Hey Folks,
Long time player, first time poster here. As background, I have almost experienced the entire history of Angband (from a player perspective), starting with the initial X11 and IBM ports (I believe V2.7.2 or V2.7.4 was the first version I downloaded from the old "ftp.cis.ksu.edu" site) during the Ben Harrison Era around 1994 up through the latest 4.0.3 release. I have witnessed the The Great Code Cleanup, The Introduction of Fractional Speeds, Object Stacking, The Explosion of Variants, The Great GPL Push, The Game Engine/User Interface Code Separation Project, you name it. I've put the game down for years at a time, but have always been pleased that the community has kept it alive during the times I have taken significant breaks from it.
I've been thinking about the recent changes that have occurred since 3.5.x and have a few thoughts...
1. I LOVE that we can *finally* edit a character's history during character generation. I have a tradition (when) playing a High-Elven Mage as LĂșthien (or TinĂșviel) -- that I don't care how long it takes(!), she'd better be "the only child of a Telerian King", with "light grey eyes, straight black hair, and a fair complexion". More time than I'd care to admit has been lost to this detail...
2. Flattening out the loot progression a bit has been a long time coming. There is more to be done in my opinion, but it's better than it used to be.
3. No selling in the town feels like a half measure -- and this is really the point of my post. I am recently coming off of one of those longish breaks, and wasn't aware of the "birth_no_selling" flag when I started a new game, so imagine my surprise when I first experienced it in the shops. After playing with it for a while, I can understand why the change was made, since it has significantly altered my tactical approach to Angband not only on a level-to-level basis, but also with respect to the game as a whole. So I don't hate it, but I certainly don't love it either.
In my opinion, the fact that this change was deemed necessary shows how broken (and exploitative) the town really is. If the town is to remain in future versions of Angband, then it feels very unrealistic for players to be unable to sell to the shopkeepers (yes, I know I can change it). Even though I don't outright disagree with the change per say, it still just "feels wrong" when playing the game. And it's pretty annoying to see so little variation in the wares being offered by the stores under this setting.
Here's what I'd really like to see:
The Town has always been an immersion breaker. Yes, Angband is only loosely based on Tolkien, but the point of the game is to kill Morgoth, and having a town sit right on top of the Entrance to the Dungeon of Doom seems so unrealistic to me. Over the past couple of years I was so glad to see some of the other non-immersive elements (i.e., monster types) be stripped from the game, but I would like to see this idea taken further.
Here's my proposal:
1. Kill the Town.
2. Add hidden caches containing different flavors of items throughout some of the levels to compensate. Angband is Morgoth's stronghold fortress after all, and there should be storage caches hidden around somewhere! Cobwebs or fake walls, anyone?
3. Have the caches also act as safe-havens for characters, central deposits for storing items, and for allowing characters to re-acquire base loot.
4. Enable Word of Recall spells recall a character back to the caches after one has been marked with a rune or something. Maybe even introduce different types of recall spells/runes to take you to specific flavors of caches.
With no Towns, the flexibility of purchasing certain types of loot will be lost (to a degree), so to further compensate:
5. Make a distinction between different types of precious metals, gems, and money found within the game. Have a loot bag or something similar to store these items in.
6. Add forges to the game, in a similar, yet different manner to Sil.
7. Use the precious metals/gems/money as the base and/or accent materials for forging items. This will provide players with some flexibility in what they create.
8. Introduce a skill based system that allows players to more easily forge certain types of items based upon Race and Class. Maybe have forging also be dependent upon blueprints or something (other smelted weapons/armour?) that can also be acquired in the dungeon.
In this manner, the need(?) for a Black Market is replaced with the ability for characters to forge increasingly OP (but not unique) items to fill in some of the gaps when the RNG is being unkind.
A similar thing could be done for potions via Alchemy stations.
Nick also has some big ideas, and I'd love to see them implemented.
I'm ALL for different terrain types (I believe one of the original old-school versions of Angband lost to time was supposed to have water in it). Bring on the lava, water, gas, mud, rocky terrain, etc.
I'm all for a rebalancing of the Magic system around Arcane vs Nature, and Holy vs Unholy. Bring on the tightening of the spells so that they are more focused and useful.
I'm all for introducing outposts and tactical defensive/offensive points. Bring on varied tactical terrain challenges that would make the game more strategic.
In short (long?), I think it's time for the community to think BIG for future versions of Vanilla Angband. The code is GPL'd, on GIT, and if *everyone* hates a major change, it can always be reverted. I think for too long the mentality has been "V is for Vanilla", but with that mentality, the game has stagnated (sometimes for years at a time) as a result.
Nick -- Continue to THINK BIG! Take some risks with the game design! Be bold! Some people will hate you for it, but not this crusty old veteran.
EDITED for grammar.
Thanks!
T
Long time player, first time poster here. As background, I have almost experienced the entire history of Angband (from a player perspective), starting with the initial X11 and IBM ports (I believe V2.7.2 or V2.7.4 was the first version I downloaded from the old "ftp.cis.ksu.edu" site) during the Ben Harrison Era around 1994 up through the latest 4.0.3 release. I have witnessed the The Great Code Cleanup, The Introduction of Fractional Speeds, Object Stacking, The Explosion of Variants, The Great GPL Push, The Game Engine/User Interface Code Separation Project, you name it. I've put the game down for years at a time, but have always been pleased that the community has kept it alive during the times I have taken significant breaks from it.
I've been thinking about the recent changes that have occurred since 3.5.x and have a few thoughts...
1. I LOVE that we can *finally* edit a character's history during character generation. I have a tradition (when) playing a High-Elven Mage as LĂșthien (or TinĂșviel) -- that I don't care how long it takes(!), she'd better be "the only child of a Telerian King", with "light grey eyes, straight black hair, and a fair complexion". More time than I'd care to admit has been lost to this detail...
2. Flattening out the loot progression a bit has been a long time coming. There is more to be done in my opinion, but it's better than it used to be.
3. No selling in the town feels like a half measure -- and this is really the point of my post. I am recently coming off of one of those longish breaks, and wasn't aware of the "birth_no_selling" flag when I started a new game, so imagine my surprise when I first experienced it in the shops. After playing with it for a while, I can understand why the change was made, since it has significantly altered my tactical approach to Angband not only on a level-to-level basis, but also with respect to the game as a whole. So I don't hate it, but I certainly don't love it either.
In my opinion, the fact that this change was deemed necessary shows how broken (and exploitative) the town really is. If the town is to remain in future versions of Angband, then it feels very unrealistic for players to be unable to sell to the shopkeepers (yes, I know I can change it). Even though I don't outright disagree with the change per say, it still just "feels wrong" when playing the game. And it's pretty annoying to see so little variation in the wares being offered by the stores under this setting.
Here's what I'd really like to see:
The Town has always been an immersion breaker. Yes, Angband is only loosely based on Tolkien, but the point of the game is to kill Morgoth, and having a town sit right on top of the Entrance to the Dungeon of Doom seems so unrealistic to me. Over the past couple of years I was so glad to see some of the other non-immersive elements (i.e., monster types) be stripped from the game, but I would like to see this idea taken further.
Here's my proposal:
1. Kill the Town.
2. Add hidden caches containing different flavors of items throughout some of the levels to compensate. Angband is Morgoth's stronghold fortress after all, and there should be storage caches hidden around somewhere! Cobwebs or fake walls, anyone?
3. Have the caches also act as safe-havens for characters, central deposits for storing items, and for allowing characters to re-acquire base loot.
4. Enable Word of Recall spells recall a character back to the caches after one has been marked with a rune or something. Maybe even introduce different types of recall spells/runes to take you to specific flavors of caches.
With no Towns, the flexibility of purchasing certain types of loot will be lost (to a degree), so to further compensate:
5. Make a distinction between different types of precious metals, gems, and money found within the game. Have a loot bag or something similar to store these items in.
6. Add forges to the game, in a similar, yet different manner to Sil.
7. Use the precious metals/gems/money as the base and/or accent materials for forging items. This will provide players with some flexibility in what they create.
8. Introduce a skill based system that allows players to more easily forge certain types of items based upon Race and Class. Maybe have forging also be dependent upon blueprints or something (other smelted weapons/armour?) that can also be acquired in the dungeon.
In this manner, the need(?) for a Black Market is replaced with the ability for characters to forge increasingly OP (but not unique) items to fill in some of the gaps when the RNG is being unkind.
A similar thing could be done for potions via Alchemy stations.
Nick also has some big ideas, and I'd love to see them implemented.
I'm ALL for different terrain types (I believe one of the original old-school versions of Angband lost to time was supposed to have water in it). Bring on the lava, water, gas, mud, rocky terrain, etc.
I'm all for a rebalancing of the Magic system around Arcane vs Nature, and Holy vs Unholy. Bring on the tightening of the spells so that they are more focused and useful.
I'm all for introducing outposts and tactical defensive/offensive points. Bring on varied tactical terrain challenges that would make the game more strategic.
In short (long?), I think it's time for the community to think BIG for future versions of Vanilla Angband. The code is GPL'd, on GIT, and if *everyone* hates a major change, it can always be reverted. I think for too long the mentality has been "V is for Vanilla", but with that mentality, the game has stagnated (sometimes for years at a time) as a result.
Nick -- Continue to THINK BIG! Take some risks with the game design! Be bold! Some people will hate you for it, but not this crusty old veteran.
EDITED for grammar.
Thanks!
T
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