"Nick is going to butcher the game"

[HallucinationMushroom]

Dammit, Nick.

[Sky]

See, thats funny because lore does nothing for me. Id be ok with angband being based in space or on discworld. But as a long time D&D GM we all assume that all fantasy world components exist in all fsntasy worlds - maybe just in a different geographical location. Tolkien lore, greyhawk lore, norse myths, greek myths, ninjas, hobbits, kendars; obviously if you walk north long enough, you'll bump into Thor. Go east far enough and there's Amaterasu, you can't miss her.

[Pete Mack]

D&D has evolved a bit since those days, too, I would imagine. And the main goal isn't to get rid of D&D monsters. It is to get rid of monsters that are redundant or really don't fit--the giants from ancient Greece don't fit. Norse would be so much better.

[takkaria]

As a previous maintainer I mostly want to keep out of the way of Nick and give him latitude to make the changes he wants to make. Tangar, I am familiar with the type of post you make from spending years changing the game in various ways - there is always someone who feels that one particular change or set of changes irrevocably alters the game for the worse, turns it into a variant, etc. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not, but either way, the way Angband has worked for the last 25 years (!) is that the maintainer gets the final say as long as there is dialogue with the players.

The monster list hasn't had a good looking at since before version 3 (17 years ago! good lord), when the JLE patch was incorporated into the main game, while most other areas of the game have been altered. So it's definitely due this rework. I never really bothered with monsters because I didn't think I had a good enough feel for those things, and anyway, the object list was more urgent then.

I remember being told I had destroyed the flavour of the game when I removed the various 'broken' items in the game - rodent skeletons, kobold skulls, broken daggers, etc. Sometimes I think it would really be nice to re-incorporate those some other way, but the game has been enjoyed by many thousands of people since they were taken out, mostly without them noticing.

The other option, of course, if people want to re-add monsters, or even do their own rebalancing, is to make a patched version of the monster file. There is a precedent in Angband that when people put effort into a patch and people like playing with it, it gets added into the main game. If you really miss Easterling warriors, the Greek myth uniques etc., after the whole of the monster list rebalance is finished and other people do too, they can be added back. But I think it's good that the flavour of the game changes over time - like Derakon says, Angband will die when it's not updated with changes that some people feel are controversial (and I think it came close to dying once before, 13-ish years ago, for exactly this reason).

[wobbly]

I remember being told I had destroyed the flavour of the game when I removed the various 'broken' items in the game - rodent skeletons, kobold skulls, broken daggers, etc. Sometimes I think it would really be nice to re-incorporate those some other way, but the game has been enjoyed by many thousands of people since they were taken out, mostly without them noticing.

Rodent skeletons are the real reason so many of us play FCPB these days.

[debo]

See, thats funny because lore does nothing for me. Id be ok with angband being based in space or on discworld. But as a long time D&D GM we all assume that all fantasy world components exist in all fsntasy worlds - maybe just in a different geographical location. Tolkien lore, greyhawk lore, norse myths, greek myths, ninjas, hobbits, kendars; obviously if you walk north long enough, you'll bump into Thor. Go east far enough and there's Amaterasu, you can't miss her.

Even better if those "components" shout at you in Engrish.

[Sideways]

The monster list hasn't had a good looking at since before version 3 (17 years ago! good lord), when the JLE patch was incorporated into the main game, while most other areas of the game have been altered.

JLE's patch ruined Angband. 2.9.3 was the last real V.

--

Nick is a great maintainer - competent, dedicated, experienced, open to suggestions and feedback, and always ready to communicate with players. Many changes he's made I don't approve of, and many changes have not been made that I think should have been made, but I suppose that's why Nick maintains V and I maintain FrogComposband

Changes have happened during every Angband maintainer's tenure that some players have found offputting. That's okay - from both the player's side and the maintainer's side. It's always the maintainer's dream to keep everybody happy, but it very seldom works out that way!

And the starting point for the changes is a developing game, not one that's already perfect. For everyone who dislikes a change, there are usually two people who like it; and if I belong in the former group I wouldn't dream of holding it against Nick personally. Nick makes (and should make) the decisions, but he doesn't make them without listening to the Angband community.

For those who disagree with the direction V's taking, there are many variants to play and always room for more; and old versions of Angband itself won't disappear anywhere just because Nick's releasing new ones.

[MWGE]

I am one of those that are mostly happy with the direction the game is going. Debate is healthy, Nick is open to this. Fair enough I say.

[Sky]

Just to be clear, i support the idea of making Angband tolkien-only, but i question if there exists lore to replace the uniques that would need to go.
What could replace Arien ? What could replace Radagast? (These are supposed to be friendly instead of hostile)
What could replace Chronos?

Im sure there's a tolkien dragon that could replace the tarrasque, maybe shifting Ancalong up on the scale, but what about the titans? Would we just lose a bunch of uniques?

How about the trapper?? Does tolkien have an unmoving monster in his legendarium?

[Nick]

Just to be clear, i support the idea of making Angband tolkien-only, but i question if there exists lore to replace the uniques that would need to go.
What could replace Arien ? What could replace Radagast? (These are supposed to be friendly instead of hostile)
What could replace Chronos?

Im sure there's a tolkien dragon that could replace the tarrasque, maybe shifting Ancalong up on the scale, but what about the titans? Would we just lose a bunch of uniques?

How about the trapper?? Does tolkien have an unmoving monster in his legendarium?

I think this post explains how I'm planning to deal with this the best. A bunch of those replacements are already done on the feature/monster branch, too.

[fph]

Im sure there's a tolkien dragon that could replace the tarrasque, maybe shifting Ancalong up on the scale, but what about the titans? Would we just lose a bunch of uniques?

I wouldn't mind losing a bunch of uniques. And a bunch of levels, for that matter --- I don't think anyone clears the whole 100 levels anymore these days. Angband has a distinctive 'marathon' feeling, but it would retain it also with, say, 50 or 75 levels.

[mrfy]

I wouldn't mind losing a bunch of uniques. And a bunch of levels, for that matter --- I don't think anyone clears the whole 100 levels anymore these days. Angband has a distinctive 'marathon' feeling, but it would retain it also with, say, 50 or 75 levels.

I clear ever level. (exvept for the few at the beginning when I discover Deep Descent).

[Djabanete]

I think Nick has a good approach. I can't say I've played V lately or followed every change to the game, but I have confidence in the process that Nick, Derakon, and so many other members of the Angband community are following. Last time I picked up V after a long hiatus, I was truly pleased and impressed by the changes. Keep up the good work!

As for mixing different lores and themes (Greek/Tolkien/etc.), that's never bothered me; rather the reverse, which is why I most recently played variants in the Hengband branch of the family tree.

[wobbly]

I like fantasy kitchen sink when it's explicitly fantasy kitchen sink. Medusa would not look the slightest bit out of place in the Heng-like variants.

Vanilla angband is however in a very awkward middle place where it's got a heavy Tolkien theme but with a lot out of place. While it's a little on the large size for a pure theme I think using themed monsters where possible is a definite improvement. There's no reason to have ninjas when some other form of spy or assassin could take it's place.

I think ninjas were fine in Moria which never had much theme despite being called Moria & having the Balrog. Moria was here's a scorpion, here's a mummy, here's a ninja. It's not particularly serious in it's design.

Edit: Honestly it's a shame Nick the butcher would be out of place as a unique.

[Adam]

Edit: Honestly it's a shame Nick the butcher would be out of place as a unique.

With attack type "summon bugs"?
A butcher is definitely not out of place in the town so you could put him there.
Or at least put him into store.txt selling "fresh meat"

On the topic itself: I'm pleased with the recent gameplay changes and don't really care about renaming the monsters. Actually if it's more coherent, more logical then it's better in my opinion.
I'll miss some of the uniques but that's not a big deal.
Btw we are talking about monsters which can be customized to anyone's desire via a simple txt file if i'm not mistaken. You just need to keep the old file - i think it's structure does not change too often. And even if it happens writing a converter is probably not much time.