DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

[Wensleydale]

The books look okay to me, but they should get different titles (typo on the second one? :) ) and I wonder how they've been assembled?

The were assembled with the goal of making each book roughly balanced while minimizing overlap between spells. The three most powerful eligible spells were Borg's, LCS, and Refridge, so they each got their own book (think of them as the team captains). The only direct damage spells left were LRD and IMB. Borg got LRD, because it's probably better than IMB (imo), while Refridge got IMB because IMB and LCS are both just single-target damage spells. The next most useful spell (again, imo) was Alistair's, so I gave that to LCS. Of the remaining spells, I considered POG, SOG, Tukima's, and Degen to be more-or-less useless or underpowered by the time these books were found (they're rare, remember); this left Olgreb's, Ozo's Armor, and Leda's. LCS and Borg's already had earth spells, so I gave Leda's to Refridge. And LCS already had an AOE status spell in Alistair's, so I gave Olgreb's to Borg's. This left Ozo's Armor for LCS, and then I assigned the weak spells more-or-less arbitrarily. but giving the extra to the Refridge book, because it was the only book without a "restricted" spell (i.e. Borg's and LCS).

Grimm: with regard to big fish, let's not limit ourselves by what the monster currently is (the tile and size of the creature can be changed). Better to think, "what would make for an interesting aquatic monster?" I think that turning big fish into lionfish would be cool, but then we'd have to actually get to coding the "porcupine spines" code (which we've been putting off for years, for some reason).

[Grimm]

Grimm: with regard to big fish, let's not limit ourselves by what the monster currently is (the tile and size of the creature can be changed). Better to think, "what would make for an interesting aquatic monster?" I think that turning big fish into lionfish would be cool, but then we'd have to actually get to coding the "porcupine spines" code (which we've been putting off for years, for some reason).

I am happy to leave this to the devs, as long as the monster gets a name change of some sort. "Big fish" is far too anodyne. Though I would point out that we already have a poisonous water creature in the jellyfish. But then the range of possible fish names is huge: how about ahi? A large, nonpoisonous fish that can fight and makes for good eating.

[Curio]

carp. You know, like those from another game.

[Wensleydale]

carp. You know, like those from another game. :)

+1

Let's face it, we need more references to things that aren't Tolkien, D&D, or Nethack :P

*dodges brick thrown by dpeg*

[nicolae]

Here's my proposal:

I like it!

Also note that Orb of Destruction technically belongs to Iskenderun, but this hasn't been mentioned in-game for a long time.

Yeah, I saw that it was IOOD in the code, and remembered it was Iskenderun's, but decided that only explicitly named spells counted.

Also! There are two wizards who once had spells, but have since had those spells removed. These wizards are Maxwell (themes: armor, metal, smithing) and Eringya (themes: nature, flowers). If someone wanted to reflavor some existing spells to give one to each of these wizards, we'd be able to put exactly five spells in each book.

The most obvious choice I can think of for Eringya would be Summon Butterflies. ("Eringya's Fluttering Friends"?) Not sure what to use for Maxwell, though, there aren't a lot of spells that fit his theme. Most weapon and armor spells use elemental magics, I think.

The books look okay to me, but they should get different titles (typo on the second one? )

Well, if you're interested in a Book of Foo naming scheme, I thought of "Book of Autographs", since an older meaning of "autograph" is simply "something written by one's own hand" - e.g., spells as written by their own inventors.

If you want to stress the encyclopediac nature (in order to keep the titles), sort them alphabetically (wizard names). Other ideas would be thematic grouping, or by levels.

I think the idea was to split them into groups of roughly-equal usefulness (that's how I did my two-book version) and thematically/alphabetically they don't fall into useful divisions.

Perhaps the books are each edited by three different Modern Respected Wizards, who each chose their own favorite classic spells to anthologize, kind of like how Stephen Hawking edited some huge books collecting classic science and math papers. "Wensley's Favorite Classics" or "Grimm's Classical Anthology" and so on. That way, we can justify any assortment, and we get to make up three new wizard names.

[Grimm]

Summon Butterflies. ("Eringya's Fluttering Friends"?)

Eringya's Lepidopterous Levy

[Stormfox]

Summon Butterflies. ("Eringya's Fluttering Friends"?)

Eringya's Lepidopterous Levy

Eringya's Ephemeral Envoys.

[Grimm]

I've changed the goldfish description per the recent comment.

[coolio]

I've changed the goldfish description per the recent comment.

There's a couple of new monster descriptions that don't follow the format of the others. This might be nitpicking, but I'd like to have consistency here.

The description should answer the question:

What is a [foo]? A foo is...

For example:
A rat is

A dirty rodent that has grown large and aggressive in the dungeon environment.

A centaur warrior is

A muscular centaur, a veteran of numerous battles, armed with well-made weapons and able to use them skillfully.

An example for a descrpition _not_ following the format:

A draconian knight is

Protected by both its thick scales and its skill in use of weapons and armour, this draconian is a dangerous opponent. It complements its abilities in combat with powerful magic.

[mumra]

I quite like the descriptions that phrase things a little differently; the others sound more encyclopaedic, whereas the more interesting phrasings read better.

[coolio]

All I'm saying here is that there should be _consistency_, the worst thing is that there's a mish-mash of different styles or phrasings in the descriptions. That just looks amateurish.
The reason I chose that style was mainly because it was the most prevalent among the descriptions, not because I thought it was specifically better than any other.
I find it's mainly the _content_, not the phrasing that makes a description interesting. There is plenty of room for whimsy etc. while working within the confines of the format.

Also, there's still plenty of revision work to be done on the item descriptions - which, for simplicity's sake should follow the same rules as the monster descriptions have so far.

[Grimm]

An example for a description _not_ following the format:

A draconian knight is

Protected by both its thick scales and its skill in use of weapons and armour, this draconian is a dangerous opponent. It complements its abilities in combat with powerful magic.

If you look at the colouring you'll see that that one's one of the original descriptions, not a new one. If you feel that something needs changing, please change it!

Though now that I check, it looks as though someone did change that description recently but didn't change the colour.

[mumra]

All I'm saying here is that there should be _consistency_, the worst thing is that there's a mish-mash of different styles or phrasings in the descriptions. That just looks amateurish.
The reason I chose that style was mainly because it was the most prevalent among the descriptions, not because I thought it was specifically better than any other.
I find it's mainly the _content_, not the phrasing that makes a description interesting. There is plenty of room for whimsy etc. while working within the confines of the format.

Also, there's still plenty of revision work to be done on the item descriptions - which, for simplicity's sake should follow the same rules as the monster descriptions have so far.

What I'm saying is that I like the variations in phrasing, rather than everything sounding a bit same-y. Certainly, style of language should be consistent - but that's not the same as phrasing. I personally feel the descriptions should read somewhat like prose, and in prose phrasing is as much an art as the content.

[dpeg]

For what it's worth, I agree with mumra. Variation is good, as is some humour (hard to pull off in a team, I know).

[coolio]

Well, I'm not gonna fight it then. What I still want to keep away are explicit mentions to gameplay mechanics (e.g. "press 'o' to open the door") and references to the specific monster in question (e.g. "this one smells especially bad" -- use "they smell terrible" instead)

I went ahead and put in another monster name change. Rotting hulks are now plague bearers - a name which intuitively suggests they have a disease attack (rotting hulk suggests something completely different...)

[Grimm]

I suspect we need to put name changes on the wiki. Is that so?

[Wensleydale]

I suspect we need to put name changes on the wiki. Is that so?

Nope, I'll make name changes the very last thing that I do for the monsters tab, as long as dpeg signs off on each one.

Speaking of which, I'll see if I can get some work done on patches today.

[nicolae]

How are the patches coming along?

The last edit to the spreadsheet was a week ago. Is there still work to be done on monster descriptions, or should somebody start focusing on another set of descriptions, like items or uniques?

[Grimm]

Monster descriptions and quotes are done, unless someone has a new suggestion for something. The quote for dragons in particular I'm not happy with.

Items is the next project on the agenda. I plan to start my assault on Items in a day or two. It should go faster than monsters.

[Roderic]

I'll try to assist you a little this week with this, Grimm

[dpeg]

Grimm: I did not miss anything, did I? (I.e. you didn't approach me yet, with a second version?)

What is your dragon quote?

[Grimm]

I haven't made any changes for a week or two now so what you've got is the latest.

For dragons I have

"You do not come dramatically, with dragons
That rear up with my life between their paws
And dash me butchered down beside the wagons"
-Philip Larkin, "To Failure". 1949.

Not really about dragons. I looked for something Chinese but had no luck.

[nicolae]

Monster descriptions and quotes are done, unless someone has a new suggestion for something. The quote for dragons in particular I'm not happy with.

Items is the next project on the agenda. I plan to start my assault on Items in a day or two. It should go faster than monsters.

All right, I'll join in when I can on the items. Are we doing individual quotes for different item types, like different scrolls/potions/etc? I feel like that option would be best, and then scrolls and potions that are unidentified or don't have their own can use the existing generic quotes as a default. (I'm biased, though, since I spent a long time finding that Marcus Aurelius quote for the ID scrolls...)

[Grimm]

I really like the ID scroll quote. I feel that we should use quotes for different items only if excellent ones can be found. For our present purpose, namely improving the descriptions for version 0.10, generic quotes will do, and will save us a lot of time. They can always be changed later.

[Grimm]

Roderic, I'd like to see a different Japanese story about an oni with a kanabo for the giant spiked club. I've rejected the first one on stylistic grounds but I like the idea.

[Roderic]

Let's see what I can find. I tip my hat to your efficient quotation finding. I barely found two or three...

By the way, I've just added new rows for generic or unidentified items such as potions, wands, scrolls, rods and decks. Usually we are plenty of them before ID and I consider they need a specific although generic definition and a quotation before ID them (which can be the same or a specific one)

[Grimm]

There are generic descriptions for unID'ed items in items.txt.

For finding quotes my best sources have been bartleby.com and books.google.com, with the year limit set at below 1930 and generous use of other search restrictions. Wikiquote is hit or miss, except for sourcing famous ones like the Roosevelt quote.

My hard disk has started clicking so I won't be able to move fast on this project until I get it sorted out.

[Roderic]

I have found this for dragons:

"THEN the baleful fiend its fire belched out,
and bright homes burned. The blaze stood high
all landsfolk frighting. No living thing
would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew.
Wide was the dragon's warring seen,
its fiendish fury far and near,
as the grim destroyer those Geatish people
hated and hounded. To hidden lair,
to its hoard it hastened at hint of dawn.
Folk of the land it had lapped in flame,
with bale and brand. In its barrow it trusted,
its battling and bulwarks: that boast was vain!"
Anonymous _Beowulf_ (Chapter XXXIII, circa 8th to 11th century)
Translator: Eliot, C.W. ed.Harvard Classics, Vol. 49., (1910).

[nicolae]

What's the status of the Text Improvement Taskforce, at the moment?

[Mychaelh]

I added more weapon descriptions, needs proof-reading by native English speaker.

[Grimm]

What's the status of the Text Improvement Taskforce, at the moment?

I believe the monsters descriptions are in dpeg's inbox. I should check to see if we can replace the dragon quote before they get submitted.

The items tab is awaiting my ministrations. I have been experiencing computer troubles but I am about to plunge into the project again.

[dpeg]

Grimm: No! Something may have got lost, but I am not aware of any descriptions-related duty for myself. Please re-send. I'll evaluate quickly, this should clearly be in 0.10.

[Grimm]

I've been misunderstanding things then. The monsters tab of the spreadsheet is complete and ready to go, with the exception of the new dragon quote, which I'll add soon. I thought Wensleydale had already added a lot of it, and was giving the remaining parts to you for approval.

[dpeg]

Grimm: can you send me a readable file (e.g. diff) by mail? Thanks!

[Mychaelh]

I started to add quotations from grimoires. I try to provide as much citation information as possible, but sources are sometime 'obscure'.
Needs proof-reading by native English speaker, as usual.

[Grimm]

Grimm: can you send me a readable file (e.g. diff) by mail? Thanks!

Okay I have looked into this and I don't know how to make a diff file out of the current state of the sheet. I've just fixed the dragon quotes. I think Wensleydale would have more of an idea how to make a diff file.


Re-starting on items tab now.

[Mychaelh]

Some questions for devs:

1. I made this Description for unidentified scrolls:
A disposable arcane formula of of unknown provenance inscribed on parchment.
Created by some professional for layman-use, it can be invoked by everyone
through reading it out loud. But the nature of it's power
seems not a-priori apparent.

Question: Is there actual some noise produced when reading scrolls?


2. The description for throwing net in the spreadsheet is:

"A throwing net as used by gladiators. {{
if you.race() == ""Halfling""
or you.race() == ""Kobold""
or you.race() == ""Spriggan""
then
return ""Unfortunately, it is too large and awkward for you to use.""
else
return """"
end
}}"

Is this code required?

3. What about making it possible to shoot darts with blow-guns?

4. How much space is there for long quotations?
Exact number of spaces in a line, hand how many rows?

Thanks you for answers.

[Mychaelh]

Xom bumps a thread.

[nicolae]

A question on word choice. For the descriptions of un-IDed items, is "unknown provenance" really the right phrase? "Provenance" means "origin", and while things in the game are probably of unknown origin flavorwise, it seems like the idea of the un-IDed descriptions is to point out that the effects of the item are unknown, not that it has some unknown history. I changed it in a couple places to "unknown nature" but now I'm not sure what the intended meaning of the original phrasing was.

[Grimm]

Mycaelh (for it is he) is using provenance in those descriptions to refer not to the item but to the magic that powers the item. Viz.:

A talisman to be worn around the neck, charged with arcane powers of unknown provenance.

Provenance here clearly refers to the arcane powers, not the talisman itself.

It's not strictly necessary. What do people think?

[Mychaelh]

Grimm explained my intention right. But I'm not a native English speaker, there is always the chance that I don't get it right. Thanks for all, who read over it.
I started to make description for altars. Here some examples:

A bloodstained altar of Trog
A barbaric altar to Trog the Wrathful, crudely made by
what seem to be the hands of giants and the columna
vertebralis of an ogre. This sacrificial altar and it's
surroundings are covered with limps, bones, blood,
entrails and what seems to be smokey remains of
a grimoire. All in all, this setting has the intellectual
charm of a sloughterhouse.

A blossoming altar of Fedhas
A natural altar to Fedhas Madash, covered in vibrant
and colourful plant life. A little natural font is
rising and falling, sparkling in mysterious lights...
Some closer look reveals the old bones of a huge animal,
partly covered with earth, perfoliated with roots and
grown over by lichenic, fungi, moos and ferns. The air
is filled with the smell of compost.

A white marble altar of Elyvilon
An altar to Elyvilon the healer, made from purest white
marble and incraved with protective signs of the Holy
Trinity. Topped by a sculpture of Chalice of
Purification the altar is also adorned with the
delineation of a white swan carefully drawing broken
weapons out of it's bleeding chest. A mood of
redemption and tranquility beleaguers this sacrosanct
place.

A shattered altar of Ashenzari
This crystal altar shattered to pieces when Ashenzari
was chained long ago. But still, there is power here: a
dark cursed aura holds the shards in mid-explosion,
suspended in time and space much like the god they
herald. A relief engraved in the lower front depicts an
obscure scene:
A full armoured figure, wearing abundant jewelry and
shouldering weapons of different kinds. This possesions
radiate courious bands, almost like chained snakes.
They coil around the figure and ultimately extend to a
glyph of Ashenzari nailed above. Altrough the eyes of
this 'marionette' rest trustfully at it's possessions,
you nevertheless have the eerie feeling that they watch
the surroundings and...you.

An iron altar of Okawaru
An altar of iron and steel dedicated to the Warmaster
Okawaru. It's decorated with all kind of weapons and a
simple relief is melted into the front: Standing on the
corpses of slain enemies, comrades in arms vow loyalty
to each other, while being showered from above in a rain
of projectils and weapons.

A burning altar of Makhleb
An ever-burning altar to Makhleb the Destroyer, rather
simple and straight-forward in design. Out of a block
of iron blaze evil flames of all-embracing delition.
Strange, twisting shapes are visible in the flames,
trying to seduce you to join Makhleb's Total War. All
you can perceive in the heat clearly is a demonic black swan.

A sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh
This odd altar seems to resemble a kind of fair tent
divulging a mood of deceptive mystery. It sparkles with
a lightshow brighter than any gambling den's to attract
followers for Nemelex Xobeh. For some reason, the place
around here has been cleaned up thoroughly from every
piece of debris.

A basalt altar of Yredelemnul
An evil altar worked from columnar basalt and cloathed
in the deadly silence of a cementary. This sanctuary is
consecrated to the mighty demon-god Yredelemnul, Lord
of the Dead. Below the altar a tomb, sealed with
hieroglyphic curses that blasphem against the the Holy
Trinity, is located. It contains the bones of a
distinguished knight-commander, waiting for the
battlecall of his master to arouse him again. A plaque
offers necromantic powers to all who volunteer for
Yredelemnul's demonic Crusade of the Dead too.

An ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha
Bones were piled here since long time ago, adducting
the attention of an evil entity called Kikubaaqudgha
from ouside the circles of time. In turn this shunned
lieu has attracted those, who audacious dabble in
abhorrent necromantic arts of the worst kind. This
place is now used for feculent rituals, but it's even
not clear if 'Kikubaaqudgha' is a real name or some
kind of very ancient summoning-formular. Beware lest
lunatic fools unlash undead horrors beyond imagination,
feared even by demons and gods.


Critic, ideas and comments always welcome.

[Mychaelh]

An unlabelled flask containing a single dose of magical liquid, with arcane powers of unknown nature.

I see this is one case, changed by nicolae. My original entry was more like this:

An unlabelled flask containing a single dose of liquid, charged with arcane powers of unknown provenance.

I think 'magical' should be taken away again, because it could also be 'just' water, blood or poison.

[Mychaelh]

Nicolae:

A pack of playing cards, each depicting some occult image, rumoured to be drawn in the blood of demons. Drawing a card can unleash arcane powers of unknown nature.

I had something like this:

A pack of obscure playing cards, each depicting an occult image propagating arcane powers of unknown provenance.

The overworked version of nicolae takes away the 'technical' point about what tarot cards really are, suggests a special necromantic feud against demons connected with them (do demons actually have blood and can be sucked by vampires?) and additionally let's it look like as there are cards, that can leash out at you, like higher grimoires.

I'm not very happy with this.

To make the thing about tarot cards more clear: The esoteric/magical 'power' they contain comes from the interpreted meaning of the picture they depict, not the material, they are made of. The image functions like the lettering of scrolls, not like the chemistry of potions. It's in a way like an evolved form of making the movie inside your head, while playing with ASCII symbol depiction.
The difference between cards and scrolls from a game mechanic standpoint should be, that the evocation of a 'tarot card power' is made by interpreting them (through LOOKING on them), which should produce no noise. Scrolls on the other hand have to be READ OUT LOUD for evocation of the 'powers', which should produce some noise.
Maybe cards should instead take more time than scrolls to evoke.

The famous quotation we have now for unID-packs shows also how the cards are meant to 'function':

"Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days."

-T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_, 1922

[Grimm]

A pack of playing cards, each depicting some occult image, rumoured to be drawn in the blood of demons. Drawing a card can unleash arcane powers of unknown nature.

A pack of obscure playing cards, each depicting an occult image propagating arcane powers of unknown provenance.

On purely aesthetic grounds the first version is better. It tells you how the deck is used - drawing cards to get effects. "Propagating" doesn't work here.

[Mychaelh]

O.K.

A pack of obscure playing cards. Each card of the deck features an image, depicting occult force of unknown nature.
To set free the power of a certain card, you have to draw it from the deck.

[Grimm]

Nicolae's version is still smoother.

[Mychaelh]

Next try:

A pack of obscure playing cards, each depicting some occult image, rumoured to be possessed by demons. Drawing a card for shure can unleash arcane powers of unknown nature.

[nicolae]

The overworked version of nicolae takes away the 'technical' point about what tarot cards really are, suggests a special necromantic feud against demons connected with them (do demons actually have blood and can be sucked by vampires?) and additionally let's it look like as there are cards, that can leash out at you, like higher grimoires.

From the description of Nemelex:

"Nemelex is a strange and unpredictable trickster God, whose powers can be invoked through the magical packs of cards painted in the ichor of demons."

I was attempting to flesh out existing flavor, by taking this bit of Nemelex's description and applying it to the packs of cards themselves. (Though I mistakenly put blood instead of ichor.)

The technique of reading the tarot is the same, it's just that because of the influence of dark magic from demon goop, the cards actually have power, instead of just being a prop for mystics who say "I see some bad things, some good things, also: change? Gimme $20."

[Mychaelh]

I just try to avoid making wrong implication in the descriptions, but adding flair is very good.

But for un-ID potions I thinks the short version is best:

An unlabelled flask containing a single dose of unkown liquid.

Please, could you also have a look on my altar descriptions, nicolae?

[Roderic]

I'm not Nicolae but...

Mychaelh's altar descriptions are quite flavorful. Keep up the good work! They are fulfilled with minor typos (pobody's nerfect).

Some observations/thinks that have called my attention:

on Trog: columna vertebralis is too technical here, "spine" is perfectly understandable in common language I think

on Okawaru: steel is an iron-carbon alloy too modern to fit here, wrought iron is the alloy used through the ancient times and middle age until cast iron was developed in Renaissance.

on Makhleb: Makhleb's Total War? wouldn't "Makhleb's World consumption" be better ? any other proposal ?

on Yred: "mighty demon-god Yredelemnul..." Yred is not as far as I know demonic at all. It is a dark god as many gods of death are, less cheerful than their divine brethren in heavens or earth and it has not demonic crusade but an own undead crusade since it ambitions expand its dominions over the land of living. It is just a territorial feud between light (life protective) deities against a dark god of death.