-------------------------------------- ============--------------------------------------------------============ ===------------------ ------------------=== The ADOM Fluff FAQ An attempt to answer all meta-questions regarding ADOM... (C) Copyright 1994-1998 by Thomas Biskup. All Rights Reserved. ===------------------ ------------------=== ============--------------------------------------------------============ -------------------------------------- PREFACE This document tries to answer all the meta-questions regarding the distribution of the game called ADOM (shortcut for 'Ancient Domains Of Mystery). If you plan to distribute ADOM in some way (be that on disk, CD, in a magazine or whatever), make sure to read Section I: The ADOM License. If you plan to write a review of ADOM, please make sure that you read Section II: ADOM in the Media. If you would like to submit ideas to further ADOM's development, make sure that you have read Section III: ADOM Development. If you are having problems related to the game itself, you might want to read section V: Game-Related Questions closely. If you are experiencing technical problems with ADOM, make sure that you read Section VI: Technical Problems. Before reporting a bug you should definitely read Section VII: Bugs. If you never installed ADOM before, you might want to examine Section VIII: Installation. Finally questions regarding the installation of ADOM are addressed in section VIII: Installation. Any other questions might be answered in Section IV: Miscellaneous Stuff. Questions answered by this text will be ignored if you ask them by email. RTFM, as they say... If you feel that this document is incomplete, feel free to email questions and suggestions to rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de. Hearty thanks to Stefanie Woll for proof-reading this text :-> All remaining idiosyncrasies are intended to ensure the Ancardian feeling of the text ;-) -- Thomas Biskup May, 1998 ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== TABLE OF CONTENTS ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section I - The ADOM License. A. Terms of use. B. Distributing ADOM in magazines, on disks, etc. C. The Postcard Quest. D. Licensing ADOM and other commercial ventures. Section II - ADOM in the Media. A. Where can I find information about ADOM? B. What should I know before writing a review about ADOM? Section III - ADOM Development. A. I have some great ideas concerning ADOM. Are you interested? B. Is ADOM still being developed? C. What can I do to further ADOM's development? D. What plans do exist for ADOM's future? E. What about the sources for the game? F. What about ADOM variants? G. Will ADOM be ported to 'xyz'? H. How about some technical details about ADOM? I. Why don't you make save files between versions compatible? J. How about translations of the game texts into other languages? K. Who's responsible for the various ports? Section IV - Miscellaneous Stuff. A. Why aren't my emails answered? B. Why is the website for ADOM out of date? C. Who is Thomas Biskup? D. Why has the savefile of my character disappeared after he died? E. Why are requests for advice not answered? F. Does Thomas Biskup enjoy receiving binary files? G. When will the next version of ADOM be released? Section V - Game-Related Questions. A. What's the relation between the Mad Minstrel and the village fool? B. How much weight is 'one stone' actually? C. Why can't I increase my weapon skills? D. All my characters start out cursed. Why? E. How can I activate a ring of djinni summoning? F. What's a 'si'? G. Why does fire damage my character despite immunity to fire? H. What about the Red Rooster and associated mysteries? I. What's the best class/race combination? J. Why is the number of charges for wands I zapped not displayed? K. Why are scroll names readable for illiterate characters? L. Why are all classes able to learn weapon skills equally well? M. I can't use command 'xyz'. Why not? N. What do 'scurgari' look like? Section VI - Technical Problems. A. General troubleshooting. B. DOS C. Windows 3.x, Windows for Workgroups, OS/2 D. Windows NT, Windows 95 E. Linux/FreeBSD Section VII - Bugs. A. How to submit bugs? B. Which bugs are known? C. Command 'xyz' does not seem to work in my version... Section VIII - Installation. A. DOS, OS/2, Windows xyz B. Linux ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section I: The ADOM License ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== I.A. Terms of use ================= You may use ADOM freely provided you acknowledge the following terms and abide by them: 1. ADOM must only be distributed in the packages created by Thomas Biskup, the maintainer of the game. The packages must remain complete and all components must not be altered in any way. 2. You may not charge more than $3 for the distribution of ADOM (values as of November, 1995). 3. You do not challenge ADOM's copyright in any way. 4. If you distribute ADOM with a magazine, a CD-ROM distribution or a similar medium, you abide by the terms defined in section I.B. 5. You follow all other licensing terms (as given by entering 'adom -b' and 'adom -g'). 6. You acknowledge that the author of ADOM is in no way responsible for damage done to your system due to ADOM usage. 7. If you play ADOM for a prolonged amount of time and enjoy it, you agree to abide by the terms of section I.C. Failure to honor these terms will be a severe violation of the license and could result in legal measures being taken if you are deemed important enough to deserve it. I.B. Distributing ADOM in magazines, on disks, etc. =================================================== You can freely distribute ADOM with magazines, in game compilations, etc. provided you abide by the following terms: 1. You honor all terms listed in section I.A. 2. You agree to notify the author of ADOM, Thomas Biskup, either by email at rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de or by sending a written letter to the following address: Thomas Biskup Timmerbrinksweg 37 45896 Gelsenkirchen Germany 3. You send two complimentary copies of your product (one for actual examination and one for being stored in my safe) to the address given under #2 (or, if it is an electronic publication, to the email address given above). Failure to do so will be a severe violation of this licensing agreement and will incur legal measures. I.C. The Postcard Quest. ======================== If you want to thank me (Thomas Biskup) for creating ADOM, maintaining it, fixing all discovered bugs, providing support and generally spending a lot of time on the game and if you are having fun with the game, please consider rewarding my efforts by sending a postcard to the following address from wherever you live: Thomas Biskup Timmerbrinksweg 37 45896 Gelsenkirchen Germany I *love* receiving postcards from all over the world. Weigh the fun ADOM gave you against the ten minutes you probably need to write and send such a postcard -- and if you find that you like and enjoy the game -- please do it. I'm really not asking much... am I? I.D. Licensing ADOM and other commercial ventures. ================================================== ADOM is an immensely successful game and I'm proud of that. Still, there are things that still could be done. If you are member of a game company and would like to publish a game that could easily be able to rival the success of Diablo by Blizzard software, two things are necessary: 1. You need a competent team of programmers and artists. 2. You need to be willing to license ADOM from me. If you are interested in such a commercial venture email me at ADOM@ADOM.DE. Consider it if you work for a game company. ADOM has been voted the most popular game 1997 on the Internet Chart of Free Downloadable Games (see http://www.worldcharts.com) and every new version is downloaded by at least 5000 persons -- and that for a game without network support or graphics that deserve that name. Now think of a game with ADOM's unrivaled engine and the great graphics used in Diablo and other products and you have a sure winner. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section II: ADOM in the Media ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== II.A. Where can I find information about ADOM? ============================================== On the Net a variety of sources concerning ADOM are available. The most important sources are the following: http://www.adom.de This is the official ADOM website. It contains all the latest news and updates concerning the game, plus all kinds of interesting links and tidbits of information. And the first parts of the upcoming ADOM Pen & Paper Roleplaying game are there, too... ftp://adom.dartmouth.edu/adom This is the official ADOM FTP server. Here you can always find the very latest distributions of the game. rec.games.roguelike.adom This is the official ADOM newsgroup. If you are looking for advice, seek other players or simply would like to discuss ADOM, this is the place to go. Here you will find many fans of the game, willing to engage in discussions of all kind. If your news server does not carry this group, make it known to your system administrator and ask him in a polite way to get the group. http://www.aleph-null.com/adom/index.html This is the primary spoiler site for ADOM, maintained by Richard Fowler. He also maintains the ADOM FAQ and collects all kinds of interesting things concerning ADOM. Visit it if you are looking for information concerning the game. ADOM has also been covered in a variety of magazines (both online and printed), but I'm sadly lacking information about most of these articles. Visit the official ADOM website and look up the respective section to find out more about this. If you know about such a publication and it's not listed on the website, please let me know with a quick email to rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de. II.B. What should I know before writing a review about ADOM? ============================================================ I am happy to see all reviews concerning ADOM, good or bad. Out of politeness I ask for two things: 1. If you write a review please let me know about it. I'd like to read it, too, and I can't do that if I don't know about it. 2. If you are printing it somewhere, please send me two complimentary issues of your magazine, so that I can show the review to my kids at some point (when I have some that is ;-) to tell them "Look, what Daddy did when he was young!". See section I.A for details. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section III: ADOM Development. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== III.A. I have some great ideas concerning ADOM. Are you interested? ==================================================================== Every day I receive about 10 emails concerning ADOM (that's more than 3000 per year). Many of them contain suggestions and many of those suggestions have been repeated again and again. Some of the more common suggestions and my replies to them have been compiled below: 1. How about a multi-player version of ADOM? ADOM's source code really is not prepared to handle multi-player code. It would be possible to add this feature if either a team of professional programmers worked on it or someone provided me with a lot of hardware and a lot more free time than I have these days. Until then, forget it! 2. How about a graphical version of ADOM? Graphics would be nice, yes. But they would have to be done in a very professional way. Adding graphics like those in Nethack is too much work for too little gain as far as I am concerned. Again, a professional team of artists and programmers would be able to do it, but since neither is available, forget about if for the time being! If you feel you could do it, do not contact me about it before you can show me at least 20 samples of graphical tiles for the game. There have been too many offers the one time I tried this without ever getting something out of it... 3. How about a BBS version of ADOM? I already talked to someone about this and this topic might be tackled after 1.0.0 is done. 4. How about an attribute roller? Maybe at some point, but then in a shareware version of ADOM. 5. How about a cheat mode? See #4. 6. How about monster inventories? Planned for Gamma 11. We'll see. 7. How about more races? I'm very hesitant about adding new races to the game, since ADOM has been designed with a background in mind and is more than just a collection of everything including the kitchen sink like Nethack. Thus there won't be races like vampires, dragons, giants, etc. The only races I ever plan to add are Ratlings, Hill Dwarves and Mist Elves. This will happen after 1.0.0 is released. 8. What about more classes? A couple of additional classes are planned for future versions (after 1.0.0), among them Pirate, Shaman, Pilgrim, Summoner, Armsmaster, Noble, Miner, ... 9. How about larger maps? I have tried to use larger-than-screen-sized maps with another roguelike game I wrote, but I don't like them. Instead I plan to add more levels in the current size, because I find this size very convenient in play (you see everything at once and you won't suffer from stupid off-screen attacks). III.B. Is ADOM still being developed? ===================================== Yes, very actively. See http://www.adom.de for details. III.C. What can I do to further ADOM's development? =================================================== Although ADOM is postcard-ware I'm not unhappy if someone feels like sending money to me :-) I need to upgrade my hardware but can't afford to do so right now. Sending a postcard (see section I.C) would also be very kind. Finally you might want to vote for for ADOM on the Internet Worldcharts. ADOM was already very successful (number #1 for many weeks) on the Chart of Free Downloadable Games, and I like to see it up there :-) Visit http://www.worldcharts.com if you'd like to do me that favor. III.D. What plans do exist for ADOM's future? ============================================= Many plans... and they constantly change :-) Visit the official ADOM website to see my current plans. III.E. What about the sources for the game? =========================================== ADOM's sources are not yet available. My original plan was to release the sources once ADOM 1.0.0 is finished and I could consider the game to be even remotely complete. Recently a couple of folks were very insensitive about my notions regarding ADOM variants and argued "If the game is available without costs I can do with the sources whatever I like". Those folks are... well... socially retarded would be too nice as a description. Let's just assume that those people really made me wonder about what I'm doing here. They really should try to create something in the scope of ADOM only once in their lives and then they might understand. Anyways, those folks annoyed the hell out of me and I'm no longer sure that I'd really like to release the sources. We'll see what happens. III.F. What about ADOM variants? ================================ There won't be any as far as I am concerned (and the already existing source code license explicitly forbids the distribution of variants). Should the source code become available, you are free to toy around with it for your private leisure but you are explicitly forbidden to distribute altered variants. My reasoning behind this is two-fold: 1. To me ADOM is more than just an exercise in creating a tactically interesting game. It's a breathing world and it's my child. Therefor I'd hate to see others toying around with it just to turn it into a munchkin-fest. 2. I already receive more than 3000 emails per year concerning ADOM. Some of those emails come from incredibly stupid people (luckily most of them do not). Those folks are not even able to take a quick glance at the manual. They also refuse to notice that I'm not responsible for whatever variants there might be. I don't want to receive another 3000 emails per year concerning variants I don't know anything about and I'm not interested in. This for sure would happen. If you don't believe me write a game as successful as ADOM and you'll see. Right now I'm spending roughly an hour per day on reading ADOM email and news postings, which is more than I realistically can afford, because I also love my work, my life and my other hobbies. III.G. Will ADOM be ported to 'xyz'? ==================================== Eventually (probably after 1.0.0 is out). Right now there are volunteers for the following systems: OS/2 Unix Solaris/SPARC BeBox Falcon Native Windows 95 Native Windows NT HPUX/DEC ALPHA Macintosh Nextstep SGI SunOS/Solaris 1.x/2.x Archimedes UnixWare IBM AIX MacLinux MVS AIX 4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3 If you'd like to port ADOM to a system not yet mentioned in that list, feel free to contact me at rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de. III.H. How about some technical details about ADOM? =================================================== ADOM is written in C and compiled with the help of GNU make (or any other make) and one Perl script (to compile the online manual). As of ADOM 0.9.9 Gamma 9 it consists of 71 '.c' modules, 74 '.h' files. This amounts to more than 120000 lines of code (slightly over 3MB for all the source files). For output ADOM uses the NCurses library under Linux. The DOS version of ADOM is compiled with DJGPP (see the information at http://www.delorie.com for a truly magnificent DOS compiler), uses the PD Curses library for output (it's damn fast) and is edited with Emacs (as is the Linux version). The Amiga version is compiled with the SAS/C compiler and utilizes a hacked curses library my friend Jochen created. As you can see, you can't write a complex roguelike game in a couple of months (ADOM required about five years to get this far). III.I. Why don't you make save files compatible between versions? ================================================================= Occasionally save files are compatible. When they are not, it's because I changed many of the internal data structures and I neither have the time nor the will to care for all the details of save file compatibility. It's tedious, it's painful and I'm not paid for it, so there's really no reason for me to work on it. III.J. How about translations of the game texts into other languages? ===================================================================== Simple answer: no chance... for several reasons: -*- ADOM is not prepared to handle multiple languages and I can't see any even moderately sane way of adjusting the sources to handle this. I don't want to keep multiple source trees updated. -*- Other languages probably have a sufficiently different grammar to require changes in the source code depending on the language being used. This is so because ADOM constructs many messages "on the fly", e.g. it has no idea how some sentences will end when they are started (especially during combat). I imagine that different languages will require major changes to the sentence structure. -*- As far as I know the Curses libraries I use at least on some systems still expect 7-bit ASCII characters -- thus there is no way of using all those fancy special characters in various languages. -*- I'm a bit doubtful of the will of some folks to translate those tons of text in ADOM -- especially all the additions that will be made with each version. It's a lot of work and what would I do if the translator for Canton chinese suddenly drops out for whatever reason? Such folks don't grow on trees, you know. -*- The sources are not yet available. III.K. Who's responsible for the various ports? =============================================== DOS, Windows xyz, OS/2, Linux: Thomas Biskup (rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de) Amiga : Jochen Terstiege (jochen@terstiege.de) Direct system-specific questions to those folks. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section IV: Miscellaneous Stuff. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== IV.A. Why aren't my emails answered? ==================================== I receive about 3000-4000 emails annually (and that's only the email I receive concerning ADOM). I rarely have enough time to answer all of them and thus these days I'm slowly developing similar tactics as the Nethack DevTeam, simply to retain my sanity. Thus bug reports are rarely answered, mostly only to get some more information about the problem sources. Questions answered by this document, the manual or common sense won't be answered any longer. Simple praise (as much as I like to receive it ;-) will also rarely be answered, usually only when I have some spare time and feel in a talkative mood. Don't take this as a personal offense, but I'm really low on time and I'm still doing this for the fun of it and not because I get paid (I do not get paid). IV.B. Why is the website for ADOM out of date? ============================================== Usually it gets updated whenever I release a new version of ADOM. In between I mostly lack the time to do so. Sorry... IV.C. Who is Thomas Biskup? =========================== Just some mortal ;-) I was born in 1971, am living in Germany and am a Computer Scientist. I like reading, cinema, good books and Internet. I love developing ADOM. I also enjoy pen & paper roleplaying games and I enjoy collecting postcards from all over the world (see section I.C). IV.D. Why has the savefile of my character disappeared after he died? ===================================================================== This is a convention of roguelike games. You are expected to play through the game without dying. It's difficult, but it's definitely possible. In my opinion this 'feature' also makes roguelike games a lot more exciting than standard rpgs. Every action you take counts and all decisions are important. Also, folks who use saved games tend to play in a more hazardous way, taking risks they are not yet prepared for and consequently dying gruesome deaths. Then those players get annoyed because "they have to play through the same thing again and again", simply because they fail to notice that they should try something else before. IV.E. Why are requests for advice not answered? =============================================== Lack of time on my part. Visit rec.games.roguelike.adom to get advice or look at one of the spoiler sites. IV.F. Does Thomas Biskup enjoy receiving binary files? ====================================================== No. DO NOT SEND ANY BINARIES UNLESS I ASK YOU TO DO SO. If you send binaries of any kind without ever having been asked to do so, you'll be regarded as an idiot who'd like to steal my precious time and I'll definitely not care for whatever you want. Sorry for sounding annoyed, but there seem to be too many folks who can't read and insist on sending useless data to me (e.g. their saved games to show me some kind of bug that has already been fixed). I'm really sick of wasting my time on such efforts and so would you, too, if you had to pay the telephone fees we have here in Germany. IV.G. When will the next version of ADOM be released? ====================================================== Don't ask 8-) Simply watch the official ADOM web page. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section V: Game-related Problems. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== V.A. What's the relation between the Mad Minstrel and the village fool? ======================================================================= Fnord. You are not cleared for this kind of information. V.B. How much weight is 'one stone' actually? ============================================= 50.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 metric grams *or* 615.38461538461538461538461538461538461538461538461538 grains *or* 32.15434083601286173633440514469453376205787781350482 pennyweights *or* 1.60756197151400186477188695624216313538886924090923 ounces *or* 0.13396134411454230767169825475160887574281565311513 pounds (for those folks suffering from imperial measurement systems ;-). V.C. Why can't I increase my weapon skills? =========================================== Change your tactics setting from Coward to something else. Use the 'T' command to do that. V.D. All my characters start out cursed. Why? ============================================== Look at the date. It's probably yet another Friday the 13th. ADOM introduces some special effects into the game because the author likes it that way. V.E. How can I activate a ring of djinni summoning? =================================================== 'U'se it. V.F. What's a 'si'? =================== No comment on the details. But it rhymes with "see" when pronounced. If you are interested in how it got into the game, here we go: Quite a number of years ago (that must have been around 1985 or so) I played a lot of AD&D with a friend. We had two characters, dwarven fighter/thieves of LN alignment named Gorko Galgenstrick and Groron Garman respectively, who lived through many many adventures. One day my friend looked at the character sheet of his character, Groron Garman, and discovered garbled writing in his list of normal items stating that he owned a "Si". We had no idea what that could be and how it got there and we were pretty puzzled but left it that way, making occasional comments about Groron's mighty artifact, the Si. Months later my friend again was revising the list of normal items his character lugged around and noticed the word "Si" in a second place on the equipment list. Now we were really puzzled and declared this item to be an artifact with unknown powers. The 'Si' in ADOM is just a kind of insider joke on my behalf to celebrate those great old days :-) V.G. Why does fire damage my character despite immunity to fire? ================================================================ You are playing a drakeling? You are right now probably exploring the tower of eternal flames? That's it. While heat increases the inherent speed of drakelings, it also damages them at some point due to over-heating. Immunity to fire damage doesn't help with such a great amount of heat. V.H. What about the Red Rooster and associated mysteries? ========================================================= No comment :-) That's one of the advantages of roguelike games without public source code. Some mysteries need quite a bit of time until they are solved by someone :-)) V.I. What's the best class/race combination? ============================================ There is no single true answer to this. It really depends on your playing style. See the various spoiler sites for comments on this. V.J. Why is the number of charges for wands I zapped not displayed? =================================================================== The number of charges is only displayed if your character is even remotely able to count and remember numbers. Game-wise this means that he must have a Learning score of at least 6. V.K. Why are scroll names readable for illiterate characters? ============================================================= It's a kind of convenience feature. Just because a person can't read doesn't mean that said person can't spot differences between two texts. Letters (and probably more so runes) look different, are positioned differently, etc. Thus ADOM allows you to see the different alias names for unidentified scrolls, even if your PC is illiterate. V.L. Why are all classes able to learn weapon skills equally well? ================================================================== First of all not all classes are able to learn weapon skills equally well (e.g. wizards need more marks to advance to the next weapon skill level). Second it is my sincere belief that -- given enough practice and the physical capabilities to do so -- you can master any skill, no matter what you were taught in your youth. V.M. I can't use command 'xyz'. Why not? ========================================= You probably still use the keymap of an older version of ADOM and command 'xyz' is a new command. Just delete the older keymap file (called either 'adom.kbd' or '.adom.kbd' depending on your OS) and let ADOM generate a new file (which it will do automatically). V.N. What do 'scurgari' look like? ================================== Scurgari (scurgar in the singular) are roughly crescent-shaped throwing blades favoured by the drakeling people all over Ancardia. The blade actually runs around the outer bow, while the inner bow has a small spike protruding from it (roughly in the center). ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section VI: Technical Problems. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== VI.A. General troubleshooting. ============================== Two major sources of problems with ADOM are known: 1. Lack of disk space. Make sure that you have enough disk space to handle a file twice the size of your current save file (ADOM creates lots of temporary files which take up size). 2. Screen resolution. ADOM is able to work with different screen resolutions. It can make use of both 80x25, 80x50 (or whatever) screens. Sadly, the save files can't be exchanged. If you started to play in one specific resolution, you also have to activate that resolution before restoring a saved game. Everything else could lead to disaster. 3. Turning off the computer without quitting ADOM beforehand. This will prevent ADOM from cleaning up its file structure. There might be all kinds of problems as a consequence. The least you can do is to delete 'adom.prc'. VI.B. DOS ========= * ADOM needs a DPMI host to run. If you don't have installed a DPMI server you can use the free DPMI server included in the ADOM package. It's called CWSDPMI.EXE. Simply run it immediately before starting ADOM and everything should be fine. Details about CWSDPMI.EXE can be found in CWSDPMI.DOC. * ADOM does not seem to work when started from a drive created with the SUBST command (refer to your DOS-documentation when you are using it). * ADOM uses a wrong color map when started on an Archimedes with a PC emulator card (yes, we even tried that :-). * ADOM seems to have problems to work together with the cache program from Norton Utilities (reported under DOS 6.22). You might want to disable the cache software before booting to play ADOM. VI.C. Windows 3.x, Windows for Workgroups, OS/2 =============================================== * Don't try to run ADOM from within Windows. Windows creates swap files which can grow at a pretty ugly rate and this might eat up your disk space without allowing you to notice it. If ADOM runs out of disk space, it crashes in an ugly way. The same is true for OS/2. VI.D. Windows NT, Windows 95 ============================ * ADOM potentially encounters problems when faced with long file names (longer than the old DOS 8+3 scheme). If you are using long file names for ADOM (e.g. a directory like c:\games\roguelike\adom, where 'roguelike' does not fit into the 8+3 scheme), you must set the following environment variable (either in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or manually before starting ADOM): SET LFN=y This allows ADOM to handle long file names. * Heed the advice in section VI.C. VI.E. Linux/FreeBSD =================== * Recent Linux ADOM versions (099g9 and older) seem to have problems with older C libraries under Linux (older than 5.4). Save a character and then check the save file directory. If the save file name mostly is made up from '_' characters you are a victim of the bug. Upgrade your libc. * Occasionally, ADOM seems to encounter problems with old a.out systems (especially with old a.out curses library versions). * ADOM has some problems to read the correct key codes under X. * ADOM does seem to have some problems with the latest libc libraries. So far I was able to fix all encountered bugs, but if you notice strange crashes under Linux, please tell me about your libc version. * ADOM seems to encounter a variety of problems if your directories are spread with links across a network -- that's a real problem :-^ * If you experience problems with colors, you might try to use the following termcap entry (Erwin Andreasen provided this entry; be warned -- it's just a hack). This seems to be needed for the latest versions of ADOM (starting with Gamma 10), which now are compiled with NCurses 3.0, when playing under Debian. Another solution is to upgrade to NCurses 4.2. After installing the ncurses-base_4.2-1 package (which contains only the "linux" terminfo entry and a few other common ones like "vt100", and no libraries), ADOM g10 has the correct colors under Linux. Here's the workaround: linux|console|con80x25|dumb, am, bce, eo, mir, msgr, xenl, xon, colors#8, cols#80, it#8, lines#25, pairs#64, bel=^G, blink=\E[5m, bold=\E[1m, civis=\E[?25l, clear=\E[H\E[J, cnorm=\E[?25h, cr=^M, csr=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dr, cub1=^H, cud1=^J, cuf1=\E[C, cup=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dH, cuu1=\E[A, dch=\E[%p1%dP, dch1=\E[P, dl=\E[%p1%dM, dl1=\E[M, ed=\E[J, el=\E[K, flash=\E[?5h\E[?5l, home=\E[H, ht=^I, hts=\EH, ich=\E[%p1%d@, ich1=\E[@, il=\E[%p1%dL, il1=\E[L, ind=^J, ka1=\E[1~, kb2=\E[5~, kbs=^H, kc1=\E[4~, kc3=\E[6~, kcub1=\E[D, kcud1=\E[B, kcuf1=\E[C, kcuu1=\E[A, kdch1=\E[3~, kend=\E[4~, kf0=\E[21~, kf1=\E[[A, kf10=\E[21~, kf11=\E[23~, kf12=\E[24~, kf13=\E[25~, kf14=\E[26~, kf15=\E[28~, kf16=\E[29~, kf17=\E[31~, kf18=\E[32~, kf19=\E[33~, kf2=\E[[B, kf20=\E[34~, kf3=\E[[C, kf4=\E[[D, kf5=\E[[E, kf6=\E[17~, kf7=\E[18~, kf8=\E[19~, kf9=\E[20~, khome=\E[1~, kich1=\E[2~, kll=\E[4~, knp=\E[6~, kpp=\E[5~, kspd=^Z, nel=^M^J, op=\E[37;40m, rc=\E8, rev=\E[7m, ri=\EM, rmacs=\E[10m, rmir=\E[4l, rmpch=\E[10m, rmso=\E[m, rmul=\E[24m, rs1=\Ec, sc=\E7, setab=\E[4%p1%dm, setaf=\E[3%p1%dm, setb=\E[%p1%'('%+%cm, setf=\E[%p1%{30}%+%cm, sgr0=\E[0;10m, smacs=\E[11m, smcup=\E[r\E[H, smir=\E[4h, smpch=\E[11m, smso=\E[7m, smul=\E[4m, tbc=\E[3g, u6=\E[%p1%d;%p2%dR, u7=\E[6n, u8=\E[?6c, u9=\E[c, (yes, the trailing comma is correct) Suppose the terminfo source entry is in "linux.ti". Then as root, type "tic -v linux.ti". Current directory is irrelevant; the compiled version will go to the place pointed to by the TERMINFO environment variable, or /usr/lib/terminfo (default location) if that variable is not set. The -v is for verbose and thus optional. A note for FreeBSD users (thanks to Walter Hafner for making this known to me): FreeBSD usually does not seem to have a terminfo database. You can create one from termcap by typing 'tconv -c -B /usr/share/misc/termcap' (at your own risk ;-). Cautious people should back up the existing linux terminfo entry before doing this. It's normally found in /usr/lib/terminfo/l/linux. There may be other links to this file -- "c/console", for instance. You'll only need to back up one of them. * You want colors under X? This also is possible. Try the following (thanks to Massimo Campostrini for providing the information): Include in your resource file (possibly ~/.Xdefaults) xadom*color0: #000000 xadom*color1: #ff0000 xadom*color2: #00ff00 xadom*color3: #ffaa00 xadom*color4: #2222ff xadom*color5: #ff00ff xadom*color6: #00ffff xadom*color7: #ffffff xadom*color8: #666666 xadom*color9: #ff5555 xadom*color10: #00aa00 xadom*color11: #ffff00 xadom*color12: #8888ff xadom*color13: #ff69b4 xadom*color14: #00aaaa xadom*color15: #aaaaaa xadom*background: #000000 xadom*foreground: #ffffff xadom*cursorColor: #00ff00 xadom*VT100.Translations: #override \n\ R7: string("7") \n\ R8: string("8") \n\ Up: string("8") \n\ R9: string("9") \n\ R10: string("4") \n\ Left: string("4") \n\ R11: string("5") \n\ R12: string("6") \n\ Right: string("6") \n\ R13: string("1") \n\ R14: string("2") \n\ Down: string("2") \n\ R15: string("3") \n\ NoneKP_1: string("1") \n\ NoneKP_2: string("2") \n\ NoneKP_3: string("3") \n\ NoneKP_4: string("4") \n\ NoneKP_5: string("5") \n\ NoneKP_6: string("6") \n\ NoneKP_7: string("7") \n\ NoneKP_8: string("8") \n\ NoneKP_9: string("9") \n\ CtrlKP_1: string("w1") \n\ CtrlKP_2: string("w2") \n\ CtrlKP_3: string("w3") \n\ CtrlKP_4: string("w4") \n\ CtrlKP_5: string("w5") \n\ CtrlKP_6: string("w6") \n\ CtrlKP_7: string("w7") \n\ CtrlKP_8: string("w8") \n\ CtrlKP_9: string("w9") \n\ MetaKP_1: string("a11") \n\ MetaKP_2: string("a12") \n\ MetaKP_3: string("a13") \n\ MetaKP_4: string("a14") \n\ MetaKP_5: string("a15") \n\ MetaKP_6: string("a16") \n\ MetaKP_7: string("a17") \n\ MetaKP_8: string("a18") \n\ MetaKP_9: string("a19") \n\ F11: string("-") \n\ F12: string("+") \n\ Prior: string("-") \n\ Next: string("+") \n\ End: string("\n") \n\ KP_Divide: string("T-- ") \n\ KP_Multiply:string("T++ ") Tune colors and key bindings to your taste. Remember to run xrdb after each change: xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults Now start a color xterm (the "standard" xterm in Red Hat 4.1 or later is fine) using the "xadom" resources: xterm -title xadom -name xadom -g 80x37 & In the new xterm, select the appropriate terminal type, e.g. "pcansi". setenv TERM pcansi (for tcsh) eval `resize` (to be conservative) silly_path/adom ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section VII: Bugs. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== VII.A. How to submit bugs? ========================== ADOM probably contains many bugs (as do most programs of a certain size). If ADOM somehow crashes you will have to take care of several things before you can continue to play. In case you happen to encounter a bug, you will probably have to cope with one of the following two kinds of scenarios: 1. The program exits with an error message (maybe saving your game before doing so). In this case please note down the _exact_ error message and describe what you did last before the program exited. If ADOM dumps some binary data, please also note it down exactly! 2. The program crashed without giving any hints why it would do so. This is very, very bad... try to remember what you did last. Try to reproduce the error. If you manage to reproduce it, write a step-by- step description on what one has to do to see the error. If you do not manage to reproduce it, try to describe what you did last in as much detail as possible. Look for a file called 'adom.err' (it should be somewhere on your hard disk in case of crash type #1). Copy it and send it to me together with your bug report. After you have collected all necessary data about the error as described above, try to make the problem known to the developer. This is possible if you have access to Internet EMail. If you do have such access, write an email to the following address: adom-bugs@saranxis.ruhr.de If you have access to the World Wide Web, you preferrably will use the automated bug report form at http://www.adom.de/adom/submit-bugs.shtml which ensures, that all necessary data will be there. Please include the following data (if possible): * The version of ADOM you are using; please look carefully at the title screen of your game version. If your version lists the following text below the game title and the normal version number, you also need to record the value of 'x': Gamma Release x * The system your version is running on (OS name, OS version). * The bug description (see above). * Any other comments that you feel would be helpful. * Your full real life name (so that I can include you in the credits section in case you have discovered a new bug). Please do _not_ include any of the following things: * Binaries of any kind. * Binary patches (rather detail where you believe the mistake to be). * Flames about this shitty piece of software. * Anything else not specifically requested by the developer. As soon as your bug report arrives, I'll try to do something about it. Probably you will receive another email requesting more information or asking specific questions. Should I be able to locate an error because of your input, your name will be added to the credits and eternal fame will be yours :-) VII.B. Which bugs are known? ============================ See the official ADOM website for this kind of information. Visit http://www.adom.de to do so. VII.C. Command 'xyz' does not seem to work in my version... =========================================================== You probably copied ADOM over an older installation. ADOM's keyboard definitions are contained in a file called 'adom.kbd' (or '.adom.kbd' for Linux and Amiga systems). Delete that file and ADOM automatically will create a new file for you. If you have added customizations of your own to that file you would like to keep, you also might want to try to type 'adom -k -r'. This will have ADOM create a file called 'keyref.kbd' which contains all command definitions for the current version of ADOM. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== Section VIII - Installation. ===--------------------------------------------------------------------=== VIII.A. DOS, OS/2, Windows xyz ============================== Installing ADOM is very simple. This section will tell you how to install ADOM step by step. An example will explain each step. means that you have to press the enter key after that command. The '>' represents the command prompt of the DOS shell. Let's assume that you want to install ADOM on your hard disc drive C: in the directory \games\adom. The file ADOM-xxx.ZIP (xxx is normally the current version number, e.g. 099) for the sake of the example is located on your floppy drive B:. The directory C:\GAMES already exists. You need to do the following: c: cd \games mkdir adom cd adom copy B:\ADOM-xxx.ZIP pkunzip ADOM-xxx.ZIP del ADOM-xxx.ZIP This will install the archive at the location you intended it to be (in the example). Next you will have to set an environment variable which will tell ADOM where to look for the highscore and where to save games. To do this you will have to edit the autoexec.bat file in the root directory of your boot drive (C: in most cases). Add the following line at the end of the autoexec.bat and then save the file: SET ADOM_HOME=C:\GAMES\ADOM It is important to use the complete path, drive letter included. Finally you have to add the directory chosen for ADOM_HOME to your path. After you have done this just reboot the computer. Now you should be able to play ADOM. If you don't set the ADOM_HOME environment variable, ADOM will create all necessary files during the game and the highscore file in the directory you started ADOM in. VIII.B. Linux ============= When installing ADOM you have two choices. If you have access to root privileges you can install Linux system-wide. If you are just a simple user, installing ADOM is also possible. * Uncompressing the package -------------------------- Distributions of ADOM usually consist of one file either called 'adom-xyz-elf.tar.gz' or 'adom-xyz-aout.tar.gz'. The 'xyz' normally corresponds to the version number contained in the distribution (e.g. 070 for version 0.7.0). To install the package you need to issue the following two commands: gunzip adom-xyz-aout.tar.gz tar xf adom-xyz-aout.tar After doing this you should change to the new directory (called 'adom') and then continue as described below depending on whether you have root privileges or not. Installing ADOM globally will be a bit of work so that you should try the local version if you just want to take a quick look at it. If you like what you see you can still install it globally. * If you _do_ have root privileges: ----------------------------------- The following description will assume that you want to use the directory '/var/lib/adom' as your global highscore directory and that the binary itself will be installed in the directory '/usr/games'. First of all you will have to create a new user (e.g. named 'adomown') and a new group (also named 'adomown'). To create the new group you will have to add the following line to your /etc/group file: adomown:*::adomown The term has to be replaced by the smallest number larger than 99 that is not used by any other group. Note the number. You will need it once more. To create the new user you will have to add the following line to the /etc/passwd file: adomown:*:::adomown:/usr/games: The term has to be replaced by the number you used above for the group entry. The term has to be replaced by a valid user id. Next you will need to copy the adom-binary to the /usr/games directory. Then enter the /usr/games directory and type the following: chown adomown.adomown adom chmod +x adom chmod +s adom Now we are nearly done. You need to create the highscore directory /var/lib/adom. The directory has to be owned by 'adomown' (both user and group ownership). The correct privileges can be set with chown adomown.adomown /var/lib/adom chmod 775 /var/lib/adom Finally you will have to create a file in the /etc directory called 'adom_ds.cfg', which must contain but one text line: the path to the highscore directory (in our example '/var/lib/adom'). The configuration file '.adom.cfg' for the individual users has to be put into the home directory of each user wishing to utilize the configuration variables (see the manual for details). The highscore will be saved in /var/lib/adom/.HISCORE (if you are using the default values). Finally you should make sure that the path variable lists the path to the globally installed ADOM binary before the one to any home directories. * If you do _not_ have root privileges: --------------------------------------- Copy the adom binary into a directory of your choice. This directory must be included in your PATH variable. To play ADOM just type 'adom'. In your home directory several subdirectories will be created: .adom.data/ to hold all data files .adom.data/tmpdat/ to hold the temporary files during a game .adom.data/savedg/ to hold the saved games Also two files might be created in your home directory: .adom.data/.HISCORE: to save the scores of your games .adom.prc: a lock file to prevent you from starting ADOM more than once