Well, the list of bug reports has gotten steadily smaller to the point where I think we’re about ready for a release! Before that happens though, I wanted to run one more release candidate out there to test out some issues people were having with tiles builds (in particular with weirdness on input (dropping keys, etc), and with random lagginess). Barring things going severely wrong though, I think the actual 0.6.0 release is likely to happen sometime within the next week. Thanks for all the testing and bug reports, we’re almost there!

Changes since rc3:

• Remove the framerate limiter from tiles, as it was causing quite a few issues.
• Fix lag in tiles when autoexploring into a shop.
• Fix crash/save file corruption when Mara fails to summon an illusion.
• Using Lugonu’s Corruption ability no longer prevents special branch effects (such as re-enabling teleport control after picking up the rune in Tomb) from triggering.
• Used staircases are now colored green for upstairs and red for downstairs, on both the main screen and the X map (to be more easily distinguishable from unused staircases).
• Artifact amulets of stasis can no longer get the Rage or *RAGE properties.
• Weight display misalignment on the ^X screen should be fixed.
• Unwielding a non-weapon updates the wield display properly.
• Fix an error in the 034_monster_glyphs file.

-doy

You can now play-test 0.6.0-rc3 on Mac using this tiles build:

Crawl 0.6.0-rc3 Mac Tiles

I’m not the person who usually builds Mac binaries so I may have screwed something up. If you notice problems with the build, please file bug reports on Mantis as usual.

Yup, 0.6.0-rc3 is up on the server to play online and for download on the trunk page. rc2 was made a mess of due to my attempting to do things on not nearly enough sleep, so we’ll just forget that ever happened.

Important bug fixes since 0.6.0-rc1:

• Fix various permanent stat change bugs related to equipment melding during transformations
• Monster list targeting should actually work properly now
• Fix tiles lag issues, and make the maximum frames per second configurable (for slower systems)
• Fix TSO worshippers not healing when killing demons
• Wizlabs have more balanced loot, random monster lists for shadow creatures, and have all tiles properly specified
• Fix acquirement giving players with bad shield apts almost solely two-handed weapons
• Fix Kirke’s hogs being hidden until they move, when they turn into humans on her death
• Fix monsters not showing up immediately when gaining see invisible from armour
• Rods should no longer highlight spells as though Vehumet is empowering them
• A few documentation fixes

Thanks for all the bug reports, and keep them coming!

Where’s my dowsing rod?

As some devoted players may have noted already, the Divinations school is gone: vanished, disappeared, no traces left. Actually, that’s not quit true, some traces are still there.

But one thing after the other — why did the developers, blessed with their insight and wisdom, remove a whole spell school? The main reason is that some effects are interesting and useful, but should never have been spells. Most former divination spells belong in this category, including: Identify, Detect Curse, Remove Curse, Detect Creatures, Detect Items, Detect Secret Doors, Detect Traps and Magic Mapping.

More: Read the rest of this entry…