ADOM - Lots of New Features

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Spaceman
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Ancient Domains of Mystery has released a host of new features wrapping up its crowdfunding campaign goals from 2012.

ADOM 3.0.5 now public: The most complete ADOM ever

23 DECEMBER - THECREATOR
Hi everyone!

One day before Christmas we are very proud to release ADOM 3.0.5 to the general Steam public. ADOM 3.0.5 is the culmination of the crowdfunding campaign started in 2012 (http://www.indiegogo.com/resurrect-adom-development).

ADOM 3.0.5 consists of a spectacular set of features including:


  • extensive character generation options including 12 races and 22 classes, point-based atttribute generation and a lot more,
  • extensive game customization options (permadeath versus save & load, monster lethality, treasure rates, etc.) to truly create your preferred way of playing ADOM,
  • several hundred dungeon levels to explore,
  • more than three dozen specific quests during the main quest,
  • various play modes (tutorial, standard, roguelike, challenge, network, customized, etc.),
  • 140 exciting unique artifacts,
  • 480 monsters, 896 base items, 47 spells, 41 skills, 100 talents,
  • a large number of (fair and meaningful) achievements,
  • a global highscore server at http://rogueleague.org (see http://rogueleague.org/register to learn how to register),
  • a simple and easy to use UI with extensive tooltips, hints and a detailed tutorial mode.
  • and so much more.
Please note that this will not end ADOM development. Quite to the contrary we have an almost infinite amount of ideas and improvements to continue ADOM development. As a consequence you can expect new releases for years to come. Nonetheless we are very proud about finally finishing our 2012 crowdfunding campaign.

We wish you a Merry Christmas. And now go and enjoy ADOM - the current sale is the best you can get, so buy some more ADOM codes as Christmas gifts and give them to your friends and loved ones :) !

Thomas Biskup & Team ADOM
More information.
 
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Has anyone of the Watch played it? It seems pretty neat.
 
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In it's time it was arguably the best roguelike out there. But it could get a bit repetitive and it had some features which I could forgive at the time but which would bother me a lot more today. I haven't played the new version though, so I can't speak to any changes that were made. I probably should buy it, if just to give back for all the time I spent playing it for free 20 years ago.
 
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I'm the same, been playing ADOM for something like 20 years and I found it the best RL for me. The majority of the game hasn't changed since then. Compared to back then there has been a rush of features in the last years, but the core adventures, races, classes, mechanics and game play is essentially still the same. You start off entering the map and over time try to win the over arching questline. There's a bunch of different endings from just closing the choas gate to becoming the choas god yourself or of course dying. Being a RL you die a lot. Here's a amusing list - http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Endgames

I bought it on Steam to support Biskup the creator as I'd had a lot of enjoyment out of it over the years. Can't say I've played it much though. Like fadedc says it gets repetitive after that long. If you haven't played it before and you enjoy roguelikes I'd definitely recommend it. It's been in dev for so long it's quite a polished product.

:)
 
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Haven't played Nethack for a very long time but from back then I'd say it's a little bit simpler and from memory occurs in a single dungeon. ADOM has an overland map and a bunch of different dungeons. DF is more of a city building game - although adventure mode was very basic when I last played DF so perhaps that's changed. I have no experience with cogmind. I read many people saying Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is the best RL these days. Tales of Maj'Eyal is another good one.
 
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My biggest issue with ADOM at the time were how important altars were, and also how ridiculously tedious they were to use. Becoming the champion of your god was so important to doing well, but the process of sitting in the same level luring enemies over the altar over and over so you could sacrifice them was so incredibly boring. And of course sometimes you just wouldn't find an appropriate altar, which could doom a run despite everything else going great.
 
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I certainly considered ADOM to be much better then Nethack at the time. Dwarf Fortress and Cogmind are so incredibly different to ADOM (and each other) that I'm not sure where I'd even begin comparing them.
 
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I bought this based on the news post here.
 
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ADOM is definitely famed to be the best Roguelike from the old school perspective starting with Rogue, Nethack and Moria.

But that includes the repetition of some designs that are a bit weird. The weirdest is plenty tricks are based on a deliberate insane logic, hints are more than cryptic, it's so non intuitive that even with the guide you'll constantly miss many points/possibilities, and it's hard to remind all this non logic.

Another aspect is it's a sadistic approach, it makes the savor for those fan of old school roguelike, but myself i'm tired of this and that's why old school Roguelite are in my back. I considered buy it anyway when they released the enhanced non free version, but gave up when I quoted there was no mouse interface. It's possible that this change : "a simple and easy to use UI with extensive tooltips, hints and a detailed tutorial mode." is meaning they did it, but Im' surprised knowing the huge number of commands.
 
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The only Roguelike I've ever REALLY enjoyed is FTL, which I still go back and play from time to time. I can't say I've tried that many others though.
 
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I doubt FTL is a Roguelike, more a Roguelite, but it's a guess, have it but dropped it when I realized it was RTS. Yeah Roguelite is very special but Roguelike even more.
 
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FTL is one of my favorite games of all time. It is a bit on the roguelite side, but in some ways it's in it's own category all together.

Much like the RPG label though, the roguelike label has been stretched in so many different directions that it's almost impossible to agree on what it does and doesn't encompass.
 
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ADOM has superb graphics and neat gameplay. Savegame loading time however increases in an ugly way as you progress around midgame. Can't imagine how long are loading times late game.. <shudder>.
 
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FTL is one of my favorite games of all time. It is a bit on the roguelite side, but in some ways it's in it's own category all together.

Much like the RPG label though, the roguelike label has been stretched in so many different directions that it's almost impossible to agree on what it does and doesn't encompass.

Yeah FTL is very special.

Sure the Roguelite genre has been the escape door of many indies dev those last years, it allowed:
- Reduce the amount of contents.
- Increase duration through a relative random generation and forced replays through artificial difficulty or some unlock system. But a random very far to generate the same diversity than classic Roguelike, alas for many players it's fine to repeat similar plays again and again.
- And the budget reduction on amount of contents allows increase massively the polishing level up to compete with AAA games on that aspect, and alas more or less destroy more traditional indies dev that could only achieve a quite lower polishing level. The worse is that plenty players bashed those indies with lower polishing level, and achieve destroy the fame of such games focusing more on contents than polishing.

For sure not all Roguelite will match those comments but many do. Since few years I'm totally tired of Roguelite, but ironically right now I have a lot of fun with one, The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming, sigh. But this one missed the point to sell well, a high level polishing. Also with an extended classic save system, and a campaign that seems relatively long, it seems not based on a large amount of forced replays, unlike most indie Roguelite do.
 
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