Possible new rumors and who should give them.

[Arctic]

The most game-changing discoveries I learned after reading spoilers was:

1. How to save the carperter.
2. Dropping stuff on altars.
3. What to talk to the ancient dwarf about.

I coudn't figure those out fifteen years ago and I'm not sure I could even now if I suddenly just forgot everything about the game. Given that these are more or less basics, there could be more hints or even explanations in the manual to help out totally new players. The manual might have been updated after the last time I read it through though.

[Harwin]

The most game-changing discoveries I learned after reading spoilers was:

1. How to save the carperter.
2. Dropping stuff on altars.
3. What to talk to the ancient dwarf about.

I coudn't figure those out fifteen years ago and I'm not sure I could even now if I suddenly just forgot everything about the game. Given that these are more or less basics, there could be more hints or even explanations in the manual to help out totally new players. The manual might have been updated after the last time I read it through though.

#1 I liked this being a bit of a puzzle. I'm not saying it couldn't be made easier (I figured it out, but that could have been a random stroke of insight - my personal experience doesn't make an entire data set), but I'd like it to stay something that you figure out, even if it is clued better.

#2 can be figured out when you kill something that's standing on an altar, and the objects are now labelled "uncursed", etc. They're also hinted at by the fact that priests have the intrinsic ability.

#3 Which in particular? "Portal" or "Quest"? I asked him about the portal because the portal "seemed to be of dwarven manufacture", if I recall correctly. I thought that was clued adequately. I agree "quest" is a bit weird since no other quest giver seems to require it.

[Harwin]

For herbs... what if herbalism not only identifiedd Blossom/Strong/Withered but told you if it was doomed to die in the next generation? "This herb patch looks stable". "This herb patch looks threatened" or something like that.

[Stingray1]

I forget if there's a hint that you can throw potions and stuff, if not there should be.

Why on earth doesn't Kelly just say he's gonna pop over to town if you save him?? And why is he invisible? I get that it's just to mess with us but think it's a bit over the top.

At least now(latest prereleases), when you have a sling equipped and press 'n' to equip missiles, potions appear in the list together with rocks, clay, gems and bullets.

Also, Khelavaster no longer casts invisibility on himself for no reason. So those two concerns have been addressed.

#1 I liked this being a bit of a puzzle. I'm not saying it couldn't be made easier (I figured it out, but that could have been a random stroke of insight - my personal experience doesn't make an entire data set), but I'd like it to stay something that you figure out, even if it is clued better.

#2 can be figured out when you kill something that's standing on an altar, and the objects are now labelled "uncursed", etc. They're also hinted at by the fact that priests have the intrinsic ability.

#3 Which in particular? "Portal" or "Quest"? I asked him about the portal because the portal "seemed to be of dwarven manufacture", if I recall correctly. I thought that was clued adequately. I agree "quest" is a bit weird since no other quest giver seems to require it.

1. There is a healer then further down there is the carpenter the village elder asked you to find, it is not straight forward, but almost. Does anybody remember whether the village elder says something when the PC has seen the mad carpenter, but hasn't "saved" him yet?

2. Yea, I think most figure that out by having monsters drop stuff on the altar.

3. There is a Fortune cookie: "They say that the ancient dwarf knows a lot about quests."

[gut]

> 3. There is a Fortune cookie: "They say that the ancient dwarf knows a lot about quests."

I consider fortune cookies to be a... suboptimal source of game info.
How many fortune cookies will a noob find before dying 100 times? I
doubt 5. Giving $$$ to beggars is an option, but noobs are more likely
to find a trove of fortune cookies than think to repeatedly pay/chat
with beggars for game info. The inkeeper in dorftown gives them too,
but only if the PC gets drunk, which one of the rumors mentions is a
rather bad thing (which it is not really). Also, many fortune cookies
give either wrong advice or not-so-great advice "they say ye should
wish for mana." I pity the fool who wastes a wish on +2 mana on the
advice of a fortune cookie (yes, I did this as a noob and I'm still
angry). Of course there is always the 400s confucious book...

>> healer quest

> #1 I liked this being a bit of a puzzle.

The only clues I remember about the healer quest is the hint "healers like it if
you throw stuff at injured..." which did nothing but waste my time. It is highly
improbable for any class other than a priest or healer to have healing potions
to throw, and even then, a noob would be 99% likely to personally injure the mob
before trying to heal it, which doesn't work. I didn't learn anything at all about
luring monsters until I had gotten to fire tower or such.

> Does anybody remember whether the village elder says something when the PC has seen the mad carpenter, but hasn't "saved" him yet?

Yes, it is along the lines of 'now put him out of his misery.' not "now lure
him to the healer."

> #2 can be figured out when you kill something that's standing on an altar,

Am I wrong that as soon as a noob stands on an altar and gets an insta-death
they will not like fiddling with altars too much in the future?

> For herbs... what if herbalism not only identifiedd Blossom/Strong/Withered but told you if it was doomed to die in the next generation? "This herb patch looks stable". "This herb patch looks threatened" or something like that.

Better than nothing, IMO.

> Bard songs are a good way to give more hints on obscure knowledge.

Too many already, IMO. I like the idea of the MM giving quest related hints and maybe
some early game advice too, but goodness, shouldn't a line be drawn somewhere? Here is
where I WOULD have inserted the MM dump, but my text editor informs me it is over *10,000*
characters on its own -_-

Also, I think a lot of what he says is just wrong.

> and you should really listen to the sound of my string
for a drakeling has really a hard time in there

No, no drakelings don't. In fact they have the easiest time in there.

> Deep in the forest of moving trees,
Crossing is not such a breeze,
It may take some time, but be persistent,
Even if some may be resistant,
But whatever you do, don't use fire!
Or else you'll be faced with even hotter ire...

Not all fire magic is bad for the AF though, only some. In fact, some fire magic is the best
offense to use. Don't ask me which ones though, as not even I remember for sure.

> Dungeons are Grimy
Blobs are Slimy
When dealing with Puddles
Missiles are Subtle.

Missiles are subtle for puddles... is 'subtle' a good or bad thing? Also, jellies aren't mentioned
specifically, and slimes/puddles are distinct monsters in other games, so the player would be thinking:
"I haven't seen a slime or a puddle, but I'll be on the lookout for them now."

> Molochs are mighty daemons to face,
For they are the strongest of their race,
They possess great strength and much immunity,
So don't try to test out their impunity,
Run! I say, as fast as you can!
Teleport, dig or swim like a man!
Get away! Get away! Quickly, I say!
Else your head will be the main course of the day!

Revenants are worse than molochs on any given day. We need to go through all this mess and
cut out everything that isn't top-notch. These messages are given randomly, therefore
increasing the quantity of mediocre info (and poetry), only increases the noise to signal
ratio. Perform this experiment, just load adom, visit the MM, and see how many attempts it
takes you to get this (very nice, IMO) poem.

> An age ago, there lived a king, most pious and benevolent,
Who from his god received a ring to shield him from the elements.
This king, he had a brother true, a fighter lion-hearted,
Who sought to rout all Chaos through the Gate from whence it started.
He purged the evil from the land, his blade once never faltered,
And only by his god's own hand was his adventure halted.
"O fighter brave," his god did say, "though noble is your mission,
Yet centuries must slip away before it finds completion.
The Balance leans too much to Law, and I must now amend it;
Let Chaos have its time on Earth ere back to hell you send it.
But watch this stair eternally, and wait for Heaven's message,
To show the mighty champion who's earned the right of passage.
For only one you'll step aside and cease your faithful vigil:
The one who wears your brother's ring emblazed with Heaven's sigil."

It took me over 50. I had to wade through dozens of repeats of mediocre poems to get to it.
Also, while I'm mentioning repeats:

> Felines have a shiny fur.
When you feed them, they will purr.
True cat-lovers never harm them,
some musicians try to charm them.
For all others, let me warn them:
As soon as felines meet disaster
their energy rejoins their master.

> The Lord of the Cats is a touchy fellow,
His teeth are sharp and his eyes are yellow.
All kinds of cats he calls his subjects,
Small ones, big ones, all he'll protect.
If kind ye be to cats, I sing,
Talk from him his precious ring!

What do the rest of you think about cutting some MM messages and shifting others
(especially repeats) to other NPCs/cookies/etc...?

[Stingray1]

For a veteran the MM songs do feel long-winded. I do remember as a new player that is was very exciting finding so much knowledge in one place.

Fortune cookies were very exciting too and Confucius's book was like a birthday gift. They are sometimes lies, but I think in just the right amount.

TB is an evil man. I do think I have a lot more perseverance than your average player though, so I do think some leniency is required.

Perhaps we could request that MM songs and fortune cookies are not random, but rather randomly sequenced. So the player has a good chance to read them all in a shorter time. The point in the list could even be saved to a file, so a player will never read the same one until (s)he has read them all. (Edit - Especially for shes)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I think the MM songs are fine. He is a minstrel singing popular knowledge and lore, not a tutorial. I like that there is good advice in his songs but it is not 100% obvious, you need to figure it out. Preventing repeating songs from appearing during the same game would be nice, though.

Also, the advice about the ToEF and molochs is fine for newbies. As an experienced player, I know that doing the tower is actually easier with a drakeling, but that's because I'll prepare myself specifically (lots of spenseweed or an item of regeneration, etc.) But for a newbie it's actually harder because he'll keep losing health and that's scary. And the same with molochs: once you know how to fight them (i.e. take advantage of their slow speed and keep away from them) they may be easier than revenants, but if you don't know them so much, it's a good idea to respect them and to abstain from meleeing them.

Anyway, if he gives some inexact or exaggerated information (as long as it's not the majority of information he gives) I think that's fine. Lore is like that. In real life, we have all lived (at least in my country, I don't know if it's universal) with the popular lore that bathing in the sea within two hours of having lunch was very dangerous and could kill us. I have read articles saying that it's a myth, but mothers keep passing that advice to their children.

About the carpenter puzzle, I think it's fine too. I figured it out by myself because the healer tells you that you need to be able to show mercy. That is a very explicit clue that should make every self-respecting RPGer be on the look for how to show mercy. And when in the same dungeon you find a man that has gone crazy, it's not so difficult to make the connection. Yes, some people might miss it (I'm not calling anyone dumb, we all have had situations where we miss the obvious), but I don't think that the goal of a game puzzle is that 100% people be able to solve it without reading a walkthrough. That would make the puzzle obvious and uninteresting.

I do think some more in-game information about altars would be useful. I played a lot of games before I figured out that I could bless water at an altar, and doing that can be the difference between life and a gruesome death in many situations.

[Harwin]

I found about blessing water at an altar by accident, but I think by the route most people will do so:
1) I figured out you could ID stuff by dropping it on an altar.
2) I attempted to ID stuff by dropping it on an altar.
3) I was in good enough standing with my god ("offering" things seemed pretty obvious - it's what you'd do at an altar - the ID stuff is the less obvious)
4) I got holy water out of it. I do remember being confused the first time I got holy water from a C altar, since it glowed in a black light, but it still ID'd as holy in my inventory, so the confusion was about 5s.

For everything up here, some of us found it obvious, some found it obscure. But I think some level of obscurity should be tolerated, as long as there's a reasonable way to figure it out (I don't think the Village Elder should say "put him out of his misery" if he could say "perhaps ye could find a way to help him". I mean, if a player has encountered the carpenter, and bothered to walk all the way back to town to talk to the Elder, that sounds like a player who wants some help - the Elder should not go out of his way to steer you wrong at that point)


As far as MM songs:
Maybe MM songs should be weighted?
The moloch song is useful, but moloch's are a lesson you'll learn the first time you see one, even if you've never seen the song. (Like the deadliness of the Banshee - it would be nice to know about it in advance, but at least I learned about it the first time it killed me). So it could show up but,
The drakeling song is way more useful - It could be non-obvious what's causing you problems in the ToEF as a drakeling, even if you've done it before.

What if the songs looked at a high score list or some other persistent data, and while no song would repeat in the same game, songs that were more likely relevant to you showed up earlier? So the Cat Lord song is good, but should get higher priority after you've encountered the Cat Lord, or at least beaten the ToEF. And significantly less likely if you've ever earned the ring. The pretty sweet Eternal Guardian song could be more likely after you've encountered Khelavaster (or beaten the ToEF), and less likely once you've ever passed him.

[anon123]

The Confucious book should probably be buffed. It's as rare as an everburning torch, weights as much as four (more directly useful) spellbooks, and usually gives something like 6 rumors before disappearing. The true vs. false rumor ratio is fine in my opinion: a generous chunk of them are true, if somewhat cryptic. Weighting them somehow might not be a bad idea, however. Maybe the book could have the special property of displaying more relevant bits (if on an herb level, show rumors related to herbs; if on a room with an altar show messages related to sacrificing and the gods, etc.).

The Mad Minstrel's songs are useful, but he lives a bit too far from the areas most new players are likely to venture initially.

As for the carpenter, I didn't know you could save him until I watched that famous ADOM video with the Sonata Arctica soundtrack But I don't think there should be clear hints for everything, that'd make the game feel too linear.

[KyoShinda]

Altars still seem very confusing to me, the most I've done is tried to sacrifice some monsters on it and then I stopped doing that. I hear things about certain races get more out of getting rid of certain things and something about a holy symbol(do I just spam-pray that?). What happens if I use an altar not of my alignment? I feel smithing is much easier to figure out than the altar stuff. Does any altar bless water if I drop it there? How do I know how much my 'god' likes me or how much more I need to be liked?

Also, when I pay garth or yergius to increase stats or skills, it seems really vague, I just pay an arbitrary amount and it never seems to do anything at all. I threw like 15k at garth to increase my dex up from 23 and it didn't go up, even after a couple of levels.

Edit: nvm wiki says a lot about altars, altho most of that isn't very obvious