Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) => Topic started by: getter77 on January 26, 2012, 09:56:48 PM
-
http://solsticeroguelike.weebly.com/
"Previously titled Rogue Project 2, I have given my roguelike the name
Solstice, and released an early version (Solstice because the Sun
plays a part in the game mechanics, as well as the moon).
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!"
Solstice is a turn based game in the tradition of Rogue, NetHack, and Dungeon Crawl. However, Solstice attempts to move the game beyond the cramped confines of the dungeon into an open world, procedurally generated each time you play. Solstice is a world where the Romanesque empire of Imar is at constant odds with the Throne of the Jade Dragon. On the eve of the last summer solstice, the previously impenetrable Barrier in the Eastern Sea has dropped, allowing ships to travel to SunRise Islands, which have been cut off from all contact for hundreds of years.
Solstice has several planned features including:
A completely player designed homebase which will be subject to attack by rival forces.
Large, procedurally generated, persistant overworld.
Autonomous, customizable allies
Version Notes 0.0.22 - Alpha
New features:
Screen now scales properly even if user has DPI set to alternative value. Can manually scale screen in cases where auto settings don't set correctly.
Rewrote display routine to be considerably more efficient - screen recenters less often, and only redraws the affected area, rather than the entire screen as before.
4 Item hotkeys added
25 new monsters.
Large parts of the monster AI rewritten.
2 new biomes (desert, volcanic peaks) with associated hazards (eg,
lava)
5 new procedurably generated map types (BSP type dungeons, cellular automata generated caverns, etc). Some of these are many levels deep.
Changed endurance mechanic to require player to periodically rest (camp) as well as eat and drink. Neglecting eating, drinking, and resting is not currently lethal, but your stats suffer greatly as time carries on.
Allies (temporary in the form of charm monster, permanent, commandable allies are coming, with inventory)
Rudimentary home base editor (can place walls and some buildings; this is leading to the ability to create your own complete town/castle/whatever, in anticipation of sieges - note that you must establish your home base first, and then you can edit it from the overworld) Right now, it simply builds whatever you want in stone/housing material - in the future your resources are limited, but for now you can build what you want.
Containers (chest, bags, etc)
Also note that the few skills I have in the games are just examples to test the interface and skill screen. They are fully functional, but not represetative of what kind of skill I am planning on having.
Brigand
Sounds great and his last project had quite a bit to it if memory serves, here's hoping for a day when it has a spiffy Roguebasin entry and even moreso hopefully brisk dev pace now that it has a proper name 8)
-
As usual nice job on flagging this one. The Rogue Project 2 page is still up and there is nothing about Solstice mentioned. The version number does match though.
-
I found it on the Google Group Announce thing section, which is still a way some folks post release blurbs and all instead of anywhere else. The more places a given release is visible, the better! :D
-
v0.0.23
Lots of undocumented changes and refinements, including a relatively
big hurdle of the merchant interface (which allows trading in addition
to simply buying with gold).
Spring semester is finally over, and I only have 1 class over the
summer, so hopefully I will make some headway the next few months.
Thanks to anyone who took a few minutes to check it out :)
Brigand
~~~
New features:
Merchants and merchant interface are complete (villages may contain blacksmiths, different types of vendors, healers, etc). Note that the vendors are sometimes picky about what they will buy - blacksmiths will happily buy metal items from you (to resell or meltdown), but they won't buy your trash, or items that have no relevance to their career (why would a blacksmith buy alchemical herbs, for example). Merchants inventory will change intelligently over time (it's not just a random swap, items get bought and sold as time passes)
Revamped skill screen to maximum of 102 skills (press SPACE to page through) in anticipation of number of skills planned. Should also be more obivous what skills are usable where (and also what skills can be assigned to the overworld hotkey set and what can be assigned to the submap hotkey set.)
Items now have a repair level. (Weapons can become dull or damaged, boots may protect your feet from acidic slime, but eventually will become corroded, etc)
You may now camp in the overworld to rest and regain your endurance (beware of being ambushed). Being tired has a major detrimental effect on your combat abilities. If you have food and water (or are near a source of fresh water) when you camp, you regain much more endurance. You still can't die from starvation, and I am not sure how I want to handle lack or food (I don't simply want to cut and paste the food clock mechanic from other roguelikes).
Added a visual representation of the weather conditions, sun, and moon (moon phases are not complete yet, some decisions yet to be made about the timing and effects.) Hopefully makes the reason for the changing field of view more obvious.
Ranged weapons can be enchanted. Ammo does not get anchanted - the shot is charged by the launcher.
New monsters and monster abilities (for example, a spider can squirt you with web fluid)
Changed poison mechanic. I don't simply want different colors of the same effects, and setting someone on fire and poisoning originally did the same thing - they reduced your hp over time. The only difference was jumping in water put out fire. Now poison reduces your physical stats for a period of time. At this point, all status effects now do something different.
Refinements to map generation (long way to go on villages, but gradually filling them in - village houses, for example, have some furnishings, or a smiths workspace will have an anvil and forge).
If you see 2 villages next to each other, its not a random quirk - they will likely be connected the same way you would see them on the overworld when you walk around at the submap layer.
Changes to targetting and bump to attack. You can attack anything you want via CTRL+move, but the default behavior is to displace non-hostile creatures. Now, you can't target a friendly by mistake - it must be hostile to you first. Maybe I should add CTRL+TAB to target friendlies?
If you dont like all the goofy colors in the message log (which are color coded to effect and action) you can cut them off with CTRL+K.
These are the most visible changes - probably 90% of the changes are with the engine.
Quite a nice update, here's hoping to a lively summer indeed for this one and it just may shoot up the ranks as a dark horse. 8)
-
It lives...though mysteriously as it was undated! :D
v0.0.24 Alpha
Corrected a bug in the display weather routine that caused the display to not work when entering certain terrain types.
-
v0.0.27 Now with only explicitly implied mysterious progress! 8)
Honestly, there are tons and tons of non-visible changes. Things like a full revamp of creature AI where pathfinding is concerned ("intelligent" creatures will attempt to track the last location they saw or heard you using a fast, (more) accurate algorithm rather than a simple "if monster.x > player.x then monster.x--" type, whereas dumb ones are more of the "out of sight - out of mind" nature).
Many UI Improvements -
Shift + hotkey allows you to quickly assign a skill to a hotkey, although the old method of assigning them in the skill screen still works the same.
Some skills will now allow you to see their current range and confirm the attack with ENTER, rather than wasting the skill on an out of range creature.
Allies can be given rudimentary commands (return/recall, aggressive stance, passive stance, stop and wait here)
etc...
Bug fixes -
Creatures levels are now more appropriate to their habitat. (Also fixes the bug where certain levels had no creatures in them.)
Can no longer place large items in small containers
Performance changes to display algorithm
etc...
New skills -
Stealth
Weapon skills
Static charge
Gust of Wind
Flash powder
etc...
New monsters
New biomes (not so many of these this time - villages populated by hostile humanoids comes to mind, but 1 or 2, and lots of tweaks to existing ones)
Sorry I didn't list everything out. Its been a while since I last updated, and I spend at least some time on this every day tracking down bugs, polishing things, and generally testing everything I can, since this is entirely 100% my own code and there is no one else testing...and while I keep a log of changes and fixes to be done, usually if I find a bug, I immediately fix it, and never record it, so it's hard for me to recall everything.
Once I get past summer finals this week I will devote some time to the quest system and actually give you a reason to do things, rather than just wander around pointlessly killing and looking for loot. Haven't started yet because its a major undertaking I need to think about, and I have been very busy lately (took an AI class over the summer and I am regretting it!)
Brigand
Looks like things are due to get extra lively here these next few weeks with it----excellent!
-
Fortune smiles upon my random bookmark browsing of the horde:
v0.0.29
Just an incremental update to let people know I am still working on it, though there is actually a ton of new stuff (some incomplete). Last semester of grad school starts Monday, and I'll continue to work on it, but I want to at least to get to Beta this summer, and v1.0 by years end if at all possible. It doesn't help I am waffling now between abandoning this project and starting over using C++ and libtcod, and completing it....If I do finish it, it will be my last VB project ever.
Improvements
- New game mode - Infinite Dungeon - Basically, you descend forever, trying to stay alive as long as possible. Added it to test balance, but I will probably leave it in permanently, though it will of course need a lot of improvement - but for now, it is functional if you would rather just hack and slash. Vendors will randomly appears every level or so.
- Massive (like roughly 200%+) improvement in performance (that honestly should have happened long ago).
- Redesigned the skill screen - while it looks the same, you can now use the arrow keys (or continue to use direct hotkeys), and I have dropped some of the superfluous "modes" - there was no need for an "examine skill" mode, for example. Now highlighting a skill automatically describes it, ENTER activates it, and pressing a number hotkeys the skill to that number...much less fuss than before. The only remaining "mode" is purchase mode (accessed with BACKSPACE), in which pressing ENTER buys a skill.
- Some ease of use UI improvements - you can press e from the map screen to equip items quickly, rather than going into the inventory - added this for hotkeying skills as well. Will add the ability to drop items without going into the inventory screen as well (probably before the end of today).
- Added monk combo system framework, though the effect part needs to be implemented (need to think about it - i don't want a simple repetition of other skills).
- Added the quest system framework. Currently you can pick up simple "kill X" quests from specific villagers (village elders), and return to them for more quests when done. This is by no means the extent of the quests you can do - just a basic random quest generator to test the quest framework, that will probably stay in as a minor feature for those so inclined.
- Some new items, and required skills - for example, higher levels of shield proficiency allow the use of more cumbersome shields, as a basic example.
- Reduced starting stats a bit, and gave certain classes inherent resistances, though the addition of races and more classes will affect this later. Changed the starting items a bit as well.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where items were not being randomly enhanced/enchanted.
- Stealth breaks on certain actions now, and remains on others (for example, blink or heal do not break stealth, but any direct attack does).
- Fixed a bug where the screen would go blank for the next turn after drinking or eating.
- Healers now remove all status effects for a price, rather than just disease (unlikely that you will be on fire or poisoned in a friendly village in normal game mode, but helpful in Infinite Dungeon Mode.)
- Fixed a bug where traps that were uncovered were permanently hidden again if you left the game and continued later.
- Fixed a bug where continuing an Infinite Dungeon game could crash (because it tried to load the non-existant overworld).
Sorry for all the half finished features. If a bug is game-breaking, or (speculatively) easy to fix, I sometimes get sidetracked chasing them down, and like clicking link after link on Wikipedia, I end up working on something other than I intended. But, I do maintain a log of everything thats going on and will get back to finishing them - priorities are just constantly in flux.
And if you feel I should scrap this and just move on to another attempt in a better language, or simply find the current effort too derivative, please let me know. I am always open to suggestion.
Brigand
Personally I hope the project continues in whatever manner will get it fully realized in as timely a fashion as possible considering the description at the top of the page is still quite a fantastic goal. Let 2013 be a grand year for the few Mega-Projects toiling in the shadows! 8)
-
v0.0.33
Bug fixes
Cleaned up some of the message timing in the logs (eg, effect message reported before hit message).
Trainers no longer offer unuasable skills in the Infinite Dungeon (Overworld only skills, eg, Alter Weather)
New features
High score list color coded to game mode (old high scores file won't be loaded properly)
New monk combo attacks.
Alchemist can now create a magical flare which repels evil enemies.
Balance changes
Stat points per level now static at 10
Skill points per level now static at 3
Bug fixes
Dual wield hit chance was not being correctly calculated.
Blindness from Gust was being calculated for every square pushed.
Skill listing now correctly colored based on what hot-key set you are assigning to.
New features
Static charges will now trigger off of off-hand metal weapons, or shield bash attacks with metal shields.
Gust of wind can now blind targets with dust and dirt.
Flash powder can further confuse blinded targets.
High score list.
Some lights extinguished during the day.
Balance changes
Ice armor
cooldown, duration, and bonus defense/evade adjusted.
Frost ray cooldown
reduced.
Base mana pool calculation increased.
Bug fixes
- Npcs can no longer leave the map when you revisit after a long time.
- Reenabled streams and ponds in village maps, with house placement corrected (no more overlapping walls, or doors blocked by furniture).
- Diseases were being incorrectly cured when leaving/reentering a submap (they were flagged as temporary status effects instead of permanent).
- Refactored AI code; improvements in performance.
- Creatures with Web ability could not use it if they had no ranged ability.
- Opening a container now drops item at feet instead of randomly.
- Changed how potion identification worked (as well as whether a flask of water is tainted/salty)
New features
- Can now drink from wells to regain endurance
- Potions of Curing
- Swimming can now be detrimental to unprotected inventory
- Added lighting (eg, from torches, lantern, fire, lava, etc)
New Features
- Added mouse controls (left click to move in the direction of the mouse, right click to autotravel with pathfinding, and right click a creature to target it)
- Some vendors (eg, blacksmiths) will now allow you to pay for training; training the first level of a skill this way (unlocking it) does not costs a skill point, but the vendor only provides a basic level (level 1) of training.
- Added trainers throughout the world who will unlock skills for you for a price (though you still need to spend skill points to use them). You can even train skills from a different class if you find the appropriate trainer.
- Quest log now gives coordinates of the location where you received the quest.
- Added a "rest until healed/mana restored feature" (Numpad period).
- Added scent tracking as a behavior for aggressive animals/blind creatures. Intelligent creatures will remember where they last saw the player and attempt to move to that spot.
- Added temporary buff expiry messages.
- Mage skill - Ice Armor
- Monk skill - Combo system - new combos added (with new effects, such as knock-back or stun)
- Monk skill - Endure Elements
- Alchemist skill - Scavenge Shot ("shot" being ammo)
- Rumors and hints from villagers
- More new monsters
- Shopkeepers of various types can be encountered in the Infinite Dungeon.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug where the shopkeepers name was being incorrectly displayed on the Vendor screen.
- Reduced shopkeepers initial inventory so they could actually buy items from the player
- Fixed a bug where houses could overlap in villages
- Fixed a bug where filling a flask with water duplicated the empty flasks.
- Skill checks for negative values were being calculated as positive values (notably, a -100 resist actually provided +100 resist)
- Skill selection now persists when you exit the skill screen and re-enter (used to move the cursor back to the first skill every time.)
- Fixed bugs for the enchanter - not correctly deducting payment. Debating reducing the number of times you can enchant, or possibly making it progressively more expensive.
- Fixed a bug with accessing containers from the submap
- Very slightly decreased maximum inventory size to deal with items being manipulated on the inventory screen (if you take an item out of a container, but your inventory is full, etc...)
Now here's a fine surprise to kick off the morning---IT LIVES! 8) Seemingly still engaged in mortal combat with Visual Basic to boot!
-
Sounds really promising, although it's a bit discouraging that he seems to work on it once a year...
I'll definitely give it a play later on!
-
Sounds really promising, although it's a bit discouraging that he seems to work on it once a year...
Sorry for slow updating :( Grad school started and finished, new job started, my 2 children born, and moved to a new city since the project began. If people show interest I will update more frequently.
And yeah, I know VB6 sucks - unfortunately that's what I knew when I started coding this so long ago - learned a lot of new programming languages in the past few years, and I think my next project will be in something more portable and modern, but I hate to throw away the project and start over - thousands of lines of codes and lots of hours invested to start over.
-
Sounds really promising, although it's a bit discouraging that he seems to work on it once a year...
Sorry for slow updating :( Grad school started and finished, new job started, my 2 children born, and moved to a new city since the project began. If people show interest I will update more frequently.
That wasn't meant to be recrimination, sorry if it sounded that way. I just meant that I've played so many roguelikes which had good ideas but were abandoned early on, it gets disappointing after a while, and annual updates give the impression that it's unlikely to ever be 'finished' so I'm wary of getting too hopeful.
As an aside, Chrome thinks it's malware. I hope it isn't. :-\
-
As an aside, Chrome thinks it's malware. I hope it isn't. :-\
I certainly hope not, unless I have learned to code malware in my sleep :) Maybe it doesn't like all the custom disk access stuff (written in response to no one have the right ocx files installed to display file explorers....still haven't figured that one out.)
-
A couple of users have reported "Run-time error '13' Type mismatch", but no information on when it happened, and I can't replicate it. Anyone seen this bug?
-
Not so far. I'll look out for it.
-
Not so far. I'll look out for it.
Thanks for giving it a spin for me, Samildanach, I really appreciate it :)
-
The game took a bit of figuring out to start with but I'm enjoying it. Very ambitious. Nice visual style, too.
I had a rough time in a room full of mushrooms. The priestess saved me.
-
A couple of users have reported "Run-time error '13' Type mismatch", but no information on when it happened, and I can't replicate it. Anyone seen this bug?
Oh yes. I used to see it every day in the times when Fame was written in VB6. That was a wonderful language, light years before Java or anything like that.
-
So Chrome is marking my file as malware, or at least "This program is not commonly downloaded and could be dangerous."
According to their website, their only acceptable form of remediation is to add a tag to the page's html code so their scanners can flag the page as safe...except I don't own my domain - it's a free website program, and I don't have access to the underlying html.
Obviously my program is not malware (obvious to me at least - who would spend years on a project and devote this much time to detailing the world simply to act as a trojan horse for some malware?)
Does anyone know a way to avoid this that doesn't require me to outright purchase my own domain? I just need a free service to distribute my files, or alternatively a way to package them so they don't trigger the exe warning.
-
So Chrome is marking my file as malware, or at least "This program is not commonly downloaded and could be dangerous."
According to their website, their only acceptable form of remediation is to add a tag to the page's html code so their scanners can flag the page as safe...except I don't own my domain - it's a free website program, and I don't have access to the underlying html.
Obviously my program is not malware (obvious to me at least - who would spend years on a project and devote this much time to detailing the world simply to act as a trojan horse for some malware?)
Does anyone know a way to avoid this that doesn't require me to outright purchase my own domain? I just need a free service to distribute my files, or alternatively a way to package them so they don't trigger the exe warning.
The "not commonly downloaded" thing isn't too huge an issue. I find that a lot of roguelikes trigger that, and you can just click "keep" to overrule the warning. The malware one is more of a problem because you can't just overrule it, you have to change Chrome's settings to ignore all malware (or do what I did and use a different browser just for that one download).
-
The "not commonly downloaded" thing isn't too huge an issue. I find that a lot of roguelikes trigger that, and you can just click "keep" to overrule the warning. The malware one is more of a problem because you can't just overrule it, you have to change Chrome's settings to ignore all malware (or do what I did and use a different browser just for that one download).
Yeah, its just infuriating. I can understand people not wanting to risk their computer with a suspect download - I have downloaded a bad file before, myself, and it made me more cautious after having to wipe the hard-drive. I just wish Google had a more selective way of flagging a file beyond "it's an .exe - flag it".
-
Understandable. Even after reading about the game on here, and getting the impression that people had played it, when I first saw the malware warning I had to stop and ask myself "how confident am I that it's legit?" If I hadn't been reading about it on Temple of the Roguelike, I would probably have played it safe and not downloaded.
-
I'm growing to really appreciate the visual style. This screenshot is quite minimalist because it was taken at night but it has a wealth of ground textures and landscape/environmental features combined with the shifting light from the torches. Very nice.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c82/CovenantJr/Solsticenightvillage_zps4786b2bb.png)
-
I'm growing to really appreciate the visual style. This screenshot is quite minimalist because it was taken at night but it has a wealth of ground textures and landscape/environmental features combined with the shifting light from the torches. Very nice.
Thank you very much :) For all it's infuriating oldness, I still like the visual control VB6 gives you. There's a more square font version in the game (ctrl + numpad minus) that gets the aspect a little closer to 1 that I have started playing in, although the lines and text are a little heavier.
-
v0.0.34
Bug fixes
Corrected a critical error with sailing off the edge of the world.
Balance changes
Charm monster rebalanced to be harder to execute, but lasts longer once charmed.
-
Understandable. Even after reading about the game on here, and getting the impression that people had played it, when I first saw the malware warning I had to stop and ask myself "how confident am I that it's legit?" If I hadn't been reading about it on Temple of the Roguelike, I would probably have played it safe and not downloaded.
Me too.
Brigand, if you're concerned about Chrome users, you could upload a zip file instead of an .exe? My Veins of the Earth are uploaded as zip and I've never gotten any complains about them being flagged as suspicious/malware even though the standalone version does contain an exe, obviously.
-
Me too.
Brigand, if you're concerned about Chrome users, you could upload a zip file instead of an .exe? My Veins of the Earth are uploaded as zip and I've never gotten any complains about them being flagged as suspicious/malware even though the standalone version does contain an exe, obviously.
Unfortunately, it is a zip file - Chrome looks into compressed files to see what's in them. But I think I am gonna try 7-zip, assuming people use it pretty often. Or at least offer different versions.
Or, switch to a "Google approved" free website provider.
-
Small suggestion for a future update: maybe display money in the main HUD. I just found someone who offered to train me for 80 GP. I had no idea how much money I was carrying. It's not a big deal - I just said no and then looked in my inventory - but it would be nice to make that a bit smoother.
-
Small suggestion for a future update: maybe display money in the main HUD. I just found someone who offered to train me for 80 GP. I had no idea how much money I was carrying. It's not a big deal - I just said no and then looked in my inventory - but it would be nice to make that a bit smoother.
Suggestions are good, ty :) Gold is now displayed on the main panel. I will put up a new version sometime today with several other changes.
-
v0.0.35
Bug fixes
Can no longer close doors blocked by creatures.
Creatures should no longer stack on the same space.
Throwing/shooting over deep water/lava results in the loss of the amm
Adjusted some of the display spacing changes for different screen sizes. (for example, at smaller screen sizes, the amount of text displayed increased.
New features
Autotargeting - ON: Autoselects a target and executes the command, OFF: Allows manual targeting.
Manual targeting for skills (you can aim a flash bomb at the floor in the middle of a group of enemies, for example.)
Shift + e will display equippable offhand items without entering the inventory screen (as e does with other items).
Skill reporting improved.
Main interface added a few new stats (gold on hand, elevation, new status effects, etc.)
Balance changes
With the manual targeting change, some skills are altered to not require an actual creature target. Other (such as charm monster) obviously retain a target requirement.
Some of the special attack creatures have been slowed down.
-
v0.0.37
New features
New Monk Skill - Leap Attack - Leap through the air spinning in a blur, striking enemies as you pass overhead. If end your leap attack on an enemy, they can be knocked back and possible staggered, or worse. Can be used to cross gaps. Higher skill levels let you leap farther, and do more damage.
Hotkey automatically assigned if free slots available; can now be cleared with SHIFT+HOTKEY.
Can now throw any item in your inventory freely without a target. (Firing a weapon is not the same thing as throwing the ammo.)
High scores list can be filtered by game type.
New armor and weapon types. new material types.
Abbreviated ally status display on main screen when no enemy target selected.
Added a pickaxe for digging through rock and walls.
Bug fixes
Stairs could be unconnected in the infinite dungeon.
Melee and ranged combat speed values were being calculated incorrectly.
Certain creature types were affected by attack types they shouldn't have been (eg, you shouldn't be able to freeze an Ice Viper.)
Balance changes
Creature perceptions ranges changed with respect to the change in stealth rating calculation. When you are able to enter stealth has been altered slightly.
Creature damage slightly increased.
Heal and mana potions increased in effectiveness.
Heavy Armor Proficiency altered to become general Armor Proficiency; level determines what types of armor you can equip; in addition, each level purchased reduces the evade penalty associated with each piece. (Armor type is mainly dictated by what material it is made out of.)
Increased carrying capacity when mounted.
-
My antivirus insists that the newest Solstice download contains a specific item of keylogging malware, so even though I think it probably doesn't I'm going to play it safe. Hopefully a future version won't set off these alarm bells, in which case I'll download and play it again. I was enjoying playing an ambitious open world RL that doesn't require a manual the size of a paving slab.
-
This is more worrying. According to my antivirus, the Solstice download contains a specific item of known, identified malware. A keylogging thing, no less. No longer willing to have this on my PC.
Wow....theres no key logger and there never has been. Theres no malware of any kind. Do you want to see the uncompiled source code? Please don't post stuff like this. Your anti-virus is overzealous and probably doesn't like the fact its from a 10 year old compiler that doesn't have some signature that it expects.
What anti-virus are you using that is reporting this? Neither AVG nor Symantec on both my computers are reporting any virus.
Also, I just checked the downloaded version against the compiled version on my computer. They are 100% identical, byte for byte - the website provider is not inserting anything malicious into the code.
Again, I invite anyone who wants to to examine the code, compile it, and see that its malware free.
Specific Files or Folders Scan
No infection was found during this scan
Scanned folders:;"C:\Solstice\"
Started:;"7/31/2014, 12:14:05 AM"
Finished:;"7/31/2014, 12:14:07 AM"
Scanned items:;"56"
Launched by:;"Mark"
-
This is more worrying. According to my antivirus, the Solstice download contains a specific item of known, identified malware. A keylogging thing, no less. No longer willing to have this on my PC.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c82/CovenantJr/Malwarewarning_zps1acc9c60.png)
You're thinking it out wrong. That's why you have to install it. It and the NSA keylogger we all have installed will conflict and give partial data to each. This way you can discuss poppy cultivation tips with your Al Quaida contacts, and neither will get the full picture.
-
This is more worrying. According to my antivirus, the Solstice download contains a specific item of known, identified malware. A keylogging thing, no less. No longer willing to have this on my PC.
You're thinking it out wrong. That's why you have to install it. It and the NSA keylogger we all have installed will conflict and give partial data to each. This way you can discuss poppy cultivation tips with your Al Quaida contacts, and neither will get the full picture.
Sigh, there's no installer.... Any funny how when I look up the malware your software identifed my program as, the first 2 hits are for pages on your antivirus software sellers website, prompting you to use (buy) Sophos to diagnose the problem.
-
Redacted for now until I decide what to do.
-
I haven't inspected the .exe, but even so I'm 99% confident that there is no key logger (malware) in Solstice.
Several programs I wrote myself in C were flagged by my antivirus as being/having a keylogger (note that what the antivirus is pointing out is not a specific segment of code identified as malware; it's a generic behavioral pattern); the reason for this is almost certainly that I was using inappropriately low level input methods (which at least has the capability of picking up on keystrokes that are sent with another window in focus). I don't know what kind of access VB has to the WinAPI, but this is likely the issue here as well.
Now, I do have an old copy of Solstice from near the end of 2012 which is not detected as a keylogger by Sophos. So you probably simply changed how you handle or get input from Windows such that Sophos thinks it is possibly a keylogger. (Virustotal shows only Sophos as reporting this: all other antivirus scans are clear.)
-
I haven't inspected the .exe, but even so I'm 99% confident that there is no key logger (malware) in Solstice.
Several programs I wrote myself in C were flagged by my antivirus as being/having a keylogger (note that what the antivirus is pointing out is not a specific segment of code identified as malware; it's a generic behavioral pattern); the reason for this is almost certainly that I was using inappropriately low level input methods (which at least has the capability of picking up on keystrokes that are sent with another window in focus). I don't know what kind of access VB has to the WinAPI, but this is likely the issue here as well.
Now, I do have an old copy of Solstice from near the end of 2012 which is not detected as a keylogger by Sophos. So you probably simply changed how you handle or get input from Windows such that Sophos thinks it is possibly a keylogger. (Virustotal shows only Sophos as reporting this: all other antivirus scans are clear.)
Thanks a ton for looking for me, Xan. Behaviorally, I do read individual keystrokes (and log them, if you define writing the players name to a file as key logging.)
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to do except give up. I've put a lot in so far and have a long way to go, but it seems pointless if no one will play because they think I'm recording what porn sites they are visiting :) the code is wayyyyy too far along to migrate to something else without completely starting over. Any suggestions? If it were you would you continue on?
-
Thanks a ton for looking for me, Xan. Behaviorally, I do read individual keystrokes (and log them, if you define writing the players name to a file as key logging.)
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to do except give up. I've put a lot in so far and have a long way to go, but it seems pointless if no one will play because they think I'm recording what porn sites they are visiting :) the code is wayyyyy too far along to migrate to something else without completely starting over. Any suggestions? If it were you would you continue on?
Well, I wouldn't stop just yet. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly, what triggered the alert on one of my programs was checking the state of every key on the keyboard and writing it to a buffer. The issue with this I think would be that the program would still detect keys being down even if the window wasn't in focus (e.g. if you were running the program and also typing in a web browser, it would pickup those keypresses). From what you said, if you are using a low level form of input like this, and then writing the results to a file, it's quite possible that that is the reason for the identification as a keylogger. If so, I'd just look for some way to get around it. If you want, I could take a look at your input handling code and see if there's anything that stands out (although it's been ages since I've done anything with VB).
-
Well, I wouldn't stop just yet. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly, what triggered the alert on one of my programs was checking the state of every key on the keyboard and writing it to a buffer. The issue with this I think would be that the program would still detect keys being down even if the window wasn't in focus (e.g. if you were running the program and also typing in a web browser, it would pickup those keypresses). From what you said, if you are using a low level form of input like this, and then writing the results to a file, it's quite possible that that is the reason for the identification as a keylogger. If so, I'd just look for some way to get around it. If you want, I could take a look at your input handling code and see if there's anything that stands out (although it's been ages since I've done anything with VB).
Your comments have got me thinking about anything I do codewise that could be construed as key logging by anti virus software. The only thing in the latest release I could think of would be the addition of an auto target toggle. Pressing control + a toggles it on and off, and immediately updates a config file with true or false. Maybe I should only update on exit. I will put it up as version 0.0.37b - could you possibly try downloading it and see if it still flags it?
-
This is more worrying. According to my antivirus, the Solstice download contains a specific item of known, identified malware. A keylogging thing, no less. No longer willing to have this on my PC.
Wow....theres no key logger and there never has been. Theres no malware of any kind. Do you want to see the uncompiled source code? Please don't post stuff like this. Your anti-virus is overzealous and probably doesn't like the fact its from a 10 year old compiler that doesn't have some signature that it expects.
What anti-virus are you using that is reporting this? Neither AVG nor Symantec on both my computers are reporting any virus.
I'm using the business version of Sophos provided by my employer. I don't want to be suspicious and I certainly don't bear you any ill will but it's not inconceivable that someone might take advantage of roguelike players' willingness to trustingly download all kinds of files. I don't have the tech knowledge to identify whether or not there's a keylogger in there, so I have to err on the side of caution, particularly since it's not saying "this looks a bit dodgy" but actually "this contains a specific named item of malware". My brother has recently been hit by something similar and it's cost him thousands of pounds. I like Solstice but I'm not willing to take that risk.
-
??? ...never had a single issue with the download of this, MSE brings up no warnings and neither did Avast back in the day and I use Firefox---I don't know what the deal is with the lot of this lately as I routinely ignore, for instance, Chrome's download warnings since all are beget from things simply being rarely downloaded items or not using Google's web API wranglings as per Eniko's recent twitterings from July 30. https://twitter.com/Enichan
I definitely implore you to keep developing on this project Brigand---rare is the newcomer large scale Roguelike nowadays, rare is the comeback such as this has had after life intervened, and too many of your contemporaries were felled or foiled by misfortune and circumstances these past couple years despite their technical savvy(Crown of Alegare, Middlecrest, ...) to make it happen. Maybe add a disclaimer and/or further tinker with VB and site wranglings as to how things are logged as otherwise this current situation would retroactively make every VB program "suspect"---which is kinda nuts right?
-
I'm using the business version of Sophos provided by my employer. I don't want to be suspicious and I certainly don't bear you any ill will but it's not inconceivable that someone might take advantage of roguelike players' willingness to trustingly download all kinds of files. I don't have the tech knowledge to identify whether or not there's a keylogger in there, so I have to err on the side of caution, particularly since it's not saying "this looks a bit dodgy" but actually "this contains a specific named item of malware". My brother has recently been hit by something similar and it's cost him thousands of pounds. I like Solstice but I'm not willing to take that risk.
I understand and completely respect your position - I certainly wouldn't ask anyone to download a program they are suspicious of, especially in light of having been hit by malware before.
My concern is not that you suspect malware and don't want to download it, it's that you've gone ahead and declared that it definitely is to everyone on the forums based on a single uncorroborated antivirus report. And certainly no malware detector has ever flagged a file as malware incorrectly.
I've been putting versions of the game for years, as Xan said, and there's never been a detection before. It's years of work - I'm not going to throw that away on an easily detectable piece of malware.
-
I understand and completely respect your position - I certainly wouldn't ask anyone to download a program they are suspicious of, especially in light of having been hit by malware before.
My concern is not that you suspect malware and don't want to download it, it's that you've gone ahead and declared that it definitely is to everyone on the forums based on a single uncorroborated antivirus report. And certainly no malware detector has ever flagged a file as malware incorrectly.
I've been putting versions of the game for years, as Xan said, and there's never been a detection before. It's years of work - I'm not going to throw that away on an easily detectable piece of malware.
It wasn't meant to be a definite declaration of malware, it was meant to be a caution to those who might not have my industrial-strength antivirus (I'll edit the post to sound less alarmist).
For me, Chrome and Firefox both completely block it now, and Sophos won't allow me to touch it either, so I basically physically can't download it even if I was willing to take the risk.
-
It wasn't meant to be a definite declaration of malware, it was meant to be a caution to those who might not have my industrial-strength antivirus (I'll edit the post to sound less alarmist).
For me, Chrome and Firefox both completely block it now, and Sophos won't allow me to touch it either, so I basically physically can't download it even if I was willing to take the risk.
Firefox is not blocking your download; it's likely Sophos has a plugin for Firefox, so it's the same thing doing the blocking. I use Firefox exclusively and have never gotten a report of malware.
Just want to add, I work for a big, very well known software developer (enterprise software, not video games), and their enterprise level malware/antivirus protection is not picking anything up. Other than the apparently very well known Google "protection racket" thing about downloading from sites that Google hasn't blessed (via Google Webmaster Tools), no one else has ever reported an instance of present malware/antivirus.
-
I went ahead and created a thread over on Bay12 to see about getting some further visibility and players---perhaps the biggest place out there were ASCII sensibilities are fine and well.
-
I went ahead and created a thread over on Bay12 to see about getting some further visibility and players---perhaps the biggest place out there were ASCII sensibilities are fine and well.
Thanks getter, appreciate the support. But, I may still just call it a day on this project, something I am going to consider over the weekend. I have another half finished action roguelike sitting on my harddrive that is probably too ambitious as well.
I've been screwing around a bit with libtcod, and am a little tempted to start a new roguelike in a less archaic language, but the idea of beginning anew with a project this size is pretty daunting - it would take a looong time to get back to this point, and there would be a learning curve substantially increasing that time.
-
But, I may still just call it a day on this project, something I am going to consider over the weekend.
I hope you don't. There aren't that many roguelikes that stand out and try to do something interesting. If my antivirus is the only one panicking about Solstice, then giving up would be a tragic waste of a promising start.
-
About the error 13 that was talked on the first page, I can recreate that at will. It happens when player walks into the yellow tiles.
-
Another thing you could try is submitting a false positive report to Sophos (https://secure2.sophos.com/support/contact-support/sample-submission.aspx). Apparently this can actually work.
-
Firefox is not blocking your download; it's likely Sophos has a plugin for Firefox, so it's the same thing doing the blocking. I use Firefox exclusively and have never gotten a report of malware.
Firefox itself has no malware reporting/blocking capabilities as opposed to Chrome. However, there are multiple malware blocking plugins for FF.
And on the topic of false positives, I keep getting a false positive on FreeOrion (a freeware 4X game I've been testing for a year) with Norton 360 all the time. After some investigation, it turned out that the report amounted to 'it's suspicious because we think it's suspicious', so I had nothing to point out to the devs, and no reason to :)
-
About the error 13 that was talked on the first page, I can recreate that at will. It happens when player walks into the yellow tiles.
Awesome, thank you for finding this - can you elaborate what you mean by yellow tiles? The village tiles, or the coast line - and when you say walks into them, do you mean simply walking around in the overworld, or zooming into the submap by pressing > ?? If the first case, are you exiting the ship or something like that?
Again, thank you so much - I would love to know how to produce this error.
-
Firefox is not blocking your download; it's likely Sophos has a plugin for Firefox, so it's the same thing doing the blocking. I use Firefox exclusively and have never gotten a report of malware.
Firefox itself has no malware reporting/blocking capabilities as opposed to Chrome. However, there are multiple malware blocking plugins for FF.
And on the topic of false positives, I keep getting a false positive on FreeOrion (a freeware 4X game I've been testing for a year) with Norton 360 all the time. After some investigation, it turned out that the report amounted to 'it's suspicious because we think it's suspicious', so I had nothing to point out to the devs, and no reason to :)
Yeah, URR tells me theres some kind of "Pak" malware associated with it, but I never found where anyone else got that error so I ignored it. I'm finding the 'it's suspicious because we think it's suspicious' thing to be very annoying. I realize it's err on the side of caution, but they really need some better algorithm for identifying the malware pattern than 'it's an exe', or 'it writes a file to disk'. Seem like those are pretty common properties of 'software'.
-
About the error 13 that was talked on the first page, I can recreate that at will. It happens when player walks into the yellow tiles.
Awesome, thank you for finding this - can you elaborate what you mean by yellow tiles? The village tiles, or the coast line - and when you say walks into them, do you mean simply walking around in the overworld, or zooming into the submap by pressing > ?? If the first case, are you exiting the ship or something like that?
Again, thank you so much - I would love to know how to produce this error.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95372567/Solstice.png
Here's the picture of the exact moment it happens. It seems that it happens the moment '@' comes out of the 'V' or I enter the yellow tile where the '@' is standing.
-
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95372567/Solstice.png
Here's the picture of the exact moment it happens. It seems that it happens the moment '@' comes out of the 'V' or I enter the yellow tile where the '@' is standing.
AH! I think I found it! (Maybe) Thank you so much! I would never have found that just looking at the code, and the nature of the bug made it un-reproducible the way I was testing (it was definitely some malformed code - I just don't know why it didn't throw an error for me - maybe Win 8 enforces the type checking more strictly - I believe VB6 will enforce type variant on expressions of mixed type.)
On a side note - the town and caves aren't supposed to look like that. I'm using the Windows terminal font that came with the system - apparently I was wrong in assuming it was available on all systems. I will investigate and see if I can figure out whats going on. What version of Windows are you on, by the way?
Thank you again!
(http://solsticeroguelike.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/1/9/171935/2185193_orig.jpg)
-
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95372567/Solstice.png
Here's the picture of the exact moment it happens. It seems that it happens the moment '@' comes out of the 'V' or I enter the yellow tile where the '@' is standing.
Ah, thank you so much. I think the issue has to do with the font (if doesn't, the font is still an issue). The town and caves aren't supposed to look like that. I'm using the Windows terminal font that came with the system - apparently I was wrong in assuming it was available on all systems. I will investigate and see if I can figure out whats going on. Thank you again! What version of Windows are you on, by the way?
64bit Windows 8.1.
-
Another thing you could try is submitting a false positive report to Sophos (https://secure2.sophos.com/support/contact-support/sample-submission.aspx). Apparently this can actually work.
Ah, good find! I'll try that.
On a side note - the town and caves aren't supposed to look like that. I'm using the Windows terminal font that came with the system - apparently I was wrong in assuming it was available on all systems. I will investigate and see if I can figure out whats going on. What version of Windows are you on, by the way?
Really? They look like that for me, too. Windows 7, 64-bit.
Incidentally, since apparently no one but me is having this problem with the game being labelled malware, I'm just getting rid of Sophos. I did some digging and found that Sophos has been know to cause problems with various innocuous pieces of software. Moral of the story: don't use an antivirus programme just because your company gives you the paid version for free.
I'm genuinely sorry for any distress my difficulties with this have caused you. The last thing I want is to discourage someone from making their game. If I'd had any inkling that the problem was confined to just me and this ludicrous antivirus, I wouldn't have said anything.
-
I added some code and included the font file with a custom name to the data folder (it should add the resource automatically (its only there at run time)). Would one of you be willing to see if v0.0.37d actually looks like the picture I posted above with the correct symbols for towns/caves/submap objects/etc?
I think it should work - my screen is displaying everything correctly and there are no errors - a poll of local resources shows the correct custom font name. I'm just not convinced it's not still using the terminal font in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder.
If it does actually display correctly for you, then it will probably also fix the weird spacing on the condensed display as well.
Thank you
-
Another thing you could try is submitting a false positive report to Sophos (https://secure2.sophos.com/support/contact-support/sample-submission.aspx). Apparently this can actually work.
Sure enough, it did indeed work! Sophos no longer has a problem with Solstice. 8)
-
Another thing you could try is submitting a false positive report to Sophos (https://secure2.sophos.com/support/contact-support/sample-submission.aspx). Apparently this can actually work.
Sure enough, it did indeed work! Sophos no longer has a problem with Solstice. 8)
Cool, thanks for doing that for me. I appreciate it a lot. Did the font inclusion work by any chance, or still the old characters?
-
Cool, thanks for doing that for me. I appreciate it a lot. Did the font inclusion work by any chance, or still the old characters?
Yep, seems to have worked. Towns etc now look like your screenshot.
-
v0.0.38 8)
New features
Added a wide-screen mode (Press CTRL and Numpad + and - to change sizes)
Added Origins to character creation process; origins determine starting stats and provide bonus skills and resistances.
New Centurion skill - Commanding shout - cause fear in your enemies and inspire your allies with a leaders word of command.
New Centurion skill - Berserk - as the title suggests, the Centurion becomes enraged, both doing and taking increased damage. This skill is physically exhausting. Increased level improves damage, reduces defense penalties.
New Mindblade passive skill - Mental Fortitude - each level increases the mindblades resistance to mental attacks (eg, confuse, fear, charm, etc); also shields your allies from mental attacks.
New weapons, creatures, etc.
Balance changes
All classes will now have 6 active skills unlocked at character generation, 1 passive skill unlocked at character generation, and 1 ultimate skill that is unlocked via a quest. There is now a large pool of general skills (planned to be around 25-30) that are not class specific.
Players now how 3 unassigned skill points at the beginning of the game, with class skills unlocked.
Removed Cause Fear from Mindblade skill set (too similar to the new Centurios skill - the goal is for each class to play differently).
Monk Leap Attack now ends in a spin kick if not landing directly on an enemy.
Monk Haste now improves evasion rating while active.
Blackpowder weapons (guns, rifles) are now the exclusive domain of Alchemists (without finding a trainer) (Gun Use).
Gun skill and scavenge shot have been rolled into 1 skill called Gun Use (improving your gun skill simultaneously improves how much ammo you can scavenge when breaking down metal items.)
Blacksmithing currently allows item repair at level 1, weapon improvement at level 2, and armor reinforcement at level 3 (armor/weapon crafting not implemented yet).
Added discrete disease resistance stat, and berserk stat.
Some skill checks ALWAYS have a failure/success chance regardless of the skill disparity (notably, you always have a chance to hit or miss in combat); other skill checks can now be so difficult/easy that they cant hit/miss (eg, if your Fire Resistance is 100, you can't be hit with a fire attack, even on a critical)
Bug fixes
Players were unable to assign locked skills to hotkeys even though they started with free points.
Fixed ground
color in weather window.
-
I like the new changes (regional races, targetable abilities, etc). Good stuff.
I just came across an oddity.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c82/CovenantJr/Solsticeshopillogic_zpsdec5bf2d.png)
I might be misunderstanding it but I think what's happening here is that somehow the shopkeeper had -2002 gold when I arrived, and I can't make any transactions at all when he has negative money, even to buy from him. I just want to buy that potion! :P
-
I like the new changes (regional races, targetable abilities, etc). Good stuff.
I just came across an oddity.
I might be misunderstanding it but I think what's happening here is that somehow the shopkeeper had -2002 gold when I arrived, and I can't make any transactions at all when he has negative money, even to buy from him. I just want to buy that potion! :P
Oooh, good catch, thanks! I have corrected my code to allow transactions that make money even if the vendor is in the negative. The real question for me is how did he get to -2002 in the first place? I don't see where youre trying to sell 2000 gp of equipment, and he cant spawn with negative gold.
Thank you Samildanach
-
The real question for me is how did he get to -2002 in the first place? I don't see where youre trying to sell 2000 gp of equipment, and he cant spawn with negative gold.
I'm not sure. I had visited him previously and sold him about four or five items, but nothing that should have cost him thousands of gold (unless something was secretly worth more than it seemed), plus I had bought some things in exchange which should have at least partially balanced it out.
I'll watch out for this happening again, maybe I can spot a pattern.
-
I'm not sure. I had visited him previously and sold him about four or five items, but nothing that should have cost him thousands of gold (unless something was secretly worth more than it seemed), plus I had bought some things in exchange which should have at least partially balanced it out.
I'll watch out for this happening again, maybe I can spot a pattern.
Hmm, after a little digging, I am gonna guess you had visited this vendor in the past, and were returning to him at a later date. I have some code that has the vendor buy and sell while you are away, and it wasnt subject to buying when it didnt have enough gold - hence a massive debt. However, if you were actually playing the Infinite Dungeon, I'll have to look closer.
-
Yes, I bought and sold a couple of things then went to a dungeon for a bit, came back and found the -2002.
-
v0.0.39 8)
In addition to whats listed below, there was a massive, 4 day clean up of submap generation, combat routines, damage calculations, and cell properties. I believe performance is slightly improved, and code is generally cleaner, but I'm sure a bug or 2 crept in that I overlooked.
New features
New Priestess skill - Bind Soul - Resurrect a corpse as a completely loyal minion at the cost of your own blood. Decay level of the corpse affects the abilities of your minion.
New general skill - Poisons - Currently, this ability allows you to poison your weapon a number of times for the cost of some mana; ultimately, when the crafting interface is done, you will require reagents to produce the poisons. Araxians get the skill for free at the beginning of the game
Some terrain can now be destroyed/changed by your skills in addition to melee attacks (eg, freezing water with a frost ray, or splitting a boulder with a bolt of lightning).
Ally/Enemy indicators
New attack synergies (being hit with fire will cancel the effects of freeze or slow and vice versa, using an earth attack on a frozen target can shatter, higher chance to freeze during rain, lightning does more damage during wet weather, etc.)
You are automatically resupplied with a limited amount of food from the supplies foraged by the crew when you reboard your ship.
Higher levels of bow use (fletching) and crossbow use (bolt crafting) produce better ammo.
2 new monk combo finishers.
Monk combo skills now provide a to-hit bonus and a slight damage bonus as your improve them.
Monk combo skills can now be increased to level 10; only the first 3 levels are required to use them in the combo chain - the additional level improve their damage and to-hit bonus.
Allow numbers and spaces in character names, and longer save file names (trivial change).
Holy attacks now illuminate the target in addition to burning evil targets; illuminated targets are easier to hit. If the target is not evil, it will not take the extra damage, but will still be illuminated.
Few new monsters; new monster attributes and abilities (eg, nocturnal flag, resistances explicit, etc.)
Balance changes
Weapons now have ideal ranges (as well as monsters). You can still attempt any shot you want on a creature you can see, but your ranged to-hit falls off linearly past the ideal range.
Weather affects ranged combat.
Cartography now improves your chance to passively detect secret doors (if you notice on your map there's a big void between 2 walls...)
Cartography now improves your chance to passively detect traps (this may become a separate skill at some point).
Removed "Purchase Mode" from the character screen entirely - just press + when highlighting a skill to put points into it.
Experience curve lowered slightly; stat and skill pt bonuses on level up slightly altered.
Number of points invested in a skill limited to max experience level.
Endurance drain and recovery rebalanced.
Max HP and Mana calculations reduced. HP is based on constitution and level; Mana is now completely based off willpower.
Mana and HP regen rates changed slightly.
Damage reduction from armor calculation changed with the addition of new armor types; you will see more damage reduction the more armor you have relative to the damage taken. Conversely, if your armor value is a fraction of the incoming damage (less than half), you will see little reduction. The keeps centurions from becoming unstoppable, and allows a general reduction in creature damage so that low HP characters are not unplayable.
Monk combo skills must be at level 2 to continue a combo, and level 3 to finish a combo.
Base sight range increased.
Creature perception range increased.
Holy damage now causes you to glow with an unearthly light, lowering your evasion.
Monk combos shifted around slightly (if you only use water and wind strikes, the combo finisher will be related to those 2 elements, with the exception of a single, special combo.)
Bug fixes
Skill activation was not targeting correctly from the character screen.
Doors could sometimes be generated "hanging" off a single wall in the dungeon due to minimum corridor lengths between adjacent rooms.
Fixed transitions for ladders.
Massive cleanup of submap generation code; addressed some missing cell descriptions and triggers.
Cleanup of AI code; minor performance improvements.
Monk combo skills must be at level 2 to continue a combo, and level 3 to finish a combo.
You could target creatures standing in light that were off the display (probably more realistic, assuming line of sight, but looks bad when creatures are walking in the message area.)
Outstanding
To improve performance, I use a single heightmap for creature pathfinding; unfortunately, if you charm/raise a swimming creature, he cant use that pathfinding algorithm, so I either need to implement a second swimming height map, or choose a less performance demanding pathfinding routine.
-
v0.0.40 8)
New features
- New engineer skill - Caltrops - create a field of painful, slowing metal spikes to keep enemies at bay. Requires metal fragments from which to fashion the caltrops.
- New general skill - Scavenge - allows you to break down an item for its materials. Higher levels of this skill produce more usable material.
- Crafting - Currently there are 4 basic crafting categories (general, alchemical, blacksmithing, weaving/tailoring), with a few more planned. Basic crafted items are slightly better than found ones.
- Full crafting interface - Press Ctrl + I to see all your recipes and components, and what you need to complete a recipe. You can also craft a highlighted recipe by pressing enter.
- Abbreviated crafting interface - Press Shift + I to quickly list recipes you can complete immediately (those that you currently have everything you need).
- New items and weapons.
Balance changes
- The alchemist has undergone a transformation to an Engineer, which appears to be slightly more suited to how his skills are turning out. As a result, he no longer starts with alchemy, but has some new "techish" skills to compensate.
- Switching between melee and ranged attacks now incurs a slight (half-turn) penalty. The swap occurs automatically when you change attacks, or if required, you can prepare a specific attack type beforehand. To prepare a melee attack when using a ranged weapon, press Z once (normally forces melee attack if you were using melee weapons); to prepare a ranged attack when using melee weapons, press f once (ranged attack).
- Pole arms are very slightly less damaging than other 2-handed weapons, but can provide a modest evasion or defensive bonus.
- Creatures must be able to see to be warded off by a magic flare.
- Inventory item selection is now case insensitive.
- Poison is now an general crafting skill rather than a discrete skill - Araxians still get the ability for free as a crafting recipe, and start with several poison vials. Other classes can obtain poison by learning alchemy. To apply your poison, <u>se the poison vial (don't drink it).
- Some armor types provide bonuses to evasion rather than penalties (for example, the armor distorts exactly where you are, making you harder to hit)
- Alchemy is now a non-class specific crafting skill rather than a class skill.
- The basic crafting skills (create bullets, arrows, bolts, etc.) now require either wood or metal fragments, or possibly both.
Note: the creation of arrows/bolts remain tied to their respective skills (I may for completeness add the crafting recipes to blacksmithing, but the bow/crossbows skills are not going away, as they retain the fletching/bolt crafting ability.)
Bug fixes
- Allies we not staying properly leashed when out of visual range.
- Variable type for player current burden was an integer, causing rounding errors with items with fractional weights.
- Changed vendors to buy items one at a time, but failed to changed the buying price.
- Using flare in the infinite dungeon would teleport you to a new level.
- Changed flare mechanics; removed targeting.
- You could use a skill that was unlocked but had no points in it by activating it from the character screen.
- Throwing a bottle of water at a creature could sometimes cause a crash.
- Weapon damage types were getting overwritten as normal damage.
- Slowed creatures were still moving at full speed due to sequencing bug.
Outstanding
- To improve performance, I use a single height map for creature path finding; unfortunately, if you charm/raise a swimming creature, he cant use that path finding algorithm, so I either need to implement a second swimming height map, or choose a less performance demanding pathfinding routine.
-
I'm loving this *in general* The system seems real well thought out, the map is detailed but understandable, the skill system is cool.. found a few trainers etc... and its only alpha, huzzah.
But a couple glaring things have made it an exercise in frustration, and imo absolutely need to be taken care of. It *should* be fairly simple but would definitely involve work.
FIREPLACES are a huge problem. I cant even finish a single quest in a town. If the elder has a fireplace, he's guaranteed to die. In fact any NPC with a fireplace is guaranteed to die. They WILL walk into it and burn to death. So will your puppydog.
Tagging hazardous tiles as such and making NPC pathfinding attempt to avoid moving into them willingly, even to the point of just staying still instead of moving, would fix this. Depending on how in depth you want it, you could code exceptions to the rule. "if creature immune to fire, creature will walk through fire willingly... or, if creature is in berserker rage, 50% chance to walk through fire regardless of danger"
This has been maddening and I've barely played an hour or two. Otherwise awesome.
Food is the other issue I'm seeing. I've found out how to reuse bottles to get water (at the ocean no less haha) to restore a bit of stamina, and getting new rations at the ship works,.. but corpses seem to be unusable. 'U'sing a corpse, unlike 'U'sing a ration, gives no endurance but just renames it to 'corpse' instead of 'goblin corpse' or 'panther corpse'. But the system at least somewhat seems to understand that corpses are food, because when you salvage a corpse, it gives the message 'you have salvaged x organic material from the RATION'
Now, not playing far but knowing there is crafting, I don't know if you have a way to use those 'organic material' to combine into rations if you have the proper skill.. and that would be awesome! But you should be able to consume corpses in a pinch, for less satiation than properly salvaging/butchering and making real rations. And that of course opens the door to special corpse effects if you ever want to go that route.
In the mean time, workaround for not being able to get food 'on the go' which is REALLY needed for long journeys (quest to go check out this place faaaar faaar away and far from where you can bring the ship.. you need tons of food)... is exploiting the ship.
For now you can get up to 3 free rations by going to the ship. You can then enter the ships hold and store those rations in the chests. Leave the ship. Enter the ship again and you'll be given 3 more rations. Do this a few times to make a food stockpile and you can actually do some traveling without getting stuck unable to move. Once food is more readily accessible (corpses, and probably eventually making real rations?), this exploit could be fixed, perhaps, by making ship rations a special sort of ration (S. Ration?) which could not be put into the chests on the ships hold, preventing the exploitation of it. Especially seeing as you could probably exploit them for gold too. Though I've yet to see a merchant.
All in all really amazing for just a 0.4. I'm very impressed. I'll be passing this along to some other folks I know.
EDIT: To get new rations at the ship, you have to not only exit the ship, but exit the ships tile and step back onto it on the map, thats what triggers the new rations, not actually entering the ship area.
EDIT 2: Don't use water flasks from the ocean...
EDIT 3: Found hostile village kinda dangerous still level 1.. mage.. lizardman village. Took em all out. Moving in now because it has a forge and a well.. wells are gooood ! ^_^
-
Thank you so much for taking the time to play and leave feedback :)
FIREPLACES are a huge problem. I cant even finish a single quest in a town. If the elder has a fireplace, he's guaranteed to die. In fact any NPC with a fireplace is guaranteed to die. They WILL walk into it and burn to death. So will your puppydog.
Yeah, I just found this one out last night. Apparently I broke it last release. It was pretty funny to see the villagers running around on fire. I need to add some flavor text where they scream when on fire... Fixed, and will be in Fridays release.
Food is the other issue I'm seeing. I've found out how to reuse bottles to get water (at the ocean no less haha) to restore a bit of stamina, and getting new rations at the ship works,.. but corpses seem to be unusable. 'U'sing a corpse, unlike 'U'sing a ration, gives no endurance but just renames it to 'corpse' instead of 'goblin corpse' or 'panther corpse'. But the system at least somewhat seems to understand that corpses are food, because when you salvage a corpse, it gives the message 'you have salvaged x organic material from the RATION'
Now, not playing far but knowing there is crafting, I don't know if you have a way to use those 'organic material' to combine into rations if you have the proper skill.. and that would be awesome! But you should be able to consume corpses in a pinch, for less satiation than properly salvaging/butchering and making real rations. And that of course opens the door to special corpse effects if you ever want to go that route.
Just added in the ability to consume corpses, for an increasing chance to get sick the older the corpse is. I think i will add a cooking ability to reduce this chance.
Not sure yet what I want to do in terms of special food effects. Don't want to blatantly copy Nethack with corpse consumption. I am open to any cool ideas you might have :)
In the mean time, workaround for not being able to get food 'on the go' which is REALLY needed for long journeys (quest to go check out this place faaaar faaar away and far from where you can bring the ship.. you need tons of food)... is exploiting the ship.
For now you can get up to 3 free rations by going to the ship. You can then enter the ships hold and store those rations in the chests. Leave the ship. Enter the ship again and you'll be given 3 more rations. Do this a few times to make a food stockpile and you can actually do some traveling without getting stuck unable to move. Once food is more readily accessible (corpses, and probably eventually making real rations?), this exploit could be fixed, perhaps, by making ship rations a special sort of ration (S. Ration?) which could not be put into the chests on the ships hold, preventing the exploitation of it. Especially seeing as you could probably exploit them for gold too. Though I've yet to see a merchant.
Good catch, I hadn't considered making a stockpile, so this will have to be altered a bit. I am going to make crew foraging limited by time (X food per day, etc, depending on how well they forage.)
The idea behind food is less to kill you, than to limit how far inland you can explore until you gain better abilities, or acquire a stockpile of food for exploring. Thats why wells can replenish you infinitely; they provide a radius from which you can explore without expending food, as does the ship.
-
In the meantime I've resorted to save scumming in towns because PC's willingly sacrifice themselves constantly.. important ones.. elders, trainers, merchants, healers.
So now I save before entering a new town and reload until I get a town where the important NPCs, or at least the elder, are in buildings with NO fireplace.
Also, if an elder dies, you can never finish their quest. It ends up stuck in the quest log. I suggest either the ability to abandon quests, or automatically remove them if the NPC who gave them to you dies (the only time it really matters), otherwise it clutters up and its hard to keep track because they aren't done by town names/npc names.
I would suggest that specifically, because there are ways they can die even if they stop walking into their fireplaces. Like a PC rampage force attacking them, or some so-far unknown event you throw in, etc.
-
Note for Players: To keep your companions from sacrificing themselves (notably the dog you start with and anything you manage to charm/raise later), you can press 's' to make them stay in place when you enter a town and not follow you. Otherwise prepare to lose your companions.
EDIT: Nevermind.. this doesn't seem to make them stay put for more than a few turns :/
-
You can then enter the ships hold and store those rations in the chests.
I didn't know it was possible to roam around the ship!
Good catch, I hadn't considered making a stockpile, so this will have to be altered a bit. I am going to make crew foraging limited by time (X food per day, etc, depending on how well they forage.)
I also didn't know there was a crew or that they could forage!
Clearly I still have a lot to learn about this game.
-
v0.0.41 8)
Sorry it's a bit light on new features this patch (several new recipes, a few new world interactions, some interface ease-of-use fixes, etc); no less work was put into it over the past week, just that most of my time was spent squashing bugs, making a ton of balance changes, and a whole lot of code refactoring that needed to be done before I continue.
New features
- You can remove any weapon or armor from a quick menu using Shift+R on the map screen (similar to using e to equip, or shift+E to equip your offhand.)
- Recipes can now be found as loot (some special recipes will not drop randomly).
- Advanced the main story quest very slightly (mainly testing the quest framework).
- You can now extinguish light sources using water (lights expose stealthed characters, maybe some other effects with nocturnal creatures).
- You can now consume corpses for a little bit of nutrition; beware disease the older the corpse.
- New recipes
Balance changes
- Armor now will block damage equal to your DEFENSE rating, up to half the incoming damage. Hopefully, this will allow armor to make a big difference to received damage, while keeping high armor characters from becoming completely untouchable. (I am open to suggestions if anyone can think of an alternative damage reduction based on DEFENSE, considering DEFENSE values can get really high compared to damage values - I absolutely dont want to raise damage values because it makes clothies unplayable when they die in a single hit.)
- Priestess now starts with level 2 armor proficiency (leather) given that she can be played melee (albeit stealthy melee)
- Vendor screen cleaned up - the original system would only allow you to buy and sell entire stacks of equipment (why would you want to buy 3 pairs of leathergloves?), so I changed the system to buy and sell a single item at a time, which was also clunky when it came to ammo/throwing weapons/etc. Items now buy and sell in single units UNLESS it makes sense to buy it as a "bunch" (eg, a quiver of arrows, stack of crafting components.) Also some adjustments to prices (buying and selling.)
- Weaving renamed the more generic tailoring, and includes leatherworking in additional to cloth.
- Shroud of Darkness renamed Fade to avoid confusion with Cloak of Darkness.
- The time it takes the ship to build up a supply of foraged food for you is no longer instantaneous. The captain will only give you supplies if aren't obviously carrying any, and enough time has passed for the crew to find food.
- Like gold, picking up crafting components/herb is automatic and does not consume a turn (a little less realistic, but since the components are currently weightless theres no reason not to other than to add a bit of tedium.)
- Allies with ranged attacks will now find an optimal range to fire their weapons and stay while an enemy is in sight, rather than the slightly more chaotic "dancing" they were doing before; they will move to maintain that range, and return to whatever they were doing before an enemy came into sight.
- Crafting station requirements are now linked to the recipe rather than the skill type (for example, and alchemist could make glass bottles using a forge to melt the glass shards.)
- Creatures now have discrete melee speeds (they already had ranged cooldowns for reloading weapons; melee and movement speed, however, used to be the same value.)
- Some shuffling of racial bonus skills until all are complete. (There was some skill overlap in the race that gets suggested for each class.)
Bug fixes
- Skill screen could sometimes crash if you pressed space with the very last skill highlighted.
- Creatures of all movement types except swimming should be able to use the pathfinding heightmap.
- Villagers and pets/allies are now no longer too stupid to avoid walking in fire...doh....
- Fixed a performance issue with allies being unable to find a valid path to the player and constantly requerying for the path each turn (eg, you teleported somewhere unreachable.) If an ally doesnt know where you went, or cant realistically reach you, he will cease trying until you open a path for him or refind them.
- Fixed an ally targetting bug (raised creatures were still picking targets/nearest threats as their base type, not considering that they were no longer hostile.)
- General clean-up of save game code (not surfaced to user; save files are a little bit bigger, but massively reduce code complexity and the chance I forget to make a change in the right places.) Affects all creatures and objects.
Planned for next patch
- Hireable henchmen
- Pets/Henchmen will level
- Humanoid will not carry and use equipment
- Cooking (maybe)
Outstanding features
- A bunch of incomplete skills (the Mindblade and Centurion are particularly glaring example, though I dont have all the crafting skills done, and a TON of the general skills arent implemented yet.
- Lots of the storyline remains to be defined, though the overall arch is complete.
- Complete the homebase building screen. (If youre so inclined, you can actually build a complete town with the few objects implemented right night - stone walls, doors, windows - with no restrictions. I just haven't completed any of the town populating interface which is tied into the quest interface eg, rescue the blacksmith, build him a forge, and he will live in your base and work for you.)
- Complete the siege interface. About 25% complete, requires homebase building interface to be complete.
-
v0.0.42 8)
New features
- Certain creature types
(those with humanoid shape and intelligence, such as a skeleton or a troll) can now use armor and weapons (melee and ranged). While the equipment level is generally tied to a creatures power level (if you're level 1, its unlikely you will beat up a powerful creature for his powerful equipment), occasionally a creature may get lucky and stumble upon something powerful. This equipment is of course available to you should you defeat the creature. Ammo is used by a creature - they don't have unlimited shots - and they will switch to melee attacks when they run out.
- You can give an ally (actually any friendly who can use equipment, such as a villager) a specific piece of equipment to use by standing next to them and <h>anding it to them. They will return the removed equipment, if any. If you hand an ally a 1-handed weapon while they are already wielding a 1-handed weapon, they will swap weapons if it is larger or equal in size/damage, or equip it in their off-hand if smaller (dual-wield). Otherwise, they will swap out the weapons/armor as expected. (I may need to add specific fighting style flags to the creatures to determine what happens on a case-by-case basis.)
- You can now hire henchmen to accompany you on your journey. Your personality determine whether someone can be influenced to fight for you, and how many will do so at once (how good of a leader you are perceived to be).
- New Mindblade skill - Agony - The Mindblade can create a psychic link with a target (who must have a brain - you can't use it on plants, constructs, etc.), inducing the target's pain center. This is as painful to the target as real injury (inflicting damage each turn), and the target will eventually shut down and die as a result. If the target gets too far away, or moves out of sight, the link will be broken.
- New combat style - Unarmed - (Monks start with this by default, but it is not formally a monk-only skill). Unlike weapon skills, you gain improved attack speed with increased skill level, to the point you can make multiple unarmed attacks before an enemy can respond. Damage type is indicated by your gloves/gauntlets, if equipped. In addition, the weight of the gloves/gauntlets increases melee damage and attack speed (heavier gloves make you attack slower.)
- Added a secondary target indicator that displays the area affected by a remotely targeted AOE (e.g., flash powder.)
- All players start with the ability to "craft" a camp fire - useful for cooking (not implemented yet) and other types of crafting recipes (blowing glass bottles, for example).
- Several new recipes and items (mostly buff type potions, some new armor and weapons).
Balance changes
- Pickaxe is now considered a 1-handed axe so that all classes can at least use it for digging.
- Fade has been rolled into Cloak of Shadows. Cloak of Shadows allows the user to stealth, and now also provides the Fade passive evade bonus. The Priestess will be compensated with a different passive skill.
- Engineer's flare is now of limited duration (higher intelligence = longer duration; smarter engineers can create their flares to burn longer).
- Climbing gear now allows you to escape pits/holes, in addition to its original functionality of climbing mountains. (You must have at least 1 point of climbing skill.)
- Close Wounds (monk) is now a regeneration effect rather than a straight heal (duration improved by level=more heal ticks, tick magnitude determined by constitution.)
- Spears have been added as a 1-handed polearm, providing a moderate defense boost (other polearms provide evade bonuses). Can be used with a shield (and largely intended to be).
- If your melee weapon is cursed, you can't swap to using your ranged attack, and vice versa. (Attempting to melee with a cursed ranged weapon results in a large hit to both damage and attack skill.) Previously the curse would only stop you from switching out the weapon slot.
- Experience gained from fighting monsters lower level than you is reduced, down to zero if they player is significantly higher level. Fighting higher level creatures provides an experience bonus.
- Bind Soul now only allows you to raise one creature at a time. Binding your soul to another corpse will cause the first to instantly die as your soul is no longer animating it.
- Raised creatures (from Bind Soul) and Charmed creatures no longer count against your total ally limit.
Bug fixes
- Skills were activatable outside their maximum range.
- Attempting to craft a non-existent recipe resulted in a crash.
- It was possible to equip a shield in your offhand without the shield dependency depending on how you equipped the item.
- Fixed some of the scaling issues on the various screens.
- Fixed pricing algorithm to avoid players being able to sell equipment at a higher price than it's subsequent sales price (except in very specific, intentional circumstances.)
- Player was able to use ammo of any type with launcher of any type.
Outstanding
- Allies need to have a separate screen where you can examine their stats and equipment in detail.
- Allies need to level up on their own experience curve.
- Allies need to have AI implemented to seek out better weapons (maybe...don't want they to take something the player wants), and pick up their own ammo after combat.
- A bunch of incomplete skills (the Mindblade and Centurion are particularly glaring example, though I don't have all the crafting skills done, and a TON of the general skills aren't implemented yet.
- Complete the home base building screen. (If you're so inclined, you can actually build a complete town with the few objects implemented right night - stone walls, doors, windows - with no restrictions. I just haven't completed any of the town populating interface which is tied into the quest interface e.g., rescue the blacksmith, build him a forge, and he will live in your base and work for you.)
- Complete the siege interface. About 25% complete, requires home base
building interface to be complete.
-
v0.0.43 8) Stealth ARRP 2014
New features
- Extended quest line a bit; lots more quest framework coded.
- New Mindblade skill - Pyrokinesis - To address the Mindblades ineffectiveness against mindless creatures, I had to relent and add a direct damage ability which is somewhat in line with his sychic flavor, yet is effective against most creatures. Pyrokinesis allows the mindblade to start a fire with his mind, either inside the body of a creature, or somewhere in the environment (assuming there is something combustible there.)
- New Engineer skill - Smoke Bomb - An engineer can toss out a small, burning sphere that rapidly produces a large volume of smoke. The smoke spreads fairly naturally, and limits vision where densest. Enemies caught in the smoke become confused, and can attack even their allies, being unable to see very well. A side effect of a large amount of dense smoke is it makes ranged attacks nearly impossible. Finally, creatures within the smoke have improved stealth. These features make this an effective escape tool for the engineer, or allow him to approach dangerous ranged enemies without taking constant fire. (Note that confusion as a result of smoke is not magical in nature - as soon as the creature moves to an area they can see they will no longer be confused, assuming they aren't under some other form of magical confusion)
- Related to the above, some sources of fire now emit smoke.
- <Intelligent> creatures now how their own discrete pathfinding grids, limited to their perception range. If you walk around a corner, you will be followed - if an intelligent creature is set on fire and there is water in view, he will run to the water to douse his flames - if he is unarmed, he will actively search for a weapon, etc. Animals still use scent tracking where appropriate, and generally speaking, attack the nearest threat instead of intelligently targeting enemies.
- Related to the above, perception of the player no longer exclusively requires sight (some creatures can smell, or sense the player in other ways), meaning you can be tracked even though you aren't seen.
- Necklaces are finally fully implemented.
- Creatures now gain benefits from all equipment.
- Added discrete ACID and PSYCHIC damage/resistance types, with associated effects.
- Some new items and creatures (and creature abilities).
- New item enchantments (speed, stats, etc.)
Balance changes
- All basic weapon skills are unlocked for all classes; certain weapon skills (notably guns and unarmed combat) are now tied exclusively to certain classes at the start.
- Utility skills are now unlocked for all classes. Crafting skills require either starting with the skill or finding a trainer. All classes have the scavenge skill unlocked; classes which start with a crafting skill get a free point of scavenge.
- Call Lightning now always works indoors in the Infinite Dungeon. Regular game mode still requires at least level 2 for through a roof, and level 3 for underground.
- The mechanics of the Endurance meter have been changed. Previously, drinking or eating would indiscriminately fill the bar. Now, there are separate stats for thirst and hunger, but you can't see them. You have still have a general indication of fatigue/endurance with the yellow bar, and you will receive messages that you are hungry or thirsty, but its intentionally hard to tell beyond that. As a consequence, if you are extremely hungry, but bloated from drinking over and over, drinking more water will do nothing for you - your endurance meter will still reflect your hunger, so you must balance your intake. Note that water is a more pressing need than food. Currently, you can't die from dehydration/starvation, but I will likely implement it in the future when the balance gets worked out. You ARE given a clue as to being hungry, thirsty, or both.
- CTRL-TAB now only cycles through friendly targets, while TAB cycles through enemy targets (previously TAB worked the same, while CTRL-TAB would cycle through ALL targets.)
- After some consideration, Agony has been changed to Share Pain. The psychic link part works the same, the target just now takes a percentage of the damage that you do. Increased skill increases the amount of sympathetic damage the target take, eventually being amplified above your own damage taken. Smarter creatures will figure this out and try to break the link; animals generally wont figure it out.
- Minor display change to speed - higher is now better (it doesn't functionally work any different, I just wanted to be consistent in how numbers are presented so players don't think a high speed value was good when in reality it was bad).
- You may now carry weight above you max limit, but this results in an increasing penalty to speed, melee speed, and ranged speed.
- The Infinite Dungeon is now 2-way (you can go back up a level if you wish), and no longer technically 'infinite' (although I doubt anyone will reach level 999.)
- Targeting an enemy will now color the enemies name based on their threat level to you (and no longer displays the creature level) in the bottom of the right side status bar.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a variable reference bug in several skill functions.
- Fixed a bug where creatures targeting a monster that died had their target shifted to the next creature in the list (even themselves.)
-
v0.0.44b 8)
New features
- New Centurion skill - Slash - Slash give the Centurion a passive chance to strike foes directly next to his current melee target with a sweeping slash attack. If activated, the Centurion can complete a 360 sweep around him, striking ALL nearby foes. After executing the active 360 sweep attack, the passive bonus is inactive until the skill recharges. Higher skill levels improve the chance of hitting with the passive attack, as well as the damage and recharge rate of the active attack. Damage type is based on the main hand weapon.
- New Centurion skill - Charge Attack - The Centurion charges forward in a bull rush, using the weight of his armor as a weapon, knocking enemies to the ground, or possible simply using the ability to escape tight situations. Increased skill level improves the distance the Centurion can run, and the amount of damage done on impact.
- New general skill - Iron Will - A passive skill which improves general toughness in the following ways: Reduces your need for sustenance/water (but will never eliminate them), improves your resistance to poison and disease, and gives you a modest (retroactive) health bonus. Actual constitution value is unaffected
- New general skill - Ether Link - A passive skill which reduces the cost of mana based skills and improves mana regeneration rate.
- New weapons and armor.
Balance changes
- Damage reduction is now a flat, guaranteed reduction percentage (rather than blocking a random amount), and is displayed on the inventory and character screens next to defense rating. Each point of armor provides a diminishing damage reduction amount as you approach 100%. As before, armor only affects normal melee and ranged damage; elemental/magic/poison/etc. damages are mitigated by their respective resistances.
- Both armor proficiency and strength now play a factor in reducing the evasion penalty when wearing heavy armor.
- Improved ally targeting (previously, allies were limited to targets in their own visual range, meaning a target at the limits of your vision would not be seen by a trailing ally; makes more sense for your team to communicate threats, so allies have knowledge of what their team mates can see, within limits of how far the allies are from each other.)
- Reduced the steepness of the experience curve.
- Frost Armor now provides a resistance to ice attacks when active, as well as a chance to chill melee attackers.
- Pyrokinesis no provides a passive resistance to fire attacks.
- All classes now start with Armor Proficiency unlocked.
- All classes can now equip small shields (bucklers) without training, though bigger shields require points in the Shields skill.
- Shields now provide more defense per size level.
- Rather than tediously pick up corpses and select them from the menu to chop up a corpse with scavenge, you can simply stand on the corpse and press the Scavenge hotkey to automatically butcher it.
- Leap attack no longer strikes enemies during the leap or kick phases.
- Dual wield has been reduced in effectiveness slightly (it was essentially a 50% always-on damage buff against even level enemies even at low levels.)
- Increased the chance of Shadowstepping successfully (although there is still a minor chance you will fail to step to the desired location that decreases with each skill point invested.)
- Range indication now shows a target line if the player will be moved when executing the action (eg, Leap Attack or Shadowstep.)
Bug fixes
- Target threat color was incorrectly reversed.
- Fixed a bug with range attack distance modifier.
- Leap attack was incorrectly passing a turn for ever creature struck.
-
Looks like it's been abandoned but just on the off chance the Solstice guy is still around, the newest (October 2014) version throws up this error every time I try to camp, which makes it literally unplayable.
(http://tinyurl.com/lfcdp9f)