Resurrecting the Adom FAQ and Adom Spoiler FAQ

Folks and fellow travelers,

With the advent of new players along with the new versions (who would've thunk it, huh?) these classic resources (and especially the Adom FAQ) are in need of new maintainers to be brought up to date with the times. They are useful because they are unified quick reference resources for people relatively new to the game and people can refer to them for quick easy answers, where resources like the Guidebook, IGB and wikis are more hardcore, detailed, dense and in-depth, and less beginner friendly. The Adom FAQ is particularly useful because it is the only non-spoily such resource out there (this is reflected in the fact that it was packaged with official distributions of Adom and quite probably will continue to be; see feature 1878).

A few steps need to be taken for this to happen:

First, we need to find able bodied people to take up the job. I suggest two maintainers for two documents, as was done in the past (Léon Planken maintained the Adom FAQ and Raymond Martineau the Adom Spoiler FAQ).

Second, we need to contact the maintainers. Léon should not be hard to find, even if the email address in the AdomFAQ is out of date - he's on facebook. Raymond on the other hand I have not been able to find (I wrote him an email a few weeks ago about precisely this, at the two email addresses I could find online - the one at hotmail.com and the one at freenet.carleton.ca, and I haven't gotten an answer yet). If anyone knows how to get a hold of him, I'd appreciate some help.
The reason they need to be contacted is, first, to ask them to hand over the baton (I don't think they'll have a problem with this, and as a matter of fact I don't think they'd mind if we did it even without asking). Second, and most importantly, so they can give us their original copies. This isn't a deal in the case of the AdomFAQ - it's still online in probably the same form Léon has - but it is in the case of the Spoiler FAQ since if it had to be lifted from the r.g.r.a post, it would need some serious cleaning up in the formatting department, which is doable, but a bit of a hassle; and also because that version is text only and Raymond also used to provide an HTML version.

Third, we need to contact Andy Williams, since he hosts the AdomFAQ and a bazillion links point to that version, so it would be best if he could host the new versions at the same location. Additionally, if willing, he could become the new host of the Spoiler FAQ. Alternatively we could find someone else to host the Spoiler FAQ.
If Andy can't be contacted, we'd have to find somewhere to host the Spoiler FAQ, and perhaps TB/JT could host the AdomFAQ themselves. Then there'd be a lot of outdated links around the net, but those who knew could update theirs, and the document would at least still be available online in an up to date version.

(I hope somebody wants to take up the mantle of AdomFAQ maintainer because otherwise I might have to suck it up and offer myself for the job, and god knows I have a lot of changes coming up in my life soon that'll keep me busy, and of course, I do still like to play the game when I have some time :))

Edit: I have taken up AdomFAQ maintaining duties and Andy Williams will continue to host the new versions. The ADOM Spoiler FAQ still needs a maintainer.

Edit: I have cleaned up the formatting on the plain text Adom Spoiler FAQ and put it up here.

Edit: The new AdomFAQ is now live and it has its own thread for discussion.

Hi. Léon Planken here. :-)

I actually handed over the baton for the ADOM FAQ and the rgra FAQ to Darren Grey a couple of years ago. I may still have the files somewhere myself...

Ah, the r.g.r.a FAQ. I think Darren is a good fit for that one... but I guess it'd be up to him to decide if it needs an update. As for the AdomFAQ, what do you say, Grey? Do you still want to be the one catching it up with these new and exciting times?

Yeah, Leon handed the reins over long ago, but at the time the FAQ was so un-used and in places so out of date that it seemed too much trouble to update it. I suggested a community-centric update but it never quite caught on. If you are motivated to take on the job, aerol, then by all means please do so! I'll happily contribute, but I'm not sure I have the time to be central administrator. I imagine most of us are in the same boat, mind :-/

And the rgra FAQ was flat-out abandoned, since rgra is simply dead.

Fair enough. Darren, Léon, are the copies you have identical to the ones up at adomgb.info? Do you, or does anyone else, know of a way to contact Andy Williams?

The Spoiler FAQ is still gonna need a maintainer :)

A mere twenty minutes or so of updating the AdomFAQ I realize what a pain it is to update two separate versions (html and ascii) manually. I can see why Andy discontinued the ascii version of the guidebook.

Doing ASCII version by hand it totally pointless - it can be done automatically.
I've prepared a "proof of concept" file - autoconversion of http://www.adomgb.info/adomgb-html.zip into ASCII through small linux script:

Code:

---

IFS=$'\n';
links2 -dump adomgb-toc.html >adomFAQ.txt;
for f in `grep 'HREF = "adomgb-' adomgb-toc.html |sed 's/.*>\(.*\)<.*"\(.*\)">\([^<]*\)<.*/\1 \3\t\2/g'|grep -v '#'`; do
  echo @$f@;
  echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" >>adomFAQ.txt;
  echo $f|cut -f1>> adomFAQ.txt;
  links2 -dump `echo $f|cut -f2`>>adomFAQ.txt;
done

---

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cromat

Doing ASCII version by hand it totally pointless - it can be done automatically.

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That's excellent!

Andy Williams has replied and he will continue to host the AdomFAQ in its new version.

Editing this thing is more work than I had anticipated, but it is rewarding, in a way. Grey, I will take you up on your offer and have you proofread this thing and make suggestions once I have a first draft, since you are a fellow Adom veteran and I trust you to have a good eye for this sort of thing.

Grey: would you be willing to rewrite question 3.5.1? It's about crowning and divine gifting. I'll paste it below. If you are willing and have the time, after you rewrite it, just paste the new version here and I'll incorporate it. The question is specifically marked as spoily in the FAQ so don't be too worried about revealing some secrets. Let me know if you're up for it.

Code:

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3.5.1: People keep talking about crowning and pre- and postcrowning
and the problems with all three; what is all this about?

Okay, from the beginning. Crowning is an event of religious
confirmation whereby your deity acknowledges your incredible devotion
by declaring you their Champion and heartily rewarding you with a gift
and other favors. Pre- and postcrowning (hereafter referred to as
gifting) occur when a character does not meet certain requirements,
but is worthy of some acknowledgments; these yield a gift from the
deity, but none of the other benefits. Some view this as an
opportunity for a free artifact and so devote their characters to
their deity at an early age. If all other requirements for a gifting
are met and you still can't seem to get rewarded, there may be too
many artifacts already generated to reward a character of the current
level; god-gifting will only occur if the character's level is high
enough relative to the number of artifacts already generated in the game
(level must be greater than or equal to 8 + (3 *
number_of_artifacts_generated)). So there cannot be any gifting of any
variety below experience level 8, and as soon as any single artifact
is generated, the minimum level becomes 11, and so on ("Your prayer
remains unheard."). It is very difficult to become "extremely close"
to your deity more than once, (each subsequent reaching of the
"extremely close" status will require twice as many sacrifices) but it
should still be possible to get both a pre- and postcrowning gift if
"very close" enough.

Level is irrelevant to Crowning, the above formula is for gifting
(pre- and post-crowning) only.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by aerol

Pre- and postcrowning (hereafter referred to as
gifting)

---

That's actually a good way of calling it. Pre- and postcrowning are the exact same thing, and calling them by the same name ("gifting") would be much less confusing.

Hmm, yeah, that needs a bit of work... The question should probably be split into two - one for pre/post crowns (which is a misnomer, but it's the widely used term) and one for crowning.

3.5.1a. What's all this fuss about pre/post-crowning?

Pre-crowning is the reward of a random artifact gift from your god, but is only given under strict conditions:
- Must be "extremely close" to your god when sacrificing (roughly equivalent to 100k gold)
- Your experience level must be above or equal to 8 + (3 * n), where n is the number of artifacts generated by the game so far, including unfound ones, crowning gifts, and orbs
- Must not be cursed or doomed, including by equipment
- May not be of extreme alignment (L+,N=,C-), otherwise you'll get crowned instead!
If you satisfy these and pray then your god will be nice and give you a random artifact. This has just as good a chance of being useless as useful. Because of the restriction based on the number of artifacts generated most people like to do this early on in the game, as it becomes pretty much impossible later on. Typically players see an early altar in a busy area as being the best route to a pre-crown. With a convenient altar and no artifacts generated you can get a precrown as early as level 8.
You can have multiple pre/post-crowns, but this becomes difficult because each one costs about 60% more piety than the last one did, and each artifact generated pushes up the level requirement. There is also no guarantee that any artifact you generate will be much use, so putting too much effort into this can be a big waste when you could be enjoying the game instead.
Neutral characters should be careful when praying for a precrown, as sacrificing draws them towards N= alignment. Normally you would get to the high enough level of piety, whip yourself or kill a child to deviate from N=, and then pray.
Post-crowning is the same as pre-crowning, but after one is crowned. Typically this is harder because more artifacts have been generated, but it doesn't have any alignment restriction.

3.5.1b: And what about crowning? Is that the same?

No, crowning is almost entirely separate. Crowning is a one-time only event, and is completely independent of level or artifacts generated. To be crowned you must be "absolutely close" to your deity (roughly equal to 100k gold), and be L+, N= or C- alignment. You then pray and your god crowns you champion of your alignment, giving you an artifact based on your class and race, a random elemental immunity (one you don't already have) and permanent Blessed status (as per the Bless spell). Crowned characters also can wear more artifacts without it affecting their hunger rate.

Once crowned if you deviate from your main alignment (lawful, neutral or chaotic) then you lose your crowned status and become a "fallen champion". Fallen champions can never be crowned again, not even under another alignment, and may struggle to regain piety. Some quests are also closed to them.

One little thing - doesn't the cursed/doomed thing also apply to crowning?

Yes, but it's such a minor thing I didn't consider it worth repeating. You don't want too much detail in a FAQ.

Thanks a lot, Grey - with some small edits, this will go pretty much as is into the FAQ. Only three sections remain to be rewritten now: 1.7, 1.8 and 3.1.1 (a big one). After that, the first draft will be finished.

Edit: only 3.1.1 remains to be rewritten.

The second draft is nearly done - thanks to Grey for proofing the first draft. I will be adding a new question: "2.0: What are some of the basic keyboard commands I need to know?" - suggestions are welcome. After that, the final draft will be finished.

Two things: first, I took the plain text of the Adom Spoiler FAQ from the newsgroup, cleaned up the formatting a little, and put it up here. Whoever wants to work on a new version will now be able to skip the initial formatting cleanup and go right to rewriting. I really hope someone will be willing to take on the job since the value of that document is its sheer conciseness - it's even shorter than the regular FAQ. Would be a real nice resource for people new to the game, giving quick and dirty answers to frequent questions without them having to dive deep into the Guidebook or other such in depth resources.

Second, I'd appreciate some proofreading/comments/suggestions on the last bit of text to be added to the FAQ:

Code:

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2.1a: What are some of the basic keyboard commands I need to know?

- Press ' > ' to enter a location on the wilderness map (hamlet, village, cave, tunnel, wilderness square, etc.)
- Press ' C ' to chat with creatures.
- Move into creatures to attack them with fists or wielded weapons/items.
- Press ' t ' to use a missile weapon/throw something.
- Press ' i ' to bring up your inventory.
- Press ' , ' to pick something up.
- Press ' d ' to drop something.
- Press ' e ' to eat something.
- Press ' D ' to drink something.
- Press ' l ' for the look/examine command. This lets you move the cursor around the screen to examine
your surroundings.
- Press ' @ ' to bring up information about your character.
- Press ' S ' to save your game.
- Press ' ? ' at any time within the game to bring up the look/examine command, a complete list of the
keybindings (commands), the manual and the readme (mini-faq). The list of keybindings is there to
help - don't neglect consulting it. (Reading the manual doesn't hurt either.)

Don't be intimidated by the total number of commands. You do not need to use each and every one of
them to play the game, and within a few games the ones you use will stick, and then become second nature.


2.1b: I can't seem to move diagonally, but the monsters around me have no problem doing it. What's going on?

Your character can move in all eight directions (up, down, left, right, and all diagonals) as well as wait in
place. In the game the cardinal points are also used to refer to these eight directions (north, south,
east, west, etcetera). You can use the numbers 12346789 to move in all directions and 5 (or '.')
to wait in place; the arrow keys can also be used for north-south-east-west. You will notice that this has
been designed with a <numpad> in mind. If your keyboard has a numpad, ideally you will use it to move.

If you do not have a numpad, see <this forum thread> or <this other one> for alternatives. If after reading that
you want to change your default keybindings by editing the adom.kbd file, see <this post> if you need
help with finding that file.

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- Press ' @ ' to bring up information about your character.

sometimes it is alt-q

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gut

- Press ' @ ' to bring up information about your character.

sometimes it is alt-q

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Does it depend on the OS?

The new AdomFAQ (version 6.0, last change March 6th 2013) is live at http://adomgb.info. Thanks to Andy Williams for the continued hosting. It will now get its own dedicated thread.

If somebody knows the answer to my question in the post above, I'd appreciate the help :)

Ideally somebody will step up and want to take over maintaining the Adom Spoiler FAQ. I would suggest to future maintainers not to expand the document too much or add too many new sections - just correct the inaccuracies and rewrite when necessary. The old list of questions in the last version is a good roadmap to keep since most of it is still relevant to today's frequently asked spoiler questions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aerol

I would suggest to future maintainers not to expand the document too much or add too many new sections - just correct the inaccuracies and rewrite when necessary.

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Do you really believe that to be the best case? New classes, new races, new chaotic traits, new techniques, new everything... I would expect 1.2.0 wisdombook to be a lot different than 1.1.1...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aerol

Does it depend on the OS?

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It's alt-q in the Windows version, at least in 1.1.1 winbeta4 AFAIK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Laukku

It's alt-q in the Windows version, at least in 1.1.1 winbeta4 AFAIK.

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Thanks :) Good to know that what I included in the AdomFAQ was correct ("Press ' @ ' to bring up information about your character. Depending on your operating system the command can be 'alt-q' instead").

Quote:

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Originally Posted by szopin

Do you really believe that to be the best case? New classes, new races, new chaotic traits, new techniques, new everything... I would expect 1.2.0 wisdombook to be a lot different than 1.1.1...

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Well, that's the thing: the Spoiler FAQ is not meant to be the guidebook :) It's meant to be quick and dirty answers to spoily FAQs. Pavel has already said he will update the IGB once the final 1.2.0 comes out to reflect all the changes. That, and the Adom Guidebook wiki, and the other Adom wiki at wikia.com, will be the new up to date in depth resources. But it would still be a great thing for our community to have an updated and corrected Spoiler FAQ :)