Beleriand Status

[Whelk]

I've heard about the Beleriand project Nick has been working on and I'm hugely interested in it/excited for it, but after some searching I haven't seen anything about it later than around June '12. Is this project still being worked on?

If it is, one question on something I'm assuming: will the monster types be strictly Tolkien-appropriate? I love FAangband, but the kobolds and harpies and yeeks are a little jarring for a Tolkien nut.

[T-Mick]

https://github.com/NickMcConnell/Beleriand

Looks like it was last worked on 12 days ago. So, still alive.

[Nick]

I haven't done much on it for a while, partly because my thinking about it has been, um, evolving. I had plans for a complete rewrite from the ground up, but am now thinking I will evolve to my final point. I'm hoping to get some work done on it fairly soon, with the initial goal of getting a playable version out with new wilderness but everything else like FA.

Thanks for the interest - that gives me a kick along

[Whelk]

Awesome! I'm glad to hear it's still in the works. Until it's playable, I'm more than happy with FA. I should throw in a huge thanks to you for having made it, it's an awesome variant.

[clouded]

I am looking forward to Beleriand too. I love the feel of both FA and Sil, if you could combine the two it would be something very special. I got a little more excited about it after reading those quotes about Angband you posted recently, I like to imagine these sorts of passages are your design documents.

I think this might be in your plans and has been brought up already, but removing recall would be very appropriate for FA (and Beleriand). FA is all about the journeys, it only seems right that once you pack your bags to head into a dungeon, you won't be returning for a very long time. I've actually tried this in FA recently... It was fun but mainly what I found was that you'd better take a huge stack of cure light wounds when you go because the blindness takes a huge toll on your supplies. I think the best strategy would be to stay in the wilderness for a long time before going to dungeons, which leads me to something else, while I'm here...

Current FA wilderness could stand to be a little less lucrative. This is perhaps because of hard mode, but there is a large disparity in the rewards for risk comparing wilderness vs dungeons with hard mode. Exploring and enjoying the wilderness is important, but I think it could be toned down a bit.

[Nick]

I am looking forward to Beleriand too. I love the feel of both FA and Sil, if you could combine the two it would be something very special. I got a little more excited about it after reading those quotes about Angband you posted recently, I like to imagine these sorts of passages are your design documents.

That combination is roughly what I'm after. And these sorts of passages are precisely design documents - that's very well put. Here's another example, from 'Children of Húrin':

For Húrin's house stood in the south-east of Dor-lómin, and the mountains were near; Nen Lalaith indeed came down from a spring under the shadow of Amon Darthir, over whose shoulder there was a steep pass. By this the hardy could cross Ered Wethrin and come down by the wells of Glithui into Beleriand. But this was not known to the Easterlings, nor to Morgoth yet; for all that country, while the House of Fingolfin stood, was secure from him, and none of his servants had ever come there. He trusted that Ered Wethrin was a wall insurmountable, both against escape from the north and against assault from the south; and there was indeed no other pass, for the unwinged, between Serech and far westward where Dor-lómin marched with Nevrast.

I think this might be in your plans and has been brought up already, but removing recall would be very appropriate for FA (and Beleriand). FA is all about the journeys, it only seems right that once you pack your bags to head into a dungeon, you won't be returning for a very long time.

There will certainly be no recall in Beleriand. At this stage, I'm considering FA as still closer to Angband as a game - it makes it easier for me to be revolutionary with Beleriand if I'm not throwing too much away from FA. But we'll see.

Current FA wilderness could stand to be a little less lucrative. This is perhaps because of hard mode, but there is a large disparity in the rewards for risk comparing wilderness vs dungeons with hard mode. Exploring and enjoying the wilderness is important, but I think it could be toned down a bit.

Good point. I've gone the other direction, though, and added 5 to the average level of wilderness monsters in hard mode

I had planned to get back to development in a big way soon, and this thread has hurried me up. The plan is to get FA reasonably bugfixed, put out 1.3.3, and then start on Beleriand again.

[getter77]

Yeah, count me in as yet another keen on seeing this take shape given the potential of the idea is rock solid---the more grand projects, the better.

[Nick]

Scale

This gives an idea of the scale I'm operating on (note Beleriand is actually 12x15 - I'm basing it all on this map):



I have already got a rough edit file (considerable detail and smoothing is needed) which maps it all at the region grid level.

The main challenges with this are giving the player a sense of what's going on, and managing travel. I have some plans; we'll see how they work.

[getter77]

Hmm, with something of that size and scope...seems like making use of varying degrees of zooming in and out would be handy. Resolution and scaling issues would get tricky though under normal circumstances unless you get some vector sorcery going, but regardless I'm looking forward to seeing what all gets cooked up.

[half]

This gives an idea of the scale I'm operating on.

My god...........

[debo]

Mapception!

[LostTemplar]

IMHO map is a bit too large. It will be hard to make every place worth visiting and interesting. Maybe add some arbitrary number of hot spots, connected by roads, and keep the rest of the map as some kind of randomly generated every time not interesting wilderness, while make hot spot locations permanently saved and interesting. Also it may be worth adding random quest hot spots, so player can see messages where and when something interesting happen.

[Pete Mack]

IMHO map is a bit too large. It will be hard to make every place worth visiting and interesting. Maybe add some arbitrary number of hot spots, connected by roads, and keep the rest of the map as some kind of randomly generated every time not interesting wilderness, while make hot spot locations permanently saved and interesting. Also it may be worth adding random quest hot spots, so player can see messages where and when something interesting happen.

That's the current FA model, and it works.

[Nick]

My god...........

Yes, it certainly isn't Sil. I think abandoning my plan to go east as far as Anduin was a good choice

In fact, the name says it all - the world is the centrepiece, and stuff happens in it. The idea is for the level of detail of travel to be largely up to player choice. For long journeys route planning will be important, but uneventful travel should be able to be ignored.

All this is the long term plan, too - I'm aiming to get to the point of having a technically playable game, then gradually fill in detail.

[LostTemplar]

That's the current FA model, and it works.

FA randomly generates levels every time, it is effectively infinite map with infinite dungeons and wilderness.

What I think about is leaving wilderness infinite, while making towns, dungeons, special levels, etc. placed at the beginning and then saved. E.g. in FA themed level can be only visited once. IMHO it would be more fun if it is just saved and can be revisited.

More or less similar to ADOM just with random map and random quests.