This could be a problem. Currently, dumps are generated on the server and are only generated when a character dies. There are no "on-demand" dumps like in V.

Suicide when done with your character, then? A bit grim but works.

The dump is made when the character dies, or wins. If you play on a local server, it's immediately available.

Next comp should be up in a day or two. Feel free to make suggestions - I may even listen.

Current plan is to do an FAangband 1.4 character next, with the new Vanilla-style dungeon. There really should be another PosChengband comp soon, and I'll do NPPMoria when Jeff actually gets enough free time to get it in a playable state. And checking, I note that I have failed to do Halls of Mist 1.3.2, and I don't know what state Neoband is in. Also in the mix are Sil, and V (always).

So, suggestions for race/class/whatever on all of these are encouraged, as are savefiles.

You failed becaused I asked you to. :) Frankly, I don't think 1.3.2 is good enough for a comp. The next one will be quite different. I've compressed the dungeon again, from 48 to 30 levels. More pressure and difficulty! A faster and smoother pace of upgrading your equipment!

Maybe I'll actually manage to release it this summer. Coding HoM just didn't interest me for a long while. I've an itch that the fun is back.

Note that the first official competition started on 03-Aug-2003, so in less than a month it will be the 10th anniversary!

This asks for an Angband "frog knows" version competition no?

PosCheng next? Race? I vote spider, but encourage other votes.

Why not the completely untested Quylthulg?? :D

That does seem incredibly fitting, and I am bang, bang, bang up for that!

How about have no savefile, the player chooses with the restriction that it has to be a monster race? Some monster races will be easier than others, but would anyone care too much? Thoughts?

That's OK with me! This way, I can play a quylthulg (and *lose*) and you can play an awesome spider :)

BTW, I'm always adding new changes and fixes, but I can try to wrap things up on a moment's notice. When would the next comp start?

Er, like now. I'll set it up soon; continue changing or not as you choose :)

No, I'd rather take an entire month off from coding!!

I was hoping to finish some cosmetic changes to helpfiles, but that is such dry tedious work that its hard to stay motivated. Anyway, I pushed one last release (1.0.37) here:

* 1.0.36 fixed a bug with Quylthulgs entering the town Arena. Normally, the town Arena blocks character and monster summoning rendering our poor Q hero defenseless. But now, I enabled both player and monster summoning whenever the player is a Quylthulg.

* 1.0.36 fixed a bug with new virtue effects causing any monster to become friendly. The monster selection is supposed to be themed to the virtue in question (e.g. Unlife influences undead, Faith influences angels, etc).

* 1.0.37 fixes a stupid coder error for the reforging service. Reforging is supposed to limit the maximum object creation depth to 100, and did so by applying the MAX function. Of course, when you want to set a max, you need to use MIN.

* 1.0.37 also adjusts the reforge power down a bit. Fame is more important and you should probably try for at least 100 fame before doing anything big. The town service now tells you your numeric fame value.

* 1.0.37 improves the in game helpfiles, adding more information on some new monster races (Quylthulg, Elemental, Golem, new Giant evolutions).

You can pretend I uploaded this last release last night before the new competition started if you like :)

Pretence field activated...

Cool! Source code can be found here. I've stopped uploading source to the google site due to the 100MB size limit.

I know Angband isn't a democracy (;)), but is anyone else up for an anniversary Frog Knows comp next?

Does it actually run on modern systems?

Just downloaded it from rephial.org and...yes, it does!

Jeff and I have been conspiring for ages to have a comp for NPPMoria, and it seems the planets have finally aligned, so that will be next. But 2.4.fk is certainly a possibility after that. I'll have a look at the code at some point and see what works and what doesn't.

It won't compile with a modern compiler because it uses all manner of monstrosities but it'll run on DOSBox on OS X at least.

Now that Moria is done, maybe an npp frog-knows version should be next. :)

nice....been waiting for that for a while as well:eek:

Edit: derp

So is there a list of the non-UI differences. I know I would need:

1) The frog knows monster, object, ego-item, and artifact lists from frog knows, I am sure there are some changes in race and class.txt as well.
2) some revised spells.
3) old speed system, right? +1 and +2 rings of speed?
4) turn off object stacking
5) only about 4 greater vaults, correct, and a veyr limited number of pits/nests.
6) sorry, not bringing back haggling. :)
7) I would not want to undo certain improvements like the monster health bar, and it would be a major, painful project to bring back the old ai, or even 3gai. So any frog knows version I make would have monster mana, intelligent spellcasting, etc.

What else?

I could probably do this sometime. My RL state means nobody should hold their breath, though.

Couldn't advise you on these since it's been so long. About all I remember is that Ringil also had some stat boosts (possibly +1 to all stats).
The big ones here are a) detection only lasts until you dismiss the "you detect monsters!" message (could be simulated by simply not allowing the 'l'ook command to leave LOS), and b) return of Globe of Invulnerability.
Yep. And no diminishing returns on speed either; +5 speed is 6x base speed. The game also had special names for each speed level ("Fast", "Very Fast", "Extremely Fast", "Ludicrous Speed", "Light Speed", IIRC, and then Light Speed just repeated). With wizard mode you could adjust your "natural" speed arbitrarily; I remember boosting a character's speed to something like Light Speed +47, taking a step, and instantly dying of starvation.
Yep. IIRC the vaults were:
Lesser vaults:
Round
Octagon (2 types)
Diagonal (2 types)

Greater vaults:
GCV ("huge")
Large
Butterfly
Chambers

The vaults were also decently common, IIRC; I seem to recall that finding at least one and often two GCVs/character was the norm. Then again, I probably played very slowly back then.

I think this is acceptable. frog-knows told you roughly how healthy monsters were when you looked at them (e.g. "unhurt", "slightly wounded", ..., "almost dead"), and I think the healthbar is a reasonable replacement for that. Monster mana and smart spellcasting is of course going to be a big change compared to the old days, but if it's too hard to be worth implementing, then that's that.

*Identify* doesn't stick -- you see the item properties only as long as you keep the prompt open. There's no 'I'nspect command. Potions of Self Knowledge instead of the detailed character screen (and again, the info the potion gives only lasts until you dismiss the prompt). Electric brands are x5. Stores can stock just about any quality of item (IIRC; certainly the Black Market could stock any non-artifact item). Similar bow-slot restrictions as in Moria. Levels sometimes start out with a Destruction effect already applied to part of them (I think this was in frog-knows; certainly it was in later versions). No preserve mode. Light radii are all 1 (again IIRC). Item distributions are much flatter than in current versions (you can find incredibly powerful stuff early on; powerful late-game stuff like the upper-tier DSMs are relatively common). Potions of Death and Detonations.

There's plenty more, I'm sure, but this is all that comes to mind at the moment.

[QUOTE=nppangband;83960]So is there a list of the non-UI differences. I know I would need:

1) The frog knows monster, object, ego-item, and artifact lists from frog knows, I am sure there are some changes in race and class.txt as well.
2) some revised spells.
3) old speed system, right? +1 and +2 rings of speed?
4) turn off object stacking
5) only about 4 greater vaults, correct, and a veyr limited number of pits/nests.
6) sorry, not bringing back haggling. :)
7) I would not want to undo certain improvements like the monster health bar, and it would be a major, painful project to bring back the old ai, or even 3gai. So any frog knows version I make would have monster mana, intelligent spellcasting, etc.

What else? [Quote]


In addition to what Derakon has said also

max stats are 18/100
hobbits don't have hold life
some artifacts had different names, differnt damage dice, and different attributes than today
treasures pit's vaults that can take up the whole screen..in rare cases dragon pits at 1000ft
cursed weapons..weapons of morgul
player ghosts
rings of protection and damage could max out at +20
( alot of this would be in artifact.txt, object list.text, and vault.text)
not as many uniques.

I'm going to be honest everything is different, item depth generation tables are different, unique special abilities are different, artifacts are differnent and in some case even have a differnt name, even player races have been tweaked over time..not sure how you could make this happen..it's like taking the very first version without all the tweaks over the years and applying it modern npp, you can read some of the changes from version to version on rephial.com under downloads(older) and find frog knows and later versions.

Yeah this sounds fun ;)

I've tried and failed - how did you get it running?

I can get it to run under dosbox, if he has xp some ibm/dos applications will run in that enviroment, sometimes not...I used to be able to play sangband 1.0.0 final Ibm/Dos version under windows xp with no problem, but that is hardly a modern platform...I am curious as to what operating system he is using and whether he compiled the source or not.

Er, I didn't do anything clever!
Running windows7 I went to rephial, downloaded FK PC version 1.1, extracted it and clicked on angband.exe and away we go.

Here's my first (and very short-lived) character...

EDIT: I guess it helps to equip your equipment!

Hmm - dunno what I did wrong, then. We might try again next time.

Damn, this is unplayable for me :(
You need a qwerty keyboard...

OK, my issue with frog-knows (actually PCAngband 1.1) was that I was trying to use 64-bit windows - works fine on 32-bit.

Do we still want a comp, and what race/class? We could do a HE mage to contrast with the current comp, or something completely different. Opinions?

If possible, implement this comp!! ...with the same high-elven mage combination to contrast the evolutionary changes to Angband to date.

But I want to get out of statgain this time!
(But then again, I am VERY bad at mages - too many keys).

Incidentally, has anyone else that's had a go at FK/PC1.1 had any difficulty imputting counts? My [#] key doesn't let me imput digits. This makes mining for treasure very tedious...
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
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[shift] [t] [up]
[shift] [t] [up]
"Oh sod, there's probably not much gold there anyway."

Just found out that you can only fire in 8 directions in frog-knows (no targeting). This will make a mage a hell hard to play...

Something more annoying... don't press ctrl-S: it quits the game WITHOUT saving. Learned it the hard way...

Oh, and if you download from rephial, PC Angband 1.1 is in fact PC Angband 1.2, which will give you some extra features: look command, rod of trap location, auto-roller (+ bug fixes).

Also oook doesn't recognize character dumps from this version because they are too terse.

Found a solution for this: DosBox! It works perfectly... Time to try a HE mage and train a little ;)

Just need to add a header manually and it works:

[Angband 2.4.Frog-knows Character Dump]

First thing I learned the hard way: there's no preserve mode in this version. If the first 50ft generated contains the Phial and you leave, it's gone forever and you're good for using a lantern (radius 1!) until you find the Star (which you can also miss)...

And better think twice about bailing on that vault, too...

Hey all, comp 148 is only 2 weeks long, so I'm already thinking about the one that follows. I was hoping to do an Unangband comp -- I pinged Andrew Doull with a request for ideas, but I imagine he's pretty super busy being a roguelike radio star.

Does this sound good to y'all? If so, is there a particular build or chartype you'd like to see played? I have a couple ideas, but am open to suggestions.

I'd also like to do an Animeband comp, but it might be sort of painful given how old it is...

I love Un, it has what I consider the most wonderfully beautiful dungeons, with descriptions of each room as you enter it, dungeons levels that are themed with only one to a very few monster types, cool traps, blood and gore, oh man, and, THE DUNGEONS, GANDALF.

If you do an Un comp, for my 2 cents, pick a strong race/class combo. It is a difficult enough variant without trying a hobbit unarmed master, or something impossible like that.

Edit: Adley took an admirable series of screenshots you can see in the gallery.

What are the next competitions?

I believe we're going to do a 3.5 run next -- possibly suck elf priest, possibly disconnected stairs. We just did a Sil comp but would be good to do a Sil 1.2.1+ possibly right after that.

Comp 151 "pre-release" is here: http://angband.oook.cz/competition.php?showcompo=151

this savefile is subject to change -- esp if I get feedback!

I agree that having a Sil 1.2.1 comp after the V 3.5 comp makes sense.

Recently there was a thread in which Estie mused about a Vanilla competition with no access to TO. Would people be interested in this? If so, I can put up a version of the game. It would probably occur after the Sil competition and the next one after that (poscheng?) I can think of three options.

1) Simply remove the spell from the character's book and remove the rods and wands from the game.

2) Do the above, along with my best guess on what would make this more fun. (right now it's limited to nerfing vault monster levels and monster summons, but I might think of more)

3) Do number 2 but also include the changes I have in my personal version. Right now, these changes include:

Mass identify spell
Monsters with -5, +5 and +15 speeds
no nexus stat swap
more linear HP with Con curve
I think that's it, most of the other changes (monster groups, drop rate changes) were pulled into V.

thoughts?

Im in for 3. Fizzixband or death

+1 to nr.3

Nr. 3 looks indeed interesting. I'd certainly give this a try.

Granted, my chances are nonexisting:
- I've only played 3.2
- My best char so far (still alive!) is currently at dlvl20
- I'm completely screwed without full monster memory

But hey: "Only boring people win, dying is more FUN."

Hmm I would go for not only teleport other, but also both banishment and mass banishment removed. Would make and interesting challenge.

That could work also. Especially if summoning gets nerfed. That being said, as long as you're not playing mage, banishment is a very limited resource anyway.

edit: I should add. Destruction is far more of an issue than banishment.

I think #3 would be a fun option. I did several playthroughs of your modified version a while back in between 3.4.1 and the 3.5 nightlies starting to come around. I have to say that playing a mage with mass identify was super convenient. Also losing the fear of nexus swapping relieved quite a bit of tension. Although perhaps that made the game a bit too easy in that version, I think in a game where TO is not accessible, that could lead to a lot of fun challenges.

Put me down as a vote for fizzixband.

I'd play some FizzBand.

The comp char would be a mage no? But yeah, if you keep destruction, the teleport other/banish exploit would be replaced by lure/destroy anyway. Sure a mage with no teleport other, banishment and destruction would be a nice challenge. Ever tried TomeNET? These spells (minus teleport other) have been nerfed to a point (banishment costs 1dmlvl per monster and leaves you with a few hps if you luckily survive, destruction makes you *stunned* and *blind* for like 1000 turns -- which is not curable) that nobody use them anymore.

I was thinking rogue might work the best. My plan right now is to get my nerfs to monster summoning working properly, then we can figure out whether to nerf these other spells and how.

Heh I just checked... monsters in TomeNET can resist teleportation, so TO has been completely nerfed too...

Lure away + destruct is gameplay. Unlike wand of TO, more things than just fail% on the casting can (and will) go wrong. Thats a tactic that should be encouraged, not prohibited. In current vanilla I usually dont bother with it because its too risky; I might use it if I have no TO available.

It is also about the only use for Destruct other than panic button.

Destruct can also be used to pre-emptively remove Graveyards from the level before they break loose, or to clip out the portion of a vault that has a monster you really don't want to deal with. And of course there's the "teleport Morgoth away, then destruct his summons" tactic. Destruction is a great panic button, but it has plenty of tactical uses as well.

Graveyards: true, but I usually just teleport away rather than waste a scroll. If I dont want to or cant while next to a GY, reading destruct qualifies as panic button.

Portion of the vault: that falls undr lure + destruct ? at least it serves the same purpose, if luring is not an option.

And ofcourse the endfight: I had considered mentioning it in the op but foolishly decided against it, instead favouring the vague term "about. So I stand corrected :)

We should probably move this to a new thread. I'm going to preemptively make a competition 154 thread, assuming Debo will fill in 153 with PosCheng.

Before anyone suggests a Frazband Dwarf Rogue with (birth_ai_learn) and (birth_small_range), could I please put my hand up for a good old-fashioned speed romp through Vanilla 3.5 with a Half-Troll warrior?

I should add that while I agree that it's really important for the competition to explore unusual race/class combos, other variants and different options, I think it also good to have some that are more inclusive and that nearly everyone can get their teeth stuck into. Judging by the number of entrants I can't be alone in only having a really good go at the Vanilla and FAangband ones (and I'm not saying there aren't enough of these either).

Just my twopence worth...:)

I'd suggest a PWMAngband 1.1.10 summoner, just to see how far players would go before shooting themselves in the head. :D

For those who are not used to PWMAngband, summoner is the class counterpart to the Yeek race from many variants. Low stats and attributes (worse than mage), one blow per round limit. You don't kill monsters, you summon stuff and they do the killing for you. You will feel like you play a quylthulg, but at least you're able to move normally. ;)

To stay sane, a high-elf summoner (decent hit die, great shooting bonus). For complete madness, a yeek summoner (-10 to all stats). :D

I'd love to do a PWM comp but I have no ability to host a windows-based server -- and it seems like last time people had a bit of an issue running both client+server on their own.

PowerWyrm maybe you and I can bang some ideas around and figure something out for a competition-after-next?

I'd be happy to do a "smash all the things" 3.5 HT warrior -- I was also thinking of another hellband comp. I want to do an animeband and/or strangeband comp one day too, but not sure (a) if the ladder is rigged for those and (b) if anyone can even run them. :)

Edit: HT Warrior is fun but probably not the easiest for a newbie to win with. Definitely super easy to get started though, so I guess this is good enough?

+1 to this :)

It may not be the easiest, but it is the simplest! (Press the arrow key until Morgoth falls over)

Anyway, most compo entries aren't winners (mine certainly aren't).:)
Any newbies who haven't tried a HT warrior before might be surprised how easy it is to get into the dlvl 40's and meet a whole new raft of interesting ways to die.

Maybe not the easiest to win with, but absolutely the easiest to do "beat your previous best depth" with, and replaying the early levels when you die certainly doesn't take very long!

Bonus points for only using a shovel.

Any thoughts on running a ToME 2.x compo?

If HT warrior is chosen, I might play alongside either trying to shovel my way through, or do the every-other-level challenge. Either could be fun.

Wood elf alchemist, spectre, Yavanna Kementari, 98 quests. Kill Morgoth in fewest turns to win (no Melkor).

Edit: on 2nd thought: 20 quests

OK we have some good ideas here. I think we can incorporate these into the next 2-3 competitions. Thanks all :)

Also: I have negative infinity desire to create a savefile for any variant of ToME (sorry DarkGod), so if anyone wants to make one and propose it as a comp character, please do!

Would you like me to do the Vanilla 3.5 HT warrior? Not a big offer, I know, but I'm quite happy to do so!

Sure! Go for it and PM me on these boards when you're done -- you can either upload the file somewhere or we can figure something out by email.

If you want to create a backstory for your dude or something too, feel free :)

I would recommend randarts. I think the last two have been standarts.

I'd also favor randarts.

I think randarts are fun, but standards would be better for a comp targeted at new players. I will probably advertise a newbie comp in other forums (crawl tavern, reddit, etc)

I always play randarts, but agree that for a competition standarts are better as you never know whether you're going to get a really duff set (e.g. no decent launcher etc.). Right give me 24 hours and I'll have one ready...

You can use Linux + WinE.

What's wrong with HT warrior? That was my last win in MAngband, and it was an artifactless win even. LUGLUG SMASH!!!

+1 for 3.5 HT warrior comp. Should be force_descent for obvious reasons.

I've PM'd you, but I'm not sure it worked as my 'sent messages' folder is showing empty. Let me know if not...

Ta.

I got it and I pinged you back!

If anyone wants to start working on a tome 2.x savefile for the next comp, now would be the time :)

I made one, alchemist for ToME 2.3.4 (as I am not sure if alchemy got borked in 2.3.5).

Version is here:
Where do you want the savefile, if at all ?

Any free upload site will do; alternately you can PM me here and I'll send you an email address to direct it to.

Thanks!

Edit: It seems like 2.3.5 was a bugfix release, so it might be worth it just to go with that http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14994

Just a little note: If anyone's considering compiling from source you should consider cherry-picking some of the changes in v2.3.6-ah, especially:

• fe1772d6836afa5174fef562b8f477172b7ddc11 (If you're posting your dumps, which I guess is kind of mandatory for a comp)
• 838abd31d2041bff1a42767ec92ad7452cb9ce74 (if you're using a *buntu or any distro using Fortify or similar stack-smashing protection.)
• 93c4dd298f41798cf90437eec740ffd31e729f65 (if you're using modules, not relevant for this comp. I guess)
• 52125014176fd404a596ebae5e5a6117b6fa01d0 (if you're compiling on 64-bit.)

Or you could just use 2.3.6-ah directly. There only real gameplay change is a change such that Barehand combat benefits from the Extra Blows (I/II) abilities. (It also fixes a few SNAFUs with upstairs which shouldn't be there, and such, but whatever...)

What's that dump posting commit about? Are chardumps broken in 2.3.5?

I honestly can't recall the details -- it's a fix imported from the ToME 2.x CVS, so not necessarily something I've written. Given that the indexing into the "number" array is using an incorrect counter, I assume it could lead to crashes. (Perhaps only in rare cases, I dunno.)

http://www.filedropper.com/istar

This is the file, 2.3.4. I played 2.3.5 and my alchemist got stuck because she couldnt make her artifact; I am not sure exactly why, but it has worked in 2.3.4.

Its a female woodelf spectre alchemist, 20 extra quests, worshipping Eru.

Should we spoil people or let them try to figure it out on their own? :) It's been ages, but IIRC there's at least one way to make arbitrary amounts of money at the start and to get to level 20 in a few minutes. (Sure, you'll die a few times trying it, but you only really need to succeed once to get a huge head start.)

Anyway, looking forward to seeing the 30K+ HP, level 200+ Manathrust. (Tip to players: Just make sure you don't go above 32K or 256 or it'll wrap around to -X where X is some large number.)

Spoil. It takes months, if not years of playing for one single guy to find out enough of tome to get a winner. Even spoiled, I doubt that any ToME "newbies" will get very far.

OK, well here's a few more-or-less-spoily hints:
(*) I think that's the flag you can add to items right from the start.

No its of Fearlessness :)

Right-o. As you can probably tell, it's been a while since I played an Alchemist :)

I used to play ToME a fair amount before. But now, I kind of forgot how to play this. :/