Game News Tales of Maj'Eyal v1.0.0 Released

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Roguelike; Tales of Maj'Eyal

The Tales of Maj'Eyal roguelike, more commonly known as ToME4, has had a 1.0.0 release, "And the Sky Full of Stars," just a couple of days after Release Candidate 4 came out. There is no changelog that I've been able to find, so I guess this version is basically identical to RC4. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The board is set, the pieces are moving.

Nearly three years ago I uttered those same words when releasing the first beta of ToME4. Before that there were 20 closed alphas and since then 43 betas and 4 RC releases, all played and loved by an increasing number of players, now over ten thousand.

During all this time my goal has never changed: to build a game that is both deep and complex but also fun and as accessible as possible. I have never believed in grinding, and have in many cases gone against the "traditional roguelike way" and I have always done it with those goals in mind.

Today is payoff time! For three years I have worked extremely hard on this game because I fell in love with it and I am blessed because others did too: great, fun, nice people; some of which also helped in the making of the game; each in their own way. To them, and to all my players, I send a huge "Thanks, I love you girls and guys!"

Without further annoying chit-chat, and with immense pleasure, I give you: Tales of Maj'Eyal 1.0.0. Go download it from http://te4.org/

If you wish to help me a little more you can do two things:
- Send a donation, they really help: http://te4.org/donate
- Go vote for ToME on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93674769

Now go have fun my minions, live and die in Eyal!​

There's also a trailer to accompany the new release:

​

 

[VirInvictus]

Downloading now.

I haven't actually played this yet.

Really looking forward to it!

Thanks!

 

[General Maxson]

I will enjoy this.

 

[A user named cat]

This does deserve to be on Steam. Sure looks a hell of a lot better than Dungeons of Derpmor that got boring after 2 hours.

 

[BaconAndEggs]

You can never have too many roguelikes.

 

[thesheeep]

I have played an earlier version of this some months ago and it was already great back then. Great enough for me to donate at least 15$.
IMO this is the best roguelike there is, currently. And it seems to be constantly getting better.

 

[Lightknight]

You can never have too many roguelikes.

I cant exactly agree that it is indeed a roguelike, and some stupid design decisions are still not fixed, but okay, it's a slightly above average RPG.

IMO this is the best roguelike there is, currently.

Sorry, but the best there is ? What with all the thousand stupid resistances and damage types, cooldowns, constantly being one-shotted without any warning or ability to prevent that, useless gold, and no practical use for procedural map generation ? Really ? The best there is ?

 

[Jasede]

It really doesn't measure up to the likes of ADOM or Nethack, timeless classics that are still played with fervor even today. And we haven't even touched on Crawl or Incursion yet.

 

[Hirato]

What with all the thousand stupid resistances and damage types,

They told me once, but I forget. A bunch of the exotic types are actually combinations types, I don't quite remember, but I believe it resulted in things like, physical + acid == slime, or cold + water == ice.
A lot of the damage types are basically more of these.

constantly being one-shotted without any warning or ability to prevent that

Whilst I agree with the one shotting thing being annoying, you're apparently supposed to regularly invest in constitution, and if you play defensively/cautiously, there are plenty of means of surprising your enemies, and obliterating them before they even know what hit them.

Take the various mage classes for example, they have "Arcane Eye" which will reveal creatures within an area, assuming there aren't obstacles in your way. And other classes have Infravision and company as class abilities, and there are also sunlight infusions and other light spells to light things up for you.
And use auto-explore unless you're the type who likes to explore unexplored areas slowly and methodologically.
IIRC, non-mage classes can get access to Arcane Eye as a quest reward.

It really doesn't measure up to the likes of ADOM or Nethack, timeless classics that are still played with fervor even today. And we haven't even touched on Crawl or Incursion yet.

DarkGod is about to start a year long "make a game with t-engine" competition with about 500 pounds up for grabs as prize money.
I'm sure some codexers could band together to recreate one of those in tome's engine.

I otherwise agree with you, ToME gets rather boring rather quickly, it's non-stop combat, and the monster variety isn't particularly large either, and levels contain very little that's interactive.
Aside from that I also agree with thesheeep's sentiments, in that it's constantly getting better.

 

[SCO]

Its interface is basically unparalleled in the genre.
In a mire of autist programmers, this games is the only one that even attempted to make configurable shortcuts, auto explore auto cast conditions and alternate full mouse with drag interface, how sad is that?

 

[Alex]

Its interface is basically unparalleled in the genre.
In a mire of autist programmers, this games is the only one that even attempted to make configurable shortcuts, auto explore auto cast conditions and alternate full mouse with drag interface, how sad is that?

Eh, I got used to Roguelike interfaces. Maybe a lot of people don't play them because of that and graphics, but I actually prefer to play these games on a console window. using just the keyboard and ascii to represent stuff.

 

[Mackerel]

It is the very model of a modern major roguelike.

 

[oscar]

Hm, a rougelike with nice graphics.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

It's a beautiful looking game with an incredibly user-friendly interface, but I prefer the original TOME over this one. My level 1 halfling rogue has more than 100 hit points and easily killed a troll with his dual-wielded daggers. There was little strategy involved during my short play session, as I just hacked up all that opposed me. In earlier rogue-like games I often had to flee and heal often during the low levels, or attack at a ranged distance. The head-on approach I am using now would have gotten me killed in the original TOME.

 

[GG Rex]

Haters gonn' hate.

TOME 4 a fast-paced, action-packed roguelike. Fast, furious and challenging. (aka proper roguelike "challenging" that you probably won't complete it on your first 50+ tries unless you're a roguelike veteran or they somehow drastically reduced the difficulty in the past month).

Guys who say it's easy: it's only "easy" at the very start when you're getting comfortable with your class, if you've picked a strong "click everything to death" class like berserker or archer (try the yeek mindslayer start...). Get to 20+ level dungeons with monsters that can perma-stun and/or freeze you (or worse, like sending you to a hellish dimension for a 1v1 fight) and, well, prepare to die.

It's an entirely different beast from Nethack. Nethack is the "fairy tale" of roguelikes, slow paced and full charm and little quirks. I'll probably replay it once a year, like I'd re-watch LotR or some such. Crawl is just a competitive-spirited roguelike where everything is so fine and balanced that I don't really want to play it anymore. Excellent production quality but a bit too "dry" on soul. ADOM is great and has "overworld" (same as TOME) but feels very unfinished, same reason I won't replay it any time soon.

The biggest difference to most roguelikes is opposite distribution of difficulty. It's easy at start, gets harder in the middle and can get very hard closer to end if you haven't really made a powerhouse build. In Nethack, for instance, you p. much become immortal past midgame unless you do something really stupid (like drown). Same with Crawl, where most characters are discarded at the earliest levels.

I'd recommend any roguelike/RPG fan to give TOME4 a try and get past at least first 5 locations. If you don't like it by then, well, at least you tried.

 

[Larendav]

What lovely looking . Downloading.

 

[Karmapowered]

The game came as a good surprise to me.

I am usually not really into rogue-likes, because most are too random and dry to my tastes, but really because most are randomly, crushingly chaotic random during my very first steps experiencing them. This then supposes using guides, forums, wikis, or endure/enjoy climbing their learning curve by restarting from scratch each time, learning to make sense of the game mechanics, its interface, and keep playing. Still, sometimes nostalgia or curiosity takes me over, and I've played DCSS (discovered thanks to Crispy), LTS or Elona for extended times.

Tome4 has a fairly large world with a background and lore, introducing the player to the races, characters and quests. I am not allergic to ASCII art, as I happen to enjoy text-only games, but I appreciated that the game came with a good looking, fluid and functional interface that allowed me to efficiently play the game within minutes. It's possible to play the game in pure ASCII, if desired.

I picked Archer as my first class, since I wanted to kill stuff from distance, and I later learned that it happens to be one of the easiest to start with (the easiest being the summoner). Not all classes/races are avalaible initially, since they have to be unlocked during the game. After getting the Archmage class, I decided to try out a new character, and was promptly one-shotted by some ghost (?) within minutes of reaching the newbie area. Different races/classes seem to all have distinct areas they start in.

I could resume playing with the same character however, since I had picked "Adventurer" difficulty, one out of the four "birth options", handling permadeath. This mode provides you with limited extra "lives". The first and only one is granted at level 1, the last one is granted around level 35, the highest level being 50 (to my knowledge). Once this pool depleted, death is permanent. There is the familiar "Roguelike" difficulty, permadeath starting at level 1, "Infinite lives" difficulty, avalaible only to donators as I understand it, and "Wilder" difficulty, which needs to be unlocked in game.

Do not think that the game remains easy for ever though. Whatever class you chose, once past a certain level (around 15/20 I'd say), the difficulty and lethality of monsters seriously ramps up. Also, some unexpected and wandering "hazards" might make your life more painful during your travels.

From what I could see, dungeons in themselves have puzzles, lore, fairly nasty bosses, and are well-designed, which will force you to rethink your usual "stay in 1-tile wide corridors to kill mobs one by one" tactics. I really enjoyed the sandworm dungeon for its original design, for example.

It has nice music, atmosphere, a larger pool of diablo-style items (with sets) than you could probably dream of, gems that can further enhance your gear, runes and infusions that act like talents (with cooldown), feats, spells, well, everything a good RPG should actually have. There is even some limited "C&C", siding with factions.

If there is little in matters of guides or online documentation yet (there is a wiki), people on the forums of the game proved immediately helpful, the main developer seems attentive and hard-working, so one can expect new features in the future. To be honest, you won't need any guide though. The game really plays intuitively, if you ever have played another rogue-like before. That's a plus in my book.

The selling point however of the game to me was that the game comes as customizable by the users themselves. Don't like some feature ? Change it, improve it, or remove it, thanks to a mod you can easily create, and share with others on the site of the game.

As I said before, Tome4 really comes as heartidly recommended by me. Don't forget to drop by their forums for a donation, or a thank you to the developer.

 

[Micmu]

To play full version you need to register, which is cool, but not only it requires online account, you then need to stay always online. In a single player indie game?
Thanks but no fucking thanks.

It is the very model of a modern major rogue-like.

We had very similar simplified rogue-likes with graphical interface before (like Castle of the Winds). Needless to say they came without always online crap, if that's what you mean by "modern".

 

[Zdzisiu]

Uh what? You dont need to register and you dont need to be always online. It allows you to use the in-game chat and thats all. The only other thing that registering (Which is free) gives you is that is shows your char in the online character vault for everybody to see.

Im not sure what you mean by "Full version".

 

[Micmu]

2/3 of classes are "locked" and available in online mode only.

 

[Hirato]

No, those and a bunch of other things are unlocked through play.

EDIT:
The races and classes that are unlocked are much more difficult to play than those you start with, Essentially it's a means of gently introducing you to the more complex facets of the game.

ie, you start off as a Shalor Archer, play a bit, unlock a bunch of stuff, and start a new character as a yeek temporal mage who is to fight in the arena, etc.

EDIT2:
Almost forgot, there is one donator only class.
The "Stone Warden" Class, which I think is dwarf exclusive. It doesn't appear to be in the SVN builds so I cannot verify.
Donators also get the ability to store items in their fortress and pass it onto other characters, these slots go at 1 per 2 pounds, I have yet to try this functionality.

 

[Zdzisiu]

I can confirm that the donator class is dwarf exclusive. Its dual shield wielding class. It is going to become available to everybody when DarkGod will create another class for donators.

 

[Castanova]

The biggest difference to most roguelikes is opposite distribution of difficulty. It's easy at start, gets harder in the middle and can get very hard closer to end if you haven't really made a powerhouse build. In Nethack, for instance, you p. much become immortal past midgame unless you do something really stupid (like drown). Same with Crawl, where most characters are discarded at the earliest levels.

Not sure why you believe this is a good thing. According to what you said, all roguelikes have boring sections. Classic roguelikes make you go thorugh the boring section only on your way to a win while Tome4 makes you go through the boring section every... single... fucking... time.

Also, indeed, most Crawl characters die early on but the whole game is challenging for most characters, from start to finish.

 

[Karmapowered]

Neither Crawl, nor Tome are boring to me. I perceive them as different but equally good games.

Most "classic" rogue-likes, or even "modern" shit like DF, however I perceive as boring/inferior.

What's wrong with to each their own ?

 

[Castanova]

Neither Crawl, nor Tome are boring to me. I perceive them as different but equally good games.

Most "classic" rogue-likes, or even "modern" shit like DF, however I perceive as boring/inferior.

What's wrong with to each their own ?

Huh? I was using the word "boring" to describe the sections of any roguelike that are easy. The "difficulty curve" of each roguelike is a mostly objective measure, not subjective so, no, your playing the relativity card isn't going to help. The fact is, for most characters, the early game of Tome4 is easy, the early game of Crawl is hard. Why would you want to repeatedly spend time on easy roguelike content? That's what Tome4 is asking you to do.