ADOM 1.2.0 Prerelease 3 is out (ARRP)!

[Thomas_Biskup]

Dear fans, supporters and critics!

After almost ten years I am particularly proud to announce the availability of ADOM 1.2.0p1:

http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-120-prerelease-1-now-available.html

If you would like to see more of this please go and support the ADOM crowd funding campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/resurrect-adom-development by pledging and/or spreading the word!

I'd like to take a second to than Jochen Terstiege for his incredible work in making this possible. And now go and play the game  and let us know what you think!

The ADOM forums can be found at http://www.adom.de/forums (as is the bug database).

Cheers
Thomas Biskup (& Jochen Terstiege)

[getter77]

Here's the changelog, certainly a number of things situated:   

- Issue 9 - Choosing the skilled talent crashes the game
- Issue 10 - Dropping unIDed metal ingots can crash game
- Issue 11 - Killing corrupting monsters that stand behind other monsters with mindcraft crashes the game
- Issue 25 - Several bugs can crop up during play due integer wrap-rounds
- Issue 69 - it was possible to decrease the number of game turns
- Issue 95 - Circle kick bug allows you to kick indefinately
- Issue 97 - Dipping gold into a potion of exchange causes a crash
- Issue 99 - Chatting to Thrundarr while corrupted results in a game crash
- Issue 100 - Invalid bonuses for Good Learner and Great Learner skills
- Issue 106 - It is possible to rob some shops unnoticed in broad daylight and in front of the shopkeeper
- Issue 107 - Background corruption only increases once, on day 90
- Issue 109 - Berserking monsters behave oddly and can lead to an annoying crash
- Issue 111 - Dragons are able to replicate gold
- Issue 113 - The 'n'ame command can be used to detect invisible monsters
- Issue 117 - Wizards not charging wands after all
- Issue 119 - Fireproof blankets don't function properly while doomed
- Issue 120 - The unicorn starsign makes it easier to change alignment
- Issue 122 - Kicking walls with extremely low strength produces hilarious death
- Issue 128 - Walking against a wall with monsters nearby allow for free regeneration of HP and PP
- Issue 129 - Approximately half of the game's artifacts are currently unavailable
- Issue 134 - Artifact Grod does not grant a critical hit bonus
- Issue 135 - You always fall at least once when entering the rift
- Issue 138 - The formula for potential stat gain is bugged
- Issue 139 - "dwarven weaponmaster" and "dwarven mystic" are now flagged as "unique" monsters
- Issue 148 - The Allow_Default_Name = true flag in the .cfg can either result in a crash or a strange, exploitable effect
- Issue 203 - ADOM crashing during character creation on a 64-bit machine
- Issue 711 - Starvation tolerance for farmer class not working correctly
- Issue 712 - Slow Poison is far too good
- Issue 713 - Dipping fluff ball into water: game crashes if there is no room for the Gremlins to spawn
- Issue 714 - Spell learning chance mixed up for arcane and clerical spells
- Issue 715 - Only every other inventory item is considered for destruction
- Issue 717 - Berserking monsters don't kill themselves any more
- Issue 723 - (Greater) karmic vaults seem to end up getting filled with goblins instead of ancient karmic dragons
- Issue 726 - The "Drop items in a comfortable way" command regularly drops the wrong items if used on too many items stacks of the same type
- Issue 727 - If you kill a creature using a potion of cure corruption (and other potions), you don't get any experience
- Issue 728 - Eating some corpses can result in a 'your muscles bulge' message without any strength gains
- Issue 729 - Applying concentration skill while stunned
- Issue 740 - There are a few ways that cause the game to unfairly and irrevocably crash
- Issue 741 - Some words are missing in the talents screen (e.g. "encounters" for Scout)
- Issue 744 - Having enough stacks of scrolls of item destruction as your sole inventory and reading one will crash the game
- Issue 745 - PC gets experience from door traps that triggered by monsters
- Issue 749 - Mad Minstrel songs don't display properly
- Issue 750 - Wrong alignment message when reading tracts
- Issue 751 - PCs with high swimming skill use more energy to move while in water than PCs without it
- Issue 752 - Monsters don't leave any of the guaranteed artifacts when sacced or transformed
- Issue 754 - Certain skills can be successfully 'a'pplied under nonsensical circumstances
- Issue 765 - Answering no to "Really attack/backstab the -foo-? [y/N]", reduces the energy cost of the PC's following action
- Issue 766 - Some items in the game have no plural form to display when the PC owns more than one
- Issue 790 - the "Justifier" artifact is completely useless to priests, despite the fact they can be crowned with it
- Issue 823 - Monsters give double xp when invisible even if the player can see invisible
- Issue 848 - Under certain circumstances, owing money to a shopkeeper (or reversed) can trigger some bugs
- Issue 851 - Illusionary wall bugs: Monsters standing in those walls can't be hit by non-bouncing bolt spells
- Issue 857 - Prayer can both help and punish you at the same time
- Issue 925 - The PC can receive a DV bonus worth half what he'd get from fighting unarmed, but *only* if the *right* hand slot is free
- Issue 950 - There are a few bugs regarding 'n'aming monsters
- Issue 1109 - Reading spellbooks can make them shift place in your inventory
- Issue 1122 - Abusable overflow when entering the character name on MS-DOS

Partially fixed:

- Issue 716 : an uncountable number of typos have been fixed
- Issue 735 : There are several ways to make an ADOM game unwinnable
- Issue 743 : around 55 "illogical messages" were fixed
- Issue 882 : the PC is able to illogically perform several actions while stuck in webs. The webs themselves also have some quirks

Additionally many bugs encountered while refacturing and reviewing the code were fixed. They don't have separate tickets.

[Skeletor]

That's fantastic!! Good job!
This is an important moment in the history of roguelikes.

[Krice]

This is an important moment in the history of roguelikes.

Why? Most fans were playing ADOM despite of bugs. And now years later only when that funding attempt is forcing Biskup to release something to keep the interest in funding some bugs get fixed. Not cool.

[Skeletor]

I get your point Krice but personally as I said in the other thread I see nothing wrong when roguelike developers seek a bit of financial gain from their projects.. I can agree with you with the fact that mainstream games sucks so badly just because being commercial products they have to satisfy the more customer possible rather than few highly intelligent players.. but Biskup 48k$ goal has nothing to do with this and since he definitely deserve a big page in the book of roguelikes I really hope he can achieve it.

And just think about how the world would be better if the big player (not videogamers) were into roguelikes.. just guess how awesome would be if Paul Wolfowitz, the Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs and all those douchebags were into roguelikes!! The 7DRL contests would have prizes of thousands and thousands bucks and big minds such Kisielewicz and Biskup could make a living out of their creativity and skills in roguelike development!

I know it sounds crazy but if I'll ever get rich I'll do something about this.

[kraflab]

I think perhaps the complaint is not that Biskup wants money, but just the way things are being done.  He now releases an update only because his hand is being forced.  Then there is the obvious thing where I feel I must ask why again he needs this money...look, he got an update out very easily as if he actually does have the time!  I guess he doesn't need funding after all.

[Skeletor]

Well, not nice but still acceptable since part of his willingness to seek financial reward for his efforts.

About where the 48k is going.. I really wouldn't mind if he spend them on cocaine and transexuals, we live in capitalism and time is money, so where's the problem anyway.

And besides, 48k is nothing.

[kraflab]

I wouldn't mind if he spent it on cocaine either, as long as he was transparent about that.

[Darren Grey]

His point is that these are the easy bug fixes - low hanging fruit like typos and quick fixes for some issues. The rest of the bugs will need more work, as will UI changes and getting it working better on modern systems (still can't play full screen on Windows 7). Plus there's the extra content to be added (new items, monsters, corrupt ions, artifacts) and potentially tile support. Of course you can debate that this isn't all worth $48k.

Personally I think the new release is great and gives me faith that the whole project can be successful. It goes to show that money can be a motivating thing, which I have no problem with myself.

[kraflab]

It goes to show that money can be a motivating thing, which I have no problem with myself.

Personally, I don't like the idea of money being a motivating factor in any art form.  Sure it's nice to pay the bills, but only as an incidental thing.  You never want the question of financial value to come into play when deciding what type of game you are going to make, or what features you are going to work on.  At least, I don't.

Case in point, the potential work on tiles used as an enticement for further pledges.

[getter77]

Well, aside from Darren being right about this being the easier stuff that was mainly Jochen and some of Biskup hammering away at and only finalizing just recently(that crazy amount of platforms took some doing indeed on Jochen's part), the proper team counts to 4 people, Tile support bumping that number up to 5 as I'd imagine there to be quite a lot of overhauling getting done to NotEye on an actual near'ish timescale as opposed to just whenever.

Money for Time(ly) Doings is at the core of this, versus  Just Art or Just an Original Soundtrack----each of which historically costly on otherwise unless you happen to be rather multi-talented and well equipped.   If one makes it about personal financial straits, I believe Biskup has done pretty well for himself accruing much responsibility for others as it goes....but I don't recall any indication that the other 3-4 folks are in a comparable situation.

Skeletor is certainly correct on this being an important moment in Roguelike history as sadly all too often it has been the case that the fore-bearers and Old Guard as it were have sadly vanished with the winds while their projects, which still hold substantial value and are often still not eclipsed to this day in one respect or another, atrophy and get forgotten.  This finally happening is like some of the original Rogue fellows getting back into it, the IVAN guy trying again, the DevTeam putting out a release very much like Biskup's here for Nethack, the Valhalla/Raganrok fellows riding out again, and all other such matters.

End of the day, a classic is now in a better form for posterity than would've been otherwise, stands a chance of that becoming even moreso the case, and a legitimate fresh release to entice newcomers with as opposed to getting somebody to openly invest time in a game stuck in time with quite a bit of polish needed in terms of modern standards after a decade or so.

[Krice]

And besides, 48k is nothing.

For at least 90% of people on earth it's quite nice amount of cash. I think it is, but then again I'm poor as a polander. Somehow it makes things worse when you know that Biskup has money (I guess), so it's not that he really needs that money. The worst thing is that Biskup has to get that money, otherwise he'll get an excuse to nag about players not supporting him.

[Holsety]

I think perhaps the complaint is not that Biskup wants money, but just the way things are being done.  He now releases an update only because his hand is being forced. [...]

This right here.
I'm not going to go further into it, because I've said enough on this subject as far as I'm concerned.
It *is* nice to see an update to ADOM though. I'm still extremely sceptical they'll make their goal, but I do hope this won't be the last we hear of ADOM.

[Irinka]

I seriously don't know why the thing that it's a part of Indiegogo funding marketing bothers you... Unless someone walks everywhere you go, whispering in your ear "Donate money to Thomas Biskup ! Donate MORE money! More! More! It's not enough, more!". Hard to ignore that voice in this case, but otherwise you can enjoy free version of a game without donating anything, so it's great

I'm happy to see that finally bugs are fixed, I remember whining about them few years ago. And I really hope that the "real" version of ADOM 1.2.0, if it's release, would be able to compete with DCSS and other modern major roguelikes. Fixed bugs don't really convince me to play ADOM again, though - I've won it so many times that only new content would convince me to play

[getter77]

Also, the team will get less than 48K---there is a not-insubstantial cut that the payment processors, IndieGoGo, shipping costs, taxes, etc that will be divvied prior to Biskup actually getting his bit of the funds, so while the exact figures escape me there will certainly be more than a couple percentage points lopped off.