"Nick is going to butcher the game"

[Youssarian]

You could add in monsters from other, well loved things. Like an entire level that JUST has care bears that you get to kill.

[Derakon]

I suggest that Vanilla stochastically incorporate features from other variants with each game. So in one game you might have the PosChengband monster list, FAAngband's overworld, ToME's skill system, and Sil's combat mechanics, in another you'd have ZAngband's dungeon generator, Kamband's magic, Drangband's race/class list, and 2.4 frog-knows' UI.

That sounds doable for 4.2, wouldn't you say?

[Therem Harth]

@Derakon

We can call it a meta-roguelike, because anything meta is trendy right now.

[Pete Mack]

@Therem-
metabland, combining meta, metal (alloy), band, blend, and--well--bland. Not to be confused with metalband.

Also, rebalance XP and dungeon depth according to danger of monsters. No more diving at CL 20 and hoping for a herd of Vrock or Mumak to help you out. Since coffeeband is already taken, call it grindband.

[Derakon]

Along the lines of coffee, I just realized my ridiculous suggestion should be called Angblend.

[Pete Mack]

This is roughly where i was going when I imagined the fungus level. I particularly like the idea of an Oz level, with good and bad witches, yellow floor tiles, and a pair of red slippers carried by the gnome king quest monster. There are plenty of monsters in Oz.

You could add in monsters from other, well loved things. Like an entire level that JUST has care bears that you get to kill.

[Mondkalb]

Really, there should be an Ozband.

[Antoine]

Along the lines of coffee, I just realized my ridiculous suggestion should be called Angblend.

Then 'Angbland', combining the least interesting features of every variant into a single game

A.

[Tibarius]

"Developing" of Angband

From my perspective Nick is destroying Angband. He creates something new so different from the game i knew that i cannot identify it as the same game anymore.

But most of all i disagre to the statement that a game must evolve or constantly be changed to stay alive. That is total nonsense ... software development goes by the requirements made. Only if the requirements change it is to needed to change the code. In my world view there is a "perfect" solution once the requirements are defined. And since my personal requirements to Angband never changed i am totall against what Nick does to the game.

If the game would be moddable to a higher degree i eventually would try to create the game i loved so much. But it isn't and the major drawbacks are not subject to change from Nick. So i went basically silent and didn't bother to spend time thinking about how the game should evolve or post comments. This is just a reaction to Tangar who was wondering why nobody else complains about Nick's behavior.

[Pete Mack]

The game is far more easily modified no than it ever was in the past. What mods do you want to make, and why are they difficult?
And who would want to be maintainer for a static game?

[Hounded]

I confess I'm puzzled. Dune 2 was better than Dune 2000. So I stayed with that. Civ 2 beats hell out of Empire but I found Alpha Centauri lacking by comparison so I play Civ 2 (I may be unusual but I'm comfortable with that).

I just don't understand why someone would be opposed to development of a game which they are not being forced to play? Especially with V. Angband where there isn't a multi-player component and all of the older versions with a plethora of variants remain available.

If I don't like a movie, I get up and leave. If I don't like a new game I stick with the old. I can't see why someone would be so invested in pushing others efforts, especially volunteer effors, to suit their own vision.

[Thraalbee]

Change is toxic. To some people

[Nick]

But most of all i disagre to the statement that a game must evolve or constantly be changed to stay alive. That is total nonsense ... software development goes by the requirements made. Only if the requirements change it is to needed to change the code. In my world view there is a "perfect" solution once the requirements are defined. And since my personal requirements to Angband never changed i am totall against what Nick does to the game.

This argument would have some force if Angband had been essentially the same for a long time and then I was suddenly changing it. The fact is, though, that there have been 30 or so progressively changing, distinctly different versions of Angband over the last 28 or so years - and that's only if you count "official" Angband releases and ignore the 100+ variants.

So, which of those is the one that you think is perfect? 2.6.1? 2.8.3? 3.0.3? 3.4.1? Should staves stack? What do you think of the JLE monsters? Are randarts an acceptable new addition to the game? What about the Palantir - should that have been removed? Are amulets of Weaponmastery OK? What is your position on Tiamat, or the sword of Eowyn, or the bonuses on Narya?

I await your answers to these questions with interest.

[misanthropope]

i have a concern about over-tolkienization of angband. angband is fundamentally a d&d experience ("murder hobo"), not a tolkien one. i like JRR as much as the next guy, but the old boy took himself seriously to a degree that angband just can't.

70% tolkien? loving it. 100%? im thinking it just makes "buy lantern, kill morgoth" that much less suspension-of-disbelief-able.

in my view, it would be altogether meet and decorous for angband to feature one monster in its list from each and every suitably well-loved fantasy franchise. there's a hundred bloody levels, you got room.

[Voovus]

I confess I'm puzzled. Dune 2 was better than Dune 2000. So I stayed with that. Civ 2 beats hell out of Empire but I found Alpha Centauri lacking by comparison so I play Civ 2 (I may be unusual but I'm comfortable with that).

I agree with all three comparisons.

But... Wouldn't it have been great if the Civ series, instead of taking the wrong turn after Civ 2 and ending up with four meh sequels, would have developed into something even more amazing?

On to the oliphaunt in the room (or an oliphaunt, at any rate). If, in five years time, the vanilla maintainer removes the bit of Angband that's sacred to me personally, I'll be cross. Banning half-troll warriors might do it for some, or maybe stopping natural spell point regeneration, or perhaps introducing care bears that you had to kill - most of us have a breaking point. The worst bit is that it would not only spoil the current version of Vanilla Angband, but it would likely spoil all future versions of Angband for me too. And if I had been with the Angband community for many years, and have been hoping to stay with it for many more years, then I might get very cross. So, please, Angband community, don't just say "no-one else has a problem with X, go away", even when no-one else does have a problem with X.

I'm not offering a solution.

In an attempt to be a bit more constructive: my impression is that changes that concern balancing, removal of tedium (selling, identify, remove curse, traps) or new additions to the game (vaults, artifacts, uniques, druid, necromancer) go down relatively well. Alterations to well-functioning parts of the game (changing an existing play style, changing "lore" from Total Mess to Tolkien) are asking for trouble.

... and since this is an annoying post anyway:

@ Pete Mack: please, Rogue had 26 monsters. Yes, I know that's <52.
@ Derakon: Moria already had rangers, and "slime mold juice" is a Rogue thing (the taste of a potion of see invisible).