run in one direction, you should swap positions immediately. I need to check though. Otherwise yeah, it should not be possible to block others. If that's the case, I'll amend the code.

"I so love dungeon-city (it's reminds me about Moria..), but it would be fun to give players more freedom - someone wish to travel around ME, some would like to dive right after they create a new character."

Ok for this I've found the perfect solution: I'll add a mode between "no wilderness" and "normal wilderness" that will be "fast wilderness". In this mode, you will be able to teleport to Carn Dum immediately using any WoR scroll without having to go there by foot. This will allow people to skip the wilderness part and just dive into the main dungeon immediately if they wish.

"Solution to wilderness cheating"

"move along the borders to be able to change location immideatelly as soon as they noticed dangerous monster."

That's my fault: I've changed the code so that every wilderness area is treated like a dungeon floor and therefore is unstaticed each time there are no more players on it. In MAngband, this is not the case, so when you leave an area and come back, the stuff is still there (and if there is a dangerous mob it will be still there). The wilderness is too big to store each and every area in memory, it would crash the server immediately.

"he should appears not at the border, but in the center of new location"

Good idea, but unfortunately impossible to implement. Wilderness areas are "blended" each into another with different terrain types. For example, you can have a transition between a "shore" and an "ocean" area. Imagine your character leaves the shore... and is put in the middle of the ocean. Or worse: you leave the border of a volcanic area and are teleported right inside a lava area.

"With currenty system (when you appear on the border) you won't even notice such stuff cause you continue to run along the border from one location to another without a glance to the center."

And this is a terrible mistake... Currently, each wilderness area is generated ONCE with all its features: local inhabitants, pits, treasures. Once you leave the area, it is reset and all content is gone. When you come back, you get the "This seems to be a deserted area" message. This means all the goodies are gone and you've passed a chance to loot abandoned houses, fight invaders and so on. Early on, raiding the wilderness is probably the most profitable way of getting supplies and leveling up.

IMO this is a non issue. In TomeNET, you can meet greater krakens in the wilderness and I'm sure you won't go close to that when you see one, but simply move to another sector. People should travel during the day. In this case, mobs in the wilderness are harmless low level stuff and if you have to run away from them... then just level up a bit in the training dungeon. Any character at level 5 should be able to cross the wilderness during daytime without having to care about mobs, except for a bit of xp and loot for the kills. I've added a command to show the current time, so nobody should be trapped in the wilderness at night: when the time reaches the 12th hour of day, simply inscribe a WoR with the coordinates of the closest town and go back to spend the night. Then inscribe with the coordinates of the last sector of the wilderness visited and continue. There are also a lot of empty buildings in the wilderness that should be safe to spend the night if by mistake you are caught at night outside of a town.

You should check this: http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8466. Playing Necromancer (a hard class) with full wilderness mode, and explored all dungeons to kill all bosses. Never had any problem crossing the wilderness.

1) how to setup our own metaserver?

There's no way atm. Metaserver is proprietary code, and both MAngband and TomeNET have their own. So for now we'll keep bind with MAngband one. I've tried to report PWMAngband's server to TomeNET's metaserver, but it doesn't work (the format is correct, but it simply doesn't appear -- the metaserver must detect that it's not a Tomenet server and reject access).

"MAngband refusing to give the data (it seems they got different format)"

Yes, format is completely different. But even using the same format doesn't work, there must be another check that blocks servers.

[tangar]

" one player could block other players completely"
IIRC that's not possible. If you run in one direction, you should swap positions immediately. I need to check though. Otherwise yeah, it should not be possible to block others. If that's the case, I'll amend the code.

I've tested it; 'running' doesn't works it seems.

Ok for this I've found the perfect solution: I'll add a mode between "no wilderness" and "normal wilderness" that will be "fast wilderness". In this mode, you will be able to teleport to Carn Dum immediately using any WoR scroll without having to go there by foot. This will allow people to skip the wilderness part and just dive into the main dungeon immediately if they wish.

Yay! Sounds great DD

That's my fault: I've changed the code so that every wilderness area is treated like a dungeon floor and therefore is unstaticed each time there are no more players on it. In MAngband, this is not the case, so when you leave an area and come back, the stuff is still there (and if there is a dangerous mob it will be still there). The wilderness is too big to store each and every area in memory, it would crash the server immediately.

Is it possible to change it back somehow? I could buy more powerful server, so such feature would work. Maybe it's possible to optimize it somehow.. TomeNET also have static wilderness and they got huge world, maybe you could sneak peek to TomeNET code to understand how they managed it?

Af far as my silly head understands, this areas should be 'stored' and inactivated somehow while there are no players (so they won't take server resources) and become active again when player come there.

For example, you can have a transition between a "shore" and an "ocean" area. Imagine your character leaves the shore... and is put in the middle of the ocean. Or worse: you leave the border of a volcanic area and are teleported right inside a lava area.

Good point! This is a problem. Maybe at least spawn character if not at the center, but a few tiles (1d10) away from border?

IMO this is a non issue. In TomeNET, you can meet greater krakens in the wilderness and I'm sure you won't go close to that when you see one, but simply move to another sector.

I feel that it's major issue because it ruins roguelike concept by giving 'cheating' way to play @ wilderness. I like idea with dangerous 'night' very much, but it won't help much with making wilderness fair when player always having possibility to run from one location to another to 'wipe' it.

It's good that wilderness are save in daylight.. But still in some rare cases it should be dangerous even at daylight, so player have to run from it, to have such roguelikish situations. And 'border-cheat' makes it pointless. BUT.. if wilderness would be static = problem solved

You should check this: http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8466. Playing Necromancer (a hard class)

I know about this topic for a loong time, but I don't wanna get spoilers yet. First I'll play with all classes in PWMA myself and then I'll read this topic with a joy

There's no way atm. Metaserver is proprietary code, and both MAngband and TomeNET have their own. So for now we'll keep bind with MAngband one.
"MAngband refusing to give the data (it seems they got different format)"

I'll ask MAngband and TomeNET devs, maybe they could share it.


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Hunger is comming http://angband.online/hunger-is-comming/

Also website structure updated & added server status