NPPAngband/Moria QT Port (Windows) Beta-3 released

[nppangband]

An updated BETA version was uploaded today.

NPPQT-BETA3

The main addition is 10 of the informational windows. About 20 bugs were fixed as well, including a major bugs that caused the game to greatly slow down when there were 25+ visible monsters being processed. Running was also broken, and is now fixed.

The only information screens left to do are the map, and the overhead map.

[nppangband]

I thought BETA-4 would be out a long time ago, but there has been a lot of activity. I did update Beta 3 a couple weeks ago, since it had some critical errors that made the game unplayable.

Shockbolt's NPPAngband tileset is almost done. I did some work on the other 2 tilesets as well. Especially for NPPMoria, where initially I just took the closest resembling NPPAngband tile and used that. Now every feature, creature, player race/class combo, and object in both games have their own unique tile.

I also working on simplifying the terrain list. Every time it changes, it breaks savefile compatibility. I don't want to do a release where the savefile format will only be good for a couple days.

All of the extra windows are done. The dungeon Map and the overhead map were the final 2 that weren't in Beta-3.

I am working on the hotkeys now, as a replacement for macros. There will be a dialog box where you can select the key, and check boxes for the commands will be in simple English...."Cast a spell"...."Magic Missile"..."Target nearest creature". Each hotkey can have an infinite number of steps. So the player could, if they wanted to, read a scroll of mass banishment, quaff a potion of cure critical wounds, then rest until fully healed, then zap a rod of detection, all with one keystroke. You won't need to inscribe any objects with "f1" or anything like that. The game will find the proper object or spellbook, determine if the object/spell is available, and execute the command.

BETA_4 will likely come out in August. After that, about all that is remaining is character dumps and screenshots before we can call NPPQT complete.

After that, work begins on the tablet and smartphone interfaces, but that shouldn't take too long.

[AnonymousHero]

FWIW, I am really looking forward to alternative UIs to macros/keymaps. All current UIs are terrible UX-wise.

(As a recent observer and semi-follower of the NoUI trend, I think we may end up deciding that macros/keymaps are actually evil and that we need to abolish them and optimize even keyboard-based interaction such that macros/keymaps are unnecessary. Only slightly tongue-in-cheek. )

[getter77]

Great to hear there has been such tremendous progress in the background---properly intuitive hotkeys are definitely a good idea that should really help to bolster the game and overcome another one of the historical slights against Angband proper as far as new folks pondering getting into it.