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Stepping down as Angband maintainer

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Robert Ruehlmann

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Oct 9, 2005, 5:41:23 PM10/9/05
to
Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
some time.

Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
then I'll happily hand it over.

P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.
Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
to move back to and "rekindle the fire".

--
Robert Ruehlmann ( r...@thangorodrim.net )
"Thangorodrim - The Angband Page" : http://www.thangorodrim.net/
Visit the #angband chat channel at irc.worldirc.org

Bahman Rabii

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Oct 9, 2005, 6:03:54 PM10/9/05
to

Hello Robert,

Thank you for all you have done for the community. I am enthusiastic
about you future role as well.

It certainly will be hard to fill your shoes.

Robert Ruehlmann <r...@thangorodrim.net> writes:

--
Bahman Rabii

pete mack

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Oct 9, 2005, 7:09:46 PM10/9/05
to

Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.
>
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.
>
> P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
> would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.
> Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
> technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
> to move back to and "rekindle the fire".

It's good to hear from you. And I too thank you for all the hard work
over the years.

PS: the NPP patch I sent you last month has some nits that have now
been fixed. The latest is available on timo's home page. I really
hope that this gets included in mainline. It has become a minor
headache trying to maintain such a long changelist as a patch, rather
than as part of the mainline code.

pete mack

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Oct 9, 2005, 7:47:18 PM10/9/05
to

Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

Followup.

I understand that the Angband license is not sufficiently open for
sourceforge. Is there another public source-control site that would
accept Angband? That would make everyone's life a little easier.

-pete

Andrew Doull

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Oct 9, 2005, 7:54:00 PM10/9/05
to

I've already mentioned berlios.de. However, angband.oook.cz appears to be
hosting a copy of the vanilla CVS, so I don't believe we need to move to a 3rd
party hosted solution, provided this continues...

--
Unangband L:C E+ T- R- P+ D-- G+(+) F:Sangband RL-- RLA-- W:F Q++
AI+(++) GFX++ SFX++ RN+++(+) PO++ Hp+++ Re--(+) S++ C- O* KG--

Andrew Doull

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Oct 9, 2005, 7:52:30 PM10/9/05
to
On 2005-10-09 23:41:23, Robert Ruehlmann <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote:

> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.
>

Its with some sadness that I hear this. Your contribution has been much
appreciated, and will be hard to replace...

> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

They're big shoes to fill.

Andrew

Sherm Pendley

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Oct 9, 2005, 8:24:04 PM10/9/05
to
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:

> I understand that the Angband license is not sufficiently open for
> sourceforge.

Wasn't there some effort made a while back to get all the relevant people
to agree to a GPL license? What happened to that?

sherm--

--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org

pete mack

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Oct 9, 2005, 9:17:30 PM10/9/05
to

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2005-10-10 01:47:18, "pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> > > Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> > > somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> > > then I'll happily hand it over.
> >
> > Followup.
> >
> > I understand that the Angband license is not sufficiently open for
> > sourceforge. Is there another public source-control site that would
> > accept Angband? That would make everyone's life a little easier.
> >
> > -pete
> >
>
> I've already mentioned berlios.de. However, angband.oook.cz appears to be
> hosting a copy of the vanilla CVS, so I don't believe we need to move to a 3rd
> party hosted solution, provided this continues...

I'm not sure that's enough for distributed development. It would be
unfair to put the burden of maintaining the cvs tree on the maintainer
of oook, unless the^H^H^H poor^H^H^H sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H he is willing
to take on such a burden.

Actually, I'd rather not use sourceforge, because it doesn't follow any
standard source control model that I know. I'd rather use something
more modern like darcs/arch/subversion, especially something with an
eclipse plugin.

But somebody would have to run a server.

Leon Marrick

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Oct 9, 2005, 9:21:47 PM10/9/05
to
Robert Ruehlmann wrote:

> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.

An era has ended. And what an era it has been. Let me sing of
things accomplished.

- Vast improvements to user customizability.
- A wealth of new and enhanced ports to new and old systems alike.
Easier configuration and installation. Better compilation instructions.
- Innumerable low-level code improvements that have made such things as
outputting text, supporting graphics and lighting effects, and loading
initialization files much easier and more reliable.
- A thousand and one gameplay enhancements, including a host of new
monsters, objects, and vaults. Everyone seems to have his own favourite
new Angband feature: Mine is the cumulative light radius: When I wield
my Broad Sword of Gondolin and the Phial, I can see forever!


> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

Somebody *has* to sign up. We can't have a committee; as Ben
Harrison so wisely said: "Committees have given us nothing but
trouble". Who's got the guts to volunteer?


> P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
> would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.
> Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
> technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
> to move back to and "rekindle the fire".

I bet you'll shed some serious light in this community, if past
performance is anything to go by. Running the Standard Code can get
terribly restrictive. So many ideas to pursue, so many neat
opportunities, yet you have to stay Standard, whatever that means. Now
you are free! Enjoy yourself!


[previous messages]
"Robert escapes to wreck havoc!" (more)
"You have a very good feeling about this..." (more)


--
S(all) W/X H+ D c+ f? PV++ s? d- C S !I? !So? RQ V+ F:<<too much data!>>
http://www.harris.ukgateway.net/angband/code.html

Spook

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Oct 9, 2005, 9:32:28 PM10/9/05
to
Well, this is a sad thing to hear, but I certainly don't argue with
your reasoning; if it's not fun anymore, then there's no point. This
is, after all, a game, and should be fun for all those involved,
espicially the developer who's putting his own time into it.

So, I'd like to say "Thank you" to you for your work over the last five
or so years, and also for deciding to remain in the community to a
degree.

I guess the next question is : Who can even begin to fill his shoes?

Timo Pietilä

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Oct 10, 2005, 1:51:20 AM10/10/05
to
Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a

That's bad. Nobody deserves to burn out for a game. Not even this good game.

> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

I don't think there are many that can. I have technical resources, but
I'm not a coder so with me development would be more or less frozen. And
other possibilities that I can think of all have their own variants to
maintain.

> P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
> would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.

Could you host Thangorodrim as official page and keep source it as it
is, just in frozen state until we find somebody that is willing to take
over?

BTW. If you are willing to release one last version then FYI 3.0.6
source with squelch and wand/staff recharging fix from CVS added in is
downloadable from my homepage:

http://home.edu.helsinki.fi/~tipietil/angband.

Pete Mac did patch and I did test it and host it in my page. It runs
fine (no crashes or errors or weird behavior this far) and compiles at
least in OSX, cygwin, lcc-win32 and djgpp.

Timo Pietilä

Julian Lighton

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Oct 10, 2005, 3:24:03 AM10/10/05
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In article <m2mzli8...@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local>,

Sherm Pendley <sh...@dot-app.org> wrote:
>"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> I understand that the Angband license is not sufficiently open for
>> sourceforge.
>
>Wasn't there some effort made a while back to get all the relevant people
>to agree to a GPL license? What happened to that?

There's a lot of relevant people, and not all of them are contactable.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
/* You are not expected to understand this. */

Andrew Doull

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Oct 10, 2005, 3:59:16 AM10/10/05
to
On 2005-10-10 07:51:20, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:

> Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> > Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> > necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
>
> That's bad. Nobody deserves to burn out for a game. Not even this good game.
>
> > Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> > somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> > then I'll happily hand it over.
>
> I don't think there are many that can. I have technical resources, but
> I'm not a coder so with me development would be more or less frozen. And
> other possibilities that I can think of all have their own variants to
> maintain.

Arguably, no one knows gameplay like you...

Hazelnut

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Oct 10, 2005, 4:49:24 AM10/10/05
to

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2005-10-10 07:51:20, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
> <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
> > Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> > > Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> > > necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> >
> > That's bad. Nobody deserves to burn out for a game. Not even this good game.
> >
> > > Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> > > somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> > > then I'll happily hand it over.
> >
> > I don't think there are many that can. I have technical resources, but
> > I'm not a coder so with me development would be more or less frozen. And
> > other possibilities that I can think of all have their own variants to
> > maintain.
>
> Arguably, no one knows gameplay like you...
>
> Andrew

Does the maintainer actually need to code? Robert seems to be stepping
down because he wants to get back to coding, rather than doing all the
coordination. Surely knowing the gameplay inside out is one of the most
important considerations so that new things incorporated are balanced.

Robert - good luck, and thanks for such a good game in Angband 3.0.6!

Pav Lucistnik

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Oct 10, 2005, 5:52:50 AM10/10/05
to
V Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:17:30 -0700, pete mack napsal(a):

>
> Andrew Doull wrote:
>> On 2005-10-10 01:47:18, "pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
>> > > Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
>> > > somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
>> > > then I'll happily hand it over.
>> >
>> > Followup.
>> >
>> > I understand that the Angband license is not sufficiently open for
>> > sourceforge. Is there another public source-control site that would
>> > accept Angband? That would make everyone's life a little easier.
>> >
>> > -pete
>> >
>>
>> I've already mentioned berlios.de. However, angband.oook.cz appears to be
>> hosting a copy of the vanilla CVS, so I don't believe we need to move to a 3rd
>> party hosted solution, provided this continues...
>
> I'm not sure that's enough for distributed development. It would be
> unfair to put the burden of maintaining the cvs tree on the maintainer
> of oook, unless the^H^H^H poor^H^H^H sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H he is willing
> to take on such a burden.

Yes, I'm going to host that CVS repository for as long as needed.
For the record, I'm also hosting ToME CVS repository, with 17 write
accounts. I don't see how that's not enough for distributed development.
It got anonymous access, up-to-date CVSweb interface (not that delayed
nonsense like on Sourceforge), nightly HEAD tarballs for download.

I'm also willing to host website for downloads (Robert never needed that,
DarkGod have ToME website here), mailing lists, whatever.

--
Pav Lucistnik <p...@oook.cz>
<p...@FreeBSD.org>

Your sig line (k) was stolen! -more-
There is a puff of smoke!

Andrew Doull

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Oct 10, 2005, 7:35:26 AM10/10/05
to
On 2005-10-10 10:49:24, "Hazelnut" <andyb...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Andrew Doull wrote:
> > On 2005-10-10 07:51:20, =3D?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietil=E4?=3D


> > wrote:
> > > I don't think there are many that can. I have technical resources, but
> > > I'm not a coder so with me development would be more or less frozen. And
> > > other possibilities that I can think of all have their own variants to
> > > maintain.
> >
> > Arguably, no one knows gameplay like you...
> >
> > Andrew
>
> Does the maintainer actually need to code? Robert seems to be stepping
> down because he wants to get back to coding, rather than doing all the
> coordination. Surely knowing the gameplay inside out is one of the most
> important considerations so that new things incorporated are balanced.
>

Are you getting some Timo for Maintainer t-shirts printed up?

Andrew Doull

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Oct 10, 2005, 7:38:00 AM10/10/05
to
On 2005-10-10 11:52:50, Pav Lucistnik <p...@oook.cz> wrote:

> V Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:17:30 -0700, pete mack napsal(a):
>
> >
> > Andrew Doull wrote:

> >> On 2005-10-10 01:47:18, "pete mack" wrote:
> >> I've already mentioned berlios.de. However, angband.oook.cz appears to be
> >> hosting a copy of the vanilla CVS, so I don't believe we need to move to a 3rd
> >> party hosted solution, provided this continues...
> >
> > I'm not sure that's enough for distributed development. It would be
> > unfair to put the burden of maintaining the cvs tree on the maintainer
> > of oook, unless the^H^H^H poor^H^H^H sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H he is willing
> > to take on such a burden.
>
> Yes, I'm going to host that CVS repository for as long as needed.
> For the record, I'm also hosting ToME CVS repository, with 17 write
> accounts. I don't see how that's not enough for distributed development.
> It got anonymous access, up-to-date CVSweb interface (not that delayed
> nonsense like on Sourceforge), nightly HEAD tarballs for download.
>
> I'm also willing to host website for downloads (Robert never needed that,
> DarkGod have ToME website here), mailing lists, whatever.

I'd like to add hear that I've had nothing but positive responses from Pav, and
have found him extremely helpful, and a real asset to the community.

Andrew

Neil Stevens

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Oct 10, 2005, 7:42:03 AM10/10/05
to
On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:17:30 -0700, pete mack wrote:
> I'm not sure that's enough for distributed development. It would be
> unfair to put the burden of maintaining the cvs tree on the maintainer
> of oook, unless the^H^H^H poor^H^H^H sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H he is willing
> to take on such a burden.

I think it'd be better if "distributed development" were avoided.
Angband's gotten along pretty well using a single maintainer, so it'd be
silly to change that practice without a good reason. And the only good
reason I can think of would be the lack of a new volunteer.

--
Neil Stevens - ne...@hakubi.us

'A republic, if you can keep it.' -- Benjamin Franklin

Neil Stevens

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Oct 10, 2005, 7:49:28 AM10/10/05
to
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:35:26 +0000, Andrew Doull wrote:
> Are you getting some Timo for Maintainer t-shirts printed up?

Hear hear.

DarkGod

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Oct 10, 2005, 7:58:51 AM10/10/05
to
On 2005-10-10 13:38:00, Andrew Doull <andre...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Yes, I'm going to host that CVS repository for as long as needed.
> > For the record, I'm also hosting ToME CVS repository, with 17 write
> > accounts. I don't see how that's not enough for distributed development.
> > It got anonymous access, up-to-date CVSweb interface (not that delayed
> > nonsense like on Sourceforge), nightly HEAD tarballs for download.
> >
> > I'm also willing to host website for downloads (Robert never needed that,
> > DarkGod have ToME website here), mailing lists, whatever.
>
> I'd like to add hear that I've had nothing but positive responses from Pav, and
> have found him extremely helpful, and a real asset to the community.

I have exactly the same to say about Pav, who contributes lots of ressources to
the *band communnity. He is always helpful!
So a big thanks to you pav!

--
DarkGod comes from | Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards
the hells for YOU ! :) | because they are subtle and quick to anger.
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------
ToME power! http://t-o-m-e.net

magnate

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Oct 10, 2005, 10:16:42 AM10/10/05
to
Andrew Doull wrote:
> Are you getting some Timo for Maintainer t-shirts printed up?

Heh. Timo does have a good point though, somebody has to code the next
release of V. I can't imagine anyone willing to go through the hassle
of doing the coding without wanting to be the maintainer - but perhaps
there is someone.

Timo, perhaps you'd like to take this opportunity to learn to code? Ask
Jeff - it worked for him.

Big thanks to Robert for all his efforts.

CC

Joshua Rodman

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Oct 10, 2005, 10:29:07 AM10/10/05
to
On 2005-10-10, Neil Stevens <ne...@hakubi.us> wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:17:30 -0700, pete mack wrote:
>> I'm not sure that's enough for distributed development. It would be
>> unfair to put the burden of maintaining the cvs tree on the maintainer
>> of oook, unless the^H^H^H poor^H^H^H sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H he is willing
>> to take on such a burden.
>
> I think it'd be better if "distributed development" were avoided.
> Angband's gotten along pretty well using a single maintainer, so it'd be
> silly to change that practice without a good reason. And the only good
> reason I can think of would be the lack of a new volunteer.

Note, final/solitary control and distributed development are not
mutually exclusive. It's possible to use such tools to allow a
maintainer to do more by filtering and handling code blobs from other
people with less hassle.

Note I have no opinion either way on whether it's applicable, necessary
or useful in this case.

-josh
--
Grim. Grom. Grümmer.

Jeff Greene

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Oct 10, 2005, 11:32:08 AM10/10/05
to

"Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote in message news:3qtgudF...@individual.net...

> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.

I understand. Due to alot of RL events this year I was having difficulty getting energy and time to work on NPP. Then, while playing basketball in June, I broke both my wrists, had surgery, had a cast on my right hand for 14 weeks and was unable to code for that time. That long break helped me get my fire back.

>
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

Whoever your sucessor should be, that person should follow in your footsteps in being the sole and final decision maker of what changes make it into Angband, while having an understanding of the game and what the Angband community wants from it. I do think Timo is a good choice in that regard, if he wanted to do it. As for his level of coding experience, I don't see that as too important. I am sure he could pick up the coding parts quickly, and he would be given plenty of coding support in areas where he wanted it. I mean, if he posted to the Angband newsgroup something like "Would somebody help me with this bug in the Mac OSX platform" or "can somebody make me a patch for this feature based on this variant" I am sure we would get plenty of support, me included. The important thing is that this person be the proper visionary for how the game progresses, and most importantly how it remains the stable gaming standard for the Angband gaming community.

> Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
> technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
> to move back to and "rekindle the fire".
>

Why am I reminded of Harry Potter and the paintings of the of the former Headmaster in the Hogwarts Headmaster's quarters who traditionally talk and confer with Dumbledore? Shall that be your role? :) {disregard the events in the latest book}

Glad to hear you will still be involved. And thank you again from all of us for your contributions and excellent maintainence of Angband.

--
-Jeff

Author of NPPAngband. Check it out at:
http://members.cox.net/nppangband/

replace the ".spam"s with cox.net to reply

Andrew Doull

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Oct 10, 2005, 11:56:05 AM10/10/05
to

What are we looking for in the next release of Vanilla? I'm suggesting Timo, on
the basis that he more than any one would know what the chewy caramel center of
Angband consists of, and wouldn't start taking Vanilla too far away from what it
is at the moment.

I could never do that job, for instance...

Craig Oliver

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Oct 10, 2005, 11:51:52 AM10/10/05
to
Robert, I just want to thank you for the great job you've done with Angband.
It's a great game, due in no small part to the massive amount of work you've
put into it. You've always been upbeat, professional, and helpful when people
like me pester you with coding questions, and I really appreciate it.

Enjoy your respite. You deserve it.

Craig
--
http://penancecomic.com
http://www.chambrook.org

Ed_47569

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Oct 10, 2005, 12:21:03 PM10/10/05
to

I think Timo would be the ideal candidate for maintainer... he has an
extremely good understanding of game balance.

Ed

Jonathan Ellis

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Oct 10, 2005, 4:14:51 PM10/10/05
to

"Andrew Doull" <andre...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:die2ul$2jum$1...@news.vol.cz...

> On 2005-10-10 16:16:42, "magnate" <chr...@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Andrew Doull wrote:
> > > Are you getting some Timo for Maintainer t-shirts printed up?
> >
> > Heh. Timo does have a good point though, somebody has to code the
next
> > release of V. I can't imagine anyone willing to go through the
hassle
> > of doing the coding without wanting to be the maintainer - but
perhaps
> > there is someone.
> >
> > Timo, perhaps you'd like to take this opportunity to learn to
code? Ask
> > Jeff - it worked for him.
> >
> > Big thanks to Robert for all his efforts.
> >
> > CC
>
> What are we looking for in the next release of Vanilla? I'm
suggesting Timo, on
> the basis that he more than any one would know what the chewy
caramel center of
> Angband consists of, and wouldn't start taking Vanilla too far away
from what it
> is at the moment.
>
> I could never do that job, for instance...

Well, for what it's worth, I'm willing to get involved with such
things as offering advice and experience to whoever takes on the
mantle. I obviously can't do it myself as it would require the ability
to actually code, but I know pretty well how gameplay works too, and
if anybody wants a playtester or a designer of new items or monsters
(or suggestions as to how a particular feature might be implemented,
not in coding terms but gameplay terms), then I would be more than
willing to suggest things if needed.

I've been out of the loop for too long, it's about time I started
getting back into Angband again...

Jonathan.


VALIS

unread,
Oct 10, 2005, 6:22:18 PM10/10/05
to

Thanks for all the work you've done, Robert. I'll miss annoying you.

My vote for matainer is Timo/EddieG/AdamH/LeonM/BahmanR. Any of the
above would help angband become even better (each for their own special
reasons.

Pav *is* awesome, by the way. Not only do I get e-mail from him - he
hosts Steamband, which if you haven't tried - you're missing out.
-Campbell

Otto Martin

unread,
Oct 10, 2005, 9:01:16 PM10/10/05
to
VALIS <va...@oook.cz> wrote:
>My vote for matainer is Timo/EddieG/AdamH/LeonM/BahmanR. Any of the
>above would help angband become even better (each for their own
>special reasons.

I think Timo would be best. Leon and Bahman both have their own
variants, which isn't a bad thing but would probably require them to
give it's maintainership to someone else. Eddie has certain strong
opinions which might cause difficulties. I haven't followed Adam that
well.
Of course, Timo would also have to make sure he's not making the game
too hard for newbies and poorer players, but I think he could do it.
His knowledge of the mechanics is quite impressive, and I think he could
learn the coding side of it as time goes on, especially if Robert and
others are willing to help on the system-side with necessary patches and
such.


Otto Martin - it seems like Ben gave it up just a year or two ago...
--
"God - who are you really? What's your name - Jehovah? Yahweh? Allah?
Are you Catholic? Protestant? Baptist? Muslim? Hindu? What are you?"
http://sinfest.net/d/20050925.html "Labels..."

Hallvard B Furuseth

unread,
Oct 10, 2005, 9:33:31 PM10/10/05
to
Otto Martin writes:
> I think Timo would be best. (...)

How about waiting with that part until someone volunteers for the
programming? Programming can be a lot more fun when one is in control
than when one is following orders. If the volunteer prefers to be the
maintainer, there could still be someone else to ask about gameplay
changes, do the the boring secretarial work etc.

Though of course it can work the other way too. See e.g. how Perl5 has
been developed: it's been a while since I followed it, but: Each release
had one maintainer who mostly made the final decisions. However, Larry
Wall's word was the law when he made decisions. However, I suspect it's
important that he did not make decisions often.

--
Hallvard

Bahman Rabii

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 12:10:56 AM10/11/05
to

"Hazelnut" <andyb...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> Does the maintainer actually need to code? Robert seems to be stepping
> down because he wants to get back to coding, rather than doing all the
> coordination. Surely knowing the gameplay inside out is one of the most
> important considerations so that new things incorporated are balanced.

It is absolutely imperitive that the maintainer have a commitment to
good coding. Angband thrives not just by being a good and well
balanced game, but by maintaining rigorous standard of documentaion,
commenting, and strict compliance with best practices in coding.

There is a lot of wonderful stuff in variants that is simply not
acceptable for Angband due to implementation quality. We must
continue to understand, value, and honor the gift that Ben Harrison
gave to us.

--
Bahman Rabii

Leon Marrick

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 2:13:20 AM10/11/05
to
Bahman Rabii wrote:

> It is absolutely imperitive that the maintainer have a commitment to
> good coding. Angband thrives not just by being a good and well
> balanced game, but by maintaining rigorous standard of documentaion,
> commenting, and strict compliance with best practices in coding.

*nods*

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 4:05:21 AM10/11/05
to
Bahman Rabii wrote:

> It is absolutely imperitive that the maintainer have a commitment to
> good coding. Angband thrives not just by being a good and well
> balanced game, but by maintaining rigorous standard of documentaion,
> commenting, and strict compliance with best practices in coding.

That is why I can't be maintainer. If I had necessary skills to do that
I would accept to be maintainer, but I don't so I can't.

I can, however, be assistance to whoever chooses to be maintainer. I
have lots of ideas about game balance and changes and I'm working on my
own vanilla-based variant that have those made. And again because I'm
not a coder that is limited to change what is and not make anything new.

> There is a lot of wonderful stuff in variants that is simply not
> acceptable for Angband due to implementation quality. We must
> continue to understand, value, and honor the gift that Ben Harrison
> gave to us.

Absolutely agreed. Ben made huge improvements in code readability. Even
non-coder like me can easily understand what each function do even that
I might not understand how it does it.

Timo Pietilä

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 4:18:58 AM10/11/05
to
Otto Martin wrote:
> VALIS <va...@oook.cz> wrote:
>
>>My vote for matainer is Timo/EddieG/AdamH/LeonM/BahmanR. Any of the
>>above would help angband become even better (each for their own
>>special reasons.
>
> I think Timo would be best. Leon and Bahman both have their own

This seems to be what many people are saying. I'm not that sure about it.

> Of course, Timo would also have to make sure he's not making the game
> too hard for newbies and poorer players, but I think he could do it.

Actually, what I would like to see is faster game. No bad things to
newbies. My philosophy is that game should be relatively easy to win
with artifactless game and artifacts are spice in top of that.

There are some "too easy" parts in game that can be exploited, but those
are deeper.

Unfortunately my first changes would immediately break savegame
compatibility (edit-files change too much). I think you could use old
savegame-file, but not a running char. You would need to finish it first.

> His knowledge of the mechanics is quite impressive, and I think he could
> learn the coding side of it as time goes on, especially if Robert and
> others are willing to help on the system-side with necessary patches and
> such.

If I get some help in coding then maybe. I need to discuss with Robert
on this to see what it actually takes to me maintainer.

> Otto Martin - it seems like Ben gave it up just a year or two ago...

Time flies.

Timo Pietilä

Juho Schultz

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 5:15:19 AM10/11/05
to
Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.
>
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.
>

Thank you for the good work you have done -
Angband is fun to play and the code is pleasant to read.

Jonathan Ellis

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 5:16:02 AM10/11/05
to

"Timo Pietilä" <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:3r1aroF...@individual.net...

It seems that the main sticking point is someone who can really write
"good" C coding.

There also has to be someone with a really good understanding of
gameplay mechanics and design.

These do not necessarily have to be the same person.

A two-man team could probably do the job pretty well if they didn't
get in each other's way. But, the more people you have on the "team",
the more likely it *is* that people will get in each other's way.
Three or four and it's likely, five or more and it's pretty much
inevitable.

I still think that, had I been more active in Angband development or
playing over the last couple of years, I could do a damn good job of
designing, with the help of a competent but design-unimaginative
coder. Of course, I haven't *been* that active so I would need to
spend a good few months playing the game as it now stands to get back
into the swing of things. As things stand now, Timo's more likely the
person for the "design" side of the job on that score, but by his own
admission needs someone to write his code for him.

Jonathan.


Andrew Doull

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 9:02:35 AM10/11/05
to
On 2005-10-11 10:18:58, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:

> Otto Martin wrote:


> > VALIS wrote:
> Unfortunately my first changes would immediately break savegame
> compatibility (edit-files change too much). I think you could use old
> savegame-file, but not a running char. You would need to finish it first.

Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at least
want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save files in
newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.

konijn_

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 9:23:05 AM10/11/05
to
+1

konijn_

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 9:35:08 AM10/11/05
to
Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.
>
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.

I sensed a disturbance in the force ;)

I will be honest and say that I had many doubts about the 'recent'
changes to Vanilla. I am not sure I like the source/lua thing, I am not
sure I like the new set of demons at very deep levels.

But then again, I still like playing Vanilla, and you have been a good
sport in helping me out with my Mac problems.

I hope you find a worthy replacement, I wouldnt mind Leon personally. I
wouldnt mind for Vanilla to get some more flavour ( yes yes, lame
wordplay ).

Cheers,
T.

<SNIP>

pete mack

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 10:57:01 AM10/11/05
to

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2005-10-11 10:18:58, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
> <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
> > Otto Martin wrote:
> > > VALIS wrote:
> > Unfortunately my first changes would immediately break savegame
> > compatibility (edit-files change too much). I think you could use old
> > savegame-file, but not a running char. You would need to finish it first.
>
> Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at least
> want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save files in
> newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.

The big deal is to make sure monster memory is not lost across player
death. Everything else is easy to reset.

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 11:59:28 AM10/11/05
to
pete mack wrote:
> Andrew Doull wrote:

>>Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at least
>>want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save files in
>>newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.
>
> The big deal is to make sure monster memory is not lost across player
> death. Everything else is easy to reset.

How was this dealt when JLE released his changes? There were a lot of
changes in monsters at that point. Some where removed and some moved and
tweaked and new monsters were invented.

Timo Pietilä

Wil Hunt

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 6:34:59 AM10/11/05
to
pete mack wrote:

>
>
> The big deal is to make sure monster memory is not lost across player
> death. Everything else is easy to reset.
>

It seems to me that monster memory is the biggest issue with regard to
save-file compatibility. Beyond that, people can, imho, finish their
current character with their current version of Angband.

If we were to modify the system such that monster memory is separated
from save file (2 files?) then you could worry considerably less about
breaking save-file compatibility.

Thoughts?

--
Wil Hunt
Geek in training.
Jack of few trades, master of none.

Andrew Doull

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 2:33:47 PM10/11/05
to
On 2005-10-11 17:59:28, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:

Provided each new monster is in a new location in the monster.txt file it should
be okay. I believe monster lore will also remove inconsistencies - if you remove
a flag from a monster, the player will no longer remember it does the ability in
the new version.

Matthias Kurzke

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 2:44:17 PM10/11/05
to

Most monsters were added after the existing ones, where they don't cause
a problem. For those monsters that were changed, you basically get some
free memory (which is partially corrected: if monster 120 had BR_FIRE
and got changed to one that doesn't have BR_FIRE, then you won't
remember the new monster breathing fire even if it doesn't). One thing
that's not corrected is if monster drop decreases from one version to
the next: you might incorrectly remember the higher number of maximum drops.

Overall, monster changes are NOT a problem for savefile compatibility
UNLESS you want to do something like re-sort the monster list -- in that
case, you're in trouble. Don't change the indices of objects and
monsters in the lists. Always append at the end.

Matthias

Andrew Doull

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 2:45:09 PM10/11/05
to
On 2005-10-11 12:34:59, Wil Hunt <XwilO...@XcomOcastX.XnetX> wrote:

> pete mack wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > The big deal is to make sure monster memory is not lost across player
> > death. Everything else is easy to reset.
> >
>
> It seems to me that monster memory is the biggest issue with regard to
> save-file compatibility. Beyond that, people can, imho, finish their
> current character with their current version of Angband.
>
> If we were to modify the system such that monster memory is separated
> from save file (2 files?) then you could worry considerably less about
> breaking save-file compatibility.
>
> Thoughts?
>

Don't break save file compatibility. Just bump the save file version number and
do a version check to load the older save files correctly if required.

Igenlode Wordsmith

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 3:05:51 PM10/11/05
to
On 10 Oct 2005 Andrew Doull wrote:

[snip]

> What are we looking for in the next release of Vanilla? I'm
> suggesting Timo, on the basis that he more than any one would know
> what the chewy caramel center of Angband consists of, and wouldn't
> start taking Vanilla too far away from what it is at the moment.
>

I'd back Timo for maintainer (perhaps with a flunky to do the actual
dirty work with the code!) if he wants it.
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/

Cliffhanger adventure story: http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/Fiction/Pirates/

pete mack

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 4:47:07 PM10/11/05
to

Igenlode Wordsmith wrote:
> On 10 Oct 2005 Andrew Doull wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > What are we looking for in the next release of Vanilla? I'm
> > suggesting Timo, on the basis that he more than any one would know
> > what the chewy caramel center of Angband consists of, and wouldn't
> > start taking Vanilla too far away from what it is at the moment.
> >
> I'd back Timo for maintainer (perhaps with a flunky to do the actual
> dirty work with the code!) if he wants it.


You will get zero takers if you call them 'flunkies'.

Sherm Pendley

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 4:56:35 PM10/11/05
to
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:

I wouldn't be so sure of that. A title like that comes in handy when it's
time to play the blame game:

"Don't blame me, I'm just a flunky - I don't make decisions." ;-)

sherm--

--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org

Hugo Kornelis

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 7:02:07 PM10/11/05
to
On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:41:23 +0200, Robert Ruehlmann wrote:

>Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
>necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
>chore instead of the fun it used to be.

Hi Robert,

Sounds like a solid reason to step down. This is all about a game, and
all about a hobby for our spare time. It should be done for fun, or not
be done at all.

I'm not "old school". You were already maintainer when I discovered
Angband (the first version I played was 3.0.3). So I can't compare you
to others. But I do know that reading the sources was so easy that I was
able to update some outdated spoiler files, even though I had never
programmed in C. And I recently also discovered how the current code
base makes implementing changes for my own variant unbelievable easy.

I don't know if you *made* the code so readable, or *kept* it so
readable - but either way, you deserve a great roudn of applause for it!
(And another round for all the time and energy you devoted to creating
and maintaining a great time killer for us).

So I wish to add my voice to the choir of people who thank you for what
you've done for the *band community. Thanks for all, and good luck in
your new role.

Best, Hugo
--
Your sig line (k) was stolen! (more)
There is a puff of smoke!

(Remove NO and SPAM to get my e-mail address)

Hugo Kornelis

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 7:17:39 PM10/11/05
to
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:05:21 +0300, Timo Pietilä wrote:

>Bahman Rabii wrote:
>
>> It is absolutely imperitive that the maintainer have a commitment to
>> good coding. Angband thrives not just by being a good and well
>> balanced game, but by maintaining rigorous standard of documentaion,
>> commenting, and strict compliance with best practices in coding.
>
>That is why I can't be maintainer. If I had necessary skills to do that
>I would accept to be maintainer, but I don't so I can't.

Hi Timo,

I would definitely have supported you if you'd had the skills. But I
have to agree with you here, and to disagree with others who are urging
you to take it on anyway, and to learn coding on the job (as Jeff did
when he started NPP). That's fine for a variant, but not for vanilla.

The high level of activity in the *band community is (IMO) for a great
part influenced by the enormous accessability of the Vanilla codebase.
If the V code was more abscure, less documented, and in other ways
harder to graps, then there would be far less variants, far less
patches, etc.


>I can, however, be assistance to whoever chooses to be maintainer. I
>have lots of ideas about game balance and changes

And I'd love to see you in that role.

I think that Jeff Greene would be a good candidate to be the next
maintainer. If he is willing to take on the job, that is (which,
frankly, I doubt - I'm afraid he'll give priority to finishing all his
plans for NPP). Especially in the first releases of NPP, he showed a
good understanding of what changes would enhance the player's experience
but still keep the game "close to vanilla". Of course, in the later
releases, NPP has become truly a game of it's own. But I think that Jeff
is able to distinguish between changes that change the atmosphere of the
game and changes that only enhance gameplay withoout affecting the
atmosphere.

I must admit that there are many variants that I've never as much as
looked at. That makes it impossible for me to judge if maintainers of
other variants (like Leon, Bahman, Andrew, VALIS, and probably some
others as well) are better candidates. But I do think that Jeff would be
a good candidate.

R. Dan Henry

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 7:39:42 PM10/11/05
to
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:56:35 -0400, Sherm Pendley <sh...@dot-app.org>
wrote:

>"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Igenlode Wordsmith wrote:
>>> On 10 Oct 2005 Andrew Doull wrote:
>>>
>>> I'd back Timo for maintainer (perhaps with a flunky to do the actual
>>> dirty work with the code!) if he wants it.
>>
>> You will get zero takers if you call them 'flunkies'.
>
>I wouldn't be so sure of that. A title like that comes in handy when it's
>time to play the blame game:
>
>"Don't blame me, I'm just a flunky - I don't make decisions." ;-)

Still, maybe a grander title would go over better.

How about, "Chief Henchman, Technical Division"?

--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com

Joseph William Dixon

unread,
Oct 11, 2005, 10:30:33 PM10/11/05
to
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Andrew Doull wrote:
> Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at
> least want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save
> files in newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.

Bah. Savefile compatability shouldn't be of even the slightest concern
with a maintainer - except for purely bugfix releases, of course. Except
for bugfix releases, why shouldn't the player finish up their current game
before upgrading?

--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They
never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our
people, and neither do we." - George W. Bush [August 5th, 2004]

pete mack

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 1:34:03 AM10/12/05
to

The usual term is "partner" or "collaborator."

Andrew Doull

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 7:23:15 AM10/12/05
to
On 2005-10-12 04:30:33, Joseph William Dixon <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:

> On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Andrew Doull wrote:
> > Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at
> > least want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save
> > files in newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.
>
> Bah. Savefile compatability shouldn't be of even the slightest concern
> with a maintainer - except for purely bugfix releases, of course. Except
> for bugfix releases, why shouldn't the player finish up their current game
> before upgrading?

It was something Ben Harrison was particularly concerned about. Of course, the
new maintainer will be setting a new standard, but I believe this is one
important one to continue.

I managed to maintain Unangband save file compatibility up to the last version
release (The new version will break this, but is a huge change), with minimal
effort. In fact, the game was designed to be backwards compatible so that you
could load Angband characters if you particularly wanted to.

Sherm Pendley

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 8:34:46 AM10/12/05
to
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:

> The usual term is "partner" or "collaborator."

Meh. Vague feel-good nonsense. A partner is someone who's an equal in all
respects - in both authority and culpability. In my experience, that's not
what really happens. What really happens is, a programmer is referred to
as a "partner", but treated like a flunky.

Until something goes wrong, that is - when that happens, you're suddenly
a full partner again, and blamed for the results of decisions in which
you had no say.

Thanks, but I prefer honesty. Call me a flunky if that's what I am - make
my lack of authority a matter of record, so I can't be held accountable for
someone else's mistakes.

Courtney Campbell

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 9:23:46 AM10/12/05
to
In article <fbhok1hq0a7l47r3q...@4ax.com>,
Hugo Kornelis <Ang...@hugo.is_NO_dit.c_SPAM_om> wrote:

> I must admit that there are many variants that I've never as much as
> looked at. That makes it impossible for me to judge if maintainers of
> other variants (like Leon, Bahman, Andrew, VALIS, and probably some
> others as well) are better candidates. But I do think that Jeff would be
> a good candidate.

I never thought I'd see my name in *that* company - I suppose it's only
because Hugo doesn't know that over 80% of the code that's in Steamband
I *stole* from the people in that list.

I lack the coding skills, I have no formal code training, my code is
ugly, poorly documented, and unelegant.

However, out of all the active coders that are working in the *band
community, I can't think of a better one for the job then Leon - his
documentation, comments and code are second to none. And looking over in
that direction Sangband looks to be almost 'finished'.

Still, I wish less people 'knew' or 'heard' that Steamband was good and
more people actually played it. Perhaps with the next release *shrug*.

Nice to see my name brought up in such wonderful company regardless.

> Best, Hugo

- Campbell
P.S. My worst nightmare is that vanilla doesn't *get* a replacement
maintainer.

konijn_

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 9:15:03 AM10/12/05
to
>Thanks, but I prefer honesty. Call me a flunky if that's what I am - make
>my lack of authority a matter of record, so I can't be held accountable for
>someone else's mistakes.

I think you need to change job ;)
There are jobs out there were the developer is the equal partner of the
functional guy, and they pay better to.

Whoever the new maintainer is, I want those old skool patches of Leon
back in Angband. Even if they need to be cleaned up first.

T

Jack Wise

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 10:10:41 AM10/12/05
to
Sherm Pendley wrote:

>
> "Don't blame me, I'm just a flunky - I don't make decisions." ;-)
>

"I'm not allowed to run the train,
the whistle I can't blow;
I'm not even allow to say
how far the thing can go!

I'm not allowed to let of steam
nor even ring the bell,
but let the damn thing jump off the tracks
and see who catches Hell!!"

(anonymous)


--
Jack Wise

TEXAS red wine: renowned for its smoky-mesquite-bbq & jalapeno
overtones, the perfect foil for a meal of tacos and refried beans...

Andrew Doull

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 11:10:38 AM10/12/05
to
On 2005-10-12 15:23:46, Courtney Campbell <camp...@oook.cz> wrote:

> In article ,


> Hugo Kornelis wrote:
>
> > I must admit that there are many variants that I've never as much as
> > looked at. That makes it impossible for me to judge if maintainers of
> > other variants (like Leon, Bahman, Andrew, VALIS, and probably some
> > others as well) are better candidates. But I do think that Jeff would be
> > a good candidate.
>
> I never thought I'd see my name in *that* company - I suppose it's only
> because Hugo doesn't know that over 80% of the code that's in Steamband
> I *stole* from the people in that list.
>
> I lack the coding skills, I have no formal code training, my code is
> ugly, poorly documented, and unelegant.
>
> However, out of all the active coders that are working in the *band
> community, I can't think of a better one for the job then Leon - his
> documentation, comments and code are second to none. And looking over in
> that direction Sangband looks to be almost 'finished'.

On reflection, I have to agree. I was initially suggesting Timo, because I think
Leon might shake up Angband too much. But of the variants that are currently
around e.g. NPPAngband, Steamband, Quickband, have for the most part adopted
the improvements that Leon initiated in Sangband or Leon and/or Bahman in
Oangband. And Angband might need a shakeup.

Even if he isn't interested in the job, whomever does probably needs to look
long and hard at the improvements in any of those variants to see if they are
worth adopting. I think there would be little to no argument about the majority
of user interface changes (except perhaps 256 colours until that sorts out
interaction with the existing Angband graphics code) - quiver slots are a
little more contentious, but probably justifiable.

The toughtest choice will probably be the adoption of 4gai. I think its possible
to do it incrementally (Unangband has some of the new 4gai code without all of
it - mostly because it got too hard to add the rest), but it will be a massive
impact on Angband gameplay.

The other tough choice will be the continuation of using Lua.

Mondkalb

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 11:25:40 AM10/12/05
to
So may it be - and thank you for your efforts.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And wither then? I cannot say.

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 1:48:33 PM10/12/05
to
Andrew Doull wrote:

> The toughtest choice will probably be the adoption of 4gai. I think its possible
> to do it incrementally (Unangband has some of the new 4gai code without all of
> it - mostly because it got too hard to add the rest), but it will be a massive
> impact on Angband gameplay.

4GAI isn't that big change. Most variants that have it can be played
pretty much same way as vanilla. What would change gameplay is o-combat
system. That is an improvement if it is done right. Do it badly and it
ruins the game.

While 4GAI can be implemented without big changes in monsters/items
o-combat can't.

Biggest impact in o-combat is in missile-combat. All variant with
o-combat have very weak rangers (or equals) compared to vanilla.

Timo Pietilä

Matthias Kurzke

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 2:45:22 PM10/12/05
to
Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2005-10-12 15:23:46, Courtney Campbell <camp...@oook.cz> wrote:
>
>>
>>However, out of all the active coders that are working in the *band
>>community, I can't think of a better one for the job then Leon - his
>>documentation, comments and code are second to none. And looking over in
>>that direction Sangband looks to be almost 'finished'.
>
>
> On reflection, I have to agree. I was initially suggesting Timo, because I think
> Leon might shake up Angband too much. But of the variants that are currently
> around e.g. NPPAngband, Steamband, Quickband, have for the most part adopted
> the improvements that Leon initiated in Sangband or Leon and/or Bahman in
> Oangband. And Angband might need a shakeup.
>
I agree that Leon is probably one of the best for the job. He knows what
issues need to be attacked, and while I might not competely agree with
the way things were done in OAngband, I think the "global balance"
approach is what Angband needs.

> Even if he isn't interested in the job, whomever does probably needs to look
> long and hard at the improvements in any of those variants to see if they are
> worth adopting. I think there would be little to no argument about the majority
> of user interface changes (except perhaps 256 colours until that sorts out
> interaction with the existing Angband graphics code) - quiver slots are a
> little more contentious, but probably justifiable.
>
> The toughtest choice will probably be the adoption of 4gai. I think its possible
> to do it incrementally (Unangband has some of the new 4gai code without all of
> it - mostly because it got too hard to add the rest), but it will be a massive
> impact on Angband gameplay.
>

Working monster AI makes it a better game. (It shouldn't be broken,
though -- I usually turn off the pack AI in Vanilla because I find it
silly that Cave Spiders are no longer dangerous to mages).

> The other tough choice will be the continuation of using Lua.
>

The main problem seems to be that people who want to code their own
variant don't know how to use the LUA code, and that it is currently
much easier to just code your variant in C all the way, especially since
most non-trivial changes currently still involve changing both C and lua
code. (See Lua removal in NPP: it seems to just have been annoying to Jeff).

The symptom of these problems is that we haven't seen any Lua-based
changes to Vanilla yet. I am certain that really cool things could be
done with Lua while cleaning up the source code at the same time. For
example, I would like to see "special cased" attacks of monsters to be
moved into the "monster.txt" file, so the "Farmer Maggot mumbles
something about mushrooms" text could be edited right with Farmer Maggot
and not in some other file. Or special-cased monster drop code could be
made, or Bill made to summon Bert or whatever. I don't know how
something like this could be done, though, since I don't understand the
lua interface.

If nobody does anything cool with lua, then it just becomes a useless
waste of resources. I don't quite see why the code saves a couple of
bytes by not giving every object its own flag set (a change that would,
for example, allow things like branding ego weapons or creating an
artifact that can be activated to choose between fire and frost brand)
but wastes more memory by duplicating code in an extra script language.

Matthias

pete mack

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Oct 12, 2005, 2:52:11 PM10/12/05
to
Matthias Kurzke wrote:

> The symptom of these problems is that we haven't seen any Lua-based
> changes to Vanilla yet. I am certain that really cool things could be
> done with Lua while cleaning up the source code at the same time. For
> example, I would like to see "special cased" attacks of monsters to be
> moved into the "monster.txt" file, so the "Farmer Maggot mumbles
> something about mushrooms" text could be edited right with Farmer Maggot
> and not in some other file. Or special-cased monster drop code could be
> made, or Bill made to summon Bert or whatever. I don't know how
> something like this could be done, though, since I don't understand the
> lua interface

I have started looking at the ToME lua code to port it back to Vanilla,
with

1. Support for V-style staff/wands
2. Support for rods.

This would be a compile time option, whether to use V fail rates and
levels, or ToME-style. There's been a lot of griping about lua in this
thread. I think it is misguided.

pete mack

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 2:54:21 PM10/12/05
to

Timo Pietilä wrote:
> Andrew Doull wrote:
>
> > The toughtest choice will probably be the adoption of 4gai. I think its possible
> > to do it incrementally (Unangband has some of the new 4gai code without all of
> > it - mostly because it got too hard to add the rest), but it will be a massive
> > impact on Angband gameplay.
>
> 4GAI isn't that big change. Most variants that have it can be played
> pretty much same way as vanilla. What would change gameplay is o-combat
> system. That is an improvement if it is done right. Do it badly and it
> ruins the game.

Along with the castrated Ranger class, 4GAI makes NPP much harder than
V.
It makes stealth more valuable and aggravation a lot more dangerous.

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 5:13:09 PM10/12/05
to
pete mack wrote:
> Timo Pietilä wrote:

>>4GAI isn't that big change. Most variants that have it can be played
>>pretty much same way as vanilla. What would change gameplay is o-combat
>>system. That is an improvement if it is done right. Do it badly and it
>>ruins the game.
>
> Along with the castrated Ranger class, 4GAI makes NPP much harder than
> V. It makes stealth more valuable and aggravation a lot more dangerous.

Yes, but you still can play NPP just like vanilla angband.

There are much more than just 4GAI that makes NPP harder (new hydras for
example).

What I would like to in addition to 4GAI is monsters that are not
automaticly aware where player is. Three stages of awareness: sleeping,
awake but not aware of player (roaming around dungeon) and awake and
aware of player.

Timo Pietilä

Bahman Rabii

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Oct 12, 2005, 6:53:08 PM10/12/05
to
Timo Pietilä <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:

> Biggest impact in o-combat is in missile-combat. All variant with
> o-combat have very weak rangers (or equals) compared to vanilla.

Even in Oangband rangers are very tough at high levels. Fixing them
up at lower levels has been a long road. I think the next release
will finally get them right. This involves some feature that may or
may not be too radical for Angband; either way, having been through it
once I am confident that Rangers can be made to work in any o-combat
variant.

Two key factors are: 1) adding fractional shots/round to help low
level rangers and make dex more important, and 2) making sure that
ammo quality does not jump too insanely.

Early versions of Oangband had a big problem because ammo dice simple
improved too much over the course of the game. Making rangers
playable with low level ammo meant making them godly in late game
unique fights. The solution has been that over time base ammo damage
has gone up, and "unusual dice" bonuses have gone down.

In the next release arrows will start at 1d6, and seeker arrows at
1d9. Each can get a max bonus of +d3. Thus the average base damage
varies from 3.5 to 6.5. In the old days it was 1d4 / 1d9 with up to
+d6, leading to a variation of 2.5 to 8.0. Considering that launcher
quality, deadliness, brands, and shots per round all improve as well
the old ratio was simply unbalanceable while the new ratio is much
better.

Without swimming in number, my point is that these balance issues can
be managed.

--
Bahman Rabii

Jeff Greene

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Oct 12, 2005, 8:05:45 PM10/12/05
to

"Hugo Kornelis" <Ang...@hugo.is_NO_dit.c_SPAM_om> wrote in message news:fbhok1hq0a7l47r3q...@4ax.com...

> On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:05:21 +0300, Timo Pietilä wrote:
>
> And I'd love to see you in that role.
>
> I think that Jeff Greene would be a good candidate to be the next
> maintainer. If he is willing to take on the job, that is (which,
> frankly, I doubt - I'm afraid he'll give priority to finishing all his
> plans for NPP). Especially in the first releases of NPP, he showed a
> good understanding of what changes would enhance the player's experience
> but still keep the game "close to vanilla". Of course, in the later
> releases, NPP has become truly a game of it's own. But I think that Jeff
> is able to distinguish between changes that change the atmosphere of the
> game and changes that only enhance gameplay withoout affecting the
> atmosphere.
>
Thank you, but I don't think I am qualified for several reasons, mostly lack of time. Also, I am not a true computer person, but rather somebody who understands the Angband source code and knows enough "C" to make it do what I want. People like Leon Marrick, Ben Harrison or Robert Ruehlmann are true coders, I am just a hacker. Also, at this point I am just too attached to developing NPP to work within the confines of Vanilla Angband, which should be slow to adopt new features.

My biggest wish is that Leon Marrick agrees to work on the Vanilla source for however long until RL takes him away again, adding 4gai and all the user interface improvements that have happened over the years. I think Vanilla should be at the forefront of UI improvements (as opposed to gameplay features), not lagging at the tail end. Like Courtney (VALIS of Steamband), I spend most of my time just taking improvements from other variants, particularly Leon's.

--
-Jeff


Author of NPPAngband. Check it out at:
http://members.cox.net/nppangband/

replace the ".spam"s with cox.net to reply

Otto Martin

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Oct 12, 2005, 8:23:26 PM10/12/05
to
Andrew Doull <andre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On 2005-10-12 15:23:46, Courtney Campbell <camp...@oook.cz> wrote:
>>However, out of all the active coders that are working in the *band
>>community, I can't think of a better one for the job then Leon - his
>>documentation, comments and code are second to none.
>On reflection, I have to agree. I was initially suggesting Timo,
>because I think Leon might shake up Angband too much.
>And Angband might need a shakeup.

True enough. I liked the previous S (when Julian still was maintainer)
quite a lot, but Leon's S has also been good. Since Timo doesn't feel
he's up to the job (yet - we'll remember this at the next change :-),
I think Leon would be an excellent choice.

Of course, what we really need is more than one volunteer who is
willing to stand up and say "I'll take the job if RR and at least a
few other people are OK with it", so we can have a slightly more useful
discussion...


Otto Martin - a little bit of polite arguing would be good IMO
--
"God - who are you really? What's your name - Jehovah? Yahweh? Allah?
Are you Catholic? Protestant? Baptist? Muslim? Hindu? What are you?"
http://sinfest.net/d/20050925.html "Labels..."

R. Dan Henry

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Oct 12, 2005, 8:34:39 PM10/12/05
to

But that doesn't let him ditch blame. Even a *chief* "henchman" is still
a henchman and not the overlord.

R. Dan Henry

unread,
Oct 12, 2005, 8:34:42 PM10/12/05
to
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 05:23:46 -0800, Courtney Campbell <camp...@oook.cz>
wrote:

>Still, I wish less people 'knew' or 'heard' that Steamband was good and
>more people actually played it. Perhaps with the next release *shrug*.

Get the Steamband mailing list active again and I'll be prompted to
start playing again, at least.

Timo Pietilä

unread,
Oct 13, 2005, 6:11:56 AM10/13/05
to
Bahman Rabii wrote:
> Timo Pietilä <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:
>
>>Biggest impact in o-combat is in missile-combat. All variant with
>>o-combat have very weak rangers (or equals) compared to vanilla.

> Without swimming in number, my point is that these balance issues can
> be managed.

That's my point. Do it right and it is good for the game, do it badly
and you ruin it.

Timo Pietilä

Hugo Kornelis

unread,
Oct 13, 2005, 5:51:31 PM10/13/05
to
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 05:23:46 -0800, Courtney Campbell wrote:

>In article <fbhok1hq0a7l47r3q...@4ax.com>,
> Hugo Kornelis <Ang...@hugo.is_NO_dit.c_SPAM_om> wrote:
>
>> I must admit that there are many variants that I've never as much as
>> looked at. That makes it impossible for me to judge if maintainers of
>> other variants (like Leon, Bahman, Andrew, VALIS, and probably some
>> others as well) are better candidates. But I do think that Jeff would be
>> a good candidate.
>
>I never thought I'd see my name in *that* company - I suppose it's only
>because Hugo doesn't know that over 80% of the code that's in Steamband
>I *stole* from the people in that list.

Hi Courtney,

Well, as a seasoned professional programmer, allow me to let you in on a
secret: all good coders steal code (though we prefer to use the word
copy). Either from co-workers, or from previous programs they wrote.

Copying working code and adapting it to slightly different requirements
is, after all, much less work than writing it from scratch.

The main difference between a good coder and a bad coder is that the bad
coder forgets to change the comments to reflect the changes in the
copied code. (And the truly horrible coders forget to change the stolen
code as well).


(snip)


>Still, I wish less people 'knew' or 'heard' that Steamband was good and
>more people actually played it. Perhaps with the next release *shrug*.

I downloaded and tried Steamband some time ago, for the competition. I
must admit that I stopped playing quite soon - but for reasons that
should not worry you. I'm quite new to *banding. There's still a whole
lot left for me to discover about Vanilla Angband, and about variants
that stay close to V.

When I started playing Steamband, I found that I was not yet ready to
immerse myself in a roguelike that's in some ways so much like Angband,
yet in other ways so much a totally different game. I might get back to
Steamband when I get bored with the world of Angband and V-like
variants, when I'm ready for a complete change. But not now.

One thing that truly struck me, though, was the sense of completeness I
got from playing Steamband - every item was described with lots of
details. It felt as if I had entered a new world. That's a feature that
V could use (though the extra annotations on artefacts that were
introduced somewhere between V303 and V306 go a long way towards that
goal).

(snip)


>P.S. My worst nightmare is that vanilla doesn't *get* a replacement
>maintainer.

That would be sad indeed. But I don't expect this fear to come true.

Hugo Kornelis

unread,
Oct 13, 2005, 5:54:18 PM10/13/05
to
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:05:45 -0400, Jeff Greene wrote:

(snip)


>Like Courtney (VALIS of Steamband), I spend most of my time just taking improvements from other variants, particularly Leon's.

Hi Jeff,

Which is exactly the reason I mentioned your name. Lots of interesting
features have been tried in lots of variants. I think that it's time
that some of them (those that have bene in use long enough to prove that
they are indeed worthy) are incorporated in V.

You have proved yourself able of that. But of course, if you lakc the
time and prefer to go on with NPP, I understand and respect that. (In
fact, I'm already looking forward to the next NPP release!)

Chris Kern

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Oct 13, 2005, 8:01:02 PM10/13/05
to
On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:41:23 +0200, Robert Ruehlmann
<r...@thangorodrim.net> posted the following:

>Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
>necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a

>chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
>between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
>piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
>some time.
>
>Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
>somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
>then I'll happily hand it over.
>
>P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
>would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.
>Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
>technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
>to move back to and "rekindle the fire".

Thanks for all your work on the game -- it was a monumental event when
you took over from Ben, but it's good to see you step down and let
someone else take over when you feel burned out.

I should really start playing again; I haven't played a *band
character in 4 years or so.

-Chris

Chris Kern

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Oct 13, 2005, 8:02:58 PM10/13/05
to
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:23:15 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Doull
<andre...@hotmail.com> posted the following:

>On 2005-10-12 04:30:33, Joseph William Dixon <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, Andrew Doull wrote:
>> > Save-file compatibility is a bit of a holy grail with Angband. You'd at
>> > least want to retain backward compatibility, so you can load older save
>> > files in newer versions. It shouldn't be impossible to maintain however.
>>
>> Bah. Savefile compatability shouldn't be of even the slightest concern
>> with a maintainer - except for purely bugfix releases, of course. Except
>> for bugfix releases, why shouldn't the player finish up their current game
>> before upgrading?
>
>It was something Ben Harrison was particularly concerned about. Of course, the
>new maintainer will be setting a new standard, but I believe this is one
>important one to continue.

I personally never understood this either; savefile compatibility
seems to me to be a totally irrelevant concern that has forestalled
badly needed cleanup of certain areas of the code for a decade or
more. I can see someone wanting to upgrade minor versions, but who
would want to carry over a 2.7.0 character to 3.0.X, for instance?

-Chris

Eddie Grove

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Oct 13, 2005, 9:17:54 PM10/13/05
to
Chris Kern <chris...@gmail.com> writes:

IMO the versioning system should mean

a.b.c should be able to read savefiles from
a.b.z for all z [minor revisions should not change the savefile]
a.y.z for all y < b [backwards compatibility for medium revisions]
and there should be no promises at all for x.y.z where a neq x.


Eddie

Velvet Elvis

unread,
Oct 14, 2005, 8:54:06 PM10/14/05
to
Bahman Rabii wrote:

> It is absolutely imperitive that the maintainer have a commitment to
> good coding. Angband thrives not just by being a good and well
> balanced game, but by maintaining rigorous standard of documentaion,
> commenting, and strict compliance with best practices in coding.
>
> There is a lot of wonderful stuff in variants that is simply not
> acceptable for Angband due to implementation quality. We must
> continue to understand, value, and honor the gift that Ben Harrison
> gave to us.
>

<delurk>
I agree with this 100%

Everything I know about C I learned from hacking around with the angband
source.
</delurk>

Martin Bazley

unread,
Oct 16, 2005, 12:30:52 PM10/16/05
to
On the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star, Jonathan
Ellis was seen to write...

> I still think that, had I been more active in Angband development or
> playing over the last couple of years, I could do a damn good job of
> designing, with the help of a competent but design-unimaginative
> coder. Of course, I haven't *been* that active so I would need to
> spend a good few months playing the game as it now stands to get back
> into the swing of things. As things stand now, Timo's more likely the
> person for the "design" side of the job on that score, but by his own
> admission needs someone to write his code for him.
>
Why, are you volunteering?
--
- Martin Bazley - "Being me is a 24-hour job"
mar...@bazley.freeuk.com - Wimbledon, London, England
============== ARM 610 17MB RiscPC 600 ==============
================= RISC OS Rules OK! =================

Jonathan Ellis

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Oct 16, 2005, 5:14:55 PM10/16/05
to

"Martin Bazley" <mar...@bazley.freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:8c81d3ba...@freeuk.com...

> On the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star, Jonathan
> Ellis was seen to write...
>
> > I still think that, had I been more active in Angband development
or
> > playing over the last couple of years, I could do a damn good job
of
> > designing, with the help of a competent but design-unimaginative
> > coder. Of course, I haven't *been* that active so I would need to
> > spend a good few months playing the game as it now stands to get
back
> > into the swing of things. As things stand now, Timo's more likely
the
> > person for the "design" side of the job on that score, but by his
own
> > admission needs someone to write his code for him.
> >
> Why, are you volunteering?

I'm volunteering what experience I *have*, and as much as I can
remember of the ideas I was intending to send to Robert before losing
them when my computer got stolen a few years ago. (Couldn't face
writing them all down *again*, it was a bit too soon after I did a
very big job for PernAngband just before it became TOME, and I got a
bit burned out. Then music college got busy and I didn't play for
ages, what with one thing and another.) I started not just playing
Angband again recently, but *thinking* about it too.

Obviously I can't be proper maintainer anyway, without coding ability,
but I think I can still offer *some* decent feature ideas and
playtesting. As can others.

Jonathan.


Christophe

unread,
Oct 17, 2005, 6:01:57 AM10/17/05
to
Robert Ruehlmann a écrit :

> Over the past few months I have realized that I've lost the enthusiasm
> necessary to maintain Angband. I'm feeling burned out. It has become a
> chore instead of the fun it used to be. As a result the quiet times
> between the development activity have become longer and longer, email is
> piling up in my inbox, and Thangorodrim has only seen minor updates for
> some time.
>
> Angband and the player community deserve an active maintainer. So if
> somebody is willing to take the job and the community accepts him or her,
> then I'll happily hand it over.
>
> P.S.: I'm not intending to drop out of *band development completely. But I
> would like to go back to a different role - move to the background again.
> Porting variants, hunting bugs, fixing things that need fixing - the
> technical stuff - that is where I truly feel at home. That's where I want
> to move back to and "rekindle the fire".

I'll thank you ( somewhat late ) for your great work on Angband.
Although I haven't been playing Vanilla for a long time now ;)

Anyway, I was checking the CVS version that WE and I noticed some
problems with it ( mainly refresh problems with the X11 backend ). What
is the current status of the CVS version and what works remains before
3.0.7 can be released ?

I'm sure the next maintainer will appreciate if he started working on a
stable release ;)

konijn_

unread,
Oct 18, 2005, 8:39:08 AM10/18/05
to
>Somebody *has* to sign up. We can't have a committee; as Ben
>Harrison so wisely said: "Committees have given us nothing but
>trouble". Who's got the guts to volunteer?

Yeah, I seemed to have missed this post in this large thread.
What does it mean Leon, are you not going to sign up ?
Or are you waiting first for some bigger feet ( to feel up the big
shoes ) ?

T.

The Fury

unread,
Oct 18, 2005, 12:28:35 PM10/18/05
to

I can't program that well, but I probably could run the website ok. That
involves keeping track of variants right?

[OT]

Would anyone have an issue with me mirroring some of the variants on my site?
http://thefury.cogia.net

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