ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Darkgod, do you have a list of things that need to get done before you declare T4 to be out of beta? I'd love to read such a thing. And it would help direct the community's creative energies.

Ahh good question, I never really formalized it in my brain but we are probably quite close to the non beta status.
Let's see:
* a solution to the resize bug (I am so much at lost there, the only way I see is to save he game, restart and reload .. but that mightlily sucks ..)
* add some more artifacts and vaults
* complete the items list (gloves and cloak mainly, ideas welcome in an other thread)
* improve the UI (the items list in stores that can overflow sucks ..); next beta will have a nicer UI already (http://te4.org/images/tmp/new-ui.png)
* add some more side-quests/side-zones
* balance a bit the endgame to avoid cheezy tactics
* maybe have a complete set of images, but I am not sure we'll get them all soon and I do not want to delay too much
* one or two more classes (the Cursed comes next beta, and then maybe Blood Mages/Corruptors/Necromancers ...)

Anything to add?

Oh and a tutorial mode. If you have ideas about how it should work please post them

What I can think of right now for getting out of beta:

In-game help:
Ideally, this would come in two forms. The first is the traditional Angband help menu; hit ? or h or something and pull up a list of useful documents. The second, and more important, is detailed tooltips that pop up whenever you mouse over any word or number on the left display area or the character screen.

Tutorial:
Something simple that a new player can walk through and come out knowing the basic useful commands.

Digging:
Picks and shovels! Ego picks and shovels! Artifact picks and shovels! I love digging.

Town completion:
Open all those closed stores. This could go along nicely with the addition of new quests.

I'd also like to see Middle Earth and the Far East linked. This will become particularly important once more side quests and optional dungeons are added. Maybe include a quest in the Far East town that involves constructing a portal to Minas Tirith. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops for the elves to build that end of the portal, then you go through to Middle Earth with detailed instructions on how to construct the portal on the other end so it works both ways. This could be a long, fun quest that takes place in multiple locations throughout the Far East and Middle Earth. Actually, this seems worth a lot more thought. I'll start a thread to collect new side quests and dungeons and put my thoughts in there.

@new UI: scrollbars... yaaay!

@susu:
I agree! Going back to ME at some point could be interesting and give the opportunity to add some high end dungeons in ME. Dragons Lair, Helcaraxe?
In addition, there is still the unused town on the western island of far east...

Susramanian wrote:Tutorial: Something simple that a new player can walk through and come out knowing the basic useful commands.

When I started my first game I was lost until I found the command list. I would suggest flashing some big bold black text in the middle of the screen when you start a new character saying "press escape for options". The text would not interfere with the game (not an annoying window so you have to press a button to get it away), disappear after a few seconds bu remain in the chat log.

Then, if the player has half a brain, he (or she) will find the key binds in the options.

Ahah you are wondering about the small island dont you ?
Someday you will know

As for the screenshot: what scrollbar ???

Sure thing I'm wondering about it.

@UI: Damn... I should've enlargened the screenshot. I thought the thing between the msglog and skilllist was a scrollbar, but it only has icons... *sigh*

Incidentally, what are those icons? Status effects?

Are chronomancers coming also?

And an amen to digging tools...

Icons for talents list, creatures list, char sheet, inventory, main menu

Chronomancers, na not in beta11, edge is working on them but I suspect I'll have to help him a bit

re: chronomancers

Edge is not a coder, edge is a copy paster/hack bits of DGs code together-er...

However I'm slowly learning how to copy paste/hack things together better and with that perhaps I'm picking up some coding.

If anyone who actually knows how to code is interested in helping me out feel free to send me a pm.

P.S.

Yufra has actually been helping me immensely with this stuff so I'm not completely in the dark with what I'm doing. But he's not always around so any additional help would be appreciated.

We desperately need Thaumaturgy back. While I'm loving a lot of the new additions, the lack of class (and race) variety is an immense downer. Similarly, while the current skill/talent system is interesting, it feels rather constraining and makes the game feel very linear.

I really do miss being able to take one class, and ease my way into another with my skill points. I loved taking a mage and spending a few points in thaumaturgy to get a few random spells, or giving my thaumaturgist some points in divination so I could learn Identify.

Regarding the magic, I truly do like the 'Channel Staff' addition, and the alchemist gem thing is interesting. About the gems, though... They don't spend. As in, I throw bombs and rebuild my golem, but I never lose gems. That's a bug you may want to get on.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I'm new to the forums, but I've been playing ToME for years.

Warmest regards, and keep up the good work, DG.

Thaumaturgy, I have my thoughts about it .. we shall see

Ok so now with beta12 how do you think we are relative to a non beta ?