Angband 4.0.0 released

[Nick]

On behalf of the devteam, I bring to you the long-awaited Version 4.0.0 of Angband. You can find it at rephial.org/.

As outlined when the beta came out, there are some changes to how things work; here are the main ones:

• Savefile compatibility from 3.5 is broken, more thoroughly than you could imagine. Don't try to load a 3.x character.
• Genders have been removed, but the player history is editable so you can write your own backstory.
• Monster memory is no longer in the savefile, but in a file called "lore.txt" in the user directory (\lib\user on Windows, ~/Documents/Angband on OSX, ~/.angband/Angband on Linux). Putting a copy of monster.txt, renamed to lore.txt, in the user directory will give full monster memory.
• There is much more game info in the text data files (now in lib/gamedata - there has been a re-organisation of lib/), and for the most part it should be changeable without breaking the game (or mostly even your savefile). If you want to change an edit file, putting an amended copy in your user directory will make the game load that instead of the regular one.
• In particular, there is a new edit file called constants.txt which contains many formerly hard-coded values - dungeon and town level dimensions, store and home inventory size, view and spell ranges just to name a few.

An outline of the code changes is on the release page.

Since the beta version has been out for three months, and there are no gameplay changes, this release is in some ways not a big deal. It does mean a couple of things, though:

1. This is just the start of the 4.0 series, and the fun is really about to start.
2. This has been a massive community effort. Seriously, thanks to all of you. Congratulate yourselves.

I'll finish with a list of contributors to this version - incomplete since it's impossible to capture all the influence from the community.

Code contribution:

• ajps
• AnonymousHero
• elly
• d_m
• fizzix
• Jagath Samarabandu
• Jose Antonio Dura
• LostTemplar
• magnate
• Michel Carroll
• molybdenum
• myshkin
• Nick
• Nomad
• noz
• PowerWyrm
• Rydelfox
• takkaria
• Timothy Collett

Beta testing:

• Ingwe Ingweron
• Nomad
• MattB
• Thraalbeast
• tumbleweed
• AndyHK
• Rhonwyn
• Jungle_Boy
• Darin
• StMicah
• debo
• pen
• topazg
• wobbly
• DeusIrae
• Timo Pietilä
• ranger jeff
• passer_by
• Runaway1956
• mrrstark
• Estie
• shreesh
• elliptic
• Gorbad
• letslaugh
• ShadowTechnology
• bryan.g.hutchinson

[takkaria]

[Nick]

If anyone's having difficulties with the download links at rephial, here are backups for Windows, OS X and Source.

[MattB]

Thanks Nick - your hundreds (make that thousands) of hours have not been entirely wasted. There are hundreds (make that thousands) of banders who really appreciate the effort that you've put into the game.

[getter77]

Magnificent---congrats on this finely wrought substantial release!

[fph]

Congrats on the release, and thanks for the great work!

[Tibarius]

Oh no, i will be too late with my 3.5.1 player's guide now. Anyone thinking i should see that i finish it and release it nevertheless?

Thank you for developing a great game further on.

[Nomad]

Woo! Glad to see the release. Dead impressed with the speed and number of bugfixes done on this - well done, everybody concerned!

I suppose I should probably get on with finishing those special rooms for 4.1, then...

[Monkey Face]

Originally Posted by Tibarius

Oh no, i will be too late with my 3.5.1 player's guide now. Anyone thinking i should see that i finish it and release it nevertheless?

The release notes to 4.0 say nothing has changed from a gameplay perspective. So I would say go ahead and release the guide!

[tumbleweed]

Congratulations!