The Rogue Game Competition
 

Version Angband 3.0.3
You can download Angband here
http://www.thangorodrim.net/download.html

Rules
You cannot change any option that would affect the game play.
Auto-scum is to be left on, along with the monster behavior items.

The winner will be determined by the following

Whoever slays the deepest unique will be considered the winner. You must be Alive when you send me your file You must use the character I have pre-made. You have until 11:59 PM on August the 5th to send in your character to me. All submissions will be made via my e-mail at [email protected]



You are not allowed to cheat by copying your save files. I can only use the honor system here, but please don’t play if you feel you must cheat. You are allowed to restart this game as many times as you would like.

You are not allowed to use a borg to play for you. Maybe in a future contest we will run a borg game. But that kind of defeats the purpose of playing IMHO.

When you submit you’re save file, please send the save file. I would prefer all save files to be zipped, and named with your FOFC user name. This will make it easy to determine the winner. If this turns into a recurring theme, then the winner will be allowed to pick the Variant/Character/Unique Rules.

The score will be determined by the depth of the best unique you have slayed. Here are the tiebreakers
1. Character level will be used.
2. If all the characters have the same level then Experience will be used
3. If all the characters have the same experience then The rarity of the Unique will be used
4. If all the characters are still tied, then a tie will be declared.


Any questions should be posted here in this thread, or by sending me an e-mail.

Here is the character file.

Whoo-hoo!

-Anxiety

I will start a thread in the dynasty section where people can give reports of their characters mishaps.

Dola -

Are Borgs legal?


-Anxiety

Ugh...I think I'll wait for the ADOM contest. I'm not very familiar with Angband.
If I do play, can't I send a bones file instead? Or do you have to live through it?

Wanted to make sure that my option changes were fine. The options that I changed:


Show Dungeon Level in Feet
Use Special Colors for Torch Light
Use Special Colors for Floor Grids
Use Special Colors for Field of View
Prompt for Floor Item Selection
Use Old Target by Default
Repeat Obvious Commands
Merge Discounts When Stacking
Open and Disarm on Movement
Hitpoint Warning at 30%

Off:

When Running, Ignore Stairs
When Running, Ignore Doors
Disturb Whenever Any Monster Moves (damn telepathy)
Disturb Whenever Boring Things Happen
Generate Dungeons with Aligned Rooms


Since some of these affect gameplay and information,. I just wanted to verify them as fine.


-Anxiety

Fantastic idea...except I'm going out of town and don't know much about Angband. I get back on Monday, so I'll probably give it a shot :) Good stuff Airhog.

Okay after doing some research, I realize that it will not work if your character is dead. There is no way in angband to view a characters Unique list short of loading up their save game. I will edit the Requirements to reflect these changes.




Anxiety: yes, those are all fine.
Anxiety: I am going to not allow borgs this time. The reason being that it takes the fun out of playing.

Sachmo: we might do ADOM next, or any other variant :D
Hmm I am not sure if a bones file will work.

where should the file be unzipped to?

Where did you install Angband too?

It normally goes into

C:\program files\angband\lib\save

thanks. wasn't sure which of the folders in there was the right one - (file, user, data, save - all seemed reasonably appropriate!)

Well, ADOM saves all of your kills, but you have to either die or win to see 'em!

I don't remember the bones files in Angband saving this sort of information. Terribly inferior, if you ask me. :D
I'll give it a shot anyway. Just for fun.

I dont think vanilla Angband saves your kills, I think you can export kills in some other versions though.

Good, let's play ADOM!! :D

Lol. Well if you win sachmo you can pick the game, and the challenge, so hop to it.


ON another note I have decided to make an adjustment to the rules. If you send me a character, that character can no longer adventure as part of the challenge. My reasoning, is that I dont want people to send me in multiple copies of their character. It also adds an another element of strategy, since you now have to think about stopping early, or continuing down further and risking death.

So how hard would it be for a newbie to pick this up and compete?

I played Rouge/Moria/NetHack in the late 80's and early 90's but never Angband.

I gave Airhog's challenge a try just now, and as a former Hack/Nethack player playing Angband for the first time, I can say there are enough similarities to get you going pretty fast. There are some differences, most noticably a capital "E" for eating rations compared to lowercase "e" in Nethack, wielding lanterns with "w" instead of applying items.

Syrinx,

It'll be a bit overwhelming at first because there are so many commands and so many things to consider, but Airhog made a great choice when he made a half-troll fighter for the character everybody uses. Simple to play, and with enough hit points that a rookie mistake might not cost you your life.

Read all the help files in game, and feel free to post questions on here-I'll be glad to help.

Dan

With experience in the prerunners, Angband really should be the next evolutionary step anyway. It's not nearly as complex as the variants are. It took me 10-15 minutes to seguay from Moria to Angband. Took me a lot longer to gain proficiency, however. Of course, my predisposition to playing mages probably hurt :)

-Anxiety

Cool. I've downloaded everything. I'll probably try out a new (not for this challenge) character one evening this week, and then if it all works out, I'll start this up over the weekend.

I think it will be less of a problem un-learning the old way of doing things (it’s been nearly 10 years) and more of an issue of remembering the basics, and combining that with all of the new features.

Sounds like a lot of fun!

Re: The Rogue Game Competition
 

I just noticed what appears to be an inconsitency. Which is it?

Not that I know what that means yet...

Sorry I mis-read what Anxiety wrote :D

Dont worry about it. I dont think the Aligned rooms generation is going to significantly change the game.

Well now I see why He would turn it off, but I still dont think it gives him a great advantage.

Yeah I purposely picked a fighter for this challenge. However, being a fighter is a tough once you get past the first few levels. He main advantage is the regeneration. His biggest weakness is a belly the size of a fridge.

bumping this back up to page one for any stragglers.

I have turned back on Generate Aligned Rooms since it was an issue, even a minor one.

-Anxiety

Anxiety: dont sweat it. I guess everyone should really just set it too on, since it gives a small increase in the number of lesser vaults.

quick question...how do we know how deep the unique is that we kill? Do they only appear on certain levels or do we have to save the game right after we kill the unique. I ask cause I've killed a couple (although they were not very deep) but can't find the information of the level of the unique or the level I killed him on anywhere.

All creatures and items in the game come with a base level. Items and creatures are determined for any given level with a complex mathematical process that allows items and creatures to be on a level lower then it (actually, higher, but you get the idea) but with decreasing frequency as you get farther fromt he item. once you pass the level, it can appear all the time.

The only base level that I know off the top of my head is Ringil, a sword that has a base level of 20, or 1000' deep. You can find Ringil earlier, but it's harder and harder the earlier you go. Creatures are the exact same way.

So you look at the unique's base level and compare. If you are interested in finding a creature's base level, go to the game, and type "/" followed by the symbol of the unique in question (if you have seen it). Scroll through all monsters with that symbol until you find your unique. Then recall the monster info and it will tell you where the guy likes to hang out.

Another way is to d/l the spoliers and load them into the game. Then you could look at the uniques exactly and see what their base level is.


-Anxiety

Ok you guys are all just pure evil. ;)

I was up 'til 1:30am playing this damned thing (I have to leave for work by 6:00am). I'm not a college kid anymore damn-it! 4 hours sleep doesn't cut it for me!

I killed 2 uniques, but I was use just using a character I had created to re-learn the game. Tonight I start for real! :D

Dola
How do you identify magic items? I have colored wands and potions, and scrolls that are nonsense.

Also, can a half-troll warrior even use wands and scrolls?

Can anyone help out with the level messages? I left a level with "You feel your luck is changing", did I screw up doing that?

You can try using them and see what happens. Or you can use an identify scroll on them. Lastly, you can sell it to a shopkeeper and that will ID it for you. I usually sell scrolls and potions, ID wands, stafffs, and rods.

Yep, Trolls can use them. The more complex a magical item is, however, the more likely the guy is to fail. Mine takes me anywhere from 5-20 tries before he uses the Rod of Recalling corectly.

-Anxiety

Just don't leave a "Special" feeling level without checking it out. Because Airhog has the autoscum on, every level has something interesting - an Out of Depth monster, items, vault, pit, artifact, etc.

-Anxiety

The front page on the Thangorodim site has a Angband Newbie guide which is incredibly old-1999, but much of the information is still useful there. There's also the Angband Manual at: http://angband.oook.cz/stuff/manual.txt that may help too.

As for level feelings here is a list that I believe is mostly correct-its missing the special level feeling which would be at the very top of course. There is also "Looks like every other level"-which occurs if you go down a level too quickly. The game wants you to stay at a level for a certain amount of time-In cases when I'm level diving, if I find a stairs down quickly on a level I've just arrived at-I usually rest for 100 turns or so to avoid getting this message.

Rating Message
101+ "You have a superb feeling about this level."
81-100 "You have an excellent feeling..."
61-80 "You have a very good feeling..."
41-60 "You have a good feeling..."
31-40 "You feel strangely lucky..."
21-30 "You feel your luck is turning..."
11-20 "You like the look of this place..."
1-10 "This level can't be all bad..."
0 "What a boring place..."

So no you likely didn't miss out on anything that super on the luck is turning level Anxiety-stop being so anxious about it. :)

On caution about selling un-ID'ed stuff to shopkeepers-Yep you get them ID'ed free of charge, but you also get them for a lot less money normally than you would had you ID'ed it. I normally sell un-ID'ed potions and scrolls I get from the early levels of the dungeons-mushrooms too-because many are hazardous to you, and you get money for something a shopkeeper would never have paid you a gold piece for had it been ID'ed. You have a house where you can store things-I will often keep other un-ID'ed things there until the stores have ID scrolls or I have enough money to buy them.

And Syrinx...welcome to the dark side...that is, if you aren't taking a nap right at the moment. :)

No nap, I'm plodding through the workday.

I've been to the dark side before, it's more of a, “Welcome back. Look what we've done to spruce up the evil lair while you were away!” ;)

Just to add to the explanation of the level feelings and ratings, the feeling is a measure of how dangerous and how potentially rewarding a level is. The higher the rating, the more likely there are out of depth monsters (potentially much more dangerous than you would normally find on the level), monster lairs called pits and vaults, and powerful items. The better the feeling, the more likely you'll want to check out the whole level to make sure you aren't missing out on a great item...at the same time being careful for those dangerous monsters.

The other level of feeling is the 'you have a special' feeling message. On that one, you REALLY don't want to leave the level without exploring it fully because there might be an artifact there. The lower you go, the higher chance it is that it's an artifact. The other possibilities are pits and vaults I believe. Watch out for those, I had to battle an enormous amount of orcs on one of these 'special' levels.

Hope that explains it.

JAG

There is an easier way, but revealing it could cause problems with cheating. Good thing Horns isnt around anymore

I'm in (but will undoubtedly do badly - as I normally do in these games :D)

Bump to keep this on front page and to welcome Marc :)

Bump...it sucks to be at home where all we have for internet is a crappy iBook that my mom won't let me download anything to.

I'm back in SB later this weekend, so I'll get cracking then :) In the meantime, how is everyone doing? I don't want people to give away how far they are, but maybe some nice little teasers for me while I can't play? ;)

I've only put in a couple of hours, and at least half that time has been put into chasing Smeagol's dusty ass around. Screw that little freak and his gold-stealing-puff-of-smoke-disappearing ways. I ran out of food before I came close to ever putting him in the grave, and he managed to steal every bit of gold I had!

Vince check the dynasty forum to see how some of us are doing. :) I'm around 600' right now myself, but some of the others are about to head into stat gain area-near 1000'

Check out the thread in the dynasty section for info on how peops are doin'.

-Anxiety

How can you tell how many feet you are at?
Also, on the main screen, under your experience, what does AU mean?

Sachmo,

Hit the equal sign key to get into the options menu. Look for Display Options-#5 in that menu I think. The top option there I think is to change the dungeon levels to feet. The level will appear at the bottom of the screen.

AU stands for your gold pieces.

Yeah, I should probably look around before opening my big mouth :) Great stuff guys, keep it coming.

The one thing I dont like about this version that used to be the case in the old Rogue versions is everytime you change levels, it gets rid of all you have done so far..

If I remember rogue correctly, it would be random every time you start a game, but the levels would remain consistant (unchanging) for the period of that particular game.

This one it seems every time I go to town, the entire dungeon changes again... or is there some option I am missing somewhere?

dola...

I just read the angband faq.. they call this "persistant levels" and they dont do that.. other versions do I guess.. Ahh well, guess I will have to get used to this :)

Anyone try that mangband? I guess it is multiplayer angband? Sounds interesting.

Aside from the option mentioned, there is also an easy conversion: each level = 50 Feet.

So 1000' = Level 20

A question for those of you with more experience playing this than I have. (Which is zero) How do I defeat monsters like Smeagol? Every time I start to do some damage to him he disappears in a puff of smoke. I'm guessing that he is teleporting? Is there a way to keep him from teleporting or to quickly locate him once he does?