In retrospect: Ben's era
Topi Ylinen
a changing of the guard was coming, but Robert had made us all
keep very silent about it (for obvious reasons). Now that it is
finally official, I just wanted to publish some of my thoughts
about Ben's reign.
All in all, it has been one of the best eras for Angband.
The best era, of course, would be the one when Angband was
originally developed and released. But the Angband of 1993
was very confusing, buggy and inconsistent between the different
platforms (PC version had features that were not in the
Unix version etc.). This is where Ben made his most remarkable
contributions: cleaning up the code, removing a number of
hacks, and finally making a version that is fundamentally
the same on *all* platforms. Porting to new platforms is
easier now, modifying the game is very straightforward.
And once you make a new variant/subvariant/whatever, it
is almost trivial to port it to all systems (provided that
you are not adding platform dependent code or libraries).
Ironically enough, Ben's greatest contributions are also
the areas where I can find the *only* points of criticism
against Ben's changes. More specifically,
1) Removing ugly hacks, Ben removed player ghosts entirely.
Although (coding-wise) player ghosts were indeed one of the
uglier hacks, they also added colour to the game -- especially
if you tended to play recklessly and thus created a lot of player
ghosts for the game to choose from. No more "blah blah the level 23
rogue killed by Gigamosher the Half-Troll Priest in Town"!
(One of my fondest YASDs was indeed along those lines: coming
back to town, I get "It casts a spell. You are afraid! It casts
a spell. You cannot see!" etc.)
2) I don't find Chaos Beetles any less un-Tolkienian than Jabberwocks.
Jabberwocks made more sense, though (IMO): at least they were a
"generally accepted" monster type in fantasy games.
3) The monster colour scheme. Apparently Ben was unaware of the earlier
PC port with a relatively logical colour scheme for monsters, and people
who were used to the PC port had to re-learn the the colour scheme (and
once again when Ben later changed the colour scheme). Some of us (such
as myself) definitely preferred the original colour scheme that
at least attempted to use "descriptive" colours (i.e. the colour
that the monster was supposed to be, red for Red Dragons etc.)
while conveying as much information as possible. Ben eventually
focused on the later, resulting in "illogical" colours for a
few monsters (colours that do not match their descriptions).
So, trying hard, I found a whole *three* points of complaint against
Ben. Considering that all the rest of his stuff seems definitely
*mega* to me, that is really not too bad. 99.999% good stuff.
I would never score that well myself. Excellent job, Ben!
I'm defintely *not* suggesting that any of these should be changed in
the vanilla. Point #3 may actually not even be an issue for most
players since Ben's colour scheme has become a "de facto standard".
People who want to change any of these can, after all, 'fix' them
in their personalized versions. A few variants have addressed #1,
and I personally did try to do something about #2 and #3.
P.S. To those of you who are worried about Robert turning vanilla
into Z. Don't worry, he won't. *I* will not let him. :)
In fact, when he first mentioned his intentions about taking
on Vanilla, the other teamers emphasized that he should keep
the games different. And he promised that he will, indeed --
take a look at his plans for vanilla, when he makes them
public, and see!
--
<Topi Ylinen = f1t...@kielo.uta.fi>
"LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
In the fifth edition of FBI's Tunnels & Trolls, an average man may make
10-second sprints topping 60 miles per hour. An exceptional runner could
sprint at 118 mph." (MURPHY'S RULES)
James W Sager Iii
Makes sense. Angband can get old.
He's been pretty active, I like the randarts he placed in not to long
ago and something else I complained about. Unexpected, but hey getting
a new maintainer will be maybe neet, they'll be all energetic... and
wanting to do stuff.
I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
That'd let me play Angband again.
I need the following three things for me to play any variant:
Easy to open doors
Autosquelching
Randarts(The more variety the better)
Also balance helps alot.
Matthias Kurzke
<sag...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>So like Ben is tired of maintaining angband?
>Makes sense. Angband can get old.
>He's been pretty active, I like the randarts he placed in not to long
>ago and something else I complained about. Unexpected, but hey getting
>a new maintainer will be maybe neet, they'll be all energetic... and
>wanting to do stuff.
>
>I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
They have. Didn't you read the announcement? Check the changes at
Thangorodrim. (The easy open doors was already in Ben's last version,
2.8.5 beta, which was source-only).
>I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
You sound like I should try it some day.
>
>That'd let me play Angband again.
>
>
>I need the following three things for me to play any variant:
>Easy to open doors
Strange isn't it - after playing for years without it, suddenly I am
too lazy to press 'o' when there is a closed door somewhere. I think
'That's an annoying game with a poor user interface'. Where does this
lazyness come from?
>Autosquelching
>Randarts(The more variety the better)
Z-style or GW-style ? GWs Randart is in the new Vanilla.
>Also balance helps alot.
Balance Drakes are nearly everywhere ;)
Matthias
--
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master--that's all.'
Chris Kern
following:
>Ironically enough, Ben's greatest contributions are also
>the areas where I can find the *only* points of criticism
>against Ben's changes. More specifically,
Surely you haven't forgotten the quantity specification debacle. Or
were you not counting that because he later reversed his decision?
And wasn't there one other unpopular decision he made that he later
had to go back on?
-Chris
Matthias Kurzke
wrote:
depth_in_feet was removed in 2.8.2, I think. It was added back in
2.8.3 because of public outcry of all these people like me that don't
want to change their habits.
Prfnoff
<sag...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
> I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
Already done with the introduction of the Easy Patch.
> I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
I don't think so. First of all, this has yet to make it into the official
version of any variant, even Z. This means that it is very untested.
> Easy to open doors
> Autosquelching
See above.
> Randarts(The more variety the better)
GW-Angband's randarts have been added, but the code that implements them
makes some ridiculous assumptions on the compiler. ZAngband's randarts would
be *very* unbalanced in vanilla, so I don't think they will be added. The
OAngband randart adaptation strikes me as causing possible balance problems,
too.
> Also balance helps alot.
assert(OAngband != balance());
/*
* Not that OAngband isn't balanced, but it isn't the only possible
* rebalancing. The ZAngband DevTeam made one of their bigger mistakes
* here.
*/
-- Prfnoff <prf...@thecia.vet> (ivnert to reply: tr nv vn)
Chris Kern
<sag...@andrew.cmu.edu> posted the following:
>I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
It's done. (This was in 2.8.3h as well.)
>I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
Not likely, it's a big hack.
-Chris
David T. Blackston
Prfnoff <prf...@thecia.vet> wrote:
>In article <kswnmX200...@andrew.cmu.edu>, James W Sager Iii
><sag...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
>
>
>
>version of any variant, even Z. This means that it is very untested.
The reason that it hasn't been incorporated into any official versions
is because it is relatively new. It was written for Zangband and since
no new versions (dev or stable) have come out since its release there's
no way that the patch could have been incorporated into any new release.
Also, saying it's "very untested" might not be quite fair. I have played
well over a dozen characters with the patch and aside from a couple of
non-fatal bugs (which have been eradicated) it plays exactly as advertised.
(I've taken two of these characters to level 48+.) I also have
been receiving feedback from a playtester (James, above) who has
yet to find any meaningful bugs. Granted, it hasn't yet been
tested by the people who matter, but I've brought the patch
to their attention and I sincerely hope that they try it out.
I'm certainly very biased, but I think that this feature saves
the user an incredible amount of time and in so doing makes the
game more fun without affecting the game balance in any meaningful
way. Given this, I see no reason why it shouldn't eventually make
its way into a standard release.
If you'd (or anyone reading this) would like to try it out,
point your browser to
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~davidb/angband/
There's a patch file there (for Zang228) and a DOS executable.
Regards,
Dave
David T. Blackston
Chris Kern <ke...@grinnell.edu> wrote:
>On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 10:54:27 -0400, James W Sager Iii
><sag...@andrew.cmu.edu> posted the following:
>
>>I hope they fix it so you can walk into doors to open them(like Z)
>
>
>
>
What do you mean by "big hack" in this context? Is this a comment
about the coding style or about the feature itself? I'll admit that
my coding style isn't the cleanest around, but making my code conform
to the angband specifications should be too much of a problem.
Regards,
Dave
>-Chris
John J. Kelly IV
>well over a dozen characters with the patch and aside from a couple of
>non-fatal bugs (which have been eradicated) it plays exactly as advertised.
>(I've taken two of these characters to level 48+.) I also have
>been receiving feedback from a playtester (James, above) who has
>yet to find any meaningful bugs. Granted, it hasn't yet been
>tested by the people who matter, but I've brought the patch
>to their attention and I sincerely hope that they try it out.
I've played just one character, to 25ish so far, but I really like it. It's
a warrior type, so getting rid of stuff automatically on pseudo-id is very
nice. The squelch on create version is pleaseantly transparent. I can't say
I really notice it working or not working.
John
Gwidon S. Naskrent
Blackston) wrote:
>my coding style isn't the cleanest around, but making my code conform
>to the angband specifications should be too much of a problem.
Someone said on zanglist that the real solution for the problem is
reshuffling object rarities. ATM, nobody touches them since they're so
mystifying.
OTOH, this still doesn't solve the real 'junk' case.
GSN
David T. Blackston
Gwidon S. Naskrent <nask...@hoth.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
>On 11 Apr 2000 19:18:24 GMT, dav...@lotus.CS.Berkeley.EDU (David T.
>Blackston) wrote:
>
>>my coding style isn't the cleanest around, but making my code conform
>>to the angband specifications should be too much of a problem.
>
>Someone said on zanglist that the real solution for the problem is
>reshuffling object rarities. ATM, nobody touches them since they're so
>mystifying.
This can't be the case unless you want to introduce different
object rarities for different classes. For a warrior a potion
of restore mana is junk and will always be junk (unless found
early enough to be worth selling) but you can't make these more
rare without screwing up the other classes.
The feature I implemented allows the user to completely determine
what he/she views as junk depending on his/her class, level, and
personal taste. When I add the save/load support the user will
probably be able to limit his/her menu iteraction to no more than
a few minutes per game (as opposed to the time spent sifting
through and detroying useless items). It also has a minimal effect
on game balance which is something you'd have to be very careful of
if you were to change the object rarity code.
>
>OTOH, this still doesn't solve the real 'junk' case.
>
>GSN
Regards,
Dave
Chris Kern
>
>What do you mean by "big hack" in this context? Is this a comment
>about the coding style or about the feature itself? I'll admit that
>my coding style isn't the cleanest around, but making my code conform
>to the angband specifications should be too much of a problem.
Actually, I was just parroting a comment Steven Fuerst had made
ealier. I haven't actually looked at the patch yet, so it's probably
not a comment I should have made, sorry.
-Chris
David T. Blackston
No problem. I'd be the first to admit that there are sections of my
code that could be done more cleanly but when I modified the actual
source I tried to remain relatively true to the Angband specifications.
The file squelch.c needs to be more thoroughly commented (being done)
and admittedly doesn't conform to the indenting specs, but I think
the implementation itself is about as clean as I can imagine (given
what it does).
I'd be more than willing to work with the devteam to get the patch to
the point where it can be seriously considered. I just need to know the
best way to do this.
Regards,
Dave
James W Sager Iii
retrospect: Ben's era by Matthias Kur...@ms45.hin
> >Makes sense. Angband can get old.
> >He's been pretty active, I like the randarts he placed in not to long
> >ago and something else I complained about. Unexpected, but hey getting
> >a new maintainer will be maybe neet, they'll be all energetic... and
> >wanting to do stuff.
> >
>
> Thangorodrim. (The easy open doors was already in Ben's last version,
> 2.8.5 beta, which was source-only).
Wooo!
Easy play Angband is all me baby(interface, not difficulty).
All I have to say is that everything I need to play vanilla is added :)
I might just roll up a half troll fighter for fun sometime soon.
James W Sager Iii
>
> version of any variant, even Z. This means that it is very untested.
Hey! I tested it A WHOLE LOT! Friggin awesome is all I say. I think
after dev teams start playing with it, they'll all add it to their code.
I think you're right though that no one has played with it much, busy
playing their own band characters, or doing work on their variant...
> > Easy to open doors
> > Autosquelching
>
> See above.
> > Randarts(The more variety the better)
>
> GW-Angband's randarts have been added, but the code that implements them
> makes some ridiculous assumptions on the compiler. ZAngband's randarts would
> be *very* unbalanced in vanilla, so I don't think they will be added. The
> OAngband randart adaptation strikes me as causing possible balance problems,
> too.
The randarts are already added to vanilla, just sayin I like em.
James W Sager Iii
>
It may be a big hack(Hey I don't know the details, but it is pure ownage).
I think porting it would just require looking through a couple defines
and retyping a few things by hand... Big deal, when you realize that the
time this 'hack' will save players.
Say someone plays Angband with squelching, and one without.
Lets assume the overhead for entering data into the squelch function is
done. So this takes nominal time. Its a constant time operation to
enter data into it compared with the multiple time operations of sorting
through junk.
Now you're playing the game:
And lets assume you're really trying to find some phat loot.
So you kill 2000 ancient dragons of varying types.
I am taking this figure because I remember slaying 600 of every type
just about with some of my winners and near winners.
Lets say these 2000 dragons each drop 10 items a piece.
Now lets say you're a human(player, not character)
You can easily see food vs swords n stuff on the map and ignore them...
But what if stuff stacks? To be thourough(sp), you must manually step
over each item, read what it is, then destroy it or not, then step to
another square to look at the next item, or look again at the current
square(but this requires an extra keypress, and is notably annoying
after a long time).
Lets do the time:
Keypress for stepping on the object about 0ms, but lets say 25ms.
The perception and of reading what item it is takes approximately: 150ms.
The cognition of understanding what the item is, and knowing you want to
squelch it or id it: 100ms
(lets assume, all 20000 items are ided)
The hitting of a preprogrammed macokey to id the item. I use shift-z. 25ms.
The cognition of understanding what the item is, and second guessing if
you want to destroy it or not: 100ms
(Since of vast majority of items are junk, assume every item is destroyed)
The hitting of a preprogrammed macrokey(\e\e\e\e\e\ek-y/ry/r\e\e\e\e\r\r\r)
which destroys the item you're on(arcane strokes for cases with arrows n
stuff) I have mine set to shift-X. 25ms.
So:25+100+150+25+100+25=425ms an item.
Second checking this, anyone who has followed the above steps to ransack
through loot, will remember about 2 items a second.
Player sorts through 20000 items:
20000*425ms=8,500,000ms=8,500 seconds=140 minutes or 2 hours of pure
loot sorting per person playing a decent game.
I am not calculating in the detraction of going from killing to sorting
OVER AND OVER again.
Also its really annoying to use the look command to see if that red
potion over there is a crimson potion of strength or a red potion of
crap. I did not calculate the time saved in having to play with the
'L'ook command.
Ben Harrison
> The members of the Z team have known for some time already that
> a changing of the guard was coming, but Robert had made us all
> keep very silent about it (for obvious reasons). Now that it is
> finally official, I just wanted to publish some of my thoughts
> about Ben's reign.
>
> All in all, it has been one of the best eras for Angband.
> The best era, of course, would be the one when Angband was
> originally developed and released. But the Angband of 1993
> was very confusing, buggy and inconsistent between the different
> platforms (PC version had features that were not in the
> Unix version etc.). This is where Ben made his most remarkable
> contributions: cleaning up the code, removing a number of
> hacks, and finally making a version that is fundamentally
> the same on *all* platforms. Porting to new platforms is
> easier now, modifying the game is very straightforward.
> And once you make a new variant/subvariant/whatever, it
> is almost trivial to port it to all systems (provided that
> you are not adding platform dependent code or libraries).
Thanks.... :-)
> Ironically enough, Ben's greatest contributions are also
> the areas where I can find the *only* points of criticism
> against Ben's changes. More specifically,
>
> 1) Removing ugly hacks, Ben removed player ghosts entirely.
> Although (coding-wise) player ghosts were indeed one of the
> uglier hacks, they also added colour to the game -- especially
> if you tended to play recklessly and thus created a lot of player
> ghosts for the game to choose from. No more "blah blah the level 23
> rogue killed by Gigamosher the Half-Troll Priest in Town"!
> (One of my fondest YASDs was indeed along those lines: coming
> back to town, I get "It casts a spell. You are afraid! It casts
> a spell. You cannot see!" etc.)
I would love to see player ghosts done right. But nobody ever
contributed a patch that did not involve modifying the race array
in place, or hard-coding the abilities, etc. And the bones files
were just attrocious. But, it should be possible to come up with
a clean player ghost implementation, especially if uniques were
split out of normal monsters, allowing ghosts to be split out as
well, kind of like "ego-monsters". :-)
> 2) I don't find Chaos Beetles any less un-Tolkienian than Jabberwocks.
> Jabberwocks made more sense, though (IMO): at least they were a
> "generally accepted" monster type in fantasy games.
Jabberwocks are *explicitly* un-Tolkien. Kind of like "Smurfs".
Whereas "Foo Beetles" are completely generic, in any world where
"giant beetles with miscellaneous powers" can exist. After all,
I don't remember reading about half the monsters in Angband in
Tolkein, or even half the types of dragons.
> 3) The monster colour scheme. Apparently Ben was unaware of the earlier
> PC port with a relatively logical colour scheme for monsters, and people
> who were used to the PC port had to re-learn the the colour scheme (and
> once again when Ben later changed the colour scheme).
There was also a Macintosh port, with a *different* set of colors.
I actually used that as the "original" color support version, since
the code was actually already available and in sync with Angband 2.6.1.
Just in case people thought I made up those colors.... :-)
> Some of us (such
> as myself) definitely preferred the original colour scheme that
> at least attempted to use "descriptive" colours (i.e. the colour
> that the monster was supposed to be, red for Red Dragons etc.)
> while conveying as much information as possible. Ben eventually
> focused on the later, resulting in "illogical" colours for a
> few monsters (colours that do not match their descriptions).
Only if I missed something.... I tried to change the descriptions
where applicable to match the new colors.
I did put in the ability for people to select whatever colors they
wanted, if they were die hard fans of the PC colors (or they had
sucky monitors).
Finally, my second round of changes attempted to fix what I thought
to be the stupidest thing in the game, that is, the concept that a
logical world could produce monsters whose "color" reflected their
abilities, but where two very different abilities (fire and weakening)
happened to go with the exact same colors. Besides, if only from a
gameplay point of view, the point of color is to assist with the
gameplay, and since the *character* certainly knows (or quickly
learns) which monsters have which effects, it seems that symbols
*and* colors should reflect these things. Otherwise, all humanoid
monsters would be various shades of brown, with completely random
color modifiers based on what type of armor they happened to be
wearing that day. But that would be really annoying.
I would rather let color indicate game-play information, like special
abilities, with a relatively canonical mapping of ability to color,
than try to pick "realistic" colors for everything (as is done for
many of the objects, for example, but at least objects can't breathe
on you).
> So, trying hard, I found a whole *three* points of complaint against
> Ben. Considering that all the rest of his stuff seems definitely
> *mega* to me, that is really not too bad. 99.999% good stuff.
> I would never score that well myself. Excellent job, Ben!
There always was a heavy bone of contention between my Angband and
the PC14 Angband, based around the color choices. Funny how things
from years gone can stick in your mind.... :-)
Nobody has mentioned the addition of the "bow slot", and the removal
of the "aux weapon slot", change, which was one of the more contraversial
changes that I made.
Or the change of "enchant weapon/armor" from "wielded/worn" to selected
from inventory/equipment, which had some uproar as well.
> I'm defintely *not* suggesting that any of these should be changed in
> the vanilla. Point #3 may actually not even be an issue for most
> players since Ben's colour scheme has become a "de facto standard".
> People who want to change any of these can, after all, 'fix' them
> in their personalized versions. A few variants have addressed #1,
> and I personally did try to do something about #2 and #3.
And a lot of people now use graphic tiles anyway.... ick! :-)
> P.S. To those of you who are worried about Robert turning vanilla
> into Z. Don't worry, he won't. *I* will not let him. :)
> In fact, when he first mentioned his intentions about taking
> on Vanilla, the other teamers emphasized that he should keep
> the games different. And he promised that he will, indeed --
> take a look at his plans for vanilla, when he makes them
> public, and see!
He also promised that no C++ will be discussed.... :-)
--- Ben ---
Gwyn Judd
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.roguelike.angband: 11-Apr-100 Re: In
>retrospect: Ben's era by Chris Ke...@grinnell.edu
>> >I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
>>
>> Not likely, it's a big hack.
>
>But what if stuff stacks? To be thourough(sp), you must manually step
>over each item, read what it is, then destroy it or not, then step to
>another square to look at the next item, or look again at the current
>square(but this requires an extra keypress, and is notably annoying
>after a long time).
well it only takes two keystrokes to read a scroll of *destruction*, but
I am being disingenuous. Actually I think the whole idea of
autosquelching is necessary for the sanity of the players after my
latest level 50 player was reduced to *destruction* spells to try and
eliminate all the crap (and at that level, anything that isn't special
and most that are, is crap).
--
Gwyn Judd (tj...@guvfybir.qlaqaf.bet)
My return address is rot13'ed
Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you,
and just before you realize what is wrong with it.
Matthias Kurzke
>
>1) Removing ugly hacks, Ben removed player ghosts entirely.
>Although (coding-wise) player ghosts were indeed one of the
>uglier hacks, they also added colour to the game -- especially
>if you tended to play recklessly and thus created a lot of player
>ghosts for the game to choose from. No more "blah blah the level 23
>rogue killed by Gigamosher the Half-Troll Priest in Town"!
>(One of my fondest YASDs was indeed along those lines: coming
>back to town, I get "It casts a spell. You are afraid! It casts
>a spell. You cannot see!" etc.)
>
So why doesn't Zangband have player ghosts?
Anyway, I'm used not to have them. Could that be made optional, if
they are ever added in again? (I'm a big fan of adding options)
>2) I don't find Chaos Beetles any less un-Tolkienian than Jabberwocks.
>Jabberwocks made more sense, though (IMO): at least they were a
>"generally accepted" monster type in fantasy games.
And I am more afraid of Jabberwocks than I am of Chaos Beetles, if I
just know the name and haven't read any spoilers. The name Jabberwock
lets me be prepared for a very nasty monster, and I only know it can
bite and claw :) What did Angband's Jabberwocks do?
Topi Ylinen
Chris Kern <ke...@grinnell.edu> wrote:
>Surely you haven't forgotten the quantity specification debacle. Or
>were you not counting that because he later reversed his decision?
That precisely was my criterion. I did not count misfeatures or bugs that
were remedied in a later version: I only counted the "flaws" that Ben never
"fixed".
--
<Topi Ylinen = f1t...@kielo.uta.fi>
"MANUAL INSERTION
In TSR's Vampyre, one of the weapons provided to fight off Dracula's legions
is a silver bullet, used for killing werewolves. But on the page 16 of the
rule book, it is stated that 'a gun is not needed to use this item.'"
(MURPHY'S RULES)
James W Sager Iii
retrospect: Ben's era by Gwyn Ju...@guvfybir.qlaqa
> I am being disingenuous. Actually I think the whole idea of
> autosquelching is necessary for the sanity of the players after my
> latest level 50 player was reduced to *destruction* spells to try and
> eliminate all the crap (and at that level, anything that isn't special
> and most that are, is crap).
Been there done that, but there is tons of intermediate steps to get to
the *destruction* level of trash removal. Not to mention this method
kills *healing* potions, and *aquirement* scrolls, and stuff.
shren
> f1t...@uta.fi (Topi Ylinen) writes:
>> 3) The monster colour scheme. Apparently Ben was unaware of the earlier
>> PC port with a relatively logical colour scheme for monsters, and people
>> who were used to the PC port had to re-learn the the colour scheme (and
>> once again when Ben later changed the colour scheme).
> There was also a Macintosh port, with a *different* set of colors.
> I actually used that as the "original" color support version, since
> the code was actually already available and in sync with Angband 2.6.1.
> Just in case people thought I made up those colors.... :-)
I have this mad desire to write a patch where uniques show up special
somehow. Maybe make them all use the multi-hued color, although that
might be confusing with unique dragons.
Yes, Wormtongue got me again. Damn blue p's.
Bengt Öhman
>I hope they add David Blackston's autosquelching feature(friggin AWESOME)
Bah, kids of today... In the good old days we had to throw junk items
into a corner to get some of them to disappear. And we _loved every
minute of it_.
:-)
(It is much more "interesting" to kill the great D's when you have
to make the final blow in the middle of a large empty room to be
able to get the most out of the drops)
--
Bengt Öhman, Dept. of Information Technology, LTH, Sweden
Real mail address: bengt at it dot lth dot se
*** Friend of LAPHROAIG ***
Bengt Öhman
>There always was a heavy bone of contention between my Angband and
>the PC14 Angband, based around the color choices. Funny how things
>from years gone can stick in your mind.... :-)
It was hard to relearn, but I think I've gotten used to it by now :)
>Nobody has mentioned the addition of the "bow slot", and the removal
>of the "aux weapon slot", change, which was one of the more contraversial
>changes that I made.
OK, so I'll mention it: Cubragol got a _lot_ more useful when you
don't have to swap out your main weapon to get the speed benefit...
Same for the other artifact bows/xbows.
>Or the change of "enchant weapon/armor" from "wielded/worn" to selected
>from inventory/equipment, which had some uproar as well.
...which, in turn, lead to the fact that you can now no longer
wield bolts and arrows, which in turn lead to the fact that the
frost/flame branding spells are now almost useless...
Speaking of relearning, btw, lots of letters got rearranged,
not just the colors. 't'icks dissappeared and 't'ownspeapole
appeared, '&' demons became 'u' demons, etc. Confusing in the
beginning, but I've gotten over that too, by now :)
>And a lot of people now use graphic tiles anyway.... ick! :-)
Tried them, don't use them.
>--- Ben ---
Frank Muzzulini
> And I am more afraid of Jabberwocks than I am of Chaos Beetles, if I
> just know the name and haven't read any spoilers. The name Jabberwock
> lets me be prepared for a very nasty monster, and I only know it can
> bite and claw :) What did Angband's Jabberwocks do?
It could breath chaos and it was one of the few monsters in vanilla,
that really hurt in melee. Just as the Chaos beetle does now.
Muzz
--
___ Frank Muzzulini muzz@irc
<*,*> ... until the colour of a man skin is of no more
[`-'] significance than the colour of his eyes ... Haile Selassie
-"-"-
Chris Kern
posted the following:
>(It is much more "interesting" to kill the great D's when you have
>to make the final blow in the middle of a large empty room to be
>able to get the most out of the drops)
Oh, that was ridiculous. Striking almost the last blow and then
running around trying to get the D to follow you to a big place...I
much prefer the stacking :-)
-Chris
Ben Harrison
Perhaps the branding spells should ask for an inventory/equipment
item just like the enchanting spells?
See, now that I'm not the maintainer, I can suggest random changes
without feeling guilty.... :-)
--- Ben ---
be...@no.spam.please (Bengt Öhman) writes:
> >Or the change of "enchant weapon/armor" from "wielded/worn" to selected
> >from inventory/equipment, which had some uproar as well.
>
Jason Willoughby
And anti-summoning corridors are so much more realistic. If we're going
to have stacking, and I doubt it's going anywhere, let's at least modify
the monster AI to behave like they're in such a game. Stacking was
never properly thought out, and it needs to be set to permanently on and
the game balanced around it, including things like item rarities and
drop frequencies.
As long as we're doing a post-mortem on the Benband era (wow...), I
don't like stacking or preserve mode (as if I've made that a secret).
Sure they're optional, but both change the feel of the game drastically,
and not in a goo way, IMHO. These are not superficial changes like
monster colors or the quantity prompt, basic gameplay and tactics
change.
Bengt Öhman
>be...@no.spam.please (Bengt Öhman) writes:
>
>> >Or the change of "enchant weapon/armor" from "wielded/worn" to selected
>> >from inventory/equipment, which had some uproar as well.
>>
>> wield bolts and arrows, which in turn lead to the fact that the
>> frost/flame branding spells are now almost useless...
>
>item just like the enchanting spells?
I would love to see that, yes. That would put these spells back in
business. And the discrepancy between the spells and Cubragols
activation would disappear. I always thought it was kind of stupid
that the activation could brand bolts, but the spells could not.
>See, now that I'm not the maintainer, I can suggest random changes
>without feeling guilty.... :-)
>
>--- Ben ---
--
NetherWyrm
Jason Willoughby <jwil...@gate.net> wrote in message
news:6kp3d8...@platinum.gate.net...
> Chris Kern, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign, wrote:
> > On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 22:25:56 GMT, be...@no.spam.please (Bengt Öhman)
> > posted the following:
>
> >>(It is much more "interesting" to kill the great D's when you have
> >>to make the final blow in the middle of a large empty room to be
> >>able to get the most out of the drops)
>
> > Oh, that was ridiculous. Striking almost the last blow and then
> > running around trying to get the D to follow you to a big place...
>
> And anti-summoning corridors are so much more realistic. If we're going
> to have stacking, and I doubt it's going anywhere, let's at least modify
> the monster AI to behave like they're in such a game. Stacking was
> never properly thought out, and it needs to be set to permanently on and
> the game balanced around it, including things like item rarities and
> drop frequencies.
>
> As long as we're doing a post-mortem on the Benband era (wow...), I
> don't like stacking or preserve mode (as if I've made that a secret).
> Sure they're optional, but both change the feel of the game drastically,
Actually, as of 285beta and 290 maintains this, stacking is no longer
optional. I actually like stacking, but I think it should continue to be an
option so that people who don't like it can still play in the old style. If
anyone else feels strongly about this they should make a suggestion in a
seperate thread. Since I always play with stacking I'd feel a little silly
doing so unilaterally but I suppose you could add my name to the petition:-)
James W Sager Iii
retrospect: Ben's era by "Ben Harrison"@phial.com
> to be the stupidest thing in the game, that is, the concept that a
> logical world could produce monsters whose "color" reflected their
> abilities, but where two very different abilities (fire and weakening)
yellow and purple in the world known as Earth are known as poison to animals..
There ARE animals on THIS planet who's colors reflect what they do...
And animals that exploit this color scheme to their defense...
I'm not bitchin or anything, just an informational thing...
Maybe I took your quote out of context I'm intoximicated and my outside
worldDSl is down.
Angband Addict
poison to animals..
*Never* eat anything with yellow/red/black colourations...
Dean
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Michael Barnes
Angband Addict <angbandadd...@cthangband.8m.com.invalid> wrote:
> >yellow and purple in the world known as Earth are known as
> poison to animals..
>
> *Never* eat anything with yellow/red/black colourations...
>
> Dean
Dandelions? Yummy :)
--
Campaign For The Proper Use Of Swearwords
http://www.litening.dircon.co.uk/iswear/
Brian Robinson
> depth_in_feet was removed in 2.8.2, I think. It was added back in
> 2.8.3 because of public outcry of all these people like me that don't
> want to change their habits.
>
Really? What possible reason could there have been for this?
Depth in feet is the only way to play...
--
Brian Robinson
brob...@ist.ucf.edu
Institute for Simulation and Training
Werner Baer
Brian Robinson <brob...@figment.ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
news:8d7eo...@news1.newsguy.com...
> Matthias Kurzke <kur...@ms45.hinet.net> blathered:
> > depth_in_feet was removed in 2.8.2, I think. It was added back in
> > 2.8.3 because of public outcry of all these people like me that don't
> > want to change their habits.
> >
> Really? What possible reason could there have been for this?
> Depth in feet is the only way to play...
IIRC it confused the Borg ;-)
After the first stair, he thought he was down on dungeon level 50.
Werner.
Brian Robinson
Okay, the Borg can beat Angband but it can't divide by 50? Hmph.
Ben Harrison
You can actually use the build in user pref file techniques to,
for example, specify, for each potion, if it is "great", "good",
"okay", or "bad", and then use a different color for each of these,
plus a fifth color for "unaware" (clearly the best color to ever see).
You can do the same with magic books, to increase the thrill of seeing
(by color) your first copy of each new book....
Personally, I like using "red" for "bad", "orange" for "boring",
"yellow" for "good", "green" for "great", and "violet" for "unaware".
After all, if my character can "see" what the object is, why shouldn't
the same be true for me?
--- Ben ---
neal
> > depth_in_feet was removed in 2.8.2, I think. It was added back in
> > 2.8.3 because of public outcry of all these people like me that don't
> > want to change their habits.
> >
> Really? What possible reason could there have been for this?
> Depth in feet is the only way to play...
>
I actually play with depth in feet off. Less thinking time, if you ask
me. I'm more accustomed to 1-100 not 50-5000 if you follow me. This is
kind of wierd that I'd take this stance because there were no options of
any sort in Moria 1.x for the amiga...
--
the current lack of a cool signature is due to
the integration of true type fonts to email clients.
Fuck microsoft, fuck netscape.
Maybe I'll go back to VAX and Gopher.
neal hackler, ne...@westman.wave.ca
neal
shren wrote:
> Ben Harrison <be...@phial.com> wrote:
> > f1t...@uta.fi (Topi Ylinen) writes:
>
> >> 3) The monster colour scheme. Apparently Ben was unaware of the earlier
> >> PC port with a relatively logical colour scheme for monsters, and people
> >> who were used to the PC port had to re-learn the the colour scheme (and
> >> once again when Ben later changed the colour scheme).
>
> > There was also a Macintosh port, with a *different* set of colors.
> > I actually used that as the "original" color support version, since
> > the code was actually already available and in sync with Angband 2.6.1.
> > Just in case people thought I made up those colors.... :-)
>
> I have this mad desire to write a patch where uniques show up special
> somehow. Maybe make them all use the multi-hued color, although that
> might be confusing with unique dragons.
>
> Yes, Wormtongue got me again. Damn blue p's.
Personally, I change most of the early uniques colors right away. Smeagol
becomes orange, Wormie goes yellow and Mugash goes red.
I am a big advocate of making uniques NOTICEABLE! Maybe something like a
White-tiled background for them or something, but that would get weird in
ascii-mode... highlight w/cursor? no, what if there's two on the screen? I
think maybe a yellow border around any unique or maybe an italic would work
well.
question- where's my gamma correction?
neal
Frank Muzzulini wrote:
I pesonally feel the Jabberwock to the Chaos beetle was a good change. It
was the ONLY monster on the "J" keyset. Now snakes are there. good move
ben! one thing I'd like to see though, is the other unused letters moved
into for some ambiguous monsters (you dont know their type, etc? what they
really are?) I think that just includes x and N nowadays....
Anyways. If anyone could think of a good config for this it could
alleviate some color pressure elsewhere- especially in the "p" category.
How many different blue "p"'s are there, or howabout dark red, or light
red, or umber, or lt. umber.... it just gets confusing. Could be split
into "p"erson and adve"N"turer or somehting like that. well, that would be
just plain stupid that last one, but you get my drift...
Jason Willoughby
> Anyways. If anyone could think of a good config for this it could
> alleviate some color pressure elsewhere- especially in the "p" category.
> How many different blue "p"'s are there, or howabout dark red, or light
> red, or umber, or lt. umber.... it just gets confusing. Could be split
> into "p"erson and adve"N"turer or somehting like that. well, that would be
> just plain stupid that last one, but you get my drift...
Hmm, how about this: Move *all* the breeders into 'l'. Combine any
non-breedings worms with the flies into the 'I'nsect group, and then
split 'p' into 'F'ighters, 'w'izards and 'p'riests.
Of course now we're just begging to move giants off 'P'...
shren
How utterly appropriate. The letter that looks most like it would fit
in your, uh, orifice, for the breeders.
Say, does this let you kill all the breeders with one genocide? Joy!
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<brob...@figment.ist.ucf.edu> wrote:
> Okay, the Borg can beat Angband but it can't divide by 50? Hmph.
He was only a first-grader back then :)
I suppose current borgs can handle depth in feet as well, but prefer
to have numeric levels on anyway (as in Borgband, where changing
options produces no effect - they're set as the borg likes them).
GSN
Gwidon S. Naskrent
>After all, if my character can "see" what the object is, why shouldn't
>the same be true for me?
There is only a small problem: the 16-colour limit in console versions
(and other versions too, only x11 and xaw can support 256 colours with
a patch). No sense making a mess out of everything if you are short on
available colours.
OTOH, it might be useful to colour the equipment letter in that way
(doesn't collide with my yellow *identified* items since potions are
not normally *identified*).
But any division into great, good etc. potions would be completely
arbitrary, and a huge hack.
GSN
Gwidon S. Naskrent
>I am a big advocate of making uniques NOTICEABLE! Maybe something like a
>White-tiled background for them or something, but that would get weird in
>ascii-mode... highlight w/cursor? no, what if there's two on the screen? I
>think maybe a yellow border around any unique or maybe an italic would work
>well.
Highlighting methods are actually used in console modes to give you 8
extra colours (the terminal only has 8 to begin with). Yellow border
and italics are also out of question.
GSN
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<jwil...@gate.net> wrote:
>Hmm, how about this: Move *all* the breeders into 'l'. Combine any
>non-breedings worms with the flies into the 'I'nsect group, and then
>split 'p' into 'F'ighters, 'w'izards and 'p'riests.
Technically, worms are not insects. And I'm largely opposed to any
radical change in the letter scheme (moving lices to I is enough for
this year :) Why not go the Crawl/Omega way & give monsters the
letters they start with?
GSN
Haxson
wrote:
>neal, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign, wrote:
>
>> Anyways. If anyone could think of a good config for this it could
>> alleviate some color pressure elsewhere- especially in the "p" category.
>> How many different blue "p"'s are there, or howabout dark red, or light
>> red, or umber, or lt. umber.... it just gets confusing. Could be split
>> into "p"erson and adve"N"turer or somehting like that. well, that would be
>> just plain stupid that last one, but you get my drift...
>
>Hmm, how about this: Move *all* the breeders into 'l'. Combine any
>non-breedings worms with the flies into the 'I'nsect group, and then
>split 'p' into 'F'ighters, 'w'izards and 'p'riests.
>
>Of course now we're just begging to move giants off 'P'...
Worms together with insects? A horrible thought for a biologist. I would
rather see 'C'anines, 'f'elines and possibly bears (are there any in
vanilla?) grouped together in 'C'arnivores.
'a'nts, 'I'nsects, 'l'ice and 'c'entipedes could be grouped into
'a'rthropods (but that might become a too big and heterogenous group).
I agree with the need to split 'p' though.
/Haxson (who maybe shouldn't look so scientific upon these things)
--
"This is mr Death. He is a reaper."
Matthias Kurzke
S. Naskrent) wrote:
>
>But any division into great, good etc. potions would be completely
>arbitrary, and a huge hack.
>
>GSN
I used to have a graf-win.prf file that gave identified potions colors
depending on if I liked them. It was much better gameplay-wise than to
reflect the actual potion color.
Matthias
--
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master--that's all.'
Matthias Kurzke
S. Naskrent) wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Apr 2000 01:50:33 -0400, Jason Willoughby
><jwil...@gate.net> wrote:
>
>>Hmm, how about this: Move *all* the breeders into 'l'. Combine any
>>non-breedings worms with the flies into the 'I'nsect group, and then
>>split 'p' into 'F'ighters, 'w'izards and 'p'riests.
>
>Technically, worms are not insects. And I'm largely opposed to any
>radical change in the letter scheme (moving lices to I is enough for
>this year :) Why not go the Crawl/Omega way & give monsters the
>letters they start with?
>
>GSN
"N" for "Nyarlathothep" and "Novice Warrior"?
Michael Barnes
au...@mad.scientist.com (Haxson) wrote:
>
> Worms together with insects? A horrible thought for a biologist. I would
> rather see 'C'anines, 'f'elines and possibly bears (are there any in
> vanilla?) grouped together in 'C'arnivores.
Aren't Cs and fs really qs in disguise?
Bast being the exception, of course.
> 'a'nts, 'I'nsects, 'l'ice and 'c'entipedes could be grouped into
> 'a'rthropods (but that might become a too big and heterogenous group).
How about Is as non-breeding insects and ls as breeding insects?
> I agree with the need to split 'p' though.
>
> /Haxson (who maybe shouldn't look so scientific upon these things)
--
Gwidon S. Naskrent
Kurzke) wrote:
>>Technically, worms are not insects. And I'm largely opposed to any
>>radical change in the letter scheme (moving lices to I is enough for
>>this year :) Why not go the Crawl/Omega way & give monsters the
>>letters they start with?
>>
>>GSN
>
>"N" for "Nyarlathothep" and "Novice Warrior"?
Yup. Strange, isn't it? Yet some people steadfastly cling to it. Older
versions of popular roguelikes (eg. hack) did too.
GSN
Gwidon S. Naskrent
wrote:
>Worms together with insects? A horrible thought for a biologist. I would
>rather see 'C'anines, 'f'elines and possibly bears (are there any in
>vanilla?) grouped together in 'C'arnivores.
Technically, canines and felines can go below 'q'uadrupeds.
>I agree with the need to split 'p' though.
Unicode to the rescue!
Well, at least on the platforms that support it (which means not
DOS).
GSN
Matthias Kurzke
Yes! The traditional chinese character for 'dragon' is very beautiful
:-)
HenryMundstock
>
>>yellow and purple in the world known as Earth are known as
>poison to animals..
>
>*Never* eat anything with yellow/red/black colourations...
>
>Dean
>
A cheeseburger with ketchup has all of those colors....
--
Three cheers for me Captain Vegetable
Crunch crunch crunch!
Gwidon S. Naskrent
Kurzke) wrote:
>Yes! The traditional chinese character for 'dragon' is very beautiful
>:-)
You'd be surprised to learn that the Japanese ZAngband uses kanji to
represent monsters.
Of course, CJK characters *are* a further pain down the backside, but
I wasn't thinking about them specifically. There's a rich set of
symbols, windings and math operators that one can use.
GSN
Matthias Kurzke
S. Naskrent) wrote:
>On Sun, 16 Apr 2000 03:25:32 GMT, kur...@ms45.hinet.net (Matthias
>Kurzke) wrote:
>
>>Yes! The traditional chinese character for 'dragon' is very beautiful
>>:-)
>
>You'd be surprised to learn that the Japanese ZAngband uses kanji to
>represent monsters.
Oh, I should check that out. Although I don't understand Japanese :(
Michael Barnes
captain...@aol.com.invalid (HenryMundstock) wrote:
> >026.remarq.com>
> >
> >>yellow and purple in the world known as Earth are known as
> >poison to animals..
> >
> >*Never* eat anything with yellow/red/black colourations...
>
> A cheeseburger with ketchup has all of those colors....
QED
Haxson
(HenryMundstock) wrote:
>>026.remarq.com>
>>
>>>yellow and purple in the world known as Earth are known as
>>poison to animals..
>>
>>*Never* eat anything with yellow/red/black colourations...
>>
>>Dean
>>
>
>A cheeseburger with ketchup has all of those colors....
Black? I wouldn't eat at that place again if I were you.
/Haxson
--
We apologize for the inconvenience
Gwidon S. Naskrent
wrote:
>> Well, at least on the platforms that support it (which means not
>> DOS).
>
>Or most (all?) Windows platform, if memory serves.
Granted, Win95 supports only a limited form of Unicode called WGL4
(about 1100 characters). However, nobody said Windows apps cannot
access font glyphs directly, by sticking their tongue out at codepage
tables.
NT and W98/2000 support Unicode fully (even in window titles and the
like).
GSN
Ben Harrison
Many people forget that "I" and "l" look identical in many fonts,
and almost identical in the rest. Thus, I made sure to *use* both
letters (so people would not say "hey, here's an unused letter")
but to use them both for breeding insects, which, from a player's
point of view, is one of the most significant gameplay issues. The
"visually matching" issue is actually mentioned in "r_info.txt".
A lot of people like to use "x" as an "attr/char" map to monsters
which, personally, piss them off, so they can see them easily. For
example, magic mushrooms, or drolems. Basically, things that they
want to be damn sure they "see" as soon as possible, since anything
else can yield instant death or massive annoyance.
Note that last time I split things out of "p" (the townspeople became
"t"), some people got pissed. Just goes to show that nothing will make
*everybody* happy.... :-(
But with 51 separate monsters using the "p" symbol (and 30 using "d",
and 25 using "D"), even if the "grouped" attribute is turned into a
flag, allowing some of the "duplicate" versions of "p" monsters to be
removed, there are still a lot of monsters using a small number of
letters. At some point, I even made up a table of this fact.
I do not know how I managed to completely avoid mentioning "N" in the
monster info file, but it is, in fact, unused at the moment. Also, as
mentioned in the "r_info.txt" monster info file, the "X", "Y", and "B"
symbols are used by only two or three monsters apiece, and could almost
definitely be merged into an existing letter, especially the "X" symbol,
if an entirely new group of monsters with a "small" and "large" version
wanted to use the "x" and "X" symbol for some reason. Or, for example,
some of the "non-dragons" could be merged into "B", making "B" then mean
"giant flying creature" or some such. Maybe I originally planned to use
the "N" symbol for the "Nazgul", since having 13 monsters using symbol "W"
and color "D" seemed kind of excessive, since only three other combinations
(symbol "d" attr "v", symbol "s" attr "w", and symbol "p" attr "u") are used
for more than five distinct monsters.
I often thought about moving the 4 "q" monsters elsewhere, leaving "q"
(which looks like a backwards "p") available for splitting up the "p"
monsters, in some logical (and gameplay relevant) way. But I was never
able to come up with a split of this kind which seemed useful, since for
every split I thought of (such as "monsters which are bascially characters
the player could be" vs "other people"), there were always fuzzy choices
(like, is an "ancher" really a "ranger"). I did always want to clean up
the monsters by providing "levels" of monsters, to be used for "novice"
vs "intermediate" vs "advanced" people, "baby" vs "small" vs "large" vs
"ancient" dragons, etc. But from a gameplay point of view, you really
want the player to *know* when a monster is "tough". So using the same
attr/char, for example, for a "baby black dragon" and an "ancient black
dragon" would be bad. Even though the same attr/char is used for the
*player* no matter how powerful he gets. :-)
One useful split of the "p" group would be "normally does not have any
ranged attacks" vs "everybody else", but currently color is used to
convey this information, plus ranged attack variety as well.
One thing which I, as a player, would have found very useful was some
kind of visual cue about dangerous/unknown/unique monsters, to avoid
the "instant death" that can happen when encountering a monster which
resembles (graphically) a monster which was easy to kill. For example,
some kind of "blinking" or "outline" or some such, or even some kind
of textual indicator, whenever a monster appears for which the "kill"
count is zero, which often implies "dangerous/unknown/unique". And
besides, it would be cool. But I always hated visual feedback, because
it offended me for the machine to burn cycles when my character was not
running around (thus, the "multi-hued" code has always been optional).
Note that, if such a thing was done, it could make use of one of the
"unused" characters, such as "N", to perform the actual "blinking".
As for "Jabberwock" vs "Chaos Beetle", note that the only change was
in the name and the attr/char and part of the description, the abilities
and such did not change. It just seemed odd to have such a completely
un-Tolkein monster, and besides, it fit naturally into the Beetle class.
Ah, here we go. Gotta love the power of Unix.... :-)
The symbols:
[benh@siren edit]$ foreach x ( `grep '^G:' r_info.txt | cut -c3 | sort -u` )
foreach? echo "'$x' = `grep -c '^G:$x' r_info.txt`"
foreach? end
',' = 9
'!' = 1
'?' = 1
'.' = 548 <- Should be 2 -- Unix is sometimes surprising.... :-)
'@' = 1 <- Not really a monster, technically....
'$' = 0 <- Should be 5 -- See above....
'=' = 1
'A' = 8
'a' = 9
'B' = 3
'b' = 5
'C' = 14
'c' = 9
'D' = 25
'd' = 30
'E' = 18
'e' = 7
'F' = 5
'f' = 7
'G' = 15
'g' = 10
'H' = 9
'h' = 19
'I' = 3
'i' = 7
'J' = 8
'j' = 15
'K' = 9
'k' = 4
'L' = 5
'l' = 2
'M' = 8
'm' = 8
'n' = 6
'O' = 6
'o' = 18
'P' = 9
'p' = 51
'Q' = 10
'q' = 4
'R' = 9
'r' = 4
'S' = 14
's' = 9
'T' = 16
't' = 11
'U' = 10
'u' = 9
'V' = 4
'v' = 10
'W' = 20
'w' = 10
'X' = 3
'Y' = 2
'y' = 5
'Z' = 20
'z' = 6
The colors:
[benh@siren edit]$ foreach x ( `grep '^G:' r_info.txt | cut -c5 | sort -u` )
foreach? echo "'$x' = `grep -c '^G:.:$x' r_info.txt`"
foreach? end
'B' = 23
'b' = 37
'D' = 52
'G' = 20
'g' = 39
'o' = 40
'R' = 25
'r' = 58
's' = 36
'U' = 34
'u' = 38
'v' = 38
'W' = 19
'w' = 55
'y' = 34
Hopefully somebody will archive these comments for the next time this
discussion arises.... :-)
--- Ben ---
Jason Willoughby <jwil...@gate.net> writes:
> neal, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign, wrote:
>
> > Anyways. If anyone could think of a good config for this it could
> > alleviate some color pressure elsewhere- especially in the "p" category.
> > How many different blue "p"'s are there, or howabout dark red, or light
> > red, or umber, or lt. umber.... it just gets confusing. Could be split
> > into "p"erson and adve"N"turer or somehting like that. well, that would be
> > just plain stupid that last one, but you get my drift...
>
> Hmm, how about this: Move *all* the breeders into 'l'. Combine any
> non-breedings worms with the flies into the 'I'nsect group, and then
> split 'p' into 'F'ighters, 'w'izards and 'p'riests.
>
Cody Hatch
>
> On Sat, 15 Apr 2000 12:36:14 GMT, au...@mad.scientist.com (Haxson)
> wrote:
>
> >Worms together with insects? A horrible thought for a biologist. I would
> >rather see 'C'anines, 'f'elines and possibly bears (are there any in
> >vanilla?) grouped together in 'C'arnivores.
>
> Technically, canines and felines can go below 'q'uadrupeds.
>
> >I agree with the need to split 'p' though.
>
> Unicode to the rescue!
>
> DOS).
Or most (all?) Windows platform, if memory serves.
Cody
Matthias Kurzke
>
>Note that last time I split things out of "p" (the townspeople became
>"t"), some people got pissed. Just goes to show that nothing will make
>*everybody* happy.... :-(
It doesn't make me *happy*, for example, because townspeople don't
appear in the dungeon, and people down appear in the town. So IMHO the
't' gets lost that might have use in the dungeon.
But as I don't have a good suggestion what to use it for ATM (as for
'N', "Naughty Creatures"?) I should have shut up :-)
Topi Ylinen
Ben Harrison <be...@phial.com> wrote:
>> focused on the later, resulting in "illogical" colours for a
>> few monsters (colours that do not match their descriptions).
>Only if I missed something.... I tried to change the descriptions
>where applicable to match the new colors.
Ok, Fundin GREENcloak??? (That's the one that always gets me.)
>I would rather let color indicate game-play information, like special
>abilities, with a relatively canonical mapping of ability to color,
>than try to pick "realistic" colors for everything (as is done for
>many of the objects, for example, but at least objects can't breathe
>on you).
And this is where I disagree. If the colour is distinctive enough so
that the *player* knows what he is up against, he will also know what
it can do. Or if he does not know (i.e. he has not met the creature
before), the colour *must* *not* give this information away, because
then people who are playing without colour will be at a disadvantage.
"Realistic" colours, on the other hand, are very useful with font-
based graphics (although nobody uses that anymore).
Oh, by the way I just remembered two more "sins" on your list. ;)
1) In your last version, floor stacking was no longer optional?
(Don't know for sure, I did not try the beta -- but that is what
they say.) This is abhorrent! :-P
I never play with floor stacking, because I prefer to actually
be able to *see* what there is on the floor, even if it means
getting fewer items. Besides, I have yet to see an interface
for interacting with floor stacks that is even marginally
tolerable.
2) Publicly encouraging people to use the OE style of writing
replies before the quoted questions. Which is just against common
sense; an answer is often useless before you know the question
("42"). This like sentences writing start all should we maybe or?
...but I realize that in your message (to which I am replying) you
used the ancient and approved method.
So ignore #2, but something *must* be done about #1. I *loathe*
floor stacks. If they are forced now, I simply refuse to play
a version which does that.
--
<Topi Ylinen = f1t...@kielo.uta.fi>
"WHICH IS WHY YOU GET 'EM CHEAP...
In SPI's Universe, the sword is prohibited from use at any combat range."
(MURPHY'S RULES)
Topi Ylinen
I think one solution would be to take both "p" and "P" for "person"
monsters. For example, "p" is a human and "P" is a human unique.
So what about "giant" monsters? Well, move the rest of the symbols
as follows:
P -> H (giant humanoids; giants are "humanoid" rather than "human"
anyway)
H -> x (hybrid, crossbreed; "x" is currently unused iirc)
Gwidon S. Naskrent
> P -> H (giant humanoids; giants are "humanoid" rather than "human"
> anyway)
The ADOM way... begone! ;)
> H -> x (hybrid, crossbreed; "x" is currently unused iirc)
Sorry, x is already occupied by aliens (or fishes, as the case may be
:-)
Or, move X monsters to E(arth elemental creatures), aliens to X and
hybrids to x.
GSN
Tom Morton
>In article <l8aej08...@siren.curl.com>,
>Ben Harrison <be...@phial.com> wrote:
>
>>> focused on the later, resulting in "illogical" colours for a
>>> few monsters (colours that do not match their descriptions).
>>Only if I missed something.... I tried to change the descriptions
>>where applicable to match the new colors.
>
>Ok, Fundin GREENcloak??? (That's the one that always gets me.)
He's green because he is a priest. It's logical and really helps in your first
fight against him. If he were blue you would expect theft attacks, etc.
--
Tom "Moretom" Morton, Drangband Maintainer:
http://www.yikesstation.freeserve.co.uk/drang/drang.htm
Yikes Station, Frontier Elite 2 Fansite:
http://www.yikesstation.freeserve.co.uk/frontier/yikes.htm
Julian Lighton
Tom Morton <tmo...@yikesstation.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>f1t...@uta.fi (Topi Ylinen) wrote:
>>In article <l8aej08...@siren.curl.com>,
>>Ben Harrison <be...@phial.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> few monsters (colours that do not match their descriptions).
>>>Only if I missed something.... I tried to change the descriptions
>>>where applicable to match the new colors.
>>
>>Ok, Fundin GREENcloak??? (That's the one that always gets me.)
>
>first
>fight against him. If he were blue you would expect theft attacks, etc.
Actually, what you would think is, "What's a light blue 'h'? (look)
Fundin Bluecloak? Who the hell is that? (recall) 'One of the
greatest dwarven priests...' Okay, now I know what I'm up against."
It helps that there are no light blue 'h' monsters.
It all could have been avoided by making priests blue, instead of
green. :)
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
"I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness I must be blind"
-- Black Sabbath
Julian Lighton
William Tanksley <wtan...@dolphin.openprojects.net> wrote:
>I, personally, hope that the trend of removing gameplay options continues.
>It's silly to pretend that there can be any balance when fundamental play
>issues can change on a game by game basis without any according game
>changes.
>
>Of course, I _do_ support adding more user interface options to make up
>for this, whenever possible.
Yeah, it wouldn't do for a new version to have fewer options than a
previous one.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
"Anarchy! Anarchy! And promenade!" -- MST3K
William Tanksley
>> Also balance helps alot.
>assert(OAngband != balance());
>/*
> * Not that OAngband isn't balanced, but it isn't the only possible
> * rebalancing. The ZAngband DevTeam made one of their bigger mistakes
> * here.
> */
This is not strictly true. OAngband is equal to balance, and the way
OAngband achieved that is the ONLY way to do it. This is why ZAngband
will never be balanced.
People who are used to ZAngband can't even see how OAngband works.
OAngband, unlike ZAngband, isn't an arbitrary collection of cool features
slapped on top of a "Vanilla" base; it's a complete game. When Leon made
a change, he didn't just make that change; he went through the entire
source code and changed everything to fit the change into the game.
It's true that stealing one of OAngband's features won't make a game
balanced, but neither will anything else make ZAngband balanced. So that
wasn't one of the dev team's mistakes; it may have been a bad feature to
add, but it wasn't a mistake in that sense.
>-- Prfnoff <prf...@thecia.vet> (ivnert to reply: tr nv vn)
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
William Tanksley
>Actually, as of 285beta and 290 maintains this, stacking is no longer
>optional. I actually like stacking, but I think it should continue to be an
>option so that people who don't like it can still play in the old style.
I, personally, hope that the trend of removing gameplay options continues.
It's silly to pretend that there can be any balance when fundamental play
issues can change on a game by game basis without any according game
changes.
Of course, I _do_ support adding more user interface options to make up
for this, whenever possible.
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Michael Barnes
be...@no.spam.please (Bengt Öhman) wrote:
> On 13 Apr 2000 02:30:00 -0400, "Ben Harrison" <be...@phial.com> wrote:
> >be...@no.spam.please (Bengt Öhman) writes:
> >
> >> >Or the change of "enchant weapon/armor" from "wielded/worn" to selected
> >> >from inventory/equipment, which had some uproar as well.
> >>
> >> ...which, in turn, lead to the fact that you can now no longer
> >> wield bolts and arrows, which in turn lead to the fact that the
> >> frost/flame branding spells are now almost useless...
> >
> >Perhaps the branding spells should ask for an inventory/equipment
> >item just like the enchanting spells?
>
> I would love to see that, yes. That would put these spells back in
> business. And the discrepancy between the spells and Cubragols
> activation would disappear. I always thought it was kind of stupid
> that the activation could brand bolts, but the spells could not.
Now...
Would that mean Cubragol got to Brand weapons?