Digital crowdfunding reward ready: Map of the Drakalor Chain

Dear ADOM: Resurrect ADOM Development crowdfunding donors,

if you donated in the campaign at the Champion level (or above) you now can download your digital copy of our beautiful Drakalor Chain map (designed by our incredible Team ADOM art director, the one and only Krzysztof Dycha [„Ravenmore“]). It already has been presented on the back cover of the ADOM Lite RPG and now is available in a huge resolution optimally suited for beautiful prints.

Update 13th of November: 9:31pm GMT +1: The PDF download now also is available.

To get your download just log in to the ADOM crowdfunding fulfillment portal and click on the download links.

Have fun!

Thomas Biskup
ADOM Maintainer

P.S.: And if you have not registered your current address for physical rewards you might be eligible to, please do that right now, too 😉

ADOM R57 has been released

Hi everyone!

We are proud to announce ADOM R57 – yet another closed prerelease test version. It’s available from the usual download site for anyone in the closed prerelease tester circle. You can find the change log here.

This release is another bug fix release while we are preparing for the Steam release. Our current plan is to:

• have maybe one other closed bug fix release (if any serious problems are found in R57)
• have a public ADOM release (ADOM 1.2.0p23 is more than a year old and there is so much new stuff that we want to have some public feedback on all the new features before going to Steam).
• then have the Steam release.

Realistically we are half a year behind our time plan and the Steam release probably will be happening mid-June.

In the meantime we are fine tuning the current version and I’m finally back to work on the ADOM RPG release to finally get this shipped. Other commitments of Team ADOM probably will prevent an earlier Steam release (as sad as that is).

Once the initial Steam version is out feature development will pick up speed greatly once again – right now we just are hesitant to introduce major new feature to prevent any new game breaking problems.

Another big change will be that I will end access to the prerelease tester circle at the end of April. All people who have bought access will naturally continue to have access to prerelease versions but we won’t allow any new entries. This step will streamline the commercial future of ADOM (commercial via Steam, Gog and others, free for the rest). Prerelease versions will remain limited to the then current circle of testers.

Now go and play R57 – as always we are looking for feedback on its stability and any remaining major issues that might be a problem when releasing to Steam.

Announcing the redesigned ADOM homepage!

Hi folks!

Yet another puzzle piece towards the Steam release finally is live. Krys has redesigned the ADOM homepage and given it a modern and fresh look which I’ve totally fallen in love with.

There are probably quite a few kinks left to be worked out and we plan to expand it greatly in the future but for now it should be sufficient to present ADOM in a modern, fresh and vivid manner.

In the future the following additions are planned:

• As soon as we have a new video up for the Steam release it also will be embedded with the play button on the front page.
• We might decide to randomize the player quotes on the website if we receive more good quotes that we can use.
• The new home page will be the foundation for the extended website and the community site we are going to develop after the Steam release. Major features of the community website will include:
• an event Stream displaying events from games played while online (e.g. character creation, deaths, achievements, unlocked, special levels discovered, …
• shared global high scores
• community statistics (e.g. races & classes played, levels achieved, …)

Let us know what you think – all feedback is welcome as usual!

Thomas & Team ADOM

Announcing ADOM R56…

Hi everyone! We are approaching the ADOM Steam release… R56 hopefully will be one of the very last releases before Steam (I still expect one or two more but right now we focus only on fixing serious technical issues and stabilizing features for Steam – sadly the devil remains in the details).

ADOM R56 thus offers lots of fine tuning… especially in the graphical department… as well as many bug fixes. Details can be found as usual in the change log.

ADOM R56 is available to both the closed circle of prerelease testers – from the usual place – or for the Steam prerelease testers (ADOM should automatically update there).

Please report all irregularities and bugs you see! Hopefully we soon are finally on Steam and can return to a more aggressive development pace!

Announcing ADOM R55…

…for both Steam beta-testers and prerelease testers. There it is. Quite unexpected. I’ll make no further estimates about how many more versions there will be before the public Steam release ;-). We broke memory management internally in R54 in certain situations which might have been responsible for all kinds of crashes. And it broke skill usage under certain circumstances. As usual the change log is here, you can get the non-Steam version via prerelease access and you already have a code if you are an eligible member of the original crowdfunding campaign.

Axes High!

ADOM R54 released to both Steam Beta testers and prerelease testers!

Team ADOM is very proud to announce ADOM R54 – our next step towards the public Steam release! We have put tons of work into fine-tuning various things, among them…

• the revised UI for ADOM Deluxe / Steam (and please remember: you can use Ctrl-nd to switch back to the classic mode and a more condensed mode, too, as well as being able to use F10 to switch between ASCII and various tiled modes at any time): Now all the important statistics hopefully are back and we have added a lot of new interaction means by being able to click (with either right or left mouse button) on various statistic display. Context hints included. Try it out and let us know what you think about this!
• removing various rough edges (e.g. the initial startup message after the first Steam install, some broken achievements, various broken places where the endless message buffer mode recently introduced lead to freezes [although in reality input was expected and the questions weren’t displayed correctly]),
• tons of minor graphical and musical improvements.

There are also various minor enhancements (like being able to use the game customization options during exploration mode to allow even more fine-tuning and fun with experimentation). As usual the full change log is available here.

We expect one more release before going public on Steam (R55 will be another close released like this one). R55 will hopefully fix the remaining issues for the Steam release.

In the meantime

• all prerelease testers can get access to R54 via the normal self service access and
• Steam users should receive the update automatically the next time they play.

If you want to become a member of the prerelease tester circle you can do so by following the instructions here. Important: Please note that I can’t give you access to the Steam beta versions in this way as this would violate the license agreement with Valve/Steam. I have clarified the text to clearly state that.

I’m also once more sorry for not releasing R53 to the prerelease testers… this was a one-time exception resulting from both our desire to get to Steam ASAP and due to breaking some things in the non-Steam versions that we were unable to fix quickly. This is not going to happen again. We keep learning from our mistakes!

That’s it for now. Axes high and game on!

ADOM EULA for Steam (Draft)

One of the many rather annoying things to handle when becoming more professional is to tackle the various legal and tax issues involved with selling software. In a rather regulated state like Germany these things (to me) sometimes seem to be more difficult than in other countries (or maybe other people just care less about repercussions 😉 ).

Here’s on such bit… the proposed EULA (End User License Agreement) for ADOM on Steam. Feedback of any kind is very welcome as this is just a draft:

END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery) 


IMPORTANT PLEASE READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THIS PROGRAM INSTALL: Thomas Biskup’s End-User License Agreement („EULA“) is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Thomas Biskup for the software product(s) identified above which may include associated software components, media, printed materials, and „online“ or electronic documentation („SOFTWARE PRODUCT“). By installing, copying, or otherwise using the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA. This license agreement represents the entire agreement concerning the program between you and Thomas Biskup, (referred to as „licenser“), and it supersedes any prior proposal, representation, or understanding between the parties. If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, do not install or use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.


The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is licensed, not sold.


1. GRANT OF LICENSE. 
The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is licensed as follows: 
(a) Installation and Use.
Thomas Biskup grants you the right to install and use copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on your computer running a validly licensed copy of the operating system for which the SOFTWARE PRODUCT was designed.
(b) Backup Copies.
You may also make copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT as may be necessary for backup and archival purposes.


2. DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS.
(a) Maintenance of Copyright Notices.
You must not remove or alter any copyright notices on any and all copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
(b) Distribution.
You may not distribute registered copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to third parties. Evaluation versions available for download from Thomas Biskup’s websites may be freely distributed.
(c) Prohibition on Reverse Engineering, Decompilation, and Disassembly.
You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. 
(d) Let’s Play Videos and Fan Made Content.
You may create fan content (including „Let’s Play“ videos) incorporating videos of actual game play, and may publish and monetise your fan content. All such fan content must be respectful to our industry, company and the SOFTWARE PRODUCT. We reserve the right to revoke this permission at any time and for any reason by notice to you. Upon such notice, you must immediately remove the fan content from distribution.
(e) Rental.
You may not rent, lease, or lend the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
(f) Support Services.
Thomas Biskup may provide you with support services related to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT („Support Services“). Any supplemental software code provided to you as part of the Support Services shall be considered part of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and subject to the terms and conditions of this EULA. 
(g) Software Updates and DLC.
We may release updates, patches, DLC, or new versions of the Software from time to time. You have no automatic right to any updates or DLC, but where we choose to provide these to you, they shall be considered part of the Software and shall be governed by the terms of this EULA.
(h) Compliance with Applicable Laws.
You must comply with all applicable laws regarding use of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
(i) Dispute Resolution.
You agree that in case of a dispute or claim, you will first attempt to informally negotiate a settlement or resolution of the dispute by contacting creator@ancientdomainsofmystery.com and informing us in a comprehensive way of the grounds of your dispute before resorting to any legal action.


3. TERMINATION 
Without prejudice to any other rights, Thomas Biskup may terminate this EULA if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA. In such event, you must destroy all copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT in your possession.


4. COPYRIGHT
All title, including but not limited to copyrights, in and to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT and any copies thereof are owned by Thomas Biskup. All title and intellectual property rights in and to the content which may be accessed through use of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is the property of the respective content owner and may be protected by applicable copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties. This EULA grants you no rights to use such content. All rights not expressly granted are reserved by Thomas Biskup.


5. NO WARRANTIES
Thomas Biskup expressly disclaims any warranty for the SOFTWARE PRODUCT. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is provided ‚As Is‘ without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including but not limited to any warranties of merchantability, noninfringement, or fitness of a particular purpose. Thomas Biskup does not warrant or assume responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within the SOFTWARE PRODUCT. Thomas Biskup makes no warranties respecting any harm that may be caused by the transmission of a computer virus, worm, time bomb, logic bomb, or other such computer program. Thomas Biskup further expressly disclaims any warranty or representation to Authorized Users or to any third party.


6. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
In no event shall Thomas Biskup be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, or lost information) rising out of ‚Authorized Users‘ use of or inability to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, even if Thomas Biskup has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event will Thomas Biskup be liable for loss of data or for indirect, special, incidental, consequential (including lost profit), or other damages based in contract, tort or otherwise. Thomas Biskup shall have no liability with respect to the content of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or any part thereof, including but not limited to errors or omissions contained therein, libel, infringements of rights of publicity, privacy, trademark rights, business interruption, personal injury, loss of privacy, moral rights or the disclosure of confidential information.


7. LEGAL FEES
In the event that we obtain the legal assistance to enforce this EULA for your breach of these terms, all legal fees (on a solicitor or own client basis) incurred in enforcing this EULA may be recovered from you.

Happy New Year (& short review of 2014)

A Happy New Year to everyone!

2015 is upon us and I am very determined to make this the best ADOM year ever (together with my compatriots in Team ADOM).
First of all a quick review of 2014 – where did we succeed and where did we fail?

• We released ADOM nine times (about every 5.2 weeks) in 2014. Which is pretty good. We were a bit irregular in the intervals but that’s based on the fact that various changes to the game had a very different complexity.
• ADOM has grown by leaps and bounds. Art by now is awesome (if you ask me), we have a great soundtrack and the NotEye integration has matured so much. As a consequence the UI has gained tons of enhancements and ADOM is a very different game than in 2013 UI-wise (e.g. due to the addition of context menus, a tutorial mode, hints, new message modes, variations on more-handling, a centralized entry point for all player data, new movement commands but also graphical enhancements like spell animations and spell runes).
• We have fixed hundreds of bugs, implemented hundreds of new features (e.g. achievements with lots of thoughts having been put into a fun achievement system, challenge mode) and again worked a lot on stability issues. The downside is that lots of content promised in the crowd funding campaign still is missing as we put so much energy in art, sound and UI.
• ADOM is almost on Steam… we stormed through Greenlighting in record time and we have started the beta test for Steam. On the downside ADOM is not yet available on Steam but by now I am very happy that we missed my deadline for the pre-Christmas release as we probably would have been drowned in all those sales things. Much better to start in January. The ADOM Steam group also is up. Getting prepared for the real Steam release was a totally different beats and cost me quite a bit of money and time to get everything prepared correctly so that afterwards there won’t be any legal or tax surprises. Actually it cost several months of time which I totally did not expect when starting out with this. The second time will be much easier though 😉
• ADOM RPG still is not there, but it’s next on my list after we are on Steam. At least there is an unboxing video of an early print as a proof of its existence.
• We increased ADOM visibility by providing ADOM downloads on IndieDB. ADOM even made it into the urban dictionary 🙂
• ADOM made it into the top 100 on IndieDB but sadly not much further… room to improve 😉
• We changed the ADOM version numbering scheme to something easier to grasp for wider audiences (and still keep internal technical numbers). Sounds like a small thing in retrospective but the discussions were quite emotional 🙂
• My mother died. This threw me off for months and sapped my strength and motivation greatly. Worst thing to happen to me in many years and I still have pretty grim moods. Cost so much time planned for ADOM progress but sometimes life sucks big time. Nothing you can do about it. Enough said about this.

So what are we trying to achieve for ADOM in 2015 (it’s going to be a tremendously work-intense year to make all this happen but we really want to push the limits and get things done):

• www.adom.de will receive a new website. Modern. Beautiful. Krys‘ design is breath-taking and this is one of the most important things to now get shipped to prepare for the Steam release and to present ADOM as a modern and beautiful game. Coming real soon now!
• ADOM will launch on Steam. We now are in the Steam beta test and I expect another round or two of this to iron out stability issues, performance issues and meet UI requirements of players in a perfect way but it will be worth it. No illusions about this one: Our success on Steam (and following on that on Desura, GOG and maybe others) definitely will shape the future of ADOM as all members of Team ADOM have invested way more time in this than covered by the crowdfunding campaign and we need to secure more funding to keep up a steady stream of improvements and evolution.
• ADOM RPG will be finished after we have launched on Steam. This is the next big one for me. Definitely should get finished in the first quarter of 2015 and shipped in the second quarter (with printing and all).
• Then (probably partially in parallel) the other physical and virtual crowd funding rewards finally will get out of the door with the boxed sets probably being the last thing close to the end of the year.
• Over the course of the year ADOM now mainly will grow content-wise. There are still so many quests and new maps to be added as a result of the crowd funding campaign and by now I’m really itching to move the ADOM story forward and add tons of new content. This will happen all the time and I will put up a new milestone for all the features to be covered by this in our issue tracker.

Looking at this list many of the things are similar to ones planned for 2014 but hopefully this time no new personal disaster will cause me to deviate from that plan. Sorry for the delays is all I can say but there was not much I could do about it and I sincerely hope that you nonetheless are happy about all the things we made happen (instead of being too annoyed about the ones that got delayed).

By the end of 2015 I would like to blog a summary stating „The resurrection has been completed“. We’ll see if I succeed in this but I hope for less dramatic interruptions than during the abysmal 2014.

So let’s move forward! Axes High!

A late Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah or just plain wonderful days!

Hi community!

I’m shamefully late this year but Christmas was quicker here than expected. So I hope that you all already had a couple of wonderful days with friends and family and maybe are enjoying a couple more!

Sadly we didn’t manage to get ADOM to Steam but our initial beta version yielded so much awesome feedback that we decide to take the time and fix things that needed fixing. Thus I currently would expect a mid-January release for ADOM on Steam. At least others seem to be late, too – I haven’t seen any results from the IndieDB Indie of the Year contest so far (or I am too tired to find it).

I’m consoled by the fact that various postings seem to indicate that it is better to release a game during non-hot-spot times (like Christmas, contrary to my line of thinking).

That’s enough babbling from me – I’m back to work on ADOM and hope that you enjoy the final days of the year!

Thomas

ADOM R53 now available… for Steam beta testers

Hi everyone!

This is new: The first ADOM release (R53, version 1.11.0) available on Steam first. Mostly this happens for two reasons:

• We want to get to Steam ASAP and thus need to receive as much feedback as soon as possible for that version.
• The build process is getting more and more involved and thus it takes more time to build all variants. Prerelease testers will be next, promise!

Regarding the Steam version:

• It’s a closed beta available to everyone who donated $40 or more (in whatever partitioning) during our crowdfunding campaign.
• All such donors have received a Steam key that is available through the ADOM self service portal. Follow the instructions there to log in.
• I have created a new discussion group too discuss peculiarities regarding the Steam version.
• We would like to get as much feedback as possible – please use our ticket system for any bugs you find and for any improvements peculiar to Steam you might want to see.

This very first Steam version definitely has beta character:

• There probably will be many bugs as we changed tons of stuff in the past couple of weeks to improve the UI. Please report them as you find them!
• There probably are many things we could improve, especially for the general Steam populace and for an improved UI. Let us know about those, too.
• Here is the usual list of changes.

The real Steam release is going to happen when we feel that we have a very good first stable release. Lots of features didn’t make it into the first Steam release (because that would delay it for even more weeks if not months) – see our advanced roadmap for those.

What we need: We are looking for all feedback we can get but some areas are of particular interest to us:

• We want to get as many suggestions as possible on what to improve to make the Steam launch a huge success (naturally).
• We would love to hear feedback on mouse-based play. What needs to be improved to make pure mouse-based play a better experience (we probably won’t be able to all of that right away but we would like to cover the most important areas).
• Please try the new message buffer modes (adjustable by Ctrl-nm), the various display modes (Ctrl-nd), the tutorial mode, the various other game modes, ghosts, achievements, etc. We want to hear your experiences with that, too!
• And everything else you deem important.

We are on the verge of a new ADOM age and it’s now or never… greatness or oblivion 😉

Oh, and please do not forget to vote for ADOM as the game of the year at IndieDB!!!

And now get your Steam codes and start playing!