Next competition

[Psi]

I don't have anything particular to say about the variant, cLevel, or whatever for the next comp, but I would like to request

(1) disconnected stairs

(2) a savefile where the ancestors have developed decent monster memory and everseen flavors/books/dragonscale etc
(3) the option to show flavors in descriptions of aware items turned off

If you plan to submit a comp, please at least consider these points.

Sounds good to me. Regarding (3), you can certainly do that in FA and O - I use it to help prevent the long description lines getting truncated on my small PDA screen.

[Big Al]

I was kind of curious as to what kinds of competitions there could be other than just fastest to win, so I took a look through all the old competitions. We get the following:

Winning Goal
------------
43 - Winner with fewest turns
      26 - then experience/turn
      10 - then deepest unique or guardian
      6 - then best depth
      1 - then experience times depth
2 - Lowest experience winner, then Experience/Turns
2 - Experience/Turns
2 - Fewest turns to acquire 100000 gold, then Gold
1 - Fewest turns to acquire 250000 gold, then Gold
1 - Winner with the most points, then quests completed
1 - Deepest
1 - Reach the surface in the fewest turns then shallowest depth
1 - Most arena victories, then turns
1 - Most Experience Before Midnight
1 - Fun Happy Puzzle Land Completed in the fewest turns
1 - Highest Burglary skill, then turns


Variant
-------
11 - Angband
9 - Zangband
6 - Oangband
5 - NPPAngband
4 - Sangband
4 - UnAngband
3 - FAAngband
3 - Steamband
2 - Hendband
1 - Animeband
1 - Entroband
1 - EyAngband
1 - Hellband
1 - Ironband
1 - PosBand
1 - PsiAngband
1 - Quickband
1 - T.O.M.E.
1 - Z+Angband


Most Wins
---------
6 - Murphy S.
5 - Eddie Grove
4 - Jiamat
4 - Wim Benthem
3 - Dean Chung
3 - Harriet Bazley
3 - Sébastien Hautecouer
2 - Alex Power
2 - Elliot
2 - Jay Calvert
2 - Jeda
2 - Psi
2 - Robert Au
2 - Stephen Tanner
2 - Tony Holmes
2 - Willem Siemelink
1 - Adrienne Connolly
1 - Bandobras
1 - Emulord
1 - Matt Neumann
1 - Matthew Collett
1 - Michael Frank
1 - Nick McConnell
1 - R. Avanatti
1 - Roy Brabson
1 - Steven
1 - Stuart Warkentin

Competitions #35, 38 and 47 don't seem to exist. EDIT: Added most wins so far. EDIT: fixed Dean Chung, thanks Nick.

[Nick]

I was kind of curious as to what kinds of competitions there could be other than just fastest to win, so I took a look through all the old competitions.

Cool. Also:


2 - drchung
+
1 - Dean Chung
_
3

[Donald Jonker]

Maybe we should do a ToME comp to welcome our long lost brethren. I'm sure somebody could think up something weird.

Then again, it's not like ToME needs any more exposure on the ladder

[Nick]

Since competition 61 seems to have come to a natural end, I have moved the finish date forward to the 19th of December.

This is a call for savefiles for competition 62 - any that are unused will be kept for future comps.

[Psi]

Since competition 61 seems to have come to a natural end, I have moved the finish date forward to the 19th of December.

So I've still got a week...

[Nick]

So I've still got a week...

You could play that short a game in 2 days

[Psi]

You could play that short a game in 2 days

Most of my attempts are closer to 2 minutes at the moment...

[Nick]

The last fifteen competitions have been:

65 FAangband 0.3.6 Ent Rogue
64 Entroband 0.7.1 Vampire Ninja
63 Angband 3.1.0 Kobold Rogue
62 Angband 3.0.9b Dwarf Warrior
61 Oangband 1.1.0u High-Elf Assassin
60 Z+Angband 0.2.3 Nibelung Priest
59 Ironband 14Aug08 Human
58 Angband 3.0.9b Human Paladin
57 FAangband 0.3.3 Hobbit Priest
56 Steamband 0.4.1 American Officer
55 UnAngband 0.6.2-wip7b Dwarf Mage (Druid)
54 Oangband 1.1.0 Dwarf Warrior
53 Sangband 1.0.0 Hobbit
52 NPPangband 0.4.1 Hobbit Warrior
51 Angband 3.0.7s3 Gnome Mage

There is no obvious contender for comp 66 (V and NPP new versions are not quite ready; Portralis' maintainer deems it not yet competition ready; Un is a little of both). Comp 65 technically finishes on the 22nd of March, and has seen little recent activity on the competition page.

So any ideas or, even better, savefiles would be appreciated.

[PaulBlay]

So any ideas or, even better, savefiles would be appreciated.

I'm not their maintainer, but just for the heck of it I'll put forward TinyAngband and XAngband for consideration.

TinyAngband would probably have the highest proportion of people finishing as WINNER ever, so might be good for getting new players in there. It's aimed at being a quick game to play. (P.S. Watch out for death swords!)

Both games are having a lot of fine tuning done on them so it might be best if a 'competition source archive / binary' was produced rather than using the last release.

[EDIT]I've just heard that 0.0.3 of TinyAngband is due for release in a few days. (Don't be put off by the number, no bugs turned up when I played it ;-). That will be the first official English release.

I don't really consider them 'serious contenders' but if there is real interest in this idea I will co-ordinate with the maintainer.

[Daniel Fishman]

My first thought is that, with four rogues* and a warrior in the last five competitions, it's probably time for a spellcaster. Though I guess the NPP comp when it happens will be a Mage or a Druid.

* - I assume an Assassin plays pretty similar to a Rogue. I know the Ninja did.

[Donald Jonker]

Are folks interested in playing a dead(ish) variant? I've recently discovered sCthangband, which is pretty different and very fun, particularly for its magic, though it lacks a squelch system. Or possibly Ey, which was way ahead of itself for UI enhancements and served as inspiration for a lot of NPP's upgrades.

Another option could be Hellband, which I think if it got a little publicity, we'd see some more development from the maintainer.

I can work up a savefile for one of these if anyone's interested.

[buzzkill]

I be more interested in a character that wasn't way overpowered to begin with. I feel that too many of the recent competitions featured characters that have started out at low level with either exceptional armour or weapon. Lucky and Cain come to mind.

[Donald Jonker]

I be more interested in a character that wasn't way overpowered to begin with. I feel that too many of the recent competitions featured characters that have started out at low level with either exceptional armour or weapon. Lucky and Cain come to mind.

The idea there is to give players something they can't get by simply rolling up their own characters, randomly, to induce them to compete. Comps, after all, are the only place where it's socially acceptable to savescum. But Psi with the current comp ably demonstrated there are better ways to do this than give them a neat-o item. Not sure how to provide a single-dungeon solution, other than provide a deep recall.

[buzzkill]

The idea there is to give players something they can't get by simply rolling up their own characters, randomly, to induce them to compete. Comps, after all, are the only place where it's socially acceptable to savescum. But Psi with the current comp ably demonstrated there are better ways to do this than give them a neat-o item. Not sure how to provide a single-dungeon solution, other than provide a deep recall.

Really? Did I miss the memo on this?