Angband 3.4.0

Background

Angband 3.4.0 was released on 14th September 2012, almost a year after the previous version. Over the previous year, there was extensive discussion about the game having become much easier compared to 2.9.0, or even 3.0.9, and this resulted in a drive to make the game harder. However, this was not the sole focus of this release and there were many other large changes too:

   A new 64x64 tile set (by Shockbolt)
   Many new monster pits and nests
   Fuzzy detection of objects
   Upgrade to UTF-8
   Angels replaced with Ainu
   Removal of all weakly cursed items
   Torches now radius 1 light
   Changes to monster summoning
   Deep descent scrolls became more dangerous
   New OS X frontend using Cocoa

After this release, the pace of change in the game dropped dramatically. This is partly because of the birth of two competing projects: v4, an offshoot of V, and Pyrel, an attempt at rewriting Angband in Python. Both of these were being contributed to by the same development team that had formed around Angband, and as a result Angband development dropped off after this release, with the previously regular changes in 'nightly' builds being reduced to a trickle at best.

Changelist

Bugs fixed

   Fix opening chests in stacks (Noz)
   Fix saving and loading so that savefile.{old|new} are ignored
   Fix loading of graphics pref files in non-graphics mode (Blubaron)
   Prevent spoiler calls messing with everseen info
   Stop the hidden level-feeling tiles being displayed by accident
   Ensure that devices IDd on unseen monsters provide feedback
   Prevent excessive durations of monster timed effects
   Increase MAX_ITEMLIST to cope with new ignore/squelch approach
   Correct logic error in randart slay frequency calculation
   Mimics behave consistently when hit by friendly fire
   Remove pvals properly if they end up at zero (thanks PowerWyrm)
   Stop scrolls of light segfaulting on BSD (thanks vext01)
   Make sure that turning off randarts at birth works properly
   Fix randarts (blows/shots supercharge, RES_STUN)
   Use the displayed damage dice for damage calculation
   Avoid div/0 crash in project_m for stun attacks
   Make to-hit values IDd by shooting (thanks artes)
   Avoid pricing errors for negative pvals (thanks PowerWyrm)
   Remove ghost pvals on randarts
   Initialise random name tables properly
   Fix buggy refilling behavior
   Partial fix to allow pick-up in darkness
   Refresh screen after opening chests
   Make pref file writing work with setgid installs
   Save progress towards level feelings
   Fix buggy earthquake logic
   Make Heroism and Berserk spells grant boldness, like the potions
   Avoid crash on leaving level while hallucinating (thanks PowerWyrm)
   Prevent crash when 'r'ecalling the Everburning ego
   Correct door fiddling/bashing messages for visible monsters
   Fix summon_specific so it fails properly
   Avoid crash with "reset layout" option
   Avoid crash when clicking squelch menu

User interface

   Describe each HATES_ flag only if IGNORE_ flag is not present
   Improve the warning message for !-incribed items
   Darken the "Study" message when current books have no new spells
   Remove HIDE_TYPE
   Make "purple uniques" display correctly
   Nomad's updated tiles
   Make shift+keypad work in the GTK port (thanks to Daniel Santos)
   Save squelch status of items
   Blubaron's improved tile support (graphics.txt)
   New Cocoa front-end for Macs (thanks ridiculous_fish)
   Blubaron's improved mouse support (Windows/SDL)
   Remove randarts "restarting generation" messages
   Display what monsters are known not to resist (thanks David3x3x3)
   Many more fixes and enhancements from Blubaron
   Add Shockbolt's 64x64 tileset
   Even more improvements from Blubaron
   Add Andrew White's borg
   Nick's UTF8 glyph picker
   Fix GCU port to recognise backspace and del as distinct keys
   Blubaron's default layout for Windows
   Blubaron's store UI improvement

Gameplay changes

   Trap detection now detects traps on chests (thanks artes)
   Prevent instadeaths from IDing summon scrolls/staves by use
   Make enchant/disenchant more consistent
   Objects on the floor no longer prevent trap creation
   DRAIN_EXP now drains xp in proportion to total xp (thanks artes)
   OF_LIGHT is now a pval flag
   All items pseudo on pickup from after cl20
   Rebalance stealth and monster detection (thanks Jens & fizzix)
   Revisit stacks of consumables (thanks Jens)
   Rebalance to-hit vs. AC (take two, thanks Jens)
   Ensure that PDSM can't get the Resistance ego
   Move to fuzzy detection for objects not in LOS
   fizzix's summoning changes
   et seq. CunningGabe's improvements to pits
   fizzix's animal toughening tweaks
   Angels replaced by Ainu (thanks to Jeff Greene)
   Increase max penalty on =Mouse, remove dam&AC mods on =Dog
   CunningGabe's mimic updates
   Various difficulty tweaks:
       reduce MAXSTACKSIZE to 40
       make DSM slightly rarer/deeper
       make stuff more expensive to buy
       reduce drops from apprentices/cutpurses
       prevent Deep Descent and Teleport Level being sold in stacks
   takkaria's lighting changes (torches radius 1, Phial radius 2)
   fizzix's birth changes (fewer birth points, fairer class bonuses)
   artes's changes to monsters with poison resistance
   Make failed special artifacts good instead of great
   Remove DROP_GOOD from all non-uniques
   Make Deep Descent a timed effect (like recall) and drop 250'
   Allow PASS_WALL monsters to revert to normal pathing near permarock
   Make object feelings react more to single great objects
   Make artifacts give a minimum feeling of "worthwhile"
   Reduce good/great chances for item generation
   Destruction effects no longer destroy stairs
   Nick's small_device option for reduce range and sight
   Remove all remove curse items and spells (except remove curse)

Coding changes

   Switch over to UTF-8 (thanks Noz)
   Add desktop entries to source and buildsystem (Noz)
   Split describe_combat (thanks artes)
   Change SIREAD and SIWRITE for Android compatibility
   Remove the now-redundant SHOW_MODS flag
   Aerdan's updates to buildsys
   CunningGabe's cleanup of monster code
   Update wiz-stats
   Remove most of limits.txt
   pkg_deb script now excludes non-DFSG wav files
   Replaced many indices with pointers in function calls (ongoing)
   Remove all uses of %^s and use my_strcap() instead
   Enable MinGW to use the buildsys, and other improvements (Noz)
   Various improvements to Carbon and Cocoa ports (myshkin)

Documentation changes

   Convert in-game docs to RST (thanks fph)
   Document the "wipe recall" wizmode command
   Instructions for compiling on various platforms

Thanks to:

Aerdan, blubaron, buzzkill, CunningGabe, david3x3x3, Derakon, d_m, elly, fizzix magnate, myshkin, Nick, noz, Shockbolt, and takkaria