Tears unnumbered ye shall shed

[debo]

Also: For me and others who wonder what the current state of the V codebase is, is there somewhere we can download a copy of the source through a web browser, without using git?

A.

You can download any github repo as a .zip, see the bottom-right corner of https://github.com/angband/angband !

Edit: Or just use this link directly https://github.com/angband/angband/archive/master.zip

[Antoine]

Also: For me and others who wonder what the current state of the V codebase is, is there somewhere we can download a copy of the source through a web browser, without using git?

A.

[Antoine]

Nick, sounds like 'massive restructure of the code ' is a major policy plank. What principles do you plan to restructure on ?

a.

[nppangband]

For anyone who may have missed it, some people have suggested that I should be the next Angband maintainer. So I thought everyone should have a chance to see what a Nick-as-maintainer future might hold. I'm going to do a series of individual topic posts; please comment frankly and fearlessly. If this happens, I want it to be with everyone's eyes open.

Let me get this straight....you are actually considering maintaining 4 games (FAangband, OAngband, Belairand, AND Vanilla), plus the comps? Just how many hours a day are there in New Zealand, anyways?

This is because I took on Moria as well as NPP, and am considering adding a frog-knows module. You just had to stay one ahead of me, didn't you?

[nppangband]

How does the NPP codebase compare in "cleaned-uppedness" to V? I've made a lot of personal edits to the Sil codebase which is forked off an ancient NPP, iirc, and I've always found it quite easy to work with, even though there's a ton of non-Sil code still sitting around. I don't know how much of this should be attributed to half, or to the original NPP authors

After I stopped keeping NPP current with the vanilla codebase, I think they re-organized a whole bunch of code. However I think in general the Angband dev team trended away from commenting "Ben Harrison" style (comments practically every line, and detailed explanations every function as well). This is probably because they are much better and experienced coders than me, and don't need a comment every line to figure out what is going on. I stuck with the Ben Harrison style coding.

So I would guess that the Vanilla codebase is a little better organized, and might not be as heavily commented as NPP.

[takkaria]

How does the NPP codebase compare in "cleaned-uppedness" to V? I've made a lot of personal edits to the Sil codebase which is forked off an ancient NPP, iirc, and I've always found it quite easy to work with, even though there's a ton of non-Sil code still sitting around. I don't know how much of this should be attributed to half, or to the original NPP authors

Mind you I've neved had to make major sweeping changes, but for an ancient fork of an ancient variant of an ancient game, I thought it held up pretty well!!

Edit: I guess what I'm asking is, how much of this refactoring is seen as a "reorganizing" (e.g. cleanup) and how much of it is seen as a "re-architecting" (i.e. fundamentally changing the design and implementation of the game)?

This is a sheer-curiousity question, I have no desire to write C on my spare time ever again

It's both reorganising and rearchitecting, and a lot of the latter. There's a long desired core-UI split that would make e.g. native ipad/iphone ports a lot easier. There's loads of stuff still that could be moved to edit files, too, for example.

[Scatha]

Here's a zany idea: Monster Stealth. For monsters that have this, the player needs to use their searching/perception skills to notice the monster even when it is in line of sight. I'm thinking of Master Thieves sneaking up on players completely unawares, and landing a nice backstab!

Sil uses a version of this where you need to roll every turn, even if you've already spotted them -- essentially a variation on invisibility. We talked about having a version where if you spot the enemy you can then see it forever, or until it leaves line of sight, for use with thieves and assassins, and this seems to be fertile design space.

[debo]

How does the NPP codebase compare in "cleaned-uppedness" to V? I've made a lot of personal edits to the Sil codebase which is forked off an ancient NPP, iirc, and I've always found it quite easy to work with, even though there's a ton of non-Sil code still sitting around. I don't know how much of this should be attributed to half, or to the original NPP authors

Mind you I've neved had to make major sweeping changes, but for an ancient fork of an ancient variant of an ancient game, I thought it held up pretty well!!

Edit: I guess what I'm asking is, how much of this refactoring is seen as a "reorganizing" (e.g. cleanup) and how much of it is seen as a "re-architecting" (i.e. fundamentally changing the design and implementation of the game)?

This is a sheer-curiousity question, I have no desire to write C on my spare time ever again

[molybdenum]

• Wait for the release of 3.5
• Work out who is interested in contributing to development and in what capacity
• Do a massive restructure of the code with no gameplay (or language!) change. takkaria has done a huge amount of this (pretty much unsung) already; I plan to be fairly revolutionary here

I too have been waiting for 3.5 to stabilize so that I can get more big refactors done; there are a few that are mostly done and a few waiting to be started. Working on Angband is refreshingly enjoyable for me right now, compared to my normal development work.

[Derakon]

Town would have a portal too, right? Taking you to your max depth?

Right.

Another possible approach would be to mimic Diablo 1's shortcut system; functionally, that'd mean that when you entered the portal in town, you'd be able to return to any previous depth you'd portalled from. So e.g. if there's portals every 5 levels (not that I'm suggesting they be spaced so regularly), then when you're in town, you'd be able to return to any level where (dlvl % 5 == 0).

You can also mimic the current staircase options:

* forced-descent: portal always takes you to (max depth + 1)
* connected stairs: when you take a portal, you spawn on a portal back to town.

[chris]

Tackle the outstanding thorny issues - traps/searching/perception

Here's a zany idea: Monster Stealth. For monsters that have this, the player needs to use their searching/perception skills to notice the monster even when it is in line of sight. I'm thinking of Master Thieves sneaking up on players completely unawares, and landing a nice backstab!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I've suggested in the past having fixed portals in the dungeon that basically act as "super-staircases" to take you back to town. So every time you enter the dungeon, you're basically playing a mini-ironman session until you find the next portal. There wouldn't necessarily be a portal on any given level (though there'd probably need to be code to ensure that portals got generated on a semi-regular basis as well as on levels 98 and 99).

Sounds really good. Mini-ironman may be Angband needs. It creates feelings of danger & achievement.

Town would have a portal too, right? Taking you to your max depth?

Mist has its own stair system, but it doesn't suit Angband.

[Derakon]

Word of Recall is a super-weird and gamey mechanic. Could we have something better, please.

I've suggested in the past having fixed portals in the dungeon that basically act as "super-staircases" to take you back to town. So every time you enter the dungeon, you're basically playing a mini-ironman session until you find the next portal. There wouldn't necessarily be a portal on any given level (though there'd probably need to be code to ensure that portals got generated on a semi-regular basis as well as on levels 98 and 99).

[Mikko Lehtinen]

What variants exist that fix searching and traps? At least Sil and Mist come to mind, they have very different solutions.

I would love the removal or radical alteration of mechanics that don't contribute much, like food and light clocks.

Word of Recall is a super-weird and gamey mechanic. Could we have something better, please.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Mist-combat is simple and pretty fun, and it will get more interesting eventually, but it does not suit Angband. It needs basic items that get more and more powerful deeper in the dungeons, it gets silly and "videogamey".

O, Sil and v4 are all good choices. Unangband might have done something interesting to V-combat.