Z+Angband 0.2.3 released

[Mangojuice]

If you didn't already know it, of Greed-things seems to be a bit buggy. I bought a Golden Crown of Greed +3, thinking that the extra speed and rConf would be nice, but it kept spamming "Your purse feels lighter"-messages all the time which was extremely annoying. Nothing seemed to happen to my money though, until suddenly when I noticed that all my money was gone

I assume that the intention was that it should slowly drain your money? That's fine, but the description doesn't say anything about it. And the spamming of messages makes it completely unusable to me at least, since there's a message every 10 turns or something like that. It keeps spamming even though you have no money too. But perhaps it's a work in progress?

I think I'll adjust that. I don't intend for it to spam you when you have no gold. You probably didn't notice anything because the item didn't tell the game to refresh your current gold in the display; I noticed a similar problem with gold-costing spells a while back and fixed it but didn't do the same for x of Greed. Also, on inspecting, you lose an average of about 5 gp per turn with a helm of Greed. That's too much; maybe .5 would be more like it... and then the messages would be 10 times less frequent, also.

It's not in the item description intentionally... but I see you figured it out. The real question is, is the item good enough to make up for its disadvantage? I'm thinking now that I should add telepathy to it.

[perost]

I think I'll adjust that. I don't intend for it to spam you when you have no gold. You probably didn't notice anything because the item didn't tell the game to refresh your current gold in the display; I noticed a similar problem with gold-costing spells a while back and fixed it but didn't do the same for x of Greed. Also, on inspecting, you lose an average of about 5 gp per turn with a helm of Greed. That's too much; maybe .5 would be more like it... and then the messages would be 10 times less frequent, also.

Does it really need to print a message every time it drains some gold? I will never use it if it does, since I find the messages extremely annoying. If it just silently drained your gold I would at least consider using it if it gave a big enough advantage. The extra speed and rConf is very handy as I said.

It's not in the item description intentionally... but I see you figured it out. The real question is, is the item good enough to make up for its disadvantage? I'm thinking now that I should add telepathy to it.

Omitting it from the description feels more Nethack than Angband :P I would rather see it added to the description and leaving out the messages, like the items in ToME that drains health, mana and/or experience (perhaps they exist in Angband too, I can't recall that I've ever seen one).

And I think it would be appropriate if it could be activated for detect treasure. The item is greedy, so it should help you gather more treasures for it. The extra speed helps you get to the treasures faster, and rConf makes sure that you don't get confused (which means that you can't gather treasures)

[Mangojuice]

Does it really need to print a message every time it drains some gold? I will never use it if it does, since I find the messages extremely annoying. If it just silently drained your gold I would at least consider using it if it gave a big enough advantage. The extra speed and rConf is very handy as I said.

Currently, it drains 100 gold and prints a message with probability 1/40 every turn, and if it doesn't do that, it may still drain 10 gold with no message, with probability 1/4.

I was intending to alter this so that it drains 1000 gold, with a message, with probability 1/4000, and drains 10 gold with no message with probability 1/40. So messages would be very infrequent, 100 times less often than now, and the gold drain would be about 1/10 the amount.

rConf was random; it could have just as easily been any other high resistance.

The sad news is, even if I do change it in a future version, yours will always work this way. Scripts get copied from the template files and stored permanently for each object.

[perost]

The sad news is, even if I do change it in a future version, yours will always work this way. Scripts get copied from the template files and stored permanently for each object.

Not a problem, I sold it back almost immediately

[Jude]

Refresh my memory - what exactly is this again?

[Mangojuice]

Refresh my memory - what exactly is this again?

Z+? You can read about it at the homepage. There's a link just below, in my signature block.

[pampl]

Can you make it so that quests check what type of monsters they have before picking a level layout? Chain summoners + wide open spaces = not cool

Besides that I'm having tons of fun, quests rule. I think I'm about to have my first *band winning character, knock on wood.

If I notice some really minor bugs (e.g. magic books don't always stack right) should I report them or are you trying to do big fixes first?

[Mangojuice]

Can you make it so that quests check what type of monsters they have before picking a level layout? Chain summoners + wide open spaces = not cool

Besides that I'm having tons of fun, quests rule. I think I'm about to have my first *band winning character, knock on wood.

If I notice some really minor bugs (e.g. magic books don't always stack right) should I report them or are you trying to do big fixes first?

There's a reason those books aren't stacking, and it's not a bug. I'll leave it to you to figure it out... let me just add, you lucky bastard.

Which was the chain summoner / wide open quest? There is a level adjustment for quest types, perhaps that one could stand to have a higher adjustment.

[pampl]

There were a couple of 'clear this floor of firebreathers' quests that were wide open and had pairs of GWoP sitting around. They were already rated 85ish so I should've probably just quit bellyaching and saved up some scrolls of genocide. Summoners in quests in general are really scary though, so many quest areas lack thick enough walls to build an anti-summon corridor

I wasn't that lucky, none of the books I found were ones I could use. I did score a PDSM but then a ring killed me. Z is very odd.

[Jude]

I might have to check this out...I just lost a very excellent Chaos Warrior (level 31 which is high for me, but I'd had unbelievable luck and picked up some of the sickest gear I've ever seen....all was well till I ran into some unique "u" who summoned and raped me.

How is the bug status? Playable but with serious glitches? Or basically good to go?

[RogerN]

...all was well till I ran into some unique "u" who summoned and raped me.

Sounds like Strygalldwir strikes again (unless this is some other "u"). Welcome to the club! Usually he kills low-level players in the wilderness. He has a HUGE detection radius which causes him to charge at you from two or three screens away if you wander too close to a deep pit entrance.

How is the bug status? Playable but with serious glitches? Or basically good to go?

It's quite playable. There's only one crash that I'm aware of in 0.2.3 (casting Drain Life from the 3rd death magic book). You may occasionally run into oddities with quests, but they're not game-ending. If the quest from one town gives you trouble then you can always choose a different quest.

[Jude]

Sounds like Strygalldwir strikes again (unless this is some other "u"). Welcome to the club! Usually he kills low-level players in the wilderness. He has a HUGE detection radius which causes him to charge at you from two or three screens away if you wander too close to a deep pit entrance.

Nah...it was "Lord Dagon" or something. This was a level 31 character btw...nothing in the wilderness could make me blink.

It's quite playable. There's only one crash that I'm aware of in 0.2.3 (casting Drain Life from the 3rd death magic book). You may occasionally run into oddities with quests, but they're not game-ending. If the quest from one town gives you trouble then you can always choose a different quest.

OK....I might have to get up on this once my homework is cleared out of the way (like that'll ever happen)

Edit: OK I'm lazy so I just DLed it. Now, how do I make wall tiles be the solid blocks instead of #'s? That drives me insane...

[Mangojuice]

I might have to check this out...I just lost a very excellent Chaos Warrior (level 31 which is high for me, but I'd had unbelievable luck and picked up some of the sickest gear I've ever seen....all was well till I ran into some unique "u" who summoned and raped me.

How is the bug status? Playable but with serious glitches? Or basically good to go?

Basically good to go. The only bug I'm aware of that would have a significant effect on your game: don't take out a loan of over 30,000 gp from a bank. Other than that, I have no crashing bugs on the list right now.

[Mangojuice]

Nah...it was "Lord Dagon" or something. This was a level 31 character btw...nothing in the wilderness could make me blink.


OK....I might have to get up on this once my homework is cleared out of the way (like that'll ever happen)

Edit: OK I'm lazy so I just DLed it. Now, how do I make wall tiles be the solid blocks instead of #'s? That drives me insane...

If you want, consider replacing the "graf-win.prf" file (in the "pref" folder in your "lib" folder) with the "graf-winhack.prf" file, and then select the 8x8 graphics tileset in the game. This will use graphics for walls and floor terrain, but all interesting things (monsters, objects, doors, shops, you, etc.) will be in ascii as normal. You can also use "graf-winhack2.prf" to make just the walls use graphics. If you ever want to switch back, "graf-winnormal.prf" is a backup of the original graf-win.prf. (graf-winhack.prf is recommended: the game makes use of many varying types of terrain, which gives different areas a different feel, one I think players will miss with only a colored '.' or '%')

You can also use '%' to change your visuals preference for walls.

[RogerN]

Sounds like Strygalldwir strikes again (unless this is some other "u"). Welcome to the club! Usually he kills low-level players in the wilderness. He has a HUGE detection radius which causes him to charge at you from two or three screens away if you wander too close to a deep pit entrance.

Ironically my level 12 mindcrafter was killed by Strygalldwir in the wilderness just a couple hours after posting this. I really, really wish you got a message and an interruption upon discovering a dungeon entrance in the wilderness. Something like the wilderness quests: "You discover something unusual in the wilderness."

My normal practice is to habitually check the overhead map when exploring... I guess I just forgot this time.