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[Toady One]

Put up a 1.02 that fixes hover problem, adventurer duplicates and adds a wait key for adventurers, as well as that cave name entry thing.

[Gezol]

I don't know about having the kobolds steal kids- I sort of like the complete reversal of the traditional good guy/bad guy roles in the game, where the kobolds are plucky underdogs fighting for their survival and the adventurers are arrogant dicks out to commit genocide on the kobolds just because they're lowly. I think it actually makes it more amusing in a way to make the kobolds seem like complete innocents, but that might be just me...

Incidentally, I got a 300 XP kobold warlord at one point, but I couldn't get the shaman types to advance beyond a 125 XP witchdoctor, though I don't know if that's a bug or if you just have to kill an experienced adventurer to get the last level.

[ September 11, 2006: Message edited by: Gezol ]

[Toady One]

Was the witchdoctor in 1.01 or 1.02?  The witchdoctor advancement problem was a typo in the txt files in 1.01 that should be corrected in 1.02.

Yeah, I could go any way on the question.  I mean, there's role reversal or role elimination.  The kobolds do deal with nefarious bugs in any case, but their day to day activities could be more innocent.  Perhaps you can even get extra kobolds by doing...  something.  However it's done in this case.

[Captain_Action]

I recall something about smallish fey critter stilling babies and kids to turn them into more smallish fey critters!

KOBOLDS IS KIDZ!  :eek:

[Michael]

Two things:

First, what's the point of level progression in this game?  The chances of killing adventurers is specified in the manual (33% for a throw or empty pit, N/(N+1) for pits with critters) -- leaving no room for level bonuses on either side.

Also, the game only lets you move one kobold per turn, which limits the usefulness of your spare kobolds.  One suggestion would be to allow kobolds to throw critters to each other.  This would make it faster to move critters that pile up deep in your cave to the trappers who need them at the most-used pits.

[Aquillion]

Level-ups don't do anything.  They're just for the highscore list and for keeping track of your MVP.

Having lots of kobolds makes you harder to finish off, for one.  Think of them as your HP.  But they also let you refill pits in various parts of the cave more quickly...  you can grab a kobold near the pit to refill instead of trudging halfway across the map.

[flap]

And the source has been released. So it should be possible to add any feature you want (like throwing bugs to other kobolds)

[ September 13, 2006: Message edited by: flap ]

[Gezol]

On the witchdoctor thing- yes, it was 1.01. Good to know that's been fixed.

If any new features are added to the game, I'd say the most important addition would be making the professions have an effect. It probably could be done without making the game too much more complicated. For the adventurers, mages could fire magic projectiles at the kobolds(which could basically work like thrown bugs, in reverse), thieves would have a chance to move over covered pits without activating them and might be able to move closer to the kobolds before they became visible, clerics might sometimes be able to cancel the effects of poison and save their lives, and fighters... I'm not sure what fighters would get, actually. Reduced chance of being poisoned by bugs, thanks to their armor and general toughness, maybe?

For the kobolds- The chieftain/warlord profession branch might be tough enough to occasionally survive getting hit by adventurers, and the shaman branch... I don't know, maybe they could summon a bug to them without having to find one and pick it up.

On getting more kobolds- I guess D&D canon these days is that kobolds lay eggs, which might be one possibility for making more of them. There could be an extra level of strategy in trying to protect the eggs which might be fun. Adventurers could have appropriately obnoxious lines if they reached them. ("MMM! GUESS I'LL MAKE ME AN OMELETTE!")
The problem with all of this, of course, is that eggs have to come from somewhere. That would mean that you'd have to do sound effects for kobold sex, and I don't think anyone wants to imagine that. Maybe they can just get migrants if you succeed in killing enough adventurers.

[Aquillion]

Ugh, no eggs.  I wasn't even aware that D&D Kobolds were supposed to be reptiles (!?) until you mentioned that and I had to go look it up.  Most other fantasy settings seem to have them as vicious dog-like humanoids, which would make them mammals...

[Toady One]

That D&D kobold has morphed from a chihuahua dog headed man thing to something more like a yoda ewok thing to some kind of kewl backward kneed dinosaur man (or are the kewl backward knees just high ankles...).  We're kind of partial to the one in the middle (you can tell by the picture).  Now, during this time, it was beginning the change from mammal to reptile, and so was just another "humanoid" goblinish thing, possibly laying eggs, possibly live births.  I don't remember what we decided for Dwarf Fortress, wrote it down a couple weeks ago during a cave planning phone call -- not that it really matters due to the raw object files being changeable and eventually randomizable.  It could end up being eggs just to introduce that to a humanoid species, though it could just as easily be done with proper lizardmen.

[ September 14, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[flap]

Reading your code and virtual keys (and doing some research on the web) :
Apparently, Microsoft has not done a virtual key for all keys on the keyboard. For exemple there aren't any for the key wich cause a problem on my computer (?,>,<...). This is quite wierd, and there must something I have missed. I keep searching and reading.

[flap]

Some more testing (with a programm I downloaded "Charprobe")
This programm tells me the name of the virtual key we I press it. If i press "?", it tells "Unknown". Okay.
Then I want ot know what it tells me when I want to know the ASCII code.It recognizes things corretly. (But apparently it does not recognizes the pgUp or pgDown)

Hmm. Damned, other programm manage to handle keys correctly ! So it should be possible and easy ! I keep searching

[ September 14, 2006: Message edited by: flap ]

[KiTA]

Have you read the "Races of the Dragon" suppliment for recent AD&D?

Kobolds take up a full chapter, and that chapter's probably the best one in the book.  The descriptions of their society (Socialist, with an emphasis on work ethic), their culture, their religion, all that is really amazing.

Modern Kobold backstory is that they were created when the first dragons were born onto the earth -- when the blood struck the ground, they sprung fully formed.  While that may or may not have happened, a major factor with the Kobolds is that, dispite every hardship they ever encounter, nothing phases them since they know one inevitable truth -- they're decended from Dragons.

Surprisingly enough, as far as races go they're almost exactly like Dwarves.  Very hard workers (to the point that, in full swing, a Kobold mine could out-produce a Dwarven mine), very religious (once a day, the entire Kobold den goes silent to meditate on their dragon ancestry), and surprisingly adept.

Trapmaking is their only real artform, although they have Bards and Sorcerers as well -- they usually spend their time in the mines assisting with the workers.

A major factor that no one gets is that Kobolds intentionally let themselves become underestimated.  It's something they work at.  It's a survival mechanism -- they know they can't compete, so they just try to get people to leave them alone and do their own thing.  Works surprisingly well.

If I were to make a "Kobold Fortress" it would be similar to DF, except... take the number of PCs and times them by 10, and cut their productivity by 8 to make up for it.  You wouldn't have 1 miner digging out a tunnel, you'd have 10, for example.

[Varil]

...if kobolds lay eggs, could they become a renewable food source in DF? Mmmm. Hate to be the guy who has to go get em, though.

[Aquillion]

If there is one universal rule for kobolds in roguelikes, it is that they are strictly not edible, at least not without some form of powerful poison resistance.

Oh, and if we ever get a more detailed "kobold cave" mode in Dwarf Fortress, I would hope it would be a little bit like this.

[ September 15, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]