SAngband 0.9.5b (07/29/98): 1) Various bug fixes and cleanups. 2) Life is less hard on low-level spellcasters. 3) Multiple blows are somewhat easier. 4) Giants get better histories. 5) Some talents are easier, and a new one has been added. SAngband 0.9.5: 1) Heavy revisions to: skills, talents, object forging, the spell list, ego-item generation, weather, invisibility, and possibly other things. 2) A bunch of new monsters have been added, along with one artifact, a few ego items, a couple of objects, and some new creature abilities. 3) Activations have been reorganized to pave the way for future random artifacts. 4) The code has been updated to Angband 2.8.3 5) The concept of "level" has been completely removed from the game. 6) The bug with destroying the wrong item while fenneling has been fixed. 7) Experience drains now primarily attack your skills. 8) Scolls of questing have been reworked. 9) The monster RES_(whatever) flags now do something. SAngband 0.9.4 (10/11/97): 1) Hellfire now updates the fear indicator correctly. 2) Dispel * effects now only work on the appropriate type of critter, as does Slow Undead. 3) The player no longer move at double speed. (Fix by Greg Wooledge.) 4) The 'C' screen should no longer crash the game. (Fix by Greg Wooledge.) 5) The player no longer forgets spells they've recently learned. 6) *Identify*, Self Knowledge, and monster memory now know about all the new flags. 7) Artifacts now appear with proper rarity. 8) Skullcleaver now has an activation. 9) Poisonous weapons work correctly. 10) Resistance to weapon types works correctly. 11) Ego items get their random abilities. 12) Objects stacking on floor works. 13) Combat damage has been reorganized, and the potential for absurd amounts of damage has been scaled back significantly. 14) Making wands, staves, potions, and scrolls can now produce useful objects. 15) A number of bugs involving scrolls of questing have been fixed. 16) Holy Defender weapons no longer have strange penalties. 17) The Dual Wield skill should now work. (Loosly based on a patch by Brian Pope .) 18) For game balance reasons, weapons providing extra attacks give no more than two. 19) The documentation has been brought a bit more up to date. 20) The spell info has been cleaned up. 21) The shapechanging code has been re-written. 22) Iron will has been toned down. 23) Fenneling has been partially re-written and (hopefully) made more balanced. 24) The 'C' screen now knows about Giant and Dark Elf intrinsics. (fix by Jens Gislev.) 25) Teleportation no longer has the potential to lock up the game. (fix by Jens Gislev.) 26) What abilities are available on which forged objects has been slightly reorganized. 27) A few things in the various info.txt files have been changed. 28) Predict weather works a lot better now, and the weather code has been modified slightly. 29) A potential crash involving objects with very long names has been dealt with. 30) A number of cosmetic problems have been cleaned up. =================================================== Julian Lighton took over as maintainer in Summer, 1997 (roughly). =================================================== SAngband 0.9.3 (04/04/97): 1) "Mystic" weapons should now work. 2) Priest spells are matched correctly. Also, the "elemental brand" prayer will properly brand weapons. 3) Luck cannot be minimized with the autoroller and is not displayed until the player casts self-knowledge. Players no longer become extremely lucky by going back to a previous character. 4) Weapons with "venom" now work correctly. 5) Self-knowledge has been fixed to display all flags. 6) The player's "spell level" is calculated differently so that it cannot be higher than 50. The "teleport" prayer should not lock up the game. 7) Serpentine weapons are no longer vorpal (I had them erroneously defined as being the same :).) Weapons that were vorpal in v0.8.9 are once again vorpal. 8) No more cursed "holy avenger" boots (oops...) 9) The screen should always withdraw from the talent screen. 10) Angband 2.8.0 -> 2.8.1 changes apply. 11) There is now a maximum speed of +70. (A player reported getting his speed higher than this and losing the ability to move, so I have put in a max.) 12) No more "Bootses" or "Gauntletses" when forged boots or gloves stack. SAngband 0.9.2 (01/25/97): 1) The "spiritual hammer" prayer now works correctly. 2) To-dam modifiers of weapons now work. 3) A number of cosmetic things have been fixed (the spell info is correct for all few more spells, the word "Invisible" is now taken off the screen when the player is no longer invisible, etc.) 4) All races, except humans, dunedain, and high-elves get much less "life experience" when starting out. 5) Fixed a bug which would cause the player to start out with a large amount of negative exp if the total of his stat mods were negative. SAngband 0.9.1 (01/11/97): 1) The cursor is now moved properly when choosing stat modifiers. 2) Weaponsmithing, armor forging, bowmaking, and fennling all work correctly. Bowmaking will never create a seeker arrow when a bow is requested. Forged/fennled items no longer lose their properties when the game is saved. 3) The necro "Infuse Weapon" and "Curse Weapon" spells no longer work on artifacts. "Curse Weapon" now works correctly. 4) Fixed a bug which caused some spells not to take a turn if they had no effect on the player (eg, casting Curse Weapon on a weapon that was already cursed). 5) Fixed the bug which caused Morgoth not to exist (so you can actually win the game...) 6) V0.9.0 would erroneously flag all priest, druid, and necro spells as being untried. Fixed. 7) "Nothing" items no longer appear in the temple. (I'm not exactly sure why they were appearing, actually, but they will no longer appear.) 8) "Recall()" is now called "recall_player()" to avoid conflicting with the recall variables in some term packages (Acorn, Amiga, X11, Xaw). Thanks to Greg Wooledge (wooledge@kellnet.com) for pointing this out. 9) Special druid and necro books are now considered "good" (treated as special magic and prayer books are). 10) The spell info (which is displayed when browsing books, etc) is now correct. 11) The amount of weight that the player is carrying is now updated properly when altering the number of objects in a stack with wizard mode. 12) See invisible now works. 13) Hellfire does less damage now. Monsters that appear in groups no longer cast it. ALso, this attack is now described as a spell rather than a breath. Before 0.9.1, no formal change lists were made public. =================================================== Michael Gorse took over as maintainer sometime in the period 199-1996; information about his maintainership is extremely scanty. =================================================== Tales of the early days: The first roguelike contribution I ever made was to send a bug-report (long since lost) to either Chris Petit or Michael Gorse (not exactly sure whom), in late 1994 or (more probably) early 1995. What version of Sangband I was playing at the time I don't remember; the figure 0.8.7 suggests itself, but it could easily have been a couple of releases on either side. The game I was playing was a pre-compiled binary; I want to say on Macintosh, which means that the version had to have been at least 0.8.5. In any event, that game was one of the most hilariously buggy roguelikes I've ever experienced (and not for lack of competition, be assured!); one bug I particularly remember was that every single monster with a drop also dropped Grond and the Iron Crown of Morgoth. At the time, this bug seemed unbelievable; it was only many years later that I realized just how small a code error could have triggered it. My email actually got a response. However, my respondant said he had ceased work on Sangband and would try to forward my report to whoever had taken over (I seem to remember that he was unsure whom). This makes me think that I might have emailed Chris Petit, but the problem with that hypothesis is that Chris Petit had graduated the previous May. He might still have had access to his school email account, though. Leon Marrick =========================== Post for Sangband 0.8.5 by Chris Petit (April 29th, 1994) Ok. I just uploaded the New Improved Sangband. It will be available within a few days. A lot of bugs have been fixed. Also, as in Fangband, monsters (except Uniques) will become Afraid when they are really hurt---and when afraid, they cast NASTY spells at you as they run away. Some of the more dramatic modifications: Pink elephants moved MUCH deeper in the dungeon Sangband.doc file is a reference to ALL the spells and races in Sangband. ALL creatures have MANY more HP and some move faster (i.e. Dragons) so it isn't a total cakewalk. It's still doable, just not totally easy now. Scrolls of Questing and Adamantine Shields are much rarer now. Adamantine shields are even COOLER. They have a special ability now... Sound and Confusion attacks are much more reasonable now. Mages and Priests can do some of these attacks. Turn Undead really makes Undead run in fear now, if they fail their save. Bookstore owners aren't nearly as impatient. Hellfire does more damage---watch out for Demons now. Mages can Induce Terror now, instead of mere Confusion. Post for Sangband 0.8.0 by Chris Petit (March 29th, 1994) Giants more magical and hardier (but are LOUSY at other skills). 1/2 Trolls Regenerate now. Skills of Weaponsmithing+Armor Forging have been balanced. A "help" function exists in the Advance skill--it gives a brief description of the skill the cursor is on. Necromancy realm balanced out. Druid realm replaces the Monk realm. Skills are listed in the text file printed about your character. Online help screen shows the new Sangband key commands. Pink Elephants added at low dungeon levels. (Let's just put it this way---you'll DIE laughing) BUGFIXES FROM 0.5 Character HP generation bug fixed---characters now all roll up at a normal speed. The "missing swing" bug has been fixed---you now see accurate indication of "hit/miss" status. Other small bugfixes (as always).