iADOM Discussion

[adom-admin]

Is there any chance of porting this to the iphone/ipod touch? I have an ipod touch and I would definitely pay for the app. I believe iphone apps make quite a bit of revenue and they're great for getting more exposure (with a pc game, you have to rely on online distribution or convincing retailers to stock it).

There are two major technical problems with the iPhone:

• The screen is tiny. Getting a good UI for that is extremely hard - if possible at all. I yet have to see an iPhone roguelike I would like to play more than twice.
• The iPhone poses major problems to ADOM due to the possibility of interrupts: ADOM never was designed for being interrupted while the PC is conversing with some NPC. And then a phone call comes in and the game needs to be interrupted and saved. Currently this does not work at all and Jochen and I are completely unsure about the work required to get this to work. Probably months. We are talking to the interested investor about it but here we are facing several months of coding work - which means serious money since doing this in our hobby time is unimaginable.

I honestly don't see the iPad catching on, while the phone platform is probably here to stay.

I bet against it :-) The iPad for the first time is a platform that would work for anyone - from a 10 year old child to an 80 year old grandmother. It might need a year or two to catch up with the iPhone but as soon as it gets a camera and video telephony it will be the coolest toy ever. The price will get lowered over time and there is so much more Apple could add to it... but as usual they are very tight about adding too much to fast. And why should they? There is no serious competition out there and technology obviously is not the thing required to win. Just look at the iPhone... one thing it doesn't do very well is being a phone. It's so poor compared to modern business phones, the SMS functionality is a joke, the calendar doesn't even have repeating appointments, etc. A joke. Nonetheless I love my iPhone and would not want to be without it. Like 50+ million others out there.

My bet is on the iPad. Android will rank second but it's to tech-savy. And techiness (and open source - as sad as it is) won't win any design awards. Never has...

The main problem is the interface (which is admittedly a huge problem and I'm guessing it's the reason for porting it to the iPad instead). But I think a simplified version would be just as playable, and since it's a phone game it doesn't have to be a full-length game.

The problem being that a simplification basically would have to be a new implementation. I have ideas about that too - but they are unlikely given our limited time budget.

The nethack ports are ok, but having full-size levels and the entire command set makes even the best port really cumbersome. It made an effort to put the commonly used commands right on the main screen, but I still found myself constantly going into the menu to find a command.

Absolutely.

[adom-admin]

Oh, I hope "Deluxe" does not mean "Bug Fixed and Constant Updates" (What would be really cool is to choose your birth month)

No. Bug fixes are for all versions. Constant updates will happen according to my timeframe.

"Deluxe" might mean things like

• the chance to prevent PC death (on an iPad - where it is harder to cheat)
• access to a global highscore list
• various cheat modes
• special game modes (the various foo man challenges)
• a simpler game start
• a means to turn off hunger

And so on. Basically options to tweak game play in non-standard ways and adjust the game to your personal preferences. If that's worth something to you that's fine by me. Otherwise it's fine by me, too ;-)

[adom-admin]

Bugs will be fixed for all ADOM versions since they share the same code base and only differ in platform specific parts.

The new "multitasking" feature of iPhone OS 4 increases the chance for an iPhone release.

How is multitasking related to that :-) ? Does it include a means to hibernate a game in the background without having to save it? That actually really might help with an iPhone port since it would take away one major problem of the port ... the UI being the other one.

[adom-admin]

Exciting news. But I hope it doesn't mean that new ADoM will be iPad only? I'm no fan of those "awesome" portable technologies, for gaming I use my PC and only that. My cellphone is 6 years old and not getting a new one unless this one is beyond repair. I'd have no problem with paying a reasonable price for ADoM deluxe, although I'm more of a Crawl player these days, I'm sure I'd play any new ADoM release. On PC. But if it's iPad only, well... it's new tech, but I'm sure there will be workarounds for that soon enough...

Absolutely. We will support all available platforms for as long as it's technically viable. Especially since Jochen has done an amazing job creating all those ports. There mostly is not much to do... some tweaks for more recent Windows versions possibly but for now we are most concerned with the iPad requirements.

[adom-admin]

He was giving us hope to get the source code, but now it's lost. It's almost like Alan Wake. All that waiting and now it's available only for X360. Is money really that important?

No. Money is not that important. But it helps. And it's a good way to give something back to Jochen for years of unending support and help with ADOM. And I like money, too ;-)

But if I were mostly interested in money I for now would bury ADOM... because the way to wealth is a hard way and if I were to take bets I (and Jochen) probably could earn more money just doing or daily work.

But there is a fascinating and slim chance with these new media platforms and I just want to try it.

And what's so important about the source code. Play with the Crawl sources... you mentioned them as being excellent (IIRC) and so there should be ample stuff to toy with. What's so important about the ADOM sources?

Sometimes I thing that people want the ADOM sources so much because they can't get them :-)

[adom-admin]

[FONT=Courier New]-I'm not getting iPad. Ever. Even if it was free or if it rained iPads. I feel same about certain other technologies.
-The Deluxe version would have to have everything that Adombot has, and more, otherwise why would we buy it? Still, selling that "cheating enabled" version would be like getting some Creator's approval to cheat. You dont need approval for cheating. And if you dont plan to cheat, you dont need such a Deluxe version.

It won't have that much. For sure. But that's not a problem if you don't want it. I'm honestly and seriously happy if you enjoy the free version. That's enough. And if I receive a postcard once in a while from someone in this wonderful world this is more than enough reward.

[FONT=Courier New]-If Deluxe version will hold bugfixes, I wont be paying for it as I've already learned to live with existing bugs.

The bug fixes always will be in all versions.

[FONT=Courier New]-I wanted Source Code out in the open SOLELY so that progress would finally continue somehow, but it isnt going to happen.

I seriously considered giving the ADOM source to the Apache Software Foundation. Just to be the first game in the ASF :-) But I'm not sure if the ASF would be interested in that. But I like the ASF a lot for its mission.

[FONT=Courier New]-JADE seems to be a hopeless wait in this case. Okay, I understand the Creator having some sort of actual life, but in the end, JADE progress will slow/cease, and players arent going to see much of it.

We'll see ;-)

-I'm not very motivated about ADOM and JADE anymore, as (virtually) nothing else will (hypothetically) be done about them to make them better than they are right now. Or in case of JADE, playable.

That's you perfect right. Jochen and I just can try to do our best. Not more, not less. And then decide upon whatever course is best for you - that's perfectly ok!

[adom-admin]

TB, you shouldn't have even dignified that moron with a response. I checked out his laptop's webcam and this is what he was doing.

Hey, is that Lake Powell and the vicinity of Page? The town with more churches than anything else :-) ? I have been there four times (and love the area). Sometimes the world is really small :-)

And yes - I'll try to be less flame war oriented. But sometimes I just need to get something out of my ass ;-)

[Salajem]

someone thought that such a feature might be cool.

I remember that while i wasn't any eager to get it, I saw the idea of the code being released with nice eyes long time ago, too.. In a conversation with a guy named L that wanted the code to be released back then.. I kinda feel regret of having made those my 2 cents about that idea, as this "code releasing" thing it only brought problems, instead of helping at all.. I'm very sorry.

[adom-admin]

Well, I use Steam as a player, not as a game distributor, so I can only tell you what I see as a player.

The auto-update feature does exist. It can be configured in a per-game basis. In my list of games, I can right-click any of them, go to "Properties", "Updates", and choose whether I want to update it automatically or not. If I have chosen yes, it updates in a transparent way when I open Steam (if there is an update, of course). If I have chosen no, it doesn't. Updates can also be paused and resumed.

Unfortunately I don't know what happens if a game does not have backwards save compatibility. The games I have on Steam are either classics that don't update, or multiplayer games where one doesn't save.

Thanks for the input. Sounds a bit complicated for casual gamers but should be manageable in some way. "Steam ADOM" probably would need to explain that to casual gamers but that's not much of a problem.

By the way: please don't listen to the people that insult you for not releasing the source. I think I speak for 99% of the people in this community when I say that I fully respect your right to decide if you will release the source someday or not. But whatever your decision is, it would be sad if it were conditioned by the whinings of the 1% disrespectful ones. I think you shouldn't pay them that much heed.

No way ;-) I have met so many idiots over the past couple of years and the good thing is that for every idiot there are at least two dozen wonderful people out there. No, they won't frustrate me enough - especially since it will be a pleasure to kick idiots out of this turf ;-) On Usenet that was a lot more difficult ;-)

[adom-admin]

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.

That's a very good idea and great advice I will heed.

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?

All these suggestions are very interesting. Please submit them to the ADOM project management tool.