The case for simplicity

[sethos]

I think that this brings up a few good points:
1. I would not add more light sources for the sole purpose of hiding the phial, etc., though I would support a light source like Glowing stone, or something similar that could become your "Ego level" light source. (and, if implemented, you could call all the artifact light sources "Stones" until they were pseudo'd)

2. I do not think that Vault floor tiles should be in any way seperated (For Gameplay purposes) from regular floor tiles. if you mistakenly teleport into one, well, sucks for your characters ancenstors, you should have detected and thought first. ( I do understand that the seperation for stats purposes is a big help, though.)

3. fuzzy detection - awesome, really. you should have to SEE the item to know what it is, but that should be true for all classes and all detection spells. (Sorry rouge)

4. artifacts - really, there should not be any special rules for item pickup, etc. they should be treated likeother items - if only to keep them hidden. but, Like NPP, I think that some form of Randarts should be allowed, even in a "Normal" artifact game. (though these should not overshadow all of the standarts, I think that the chance of an awesome randart late game should be at least halfway decent.)

meh, that's my two cents.

[Derakon]

2. I do not think that Vault floor tiles should be in any way seperated (For Gameplay purposes) from regular floor tiles. if you mistakenly teleport into one, well, sucks for your characters ancenstors, you should have detected and thought first. ( I do understand that the seperation for stats purposes is a big help, though.)

Y'know, thinking about this now I'm okay with it. The main effect in my experience of banning teleporting into vaults is that Phase Door becomes incredibly useful when clearing vaults -- it's a guaranteed teleport to right outside the vault. Much better than having to teleport all the way across the map and risk running into the goons you teleported away earlier.

I suspect the original reason to prevent teleporting into vaults was to make it harder to "crack" them, since all of the original greater vaults were completely surrounded by permanent rock. Not only isn't this always the case now, but also it's not a very interesting thing to do; basically it means that unless you can reliably tunnel through granite and/or have unlimited stone-to-mud, you can't access the vault at all.

Concerns about players teleporting into the vault, looting it of its best valuables, and then teleporting back out are IMO basically unfounded since you can't control teleportation.

3. fuzzy detection - awesome, really. you should have to SEE the item to know what it is, but that should be true for all classes and all detection spells. (Sorry rouge)

I didn't know that Angband had a "makeup artist" class.

(Rogues get access to the Detect Treasure spell; everyone else has to wait for Detection or Enlightenment, or use scrolls of Detect Treasure)

4. artifacts - really, there should not be any special rules for item pickup, etc. they should be treated likeother items - if only to keep them hidden. but, Like NPP, I think that some form of Randarts should be allowed, even in a "Normal" artifact game. (though these should not overshadow all of the standarts, I think that the chance of an awesome randart late game should be at least halfway decent.)

Many v4 ego items look basically like randarts as it stands, just lacking the name and indestructibility. Personally I'm not so fond of mixing randarts and standarts, because artifacts should be special; if there's always the possibility of generating a randart of unknown ability (basically as a super-ego-item) then IMO the artifacts are less special. Ultimate power should exist in limited quantities, in other words.

[Antoine]

Is there a risk that players will get fried by accidentally teleporting into a vault, perhaps even one they didn't know was there? If so, is that a bad thing??

A.

[Zyphyr]

Teleport in general runs the risk of dropping you in an instant-death situation, even with no Vaults around.

[Derakon]

Yeah, and Teleport stops being a relatively safe escape before vaults become a going concern, so I don't think there's a huge issue there.

Besides, Angband isn't safe. Getting killed by teleporting into a vault you didn't know was there is awesome.