Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl]

On 2007-10-31, Darshan Shaligram <scintilla.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 is released. You can find it here:
>
> http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

And you can play it here:

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/

That was remarkably painless. The scoring pages and IRC bot will
catch up soon and start noticing the 0.3 games. 0.2.7 games in
progress are still playable, and you can even start new ones if
you want to. It will go away when no one has played it for a while.

Thanks for the release, DevTeam!

-r.


> Mac binaries should be up fairly soon, sources, DOS and Windows
> binaries are up already.
>
>
> A list of changes (semi-coherent ) is available here:
>
> http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/0.3.txt
>
>
> The Stone Soup team would like to thank:
>
> * Rachel Elizabeth Dillon and Marc H Thoben for running public telnet
> servers (http://crawl.akrasiac.org and http://crawl.develz.org) that
> make playing Crawl a lot more fun and give us a lot of great
> feedback.
>
> * Enne Walker for the Stone Soup tiles port. The tiles port is still a
> work in progress, and is not part of the official Stone Soup builds
> yet, but it rocks nonetheless:
> http://enne.walker.googlepages.com/stonesouptiles
>
> * Everyone who played the buggy, unstable, pre-release 0.3 and gave us
> feedback and bug reports. 0.3 is a better release from your efforts,
> thank you!
>
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

andrew.airmet RemoveThis @gmail.com writes:
[0.3]
> I take it that save files/Bones aren't compatible with the old
> versions?

Right, save files are not compatible (will never be compatible between
different 0.X releases).

--
Darshan Shaligram <scintilla RemoveThis @gmail.com> Deus vult
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

Darshan Shaligram <scintilla.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> writes:

> Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 is released. You can find it here:

> http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

If you're having trouble connecting, please use visit the SourceForge
project page directly:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/crawl-ref

--
Darshan Shaligram <scintilla.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> Deus vult
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

thiskidrob wrote:

> One issue I am having is that the game is repeatedly crashing on me
> (XP Pro on Dell D610) when I (f)ire a dagger, or darts even. The game
> just bombs out.
>
> Its happened in several games so far. Is this happening to anyone
> else?

Not that we would know. The version has been tested a lot on the CDO server.
You should try if you can reproduce the crash there. If not, it might be
best to send over the firing-relevant parts of the init.txt. (Could also be
here, if you heavily snip it.)

> Could this be an errot in my init file?

Perhaps, though that would be rather unusual.

> thanks....

You are welcome. Produce feedback if you like to!
David
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 2, 8:44 pm, dpeg <pl....TakeThisOut@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
> thiskidrob wrote:
> > One issue I am having is that the game is repeatedly crashing on me
> > (XP Pro on Dell D610) when I (f)ire a dagger, or darts even. The game
> > just bombs out.
> > Could this be an errot in my init file?
>
> Perhaps, though that would be rather unusual.
>
> > thanks....
>
> You are welcome. Produce feedback if you like to!
> David

Ok. I have good news, I think I figured it out. In the init file, if
I enable the showbeam line

# show_beam = true

then the game crashed when I fire my dagger. Crashes everytime. I
then disable like shown above, and it does not crash.

As for feedback, I havn't played it too much because of the crashing.
However, I will comment on the changes:

Stone Soup 0.3.0 (20071031)
---------------------------

Disclaimer: These are merely the highlights, not an exhaustive list of
changes.

Characters
----------
* Removed Hill Dwarf and Elf species.
- I won't miss these guys

* Demigods lose fast metabolism, get better stat gain.
* Kenku can kick with their taloned feet, and can fly faster than
normal when lightly burdened.
* Kenku and merfolk get an evasion bonus when in their element.
* Demonspawn get a bonus with demonic weapons.
- all changed to make things easier, I like that


Gods
----
* New god: Beogh, god of Orcs. - should be fun to try
* Changed gods: Nemelex, Xom, Lugonu, Trog, Elyvilon, Okawaru. -
should be interesting to figure out the changes
* No need to pray to dedicate kills. - hmmm nice
* Nemelexites no longer need a portable altar in order to sacrifice
objects. - might actually try em now
* Nemelexites are granted various deck manipulation abilites as they
gain piety.
* [1761974] Trog gets a Burn Books ability.
* [1754125] Trog's Hand and Brothers in Arms replace Might and
Haste. - I like this, change is good
* Elyvilon: Destroy Weapon ability replaces weapon sacrifices.
* Okawaru loses Minor
Healing. - very rarely
used this while worshipping Oki
* Gods won't accept sacrifices of rotten
corpses. - ok fine
* Good gods no longer punish for unintended draining.
- this is nice, because its the thought that counts
* Different messages now indicate piety gain for offered items.

Items
-----
* New missiles: javelins, sling bullets and throwing nets.
* Throwing weapons may be generated with the "returning" brand. -
seems cool
* [1756363] New potion: potion of
resistance. - i look forward to
finding out what this does
* [1744612] Introduced weapons of returning.
* [1789869] Items which the player sees a monster use become -
convenient
identified if they have an obvious effect.
* Artefact jewellery doesn't autoid anymore, instead "obvious"
changes
and abilities give a message. - convenient
* [1768865] Added inscription prompt when viewing items. -
convenient
* Viewing via inventory listing won't leave the inventory.
* [1735752] Autoinscribe wands with zap count. - convenient
* Added autoinscriptions for items used by monsters.
* Warning inscriptions now actually work for all advertised commands
([1795568] !r now prevents scrolls from being read.)
* [1793698] In the item selection menu, pressing "." will toggle the
selection of the item after the previously selected item.
* [1783003] More menu sorting methods, and fixed jewellery sorting
bug.
* Book shops are less likely to stock duplicate copies.
* [1746014] Added command to cycle through ammunition when 'f'iring.

Monsters
--------
* Abominations created by Twisted Resurrection now count as undead.
* Increased spawning rate after picking up the
Orb. - this i am not thrilled about.
Executioners can be deadly. Who would have thought?
* Berserked monsters attack nearby enemies and ignore ally commands.
* Monsters confused by you that kill themselves or others now give
xp. - weeee!
* [1779770] Monsters taking stairs are created according to stair
destination.
* Monster descriptions are shorter when looking at them with 'x' and
targeting.
* Unflasked efreets are
permanent - i
dont understand this right away
* Mummy priests and greater mummies now have high intelligence.
- how will this affect me?

Levels
------
* Added portal vaults, specifically bazaars. cool
* Labyrinths look much different now. - so you're saying I
should check this place out? Ok....
* Changed rock stairs to escape hatches. - doesnt change much
* New trap type: net trap. - fun, i like
* Added several new vault maps. - mmmmmm, treasure, more treasure
* Monster generation rate in the Vestibule drops with time spent in
the Vestibule.
* Fixed sealed rooms being generated in the Vaults. -
good, cuz you know the best randarts ever were being generated in
those rooms, piles of them!

Interface
---------
* [1772497] runrest_ignore_monster can be used to ignore distant
mosters
when running, resting or
exploring. - I will like this as I
fine tune my gaming experience
* Filter talk and sound channels from interrupting resting -
not for me
* Filter information from examining your surroundings from message
history
* Three new informational-only hunger states: near starving, very
hungry
and very full.
* Added pickup.lua for smarter autopickup
* Added trap_item_brand for traps hidden by items
* Added visible beam path for
targetting - think this is my
bug's culprit, i think
* Added warning when trying to fight wielding a non-weapon
* Interlevel travel also allows travelling to entrances of branches
* Polearms can be used to attack monsters submerged in shallow water
using
Ctrl+direction when adjacent. - I like this alot.
* Added support for Unicode glyphs in Unix.
* Large viewport support for terminals larger than 80x24 if the
view_max_width and view_max_height options are set.
* Quit prompt needs "Yes" to confirm.

Miscellaneous
-------------
* Crawl needs Lua - Lua 5.1 sources are included with the Crawl
sources.
* Monster, spell and feature descriptions and monster dialogue are now
loaded from text files.
* [1777426] Explosions can no longer pass through walls.
* Invisibility is more useful. - this
should be great fun as I love playing stealthy stabbers.
* User Lua scripts now have limits on CPU usage and memory use and are
safer
to use on public servers.
* Fixed DOS glitches.
* Game time reported by Crawl clamps time-per-move at 5
minutes. - excellent, for more accurate game times in the
end. very smart
* More fixes for Crawl to play well with dgamelaunch.



Again, great stuff going on here, I will provide more feedback after I
play the new version a little bit. I had been unplayable because of
that bug, but things are going much smoother now. Time to work on
some sort of Kenku character. They never were strong enough off the
bat in the old version. In my head, the Kenku should be tougher, like
they are now.

-thiskidrob
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

thiskidrob wrote:

> On Nov 2, 8:44 pm, dpeg <pl....RemoveThis@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> thiskidrob wrote:
>> > One issue I am having is that the game is repeatedly crashing on me
>> > (XP Pro on Dell D610) when I (f)ire a dagger, or darts even. The game
>> > just bombs out.
>> > Could this be an errot in my init file?

> Ok. I have good news, I think I figured it out. In the init file, if
> I enable the showbeam line
>
> # show_beam = true

Please try 0.3.1 - this is supposedly fixed by now.

> * Removed Hill Dwarf and Elf species.
> - I won't miss these guys

There was quite a bit of rumbling among the player base

> * Artefact jewellery doesn't autoid anymore, instead "obvious"
> changes
> and abilities give a message. - convenient

Actually not: you may have to do guesswork and experimentation to find out
what a randart ring/amulet does (use inscription) in order to settle which
ring/amulet is most important to read-id. (This assumes you are somewhat
short on scrolls of id). So not convenient, but hopefully fun. Mundane
jewellery should much more often auto-id now, OTOH.

> * Increased spawning rate after picking up the
> Orb. - this i am not thrilled about.

It was over the top when it got implemented first. The reduced version has
noone killed yet (as far as I am aware).

> * Unflasked efreets are permanent
- i dont understand this right away

They can be friendly? And hence, their sabres, too? (Guesswork.)

> * Mummy priests and greater mummies now have high intelligence.
> - how will this affect me?

Depends on where you go. They had plant intelligence before, so it is
definitely an improvement

> * Changed rock stairs to escape hatches.
- doesnt change much

No, but it hopefully removes the endless confusion about brown stairs. New
system seems to be consistent.

> * Added several new vault maps.
- mmmmmm, treasure, more treasure

But also more oklobs.

> Again, great stuff going on here, I will provide more feedback after I
> play the new version a little bit. I had been unplayable because of
> that bug, but things are going much smoother now. Time to work on
> some sort of Kenku character. They never were strong enough off the
> bat in the old version. In my head, the Kenku should be tougher, like
> they are now.

Thanks for the feedback, now and later. Have fun,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 4, 10:24 am, dpeg <pl....DeleteThis@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
> thiskidrob wrote:
> > On Nov 2, 8:44 pm, dpeg <pl....DeleteThis@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
> >> thiskidrob wrote:


> > * Changed rock stairs to escape hatches.
>
> - doesnt change much
>
> No, but it hopefully removes the endless confusion about brown stairs. New
> system seems to be consistent.

I'm a little worried about escape hatches dumping the player into the
middle of a vault or an enclosed space, though. On the other hand, if
it were a serious problem there probably would have been complaints
about it during beta server play.

e.
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 5, 4:42 am, erisdiscordia <e... RemoveThis @sky.cz> wrote:

> I'm a little worried about escape hatches dumping the player into the
> middle of a vault or an enclosed space, though. On the other hand, if
> it were a serious problem there probably would have been complaints
> about it during beta server play.

Can't happen. Hatches drop the player onto the nearest spot on the
target level with a path to a white stair.

Lemuel
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 5, 4:26 pm, lemuel.pit....TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
> On Nov 5, 4:42 am, erisdiscordia <e....TakeThisOut@sky.cz> wrote:
>
> > I'm a little worried about escape hatches dumping the player into the
> > middle of a vault or an enclosed space, though. On the other hand, if
> > it were a serious problem there probably would have been complaints
> > about it during beta server play.
>
> Can't happen. Hatches drop the player onto the nearest spot on the
> target level ***with a path to a white stair.*** [emphasis mine]
>
> Lemuel

I'm a little worried that I just scanned 1000 c-r-d messages
yesterday, finally putting me up to speed on such things.

It's a radical turn away from Crawl's traditional sadism, and I'll
shed a tear, but I doubt many others will, so OK.

e.
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 3, 4:16 pm, thiskidrob <thiskid... RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
> * No need to pray to dedicate kills.

I was actually surprised to see this one -- it will make things
easier, I would think, but will remove some of the 'feel'. I liked
getting different results while praying.

I haven't played a Healer in a while, but my vague memory says that
they get punished for killing while praying. Am I wrong? If I'm right,
will this new change mean they ALWAYS get punished for
killing? I was always thinking that some gods who LIKE killing
might really HATE some specific things to be killed and punish for it
while praying.

I'm not _hating_ this change... But I'm not positive about it.

-Wm
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On 7 Nov., 22:05, billy <wtanksle....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 3, 4:16 pm, thiskidrob <thiskid....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > * No need to pray to dedicate kills.
>
> I was actually surprised to see this one -- it will make things
> easier, I would think, but will remove some of the 'feel'. I liked
> getting different results while praying.
>
> I haven't played a Healer in a while, but my vague memory says that
> they get punished for killing while praying. Am I wrong?

No. You interpreted the line above too generously. You do not need to
pray in order to dedicate kills. You still need to pray to announce
corpse sacrifices. For Elyvilon, you still can pray for the
protection, but are assumed to not kill during that period.

This is a pure interface change. The idea will be to render the auto-
prayer command useless, as each praying should be a special activity.
Elyvilon's prayers fully live up to this.

David
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

dpeg <pl....TakeThisOut@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
> billy <wtanksle....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > * No need to pray to dedicate kills.
> > I was actually surprised to see this one -- it will make things
> > easier, I would think, but will remove some of the 'feel'. I liked
> > getting different results while praying.

> > I haven't played a Healer in a while, but my vague memory says that
> > they get punished for killing while praying. Am I wrong?

> No. You interpreted the line above too generously. You do not need to
> pray in order to dedicate kills. You still need to pray to announce
> corpse sacrifices. For Elyvilon, you still can pray for the
> protection, but are assumed to not kill during that period.

I'm not talking about corpse sacrifices at all. I'm talking about
killing versus not killing while praying.

HOWEVER, I get this a little better now. The point of praying to
Elyvilon is to get protection, and the 'cost' of the protection is
that you can't kill. The point of praying to the killer deities is
something else (what?), and the cost is something else.

I was wrong in my 'feel' for why praying to Elyvilon made killing
worse; I thought that it was because Elyvilon despised ALL killing,
but "didn't notice it" while you weren't praying. I think "protection"
is a __much__ better explanation (thanks!).

OTOH, I'd now like to correct my gut feel for what praying to other
deities, specifically the killer ones, is 'for'. As far as I know, it
USED to be in order to dedicate your kills. Now that it doesn't do
that, what's the purpose?

Crawl's prayer system was, IMO, the best one I've seen, and the only
one where prayer actually interacted with the game (modern games would
call it a "minigame"). I'd like to see it pursued and developed, not
minimalized... And although this change is a good one from a UI point
of view, it does have the effect of almost completely removing the
prayer element.

> This is a pure interface change. The idea will be to render the auto-
> prayer command useless, as each praying should be a special activity.
> Elyvilon's prayers fully live up to this.

I really like the idea of eliminating an option like 'autoprayer'.
Even at the cost of changing the feel of the game, I think it's
worthwhile -- but only if there are no alternatives. It would be
'nice' if we could get the good results of both.

And I'm not really unhappy with the new change, by the way. It's not
the direction I'd like to see Crawl go, but not only do I have no
right to complain; I also am happy to note that the change DOES make
the game a bit simpler/easier. However, I'd like to note from my own
experience that the change removes almost all of a very nice feature
which was the main reason Crawl stood out to me when I first started,
and although I'm not asking for the change to be reversed, I would
like to see other instances of the feature added.

In other words:

What effects should prayer have on gameplay? (And what effects does it
have now, in gameplay terms?)

I'll stop now, because I don't have a roadmap for the future of Crawl;
you guys have that authoritatively. Does what I'm talking about make
any sense? Does it, in general, fit in with your roadmap for Crawl, or
is the game now headed in a different direction?

If I'm making sense and not going in a different direction, I'm going
to talk here a while to get some ideas designed and balanced, then
download the source and see if I can throw some cabbage into the stone
soup. I mean, help develop.

If not, I'll do something else fun . Maybe I'll try to add prayer
effects to Omega. (Man, I'm really behind on my responsibilities to
that program!)

> David

-Wm
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl] 

On Nov 16, 4:44 pm, billy <wtanksle....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> dpeg <pl....DeleteThis@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
> > billy <wtanksle....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe I'll try to add prayer effects to Omega.

Ahh, THAT billy -- of william_tanksley_asked_for_this fame. (That
variable, like praying to dedicate kills, is another bittersweet loss
seen in the history of Stone Soup.)

Thought you were gone from the roguelike world forever!

e.
 >> Stay informed about: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 release [Crawl]