Status of variants?

[CJNyfalt]

So, I am returning after an absence of about two years, and is curious about the status of variants.

I am mostly interested in knowing about the following:

- Which variants other than vanilla is available fully under GPL?

- Which variants are under active development?

- Which variants have the best UI?

- Which active variants are the most innovative?

[Nick]

So, I am returning after an absence of about two years, and is curious about the status of variants.

Well, I'll give you a biased answer

Which variants other than vanilla is available fully under GPL?

FA is, and O could be if I would update it. ISTR NPP may be as well (in which case Quickband would be too), and Sangband, maybe? Also RePosband (reboot of posband) and maybe DaJangband which have forked recently enough to be after Vanilla went GPL.

Which variants are under active development?

Click the variants tab, and sort by release date

My impression is S, Fay (new continuation of Ey), NPP, Quick, FA are the most obviously active. Also there's ToME 4, which is a massive rewrite.

Which variants have the best UI?

V is pretty much back in the lead, which is nice. FA and S (that I know of) have some features that V doesn't, but I think we're all playing catch-up now.

Which active variants are the most innovative?

FA, of course

[camlost]

- Which active variants are the most innovative?

These are all good bets:

• FAAngband
• Sangband
• NPPAngband
• Quickband
• Ironband
• Unangband

This list is partially from experience, partially from reading oook.

and Sangband, maybe?

Yes, Sangband is GPL. It's not been terribly active since the last release, though that was in March. FYI, the variant's tab isn't always up to date.

Which variants have the best UI?

V is pretty much back in the lead

Does anyone have a list of UI features that variant maintainers should strongly consider adopting? That would be awesome. UI and command discrepancies have always annoyed me the most when changing variants.

[konijn_]

So, I am returning after an absence of about two years, and is curious about the status of variants.

I am mostly interested in knowing about the following:

- Which variants other than vanilla is available fully under GPL?

- Which variants are under active development?

- Which variants have the best UI?

- Which active variants are the most innovative?

Hellband is fully under GPL.

It is most dormant, but I found someone actively create a full tile set for the denizens of hell, once that is done I will be back to full speed Hellband.

For best UI/innovative I havent played enough the recent versions of the other variants to answer.

T.

[buzzkill]

- Which active variants are the most innovative?

Two of my recent favorites...

DaJAngband plays a lot like Vanilla (but different). It introduced the ability to hear nearby monsters, based on the characters perception skill. For a character with high perception, it functions like intermittent short range ESP. Morgoth was a pushover??? venture further and beat death itself for an enhanced victory. Very cool, though I think Will just took a step back from active development.

Just out of the gates, forked from Ey, try FayAngband for an Ironmanish experience without having to go hard core ironman. Fay removed Word of Recall entirely. Any up staircase takes you back to town, but up stairs are scarce, and since theres not guaranteed to one on any given level, you'd best be prepared to spend a prolonged amount of time in the dungeon. Fail safe escapes seem rare as well though I haven't really made it far enough to reliably comment on that.

[CJNyfalt]

These are all good bets:

• FAAngband
• Sangband
• NPPAngband
• Quickband
• Ironband
• Unangband

This list is partially from experience, partially from reading oook.

I am a bit surprised that you count Quick and Iron among the most innovative. Had the impression that they where variants that focused on one major change, but things change over the years. The rest is expected.

Yes, Sangband is GPL. It's not been terribly active since the last release, though that was in March. FYI, the variant's tab isn't always up to date.

I hate to have to say it, but the problem code parts that wasn't GPL when Leon released his last version still aren't GPL. I hoped that you had managed to fix those. The two functions that needs fixing are written by Eric Bock and are in generate.c: draw_maze and build_type1_pillars.

Hellband is fully under GPL.

I seems to recall now you mentioned it the last time I was active, so I should have remembered that one.

[Antoine]

I am a bit surprised that you count Quick and Iron among the most innovative. Had the impression that they where variants that focused on one major change, but things change over the years.

They are fun games but not the result of an enormous coding effort (over and on top of what is in NPP). Quick is in fairly active development at the moment, which may be what was meant.

A.

[nppangband]

- Which variants other than vanilla is available fully under GPL?

FA is, and O could be if I would update it. ISTR NPP may be as well.

Correct. NPP has been under the GPL since 0.5.1. The latest quickband releases are as well.

[will_asher]

DaJAngband plays a lot like Vanilla (but different). It introduced the ability to hear nearby monsters, based on the characters perception skill. For a character with high perception, it functions like intermittent short range ESP. Morgoth was a pushover??? venture further and beat death itself for an enhanced victory. Very cool, though I think Will just took a step back from active development.

I read this and was wondering why Morgoth would be easier in DAJ than in V. At first I thought it was just because you were playing an overpowered class when you beat him (with a barbarian IIRC), but then I remembered how I changed the way summoning worked (spells rarely summon a whole lot of monsters anymore). Was this the reason? If Morgoth is noticably easier than in V, I feel like I need to fix that...

DaJAngband had been in active development until very recently. I may or may not get back to it. Since I never looked at and never really cared what GPL involved, DAJ probably is not under it.

[camlost]

I am a bit surprised that you count Quick and Iron among the most innovative. Had the impression that they where variants that focused on one major change, but things change over the years. The rest is expected.

Quick and Iron change the game is a more fundamental way than most variants. Sure, they're (muchly) one-trick ponies, but that doesn't make their trick less interesting. I guess they tickle my interest the right way.

I hate to have to say it, but the problem code parts that wasn't GPL when Leon released his last version still aren't GPL. I hoped that you had managed to fix those. The two functions that needs fixing are written by Eric Bock and are in generate.c: draw_maze and build_type1_pillars.

Well, you shouldn't have had to say it, but I'm glad you did. It slipped my mind. To make good, however, I spent the night rewriting the offending functions, and it's all committed to SVN. Thanks for the reminder.

[CJNyfalt]

Well, you shouldn't have had to say it, but I'm glad you did. It slipped my mind. To make good, however, I spent the night rewriting the offending functions, and it's all committed to SVN. Thanks for the reminder.

I am glad that we finally can leave that issue behind. It has annoyed me a lot.

[buzzkill]

I read this and was wondering why Morgoth would be easier in DAJ than in V.

I didn't mean to infer that M was any easier, just that there were nastier things to be found deeper.

[CJNyfalt]

So, having researched and tried out stuff. I have made the following observations:
- I am interested in starting to develop my ideas again.
- I had some problems running most variants I tested, but gcu seemed to work for all.
- Oangband is what I had least problems with, too bad it is not GPL.
- I liked the interface of 1.1.0 Oangband better than 1.1.0u.
- FA and Vanilla, worked fine except for the sound issue. Had to change fonts when compiling FA however.
- NPP did not work in X11 mode.
- Sangband did not work in SDL mode.
- NPP and O1.1.0u did work in SDL.
- I was unable to get Hell working in anything except gcu.


What I want from a variant to serve as base for variant development is:
- GPL (V, FA, S, NPP, Hell, Quick)
- multiple savefile handling (S, O without u)
- good handling of system stuff (FA, V)

GPL is the worst issue to deal with so O is out. That leaves S, FA and V since they are the only ones who gets two out of three working.

[Magnate]

So, having researched and tried out stuff. I have made the following observations:
- I am interested in starting to develop my ideas again.
- I had some problems running most variants I tested, but gcu seemed to work for all.
- Oangband is what I had least problems with, too bad it is not GPL.
- I liked the interface of 1.1.0 Oangband better than 1.1.0u.
- FA and Vanilla, worked fine except for the sound issue. Had to change fonts when compiling FA however.
- NPP did not work in X11 mode.
- Sangband did not work in SDL mode.
- NPP and O1.1.0u did work in SDL.
- I was unable to get Hell working in anything except gcu.


What I want from a variant to serve as base for variant development is:
- GPL (V, FA, S, NPP, Hell, Quick)
- multiple savefile handling (S, O without u)
- good handling of system stuff (FA, V)

GPL is the worst issue to deal with so O is out. That leaves S, FA and V since they are the only ones who gets two out of three working.

If you were to use V, and port across the multiple-savefile-handling code for us, you'd have three out of three and the undying gratitude of the devteam ... ;-)

[CJNyfalt]

If you were to use V, and port across the multiple-savefile-handling code for us, you'd have three out of three and the undying gratitude of the devteam ... ;-)

Well, I have my doubts but we can only hope that I or someone else is able to.


Having found and fixed the sound issue in V and FA, I noticed that it also fixed the issues with SDL in Sangband. However for some reason I only get sound in Leon's last version, but not in Joshua's version.