The Past:

There have been long discussions about the future of Angband in the last few
months.  Ben Harrison, the current maintainer, unfortunately doesn't have
the time anymore that is needed for maintaining Angband.  He is very busy at
work and in Real Life (tm) and that interferes with Angband's development.

I think I have some time to devote to the task of keeping Angband alive and
kicking, so I offered Ben to help in any way I can or even to take over
maintaining Angband if necessary.

He agreed with me about what Angband should be and that a new maintainer
would be the best thing.  So we started working on shifting the Angband
maintainership to the only one mad enough to want the job ... me.


The Present:

The best way to introduce myself as the new Angband maintainer is probably
by releasing a new version.  So here it is ... Angband 2.9.0:

Source code:
ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Source/angband-290-src.tar.gz

Windows version:
ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Windows/angband-290-win.zip

DOS version:
ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/DOS-386/angband-290-dos.zip

I hope that ports to other systems will be available soon.


Changes from version 2.8.3 to the 2.8.5 beta:
- Chaos resistance no longer automatically grants confusion resistance.  All
  normal items and standard artifacts with chaos resistance now provide
  confusion resistance as well.
- Two-handed swords appear earlier now.
- Added an optional point-based character generator.
- Added randomized character generation.
- Moved the questions about the autoroller, maximize, and preserve mode to a
  new option screen.
- Added an option to display piles of items with a special symbol
- Allowed secret doors to be looked or stuck
- Items with an '=g' inscription will be automatically picked up
- Added options to automatically select the direction when opening
  doors/chests and disarming traps.
- Added an option to display piles of items on the floor as lists.
- Arrows break less often now.
- Refilling a latern from another latern leaves an empty latern now.  Empty
  laterns are no longer displayed as choice for refilling.
- Added random artifacts.  Note that importing characters created with
  older versions of the random artifacts generator is not supported.
- Scrolling while targeting.
- Improved monster AI.
- Increased the maximum number of vaults to 64.
- Very high or low speed modifiers no longer cause problems.
- Entry into debug, wizard, or borg mode is only confirmed once per
  character, not once per session.
- The debug command 'e' now allows current and maximum experience to be
  altered.
- Boldor, Gabriel, Khamul, Murazor, Tselukas, Draebor, Hoarmurath,
  Thuringwethil, Omarax, Qlzqqlzuup, and Feagwath can now summon similar
  monsters.
- Master quylthulg, Emperor Quylthulg, Qlzqqlzuup, Murazor, Pazuzu,
  Lungorthin, Gothmog, Sauron, and Morgoth can now summon greater demons.
- Ancalagon the Black can now breath fire.
- Objects carried by monsters are now loaded properly.
- A command to repeat the last command has been added ('n' in original, '''
  in roguelike keyset).
- At character creation, some extra difficulty options are available (no
  artifacts, no stores, no up stairs/recall).
- The "special" inscriptions ("cursed", "worthless", "good", ...) are now
  handled outside the normal inscription system, and so neither overwrite,
  nor are overwritten by, normal inscriptions.
- Made destroyed levels rarer.
- The quest monsters (Sauron and Morgoth) are now always generated on levels
  99 and 100.
- Fixed a bug in the "know complete monster info" cheat option.
- The spell-list now uses color.
- The disarm traps spell will now work on the locks of doors, revealing
  secret doors and unlocking locked doors.
- The 'detect doors' spell can now detect locked and jammed doors.
- Monsters crushed by an earthquake spell are now killed.
- Fixed a bug that could cause problems when entering illegal values while
  haggling with a shopkeeper.

Changes from version 2.8.5 beta to 2.9.0:
- Support for Adam Bolt's tiles.
- Support for transparency and lighting effects.
- Added class and race dependent player graphics.
- Cleaned up the new code introduced in the 2.8.5 beta version.
- Fixed the bug with opening a door you are standing on with the easy_open
  patch.
- Random artifacts with chaos resist can now get confusion resist too.
- Fixed a bug that added a discount to a cursed item when wielding it.
- The fear resistance of level 30+ warriors is now correctly displayed.
- Added a compile.txt file with compile guides for various systems and
  compilers.
- Added a makefile for the free Borland C++ 5.5 compiler.
- Removed lots of compiler warnings.
- Fixed a problem when compiling Angband on newer (glibc-based) Linux
  systems.
- Added a compile-time option to allow players to put an '.angband.prf' file
  in their home directory and have it read on systems where Angband is
  running set-[ug]id.  Default is off.

Windows specific changes:
- You can select between the "old" tiles, the new tiles, and ASCII mode.
- The Windows version no longer requires changes to angband.ini when
  installing.  The angband.ini file will be created when you first start the
  program, so it doesn't need to be present in the binary archive.  That
  also allows easy updates to newer versions, since the settings
  in the angband.ini are not overwritten when installing a new version over
  an old one.
- The windows can be resized and the (graphical) tiles will adjust
  automatically to the new size.
- Added the "Show scores" command to the menu.
- Fixed a bug that created all files as "read-only" (causing the game to
  fail when saving the game).
- Fixed a bug that caused all numbers to be registered twice by the game,
  leading to "double-steps".
- Fixed a bug that didn't free the used bitmaps correctly when closing the
  game.

DOS-specific changes:
- Graphics, sounds, and music options
  You can switch the graphics/music/sound options from the user menu (press
  ! to get there).  The volume of the sound and the music can be adjusted
  from 0 (min) to 255 (max).  All changes to the screen-resolution and the
  selection between the old and the new graphical tiles will be active after
  you restart Angband.
- Terminal windows
  The windows can be activated from the "Angband options screen" (press the
  '=' key to get there) in the "Window flags" menu. Just toggle the display
  you want for "Term-1" and "Term-2".
- Added a stone-background to the terminals.
- Midi jukebox
  DOS-Angband automatically plays midi-files from the "lib/xtra/music"
  folder in your Angband-directory.
- Sound Events
  DOS-Angband will play samples from the "lib/xtra/sound" folder to the
  corresponding Angband-event. You can configure the available samples in
  the "lib/xtra/sound/sound.cfg" file.  Multiple sounds per event are
  supported.
- "Classic mode": If you want the old display, just start Angband with the
  '-mibm' option ('Angband.exe -mibm').


The Future:

I think that Angband should be a game that is actively maintained and
supported, fun to play, easy to compile and run on any machine, and a great
starting-point for novice programmers who want to make their first steps in
game-programming, as well as a base for variant development.

My main targets for Angband development are:
- removing the compiler-warnings and improve support for the various
  compilers (makefiles, project-files, instructions for compiling)
- adding the features from Ben's ToDo-list (like the modular savefile
  handling)
- writing a new interface to the game-engine to make it easier to add
  front-ends like AngbandTk (while keeping it backward-compatible to the
  existing interface)
- improving the documentation (hopefully with help by others)
- adding various *not gameplay relevant* features (like removing the
  hard-coded limits for the number of entries in the *_info.txt files)

Basically I'll follow the path of my Angband 2.8.3h version trying to
improve the game without changing the game-balance (or at least making the
changes optional).  I'm not a very good Angband player and have no illusions
about being able to rebalance the game myself, so I will have to rely on the
comments of Angband veterans like Ben on what tweaks are required to improve
game balance.

I'll *not* start throwing in features that break compatibility with older
systems (I'm not Matt Craighead) or change the gameplay without giving the
player the choice of the "classical game".  I'm aware that Angband is not
ZAngband and that these two games have completely different philosophies.

I also want to say a big THANK YOU to Ben for his great work.  Playing
Angband, modifying the game, and writing variants is one thing in my life
that I don't want to miss.  His efforts helped making all this possible, and
I hope he'll continue to contribute many ideas and patches to Angband.