Ideas

Because you would be either dead or immortal by the time you reach attnam

I've always felt IVAN was characterized by the dungeons with their mix of random enemies and design as well as static additions that presented new problems or possibly new solutions (though certainly not without cost). Random encounters out in the wilderness I feel would break the feel of that and since the 'real' part of the game takes place in the dungeons anyway, I don't think it would be a positive change. Also worth noting is that as the game is at the moment, the previous concern is irrelevant because the longest trip anywhere in the overworld is from the underwater tunnel to Attnam, and as the second longest trip is generally much smaller, unless you make random encounters really common there probably won't be all that many and thus it won't be able to make the kind of impression they do in ADOM. Though, really for me it seems like it will be more annoying and unfun than otherwise to have random encounters.

IDK, you could try to reinvent the random encounter model, instead of just the "you are ambushed by a bunch of random monsters" model, give you random encounters that give you a chance to add alignemtn roleplay "you encounter a carvan of traders, do you want ot help/pillage them" or such. I think it could be a tool to really flesh out the IVAN world.

I dont disagree that some aspects of random encounters are pretty lame and dont really add much to a game, but as it stands the overworld has no real purpose. you could just as easily eliminate it alltogether. All it does is occasionally starve a beginner player.

The latest version of the game is 0.50. The plan was that there'd be a empires and cities out there doing trade, wars, politics and other sorts of things without the player doing anything about it. This game is not finished, therefore some things that seemingly have no purpose, might simply not been finished yet.

The more we talk about this the sadder I am that they stopped development at 0.50

Aren't we all, though?

There really needs to be a warning on a locked door if it's Merka's. It was such a promising character too...

A scatterbrained wand. Does the effect of a random wand when zapped. Has a chance to break itself resulting in a random effect too.

And probably an outlandish idea: The Room of Change Material. A simple non-descript room that looks no different to the others on the level, but anything inside the room occasionally changes material to something random. Upon entering the room there should be some sort of alert, like "This room seems dangerous", "you get the feeling it is not safe here", "Your skin seems to be crawling". The change should affect all bodyparts along with inventory items, but only has a chance to (to prevent everything changing at once) and without an announcement of having done so. The message "Your head suddenly feels like marble!" would definately give it away.
To make things more interesting, there should be a unique monster that spawns in there, and is slow-moving so it has time to get its limbs and such changed. A golem of some sort, perhaps?

A new status effect or two might be nice. What about Reflect?

Reflect would protect you from all spells. Including beneficial ones.

Interesting idea. However, I can't help but think it'd be broken due to the fact there's just so many more harmful spells cast your way than beneficial ones. How about magic immunity? Magic doesn't affect you, period. That'll include spells, wands, scrolls, equipment, fountains, the works. Possibly prayer effects as well. It'd work both ways, so it won't be so broken.

That's kinda what I meant. Say goodbye to using wands of teleport to get out of jams.

Or perhaps using a wand/scroll of Reflect lets you reflect 1 spell, whereas a ring of reflection or a mirrored shield would give you perma-Reflect status?

Reflect would also be a buff that can be granted by Infuscor.

I was also thinking about a wand/scroll of healing. You can use them to heal yourself, pets, or deal damage to the undead.

Immunity is less merciful, ergo more IVANish

One-time reflections sound great because it would take some mastery to succesfuly determine which will come first - his fireball or your need to teleport away. I like the idea very much.

A scroll of healing would be a cute gift for us players who like to hang out with buffed out pets, and sounds easier to do than a "Drink a healing liquid!" command for the AI.

Reflecting some things like lightning, fireballs, and healing spells would be cool. Then you could use the old Final Fantasy trick of casting Reflect on a monster before it uses its own healing spell, thus causing it to heal you instead. Or casting Reflect on yourself, and then using lightning or a fireball on yourself and sending it in a random direction.

Yeah the first thinghi thiught of was Carbuncle and the reflect tricks

Sounds like an appealing idea, particularly implemented as a state.

It gives me an idea for a scroll of fire balls, where if you read it, then you can cast a spell on a selected square (spell range proportional to your intelligence). This would be a bit like the spells of an elder dark mage, in that you could cast the spell from a distance. It would also finally make the behaviour of dark mages somewhat more explicable; it bothered me a little that I couldn't cast spells like they do.
The scroll could be volatile and explode like a wand of fireballs. If you are confused state, then confuse-read means the incantation goes wrong and you blow yourself up.

Wand/Scroll of healing sounds great too.

As far as that goes, there was some sort of magic to be added to IVAN beyond the scrolls/wands way we have right now.

13:55 < J_Kahvi> if the psi system is added we could make an explanation for why food in shops stays unspoilt
13:55 < J_Kahvi> the shopkeeper would have a remove air -spell and would remove the air around the foodstuffs
13:55 < J_Kahvi> it could also be used to suffocate slow enemies
13:56 < J_Kahvi> or well, not remove, but push aside
13:56 < J_Kahvi> since shopkeepers aren't much of magicians, it could be a quite simple spell

That's a pretty neat solution to the problem. Shame spells never got added in.

isn't there already an explanation as to why their foods dont rot?

Only for the New Attnam shop's bananas.

I thought it was implied for Attnam too.

Maybe because it's damn near freezing in Attnam by the time you get there?
Perhaps the same could be said for the GC shop (not that i've seen any food in there as far as I remember) because it's so deep underground and kept in a cold stone room.

Coding wise, I have no idea.

The shopkeepers are friends with all creatures, including microbes.

How about: Named Continents

With the exception of Hulbo, who is not friends with the tax collectors.

Fortune Cookies, which are 'read', and tell your fortune using a similar method to the sci-talk algorithm.

f.ex. a particular fortune cookie might read:

"The fortune cookie reads:\\ "Soon, the (adjective) (creature noun) will (adverb) (verb) you!\\""

adjective =
{5, big, little, small, brittle, enormous;}

creature_noun =
{4, hedgehog, orc, zombie, dolphin;}

adverb =
{5, quickly, slowly, mildly, briskly, painfully;}

verb =
{5, devour, jump over, smash, stomp on, dissolve}