From: sander@cwi.nl (Sander Plomp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.hack
Subject: Re: Nethack++ is here!
Date: 16 Dec 92 15:24:39 GMT

tchnd-au@garnet.berkeley.edu (Yuval Oren) writes:

>That's right. Nethack++ is here! Almost 200 new monsters! Over twice
>as many new character classes! Zillions of new objects -- placeable
>traps! Things ripped off from other people, like warning from walking
>on bad stuff, and a list of killed monsters at the end of the game.
>It's new! It's fun! It's here!

It was bound to happen. In one way I'm glad it did. In another I'm not.

When I started playing nethack it was fun. New versions and new spoilers
every few weeks. I read this newsgroup regularly, and with great joy. I
learned new features, new abuses, new tricks. That was over a year ago.

Now look at the FAQ. The last update is from early this year. Updating
only an archive name. When did 3.0j came out? When the last spoiler
list? And it says: do not ask for 3.1, the dev team will announce when
it is ready. I kept my part of the deal, and didn't ask a thing. But
I never heard a thing about 3.1.

I thought about adding some features to nethack. I always postponed it,
partly because 3.1 was due any moment now, cause 3.0j was quite old, or
so I thought. And partly for other reasons. So I waited for 3.1.

I used to play nethack until 3am in the morning, fighting with my
wife about who was next. But lately, I grew bored of 3.0j, I had seen
it, even if I never ascended. I *wanted* new things. rec.games.hack
became boring too, with nothing really new on it too.

Now an unofficial desendant came into existing. I have ftp'ed it a few
minutes ago, and will try it out tonight. There's more exitement in
this newsgroup then there has been for months. And I will now post
this message, with the question I have been tempted to post for months:

TO THE DEV TEAM:

 - how is 3.1 doing
 - when will it be ready
 - what will it contain
 - for god sake, say something!

From how it looks, the dev team tried to much, and the whole project
slowly died, streching out and out and out, until the last syllable of
spoken time. I know of dozens of really nice reorganizations of the
nethack code (switching to C++, programmable monsters, larger dungeon
levels, version independent save/bones format, multi player options,
more flexible levels, cities and places, outdoor levels, better
colour, graphics, and sound support, ... the list goes on and on.)
All very nice, all a lot of work on a program the size of nethack.
Probably the dev team planned too much in too little time. And others
in the end decided not to wait, but to go their own way.

Now there are two different streams, the DEV TEAM and the PLUS PLUS.
I sure hope they come together again in future. But if the dev team
remains silent ...

I know the dev team can probably be reached somewhere, but please,
go public once in a while. 

Now I can imagine the dev team might be a bit upset about some other
people going off with their game. Above all things I want to avoid
a war between the two camps. This is just the way copylefted stuff
is supposed to work; if one source dries up others can take over. The
way of the Hacker, you know.

So what will happen next? Anyone?
-- 
Sander Plomp                                    Internet: Sander.Plomp@cwi.nl
Newsgroups: rec.games.hack