To release or not to release... [Archive] - ADOM & Ultimate ADOM Forums

Epythic

12-31-2008, 04:51 PM

i got a great idea TB, pick a small number of people from the community that can code and would be willing to keep the source TO THEMSELVES so that way we dont have a flood of adom mods, only a small amount of quality ones. if you keep it within the community and only give it to the most dedicated, we wont see crazy crap like being a golem ninja or an angel demonoligist. I'd love to see it released to the public, but, again, only to a selective group. and find a way to make sure they dont hand out the source, make em sign a contract or something.

I don't like that idea. Not a single word of it.

if we keep it with the dedicated to the community, i doubt adom will be destroyed.

As long as there is a single person playing ADOM, it lives. I, too, doubt that it will die.

Here's what I think would be best (read: what I would like most):

Release it. Completely and to everyone. Put it under a copyleft license (GPL, for example). And state clearly what you want to see and what you don't want to see, but do not try to enforce it. The community has respected your wishes in the past (I am thinking about the reverse engineering / decompiling stuff -- there was a revised guidebook afterwards, but it's got some very bad reputation as far as I see, though that might also be because of the copyright issues. But I digress.).

And here's an "idea" that I do not really like: release the source code, but do not give us a license, making unauthorized modifications illegal. Means that we can examine it, write patches, and send them to you. You either apply them or reject them.

Bottom line:

As Thrundarr says, "It's yer choice."

Footnote:
I am not a lawyer.

Angelus

12-31-2008, 05:22 PM

I think Angband got lots of variants because it's easier to modify than Nethack or Crawl. Nethack has less variants and Crawl has only Stone Soup as far as I know. It's no wonder, because Crawl's source code is a horrible thing to face. If ADOM's source code is difficult to maintain and extend then I wouldn't be worried about too many variants or the fear that it would be used to spawn number of other roguelikes, using it as an engine.

Sradac

12-31-2008, 05:39 PM

i obviously have never seen the source, but TB has said in the past he has a lot of notes all over it. as long as his notes are there, it shouldnt be that difficult to manage. im not worried about anyone from the community having the source, but more people from the outside stumbling across it and going, hey im going to make an adom variant and just making it silly. putting in breeding monsters like RNGs...

Salajem

01-01-2009, 05:46 AM

I consider wise to wait until the first release of Jade before releasing source code itself, then declaring Adom as concluded(for now) and placing Jade as the 'brand new' fresh Project.

That way, I think Adom will be revered for it's flexibility, while Jade for it's completeness.

..Um, What about releasing them altogether when Jade is ready? :-/

Gatonegro

01-01-2009, 03:05 PM

I have been following ADOM for the past... like eight years? And I'll begin by saying that while I am a fervant partisan of Free Software, I have always respected the wish your (Thomas) wish not to release the source: it is your decision, and I understand in an emotional level the reasons that make you not want to.

That said, if you are really considering releasing the source I'll say that I would be very happy, because:

1. It would mean you could build (and oversee) a community of developers mainly aimed at fixing bugs and implementing the improvements / ideas you want to.
2. It would mean other people could learn from the code. I, for instance, am really, really curious as to how a massive and well-done work like ADOM is done, and would really like to see the guts of it.

Regarding point 1, keep in mind that if you build an "official" ADOM developer group you could control who gets in it and who doesn't, and what changes that group makes to the source tree, and thus you would retain control on the official ADOM development, but at the same time you would benefit of the advantages of having a whole community dedicated to it.

Many people forget that Free Software doesn't have to be democratic in the way it develops: it is usually good that developers hear the users, in order to keep the community cohesive and prevent forks, but in the end the decisions depend on them alone --- in this case, you. And I think you have the maturity and the skills to be a good "Benevolent Dictator For Life" :)

There may be forks, and experiments, with the source of ADOM. But you should regard these not as ADOM, but just as what they are: experiments from someone else. ADOM will always be your version of the game. And the fans that have kept loyal through all these years and that are interested in seeing the project evolve will stick to it, because you have proven sufficiently well enough in the past that you are creative and good and building a great game --- and those are rare virtues.

An important objection remains to releasing the source code: wether it would reveal too much of the secrets of the game. But honestly, I like rather well the approach game developers like Bethesda took with Morrowind and the like: If you want to tinker with the game, do it, at your own risk, knowing that it may ruin the fun. It is the decision of the player, anyway, and I am sure that players are mature enough to know where not to look if they don't want their secrets spoiled.

I could go on, but I think the main point is clear, and others have said it before: release the code; make it clear (but not legally-backed, i.e., choose a good and tested license) that you wouldn't like people to fork the program for the sake of sillyness; build a small and tight community of developers around the code and guide them to another fifteen years of ADOM glory! :D

Covenant

01-01-2009, 09:08 PM

As other people have said, it's ultimately your decision, and you shouldn't be coerced into a particular course of action.

Like the above poster, however, I do hope that you will choose to release the source code, for a variety of reasons.

As you say, it would be a shame for such an ingenuitive and exciting piece of work to be forgotten. The Roguelike genre is hardly a prominent one, and as modern games continue to advance in both graphics and gameplay Roguelikes will only fall further into obscurity. New people do get introduced to these games, but the audience is always going to be a limited one. And as new Roguelikes are made (and competition therefore increases for this audience), any creator leaving their games with frustrating bugs will vastly decrease their appeal. The prospect of playing a game as long as ADOM to its conclusion, knowing that death will undo all of the player's progress, will no doubt lose some of its attraction if the prospective player is aware that bugs exist which could make an unfair death a likely prospect (as, I'm afraid, certain bugs do in the current release of ADOM).

(As an aside, in terms of the audience being limited, releasing the source code of ADOM would no doubt increase interest in JADE. Sadly, when it is mentioned in random corners of the internet, JADE tends to be brushed off as vaporware. Though the community here doesn't need it, releasing the ADOM source code would show the naysayers that your words are backed up by action.)

The upside to the audience being a limited one, however, is that most of the players hold a certain degree of maturity and consideration. I doubt that the sort of person who would be attracted to a game such as ADOM would be likely to create a mod where the player commands a platoon of tanks to storm the fortified citidel of Terinyo. Angband may have gone down that route to a certain degree, but Angband and ADOM are different, and will probably appeal to different crowds. For one thing, the Tolkien factor attracts people to Angband who wouldn't otherwise be playing a Roguelike. And besides which, Angband's more or less a pure grind-fest, whereas ADOM is a more cerebral game. More importantly, as people have stated, the community here has the utmost respect for your wishes, and understands that you don't want cheap knock-offs created. I honestly believe you wouldn't need to worry about that; that isn't what the players want either.

For my part, I hold a great passion for the Roguelike genre, and for a while now I've been thinking about having a go at writing my own. Modesty aside, I believe I have some original and exciting ideas and features planned, and a good story to implement, but I've little programming experience. The source code of ADOM would be an invaluable tool in helping me learn how to implement my concepts to create something of my own.

ADOM is a bit of a beacon to me and many others - a marker of what a good Roguelike is. I don't want to recreate it, but I do believe I can learn from it. I hope this, at least, isn't something you find unacceptable.

gut

01-02-2009, 09:50 AM

I can't believe I'm seeing this! I recently typed a bit of a request about
releasing ADOM's source code, and was about to post it in the 'general'
thread. My main desire was to see bugfixes and some interface convenience
features. I normally don't chat about this stuff, but playing Crawl SS 0.4.3
(recently got my 1st win!) made me see the light.

If a good dev team could bring to ADOM what they've brought to Crawl,
ADOM would be much better for it. A brief explaination of what I mean:
I recently had a power failure while playing Crawl, rebooted, and the game
was fine. Crawl has NEVER (!) crashed on me. Autoexplore (!). Crawl uses
Ctrl-G to automatically navigate to common game points. Also, the Ctrl-F
command basically lets you navigate to anything you have seen in the
entire game. Inscriptions. So many command interface points that it would
take too long to list them. Colored cursors to give at-a-glance notice of
which monsters are friend or foe. Etc. These things may not seem like they
would make a tremendous difference, but once you get used to them it's
really hard, switching back to ADOM and having to do without them.

> ADOM will always be your version

I couldn't have said it better myself. There will never be a question as to
which version of ADOM is the proper one. Silly variants will never be adopted
by this community. For goodness sake, I wouldn't even enable the autopickup
feature in ADOM when going for limited turns challenges. It just wasn't the
same game everybody else was playing. Release the code to everyone, and
give your OK for what you like, everything else will be universally ignored (and
rightfully so).

Sradac

01-02-2009, 01:48 PM

yep right on gut. we can have someone set it up so that summoned monsters dont add to the kill count...no more super jackals...

Andur

01-02-2009, 08:41 PM

I say if you are undecided, don't release the code! Cause, once you release it, it is too late to go back, while, if you decide later that is what you want to do, you can reverse the decision of keeping it to yourself.

Ultimately though, ADOM is essentially a completed game and something to definitely be proud of! Its been one of my favorite games for over a decade and I still play it to this day. Sure there are some minor bugs left in it, but, none of them are remotely game-breaking.

I'd hate to see ADOM's good name get tarnished by a plethora of cheap knock-offs, silly/stupid mods and whatnots.

Concentrate on JADE and getting another great roguelike game out there! Besides (correct me if I'm wrong here), I thought you were intending on releasing the source to JADE anyways, there's little point in fracturing your development time and the development time of the community into two groups.

artificer

01-04-2009, 12:45 AM

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

<snip> ... I just want to do it to get someone else to fix bugs (he, quite egoistic, isn't it?)
It's not egoistic at all. in fact, many people see open-sourcing their code as an easy way to ease the maintenance burden of their software. Everybody wins this way.

...really start a development community for the future of ADOM
You should definitely do this, as it helps in many ways:

* You can establish an official ADOM code repository, in which you (or other people you trust, if you don't have the time) approve any sent contributions a-la Linus, and also in order to make clear to others that any externally-spawned variant is just that and nothing more.

* You shouldn't be concerned much about any potential variants, however bad they may be, because those who still play ADOM will know where to look.

Covenant

01-04-2009, 01:07 AM

* You shouldn't be concerned much about any potential variants, however bad they may be, because those who still play ADOM will know where to look.

I'd like to also add that the only reason variants typically achieve any publicity is because they are supported by the community. People link to them on forums, newsgroups, the official site, etc. The community here is fully aware of your views and even if a poor variant were to arise (I really doubt that any will, to be honest), it would be very unlikely to be publicised or supported by the community here, who hold a great respect for your wishes.

Grey

01-04-2009, 10:19 AM

From the point of view of the roguelike development community, getting to see ADOM's source would be truly incredible. Looking in detail at your code for dungeon creation, monster AI and so on would be an inspiration for many. There are a lot of roguelike developers out there interested in making their own original works, but relying on looking at the sources of other roguelikes for guidance - releasing the ADOM source would be a great contribution to all future developers.

As an ADOM fan I do have certain reservations about the source being released, but I think these are overwhelmed by the possibilities of what the ADOM fanbase could achieve with the source available. Look already at ADOM Sage, a brilliant front-end for ADOM that does nothing but add to the game, and the adom server run by jakkoss that allows for remote play, spectating games and joint high scores. Look at the inventive challenge games players come up with, including multiplayer competitive games. Fully opening the source could allow all these bases to be expanded upon, and would add a lot of fun to ADOM players across the world.

The Angband effect is extremely unlikely. The reason for so many variants is that the Angband source is so well-structured and easy to edit or play around with. From what you've said in the past ADOM is not anywhere near the same - even the smallest modifications lead to major bugs, and only a very determined and skilled programmer can do anything with it. Most such programmer are purely interested in making a better ADOM in its current vein, or making an entirely new game themselves. The general style and story of ADOM also doesn't lend itself well to many variations. Most likely any development of ADOM by the community will be in the form of bug fixes, and maybe added content in the same vein as current content (more talents, items, classes, races, extra dungeons and quests, but ultimately leaving the main game intact).

The main drawback to releasing the source is the loss of mystery that still surrounds the game. Players are still finding odd new effects. For instance it's only been recently noticed that firing lightning bolts at shambling mounds increases their hit points (actually exploitable), and that critical hits on enemies give extra weapon marks. With the source code open these mysteries are dimmed somewhat. The only way to combat this really is to release snippets of source rather than the full thing, but that reduces the possibility of bug fixes and community development.

Anyway, it's your choice, and we all respect that either way. My main point would be that releasing the source will lead to greater enjoyment of the game, which can only be a good thing. Perhaps some of the community development of ADOM would provide inspiration for JADE too.

Sradac

01-04-2009, 04:52 PM

Players are still finding odd new effects.

or the fact that kobolds can kill you with exploding trapped doors.

IGB

01-04-2009, 09:02 PM

My idea is to release the source code in current state, but do not release any further official modications, as to keep some secrets intact. So anyone could send in a modification or bugfix that could be either approved or rejected for official Adom version. The current "secrets" should be finished (Kherab's third quest, Red Rooster Inn, etc), as well as new ones may be intruduced.
I think this way everyone should be happy.

Tannis

01-07-2009, 05:26 PM

Don't release it, I don't want to see 14 crappy versions of ADOM.

However, don't sit on it. Find a group of willing programmers and give them the code. Pass on your overarching philosophy of the game to them. Have veto power over any radical additions/changes as you see fit. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is my favorite roguelike, but only because ADOM still needs a bit of polishing. Let someone else polish those bugs out and keep the ADOM community happy.

Think of it this way. If there is a new release of ADOM, even just small changes and bug fixes, every 4 months, these community will quickly grow again. That will provide a bigger playerbase for JADE.

Universal

01-07-2009, 07:20 PM

If you have any doubts about releasing Adom source code - then don't do it. Adom is your game, your "child", YOU should feel good with Adom sources released, not us. If you don't want to release source, but anyway you'd like to see Adom improved, Sradac suggested very good idea. Choose few trusted people with decent programming skills, and give source code to them. Personally I think this is best solution, and I would like to see it happen. Adom would be still developed, you would have control over everything, no "angband effect". I see only positive sides here, no drawbacks.

Whatever your decision will be, I will accept and support it(and I'm sure that rest of community also will).

Twinge

01-07-2009, 11:21 PM

Hmm... interesting news indeed!

The one thing that I think absolutely needs to happen is some sort of bug fix release - a version 1.1.2 if you will. Even if there is no significant further game development, it'd be great to at least leave ADOM with a polished version without the numerous bugs it currently has.

Now, I personally don't really care how this happens. If you find time to do it yourself that's great. If you organize a small group of people to start fixing stuff up, that's also fine. Same goes for releasing the source. Adding extra features would be good too, of course, but right now I'm only concerned with the creation of a bug free (at least mostly) ADOM =)

jaakkos

01-08-2009, 02:38 AM

In my opinion, Biskup should start a repository for hosting the code which anyone can checkout, and all the patches should be approved by Biskup, thus the offical version is unambiguous and can always be distributed from the offical site and repository. Most of the patches should probably be bug fixes and maybe some improvements to the user interface, maybe, but the control for what is added is always in Biskup's hands.

Sradac

01-08-2009, 03:24 AM

the only problem I have with TB having to approve ALL changes for all modifications is, he is basically outsourcing ADOM to people to do his work, and only his work. and they arent getting paid for it. instead of modding and new variants it would be people getting the bugs outa adom for TB for free. Thats why i'd rather have a few people full control of it than everyone have to submit to TB first to see if its approved or not.

I dont think the source should be released just to have people work the bugs out. It should be for that yeah, but also adding content and expanding old content. Its a tough thing to decide and honestly, I really dont think there is a "right" way to do it outside of what TB feels is right for his creation, his child.

foxfire29

01-08-2009, 12:47 PM

Hi,

I'm new to roguelikes but am love gaming in general.

Anyway the first time I tried ADOM , I read everything in help, now BIG apology if Im wrong here but Im sure I read in a way older version in the help that you would from time to time get some nasty emails regading releasing the source(once again big apology if I got this wrong but I could have sworn I read something along these lines in the ADOM help years back)

I would guess things like that would just make you think, why the hell should I even release this?(I was disgusted myself after reading it) If I was in the same position thats probably what I would be like anyway, the source is a privilege not a right.

In reality though I think the vast majority realise this and its a shame you have to be subjected to that "crap". I also think people would use it for learning to code these types of games for the most part and you would have your already good coders , maybe modifying the code and I reckon most would give credit.

Obviously as a coder myself I would LOVE to see the source code of such a succesful game released as it would help the community immensly and if you think about it, the game would probably get even more well known and possibly you could get a massive revival of the game! In saying all this I do fully understand the dilema, the game is something you created and made what it is, no doubt you put major hard work in and well I wont expand on this but to reiterate I do understand the dilema.

Still would personally love to see it released and would be grateful but its your desicion :) I don't know if you get donations for ADOM? but either way even if the source was released I still think genuinly you will be the one getting all due credit for the game. (And rightly so)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do and I'm looking forward to that Jade game! (Once I get further into ADOM though I will probably undertake that post card thing as well but thats kinda OT :D)

All the best
Foxfire

One small thing I would say, just reviewing whats been said, either release it fully with appropriate license or not at all. I dont like the whole, release it to favoured members of the community idea. (That would be my sole genuine concern)

cins

01-08-2009, 06:31 PM

Just chiming in to say:

If you have any doubt, don't.

Epythic

01-10-2009, 05:32 PM

the only problem I have with TB having to approve ALL changes for all modifications is, he is basically outsourcing ADOM to people to do his work, and only his work. and they arent getting paid for it.
It's not like money is everything.

I write open source software, although all of my patches are reviewed and some of them are rejected.
Feel free to ask me about my motives.

instead of modding and new variants it would be people getting the bugs outa adom for TB for free. Thats why i'd rather have a few people full control of it than everyone have to submit to TB first to see if its approved or not.
Huh? I don't see your point.

Again, this misconception about "free" work.
It's not "a few people"'s opinion that matters, it's TB's opinion. Therefore the model of "a few people [having] full control" is nonsens.
In any case, getting something included means talking to TB and the community. That can be done before one starts to implement it. No work is wasted that way.

I dont think the source should be released just to have people work the bugs out. It should be for that yeah, but also adding content and expanding old content. Its a tough thing to decide and honestly, I really dont think there is a "right" way to do it outside of what TB feels is right for his creation, his child.

What's the difference between a bugfix and a new feature / new content?
Both need to be discussed, reviewed and approved - with TB having veto rights, not technically (anyone could fork) but practically (remember, the community respects his decisions).

[Footnote: Sorry, Sradac, that I continue to bash your comments. I just disagree with you; no offense intended.]

gut

01-11-2009, 09:52 AM

Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I
think Sradac is just kind of re-phrasing what
Biskup wrote with the line:

>... want to do it to get someone else to fix bugs (he, quite egoistic, isn't it?),

Personally, I don't think it's egotistical in the
slightest, but maybe I'm biased. I want to see
bugs fixed so badly I might not be thinking
rationally any more : )

vogonpoet

01-12-2009, 12:01 PM

One day it would be nice to just dump a load of stuff on an altar and then give Kelly an amulet of lifesaving without having to look away from the screen, beads of sweat dripping down my wince-distorted-face, hoping against hope that the game won't crash.

If releasing the source code would make that more likely to happen, then that would be great. I wouldn't want the uber-jackal feature taken away though, that would make me sad (makes the tough but long-winded get to level 50 in the wilderness challenge just a bit more interesting).

Sadly I have no real coding skillz (I really don't count being well-versed in the bastardised 'language' which is VBA as real coding, even if I can make excel dance like a cute puppy rather than the rabid dog it really is), and so would be unable to sort out my two least favourite bugs even if I had the source code...

modular

01-19-2009, 08:44 AM

iirc the main reason why not to release the code is the possibility of ever making a commercial version. the real question then becomes: "Do you think that wil ever happen?" or maybe even "Do you want that to happen, considering that any licence wil effectivly prohibit further development as open source software?"

Epythic

01-19-2009, 02:27 PM

iirc the main reason why not to release the code is the possibility of ever making a commercial version. the real question then becomes: "Do you think that wil ever happen?"
I dont. Most gamers only care for shiny 3D graphics. I doubt ADOM is flexible enough to be converted to a game that capable of appealing to the masses (no-graphics, turn-based, tile-based, just from the top of my head).

or maybe even "Do you want that to happen, considering that any licence wil effectivly prohibit further development as open source software?"

Why that?

Take MySQL as an example. It's free under the terms of the GPL, but commercial vendors can buy it under another license if they want to. Now, take Qt. Nokia bought it from Trolltech, which means they can do whatever they want to do with it (they own it now; and they too sell commercial licenses)- but to us it's still free (GPL).

Got my point?

Moeba

01-20-2009, 09:59 PM

I'd say, take it easy. I don't think ADOM will pass away before JADE is released, I even doubt ADOM will lose relatively much players when nothing changes. But when you release a non-beta version of Jade, ADOM will probably become old-fashioned and releasing the source would be inavoidable imo.
I don't see the problem of releasing the source code though, but I don't know much about game development. If some people would want to make and play boring mutations of ADOM (I don't mean that any change would be bad) - well, it's their choice. It means that they didn't really enjoy ADOM in some aspects, so it wouldn't be as bad as it looks.

Rufus

01-21-2009, 11:11 PM

While one part of me wants to add on and give back to my favorite roguelike,
the other part wants the mystery concealed.

Even if I don't play games that often anymore, ADOM is still one of my favorites for a long time.
I could never understand NetHack or any other roguelike.

I think if the source code is released, it would be one of those big moments in computer gaming history.
At least to me, it would be.

Covenant

01-23-2009, 04:57 PM

I've got to admit, as the initial excitement has died down and there's been no more news about this, the cynical side of me is growing more... well, cynical. I don't think anything will come of it. Given how long the source code has gone unreleased, it's obviously something that TB will need to spend a lot of time thinking about to make his decision.

But through no fault of his own, TB obviously has a busy life, with little time for ADOM/JADE at the moment, and given that it's been that way for the past eight years or so, I can't see it changing.

I'm not saying this to admonish TB in any way - I'm grateful for what he already has given us. But I suppose I am wanting to admonish myself a little for continually getting my hopes up at things such as JADE updates, or the ADOM source, when it's really not wise to do so.

mr_ocnitsa

01-23-2009, 06:05 PM

IMHO, community input must have been vital in terms of your development of the game, but what makes the game is it's unified vision. That creative control is what adds unique and peculiar aspects to the game that make it compelling. I don't think the code should be released in general or among a group of coders...but if you were going to continue development of the game it should be given to one other person you know and trust who could consult with you...not because you'd be able to veto their development path, but because you could offer your input on the development of a game you are invested in. The creative control/unified vision, I think is what will be important to preserve so that additional content doesn't become generalized down to some version that everyone can agree on...I don't think some of the elements that have made it into the current version would be in place in a community setting.

What ever you do...if you do decide to give the code out to some, be prepared (worst case scenario) for it to go out to everyone...and like someone intimated once you open Pandora's box it's impossible to shut it.

jaked122

01-25-2009, 09:39 PM

I really don't see how the Angband effect could happen where the races,classes ect. are separated from the source code, that'd be discouraging to most novice modders who would make the kind of crap that can be found littered throughout angband.
EDIT: I suppose I would be one of those modders, and I was able to go into the C code and muck up hellband. so...

Grey

01-26-2009, 11:58 AM

I'd like to add to what I previous said in emphasising that there are idiots in the world, far too many of them in fact, and if ADOM's source is released then some of these fools will inevitably get their grubby hands on it and do all sorts of horrible things to it. There will be variants and they will be awful.

The important thing to remember though is that these will be quickly forgotten and ignored. No one's intersted in playing crappy variations of ADOM, not even ones that might have a few cool ideas. The only way a variant would be played is if it is significantly different and is a good game in its own right. Nethack is a good example - extremely popular, open source, and lots of people fiddle around and make variants. But the only good descendant game that anyone even knows about is SLASH'EM, which has a huge amount changed from the original (some of which has been fed back into Nethack). The only other popular variants are the various ports to portable machines, like NetHackDS. So although you might see some painful things happen with the ADOM source they will be forgotten, and hopefully they'll be outweighed by the good things that come from it.

For instance, I'll not forget the story of a young German programmer who back in the early 90s had a fiddle with some Nethack sources and decided to make his own game instead. I wonder how that turned out...? ;)

Epythic

01-26-2009, 02:33 PM

Btw, not sure how easy it is to compile ADOM. Most Windows users (aka average ADOM player?) do not have the dependencies (tools and libraries) installed. So I guess that would keep out some of them.

And: some of you fear that somebody might turn ADOM into something TB will not like. But who is that somebody supposed to be? I guess most of the people that would be dedicated enough to do such a thing are already here on the forums, and it seems like everybody agrees that it's best to respect TB's wishes. So, do you really think there's danger here?

For instance, I'll not forget the story of a young German programmer who back in the early 90s had a fiddle with some Nethack sources and decided to make his own game instead. I wonder how that turned out...? ;)

Oh that guy...

Turned out it was not only the best idea in his life, but he also created the most popular roguelike ever :)

jaked122

01-27-2009, 09:34 PM

this is the best rogue-like ever created, and from the way it looks, it won't ever quite be finished without the players being allowed to do something with the source and continue on the legacy

mike3

01-28-2009, 09:07 AM

Ok, here's the quick summary:

It's rather unlikely that I'm going to continue to do much development about ADOM.
It would be a shame to let ADOM vanish with time.
The release of the source code might be an alternative.
But I'm completely undecided if (a) I really want to do that, (b) I just want to do it to get someone else to fix bugs (he, quite egoistic, isn't it?), (c) really start a development community for the future of ADOM. Let's face it... I still would hate to see the "Angband effect" of dozens of variants with all kind of silly stuff... that's just not what I want. But how would another model look like...Thus here is a new forum in order to discuss viable options or alternatives, ideas, etc. I'm curious to hear what you think...

Ah yes, the old ADOM source code issue. I used to be very curious about having a peek at the sources of ADOM (I even sent you emails about it a looooooooooong time ago), although I'm not sure if I myself would really *need* it anymore as I have been able to learn the interesting stuff about roguelike game creation from other sources (I've already built my own cavern generator, for example.), but I still have some of that curiosity about it, namely to learn a little more about roguelikes and their development, to see your maze generator, and to finally know with 100% certainty the answer to the fabled "red rooster" and "weird tome" mysteries. (I certainly wouldn't go and release "mods"/"variants" if you didn't want me to.) As for a "public" release method, what do you think about this? You could license it out as something that could be looked at but modified versions could not be distributed (not sure about distributing the code unmodified -- depends on whether you want it "redistributable" or not). If one wants to distribute a modified version, they would have to contact you for permission -- this way you could review the code and permit, for example, bug fixes or new features, but not allow "variants", i.e. adding features that push the game in a direction that is contrary to your own vision for it. And you could also perhaps add the fix/feature to new "official" releases of the game.

What do you think?

Universal

01-28-2009, 10:25 AM

I'll throw in my two cents here.

But who is that somebody supposed to be? I guess most of the people that would be dedicated enough to do such a thing are already here on the forums

I'm afraid that's just your guess, and I think you're wrong. Definitely Adom official forums doesn't contain whole Adom community. World is wide, and people are different. While I agree that major part of Adom community agree that it's best to respect TB's wishes, but there always will be several fools that don't care about it, and this is real issue. No offence, but it's naive to think that *every single* person will respect TB's rights. We had good examples on forums just few days ago...

On the other hand, not that I'm saying that releasing source code would be terrible thing. There are positive sides as well(and many of them). Besides poor crappy variants, and programs like Adom bot, there would be bug fixes, new interesing features, and really good variants, which would be worth to play(like Slash'EM for NetHack). I think in case releasing source code, most of them would be impossible to avoid, since Adom is very popular roguelike(maybe most popular roguelike ever), that's why I repeat what I wrote in my previous post - it's all up to TB. If he doesn't feel good(for any reason) with source code released, he shouldn't do it. If he wants to release it, and he won't mind poor variants(most of which probably would be ignored, and quickly forgotten), he should do it. If he doesn't want to release sources, but would like to see Adom developed anyway, small, closed dev team under TB's control is best idea here(and in my opinion, this is best solution).

In my opinion, two things are sure: there is a risk, and once it's released there is no turning back. Rest is up to TB.

and from the way it looks, it won't ever quite be finished without the players

In my opinion, Adom is already pretty finished game.

jaked122

01-28-2009, 03:08 PM

nothing is ever truly finished, and when one stops working on their own project, then it would seem as if they should allow someone else to pick it up

Universal

01-29-2009, 05:58 PM

I don't agree here - you can improve things indefinitely, but there is a point where you can stop and say "I'm done, it's good enough, time to work on something else". And I think Adom already is good enough game. Don't get me wrong, I love Adom, and I would really like to see new features. But if that doesn't happen, it won't be a tragedy, and definitely Adom won't die without sources released.

then it would seem as if they should allow someone else to pick it up

They can allow someone else to pick it up, not should. Once again I'll repeat - it's all up to TB, to what he feels and thinks about it. He should feel good with Adom sources released, not other people.

Sowelu

01-30-2009, 04:11 PM

Covenant

01-30-2009, 04:53 PM

Regardless of anything else, this issue is certainly causing a lot of people to register to the forums, both for and against the source being released.

Epythic

01-31-2009, 06:55 PM

The existence of easier Angband variants doesn't take away from the original, IMO. The main concerns I'd have are that people would make it too easy (winning loses meaning) and be able to reverse engineer savefiles too easily; that people would muck with the story; and that all the SECRETS and code would be revealed...
So the main problem you see are the various forms of cheating. There's already AdomBot, no source code needed. I doubt having the source code will make it easier to cheat than it is now.

Of course there is the "mystery" thing.. well, it's a loss, but having the source outweighs that, in my opinion. Some people might disagree, but then they are free not to look at the source code and not to read spoilers (guidebook, for example, which is already fairly complete). Their choice, isn't it?

Yeah you'd get mods pretty quick that totally change the world, just using the combat engine. And mods that change the story and muck with the cosmology. Is that the worst thing that could happen to a project? Becoming a base for other, potentially also cool stories? There's going to be an early flood of simple hacks and cheats, but you'll also get some -really- advanced stuff. And you'll draw back old players who stopped playing, too.
Thing is that TB might dislike those... things.

I'd say use a noncommercial license that keeps ownership of the original, doesn't require modders to release their source, but that requires a prominent link to the original ADOM on the title screen.
Errm, do you know such a license? I hope you don't suggest TB creates one, because that would mean you had no idea what you were talking about.

(I say don't make other people release their source because...well, it will have taken other players many many years to ever get the whole story, you might as well let modders have the same satisfaction...)
Bad idea, I think. I thought the goal was to help with ADOM development, not encourage forks. IIRC, TB stated somewhere that he did not want [B]any forks, anyway. And if the only codebase is the one of ADOM (- not some fork), that means people would have to a) release their contributions under the same license and therefore b) release their code.

Regardless of anything else, this issue is certainly causing a lot of people to register to the forums, both for and against the source being released.

Which is a good thing :D

Anyway, we are getting nowhere here, we already agreed that it's up to TB, and everything that might influence his opinion has already been said, I think.

zzo38

01-31-2009, 10:03 PM

I'd say use a noncommercial license that keeps ownership of the original, doesn't require modders to release their source, but that requires a prominent link to the original ADOM on the title screen.Errm, do you know such a license? I hope you don't suggest TB creates one, because that would mean you had no idea what you were talking about.There is the Floodgap license, but I don't like that one. One possible better way is license by GNU GPL version 3 or later version, or use a dual-license allowing you to select either the free as in speech license or the free as in beer license, at your choice. It is also worth trademarking, so if someone selects the GNU GPL and does sell it, then they might have to rename it and remove some trademarked stuff first before selling it (and it also requires you to release the source-codes as well because you are using the GNU GPL)

Elone

02-02-2009, 05:19 AM

Who are you? How did you get in here? What has ADOM wronged you, that you want to reach your goal at any price? All while hiding behind various types of licences in virtually each post of yours?

xerophile

02-09-2009, 05:27 PM

Ok, Thomas, here's the thing: You could be free. You could let this thing go, and it would be loved and nourished by a supportive and intelligent community of dedicated players. You wouldn't have to walk around with this nagging feeling that the project isn't done, that there are still bugs, that it isn't everything it could have been.

This game is a big project, and a big responsibility for you. I've played for years and I have this sense that it is as close as current roguelike games have come to perfection. There are still loose ends, though, and it seems like you have too many responsibilities to continue to support it, and that it has fallen from your list of priorities.

Nevertheless, I totally understand your hesitation. ADOM is a beautiful creation. It is engrossing, thorough, and immersive. You should be intensely proud of what you have created. As things stand, though, the game is being held stagnant.

The only way for this game to survive long-term is to allow it to continue adapting. I would be happy to see you doing this, or see the roguelike community continuing your vision. What you have made here will not be lost when other people step in.

People have waited for nearly a decade for news of any kind of development with this game. That's a true measure of the extent to which this game can grip the player. If this code is released, the news of it will completely sweep the roguelike community. No one will talk about anything else for months. Long-time players will swarm back. The game will live on, and you will be free.

I really do think it's the right thing to do, but ultimately, this game is the creation of your ingenuity and vision, and it's up to you to do what's best to ensure the survival of that vision, or to let it lie as-is.

My personal opinion is that it is a shame to hoard the source of something so amazing when the game could continue to grow. I get the impression that this is a common opinion. Either way, though, you have the respect of the community.

Silfir

02-09-2009, 07:38 PM

Thank you, xerophile. You apparently signed up because you needed to say this, and it shows. The only thing left for me to do is agree. Enthusiastically.

sbumps

02-09-2009, 08:28 PM

I think ADOM code should be opened.

The two arguments against opening the code with the most plausible reasoning (for me) are the cheating/spoiled secrets effect and then "Those Variants." (Du dum dum!)

ADOM has kept its secrets for a long while. I remember playing 0.9.3 and reading the guides available then - some of the things about it haven't been solved to this day. The roguelike players of today have had a long many years of time to enjoy the puzzles provided by ADOM. It's as good time as there ever will be to unveil the dirty details.

Cheating seems easy enough even without the source code, though. I don't think much will happen in that department.

About the possible variants -- Angband has its merry household, born from that community's efforts of creating such a forking development plan. On the other hand, I don't know much about Nethack variants. There's SLASH and SLASH'EM, but that's about it. At least I don't remember any of the rest by name. (Some years back I actively tried a lot of Nethack versions) If there's a billion random slapstick variants of Nethack around, good for them.

Having run into Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, it kind of made me stop and think about the discussion in this forum subsection here. They've developed so much, and so interesting things into the game. When I think about ADOM having that kind of future...

I don't suggest ripping autoexplore or dungeon generation routines from DCSS to ADOM. Just from having access to the code, supplied with thinking minds, and in a common world-wide forum for everyone, a sort of programming photosyntesis can start to take place.

Okay, when I search for DCSS spoilers, there's the occasional list copied from the code. I blame myself for looking at spoilers.

Jokkey

02-11-2009, 12:31 AM

Epythic

02-11-2009, 08:39 AM

Personally, I think that opening the source code would be a good idea, as long as either TB or an appointed dev team provides a strong sense of direction. I see little risk of variants; Angband encourages them in every way (code, documentation, culture, and community), while ADOM discourages them in every way.
Actually, one might extend this concept of a "dev team" to the whole community: say, nothing goes into mainline until consensus was established on a development mailing list (or forum category or something). I think "we", as a community, have a fairly precise idea of what ADOM is. For tricky cases, TB-or-whoever-he-appoints has veto rights.

...or under NDA...
I pretty much doubt TB will want to go that road. "International law" is a tricky thing, and even if we were all Germans (I have an advantage here :)) I believe an NDA would be *practically* unenforcable.

EDIT: I think you are all focusing a little too much on the legal aspect - that won't stop the wrongdoers (here (http://adomgb.sweb.cz/) or there (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=789)). What stops them is the community standing behind TB, and that's how it should be.
EDIT 2: Follow the second link, then search for "adom-admin". No hits. What does that tell us?</rhetorical question>

EchoingZen

02-13-2009, 03:49 PM

The Facts
* Releasing the source code will result in many variants, some amazing and some just too silly.
* The mechanics of the game will be in full view.

I understand why you hesitate to release the source code and I feel for you, but do not feel like your work will be diminished because someone made a silly variant. It won't. We all know who the gave many of us so many hours of joy (too many?). Even today when I play Angband, I ignore all the variants and play the real thing. People know which is the real deal and which is not. Sometimes these silly variants come up with stuff that is wonderful, and that can be incorperated into the core game.

I understand you wanted to keep the mechanics of the game under lock and keep, but this has always been a sore spot with me. Some people get enjoyment from the mechanics (myself being one). I like to optimize my characters using game mechanics. Releasing the source code will not spoil the mystery for everyone, just everyone who doesn't want the mystery in the first play.

If for nothing else, release the source code for the bug fixes alone. I hate when ADOM crashes when ever I create a Skilled character.

Whatever you choose, I would like to thank you for the many years of enjoyment you have given me. All these expensive video games I have stacked behind me do not even come close. What is it that these young kids say these days? "You da man"?

Elone

02-18-2009, 10:33 PM

Wow, lots of people signed up just to say their own word or two on this topic. The community is bigger than it seems, as there are many other invisible users who like to read the forums or just play the game. It seems that a lot people strongly desires this code (even people who were quiet all this time), and all of their hopes will sink if TB says "no". But I dont think he will say "no". Tho I dont think he will say "yes" either.

jaked122

03-11-2009, 07:59 PM

TB there will be pros and cons, you must just hope that the pros outnumber the cons, so please just release the source code so this debate can be over, the people on the other side of the debate wouldn't loose anything, and it can't do too much harm

F50

03-11-2009, 10:53 PM

I guess I just don't understand the variants thing, since the vast majority of the software I use is open-source and very few of those programs have been forked (I think xorg and wine are the only ones and wine is the original branch).

However, if TB wants to be absolutely sure no one will fork, then I would just write a license that centralizes the code. Sort of like CC-noderives, except derivative works are encouraged to be sent to TB and a team of trusted coders. Not open-source, but still released-source. I for one would really like to try to fix the "skilled" talent line so I can get some To for my weaker classes.

I agree with some of the previous posters that wanting a free bugfix team is not egoistical at all. I would like to see that, actually. Given a chance, I would even like to participate (ADOM is written in C, right?).

Al-Khwarizmi

04-12-2009, 03:29 PM

Wow, incredible, I spend four months without looking at the site and THIS thread appears.

Like other people, I'm somewhat ambivalent about this. I think releasing the source is better for ADOM and for everyone, but it's a pity that the remaining mysteries will be uncovered. I don't think the issue with the variants is a problem, because as other people has said, people won't be interested in them. Furthermore, you can use a license like the Apache license which reserves the name (people can modify the source, but their modifications *cannot* be called ADOM). There are more free licenses than the GPL under the sun.

Anyway, if you don't release it, please, please, make the code available to some select group of people, even if it's under NDA. We would like to see bugfixes, ports, and translations. As I told you some time ago, I would be willing to work on a Spanish translation under NDA. It's a pity that things like this can't be made available to allow ADOM to reach more players.

Epythic

04-12-2009, 08:15 PM

I would be willing to work on a Spanish translation

No chance you'd get anywhere. If I remember correctly, Spanish has those weird letters (accents and all that; a little bit like our german umlauts (?????? and of course the ?)) - which means you'd need unicode support, and I pretty much doubt adom has this.

And even if it was possible technically - it would be quite a lot of work. Just think about the mad minstrel songs, and the fortune cookies.

Fell free to prove me wrong, though.

On the other hand: I think the fact that there is "only" an english version is good, because:
- it keeps us together: there are not *that* many ADOM players; and now imagine there were x forums for y languages... You'd have to localize monster and item names and so on, and that would mean that we couldn't really communicate with each other. Bad, bad, bad.
- besides, I really like that ADOM is english. Not only because I like English much more than German (my mother tongue), but also because ADOM was basically my first contact with "real" english (ok, ADOM's english is pretty weird sometimes; shakespearean one might say - at least that's how they called this style in school. But I digress.), and it got me interested in the language.

Al-Khwarizmi

04-12-2009, 09:16 PM

No chance you'd get anywhere. If I remember correctly, Spanish has those weird letters (accents and all that; a little bit like our german umlauts (?????? and of course the ?)) - which means you'd need unicode support, and I pretty much doubt adom has this.

Hmm. It might be a problem, or it might not, I don't know. It is possible to build DOS/console applications with accented characters, but I don't know if the libraries that TB uses support them, or if they can be modified to support them.

On the other hand: I think the fact that there is "only" an english version is good, because:
- it keeps us together: (...)

I would personally not play the translation, I'd prefer the original version. The problem is that, in Spanish-speaking countries, there are lots of people with really crappy English. For many people, this is a serious issue that can prevent them from trying a game. Many times I have been encouraging Spanish people to try roguelikes in general or ADOM in particular, and everything goes well until I say they're in English...

Anyway, bug fixes and ensuring future compatibility are more important reasons to opensource ADOM than the possibility of such a translation.

Epythic

04-12-2009, 10:06 PM

The problem is that, in Spanish-speaking countries, there are lots of people with really crappy English.
Same goes for most other countries; I know your problem.

For many people, this is a serious issue that can prevent them from trying a game. Many times I have been encouraging Spanish people to try roguelikes in general or ADOM in particular, and everything goes well until I say they're in English...
I see your point, but I still don't think offering them a translation is the right way.
I fear the translation would never, ever reach the quality of the original thing.

Covenant

04-13-2009, 03:28 AM

Same goes for most other countries; I know your problem.

I see your point, but I still don't think offering them a translation is the right way.
I fear the translation would never, ever reach the quality of the original thing.

The writing is far and away not what makes ADOM special. Hell, Khelevaster's dialogue in particular stands out in my mind as making the supposed venerable old sage sound like a country bumpkin, and giving him the amulet always jarrs a little for me.

The descriptions of the monsters are nice, but they're very much an 'aside' rather than an integral feature. Ditto things like all the 'Chat' responses you get from monsters; they wouldn't really need to be translated, at least for an initial version.

I could understand your statement if you were talking about something where the wording is its great strength (you mentioned Shakespeare earlier), but I personally doubt anything would be lost if a moderately fluent speaker of English were to translate the game.

I'd like to see translations of ADOM available - it would be a bit exclusionist of me to wish otherwise.

vogonpoet

04-13-2009, 10:25 AM

The in game mini-FAQ seems to suggest that multiple language support for ADOM would require serious amounts of work on the source code, rather than just translation of in game text

sgeos

04-30-2009, 10:24 AM

No chance you'd get anywhere. If I remember correctly, Spanish has those weird letters (accents and all that; a little bit like our german umlauts (?????? and of course the ?)) - which means you'd need unicode support
French speakers prefer to have accents, but they can get by without them. I suspect Spanish speakers are the same. I suspect many of them would prefer no accents to English.

And even if it was possible technically - it would be quite a lot of work. Just think about the mad minstrel songs, and the fortune cookies.
Bah. This is all translation work that has no technical implications if ASCII is used. Although there is are a fair amount of messages to translate, none of it is difficult translation work and the amount of text is finite.

On the other hand: I think the fact that there is "only" an english version is good, because:
- it keeps us together: there are not *that* many ADOM players; and now imagine there were x forums for y languages...
This is a xenophobic argument. Are you actually afraid of growing numbers of Spanish ADOM players? Are you afraid of them if you don't deal with them now and you would not deal with them on a Spanish ADOM newsgroup?

You'd have to localize monster and item names and so on,
Not a big deal. A full time translator can typically pull off ~2000 words per day, so I imagine monsters and items would be translated more or less instantly. The amount of text is finite, as ADOM is not being actively developed, so I imagine we could use a calculator to get a rough estimate of the amount of time it would take to translate it.

and that would mean that we couldn't really communicate with each other.
Not true. I play games in Japanese and I am used to referencing both English and Japanese material. I have no trouble communicating with English or Japanese players and they have no trouble communicating with me. This is not a problem. (How many languages can you communicate in?)

I fear the translation would never, ever reach the quality of the original thing.
This fear is unfounded. Go out and talk to people. There are people out there who have native bilingual language skills. Have more faith in other people.

The writing is far and away not what makes ADOM special.
It is certainly not impossible to translate. Treating it like the Qur'an in this regard is just silly.

The in game mini-FAQ seems to suggest that multiple language support for ADOM would require serious amounts of work on the source code, rather than just translation of in game text
The thing is, localizable text is a problem that has been solved, and the solution is simple. This should be no harder to implement than any other feature. From the arguments given, the opposition to localization seems to either be lack of knowledge of the solution, or lack of desire for localizations. If the real reason is that localizations are not a priority, I wish that would just be stated honestly instead of trying to pretend that an insurmountable technical limitation is preventing localization. Go see how Google Android apps handle strings (they use a single XML file).

To localize ADOM, the piecemeal messages ("The foo", "attacks", "and", "misses") would need to be replaced with static messages ("#THE_MONSTER() attacks and misses.", "#THE_MONSTER() attacks and hits for #X() damage.", ...) that are dispatched when the final piece of piecemeal version would have been printed. These modifications would not be hard for someone who has the time to go in and permute all possible messages (using message tags, like #THE_MONSTER(), to keep the number of permutations reasonable). Also, all inline strings would need to replaced with string IDs.

Epythic

04-30-2009, 12:12 PM

French speakers prefer to have accents, but they can get by without them. I suspect Spanish speakers are the same. I suspect many of them would prefer no accents to English.
Still, that would look amateurish. I get a headache everytimes someone writes... dunno, "Gruesse" (greetings) instead of "Gr??e". A friend of mine types on an english keyboard, nearly all texts he writes have this problem. It's ugly.

This is a xenophobic argument. Are you actually afraid of growing numbers of Spanish ADOM players? Are you afraid of them if you don't deal with them now and you would not deal with them on a Spanish ADOM newsgroup?
Huh? No, I'm not afraid of spanish ADOM players. I'm afraid that the already small group of roguelike-players might get separated by the use of different languages.

I don't want a german translation either.

so I imagine we could use a calculator to get a rough estimate of the amount of time it would take to translate it.

$ strings Adom_winbeta4.exe | wc
24391 159248 971344
$ man wc | head -n 6 | tail -n 1
wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file

In any case, one man made it, so it should be possible for another man to translate it. Still, probably a lot of effort. Do you know a "professional translator" who'd be willing to do a full-time job for free? No? So it's gonna take a *bit* longer. And remember, there are quite a number of languages...

Not true. I play games in Japanese and I am used to referencing both English and Japanese material. I have no trouble communicating with English or Japanese players and they have no trouble communicating with me. This is not a problem. (How many languages can you communicate in?)

FYI, I only use three languages (german, english, french). Well, actually, forget about french.
When playing german games I often have the problem that I don't know the english names, and vice versa.

This fear is unfounded. Go out and talk to people. There are people out there who have native bilingual language skills. Have more faith in other people.
Of course there are such people, but face it, they are a minority.

And then, if there are no problems - why make localized versions at all?

It is certainly not impossible to translate. Treating it like the Qur'an in this regard is just silly.
Ok, I got that point.

The thing is, localizable text is a problem that has been solved, and the solution is simple. This should be no harder to implement than any other feature. From the arguments given, the opposition to localization seems to either be lack of knowledge of the solution, or lack of desire for localizations. If the real reason is that localizations are not a priority, I wish that would just be stated honestly instead of trying to pretend that an insurmountable technical limitation is preventing localization. Go see how Google Android apps handle strings (they use a single XML file).

I never said that it was impossible due to technical limitations. But still, they are there and have to be worked around.

Besides:
1. you have a problem
2. you decide to use XML
3. now you have two problems.

To localize ADOM, the piecemeal messages ("The foo", "attacks", "and", "misses") would need to be replaced with static messages ("#THE_MONSTER() attacks and misses.", "#THE_MONSTER() attacks and hits for #X() damage.", ...) that are dispatched when the final piece of piecemeal version would have been printed. These modifications would not be hard for someone who has the time to go in and permute all possible messages (using message tags, like #THE_MONSTER(), to keep the number of permutations reasonable). Also, all inline strings would need to replaced with string IDs.
Thanks, but I know how it's done technically.

You already named one big problem: development time.

Here's another problem that might or might not be related to adom: the use of male/female/plural... word forms, and articles. Not a problem in english, where you simply write "the". But french (le/la/les...) ? I'd probably get it wrong, so I don't give an example.

Silfir

04-30-2009, 08:36 PM

How about German? Der, die, das? And the different plural endings? -er, -en, -n, none at all, -e with an umlaut in the word, -er with an umlaut in the word? The totally different sentence structures at times?

I can't really add much more about this. There's a load of translation work needed. It's not impossible to have very widespread localization - Battle for Wesnoth for instance has more languages than one could possible make use of, some included just for novelty. It IS fortunate that most of the people who do translations are people who can't contribute to most of the other aspects anyway. So yeah, if open-source ADOM becomes a reality, a translation project might be something. I imagine sgeos will be first in line to modify all the language code to produce perfect French, Spanish, German, Russian sentences, and someone will figure out how to put other ASCII tables in...

EDIT: I'm playing German Wesnoth right now. I keep groaning at the translation - it's mostly perfect, but sometimes the words they chose for important stuff just doesn't fit right. "Einberufen" for "recall"? It doesn't even make sense, since "Einberufen" is closer to "draft", and you don't draft units with this - you really do recall units you had in previous scenarios with this - you don't draft them! "Ausbilden" doesn't hit "recruit" either - it should really be "Rekrutieren". "Ausbilden" is "train". Training and recruiting are more or less the same, but really only more or less.

And then there's "Waldkenntnis" for "ambush", where they tried to be smarter than the English version and ended up introducing an extremely silly-sounding word instead of just going with "Hinterhalt" like they should have.

This is part of what I fear when it comes to translation quality - these quirks are the result of a lot of translators arguing over different forms of translation and ending up going with strange compromises. With one guy with the final say over the translation ist just sounds a lot more coherent.

EDIT: And rangers are "Waldhüter"? Are these guys serious? What, I dare you, was wrong with "Waldläufer"? ("Waldläufer" is basically a "woodstrider", while a "Waldhüter" is a "woodkeeper". Yeah, like goalkeeper. In fact, goal is "Tor", and goalkeeper is "Torhüter".) They made Aragorn a "Waldläufer" when they translated Lord of the Rings. In just about any translation of any fantasy work that includes rangers, they go with "Waldläufer". And you go with "Waldhüter"? Aragorn is a fucking goalkeeper? You are silly and I hate you all. I think I'm going back to English soon, but not just yet. Haven't amused myself enough :)

Sradac

05-01-2009, 03:09 PM

sgeos

05-01-2009, 03:16 PM

Go play something in your language and leave us alone.
Overtly xenophobic. Why would it bother you if someone translated ADOM, played it and left you alone?

This is part of what I fear when it comes to translation quality - these quirks are the result of a lot of translators arguing over different forms of translation and ending up going with strange compromises. With one guy with the final say over the translation ist just sounds a lot more coherent.
My personal philosophy is that for a top quality translation, you want 3 passes done by 3 different people. (This is more for high quality paid translation, but I think some of the same principles apply to free volunteer translation as well.)
Pass 1: Translation from source to target language by a native of the source language.
Pass 2: Retranslation from source to target language by a native of the target language.
Pass 3: Editing by an expert of the target language.

Naturally, all the people communicate and the result of the previous pass is used as the base for the next one. The goal of pass one is to make sure all of the subtle implications in the orginal text are included in the resulting translation. The goal of the second pass is to make sure that translation is fluent with correct grammar, etc. The goal of the third pass is to make sure that the final translation is consistent and of high quality.

So yeah, if open-source ADOM becomes a reality, a translation project might be something. I imagine sgeos will be first in line to modify all the language code to produce perfect French, Spanish, German, Russian sentences, and someone will figure out how to put other ASCII tables in...
Given input from the translators. I'm not familiar with the complete set of requirements for French, Spanish, German, or Russian sentences as I only speak English and Japanese. I do know that Korean grammar is more or less identical to Japanese grammar, and that Chinese grammar is very simple.

$ strings Adom_winbeta4.exe | wc
24391 159248 971344
$ man wc | head -n 6 | tail -n 1
wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file

I assume that that means there are ~160,000 words of text to translate? If so, the back of the envelope estimate is that a translation will take 80 full time days or about 640 hours (4 months full time; one third of a year). This is only the translation; it does not include externalizing strings, preparing the files to be translated, reworking the text display system, dealing with characterset issues, testing, or anything else. Note that this is for a single language translation, and each language translation should take about this long.

Note that 640 hours assumes that none of the material has already been translated. There may be some partial ADOM translations out there that have not be released in an executable. Here is a Japanese ADOM wiki that contains translations for many strings in the game:
http://adom.mine.nu/index.php?FrontPage

In any case, one man made it, so it should be possible for another man to translate it. Still, probably a lot of effort. Do you know a "professional translator" who'd be willing to do a full-time job for free? No? So it's gonna take a *bit* longer. And remember, there are quite a number of languages...
This is a defeatist attitude. Yes, I know professional level translators who have translated things they are interested in for free. Yes, they need to coordinate translations with real life so they can not put in eight hours a day. No, I don't know a Spanish or French translator, but if there is enough interest from either of those groups, I trust one is out there.

This is Japanese where some people are talking about the impossibility of making a Japanese version of ADOM because it is closed source:
http://jbbs.livedoor.jp/bbs/read.cgi/game/9358/1073979503/l50

They even have a translated version of the ADOM manual:
http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~pillars/

If, given the source code, some Japanese are confident in their ability to deal with characterset issues, I suspect the European characterset issues would be that much easier to deal with.

Re: ASCII for French or Spanish

Still, that would look amateurish.
The point was that although it is not an ideal solution, it is an immediate solution. Given the current technical limitations of ADOM, a French or Spanish translation is possible (although Japanese is not). I don't know anything about making French or Spanish console applications, but I'm sure somebody out there does. I'm sure somebody could around the characterset issue. I'm also sure this is easy to do if you know the solution. (IIRC, kterm exists under linux for displaying kanji, so I suspect ADOM could be ported to run under kterm for Japanese, and similar things Chinese, Korean and the like.)

Huh? No, I'm not afraid of spanish ADOM players. I'm afraid that the already small group of roguelike-players might get separated by the use of different languages.
Why would a growing number of ADOM/roguelike players be a problem? The English speaking players are playing the existing English version, so localized versions would be for people who are non-English speakers. I don't see what the problem is.

RE: bilinguals

Of course there are such people, but face it, they are a minority.
This serves to weaken the case of foreigners destroying your community even more. Yes, they are a minority, but you only need one person who is willing and able to do the job and you get a translation. It is not a matter of, "how many bilinguals could do the translation", but rather a case of "is there some to do an X language translation". If enough people who speak that language are interested, the answer will be yes, and there is not a problem. If there are not enough people interested to get a translator, then it is not a problem because there is no real interest.

Besides:
1. you have a problem
2. you decide to use XML
3. now you have two problems.
This is an XML-phobic response. My point was that Google Android applications have built in localizability. The problem has been solved. Google pulled it off by externaling the string and putting them in one file. It happened to be an XML file, but the file type is neither here nor there.

Here's another problem that might or might not be related to adom: the use of male/female/plural... word forms, and articles. Not a problem in english, where you simply write "the". But french (le/la/les...) ? I'd probably get it wrong, so I don't give an example.
False. This is a problem in English. The articles "a" and "an" are used depending on whether or not the first letter of a word makes a vowel sound or not. When I was being paid to do this kind of work, we implemented an article system that went hand in hand with the message tag system the game used. Each item and monster had an article and a singular name and a plural name ("an", "apple", "apples"; "a", "goblin", "goblins"; "a", "sheep", "sheep") and messages used tags like #AN_ITEM(), #THE_ITEM(), or #X_ITEMS() to drop the correct language into the message.

"You found #X_ITEMS(p0, p1).", ITEM_APPLE, 0 -> "You found no apples."
"You found #X_ITEMS(p0, p1).", ITEM_SWORD, 1 -> "You found a sword."
"You found #X_ITEMS(p0, p1).", ITEM_APPLE, 1 -> "You found an apple."
"You found #X_ITEMS(p0, p1).", ITEM_SWORD, 3 -> "You found 3 swords."

Naturally, this is only a problem for dynamic parameters because everything else can just use a static translation.

I never said that it was impossible due to technical limitations. But still, they are there and have to be worked around.
No, but people seem to be acting like ADOM is not being localized due to insurmountable technical limitations when this is complete nonsense.

You already named one big problem: development time.
Development time is one of the only legitimate reasons I can think of for abandoning a localization effort. Naturally, if ADOM were open sourced, this problem would disappear. It seems that technical limitations, and a few other excuses are cited as the reason when development time and lack of interest is the real reason.

Covenant

05-01-2009, 04:05 PM

I say why bother translating. ADOM is fine the way it is, its a game written in english. If someone wants to play it that bad, they better go learn english. Dont want to/ cant? Go play something in your language and leave us alone. ADOM has done fine its entire life being in english.

I'm English myself, so I have no problem playing ADOM in that language, but I honestly find that statement a little offensive.

EDIT: Had a moment of near-apocalyptic stupidity where I almost volunteered myself to help with translation as I was an expert on one target language (due to academic qualifications). That target language being English.

Epythic

05-01-2009, 04:28 PM

Overtly xenophobic. Why would it bother you if someone translated ADOM, played it and left you alone?
Would you please stop accusing people of being xenophobic?
For the reasons I laid out to you. See above. (Heres one of them, in a short form: splitting the community into tiny fractions).

My personal philosophy is that for a top quality translation, you want 3 passes done by 3 different people. (This is more for high quality paid translation, but I think some of the same principles apply to free volunteer translation as well.)
Pass 1: Translation from source to target language by a native of the source language.
Pass 2: Retranslation from source to target language by a native of the target language.
Pass 3: Editing by an expert of the target language.
In the F/OSS world it usually works different:
- write patch.
- have patch reviewed by N other persons.
- apply patch.

Naturally, all the people communicate and the result of the previous pass is used as the base for the next one. The goal of pass one is to make sure all of the subtle implications in the orginal text are included in the resulting translation. The goal of the second pass is to make sure that translation is fluent with correct grammar, etc. The goal of the third pass is to make sure that the final translation is consistent and of high quality.
Problem is, that triples the dev time. Do you have the manpower to do this? Where?

I assume that that means there are ~160,000 words of text to translate? If so, the back of the envelope estimate is that a translation will take 80 full time days or about 640 hours (4 months full time; one third of a year). This is only the translation; it does not include externalizing strings, preparing the files to be translated, reworking the text display system, dealing with characterset issues, testing, or anything else. Note that this is for a single language translation, and each language translation should take about this long.
This is exactly my point. It would be a LOT of work. Work that only a small number of players would benefit from, work that a number of other players would not like to see.

Note that 640 hours assumes that none of the material has already been translated. There may be some partial ADOM translations out there that have not be released in an executable. Here is a Japanese ADOM wiki that contains translations for many strings in the game:
http://adom.mine.nu/index.php?FrontPage
Won't help you, doing the actual translation is not what takes most of the time. I think.

This is a defeatist attitude. Yes, I know professional level translators who have translated things they are interested in for free.
But then, roguelikes are a niche market. The translation would be basically for nothing, wouldnt it?

If, given the source code, some Japanese are confident in their ability to deal with characterset issues, I suspect the European characterset issues would be that much easier to deal with.
I guess you have no idea what you are talking about.

(IIRC, kterm exists under linux for displaying kanji, so I suspect ADOM could be ported to run under kterm for Japanese, and similar things Chinese, Korean and the like.)
kterm is just a terminal emulator. Implementing it in a program is trickier.

ASCII: 1 char = 1 byte.
Unicode: 1 char = 1 number.
Utf-8: 1 char = 1 to 2 bytes.

That just as an overview. You can't just put in a unicode string and be done with it.

Why would a growing number of ADOM/roguelike players be a problem? The English speaking players are playing the existing English version, so localized versions would be for people who are non-English speakers. I don't see what the problem is.
The problem is that currently, players are forced to play the english version, but having different (localized) versions would allow the players to get away from the english version. Bad, bad.

This serves to weaken the case of foreigners destroying your community even more. Yes, they are a minority, but you only need one person who is willing and able to do the job and you get a translation. It is not a matter of, "how many bilinguals could do the translation", but rather a case of "is there some to do an X language translation". If enough people who speak that language are interested, the answer will be yes, and there is not a problem. If there are not enough people interested to get a translator, then it is not a problem because there is no real interest.
First of all, you don't need to be a bilingual person to be able to translate something. I think I'd be capable of doing an English->German translation, given enough time.
But then: find someone who'd do it first. It would be a lot of work, for basically nothing. Time that I could spend elsewhere. But I repeat myself.

This is an XML-phobic response. My point was that Google Android applications have built in localizability. The problem has been solved. Google pulled it off by externaling the string and putting them in one file. It happened to be an XML file, but the file type is neither here nor there.
"-phobic" is your favourite suffix, aint it? :)
Actually that was intended as some kind of joke, to reduce the tension. Obviously my attempt failed.
[Although I really dislike XML]

False. This is a problem in English. The articles "a" and "an" are used depending on whether or not the first letter of a word makes a vowel sound or not. When I was being paid to do this kind of work, we implemented an article system that went hand in hand with the message tag system the game used. Each item and monster had an article and a singular name and a plural name ("an", "apple", "apples"; "a", "goblin", "goblins"; "a", "sheep", "sheep") and messages used tags like #AN_ITEM(), #THE_ITEM(), or #X_ITEMS() to drop the correct language into the message.
Wonderful. </sarcasm>

No, but people seem to be acting like ADOM is not being localized due to insurmountable technical limitations when this is complete nonsense.
Technical and social limitations. I wont repeat myself again here.

Naturally, if ADOM were open sourced, this problem would disappear.
Open source != free developers.

And heres another point that might be a problem: what does TB think about this? I could imagine that he wouldn't like it...

Sradac

05-01-2009, 05:22 PM

Covenant

05-01-2009, 06:25 PM

Im not complaining that those ones arent english and demanding they be translated, so no one else should do the same towards adom.

(Non-English Speaker) Okwonko: 'Wow, this Shakespeare seems like a pretty cool guy (he kills Romeo and isn't afraid of anything) - I'd like to read his works. I'll see if there's a version available in the language of Umuofia... Oh, there isn't. I hope someone translates it soon, I deserve to be able to read them just as much as anyone else.'

Sradac: 'Don't make such a big deal out of it! Just go read some Marlowe plays, it's all the same. It's not worth the effort of translating it - be happy with what you've got.

Look at me, you don't see me complaining about not being able to read... Well, there isn't much I can't read because lucky for me the rest of the world caters to English speakers, so I have a much wider selection available than someone like you. But I wouldn't complain. So don't you complain!

If you really want to read it, go learn the language yourself. It's not like I've ever read or watched anything that's been translated from its original language for my benefit. Japanese films/games? Hell no, I don't play those. The Bible? Never heard of it! Games developed on a different OS than my own but then ported to the one I use? THEY DON'T EXIST!'

Look, the point is, Shakespeare's works have done great all this time not being available in your language - so go away. We don't need your kind here.'

Maybe I'm extrapolating incorrectly, but in my opinion that's entirely how you've portrayed yourself.

Seriously Sradac, I find your comments abhorrent, and entirely xenophobic.

Epythic

05-01-2009, 07:13 PM

Seriously Sradac, I find your comments abhorrent, and entirely xenophobic.
I side with Sradac here.

But then, this is becoming a full-blown flamewar. I don't like that. I will not be doing another post in this thread [I hope], and my final comment shall be that I am against and will not support any ADOM translation project, but what others do is not my call.

Note to self: STOP.

Covenant

05-01-2009, 07:34 PM

But then, this is becoming a full-blown flamewar.

That wasn't my intention. I recognise my post was perhaps a little reactionary. I don't want to start an argument, and I'm happy to leave it; the posts just evoked very unpleasant connotations to me.

Sradac

05-01-2009, 08:42 PM

(Non-English Speaker) Okwonko: 'Wow, this Shakespeare seems like a pretty cool guy (he kills Romeo and isn't afraid of anything) - I'd like to read his works. I'll see if there's a version available in the language of Umuofia... Oh, there isn't. I hope someone translates it soon, I deserve to be able to read them just as much as anyone else.'

Sradac: 'Don't make such a big deal out of it! Just go read some Marlowe plays, it's all the same. It's not worth the effort of translating it - be happy with what you've got.

Look at me, you don't see me complaining about not being able to read... Well, there isn't much I can't read because lucky for me the rest of the world caters to English speakers, so I have a much wider selection available than someone like you. But I wouldn't complain. So don't you complain!

If you really want to read it, go learn the language yourself. It's not like I've ever read or watched anything that's been translated from its original language for my benefit. Japanese films/games? Hell no, I don't play those. The Bible? Never heard of it! Games developed on a different OS than my own but then ported to the one I use? THEY DON'T EXIST!'

Look, the point is, Shakespeare's works have done great all this time not being available in your language - so go away. We don't need your kind here.'

Maybe I'm extrapolating incorrectly, but in my opinion that's entirely how you've portrayed yourself.

Seriously Sradac, I find your comments abhorrent, and entirely xenophobic.

I 100% have no idea where you were going with any of that. Your ramblings there made no sense. The bible???? Japanese films??? Wth does any of this have to do with translating adom turning into more of a hassle than its worth?? dude go eat some prozac or something.

Throwin an example out here too.

Dante's Inferno.

Anyone that i've encountered that can read italian says there is not a single translation of Dante's Inferno to ANY language that does the book justice, in fact some flat out hurt the book. So again, why bother? Why fix something if its not broke? They say the inferno was perfect in its original form, I say adom is perfect in its original form.

Al-Khwarizmi

05-02-2009, 10:28 AM

not xenophobic at all, but people are making such a huge deal about translating adom, all im saying is it seems to be a heck of a lot more of a job than its worth, there are plenty of non-english roguelikes out there to satisfy people that dont speak/read it. Im not complaining that those ones arent english and demanding they be translated, so no one else should do the same towards adom.

If translating ADOM is worth it or not, is something that the potential translators would have to decide by themselves if the source is released. You seem to be acting as if someone were asking you (or other people) to translate ADOM, when no one has done that. In fact, this flamewar started because I said that I would personally be willing to devote time to translate ADOM to Spanish, if the source were available. So if I think that's something worthwile to do with my time, that's my problem, not anyone else's.

About the comments that consider that translating ADOM would be harmful... well, I wouldn't call them xenophobic, but they are extremely egocentric. How can opening something to more people be harmful? I don't really think it would split the community, because people who know English would still prefer the original version, and people who don't know English are just not playing. But even if it did split the community, so what? It would create more communities and more people playing the game. Preventing people who don't know English from playing ADOM just because you don't want to give foreigners other forums to go to, so that they stay here, sounds really egocentric to me.

Seeing that you cite Dante's Inferno, you should know that it has been an inspiration and an influence for lots of relevant works, including many British and American works ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_and_his_Divine_Comedy_in_popular_culture ). Of course, many of these were from authors that cannot read Italian (and thus were reading a translation).

Grey

05-02-2009, 12:36 PM

If you guys are going to have this extended discussion dancing around the issue of translating ADOM then I suggest someone starts a new thread instead of hijacking this one.

gut

05-03-2009, 08:19 PM

I'm 100% with Covenant.

*not that it matters in the slightest*

sgeos

05-06-2009, 08:45 AM

If you guys are going to have this extended discussion dancing around the issue of translating ADOM then I suggest someone starts a new thread instead of hijacking this one.
Done. Please post any follow up comments regarding translation in the new thread.

mike3

05-09-2009, 07:24 AM

Technical and social limitations. I wont repeat myself again here.

So why would you deliberately not support someone who decided to take on the work to challenge these technical limits? Who decided to be the "unfree" developer? What harm would they be doing challenging them?

Gnoman

06-19-2009, 08:05 AM

One of the problems with open-sourcing the code is the question of what "bugs" are fixed. Hitherto, we've been able to accept pretty much any change, because ADOM is ultimately the product of one man's vison, albiet a vision that takes into accont the advice of a vast many others. If doesn't crash the game, the community will have toruble accepting it as a bug unless TB says it is. THus, I'm unsure how much good releasing it will actually do.

Regarding the "Angband effect," there's a number of factors that ought to migitate against it happening to ADOM.

Setting: ADOM has it's own unique setting. The only fans of that setting are themselves ADOM players. Angband is directly based on Tolkien, where most of the Tolkien references in ADOM are subtle. About a third of the variants I'm familiar with are intended to adjust it to better fit that setting. Another third of them are meant to tie it to a different setting altogether.

Development: By the time it became Angband, the fgame had already gone through two or three previous incarnations (four if you count the original Rouge) by different developers. That means that there were a niber of different visons in play before there was a single band variant. ADOM has only ever been developed by one man. While other games influenced it, it was not based off of any of them directly, as far as I know.

Flavor: Adom's flavor is extremely distinct. It's one of a very few rouglikes that does not feel like either a 'hack or a 'band. That flavor is what draws the fans of the game, who are the ones most likely to edit it for reason #4.

Difficulty: Open source software tends to lose a great deal of "style" in the code. (By style I mean the individual idiosyncracies in programming structure and methods.) This is because the hundreds of different individual styles would cripple develpoment if a standardized structure was not used. Closed source software that is primarily the work of one person is often crystal clear, to the person who wrote it. To others, it might as well be mud. I don't have any idea how well the ADOM code id documented, but the sheer length of time that it's been in development means that it would probably take weeks, maybe even months, just to figure out what everything does and how its connected. As a basis of comparison, the program RPG maker xp includes scripting support to allow users to add new features of their own devising. In order to make it easier to make sure scripts would not conflict with each other, the staff at the largest forums got a group together to thoroughly document and rewrite the scriptable sections (whic are a small part of the overall program) intending it to have the same effect but be easier to work with. That project took two years. While the situations are not, strictly speaking, analogous, it serves to show how massive an undertaking major work on someone else's code can be. Most people who simply want to create thier own rouglike variant will work in the already well documented codebases.

One possible method of releasing the code would be to seperate ADOM into "Engine" and "Data." The engine would contain things like monster inventory code, level generation algorithms, and combat code, while data would contain things like the monster and item databases, the world map, non-random locations, NPC information, etc. Then the engine gets generally released, while the data is kept restricted, with only the ways in which it interfaces with the engine known. That way, any variant that did get made would have only engine elements in common, so it wouldn;t be a variant anyway, any more than Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a Quake III variant (That particular Medal of Honor uses the Q3 engine.) I have no idea to what degree this is practical or even possible with this particular set of code. I simply suggest ti as an option to consider.

Molach

06-19-2009, 09:35 PM

"the only problem I have with TB having to approve ALL changes for all modifications is, he is basically outsourcing ADOM to people to do his work, and only his work. and they arent getting paid for it."

How much did TB get paid for writing ADOM again? The people doing "this work" should probably get as much as he did...

Being no programmer, just a happy-go-along player (ADOM player, that is)...

* I'd sure like to see bugs squashed
* I could see an extended version of ADOM as something I would play. Occationally. But still, I'd like to be able to always come back to the good ole 1.1.2 (bugfixed) old ADOM.
* Extended version could be...More Areas. More classes/races. More possible levels available. More talents. More class powers (for the new levels). More skills. More abilities and spells to levelled monsters. Extra items/artifacts. More women. Would be fun to be unspoilt again. Nothing really changes, just...gets bigger. ADOMplus. But here cool heads are needed, or we get races like "Dragon" (super everything, breath, and even drop gold when you're killed) and items like "Artifact spear Slayer" (10d24 +20 +20, slays everything, penetrates, is vampiric but without the nasty align loss and is obviously one-handed) and monsters like "Space Alien" (which is just silly).
* Anything done must meet the Creators approval before being ...approved. Unofficial work would hopefully be shunned by all respectable gamers. In my ideal world this would work perfectly.

sbumps

02-23-2010, 08:26 AM

races like "Dragon" (super everything, breath, and even drop gold when you're killed) and items like "Artifact spear Slayer" (10d24 +20 +20, slays everything, penetrates, is vampiric but without the nasty align loss and is obviously one-handed) and monsters like "Space Alien" (which is just silly).

Allowing stuff like that isn't a bad thing. It follows a Darwinian evolution, where bad ideas are first tried out, and then they die out. Can you honestly see the ADOM playerbase starting to play with that sort of silly characters equipped with overpowered items on a more permanent basis? Because any fickle variant like that is going to die out right away, if they can't attract a strong following. To mention another game, Dwarf Fortress promotes heavy modding of the game, and on the forums for that game you can see that same evolution take place every day. Weird mods are suggested, maybe even some proof-of-concept is posted, and then a while later no one even remembers seeing something like that. A lot later someone necroes the relevant thread with a "lol i palyed wit yr mod, wen is new verson out?" and someone else might pick up the same idea for another similar project, but that's the extent of it. Flying triangle-headed space monkeys with boiling banana breath attacks aren't ever going to surmount the place of the mainline game.

Then there's the Total Conversion mod, which is a slightly more motivated effort. While someone might cringe on the idea of an ADOM in the Star Wars universe or in a nuclear wasteland with Fallout weaponry, things like that have a couple very important points to them: The amount of work needed to pull off big changes is always beyond enormous, as they mess with game balance. Out of a thousand total conversion mods, one is lucky to survive a year later. If the work made by this developer is not genuinely inventive and enjoyable by a wide range of audience, it will not garner an audience. No one likes to play a bad mod - The developer will be feeling very lonely for a long time as they try to add features and get everything work out. Those few and far between mods that survive to the end of this thorny road are alone worth opening the source code for. This is completely analogous to how many roguelike projects are started all the time and how many of them become something as good as ADOM.

None of that is going to take place too quickly after opening any source, though. It would be a long effort of studying and documenting the source code before anyone got any serious work done. Maybe in a year or two that 1.1.2 bugfix could be released, which then could become a solid base for more ADOM developing. I myself would like to see ADOM ported to Python. :D

Edit: Other than bugfixes, I believe the first "real" enhancements to ADOM source code would be small and functional patches to things that individuals feel strongly about. A bunch of people interested in rocks wander into the same topic and some of them have coding skills -> They start to bounce around ideas to enhance mining and smithing and everything involved. In another corner of the forums you could see a little botanist club arguing whether this or that tree or shrubbery (NI!) should be coded in, and how the different trees would affect the value and power of the items carved from them. A little later someone packs these different projects into a larger umbrella type project for easy installation package over the latest ADOM version - Whatever it's going to be at that time. Perhaps the first bigger project to finish would be something involving graphical tiles.

Universal

02-23-2010, 02:03 PM

Arguing about that is pretty pointless, because now it's almost obvious that Adom sources won't be released.

nathrakh

02-23-2010, 02:09 PM

Arguing about that is pretty pointless, because now it's almost obvious that Adom sources won't be released.

I'm pretty sure they'll be released in a few years. Maybe after JADE gets a stable release.

zzo38

02-26-2010, 12:59 AM

I think ADOM sources should be released after Thomas Biskup loses all hope to work on it more, or is nearly dead, or whatever else other circumstances it might be, also. It should be licensed under GNU GPL or a compatible license (such as BSD license or public domain). This will make it more popular than if it were a different license.

If I get it, I would work on it in three ways.

The "Standard Version" would consist of:
Bug fixes, such as, making it not crash when selected "Skilled", etc. There are other bugs I have also noticed, that I will fix.
A few more command-line options, such as "generate new character", "restore savegame" etc.
Some new configuration options, such as the character/color used to represent doors, and whether walking command can be used while sick/poison/etc. Also I would fix the "Class" option (currently it doesn't work).
Not anything that would change the game rules, or other things too much than what it was intended to be.
Still no graphics.

I myself would like to see ADOM ported to Python.While I would like to see it ported to Forth. So, the second version would be the "Forth Standard Version", which consists of:
Some things would be kept in C, but much of the game logic would now be written in Forth.
The documentation and configuration files would no longer be packed in the executable.
Key bindings, reading configurations, dealing with save-game, displaying the colored text on the screen, etc, would be dealt with by the C program. The Forth interpreter would also be written in C.
New versions of ADOM Forth Standard Version will still be compatible with older save-files that were also created with older versions of ADOM Forth Standard Version, and they would use the old rules, too, with the old save-file. (This is because the compiled Forth codes would be stored in the save-file)
A new command-line option would allow you to select which directory to find the Forth codes, when beginning a new game.
If possible, I would get a note from Thomas Biskup to see if these Forth codes follow the proper rules of ADOM, and an endorsement note would be added that says so. If anyone (including myself) modifies it, the endorsement note would have to be removed. (If Thomas Biskup objects, this is OK, too, there just won't be any such notice and you will have to figure out for yourself, instead.)
Still no graphics. (Although, someone else could program it to have graphics, and still be compatible with the normal version, including the same Forth codes, and so on, although maybe a few additional files might have to be added to select graphics and stuff like that)

And then, the third version, would come: the "Forth Extended Version", which consists of:
The executable file would be the same one as the "Forth Standard Version".
Many new additions to the game.
Option to turn off star signs, and turn off feats selection (so it would be like the older versions that didn't have it), and so on.
Possibly more "D:" levels, up to 100 or 150, maybe.
Fixed scoring system.
Many additional game modes.
Even more other things, including experimental things, possibly.
Still no graphics. (I prefer it without graphics, and so does many other people)
This game might not be called "ADOM" anymore, but something else such as "ZADOM" or whatever, instead. (This is to distinguish from the Forth Standard Version, which is truly ADOM.)
The Forth Standard Version (and maybe even the Standard Version) would still possibly be maintained by you, Thomas Biskup, me, and/or other people, without changing it to a different game. The "true" ADOM game is still good and would still be played and maintained and so on.