TomeNet — MMORPG roguelike game

[tangar]

TomeNet (http://www.tomenet.eu/) — online multiplayer roguelike or just MMORPG-rogulike game.

Its wild mix of oldschool singleplayer ultrahardcore roguelike and modern MMORPG setting. So its the very best place to enjoy roguelike with a friends (better, then World of Warcraft, I can say).


CLICK to enlarge screenshot

Roguelike features:
- Random levels generation (btw TomeNet has a lot of advanced technologies for rogulike games - Day/night changes, four seasons, weather, sound and music, powerful macro system & etc)
- Permadeath (but also you could also play "everlasting" character if you wish)
- Huge amount of game actions (kick, throw, search, dig & etc)
- Freedom. Not linear walkthrough of the game. There is even no walkthrough - gameplay is almost endless!
- Hack’n’Slash, great amount of items, monsters.. and other roguelike features. HUGE amounts of situations. For example, at my first day in-game I weared cursed ring of teleportation and several kind players gathered to help me to remove it. It was awesome adventure  :lol: I even got that on video, but its in Russian.

MMORPG features:
- real-time. Don't worry - time passes slower on deeper levels keeping the real-time experience at an optimum.
- PvE in group. Fight with your friends back to back! If you are solo player (as me) its very challenging (hard, but possible) to go alone in the dark.
- PvP - dueling and even PK (full-loot) and stealing! If you don't like PvP - you are not forced to do it. You have to create special character for PvP mode
- Economy. Trade, barter, create your own shop or even shop empire!
- Communication. Find friends there! Build your own house or even create village with your friends!
- ...and much, MUCH more


CLICK to enlarge screenshot

TomeNet is totally free game with open-source for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

TomeNet information and history @ roguebasin wiki

Btw I making live stream videos of my adventures @ TomeNet almost every day (it starts 22:00 or 23:00.. or sometimes 00:00 +3 UTC) at my youtube channel

And as a final word - I've made my video compilation of my deaths @ TomeNet Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9vOYsdItwA

[tangar]

Btw I'm live streaming TomeNet everyday, but I can't post new videos there (too lazy ). Anyway I wanna share this epic moment (remember that I'm permadeath hehe):
Ancient Black Dragon vs 31 rogue. I rewinded to certain moment my loong stream:

https://youtu.be/oltBnJZ3RWM?t=34m21s

Also I'm writing Russian guide to TomeNet (today I finished pages about feelings and traps - http://tangar.info/tomenet-guide )

[tangar]

Yeasterday I login to make quick run around Mirkwood.. it was huge mistake to go to play TomeNet when you are sleepy and tired... HELL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3hTVTfwS_E

[tangar]

Yestarday we had Master Mindcrafter epic battle, Grave of master lich & and stinky pit full of dragons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqnlF3lsPDI

[tangar]

THERE AND BACK?..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mEe8tEEfLw

It was my best char yet, managed to get to lvl 36. Was quite careful. Instadeath

[tangar]

I've decided to start a archer. Vampire. I think I'll be first archer vampire ever (cause its extreamly hard to feed if you kill everything from the distance).

Also archer has _very_ dangerous gameplay - you cant go melee, needs a lot of blinking and kiting.

But I though my first adventure would be easy... I've just created new character - what could happen to me? I was mistaken. Very.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bLnKAdX4ew

[mushroom patch]

You seem to be the only person in the world posting about tomenet these days. How is it doing? About how many people are on the main server at a time these days?

[tangar]

TomeNet is pretty good. There is a big update comming with revamp of magic system. We got 10-15 players online; a lot of shops around where you could buy items from another players 2000+ characters at server total (that doesn't counts old characters - they are deleted after 180 days of inactivity).

TomeNet has huge potential as the only actively developed MMO-roguelike nowadays. Come and check it by yourself! %)

---

Yestarday my archer lurked in Orc Caves.. It was nice hunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyaBpxkwxog

[mushroom patch]

I used to play about ten years ago. Back then, the devs were obsessed with suppressing trade/commerce between players. Sounds like they've loosened up.

Personally, I think the game has (or had) serious playability problems. Scumming is pretty much the central feature of high level play, whether it's scumming packs of monsters, scumming for forms on mimics, scumming black markets for essential supplies, etc. Many mechanics are incredibly tedious, especially identification. Even with auto-id scroll reading, it takes a ridiculous amount of dicking around picking up and dropping hundreds of items with the only relief coming from rare randarts and area effect id available only at a high cost in skill points for most characters or not at all. You read that right: One of the primary benefits of playing mages is avoiding a ridiculous interface screw. There are essentially no gameplay ramifications to the time wasted on more or less required identification, it's purely tedium. And that's if you assume that it's important to even have identification as a part of the game, which it isn't.

The wilderness part of the game is superficially interesting sounding, but in fact adds nothing to the game but time spent traveling. On the main server back then, the walk from Bree to Gondolin took about 15 minutes of shift-move, but you couldn't do it automatically, you had to babysit your character as bushes, kobolds, and map sector boundaries interrupt your travel (this was literally all that could be expected to happen, it was never an epic adventure). Maybe the wilderness has been regenerated since then. Ultimately, due to weird dungeon rules relating to minimum level requirements, force-down and no-recall rules that varied from dungeon to dungeon, there were only a few dungeons worth visiting if you're interested in winning, in spite of the existence of like 30 of them. This meant that almost none of this theoretically large gameworld was actually used by players.

The skill system at the time was very tight with not nearly as many interesting possibilities as you would guess as a beginning player. Sounds like this has changed a little with "Maiar" or whatever they're called. There are many skills that are almost if not completely useless and serve as little more than a failure mode for new players. The shaman class was pretty good in terms of offering a variety of strong builds, but otherwise...

Add to that crazy rules about artifacts where characters who are never played and never win end up with all of the artifacts and account expiration rules which were apparently the devs' best idea about how to address that situation (!), line of sight that extends well past the top and bottom of your unresizable view window in a realtime game where many monsters spawn awake and can kill you with a single breath attack, and you've got a thoroughly broken game.

[tangar]

Very interesting opinion. But a bit old-fashioned - a lot of staff already fixed But also you said some staff with which I could agree - for example I've already critisized identification system at TomeNets' forum (though I get used for it and do it automatically).

BUT again..... There is no any another MMO-roguelike game. Its not JUST multiplayer roguelike. Its full scale MMO with economy system, with PvP, housing and lot of communication options. PvE of course! And there is a lot of options for PvE - IDDC with party its different universe of gameplay.

Game is in active development, so I belive that more problems would be somehow solved soon (like ID). And I wanna repeat, that its seems some staff already was fixed since your last login. You could teleport in a Wilderness with recall scolls, so no more boring travels. You need only to discover zone one time, thats it - after you could teleport there with a cheap magic scroll. I didnt see any scumming and didnt used it (I'm lvl 36, may be at super high lvl there is some..). And about deaths from 1 blow - if you have ESP and you would see danger before it kills you.

Skill system is quite perfect imho, as an true-arts systems (they expire in 30 days).. So yes ,I could agree in some points, but 80% about what you said is a bit rusty Try game again


Depths of Orc Caves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZjWgMecPM

[DamianBentley]

the only actively developed MMO-roguelike nowadays.

Incorrect. Rogue Element RPG is in active development. Big differences between Rogue Element RPG and TomeNet:

* Fully turn based gameplay (and there is no need to wait for other players)

* Multi-lingual (English and Japanese are supported right now)

* 3d client (I have put development on hold for this as my laptop is so old and I can not afford something newer to improve the graphics)


There is one server online in the US and I can easily expand to have more servers.

Is it ready for gameplay? Almost - I still have to arrange at least one quest for the game and improve the monster AI a little more.

Screenshots etc.: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rogue-Element-RPG/443112972508604

[mushroom patch]

Very interesting opinion. But a bit old-fashioned - a lot of staff already fixed But also you said some staff with which I could agree - for example I've already critisized identification system at TomeNets' forum (though I get used for it and do it automatically).

BUT again..... There is no any another MMO-roguelike game. Its not JUST multiplayer roguelike. Its full scale MMO with economy system, with PvP, housing and lot of communication options. PvE of course! And there is a lot of options for PvE - IDDC with party its different universe of gameplay.

I probably identified over 100k items playing tomenet. I never got used to what an obnoxious waste of time it is. I only viewed it as the price of doing business. It's a high price and totally unnecessary. As you say, it's "the only MMO roguelike" with a reasonable level of player activity. That's the best, probably the only, reason to play it.

Game is in active development, so I belive that more problems would be somehow solved soon (like ID). And I wanna repeat, that its seems some staff already was fixed since your last login. You could teleport in a Wilderness with recall scolls, so no more boring travels. You need only to discover zone one time, thats it - after you could teleport there with a cheap magic scroll. I didnt see any scumming and didnt used it (I'm lvl 36, may be at super high lvl there is some..). And about deaths from 1 blow - if you have ESP and you would see danger before it kills you.

Yes, wilderness recall existed then too. Having to walk every character to gondolin was an insane waste of time that added nothing to the game, even if you only do it once per character. About one shot off screen kills, I disagree. It's a real time game and in order to see everything in your LoS, you have to use the 'L' command to move your view around. While about 99% of the time you can go down stairs and safely accomplish this look dance (another totally bizarre interface screw that no other game I've seen can rival) the fact is that you visit hundreds of levels. For example, if you get a blade pit off-screen but in LoS, they spawn awake and kill walls while you're L'ing around. If you don't happen to check their direction first, their breath will take you down before you even know what happened.

They will never change ID. Those guys had totally archaic ideas about what a roguelike game should be back then, basically thought tedium is an essential part of the genre, and the lack of change in 10 years makes me pretty sure they're in about the same place now.

Skill system is quite perfect imho, as an true-arts systems (they expire in 30 days).. So yes ,I could agree in some points, but 80% about what you said is a bit rusty Try game again

I logged in about 3 years ago, I think. Skills looked about the same as ever. You should build some endgame characters. You're still at the stage where you don't see the limitations of the skills system, imo. When you've gotten some wins and you pay attention to what other people who win regularly do, you start to see there's pretty much just one kind of mage, etc.

[tangar]

the only actively developed MMO-roguelike nowadays.

Incorrect. Rogue Element RPG is in active development. Big differences between Rogue Element RPG and TomeNet:
....
Is it ready for gameplay? Almost - I still have to arrange at least one quest for the game and improve the monster AI a little more.

Great! I'll be very interested to try it when its done. But the most interesting differences VS another roguelike game has to be in gameplay, not in "Multi-lingual" feature

So for now its still true - the only MMO-roguelike to play RIGHT now (not in development; there are a lot of developments going around) - TomeNet.

As you say, it's "the only MMO roguelike" with a reasonable level of player activity. That's the best, probably the only, reason to play it.

Can't agree with you. As I mentioned before - its full scale MMO with huge world, group PvE, economy system, PvP, housing and lot of communication options. There is NO another playable MMO-roguelike with such features yet. Thats why its unique and interesting.

Yes, wilderness recall existed then too. Having to walk every character to gondolin was an insane waste of time that added nothing to the game, even if you only do it once per character.

I dont feel any problem to go Gondolin once at wilderness. Its quite fun for me to have an adventure and travel around. Some places at wilderness has strong monsters with decent loot. So its not boring at all, even by the way to Gondo you could meet quite deadly "water hounds", so its quite fun for me (all humans ar not the same )

About one shot off screen kills, I disagree. It's a real time game and in order to see everything in your LoS, you have to use the 'L' command to move your view around.
 

I agree with it, its not so comfortable. But it playable

They will never change ID. Those guys had totally archaic ideas about what a roguelike game should be back then, basically thought tedium is an essential part of the genre, and the lack of change in 10 years makes me pretty sure they're in about the same place now.

This game become better place at my eyes. At that spring was big update. Now another one. May be you just played when this game devs had hard times?

I logged in about 3 years ago, I think. Skills looked about the same as ever. You should build some endgame characters. You're still at the stage where you don't see the limitations of the skills system, imo. When you've gotten some wins and you pay attention to what other people who win regularly do, you start to see there's pretty much just one kind of mage, etc.

Its very long way for the win if you play permadeath char. And I'm in a long way there. I dont wish to play NE character - may be because of it I enjoy the game? May be game as everlasting character is boring and full of scamming - don't know. I didnt try it and I wouldn't Traditional rogulike gamestyle with permadeath making TomeNet endless and perfect experience. Its what I feel about this game.

[getter77]

Spent any time with PWMangband tangar?  It isn't quite the exact same style as TomeNet, but I know for a fact PowerWyrm has worked hard on putting out many, many updates in the past few years---you just might find some enjoyable times with it, though there's more to learn about the game in the forum section for it (also some Beta 2015 updates I think...) once the, apparent, explosion of the Mangband forum servers is fixed:

http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=1976.msg14824#msg14824

[mushroom patch]

It's amazing to me the level of abuse people are willing to endure to play a multiplayer roguelike -- most of all amazed at how long I endured it myself back then. This is a badly under-served niche in the genre, as you can see by hanging around on the servers and watching hundreds of people come in, give it a try for a week or two and leave disappointed or angry.