[Slashem-devel] Nethack 3.4.0 - dat changes - New Quest text, history

[Christian C. <chr...@gl...>]

Hi all,

Firstly thanks to all for the response to the previous mail - I'll try
and cobble something together soon and present it here for people to
tweak!

The dat/ integration is going swimmingly, with the only three things
left to do are the changes to history, mines.des, quest.txt and the
dungeon.def.

I have a few conundra there though;

1) The history file seems somewhat divergant from the nethack codebase
(and quite rightly too), but seems to be in drastic need of an update.
I have updated the list of contributors at the bottom to accurately
reflect the additions made in Vanilla, but do not know enough about
Slash'ems recent history (since version 0.0.2 which appears to be the
last time it was changed) to update this file accurately.  Is there
anyone with greater knowledge of Slash history who could do this?

2) All the .des files that are part of Vanilla have been successfully
updated (apart from the pending mines.des), but I am at a loss as to
what to do to the Slash'em-only .des files... those that have a "SCCS
Id:" tag at the top, I have changed the date from two to four digits to
be consistent with the changes to the Vanilla ones, and I have corrected
a few .des files that had a different descriptior inside (e.g.
mall-1.des claims to be mines.des on the first line of the file!), but I
am not sure what to do about the version number (most are left as 3.1 or
3.2 at the mo) - should these be changed to 3.4.0?  0.0.6E5F2?
0.0.6E6F0?  And what about the files without the tag?  I've left them
exactly as they are for now.  What actually _is_ the "SCCS Id:" tag? :-)

3) The new quest.txt changes the format of the file to include a list of
"QT_GUARDTALK2"'s - 5 random things for guards to say _After_ the quest
is completed.  I have updated the roles present in Vanilla to the newer
versions, and looking at them it seems that a few of the comments are
often the same as "QT_GUARDTALK" - the 5 random things for guards to say
before.  We need 5 new things for the Slash'em only roles (Fla, Ice,
Nec, Und, Yeo) so any suggestions?  To prompt the creative flow, here
are the things they currently say (ones with asterisks are probably ok
to re-use after the quest):

Fla:
* "The battles here have been good -- our enemies' blood has boiled
away!"
* "May your days always be warm!"
"We have had trouble concentrating on our studies!"
"The water elementals are fierce, but they boil away under our fire!"
"%lC is a strange one, but he has helped defend us."

Ice:
"Our enemies come from beneath the earth itself!"
"Remember to pack a pick-axe!"
"There has been little studying accomplished since the horde arrived."
"The horde is mighty in numbers, but they have little courage."
"%lC has helped defend us, but our strength is fading."

Nec:
* "Would you happen to have some eye of newt in that overstuffed pack,
%s?"
* "Ah, the spell to create the magic portal worked.  Outstanding!"
"Hurry!  %lC may not survive that casting of the
portal spell!!"
"We must strive to destroy that bloodless demon, or all is lost."
* "I, too, will venture into the world, because %n is but one of
many demons to be vanquished."

Und:
* "Greetings, %r.  It is good to see you."
"Ah, %p!  Surely you can help us in our hour of need."
"Greetings, %s.  %lC has great need of your help."
"Alas, it seems as if even %d has deserted us."
"May %d be with you, %s."

Yeo:
* "Halt!  Who goes there?"
* "An escort for the Keys!"
* "Whose Keys does thou bring?"
* "God preserve Queen Elizabeth!"
* "A Beefeater is more than a bottle of spirits!"

So we need at least:
3 for Flame Mage
5 for Ice Mage
2 for Necromancer
4 for Undead slayer

The Yeoman ones seem to be all fine to simply replicate if no-one can
think of better ones - none of them refer specifically to the quest
itself.

I'll propose one for Flame Mage:
"We can concentrate more fully on our studies now that you have
vanquished %nC!"

Also, instead of the tediousness of updating them, I have elected to
move the *obsolete* classes quest texts out of quests.txt and into a
seperate quests.txt in the obsolete directory - are there any objections
to this?  In fact, is it worth even keeping the obsolete directory any
more as the elf, drow, doppelganger etc. classes have not been around
for a few versions now...

<deep exhale>
Ok, thats it for now...

Regards,

Chris.