Planning for FAangband 1.3

[Nick]

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I've changed my mind for what to do next.

So the plan is for a complete revamp of wilderness, as follows:

• Travel in any direction in wilderness will be possible (except when you come to impassible stuff)
• Wilderness will be divided into regions (probably around 50)
• Travelling from town/lv0 wilderness to any wilderness area you have visited will be trivial and immediate
• Recall will work from anywhere to home, or from home to a recall point
• Recall points can only be set in dungeons (probably Nan Dungortheb will be classed as a dungeon for these purposes)
• Wilderness paths will be no more; wilderness will change smoothly
• Wilderness will not be persistent; new bits in the direction of travel will be generated on the fly (imagine a standard size level divided into 9, with the player always in the central one and new ones created when the player would have left the central one)
• There will be 'landmarks' - bits of wilderness the player encounters where the terrain is always the same; dungeon entrances are the obvious example
• There will be an overworld map to plot where the player currently is; whether that will be a strict one-for-one grid-to-ninth-of-level correspondence I haven't decided

It should be a huge change - I may even call the result 2.0.

I'm very interested in opinions.

[Fendell Orcbane]

I for one look forward to it. But if you are doing 1.3 why bother with 1.2.2? I think that 1.2 is fine as is. But that is just me.

[Nick]

I for one look forward to it. But if you are doing 1.3 why bother with 1.2.2? I think that 1.2 is fine as is. But that is just me.

If you download 1.2 now, you get 1.2.2. There will be a 1.2.3 at some point, which will just be bugfixes of 1.2.2, but I'll be working on 1.3 (or 2.0, or whatever I call it) at the same time.

[buzzkill]

I think I'm going to like the change to the wilderness generation. It sounds functionally like Z+, only randomly generated rather than static. I need a reason to get back into FA. This may well be it.

Have you considered generating the entire wilderness at the beginning of the game (so it doesn't change) or do you anticipate players not re-visiting previously explored wilderness.

[Nick]

Have you considered generating the entire wilderness at the beginning of the game (so it doesn't change) or do you anticipate players not re-visiting previously explored wilderness.

I have thought about it, but probably won't do it - I like random regeneration. My guess is that players probably won't revisit wilderness much, but I won't stop them if they want to.

[LostTemplar]

Nice plans.

[half]

I have thought about it, but probably won't do it - I like random regeneration. My guess is that players probably won't revisit wilderness much, but I won't stop them if they want to.

I really like the idea of the continuous wilderness, and I would think that making it semi persistent is a good idea (but I don't play FAAngband so take that as you will). One trick would be to use a level generation randseed. e.g. generate this seed at game start, then save it. Only use this for level generation, and perhaps only the shaping of the layout, not the monsters or treasure. When you need to generate a level at grid (X,Y), set the randseed to levelrandseed + 1000X + Y or something like that. Then the layout will be the same if you go back, but there will be new monsters etc.

I'm not totally sure this is a good idea, but it is possible to do and pretty neat.

You could also set this randseed from a phrase entered at birth (as I'm planning to do in my proto-variant). E.g at the birth screen it asks for a motto and you type, say, "Day shall come again!" and it turns this into the level randseed. Then other people can play on the same level layouts by typing the same motto.

Angband meets Freecell.

[ekolis]

To be honest, I'm kind of skeptical of this whole idea - the wilderness system in FA is unique, and making it more like Z does take away a bit of what makes FA special!

[*]Travelling from town/lv0 wilderness to any wilderness area you have visited will be trivial and immediate

And here, do you mean that if you are in a town, then you can instantly warp to ANY previously visited wilderness location, ANYWHERE on the map?!

[Nick]

To be honest, I'm kind of skeptical of this whole idea - the wilderness system in FA is unique, and making it more like Z does take away a bit of what makes FA special!

What I'm aiming for is immersion - I want it to feel like Middle Earth. Time will tell how well this succeeds.

And here, do you mean that if you are in a town, then you can instantly warp to ANY previously visited wilderness location, ANYWHERE on the map?!

Yes, that's right. The map will be large

[AnonymousHero]

To be honest, I'm kind of skeptical of this whole idea - the wilderness system in FA is unique, and making it more like Z does take away a bit of what makes FA special!

Unique isn't always good. The wilderness in FA does feel extremely claustrophobic compared to, say, ToME or Entro.

I, for one, welcome this change. (Though I don't really *band these days.)

[Nick]

Wilderness will be divided into regions (probably around 50)

76, it turns out.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Will the town share in the seamless transition with the wilderness like in Hengband, or stay walled off like it is now? I don't have a preference, just curious. If it did go the seamless route I think you would have some interesting decisions on how to manage the town level denizens, plus the actual architecture of the different outposts/towns would become more special.

Speaking of architecture, I really like the idea of landmarks and permanent features. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at creating some places. I don't know if I'd be any good at it but it seems like it would be a lot like vault making, and my meager computer literacy can manage that.

Edit: Probably.

[Nick]

Will the town share in the seamless transition with the wilderness like in Hengband, or stay walled off like it is now? I don't have a preference, just curious. If it did go the seamless route I think you would have some interesting decisions on how to manage the town level denizens, plus the actual architecture of the different outposts/towns would become more special.

I'm thinking probably seamless, but haven't fully decided. It may vary from town to town, and I am intending for some of the wilderness to be "level 0", so it's really just there for flavour.

Speaking of architecture, I really like the idea of landmarks and permanent features. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at creating some places. I don't know if I'd be any good at it but it seems like it would be a lot like vault making, and my meager computer literacy can manage that.

Edit: Probably.

This would be awesome, and having already seen some of your handiwork, I'd like to see more. I have a preliminary list of landmarks in a (barely started) edit file here; if you want to have a go at any of the list, or suggest new ones, please go right ahead. Feel free to add a new terrain type if you think it's warranted, too (I'm already thinking of deep vs shallow water and ice - I don't think I'll go quite as far as Un and NPP, though).

[LostTemplar]

Will your new wilderness be compatible with ironman ?

[Nick]

Will your new wilderness be compatible with ironman ?

Yes. I'm not sure of exactly how I'll manage that yet, but there are still a lot of details I haven't worked out yet.