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Post by Variaz on Oct 16, 2005 12:38:01 GMT -5
Well, if you have any idead of what should be implemented for the next release, post it here!  Here's what I am currently thinking: - Change the atmosphere, to give it a more unique feel. This mean redoing the monsters, make them less ToMEish, and more NewAngbandish. Perhaps making a better quests system, so the quests actually mean something, and would allow you, in the end, to get a better understanding of what's going on, such as what zulgors really are, and why Variaz turned evil. I don't want to create a big, elaborated story with tons of dialogues, but at least let the player know why he/she is fighting. Perhaps bring back the Townsfolks('t'), and allow player to have some interaction with them! - Two-weapon fighting! I want NewAngband to be a variant where you can create all kinds of characters. How many of us would like a warrior with two swords? I'm sure lot of us, including myself, would like that! - Change the way monsters work, and add new festures for them, such as monsters allowed to wear items, just like you! Also allow them to get some sort of special abilities, such as counterattacks, special effects, special attributes, etc... And allow monsters to have their own, unique spells! I don't think a Novice Mage's magic missile should do the same thing as a Lich's magic missile, right? If I'm gonna remake the entire monsters list, might as well make it worthwhile! Oh, and that would make Monster Mages even more fun, MUCH more spells to learn! - Try to rebalance the way stats works... I think that strength should help more in how melee damages are calculated. There's the wisdom/intelligence debate that needs to be solved once and for all. Are stats bonuses good enough? Is +15 hp/con enough? Is +10 mana/int a good thing? Should stats give more bonuses? - And of course, the usual stuff: new classes, items, alchemy/crafting recipes, etc... Never enough of these! That's it for now. Give your opinion on these ideas, and post your own if you have some! |
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Post by Lipa on Oct 21, 2005 8:12:29 GMT -5
I love these ideas! It would be nice if there were more “town” quests, even some very easy ones at the beginning of the game. And a bit deeper plot would also be interesting, though I don’t expect it to be anything epic. The game is just great anyway.  And since you started up this tread, allow me to post a list of some other minor issues. You see, I’ve been keeping this track of things that I think should be changed for the next version. It contains everything – minor bugs, some technical details, even some completely useless cosmetic issues. Some of them have even been discussed in the forums. OK, here goes: - New Angband window should be able to maximize over the entire screen, no matter the resolution. (This is actually the only issue from this list that IMHO *must* be fixed for the new version!) - There should be some way to see how much money there is in a pile. - Magic system should be improved so that you could browse (b) your current magic spells. Offensive spells should also have their damage and range listed. - When hitting ‘m’ without casting anything, this should not waste a turn! - It would be nice if you could see the magical effects that you’ve learnt so far. - When choosing a slot for a new spell, all of the spells should be listed, so that you could see empty slots or useless spells to overwrite. - Resurrection should not be treated as a NEW game (this is another issue that I find very important)! Because it is not! This is why unique monsters should be killed once and only once, same goes for quests. ONE game, ONE life (though resurrected), ONE story. And only ONE Farmer Maggot, ONE Homer Simpson… - Death should be a bit stronger. Perhaps there should be a certain chance (about 20 or 30 %) that one or more of your items loose their eternality after a resurrection. - If there are two or more corpses in the same slot, the game does a funny thing: First, it says that you see several items, but when you try to pick them up, it says that you can’t see anything. - Artifacts are now listed in the memory even before they’re found, let alone identified! Heavy spoilers!!! - There should be some warning when an elite monster is in view. Perhaps a box around the monster or something. It’s really tiresome to always inspect everything… - Scrolls of Rumor should be fixed. Now, they only list some strange symbols. - Some problems with the ‘l’ook command should be fixed. Currently, you can’t select traps! So you can’t see what kind of a trap it is! On the other hand, you *can* select some totally meaningless items, like some dungeon walls. - When identifying items, only the *unidentified* items should be listed (see other Bands or ToME). - Command list in the help menu should be updated. As you can see, these are mostly cosmetics. But if you really want to make a polished variant, I think some of these should be taken into consideration. Oh, by the way, when can we expect the new variant? I’m already looking forward to it! ;D Be well! |
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Post by Variaz on Oct 21, 2005 22:00:34 GMT -5
Well, I really can't tell when 1.8.0 will be released, or if I will release 1.7.2 in the meantime if there's any bug fixes or minor features... I aim that the next version will be 1.8.0 though, and it won't be ready until a while. I'm going to remake the monster list, change the way monsters work to make every of them unique. Give monsters some new possibilities to annoy the player, and make some really tough quest bosses that will require the player to think a good plan, or get beaten fast! Thanks for the suggestions, I'll be sure to take them into consideration! Some things are clearly bugs(the artifacts thing), and NEED a fix! I just beaten the game with Aliesra, and now I'm thinking about what to do... either start a new character(probably a magic user), or start coding the new version... I am eager to start coding, but once I start coding, this means I won't play until a while....  Anyway, can't promise release date for now, but it will come well... one day! ;D |
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Post by Lipa on Oct 22, 2005 9:27:13 GMT -5
OK, another wacky idea.  It’s about the parchments you can find in the dungeon. IMHO, these parchment are a really nice feature. Even though that sometimes they offer no important information, they still add to the overall “flavor” of the game (Deep Thoughts, anyone? ;D). So here’s what I suggest: - You were talking about the New Angband “story” (I love the idea, BTW). Well, you could tell some of it through various scattered parchments (you could make dozens of them). Like ancient “newspaper clippings”, “lost journals” or something like that. And perhaps even add a date to each of them, so that a player could then sort them chronologically into a coherent story... - However, there’s always been an annoying problem with parchments. They are basically useless, and you never really decide to keep them because they simply take too much valuable space. This always saddens me, because I generally like them (some of them are even quite important) and would want to hold on to them… So I was thinking about a new building. A “Library” or something like that. It would basically work like your home, only that you could drop *only* parchments in it. After that, you couldn’t get them back, but you could always read them freely in the library. Sometimes, you could even find a new parchment in the stock, brought here by some other adventurer!… What do you say? Have fun! P.S.: Variaz, have fun and play your game!!! There’ll always be time to code later, and the current variant is good enough. In fact, it’s great! So just take all the time you need and enjoy your creation to its fullest! |
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Post by Variaz on Oct 22, 2005 12:33:57 GMT -5
Parchements are nice indeed, and I will certainly use them in the next version! And some of them could be important to get new quests and items, or tips on defeating some tough monsters... The library is a nice idea too, it's true that parchements takes space and peoples generally prefer having useful items over "flavor" items. Also, in the next version, I will remake the entire monsters list, so you won't have some kind of weird mixes of monsters coming from like 20 different universes(LoTR, D&D, Norse legends.... and there's more.). I tought remaking the whole monsters list was too long to do, but now I'm ready to do it, for the sake of NewAngband's story! This, and implementing the new stuff for monsters, will take quite some time, of course, and that's why I can't promise a release date for now... and that's only ONE feature! There will be more new stuff in 1.8.0 too! |
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Post by Tylhandrias on Oct 24, 2005 15:35:26 GMT -5
Hello, I've been playing ToME for about a year, and just started playing NewAngband, and I found this thread because I was having the same problem as Lipa - when my ToME training kicked in, I'd use 'm' to cast magic for monster mages/mages who hadn't raised enough money for a spell book, and I'd waste a turn and generally get slaughtered. Also, the "Library" sounds a lot like the ToME mathom house, where you dump useless trophies (I tend to dump unique corpses there myself). The parchment idea sounds great to me, there isn't really a storyline or even a pervading them to New'Band other than generic dungeon crawl. I really enjoy this game.
-Tyl, Master Of Insanity
*EDIT: ' mages ' is not in the spellcheck, and I used it as a plural for mage.
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Post by Lipa on Oct 25, 2005 0:18:39 GMT -5
Yes, I thought of the Library as a parchments-only variant of the Mathom House from ToME, only that in the Library you could always *re-read* the parchments deposited here. I think this would be great, because now you could really keep every single parchment that you find in the dungeon!
Have fun!
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Post by Lipa on Oct 26, 2005 4:06:38 GMT -5
Two more things:
- There really *should* be an option to save the game preferences in the next version. I know there's been much talk about it already, but I thought it would be nice to list it here too.
- And another idea: It would be nice if you could restart the game the way other Bands do it - with a *fresh* character and *old* memories! So I'm thinking about a feature that would work like this: You die. You restart and load the save game. Then the game ASKS you: "Would you like to resurrect or restart?" Now if you happen to restart, you get to choose your character again from the start (race, class...) and yet your old memories (artifacts, uniques...) are preserved!... What do you think?
Be well!
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Post by Lipa on Oct 26, 2005 9:59:47 GMT -5
An idea for a new building - "The Fortuneteller's"!
It would work like this: You get to pay some money (about 10.000$ or so), and then the fortuneteller predicts your future: "The Long Sword 3d4 (+30,+40) is waiting for you on dungeon level X." or "50 Shocking Arrows 3d3 (+15,+5) are lying on dungeon level X." or "You will meet 30 Hill Orcs on dungeon level X." or "5 GWoP's are preparing an ambush for you on dungeon level X." and so on... Dungeon level X should be no more than +/- 3 levels away from your current deepest depth.
So where's the catch? Well, as you can see from the example above, this building would have an ability to generate some extremely powerful items (magical, possibly even tweakable, but never artifacts) on the indicated levels. On the other hand, however, it could also create some very nasty out-of-depth monsters (in fact, this should happen in about 70% of the cases) that would present a serious threat! Nevertheless, the feature would still be quite tempting because of the outstanding items! You'd just have to hope that the RNG would grant you an item instead of the enemies. From time to time, you'd get lucky! So lucky, that you'd surely try it again!... ;D
Your current fortune should then be listed under "Quests", and you shouldn't be able to get a new one until the old has been met (you've picked up the item or killed the monsters).
What do you think?
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Post by Variaz on Oct 26, 2005 11:06:49 GMT -5
Hmmm... perhaps. Not a bad idea, but then, you'll end up ALWAYS getting rewards in the end. Out of depth monsters, while tougher, won't necessarely pose a major threat, especially if you're high levels, but they'll be worth tons of experience and probably magic items too!
And if we make it so the monsters give no experience, then I don't see why I would use this feature, when I can just look for an elite monster, slay it, and grab the magic item...and it saves me 10000 gp!
Nice idea, but needs to be developped more.
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Post by Lipa on Oct 27, 2005 7:15:49 GMT -5
Yes, you're right about this... Hm...  I guess that the item would have to be really really great (tweakable), and the monsters would have to be d**n nasty... Anyway, I must admit that I got this idea partially from NPP Angband. Do you know NPP? It has this very nice feature that allows you to take a random "guild" quest - you must usually kill some monsters on certain level. When you complete it, you get a nice reward. I know, regular quests are similar to this, but I just *love* the random diversity right from the start of the game, not to mention that you can actually go through *hundreds* of these random generated adventures! It offers something different from the regular hack and slash, and it's really fun. Well, it's an idea. ;D Have fun, and be well! |
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Post by ninjinto on Jan 28, 2006 0:53:30 GMT -5
I love the library idea. What would go with it would be to have more parchments; ranging from a complete list of alchemy/crafting spoilers, to more hints, and possibly even skill boosters (like a one time version of the stat potions)
For the alchemy/crafting spoilers, what I would like is to just have the more rare parchments explain the uses of things like charged metal, methanol, etc.
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Here's what I am currently thinking:
I guess that the item would have to be really really great (tweakable), and the monsters would have to be d**n nasty...