I Love Tome 4 and pretty much play it every day! I’m a great admirer of Darkgod and his team of generous & talented programmers. Thanks a million guys! This post is a collection of observations I have compiled over a few weeks… an attempt to offer thoughts on TOMEs evolution.
I’ve been a casual rogue-like gamer for thirty years. Enjoying every Variant I can find - ASCI to complex ‘3D’ graphics, simple dungeon dives to multi-city sweeping epics. I see TOME 4 not just as the culmination of this tradition but *the* gateway game (into this genre) for an entirely new generation of gamers.
Observations/Suggestions/Food for thought:
--TOOLS --
I for one would love to contribute to this project. But am*sigh* limited in my coding/technical knowledge. So my call is for tools. Tools that fluidly enable non-techs to build maps, add quests, add graphics (not necessarily make graphics!).
Yep, I am seeking full on programs with GUIs so that a babe in the woods can make a new character class addon without dipping into code, but rather dragging abilities and skills sets into a ‘new class set’ then saving that as an addon. As well as a full map editor, and the ability to add regions to maps, custom towns, multi-zone cities… the works.
I know! It’s a long shot, but who knows… someone just may be able to do it… and in the process catapult TOME 4 into a new realm of creativity & immortality. If NOT Tools of this nature, then perhaps easy to follow PDF tutorials on how to make maps, add-ons, new zones, +++. Distributing these tutorials with the game I believe is paramount to help reach communities outside even this great forum.
--Quests --
We have some fun ones, the alchemist in particular are neat & offer nice benefits. I feel a larger quest collection will benefit the game.
More quests for townsfolk?, lone wizards?, for YOURSELF; at lvs 7, 14, 21… be allowed to take on a class/race quest to test yourself (generic to fighter/magic user/et all)… and as rewards, get faction points or a new weapon or nothing at all - except moral righteousness. The core of my vision for TOME 4 is interaction within a *living world*… one where you can impact not just the outcome of the Orc invasion – but restore the shattered village to a thriving town or open that portcullis to a new island? Little things as well as main story line.
--World Size --
I like it expansive! The excitement of a randomly generated dungeon is not knowing what is around the corner. Perhaps it’s time to grow our outer world. like a grid 4x8 of its existing size… and with it would come new cities, towns, rivers, bridges, islands +++. A living world where its antiquity & history is represented by multiple ruins, fallen towns and haunted places… fun diversity to show us that we are not the first here. I feel the bones of a previous empire are romantic, spark our imagination and create mystery. We have lots of Lore and that work is excellent, now let’s compliment all that creativity by *showing* it on the map.
--Addons--
Addons will give this game longevity & I applaud the integration of this feature. Presently, I see the add-on section influencing classes, abilities, and the math of combat/gear/gaming. There are other areas which would be very, very powerful to also enhance. How about coding the addon system to permit new towns being added, new lore, new monsters, and new graphics… not whole tilesets, but an Addon that will permit me to add to the existing tileset 1-10 custom graphic items that are linked to the add-on I have created.
I, personally, would like to create new zones, new quest lines and so much more… but am dependent upon the addon system letting me do this. I honestly feel this is one of the greatest features which can be enhanced to offer incredible power to Tome 4… empowering all us creative (non-tech) folks to contribute!
--Silly Me--
Now let me pause for a minute and say that It’s easy to suggest all this fun, flighty stuff… when someone else has to code it! And in my zeal to better the game, I do not meant to sound demanding or bossy, but am, on the other hand, excited and passionate about such a great project! I *DO NOT* expect all these ideas to be made reality, and wish I could contribute to the coding.. but, being an idea-guy, this is my 2cents
. I salute the programmers and thank you again for your work.Game design/play
--Creature vaults +--
In many of the aforementioned Rogue Variants, creature vaults were LARGE deposits of creatures, some truly enormous, some out of level, with loot/exp jumps & often times real challenges, ending up with a flight for your life. I would like to see more of these pop-up in the regular edition of Tome 4.. and not just in the endless dungeon mode. Creature vaults led by similar-creature elites make a lot of sense in forests & dungeons as it alludes to a nest/colony - enhancing the ‘believability’ of a world setting. 30 random forest creatures… sure, I guess - but an army of ants, vault of spiders, den of bears, pit of snakes… that is more authentic to a breathing – *living* world.
This touches on a concern I have - the more and more linear nature of TOME 4’s story. Let’s have some forests, towns, dungeons and quests that have nothing to do with the main story line (things that are NOT mandatory to complete to level up for the main story line)… but places and events which enhance the feeling that there is more to do in the game than just follow a set path every single play through.
--Depth--
The shallower dungeons (I assume to emphasize story progression) are okay, but I *do* miss deep level experiences in this format. Why not have farportal dungeons 8-20 levels deep? How about 1-50? Why not have another elvin ruins ten+ levels deep? Or even better and something that I will stress though all of my suggestions have an option at character generation to allow deeper dungeons all the way around. The only thing this does in enhance replayability. Concerns that it will level a character up too much for the Master fight or before the East is reached… well, if I choose to do that, am I wrong? No one is being forced to explore constantly. And yes, the deeper farportal instances should have an escape route if you discover you cannot handle a randomly generated 20 deep dungeon. That’s cool too…
--Tome 2—
So many great things are in this variant. Darkgod polished and integrated tons of cool stuff…. Perhaps TOME 4 could benefit from some of these elements? Go play it yourself and see what appeals to you.
-- Quest Resolution & World Change --
I vote for a quest accomplishment sound - a ‘ding’ bell or song. Something to let us know we have completed a goal… especially as we are now collecting creature body parts as auto-pick-up. Let’s also finish the existing quests.
Returning to the Wizard’s city – there is no acknowledgement that you have cleaned out the mountain and saved Derth. How about having Derth have a new layout? A statue dedicated to you in the town square… revisit your days playing Ultima and how the towns & cities *responded* to your deeds. More and more I want this great project to have a breath of life.. Having the landscape change as you accomplish deeds is a super fun way to feel you matter in a single player game. It also can involve random changes – permitting no two games to be duplicates.
--How to fix up the quests--
Telo’s Staff. Not sure if this quest line is fully enabled. Regardless, how about enhancing mouse-over information on quest items - alluding to what needs to happen to fulfill the event, not just instructions in the Quest Log window. My call is for more active quest information while adventuring.
Golem’s eye. A whole zone for the Golem graveyard should result (IMHO) in a longer, more rewarding quest. Rewarding in adventure not necessarily loot. And the golem zone is awfully simple. Maybe a fan challenge here on the forums to design a new golem zone would be fun?
The lumberjack quest is overly simple. Perhaps just a larger zone? Or even better a Lumberjack zone which is chosen randomly from a *pool* of LumberJack zones. Dramatically enhancing re-playability… I know I’ve done it perhaps 110 times? Always the same. *grin*
--New? race/class ideas— Just for fun….
A zangband race which I am particularly attached to is the Beastman. An exciting race as each level it has the potential for a mutation which can be good or bad. Sometimes crippling – sometimes tremendous. I do not *think* this could be an easy addon for Tome 4 as it would involve the addition of new abilities not falling into the Generic/Class point system. This same system would also be used for the Chaos Warrior Class, discussed next.
Borrowing directly from Zangband , the Chaos Warrior class is quite neat. Here is their Description:
“Chaos Warriors are the feared servants of the terrible Demon Lords of Chaos. Every Chaos Warrior has a Patron Demon, such as Arioch, Madelode or Balaan. Whenever a Chaos Warrior advances a level, his patron Demon may reward him with a Gift of Chaos: he might be healed or polymorphed (to another race!), his stats could be increaded, or he might be rewarded with an awesome weapon. Or his Parton Demon might, for some reason, get annoyed with him and do something fairly nasty to him, like surround him with monsters (typically out-of-depth/randelites), drain his stats or wreck his equipment. Or they might simply ignore him. The Demon Lords of Chaos are unpredictable indeed. The exact type of reward depends upon the Patron Demon (different Demons give different rewards) and chance. Chaos warriors are very good fighters but they are also trained in Chaos magic, and can learn chaos spells.”
Here’s a look at a Chaos Demon in the game engine (from http://www.zangband.org/Spoilers/)
“Arioch, Duke of Hell
--------------------
Int; 'wrath', 'piss off', 'ruin abil', 'lose exp', 'hi summon'.
'ignore' (4x), 'polymorph' (2x), 'mass geno', 'pet demon', 'heal
full', 'chaos weap' (2x), 'good obj', 'gain exp', 'great obj',
'augm abil'.”
My past addictions have focused on Angbang/Zangband and their myriad children, Angband TK in particular. Definitely give it a go!
http://www.old-games.com/download/4122/zangbandtk
That’s all for now, just thought I would express some ideas. Hope you all are well! And forever thanks,
~Robin
I believe others could significantly contribute is such tools were available.