Bay 12 Games Forum

Being able to play tiles online will be a nice way to cut down on my constant savescumming: I have a habit of backing up my save file every time I quit, in case I die to something I term 'stupid.' Not a good way to learn the game, but better for fun factor... until you get bored because you're not 'challenged.'

Nice. Thanks for the info, Poca.

I'm glad he decided to make it free and to keep modability basically as it is now (by directly modifying source rather than working a system in-game that may not expose all parts of it to modding). That said, I'm sure there might be legal concerns with this direction. I don't think this choice would work with a high end title, because Minecraft is going to basically become open source: "agree to this license, and you get access to the full source." This is already how modding works, except it's not yet legally sanctioned and that anyone who does want to go through it needs to get the unobfuscated code (or do it themselves). Hopefully Minecraft's 'indie' cred will keep this from being exploited in some unforseeable way.

Pros:
* Minecraft stays completely moddable. An API could never match or allow everything that's being done right now, because these mods are more like hacks that modify source and an API may not, for example, allow for the possibility of a new resource like electrical energy (or modifying unit AI, for example).
* Modders get to update their mods faster because they don't need to wait for an ubobfuscated source.

Cons
* What will it mean for Minecraft's future? Maybe nothing, maybe everything.
* Who determines whether mods are not 'malicious'? Is someone going through all of a mod's code to see that it's not actually doing anything malicious? Does it merely wait for some industrial player to read through and then pan the mod for this?
* What are the restrictions for being licensed? Presumably owning a copy of Minecraft to start with. Presumably if you break the license your Minecraft account gets banned. Do you need to provide your own real name? Identification?
* What stops piracy of the source(!), which are then developed by people without a license? Accept that it may happen?

I guess all of those cons are really just unanswered questions. I like this change because it keeps things as they are and mods can continue to be game-altering if you so choose (and who knows where things will go with full source access: mods with goal-specific scenario gameplay, maybe?). My concerns are just the unanswered questions.

(!)I guess if you tag the source with an identifier specific to the login which downloaded it, you could track piracy in that way and ban the offending account. That does not preclude the identifier being somehow altered or removed before being rehosted.

Starting a new character after my last KoAe decided he looked good spitted on Asmodeus' staff.

Think I'll go with a MuAe this time. Ae just to start with, and because Tornado is OP at the end game, and mummy so I can take the pace a little slower. My difficulty is in deciding religion. I'd really like to end up with Ash for the experience gain, because Mummies will need all the experience they can get, but I am having trouble deciding whether to pick her up ASAP or go with Sif Muna for a while to get a nice selection of books (and to abuse channeling a little in the meanwhile). Any opinions? My kobold casters usually go with Vehumet for his books and for the extra range on conjurations.

I just thought about something with Ashenzari.

You gain piety by exploring, preferably with cursed items. But you can wipe your map with shift-x, ctrl-f. Does that mean you can scum Ash piety? I'm guessing not: that even though you wiped the map, the area still counts as explored. If not, that's a fair exploit for the religion, though functionally not all that huge unless you're transferring a lot of experience (especially with the higher piety cost of experience transfer).

The answer appears to be no, you can't scum for piety this way. Tried on a mummy, and either Ash's piety decay outpaced my piety gain from exploring d:2 with 3 cursed items equipped, or explored areas aren't counted toward piety even if you clear the map.

I just thought about something with Ashenzari.

You gain piety by exploring, preferably with cursed items. But you can wipe your map with shift-x, ctrl-f. Does that mean you can scum Ash piety? I'm guessing not: that even though you wiped the map, the area still counts as explored. If not, that's a fair exploit for the religion, though functionally not all that huge unless you're transferring a lot of experience (especially with the higher piety cost of experience transfer).

I actually hate the friggin guts of carapace and quills.

They don't approach the maximum AV armor, which is crysteel shardmail at 8.
And then i'm stuck at an armor that has 2 points less than a friggin just-a-little-less-common item.

These arguments seem spurious. I never even knew crysteel shardmail existed, so I would definitely not call it a 'little less common' item. Being 6 AV at maxed is actually the best body armor I've ever found, the next best being 5 AV fullerune, which is also 90 drams weight, or carbine plate, which is 5AV/-5DV. (My most progressed character was a multi-armed photosynth with carapace - he completed all the quests until burning the plantation, which then warned that the next quest was NYI. I went to the deathlands and was promptly slaughtered by chrome pyramids, or whatever those things are called, and retired the character. Level 25. I admit I didn't explore much or delve deep into random underground lairs.)

Carapace and Quills are fine. A lot of the mutations have powerful effects and huge tradeoffs.