iADOM Discussion

[Nobbse]

Personally, I wouldn't like to see changed too much in ADOM anymore. Why? Because ADOM is not only the EXE-File and the good manual - it's also the heap of material You find in the internet to help You through the first steps (the famous guides, the forums, the wikis, ...) . And imagine a new ADOM version that is not compatible to the lot of since long existing information anymore.

The most important thing for a new ADOM version is not working on bugs most of the very new players won't ever see. The most important thing is cleaning up the terminology and information given in the Manual and in the game and thus help the new player. The greatest ADOM experts won't help much here, because they are too used to the strange ADOM world, so they don't see some of the hurdles for new players anymore.


Much of the help I'd like to give new players is quite simple:

- Make sure the reader does understand the difference in the manual between "Praying" for help with "_" and "Praying" with Using a holy symbol as god-o-meter. I would say for "_" command "begging" or "pleading" might be a better term. And is there any information about "crowning" somewhere? And that it only might happen if you are begging with very very high piety on an altar?

- In Play, every new class power You can Use with CTRL-X is introduced to the player at the time he is capable to use it. So why not introducing the special abilities that you can use with "m" ? I wonder how many drakelings died because they didn't remember or knewabout the special skill drakeling spit - it should be introduced to the player. Or what about the exhale sulfur - corruption? The information that the player can use drakel spit now should be given to him. Likewise the information CTRL-I to the new born mindcrafter...

- another thing I'd like to see is an "in-game-save-scumming-option" - after you died you will be given another (f.e.) 10 turns of play (if you want to) just to see what might have happened if You had zapped this wand or read that scroll or drank that potion - but the final outcome after these 10 turns won't be saved anymore

- what about two or three little standard savefiles (a barbarian, a wizard, ... ) , that are included or given with ADOM to have certain distinct situations that can be used in tutorials to explain the keybindings?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Personally, I wouldn't like to see changed too much in ADOM anymore. Why? Because ADOM is not only the EXE-File and the good manual - it's also the heap of material You find in the internet to help You through the first steps (the famous guides, the forums, the wikis, ...) . And imagine a new ADOM version that is not compatible to the lot of since long existing information anymore.

Well, I think the webs should follow ADOM and not ADOM follow the webs! But anyway, new versions being released won't stop you from keeping playing 1.1.1 if you want to use the current guides, etc. The current version will probably be archived like the previous ones: http://www.adom.de/adom/archive.php3

The most important thing for a new ADOM version is not working on bugs most of the very new players won't ever see.

Why wouldn't they see them? Thinks like the Khelly crash bug affect new and old players alike, as long as they are skilled enough to get to Khelly. And yes, perhaps you might consider that a player that gets to Khelly is not so "new" anymore... but if the first time you get there you get a crash, you're not likely to keep playing ADOM for long.

- Make sure the reader does understand the difference in the manual between "Praying" for help with "_" and "Praying" with Using a holy symbol as god-o-meter. I would say for "_" command "begging" or "pleading" might be a better term. And is there any information about "crowning" somewhere? And that it only might happen if you are begging with very very high piety on an altar?

Why should there be information about crowning in the manual? These are things that players were supposed to discover for themselves, and it's fine that way IMO. Players who wish to be spoiled about things like that already have the GB or the wiki to get as spoiled as they wish.

I agree the other features you suggest are quite cool, but to me, bugfixes are much more important. Cool features are nice but I'd rather have a stable, balanced game that always works than a game with cool features but with random crashes at some points.

[gut]

Maybe he meant the bug I submitted. The one about
chatting with Thrundarr for the first time, while having
10K corruption points. Yeah, nobody but me had
trouble with that one for nearly a decade

Crowning and smithing are two of the most-asked
questions. A tutorial such as the one available with
Crawl, would be wonderful for new ADOM players.
Took me a long time to figure out how to enter Terinyo
when I first started playing, and only kicked monsters
for the first few days because I didn't understand to
just bump into them.

I've also come to regard some ADOM bugs to be features.
The uber-foo is the best example. I'd honestly hate to
see it go...

[The Metro Gnome]

I agree with gut (for once) that a cute little window would pop up when you start ADOM for the first time explaining simple commands like < > e T "bump into monsters to attack" "to equip junk press 'i' and then the letter that corresponds to the equipment" and the ever so popular "? then k for the list of commands"

[Silfir]

Smithing is summarized quite sufficiently in the manual. To every player who comes to a forum with the desire to have something spelled out and explained to them, there's dozens who'll figure it out for themselves. The ADOM manual in general is quite decent.

Also, bugfixes. Do them. I can't recall any bug currently in ADOM that would be worth keeping in as a feature. The crashing bugs destroy characters and cause bad experiences, the exploitable bugs are all unnecessary and cause the game experience to degenerate.

[Nobbse]

Well, I think the webs should follow ADOM and not ADOM follow the webs!

ok

And yes, perhaps you might consider that a player that gets to Khelly is not so "new" anymore...

you are a mindreader

but if the first time you get there you get a crash, you're not likely to keep playing ADOM for long.

Khelly is an important milestone in the game, so I admit: you are right here.

Why should there be information about crowning in the manual? These are things that players were supposed to discover for themselves, and it's fine that way IMO.

Hm, I wonder whether I had ever detected the crowning possibilty by accident without reading guidebooks. (Even knowing about it, it took a long time for me to detect HOW to do it (simply "_" praying on an coaligned altar with high piety) . I feel that because crowning is an important strategical method it should be mentioned ( it's more the pre- and post-crowning where I feel like you) . Even the method how to detect item status with altars and how to produce holy water should be somehow "official info in the manual" because such methods may be known to roguelike veterans but not to the new gamers ADOM wants to reach now.

I agree the other features you suggest are quite cool, but to me, bugfixes are much more important.

I see them not only as "nice-to-have-features". I simply thought about that TB's time is a rare resource and should be used as wisely as the 5000 gold by Thrundarr So I thought about what may be both helpful for new players and may be "easy-to-code" for TB that doesn't know the ADOM-code by Heart anymore like 12 years ago. Such features are a "quick win" ("quick win" as a software developement term) for all. The bugs that are still alive in ADOM are probably greater killer bugs. They would have been killed long ago by the creator in the case they would have been killed easily. Just one: the mirror shatters - Perception-decrease works also in dark rooms. I stumbled 2 or 3 times about it. Yes it would be nice if TB would repair it. But I think most players can live with it and for new players are features like those I mentioned more important, especially the 2 or 3 tutorial savefiles. It would be nice if the player had the possibility to produce such tutorial save files. I know that this can be abused to savescumming - so what? Let those save files have a "tutorial water mark" and we have it all - the official savescumming-possibiliy without cheating. You even might have somebody win the game founded on a tutorial save file, so what? The watermark is still there and in the case he kills the watermark in the logfile we all know that he has not cheated us but only cheated himself...

[Grey]

The ADOM manual in general is quite decent.

Indeed, it's one of the best of any roguelike out there. Possibly *the* best.

Bug fixes are all we want right now. Maybe in future we can consider some neat new features

[adom-admin]

So this is why TB never released the source code. He was just waiting for some platform to appear which could in theory sell couple of ADOM deluxe or whatever. F U man.

Ok, man - try to keep pissing me off and you are out here.

And read my response to your previous drivel. Last warning.

[adom-admin]

As someone who KNOWS that apple products are WAY WAY overhyped and doesn't really care for them at all - why can't we have ADOM for other/better devices? Maybe even one that embraces open source and won't make you jump through hoops to get it on their store - like Android!!

Make and Android app instead - in my opinion 100000000000x better!

:-)

Why not? iPad is just the first step because I personally love Apple products (despite their price - they just have a level of humane usability that IMHO is unsurpassed - and neither technology nor openness help in that regard - but I also like Android as an idea and my guess would be that - once we have ported ADOM to the iPad - more versions could follow more easily).

And I'm not concerned if you don't like the iPad version but rather would prefer to keep playing the PC version - do so by all means. I'll try to keep the general code base common for all platforms.

Only some selected deluxe features will become "payware". More on that in other responses in this forum.

[adom-admin]

Personally, I'd like to keep ADOM free. That's what makes it such a great game for me. It's simplicity added with it overly complicated junk make it a really worthwhile game. Sure, most people who already KNOW about ADOM would buy the paid version for whatever, but all those others who don't know about it will probably just ignore it (Like I do with apps for the Ipod that look weird or boring but aren't)

Over all, I saw "Keep ADOM Free!" or KAF for short.

Just to state if for the final time:

• ADOM always will be free (as in postcard - I love postcards and I definitely at some point this year will try to post the nicest ones to the blog).
• ADOM Deluxe will ask for money for some enhanced features. You can decide if you like them enough to pay or not. Prices will be very moderate and going to cinema still will be more expensive.