|
| | This user manual contains help for using the demo version of Panumbra. The manual attempts to cover all important functions, but may not contain all details. For a lighter version, check out the tutorial.
Last updated: 01/30/98
Table of Contents
1. Game concepts
- 1.1. Character
- 1.2. Tome of Souls (character list)
- 1.3. World
- 1.4. Monsters
- 1.5. Character delete schedule
2. How to play the game
- 2.1. Login
- 2.2. Tome of Souls functions
- 2.3. Game screen
- 2.4. Character death
- 2.5. Saving and re-connecting
- 2.6. Menu bar options
1. Game concepts
1.1. Character
1.1.1. New characters
New characters have to have a unique name, and you have to choose a race and a template. Your character will be created based on the race and the template, and you can customize your starting statistics and skill allocation, if you want. You can also describe your character, to give it a personal touch.
1.1.2. Statistics
Statistics are innate abilities, which determine who you are, and they do not change much during a character’s lifetime. They are mostly determined by the race, but there are individual differences. You can improve your statistics by training in them, but it takes a long time.
All characters have the following statistics:
Strength – obviously – tells how much physical power the character has by nature. It is very much related to natural muscle structure.
Agility is a physical talent, too, and describes the character’s flexibility, ease and grace of movement and precision.
Willpower gives you brain capacity – mental power above the others.
Intelligence is the capability to organize your mental powers and use them the best way.
Charisma describes how well you deal with people and other creatures. Your social skills are greatly dependent on your charisma.
Hardiness is your general ability to sustain hardships and recover from wounds. Hardiness helps especially to endure death.
Statistics points range form 1 to 100, 50 being the average. Statistics greatly influence how you perform your skills. Statistics below average mean penalties for using certain skills, above average statistics give bonuses.
1.1.3. Vitals
Vitals describe your character’s current physical and mental condition:
Hitpoints describe how healthy you are. If your hitpoints drop to zero, you die.
Mana is magical power needed to perform magical skills (in other words, cast spells).
Stamina describes your physical condition, i.e. how tired you are. Stamina is needed to perform physical skills.
Your current vitals describe your current condition compared to your maximum vitals. As opposed to the statistics, maximum vitals (or permanent vitals) can be easily increased by training, and have virtually no upper limit.
1.1.4. Skills
Everything about your character will come down to how well you can perform your skills. In Panumbra each ability is a skill, including spells. Skills differ in what they do, their chance to hit (accuracy) and how well they hit (power). When you gain a skill level, your skill will improve in accuracy and power.
Skills also have a cost to use. Physical skills require stamina, magical skills mana, but there are skills which use both, some of them even take some hit points (some higher level ones, of course). The cost of the skill stays always the same, regardless of the level.
Using a skill takes time. Your skill takes effect immediately, but you get tired and have to rest before you can use any of your skills again. This means you get a time delay after you use a skill. The time delay differs for different skills.
1.1.5. Training in skills
Skill training is probably the most complicated part of Panumbra. If you want to avoid getting into the details, you can use templates and simply play an experience-level based game.
For those of you hard-core RPG players, here is an overview (excuse me if I forgot something because it is really complicated, but I try my best).
You get a fixed amount of skill points every time you make an experience level. Your template will define how much of those skill points you allocate to training in each of your skills. Those are called training points, and are effectively a percentage of all skill points you get when you make an experience level. When you make an experience level, the system distributes the total number of skill points gained among all skills to which you assigned training points. Each skill gets the a percentage according to its training points. Here is an example:
Let’s say you gain a total of 500 skill points when you make an experience level (this is the current setting). You invested 5 training points (5 %) into your tooth picking skill.
You will gain 0.05 * 500 = 25 skill points in your training skill, assuming your learn speed of tooth picking is 1.
You learn skills at different speeds. The race determines your learn speed for each skill you can learn. A learn speed of 1 means that you learn at an average level. The learn speed is a direct multiplier of how many skill points you receive. Following the previous example:
If you learn tooth picking at learn speed 3, you will get 25 * 3 = 75 skill points at the end instead of the default 25.
If you learn it at a speed of 0.4, you will get 25 * 0.4 = 10 skill points overall.
You need 100 skill points to gain a skill level. Only the skill level improves the accuracy and power of your skills. You are always able to compute your skill level based on your skill points, by simply omitting the last to digits. Example:
If your tooth picking skill has 487 skill points, your skill level is 4, and you need 13 more skill points to get to the next skill level.
1.1.6. Races
Races determine a lot of things. Characters of different races may have different body structures, which influences what kind of items a character can wear (coming in 3.0). They set minimum and maximum limits on statistics. They determine what kind of skills you can learn during your life time. Different races learn different skills at different speeds, for instance dwarfs would be generally learning physical skills a lot faster than elves, but magical skills a lot slower. Races also advance in different speeds in general, i.e. it takes them longer or shorter to make experience levels.
1.1.7. Templates
A template resembles a carrier or profession, within a race. Since different races have different skills, templates exist within a race. For example, if you are an Orc, you can choose to be an Orc Shaman or an Orc Warrior, but not a Human Mage. Templates regulate what skills you train in, and how much time (skill points) you spend on each trained skill. If you use a template, the computer takes care of the skill allocation (which is a messy thing).
1.1.8. Gaining experience
You gain experience every time you use a skill successfully, i.e. the skill does not miss or hit for more than 0. You get more experience if you hit more experienced targets. When you gather enough experience to the next level, you gain an experience level and you get skill points to train in your skills. You get the same amount of skill points every time you gain a level, but it will be increasingly difficult to make levels. Different races gain levels at different speeds.The amount of experience you get depends on the skill you use, and the difference betweeen your experience level and the target's experience level. Generally you get a lot more experience if you fight monsters higher level than you, and get gradually less experience if you fight lower level monsters.
1.1.9. Parties
A party is a group of characters who move together. You can form a party by tracking someone. If you track someone, he/she becomes the leader of the party, and when the leader moves, you follow him/her automatically.
Some skills do not work on your party members (e.g. attack skills), other ones may only work on your party members (e.g. mass healing). A party is always in the same map square and they see the same screen. The chars tab shows characters grouped by party, and the party leader is always the first in the list.
1.2. Tome of Souls (character list)
The Tome of Souls is basically a list of your characters. (Also called Character List, or Game Account.) You may have as many characters at a time as you want. You may play as many characters as you want at a time (this is basically limited by how much memory your computer has). In the demo version, you will have to log on to the system several times to play several characters, but from V3.0 you will be able to enter all of your characters from the Tome of Souls screen into the game. All character entered in the game will bring up a new window, so playing them at the same time would require quite a bit of window hopping.
The Tome of Souls window allows you to do various management tasks with your characters, most importantly to create new ones, and to enter the game with a selected character. (Delete function is not implemented yet, coming in 3.0.)
1.3. World
The world is comprised of world areas, which are pieces of the world stored and managed together. You will probably notice that some doors or other passageways take particularly long to cross, and for a while the buttons on the client are grayed out – those are world area links. The world areas consist of map squares.
The world areas could be of any shape, size and can have different graphics. The demo only has mines (and maybe caves), but later we will have many more type of world areas, notably cities and outer world.
World areas may also differ in some ways things work in them. For instance, some world areas will be wild zones, where character killing is allowed, other ones may be special in other ways (this is a secret J ).
1.3.1. Proximity areas
Your proximity area is your vicinity where you can see others (characters and monsters) and interact with them. It equals to the area you can see on the screen, when you look in all four directions. Think of it as a viewing radius. All characters in your proximity area show up on the character list, and all monsters show up on the graphics screen. You get event messages about everything happening in your proximity area.
Proximity areas are not static, i.e. they are not like rooms. They move with you. Your proximity area is always centered on the map square you are standing in. Of course, if there are walls or other objects blocking your view, your proximity area ends at the blocking object.
1.4. Monsters
You will find monsters on your adventures within the world. You will see all monsters within your proximity area. In the demo version, you can expect them to always attack you when you see them.
Monsters are based on the same concepts as characters. They have races, templates, statistics, vitals, and skills - except they are controlled by the computer rather than by a player. There are many type of monsters, and within each type, they could be of many different experience levels – so the same type of monster sometimes will hit you harder than other times.
Monsters will be regenerated at periodic intervals. In the demo, they do not move and they always re-spawn at the same place.
1.5. Character delete schedule
We will delete "dormant" characters from time to time, to save place in our database. We do not know the exact character deletion schedule yet, but it will be something along this:
Characters that were used for less than 10 minutes are deleted after two weeks from last usage. This is to get rid of "trial" characters.
Characters below level 5 will be kept for 2 months.
Characters between level 5-20 are kept for 3 months.
Characters above level 20 but below 200 are kept for 6 months.
Characters above level 200 are kept for a year.
This is my preliminary character deletion schedule. We will update it when we finalize it. Everyone can be sure that they will not loose their characters they worked hard on just because they are on vacation or have finals or deadlines.Characters created in the demo will be kept in the next releases. We will make an effort to keep the earned levels and skills, but if something gets thrown out of balance during the demo, we reserve the right to make the necessary adjustments.
2. How to play the game
2.1. Login
- Press the PLAY GAME button on the web site (button is coming with the release). You should get to the Login screen.
- If you already have a user name, enter it and enter your password. Press Ok. If you mistyped your password or your username, or your username does not exist yet, your login will fail. For security reasons you get the same message for all reasons.
- If you do not have a username yet, press the New User password. Type in a username. The username must be unique – the system will warn you if it is not. Type in your password twice, and press the Login button. Make sure to remember or write your password somewhere – if you forget it, you will not have access to your characters any more.
- You should be on the Application menu screen. There is only one application currently – Panumbra. Click OK.
You will see the Tome of Souls screen now.
2.2. Tome of Souls functions
The Tome of Souls is the list of your characters. You can perform basic character management functions on them, namely:
 | The Create button allows you to create a new character (jee, figure!) |
| The Details button will download a detailed profile of the selected character and display it on the right side of the screen. |
| The Change button will take you to the Skill Training screen, where you can change your template, or create a customized training plan by editing your training points invested into your skills. For more information on training, see Training in skills. |
| The buttons below the character list will take you out of Tome of Souls: Play will enter the selected character into the game, Quit will quit to the Application Menu screen. |
2.2.1. Creating a character
- Press Create on Tome of Souls. You arrive to Choose a body, where you choose a body, i.e. a race and a template.
- Select a race to your character.
- The available templates for that race are displayed. Choose a template.
Note: do not choose a custom template now. It is a lot easier to choose a template than customize it than creating a template from scratch.
- Type in a name for your character. The character name must be unique, if it is in use by another character, the game will warn you and you have to come up with another name.
- You can type in a description.
- A default character is created for you based on the race and the template. You will arrive to the Customize character screen, where you can change the defaults. If you do not want to customize anything, just press Done.
You will get back to Tome of Souls, with your new character added to your list of characters.
If you do not like the results, you can press the Previous button and start over with a new race and/or a template, or press Cancel which takes you back to the Tome of Souls screen without creating a new character.
If you decide to customize your characters, you can modify your default statistics and your skill training plan.
2.2.2. Modifying default statistics for a new character
Modifying the default statistics requires thorough knowledge of how they affect the character, therefore it is only recommended to experienced users. You are experienced enough to use it when you have already created a character and reached about the 20th level with it, preferably using different types of skills (physical vs. magical).
You can modify your default statistics on the Customize character screen. Your race sets minimum and maximum starting levels for each of them, and the game calculates the average between them as a default. You will see all statistics displayed with an up and a down arrow next to them, and a field below displaying the number of statistics points to distribute. You will start with 0 points to distribute, so you need to start with taking points off from the statistics you want to go down, then to distribute the points. To change statistics, do the following:
- Select the statistics you want to reduce, and press the down arrow next to it. The points to distribute field will increase.
- Now select the statistics you want to increase, and press the upper arrow next to them. The points to distribute field will go down.
- When the points to distribute field reaches zero, you cannot add more points. You can reduce other statistics to gain points to distribute.
- When you reach the upper or lower limit your race allowes you to start with, your arrow keys will not let you add or decrease more points.
- If you are satisfied with the results, press Done, or go on to modify your training plan.
2.2.3. Modifying a default template for a new character
If you want to create a custom template for your character, the best way is to choose an existing template which you think is close to what you want, e.g. a Warrior or Sorcerer of that race. The training plan is created for you from the template, and you can easily modify it.
Modifying a template means changing the default training points set by the template. When you change any of your training points, your template changes to be a custom template and you have to maintain it manually from that point on. But do not worry, you can change a template any time, and it will not affect any already earned skill points, only future ones.
When you customize a template, your training points must add up to 100. A "points to distribute" field under the skill list will keep track of how many more points you have.
Note: when you use a predefined template, you may notice that the training points do not add up to 100, you have extra points to distribute. This is because your template may contain "hidden" skills, i.e. skills that you did not learn yet. Those "extra" skill points are not lost, but distributed proportionally among your available skills. Once you learn the "hidden" skill, the template will automatically allocate the "extra" training points to it.
If you learned a new skill, and you have a custom template, you need to go back and change your training plan so that you train in the new skill. If you use a predefined template, you do not have to do anything – the template will automatically do it for you.
Here are the steps to change your training plan:
- Select a skill from the Training Plan listbox.
The field "Training points" below the list box will now show the training points you have currently assigned to train in that skill.
- Type in the new training points for the skill into the "Training points" field, and click Set.
- If you have no more points to distribute, you can reduce training points invested in other skills to create points to distribute.
- Hit "Done" to save your new training plan. You can only hit done if your "points to distribute" field is 0.
2.2.4. Change character
Currently the change character button takes you to the Skill Training Plan screen, because the only changeable attributes are the template and the training points, if you have a custom template.
You can change your template by selecting a new template from the list, and hitting Done.You can also change your training plan manually, the same way as described above for a new character. If you change any of your training points, your template is automatically changed to custom.
Press Done when you finished your edits, or press Cancel to leave the screen without making any changes.
This screen is also available from the menu bar. Select Game -> Change Skill Allocation.
2.3. Game screen
2.3.1. Parts of the game screen
The graphics window shows a 3D view of the dungeon – should be easy to locate for everyone. On the bottom left corner of the graphics three color bars represent your hitpoints (red) mana (blue) and stamina (yellow). In the bottom left corner, you see two numbers. The red number indicates the number of characters, the blue one the number of monsters in your proximity area.Under the graphics window, a control bar is located. Contains two main parts: in the bottom left corner are the movement controls, right next to them, underneath the graphics, are the skill buttons. The skill buttons have a default set of your skills when you enter the game, which you can change using skill assignment.
Information windows take up most of the right side of the screen. The following windows are bordering with each other, and you can change their relative size by dragging the borders up or down:
| The information panel is in the upper right corner, and recognizable from tabs across the top. It contains a character list tab, a monster list tab, a character information tab about your own character, a skill list, and an items tab (currently empty). One important detail: the Exp points shown on the Char detail display your current experience points since last level made, and the experience points needed to make the next level in parentheses. |
| The events window is directly under the information panel. It displays events in your proximity area, including who attacked whom with what results and error messages. |
| The text messaging window shows text messages received from other players. |
The entry field under the text messaging window is for typing messages to other players.
The bottom right corner contains a selection combo box for addressing your messages and the "send message" button.
There is an unused gray area between the skill buttons and the text messaging buttons. It will be used for item shortcuts, similarly to the button bar, for later versions.
2.3.2. Moving around
You can click on the movement buttons in the bottom left corner, or use the arrow keys on your keypad. You can move one space forward or backward, or you can turn 90 degrees left or right.
A compass in the lower right corner of the graphics tells you which of the four directions are you facing: North, East, South or West, showing the first letter of the direction.
When something blocks your movement, you get a message. Beware: you may find force walls, which block you, even if you see a completely clear path in front of you. Or, you may find some illusionary walls which look like walls but let you through with no problem.
2.3.3. Assigning skills to skill buttons
You can change the default skill assignment on your skill buttons. This feature is particularly handy when you have more than eight skills, so that they don't fit all on the buttons. To assign skill buttons to skills, follow these steps:
- Select the skill tab in the information tab panel. Press the "Assign" button.
- On the buttons which are empty, numbering appears on the skill buttons from S1 to S8, S1-S4 on the upper row, S5-S8 on the lower row.
- Select the skill from the skill list.
- Press the skill button you want to use for the skill or press the number assigned to the button (1 for S1, 2 for S2 etc.).
- The abbreviation of the skill appears on the button.
- Repeat 3 – 5 for all the skills you want to assign.
- Press the "Stop assignment" button, or press the Esc (escape) key on the keyboard.
Note: pressing the "Stop assignment" is important. If you forget it, your buttons will do strange things when you are trying to use them in an encounter.
Alternate ways of invoking Skill Assignment:
| The ` (tilde) character toggles Skill Assignment on and off. |
| The menu item Options -> Assign Skills toggles Skill Assignment on/off. |
Currently your skill button assignments are not saved, so you have to redo it every time you enter the game. From version 3.0 your configuration for each character will be saved.
2.3.4. Using skills
The easiest way to use your skills is to press the skill buttons under the graphics
You can use the keyboard shortcuts to the skill buttons, 1 through 4 for the upper row and 5 through 8 for the bottom row. So if you press the key 1 on the keypad, you are using the skill assigned to skill button S1.
You can also use skills directly from the skill list by double-clicking on them.
You must have a target selected before you can use a skill, unless the skill is self-targeting (e.g. healing). You may not use attack skills on characters, unless you are in a Wild Zone.
2.3.5. Targeting
There are two ways to target monsters:
| Select the monster graphic on the screen. This will target the first monster in the group, if there are more than one. When you encounter monsters, the first group is automatically selected. |
| You can display the monsters tab (Mon) on the information panel, and select a monster from the list. You need to use this method if you want to target any other monster than the first one. |
To target characters, you must select them from the character list.
The target is always whatever you selected last – it can be a monster, or character. The target stays the same until you change it, or it leaves or dies.
2.3.6. Forming parties
Parties move together. When the leader of the party moves, everyone else moves. The character list on the Chars tab of the information panel displays characters in parties, each party is separated by a line from each other. The party leader is the first name in each party. If a character is alone, he/she is assumed to be a party where he/she is the leader.
When you track another character, he/she becomes the party leader and you become a party member. If the character you track is already a member of another party, you will join that party and its current leader. When the party leader untracks or dies, the party dissolves.
To track a character:
- Select the Chars tab on the information panel.
- Select the character you want to track and press the "Track" button.
You automatically move to the map square your leader is in and get the same view. When the leader moves, you move too, and your view is automatically updated.
You can untrack several ways:
| Pressing the untrack button will untrack you from any party any time. This is the only way party leaders can untrack. |
| Pressing any movement buttons or movement keys will untrack you, unless you are the leader. |
| Tracking yourself is equivalent to untrack. |
2.3.7. Making a level
When you make a level, two very red buttons appear on the bottom of your graphics view. One says "make level" with a number indicating how many levels you made. The other one is a shortcut to change character.
If you want to make changes to your training plan so that it affects your newly made level, you must change your training plan BEFORE you make a level. To do so, press the Change character button, change your template or edit your training points, and hit Done. You will be back to the game screen, with your make level button still there.
To make a level, simply press the make level button. If you earned several levels, you have to press it several times. Your well-deserved skill points are distributed among your skills according to your training plan. Now you can select the Char tab to see if your vitals or statistics went up, and the Skill tab to see if you have made any skill levels, or select the "Change character" menu item from the Game menu to display the more detailed skill information.
Advice: the make level button usually appears in middle of fierce fights. Do not make the level until you finish fighting and you are in a safe place, you may get hammered otherwise.
2.3.8. Sending messages to other players
You can type in messsages into the text entry field (under the text messaging window). When you have finished typing, press Enter to send the message. The message will be displayed in the text message panel above.
You can select the default address type from the radiobutton group in the bottom right corner.
| All send the typed message to everyone in the game. |
| Party will send messages to your party members only. |
| Proximity will send the message to everyone in your proximity area, ie. all characters on your Chars tab. |
| Newbie sends the message to the newbie channel. |
You can send private messages to one character. You need to type the "to" keyword, the name of the character, a colon, than your message. Example:
to Bonky Dog: What are you doing tonight?
will send the private message "What are you doing tonight?" to Bonky Dog only, regardless what address type is selected. Do not forget the ":" after the character name!
You can turn off receiving messages sent to "All" using the Options menu.
2.3.9. Newbie channel
You can use the newbie channel to ask questions from our newbie helpers how to get around in the game. To send messages to the newbie channel, simply select "Newbie" as your address type.
You can turn off receiving newbie messages. Go to the "Options" menu and click "Newbie channel".
If you send a message to the newbie channel, you will be automatically subscribed to it, until you turn it off.
2.4. Character death
In the demo, when you die, you simply re-spawn in another place. Your current hitpoints, mana and stamina will be restored to its maximum value. You lose some of your permanent hitpoints, mana and stamina. Warning: it is possible to go down to 1 permanent hitpoint....
2.5. Saving and re-connecting
Your character is saved every time you leave the game, disconnect, die, or make a level. When you re-connect after you have left, you will appear at the same place when you were last time. Your vitals and statistics are saved at their current state when you left, so if you had 1 hitpoint when you left you will have 1 hitpoint when you return.
Some advice:
Make sure to find a safe place before you disconnect. Do not quit the game in areas where you find monsters or you know that monsters re-spawn there. Do not leave the game in the middle of a fight. When you come back, you may find the monsters you wanted to avoid are back fully healed and in more numbers than when you left.
If you happen to come back in a place with monsters, run away as soon as possible, before the monsters start to attack you. Once you are out of sight, you have time to think how to handle the situation.
2.6. Menu bar options
There are various functions available from the menu bar, grouped into several menus.
Game
| Change character allows you to change your template or customizet your training plan any time during game play. |
| Tome of Souls will exit the game and take you back to the Tome of Souls. |
| Quit will quit completely from Panumbra, back to the Application menu. To quit completely from the client, you must close all windows or hit quit on all of them. |
Info
"All characters" gives you a list of all characters currently playing.
Options
| Limit monster graphics is useful if you have a slow connection. You can turn off download of graphics for monsters when you encounter them. You will only see one generic monster picture, with the name of the monsters written below, but you will have a faster access. |
| Assign skills toggles the skill assignment mode on and off. |
| "Receive messages from all" is useful if you wish to have a private partying to turn off messages sent to all. |
| The newbie channel truns receiving messages on the newbie channel on and off. |
HelpThe help menu contains links to the relevant help material on the web site.
Copyright © 1997 Manton Communications Corp. All rights reserved. |
No comments:
Post a Comment