ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

With the new b25 I like that you get told when people die and by what. However I feel like it missed opportunity because every message is "[person] died horribly by [monster/trap]". If it is possible then personalizing these message would add a lot of flavor. I'm thinking the message should be somewhat on the humorish and insulting side. Such as:

[player] was blown to bits by an explosive trap
[player] had a deadly allergic reaction to the bee swam
[player] was killed by a skeleton mage... again
[player] failed to see the rattlesnake in time
[player] failed to have enough stun resist against Urkis, the High Tempest
[player] died to the immobile poison vine

Obviously this idea isn't important but it might be fun.

I second this... not so much to the insulting part but some variety on the death messages. At least a couple of messages regarding each type of killer/killing blow.

As an easyish implementation I'd like to see death messages follow this format:

[player] the level [xplvl] [race] [class] was [verb] to death by [a/an/] [enemy] [specialmessage] on level [zonelvl] of [zone].

An example would be:

Little Tommy the level 17 cornac rogue was roasted to death by The Master and raised as his tortured undead thrall on level 9 of Dreadfell.

The [a/an/] has a simple rule - if enemy is a unique or boss then blank, otherwise it depends on whether the enemy names starts with a vowel or consonant. [specialmessage] is something particular to the enemy (generally just for bosses), whilst [verb] depends entirely on the damage type that killed.

Verbs are selected randomly from the following list dependant on damage type:

physical = battered, bludgeoned, sliced, maimed, raked, bled, impaled, dissected, disembowelled, decapitated, stabbed, pierced, torn limb from limb, crushed, shattered, smashed, cleaved, swiped, struck, mutilated, tortured
fire = burnt, scorched, blazed, roasted, flamed, fried, combusted, toasted, slowly cooked, boiled
arcane = blasted, energised, mana-torn, dweomered, imploded
cold = frozen, chilled, iced, cooled
lightning = electrocuted, shocked, bolted, volted, amped
acid = dissolved, corroded, scalded, melted
poison = poisoned, venomed
nature = slimed
darkness = shadowed, darkened
light = radiated, seared, purified
blight = diseased, poxed, infected, plagued, debilitated by noxious blight before falling, fouled
mind = psyched, mentally tortured, mindraped
temporal = timewarped, temporally distorted

There would need to be exceptions for other types of death, such as suffocation or death from negative regen. Feel free to suggest other verbs.

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http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes

We could call Grey's implementation "YAD-libs."

(YAD = Yet Another Death)

Hah, nice play on words ;)

For individual boss messages you could have the following:

Prox: and eaten raw
Bill: and clobbered into [playerrace] soup
Kor'Pul: and left to rot
Wrathroot: and digested by treants
Minotaur: and hung on a wall-spike
Weirdling Beast: and slowly consumed
Sandworm Queen: and swallowed whole
Subject Z: and bloodily smeared across the granite walls
Urkis: and used in mad electrical reanimation experiments
any temporal whatsit: and lost outside time
Rantha: and fed to the hatchlings
Brotoq: , who ate their brains still warm
The Mouth: and revived as a screeching drem bat
Norgos: and was feasted upon by wolves
Withering Thing: and corrupted into a pile of writhing worms
Spacial Disturbance: and folded out of existence
Murgol: and flushed out to sea
Ritch Queen: , who incubated her eggs in the corpse,
Spellblaze Crystal: and vaporised into nothingness
Inquisitor: and hung from the rafters
Mummy Lord: and raised as a soulless shuffling mummy
The Master: and raised as his tortured undead thrall
Kryl'Feijan: and devoured as a demonic breakfast
any Ziguranth: and burned on a pyre

I don't know enough about the east to do the same for the bosses over there.

_________________
http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes

Could also have for character killed by bunnies: "(how pathetic)"

And if the server recognises that the killer is the player's top killed it could say "(yet again)".

_________________
http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes

Done!

The eastern bosses need texts!

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[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning

Greatmother: and given to the children as a plaything
Rak'Shor: and raised as a malformed servant
Gorbat: and fed to the hatchlings
Grushnak: and mounted on the barracks wall
Vor: and used as target practice for initiate mages
Ungolë: and devoured alongside a Sun Paladin
Slasul: and perverted into a monstrous aberration as a warning to the surface
Shade of player/Rak'Shor Cultist: but nobody knew why he/she/it suddenly became evil
Anything in Tannen's tower: and was neither found nor heard from again
Fyrk: and a sole piece of char was sent to his masters as a totem
Telos: and was savagely mutilated, a show of his rage towards all living things

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Having satellite internet is a lot like relying on the processes described in those RFC's for your internet. Except, instead of needing to worry about statues interrupting your connection, this time you worry about the weather. I have satellite internet. Fun, no?

thanks!

_________________
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
--
[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning

Drowning needs its own unique message (simply "drowned to death"), and suffocating ("buried alive"), and both need to have the perpetrator unmentioned (by default it appears as the player). Not sure what other such deaths there are.

For deaths caused by the player there needs to be more mocking messages. For a start the message should be "xed to death by himself / herself" and then in brackets it should say one of the following special messages:

(the fool)
in an act of extreme incompetence
out of supreme humility
, by accident of course,
in some sort of fetish experiment gone wrong
, providing a free meal to the wildlife
(how embarrassing)
and was remembered by no one

And for halflings only:

(fool of a Took!)

_________________
http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes

Ahah done

_________________
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
--
[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning

New one for temporal: "spaghettified across time" (courtesy of Aussiemon). Also "paradoxed".

_________________
http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes

lol

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[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
--
[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning

Can we get rid of mindraped, please? This won't change the game much for people who aren't bothered by mentions of rape in their games, but it will improve the game a lot for people who are.

You could replace it with 'brainstormed to death' or something.

"mindravaged" perhaps.

_________________
http://www.gamesofgrey.com - My own T-Engine games!
Roguelike Radio - A podcast about roguelikes