ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

DarkGod has been kind enough to spare us some time for an interview on Roguelike Radio next week. If you have any questions you'd like directed at the creator then this is the time and the place to raise them. We'll be talking about some of the things raised in the latest episode, as well as querying him over how he got into roguelikes, what motivates him, etc. Please post here with any further queries you'd like answered or subjects you'd like raised.

Greetings, I have a question.

Tome 4 has been under development for some time now with strong and regular updates. At what point do you feel the pace of this work will be done? Will version "release version 1.0" be a stopping point in your development?

I salute you and all your hard work!
~Robin in South Carolina

That's definitely a question to be asked :)

Talk us through the decision of the tiers in terms of saves, damage, etc.

It wasn't specifically a part of the game that was broken, so why fix it?

That's too much detail - we'll be covering wider topics. It has to be understandable for people who haven't played the game in depth (or at all).

A strategy/invite/system to encourage other developers to start using the t-engine.

Surely if other devs started developing games for the engine features such as 3d maps, zooming, real-time support would see greater attention than now, and would he help make the.necessary changes to the engine to support those types.of.things?

I envision several modules available for the game and possibly tome module not.the most played one? How about another t-engine module (we should call it games) winning roguelike od the year next year!

How do you find the time to live your life and develop Tome? And a directly related question... how much sleep do you get on average on nights you spend coding when you have to work in the morning?

If we removed archmages from the game, what would you play?

I feel like ToME, much like the "Roguelike Greats", includes several clear and significant design decisions that 1) impact many different parts of the game and 2) set the game apart. Some examples of what I mean: not having consumables, having a lot of different classes with very distinct gameplay, limiting tedium (from grinding, micromanagement...), including all kinds of spoilers right into the game...
So my question is: in general, did you consciously and deliberately establish these rules first, and then build the game around them, or did the rules appear on their own as the game grew and matured?

Did you expect the recent explosion of active players after winning the ROTY?

It didn't happen when the game won last year. I think it helps that there's a stronger eye on roguelikes now thanks to the likes of Dredmor. The SA thread has had its influence too.

How about "where do you see the module and addon system heading?"

I'd like to ask

"What's your vision for TOME? How do you imagine version... 10?"

"Would you make anything different if you had a team of 10 programmers working for you or would you just make new versions faster?"

How much of ToME's story is still untold? What prospects are there for another ToME campaign in 2012?

How high must be monthly donations be for you to work on ToME fulltime? ( Like Dwarf Fortress. )