The 0.14 tournament is over. For 16 days, players could compete for tournament points and banners by playing 0.14 games on the public servers.

The winning player was Tolias, with 6521 points. Over the course of the tournament Tolias won 18 games, all of them with Nemelex’s Choice species/background combinations. In second place was johnnyzero, with 5824 points and 15 wins, including the win with the latest start time. In third place was Yermak, with 5534 points and 12 wins, including the first 15-rune win.

The fastest wins in the tournament were achieved by elliptic (turncount, 16177 turns with a DDBe) and simm (realtime, 1h 16m with a MiBe). 4tharraofdagon yet again had the highest score, 40M points with a TrMo of Cheibriados. Basil had the longest streak, of 7 games. Three Tier III banners were attained by only two players each: Nature’s Ally, by Basil and Megaslime; Lord of Darkness, by jeanjacques and joy1999; and The Heretic, by jeanjacques and Piginabag. The first victory of the tournament was claimed by Roarke, a mere 16 seconds before runner-up Basil.

The clan competition was won by how I learned to stop worrying and lock the vaults (21281 points). Aqua Felid (17973 points) and Talkin Bout MiGl (17673 points) were second and third respectively. There were 139 clans in all.

Here are some assorted statistics on the tournament games (with quits removed), compared with the 0.13 tournament (in parentheses):

Players with at least one game: 2318 (1771)
Players with at least one game to reach XL 9: 1589 (1129)
Players who got a rune: 787 (528)
Players who won a game: 325 (246)
Total wins: 743 (603)
Win %: 1.31% (1.37%)
Total player time: 35858 hrs (25902 hrs)
Avg player time: 15.5 hrs (14.6 hrs)
Proportion of players using webtiles: 80.4% (76.5%)
Proportion of winners using webtiles: 70.6% (62.6%)

Hi Crawlers,

This is a very inopportune moment, but it seems that CSZO vanished from the Internet this morning. The maintainer Amethyst opened an emergency ticket with the ISP a few hours ago; there has been no response yet.

For the time being, please use CAO or CBRO. If the downtime persists, we will try to host the tournament page elsewhere until it is resolved.

Update 2014-04-16 14:43 UTC: The ISP says they are having technical difficulty with their fiber connections to two upstream providers, and have been working on the issue since it started about eight hours ago. Several customers are experiencing problems, not just CSZO. They expect the network to be “back up and running soon”. -neil

Update 2014-04-16 20:55 UTC: The network is back up, but there is still some packet loss for the time being, so expect some lag until everything is fully resolved. -neil

The 0.14 tournament will begin in just one week! From 20:00 UTC Friday 11 April through 20:00 UTC Sunday 27 April, any 0.14 game played on any of the online servers will count for the tournament. 0.14 will be officially released before the start of the tournament – at the moment, a 0.14 beta is playable on all the online servers except CDO.

The rules page contains all the details about how to score points and earn banners in the tournament. There are quite a few changes to the banners this tournament.

As usual, clans (teams of up to six players) can be formed and changed until one week into the tournament, so don’t panic if you aren’t on one yet! (Being on a clan isn’t necessary to participate in the tournament, but it can be a lot of fun.)

Once the tournament has started, the tournament leaderboard will contain the current results. (Before tournament start, some scores might briefly appear on this page as we test the tournament scripts, but they are just for testing.)

Hi crawlers!

Crawl 0.14 has entered the beta phase; it is now playable on CSZO and CAO, and should be available on other servers soon. Local beta binaries should also be available in the immediate future.

The release will most likely occur a day or two before the tournament’s start date on Friday 11 April 2014 at 20:00 UTC. The tournament will run until Sunday 27 April 2014 at 20:00 UTC.

See also the 0.14 changelog and the tournament rules.

The 0.13 tournament is over. For 16 days, players could compete for tournament points and banners by playing 0.13 games on the public servers.

The winning player was bmfx, with an amazing 7942 points. Over the course of the tournament bmfx won 21 games, all with distinct species and backgrounds and with many of the wins streaked together. In second place was 78291, with 5014 points and 9 wins, all of them with Nemelex’s Choice species/background combinations. In third place was elliptic, with 4945 points.

The fastest wins in the tournament were achieved by WalkerBoh (turncount, 23506 turns with a GrBe) and BANISHMENT (realtime, 1h 49m with a DDBe). 4tharraofdagon had the highest score, 41M points with a DDBe (the 5th highest score of all time). Three Tier III banners were attained by only one player each: Lord of Darkness, by Yermak, Speed Demon, by jeanjacques, and Lorekeeper, by johnnyzero.

The clan competition was won by Campbell and the Removals (21183 points). AWBW – Iskenderuns Battle Copters (17512 points) and Runey Mara (16458 points) were second and third respectively. There were 112 clans in all.

Here are some assorted statistics on the tournament games (with quits removed), compared with the 0.12 tournament (in parentheses):

Players with at least one game: 1749 (1735)
Players with at least one game to reach XL 9: 1117 (1066)
Players who got a rune: 526 (478)
Players who won a game: 246 (279)
Total wins: 603 (637)
Win %: 1.37% (1.40%)
Total player time: 25902 hrs (28022 hrs)
Avg player time: 14.8 hrs (16.2 hrs)
Proportion of players using webtiles: 76.5% (71.7%)
Proportion of winners using webtiles: 62.6% (63.3%)

This is a reminder that the 0.13 tournament will begin in just a few days. From 20:00 UTC Friday 11 October through 20:00 UTC Sunday 27 October, any 0.13 game played on CAO, CDO, CLN, CSZO, or RHF will count for the tournament. (RHF does not currently have 0.13 set up, but if/when it gets 0.13, games played there will count for the tournament… please go to one of the other servers until then.)

The rules page contains all the details about how to score points and earn banners in the tournament. As usual, clans (teams of up to six players) can be formed and changed until one week into the tournament, so don’t panic if you aren’t on one yet! (Being on a clan isn’t necessary to participate in the tournament, but it can be a lot of fun.)

Once the tournament has started, the tournament leaderboard will contain the current results. (Before tournament start, some scores might briefly appear on this page as we test the tournament scripts, but they are just for testing.)

Crawl 0.13 is in beta!

You can test out the upcoming release on CSZO, CAO, or CLAN. We hope to have the other servers updated soon. Please report any bugs you find on Mantis.

The 0.13 release is scheduled for 11 October. The tournament will begin at 20:00 UTC on Friday 11 October and continue for 16 days (until 20:00 UTC Sunday, 27 October). Check here for more announcements, including links to the tournament rules.

Update: You may be interested in the 0.13 changelog.

The 0.12 tournament is over. During the last 16 days, players could compete for tournament points and banners by playing 0.12 games on any of the three public servers. On the final day of the tournament, there were an amazing 83 wins, crushing the previous record of 48 wins in one day on the public servers.

The winning player was jeanjacques, with 6566 points. Jeanjacques not only won 17 games and achieved the most points, but he also achieved all 18 tier III banners and had the fastest three wins! In second place was elliptic, with 6532 points and 19 wins. In third place was Tolias, with 5097 points and 15 wins, including a 6-game streak, the third-longest (behind elliptic and Implojin with 9-game streaks). 4thArraOfDagon had the three highest scores, all three of them Fire Elementalists of Vehumet.

The clan competition was won by Take It Easy (17364 points). Unlucky Tengu (17071 points) and unemployed unpersons (16648 points) were second and third respectively. It was a very tight team competition, with AWBW Rising (16067 points) also close in fourth place. There were 127 clans in all.

Here are some assorted statistics on the tournament games (with quits removed), compared with the 0.11 tournament (in parentheses):

Players with at least one game: 1735 (1545)
Players with at least one game to reach XL 9: 1066 (979)
Players who got a rune: 478 (400)
Players who won a game: 279 (214)
Total wins: 637 (473)
Win %: 1.40% (1.18%)
Total player time: 28022 hrs (24287 hrs)
Avg player time: 16.2 hrs (15.7 hrs)
Proportion of players using webtiles: 71.7% (71.3%)
Proportion of winners using webtiles: 63.3% (59.0%)

This is a reminder that the 0.12 tournament will begin in just a few days. From 0:00 May 11 (midnight UTC) through 24:00 May 26 (May 27 midnight UTC), any 0.12 game played on CAO, CDO, or CSZO will count for the tournament.

The rules page contains all the details about how to score points and earn banners in the tournament. As usual, clans (teams of up to six players) can be formed and changed until one week into the tournament, so don’t panic if you aren’t on one yet! (Being on a clan isn’t necessary to participate in the tournament, but it can be a lot of fun.)

Once the tournament has started, the tournament leaderboard will contain the current results.

The latest episode of Roguelike Radio covers player competitions in roguelikes. Among the panelists are our own dpeg and rax discussing the DCSS tournament.

The 0.11 tournament is over. During the last 16 days, players could compete for tournament points and banners by playing 0.11 games on any of the four public servers.

The winning player was theglow, with 6739 points. Theglow won an impressive 18 games (all with distinct species and backgrounds), but even more impressively he didn’t die at all during the tournament, streaking all 18 games! In second place was jeanjacques, with 5915 points. Jeanjacques got the most tier III banners – 15 of them – and also had the win with the lowest turncount, just 17901 turns. In third place was bmfx, with 5646 points and the second-longest streak of wins: 9 games long. The first win and the win with the last start, which were also the two fastest wins at a little over two hours each, were both played by ophanim.

The clan competition was won by the hex pistols (21415 points). Margery and the Hell Knights (18011 points) and Hemipene (11839 points) were second and third respectively. There were 102 clans in all, a record high.

Here are some assorted statistics on the tournament games (with quits removed), compared with the 0.10 tournament (in parentheses):

Players with at least one game: 1545 (1568)
Players with at least one game to reach XL 9: 979 (908)
Players who got a rune: 400 (372)
Players who won a game: 214 (183)
Total wins: 473 (370)
Win %: 1.18% (1.10%)
Total player time: 24287 hrs (23347 hrs)
Avg player time: 15.7 hrs (14.9 hrs)
Proportion of players using webtiles: 71.3% (61.2%)
Proportion of winners using webtiles: 59.0% (45.0%)

Following our traditional custom, the release of DCSS 0.11 will be celebrated with a tournament: from 0:00 Oct 20 (midnight UTC) through 24:00 Nov 4 (Nov 5 midnight UTC), any 0.11 game played on one of the four participating servers CAO, CDO, CSZO, CSN will count for the tournament. All servers but CSN offer console (ASCII), and all servers offer webtiles.

The rules are available on the tournament website. Some rules and banners have been changed. As usual, clans can be set up and changed until one week into the tournament.

Updated 2012-10-11: CDO now has 0.11 webtiles. Thanks, Napkin!

Once again, DCSS has had a successful release and an exciting tournament to celebrate it. The 0.10 tournament ran from 0:00 Feb 25 (midnight UTC) through 24:00 Mar 11 (Mar 12 midnight UTC). Throughout the 16 days, competition was close for winning player and winning clan.

The winning player is elliptic, with 6601 points. Elliptic won 16 out of 26 games, including a 12 streak. Second place goes to jeanjacques, with 6504 points. Jeanjacques also recorded the win with the fewest turns and the highest scoring game. Both players were nearly tied going into the final hours as they competed for the win with the latest starting time (which is worth 100 bonus points) – but elliptic’s winning KoWn started slightly later than jeanjacques’ winning DDBe. Third place goes to pivotal, with 4568 points.

The top three clans exchanged first place several times, with Saint Lorocyproca (18074 points) coming out on top. Second place goes to Team Teddybear (17228 points), and third place goes to sonic yiuf (14954 points).
This tournament’s banners had three difficulty levels. Elliptic was the only player to obtain level III of every banner, while jeanjacques obtained all of them except Pious III.

The tournament statistics show an increase in number of players, time spent playing, and player performance. Below, the 0.10 tournament compared to the 0.9 tournament (in parentheses):

Players: 1628 (1337)
Total player time: 23507 hrs (16435 hrs)
Avg player time: 14.44 hrs (12.29 hrs)
Players who got a rune: 372 (264)
Players who won a game: 183 (116)
Total wins: 370 (232)
Win %, excluding quits/leaves: 1.10% (0.86%)

A new bugfix release was released a couple weeks ago, fixing several crashes and other bugs: 0.9.2 is available in the Downloads.

But 0.10 is almost upon us — it will likely be released within a week. As with the 0.8 release last year, there will be a tournament to celebrate this release: from 0:00 Feb 25 (midnight UTC) through 24:00 Mar 11 (Mar 12 midnight UTC), any 0.10 game played on CDO or CAO will count towards the tournament. The annual August tournament will still happen later this year, as usual.

The rules are available on the tournament website. This tournament will offer far more banners to strive towards than any past DCSS tournament has, so don’t miss it!

We are happy to collect what’s been going on during the last three weeks in the dungeons. Despite rather minimal advertisement, the tournament was quite successful. A little late, but not too late, did we see 0.9 Webtiles kick into action.

The winning player is theglow with 4934 points, who won 15 games, including an 8 streak! Runner up is mikee with 4653 points, who won 11 out of 13 games, including an 10 streak (actually 11 games in a row, but two wizards in the list). The competition was close, mikee might have won if his level 16 Spriggan Enchanter would not have died to an orb guardian in Zot:5. The third player to get more than 4000 points is jeanjacques with 4333 points.

Another highlight: 78291 played the fastest game, both in real time (2:32 hours) and turn count (19460), winning a Deep Dwarf of Elyvilon. He only killed 64 creatures himself, thus proving the power of pacifism.

The most successful clans were: The Adorable Catlobes with 14201 points, followed by wucad mu-tang clan aint nuthin ta fuck wit with 9074 points and Zignacio with 8276 points.

The ubiquitous numbers (in parentheses for August 2010):

Days:                       16         (31)
Players:                  1337         (1091)
Players getting a rune:    264 = 20%   (229 = 21%)
Winning players:           116 = 8.7%  (109 = 10.0%)
All games:               37593         (58428)
Non-quit games:          27049         (44884)
Winning games:             232 = 0.9%   (321 = 0.7%)
Won race/class combos:     128         (101)

Most everyone agreed that the new rules encouraged diversification. This can be seen when comparing the most popular winning combinations (three or more wins):

2011:
 8xSpEn  7xMDFi  7xMiBe  6xDDNe  6xDEWz  6xKoBe  6xVpAE  5xCeWz  5xHOAr  5xHaVM
 5xKoSk  5xMfIE  5xOgCj  5xTrAs  4xDECj  3xDsVM  3xGhMo  3xHECj  3xHEWz  3xMfGl
 3xNaTm 3xSpDK

2010:
49xSpEn 23xDDNe 22xMfCr 18xGhFE 18xHaTm 17xSEAs  9xMfIE  7xHEWz  7xHaBe  6xHECr
 5xDDCK  4xDECj  4xDSNe  4xHEIE  4xMfTm  4xSpVM  3xDEWz  3xDSAs  3xDSBe  3xDSVM
 3xHEFE  3xKoCr  3xMDEn  3xSEIE  3xSpSt

Vacations, family, job, etc… but finally WebTiles are on 0.9 too now.

Sorry for the delay – and happy crawling!

Update: The service shut itself down during the night but is up again now.

Four months have already passed, and, with the tournament already begun, we’re pleased to announce the next release of Dungeon Crawl: 0.9, Victory Valedictory. As always, there have been a load of changes, but most significant of these is probably the following: we say Auf Wiedersehen to victory dancing.

Gone are the days of pointlessly casting spells at walls, or pounding on a macro to evoke a crystal ball — usually with undesired results. The experience pool has been removed, and it is now not actually possible to “victory dance”. Instead, experience is spent as it is gained. The exact mechanics of this depend on two separate modes: in auto mode, experience is spent on skills recently used, while in manual mode, finer control is available via the skill screen (m).

As a final reminder, the August tournament has already started! You can visit the Tourney Website for more details, but succinctly: you can play with the console version either on CAO or CDO (“Trunk” on CDO, and “0.9″ on CAO, currently). Webtiles does not currently count towards the tournament, as it needs to be updated to run 0.9. This will be done Soon!

So, pull on your crawling shoes (and knee-cap covers), and get ready for a solid two weeks of frantic adventuring!

Eronarn has provided an excellent summary of major changes in 0.9, so here they are!
More: Read the rest of this entry…

There’s an important change this year:
due to the second tourney we had in May, duration of the official tournament has been shortened.
It will last from Aug 13th to Aug 28th, sixteen days.

In other news, the tentative date for 0.9 release has been changed to the first week of August.

Also, Debian trunk builds have been automated, so you might see them updated regularly. This is not the case for Mac builds though, sorry for that.

It is a pleasure to recap what has been going during the last 16 days: some players have set up a tournament to celebrate the release of 0.8: Overview

USAGE AND WEBTILES:

Server usage jumped up (about 400 players/day), not least because tiles players were able to join in the fun – a feature that’s been long asked for: Webtiles, Usage

PLAYER HIGHLIGHTS:

Winner was mikee (4191 points), narrowly edging out elliptic (4107 points) by managing the last win in the tourney (which gives bonus points).

mikee started with a two streak (including the first 15-rune win of the tourney), followed by two duds and then a seven streak! (KeAr^A, TrCr^E, MiAr^O, SEIE^K, HuVM^V, HOHu^T, HECj^S)

theglow played just five games and won them all! (SEWz^V, HuSt^S, GhGl^M, CeTm^O, DEIE^A)

casmith789 had the most combo high scores (22).

Players could go for some additional goals (Pennants). Only two got them all: 78291 and mikee.

CLAN HIGHLIGHTS:

Winner was Zinja, who was also the only clan to win at least one game with each species.

Second place was narrowly won by catonkeyboard (the team with the most combo high scores) over killdudes (aptly enough, the team with the most uniques killed… only Tiamat escaped them).

INTERESTING STATISTICS:
(brackets are about last August’s tournament, which took a full month)

number of players: .......................... 1523 (1091)
number of players with at least one win: ..... 108 (109)
number of wins: .............................. 233 (321)
average number of wins per day: ............. 14.5 (10.3)
distinct winning combinations: ............... 149 (101)*
overall winrate, quits excluded: ........... 0.79% (0.72%)
* Rules have been changed to make niche combinations more attractive.


Thanks to everyone who helped with the infrastructure and cheers to participants!