Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) => Topic started by: getter77 on May 11, 2010, 06:55:58 PM
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http://tome.te4.org/
For many years people have patiently waited for ToME3 to be released, for many years I have tried. But I always burned out of developing it too fast. It was a pile of old crappy code I could not stand working on anymore…
So one day I set out on a new venture, to rewrite it all from scratch, to forget code I could not bear using anymore and to focus on a new engine, and a new game. This was about six months ago, and now after 20 private alpha versions I am ready to unleash the Tales of Middle-Earth: The Fourth Age and T-Engine4 onto the world!
T-Engine 4
This is the “spiritual” successor of T-Engine 3, the basic idea is the same: to make a roguelike game engine that allows the game maker to focus on making a game, not on handling the trivialities of coding.
Being the lua fanatic I am the engine obviously uses it, and much more than in T-Engine2/3. There is a very small C core that is mostly unaware of any high level designs, it simply provides access to graphics, sounds, input, …
T-Engine4 can handle many things and is meant to be easily extended. Its lua core is documented and based on a simple OO design, leveraging the full power of Lua.
A list of features can be found at http://te4.org/ but the most important ones are:
* single unified UI using OpenGL on all platforms
* support for many roguelike concepts from scratch without imposing limits on what can be done with them
* easy input (keyboard & mouse) support
* generic save/load code using serialization, simple objects do not even need to be aware of it, it works auto-magically
* support for both graphical mode and traditional ASCII, potentially at the same time
* many other things, checkout the site and try it
Tales of Middle-Earth: The Fourth Age
Because an engine is nothing without a game (and because I wanted to make a game), I developed ToME4 at the same time.
As I developed ToME3 I was starting to feel restricted by the theme I had setup for myself, that of the quests for the ring in the third age. Do not get me wrong, I love the setting but it felt to me like I was meant to follow a pre-existing story and had little room for improvements, all I could do was bastardise it.
So I took a hard, but IMO needed, decision for ToME4 and scrapped that altogether. It is based one hundred and twenty two years after the fall of Sauron, in a world that is in relative peace under the guidance the High Kings of the Reunited Kingdom (Gondor and Arnor). The player is not “the chosen one” that goes on to save the world from level 1 but instead a simple adventurer, out for glory and treasures. While there is a grand-evil-that-must-be-stopped it is revealed slowly as part of the player leveling up and should feel much less intimidating.
The biggest gameplay change is probably the switch to a new stats&skills system. The primary stats are now Strength, Dexterity, Magic, Willpower, Cunning and Constitution (with a hidden Luck stat) and the skill system has been changed to follow a “standard” pattern for most skills. They are now called talents and usually have 5 levels. All talents are organised in talent types, usually 4 talents per type.
This forces to have some interesting designs for each classes, melee classes have gained a lot from it and now have many combat techniques they can use.
Some races, classes and other “things” also need unlocking before they can be used. Fear not, the mage class for example is indeed in the game but requires unlocking to be available, as are others. There is mainly two reasons for this design:
* it allows to not overwhelm a new player with too many unknown choices at birth
* it allows to give “rewards” without winning the game
At the start the player can be a human, dwarf, elf or hobbit and either a warrior, rogue or archer (with subclasses for each).
ToME4 (and T-Engine4) are meant to be enjoyable by anybody, as such there is no hidden “macro”, or tons of useless and cryptic options. Key-bindings and graphical modes are set-able in game with the main menu (available by pressing Escape from the game). Mouse support is available in most dialogs, it can even be used to activate talents.
Both ToME4 and T-Engine4 are now in public beta, meaning they are usable but not done. T-Engine4 is mostly good and I did not modify it much for some weeks now, except to add some new independent features (like new map generators). ToME4 story is fully planned in my head and was meant to be split in two half. The first half is done and playable (and such the game is currently winnable), the second half will be implemented during beta.
Many thought this would never happen, and even I'm surprised it happened as soon as it did after the new forum revived awhile back. One wonders just how big a shot in the arm this will give the entire lot of it....should be very interesting! 8)
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What the? I thought this was dead!
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Yep, that's pretty much everybody's thought. Definitely some bugs pointed out mainly by others and a tiny amount while doing my English work by me----but overall I think it will "get there" so long as the dev stays brisk and fresh on things from here on out.
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AH, the DarkGod fooled us all! I'm glad to see this :)
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Well, that was unexpected...
Awesome, just awesome. 8)
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Works a bit sluggy and buggy here (Vista 32) let's see how it evolves
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Wow. Represent.
edit: though playing it reminds me why I stayed away from angband...
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Wow. Represent.
edit: though playing it reminds me why I stayed away from angband...
What would that be ?
I did not design it to be a *band, so I'm quite interrested in what you find annoying in both :)
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Welcome around the place I'm usually constantly around DarkGod! 8) And, of course, congrats!
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What would that be ?
I did not design it to be a *band, so I'm quite interrested in what you find annoying in both :)
It really doesn't feel much like a *band to me. I think right now it's rough around the edges, but I liked ToME, so I'm perfectly willing to wait and see how it turns out.
My biggest problem right now is with how it handles messages. The old way was nicer and more intuitive, in my opinion. Also, trying to equip a weapon your character can't use seems to destroy that weapon.
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THe weapon thing is fixed now.
ABout messages, what was more intuitive ? having to press [space] for ages on ?
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Maybe intuitive wasn't quite the right word, but it's a few things, like how the message bar at the top of the screen tends to draw the player's attention to itself with large text and flashing colors, while the message bar in the bottom left corner is out of the was, but since the top bar tends to fill up larger than the screen can contain, the bottom set of messages are much more useful.
Maybe they'd be more noticeable if their position were swapped with the location of the player's skill list? Something like this (http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8060/tomeo.png) maybe? The reason being that while both the skills and messages are important information, the player's skills change infrequently while messages change all the time, so the player shouldn't need to reference the former as frequently, and the latter should be given a position closer to the player's center of vision.
I do like the skill hotkeys. Much more convenient than the old mbaa* or whatever it was just to use a basic spell on a target. You don't see skill cooldowns very often in a roguelike, but I think it could work out well here.
Combining commands like read and quaff into a single use command isn't necessarily a bad idea (in fact, I think it might be a good one), but it is unintuitive to a roguelike player since q and r are always quaff and read.
The game seems to want the player to use their mouse to look at things. While the ability to do so is nice, I would bet that most players would like some way of doing every task with just the keyboard.
Maybe I'll post more suggestions later.
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You can look around with 'l'. It will popup the same tooltip as the mouse.
I see your point about the messages.
The main problem is what you said, the top line of message is not working all that well. I'll probably change it a bit in some next release.
Combining keys is IMO vital for new people, figuring out which key to press to use a potion instead of a scroll or wand is like a torture game which has really no need to exist. Actually even 'u'/'w'/'t'/'d' are optional since you can wear/takeoff/drop/use from the inventory screen itself.
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- on Win 7 changing resolution destroys most of the tiles, they become white. I have to restart to see graphics
- is there any way to scale video resolution? The text is too small on 1900x1200 desktop
- how do i turn off the music? also removing the "music" folder crashes the game on start
- dying puts the game in permanent loop of time advancement - the log displays days one after another
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You can look around with 'l'. It will popup the same tooltip as the mouse.
I can look at enemies that way, but not floor tiles. Is this not possible, or am I doing something wrong?
Combining keys is IMO vital for new people, figuring out which key to press to use a potion instead of a scroll or wand is like a torture game which has really no need to exist. Actually even 'u'/'w'/'t'/'d' are optional since you can wear/takeoff/drop/use from the inventory screen itself.
It seems to me that the best key to use with the current system is 'e', since it has all the functions of the other inventory buttons, and it's near wasd, where your left hand typically rests when you play a game (at least with qwerty keyboards). Maybe quaff and read commands would still be good in addition to the universal use command? It hasn't been a real problem for me yet, but it might be better to be able to see only one item type when you get late into the game and you're carrying 20 different types of potions and scrolls.
How are you going to handle save files between versions? Normally with roguelikes it's not a big deal if you lose everything between versions, because you can just keep playing the old one until your current character dies and then switch over. With your achievement system though, players will probably want to keep their unlockable content between releases.
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I fixed dying time passing (in most cases).
I am still looking for taht white stuff :/
Music is not disablable until next release :/
'l'ooking around you can use shift+direction to move freely but yes it needs a tooltip to explain it ;)
Unlockable content and achievements are not savefile dependent. They are sllit from the player savefile.
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One of the complaints about *bands is that there are too many samey enemies. Have you considered whether you want to keep brown snakes and white snakes and green worms and white worms and so forth? I'm sure there's a difference between them, but it seems to me like it's not big enough to care about.
I hope I haven't sounded too hard on you so far. I am excited to see ToME development starting up again.
Edit: Minor complaint: The numeric keypad doesn't work for navigating the character selection screen.
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Will the closed stores be open at some time of a day? And can I wait/rest for more than 1 turn when my health is at max?
I'd like to have the ability to exit the quantity entry shop dialog by ESC.
Also please display the prices in the shop to the right of item names.
bug: When quantity dialog is on-screen, the arrow keys are blocked but the mouse is not - I can open more quantity dialogs on top of it.
I started to look into the mod code, there's alot of stuff to chew on for a newbie. Perhaps you can be persuaded to make something like "testmod" where there is a small zone, walking player with 1 stat and maybe a building?
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Testmod: yes that's planned :)
Thanks for the bug reports.
No you cannot rest for X turns, not sure I want that, it encourages boring grinding I feel.
As for too many monsters, yes, I tried to not do it. There are a few different worm, bears, ... for flavor but not many because it's not needed. The game adjusts the level of places you visit to your level (in some range) and it knows how to intelligently level monsters
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Wow. Represent.
edit: though playing it reminds me why I stayed away from angband...
What would that be ?
I did not design it to be a *band, so I'm quite interrested in what you find annoying in both :)
As was mentioned by someone with better manners than me, the thing with the green worms and white worms and yellow goobers is not very Middle-Earthy to me.
Also, without having a very good sense of the work that goes into managing the pragmatics of dungeon generation, nonetheless I found the layout of the first floor (I played 4 guys and died on the first floor every time) to be kind of flavorless and overly random. Seemingly OOD monsters would show up and kill me with a few well-placed stabs. Also, the traps felt too abundant for level 1.
Angband (again, just my experience) is a game where it felt like the only way to win was with a combination of the arcane inner knowledge of weird game mechanics and a plain, protracted, tedious grind. I grant - and applaud!! - that you are taking major steps away from angband. I can only imagine the work that's gone into this latest iteration of your game.
I guess if I have suggestions, they'd be about framing the player experience a little more. I like your introductory text window. That made me feel immersed. But then I was pretty much in a random dungeon that might as well have been anywhere, especially in a *band. Why not start overland?
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It's a dungeon, it feels like a dungeon ..
And I do not start in the wilderness because new people would not really know what to do on the wilderness map.
Though I might change the start location to the Trollshaws it is a tad easier because the whole level is lighted since it's an outdoor zone.
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I don't have a problem with starting in the first dungeon. You appear right by the staircase, so you can head up, and roguelike players expect to be spending their time in dungeons. This game seems like a pretty nonstandard roguelike, so little things like that to make the transition easier might be a good idea.
With regards to enemies, I don't think a warrior can get away with simply bumping into enemies in ToME 4. You need to use your special attacks just like how a mage can't survive without using magic.
The traps do seem meaner than they are in most games. I've never liked RL traps. They rely so heavily on luck.
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Yes a warrior needs to think too ;)
It is IMO much more interreting to have various combat techniques tahn just bump your way to the end.
All melee classes have an easily available stun on a short cooldown: use it :)
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My game crashed when I was exiting a dungeon earlier. Is there a crash log of some kind I should post?
I want to be a wizard. I saw a dude on the world map a while ago and he gave me some task which I assume unlocks the class, but I haven't seen him since that first time. Does he show up randomly, or what?
Edit: Is there any reason to be a Bree-man when you can be a Dunadan instead?
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There seems to be crashes related to music, if it continues in the next version taht should come out this week i'll start to worry :)
Yes the "dude" will give you a quest, finsih it and he will give you a background history about mages in the fourth age, why you couldnt play one from the start and some other nice things.
He will randomly popup (quite often) when you travel in the correct location, so just go walk a bit in the area where you met him before.
As for Bree-man, they gain exp a tad faster and well, it is a RPG :)
And it can provide additional chalenge
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Alright, finally did it.
15 staves is kind of a lot, don't you think? Something in the 5 - 10 range seems more reasonable to me. Either that or making it so it saves the number of staves donated between games.
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If you play a bit it comes fast enough in my tests and you can always buy some more :)
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It took a good while with me, and at 5 gold a pop, the costs build up. Yeah, it's doable, and a dedicated player will get there in not too long, but the thing is, I think the mage class should be unlocked pretty quickly. It's the funnest class so far, its playstyle is unlike the default classes, and it's a popular role to play in roguelikes and RPGs in general.
Basically I think people would have better impressions of the game if they could try the mage class out, and therefore it should be made available very early on.
Edit:
Two bugs:
First, the boss of Amon Sul isn't spawning for my current character, although he has in the past.
Second, the level five sense spell is not displaying the locations of traps. It lights up the squares where they are located for one term, but this is not particularly useful, especially since it has no effect on an already-lit tile.
Edit 2
If any of you kill a boss, and it drops its heart as an item, you want to eat it. Trust me on this. The game will talk about it as though it's a questionable idea in the item description, but it's really good. You might decide that the 400 gold you get for selling it is better, but it's worth doing it at least for the first time.
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Eating hearts is fun ! :>
Mhh you have a point I think I guess I could lower it to 10.
Although players can get a "teaser" of the mages using arcane blades and shadowblades.
As for different playstyle, tried summoners ?
Yes the last level of amon sul will not always connect to the boss area, dunno why yet :/
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Yes the last level of amon sul will not always connect to the boss area, dunno why yet :/
The boss area is that horizontally elongated bottom portion, right? I can go there, there's just no Shadow of Angmar there.
The level is mapped out with Vision, the problem isn't that I can't reach him, the problem is that he isn't spawning for some reason. Any idea why that might be?
Edit:
Alright, after getting beaten down by that 15,000 hp guy, it says I won the game. Will the next release have more?
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Weird, very weird.
Yes you won, for now, each new release should add some moreof the next part of the game. Once it's all set itwont be beta anymore ;)
Still it is quite an accomplishment to have done that already when most people struggle to get past level 5 :)
With what race/class did you win ?
How hard/easy was it ?
Any special comments?
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With what race/class did you win ?
Dunadan mage.
How hard/easy was it ?
It was very different from what I'm used to. Much more offense-based. Mages don't last very long at all under attack, but neither do any of the enemies. A level 5 flame spell demolishes everything. It took two castings of that and one of manathrust to take The Master down, if I remember correctly.
Elite monsters are much too strong, at least in the beginning. An elite archer can one-shot players pretty easily, and being hit with a stun attack, even at full health, is often a death sentence. It's made all the worse by the fact that they can do this from the darkness, killing the player off or leaving them severely weakened before they can even see where the damage is coming from.
Regular close range enemies are all but harmless unless they're in groups, and if you're a mage with area of effect attacks, they're harmless in groups too. They could use more variety, like fast/weak and slow/strong enemies, some that attack in groups and that sort of thing. The power disparity between close range and long range enemies is very clear if you look at the first two bosses.
The Shadow is very deadly and can kill off even characters who should be overleveled for Amon Sul in a few shots. It's perfectly capable of taking a player out without ever even being seen.
Bill the Troll, on the other hand, is completely harmless even to a level 1 mage. I'm sure he would do a lot of damage if he could land a hit, but he can't, so it's not relevant.
I feel like fighters are weak compared with mages right now. Maybe they get better when they have really nice armor and can take a few hits from archers/wizards and still be okay. I don't know, I haven't gotten one to that point. From what I've seen though, none of their defensive advantages make up for the fact that a mage can pump out enormous amounts of extremely reliable damage at long ranges.
Any special comments?
I like the character building system, and the way attributes and talents work. More documentation would be nice (how much armor penetration you get from cunning, what protection from magic willpower and cunning give you, etc), but I'm sure that will come.
This is the first time I've seen cooldowns used in a roguelike, but I think I like it. Teleport isn't as much of a get-out-of-jail-free card when you have to wait ten turns to use it again, and cooldowns on attack skills means it's worth investing in several of them instead of using every point to max out one powerful skill.
I think it would be better if the player's light radius were increased. You're not likely to get a better radius than 2 or 3 up until the final dungeon, which means that you can't tell if a monster is there until it's right up in your face. This limits the player's tactical options, and it makes enemy mages and archers even more deadly, since the player doesn't know where to go to retaliate or to take cover. Mage characters can, of course, get around this with spells like Sense or Telepathy, making their advantages over other characters even more pronounced. I don't think it would be out of line to go so far as to double the radius of each light source.
I don't like the way the strength of enemy creatures scales. It makes judging an enemy's strength from their creature type very unreliable, and looking at the stats of each one is too inconvenient. I've seen worms with about 20 hp, and I've seen ones with over 100.
If you want to keep a level scaling system in place, I would recommend instead having the game become more likely to spawn stronger creatures of another type instead of increasing the strength of each creature. That way the player can determine immediately how dangerous a creature is the moment they see it.
Maybe that would be an appropriate use of the different colored creatures we were talking about earlier. If you're low level, you run into white worms. If you're a bit higher, you get stronger green worms (I don't know whether green worms are stronger than white ones currently, but whatever). If you're high level, maybe you get red worms or something. You get the idea. Always have white worms be level 2, green worms be level 5, and red worms be level 8, so the player knows exactly what they're in for when they see one. I'd like that a lot better than I like having level 12 superworms that look exactly like their harmless level 1 brethren.
The game feels incomplete, but it is incomplete, so that's okay. I'm sure when everything is said and done, you'll have made a solid game, just like you did with the original ToME.
I wrote way too much text.