Announce: DaJAngband v1.0.03

[will_asher]

Purpose of DaJAngband:
To add flavor and character to vanilla Angband. This is done mostly through redoing the monster list and adding a few new classes and races. Other changes are mainly to complement the changes in the monster list. Also implements my idea that permanent see invisible should be much rarer and that less monsters should be invisible. (notably the qulythulgs and the imp-related minor demons are no longer invisible.) See the DaJAngband Readme.txt for a more detailed list of changes.

Downloads are at the link in my sig.

changes since last release:
.txt file changes:
A bunch of mostly-very-minor monster tweaks.

Monster descriptions are finally finished- there is now an in-game description for every monster in the game.

There is a small (though significant in the very beginning) exp penatly for killing most of the town monsters who don't actually do anything to you.

Added Maia race (mostly the same as OAngband's) for the players of very low skill level (like me). Their (quite useful) special racial ability is resist disenchantment.

There is now alternate character classes for most of the original classes: (excluding priest and mage) Barbarian-warrior class with even higher strength and hit die than warrior, slightly worse skills, and very hard to get more than one attack. Holy Rogue- Rogue with prayers and penalty for sharp weapons, can get multiple attacks as easy as the warrior. Stealth Ranger was already there in the last release. Paladin Marshal- My view of a paladin (largely influenced by The Deed of Paksenarrion book), not a whole lot different from original. The original versions of the classes are still available of course. Note: the new races and classes have not been very well tested, but I tried to keep them roughly balanced. I think I've only played with the Barbarian class once, and it probably needs more testing than the others just to see if the concept works.


code tweaks:
The ability to sell to shops is now a birth option (defaults to off). The same option also affects the amount of gold found. If you can sell to shops, you find the normall vanilla amount of gold, if you chose not to be able to sell to shops, then gold drops are significantly increased (as in Eddie's patch -actually the old and only released version of Eddie's patch (so far) has a multiplier of 4 and I changed it to 3 cause I seemed like I was finding quite a lot of gold).

added spear of light and starlight as a priest-type spell, I always thought spear of light fit better as a priest-type spell. Currently only the Paladin Marshall can use them though.

added a couple new types of monster nests which I won't give away.

fixed town messiness caused by me trying to add a new shop and failing.

[Daven_26d1]

Originally Posted by will_asher

Barbarian-warrior class with even higher strength and hit die than warrior, slightly worse skills, and very hard to get more than one attack.

Higher strength/hit die probably won't make up for losing attacks; this one will probably have a rough time early-mid game unless the player can find a big heavy weapon early. Perhaps penalise the barbarian for wearing armour in some way, instead?

Holy Rogue- Rogue with prayers and penalty for sharp weapons, can get multiple attacks as easy as the warrior.

I assume you mean prayers instead of mage spells? Interesting idea, though I'm having trouble believing in the idea. I guess he could worship some god of thieves, or something. Warrior no. of attacks could be a little broken, but as thieves have low strength and tend to go for daggers & the like early on, forced use of blunt weapons (generally heavier in weight for the same amount of damage) should even this out fairly nicely in the early-mid game.

In both cases, you'll probably want to see some winners before you know how balanced these are.

fixed town messiness caused by me trying to add a new shop and failing.

What kind of shop were you wanting to add?


Certainly sounds to me like you got a bit further with C than just changing a few defines! Glad you stuck with this project, you seem to have a lot of time and enthusiasm for it; you're getting to the stage where you can definitely stop thinking of it as a "semi-variant" now.

[Seany C]

Will, on a very pedantic point, have you fixed the casing for monster names - e.g. "Grey* Mushroom Patch", rather than "grey mushroom patch"? It'll make the monster memory and messages far more readable and aesthetically pleasing...



*" Or "Gray" - tomahto, tomayto... ;o)

[will_asher]

(barbarian class)

Originally Posted by Daven_26d1

Higher strength/hit die probably won't make up for losing attacks; this one will probably have a rough time early-mid game unless the player can find a big heavy weapon early. Perhaps penalise the barbarian for wearing armour in some way, instead?

Maybe, I'm not sure I could figure out how to do that though. Or maybe I'll try to give him an intrinsic to-dam bonus for weapons of 10 or 12lb or more. I don't know how to do that either, but I'll see if I can figure it out. If I can't figure out how to add new class flags I might just remove that class.

(holy rogue class)

Originally Posted by Daven_26d1

I assume you mean prayers instead of mage spells? Interesting idea, though I'm having trouble believing in the idea. I guess he could worship some god of thieves, or something. Warrior no. of attacks could be a little broken, but as thieves have low strength and tend to go for daggers & the like early on, forced use of blunt weapons (generally heavier in weight for the same amount of damage) should even this out fairly nicely in the early-mid game.

There are all different kinds of gods in a fantasy game realm, of course he could just be misinterpreting something and doing the Robin Hood thing (steal from the rich, give to the poor). Yes, I mean prayers instead of spells. (I tried to add a 'paladin mage' class once but it wouldn't let me give him more than one magic realm).
I made him start with a new weapon: the light club (2d2), weight 3.4 in order to give him a lighter blunt weapon that was (slightly) better than the whip. But (I just tested) a hobbit holy rogue with 18 STR and 18 DEX still only gets one attack with it. (with any higher STR or DEX he gets 2 attacks). I wanted the holy rogue to start out with 2 attacks despite using blunt weapons. Currently the holy rogue gets +3 STR, but I think I'll change that to +2 (you would still be able get 18 STR and 18/10 DEX as a hobbit in order to get 2 attacks).

Originally Posted by Daven_26d1

In both cases, you'll probably want to see some winners before you know how balanced these are.

Yeah, but in order to do that I need other people to play 'cause I've never gotten past dL60. And when I do win, the first few times probably won't be with classes as hard as the barbarian.

Originally Posted by Daven_26d1

What kind of shop were you wanting to add?

I wanted to add a couple spell realms to make specialized spells books for certain classes (namely the healer, but also a couple others that I decided not to add because I couldn't figure out how to add new spell realms). Otherwise it would end up that certain classes could only learn 1 or 2 spells from a few different spellbooks, and that wouldn't work very well.
Anyway, I wanted to add a new shop to sell the new types of spellbooks.

Originally Posted by Daven_26d1

Certainly sounds to me like you got a bit further with C than just changing a few defines! Glad you stuck with this project, you seem to have a lot of time and enthusiasm for it; you're getting to the stage where you can definitely stop thinking of it as a "semi-variant" now.

thanks, but I don't feel worthy to put myself on the same level as other variant maintainers who actually know how to do a lot of stuff with the code.

Originally Posted by Seany C

Will, on a very pedantic point, have you fixed the casing for monster names - e.g. "Grey* Mushroom Patch", rather than "grey mushroom patch"? It'll make the monster memory and messages far more readable and aesthetically pleasing...

Oh. I didn't think there would be any problem with lowercases. I changed them to lowercase because they weren't proper nouns, and it seemed to make more sense to me to have them be lowercase. But if people don't like them lowercase I could change them back, it's not that important to me.

BTW, I forgot to mention in the announcement that I changed most of the default options to the way I like them, so remember to check your options when you start a game.

[Daven_26d1]

Originally Posted by will_asher

(barbarian class)
Maybe, I'm not sure I could figure out how to do that though. Or maybe I'll try to give him an intrinsic to-dam bonus for weapons of 10 or 12lb or more. I don't know how to do that either, but I'll see if I can figure it out. If I can't figure out how to add new class flags I might just remove that class.

Try having a look at the code relating to when mages wear gloves and things like that for some ideas.

(holy rogue class)
(I tried to add a 'paladin mage' class once but it wouldn't let me give him more than one magic realm).

Yes, you will find this very awkward to implement, as well as highly unbalancing. If you wanted to focus further effort here, it might be best just to add a third realm that contains a pick 'n' mix of spells from both; but again - almost certainly unbalancing, it would be too easy to give the character all your fave spells, even without realising.

Also I see you have had trouble adding new realms & shops, most probably you didn't find everything in the source that relates to your targets - always trace and take time to understand all the functions and variables you come across, never assume you know what they do or are used for. This can take time, so make notes (add comments to the code if you like, mark them with a unique string so you can find them all easily) so be patient and try to focus on the things most important to you.

thanks, but I don't feel worthy to put myself on the same level as other variant maintainers who actually know how to do a lot of stuff with the code.

Vision, creativity and design give a variant flavour, and you have demonstrated all these things as far as I can see. Programming ability is merely the implementation of the ideas. If you can keep up your enthusiasm, you will eventually see your brainchild come to life. No, I don't put you up there with the best either, far from it - but I can certainly think of variants that seem to have less of an idea of what they wanted to achieve!

Its well to remember that nobody on this Earth mastered C overnight. As a first language it can be very irksome indeed. No-one learnt Angband's sources backwards overnight either! Often, where you think you have failed miserably, you may have been very close. C does that even to experienced coders! Only experience will allow you to recognize & understand patterns in bugs and what the compiler errors are really telling you. Know that everytime you source-dive, the back of your brain is learning, even if the front of your brain doesn't realise it.

Might be a good time to read a few short tutorials on C if you haven't yet done so; some grounding in the basics will help no end. Another good trick is to make changes in the code, not for the purpose of implementing an idea, but just to see if you understand things correctly; small change, save, test, think. Rinse, repeat.

I have to say that I don't share your vision - I like indescribable icky things, too pathetic to warrant a description, and I think the game needs the Angels else there won't be many good-aligned uniques. I'm also not quite sure what your plan is with the new classes. I do like some of your ideas though, and I appreciate strongly that you have a firm plan in your head of what you want DaJAngband to become - I hope you get there one day, so good luck.


EDIT - I see that will_asher is the only player of his variant so far, if the ladder is anything to go by. As he seems a little uncertain about game balance, it would be nice if some people played his game and gave him some feedback. I don't really have the time, and honestly not so much interest in DaJAngband itself (more just encourageing him to keep going) but surely someone does? Particularly stronger players who can readily beat his record of dlev 60, and can tell easily if something is too broken etc? Hope you get some players soon!