tiles by default

[Shockbolt]

I don't think I've ever even SEEN tiles.. always been an ASCII player.

Kind of a necessity if you want to sneak in some Angband at work. To the uninitiated, it doesn't immediately identify as a game....

Now you have

[ekolis]

You need one with a bat cowl... NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA AT-MAN!!!

[fph]

I have advocated several times in the past making the default options more noob-friendly and not overweighing unmotivated opinions like "it's been like this since frog-knows, I have grown used to it and thus I love it".

However, for tiles we have another issue: the default tiles need to be *very* good-looking, otherwise they would put off new players more than a distinctive-looking ASCII art display. Tiles simply do not look as good as any modern game interface: nowadays people are spoiled by 3D games and expect at least isometric graphic and/or a little bit of animation --- take a look at Battle of Wesnoth, for instance.

[Magnate]

I have advocated several times in the past making the default options more noob-friendly and not overweighing unmotivated opinions like "it's been like this since frog-knows, I have grown used to it and thus I love it".

However, for tiles we have another issue: the default tiles need to be *very* good-looking, otherwise they would put off new players more than a distinctive-looking ASCII art display. Tiles simply do not look as good as any modern game interface: nowadays people are spoiled by 3D games and expect at least isometric graphic and/or a little bit of animation --- take a look at Battle of Wesnoth, for instance.

In the days before Shockbolt, I would have agreed with you. But in Shockbolt's tiles I think we have reached that level of quality - I would take them over Wesnoth's graphics any day (though I note that Wesnoth's graphics have improved a great deal in the last couple of years).

The challenge for us now is to improve tile *handling* so that Shockbolt's work can be shown to best effect. We have to get away from the crazy picker system of sheet co-ordinates, and we have to get much better at dealing with occlusion if we're going to use double-height tiles.

Personally I don't think animation is a big deal but if we think it is then it too needs a complete overhaul.

This isn't my area so far be it from me to say never, but I am getting the distinct feeling that the ground-up redesign of Pyrel is going to be a much better candidate in the long term than trying to separate the UI properly in the V codebase.

[Shockbolt]

The challenge for us now is to improve tile *handling* so that Shockbolt's work can be shown to best effect. We have to get away from the crazy picker system of sheet co-ordinates, and we have to get much better at dealing with occlusion if we're going to use double-height tiles.

I wouldn't have made the tileset if I knew how much headache, pain and misery it would cause, oh and rage and abuse in some special cases

[Patashu]

Why not make tiles vs ASCII a choice the player is forced to make when first booting up the program/first making a character/whatever?

[Derakon]

Why not make tiles vs ASCII a choice the player is forced to make when first booting up the program/first making a character/whatever?

That was, more or less, my suggestion. At the very least it needs to be easy to figure out how to switch between ASCII and tiles, so if you don't like the mode you're in you can change to a different one.

[ekolis]

A menu option is not easy enough?

[Derakon]

I haven't personally tried enabling tiles, but I remember reading a lot of frustrated posts here about getting big-tile mode working. Perhaps that was more on the developer end than the user end, though.

In any event, given how little the game relies on the menus, no, a menu option alone probably isn't enough. At the very least the existence of the option should be mentioned early in the help text, or possibly even somewhere in the birth interface.

[dos350]

nn tiles watsoever ,

remove them from the zip, desperate users can find them 4 themselves

save wasted kbs 4 me

best option

[HallucinationMushroom]

At the very least the existence of the option should be mentioned early in the help text, or possibly even somewhere in the birth interface.

Does the initial opening screen still display the basic Angband title at the top with all the ensuing text and five part harmony? Would it be possible to suggest that there are different viewing options by providing ascii and tile screenshots or graphics on the title page, or something along those lines?

[LostTemplar]

remove them from the zip, desperate users can find them 4 themselves

Yes, just like in dwarf fortress.

Btw just my opinion about tiles. I like tiles in crawl, I play DF with tiles only (ASCII is uplayable for me), however in Angband I only play ASCII. It is not like angband tiles are bad, just Angband ASCII display is awesome, it looks so cool so even most modern 3d engines cannot beat it.

[Derakon]

nn tiles watsoever ,

remove them from the zip, desperate users can find them 4 themselves

save wasted kbs 4 me

best option

Okay, I actually fell for the troll, but then I realized what I'd done and came back to edit this post.

dos350, if this is the best you can come up with, then you really don't belong here any more. You're just trying to provoke us, really.

[Shockbolt]

I would actually vote for a display choice, after you've created your character, showing the available display options using cropped screen portions perhaps.
Then, any new players would quickly identify the preferred choice and start the game using ascii or any tileset.

[emulord]

I feel that ASCII allows players to see what enemies are much more easily. When using Tiles in any roguelike I die way more because a basilisk looks like a young dragon, or something along those lines. With distinct color/letter combinations for monsters I can quickly gauge difficulty.

Ascii all the way, even in DoomRL with very pretty tiles. Powder was fine with tiles because they look so distinct from one another and large tiles is fine because of the low range of range attacks and sight in that game.
Also ascii makes you feel badass.