Great game!

I absolutely love MageGuild. It's the best Rougelike I've ever played. (I'm even not playing NetHack because of it!)

I especially love the Potion Mixing system, my only complaint is that there could be more item variations. Like, Gnarled Stick of Unsummon Walrus +2(Stupid example, I know.), But I guess that would be very hard to code in.


Absolutely incredible so far. Keep up the great work, I'm certainly not letting my eye off of this one.

One cannot overstate the importance of being able to unsummon a walrus at the drop of a hat. I agree that more item variation would be nice; lots of items that are in now weren't in the original plan, and they got added along the way. I'm just very leery of adding items that aren't very strongly differentiated from one another; for example, I don't want to back into a situation where there are purely incremental differences between items, like a Small Potion of Life vs a Large Potion of Life, as a vaguely silly example. But no, I definately haven't dropped a moratorium on new items, or on new subtypes of existing items. (In fact, I'd wager there are a few out there you haven't found yet. )

If you have any specific ideas, feel free to throw them out.

I'm pretty sure there are quite a few I haven't found yet.

Adding +1 modifiers and so on to certain things would be quite nice, and quite possibly more Armor and Staff types if you haven't already added those.


Oh, and why are Naiads so unappreciative? I ressurected one into a Wraith and it started slapping me constantly, draining my life through it's hands. (I ended up dying because of it)


A Gnarled Stick of Unsummon Walrus +2 would make a mighty fine prank item, I must say.

God help me, there's already an easter egg item in there; if anyone finds it without source-diving, I'll be surprised.

Barring that...I'm pretty wedded to the idea of only one weapon which is (effectively) glued to your hand, although there are things you can do to make it function differently. I've thought about 'armor', of some sufficiently wizardly nature...amulets, maybe, or robes. Not entirely sure how I feel about that, long term, but it's worth considering further.

It's not just Naiads. Generally, intelligent creatures resent you attempting to control them, and attempting to raise one as an undead servant (regardless of method) qualifies. The more intelligent the creature, the more likely they'll turn on you. Creatures tend to be more pleasantly inclined toward you if you resurrect them, but leave their will intact. Creature intelligence actually effects quite a number of things, in regard to their behavior and reaction to spells.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Neat system you have there. (In between typing this message, I got killed by a Naiad. Ironic.)

The whole thing about a Single Weapon.. That's perfectly fine, and yeah, I'd like it if you considered wizardly Armor.


Easter egg item? I'll hunt it down.


Oh, and I managed to edit the Default Tiles sheet so that my character is red. Hope you don't mind. I might actually change the Default Tiles sheet a little and upload it if you want, just so people can have a bit of variety.

Heh...be my guest, edit whatever tiles you feel like. I'm definately not satisfied with the tilesheet as-is; there are going to be fixes there, when I actually get some time to work on that. I eventually plan to make the tile sheet selectable on the options screen, so that it's easier to support multiple tilesets.

Hey Magi, welcome here!

I like what you did to the tiles and on your mage color, it looks a lot fresher, no offense Nahjor. hehe

I agree, having a single weapon for the whole game that can't get broken or ruined and not needing a replacement is a fun new concept among roguelikes. Most roguelikes are all about the armor and weapons, hoping to find that lucky wish granting you your new play things, but Mage Guild is not like that, which is very endearing.

If Nahjor were to add armor, it would be fine to add amulets, rings, trinkets, charms, all the mage like things hah.
Mage Guild may be fine with like wizard hats, robes, cloaks, boots/sandals, hoods, basically all clothes mage characters would wear in other games, since it is Mage Guild.


Also, I was reading over the help file again and this sentence caught my eye: "If one asks, the elder mages will open a portal to a pocket dimension of their own creation, an endless maze of twisting passages and darkened rooms." I think it would be a really great way to introduce something like "dungeon templates". For example, there could be a set of 7 wizards that make these portals, each named, and each of their dimensions could vary in ways ranging from minor to major. Grand Wizard Archibald may decide to create a stirge lair on depth 4, while Enchantress Selina could have a thing for naiads and produce a bunch more of them than usual. This could also be a nice way to introduce "artifacts of great power" again from the help file, such as Selina's Charming Amulet.

Basically, it would add a bit of differentiation between characters, a bit more excitement about what looms around the corner, an opportunity to introduce new features, and charming layer of plot (maybe in the form of a text screen at character creation which tells you a bit about the wizard who created your dungeon, to immerse as well as to give fair warning).

I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement, but half the fun is fantasizing!

Oh, my. I may have to use that idea. That may be a v1.x idea, but I dig it.

I like that idea as well.

Be my guest, I would be flattered if you did!

My suggestions in bulleted form, since my post has been eaten twice for various reasons:

--I love the dungeon template idea.


--Dungeon features (shops, altars, vaults, etc.) could be implemented, but obviously not those because they wouldn’t really fit that well. But something would be nice, breaking up the descent is always fun. Maybe something like a random Sokoban-type puzzle would be fun.


--Non-traditional armor system, focusing more on amulets, rings, robes, hats, maybe?


--Artifacts, they are always fun!


--Something to differentiate characters. Flesh out the class system? The edge system is cool, but another level of differentiation would be great, because right now there is a coffee break character creation in a non-coffee break environment.


--More potions! I adore the system as it stands, but wouldn’t it be cool if there were a bunch of rather rarer potions that the player would have to use carefully, deciding whether to use them at face value, mix them and take the risk of a new discovery, fall back on a tried-and-true recipe, or even throw them at monsters!

Don’t let the amount of suggestions fool you. I love this game so far and I look forward to tracking the progress of this roguelike. And in a few years when this is alongside the major ones, I’ll say that I was among the first registered users on the first forum, haha

I definately like some of those ideas; one of them is about to start to crop up in v0.6. Not sure how far it'll go, we'll see.




Oh, and hold on to your butts.

Nahjor wrote:

I definately like some of those ideas; one of them is about to start to crop up in v0.6. Not sure how far it'll go, we'll see.




Oh, and hold on to your butts.

Awesome, any one of the ideas that I posted would make me a very happy camper!

Welcome to the happy Mage Guild forum, Dryst!!!

I like your suggestions!
Would like to see some of them implemented, too!

JMskit wrote:

Welcome to the happy Mage Guild forum, Dryst!!!

I like your suggestions!
Would like to see some of them implemented, too!

Thanks for the welcome!

Dryst wrote:

My suggestions in bulleted form, since my post has been eaten twice for various reasons:

--I love the dungeon template idea.


--Dungeon features (shops, altars, vaults, etc.) could be implemented, but obviously not those because they wouldn’t really fit that well. But something would be nice, breaking up the descent is always fun. Maybe something like a random Sokoban-type puzzle would be fun.


--Non-traditional armor system, focusing more on amulets, rings, robes, hats, maybe?


--Artifacts, they are always fun!


--Something to differentiate characters. Flesh out the class system? The edge system is cool, but another level of differentiation would be great, because right now there is a coffee break character creation in a non-coffee break environment.


--More potions! I adore the system as it stands, but wouldn’t it be cool if there were a bunch of rather rarer potions that the player would have to use carefully, deciding whether to use them at face value, mix them and take the risk of a new discovery, fall back on a tried-and-true recipe, or even throw them at monsters!

Don’t let the amount of suggestions fool you. I love this game so far and I look forward to tracking the progress of this roguelike. And in a few years when this is alongside the major ones, I’ll say that I was among the first registered users on the first forum, haha

My thoughts on your suggestions:

Yeah, the dungeon templates would be cool. I'd like it if it wasn't something generic like "this is the razor fiend level, next is the vampire level" or something cliche like going through the standard fantasy elemental levels. Something that would affect your choice of tactics would be good, like a level filled with magical energy that lets you charge up to level 1 for free, but maybe intelligent monsters can fire energy at you there as well or something like that, or an open battlefield arena with a bunch of allied creatures where you fight a large number of concentrated enemies, or just something that would mix it up while hopefully not seeming gimmicky.

Dungeon features could be good, but no Sokoban!

New items might be good, but I like the unique functionality of items in this game, where everything does something clearly noticable, measurable, and in an intuitive manner, unlike, say, angband, where you equipment has you crunching all kinds of random numbers, and where you *need* x equipment with y resistance to get through certain areas. If the items/artifacts/equipment were clever, unique, and didn't conflict with the present "feel" of the game, then I'd be fine with it.

The thing is though, that every fantasy wizard game has you hunting down the magical hat and robe that give you special powers, and I like that this game is different. I don't want to go hunt down new upgraded staves, because the one I start with is already an awesome, versatile weapon, and I'd rather see more functionality packed into that one weapon than have a slew of single-use items.

I kind of disagree with the character creation feeling like a coffee break game. I think the edges give you a ton of freedom, allowing a ton of different playstyles, much more than most roguelike games. It feels a lot better than most roguelikes, and I'd say it's about on par with ToME's skill system. With that said, more variety is always good. While I'm on the subject, "Enhanced Power" is really underpowered. It's the equivalent to starting with one potion of gain energy, whereas toughness is like having five potions of gain life.

Apologies for the big wall of text, and if I seemed overly negative. I don't hate your suggestions, and I certainly don't dislike Mage Guild.