What's the best variant of Angband in your opinion?

[jupiter999]

Poschengband development being finished and the last few versions being deeply flawed, I'd look to it's successors instead:

The author will never agree that it's flawed.

Composband: this is my variant, I made it, therefore it's just right.

FrogComposband: this is a variant of my variant, I mildly disagree with many of the design decisions which is why someone else needed to make a variant. It's also being developed at a higher speed.

I'm still unsure what's the difference between them... Need to find time to play...

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Cone on, the answer is obvious... ROCKETBAND !!!

Seriously though, I'd say FAAngband, but for being spoiled by the new Vanilla UI.

[budswell]

My favourite variant doesn't exist.
I think PosChengband has the most interesting classes, races, etc.
But I find the fixed world a bit grindy (always dying CL20-30 as I do).
Zangband (And then Z+) had random world map (towns, dungeons, quests, and surface "camps").
So my ideal variant would be poschengband (or its variands) with the Zangband style world.

The two I've played/enoyed the most are Tome2 and Poschengband. The only one I've ever won was Tome4 (twice!)

[PowerWyrm]

Every variant maintainer will say his variant is the best
Try PWMAngband

About other variants:
- Sil: can't be considered really as a "variant", but its clearly the most balanced of all
- Pos (frog version): one step away from being the best variant, unfortunately I won't ever be interested in playing Posxxx based variants until someone comes with a proper themed variant (Morgoth should summon Nazguls... not the Knights "who say Ni and shout Omae wa mou shindeiru!")
- Beleriand: most promising variant, developed and played by our grandchildren someday...

[debo]

It is clearly Rocketband.

[Derakon]

It is clearly Rocketband.

I did one good thing years ago and have been coasting on my reputation since then...

[OmniNegro]

Right now, Frog and Compos are both simply the best available by a huge amount.

But when I first started playing such games, Furyband was the best by an equally huge amount. The GUI is pretty bad for today, but what other variant can you play as a Lygrog without any melee attack and become all but invulnerable if you lived long enough?

How about playing as a Jedi? (With Lightsabers too.)

Furyband was not the first with Monster races to play, but it was the first with so many to choose from. It had a deity system that no game I am aware of ever came close to. (With multiple gods you can choose from that reacted differently to many things.)

And while not based on Angband, I really should mention how absolutely great Nethack is. And if you played Nethack and liked it, there is always "Slash'Em Extended". It has thousands of race and class combinations and is literally the hardest game imaginable. (If you doubt this, please try it.)

(The changelog for the current version is 1022 lines long. See for yourself.)

Be fairly warned. AmyBSOD (The maintainer of Slash'Em Extended.) Is clearly a sadist and enjoys making players suffer in the most aggravating ways imaginable. (She is actually very nice and easy to talk to. But the game is not even remotely fair.)

Good day everyone.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I did one good thing years ago and have been coasting on my reputation since then...

Not bad for an April Fool's joke. I still occasionally go back and play it for awhile.

[Bucephalus]

Zangband.

All that really mattered in Zangband was how much gold you had and how brave you were.

The races were balanced and straightforward.

Access to level 80 dungeons at level 1 made gaining 40+ levels in a single turn a viable option.

The randarts were often stupidly powerful (activatable wraithform?) and crazy expensive, which made gold valuable.

The Death realm was, just, superior. You could quaff potions of death as a wraith.

Its more powerful classes (warrior-mages, paladins) were initially harder, but worth it.

Its overworld was elegant, atmospheric, pitiless, huge, and foremost, worth exploring.

[Mondkalb]

Zangband is quite impressive.

I like the TK-versions of several variants that were available as AngbandTK or TKAnband. There was also a really nice isometric UI:

http://skyward.fr/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/Angband/Tk/

[PowerWyrm]

There was also a really nice isometric UI:

You can do this for any variant that has a GCU port with the Necklace of the Eye frontend.

http://www.roguetemple.com/z/noteye/

You can also play in FPP mode.

[AmyBSOD]

And while not based on Angband, I really should mention how absolutely great Nethack is. And if you played Nethack and liked it, there is always "Slash'Em Extended". It has thousands of race and class combinations and is literally the hardest game imaginable. (If you doubt this, please try it.)

There's also my ToME-SX variant of ToME 2.3.5, but unfortunately I have so much stuff on the to-do list of SLASH'EM Extended that it has not been updated in a long time. ToME-SX is actually not all that hard, and in many regards probably easier than the variant it's based upon.

[Maddz]

Hengband, by a long shot. I just wish there was an OS X port for the new version, but I suppose when we replace the iMac I can revert the old one to Snow Leopard.

[Firons2]

Personally, it's Unangband for me, it has a very polished feel, detailed writing, I love everything about it.