Trunk: rate of change


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

User avatar

Pandemonium Purger

Posts: 1341

Joined: Monday, 24th October 2011, 06:13

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 16:53

Trunk: rate of change

This was offtopic in another thread but somewhat relevant:

twelwe wrote:Too many changes this trunk. Getting impossible to make any meaningful notes comparing to stable because there are so many things flipped upside down. Four new playable races, countless new monsters and mechanics, a complete overhaul of the dungeon itself. Slow down.


The current trunk has got to hold a record for the amount of new stuff and changes that makes it look more like a variant of DCSS than anything. Lite had a multitude of great ideas and changes but most would agree those changes were more deserving to be in a variant than integrated into trunk. Replacing the hunger system with contamination no longer seems like such radical change.

When testing new races, it helps to have a constant with which to compare. Testing something like a regen3/no heal device/guardian spirit package becomes less meaningful the more variables are thrown in the mix, meaning that as more monsters are changes, new hostile mechanics introduced, layouts changed or completely removed and replaced with experimental ideas, the less we are able to make meaningful comparisons to the previous branch.

One thing is clear: there is an incredible motivation to put new and inspired changes into the game. I would suggest to compensate ramping up the development cycle to three or even four releases per year, where the current trend is about two per year. VS and dith could probably alone make a good release, perhaps along with some branch changes like snake. Otherwise I can see people switching from .13 to .14 and having no clue what game they're playing anymore.
seattle washington. friends for life. mods hate on me and devs ignore my posts. creater of exoelfs and dc:pt

For this message the author twelwe has received thanks: 4
Kismet, rebthor, vengefulcarrot, Yermak

Vestibule Violator

Posts: 1500

Joined: Monday, 3rd January 2011, 17:47

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 17:39

Re: Trunk: rate of change

I've been away from DCSS for a bit. Reading up on the sheer number of changes in .14 has been overwhelming.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 18:31

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Well, I suspect many of the changes in question won't actually be in .14, part of the reason for trunk is to try out various changes and see which ones work and which ones fit together.

To the extent that an overabundance of changes makes this more difficult I can see your point, but personally, I haven't find it too hard so far to evaluate the changes which have come in (and gone away, forest branch has been axed for example) as things are. But I play pretty much daily and rebuild my local copy roughly weekly so perhaps I'm not a good example :)
Spoiler: show
This high quality signature has been hidden for your protection. To unlock it's secret, send 3 easy payments of $9.99 to me, by way of your nearest theta band or ley line. Complete your transmission by midnight tonight for a special free gift!
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 895

Joined: Saturday, 15th June 2013, 23:54

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 18:31

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Faster releases <3

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1217

Joined: Sunday, 14th April 2013, 04:01

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 19:22

Re: Trunk: rate of change

I agree, while I LOVE 0.14 and only play trunk, I gotta say, I have no idea what the hell is even in 0.13 any more. 0.14 really should be broken up.
Three wins: Gargoyle Earth Elementalist of Ash, Ogre Fighter of Ru, Deep Dwarf Fighter of Makhleb (0.16 bugbuild :( )

For this message the author TeshiAlair has received thanks:
XuaXua

Barkeep

Posts: 3890

Joined: Wednesday, 14th August 2013, 23:25

Location: USA

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 19:41

Re: Trunk: rate of change

twelwe wrote:One thing is clear: there is an incredible motivation to put new and inspired changes into the game. I would suggest to compensate ramping up the development cycle to three or even four releases per year, where the current trend is about two per year. VS and dith could probably alone make a good release, perhaps along with some branch changes like snake. Otherwise I can see people switching from .13 to .14 and having no clue what game they're playing anymore.


I think it is great that game design for Crawl is this dynamic, and I don't think it is necessarily such a big deal that multiple variables are being tested at once for this particular game. I do agree, however, that the number of releases should correlate upward with the number of changes being made, that's a good point.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 553

Joined: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 10:12

Post Monday, 10th February 2014, 20:31

Re: Trunk: rate of change

TeshiAlair wrote:I agree, while I LOVE 0.14 and only play trunk, I gotta say, I have no idea what the hell is even in 0.13 any more. 0.14 really should be broken up.

I'm not sure what "broken up" means exactly, but you might like to know that just because something is in trunk, it doesn't mean it's going to be in the next release. I can think of a few things which aren't planned for the next version. Someone else can give specifics better than I can, but the basic idea of it is, if a race/branch/monster/whatever isn't finished or isn't working out, it generally doesn't belong in a stable version. And there's a bunch of stuff like this: djinn for example aren't likely to make it in.

The game could benefit from an actual release plan though, just so there could be a proper division between "here is what's planned for 0.14" and "here's what's planned for later releases".
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 03:43

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Right. Two of the races added to trunk in 13 didn't make the release.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 853

Joined: Thursday, 29th August 2013, 18:39

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 07:53

Re: Trunk: rate of change

What percentage of people just play trunk anyway? (I genuinely don't know this.) If it is high then frequent releases might not change that much in terms of how easy it is to keep track of changes..
User avatar

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 301

Joined: Friday, 8th November 2013, 16:19

Location: Tel'aran'rhiod

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 08:19

Re: Trunk: rate of change

johlstei wrote:What percentage of people just play trunk anyway? (I genuinely don't know this.) If it is high then frequent releases might not change that much in terms of how easy it is to keep track of changes..

Online the vast majority plays trunk. Offline is hard to say... You could try to derive it from the download statistics, but even then you don't know which percentage actually plays the downloaded version.

Dis Charger

Posts: 2064

Joined: Wednesday, 9th January 2013, 19:44

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 08:22

Re: Trunk: rate of change

I think that recent rapid changes are fun and even more often - meaningful. Like removing minor but nasty stuff, like something not working the right way.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 09:05

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Tedronai wrote:Online the vast majority plays trunk.
I don't think this is really true. At the time of writing there have been 1113065 online games in trunk versions and 1831380 online games in stable versions.
User avatar

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 301

Joined: Friday, 8th November 2013, 16:19

Location: Tel'aran'rhiod

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 09:13

Re: Trunk: rate of change

duvessa wrote:I don't think this is really true. At the time of writing there have been 1113065 online games in trunk versions and 1831380 online games in stable versions.

Every time I scroll through the player lists of CSZO, CAO and CLAN at least 90% of the players have a trunk game running. Stable versions peak during the tournaments, but right now very few people actually still play 0.13 (or lower).

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 853

Joined: Thursday, 29th August 2013, 18:39

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 15:05

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Yeah I'd like to see that figure with tournament games not included, it's a good start on that estimate though. Offline would have to rely on an in-game survey or something, I doubt that's worth it.

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 329

Joined: Tuesday, 7th May 2013, 17:09

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 16:11

Re: Trunk: rate of change

  Code:
<Sequell> 112635 games for * (start>=20140101): 94862x 0.14-a, 17444x 0.13, 238x 0.12, 49x 0.11, 42x 0.10

Vestibule Violator

Posts: 1567

Joined: Friday, 21st January 2011, 22:56

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 16:49

Re: Trunk: rate of change

There actually was a survey. From the draft of the 2012 crawl survey report:
C6. Do you play "trunk" (the beta version of the upcoming release)?
The majority of participants doesn’t bother with trunk and only ever plays officially
released versions.
Count Percent Playing trunk?
2707 48.0% No, I only ever update for release versions.
1029 18.2% Yes. I always check out the stable version, but I switch to
trunk for cool new features.
829 14.7% No. Trunk is too unstable for me, but I like to keep informed
about what is happening in trunk.
438 7.8% Yes. Except during tournaments, I only play trunk.
638 11.3% N/A
The higher number of N/A votes (compared to the previous question) might point to
participants not knowing about trunk to begin with.

The participants are a mix of online and local players:
Overall, players generally prefer playing locally.
Count Percent Variant
2543 44.4% Locally
1615 28.2% Online
1449 25.3% No preference
126 2.2% N/A

It would be interesting to compare the numbers of local and online trunk players. The whole report is pretty interesting, dpeg sent the draft to the crd mailing list. It will most likely end up on the crawl homepage sometime soon.

For this message the author Galefury has received thanks:
WalkerBoh

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 18:39

Re: Trunk: rate of change

I suspect the majority of players who play offline play Stable, since I also suspect that a majority of players who play offline download from the download page, which only contains a ready-to-play Stable version.

Playing trunk offline requires you compile your own, which I think is something that the majority of people who aren't interested in the development process and just want to play the game don't want to take the time to do, Online trunk is at least easily accessible.

I also feel like a larger percentage of regular-forum participators play trunk than the general playing population. One of the things about participating in the forum I like is that it gets me interested in the changes that are happening, and I want to try them all.

Actually I don't think I've personally played "stable" outside of release tournaments since .10 or perhaps earlier, maybe I should do some of that just for grins.
Spoiler: show
This high quality signature has been hidden for your protection. To unlock it's secret, send 3 easy payments of $9.99 to me, by way of your nearest theta band or ley line. Complete your transmission by midnight tonight for a special free gift!

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4055

Joined: Tuesday, 10th January 2012, 19:49

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 18:45

Re: Trunk: rate of change

There are precompiled trunk builds available: http://crawl.develz.org/trunk/

This is of course not the main download page, though.

Also for non-Windows machines these often are quite out-of-date.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 19:00

Re: Trunk: rate of change

crate wrote:There are precompiled trunk builds available: http://crawl.develz.org/trunk/

This is of course not the main download page, though.

Also for non-Windows machines these often are quite out-of-date.


I'd completely forgotten about that page, I used it back in the day, but haven't in like.... forever.
Spoiler: show
This high quality signature has been hidden for your protection. To unlock it's secret, send 3 easy payments of $9.99 to me, by way of your nearest theta band or ley line. Complete your transmission by midnight tonight for a special free gift!
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 762

Joined: Thursday, 25th April 2013, 02:43

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 19:58

Re: Trunk: rate of change

To get back on topic:

I actually think species and gods (Dith) are the best possible thing to have an excess of development on. This is because these are extremely isolated and can easily be bumped a release/removed/test individually. I would have a bigger problem if there were several large far reaching changes which effect most games (Dungeon structure, permabuffs, new non-optional branch) were occurring simultaneously.

Also of note is that a lot of new stuff is coming from further opening development. tenofswords getting commit access, experimental branches on CSZO, the return of DracoOmega, etc. are all contributing to the faster pace. I tuned out for a couple weeks recently, and I had a great time reading through all the changes when I came back.

A fast pace of development might cause some new problems that haven't occurred before, but I think this is a good problem to have.

I would support an additional release or two per year if the current pace of development keeps up, but I don't think it is necessary. Some more official large updates would be nice, but there aren't any broken systems or critical bugs being introduced which makes me want a release to trigger fixing them.
On IRC my nick is reaverb. I play online under the name reaver, though.

For this message the author reaver has received thanks: 2
Brannock, savageorange
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 895

Joined: Saturday, 15th June 2013, 23:54

Post Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 23:16

Re: Trunk: rate of change

Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter releases. :D
Gives the game 20 years to hit 1.0, as opposed to everyone playing being mummies by then.

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.