As promised here comes T-Engine4 and ToME4 beta30 ! See http://te4.org/

Don't forget to help ToME by with donations ( http://te4.org/donate ) !

Release highlights:

• Mostly bugfixes
• CPUs without SSE2 support should work again
• Split Difficulty setting into Difficulty & Permadeath setting
• Improved start of Cursed & Doomed

Expanded changelist:

• Displace no longer works in vaults.
• Feed no longer feeds on yourself when frozen.
• Alchemist gems no longer become cursed.
• Only *body* armor gets the Grim Craft bonus
• Removed healing factor curses (which didn't work anyway)
• Fixed the worldmap
• Birth screen will not have "player" has the default name (unless using cheat mode)
• Worldmap rivers will not make you drown, and thus should also save poor alchemist & mage
• Added an option to the graphics mode selection to use a custom tileset by entering a folder name and a few parameters
• New game option to change the log/chat log fade time
• Setting log/chat fade time to 0 makes it never fade out
• Fixed duplicate achievements granting
• Achievements are correctly displayed in the ingame list
• Cursed start with a point in Weapon Combat, making thzeir first few levels much nicer
• New achievement for finishing the Abashed Expanse without taking a single void blast or manaworm hit
• Doomed start with a point in Call Shadows
• Split difficulty settings into Difficulty (Easy, Normal, Insane) and Permadeath (Adventure, Roguelike)
• Improved melee summons damage
• Archmages which do not start in Angolwen do not get the Teleport: Angolwen spell
• When inside an exploratory farportal zone you can use the rod of recall to force an emergency recall, doing so however has very high change of permanently breaking the exploratory farportal
• Laying multiple traps onto one an other will not destroy the last one prematurely
• Bathe in the Light now deals damage to undeads
• Shortened the Blighted Ruins to 4 levels
• Skeleton and Ghoul player races do not have underwear when naked
• Changed the "Blood" bar on the left panel for Cursed and gave it a correct tooltip
• Fixed rush range
• Fixed the tempest peak quest from Zigur side
• Left pane correctly shows max hate increases
• If the CPU can not support optimized LuaJIT, the JIT will auto-disable and let the game run normally
• Fixed Air Bubbles
• Blinding Ink gfx effect changed
• Blindness/invisibility/stealth now correctly updates the display
• Can not dig or teleport outside in the arena unlock zone
• Improved the visibility of the Heart of the Gloom and Norgos Lair on the worldmap
• Fixed some egos that granted an incorrect mastery
• Slightly increased auth wait time to let laggy connections have a chance to auth
• Rain fo Death vault is now correctyl flagged as no teleport
• Ben Cruthdar in the temporal rift now has a tile
• Doomed Shadows now enter the party and will follow between levels
• Runic/Infusion saturation do not prevent entering the worldmap anymore

Have fun!

As promised here comes T-Engine4 and ToME4 beta29 ! See http://te4.org/

Don't forget to help ToME by with donations( http://te4.org/donate ) !

As soon as this release is out the profile server will change to compute stats using the new config version.

Your data should transfer from b28 to b29 fine, pre-b29 to pre-b29 will still continue to sync but it will not be used for stats on te4.org. You are advised to upgrade as soon as possible.

Release highlights:

• Many fixes
• New and much improved birth screen
• Most everything should now have a tile, many floor transitions now have proper .. transitions
• Switch to LuaJIT2: more performances!
• Improved UI
• Many new egos (160!)
• More lore, including graphical lore
• New server-side profiles handling
• More achievements
• Improves artifacts
• Three new Cursed/Doomed trees

Expanded changelist:

• Sun Infusion now has a blindness component to it but is not instant cast anymore
• Mind Power Infusion deleted
• Heroism Infusion now increases your three highest stats and increases them by more
• New feature: automatic talents. Any talents can be setup to automatic cast, which means they will be used as soon as off cooldown. THe UI will warn you if the talent requires a turn or a target. Check out the 'm' menu or right click on the hotkeys list to configure
• New birth UI!
• All NPCs now have tiles!
• Anomaly: Summon townsfolk now correctly uses tiles
• New death option: restart a new character
• Novice Mage on the worldmap now has a tile
• Once the player won he can enter the Infinite Dungeon (from the ruined dungeon entrance) to meet a glorious end in the depths of the world
• Vargh Redemption now provides increased air capacity
• Power is Money grants the same bonus to all three saves
• Fix item tooltips on a few artifacts
• Improved performance of dialogs using ListColumn and TreeList
• Example modules only show up in the list if cheat mode is enabled
• If modules list only contains one entry it is auto selected
• The mummified eggsack can not appear in shops
• Flying text incoming damage now "sinks" instead of rising up
• Transmogrification option in the item menu doesnt close the inventory
• Farportal exits are correctly displayed as & in ascii mode
• Ruined dungeon orbs cannot be trapped
• Very high level Explosion Expert will not make NPCs instakill
• Ben Cruthdar now always drops his battleaxe
• New artifact for staff-happy alchemists
• Added tstring:tokenize() and tstring:diffWith()
• Talents levelup screen will now show value increases in the talent descriptions in a much more concise format
• Resting will stop if life regen is below 0
• All actors have a default esp range
• Shield attack section and Gloves attack section will only show in descriptions if you can use them
• Character sheet now displays a diff between the previous time it was invoked and the current state for even easier global comparaisons.
• Total realtime playtime is now registered
• Improved keyboard running algorithm
• Players can now whisper one another in the ingame chat system. Either select the user to whisp in the talkbox or just type her/his name followed by :
• Shift+t now cycles between: tactical border+healthbar, only healthbar, nothing
• Worldmap patrols now all have tiles
• Limit gamma setting
• Add tstring:extractLines()
• Agrimley and Ritch Hunters now have tiles
• New trees and grass tiles
• New artifact gem
• New lore added to the Deep Bellow
• Reduced the chance of lore randomly dropping
• Big UI update, the game log and chat logs are now displayed side by side in transparency over the game map, hotkeys are "flattened" over more width, making room for more map displayed at once
• Random bosses/elites using Fearscape will be much rarer
• Added a "run" command that prompts for a run direction, bound to . by default
• Some eagles (purely cosmetic) will randomly fly over derth
• Replaced SDL_Mixer with OpenAL for audio system
• Added support for grouping images into tilesets for faster loading
• Updated the worldmap with new tiles
• Fixed mountain tiles graphical glitches
• Improved lavafloor/walls tiles
• New underwater tiles
• Added about 160 new egos
• Objects can now grant talent use on spell hit
• Improved many artifacts
• One can never fail de-activating a sustain
• Fixed Shadow Simulacrum
• Renamed "Divine" classes to "Celestial", since they never had any relations with gods (since there are no gods)
• Player tiles now reflect the currently worn equipment!
• Pheonix egg got a tile
• Levers have a tile now
• Added two new generic terrains: GENERIC_LEVER and GENERIC_LEVER_DOOR
• Archers and Slingers now start with a rought leather armour
• As a thanks to donators I have added a feature for them: custom player tiles. Donators (who are logged on) will be able to select a custom tile for their character from a list of over 180, ranging from "classics" to "downright wonky". Have fun, and thanks to you all!
• Added support for LuaJIT2 (beta8)
• Fixes some arena bugs and tweak the unlock a bit
• Players now use 'moddable' tiles: their equipment will show on their char
• Alchemist golem now use moddable tiles
• Random elites & bosses based on player races (like adventurer parties) now use moddable tiles
• All traps now have tiles
• Updated the music & sounds dialog to be able to disable all sounds and control music & effects volumes independantly
• The horror level of the lake of nur now has .. ambient sounds
• The four attack runes now take no turn to activate, but put a 1 turn cooldown on all other attack runes
• Removed actTurn, instead the engine will call actBase (if it exists) based on its own energy counter, so even if you somehow are frozen, timed effects, regen, cooldowns, ... will tick anyway
• Added achievements for more damage than 600
• Fixed Rune of the Right range
• Display the character tile in charsheet
• Limited the maximun slow that slowing talents can provide
• Health bars are a little smaller than a full tile, so they do not "merge" when actors are near
• Added an option to control the number of log/chat lines to show
• Right click instead of left click on the chat log to see user infos
• Lore can now have pictures attached
• Fix Sun Flare
• Random elites/bosses can not get Aim and Last Stand
• Feeding/Grappling will be interrupted by creatures multiplying/cloning/splitting
• The Fall of Zigur quest correctly boosts Hexes mastery if hexes are known
• Objects granting esp now correctly say what (like "demon/major" instead of just "major")
• Fix Paradox mastery effect on failure chances
• Death messages have been improved and will display in a special color in chat log
• Chat tooltips now also work in the chat log dialog
• New option: chat filters, you can select what kind of chat messages you want to see and which to ignore
• Arrows & Shots projectiles now have a correct tile
• Fix a rare freeze when particles are on screen
• Improved online profile code, it should be more efficient and more controlled. Serverside storage changed completly, it will allow for much nicer server features.
• Due to the online profile storage change localy stored achievements will be lost, if you use an online profile they should come back correctly.
• When b29 is released the new server code will switch to prod, all previous betas will continue to sync but it will not update data seen by the server anymore and >=b29 versions wont see it. Basically: upgrade
• The Sher'Tul Fortress new has graphical lore, be sure to check out the paintings on the walls!
• Wilderness will not generate on birth anymore, thus speeding birth process
• Melnela is now correctly flagged as a woman
• Sandworm queen heart now has a tile
• Summoning circle in undead start now has tiles
• Wilderness is not kept inside the main save anymore, making saving faster
• All alchemist quest ingredients and rewards now have tiles
• The artifact whips, the blood runed athame, the lost merchant and the assasin lord now have tiles
• Unvisited locations now have a slight "sparkle" effect on the worldmap, their tooltip also says they have never been visited
• Greater Weapon Focus procs are now logged
• Many typos fixed
• Added radius info to many talents that missed it
• Better description for the ring of the dead
• LuaJIT2 is now the default premake target
• Activating caps-lock will put the map in scroll mode, allowing keyboard-only scrolling with the direction keys
• The custom death messages now account for drowning, suffocating, and other such fun deaths
• Self-kill messages are now denoted as such
• New achievement "Fool of a Took!"
• Added missing tooltips to the charsheet
• Much boosted the spell Heat
• Firestorm can not hit the golem anymore
• Farportal zones will try very very hard to make a portal back, if the boss is not found on the last level every 100 turns the game will try to make a portal back
• Fixed the appearance of high level npcs in the bottom of the raloren camp last level
• Using the cloak of deception will make a hood appear on the player's head (as opposed to most other cloak which do not)
• Artifact daggers correctly use str/dex as other daggers
• Darkness color name is a bit ligther
• Pacification hex will now check for saving throw each time it applies the daze (it wont prevent applying the daze this time but if it fails it will remove the remaining hex)
• Dragonskull Helm requirements changed to willpower
• Use talents dialog now groups talents by status instead of trees
• Added a new tile size option: custom, allows you to select any size between 10 and 128
• Buffed True Grit
• Changed doomed's Dark Vision to only add damage bonus inside Creeping Darkness
• Changed hate lost per turn (slower at higher levels of hate, faster at lower levels)
• Fixed some line of sight issues with doomed's Feed
• Added cursed Strife talent tree
• Added doomed Primal Magic talent tree
• Added cursed/doomed Fateful Aura talent tree
• Improved a few cursed/doomed particle effects for smaller tiles
• Balance adjustments in cursed/doomed trees
• Fixed NPC "The Mouth" to support pinning correctly
• Removed the cooldown on Extract Gems

Have fun!

Recently there have been a few spams getting through on te4.org.
I do not like spam!

So I have now setup the site so that to be able to post blogs/... on te4.org you need to be verified.
To be verified is extremely easy: login in the game itself with your account and you will be authorized to post as before (this is obviously fully transparent for people already using an online profile, next time you start the game you will be authorized automagically).

If you can't/don't want to do it, just use the contact form to contact me and I will enable your account.

Have fun!

A fool. nemo knew he was a fool. Helping those who asked, running around solving problems for people he never met, The lumberjacks were the worst. Should he ever meet another lumberjack... his mind began clouding over at the thought, rage blocking all coherent thought.
Heading to Daikra he heard one of those blasted, simple, nuisances begging for help. With out a thought he ran after, stretching his unnaturally strong arms.
Entering the camp was a terror, nemo was met with screaming, the stench of blood, and a mass of strong bodies rushing down the trail, pushing him back the way he came.
The lodgings were worse.
Sprayed across the walls in bright arcs were gouts of blood, the haphazard buildings deeply pitted with fresh scars, he rushed toward the screaming and...
collapsed.
He could hear a futile struggle going on around the corner, see shadows and flashes of crimson steel, but something kept him from moving, a pressure on his emotions, depression and fear and doubt slamming into him like weights.
He barely had time to dodge the ax whirling toward his head when he gained enough control of himself to think of dodging, as it was he could not roll quick enough to evade harm, a second glancing blow hitting him on the left shoulder.
Ignoring the pain nemo got to his feet, sliding backwards to avoid more wild swings, each closing in, getting closer.
All the skills he learned fighting since he left derth seemed to leave him, his movements no longer fluid and graceful. A jerk backwards to dodge a swing aimed at his chest, and nemo slipped, getting his first solid glance at his attacker.
The man was dressed in what used to be lumberjack's standard work attire, but this was shredded. Flesh seemed to melt in some places, turning to a viscous matte black liquid, other it looked to have hardened into horns, leather, and bony knobs.
But his eyes were frightening beyond explanation. It was not the dull red glow, it was the rage and sadness that seemed to radiate from them.
The sadness made nemo hesitate.
The slash of the ax snapped him out of it. Muscle screamed as the blade sliced from shoulder to rib, Ax ground against rib cage.
Pain, had to forget the Pain.
The rest of the fight was a blur of the singing ax, fists hitting flesh, and depression.
When the cursed lumberjack finally fell, shattered and weak, the ground was soaked with blood and ichor, both of the combatants covered in wounds and smeared in gore.
Every single wound on nemo's body screamed, he felt as if he was on fire.... or being frozen... galvanizing shocks rocking through muscle, or maybe acid eating into flesh.
he blamed the ichor that was oozed from the lumberjack, that continued to ooze from the downed body.
nemo could swear he heard the lumberjack apologize before dying.
He swore he left the village, though he could not remember doing so.
nemo did remember dragging himself into a town days later, wounds healing.... strangely.
He sees an elf standing over him, looking grim, then fade to black.
He hears 'it is too late' and then nothing.
He feels blood flowing from his wounds, but slowly.

Did something change in trunk recently? I checked out and built revision 3822 because luajit2 on windows makes tome run that much faster, but now all my characters don't have the Orb at all - which is a right royal pain :(

Days, Weeks, A year? nemo could not tell how long he had been wandering. After emerging from Trollmire, the Rod of Recall clutched in torn and broken knuckles, time seemed to pass... oddly. Dreams that seemed too real, flashbacks of things that may not have happened. He no longer made camp, His scarred skin far to weathered to feel discomfort from anything but extremes. It made him much more comfortable to just continue walking till he dropped from exhaustion. This way he did not have time to lay back and think of what he was becoming...
once, years ago it seemed, he would nurse wounds from barroom brawls for a week or more, skimping on farm work to care for bruised ribs, wincing when he looked in the mirror at black eyes or a crushed nose.
Just yesterday he went toe to toe with a minotaur. One that was almost twice his height.
No dodging, running, fancy tactics.
with his bare hands he crushed the enormous bull's head.
How can this be? How can a human punch a bear to death, or strangle a drake?
As long as he did not rest, he could avoid the thought that told him he was cursed for playing with arcane energies, for wearing magic armor, for playing with space and time...
His delusions were playing tricks on him.
nemo gripped the Rod, wincing at the thrum of energy he could feel from it, and headed to a mountain, said to contain actual Dragons.

This is my newest more-or-less successful character who made it to the East and hasn't perma-died yet, an Anorithil this time around.

1st Wintertide, Year 875 of the Isolation
It's been a while since I've had much to write about here, but given my most recent conversation with Lady Aeryn, I feel it would be prudent to pen my thoughts, for those that might come after me. Having conceded this, Lady Aeryn has deemed that I be Zemekkys' latest mountain rat... err, volunteer to secure aid from the peoples of "Maj'Eyal," a supposed land of "free people" far to the West. As the youngest and least senior member of the Anorithil left here in Sunwall, I have little say in the matter. If this "Maj'Eyal" exists, why would they have forgotten us centuries ago? I was not yet borne into this world, being one of the first of the children birthed in the East, but having lived through centuries of orc attacks, you would think these "free people" would wonder where the orcs attacking them were coming from. Alas, I must stop now; the dotard's knocking on my door.

2nd Wintertide, Year 122 of the Age of Ascendancy
Well, how rude! I've never been so insulted in the entirety of my life, and I've encountered some downright vulgar orcs, too! I was deposited within sight of the Allied Kingdom's capitol, (A fortress of such a scale even a blind orc could see. It is a wonder it still stands with all the orc attacks that go on. But I digress.) and I ask for an audience with the leader of the fortress from the city gatehouse garrison. The brutes took one look at the sun-and-moon tattoo upon my brow, and immediately started tittering amongst themselves, as though privy to some joke. One even rolled his eyes and said, "By Telos' bedevilled spirit, another one." The commander took me aside and instructed me to make haste for the capitol of "my people," Elvala. He even drew a crude map and pointed out important landmarks, in a voice one uses to instruct children! Does he take me for a fool?! As a side note, he also pointed out the "proper" calendar year name, so to better relate to any who find this diary should I perish.

7th Allure, Year 122 of the Age of Ascendancy
Well, I made it to Elvala, but apparently none of the other elves the dotard sent through his farportal made it this far, as I was the first Anorithil any had seen. Most of the guards were old when I was born, so the stories of Maj'Eyal of old (which I had assumed until now were bedtime stories or stories told to ensure children behaved properly) were enough to grant me an audience with the ruling council. One of the more senior members was delighted to hear his brother still lived (my father, of all people), but in private he told me a dreadful truth of the Shaloren: the people of Maj'Eyal have never fully forgiven my people for causing the Spellblaze, to the point of rather evil people called "the Ziguranth" who are said to wear necklaces of elven ears making raids on Elvala. He pointed out that a single person, no matter how lowly, can always be destined for great things, and to test my mettle, he shared with me two secrets the council has been trying to keep from the rest of Elvala and Maj'Eyal in general: One, there are a group of "Rhaloren" elves who practice necromancy and blood magic -forbidden in the East, supposedly the orcs were once elves who dabbled too deeply in these schools- hiding in an abandoned fortress to the northwest; and two, there is a cave to the northeast where a farportal was rumoured to have been, in the days before the Spellblaze. In the hopes of returning with the bad news, I have opted to go to the farportal cavern.

23d Regrowth, Year 122 of the Age of Ascendancy
"Where a farportal was rumored to have been", indeed! Upon entry to the cavern, I find a note left by some other elf. The Spellblaze originated in that cavern, and the farportal (if it still exists) is likely buried under tonnes of rock. Imagine my great surprise when I get back to Elvala that my uncle does not have time to see me. Pah. Politics. I did however encounter the strangest things I had ever seen, though: crystals, moving about as though with a mage's "Phase Door" spell, hurling spells about with eerie precision. There were many colours, even one that seemed to be coloured as light through a prism, and from it a piece fell. As near as I can ascertain it appears to focus arcane energies upon anything it is fastened to, though I have nothing suitable to test this upon. That last red crystal I encountered sent me running, with the sore realisation that my skills might be lacking. I overheard one of the guards saying an "arena" challenge was going on near Derth, so I have elected to find my way to Derth and apply myself to that challenge.

54th Pyre, Year 122 of the Age of Ascendancy
Earlier in my writings I had penned a belief that these people should have sent help centuries ago - I know now that this belief was in error, that they had their own problems to deal with. Their Age of Pyre came at quite a price, and were in no condition to help us. There have been no orc attacks here in a century or more, no need to be as eternally vigilant as we have. But again, I digress. That furry being need not have perished at my hands, yet he did. All because he foolishly wandered straight into a Searing Light spell directed at his attacker, "Z." Both are dead now, but only one needed to have died. Why? I will never know. He even thanked me, in a sense, for besting that "Z" fellow, before attempting to skewer me with his floating greatsword. I will never understand the foolishness of some of these people.

7th Decay, Year 122 of the Age of Ascendancy
I am beginning to see why this tower is known as "Dreadfell" - it is a truly evil place, beset upon by many undead. I think I died, not even an hour ago - I felt a pain I wish to never feel again, but before it ended I was placed in the Void of all places, near a being that called itself "Eidolon." I've no idea why, but he saw fit to continue my adventures among the living. The most ridiculous thing, though - I had not a single foe left moving in sight, all had perished. It was their diseases that ended me - diseases! My healing light had not yet had time to begin again, nor my infusions of regeneration or disease-curing. If only I had listened to Lady Fillarel on her lectures of Totality, and how it may aid in such situations.

8th Allure, Year 123 of the Age of Ascendancy
Is this the price we Shaloren paid for our immortality? That the pioneers who had the vision to grant us this gift were cursed with insanity and decay of their form? Is this truly the legacy we have for future generations?

70th Regrowth, Year 123 of the Age of Ascendancy
Have I changed so much, so rapidly? I finally made it back to the East, and Lady Fillarel did not even recognize me. She was facing off against some orc filth as usual, and after dispatching the beast, she suggested I go to Sunwall. This cavern was the training cavern in my youth, and I knew full well where I was, and where Sunwall was. Still she needed to point out where it was.

73d Regrowth, Year 123 of the Age of Ascendancy
I suppose as I am back in the East I should revert to the nomenclature for the years that we had devised to remind us to stand strong, but I feel it unnecessary. I have made too many memories in Maj'Eyal, and not being recognized in Sunwall by anybody further reinforces this feeling. I suppose the dotard - Zemekkys can be excused, but literally nobody recognizes me. Lady Aeryn seemed a bit disappointed when I told her I was the only of our kind to make it to Elvala or even be treated with any sort of seriousness, but as leader I expect her true feelings were more profound, but buried for the sake of appearances.

Today will begin the Epic of nemo, a willful resident of Derth who will find that the life of an Adventurer can be rewarding... and horrifying.
nemo was born near Derth, parents unknown for he was abandoned. Growing up poor, but not needy, he learned the importance of being a hard worker and treating others well.
But having no ties meant he was always restless.
Having no family meant he had no lineage to look back on, no family pull to allow martial training.
with only the desire to become someone important, and the fighting techniques he learned in a few barroom brawls he traveled to Trollmire, seeking to prove himself against Prox.
He would soon find out how strange the life of one who spends time collecting artifacts and at the whim of arcane energies can become.

Many things to celebrate today!

We finally hit the 5000 played days, this is about 13 years and 8 months of play time!
We also hit the first thousands euros of donations.

This is bringing me much hope for the future, as in those cases, more is always better :)

My fellow players, please, continue to have fun!

Alright, sorry for my sudden and unexplained absence. More has been delayed but not forgotten and now work on it will be resumed. In the mean time, I continue my little series of teasers.

This time I would like to highlight a MoRE exclusive--the throwing dagger tree.

The throwing dagger tree is a new tree for both the vanilla rogue and the new Charlatan class. The base skill is a hybrid between a ranged attack spell and a weapon attack. While not requiring any equipped weapons, it uses weapon crits and other characteristics. While it does a relatively minor amount of damage, especially at higher levels, it has higher than normal chance for crits at higher skill levels and, most importantly, does not break stealth. The other 3 skills allow for special attacks based on the damage of the base skill.

Stealth just became a lot more fun.