ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Storming the City quest is rather unkind to new players who don't expect it. They have no way to know it's about to happen, and they can't leave Derth without failing the quest (unless that's been changed very recently). There are a couple of ways I can think of to improve this: (1) have a small storm cloud over Derth on the world map, or (2) perhaps the player should have the option to leave and not fail the quest. If they do leave, they should probably be penalized in some way (perhaps one or two store owners die each time the player leave, and the "E"s should repopulate to prevent stair-scumming).

A visual indicator on the world map would at least let people know something odd is happening in Derth before they enter it. To quote Beany in IRC:

Beany wrote:I know a lot of roguelike gameplay is inevitably about learning from fatal mistakes, but it's only right if it's a mistake that could have been avoided with an ounce of caution and a keen eye D;

Thoughts?

I've been bugging DarkGod about putting a graphical effect on the town in the wild for a LOOOONG time
Hopefully he will remember However - I'm not so sure about how 2 should be handled, it's weird if leaving mid-quest gives penalties but doing the quest as late as possible doesn't.

It has been changed I guess. I think I leaved the city many times and the quest didn't failed with b21.

Once you know it you don't even enter the town, but the first time the player will either die or, if you put a malus going away, lose some potentially important shops in the town, since it's improbable (but not impossible) that he casually avoids the town to level enough or win an unexpected hard battle. I accept that it could die, if he's quick-witting and lucky enough he can run away before dying. So for me it's ok as it is.

I know I've left Derth after killing the first group of gwelgodieinagreasefireyoulousyelementals many times in b21, when I realized I couldn't kill them at the level I was at. Came back later and finished them off when I got bigger.

next beta derth will be covered by dark clouds and lightning on the worldmap while the quest is active

Great.

I bumble into this one unawares nearly every time.