Development lull

[Nick]

Some of you may have noticed that there hasn't been a lot of development from me lately - bugs unfixed, curses implementation a bit underdone, and I haven't been paying nearly enough attention to the significant UI work that people like calris and t4nk have been doing.

The main reason for this is fairly mundane; I have had a lot of things outside Angband which have been demanding my time, thought and energy. I am mentioning this for a couple of reasons:

• I want to emphasise that I would like to be doing more on the game than currently, and that I still have a lot of unfinished business here;
• I want to foreshadow that the next few months are unlikely to be much better; in particular, I will likely be out of circulation completely for a few weeks before the end of the year.

I will aim to use what time I do have available for bugfixing, and maybe some work on the curse system.

[Derakon]

Thanks for keeping us all informed, and good luck with Real Life! As far as I'm concerned, you should take all the time you need to get your affairs in order.

[Carnivean]

I think we have no choice but to dock your pay. You'll be on half wages until productivity resumes.

[Nick]

While this topic is open seems like a good time to say something about the longer term.

There are a number of things which I am aiming to do, but I don't plan to be Angband maintainer for ever. The current FA competition has made me want to fix that so it gets the good features of V, I have Beleriand to get back to some day, and as far as I am aware I am mortal.

Angband has always been a community-driven game, and maintainers have stepped up (roughly) when needed, so I'm sure something will happen when the time comes; still, the rest of you should have a bit of a think about whether you have ambitions in that direction.

[Nick]

Well, what do you know, it's happening again, but with a bit more set timing.

The next six weeks will be patchy for me, and I'm unlikely to get any actual development done. I'll keep up with the forum as much as possible, and I may try to do some filing of bugs that need fixing and changes that need making to make myself feel a bit better organised.