Nick Vanilla maintainer



Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Canberra, Australia Age: 55 Donated: $60 Posts: 8,463

Angband 4.2.0



This version is mainly a major overhaul of classes and the monster list.



As for the last two 4.x.0 releases, there are too many individual changes to list, so what follows is a summary.



Classes

-------

Two new realms of magic have been added, nature and shadow, to the existing divine and arcane realms. Nature realm relies on harnessing the power of the earth, and is opposite to the arcane realm, which uses craft and cunning.

Divine realm uses harmony and light, and is opposite to the shadow realm which aligns with darkness, power and sacrifice.

Rangers now use nature magic, like the new Druid class

Necromancers are the major shadow caster class

Blackguards are fighters enhanced by shadow magic

Pure casters (mages, priests, druids, necromancers) use five books (down from nine)

Hybrid casters (rogues, paladins, rangers, blackguards) use two or three books

Classes no longer have different rates of gaining experience

Monsters

--------

Each base monster type has had its game niche reconsidered, and there has been a general push to use Tolkien-inspired monsters where appropriate. Some of the major changes include: Ainur - most of these now align with one of the great Valar, and have corresponding powers

Dragons - these have mostly been made stronger and deeper

Humanoids - dark elves have been replaced with dwarves, gnomes with Drúedain

Hydras - each hydra type is like the previous type with a new head and attack added

People - the association of some of these with player classes has been expanded to include the new classes

Snakes - some of these are now dangerous

Spiders - more dangerous and deeper, with unique abilities

Trees/Ents - these are new, tough to kill enemies

Wights/Wraiths - wights are all now shallower than wraiths, and the Ringwraiths are much deeper

Game Mechanics

--------------

In the course of the class and monster changes, many new mechanics have been introduced, with some of the major ones being: Player and monster shapechanges

Variable light and darkness are created by monsters, player gear and player spells, and the player has a meter to measure the light level on their square

Mages can drain mana from magic devices

Rogues can steal from monsters

Temporary brands and slays (Priests, Paladins, Blackguards)

Necromancers can see in the dark, and can cast less well in light

Healing of hitpoints every turn for a time (Druids)

Control of a monster, including making it attack other monsters (Necromancers)

Shield bashes (Warriors, Paladins, Blackguards)

Decoys which monsters will attack instead of the player (Rangers)

Blackguards can go into a state of bloodlust which improves their combat at a price

Monsters can whip or spit on the player from nearby

Monster groups act more as a group, with leaders and sometimes bodyguards

Innate spells (e.g. breaths) and cast spells (e.g. bolts) have separate frequencies

Deeper in the dungeon shallow monsters are less likely to appear

Monsters can teleport to the player

Spiders can weave webs

Monsters can have innate darkness around them

Traps added that trigger on leaving their square

Ringwraiths can inflict the Black Breath

Monster spells can have different levels depending on monster spell power

The player now has a hunger meter, and food is more important

As with classes, all races gain experience at the same rate, except for humans who are faster, and high-elves who are slower

The Temple has been replaced with a Bookseller who sells books of all realms

Code Improvements

-----------------

There have also been some improvements to the codebase, both visible and invisible to the player. The main ones are: Addition of an SDL2 front end

Change to mostly using a single grid rather than x and y coordinates in much of the code

More readability of datafiles

Some font improvements

Some new tiles

A new online (rather than in-game) help system

A new experimental (and so far unbalanced) birth option for percentage damage

An option to start a new game after dying instead of closing the game and re-opening

Many fixes to bugs and memory leaks

All this has been achieved through an amazing joint community effort, with code provided by Alex Mooney

Anna Sidwell (takkaria)

Bardur Arantsson

bron

Dag Arneson (sanedragon)

Derakon

Elly Fong-Jones (elly)

fizzix (Aaron Bader)

fruviad

John Weismiller (emar)

Kusunose Toru

Mikolaj Konarski

Paul Johnson

PowerWyrm

Ryan Schmidt

Stefan Strogin

Vic K

wkmanire

wobbly and bug reports, change suggestions and contributions to discussion which has influenced this version by Adam

AnonymousHero

Antoine

Aszazin

Atriel

bio_hazard

bunnies

Carg

Carnivean

cccfire

Chud

ClaytonAguiar

Clearshade

clouded

Cold_Heart

Combatereak

Darin

debo (cyberdemons pls)

desstorm

Diego Gonzalez

Djbanete

dos350

Dragget

Ed_47569

Egavactip

emulord

EpicMan

Estie

Estragon

Evilpotatoe

Flambard

fph

Gauss

Geoff Hill (yes, that one)

geoff_tewierik

gglibertine

Glorfindel

Goaticus

Grotug

gtrudeau88

Gwarl

half

HallucinationMushroom

Holy_Rage

Hounded

Hrrunstar

Huqhox

Ingwe Ingweron

Jeff Greene (nppangband)

jevansau

jml34

Jungle_Boy

kandrc

kaypy

khearn

Kinematics

luneya

Mark

MattB

misanthropope

MITZE

Mondkalb

Monkey Face

Moving Pictures

mrfy

Muscleguy

MWGE

Narry

Netbrian

NightLizard

Nomad

olivertheorem

Once

Pahasusi

Patashu

Pete Mack

Philip

Pondlife

Quirk

Raerick

Raxmei

Rydel

Scatha

schatz

shirish

Sideways

Sky

spara

Sparrow the Dunadan

Sphara

swaggert

tangar

the Invisible Stalker

Therem Harth

Thraalbee

Tibarius

Timo Pietilä

TJA

TJS

topazg

Vivit

Voovus

Vorczar

Werbaer

Whelk

Wiwaxia

Youssarian

Zikke

Zirael as well as, I am sure, other people I missed. Thank you all. I hope this version is as much fun to play as it was to prepare. Angband 4.2.0 is now available for Windows macOS and as source . It can be downloaded from rephial.org , and played at angband.live This version is mainly a major overhaul of classes and the monster list.As for the last two 4.x.0 releases, there are too many individual changes to list, so what follows is a summary.Classes-------Two new realms of magic have been added, nature and shadow, to the existing divine and arcane realms.Monsters--------Each base monster type has had its game niche reconsidered, and there has been a general push to use Tolkien-inspired monsters where appropriate. Some of the major changes include:Game Mechanics--------------In the course of the class and monster changes, many new mechanics have been introduced, with some of the major ones being:Code Improvements-----------------There have also been some improvements to the codebase, both visible and invisible to the player. The main ones are:All this has been achieved through an amazing joint community effort, with code provided byand bug reports, change suggestions and contributions to discussion which has influenced this version byas well as, I am sure, other people I missed. Thank you all. I hope this version is as much fun to play as it was to prepare. __________________

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.