Give a meaning to object colors

[fph]

From http://trac.rephial.org/ticket/837 :

Originally Posted by fph

Reported by: fph Owned by:
Milestone: Triage Keywords: color objects
Description

Object colors should be given some "in-game" meaning instead of simply matching the object flavour (or simply being unused, e.g. rings). See a similar suggestion in #532 for monster recall.

I'd suggest:

Color1 -> unID'ed potions/scrolls/wands/rings

Color2 -> known useless potions/scrolls/wands, e.g. ?darkness

Color3 -> low-level useful items, e.g. !cure light wounds, =sustain something

Color4 -> moderately useful items, e.g. =strength, ?critical wounds

Color5 -> very useful items, e.g. !stat, !experience

Color6 -> extremely useful items, e.g. =speed, !augmentation

The perceived usefulness of items may change from player to player, but even a rough classification would be more useful than the current state.

This does not give away more information than what can be already obtained with the 'look' command; it only makes it easier to collect it.

Originally Posted by anonymous

Changed 3 hours ago by anonymous

It's certainly an idea that's used in other games, but the argument would be better made on its merits rather than "it doesn't give away any more information", as making the information easier to see is still a change in the way the game plays. Players naturally take more notice of the information that's thrown in their face than that you can only access through five keypresses (or whatever).

I can't imagine it being implemented without discussion, as it's a change to the game that AFAIK hasn't been trialled in a variant before (not that I'm an expert). Perhaps worth floating over on the newsgroup (rec.games.roguelike.angband) or forum?

What do you think about the idea?

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by fph

What do you think about the idea?

It's a good idea, though I think it could be slightly simplified. Use fewer colors, maybe three: known cursed (dark grey), squelched (light grey), and everything else (white).

It's really no different than playing with tiles, other than with tiles, YOU must remember which colors are 'good' and 'bad'.

[ekolis]

or simply being unused, e.g. rings

Heh, all these years of playing Angband and I never noticed the incongruity that all rings appear as red equals signs, and none of them are green equals signs or silver equals signs or whatever their flavor might indicate, as with potions or amulets! :P (Amulets DO show differently based on flavor, don't they? Or are they all the same shade of yellowish orange?)

For a minute though I thought the discussion was about the colors of the textual names of the items, e.g. "a Potion of Cure Light Wounds" - if we went to a "color = usefulness" scheme in that case, I would be strongly in favor of more colors than just three! (I've seen old variants of Angband, can't recall which ones, which have all items displayed in white text instead of colored based on type - makes it much harder to find what you're looking for without potions being cyan, heavy armor being gray, wands being green, etc.!)

But yeah, "flavors" are kinda silly anyway... does anyone really care that one potion is "red slimy" while another is "blue bubbly"? It only matters that they're different kinds, which the stacking, ID-on-use, and inscription mechanisms take care of... I've seen a few variants where if you turn off display of flavors, it turns them off even for un-ID'd items, so you get stuff like "a Potion" or "a Scroll"... doesn't bother me a bit!

[PowerDiver]

Originally Posted by ekolis

does anyone really care that one potion is "red slimy" while another is "blue bubbly"?

That's important in two cases. When you learn a flavor, but the game doesn't, you want to be able to ignore it. The classic case is ?create_traps. I guess the second case nearly the same case, that you want to be able to squelch flavors that you know to be useless. E.g. if you aim an unaware wand at 2000' and get the message "the foo is unaffected", you might as well squelch that flavor of wand right away. In the early game, if I quaff a potion when hurt and get no message, I want to squelch that flavor not caring if it is slow poison or boldness or [if playing a dwarf] blindness.

[Pete Mack]

I often mark a few scrolls as desirable by making them pink. (Escape and banishment scrolls.) It's not so easy with potions, because they come in all colors in the first place.

For squelched objects on the floor, the UI is already adequate: they are invisible with the right option.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

I often mark a few scrolls as desirable by making them pink.

A psychologist would have a field day with that.

[Pete Mack]

Ha. Ha. Ha.

[fph]

With 256 color support just added in, another possibility would be to go with the standard color system (red=rings, blue=potions, green=wands...), and change the intensity (light/dark).