What's happening with V4?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Angband has a very long history and a lot of people feel a sense of ownership of it.

It's important for the developers to not internalize this horrible sense of responsibility to a paralyzing extent.

Don't think "Do these changes offend someone", but rather "Do these changes offend my own vision of Angband". It's enough if you devs agree to do something, even if it would make some other people angry.

It's alright to cause controversies from time to time. That's the only way to create the best possible Angband.

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Don't think "Do these changes offend someone", but rather "Do these changes offend my own vision of Angband". It's enough if you devs agree to do something, even if it would make some other people angry.

That's the thinking that led to 3.2. I like the new thinking better...

A.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Angband has a very long history and a lot of people feel a sense of ownership of it.

This line reminded of a documentary I recently watched. I can't remember the name of it (it's on Netflix), but it was about George Lucas and (predominately) Star Wars. It's not just about the dissatisfaction with the prequels, but also the "enhanced" original movies. Hardcore fans hate the enhanced remakes because they feel some "ownership" over the original versions (which Lucas, won't re-release on DVD, only fragile VHS copies exist) and don't care for many of the changes.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Antoine

That's the thinking that led to 3.2. I like the new thinking better...

Note that I was assuming that most of the devs are traditionalists to a degree, and that they must agree among themselves. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and paralyzing to aim for that.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Note that I was assuming that most of the devs are traditionalists to a degree, and that they must agree among themselves. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and paralyzing to aim for that.

It's remarkably difficult to get agreement from all the devs.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Here's a proposal.

Let's have Jeff Greene for the maintainer of Angband. NPP is already more balanced and more traditional than Vanilla Angband. (I don't know anything about this really, that's just the impression I've been getting by reading forum posts.)

Base Beleriand on Pyrel and proclaim that it's the proud future of Angband. Lots of developers and fast progress.

OK, that was really tongue-in-cheek. But it might actually be a possible option that both the Classic Angband and Future Angband had a distinct identity and maintainer(s) with vision and big plans.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Base Beleriand on Pyrel and proclaim that it's the proud future of Angband. Lots of developers and fast progress.

OK, that was really tongue-in-cheek.

Just as well. Say that again and I will destroy you.

Seriously, though, I think Angband is in a fairly creative state of flux at the moment. There are some very interesting new variants (possibly incorrect terminology) emerging, 3.4 looks good, there are plans for 3.5, the v4 project achieved at least some of its aims, and the pyrel project is keeping Magnate busy showing signs of promise. What's not to like?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Nick

What's not to like?

I agree! It's been a very good year.

- I love the V4 changes, especially the combat system.
- I like the changes for 3.4.
- I'd love to base Halls of Mist on Pyrel some day.

I was just looking into the future, mapping some options. I don't believe that Pyrel with its big gameplay changes could be renamed to Angband without many traditionalists becoming angry. I see two options, and either is fine by me: embrace the controversy or have two separate games. If there will be two separate games, it might be cool if Classic Angband had a maintainer and roadmap of its own.

[getter77]

The main thing that it comes down to other than the finer details on direct gameplay is the enticement factor for new players/modders to do their thing. Current frontrunners in that regard would be Tales of Maj'Eyal with the modular T-Engine 4, hopefully soon joining Legend of Siegfried in a modular form but not going with ToME4's Lua, and I guess the latest darkhorse in the form of X@COM RL that just recently gained modding capabilities----but has seen seen formidable dev pace on the subject.

For Pyrel and whatnot to take on the mantle, reckonings will need to be had on what the next steps forward are, as it is an entirely different landscape versus the classic days when the *BAND experience was very much a defining thing in the whole of the Roguelike menagerie for years and years. The obvious answers is to steal any and all good general ideas from all the existing variants and mega-variants, defunct and otherwise---but even all that only goes so far.

For instance, prompted by the latest episode of Roguelike Radio, a certain Regular Combatant over on T4's end of things got to thinking about Vector support on the graphical/fonty side of things---with the current state of that being not-anticipated and quite possibly none too easy a feature to implement at this stage of the engine so far along.

In other words, there needs to be blood on that edge for best effect as opposed to just a perceived sharpness.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Python would be a big plus for many variant maintainers.

On the other hand, NPP has 4GAI, Unangband terrain infrastructure, and most (all?) of Vanilla's UI improvements. Until Pyrel has similar features, NPP will be a tough competitor.

Because NPP is so good, non-Pyrel Vanilla wouldn't necessarily need to focus on being a good base for variants -- it could just focus on being the best possible Classic Angband.