The Town and the Future of Angband

[Nick]

First, I find the OP ideas (and subsequent comments) very interesting. I think the best way to introduce such ideas would be with a no-town birth option.

Terrain types appear in various variants, I hate them with a passion and avoid levels overly cluttered with special terrain like the plague. I also dont like cave levels and if there was a birth option to not have them generated, I would check it. I basically never play on them, but move on asap.

The reason is simply that both disrupt the flow of play. The original dungeon type allows for quick exploration with shift-direction, has a well-defined and usefull illumination mechanics and doesnt require *press-one-key-at-a-time-slowly* exploration for boring levels. Slow and tactical movement where I pause every move does happen and is required for the game to be intersting, but not on a random level (of which I have to advance through 100), only in special situations when dangerous monsters are close or there is a vault.

The best feature of Vanilla is that it has the sophisticated interface to deal with complex situations, but also the routines to speed up the repetitious stages. Without the latter, I wouldnt play ASCII games at all.

These are really good points, and any introduction of new terrain, etc is going to take them into account. Note too that there is significant work going into making sure that things like frequency of level generation types are easily customised by the text data files.

And the original Angband town predates Tolkien :P

Wash your mouth out!

[HallucinationMushroom]

I like this a lot. I like the flavor of 'hallowed places' in hostile terrain.

Me too. I could totally go for a Tim Horton's right at about 750'.

[debo]

Me too. I could totally go for a Tim Horton's right at about 750'.

If we put Tim Horton's coffee into angband, it should have the same effect as potions of salt water.

[Tirith]

First, I find the OP ideas (and subsequent comments) very interesting. I think the best way to introduce such ideas would be with a no-town birth option.

No-Town Birth Option sounds like a great way to implement such a change. Let's do it!

[Timo Pietilä]

Here's my proposal:

1. Kill the Town.

Can't be done before you have some alternative to home.

I wouldn't care that much if shops would disappear completely, but home is essential to long-term planning. You simply can't carry everything with you (unless obviously playing ironman, but that's a playstyle that is supposed to be challenge just because home is missing).

[bio_hazard]

For what it's worth, I think the town is pretty useful. My last few games I've failed to find things to make the transition into mid game (=FA, rod of trap detection, etc) and ended up picking those up in the black market. My warriors sometimes buy wands of stinking cloud in 6, and I've definitely bought ammo at 1 when I find a better launcher of a different type. I'd agree that frequently, the things you can buy outside of the black market are useless, especially 2 and 3, although occasionally there are some gloves or a helmet or something that are a nice pick-up.

I feel like many times I see the argument that what makes Angband unique is that it really lets the player choose their own strategy/pace, and I think the town is a some part of that. That's not to say it can't be made more interesting, or that we couldn't have more shop-like things in the dungeon, but I'd hesitate to remove it completely without really thinking through what it would do to overall gameplay.

[ScaryMonster]

I like the cache idea, but rather than attempt to solve all its questions, here is a little sketch

The cache, or bolt hole or whatever they may be called

• have gear and consumables
• may function as persistent containers
• interact as expected w/ the recall system as a replacement for the town

On a level you get a feeling, there is the lost soul of Kadmass a lvl 13 priest somewhere upon this level...

You find him and put him to rest the angband way and a doorway appears (which was neither there nor detectable beforehand)

Opening the door you find, his up-to-that-point accumulated cache.. and a cache-stone, which, while you possess it, allows you to come and go via recall to this spot.

If you return from a lower level, you do not return to the whole level. In the interim, the cache reseals, in the ui, this might take several forms. Whatever is most useful, pleasant and cool in that order.

These caches might be arranged a bunch of ways. As above, they might (or not) be announced in the level feeling.

Sil has a problem w/ forges, this would pose a similar problem.

Considering a group of random numbers that sum to a finite value (say 100) as a sequence. The running sum subtotals form a random sequence which builds directly to the final value. With such a list, the relative appearance of things may be modeled while still being a random process. Or just every 5'th level.

The caches might appear visually similar to vaults. Stacks of goodies w/no monsters (or perhaps only the lost soul who horded all the gear)

In addition, as is well known, gnomes (and perhaps certain hobbits) know very well how to cultivate mushrooms. The cache/bolthole provides a convenient space for the practical delver to cultivate Mushroom gardens.

You might find a cache, stash your stuff dive deeper, find another cache. Stash your cache-stone to the earlier one and continue. There may be a quick way to consolidate caches. Etc...