Porting ToME2 to the T4 engine

[Steven Aus]

An important bug to fix: when you have a full inventory and you Take off an item from one of your active slots, you lose the item rather than drop it (I found a torch in the dungeon and lost it because I took it off when I had a full inventory, so I think it would apply to any active item you stop using when you main inventory is full). You might want to produce a dialog and say "You don't have room in your inventory if you take off <item>, do you want to drop it instead? The negative answer would allow you to exit without dropping or losing the item. Or alternatively, you could disable the "Take off" option from all active items as long as the inventory is full. But I think the first option would be more clear and intuitive.

At no time when you have a full inventory should you be allowed to "Take off" an active item, because it removes it from the active slot, tries to put in main inventory, then it is lost because no room can be found in the main inventory. It would be good if the game always checks for room in the inventory (or disables "Take off" option for all active items when inventory is full) before starting the process of Taking off an active item, so you don't waste a game turn (even if there was new code to catch a "not enough room for taking off item" case, it still might normally cost a turn) which can be very crucial at certain times.

Thanks for all your work! Remember, I haven't played TOME2 (or Angband, btw, though I have played NetHack) before in any form, so I am not aware of all the intricacies and possibilities of it. It took me a while before I realised you could rest to regain your points, which is why I save-scummed a fair amount at the start (and I might do some more so I can get further in the game without the risk of dying). I had a look on the key bindings page and found a number of commands that I hadn't used.

What are the frequency of secret doors etc., and how long does it take to find them when searching?

Is the map generator work for this module or for something else?

Also, is the latest SVN version available somewhere? I'd love it if you could update the "http://te4.org/games" page with the latest version, or give me another place to download it. Note I am currently using the Windows 1.4.5 TOME download t-engine with music, and I choose TOME Classic from the available games.

I'd also like to thank you very much for temporarily shelving your map generator work to work on the port. I like the idea of a Angband/Nethack type game based on the LOTR universe. I wasn't playing TOME when TOME2 was being developed.

Apart from the light wands/staffs etc., are there any core (as in, necessary for at least some classes) scrolls, potions or wands/staffs etc. that are not implemented?

How do you get new skills and spells? Do they show up on the skills page when you can use them, and you just need to put them on the skills bar?

[Zizzo]

An important bug to fix: when you have a full inventory and you Take off an item from one of your active slots, you lose the item rather than drop it

I knew that was gonna come back to bite me eventually… Yeah, I'm gonna have to make a massive sweep looking for places that could trip over that.

Remember, I haven't played TOME2 (or Angband, btw, though I have played NetHack) before in any form, so I am not aware of all the intricacies and possibilities of it.

…Wow. Welcome aboard. Bear in mind that there's a lot of stuff in T2 that I haven't implemented yet. Also, I have some pages of T2 information on skills, spells and gods; what I've implemented so far should (I hope) match this information.

What are the frequency of secret doors etc., and how long does it take to find them when searching?

[sound F/X: source diving] 20% of randomly placed doors are secret doors. How long it takes to find them depends on your searching ability level. One trick for that is that you can go to "Change Tactic/Explor" on the <Esc> menu and temporarily set Explor down to "slug-like", which will give you a bonus to searching at the cost of a speed penalty. If you have access to the Divination skill, the Reveal Ways spell will detect secret doors, or you can use Scrolls of Door/Stair Location, which… [sound F/X: source diving] …is implemented in release. Normally you could also use a Rod of Door/Stair Location, but those aren't implemented yet.

Is the map generator work for this module or for something else?

This module. Most of the room types that T2 can generate aren't implemented yet (like orc/troll pits or vaults), so some dungeons, like Orc Cave, will look wrong because their default room type isn't implemented.

Also, is the latest SVN version available somewhere?

From my Subversion repository, as one might expect. Note that I'm not working in trunk at the moment (that's where the map generation work is happening), so the specific path you'll want to check out for now is https://www.killerbunnies.org/svn/t4/to ... trunk-v022. If you check that out into a tome2/ subdirectory in game/modules and move the .team file somewhere else (as the engine will use that first), I think you should be able to play the module from the unpacked working copy as though it were packed in a .team. Fair warning, though: I have a bad habit of sometimes checking in stuff before I've made absolutely sure that it works.

Apart from the light wands/staffs etc., are there any core (as in, necessary for at least some classes) scrolls, potions or wands/staffs etc. that are not implemented?

Well, no wands/staffs are implemented yet. I just implemented some more scrolls in "trunk"; I think most of the important ones are covered, though some of the nice ones like Genocide or Acquirement or the enchant scrolls aren't. [sound F/X: source diving] Ooh, all the potions are implemented. *whew*

How do you get new skills and spells? Do they show up on the skills page when you can use them, and you just need to put them on the skills bar?

You gain skill points as you level up, and you can spend them in the levelup dialog, similar to how T4 works. What skills you have access to is mostly determined by your race and class, but there are a couple ways you can gain access to additional skills.

Spells you'll generally find in books; they should show up on the hotkey toolbar if you're carrying the book (or wearing something with the spell copied onto it). Spells have an associated skill; you'll need to have a high enough skill level in the corresponding skill to cast the spell, and most spells will become more effective as your skill level increases. Sorcerors have it a bit easier, as they can use Sorcery in place of most spell skills. God spells use Prayer.

[Steven Aus]

I had a look, one of the race_class.lua definitions must have an error, because talents.lua line 21 mentions loading the race_class.lua file.

This is the error when I try to load a TOME2 save or start a new game, using the latest TOME2 svn files newly downloaded from https://www.killerbunnies.org/svn/t4/to ... trunk-v022 into the modules directory of the game:

error = "Lua Error: /engine/utils.lua /data/talents/player/race-class.lua:361: '}' expected (to close '{' at line 351) near 'direct_hit'\
At [C]:-1 \
At [C]:-1 error\
At /engine/utils.lua:1806 loadfilemods\
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:42 loadDefinition\
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:40 load\
At /data/talents/talents.lua:21 f\
At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:44 loadDefinition\
At /mod/load.lua:116 \
At [C]:-1 require\
At /engine/Module.lua:160 load\
At /engine/Module.lua:1025 instanciate\
At /engine/utils.lua:2221 showMainMenu\
At /engine/init.lua:165 \
At [C]:-1 dofile\
At /loader/init.lua:217 "
seen = true
reported = false

[Steven Aus]

Made a few quick corrections to the code based on the things that stopped certain parts working (you can check them to make sure they are correct):


In "pseudo-trunk-v022\data\talents\player\race-class.lua":

line 350 added a "," at the end.


In "pseudo-trunk-v022\data\general\objects":

line 149 removed "and" which was after "return"


In "pseudo-trunk-v022\data\talents\player\race-class.lua":

added the line

"return ret:format(loc)"

in between the old 435 and 436, becoming the new line 436.


NOW:

In "pseudo-trunk-v022\data\talents\player\race-class.lua":

line 434 has:

"game.state.recall_town"

but this variable or state does not store the last town's details. For future, it needs to fill or overwrite this every time a town becomes the last town visited so the recall can work, but for a work around to get my character back to Bree (the only town I've visited in this game) the properties of the Bree town will have to be inserted temporarily (don't put them in your SVN, just tell me which files need to be modified and how).


NOTE: Ride the Straight Road is working. Thunder Strike isn't. For Return to Town I have tried various combinations of variables or game states that might work and they haven't. The game.state.recall_town function is never filled, because the name is always put as "none" and when you try to use the skill it says you have no town to recall to. I'll put my save up from my latest thunderlord_haftedmaster save in case you need it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vwws624e5d9cl ... e.zip?dl=0

[Zizzo]

Made a few quick corrections to the code based on the things that stopped certain parts working (you can check them to make sure they are correct):

[sound F/X: source diving] *sigh* I really am going to have to start testing stuff before I check it in, aren't I? Okay, those are fixed in SVN.

In "pseudo-trunk-v022\data\talents\player\race-class.lua":

line 434 has:

"game.state.recall_town"

but this variable or state does not store the last town's details,

? That's supposed to be set in :setRecallDest() when you leave the town zone… [sound F/X: source diving] ohhhh, it's only being set when you recall out of a town, and that doesn't help when you're entering the Downs from the Bree entrance. Hmm, I could set it unconditionally, but that would be a change from original T2 behavior: if you enter a dungeon from the worldmap and then recall out, it takes you to the wilderness area around the dungeon entrance. I'll have to think about how to handle this…

NOTE: Ride the Straight Road is working. Thunder Strike isn't.

[sound F/X: source diving] … [sound F/X: forehead repeatedly striking desk] Fixed in SVN.

[Steven Aus]

Is Ride the Straight Road meant to be able to take you 100s of squares at level 7 Thunderlord?

Is it possible to make a separate recall function for Return to Town, and leave the current functionality for the regular Recall (which can also take you back to a dungeon)? That way you could accommodate both without having to have an addon that modifies recall completely from the way T2 does it.

[Steven Aus]

I was playing a Yeek Sorceror and needed 1XP for L2 on Level 1 of the Barrow-Downs. I killed a Newt and leveled up to L50! (Btw: is L50 the maximum level, is it possible to increase it with an addon?) Even with 4x less experience per level, I still shouldn't advance more than a few levels with one kill.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tj57tx6br0ja ... e.zip?dl=0 (Save)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/partze642ycv8 ... t.zip?dl=0 (Log)

[Zizzo]

Is Ride the Straight Road meant to be able to take you 100s of squares at level 7 Thunderlord?

As far as I can tell. The range in the original T2 code is player level times 20 plus 2. Surprised me too.

Is it possible to make a separate recall function for Return to Town, and leave the current functionality for the regular Recall (which can also take you back to a dungeon)? That way you could accommodate both without having to have an addon that modifies recall completely from the way T2 does it.

Well, in theory, I suppose, but T2 uses the same code for both, so it makes sense to stick with that. I've solved the issue with a bit of clever recall target juggling for now.

I was playing a Yeek Sorceror and needed 1XP for L2 on Level 1 of the Barrow-Downs. I killed a Newt and leveled up to L50! (Btw: is L50 the maximum level, is it possible to increase it with an addon?) Even with 4x less experience per level, I still shouldn't advance more than a few levels with one kill.

[sound F/X: source diving] *blink* …Okay, that could not possibly have worked for anything ever. In fact, given the code as it was, I can't figure out how you got that Thunderlord to level 7; it should have skyrocketed straight to 50 when it leveled up too. At any rate, fixed in SVN.

[Steven Aus]

Once you've cured poison, you get an error or 2 every turn for a nonexistent poison tick, probably for the rest of the game unless the bug can be fixed for existing saved games.

I take it some shops in towns are randomized? Anyway, I got level drained and I couldn't find a Restore Level item in Bree. I take it I was just unlucky.

Btw: Return to Town still doesn't work if you haven't recalled out of town (I started a new Thunderlord and confirmed this). Presumably it would work if that happened, but I can't be sure as I haven't recalled out of town yet.

Are the monster characters in Bree immune to sound damage? When I do Thunder Strike it only seems to do lightning damage.

Also, I don't think Globe of Light is illuminating properly. I use it in dark areas and it doesn't illuminate any areas, and I use in lit rooms and the same area is lit. I don't think it has a problem doing damage when high enough level (as I have seen that happen) but I don't think it is illuminating areas at all currently.

For items that have been partially IDed already, you don't get the extra information of cursed, average or great when you pick it up (so the game is currently unable to update a partially IDed item to include the cursed, average or great status).

How are you going with the Shoot Arrow functionality? This will help the monsters which shoot arrows (like Yeek Archers, which currently can only attack in melee). Also I'm finding floating eyes don't do anything - also Radiation Eyes (but I have killed all of them so far before they could shoot anyway) probably because their attack is not implemented yet. Although if they are like the Nethack floating eyes, they paralyze melee attackers if the attack doesn't kill the eye outright.

Also, there are some melee units that give an error when they attack. I'll attach my log and error reports.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6v7s0vqxom1xb ... r.zip?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6d9j0u5rw696n ... s.zip?dl=0

Random quest numbers can't be edited. If you try to change the 20 default, it doesn't let you put any other numbers in. I take it 98 is the maximum?

Also, Game Options can't be edited once you are in game. Clicking on the Apply or Cancel doesn't do anything, and closing with the top right hand box cancels any changes you made.

Do you need to pay 500 gold to the soothsayer to reveal a fate if that option is on?

Why does a dungeon level change each time you visit it?

The Smeagol event is an event right? Although it came after I killed a scruffy-looking hobbit, not sure if that was a coincidence. But I couldn't find Smeagol anywhere, so I guess it is a flavour (and slightly annoying) event that happens every now and then.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I can address a few of these, at least.

I take it some shops in towns are randomized? Anyway, I got level drained and I couldn't find a Restore Level item in Bree. I take it I was just unlucky.

All shops are randomized, and change their contents once every day or two. Will not spawn truearts as a result of this. (IIRC)

Are the monster characters in Bree immune to sound damage? When I do Thunder Strike it only seems to do lightning damage.

If they were immune description should add this once you've observed it. But I can't think why they would be. Seems more likely a probem with the damagetype itself, or with thunder strike.

For items that have been partially IDed already, you don't get the extra information of cursed, average or great when you pick it up (so the game is currently unable to update a partially IDed item to include the cursed, average or great status).

What do you mean by partially ided? If you mean the pseudo ID after a certain time, that says 'bad', 'terrible' 'excellent' 'good' etc, it takes time, and a fair while unless your skill is pretty high. (I forget which skill affected pseudo ID, but it should be labeled.)

How are you going with the Shoot Arrow functionality? This will help the monsters which shoot arrows (like Yeek Archers, which currently can only attack in melee). Also I'm finding floating eyes don't do anything - also Radiation Eyes (but I have killed all of them so far before they could shoot anyway) probably because their attack is not implemented yet. Although if they are like the Nethack floating eyes, they paralyze melee attackers if the attack doesn't kill the eye outright.

Floating eyes have a chance to paralyze adjacent units, even if they haven't been attacked yet. One hilarious version of a *band accidentally made this effect so common that you would starve to death if you ever stepped adjacent to one, though at least it wasn't tome.

Random quest numbers can't be edited. If you try to change the 20 default, it doesn't let you put any other numbers in. I take it 98 is the maximum?

98 is the maximum, no quest can be generated for floor 99 or floor 100 of Angband itself. Additionally, if a 'quest level' is supposed to spawn on a floor, and that floor is a special level (Theme addon had one on BD 10, and one in the middle of mirkwood, offhand. Vanilla tome it only happened in Angband iirc) you'll have to clear that floor then revisit it to make the quest spawn.

Do you need to pay 500 gold to the soothsayer to reveal a fate if that option is on?

If you receive a fate (you will be notified about this) you have to pay 500 to find out what that fate is. But what it is was determined when you received it, and is already active (and could bite you in the ass if you don't find out. God bless/curse death fates.)

Why does a dungeon level change each time you visit it?

Dungeon levels are randomly generated each time you enter them. There are a select few 'special' levels that are static the first time you enter. But once you leave, you won't see those again (with the sole exception of Mt Doom). This is how all the *bands worked. Persistent levels were a thing of other roguelike branches.

The Smeagol event is an event right? Although it came after I killed a scruffy-looking hobbit, not sure if that was a coincidence. But I couldn't find Smeagol anywhere, so I guess it is a flavour (and slightly annoying) event that happens every now and then.

[/quote][/quote]

Smeagol is a unique, not a special event. Once he's dead, he'll stay dead. However, he always carries a ring of invisibility, due to coding. (Unless that's not supported yet) HE also frequently becomes invisible himself, and is incredibly hard to track down. He can also phase door himself or teleport across the level. And be something of a significant threat to newer characters.

[Steven Aus]

I found Smeagol was stealing gold from me all the time, though I was about level 5 or so (Yeek Sorceror). Is he meant to attack? And what dungeon is he normally found in?

Would it be possible to make an addon that makes levels persistent? Or is that something that only can happen if you program the game that way initially?

[Zizzo]

(Btw: is L50 the maximum level, is it possible to increase it with an addon?)

Level 50 is the maximum level; there isn't currently an addon that changes that, thought I imagine it would be fairly straightforward to create one.

Once you've cured poison, you get an error or 2 every turn for a nonexistent poison tick, probably for the rest of the game unless the bug can be fixed for existing saved games.

[sound F/X: source diving] …Holy crap, the timed poison effect was recursive — every time you took a point of poison damage from the effect, that point of damage was poisoning you for another ten turns. Needless to say, that's fixed in SVN. That may or may not be related to the bug you observed, which I wasn't able to reproduce after I fixed this.

Btw: Return to Town still doesn't work if you haven't recalled out of town (I started a new Thunderlord and confirmed this). Presumably it would work if that happened, but I can't be sure as I haven't recalled out of town yet.

[sound F/X: source diving] … [sound F/X: forehead repeatedly striking desk] Okay, now it should work.

Are the monster characters in Bree immune to sound damage? When I do Thunder Strike it only seems to do lightning damage.

Are they being killed by the lightning damage? If so, it probably won't bother reporting the sound damage.

Also, I don't think Globe of Light is illuminating properly. I use it in dark areas and it doesn't illuminate any areas, and I use in lit rooms and the same area is lit. I don't think it has a problem doing damage when high enough level (as I have seen that happen) but I don't think it is illuminating areas at all currently.

[sound F/X: source diving] Ah, that wasn't implemented yet. I've checked a quickie implementation into SVN. But it should still have been lighting up dark rooms if you were in one. Though in the Downs you might not have run into any of those.

For items that have been partially IDed already, you don't get the extra information of cursed, average or great when you pick it up (so the game is currently unable to update a partially IDed item to include the cursed, average or great status).

By "partially IDed", do you mean Identify vs. *Identify*? That's standard T2 behavior; you only get pseudo-ID on unidentified stuff.

If you mean the pseudo ID after a certain time, that says 'bad', 'terrible' 'excellent' 'good' etc, it takes time, and a fair while unless your skill is pretty high

That was actually changed in one of the 2.3.x versions (at least as of 2.3.9, which I'm roughly mimicking): pseudo-ID is applied immediately when you pick up an item (and possibly in some other cases, I haven't checked). Although you do still have to have 10 or higher Combat/Magic skill to get "strong" pseudo-ID (ie. distinguishing "{good}" from "{excellent}").

How are you going with the Shoot Arrow functionality?

You're gonna run me ragged at this rate, you know that? I'm in the middle of implementing wands, staffs and rods; I can try to figure out archery next.

Floating eyes have a chance to paralyze adjacent units, even if they haven't been attacked yet.

Which may or may not be implemented yet. None of the early eyes have a particularly good chance of hitting in melee as I recall, though, and they may not even have woken up by the time you walk up and hit them, so they don't often get a chance to have any effect.

Also, there are some melee units that give an error when they attack. I'll attach my log and error reports.

[sound F/X: source diving] *groan* Okay, those should be fixed in SVN too.

Random quest numbers can't be edited. If you try to change the 20 default, it doesn't let you put any other numbers in.

Rrrgh… I've run into that before, I think, and I have absolutely no idea what's going wrong or how to fix it.

Also, Game Options can't be edited once you are in game. Clicking on the Apply or Cancel doesn't do anything, and closing with the top right hand box cancels any changes you made.

[sound F/X: testing] Hmm, there's an odd effect going on: the mouse-click zones for the Apply and Cancel buttons are actually below the buttons themselves. I'll need to investigate that.

I found Smeagol was stealing gold from me all the time, though I was about level 5 or so (Yeek Sorceror). Is he meant to attack? And what dungeon is he normally found in?

Ah, so stealing gold works? *whew* [checks notes] Sméagol is level 3, so he's probably most likely to appear in the Downs. He has one melee attack that steals gold and doesn't do damage. And he's invisible, which is kind of annoying, as you learned.

[Steven Aus]

Thank you for all your hard work!

Can't currently do a regular attack (I think it applies to all regular attacks by bumping into an enemy, not sure what happens when you bump into an ally or neutral):

error = "Lua Error: /mod/class/interface/PlayerCombat.lua:117: attempt to call method 'hasFlag' (a nil value)\
At [C]:-1 hasFlag\
At /mod/class/interface/PlayerCombat.lua:117 one_blow\
At /mod/class/interface/PlayerCombat.lua:691 bumpInto\
At /mod/class/Actor.lua:899 attack\
At /mod/class/Actor.lua:514 check\
At [string \"return function(self, x, y, what, ...) local ...\"]:1 checkAllEntities\
At /engine/Actor.lua:209 move\
At /mod/class/Actor.lua:445 move\
At /mod/class/Player.lua:285 moveDir\
At /mod/class/Player.lua:278 moveDir\
At /mod/class/Game.lua:812 move_or_scroll\
At /mod/class/Game.lua:827 \
At /engine/KeyBind.lua:230 "

Are the monster characters in Bree immune to sound damage? When I do Thunder Strike it only seems to do lightning damage.

Are they being killed by the lightning damage? If so, it probably won't bother reporting the sound damage.

No, not always. Anyway I was wondering whether those low-level but annoying units in Bree are immune to sound damage, because even when not getting killed by the 2 lightning damage at L1 Thunderlord, they don't get sound damage. However the monsters in Barrowdowns have been taking sound damage.

Random quest numbers can't be edited. If you try to change the 20 default, it doesn't let you put any other numbers in.

Rrrgh… I've run into that before, I think, and I have absolutely no idea what's going wrong or how to fix it.

Is it possible to add plus (+) and minus (-) buttons (possibly accelerating if you hold it for a while?), that add or subtract 1 every time you click on them, to the extent of the maximum or minimum? That might do for the moment. You might also want to speak to DarkGod about what is causing the bug and also with regards to the Game Options Apply and Cancel not having the correct click area - they could probably be fixed in an engine update if they can't be fixed otherwise.

It's completely up to you how often you work on the port (and it would be useful if you stopped banging your head ). Don't feel as if you have to do it the very next chance you get. Although I do enjoy playing the port, and I will play it more if it is more complete, you have to have your own life too.

As I just mentioned, is it possible to make dungeon levels persistent in an addon, or would it require a fork?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

There was an experimental birth option for persistent dungeon levels in classic tome, at least, and possibly in several other *bands. Not sure how far back it stretched. Implementation of that option should be doable, but how easy it is, I have no clue. And it might truly be better suited for an addon.

[Zizzo]

Hang on, I think I missed something:

This will help the monsters which shoot arrows (like Yeek Archers, which currently can only attack in melee).

So you're getting Archer monsters and they aren't shooting at you? Crap… At any rate, NPC archers have their own talent that doesn't actually use actual arrows; it should just hit you for physical damage from range.

Can't currently do a regular attack (I think it applies to all regular attacks by bumping into an enemy, not sure what happens when you bump into an ally or neutral):

[sound F/X: source diving] Huh. What were you wielding at the time? I know I've done melee attacks in recent tests with no problems. Oh, a possibility: if you weren't wielding anything at all, it would probably have been getting to that point with the 1d1 fake "weapon" used internally, and that would choke at that point in pretty much that manner. In fact, I should really fix that anyway…

[Oh, and you should just swap past friendly/neutral NPCs, assuming I've implemented that correctly.]

Are they being killed by the lightning damage? If so, it probably won't bother reporting the sound damage.

No, not always. Anyway I was wondering whether those low-level but annoying units in Bree are immune to sound damage, because even when not getting killed by the 2 lightning damage at L1 Thunderlord, they don't get sound damage. However the monsters in Barrowdowns have been taking sound damage.

No, if they resisted sound, you'd be getting a log message along the lines of "hits for 0 sound damage". I'll investigate.

Rrrgh… I've run into that before, I think, and I have absolutely no idea what's going wrong or how to fix it.

Is it possible to add plus (+) and minus (-) buttons (possibly accelerating if you hold it for a while?), that add or subtract 1 every time you click on them, to the extent of the maximum or minimum?

That popup is a standard-issue GetQuantity dialog supplied by the engine; not much I can do to change it short of rebuilding the whole thing from scratch (which I'm tempted to do anyway, frankly, just to finally debug the accursed thing…).

You might also want to speak to DarkGod about what is causing the bug and also with regards to the Game Options Apply and Cancel not having the correct click area - they could probably be fixed in an engine update if they can't be fixed otherwise.

My current guess is that I'm just borking the dialog layout somehow.

As I just mentioned, is it possible to make dungeon levels persistent in an addon, or would it require a fork?

There was an experimental birth option for persistent dungeon levels in classic tome, at least, and possibly in several other *bands. Not sure how far back it stretched. Implementation of that option should be doable, but how easy it is, I have no clue. And it might truly be better suited for an addon.

[sound F/X: source diving] The key, in theory, would be to get the 'persistent="zone"' field into the zone definition table; I think the 'Zone:create' hook gets triggered early enough in the process that you could usefully set it there. And I have made an effort to facilitate adding game options from addons.