Angband FAQ Part One ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband Frequently Asked Questions - Part 1 (Non-spoilers) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally compiled by Ben Harrison (benh@phial.com). Maintained by William Burke (passenger_pigeon@hotmail.com). For Angband 2.9.1 - May be inaccurate with other versions. Angband FAQ Part Two (Spoilers) is available separately. Based on the source code, and information provided by: Jules Bean, Scott Bigham, Matt Craighead, Joseph W. DeVincentis, Ben Harrison, Jason Holtzapple, Randy Hutson, Stephen S. Lee, Rick Lim, Steve Linberg, Ross Millikan, Adam Schenker, Andrew Schoonmaker, Cliff Stamp, Billy Tanksley, Charles F. Teague II, Pat Tracy, Robert Ruehlmann, and others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband FAQ - Part One: 1. General Information a. What is Angband? b. Who is Morgoth? c. On what computers can I play? d. What is the latest version? e. How do I get the latest version of this FAQ? f. Who's the current maintainer? g. Version History 2. Downloading Angband and related material a. FTP sites b. Web sites 3. Technical Information a. Expanding PKZIP archives b. How do I use an old savefile or savefile from another platform? 4. Creating Characters a. What is maximize mode? b. What is preserve mode? c. Whaat is point-based mode? 5. Gameplay Questions a. How do I set game options and what do they mean? b. What effect does turning off haggling have on the price of items? c. How does shopkeeper rotation work? d. What is auto-scum? e. How do the cheating options work? f. What are the messages I get upon entering a new level? g. What causes a "special" feeling? h. What do the minuses in the name of a piece of armor mean? i. The game tells me that I must "Study" but I can't learn any new spells. What is going on? j. How does the fractional speed system work? k. Introduction to macros l. How do I save macros? 6. Questionable gameplay techniques a. Savefile abuse b. Stair-scumming c. Monster farming d. Summoning/Polymorphing 7. About rec.games.roguelike.angband a. General notes b. Glossary of terms c. Questions on r.g.r.a d. Victory posts e. Stupid Death (or YASD) posts f. Why do so many players seem to dislike or even hate Nethack? g. Etiquette 8. Suggestions for future versions that have been considered a. Let the player store money in his/her home. b. Increase the player's carrying capacity. c. Let players give or sell their items to other players. d. A "pass through wall" spell. e. I want a real-time multi-player Angband! f. Make the dungeon persistent throughout the game. g. Why can't I wear ten rings? I have ten fingers, don't I? h. Remove the autohaggle "sales tax." 9. Programming Questions a. Where can I obtain the source code? b. To what extent can I modify the source and release modified versions? c. Is there any easy way for a non-programmer to hack the game? d. Why doesn't wizard mode work in the version that I have? e. What is the borg? Why doesn't it appear in the version that I have? f. How do I use the borg? g. How do I generate auto-spoilers? 10. Variants 11. Old Bugs and Undocumented Features a. The game says that I'm missing a spellbook when I try to learn some new spells. What's the reason for this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband FAQ - Part One ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. General Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1a. What is Angband? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband is a single-player, text-based, dungeon simulation derived from the game Moria, an enhancement of the old unix game Rogue. It is often described as a "roguelike" game because the look and feel of the game is still quite similar to Rogue. Angband features many enhancements over Moria: unique foes, artifacts, monster pits and vaults to name a few. Many of these new creatures and objects are drawn from the writings of J.R.R Tolkien, although some of the monsters come straight from classical mythology, Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, or the minds of the orginal Angband coders. The ultimate goal of the game is to develop a character strong enough to defeat Morgoth, who lurks around dungeon level 100. Upon doing so, you will receive the exalted status of "winner" and your character may retire. Angband is a reference to Morgoth's "prison of iron." 1b. Who is Morgoth? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morgoth was 'the Dark Enemy of Middle-Earth' during its First Age. He was banished by the Valar (offspring of Eru, "god" of J.R.R. Tolkien's world) at the end of the First Age and thus never appears in The Lord of the Rings, set during the Third Age. Sauron, who does figure into those tales, was the most powerful of his servants. Read Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion' for more on the legends of Middle-Earth. 1c. On what computers can I play? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The most recent version of Angband can be played on Acorn, Amiga, Atari ST/TT, BeOS, Linux, Macintosh, MS-DOS, OS/2, various Unix systems, and Windows. Pre-compiled binaries for most of these systems are available. With the introduction of version 2.7, it has become much simpler to port the code to any machine with a decent C compiler. See the source code for more details. 1d. What is the latest version of Angband? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband 2.9.1 is the most recent stable version. 1e. How do I get the latest version of this FAQ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Both parts of the FAQ will be posted to rec.games.roguelike.angband weekly. Part One is an official Usenet FAQ and will also be posted to rec.answers and news.answers. Both parts of the FAQ are also available at: http://thangorodrim.angband.org/angfaq1.txt http://thangorodrim.angband.org/angfaq2.txt 1f. Who's the current maintainer? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Ruehlmann (rr9@angband.org) is the current maintainer of Angband. 1g. Version history ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This would be incomplete without a short Moria history as well: The first version of Moria was was written by Robert Alan Koeneke and Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr in 1983 for VAX machines. It was ported to Unix in 1987 under the name 'Umoria' and further maintained by James E. Wilson. In 1990, Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand, students at the University of Warwick, England, decided to write a Tolkien-based game based on Umoria 5.2.1 and Angband was born. Their intentions were to keep, or even strengthen, Moria's firm grounding in Tolkien lore. Their original changes included greatly expanded monsters and items (including uniques and artifacts), level feelings, pseudo-ID, activation, monster pits and vaults. The resulting heavily-customized Moria was not intended for outside release, but merely as a local version of Moria, to run only on Warwick's Unix system. Sometime in its development, before it was released and ported, the existing Unix code got the unlikely version number 'Angband 2.4.Frog-knows'. Over time, various people released various changes to Angband, including Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague, Charles Swiger, and Ben Harrison. Robert Ruehlmann took over for Ben Harrison when he was forced to give up maintaining Angband. See the Angband help file "version.txt" for some more information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Downloading Angband And Related Material ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2a. FTP sites ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are several useful Angband FTP sites. If you experience trouble, make sure your browser is using passive FTP or try a non-web browser FTP client. To learn how to use FTP, read the "Roguelike Games Info and FTP Sites FAQ" ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/roguelike/info-ftp/ ). * Official Angband Development FTP site ( ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/ ) * Official Angband Mirror FTP site ( ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/Angband/ ) 2b. Web sites ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The best WWW site for Angband is undoubtedly Thangorodrim, the official Angband home page: http://thangorodrim.angband.org/ This page contains links to many other useful Angband-related pages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Technical Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3a. Expanding PKZIP archives ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When using "PKUNZIP" to expand a distribution archive, be sure to use the '-d' option to create the 'lib' subdirectories, or they will have to be created by hand. This is not necessary with "WinZip". 3b. How do I use an old savefile or savefile from another platform? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest version of Angband should import savefiles from any previous version, including MacAngband 1.0 - 2.0.3 and PC Angband 1.4, though some older savefiles will lose some information during the import (for example, pre-2.7.8 savefiles may lose all or part of the monster memory and/or object memory). Savefiles are platform-independent. Be sure to use 'binary' FTP if that is your method of transfer. On a Macintosh, use the Import... menu item to import savefiles lacking the proper type ('SAVE') and creator ('A271'). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Creating Characters ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4a. What is maximize mode? (by Scott Bigham) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- All characters receive stat modifiers based on their race and class (Half-Trolls get an INT penalty, Priests get a WIS bonus, and so forth). The maximize mode flag determines how these modifiers are applied to the character's actual stats. Since this obviously affects character creation, the value of this flag must be chosen before you create your character. As an example of how this works, imagine rolling up a High-Elf Mage. High-Elf Mages receive a combined racial and class bonus of +6 to INT; for purposes of illustration, let's say the stat roller rolls a 17 INT (the highest possible value before modification). In non-maximize mode, the +6 bonus is applied much as if the character quaffed six Potions of Intelligence. The positive side of this is that your character can get a starting INT of around 18/70, since each "potion" can give them more than 10 percentiles once they are past 18. The negative side of this is that this 18/70 is now your character's base INT, and without stat-boosting items, he/she can only push their base INT up to 18/100. In maximize mode, the +6 bonus is applied as though the character had swallowed a Ring of Intelligence (+6). The negative side of this is that your character can't get a starting INT above 18/50 (17 plus the +6 "ring" bonus). The positive side of this is that although the effective INT is 18/50, the base INT is only 17; once you've pushed your character's base INT up to 18/100, the effective INT without stat-boosting items will be 18/160! On the flip side, our High-Elf Mage also gets a combined -4 penalty to STR. In non-maximize mode, this is treated like quaffing four Potions of Weakness, but your character's STR can still be increased all the way up to 18/100. In maximize mode, you've effectively got a Spleen of Weakness (-4), which means that your character's maximum possible effective STR, without stat-boosting items, is 18/60 (18/100 base plus the -4 penalty). In summary, then in non-maximize mode, your character will get bettter starting stats, and all stats will max out at 18/100. This typically makes the early game easier, while in maximize mode, your character's starting stats aren't as good, but the primary stat(s) will max out above 18/100, while the "off" stats will max out below 18/100. This typically makes the end game easier. 4b. What is preserve mode? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Characters created in preserve mode receive no "special" level feelings, but any unidentified artifacts, if missed, may appear again later in the game and are not lost forever. Anything that would have caused a "special" feeling contributes to the level feeling that your character receives instead. 4c. What is point-based mode? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When using point-based character generation, almost all randomness in the creation process is removed; the character starts with base stats (10, plus race and class bonii) and you are given 48 "points" to distribute between the various stats. Stat raises cost more and more points as the difference from the base value rises. Any points left over are converted into gold at a high exchange rate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Gameplay Questions ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5a. How do I set game options and what do they mean? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- They are set using the = command. To see what the various options mean, access the List of Options help menu with the ? command. 5b. What effect does turning off haggling have on the price of items? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turning off haggling causes all prices to be determined as the "best" price that could have been acheived via haggling, modified by a special ten percent "sales tax". This tax is not applied if haggling would not have been necessary in the first place (if the item is very cheap or very expensive, or you have a good haggling history for the item, or you have a good haggling history with the shopkeeper). So, normally, it is possible to get a better deal by taking the time to actually haggle with a shopkeeper. 5c. How does shopkeeper rotation work? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every so often, new shopkeepers will move in and replace the old ones. This can take a long time, so be patient. When the shopkeepers change, all items in the shop are marked down to "on sale" (50% off) and all haggling and insult counters are reset. Different shop owners will give different prices for items for various reasons, and no shop owner will ever pay more for an item then the amount mentioned in the header of the shop's inventory list. 5d. What is auto-scum? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- With autoscum enabled, the Angband dungeon generator will stop only on levels that it considers "good." The deeper in the dungeon your character, the "better" the level must be. See question (5f) for an explanation of what contributes to this calculation. If your character is not in preserve mode, the game will always stop on any "special" level. 5e. How do the cheating options work? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enabling any of the cheating options will mark the current savefile as a "cheater", and your character will be unable to make the high score list. Each option activates some special behavior which may make the game easier in some way. The various "peek into xxx creation" cheating options will cause the game to announce the creation of "interesting" occurances of the relevant topic. The "peek into something else" option will cause the game to accounce all changes involving shops. The "know complete monster info" cheating option will grant your character complete information about every monster. The "allow player to avoid death" cheating option will allow your character to "cheat death" whenever he would normally die. This causes your character to be fully healed, and instantly teleported to the town level. 5f. What are the messages I get upon entering a new level? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- These are known as "level feelings" and give the general rating of the level. You will only get them when you enter a level if you've been on the previous level long enough. Otherwise you will get a "Looks like any other level" message. "Long enough" is 1000 game turns, adjusted by your speed. For a normal speed character, this would be 100 player turns. Many players say that only "good," "very good," "excellent," "superb," and "special" levels are worth exploring, but this of course a matter of opinion. Valuable objects, artifacts, player ghosts, pits, nests, vaults, out-of-depth creatures and out-of-depth non-cursed objects all contribute to the "rating" of a level, and thus to the resulting "feeling". 5g. What causes a "special" feeling? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A "special" feeling (about a level) only occurs if, when the level was first created, it contained an artifact, a monster pit, a monster nest, or a vault. As your character gets deeper in the dungeon, there is less of a chance that monster pits, monster nests, and vaults will cause "special" feelings. See the spoiler "dungeon.spo" for more detail. If you are playing in preserve mode, you will never receive a "special" feeling. 5h. What do the minuses in the name of a piece of armor mean? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a to-hit penalty for wearing heavy or inflexible armor. Such armor, if not identified, will not show the penalty but it will still be in effect. 5i. The game tells me that I must "Study" but I can't learn any new spells. What is going on? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your character is missing one of the more powerful books containing spells that s/he can learn. See question (11a) for more detail. 5j. How does the fractional speed system work? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basically, time passes in the world in small units called "game turns", and during every "game turn", each entity (the monsters and the player) receives some "energy" points, based on its "speed" rating. When an entity acquires at least 100 energy points, they must perform some action (such as move or attack or rest) which consumes some of their energy points. The higher the "speed" rating, the faster "energy" points are acquired, so more actions can be performed in a given number of "game turns". A "normal" entity has a speed of 110, and receives 10 energy points per game turn. A "slow" entity has a speed below 110, and receives between 1 and 9 energy points per game turn. A "fast" entity has a speed above 110, and receives between 11 and 49 energy points per game turn. Note that the number of energy points received per game turn is approximately equal to the speed minus 110, but the actual equation is more asymptotic. The current speed of your character, if not "normal", is displayed as "Slow (-N)" or "Fast (+N)", indicating the distance of the speed from "normal". The most obvious effect of speed is in combat, but it also affects the rate of food consumption (extremely fast characters must be careful not to starve), and the number of "player turns" that a character must spend on a level to get a level feeling on the next. 5k. Introduction to macros ------------------------------------------------------------------------- See the Angband help file "playing.txt" for a good introduction to macros, and to the "user pref files" in which they can be saved. Since macros are stored in user pref files, and not in your character's savefile, if you quit without saving your new macros to a user pref file, they will be lost. Angband will automatically load several "user pref files" when a character is loaded, for example, if I am playing a high-elf mage named "Fearless" on some kind of Macintosh computer, in graphics mode, then the user pref files "pref.prf", "graf.prf", "user.prf", and "Fearless.prf" will be autoloaded, which will themselves load "pref-mac.prf", "graf-mac.prf", "graf-xxx.prf", and "user-mac.prf". In this example, new macros sould be saved either in "user-mac.prf" or "Fearless.prf". 5l. How do I save macros? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Use the "%" command. Option 2, "Dump macros," will allow you to save all the current macros into a user pref file. There is currently no way to only save newly added macros. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Questionable Gameplay Techniques ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6a. Savefile abuse ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angband follows the same behavior when a character dies as many of the other rogue-like games. When a character dies, that's it, game over. Information on monsters that the character has seen (monster memory) is retained, but the player must start again. This is in contrast to most fantasy role-playing computer games that let you restore your game from a savefile if you die. Angband also differs from most commercial games in that there is no puzzle solving as such. This behavior has given rise to backup savefile abuse, which entails making a copy of the savefile to another part of your disk, and in the unfortunate event of death, moving it back to its original location and restoring the game. Almost everyone uses backup savefiles at the start, but as soon as your players stop dying with great frequency, you should probably stop using them. Your play experience will become more rewarding as a result. You certainly do not have to stop using backups, many players never do. As long as you enjoy the game, who cares? Note that it is possible to compile Angband with a variety of options which attempt to prevent savefile abuse and other security problems, but this normally only applies if you are using some version of UNIX. 6b. Stair-scumming ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stair scumming is a technique primarily used to generate levels with artifacts (special weapons and items). It involves loitering around a stairway for a certain number of turns on a "non-special" level, then using the stairway to force the game to generate a new level. If the new level is not "special," the process is repeated. The technique may also be used to force the storekeepers in town to refresh their inventory of identify and word of recall scrolls, restore stat and life-level restore potions, and light sources, since they restock every 10000 game turns (1000 player turns for a character at normal speed). The first type of scumming is a more serious abuse than the second. There has been much discussion on the newsgroup on how to restrict this type of abuse. It will likely remain unresolved because of the personal decision involved, i.e. you don't *have* to stair scum. 6c. Monster farming ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Involves cloning monsters with good treasure drops in the hopes of getting good items and gaining experience. Effective with ancient dragons, wyrms, druj, and many others. Can be dangerous, considering the power of the monsters. Also used in regards to "worm farming," which is an easy (albeit boring) way to quickly gain experience at low levels. 6d. Summoning/Polymorphing ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summoning and polymorphing monsters at low experience levels can be dangerous if the new monster is more than your character can handle. Summoning deep in the dungeon is perilous for any character, especially since it is no longer true that dangerous monsters will be forced to sleep when summoned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. About rec.games.roguelike.angband ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7a. General notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The newsgroup serves a dual-purpose role, supporting both game development and gameplay discussions. If you write new program code for the game, don't post it (unless it is really short); upload it to an ftp site and give a pointer. Average posts to r.g.r.a include announcements of new patches, variants, or versions, discussions of possible changes and how they would affect the game, questions and answers, YASD, YAFM, and character dumps to ask for advice (or just to brag). The traffic r.g.r.a receives is heavy enough at the best of times; please try to curb excessive posting. Although this is obviously not an ironclad rule, character dumps should be limited to cases when you need advice about your character's proper depth and equipment, etc., or to winner posts. Constant posting about relatively small developments in a character, unless done in an engaging and compelling style (cf. James sager iii), is frowned upon, due to the annoyance it is certain to cause. Similar judgement must be exercised in other cases. 7b. Glossary of terms ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Common Abbreviations: * DSM - Dragon Scale Mail * PDSM - Power Dragon Scale Mail * GoI - Globe of Invulnerability * OoD - Orb of Draining * Phial - Phial of Galadriel * RGRA - rec.games.roguelike.angband * RLL - Potion of Restore Life Levels * RoS - Ring of Speed * WoR - Word of Recall * YACD - Yet Another Character Dump * YASD - Yet Another Stupid Death * YAFM - Yet Another Funny Message Definitions: * Borg - An automatic Angband player. Must be enabled at compile time. Pre-compiled versions of the game normally do not come with the Borg. * Graveyard - a monster nest filled with undead creatures. * Nest - Similar to a pit, but containing an inner room and a random assortment of monsters of a given type. Monsters vary by depth, so a Nest deep in the dungeon can be very nasty. * Pit - A 19x5 room filled with a certain type of creature. * Vault - A special room that comes in two flavors, lesser and greater. They will often contain out-of-depth monsters and good items. * Wizard Mode - Used mainly by Angband coders to debug the game. Allows object creation, telepathy, etc. Must be enabled at compile time. * Zoo - A monster nest filled with animals. The Bracketed Letters: Frequently a post will include in its subject header the symbol [V] (or substitute most any other letter). This is done to indicate the variant being played, with the letter used corresponding to the first letter of the variant's name. Many Angband variants contain so many changes that advice applicable to the normal game of Angband may not be applicable to the variant in question, so this convention has been adopted to help keep people from posting inaccurate information, requiring correction. When posting character dumps or similar things, it is probably wise to include such a symbol. (V stands for vanilla, i.e., regular Angband.) 7c. Questions on r.g.r.a ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't let the amount of technical information discussed deter you from asking a question, but do browse this FAQ (and the table of contents of Part Two as well) and read some recent postings before posting yourself. Questions on strategy, bug reports, suggestions, and amusing stories related to the game are all welcome. If you give hints, you should be fairly sure that you have accurate information (or you may qualify your statements with a comment on your uncertainty). It is generally considered that Angband is a game in which full knowledge is, while impossible to obtain, almost necessary in order to win; thus, spoilers need not be marked as such. 7d. WINNER posts ------------------------------------------------------------------------- WINNER posts are where you get to boast of your crowning achievement, the defeat of Morgoth. A victory post commonly gives the equipment list and statistic screen for the lucky King or Queen (through the 'C' command), plus a short summary of the game including highlights such as especially lucky treasure finds or near-death experiences. With a victory post you should state some facts like which version of Angband you are playing and whether you used backup files, cheating options, wizard mode. If you are a die-hard player and win with a self-imposed restriction (like "no artifacts") mention this as well so others will shower you with even more glory. 7e. Stupid Death (or YASD) posts ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is where you post your depressing stories about your poor, late alter ego. Other people may be able to empathize with you and console you; others may be able to offer tips so that you won't fall into the same trap again. Also, you teach others about your experience and help them avoid the same mistake you made. Posts that are in the form of a short, amusing tale often provoke a positive response from other readers of the group and do wonders at relieving stress. 7f. Why do so many players seem to dislike or even hate Nethack? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nethack's atmosphere is less serious than Angband and sometimes just plain silly; it also tends to reward a different style of thought then Angband does. Many people enjoy and play both games, there is just a different philosophy behind Nethack. 7g. Etiquette ------------------------------------------------------------------------- r.g.r.a is, of course, a Usenet group, and reasonable standards of politeness and behavior apply as always. Those who lack the ability to conform to these standards are cordially invited to hone their cybersocial skills in talk.bizarre before visiting our newsgroup, or alternatively to read the helpful advice of Emily Postnews ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/emily-postnews/part1/ ). As a Usenet group, you will no doubt come across many abbreviations, references, and idiomatic spellings that are not herewith included for lack of space; if this really bothers you, you would do well to peruse the Jargon File ( http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/ ), since the same references are likely to crop up wherever on the Net you go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Suggestions For Future Versions That Have Been Considered ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8a. Let the player store money in his/her home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This would make the monetary theft attack useless. Omega features a bank. Nethack allows players to keep money in bags so it can't be stolen, but this allows the whole bag to be stolen! 8b. Increase the player's carrying capacity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This idea involves giving the player more item slots or the creation of items like "bags of holding." If the character was allowed to carry a nearly unlimited supply of items, then there would be no strategy involving careful selection of equipment and inventory, which is an integral part of the game. 8c. Let players give or sell their items to other players. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- That would make the game trivial for low level players with friends and make rare items much easier to acquire. The "pawn shop" in town falls into this category. In Nethack, players can do this indirectly, because its "bone" files contain the inventory of the dead player. The roguelike FAQ contains a list of multi-player roguelike games, where this might be an option. 8d. A "pass through wall" spell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This would create too many problems with line-of-sight computations. If the player was somehow blinded by being in the wall, then the wall would grant infinite armor class. Omega, Ragnarok and Larn all have pass-through-wall spells, as do many Angband variants. 8e. I want a real-time multi-player Angband! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're not alone. However, this is harder to program than it sounds. For further information, investigate Mangband (section 10). 8f. Make the dungeon persistent throughout the game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This would be all kinds of a nightmare; game balance, programming, storage, etc. It would be such a dramatic departure from the path Angband has taken that it is unlikely to appear. Some variants of Angband try to implement persistent levels, and many other roguelike games also have persistent levels, Nethack among them. 8g. Why can't I wear ten rings? I have ten fingers, don't I? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To answer this question, one must step back for a moment from the game of killing monsters and slaying dragons that Angband appears to be and focus simply on the game of pushing little numbers around and making happy totals that Angband, in the final analysis, boils down to. Many pseudorealistic explanations have been offered for your character's being limited to one amulet and two rings, but the important answer, and the final one, is that allowing more would make the game severely unbalanced by affording your character vastly increased amounts of power. Standing in mute testimony to this is the complete lack of any other games that have allowed characters to wear multiple rings. 8h. Remove the autohaggle "sales tax." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This particular issue was discussed well past death, with no really final arguments put forth by either side. The sales tax will most likely stay in vanilla, as removing it would make normal haggling completely pointless. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Programming Questions ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9a. Where can I obtain the source code? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The source code for the most recent version is available via anonymous FTP. * Official Angband Developement FTP site Source directory ( ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Source/ ) * Official Angband Mirror FTP site Source directory ( ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/Angband/Source/ ) 9b. To what extent can I modify the source and release modified versions? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are free to rewrite sections of the game code and release your own version of Angband, provided that you retain copyright notices and proper credits, and do not attempt to make a profit in any way. 9c. Is there any easy way for a non-programmer to hack the game? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Figure out the format of the "./lib/edit/*_info.txt" files, edit them, delete the corresponding "./lib/data/*_info.raw" files, and restart the game. This should not be done unless you know exactly what you are doing. These files should be treated in the same manner as "source code", and for those of you who do not know what this means, realize that changing such files may result in unusable savefiles and/or unexpected crashes. You have been warned! For those who still persist, a useful guide is available: http://www.fragment.com/~jl8e/angband/info_ref.html 9d. Why doesn't wizard mode work in the version that I have? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The debug commands are intended as a debugging tool for programmers. It is not currently enabled with most pre-compiled versions of Angband because of the additional memory and disk space required, but some special pre-compiled versions do include the debug commands. You can always activate the debug commands by compiling your own version of Angband (or by getting somebody else to do it for you). Using the debug commands will "mark" your character's savefile, and you will be unable to make the high score list with that character. See the source code for more information. 9e. What is the borg? Why doesn't it appear in the version that I have? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The borg commands allow an automatic player to control your character. It is not currently enabled with most pre-compiled versions of Angband because of the additional memory and disk space required, but some special pre-compiled versions do include the borg commands. There are many different borgs. Note that using the borg commands will "mark" your character's savefile, and you will be unable to make the high score list with that character. See the Borg page on Thangorodrim for more information ( http://thangorodrim.angband.org/borg.html ). 9f. How do I use the borg? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Use the "control-z" command to access the borg commands, if they have been included in the version you are using. When prompted, you may start the borg using the "z" key, and stop it by pressing any key. See the Borg source code for more information. Be warned that the borg may contain bugs! 9g. How do I generate auto-spoilers? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You must have a version compiled with ALLOW_WIZARD and ALLOW_SPOILERS. Enter wizard mode, then type control-a and a double quote ("). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Variants ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Many people, not satisfied with the endless hours they sacrifice at Angband's altar, have paid the ultimate homage in creating their own version of Angband, containing those features and abilities they always wanted. To see the (rather extensive) list of all the variants thus created, pay heed to the Angband Variants FAQ: http://www.fragment.com/~jl8e/angband/faq.txt Most of these variants can be downloaded using ftp. * Official Angband Developement FTP site Variant directory ( ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Variant/ ) * Official Angband Mirror FTP site Variant directory ( ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/Angband/Variant/ ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Old Bugs And Undocumented Features ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11a. The game says that I'm missing a spellbook when I try to learn some new spells. What's the reason for this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are missing a book containing spells that you can learn. More often than not, your character needs one of the books that can only be found in the black market or deep in the dungeon. Only 4 of the 9 mage or priest spellbooks are readily available in town. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------