ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

... doesn't it get T4's history somewhat wrong? It was PernAngband -> TOME (middle earth/T2, dodging grumpy copyright holders and adding a lot of stuff) -> T3 (of DBZ mod note, mostly, to my memory ) -> T4 (Middle earth -> Maj'Eyal, preempting possibly grumpy copyright holders), if my memory's not failing me. Didn't start out as ToME, that happened mostly due to McCaffrey pitching a fit over fan works.

I suspect their research wasn't exhaustive.

HousePet wrote:I suspect their research wasn't exhaustive.

The motto of nowadays.

Frumple wrote:... doesn't it get T4's history somewhat wrong? It was PernAngband -> TOME (middle earth/T2, dodging grumpy copyright holders and adding a lot of stuff) -> T3 (of DBZ mod note, mostly, to my memory ) -> T4 (Middle earth -> Maj'Eyal, preempting possibly grumpy copyright holders), if my memory's not failing me. Didn't start out as ToME, that happened mostly due to McCaffrey pitching a fit over fan works.

Yeah, they jumped a decade and change from the original Pernband (which, iirc, was abandoned because McCaffrey and her lawyers started cracking down on copyright issues.) In context, I guess that makes sense because the writer abandons the ASCII stuff waaay too soon. It was still going strong in the late 1990s, early naughts. In fact, iirc, DG started building the reputation of his ASCII game (tiles were available before long -- I remember Firebolt ones -- but still crude and often difficult to distinguish compared to ASCII) on a vastly expanded overworld map in a time when most roguelikes of the Moria/Angband tradition still tended to have one town and that's where you started your dungeon dive. Pernband wasn't only one, but it was one of the best and largest and smoothest. I kinda wish DG would rename/remove the Pern stuff to avoid the scrutiny of lawyers and upload Pernband just for people to enjoy a bit of old-style rogue-likes. And I'm not just saying that because I want to play a possessor who takes over the Dark God's body and slaughters his way all the way to the final boss, the only body better than his. I don't remember her name -- Maylene or something? -- but she had way too many arms.

Exactly none of what I just wrote was in any way dirty. Just to be clear.

On an unrelated note, the piece completely skips the Wizardry series, which was doing FP dungeon crawls long before any of the games they mention. It wasn't a Rogue-like as such, but just as much akin to them as any of the other stuff there.

Edit: One of the truly great, truly genius innovations of modern Rogue-likes was getting rid of that damned food/hunger and sleep aspects. God I hated those so much. If ToME still had those, I'd have quite pretty quickly.

Hunter wrote:Edit: One of the truly great, truly genius innovations of modern Rogue-likes was getting rid of that damned food/hunger and sleep aspects. God I hated those so much. If ToME still had those, I'd have quite pretty quickly.

For what it's worth, I've seen a food/sleep mechanic implemented pretty decently before in a roguelike -- Incursion does it quite well, using a (well, theoretically) limited food supply as a resource for (not actually necessary, as I've won fairly long Inc runs without doing it) resting, which does a number of things and includes an ambush mechanic as well. It's not a primary healing source, really, but it's a big reset button on your health/etc. and does some other stuff. It was a food mechanic actually done well in a roguelike system. There's other games that uses food as a buffing mechanic or whatever instead of a otherwise useless countdown clock that kills you if you don't waste time attending it, which can be pretty alright, too.

T4 definitely did right in joining those RLs that just threw the bloody food clock (and most consumables, for that matter) out the window, though. Most games it's just a pain in the butt that adds little to no tension, just a consistent tedium.

... though so far as pernband goes, it looks like there still exists some places you can download it. It's just not something I'd link or describe more clearly than that, as pern's, like, literally illegal to host

That said, early versions of T2 are still floating around more legally, I think? They were basically just pernangband with the names filed off, so if you're looking for the same experience as late pern they'd probably manage.