Keeping v4 as testbed

[Timo Pietilä]

I have a suggestion to v4 so that people do not get used to it too much and more stable version stays as real angband: Deliberately break savefile compatibility with each version. Force people to either start over or continue with current version.

That way you don't move majority of interested vocal people to v4, as it looks like is happening even that this isn't angband but a variant.

[Jungle_Boy]

So you want a variant to deliberately make their game more of a hassle to play so that V can maintain playerbase? that is crap especially since you have said you have already jumped ship away from V anyway.

[Timo Pietilä]

So you want a variant to deliberately make their game more of a hassle to play so that V can maintain playerbase? that is crap especially since you have said you have already jumped ship away from V anyway.

You got my point exactly. This is just a testbed, not actual vanilla angband. If you call devs view of the things "crap", that's your problem.

IMO if this project threatens to take players away from vanilla in unstable "cool-because-it-is-new" -variant world, it must be abandoned.

BTW, I never jumped ship away from V. I just don't play new versions anymore, they are more boring and way less balanced than old ones. I hope that this direction reverses in some future version enough that I can again start playing new versions. (I also play less in general nowadays).

[Nomad]

Well, I don't really think the correct solution to maintaining a player base is ever "deliberately break whatever it is they're enjoying more so they'll be forced to accept this game by default".

[buzzkill]

@Timo: I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Splitting the base, if that is what is happening, is a good thing. The base is certainly large enough and it allows the individual the ability to choose which version of V they prefer. Think of it as an option of sorts. As long as v4 players know that what they are playing isn't the "real" Vanilla Angband, I've no problem with it. I don't see what intentionally making their lives harder gains anybody.

[Timo Pietilä]

@Timo: I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Splitting the base, if that is what is happening, is a good thing. The base is certainly large enough and it allows the individual the ability to choose which version of V they prefer. Think of it as an option of sorts. As long as v4 players know that what they are playing isn't the "real" Vanilla Angband, I've no problem with it. I don't see what intentionally making their lives harder gains anybody.

AFAIK v4 was supposed to be testbed, not a real variant, so players should not get used to it. Unstable, unbalanced, put here all weird ideas -type variant where different type of ideas can be tested. Not played, but tested.

If you make that a real game, then our dev-team has two games to maintain. That's not a good thing. There would be angband and then there would be a variant of angband named "v4".

Hands up there who wants to maintain two completely different games.

[EpicMan]

V4 came about because many were unhappy/concerned/whatever about the pace and/or scope of changes in Vanilla (see Takk's thread 'A new direction for Angband'). Now there are two major versions, the 3.X series that will be maintained/updated/carefuly tweaked, and version 4, where the devs will do their experimentation.

That means there will be less exciting new things happening in v3, which seems to be what a number of players wanted. But another group, including me, were excited about the new stuff in Vanilla and wanted to see more of it. These players are going to mostly switch to v4 because it is the one with the new changes.

Some people prefer a game that makes slow, well-tested changes, and some prefer beta-testing a bunch of new stuff. V4 won't fragment the player base, it was fragmented to start with.

[Derakon]

I'm really not seeing the problem here.

We used to have N units of developer time maintaining Vanilla, where N was pretty small. Now we have, like, 6N units of time. If all 6N were devoted to working on Vanilla, people would be complaining that the pace of Vanilla development was too fast, so we get a split effort instead.

We still have way more developer time being dedicated to Vanilla now than we used to, so where's the problem?

[sethos]

AFAIK v4 was supposed to be testbed, not a real variant, so players should not get used to it. Unstable, unbalanced, put here all weird ideas -type variant where different type of ideas can be tested. Not played, but tested.

If you make that a real game, then our dev-team has two games to maintain. That's not a good thing. There would be angband and then there would be a variant of angband named "v4".

Hands up there who wants to maintain two completely different games.

I see your point, But part of the reason for putting V4 up is so that the ideas can be tested, tweaked, and fine tuned by a group rather than a single Dev.

after that process is complete and the flavor brought to be "Angband" enough, I was under the impression that at least SOME of those changes would be pushed into Vanilla. and therein lies the purpose - your "testing grounds" for vanilla ideas. rather than throwing it into, and breaking, vanilla, we can test it in V4 and move it into vanilla when it's working/if it's good for vanilla.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm really not seeing the problem here.

We used to have N units of developer time maintaining Vanilla, where N was pretty small. Now we have, like, 6N units of time. If all 6N were devoted to working on Vanilla, people would be complaining that the pace of Vanilla development was too fast, so we get a split effort instead.

We still have way more developer time being dedicated to Vanilla now than we used to, so where's the problem?

Was that a hand up? You want to maintain two completely different versions?

[Derakon]

Hey, if the devs are up for it, more power to them. And it'll reduce the complaints about Vanilla not being Vanilla any more.

In any event, this is more like having "unstable" and "stable" versions than having two separate variants. V4 is still the testbed for potential new features, which get backported to Vanilla proper once they've matured. There's no reason to penalize people for helping test those features.