anything relating to ivan you're too lazy to create a new topic for

I'm sure Captain Action would have managed.

=D I had forgotten about him! Oh, good times.

What a way to go...

Made a list on the wiki of all the monster ideas I could find in the IVAN docs (really just monster ideas.txt so far).

That brought to light that this thing:

Is called a Mola Mola, and is an original creation by the devs unlike a lot of the other ideas they had. blatantly not Mara (thanks Smag)

As much as I'd love to believe that the devs were Shin Megami Tensei fans, the timelines don't add up. The first SMT game available in Europe was Nocturne, released in July 2005, but 0.50 was already out then with that graphic included.

Additionally, the story in Mola Mola.rtf seems to be from 2000, so unless they were importing the Japanese SMT games it seems a bit far-fetched for it to be based off of Mara.

You're probably right, but AGTP had translated Shin Megaten at least as early as 2002, and the story and idea could have predated the graphic itself.

Besides, all of the devs didn't need to happen to be fans, just Kahvi. But again, probably coincidence.

Nocturne was out on July 1st 2005. The Mola Mola's portrait was added on the 22nd of July 2005.
Kahvi would've had plenty of time to finish the game and "be inspired" by Mara.

The idea for the Mola Mola is probably older than that but I imagine the team jumped at the idea of a giant dick tentacle monster.

Ah, well, unfortunately the problem there is that Mara in Nocturne was actually just an amorphous penis-shaped blob, rather than its more typical form. I stand by the AGTP thing since that also happens to involve less buying games, since we all know how the devs felt about capitalism, hm?

Aw man... It's that old?

Still waiting on that SMT If... translation...

Chya right. I've been waiting on SRW@ for like 6 years.

(Finished it in JP in the meantime...)

Well well, Mola Mola.rtf is quite a good read, and practically outlines the quest for us if we wanted to implement it.

Also apparently you can actually die from starving to death in the sumo arena, which has its own special death message.

There were a few names proposed for IVAN including:

• Omnia ex Machina (Everything from The Machine)
  
• Mundi ex Machina (World from The Machine)
  
• In Omnia Libera (Everything is free?)
  
• Vita Libera (Free life)
  
• Infensus (Hostile/Antagonistic)
  
• Infensus Pasta ex Iecore Anserum ex Machina ("Hostile goose liver pâté from The Machine")
  
• Infensus Mundus (Hostile world - should actually be "Mundus Infensus")
  
• Ultimatum (Final - devs translated this as "Decision" or "Determination" (päätös))
  

Iter Vehemens ad Necem was a suggested title of course, but was intended to be kept as the game's subtitle if a different name was chosen.
The devs have also noted (in Finnish) that they had a little trouble translating Latin to Finnish for some of the names too.

... "Hostile goose liver"?

So after some extensive testing to see just how many ways you can cheat at sumo wrestling, I have come to the conclusion that the current most popular way is indeed the best - i.e. luring Huang outside of his house with food onto mines or bear traps, or vomiting on his standing place while he's busy eating.

However, I was determined to find some way to rig the arena, and it was made very clear that the devs had worked very hard to make sure people like me couldn't do just that.
Firstly, items left in the arena are teleported onto the staircase in Huang's house when you leave, so you can't leave banana peels and broken bottles in there.
Secondly, the sumo room belongs to New Attnam, so damaging it in any way gets the town mad.

So that left only one option - spilling liquids on the floor. Puddles of stuff don't get teleported upstairs and take a while to wear away, so it was the only way to rig the arena left at my disposal. Unfortunately, that means breaking bottles in a room full of glass walls that alert the populace if damaged.
Wands of striking/fireballs were out of the question, since their range is too large to break the bottles without damaging the walls. Kicking worked - but breaking a bottle of acid against the wall would obviously melt it and piss off the locals. Same deal with throwing.
So I came to the conclusion that the only way it was going to happen was by throwing a bottle against Kenny and hoping it broke, which was far too inconsistent and dangerous. As it turned out, vomiting on the tiles Huang appears on was the easiest idea, and wasn't really anything new.

Another idea I had was to drag the corpses of some carnivorous plants or magical mushrooms downstairs and resurrect them, then go upstairs and challenge Huang.
I was pretty convinced this would work... until the carnivorous plants somehow upped roots and followed me upstairs. The gas left by magical mushrooms will stay behind, but won't be of much practical use. From CVS onward you could potentially leave a mustard gas cloud there but IMO there are much better ways to abuse that gas grenade.

Anyway, another fun thing you can do is also teleport yourself outside the arena and leave acid or mustard gas everywhere to kill off the crowd.

Could you zap a wand of door creation and kick a bottle of acid towards it?

Wands of door creation trigger hostility, probably to stop you doing that kind of thing.
Makes sense, since they could technically allow you to trap Petrus in place or gain access to areas you normally wouldn't be allowed into.

Could you so cm a bottle of acid into banana flesh and wait for it to rot, spulling the contents?

I guess that'd work. Of course that's going to rely on either wasting a scroll of change material or finding a loricatus altar, but I like the way you think!

OK! I am an idiot.

With regards to rigging the sumo arena, and the discovery that acid rain doesn't trigger hostility (so long as it doesn't land on a person), my new favourite way to rig the sumo arena (and also escape the glass room) is to blast it with a wand of acid rain, challenge the sumo and sit back and relax while Huang melts to death.

This also revealed something pretty cool that probably wouldn't happen in the course of a normal, non-exploity sumo match - you can be disqualified. I am not entirely sure what triggers it, since there was a lot going on (tourists melting into puddles, acid everywhere, tourists and Kaethos entering the arena themselves) but it doesn't trigger upon you simply exiting the bounds of the glass arena like I initially thought. It also crashed the game.
I think the DQ might have been triggered by one of the spectators dying, not sure. It doesn't DQ you for leaving the arena, or picking up a lantern and hitting Huang with it...

EDIT: Ah! Ok, you can get disqualified for attacking the spectators. This has revealed a HUGE bug though! If one of the crowd dies (i.e. because there's acid everywhere) you win the sumo fight. Even better, during my test the female tourist's head was destroyed and now she's somehow still alive and rolling around with no legs outside.

I'm pretty sure I brought that up once before. It's my favourite way to win the sumo fight in WM. Plant big mine, break wand of teleport, wait for results. Once resulted in a headless, armless and legless tourist somehow alive and rolling.

Planting a mine would've made the populace hostile, no?
Also how would you have access to your inventory in the arena to begin with?

Wizard mode, he said it himself.

I am a stupid.

i am having a little trouble following the actual execution of the wand of acid rain sumo trick. so you go down the stairs and break a wand of acid then challenge the sumo?

Me too. There should be a forum badge for this.