"Nick is going to butcher the game"

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Now on politeness, I think you've got it the wrong way round (speaking only for myself, of course). The reason I didn't reply was not out of politeness and not wishing to offend. Rather, the reason I didn't reply was because I felt the original post was too impolite to warrant a reply.

+1 !!! At this point, I find the Tangar posts to have "become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." To quote the Bible when referencing those of sharp tongues that have not charity in their hearts.

[tangar]

Angband: epilogue

a) it's my last word (like before execution) - my last message about this topic.

b) this thread got in it a lot of interesting opinions, but it lacks of proper analysis and facts (except Takkaria's answers). I myself want to propose some; to combine my main ideas from past messages in paragraphs, so it would be easier to see the whole picture.

c) it would be fun to see a proper answer to this (last) message. What is a proper answer? It's an answer with facts and specifics, without common words. I write there particular paragraphs - 1, 2, 3, 4... Proper answer is to take this paragraphs and provide an opinion based at facts and evidence; if you are not agree with particular paragraphs - you should explain why you are not agree and to provide logical arguments towards your position.

d) I do not expect that something would be changed because:
- Angband got authoritarian dev system (it's not a defect, I'm also using such managment when I play in MMORPG and create guilds; it's good for small-scale operation).
- I'm among minority.. But even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth (Gandhi).

So it's just my last words with some facts (which could be wrong, please take a go to prove it):

1) Angband as the heritage.

- Angband could be considered as 'Rogue 3' (while 'Moria' is 'Rogue 2').
- Angband got it's own unique world and lore, which is focused in it's bestiary.
- Angband lore based at mixed fantasy universe, mainly DnD which consist of greek, norsa, Tolkien etc
- As Angband got ~40 years history (counting from 'Rogue 1') and it's lore should be threated with huge respect.

2) Monsters knowledge as the only persistent gameplay factor.

- Angband as all rlgs is RNG-based game.
- It's gameplay learning curve is heavely based at it's monsters knowledge - as it's one of the few factors which is static.
- Not rebalancing, but removing/renaming/revamping monsters is a mistake as it destroy knowledge of thousands Angband players which they accumulated during long years.
- We are (community) too old to learn this changes (or at least to have fun from such learning). It's good to continue development and make game more interesting, but devs should add new monsters for this reason, without removing old ones. I'm not 14 y.o. boy to have time to re-learn monsters' names after each revamp. Renaming monsters - is like destroying players' brain cells.

3) Angband as an educational game.

Multi-lore universe gives Angband an unique advantage to be a educational game. Each monster got a description which often contain poetic and beautiful quotes from the books which players could start reading after playing the game.

4) With new monstrers Angband loosing it's compatibility.

Technically it would become almost impossible for old versions of Angband and it's variant to be up-to-date with 'new Angband'. The end of continuity.

5) Angband already took everything it could from Tolkien lore.

- All Tolkien's lore which is possible to extract from his works was already extracted and added to Angband in past years.
- Most of stuff which is currently renamed/revamped is kinda pulled out of thin air (or other 'a' place) and not well-known even by Tolkien fans. This looks like strained effort to replace stuff with 'at least something'.
- There are always would be stuff which Tolkien doesn't have and which Angband players love (eyes, krakens etc) which leads to a lot of subjectivety in assessment - which monsters should stay and which should go.

6) No one asked to change Angband lore.

- I didn't find players requests considering changes in current Angband lore. Of course, most of the players do not really care about it, they are mostly neutral.. and they trusting maintainers. But even in this topic there some opinions that players miss old monsters.
- It looks that this revamp of Angband lore is an initiative of one person which is kinda 'forced' it by his authority. No one asked for it (no offence meant, just a fact).

7) Splitting community. (coming from previous one)

- As lore changes do not really bother most of the players there were no need to make them.
- At the same time for some players, who takes the game seriously - it's very painful changes and it's split's community (this topic is good example; there are a lot of personal offencive words - words not about particular facts of this discussion, but about personal properties. Bad sign).

7) Pure-Tolkien games is a danger of copyright.

Angband was a 'loosely' Tolkien-based game. Current lore revamp makes it quite 'strongly' focused. This is the least important factor imho, but it still exist.

8) Nostalgia.

As I said in #2 - we are not young. Among Angband and roguelike community in general are not too much new players in this stupid age when modern graphics overcome the gameplay.

And each of us have a lot of stories about Angband monsters - funny and exiting stories. We love this monsters. We love Angband LORE.

ANGBAND LORE - EXIST.

Not much players realise that. But actually everyone got it's in their hearts. Lore is this stories and memories. Removing traditional lore from the game, this monsters which everyone know - it's a position that "Angband do not posses it's own lore". But it's there. It was there.

Good bye.

[Pete Mack]

Yup. No lethal traps, no instadeath to floating eyes found with a torch, or around a blind corner.

50' depth is now considerably safer than it was 15 years ago...

[Huqhox]

Myself I though that 50' depth should be different from any other level. More safe, single monsters, no packs, no invisible monsters, no paralise monsters, no OOD monsters. But for someone else that would be a LORE change and maybe they would quote Tolkien that dungeon is never a safe place to be.

50' depth is now considerably safer than it was 15 years ago...

[eMeM]

Hei,

long-time lurker here (7 years??), player of Angband since 1995 or so, done my Nethack, ADOM etc...

I made an account just to come here and post my couple of cents. What the OP wrote is in my opinion completely wrong.


I'm not bothered by the mixing of different ages of Middle Earth - what irritates me is the mixing of religious mythology, D&D monsters, David Eddings and who knows how many other sources to Middle Earth context.

Angband to me represents Tolkien's world. Removing all the outliers, D&D monsters and "funny" monsters just enhances the game - makes it more coherent and unique experience.

Going through the monsters, giving epic Tolkieny villains (for example Nazguls) their rightful place at the top of the monster food chain instead of just being pushovers is exactly the right choice.

What Nick has done to the game is great! It feels vibrant, evolving game once again, not stagnant pit that tries to preserve "a mix of bit of everything".

So I say go for it Nick! Realize your vision while taking feedback like you have done so far - those who want to stay with the old Angband can do so, but it's my opinion it's high time this great, classic game got someone with your vision to maintain it

From day 1 when Nick was "appointed" as a Angband maintainer it was obvious from his previous work he will make it more Tolkienised. And from day 1 I knew I will not like that sort of changes because I'm not into Tolkien's books or any other fantasy books. I just liked Angband as a ASCII roguelike game played on a fullscreen DOS/Linux. Side note it's not possible to play it that way in Windows for many years and no maintainer cares enough to fix it.

Overall I admit that I don't like changes in Vanilla in last 15 years. There are some nice user interface improvement but much more things are made in what I perceive as a wrong direction. Some of fun is removed because maintainer feels it's annoying to him. Some annoying things are introduced because maintainer feels it's more fun to him. I just know that if I don't follow current maintainer's philosophy then I will just get disappointed reading what's going on in Angband development. Might be a reason why I quit playing in last few years.

Back to main subject of Angband LORE changes. I understand tangar's concerns. I understand that some monsters should stay in the game with their non-Tolkien roots, non-Tolkien names. On the other hand I agree that some monster needs to be moved to different depth. I'm not attached to a monster's name.

Myself I though that 50' depth should be different from any other level. More safe, single monsters, no packs, no invisible monsters, no paralise monsters, no OOD monsters. But for someone else that would be a LORE change and maybe they would quote Tolkien that dungeon is never a safe place to be.

[Sphara]

Only time I've felt strongly about Angband development was few months ago, when traps were just obnoxiously dangerous. I don't know if dragon/demon summoning traps are nerfed nowadays, but those did one-shot me few times. Also it wasn't rare to lose majority of your town-bought healing supplies to early spiked pit traps. And if you did not have any, you could just die to bleeding+poison.

These incoming changes today, I just look forward to and wanna see how they play. Every change is likely displease some players, there's no way around that for a game with this long of a history. I bet there are people who still miss ant lions and evil iggies.

[PowerWyrm]

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

Too late! This is gonna be a unique in my variant now!
The Butcher of Baddu-Bak is having a new husband!

Look, Vanilla was ruined from the moment that Nick decided to not have rockets in it. Who cares about the rest.

Rockets pfft. Final Fantasy has nuclear bombs, so why just play with small rockets, we need some BFGs...

I donno why some other folk with whom I discussed this matters in Discord are silent..

Because it was not the time to say something. The current monster overhaul is WIP, not finished work.

PWMAngband and your own variant are very welcome to keep the old monsters, or add to them or mix between the different monster lists to your heart's content.

Exactly, and that's what I've been doing for the past 12 years. PWMAngband started as a fork of MAngband, because I wasn't satisfied with the turn TomeNET was taking and wanted to play a real-time version with stuff I liked while keeping the core Angband feel. That's why I'm following all the changes while porting only some of them for PWMAngband -- that's what variants are for. If you look more closely at the latest PWMAngband source, you'll probably find out that most of the changes from latest V are there... but not all of them. This will also be the case for post 4.1.2 chances about races and monsters. I will not contest the changes in Angband, just adapt them for my variant if I dislike them.

I think it's fair to say that everyone who has seen your posts on the forum, tangar, understands you have a strong attachment to the current monster file as of Angband 4.1, and that you don't want to see things removed. It sucks when games change in ways you don't like. But maybe give the changes a go? You might find that an updated monster list is a new challenge to master, rather than a loss of hard-won knowledge. Personally, I've been playing the game more recently than I have in ages because I'm excited to see the changes.

I understand Tangar, as the change to the monster list is BRUTAL. I felt the same way 10+ years ago around v3 when half of the list was switched around, many monsters removed and replaced. Who here remembers the name given to The Balrog of Moria (Muar) or to the Witch-King (Murazor)? I used to play and fight Cerberus and suddenly he was gone... But then I thought... why we would have to fight Cerberus in the Pits of Angband? This makes no sense... And Carcharoth was adopted. And I felt happy with the changes.

[wobbly]

One word, but I had a billion to choose from. Simple fact: you're rude, I'm rude. Neither of us have special privilidge.

Done.

[tangar]

At least consider the possibility that the people calling you out on rudeness (multiple people) has more to do with the way you're saying things then simple disagreement.

It's very pretty how you quote this 'rude' word:

fanboys

And do not notice any rudeness this message:

I think you should go away and never come back. You are a toxic piece of garbage who chased away T4nk who was a valuable contributor with a nasty, vile piece of trash series of comments.

I don't know if you suffer from some kind of mental illness, but such is the delusion of grandeur in your posts that I don't care. This forum would be better without you.

wobbly, thank you very much for providing such beautiful evidence to typical double standarts! Good job!

There are always people who do not have anything to say about topic of the discussion and their the only argument is to 'go personal'.

[wobbly]

End of vanilla Angband

Rip vanilla. Bring back Vorpal bunnies and Hobgoblins.

T4nk

I too was upset to see him go. But not as upset as I'd be to see another forum-ite go, over something similar. Never commented because basically I'm glad I'm not actually a moderator.

fanboys

I'm probably the worst person to be calling people up on rudeness, being prone to getting rude myself on design choices in Angband but I'm going to make a request anyway. At least consider the possibility that the people calling you out on rudeness (multiple people) has more to do with the way you're saying things then simple disagreement.

[tangar]

Angband as the heritage

tangar, I understand you think you're "in the right" here. But there isn't a right or wrong; we're talking about aesthetics. This is the kind of thing where there are preferences and not facts.

Aesthetics - beautiful and right term. But why there shouldn't be a discussion about it? Let's take Vincent van Gogh.. A 'majority' didn't understand his works aesthetics for a long time. And when 'they' finally managed to comprehend - it was to late, he was dead. I'm an artist myself and I see an Angband as a masterpiece in a certain way. When I see it's destruction I can't just stay beside and watch on it. Even if I'm the only one who understand it's aesthetics. Who knows, maybe 'they' would understand it later, but it would be too late?..

I just have another POV on Angband in terms of gamedesign and actually cultural phenomena. I see V-Angband as the étalon (reference, standard, model) which is very close to perfection because it's being actively developed over ~30 years and which is based at gamedesign concepts of Moria and Rogue which gives yet another 10 yeards to this concept - Angband is closer than eg Nethack to 'original' Rogue and we actually could call Angband as Rogue III (Moria is Rogue II).

So we could say that Angband has 40 years gamedesign in total. 40 years of gameplay and lore evolution. A lot of classic vanilla monsters went through it and I feel them as a thing close to perfection which we, of course, should enrich and rebalance, but being very cautions and respectable to the heritage. "One Does Not Simply Walk into Mordor".. lol this discussion remind me of Council of Elrond..

Strangers from distant lands, friends of old, you have been summoned here to answer the threat of Mordor. Vanilla Angband stands upon the brink of destruction; none can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate, this one doom. Bring forth the word about Lore...

Considering criticism:

Never before has anyone dared utter words of that tongue here, in Imladris.

But:

The Lore cannot be destroyed by any craft that we here possess. The Lore was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came! One of you... must do this.

And:

Have you heard nothing Lord Nick has said? The Lore must be destroyed!

But I understand that I'm a minority there and as I said in my past post - I've stopped struggle for Vanilla lore. I won't participate in monster/race discussions further except this thread.

I think you should go away and never come back. You are a toxic piece of garbage who chased away T4nk who was a valuable contributor with a nasty, vile piece of trash series of comments.

I don't know if you suffer from some kind of mental illness, but such is the delusion of grandeur in your posts that I don't care. This forum would be better without you.

It was pretty obvious to see such reaction at my past message, so I'm not offended. It's just a good proof of the concept about why there are no negative feedback on lore destruction, but vice versa, from:

2) ..... This 'gentleness' makes people who do not agree - just to be silent so they won't offend beloved person / won't go agains it's supporters.

And an insults from fanboys make people go to #1:

1) people who do not like what's going on - do not participate in Angband forum discussions anymore..

There are always people who do not have anything to say about topic of the discussion and their the only argument is to 'go personal'. Enjoy yourself!

[Derakon]

A lot of people have made the same kinds of claim you've made here - that some particular element of the game is sacred, makes the game "Angband", that removing/changing it/adding to it is the end of Angband. But we also have some players who have played since 2.4.frog-knows and have seen almost everything in the game change in some way, including the monster list, and they still call it "Angband".

Hi.

For what it's worth, I still feel like a lot of the JLE monsters don't fit, and it bugs me how good Amulets of Trickery are. Back in the old days, you wore an Amulet of Wisdom +6 because the marginal improvement it gave to your saving throw was better than anything else you could get until the artifacts came in...and they were pretty underwhelming too! As I recall, the de facto best amulet was usually Carlammas because it gave +2 CON and basically nothing else.

But yeah, they got added to the game and somehow I neglected to get upset about it or quit the community.

(Also, I can't help but feel some responsibility for affecting the game balance, seeing as I added the "Miniature Cell" vault, which had 5 of the "monster 40 levels OOD with guaranteed-excellent item 20 levels OOD" tiles, and nothing else, in particular had nothing preventing those monsters from getting out of the vault. That thing wisely got nerfed shortly after being added to Vanilla)

[Carnivean]

2) there are people who participate the discussions on this forums, but silent in this particular one. Why? Because they are too.. gentle. This is very good virtue of human, but not in all conditions.

I participate a reasonable amount in discussions, but have been silent in this one, and it is for the reason that you mention here. I have been refraining from commenting because my reaction is harsh and many people here are genteel and polite to a fault.

I think you should go away and never come back. You are a toxic piece of garbage who chased away T4nk who was a valuable contributor with a nasty, vile piece of trash series of comments.

I don't know if you suffer from some kind of mental illness, but such is the delusion of grandeur in your posts that I don't care. This forum would be better without you.

[Pete Mack]

I think Nick is mostly right on this--the same list forever is kind of dull.

[takkaria]

tangar, I understand you think you're "in the right" here. But there isn't a right or wrong; we're talking about aesthetics. This is the kind of thing where there are preferences and not facts. It's not a democracy, so citing that other people agree with you doesn't make an argument stronger either.

Nick as the maintainer has a preference for altering elements of the monster list that clash with the Tolkien theme and it doesn't seem like this is going to change. He has no intention of making it a pure-Tolkien game, though it's an interesting point you raise about how the multiple sources of content lead to a more educational game. But ultimately, all maintainers make aesthetic decisions and the players just have to put up with it

PWMAngband and your own variant are very welcome to keep the old monsters, or add to them or mix between the different monster lists to your heart's content. Personally I like the new dwarven monster names over the old dark elven ones; they add more distinctiveness and flavour.

From your post history, I didn't see that you'd engaged that much in the past with developments in Vanilla, so you might not have the context for some of these changes:

• One recurring topic of discussion has been whether the game should be shortened (50 or 70 dlevs). Nick has chosen to expand the monster list and buff monsters so that they fill the space available instead of doing this.
• "Just add more stuff and leave the old stuff alone" is not a very good approach to designing a game and doesn't lead to balance. The history of modern Angband (for better or for worse) is one of removing stuff as well as reworking existing elements, to achieve a better overall balance.
• A lot of people have made the same kinds of claim you've made here - that some particular element of the game is sacred, makes the game "Angband", that removing/changing it/adding to it is the end of Angband. But we also have some players who have played since 2.4.frog-knows and have seen almost everything in the game change in some way, including the monster list, and they still call it "Angband".

I think it's fair to say that everyone who has seen your posts on the forum, tangar, understands you have a strong attachment to the current monster file as of Angband 4.1, and that you don't want to see things removed. It sucks when games change in ways you don't like. But maybe give the changes a go? You might find that an updated monster list is a new challenge to master, rather than a loss of hard-won knowledge. Personally, I've been playing the game more recently than I have in ages because I'm excited to see the changes.