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Archived news from 11/99.

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Archives - November 1999

Tuesday 30th November 1999
- OS/2 ZAngBeta. Alexey Guzeev has released a OS/2 port of the recent ZAngband beta (v2.3.3). Remember, as it is 'in-dev', things may not be as stable as the normal release. You can either pick it up from Alexey's page here or get it directly from the link below...
- Win32 DrAngband. Speaking of ports, well, compilations at least - 'darkhalf' has compiled a Win32 version of DrAngband (v2.9.2). Apparently there is a small bug where the new town layout causes freezes but if you still want to get your grubbies on it, you'll find it here...
- GSNband Fix. Speaking of bugs (getting tired of the 'speaking of...' thing? Okay), Gwidon Naskrent has found a little problem with GSNband (v2.02) where some artifacts cannot be generated or will be generated with wrong base type. Thankfully, all you need to fix it is a new a_info.txt file which you can find here...
- Not Here. Sp... alright. I'm off work for a few days and my home system will most probably be out of action for the duration so if you begin to wonder why there has been no updates for a few days, pretend it's gone quiet or that I'm just being lazy. Normal (naturally lazy) service should be resumed by Mon 6th Dec.
Monday 29th November 1999
- Java Source. John Buttrey has been working on a Java roguelike called Icicle and has decided to make the source available to the public (that is you). So take a peek and examine, explore and generally absorb John's work.
- Team KAngband. Dev Teams! Seems like everyone is at it. Who'd blame 'em though. Share the load, more releases. Sounds good to me. Anyway, enough of this babbling - Mark Howson is looking for people for a KAngband Dev team. If it sounds good to you, read on...
"Some of you may be interested to learn that we're forming a Kangband
'development team' - in short, we're looking for people who might like
to join us in taking Kangband further.

Kangband is progressing well, but not quickly enough - I have enough
ideas to keep us (that is, myself and Ken Wigle) working on this project
until 2005 or so, but not nearly enough time. So, if you're a C
programmer, or a Python programmer, or just *want* to learn Python, and
feel like working on Kangband then please mail me!

Alternatively, there is a Kangband development site, which might explain
our aims a little better, and offers some (limited, atm) downloads.

http://www.crosswinds.net/~kangband

Excuse the rough HTML. I expect I'll sort that out soon :)

In case you've never heard of it, the aims of Kangband are to expand
vanilla in an interesting, balanced, and original way, whilst retaining
the feel of Angband (and, indeed, the old Kangband releases). Kangband
offers a new 'wilderness', quests, monsters, new races,   much improved
monster ai, different magic systems. Plus we have many other interface
improvements, ideas, and things I don't want to talk about yet. 

We're using the scripting language 'Python' extensively, giving us more
flexibility than before. Note : this is not a 'silly' variant, there are
no monsters from Star Wars, and we aim to keep to the 'spirit' of
Tolkien, if not necessarily the plot ;)

Thanks,
Mark."
 - More AngNet. Further to Thursdays plug, Nate Powers is looking for a couple of reviewers for his roguelike page 'AngNet'. If you think you fit the bill as an experienced RL player, please contact Nate.
- Snip Snip. Ages without an archive and nobody complains :) Oh well, better get it done before I start feeling guilty *wink*.
Thursday 25th November 1999
- Roguelike Info. Nate Powers is planning to create a new site where your average visitor will be able to find a host of information about all kinds of roguelikes, past and present - and even download them. The site will be called 'AngNet' and Nate is looking for people willing to help him out with this undertaking. Contact Nate directly for more details.
- Just URLE It. Fancy writing your own roguelike but could really do with a helping hand? You should try URLE - the Universal Roguelike Engine by Mikko Koli. The current version is 0.1 (beta) and as Miko admits, is a little basic but he does plan to incorporate every feature found in current roguelikes. So, take a peek and then send Miko your comments.
- ZAngband Beta. The devteam are back with a new development version (2.3.3) of ZAngband. There is an absolute bucket load of changes and fixes - so quite kindly, Robert Rühlmann has provided a link to a page with them all listed. You can find them on Thangorodrim or more specifically, here. On the other hand, if it's the files you're after, you'll find them here...
Monday 22nd November 1999
- DrAngband Release. The non-beta (full version? post-beta?) version of DrAngband (v2.9.2) has been released by Tom Morton. The changes list is the same as the beta version so I'll not be repeating it but you can get the files from...
- DrRISC OS. There's also a number of ports of DrAngband. The first one is for RISC OS, courtesy of Henry Helliwell...
- DrAmiga. The next one comes from Bablos and is for the Amiga peeps...
- DrOS/2 + Others. Alexey Guzeev has a DrAngband port aswell but he also has OS/2 ports of GSNband (v2.02) and PernAngband (v4.0.1) available. You can either get them from his page here or download them directly from the following links...
Monday 15th November 1999
- DrAngband Beta. A new version (2.9.2b) of DrAngband from Tom Morton is out. With this version being a beta, you'll only be able to pick it up from Tom's site. As with the last release, the changes list is a little huge so here is a cropped version...
  • Added racial gold adjust for multi-hued dragons.
  • Cleaner implementation of 'show player by race'.
  • Various 'balancing' changes to dragon races.
  • New town layout [startup] option.
  • Earthquake kills monsters stuck in walls [Tim Baker].
  • Cloaks of Free Action.
  • Updated main-emx.c and makefile.emx files for OS/2 support.
  • Warriors made better with magical items.
  • Electricity stuns the player. Meteors damage walls.
  • Steven Fuerst's fractal caves patch!
  • Experimental 50 line support.
  • Many changes to make use of new screen space.
- Amiga Ports. Bablos has four new ports for the Amiga crowd. These are DrAngband (v2.9.2b - see above), GSNband (v2.02), PernAngband (v4.0.1) and SBFband (0.2.2). Nb. The address Bablos gives for GSNband has the version number '201' in it which I'm guessing is a typo and have corrected the link I give. Follow the links below for the files...
Friday 12th November 1999
- RL Interview. Blinking Dot, authors of 'Legends Of The Seers', have an interesting interview with David Allen, CEO of Artifact Entertainment - a company who are trying to release 'Demise'. It's looks to be a promising 3D RPG with it's flag placed squarely in the roguelike camp. Boasting both single player and multiplayer options, it's one to look out for. The interview can be found here.
- DrWinPort. Dana Larose has been kind enough to compile v2.9.1 of DrAngband for Windows. You should find it here...
- New SBFband. Steve Fisher has released a new version (0.2.2) of SBFband. Only a small update - here is the list of changes...
  • Fixed bug that caused the game to crash when entering some stores.
  • Added Alexey Guzeev's OS/2 makefile and preferences.
The files can be found here...
Also, Henry Helliwell has ported this new version for RISC OS and you can find that here...
Monday 8th November 1999
- Amiga Dragons. Bablos has ported the recent reincarnation (v2.9.1) of DrAngband for the Amiga. You can get it from...
- Article Time. Or more to the point, an article about Time Tracking and how to make it work for you in your roguelike. This article for the Development section was sent in by Gwidon Naskrent, author of the variant - GSNband.
- Speaking Of Which... There is a new version (2.02) of the aforementioned variant available thanks to, surprisingly enough, Gwidon Naskrent again. A list of changes follows...
  • Codebase updated to Z 2.3.1 minus nightmare mode.
  • Added a new main-gcu.c from Angband 64, including sound (*.wav) support and a much better approximation of console colours.
  • Varying weapon and missile skills for each class.
  • Object and monster flags are now 64-bit, doubling their capacity.
  • Some former 2H weapons are now 'could-2H' weapons.
  • Pack monsters how have a 'number of appearing' as an XdY roll.
  • Added resistances to gravity, inertia and force.
  • Added cold and fear aura to objects, fear aura to monsters.
  • Open levels may be filled with dark chasms where there are no corridors.
  • Fixed slowed/hasted monsters a bit.
  • Fixed FORCE_DEPTH to disallow the monster on any level but its base one.
  • Water breaths added for some monsters.
  • Added the random name generator from Cth and made a shot at providing Entish names.
  • Added 'the foul and ancient stat curse' to some objects...
  • 'Gate' type spells have explanatory messages.
  • Changed some of the quest rewards to be more useful.
  • Weapons of life au Pernband, BUT considerably weakened.
  • Simplified the character screen and threw out the three 'Ben' table modes.
  • Bugs fixed: rings of stealth are now useful, monsters can no longer walk on chasms and quest monsters can't be cloned any more.
And the files...
Friday 5th November 1999
- Exp Dev Art. Thanks to Matthias E. Giwer, there is a new article for the Development section, this time on the subject of character advancement and experience. You can either go to the rather health looking section itself or jump straight to the article here.
- Mac DrPort. Prfnoff has come through for the Mac bods by porting over the recent version (2.9.1) of the variant DrAngband. You can get hold of the files from...
Wednesday 3rd November 1999
- RISC OS PernAngband. Henry Helliwell has ported the recent version (4.0.1) of PernAngband for you Acorn/RISC OS owning types. You can either go to his page here or download it directly from the link below...
- New DrAngband. Despite it only being a week or so since his last update, Tom Morton has got a new version (2.9.1) of his variant DrAngband for you. The changes list is quite large so here is a cropped version just to whet your appetite...
  • TM_CURSE upgraded to every 50 turns and nastified in other ways.
  • Dragons get extra +hit and +dam bonuses.
  • Invulnerability now halves damage. Name changed.
  • No 100% safety from theft.
  • Yeek racial power 'flee in terror' (Haste 5+d5, terror 5+d10).
  • Pixie racial power 'throw pixie dust' (confuse monster)
  • Other racial powers fail rate lowered.
  • The One Ring Activation more powerful. Given invisibility, too.
  • New artifact crown for dragons. It is TM_CURSED when used by non-dragons.
  • Staves, wands and rods more powerful.
  • Mages are useless with bows. Wands should be their bows.
  • Rings of Confusion resistance (mostly for dragons).
  • Invisibility shown as '*' in see_invis field.
  • Mage spells 'Mana Bolt' and 'Resist Electricity'.
  • [Some] Orcs can fire arrows. (Monster) Archery attacks marginally boosted.
  • Bonus to digging for dragons.
  • Default options saving feature.
  • Chests usually drop good items.
  • Detect doors now detects locked and jammed doors.
  • Multi-hued Dragons: 4 basic resists, single, double, treble and quadruple resisted at levels 0, 25, 35 and 45 respectively.
  • Weapon skills: Stabbing, fencing, hafted and polearms.
  • Priest -2 to hit,dam when using edged or polearms removed because the new weapon skills penalize *far* more realistically.
  • Actual object quality boost to next level when offering stuff to the RNG!
  • Fixed a 'bug' in the fake artifact names patch caused by over-running the normal 80 byte buffer.
Tuesday 2nd November 1999
- Exploring Fractals. Regular Development section contributor and author of Tyrant, Mike Anderson has written a new article for you. This one explains how to create natural looking landscapes based on fractal formulas. So, if you're looking for some nice rough edges on that rather square looking forest of yours, take a peek here.
- Balrog Expands. Erik I. Bolsø would just like to point out to everyone that his Roguelike family tree site, BALROG, is progressing nicely. There are over 140 games listed with 18 of them having their own detailed pages. Many of them even feature screenshots and "letters from the author". Form an orderely queue and follow the link.
Monday 1st November 1999
- Underdark Changes. Stuart George, author of Underdark has begun a re-write of his project in the aim to tidy it up, remove memory leaks and generally do all you guys a favour. Not only that but the webpage for the roguelike and his email address has changed too so jot them down. Word is that the arrival date for the new version shouldn't be too far off into the future.
- New PernAngband. A new version (4.0.1) of PernAngband has been released by 'Darkgod'. Dos/Windows binaries are available, as is the source. Here's a list of changes...
  • New dungeon type, the Netherworld with Muar and the Wand of Fireball of Mithrandir at the bottom.
  • You can't gain a fate before being level 10.
  • A new Artifact by Akhronath, The Long Sword of Murazor 4d5.
  • Fixed the Chaos Warriors bug (they were unable to use magic!).
  • Fixed the Chaos Realm descriptions.
  • You can't rest on a between gate.
  • Fixed a bug in that when recalling to the town the player was sometimes placed in the upper left corner.
  • Add shafts, you can use them do go up/down for up to 4 levels (but you can't ignore quest levels).
  • Some tweaks to the possessor code as written by Static Chaos.
  • Began to add the Druid class.
  • The Druids can sense precisely the amount of mana of a grid.
  • Fixed bug that crashed game when leaving town on certain systems (Mac and Windows).
© Copyright 1999 Darren Hebden.