Messages

1

Other Announcements / Re: Annual Roguelike release part 2014

« on: September 27, 2014, 08:40:58 AM »

I of course mean party not part

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Other Announcements / Annual Roguelike release part 2014

« on: September 27, 2014, 08:39:28 AM »

Wasn't this supposed to be last Sunday (the 21st)?

Who's in charge around here?

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Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 04, 2013, 05:04:14 AM »

The blog post "The power of you" is still one of my favorites. It explains why it is viable to refer to 'community' as such subset.

Thanks for reminding me about this. Rereading it was a great blast from the past to a time when digg was relevant.

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Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 04, 2013, 04:48:16 AM »

ToME won the previous TWO YEARS, and "you never thought about it", but you did ooh and aah about whether or not Diablo 3 deserved to be on the list?
YOU EVEN PUT GOBLET GROTTO ON THE LIST.
You took all this time to debate and think about which not-even-close-to-a-fucking-roguelike you wanted to put on the list, but you didn't want to consider if maybe the structure of the poll was inherently flawed and the same game is going to keep winning it for the next 3 years unless you change something.

If you could point to any statement by anyone involved in the weeks long thread that we had discussing the poll candidate list or the hour and a half Roguelike Radio episode with myself, Darren Grey and John Harris discussing the poll made where it would be 'obvious' that e.g. ToME 4 would have more than 3 times as many votes as any other game a day into the poll or get more than twice as many votes as it did last year, I'm all ears. (Darren edited this episode btw).

To put this into perspective, approximately 43% of all new voters this year in the poll voted for ToME4 (assuming everyone who voted last year voted this year). This may be a rebound from a lower percentage vote last year for ToME (23%, versus 32% this year, 39% the first year it won), but it is a huge swing.

I know the structure of the poll is inherently flawed. It's in the FAQ. There is no practical way to fix this short of removing games from consideration and you are delusional if you think there is.

To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?

Nothing in life is fair if you consider that criteria. As explained in the FAQ, the poll is not intended to be fair. It is intended to be interesting.

I have to agree fully with everything said by DarkGod in that tiny little quote.
I've talked about how communities affect the poll, and how it will always be heavily skewed towards games that have a dedicated forum. You have to take measures and change the structure of the poll, or just deal with it.
(Not that changing the structure to allow a special category for roguelikes with a dedicated community forum would fix anything; I believe it would turn into a forum population dickwaving contest, however that is very amusing to me nonetheless.)

"The poll is not intended to be fair" AND YET you raise a ruckus over something being...
not fair.

You're missing the distinction between being not fair in general, and being an unfair distraction to development time.

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Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 02, 2013, 08:57:43 PM »

Anyway, I've hopefully made my position pretty clear. I don't especially want to convince you of the merits of my argument, since that is pretty much impossible over electronic communication mechanisms, and just leads to massive ongoing flame wars.

There's a good 11 month gap between now and next year for this to cool down a little. As far as I see things there are three possible outcomes for next year (repeating what I've just said to Darren on Skype):

a) exclude all previous winners
b) ban me from the Internet for the duration of the poll
c) do nothing

I'm inclined to go with option b or c.

6

Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 02, 2013, 08:43:33 PM »

To put it bluntly, your poll is not fair. Why? because it happens on your blog, which is only visited by a small subset of RL players, which is made of for a good part of "hardcore" ones. So if none of the participating games would ask their players to come over it would not be a poll on RLs but a poll on RLs as seen by a small minority. How is that fair to games that try to bring in new players ?

Nothing in life is fair if you consider that criteria. As explained in the FAQ, the poll is not intended to be fair. It is intended to be interesting.

That you want it or not your poll has become the indicator of which roguelike is big, it is probably not what you want and I understand, thus my proposal by email (and that I also posted in a comment there http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.fr/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html).
TLDR: Proposal is: make it the "new roguelike of the year poll"; only RLs whose first release is this year can participate. And if you truly want to help upcoming RLs, also forbid commercial ones as they have marketing power small indie ones do not. This would be fair and nice to help promote small new ones.

Because making it a "new roguelike of the year" completely ignores the multi-year release early development cycle of most roguelikes. And ignoring commercial games misses out one of the most interesting trends in roguelikes of recent times - since most hybrid roguelikes have also been commercial.

As for the ingame thing, as thomas biskup so eloquently put it: this is 2012 (well 2013 now!), you have to live with your time.

How is mailing in any way better ?

Except my concern is making the poll fair for the developers. Anyone in the community can put together a mailing list to let people know about the game. Only devs can actually code a feature to put a message in the game.

And in my opinion, there is a world of difference between reaching people who are actively engaged in the community enough to give you their email vs. anyone who happens to download the latest version of the game.

Can't they ? In 3 years I made ToME from scratch, along with a complete engine not tied to it, along with the server, along with the website and quite a few other side-things. And for 95% of it I was all alone on it. So either my nickname is true and I am a god, or, more realistically, you think lower than they are really worth of other devs. Hell quite a few RLs have devteams, DCSS, ADOM to name a few. Do not come telling me they can not implement such things.

Except (around) 62 of the games on the list have been developed in 7 days, not 3 years.

Take another example. Suppose libtcod ended up including a MotD and/or chat server function. I don't want to risk biasing developers towards choosing libtcod as a library just because of those features.

To finish, if you do not exclude previous winners next years but keep on a specific rule that is very obviously targeted at one game in particular, I would kindly ask you to not include ToME in the list. As for myself I would make a post making it clear why I requested as such.
Because, once again, my deepest belief is in transparency.

It is not very obviously targeted at one game. It is targeted at every other game on the list which doesn't have those features.

7

Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 02, 2013, 08:30:09 PM »

And I really do not understand why you did not, before the poll started, say "ToME has won enough so I have not included it in the list".
Do not tell me you had no idea it would have a chance to win again you knew it would be a contender. So why did you not?

I never thought about ToME while compiling this years poll. Because I had bigger issues to worry about, like compiling a comprehensive list and getting the Roguelike Radio episode recorded. And because I don't want to go down the path of excluding previous winners. And because, as I have said multiple times, I don't understand why you continue to push your community towards voting in a poll which you've already won twice.

You've still not answered that question.

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Other Announcements / Re: ROTY advertisement fairness

« on: January 02, 2013, 08:11:43 AM »

So Andrew thinks sending emails and informing folks in-game about the poll is unfair.

I have issues with informing folks in-game. I don't have issues with sending emails, forum posts or anything else as I explained in the follow up blog post. (http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/badly-worded-apology.html )

I however also don't understand why DarkGod feels the need to continue to try to get the ToME community worked up about this poll. He's already won it twice. What does winning it again prove?

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 19, 2012, 08:15:24 AM »

5 people voted for Microgue! I need to find these 5 people. I want to give it a good update after the new year and I would love to know why it got 5 votes.

You're incredibly lucky that Notch hadn't release Minicraft 2 aka Minitales. Microgue wasn't on the list, no one picked up on it (except Darren who mentioned it briefly while we were recording ep 57), and I forgot to add it until I was down in the S's. It was either find something I could delete in the M's, or have to retype >50 entries to fit you in.

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 16, 2012, 06:32:44 AM »

Poll is up.

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 12, 2012, 08:05:34 AM »

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 08, 2012, 08:29:43 PM »

Some additions:

Dungeon Panic!
Goblet Grotto
ZombiU

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 06, 2012, 09:17:26 AM »

And here I was thinking people were going to complain about me including Borderlands 2.

Darren: Dwarf Fortress won the first year without me 'clarifying' that it was adventure mode. I'm not going to be that specific. Besides which, any game can be permadeath if you play with an honour system (see e.g. Far Cry 2).

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 05, 2012, 10:43:27 AM »

Here's a bigger list:

91
3079
@Star Wars
100 Heroes
2419RL
7DRL
99 Levels to Hell
ADOM
ADOM II (formerly JADE)
Afterlife 3: Legends of Rickard Bronson
AliensRL
Allure of the Stars
Angband
Animonstres
AppRogue
Ascension of the Drillworms
Ascii Wilderness
AS.T.Ro
AsylumRL
Auro
Bardess
BattlePaths
Beyond the Light
BileBio
Bone Builder
Borderlands 2
BOSS
Brogue
Bushudo
Cardinal Quest II
Cardlike
Cargo Commander
Castle Dungeon
Castle of the Winds Online
Cataclysm
Cave Chop
Cave Rescue
Caves of Qud
Chengband
Cinders
Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle
Cogmind
Como el Rogue
Cooplike
Cosmic Commando
Crossword Dungeon
Crystal Catacombs
Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones
Cursed Dungeons
Cypress Tree Manor
DaedlyFlazh
DaJAngband
Dangerous Dungeons of Sevenholm
Dark Valhalla: Prelude
Dary's Legend
Das Schurke Boot
Daybreak RL
Dead Night Forest Chapter 2: The Lost Caravan
Death Settler
Deep Deadly Dungeons
Delver
Demonhunt
Denizen's Den
Depths of Peril
Desktop Dungeons
Destiny of Heroes
Diablo 3
Diehard Dungeon
Diggr
Din's Curse
DoomRL: Doom, the Roguelike
Dungeons of Desolation
Drakefire Chasm
Drox Operative
DuneRL
Dungeon Bash Tactics
Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup
Dungeon Dashers
Dungeons of Dredmor
Dwarf Fortress
Dweller
Earl Spork
ElonaPlus
Emet
Encircled
Enter Thy Name
Epilogue
Equal in Death
Escape from the Vault
Expedition
FAangband
Fabula Divina
Fall From Heaven
Fame
FFHtR
Fictional Roguelike
Flatspace
Flight of the Maxima
Fog and Thunder
Forays into Norrendrin
Fragile Wrath
FTL
Fuel
GatewayRL
GearHead-2
Gnoblins
Grand Rogue Auto
GUTS!
Hack, Slash, Loot
Hallowmorn Dungeon
Halls of Mist
Harmonia
Hellmouth
Herculeum
Hokuto-no-rogue
Hope
HordeTheory
House of the Lost
HunterRL
Hydra Slayer
Hyperbolic Rogue
Hyperbolic Rogue II
HyperRogue III
I rule, you rule, we all rule old-school Hyrule
Ighalsk
Ignite
Inferno+
Infiniverse
Infra Arcana
Intelligence: The Roguelike
Interhack
Into the Dungeon ++
JaggedRL
Jelly
Kaiju King
Kerkerkruip
Kitchen Masters
LAIR!
LambdaHack
LambdaRogue
Left Field Hotel
Legacy
Legend of Dungeon
Legend of Siegfried
Legends of Yore
Life of Sir Pointsalot
LinLem’s Vague Adventure Roguelike
Locks
Lost Labyrinth
MagmaHack
Magog
Malastro
Me Against The Mutants
Meat Arena
Mercury
Microcosm
Middlecrest
Minicraft 2
miniFlake
Mont Asall
Mujahid
Mushroomvania
Mutant Aliens!
Mysterious Castle
NEO Scavenger
Neon
NetHack-De
Nightfall
NitroHack
NLarn
Noxico
NPPAngband
OutlastRL
PabloQuest 3: Danish Adventures
Path of Exile
phage
Pineapple Smash Crew
Pixel Dungeon
Porta Lucis
Portralis - NewAngband
POWDER
PRIME
Probability 0
Professional Sword Tester the Roguelike
Project gnh20/The game of my dream (sb3dgraph)
Prospector RL
PWMAngband
QUAD
Quest for the Unicorn
QuestQuest
Quickband
QuickHack
QuillRogue
RailRL
Random Realms
Ransack
Receiver
Red Rogue
Revenge on a Toy Factory
Rings of Valor
ROADLIKE
RoboCaptain
Rogue Mud
Rogue Survivor
Rogue's Souls
Rogue's Tale
RogueDungeons
RRRSRoguelike
Ruins of Kal Raman
SCP: Site 17
Second Wind
Seduction Quest
Serial Killer
Shadow Rogue
Shattered Haven
Shepherd Slaughter
Sick Peter
Sil
Smooth Rogue
Solstice
SpaceNodes
Spelunky HTML 5
Spelunky XBLA
Squirm
Steam Marines
Steel Knights
Stella-111: A Cosmic Voyage
Stellar Edge
SUN CRUSHER!!!
Super Office Stress
Super Shotgun Showdown
Swamp Monster
Sword in Hand
Sword of the Stars: The Pit
Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME)
Teleglitch
Telos
The Adventurer's Guild
The Binding of Isaac
The Challenge!
The Death of Juga t'Dy
The Four Challenges
The Liberate Pixil Cup Quest
The Light of Amber
The Serpentine Caves
The Slimy Lichmummy
The Well Of Enchantments
The Wizard's Lair
Through
TomeNET
Top Dog
Torchlight 2
Tower Climb
Traction Edge
TrapRL
Triangle Wizard
Turambar
Turnament
Ugly Rogue
Ultima Ratio Regum
UnBrogue
Underhill 2
UnNetHack
UnReal World
Untitled
Vapors of Insanity
Voxel Heroes
Voyage to Farland
Waaaghammer
Warden
Wayward
WazHack
WebRaidMobile
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
World of Tey
Wyrm
X@COM
Yeekband
YioRpg
Zaga-33
Zero-Player Game
Zombies!
Zombocalypse
Zone

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Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike of the Year - getting the list sorted

« on: December 02, 2012, 09:16:06 AM »

Almost all of my own roguelikes are designed so you can play them with one hand if you want, and there's plenty you can play with mouse alone.

Sounds like you have no imagination.  Epilogue was designed to play with only the left hand, with limited importance of the mouse/right hand.  Only a terrible interface would require typing with two hands...

You might want to recalibrate your sense-of-humour-tron.

I'm hesitant because erotica is usually handled badly in computer games. The major of games are about conflict, and conflict and erotica together have a nasty tendency to conflate into representations of sexual violence which is something I don't wish to condone - which could be the misinterpretation if I put a game featuring this in a GotY poll.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to do the research to determine if its the case for any of the games discussed here. So I have to go on second hand advice, which based on the original discussion on the Something Awful forums doesn't look like I'll be including any of the games mentioned here.