Is Angband going to die?
roger....@gmail.com
It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
It just seems that the number of Angband people is declining, and the
game is fading away a bit. Variants are still going strong (e.g. ToME's
T-Engine is picking up a lot of momentum), but the original itself...
What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
is it actually going to continue being worked on?
And if it is seeming to die, what can be done about it? Is anyone
willing to actually do anything about the decline, or are they just
going to lament it (yes, I'm fully aware that I'm partly doing this
now, but I have quite literally no knowledge of C, C++ or any other
programming languages, so it can't be me.). I've been trying to promote
the game as much as I can, but with only limited success.
What do you think?
Roger Barnett
Neil Stevens
> What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
> and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
> is it actually going to continue being worked on?
I think Angband's best hope is if Timo or somebody else combines the
gameplay (no floor stacking, more exciting item and monster generation,
older item list, etc.) of an older version with the conveniences
(macros, graphics, points-based generation, nifty lighting settings,
etc.) of a newer version, to create a throwback, options-free Angband
with a better UI.
Unless such a throwback happens, then Angband will become 'just another
variant.' Witness how fast NPP went from being 'Angband with a few
tweaks' into something so different now, if you don't believe me.
--
Neil Stevens - ne...@hakubi.us
If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not
looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
tigpup
lots of good stuff including....
> Is it going to die?
> ..I've been trying to promote
> the game as much as I can, but with only limited success.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Roger Barnett
I posted earlier today about difficulties trying to promote the game
too.
>From the posts I read here, it seems that many players are old-skool
and experienced. Despite the fantastic advice given, the game is really
daunting for newbies.
There have been other recent posts about too-much-junk,
too-many-monsters, too-many-resists etc. It feels as if the general
consensus is that the game is just too-big. People also complain about
stat-gain being boring etc.... Personally, I play quests in NPP to
overcome some of the tedium.
I don't consider myself to be a good player at all (only a couple of
winners), but have been playing for a while. I find it daunting to take
on a new variant, because they is always a lot to learn. It seems to me
that any would-be player has to invest *a lot* of time and effort to
get anywhere at all. Many other games are more accessible.
There was also recent discussion about porting to mobile-devices. I
think this is a great idea. Turn-based games work well on mobile
devices where the player has a few minutes to kill, but may need to
stop playing at short notice.
I'm also right behind ideas like Quickband and (now defunct?) Easyband.
Maybe it's OK that the Angband community is quite small, I guess that's
a matter of opinion. Personally, I'd like to see it grow, both with
players and developers.
That's my tuppence (5 cents) worth.
tp.
roger....@gmail.com
> There have been other recent posts about too-much-junk,
> too-many-monsters, too-many-resists etc. It feels as if the general
> consensus is that the game is just too-big. People also complain about
> stat-gain being boring etc.... Personally, I play quests in NPP to
> overcome some of the tedium.
It's also the fact that no new versions seem to be released. If a game
is left as is, and isn't updated on at least a semi-regular basis, it
appears to be dead. Though there are annoying exceptions - NetHack
hasn't had an update since 2003, but the devteam do still seem to be
working on it, looking at the bugs being marked as "fixed".
> There was also recent discussion about porting to mobile-devices. I
> think this is a great idea. Turn-based games work well on mobile
> devices where the player has a few minutes to kill, but may need to
> stop playing at short notice.
Quite right. Angband itself would work fine here, though a menu system
would need to be devised to deal with the limited number of keys
available. Also - you'd need a fairly small font on the screen,
otherwise you'd get some *really* annoying deaths from offscreen
breathers.
>
> I'm also right behind ideas like Quickband and (now defunct?) Easyband.
>
> Maybe it's OK that the Angband community is quite small, I guess that's
> a matter of opinion. Personally, I'd like to see it grow, both with
> players and developers.
More players is always better :) But I'd really not enjoy seeing the
original Angband fade away. I mean, there's a whole graveyard of
variants that were worked on for a while... then just sort of stopped.
There can't be more than ten variants currently being actively worked
on and developed. Even Zangband, one of the first big variants seems to
have been abandoned (at least in a development sense)
> That's my tuppence (5 cents) worth.
I thought only we British were allowed to use tuppence? :-P
>
> tp.
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic
-----
Tagore Smith
tigpup wrote:
> I posted earlier today about difficulties trying to promote the game
> too.
> >From the posts I read here, it seems that many players are old-skool
> and experienced. Despite the fantastic advice given, the game is really
> daunting for newbies.
I'm not old-skool. I don't remember exactly when I first played
Angband, but I know I didn't start to play V seriously until around 4
years ago. It is my impression, though, that Moria was a lot harder.
Everyone started as a newbie, whether with Moria, or frog-knows, or
3.0.6. Angband is supposed to be hard. Lots of people have played for
years, and enjoyed it, without ever winning.
If you take away the difficulty you take away the appeal for the people
who that sort of thing- i.e. most of the people who have been playing
seriously for a few years or more. At that point I'm not sure it would
appeal to anyone else in comparison to other games anyway. If anything,
I think V should be a bit more difficult. Anyway, killing Angband's
core constituency by making it too easy would be a sure way to kill
Angband.
> There have been other recent posts about too-much-junk,
> too-many-monsters, too-many-resists etc. It feels as if the general
> consensus is that the game is just too-big.
Big in what sense? I might agree that there are a few too many levels,
and a few too many uniques that are risky to leave behind. But a lot of
the people making that complaint are spending many tens of hours on a
win, when they could spend 10-20.
> People also complain about
> stat-gain being boring etc.... Personally, I play quests in NPP to
> overcome some of the tedium.
Well, tastes differ- I would find playing a lot of quests very tedious.
In the time it takes to complete a quest you could just drop 500-1000'.
> I don't consider myself to be a good player at all (only a couple of
> winners), but have been playing for a while. I find it daunting to take
> on a new variant, because they is always a lot to learn. It seems to me
> that any would-be player has to invest *a lot* of time and effort to
> get anywhere at all. Many other games are more accessible.
I don't take on new variants a lot- I have yet to master V. When I get
a 500k win I'll think about branching out :). But I don't think you can
fairly criticize V for the difficulty of learning new variants. Most of
them are _much_ larger (I have had a ridiculously powerful TOME
character, who was so by clvl 30, on hold for 6 months through sheer
boredom).
> There was also recent discussion about porting to mobile-devices. I
> think this is a great idea. Turn-based games work well on mobile
> devices where the player has a few minutes to kill, but may need to
> stop playing at short notice.
This might be the ideal way to play Angband if you're looking for wins-
less death by tedium.
> I'm also right behind ideas like Quickband and (now defunct?) Easyband.
I've never played Easyband. I won my first game of Quick, and haven't
played much since. It seems like a good introduction to the game, but
it lacks the appeal, for me, of Angband.
If anything, I'd like to see FastBand- a variant that requires that you
play at a decent rate of descent. A lot of the tedium of Angband can be
avoided if you are willing to die frequently. A lot of your complaints
seem to be predicated on the idea that people should be able to win
fairly regulary without having played a lot. That's really not the in
the spirit of Moria, but it is true, that by playing like the borg
newbs stand a chance.
Unfortunately that means that many people just play like the borg,
which leads to tedium beyond that required by the game. If they enjoy
that, great. If they don't, there is an easy solution. I'd like a
FastBand to mandate it just to show people that it is possible to play
more quickly if the tedium bothers you.
> Maybe it's OK that the Angband community is quite small, I guess that's
> a matter of opinion. Personally, I'd like to see it grow, both with
> players and developers.
It has always been small, and it's not surprising that, as other games
get better graphics and more fripperies, V gets a smaller audience. As
long as there is a small group of dedicated players V won't die. And
for people who want a different sort of game, it will continue to be a
springboard on which other sorts of games can be built- almost every
variant eventually takes that plunge- or so I think reading about the
WIP NPP.
> That's my tuppence (5 cents) worth.
Well, I suppose by ratio of words I'd have to say that that is my
pound's worth ;).
DarkGod
wrote:
> It's also the fact that no new versions seem to be released. If a game
> is left as is, and isn't updated on at least a semi-regular basis, it
> appears to be dead. Though there are annoying exceptions - NetHack
Indeed..
> More players is always better :) But I'd really not enjoy seeing the
> original Angband fade away. I mean, there's a whole graveyard of
> variants that were worked on for a while... then just sort of stopped.
> There can't be more than ten variants currently being actively worked
> on and developed. Even Zangband, one of the first big variants seems to
> have been abandoned (at least in a development sense)
10? I cant even count 10..
Maybe somebody will remake V into a T-Engine3 module, what a twisted
turn of events it would be, angband being it's won successor, in a way :)
> Roger Barnett
And now you stop wasting time on nntp and go back to making me some
maps :>
--
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
konijn_
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
You know, I wish Julian would just put out a todo list, then people can
help him out.
( And if he has one, tell rgra about it ;)
> It just seems that the number of Angband people is declining, and the
> game is fading away a bit. Variants are still going strong (e.g. ToME's
> T-Engine is picking up a lot of momentum), but the original itself...
>
> What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
> and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
> is it actually going to continue being worked on?
I have always thought of Angband as the place to start your own
variant, nothing more. The one *band that will always compile on all
platforms and that is well written.
> And if it is seeming to die, what can be done about it? Is anyone
> willing to actually do anything about the decline, or are they just
> going to lament it (yes, I'm fully aware that I'm partly doing this
> now, but I have quite literally no knowledge of C, C++ or any other
> programming languages, so it can't be me.). I've been trying to promote
> the game as much as I can, but with only limited success.
You are doing a great deal already with the comic! Yes,the whole server
based tournament idea didn't work out, so what ?
> What do you think?
Oh, dangerous questions ;)
>
> Roger Barnett
roger....@gmail.com
DarkGod wrote:
>
> 10? I cant even count 10..
>
> Maybe somebody will remake V into a T-Engine3 module, what a twisted
> turn of events it would be, angband being it's won successor, in a way :)
Sadly, you're probably right. Ah well.
>
> > Roger Barnett
>
> And now you stop wasting time on nntp and go back to making me some
> maps :>
:P I've been busy. Got a large series of parties and celebrations this
weekend (various birthdays including my own) that I've been planning
and sorting :P I'll get to it relatively soon.
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic
-----
roger....@gmail.com
konijn_ wrote:
> roger....@gmail.com wrote:
> > Is it going to die?
> >
> > It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> > Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> > from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> > uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
>
> You know, I wish Julian would just put out a todo list, then people can
> help him out.
> ( And if he has one, tell rgra about it ;)
That would be a really useful idea. Julian - are you listening? :) For
minor stuff, that could certainly be sorted by others.
>
> > It just seems that the number of Angband people is declining, and the
> > game is fading away a bit. Variants are still going strong (e.g. ToME's
> > T-Engine is picking up a lot of momentum), but the original itself...
> >
> > What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
> > and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
> > is it actually going to continue being worked on?
>
> I have always thought of Angband as the place to start your own
> variant, nothing more. The one *band that will always compile on all
> platforms and that is well written.
True enough, but if a particular variant becomes more
stable/popular/well written then it itself will become the standard :P
>
> > And if it is seeming to die, what can be done about it? Is anyone
> > willing to actually do anything about the decline, or are they just
> > going to lament it (yes, I'm fully aware that I'm partly doing this
> > now, but I have quite literally no knowledge of C, C++ or any other
> > programming languages, so it can't be me.). I've been trying to promote
> > the game as much as I can, but with only limited success.
>
> You are doing a great deal already with the comic! Yes,the whole server
> based tournament idea didn't work out, so what ?
The comic gets about 800-1200 hits a day, and most of the readers are
already r.g.r.a-ers, or #angband-ers :P
> > What do you think?
> Oh, dangerous questions ;)
Not really... we don't have to listen ;-)
Christer Nyfalt
> tigpup wrote:
>
>
>> There have been other recent posts about too-much-junk,
>> too-many-monsters, too-many-resists etc. It feels as if the general
>> consensus is that the game is just too-big. People also complain about
>> stat-gain being boring etc.... Personally, I play quests in NPP to
>> overcome some of the tedium.
>
> It's also the fact that no new versions seem to be released. If a game
> is left as is, and isn't updated on at least a semi-regular basis, it
> appears to be dead.
>
that we are talking about the maintainer instead of the developer.
Myself, I have lost all interest in vanilla Angband.
Ofcourse there are other issues that might also discourage people to
use or develope it.
roger....@gmail.com
> >
> That's the way everything works, grow and adapt or die. A bad sign is
> that we are talking about the maintainer instead of the developer.
> Myself, I have lost all interest in vanilla Angband.
>
> Ofcourse there are other issues that might also discourage people to
> use or develope it.
Quite. We just need one (or more) dedicated person who's willing to
actually sit down and code Angband 3.0.7. Or 3.1.0. Or even *gasp*
4.0.0.
Neil Stevens
> That's the way everything works, grow and adapt or die. A bad sign is
> that we are talking about the maintainer instead of the developer.
> Myself, I have lost all interest in vanilla Angband.
That's nice, but I think it's positively foolish to change for the sake
of change. The classic NEEDS maintenance. It doesn't need to be turned
into NPP, Sangband, or ToME.
Why shouldn't new players get the opportunity to try the game that sets
the standard for so many thast have come after? We don't quit playing
Tetris just because someone else made Super Deluxe Tetris 3 DX.
roger....@gmail.com
> Why shouldn't new players get the opportunity to try the game that sets
> the standard for so many thast have come after? We don't quit playing
> Tetris just because someone else made Super Deluxe Tetris 3 DX.
But we pretty much have quit playing Rogue or Moria...
konijn_
> > You are doing a great deal already with the comic! Yes,the whole server
> > based tournament idea didn't work out, so what ?
>
> The comic gets about 800-1200 hits a day, and most of the readers are
> already r.g.r.a-ers, or #angband-ers :P
Now see, that is one of those things; there are a lot more #angbanders
than there used to be. Granted, they dont play that much angband, but I
can see a positive trend there.
roger....@gmail.com
>
> Now see, that is one of those things; there are a lot more #angbanders
> than there used to be. Granted, they dont play that much angband, but I
> can see a positive trend there.
>
Also true. Angband rarely gets discussed there, but if anyone asks for
help or advice it usually gets provided quickly.
Neil Stevens
>> Why shouldn't new players get the opportunity to try the game that sets
>> the standard for so many thast have come after? We don't quit playing
>> Tetris just because someone else made Super Deluxe Tetris 3 DX.
>
> But we pretty much have quit playing Rogue or Moria...
Because neither had maintainers. Only in the last year or so are we
seeing people dig up and modernize those games that lay unmaintained for
years.
If Angband has a maintainer, then it can endure.
roger....@gmail.com
> Because neither had maintainers. Only in the last year or so are we
> seeing people dig up and modernize those games that lay unmaintained for
> years.
>
> If Angband has a maintainer, then it can endure.
>
How? What does a maintainer do to make it endure?
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic
-----
Neil Stevens
>> Because neither had maintainers. Only in the last year or so are we
>> seeing people dig up and modernize those games that lay unmaintained for
>> years.
>>
>> If Angband has a maintainer, then it can endure.
>>
>
> How? What does a maintainer do to make it endure?
Fix bugs, keep it portable and ported to new systems, improve the user
interface over time, maybe make game tweaks if extensive game play finds
issues that wreck the fun.
Moria and Rogue died because they were left behind. Everyone rushed
into variants and nobody maintained the classics. This hurts not just
the players, but the developers of the succeeding games too, because the
innovations and game design solutions are lost when the games are lost.
It amazes me that people still complain about clutter in Angband, when
it's plain as day that floor stacking is the cause, and restoring the
lack of floor stacking would be the easy solution.
Nick McConnell
> roger....@gmail.com wrote:
> > What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
> > and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
> > is it actually going to continue being worked on?
>
> I think Angband's best hope is if Timo or somebody else combines the
> gameplay (no floor stacking, more exciting item and monster generation,
> older item list, etc.) of an older version with the conveniences
> (macros, graphics, points-based generation, nifty lighting settings,
> etc.) of a newer version, to create a throwback, options-free Angband
> with a better UI.
Timo's recent post about this made me think along similar lines. I'm undecided
about the gameplay, but there is certainly a raft of UI improvements that
Vanilla should have absorbed and hasn't. NPP's notes file, colour-coded @,
target path, shades etc are just the first few that spring to mind.
My $A1.00 (inflation...)
Nick.
--
Nick McConnell
FA + "Ooog" DN L:42 DL:57 A+ R++ Sp w:Rog
FA*/A/NPP/O/Po/St/Un W/L H- D c-- f- PV+ s- d++ P++ M+
C-- S- I* So+ B+ ac GHB SQ? RQ+ V-/V+@ F:NPP notes, etc.
roger....@gmail.com
>
> Timo's recent post about this made me think along similar lines. I'm undecided
> about the gameplay, but there is certainly a raft of UI improvements that
> Vanilla should have absorbed and hasn't. NPP's notes file, colour-coded @,
> target path, shades etc are just the first few that spring to mind.
>
> My $A1.00 (inflation...)
>
> Nick.
Fair enough :) But it comes down to the questions of "Is the maintainer
going to make these changes in a reasonable timeframe", and if the
answer to that is No, then "Who is willing to make these changes".
Product Placement
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
Check the CVS. Julian is responsible for the following long list of changes:
1. Double-rate spellcasting fixed in melee2.c.
The Angband content of his blog (http://jlighton.livejournal.com/tag/angband)
consists of a few posts of the nature of "Going to get cracking real soon now,
after I finish being distracted by this shiny object, ha ha."
So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
Christophe Cavalaria
> roger....@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Because neither had maintainers. Only in the last year or so are we
>>> seeing people dig up and modernize those games that lay unmaintained for
>>> years.
>>>
>>> If Angband has a maintainer, then it can endure.
>>>
>>
>> How? What does a maintainer do to make it endure?
>
> Fix bugs, keep it portable and ported to new systems, improve the user
> interface over time, maybe make game tweaks if extensive game play finds
> issues that wreck the fun.
>
> Moria and Rogue died because they were left behind. Everyone rushed
> into variants and nobody maintained the classics. This hurts not just
> the players, but the developers of the succeeding games too, because the
> innovations and game design solutions are lost when the games are lost.
>
> It amazes me that people still complain about clutter in Angband, when
> it's plain as day that floor stacking is the cause, and restoring the
> lack of floor stacking would be the easy solution.
And tell me, what use is the "birth_no_stacking" option for then?
roger....@gmail.com
> Check the CVS. Julian is responsible for the following long list of changes:
>
> 1. Double-rate spellcasting fixed in melee2.c.
>
> The Angband content of his blog (http://jlighton.livejournal.com/tag/angband)
> consists of a few posts of the nature of "Going to get cracking real soon now,
> after I finish being distracted by this shiny object, ha ha."
>
> So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
>
The question is... who will maintain it then? I would, if I could code.
I have the time to give it a go, but I know no programming, and have
not got enough time to learn *and* maintain :P
It really comes down to that. Someone has to be willing to do it. And
keep doing it.
Jonathan Ellis
<roger....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1164749265....@14g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
>
>> Check the CVS. Julian is responsible for the following long list
>> of changes:
>>
>> 1. Double-rate spellcasting fixed in melee2.c.
>>
>> The Angband content of his blog
>> (http://jlighton.livejournal.com/tag/angband)
>> consists of a few posts of the nature of "Going to get cracking
>> real soon now,
>> after I finish being distracted by this shiny object, ha ha."
>>
>> So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
>>
>
> The question is... who will maintain it then? I would, if I could
> code.
> I have the time to give it a go, but I know no programming, and have
> not got enough time to learn *and* maintain :P
>
> It really comes down to that. Someone has to be willing to do it.
> And
> keep doing it.
Echoed over here. I don't have the ability to code, or the time to
learn. I've got a few ideas for content but not of the sort that could
be done with the text files any more. (ah, those were the days...)
As for the idea that "clutter" (in the form of excess items) is
killing the game: It hasn't killed Nethack, where there's a good deal
more clutter than there is in Angband and much less ability to easily
either identify it or destroy it to remove it from the game. I don't
buy that argument.
But still, Nethack is a game that actually takes a considerably
shorter time, from starting character to winning, than Angband does.
You could say it takes longer to achieve certain things in Angband,
and a much shorter time to achieve "the complete ascension kit" (which
consists of basically the same combination of equipment with only one
or two variations - grey or silver DSM? amulet of reflection, magical
breathing or lifesaving? Plus, gauntlets of power if you can wield
Mjollnir, dexterity otherwise...)
Whereas in Angband it can take considerably longer to achieve various
different varieties of "survival kit", but there's actually a little
more variety among survival kits than there is in Nethack. The worst
bit, actually, is farming for consumables if you're short of them.
Like if you don't have enough Potions of Healing to survive the big P.
And sure, there's scads of low-power artifacts that are only of any
use if found at the shallow depths for which they were designed, i.e.
near the surface. The 'thanc daggers are fine EARLY weapons - if you
get one of them at say dungeon level 5, and enchant it to +9,+9. The
Paur- series of gloves are great EARLY gauntlets for a warrior, or a
priest-type spellcaster. Even the long sword Elvagil would be useful
if it were found at a depth where the main non-unique enemies were
orcs.
Of course, you can't be swimming in artifacts too early in the game,
otherwise it gets overpowered too soon. Think of the lower-power
artifacts as things which would be good to find one or two of in the
early stages (and artifacts have to be rare enough that you only do
find "one or two of them" in the early stages): like, one game you
might find Dethanc and Paurnen early between 200' and 500', the next
time it might be Narthanc and Paurnimmen. Another time you might find
nothing at all. Eventually, the player does indeed outgrow them. And
sometimes you outgrow them all before you get them.
Jonathan.
Billy Bissette
news:1164732447....@j44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> It's also the fact that no new versions seem to be released. If a game
> is left as is, and isn't updated on at least a semi-regular basis, it
> appears to be dead. Though there are annoying exceptions - NetHack
> hasn't had an update since 2003, but the devteam do still seem to be
> working on it, looking at the bugs being marked as "fixed".
Nethack also has several things that help keep it popular that
Angband doesn't.
Nethack isn't splintered across so many variants. There are only a
couple of options. If you want Nethack, you play Nethack. If you want
no-holds-barred Nethack, you play Slash'em. Instead of variants,
people just make patches, which only strengthens Nethack itself. The
most popular survive, thrive, and possibly make it into the core game.
The less popular still exist, and the main compatibility issue is just
when a new core release occurs.
Angband has been badly splintered for years. Vanilla may or may not
be the most popular version, but it certainly doesn't compare to the
combined popularity of the main variants. The variants for years have
even fed more off of each other than from Vanilla. New variants seem
more likely to even start based off of the code of another variant.
There isn't a core for people to rally behind, other than just the
concept of "Angband," which different people view in different ways.
Nethack has a tournament that actually draws a bit of non-Nethack
player coverage. It even changes the game just for the tournament.
I've seen it mentioned on a few different sites. Angband has a
roughly monthly Usenet tournament which honestly doesn't even draw
much support from the people reading the Angband newsgroup where it
is posted.
Nethack has better coverage in general, and arguably a better image
of general appeal. Nethack supporters are quite vocal outside the
Nethack community, and honestly they can make Nethack look more
appealing than most other Roguelikes when they talk about it. Nethack
seems exciting, while Angband seems boring. Playing the two briefly
seems to offer the same evaluation. Angband likely carries a "Why
bother" image to non-Angband players. If someone wants a basic
Roguelike, they play Rogue. Otherwise they play Nethack.
Nethack has a community that just seems more alive. Angband, even
with a flood of variants, has arguably looked dead or dying for years.
That encourages people towards Nethack, and discourages them from any
incarnation of Angband. After all, if it were any good, wouldn't it
have a larger user base? More people that care about each "big"
variant? And the like...
Billy Bissette
> Christer Nyfalt wrote:
>> That's the way everything works, grow and adapt or die. A bad sign is
>> that we are talking about the maintainer instead of the developer.
>> Myself, I have lost all interest in vanilla Angband.
>
> That's nice, but I think it's positively foolish to change for the sake
> of change. The classic NEEDS maintenance. It doesn't need to be turned
> into NPP, Sangband, or ToME.
That is also part of why Vanilla has seen so little improvement over
the years. Whenever someone suggests something be added, someone else
dissents. Even basic updates have had reasonable arguments levied
against them, for the sake of maintaining the purity of Vanilla.
The problem is that Vanilla has turned into a fossil. It isn't
developed. It is only maintained. And the maintanence itself is only
a matter of keeping it playable. But for what purpose? People even
make their variants off of already modified Vanilla code if not off of
other variants entirely. How many people here even play Vanilla more
than Vanilla variants?
But the variants really do kind of need Vanilla as an anchor for
the community to keep interest. Zang easily could have split itself off
in a fashion similar to how Angband split from Moria. Same goes for
several other variants.
roger....@gmail.com
> Nethack isn't splintered across so many variants. There are only a
> couple of options. If you want Nethack, you play Nethack. If you want
> no-holds-barred Nethack, you play Slash'em. Instead of variants,
> people just make patches, which only strengthens Nethack itself. The
> most popular survive, thrive, and possibly make it into the core game.
> The less popular still exist, and the main compatibility issue is just
> when a new core release occurs.
Quite. There's really only the two.
> Nethack has a tournament that actually draws a bit of non-Nethack
> player coverage. It even changes the game just for the tournament.
> I've seen it mentioned on a few different sites. Angband has a
> roughly monthly Usenet tournament which honestly doesn't even draw
> much support from the people reading the Angband newsgroup where it
> is posted.
I did suggest a central Angband tournament, but as with a lot of
things, it got debated a bit, but nothing actually got done.
>
> Nethack has better coverage in general, and arguably a better image
> of general appeal. Nethack supporters are quite vocal outside the
> Nethack community, and honestly they can make Nethack look more
> appealing than most other Roguelikes when they talk about it. Nethack
> seems exciting, while Angband seems boring. Playing the two briefly
> seems to offer the same evaluation. Angband likely carries a "Why
> bother" image to non-Angband players. If someone wants a basic
> Roguelike, they play Rogue. Otherwise they play Nethack.
True, there's a lot more variety in NetHack. It's all puzzles and
special cases, whereas Angband is pure tactics and inventory
management. Nethack also has a lot more public geek cred, it's the
"primary" roguelike. It gets mentioned everywhere, even several times
in User Friendly. (www.userfriendly.org)
> Nethack has a community that just seems more alive. Angband, even
> with a flood of variants, has arguably looked dead or dying for years.
> That encourages people towards Nethack, and discourages them from any
> incarnation of Angband. After all, if it were any good, wouldn't it
> have a larger user base? More people that care about each "big"
> variant? And the like...
Yeah. What might help is having a more organised, central and
*official* site for Angband. The current one is no longer maintained,
angband.oook.cz partly fills the role, and furytech is really just an
archive.
One central site, with details about all *active* variants, as well as
the main game. Dead variants would be archived there, but in a
subsection, not on the main page. It might help to have a rallying
point. It would need to be functional, though not necessarily
absolutely jam packed full of features, but contain all the relevant
content. The site maintainer would probably also need Robert Ruhlmann's
cooperation in copying over some of the existing material.
This is something I'm probably capable of doing, though not until the
New Year. But I'd only do it if it was going to be the official Angband
central site, somewhere that everyone would be willing to contribute
to. It's not a small project, nor is it a short term one, so I would
require assistance, and the general support before I consider it. This
is not a definite "I'll do it", but rather "I'm thinking about it a
lot".
What do people think of this idea? Or is it just the last zap from the
electroplates for Angband, before the doctors say "Time of Death?"
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic.
Nick McConnell
> Neil Stevens wrote:
>
> > roger....@gmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >> How? What does a maintainer do to make it endure?
> >
> > Fix bugs, keep it portable and ported to new systems, improve the user
> > interface over time, maybe make game tweaks if extensive game play finds
> > issues that wreck the fun.
> >
> > Moria and Rogue died because they were left behind. Everyone rushed
> > into variants and nobody maintained the classics. This hurts not just
> > the players, but the developers of the succeeding games too, because the
> > innovations and game design solutions are lost when the games are lost.
Yes, yes, yes. Change had been fairly slow, but regular, for a while until a
couple of years ago. It's the lack of regular attention that hurts, but it
takes a while for it to become noticeable.
> > It amazes me that people still complain about clutter in Angband, when
> > it's plain as day that floor stacking is the cause, and restoring the
> > lack of floor stacking would be the easy solution.
> And tell me, what use is the "birth_no_stacking" option for then?
Agreed here. More choice is generally better than less, and people have tended
to vote with their feet for more floor stacking. Perhaps the default could be
yes to "birth_no_stacking", but I'm unconvinced that floor stacking is the
problem.
Nick McConnell
wrote:
> What do people think of this idea? Or is it just the last zap from the
> electroplates for Angband, before the doctors say "Time of Death?"
I think announcements of its death are premature - there are still lots of
people (and not just the usual suspects) posting dumps to the ladder, for
example.
My feeling is that it is only those of us who spend a _lot_ of time thinking
about these who are noticing anything wrong. But something needs to be done, I
think.
roger....@gmail.com
> I think announcements of its death are premature - there are still lots of
> people (and not just the usual suspects) posting dumps to the ladder, for
> example.
>
> My feeling is that it is only those of us who spend a _lot_ of time thinking
> about these who are noticing anything wrong. But something needs to be done, I
> think.
>
> Nick.
I never said it was dead... but I recognise the symptoms from a MUD I
used to play on. It was still popular, and had a regular cadre, but it
just wasn't getting new people, wasn't being upgraded, wasn't being
maintained, and gradually it faded away.
So the time to sort things out is not when it gets desperate, but *NOW*
while we still have the interested people, and can revitalise things.
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic
-----
Billy Bissette
news:1164754258.5...@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com:
> I did suggest a central Angband tournament, but as with a lot of
> things, it got debated a bit, but nothing actually got done.
Even then, it would probably need some extra bit of spice to rival
Nethack. Nethack offers something new, to draw interest even from
long term players. Angband-based tournaments so far have just offered
another game of some combination in some variant.
Except it is hard to make specialty "tournament" games of Angband
as it is for Nethack. And arguable as to whether Angband itself would
be suited to such a tournament anyway, already having so many variants
that so few have really even experienced.
> One central site, with details about all *active* variants, as well as
> the main game. Dead variants would be archived there, but in a
> subsection, not on the main page.
I'd like to see dead variants "updated" to modern code, though I
understand that pretty much no one would volunteer for the idea. Or
that it would even serve much purpose, except to perhaps encourage
people to look at what has come before only to fall to the side
(sometimes to little or no fault of the game itself.)
A more feasible approach of the above would probably be to try to
recreate old variants in something like TOME, but I'm not sure I quite
like where that path leads. (Mainly that it leads towards the idea
of TOME becoming a/the new core, and I'm not sure that is the best
position for Angband.)
Billy Bissette
> Moria and Rogue died because they were left behind. Everyone rushed
> into variants and nobody maintained the classics.
Rogue arguably holds on simply being Rogue, the grandfather of it all.
It doesn't hurt that it is a quick-play game, and is pretty easy to find
online. (As for maintaining, there is even a website that is trying to
archive incarnations of Rogue and present them in playable form.)
Rogue certainly hasn't taken the same fall into obscurity as Moria and
many others.
DarkGod
> A more feasible approach of the above would probably be to try to
> recreate old variants in something like TOME, but I'm not sure I quite
> like where that path leads. (Mainly that it leads towards the idea
> of TOME becoming a/the new core, and I'm not sure that is the best
> position for Angband.)
Why ?
Do not mistake ToME and it's engine if that is what you think :)
roger....@gmail.com
> Rogue arguably holds on simply being Rogue, the grandfather of it all.
> It doesn't hurt that it is a quick-play game, and is pretty easy to find
> online. (As for maintaining, there is even a website that is trying to
> archive incarnations of Rogue and present them in playable form.)
>
> Rogue certainly hasn't taken the same fall into obscurity as Moria and
> many others.
It's the first though, and is immortalised simply in the name
"rogue-like". Moria however... has really faded. I don't want Angband
to do the same...
...after all, my comic would be obsolete *wink*
Billy Bissette
news:ekie21$2t11$1...@news.vol.cz:
> wrote:
>> Neil Stevens wrote:
>>
>> > It amazes me that people still complain about clutter in Angband,
>> > when it's plain as day that floor stacking is the cause, and
>> > restoring the lack of floor stacking would be the easy solution.
>> And tell me, what use is the "birth_no_stacking" option for then?
>
> Agreed here. More choice is generally better than less, and people
> have tended to vote with their feet for more floor stacking. Perhaps
> the default could be yes to "birth_no_stacking", but I'm unconvinced
> that floor stacking is the problem.
Floor stacking is an aid for the player. It helps prevent projectile
destruction and keeps them from always scattering all over a room. It
also helps prevent the destruction of items that a player might be
iffy about, but not so much that they want them squelched automatically.
The problem is that floor stacking is also an annoyance. Everything
in a drop gets dropped. Kill a few high drop creatures, which isn't
uncommon, and you've got a lot of things to sort through.
With floor stacking, the clutter already present only became more
evident. The question is whether the bigger problem is clutter or
stacking, and you really can argue both sides of that issue.
roger....@gmail.com
>
> Floor stacking is an aid for the player. It helps prevent projectile
> destruction and keeps them from always scattering all over a room. It
> also helps prevent the destruction of items that a player might be
> iffy about, but not so much that they want them squelched automatically.
>
> The problem is that floor stacking is also an annoyance. Everything
> in a drop gets dropped. Kill a few high drop creatures, which isn't
> uncommon, and you've got a lot of things to sort through.
>
> With floor stacking, the clutter already present only became more
> evident. The question is whether the bigger problem is clutter or
> stacking, and you really can argue both sides of that issue.
The discussion about what needs to be done is good... but it's been
done many many times over... the question is really when (if at all) is
it going to be implemented, and who's going to do it?
Billy Bissette
news:pan.2006.11.29....@t-o-DONT.FRELLING.SPAM.ME-m-e.net:
I wasn't trying to knock ToME, engine or specific game.
I just wouldn't say it is the best idea that the ToME engine become
the "new" Vanilla. Even after what I said about the advantages of
modifying/patching Nethack versus creating a brand new variant of
Angband.
Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about ToME. On one hand, it does
and offers a lot of things I like. On the other hand, it might
discourage the changes and ideas that can come along when someone does
decide to recode some game for their variant.
Yeah, I admit that is all kind of sketchy in both how I write and
how I think about it.
Christer Nyfalt
> "roger....@gmail.com" <roger....@gmail.com> wrote in
> news:1164754258.5...@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com:
>
>> the main game. Dead variants would be archived there, but in a
>> subsection, not on the main page.
>
> I'd like to see dead variants "updated" to modern code, though I
> understand that pretty much no one would volunteer for the idea. Or
> that it would even serve much purpose, except to perhaps encourage
> people to look at what has come before only to fall to the side
> (sometimes to little or no fault of the game itself.)
>
I hope that my anglib project will achieve that.
DarkGod
> >> A more feasible approach of the above would probably be to try to
> >> recreate old variants in something like TOME, but I'm not sure I quite
> >> like where that path leads. (Mainly that it leads towards the idea
> >> of TOME becoming a/the new core, and I'm not sure that is the best
> >> position for Angband.)
> >
> > Why ?
> > Do not mistake ToME and it's engine if that is what you think :)
> I wasn't trying to knock ToME, engine or specific game.
No worries I did not think you did :)
> I just wouldn't say it is the best idea that the ToME engine become
> the "new" Vanilla. Even after what I said about the advantages of
> modifying/patching Nethack versus creating a brand new variant of
> Angband.
Why ? ;)
> Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about ToME. On one hand, it does
> and offers a lot of things I like. On the other hand, it might
> discourage the changes and ideas that can come along when someone does
> decide to recode some game for their variant.
I do not understand, it seems to me it would encourage changes and new
ideas(it seems to in other people's games :> )
I really think most people have no idea how flexible the engine really is,
and I am always quite open for improvment suggestions.
I like that actually, this way the engine gets better and everybody else
benefit from it.
Most(and that is a big most ;> ) of the subsystems can be tweaked, changed,
rewriten or not be used at all by modules.
Only the most low level stuff(like LOS) is unflexible and even then I'm
thinking of ways to allow for changes
So if the idea interrets you, take a look , I'd be happy to help
> Yeah, I admit that is all kind of sketchy in both how I write and
> how I think about it.
:)
--
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
Timo Pietilä
> Check the CVS. Julian is responsible for the following long list of
> changes:
>
> 1. Double-rate spellcasting fixed in melee2.c.
>
> The Angband content of his blog
> (http://jlighton.livejournal.com/tag/angband) consists of a few posts of
> the nature of "Going to get cracking real soon now, after I finish being
> distracted by this shiny object, ha ha."
Also even that blog hasn't been updated for a while. I hope there has
not been any accident or something like that.
Julian, give us a ping.
> So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
I hope it does, but Julian just works invisible.
I have half-done some improvements that could be incorporated directly
into vanilla, but I just got a project to do and timeline is "at the end
of the year". And it isn't small project. And apparently in my
department I'm the only one who knows how to do it. So I hardly have
time to eat and sleep, much less time to do anything for angband. It is
possible that Julian has similar problem.
Timo Pietilä
Timo Pietilä
> Product Placement wrote:
>> So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
>
> I hope it does, but Julian just works invisible.
I don't know what I was thinking while writing above sentence. Lets try
again: I hope it still has. Julian could just work invisible, and
release only working code to CVS. I'm guessing that getting rid of LUA
is hard job, so he might be doing that just now.
Timo Pietilä
DarkGod
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
> Timo Pietil� wrote:
> > Product Placement wrote:
>
> >> So no, Angband still doesn't have a maintainer.
> >
> > I hope it does, but Julian just works invisible.
>
> I don't know what I was thinking while writing above sentence. Lets try
> again: I hope it still has. Julian could just work invisible, and
> release only working code to CVS. I'm guessing that getting rid of LUA
Lua, not LUA, it's a word(Moon in purtuguese), not an acronym :>
> is hard job, so he might be doing that just now.
Why ? It never struck me as being much used in V anyway :/
Seany Clayton
largely one of comparative advantage. The likes of O/FA and ToME/NPP
(from what I've seen/read) have made a fair few UI improvements over
the last couple of years that V hasn't caught up on (or has decided not
to implement - yet).
The other factor is that V is probably the obvious 'starting point' for
those new to the *band universe - if the majority of *band users have
been around for a while then they're likely to move towards
new/reworked variants, particularly the more radical departures, in
order to get some more novelty out of the *band experience.
Finally, V doesn't seem to have too many cheerleaders on here at the
moment - newbiew asking for advice for where to start are probably
gently encouraged :) to look towards variants with regular posters on
here maintaining/developing them.
None of these factors are Bad Things (tm) for the *band universe but
might explain why V isn't as predominant as it once was. The key
difference between now and 7/8 years ago is that the variants have
really upped their game and created games that are comparable or
improvements on V as opposed to interesting cul-de-sacs.
The main risk for the *band world would be if variants started to
develop UI systems start would make switching from one variant to
another (completely different AI, keyboard controls, etc) a steep &
discouraging learning curve - the anglib project might help to mitigate
that, hopefully...
Seany
Twisted
> How many people here even play Vanilla more
> than Vanilla variants?
At least one. ;)
Twisted
> What do people think of this idea? Or is it just the last zap from the
> electroplates for Angband, before the doctors say "Time of Death?"
Let's not be melodramatic here. :)
Regarding a centralized site, why not just resurrect Thang?
Twisted
* I suspect that the simultaneous disappearance of Julian *and* Leon
could be up to 80% of the problem here.
* The "fastband" idea might be implemented as a sort of semi-ironman
birth option. In it, the dungeon levels you descended from would
disappear, so the town's down staircase goes to your max depth, and up
stairs there to the town. (WoR items could disappear.) There could
additionally be a chance, each time you use them, that the down stairs
from town take you 50' deeper than that (except at 4950' with Sauron
still alive, 5000' with Morgoth still alive, and 6350', of course).
This is semi-ironman because it doesn't force the dive speed of
from-the-top ironman or lose you access to the home and the stores, but
it does lose you access to shallower levels and somewhat force faster
diving (at least with the chance-50'-deeper stair behavior).
* Evangelizing widely might be a good idea. Resurrecting thang and
making sure Google knows about it would be step 1 here. The odd x-post
from this group into other rgr* groups (or beyond?) too. And of course
there's word of mouth, to whatever geeks you know...
Nick McConnell
> The main risk for the *band world would be if variants started to
> develop UI systems start would make switching from one variant to
> another (completely different AI, keyboard controls, etc) a steep &
> discouraging learning curve - the anglib project might help to mitigate
> that, hopefully...
I take this risk so seriously that I steal any idea I like from other variants
in the interests of uniformity. Sometimes I'm amazed at the sacrifices I make
for the *band community.
DarkGod
I take the chance to remind people that the roguebasin is still not
filled with angband infos ... that could help too.
Angband seems to have a bad image in the general RL community,
maybe it's time to do something about it? :)
konijn_
Nick McConnell wrote:
> On 2006-11-29 11:26:38, "Seany Clayton" <clayto...@yahoo.ie> wrote:
>
> > The main risk for the *band world would be if variants started to
> > develop UI systems start would make switching from one variant to
> > another (completely different AI, keyboard controls, etc) a steep &
> > discouraging learning curve - the anglib project might help to mitigate
> > that, hopefully...
>
> I take this risk so seriously that I steal any idea I like from other variants
> in the interests of uniformity. Sometimes I'm amazed at the sacrifices I make
> for the *band community.
Grin.
Yeek
>> and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
>> is it actually going to continue being worked on?
>
> I think Angband's best hope is if Timo or somebody else combines the
> gameplay (no floor stacking, more exciting item and monster generation,
> older item list, etc.) of an older version with the conveniences
> (macros, graphics, points-based generation, nifty lighting settings,
> etc.) of a newer version, to create a throwback, options-free Angband
> with a better UI.
I would definitely play this!
Yeek - lurker, vet of frog-knows and PC 1.3.1, disliker of floor
stacking and bland OOD restrictions
roger....@gmail.com
:P I'm just thinking ahead. Angband certainly is not dead yet, and will
not be for some time, but I do recognise a lot of the symptoms of
something that is beginning to die, and needs a kick.
Regarding thang, that would of course be an answer, but it would either
require Ruhlmann taking up the reins again, or handing control over to
someone else.
Roger Barnett
real...@yahoo.com
roger....@gmail.com schrieb:
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
Vanilla Angband becomes more irrelevant every year. A roguelike needs a
developer, not just a maintainer to stay interesting. Most people in
the roguelike scene have been around for some time so Angband is never
the "new cool thing". While there are a few people who seem to enjoy
playing a mostly static game over and over again, but I doubt that this
is true for most players.
Angband should merge good general UI improvements and features from
variants. There are many things in V that should be fixed IMO. "Stat
gain" and the length of the game in general are often criticised for
example. Too many "elements" would be another thing. Oh, and that
stupid combat system, and an almost complete lack of character
development options.
The people who say Angband is a "classic" that must remain static
overvalue the game a lot IMO. You could have declared any version of
Angband a "classic" like this i.e. development could have stopped at
frog-knows.
There is still much room for improvement, those you are in love with a
certain version can just stay with it and update the ports for it if
they really care.
Mainline Angband should move forward. Julian will not do it, though. RR
said Julian and he share the same vision as far as Angband
maintainership is concerned i.e. "no big changes, I do not want to piss
off anyone, the game is already perfect as it is".
Right now Crawl (another roguelike) is developed under the name "Stone
Soup" because the "official" maintainer just left the game to rot.
Maybe there should be an Angband "Stone Soup" to move the game forward.
I am sure sooner or later "Stone Soup" will become the official Crawl,
because the old "official" version will no longer be relevant to the
player base. The same thing would probably happen if some people
started "Angband Stone Soup".
Jack Wise
--
Jack Wise
TEXAS red wine: renowned for its smoky-mesquite-bbq & jalapeno
overtones, the perfect foil for a meal of tacos and refried beans...
Matthew Vernon
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
There does seem to be a problem; maybe a small group of people should
become the maintainer; that way the whole thing won't stall if one
person gets busy/laid/eaten by a grue...
I like angband; I'm not entirely sold on some of the gameplay, but
it'd be a shame to see it go.
Matthew
--
Rapun.sel - outermost outpost of the Pick Empire
http://www.pick.ucam.org
Matthew Vernon
> >
> > Because neither had maintainers. Only in the last year or so are we
> > seeing people dig up and modernize those games that lay unmaintained for
> > years.
> >
> > If Angband has a maintainer, then it can endure.
> >
>
> How? What does a maintainer do to make it endure?
Fix bugs, make sure it's portable, that sort of thing. There are bugs
in angband, after all.
Matthew Vernon
> other variants entirely. How many people here even play Vanilla more
> than Vanilla variants?
I play almost exclusively vanilla angband.
Matthew Vernon
> Is it going to die?
<snip>
Separately, what happened to the licencing of Angband? There was talk
of it becoming entirely Free Software...
Mondkalb
Matthew Vernon schrieb:
Me too.
Werner Bär
"Mondkalb" <seoman_...@yahoo.com> schrieb...
>> Billy Bissette <bai...@coastalnet.com> writes:
>>
>> > other variants entirely. How many people here even play Vanilla more
>> > than Vanilla variants?
>>
>> I play almost exclusively vanilla angband.
>
> Me too.
>
Me three.
Werner.
Seany Clayton
> >> > than Vanilla variants?
> >>
> >> I play almost exclusively vanilla angband.
> >
> > Me too.
> >
> Me three.
>
> Werner.
I have to admit that this thread has slightly reawakened my interest in
V. I don't think I've seriously played V since about 2000 or so...
(maybe v 2.9.2., if there was one?) - it'll be interesting to see
what's changed...
Seany.
Twisted
> I take the chance to remind people that the roguebasin is still not
> filled with angband infos ... that could help too.
One thing we've not had in a *long* time is a colorful YASD posting to
this group. They're damn rare the last whole year.
DarkGod
> > I play almost exclusively vanilla angband.
> Me too.
To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V is
better
than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
Seany Clayton
>
> One thing we've not had in a *long* time is a colorful YASD posting to
> this group. They're damn rare the last whole year.
I've had a few of them recently - I just haven't posted them! I'll
write up the next suitably daft one...
S.
Christer Nyfalt
> "roger....@gmail.com" <roger....@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Is it going to die?
>>
>> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
>> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
>> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
>> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
>
> There does seem to be a problem; maybe a small group of people should
> become the maintainer; that way the whole thing won't stall if one
> person gets busy/laid/eaten by a grue...
>
tigpup
Seany Clayton wrote:
I had a YASD 'of the exertion of banishment' recently. Must have been a
hound-pit hiding somewhere...
tp
Christer Nyfalt
>
>> Is it going to die?
>
><snip>
>
> Separately, what happened to the licencing of Angband? There was talk
> of it becoming entirely Free Software...
>
> Matthew
>
I think that permission from the following people is still missing:
James E. Wilson
Alex Cutler
Andy Astrand
Charles Teague
Charles Swiger
Jonathan Ellis
<real...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1164812827.5...@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
In fact, Robert only made like one gameplay change of his own
invention, and that was when he became the maintainer of Angband. And
he'd already released most of that as "vanilla 2.8.3h" when Ben
Harrison disappeared and left Angband maintainerless for ages.
Robert's first version, 2.9.0, was pretty much 2.8.3h plus some
bugfixes.
Two other major changes made it into the game, neither of them being
Robert's work at all. One of them was my own patch, adding more new
stuff and some rebalancing (which, again, I suspect people were
downloading and playing with, until it got more popular than the
vanilla version): the other was the changes to the mage spellbooks,
which started out as work by Greg Wooledge. I actually don't like the
latter, but that's just a personal thing. Nevertheless, both had
significant effects on gameplay, at least for some classes.
Adding lua scripting to the game wasn't a major *gameplay* change. In
fact it had no visible effect on gameplay at all. Robert was not, in
fact, responsible for a single new item (mundane or artifact), a
single new spell, a single new monster, or a single change in the
gameplay incurred in encountering already-existing items, monsters and
spells...
The last major change to Angband before that, was Ben Harrison's
addition of floor stacking. Which, it might be added, already exists
in Nethack, and to a far greater degree than it does in Angband - far
more items can be stacked on one floor space, frequently are, and far
more items can be carried in a player's inventory. Clearing Fort
Ludios in Nethack can often end up in the number of objects on one
Nethack square running into 20 pages or so. Clutter is not the reason
for Angband's decline, if it's Nethack you're comparing it to.
Let's also not forget, floor stacking was massively in demand when it
came in. As was targetting - another Ben Harrison incorporation. And
fractional speed, yet another one of his innovations. Nethack *still*
doesn't have an adequate targetting system for if you don't line up
directly with the monster - Angband already scores over Nethack for
that. (And with fractional speed - it could do with someone going
through the monster list and, once again, really messing with it so
that monsters didn't all generally have a multiple of +10 above or
below normal speed, so there was a lot more variance.)
I'd be prepared to say that, yes, Angband needs a competent coder. But
it also needs someone who's prepared to look at the *gameplay* side of
things. If one person can do both, fair enough. If one person cannot
be found to do both, then Angband would need a development team
instead.
DarkGod
> >> Is it going to die?
> >>
> >> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> >> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> >> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> >> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
> >
> > There does seem to be a problem; maybe a small group of people should
> > become the maintainer; that way the whole thing won't stall if one
> > person gets busy/laid/eaten by a grue...
> >
> Zangband has a dev team, but is in the same situation.
No it does not, do not mistake devteam and "a single person doing most
of the work wtih some people lending a hand here and there".
As far as I can see s. fuerst did most of the work
DarkGod
wrote:
> Adding lua scripting to the game wasn't a major *gameplay* change. In
I still wonder why it was added the way it was(the useless way).
Something like that needs to be added completly or not at all .. :/
> I'd be prepared to say that, yes, Angband needs a competent coder. But
> it also needs someone who's prepared to look at the *gameplay* side of
> things. If one person can do both, fair enough. If one person cannot
> be found to do both, then Angband would need a development team
> instead.
*cought*T-Engine*cought*
;>
Kevin Williams
Heh, reimplement V in T-engine and that problem should go away. :-)
Christer Nyfalt
No, it wouldn't, unless someone has changed the licence of the T-engine
after I last checked (v2.3.3).
Timo Pietilä
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently. Then again, he might suddenly release an
> uber-upgrade tomorrow, I don't know, I'm not psychic :-)
>
> game is fading away a bit. Variants are still going strong (e.g. ToME's
> T-Engine is picking up a lot of momentum), but the original itself...
>
> What are your thoughts on this? Is Angband going to go the way of Rogue
> and Moria, and just be remembered as the precursor to other games? Or
> is it actually going to continue being worked on?
I don't believe that vanilla is going to die anytime soon. For some
reason at least I always revert back to vanilla after trying variants
for the need of something new. All variants have something I really
dislike, and after a while all the good things in variants don't
compensate that.
Vanilla appears to be dead because nobody is writing about it. That
doesn't correlate directly on how many people are playing it. It does
correlate with "new things" however.
> And if it is seeming to die, what can be done about it? Is anyone
> willing to actually do anything about the decline, or are they just
> going to lament it (yes, I'm fully aware that I'm partly doing this
> now, but I have quite literally no knowledge of C, C++ or any other
> programming languages, so it can't be me.). I've been trying to promote
> the game as much as I can, but with only limited success.
I have same problem. I could do something for vanilla if I were a coder.
My own variant is in slow progress and recent try of frog-knows made a
new twist in development of it.
After it is done it will be mixture of GWangband, some things from NPP,
Frog-knows and my own tweaks. I will also base it mostly on 2.9.3
monster/item list. Also not all new GV:s will be in. Some of them are
simply boring, some are too big vertically etc. Some items and monsters
changes from JLE will be in, but not nearly all of them.
One problem in vanilla is that it is actually two, or maybe even four
different games right now. Preserve off/on and autoscum on/off do affect
gameplay quite a bit. That makes balancing hard. What works for one
setting doesn't work well in another. I will remove preserve on and
autoscum (in some way). And I try to eliminate "stat-gain" entirely.
Timo Pietilä
Timo Pietilä
> On 2006-11-29 16:59:00, "Mondkalb" <seoman_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>> I play almost exclusively vanilla angband.
>> Me too.
>
> To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V is
> better
> than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
It is relatively simple, extremely well balanced (maybe _too_ well and
Neo said) and it _isn't_ changing all of the time.
Constant change is not a good thing. Small tweak here and there and
fixes of obvious bugs/design mistakes are.
Timo Pietilä
Timo Pietilä
> Is it going to die?
>
> It's seeming to be at the moment :) We had months without a maintainer.
> Julian finally stepped up to do the job, but we've not heard anything
> from him recently.
What scares me most is that this thread about vanilla angband haven't
got _any_ answer from Julian. This is very, very alarming. I'll drop him
a e-mail to check if he is OK.
Timo Pietilä
Eddie Grove
> I'd be prepared to say that, yes, Angband needs a competent coder. But
> it also needs someone who's prepared to look at the *gameplay* side of
> things. If one person can do both, fair enough. If one person cannot
> be found to do both, then Angband would need a development team
> instead.
Plenty of variant authors may be suitable. I could have been that person.
. . . BUT . . .
The problem with V is that lots of people have veto power, and the
only person who can make changes unilaterally is chosen mostly based
upon the perception he is unlikely to make them. The fact that I
would immediately make multiple significant changes makes me
unsuitable to be picked for the job.
This is a reactionary community, at least when it comes to V.
Look at the absurd history of squelch. It was written carefully to do
nothing a player could not do without it. It was purely a user
interface improvement. And yet, reactionaries vetoed the idea.
Years later, it still is not in V.
V is stagnant because the old-timers want it that way.
There is no point in complaining about it. Just move on.
Play one of the vibrant variants and thank their developers!
Eddie
Neil Stevens
> No, it wouldn't, unless someone has changed the licence of the T-engine
> after I last checked (v2.3.3).
Actually we are changing it for T 3. We're pulling all the things we
have to out into the ToME module and keeping that covered by the
non-profit Moria license. The engine is switching to the GNU GPL.
--
Neil Stevens - ne...@hakubi.us
If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not
looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
Timo Pietilä
> This is a reactionary community, at least when it comes to V.
True.
> Look at the absurd history of squelch. It was written carefully to do
> nothing a player could not do without it. It was purely a user
> interface improvement. And yet, reactionaries vetoed the idea.
> Years later, it still is not in V.
There has been one very good reason for that: If you implement squelch
underlying problem might never get fixed, which is too much junk. But
squelch is finally going into vanilla (at least Julian said so).
> V is stagnant because the old-timers want it that way.
"stagnant" is too strong word. "Slowly developing" is more like it. With
vanilla there is one strong slowdown factor, and that is game balance.
With fast development balance is usually first thing to get lost.
Regaining it can be hard job without removing that feature that made
that change in balance. And there is no "testversion" for vanilla
angband. It is either released or it is not.
Which gives me an idea. What about making separate "testversion" which
gets one improvement, and then next and so on as soon as maintainer or
someone else figures out some "neat" new feature. And then that "stable"
release which gets in those testversion features once people has got
feeling is it good or not.
Timo Pietilä
roger....@gmail.com
> "stagnant" is too strong word. "Slowly developing" is more like it. With
> vanilla there is one strong slowdown factor, and that is game balance.
> With fast development balance is usually first thing to get lost.
> Regaining it can be hard job without removing that feature that made
> that change in balance. And there is no "testversion" for vanilla
> angband. It is either released or it is not.
No, I think the word stagnant is reasonably accurate. Something that
does not change is stagnant, and Angband really isn't changing much.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but a program that doesn't change
*at all* tends to die.
> Which gives me an idea. What about making separate "testversion" which
> gets one improvement, and then next and so on as soon as maintainer or
> someone else figures out some "neat" new feature. And then that "stable"
> release which gets in those testversion features once people has got
> feeling is it good or not.
Sounds good... but as I've posted before - is any of the stuff
discussed by anyone in this thread actually going to happen, or is it
just going to get discussed... then forgotten about? I'm still willing
(in theory) to do a central Angband website, but that's just one thing.
What about the others?
Roger Barnett
-----
http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
The Angband Webcomic
-----
konijn_
> Sounds good... but as I've posted before - is any of the stuff
> discussed by anyone in this thread actually going to happen, or is it
> just going to get discussed... then forgotten about? I'm still willing
> (in theory) to do a central Angband website, but that's just one thing.
> What about the others?
First, I would like you to check out
http://angband.oook.cz/
Which contains
- frontend to rgra and rgrd that is not google groups
- the ladder where we can say which variants are being played (
sometimes surprising )
- spoilers on the main variants
- source code on V
- some really old photo of me, LOL
And this site is actively maintained, so maybe you should chat with Pav
before starting up your own thing.
On the other things:
Once I release Hellband 0.8.4, hopefully mid december , I will try and
make some patches for angband that people can play with. Shorter
dungeon patch, vacuum cleaner patch and droplessstuff patch.
roger....@gmail.com
>
> > Sounds good... but as I've posted before - is any of the stuff
> > discussed by anyone in this thread actually going to happen, or is it
> > just going to get discussed... then forgotten about? I'm still willing
> > (in theory) to do a central Angband website, but that's just one thing.
> > What about the others?
>
> First, I would like you to check out
> http://angband.oook.cz/
I'm aware of the site. It rocks. Perhaps it should be made the official
site, since it's actively maintained?
>
> Which contains
> - frontend to rgra and rgrd that is not google groups
> - the ladder where we can say which variants are being played (
> sometimes surprising )
> - spoilers on the main variants
> - source code on V
> - some really old photo of me, LOL
>
> And this site is actively maintained, so maybe you should chat with Pav
> before starting up your own thing.
Probably a very good idea.
> On the other things:
> Once I release Hellband 0.8.4, hopefully mid december , I will try and
> make some patches for angband that people can play with. Shorter
> dungeon patch, vacuum cleaner patch and droplessstuff patch.
>
You're not angling to become the maintainer or part of his Devteam, are
you? ;-)
Neil Stevens
>>> Sounds good... but as I've posted before - is any of the stuff
>>> discussed by anyone in this thread actually going to happen, or is it
>>> just going to get discussed... then forgotten about? I'm still willing
>>> (in theory) to do a central Angband website, but that's just one thing.
>>> What about the others?
>> First, I would like you to check out
>> http://angband.oook.cz/
>
> I'm aware of the site. It rocks. Perhaps it should be made the official
> site, since it's actively maintained?
Better first ask Pav if he has the space and bandwidth to hold the full
Angband archive, heh.
konijn_
> > And this site is actively maintained, so maybe you should chat with Pav
> > before starting up your own thing.
>
> Probably a very good idea.
>
> > On the other things:
> > Once I release Hellband 0.8.4, hopefully mid december , I will try and
> > make some patches for angband that people can play with. Shorter
> > dungeon patch, vacuum cleaner patch and droplessstuff patch.
> >
>
> You're not angling to become the maintainer or part of his Devteam, are
> you? ;-)
Errr, no ;)
Honestly I am blessed with a temporary situation where I have a substantial
amount of time on my hands and a lack of coders' block. Being part of the
DevTeam implies a constant attention, and I cant promise that. Not to mention I
code on a G4 OSX 10.3 which really isnt good enough to maintain with ( or at
least that is what I keep telling my wife ;) and I have a mental block on
firing up my XP machine so how would I ever test on Windows ? ;)
Finally, I am planning to migrate Hellband to the T-Engine, which is why my
changelogs mention so many code clean-ups which are basically putting stuff in
tables so that I can copy-paste those in my module when the time comes.
Cheers,
T.
>
> Roger Barnett
>
> -----
> http://angband.calamarain.net/ - Tales From The Pit
> The Angband Webcomic
> -----
>
>
>
--
--
---
- Go to Hell !
- http://hellband.googlepages.com/index.html
---
Igenlode W
> Neil Stevens wrote:
> > I think Angband's best hope is if Timo or somebody else combines the
> > gameplay (no floor stacking, more exciting item and monster generation,
> > older item list, etc.) of an older version with the conveniences
> > (macros, graphics, points-based generation, nifty lighting settings,
> > etc.) of a newer version, to create a throwback, options-free Angband
> > with a better UI.
>
> I would definitely play this!
>
And I.
Although I've tried going back to Frog-knows recently and seem to have
lost the knack of survival somehow..!
--
<Igenlod...@nym.alias.net>
Next to the RNG, the keyboard buffer probably kills more Angband
characters than people realize.
DarkGod
> Honestly I am blessed with a temporary situation where I have a substantial
> amount of time on my hands and a lack of coders' block. Being part of the
> DevTeam implies a constant attention, and I cant promise that. Not to mention I
> code on a G4 OSX 10.3 which really isnt good enough to maintain with ( or at
OSX is fine as soon as you fire up the Terminal :>
> least that is what I keep telling my wife ;) and I have a mental block on
> firing up my XP machine so how would I ever test on Windows ? ;)
People still use windows ? pfft d'ont they have any shame ? :)
> Finally, I am planning to migrate Hellband to the T-Engine, which is why my
> changelogs mention so many code clean-ups which are basically putting stuff in
> tables so that I can copy-paste those in my module when the time comes.
Well let's T-Enginify Angband then :)
*checks his hard drive*
Oh yes I'm sure it's possible :>
magnate
> DarkGod wrote:
> > To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V is
> > better than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
>
> It is relatively simple, extremely well balanced (maybe _too_ well and
> Neo said) and it _isn't_ changing all of the time.
Interesting that you describe it as well balanced, when there's the
whole rangers-with-branded-ammo thing to solve. Admittedly there is no
longer GoI, but I would say it's still short of extremely well
balanced. My personal 2p is to take out Dunadan and High Elves, and
replace them with an obvious newbie race with colossal advantages, like
O's Maia.
> Constant change is not a good thing. Small tweak here and there and
> fixes of obvious bugs/design mistakes are.
Agreed. But as has been said, nobody can agree on the obvious design
mistakes!
Personally I'm a variant player. I played V in the beginning, as most
do, and I love it. But then I began to love the different features of
variants - quests, skills, special abilities, etc. I tend to stick to
fantasy variants though - no Steam for me.
I don't actually think V needs very much "development". It does need to
stay fairly close to frog-knows, because otherwise it ceases to be the
archetype and loses its reason for being kept alive at all. The one big
change I would suggest is eliminating stat-gain by redistributing
monster and item depths, especially stat potions. (I described a
possible solution to this in Timo's thread.) Otherwise, I think the
gameplay has been honed over many years and I don't think there is much
to add which would not significantly alter it and start feature creep
...
Still, one thing I'm sure of - Angband isn't going to die, at least not
yet. I didn't read this group for *one* day, and this thread sprung up
with 84 replies in it, from over 20 different posters. Seems to me that
Angband is pretty healthy ...
So, let's try not to carp about not hearing from Julian for a while.
He's the maintainer, and he'll step down when he feels it's right. I
don't think encouraging other people to mess with V is a good idea.
CC
magnate
> <real...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > needs a developer, not just a maintainer to stay interesting. Most people in
> > the roguelike scene have been around for some time so Angband is
> > never the "new cool thing". While there are a few people who seem to enjoy
> > playing a mostly static game over and over again, but I doubt that
> > this is true for most players.
I disagree with this, as I said in my other post. V does not need to
"stay interesting" - it needs to resemble the original Angband game.
That's the only reason it needs to stay around. So it should develop in
terms of up-to-date UI, portability etc., but it does not need the kind
of development a variant needs.
I'm not a reactionary, btw - I would make lots of changes to V. But I
would leave its underlying content pretty much intact.
> > Angband should merge good general UI improvements and features from
> > variants. There are many things in V that should be fixed IMO. "Stat
> > gain" and the length of the game in general are often criticised for
> > example. Too many "elements" would be another thing. Oh, and that
> > stupid combat system, and an almost complete lack of character
> > development options.
I agree with you that the D&D level-based character progression system
in V is woefully inadequate - but that's exactly the kind of thing I
don't think you can change in V, without it becoming a different game.
Many variants change it with skill systems, and that's great. I find
them much more enjoyable games. But they aren't the original Angband,
which is what V should be.
> > The people who say Angband is a "classic" that must remain static
> > overvalue the game a lot IMO. You could have declared any version of
> > Angband a "classic" like this i.e. development could have stopped at
> > frog-knows.
It depends how you define "development". Its content could have stopped
at frog-knows, yes. In that respect it's like Rogue - it's the
original, it doesn't need more content. But its UI and balance issues
do require "development".
Jonathan, you are confusing gameplay and content. Gameplay is stuff
like floor stacking and fractional speed - this kind of change, like UI
improvements, are exactly what the Angband maintainer *should* be
doing. Content is stuff like new items, monsters and spells, (and
quests, skills, forging, wilderness etc. etc.) which got a huge boost
with your patch, but which are not (IMNSHO) the primary job of the
maintainer of V - they are the bread and butter of variants. (I would
describe balance changes as a hybrid of the two - changing content to
improve gameplay.)
While I'm here, and to save myself a third reply, I'd like to argue
against your portrayal of the shallow artifacts in your other post. The
root of the TMJ problem is that you almost *never* find 'thancs and
Paurs when they are useful to your char. Your post implies that you
find one or other about half the time, and this is misleading. I have
played many dozen V chars (probably a few hundred), and I have found
early artifacts at a useful point on only a handful of occasions (four
I think). This is about 2% of the time, and means that despite being
unique artifacts and among the most powerful items in the game world,
they are junk the vast majority of the time. Revising the item
generation code to make item drops much more intelligently attuned to
depth, while maintaining game balance, should be one of the
maintainer's primary objectives. (It could usefully be done in tandem
with eliminating stat-gain ...)
> I'd be prepared to say that, yes, Angband needs a competent coder. But
> it also needs someone who's prepared to look at the *gameplay* side of
> things. If one person can do both, fair enough. If one person cannot
> be found to do both, then Angband would need a development team
> instead.
Again, let's make a clear distinction between gameplay and content.
Yes, gameplay needs improving - adding squelch (AS AN OPTION), sorting
out TMJ, stat gain etc. But V is not the place for lots of new content.
I also think there has been a lot of unjustified dissing of both Robert
and Julian in this thread. Yes, Robert wasn't as open to change as many
would have liked, but he did a good job *maintaining* the product.
Julian has yet to do much and should be given a chance to do so - as
Timo said, he's probably busy with his day job at the moment.
CC
magnate
But the thread is less than 48 hours old!! Julian might spend a couple
of days away from Usenet every now and then ...
CC
Ojomax
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
> After it is done it will be mixture of GWangband, some things from NPP,
> Frog-knows and my own tweaks. I will also base it mostly on 2.9.3
> monster/item list.
Great... I've always thought 2.9.3 is the best ;-)
Ojomax
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>
>> DarkGod wrote:
>>> To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V is
>>> better than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
>> It is relatively simple, extremely well balanced (maybe _too_ well and
>> Neo said) and it _isn't_ changing all of the time.
>
> Interesting that you describe it as well balanced, when there's the
> whole rangers-with-branded-ammo thing to solve.
Two bad things in vanilla: Ranger branded arrows and LoSight is not the
same as LoTargetting. Othervise it is quite well balanced.
> Admittedly there is no
> longer GoI, but I would say it's still short of extremely well
> balanced. My personal 2p is to take out Dunadan and High Elves, and
> replace them with an obvious newbie race with colossal advantages, like
> O's Maia.
For my point of view half-elf and elf are the ones that need to be
replaced. They offer nothing interesting.
>> Constant change is not a good thing. Small tweak here and there and
>> fixes of obvious bugs/design mistakes are.
>
> Agreed. But as has been said, nobody can agree on the obvious design
> mistakes!
:-). I believe enough people can agree with ranger branded arrows and
LoS/LoT difference.
> I don't actually think V needs very much "development". It does need to
> stay fairly close to frog-knows, because otherwise it ceases to be the
> archetype and loses its reason for being kept alive at all.
Agreed.
> The one big
> change I would suggest is eliminating stat-gain by redistributing
> monster and item depths, especially stat potions. (I described a
> possible solution to this in Timo's thread.)
What solution was that? I saw several and can't remember yours.
Timo Pietilä
Mars
> Timo Pietil=E4 wrote:
>
> > DarkGod wrote:
> > > To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V =
> is
> > > better than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
> >
> > It is relatively simple, extremely well balanced (maybe _too_ well and
> > Neo said) and it _isn't_ changing all of the time.
>
> Interesting that you describe it as well balanced, when there's the
> whole rangers-with-branded-ammo thing to solve. Admittedly there is no
> longer GoI, but I would say it's still short of extremely well
> balanced. My personal 2p is to take out Dunadan and High Elves, and
> replace them with an obvious newbie race with colossal advantages, like
> O's Maia.
Don't forget about recharging that is kinda 'broken' (at least IMO) in V306, by
never destroying
the stuff one tries to recharge.
--
Mars
Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional
acceptance of the RNG and what it brings.
Timo Pietilä
>> "stagnant" is too strong word. "Slowly developing" is more like it. With
>> vanilla there is one strong slowdown factor, and that is game balance.
>> With fast development balance is usually first thing to get lost.
>> Regaining it can be hard job without removing that feature that made
>> that change in balance. And there is no "testversion" for vanilla
>> angband. It is either released or it is not.
>
> No, I think the word stagnant is reasonably accurate. Something that
> does not change is stagnant, and Angband really isn't changing much.
But it is changing. That is why stagnant is too strong word. You young
people are always so impatient ;-). Just give it some time. If Julian
doesn't do things someone else will.
> This is not necessarily a bad thing, but a program that doesn't change
> *at all* tends to die.
That's true. But in case of angband (and roguelikes in general) it takes
a _long_ time to die. Some people are still playing Frog-knows and that
was released about 14 years ago.
Timo Pietilä
magnate
> magnate wrote:
> > The one big
> > change I would suggest is eliminating stat-gain by redistributing
> > monster and item depths, especially stat potions. (I described a
> > possible solution to this in Timo's thread.)
>
> What solution was that? I saw several and can't remember yours.
Reposted from your Angband Randomness thread:
> Hi all.
> I have thought about what makes me play this game and found out that
> modern angband has some things I don't like.
> 1) AFAIK there is 250' hard limit about monster OoD. This is wrong.
> There should be possibility to stumble upon monster that you cannot
> possibly handle at that depth. (lesson 2: don't fight anything you see).
I agree with this. I would support a reversion to the
probability-limited OoD generation found in Moria.
> 2) Game has grown too complex. Too many items giving too complicated
> choises.
I share half your views here. I actually enjoy the greater quantity of
items, monsters, uniques and so on. I don't think it's a problem that
equipment choices are now harder because you can find shields of
elvenkind and cloaks of Aman. I think that's better. More variety makes
for more replayability. Take away some of the items and you're back to
everyone using Thorin, Dor-Lomin, Fingolfin and Cubragol. (That happens
a lot anyway - I always use randarts.)
I do agree that there is still a problem with depths between 2500 and
4950', but this is for one very simple reason: the number of dungeon
levels was arbitrarily doubled without any real balancing being done.
There has never been a version of V without this problem, and I don't
think there ever can be. Some variants have made great strides towards
smoothing out the depth progression of monsters, but ... they're
variants. JLE did his best with the greater demons and so on, but it's
a lost cause.
So I propose an even simpler solution: stick Morgy on DL 60 or so, and
rebalance stuff like rings of speed and greater undead. There's really
nothing to be gained from the extra forty levels.
> 5) few things about diving progress:
> - There is still jump in monster deadliness after 2000' much because
> stat-gain makes that necessary (for slow diver).
Did Moria have a stat gain depth? I can't remember. I find stat gain
one of the most irritating features of *band - it really spoils my
suspension-of-disbelief. One possibility for removing it: spread the
potions out. Instead of all six being in depth at 1500', why not do
something like:
CHA - 500'
INT - 1000' (nice for mages who are weak early, irrelevant for anyone
else) EDIT: this also benefits Rogues (who need boosting) and Rangers
(who don't)
WIS - 1500'
DEX - 1750'
STR - 2000'
CON - 2250'
AUG - 2500'
... encourage people to keep diving. Give each potion multiple rarities
so that it becomes slightly more common every 250 or 500 feet.
EDIT: obviously this cannot be done in isolation. Monsters would need
re-calibrating because chars would have lower stats at 1900' etc.
> - Warriors have to slow down at 2000' simple because they don't have
> reliable method of detecting *any* monster. Staves don't help because
> charges are limited. Item introducion suggestion: rod of detect evil.
I agree with this - or a rod of Detect Monsters.
> - Lack of poison resistance is still possible insta-killer soon after
> 2000'. This makes me think that maybe we should just plain remove
> Drolems entirely and move AMHD *much* deeper (and maybe boost it at that
> same time). OR make poison true "high-element" and limit damage from
> poison-source to 500 just like other major high-elements. This applies
> to nature of that resistance too (no more double resistances, resistance
> is variable, not constant). Then lack of poison resist would no longer
> be any problem and diving past 2000' could continue without problem.
> Also this would allow removal of Ring of Resist Poison.
Hmm. Making poison a 'true' high element is probably the better of
these. Or you could make poison a 'true' LOW element, ie. with rpois
found as early as rfire and rcold, and included in 'of Resistance'. You
could then *increase* its damage cap to 1600 providing you created
sources of temp resist like potions etc. The RoPR could then activate
for temporary (double) resist.
CC
Mondkalb
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>> magnate wrote:
>>> The one big
>>> change I would suggest is eliminating stat-gain by redistributing
>>> monster and item depths, especially stat potions. (I described a
>>> possible solution to this in Timo's thread.)
>> What solution was that? I saw several and can't remember yours.
>
> Reposted from your Angband Randomness thread:
> Did Moria have a stat gain depth? I can't remember. I find stat gain
> one of the most irritating features of *band - it really spoils my
> suspension-of-disbelief. One possibility for removing it: spread the
> potions out. Instead of all six being in depth at 1500', why not do
> something like:
>
> CHA - 500'
> INT - 1000' (nice for mages who are weak early, irrelevant for anyone
> else) EDIT: this also benefits Rogues (who need boosting) and Rangers
> (who don't)
> WIS - 1500'
> DEX - 1750'
> STR - 2000'
> CON - 2250'
> AUG - 2500'
>
> ... encourage people to keep diving. Give each potion multiple rarities
>
> so that it becomes slightly more common every 250 or 500 feet.
>
> EDIT: obviously this cannot be done in isolation. Monsters would need
> re-calibrating because chars would have lower stats at 1900' etc.
I think my solution is better (of course ;-)). I was thinking about just
evenly distribute all potions for all depths, and just make them rare.
If you dive you get more drops and so get potions faster, but it also
means that you will be deeper with weaker char, which requires skill.
OTOH if you are newbie you can just stay in upper levels and get stats
there and dive when you feel ready.
Hard part is to balance this right. With this there cannot be monster
deadliness jump and with too low rarity people get potions too easily
and other way around. I would also need to remove breeders with drops
and make cloning undesirable (I probably just remove cloning wands).
Timo Pietilä
Timo Pietilä
> Regarding staves there ist already a patch available, I think.
That is included in squelch patch. It is also in CVS-version of vanilla
(last thing Robert did before passing maintainership to Julian).
So next version of vanilla will have it (once it gets released).
Timo Pietilä
Pav Lucistnik
>> > I'm still willing
>> > (in theory) to do a central Angband website, but that's just one thing.
>> > What about the others?
>>
>> First, I would like you to check out
>> http://angband.oook.cz/
>
> I'm aware of the site. It rocks. Perhaps it should be made the official
> site, since it's actively maintained?
You don't need an 'OFFICIAL' rubber stamp. Just put up a website, and if
it's anygood, people will flock onto it.
>> Which contains
>> - frontend to rgra and rgrd that is not google groups
>> - the ladder where we can say which variants are being played (
>> sometimes surprising )
>> - spoilers on the main variants
>> - source code on V
>> - some really old photo of me, LOL
>>
>> And this site is actively maintained, so maybe you should chat with Pav
>> before starting up your own thing.
I could use a person or two, who would help me filling up the news section
on oook. As my angband present past few years is limited to reading rgra,
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of exciting new development, which I should be
reporting about at oook.
If anyone is dedicated enough to bring over the core of Thangorodrim to
oook, some introductory 'about' text, and the roaster of variants, I'd
welcome him with open arms.
I'm not going to do it myself, as my interests shifted away from Angband a
lot (me being a portmgr member on FreeBSD project now), but I'm still
willing to support the editorial guy on oook with coding all the backends
he will need.
--
Pav Lucistnik <p...@oook.cz>
<p...@FreeBSD.org>
dsti...@gmail.com
off. The idea of Angband "dying" is silly as long as the source code
exists - well, that or Netcraft confirms it! ;-) I want to jump in
with an anecdote that demonstrates my point of view on the matter.
I started playing Angband cerca '94 with Frog Knows. I carried the
source code around to numerous *NIX servers at University and other
places. It is small enough not to use up my quota, and since it is
text only and could be played over a remote connection, my bosses never
figured out that I was playing a game when I was typing so furiously! I
could compile it on every system that I used, and when (blessed day!)
my Mac box got a real shell, guess what was the first thing to go
there! (I had a special term file just for Angband, no colors but 80x24
with big text and ran multiple savefiles through the use of
pseudo-accounts) :-) Ah... the memories... About a year or two ago I
happened on the information that there was an updated version of
Angband! Now I play a graphical version, with sound. That was quite
an experience of discovery! Stacking wands/rods/staves were totally
different, spells worked differently, etc. (and the window change bug
bugs *ahem* the snot out of me!)
So, after that rambling story, the point is that Vanilla is great
because of its simple, clean, nature. I have suffered untold hundreds
of deaths and adventures (like the first time I ever saw the Terrasque:
in a Checkerboard vault at 500'!!!!) I play other variants
periodically (most recently Steam and ToME) and they are fun, but I
always come back to V in short order. To me it is most like a very
intricate chess game. I don't have to worry about all the trappings of
class progression, skills, abilities, powers, companions, puzzles,
tricks, etc. Instead it is the adventure of an hyper-complicated chess
game unfolding: me vs. Morgoth & co.!
I think that anything that detracts from this basic spirit/feeling of V
is a Bad Thing (tm). V should stay simple and straight-forward (but
with the window/movement bug fixed!). I am not good enough to have
problems with the play balance, I'm quick enough of a diver not to be
bothered by stat gain, and endgame clutter is just part of the game to
me. I am all in favor of V as a stable, unchanging game.
But hey, if it does go in a direction that I don't like, I always have
the source on my machine and will keep spending *way* too much time
playing it! :-)
--
Daniel C. Stillwaggon
<dsti...@gmail.com>
DarkGod
> I'm not going to do it myself, as my interests shifted away from Angband a
> lot (me being a portmgr member on FreeBSD project now), but I'm still
> willing to support the editorial guy on oook with coding all the backends
> he will need.
I'll put my vote of confidence on pav, he rocks! :)
Tagore Smith
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>
> > DarkGod wrote:
> > > To the people answering eys there, can you tell us why do you think V is
> > > better than others, maybe it can help push the godo things about it
> >
> > It is relatively simple, extremely well balanced (maybe _too_ well and
> > Neo said) and it _isn't_ changing all of the time.
>
> Interesting that you describe it as well balanced, when there's the
> whole rangers-with-branded-ammo thing to solve.
How many ranger winners do you have in V, and how many do you have in
less than, say a million turns (wins too far over that are not
relevant- Timo has demonstrated that amply with his challenge
characters)? People talk a lot about how unbalancing the third shot is,
along with branded ammo, but they often don't understand that it only
comes into play in the late game.
I have a Ranger at 3100' (clvl 33) right now, and he has found exactly
17 branded arrows (of venom). He got Maedhros from Smeagol at around
2000', and has been primarily melee ever since. Tenser's is huge, but I
don't tend to find it much until 3500'- I've seen _many_ Raals and
Mordenkainens though. If anything, I'd like to see Tenser's made as
rarer. At any rate, I don't think rangers are as powerful as priests at
the end of the game even if the priest lacks Wrath, and the ranger has
Tenser's.
Ranger's do a lot of damage- priests don't have to. Priests also have
the easiest time against Morgy, if they can get some immunities- the
changes in recharging and summoning favor them tremendously (i.e.,
rangers can't really shoot him much without the intervening space
filling up). In 3.0.6 Staff of Magi=infinite mana at a slight cost in
turns. That is by far the most unbalanced thing in V right now (potions
of restore mana are almost as bad)- it's basically a GOI for priests.
Oh, well there is also genocide for mages ;)- but playing a mage is
basically cheating, IMHO.
>Admittedly there is no
> longer GoI, but I would say it's still short of extremely well
> balanced. My personal 2p is to take out Dunadan and High Elves, and
> replace them with an obvious newbie race with colossal advantages, like
> O's Maia.
Hobbit rangers are pretty strong too, they just take a bit longer to
get going, and max out at a few less hit points. HEs are, in fact, the
best race, but very few people understand why, and it's almosst
irrelevant past 1500'.
> > Constant change is not a good thing. Small tweak here and there and
> > fixes of obvious bugs/design mistakes are.
>
> Agreed. But as has been said, nobody can agree on the obvious design
> mistakes!
There has to be a final arbiter. He might make mistakes, but he has to
be given authority to make decisions. Otherwise no changes will ever be
made. That said, I'd prefer a conservative maintainer. I agree with a
lor of Eddie Grove's ideas, but I also agree with Eddie that he would
be too radical to run V. I'd still like to see Eddieband.
> It does need to
> stay fairly close to frog-knows, because otherwise it ceases to be the
> archetype and loses its reason for being kept alive at all.
You put it better than I could have. I don't mind seeing the game
evolve over time, but major revolutions are for variants.
> The one big
> change I would suggest is eliminating stat-gain by redistributing
> monster and item depths, especially stat potions. (I described a
> possible solution to this in Timo's thread.)
The problem is that people want to win, and the game (seems to) reward
scumming. I rarely get more than 2 or 3 stat potions before 2000'. I
almost always hit 2500' with less than 300 HP and no poison resist.
It's exciting. I don't think "stat-gain" is a bad thing, because I
don't do it. I don't quite know how to fix that, but I have been
thinking about it. I don't like the O solution.
The solution I have started to come up with is good, I think, but it
would be a very hard game. Not noticeably harder for Eddie and Cliff,
and not so much harder for Pete, but impossible at first for most
players. It would not be V. Some people like boredom, and V should
support that playstyle.
> Still, one thing I'm sure of - Angband isn't going to die, at least not
> yet. I didn't read this group for *one* day, and this thread sprung up
> with 84 replies in it, from over 20 different posters. Seems to me that
> Angband is pretty healthy ...
I thought the same- with this many replies, people are still interested
in Angband. If attention shifts to variants, ok. I think if you look
through Google's archives you'll find people arguing for the death of V
during the last millenium. Any game that spans millenia has to have a
future- any game declared dead in more than one millenium has a bright
future.
> So, let's try not to carp about not hearing from Julian for a while.
> He's the maintainer, and he'll step down when he feels it's right. I
> don't think encouraging other people to mess with V is a good idea.
I hope JL surfaces soon. I imagine he has a life, and it doesn't
surprise me that he might miss this thread, given how young it is.
After all, maintaining V is done on a volunteer basis and this would
not be the first time a maintainer went missing for a while.
If Julian does decide that maintaining Angband is too much for him, I'd
like to propose Timo as the next maintainer, and Eddie as his right
hand coding man, if they are both willing (they would argue endlessly
about features, and out of those arguments real improvements would
come).
If Mr. Greene (am I right about that spelling?) could take some time
away from NPP to advise, so much the better- he has extensive knowledge
of the codebase and demonstrably good judgement. I thought that it was
silly to propose Timo as the maintainer last time it was discussed-
after all, the maintainer should be a programmer.
I have changed my mind. I'd rather see an expert _V_ player as the
final arbiter, soliciting code from variant programmers. In the day of
Ben, the main thing was making sure the code was clean- now, the main
issue is gameplay. I'd still like to see some Ben precepts held, so the
code stays clean- no dynamic memory management, and no C++ in V.
Anyway, I think we all have to sit tight and see what Julian says. But,
assuming JL wants to keep maintaning V, I'd like to see Timo have a
hand in it, if he is willing.
I know many people may not know me- I play more than I post. But I have
enough V wins that I have stopped counting (more than a dozen), I have
won in less than 700k turns, and I read almost everything posted to
r.g.r.a., eventually (and I have an almost encyclopedic recollection of
it). I think that whatever happens with V, the expert players ought to
have some say, and I'm not sure there are that many left who post here.
I'd like to see the game updated, but not radically changed. The only
person I really trust for that is Timo.
Tagore Smith
dsti...@gmail.com wrote:
> This is an interesting discussion, though I think the premise is a bit
> off. The idea of Angband "dying" is silly as long as the source code
It's silly on the face of it.
<snip frog knows nostalgia>
> About a year or two ago I
> happened on the information that there was an updated version of
> Angband! Now I play a graphical version, with sound. That was quite
> an experience of discovery! Stacking wands/rods/staves were totally
> different, spells worked differently, etc. (and the window change bug
> bugs *ahem* the snot out of me!)
Meh, it's still better in ASCII.
> So, after that rambling story, the point is that Vanilla is great
> because of its simple, clean, nature.
Thank you.
> I have suffered untold hundreds
> of deaths and adventures (like the first time I ever saw the Terrasque:
> in a Checkerboard vault at 500'!!!!) I play other variants
> periodically (most recently Steam and ToME) and they are fun, but I
> always come back to V in short order.
Thank you.
> To me it is most like a very
> intricate chess game.
Chess is hard- Angband is simple. Do you play the Bg5 variations of the
Sicilian?
> I don't have to worry about all the trappings of
> class progression, skills, abilities, powers, companions, puzzles,
> tricks, etc. Instead it is the adventure of an hyper-complicated chess
> game unfolding: me vs. Morgoth & co.!
>
> I think that anything that detracts from this basic spirit/feeling of V
> is a Bad Thing (tm). V should stay simple and straight-forward (but
> with the window/movement bug fixed!). I am not good enough to have
> problems with the play balance, I'm quick enough of a diver not to be
> bothered by stat gain, and endgame clutter is just part of the game to
> me. I am all in favor of V as a stable, unchanging game.
So you have won? More than once? Balance really has to be calculated
right up to the final fight. Part of my problem with this whole
discussion is that it is largely carried out by people who don't have
to impose restrictions to avoid winning.
Anyway you sound like you are well on your way to being an expert
player.