"Nick is going to butcher the game"

[Huqhox]

Originally Posted by eMeM

Myself I though that 50' depth should be different from any other level. More safe, single monsters, no packs, no invisible monsters, no paralise monsters, no OOD monsters. But for someone else that would be a LORE change and maybe they would quote Tolkien that dungeon is never a safe place to be.

50' depth is now considerably safer than it was 15 years ago...

[Pete Mack]

Yup. No lethal traps, no instadeath to floating eyes found with a torch, or around a blind corner.

Originally Posted by Huqhox

50' depth is now considerably safer than it was 15 years ago...

[tangar]

Angband: epilogue

a) it's my last word (like before execution) - my last message about this topic.

b) this thread got in it a lot of interesting opinions, but it lacks of proper analysis and facts (except Takkaria's answers). I myself want to propose some; to combine my main ideas from past messages in paragraphs, so it would be easier to see the whole picture.

c) it would be fun to see a proper answer to this (last) message. What is a proper answer? It's an answer with facts and specifics, without common words. I write there particular paragraphs - 1, 2, 3, 4... Proper answer is to take this paragraphs and provide an opinion based at facts and evidence; if you are not agree with particular paragraphs - you should explain why you are not agree and to provide logical arguments towards your position.

d) I do not expect that something would be changed because:
- Angband got authoritarian dev system (it's not a defect, I'm also using such managment when I play in MMORPG and create guilds; it's good for small-scale operation).
- I'm among minority.. But even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth (Gandhi).

So it's just my last words with some facts (which could be wrong, please take a go to prove it):

1) Angband as the heritage.

- Angband could be considered as 'Rogue 3' (while 'Moria' is 'Rogue 2').
- Angband got it's own unique world and lore, which is focused in it's bestiary.
- Angband lore based at mixed fantasy universe, mainly DnD which consist of greek, norsa, Tolkien etc
- As Angband got ~40 years history (counting from 'Rogue 1') and it's lore should be threated with huge respect.

2) Monsters knowledge as the only persistent gameplay factor.

- Angband as all rlgs is RNG-based game.
- It's gameplay learning curve is heavely based at it's monsters knowledge - as it's one of the few factors which is static.
- Not rebalancing, but removing/renaming/revamping monsters is a mistake as it destroy knowledge of thousands Angband players which they accumulated during long years.
- We are (community) too old to learn this changes (or at least to have fun from such learning). It's good to continue development and make game more interesting, but devs should add new monsters for this reason, without removing old ones. I'm not 14 y.o. boy to have time to re-learn monsters' names after each revamp. Renaming monsters - is like destroying players' brain cells.

3) Angband as an educational game.

Multi-lore universe gives Angband an unique advantage to be a educational game. Each monster got a description which often contain poetic and beautiful quotes from the books which players could start reading after playing the game.

4) With new monstrers Angband loosing it's compatibility.

Technically it would become almost impossible for old versions of Angband and it's variant to be up-to-date with 'new Angband'. The end of continuity.

5) Angband already took everything it could from Tolkien lore.

- All Tolkien's lore which is possible to extract from his works was already extracted and added to Angband in past years.
- Most of stuff which is currently renamed/revamped is kinda pulled out of thin air (or other 'a' place) and not well-known even by Tolkien fans. This looks like strained effort to replace stuff with 'at least something'.
- There are always would be stuff which Tolkien doesn't have and which Angband players love (eyes, krakens etc) which leads to a lot of subjectivety in assessment - which monsters should stay and which should go.

6) No one asked to change Angband lore.

- I didn't find players requests considering changes in current Angband lore. Of course, most of the players do not really care about it, they are mostly neutral.. and they trusting maintainers. But even in this topic there some opinions that players miss old monsters.
- It looks that this revamp of Angband lore is an initiative of one person which is kinda 'forced' it by his authority. No one asked for it (no offence meant, just a fact).

7) Splitting community. (coming from previous one)

- As lore changes do not really bother most of the players there were no need to make them.
- At the same time for some players, who takes the game seriously - it's very painful changes and it's split's community (this topic is good example; there are a lot of personal offencive words - words not about particular facts of this discussion, but about personal properties. Bad sign).

7) Pure-Tolkien games is a danger of copyright.

Angband was a 'loosely' Tolkien-based game. Current lore revamp makes it quite 'strongly' focused. This is the least important factor imho, but it still exist.

8) Nostalgia.

As I said in #2 - we are not young. Among Angband and roguelike community in general are not too much new players in this stupid age when modern graphics overcome the gameplay.

And each of us have a lot of stories about Angband monsters - funny and exiting stories. We love this monsters. We love Angband LORE.

ANGBAND LORE - EXIST.

Not much players realise that. But actually everyone got it's in their hearts. Lore is this stories and memories. Removing traditional lore from the game, this monsters which everyone know - it's a position that "Angband do not posses it's own lore". But it's there. It was there.

Good bye.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by MattB

Now on politeness, I think you've got it the wrong way round (speaking only for myself, of course). The reason I didn't reply was not out of politeness and not wishing to offend. Rather, the reason I didn't reply was because I felt the original post was too impolite to warrant a reply.

+1 !!! At this point, I find the Tangar posts to have "become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." To quote the Bible when referencing those of sharp tongues that have not charity in their hearts.

[Philip]

Wait a sec, Krakens are not and have never been a monster in V. You don't care about the V monster list at all, do you? Hell, you don't apparently even care about being right enough to check.

Anyway, the notion that Angband has some sort of pure unspoiled continuity from Rogue is nonsense. The 3.x.y series monster list isn't even similar to the Moria one (aside from early levels), let alone to Rogue. One reason for this is that Angband has more than 5 elements, which Moria did not. Angband has been ruining the lore and continuity of itself since the very first release.

The fun part of Angband is learning the game. If this change ruins all your game knowledge then great, you get to learn again.

If you want a grab-bag variant, then that's what the various iterations of frogcomposchengband are for.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by tangar

So it's just my last words with some facts (which could be wrong, please take a go to prove it)

OK, then!

Originally Posted by tangar

1) Angband as the heritage.

- Angband could be considered as 'Rogue 3' (while 'Moria' is 'Rogue 2').
- Angband got it's own unique world and lore, which is focused in it's bestiary.
- Angband lore based at mixed fantasy universe, mainly DnD which consist of greek, norsa, Tolkien etc
- As Angband got ~40 years history (counting from 'Rogue 1') and it's lore should be threated with huge respect.

Angband does indeed have a rich history and lore, and some of that is focused in its bestiary. But it is also in its objects, in the construction of its dungeons, and in its players.

I first started playing Angband in the early 2000s, and loved the objects, the monsters, the messages. Then, a little later, I discovered the community, at that time centred at rec.games.roguelike.angband. Here, then, was the true heart of Angband in my opinion - people from around the world coming together to tell stories and discuss possibilities for this game (or many games really) that they all enjoyed.

There was a lot of talk about the history, future and variants of Angband, but little about Moria and none about Rogue. In the interests of respecting Angband's history and lore I've been determined to keep the community involved in the development process, and give everyone a chance to have their say.

Originally Posted by tangar

2) Monsters knowledge as the only persistent gameplay factor.

- Angband as all rlgs is RNG-based game.
- It's gameplay learning curve is heavely based at it's monsters knowledge - as it's one of the few factors which is static.
- Not rebalancing, but removing/renaming/revamping monsters is a mistake as it destroy knowledge of thousands Angband players which they accumulated during long years.
- We are (community) too old to learn this changes (or at least to have fun from such learning). It's good to continue development and make game more interesting, but devs should add new monsters for this reason, without removing old ones. I'm not 14 y.o. boy to have time to re-learn monsters' names after each revamp. Renaming monsters - is like destroying players' brain cells.

I think you're assuming here that the Angband community is a static group of people who started playing when the game began and are all growing old together. I don't think this is true - although I think that developing as if that were true would probably make it true. There are new people arriving and old ones leaving from this forum all the time. Moreover, there is plenty of interest in Angband from the wider roguelike community, and Angband in my view needs to have an appeal to the potential new player who knows they like roguelike games and is looking for one to play.

Plus monsters have been being removed/renamed/revamped all through Angband's history. As such a keen student of Angband's lore, surely you've noticed this.

Originally Posted by tangar

3) Angband as an educational game.

Multi-lore universe gives Angband an unique advantage to be a educational game. Each monster got a description which often contain poetic and beautiful quotes from the books which players could start reading after playing the game.

So surely the new monsters are another great educational opportunity? They all have descriptions too.

That said, like takkaria I think your "having other mythologies represented is a gateway to them" argument is probably the best one you have. However there are plenty of variants which are a much bigger melange of mythology from everywhere - notably the currently popular Poscheng/Compos/Frog etc ones - and I think it works quite well for Vanilla to stick to the core mythology.

Originally Posted by tangar

4) With new monstrers Angband loosing it's compatibility.

Technically it would become almost impossible for old versions of Angband and it's variant to be up-to-date with 'new Angband'. The end of continuity.

I don't even know what you mean here. New versions are always different to old versions, and there have been like 50 new versions of Vanilla Angband, let alone all the variants. Look at 3.5.1 and see how compatible that is with 2.4.f-k - I think you'll find not very.

Originally Posted by tangar

5) Angband already took everything it could from Tolkien lore.

- All Tolkien's lore which is possible to extract from his works was already extracted and added to Angband in past years.
- Most of stuff which is currently renamed/revamped is kinda pulled out of thin air (or other 'a' place) and not well-known even by Tolkien fans. This looks like strained effort to replace stuff with 'at least something'.
- There are always would be stuff which Tolkien doesn't have and which Angband players love (eyes, krakens etc) which leads to a lot of subjectivety in assessment - which monsters should stay and which should go.

This is clearly not true, as I have just put in a lot of Tolkien stuff which was not there before.

Yes, there is always subjectivity about what to keep and what to remove. As I've explained a number of times to everyone, and directly to you in particular, my view was basically to remove things that were boring or that clashed with Tolkien stuff - so things like eyes stayed, but trolls drawn specifically from a different mythology were changed to be more Tolkienian.

Originally Posted by tangar

6) No one asked to change Angband lore.

- I didn't find players requests considering changes in current Angband lore. Of course, most of the players do not really care about it, they are mostly neutral.. and they trusting maintainers. But even in this topic there some opinions that players miss old monsters.
- It looks that this revamp of Angband lore is an initiative of one person which is kinda 'forced' it by his authority. No one asked for it (no offence meant, just a fact).

No-one asked for this particular set of changes, but I've been talking about it for a long time and have got quite a lot of encouragement. Also it is a topic that comes up from time to time here, and I judged that community sentiment wasn't against it.

Originally Posted by tangar

7) Splitting community. (coming from previous one)

- As lore changes do not really bother most of the players there were no need to make them.
- At the same time for some players, who takes the game seriously - it's very painful changes and it's split's community (this topic is good example; there are a lot of personal offencive words - words not about particular facts of this discussion, but about personal properties. Bad sign).

I don't really see this as having split the community. It's generated a lot of discussion, but it's mostly been civil, and there's been no-one saying "these monster changes are going to make me leave the Angband community and never come back".

Originally Posted by tangar

7) Pure-Tolkien games is a danger of copyright.

Angband was a 'loosely' Tolkien-based game. Current lore revamp makes it quite 'strongly' focused. This is the least important factor imho, but it still exist.

I don't think that's even a remote danger. The Tolkien Estate is chiefly concerned with protecting the author's intellectual legacy; making Angband truer to his works probably makes us safer, if anything, but I think we're so far below the radar that we never have to think about that.

Originally Posted by tangar

8) Nostalgia.

As I said in #2 - we are not young. Among Angband and roguelike community in general are not too much new players in this stupid age when modern graphics overcome the gameplay.

And each of us have a lot of stories about Angband monsters - funny and exiting stories. We love this monsters. We love Angband LORE.

ANGBAND LORE - EXIST.

Not much players realise that. But actually everyone got it's in their hearts. Lore is this stories and memories. Removing traditional lore from the game, this monsters which everyone know - it's a position that "Angband do not posses it's own lore". But it's there. It was there.

I've already addressed the we're not young bit. As for stories - now there are new monsters to have stories about, and changes don't invalidate the old stories.

Of course Angband lore exists, and mostly it exists in the community. We're contributing to it right now. Changing a few monsters in the monster list certainly doesn't destroy Angband lore.

[fph]

It looks like most of your arguments boil down to "we've always done it this way".

[Pete Mack]

Rogue had only a handful of monster types--less than 52. It also had no spells, minimal scrolls,etc. If you want a proper successor to it, try Sil. It is much closer to Rogue 3 than Angband ever was (or was intended to be.)

[Derakon]

Angband was basically "maximalist Moria" when it first came out. Moria has 50 levels? Angband has 100! You can beat Moria at around clvl 30? In Angband you can go all the way up to clvl 50! Moria has warrior, rogue, paladin, mage, and priest? Angband has rangers too and everyone (except the warrior) gets twice as many spellbooks! Moria has ego items? Angband has artifacts! Moria has 150 monster types (or however many it was)? Angband has 500, and some of them are unique!

Neither game was particularly serious in tone. Moria had the Grape Jelly and Evil Iggy, and Angband had Qlzqqlzuup and potions of Slime Mold Juice.

[Carnivean]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Neither game was particularly serious in tone.

I remember a story about the original Moria maintainer and his sense of fun. He'd developed the game for his college, but another college had gotten word of it and wanted in. The dev changed the monster list for the town to make a "football fan" of his college that was a rapid breeder and always awake, so as soon as the new college students started playing they were swarmed and killed. After both sides had a laugh he showed them how to revert the monster list and play normally.

Clearly the whole thing is a sacred tome and should never be changed.