Further rebranding, new DevState

I'm slowly changing more parts of the website to account for ADOM II: Legends of Ancardia as the new title of the game. This evening I changed all the headlines, modified the subpages and specifically posted a new (still pretty basic) model for ADOM II Deluxe (formerly known as JADE: The Ultimate). Let me know what you think...

Oh, and have a look at the revised DevState. I have decided to do an ADOM II 0.2.9 release instead of directly proceeding with ADOM II 0.3.0 - in order to get my act together a bit faster. Some features have moved a bit down the line and I really urge myself to get into a more effective "release early, release often" mode - but I still need to work on myself ;-)

Lecture about ADOM II at the Advanced Technical College of Südwestfalen

Today is a kind of special day for me. While I'm talking quite often at conferences and workshops about varies topics (usually about OpenSAGA or the OpenGovernment Suite both created by QuinScape as well as about various software technology related topics) today I'm holding a lecture at the Advanced Technical College of Südwestfalen in a course given by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Klug. The course is about software technology and my lecture will be about

Why computer (roleplaying) games and design patterns for enterprise software 

have a lot in common

The example naturally will be ADOM II and I will both show the game and illustrate how various concepts map to one other. Should be fun, the talk starts today at 2pm. Wish me luck ;-)

Upcoming: Scrolls in ADOM II

While rebranding JADE as ADOM II I noticed that the ensuing major version number jump (to 0.3.0) also requires me to add at least a few scrolls (e.g. the famous and direly needed scroll of identify). This creates another small sidetrack now also recorded in the current DevState.

JADE scores #4 in the Roguelike of the Year 2011 poll

Many thanks to everyone for voting. Here are the original results and here's the top 20 at Temple of the Roguelike. The goal for 2012 obviously is clear... I will do everything in my power to get ADOM II: Legends of Ancardia (ALOA for short ;-) ) to score as #1 :-)

Thanks again to everyone and here's a toast to a great year of roguelike gaming looming ahead!

Message types in roguelike games

Today I'd like to address an issue that has been bothering me since ADOM types and that also is not yet handled correctly in JADE: There are different types of messages in the game and some of them - obviously for better legibility - might need different coloring. Additionally it might be worthwhile to add message filters to get rid of less interesting messages. That's where I need your help.

Quick update: More mouse support for ADOM II (formerly known as JADE)

Just added two mouse support features to the next release ADOM II / JADE:

• During movement mode you can click on some known position and the PC will move there.
• During look mode (new for the next release) you can hover over a visible position and it will be described in more detail (including known statistics for NPCs). 

At some point (but not for the next release) right-clicking during movement mode probably also will provide extended descriptions but that will have to be considered in more detail. All changes have been documented on the new DevState page.

New page: DevState

In the navigation to the top of this page you will now find a new page called "DevState". The idea here is to give you a running tally of the open issues that I need to finish before releasing the next version. I will try to keep this up to date in order to give you a better picture of things to come.

Ads on the blog

You might have noticed that ads have started to appear on this blog. Actually I'm pretty unsure whether I really like this and I might decide to remove them again pretty soon as I usually am not fond of ads on blogs. Nonetheless this is a test to see if any worthwhile sums of money aggregate with those ads as that would help to cover the costs for server and blog hosting (something like 75 EUR per month for all the infrastructure combined - not much but I still need to find time to use a much leaner and cheaper infrastructure.

So if you do want to do me a favor - click on a couple of ads and visit the offerings every time you visit this site. It generates income to support ADOM and JADE ;-)

Should JADE: The Ultimate Edition (or as it probably soon will be called: ADOM II Deluxe) generate enough income the ads in any case will be the first thing to be removed once more.

The power of names: "JADE" versus "ADOM II"

Today I would like to address an issue that has been bothering since the release of JADE in July: Is JADE the best name for the game?

Music for JADE

Recently I totally fell in love with the Skyrim cover songs done by Malukah. I just wish someone would be doing such cool music for JADE. I'd love to add such music to the game. Since there are some offers from musically talented people on Facebook (but I'm happily welcoming more - who knows what comes out of it) there are now is a problem of lyrics...

Have a great 2012!

Dear ADOM & JADE fans, friends & supporters: I am going to close this year on a happy and short note: JADE has been immense fun for me during 2011 and I intend to grow the game by leaps and bounds in 2012. More than 222.000 page hits since the release, more than 1.200 new friends on Facebook and hundreds of interesting discussions in the forums later I'm looking forward to an exciting and thrilling 2012 - the JADE year.

I wish all the best to all of you and now will spend the last hours of 2011 in Germany with great friends and my wonderful wife. Stay tuned - we'll meet again in 2012.

BTW, if you care about my detailed thoughts here you can find them.

View modes in JADE... who uses them?

I'm right now finishing the final details of the new 'look' mode in JADE. Due to a bug I remained in a peculiar view mode that is not activated by default. And then I wondered if anyone out there playing JADE is actually using that mode.

Questions regarding 21st century roguelike UIs

As a reaction to yesterdays post concerning JADE: The Ultimate Edition Darren Grey posted something very interesting (to me at least - and I have learned to at listen to Darren in the past couple of months ;-) ):

Merry Christmas to everyone who cares!

Just a short blog update today. I'd like to wish everyone out there celebrating Christmas some wonderful days with friends, families and loved ones - wherever you might be. To everyone else: Just have some wonderful days - we do :-) !

Oh, and BTW: I just posted some thoughts about JADE: The Ultimate Edition. Let me know what you think.


                              |                         _...._
                           \  _  /                    .::o:::::.
                            (\o/)                    .:::'''':o:.
                        ---  / \  ---                :o:_    _:::
                             >*<                     `:}_>()<_{:'
                            >0<@<                 @    `'//\\'`    @
                           >>>@<<*              @ #     //  \\     # @
                          >@>*<0<<<           __#_#____/'____'\____#_#__
                         >*>>@<<<@<<         [__________________________]
                        >@>>0<<<*<<@<         |=_- .-/\ /\ /\ /\--. =_-|
                       >*>>0<<@<<<@<<<        |-_= | \ \\ \\ \\ \ |-_=-|
                      >@>>*<<@<>*<<0<*<       |_=-=| / // // // / |_=-_|
        \*/          >0>>*<<@<>0><<*<@<<      |=_- |`-'`-'`-'`-'  |=_=-|
    ___\\U//___     >*>>@><0<<*>>@><*<0<<     | =_-| o          o |_==_|
    |\\ | | \\|    >@>>0<*<<0>>@<<0<<<*<@<    |=_- | !     (    ! |=-_=|
    | \\| | _(UU)_ >((*))_>0><*<0><@<<<0<*<  _|-,-=| !    ).    ! |-_-=|_
    |\ \| || / //||.*.*.*.|>>@<<*<<@>><0<<@</=-((=_| ! __(:')__ ! |=_==_-\
    |\\_|_|&&_// ||*.*.*.*|_\\db//__     (\_/)-=))-|/^\=^=^^=^=/^\| _=-_-_\
    """"|'.'.'.|~~|.*.*.*|     ____|_   =('.')=//   ,------------.
    jgs |'.'.'.|   ^^^^^^|____|>>>>>>|  ( ~~~ )/   (((((((())))))))
        ~~~~~~~~         '""""`------'  `w---w`     `------------' 




(thanks to this site for collecting the wonderful ASCII art I used above and thanks to jgs for creating it)


And BTW: You can still try to vote for JADE here - currently we lack a little bit behind (but not as much as I had feared comparing to much more completed games - thanks folks!).

Revised professional abilities for thieves

After yesterdays great suggestions on thieving abilities I have refined them somewhat. Here's the revised list (and BTW you still might want to vote JADE to the top as the favorite roguelike of the year on the right of this blog ;-) ):

Vote for JADE :-)

BTW if you care for JADE, already are enjoying JADE or would like to do me a small favor you might venture here and vote for JADE on the right side of the blog... thanks!

Working on professional abilities for thieves

Currently I am working on the professional abilities for thieves. Thieves will enjoy various (mostly non-statistical) advantages over the course of their level progression. Here we go:

Tuning the professional abilities of fighters

Given the amount of criticism to my first attempt at special abilities for fighters as described in todays previous post I'm trying harder :-) How about the following ability list for fighters:

Professional abilities for fighters and more

Here we go with the list of professional abilities for fighters. It is modified from the one posted yesterday for commoners due to a very good idea provided by KSennie that I liked so much that I implemented it right away (BTW, KSennie send me your real name for the JADE credits to creator(at)ancientdomainsofmystery.com and mention this): First level abilities now will be differentiated according to whether the given profession is your main profession (the one selected initially) or not (another one selected later on with multi-classing). The first level abilities for multi-classed professions are much weaker than the one for the main profession (so you get something but a lot less). For commoners this means that e.g. carrying capacity will be 200% standard when selecting commoner as a main profession and only 120% standard when selecting it as a later profession. So here we go with the abilities for fighters:

Professional abilities coming to JADE...

To get some distraction from the "King of the Orcs" story arc (which currently is tedious to implement since it's nothing but hard content work) I allowed myself to get sidetracked once more. Right now I am implementing profession abilities in JADE.