There are too many variants.

[Antoine]

In my opinion:

There are too many variants. It would be better if there were less. Because: at the moment, each positive change made to a variant either
(i) takes a lot of effort to port to all the other variants, or
(ii) is only experienced by a small fraction of the community.

The best way to reduce the number of variants is to combine two variants into a single super-variant that has the best attributes of both.

For instance I would love to see someone turn Quickband into a 'quick mode' of some other variant (or V). I'd then be happy to pronounce the original Quick variant dead and put future coding efforts into the 'quick mode'.

Any other variant authors out there who would like to see their variants merged?

A.

[buzzkill]

1. Not to sound harsh, but wouldn't you also be complaining if there were too few.

2. The best attributes are subject to opinion, and widely varying opinion at that. The "best attributes" and often mimicked and tweaked by maintainers who appreciated them, spreading them across the 'bands.

3. Competition is a good thing. Weak variants will die off. If they survive, it's because they have followers, or a very determined maintainer.

[Antoine]

3. Competition is a good thing. Weak variants will die off. If they survive, it's because they has followers, or a very determined maintainer.

It's wasteful for a variant to 'die off', I'd rather see it merge with a more actively maintained variant, so that its good features (and fanbase) are retained.

A.

[Donald Jonker]

There are too many variants. It would be better if there were less.

I couldn't disagree with you more. I think each variant expresses an individual maintainer's personal viewpoint and as such provides unique and valuable innovations that wouldn't be possible in cases of greater collaboration.

Because: at the moment, each positive change made to a variant either
(i) takes a lot of effort to port to all the other variants,

As a non-coder, I'll take your word on this. As a player, I admit that in switching between variants, I am often disappointed to find certain features missing, but it is rarely a deal-breaker. The only missing feature that will entirely keep me away from a variant is a lack of a squelching system, and few variants are missing this (and those usually have a good reason for it, Steam, for example). In any case, uneven adoption of features seems poor justification for an all-around reduction of feature-generation.

(ii) is only experienced by a small fraction of the community.

I'm not sure I believe this, and don't know how you would go about establishing it (oook's ladder isn't, I think, representative enough to deduce playership). Personally, I've given most of the active variants a fair shake, and play around with them from time to time. I like the variety, and I'm sure others do as well - it's part of what keeps me active in the community. And I would guess that simply having a giant library of variants gives coders a wealth of resources to help develop their ideas.

The best way to reduce the number of variants is to combine two variants into a single super-variant that has the best attributes of both.

For instance I would love to see someone turn Quickband into a 'quick mode' of some other variant (or V). I'd then be happy to pronounce the original Quick variant dead and put future coding efforts into the 'quick mode'.

Well, it's your baby, and you have the right to dispose of it as you will. It seems to me, however, that changing quickband's status from variant to birth option will make it more obscure than it needs to be, and that seems to be contrary to your previously expressed aim. Sure, having NPP birth options "quick mode" and "Ironman" correspond to your variants would work, but it seems to me that would make them disappear.

Would it really make code-porting any easier? Is anything really changed by having one massive binary with manifold modes instead of a smattering of variants?

I think perhaps I'm misunderstanding your vision, here, because as I understand it, there's nothing to be gained by consolidation.

[Altefcat]

Why not merge the best mods to Vanillia? That would be great to have wilderness and random quests from Z+Angband, a quick mode from Quickband, mouse and double tile mode from Oangband, or skills from Sangband. That would a hell to program too...

In those days of competitions, why not start a poll for the mode of the year?

[Malak Darkhunter]

Personally I think When a variant, has gone far off the map from the original, it's not angband anymore, and belongs in a different classifcation. Take Tome, or Zangband for instance, it's nowhere near the same game as V. It's belongs somewhere out there with Adom, It's not the same game. I think it would be better if variants were grouped by similarity, that way people new what they were looking for when they download one. Variants are okay, but I do believe the original game would be better developed by a team of maintainers with the same basic ideas for the game, sharing each others input.

[Nick]

Consolidation might be a good plan if the *band community were a company with a limit on the number of product lines it could have; instead, we are a loose confederation of sporadically-motivated independent-minded weirdos. The process of getting variants created/maintained varies so enormously that trying to impose some sort of order would just cripple most of the creativity.

And dying isn't instead of merging - it's the organic way of merging. Variant dies - new variants feast from it's rotting corpse.

Life is messy, and tidy usually means dead.

[Antoine]

Why not merge the best mods to Vanillia? That would be great to have wilderness and random quests from Z+Angband, a quick mode from Quickband, mouse and double tile mode from Oangband, or skills from Sangband. That would a hell to program too...

In those days of competitions, why not start a poll for the mode of the year?

I totally agree!

A.

[Antoine]

Consolidation might be a good plan if the *band community were a company with a limit on the number of product lines it could have; instead, we are a loose confederation of sporadically-motivated independent-minded weirdos. The process of getting variants created/maintained varies so enormously that trying to impose some sort of order would just cripple most of the creativity.

And dying isn't instead of merging - it's the organic way of merging. Variant dies - new variants feast from it's rotting corpse.

Life is messy, and tidy usually means dead.

Your words are good.

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about "imposing order" - more around individual devteams having sudden (chaotic and anarchistic) outbreaks of cooperation.

A.

[Antoine]

Let me expand a bit further on this idea.

One would want to merge bands that are pretty similar in their structure (one is descended from the other, or they share a common recent ancestor).

Also there is little point in merging when the game theme changes (one wouldn't merge Animeband back into V).

So what would be some examples...
- making some hybrid of Heng/Entro with Z+
- pulling O features back into V
- copying possession from Posband into the likes of NPP or TOME
- pulling the best features of S into one of the actively maintained variants...

No doubt several of the above are dumb ideas, but are any of them sensible?

A.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I agree with this and it backs up what I said earlier, there are so many different bands, that have very similar qualities to another that they fail to get much attention. I've browsed through probably all of them, but only a few that are fundamentaly different in some way really get my attention. Take Dajangband, Sorry Will! It's different than V, but are there enough changes to it to really want me to play it, sorry but no, it's just a little modified version of what I'm really wanting to play. Take Sangband, this is a great idea for a variant, it's the same game but it's completly differnent in terms of game play. Now you take Fangband, which is another good idea for a variant because it explores a different concept, during the times before the war of the ring, modified races and differnent artifacts for example. The whole Idea of First Age Angband got my attention imediatley, but it belongs in a group with Oangband from which it was born.

[Donald Jonker]

So what would be some examples...
- making some hybrid of Heng/Entro with Z+
- pulling O features back into V
- copying possession from Posband into the likes of NPP or TOME
- pulling the best features of S into one of the actively maintained variants...

No doubt several of the above are dumb ideas, but are any of them sensible?

In general, I think you run against the problem of trying to get variants to converge when divergence is the very thing that prompted their creation. The obvious exception to this is NPP, whose mission statement is assimilation. There's something to be said for that though - in my judgment it's one of the tightest, most well-rounded and complete banding experiences out there. As a rule, then, I think mission statement rather than ancestry might be a better guide to see where fruitful exchanges might be made.

-With Heng and Z+ there's controlled madness versus madness for madness's sake; I don't really see a compromise there. A more compelling case might be made for Heng with ToME. I could definitely see ToME's excesses benefiting from Heng's more hardcore influence.

-I kind of see V and O as Roman Catholic versus Greek Orthodox. The Great Schism has occurred. There's no going back.

-ToME does have a possessor class. It would be interesting to see it in a less crazy variant like NPP, even if it made NPP a little crazier in the process.

-We already see S's skill features in ToME and Steam...minor features elsewhere.

As I see it there's already a healthy exchange of ideas, a total merge is asking people to subsume their creativity under another person's vision. This works great as the concept for an individual game, i.e., NPP, but not as a general system.

So how's this for a vision: NPPZangband, NPPOangband, NPPHengband, NPPSteamband. (this is off the top of my head - there's probably a better, more representative set) Just looking at this pipedream list makes me very very happy .

(now all we have to do is wait for Nick to say something with 1/4 of the words and 10x the rhetorical impact :P)

[Nick]

- pulling O features back into V

The biggest difference between the two is the combat system; if V adopted the O system, a lot of the reason for O would go away. I actually like both, and am glad that both exist.

- copying possession from Posband into the likes of NPP or TOME

This one I rather like. Pos has two big differences from NPP - possession and monster races, and monster alignments. The alignment I don't really see as working in NPP, but possession and monster races could totally work, and they are also by far the more interesting and fun idea.

(now all we have to do is wait for Nick to say something with 1/4 of the words and 10x the rhetorical impact :P)

Meh

[camlost]

- pulling the best features of S into one of the actively maintained variants...

Hey, I resemble that remark. Or maybe you're talking about Leon, who resemble it a lot more.

[Antoine]

Take Dajangband, Sorry Will! It's different than V, but are there enough changes to it to really want me to play it, sorry but no, it's just a little modified version of what I'm really wanting to play.

I concur, I have said before that I think the DAJ changes should be merged into V, which would be much the better for it...

A.