Beta version of PWMAngband 1.2.0 released

[PowerWyrm]

1) The admin char must be created at start. If not, the game will create a regular char. You will have to modify mangband.cfg to include new name/password for your admin char and restart the server.

2) Fonts will be included in the next release

3) Feature. You can sell your items for 0 gold for ID purposes. If you can buy back for 1 gold, that's a bug: it should cost the normal price for that item.

[tangar]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

1) The admin char must be created at start. If not, the game will create a regular char. You will have to modify mangband.cfg to include new name/password for your admin char and restart the server.

Didn't work. Algorythm:

1) stopped server
2) edited .cfg and added there new account credentials (log is 'adm' and pass ***)
3) started server
4) logged to the server with this new credentials ('adm' and ***)
5) created char
6) & commands don't work

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

3) Feature. You can sell your items for 0 gold for ID purposes. If you can buy back for 1 gold, that's a bug: it should cost the normal price for that item.

After you 's' it - it writes that it cost 1 gold in the shop and it writes that I've payed 1 gold when I bought it back (but I suppose in real it was full price) so it's definitely minor bug.
/// update. today 's' feature worked alright... need more testing

[tangar]

/rfe

add and option to .cfg to have a staircase up to the wilderness from dungeon-town.

So currently I have no_wilderness flag at the server. I would be fun to have an option to be able to go outside to the wilderness, to the open-world and go to the dungeons there.

Some details:
- every new character start in undeground town (like no_wilderness)
- in this town there is a staircase (or it could be a 'magic portal')
- if player uses staircase (portal) - he appears in Bree
- at any moment player could use them to go back

It would give alternatives for player - some would be glad to dive right into the dungeon, some would like to breath air

This option could be implemented later on, when server would have more players - then this solution could help to reduce problems with limited shops (so players would not have to wait one another when buying stuff or using the same 'dungeon storage-house')

[tangar]

1) min rows 'bug'

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

New PWMAngband 1.2.0 beta 1 released!
- Reduce the allowed minimum size of subterms to a fifth of the maximal size (16x4)

Tested: currently minimum rows are 5, not 4.

But actually it would be fun to have minimum rows as 3

2) it seems that autopickup incription doesn't work properly.. Sometimes you have to pick up projectiles even if you got an inscription =g on them

3) player 'Lich' reported lags when monsters breath on them (I didn't had it myself, donno). They say that game is kinda 'freezes' for some time after several hounds breaths at once

4) player 'vp' who plays @ linux via wine reported that he got troubles with game performance - like he push a key and sometimes it doesn't work

[tangar]

Horn of Rohan on 'A': wake up all sleeping mobs and speed them up for 25 seconds; very bad thing, no point to use it.

According to JRR it such horns should 'freeze' enemies for a short amount if time. I suppose such horns in PWMA should do something good too. Lets it awake mobs, but also give boldness for some time and confuse close standing mobs for 2 turns.

--

Maybe also it would be fun to rearrange shops items a bit, eg to add speed potions to black market as 'normal' & etc. Should I post suggestion about stores there at forum so we could discuss them and eventually add them into installation package or it's already designed as intended (as in vanilla Angband)? (then I'll assign this experemental changes only for the server @ PWMAngband\lib\gamedata\store.txt)

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

[PowerWyrm]

"edited .cfg and added there new account credentials"

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

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

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

"currently minimum rows are 5, not 4"

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

"autopickup incription doesn't work properly"

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

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

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

"troubles with game performance"

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

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

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

"rearrange shops items a bit"

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

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

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

[tangar]

Thank you very much for answers!

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

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

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

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

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

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

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

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

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

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

=======

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

=======

Suggestions:

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

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

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

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

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

===

Question:

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

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

[PowerWyrm]

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

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

3) Already started to work on this.

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

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

[PowerWyrm]

Alright guys. Bad news...

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

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

[PowerWyrm]

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

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

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

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