I've written a run-down of my experiences after completing my first game. Beware of spoilers, obviously. The adventures of Ostafel, Dwarf Fighter begins after many false starts, and quite a few restarts (oops - you've run out of lives!)

Learning Curve

Not too difficult to pick up, though it took me longer than I care to admit to figure out how to bind hotkeys. Of course, even now there are still many other mechanics I've yet to figure out. (Grrr, disarm, how do you work?)

Class: Why a fighter?

It was the only class with which I could survive the first dungeon. Okay, so I'm rubbish at the game, however, the fact that alternate classes require different strategies piques my interest - and bodes well for future games. Make no mistake however, though it wasn't my first choice, playing a fighter was fun. By the end, I grew to love the skills, especially the Shield Offense and Warcries Techniques. In hindsight, I did fumble a lot over skill placement. (e.g. getting both heavy & massive armor mastery). Furthermore, were it not for my Movement Infusion, I would never be able to catch ranged opponents. Perhaps I should have invested in Combat Techniques?

Quests & Dungeons

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As this was my first complete game, I ended up skipping a number of dungeons. As I played, I completed quests that seemed interesting to me at the time. In fact, this led to the bizarre situation of collecting 7/10 staves, jumping on the anti-magic bandwagon, then subsequently scaring off the apprentice when I tried to approach him again. Though I technically "failed", the quest hung around in my quest log until the end of the game. Speaking of which, even when I entered the final tower, I was unaware that it was the end-game until I saw the portal. Challenging the bosses at level 43 was a nasty affair; luckily, the clearly visible runes tipped me off: so, thank-you game design, the fight was tough enough even after disabling the 4 runes straight-away! Overall, the tower, while lengthy, was nevertheless enjoyable, and there's nothing like a room full of demons to keep you on your toes. Disarm is terrifying.

Shiny Loot

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Transmogrification Chest is fantastic. I enjoy looting but dislike cluttered inventories in RPGs, so this was a great way to deal with the junk. But what's junk? When push came to shove, I often had trouble deciding if it was better to have +Stats vs. +damage or vs. +resists. Also, because of my anti-magic affiliations, I had to pass up many significantly better items: most notably in the weapon department. My end-game weapon only had 36 Power. In hindsight, I'm none too pleased with my decision, though I suspect it may have been a worthwhile trade-off had I made better use of the Anti-magic tree.

Misc: Interface, Graphics, & Sound

Being able to use a mouse is a blessing - games that require the numpad makes playing on my laptop...discouraging. The layout of the game is very accessible. In combination with a pleasant-looking tileset, and interesting soundtracks: wow, what an incredible journey!

Memorable Highlights:

Rescuing the merchant from the assassin den, assaulting the orcish stronghold with the paladins, and the "lightning storm" at Derth.

***That's enough out of me, thank you for reading. I'd welcome any feedback on what I should have or could have done better, in addition to any other classes that would be easy to pick up next. And of course a huge thank you to Darkgod, for creating such a fantastic game!

As promised here comes T-Engine4 and ToME4 beta23 ! See http://te4.org/

Small bugfix release for beta22.

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

Release highlights:

• Various fixes

Expanded changelist:

• Fix the transmogrification chest
• Fix level of orcs in the escape from reknor
• Fix mage apprentice quest for archmages
• Particles can be attached to any entities, not just actors
• Particles attached to an entity now display on the same z-order as the entity
• Fix the brotherhood quest
• Achievements are now broadcasted over the community chat
• Combat trainer is back in Last Hope
• Reduce the cooldown and cost of Perfect Strike
• The Blood Master wont aggro while controlling a slave

Have fun!

i used to compile the game myself as i'm using ubuntu lucid 64 bits and the linux was crash prone. today i accidentally downloaded the linux compile again. maybe this time the crash bug has been fixed. i will test it and report my findings.

As promised here comes T-Engine4 and ToME4 beta22 ! See http://te4.org/

Piles of new stuff, classes, racial trees, zones, lores, quests and more!

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

Release highlights:

• Many fixes
• New class: the Paradox Mage, a pure caster chronomancer class!
• New class: the Brawler, a barehanded stance-based melee combatant
• New zones: orc breeding pits, the ring of blood, the golem graveyard
• New quests
• Racial trees: each race now has a racial tree further defining it
• NPCs scale better with levels
• Many tweaks

Expanded changelist:

• Elandar and Argoniel now have fixed resistances, no more physical immune endgame bosses
• Added resolvers.levelup() (check how it works on ToME's dragons)
• resolvers.talents{} can now take a table for each talent value which specifies how and when the talent is level'ed up
• Dragons have lost summoning; but they are now more formidable foes
• Added an option to not have chats appear in the game log
• Rings and amulets can now be double egos
• New options to select UI style, font style and font size; Small screen users rejoince!
• Fix a bug when putting on an inscription of which type you have too many already
• Fix bloodied lore notes
• Fix presing escape when using the Attack talent
• Fix a bug with Extract Gem
• Lore popups can be exited with Enter
• Fix Arcane Combat trigger %
• Fix Flare
• Archery now behaves more like other bolt spells, it can be targetted to empty squares
• Right click map menu now shows the projection path (just like when targetting manually)
• Stealth will not make the world fully grey, itwill only tarnish the colors a bit
• Updated the Main Menu with the new tiles and more level types
• Zones now have material level restrictions. Gone are the days of degenerated skeleton warriors powning you with voratun greatswords!
• Artifacts sold to shops will now be gone forever.
• Most things that happened on actor's turn now happen on game's turn. Due to this change Movement Infusion, Lightning Speed and Step Up now provide their buff for a veyr low number of turns (usualy one or two), but since they are game turns they give ample player turns
• Changed the drop system to a two steps system: First the game chooses the quality of the item (unique, double greater, greater, ...) and then the actual object is selected. Quality chance varies by levels and by drop source (bosses obviously drop better stuff).
• Sunwall is no longer automatically hostile to the assassin's lair
• Snow Giant Boulder Throwers are now distinguishable from the ground in the Daikara
• Changed how movement speed bonuses affect actors, to prevent running into the negatives!
• Changed the checkhit method to make low and high results more significant
• Fix Gem Golem
• Replace Mana Tap with Supercharge Golem for Alchemists - it will instantly bring back a dead golem to life and give it a big regen boost and damage boost
• Lowered Celerities movement speedbonus
• Lowered AP and Damage on Weapon Folding
• Made the stun on Borrowed Time irresistable and lowered the actual effect duration so it coincides with the tooltip
• Decreased Quantum Feed and Strength of Purpose stat increases but increased saving throw bonus
• New option to disable left click movement
• Immovable creatures can not be knocked back
• Eternal Bone Golems changed color slightly to be visible in Tannen's tower
• Reduced sustain cost of Quicken Spells
• Make the Fall of Zigur reward more obvious
• Fix tracking of Pyromancer & Cryomancer achievements
• Fixed Derth after the lightning quest - they wont thank the mages if you sided with Zigur
• Norgan will correctly levelup now
• Curse of Death now fully prevents regen (not healing)
• Orc ambushes now use a slightly bigger map with slightly fewer orcs
• Fix Reavers dual wielding a 2h weapon and a 1h weapon
• Traps can be placed in adjacent tiles again
• Bellowing Roar now uses strength for the save test
• Creatures now levelup stats as bonuses, they can go over 100
• Rune: Speed does not take a turn to activate anymore
• The C core is not split into a shared library (.so/.dll/...). The game executable is now a very simple runner that takes a core name and dynamically loads and runs it. This will allow the game to make updates even if the C core changes, since it can simply download the new dll and place it along the other engine stuff. This means that in the future when a module needs a version of the engine no present it will simply download it and switch to it. Same for old savefiles, they will use the current module & engine version to run.
• Zigur arena and Derth arena now allows to collect loot before leaving
• Middle mouse click can be assigned to talents too
• Pressing escape on the self target dialog will properly cancel
• Objects with activates now spend their turns after being activated
• Fixed donation dialog
• Fix description radius on some psi talents
• Target passing between NPCs only happens when theyr are friendly (not neutral) toward one another. This should fix the "veneration" of alchemists in towns
• Dropping (destroying) and item from the inventory will correctly update inventory
• Rename Attack to Accuracy
• The mage apprentice can not pop in a spot where it blocks your character
• Teleport is now allowed again on the endboss fight but controlled phase door will have somewhat higher chance of fizzling
• Reshape Weapon/Armour can not be used on quest items
• Bloodbath now correctly resets its duration when a new crit happens, instead of decreasing and re-increasing the total life
• Limmir now creates artifact amulets (normal ring making is still available)
• Dominate Will does not work on Sandworm tunnelers
• All races now possess racial talents that can be learned using generic talents
• Humanoid NPCs now have access to racial trees, jsut like the players
• Vaults now use the new loot table system, they improve the default zone drops and thus are guaranted to store great items
• Psionic focus slot now has a quickslot version, and switches with 'X'
• Aura spike damage nerfed to not scale so ridiculously with willpower
• Thermal aura spike damage reduced to balance the huge area of effect
• Reshaping something that already has negative fatigue no longer sets it to zero
• Charged Leech now properly returns energy when it strikes the killing blow
• Superhuman leap renamed and no longer causes problems when you land directly on somebody
• Damage from auras and Beyond the Flesh attacks will now break Wild Speed
• Leech cooldowns reduced
• Shield of Light should no longer break when under the effects of burning hex
• Better running algorithm
• Recalling will fail when you can not move, to prevent being stuck on the worldmap
• The Slime tree is back, for antimagic users!
• Antimagic users when they get a magic escort can pretend to accept to help. The ending will be different though.
• New fun lore about halflings
• New lore: The Legend of Garkul, in the Gurshnak pride. This is a very long and epic tale. You *want* to read it
• New zone encounter in the east: the Orc Breeding Pit, with some new interresting lore giving a new perspective on the orcs
• Added new npcs: liches; they are very rare and qutie physicaly weak. But they will destroy you if you let them play
• Most NPCs now scale better with level, they levelup their innate melee damage if they dont use a weapon and they levelup their talents
• Reduced Bill HP somewhat
• Bosses get a few more HP
• Returning from the Eidolon plane now tries evry hard to place you on the map
• Correct dwarf intro text
• Fix bug when saving profile data would error out while saving the game
• Prevent color bleeding in talent requirements
• Townfolk now can have random chatter when backup guardians are up
• New tiles for the Daikara
• New zone: the Golem Graveyard
• Random worldmap encounters that create an entry to a zone are now on the map (randomized) since birth (this thus does not affect "trap-door" encounters)
• Recreated Last Hope
• Most towns now have split shops (light armour, haevy armour, swords, axes, ...)
• Shops now only restock upon "important" game events (which is not often)
• Fixed Carrier
• New quest: the brotherhood of alchemists. Go talk to your favorite aclehmist(s)!
• Yeeks get their very own special game ending when beating the sorcerers
• The endgame text can now vary based on various actions done in quests
• New achievement for saving Melinda
• Siding with the grand corruptor now has an impact on endgame text
• New class: Paradox Mage. That's it: chronomancy to its fullest! Time manipulation, timetravel, multiple timelines, age control, ... You name it, they've got it! (Note: unlock might now be what it appears. Think paradox.)
• New quest for Temporal Wardens
• "Quick" weapon ego now increases weapon speed, not global attack speed
• Dwarves dont start on a staircase to the worldmap anymore
• Golem can not pickup plot items
• Plot items are described as such
• 10 new vaults!
• New class: Brawlers, they are unarmed melee fighters with difference combat stances and grappling attacks
• New random encounter: the Ring of Blood
• Player tiles
• Tactical display now has a special contour for bosses and for the player.
• Reworked the Gates of Morning
• Temporal Wardens no longer have access to the Temporal Archery tree but Spacetime Folding is less melee specific
• Borrowed Time now increases global speed by 100% to account for timed effect changes
• Foresight now only triggers when the attack does 10% or more of your hit points
• New Spactime Folding talent, Swap. This replaces Kinetic Folding
• Inverted Campaign and Difficulty selection on birth. Removed stupid combos (like Arena/Adventure as extra lifes never worked there)
• Paradox damage scaling effects lessened at high and low values

Have fun!

The first bug: mindslayer uses his psi-fighting during "Movement" infusion. Because of this many dangerous bosses were killed by my character with using the simple scheme: use "Movement" and then go around the opponent during infusion effect.

The second bug: doomed shadow, created during "Movement" duration will be fast forever... And it can use not only psi-fighting but usual attacks too. So, my own character was killed ~8 times to the final death with this scheme.

Moral: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

PS. Mindslayer is unbelievable powerful, but has too much generic talents and not enought class talents. If you learn "Antimagic" branch, this disproportion becames even more notable.

PSS. Sorry for my english.

I decided to make a rogue/Wilder hybrid class. The class has four new trees in addition to already made trees. The idea for the character is to be highly mobile and fight only when you have an advantage. It is currently in development so talents may be bugged and particularly unbalanced. All but one of the talents are complete in a sense that they do what they are supposed to do.

Here are two forum post that relate to the ranger class. One of them has the download that you can use.
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25272&p=105229#p105229
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=25195&p=105239#p105239

Any constructive feed back is welcome.

How good is this Game, Heroes and Adventurers?

As a 28 year Veteran of Roguelikes (I cut my teeth on Hack & The Amulet of Yender - and yeah, I'm Old) I judge this game to be a Crazy 88 (%).
For anyone who is currently running Beta 21 with no problems, you are truly blessed. Tell everyone Sir Jaded, the Knight in Tarnished Armour says hi. Not everyone has the benefits of being blessed...
I love this game. But It's a Hard Love. The Darkgod giveth and the Darkgod taketh away. My Betas are infused with the Spirits of Loki, the Coyote, and Athena. I now run Offline for the most part, but for the two days I had fellow Adventurers busting their thoughts in my lower-left, It was so awesome I could nearly see the Darkgod himself.
I know he walks amongst us. I see the flickering of his shadow.
Then I have to remind myself that this game is a Beta. When I do though I smile, because even as a Beta how good is this game?
I see the Machinations of Darkgod and I see his vision. When I fret about the lack of Documentation in my life regarding this, considered and appropriate opinions are only a Forum away.
And the Betas! They keep on coming! I get a few Hardcore Characters going and boom! The world is revised. For the better. My old characters watch an all-encompassing wave of Magnetism commit them to the Recycling Bin (aka: the Cataclysm). For the New World is Better.
And though my ToME4 engine coughs, splutters, cuts out, and denies me the running opinion of my peers...I am (**&%#@% hooked.

(Bows at midnight before a small fire of wood and gemstones. A shooting star grazes the firmament, unseen. A drop of blood from a hard-bitten lip bells the moss.)

Statistics do not lie!
http://te4.org/game-statistics

After just a little over one month (last count was on the 2nd February, counting up to 2000 days) the counter increased by 1000 days, this is around 25 days played per days!

This makes me both proud, happy and confident for the future!

I am glad to be able to give fun to many people and I hope it will continue for the many years to come!

PS: and on the same day the donation count reached 500€ !

Updated for ToME beta 22! Now you can choose the tileset from Graphic Mode > Old RPG. See the thread at http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=25338 to download and see pics.

Sparky the Shalore Archmage is my latest character, my first to successfully complete the Dark Crypt and rescue Melinda. My theory for building him is to max MAG first, and to use all the magic or spellpower boosting gear I can find (or buy). He has opened up the Temporal tree to get Time Prison, and is making heavy use of Providence and Premonition as well.

He's currently in Dreadfell, preparing to meet The Master.