Wednesday, 23rd February 2011, 19:29 by dpeg
danr: It takes a lot of work to set up a branch. I think we needed three release cycles to get the Shoals done. A new branch is more work than a new god or a new species. Also, a branch algorithm would produce inferior branches. (This has nothing to do with branches per se: handmade vaults are better than randomly produced ones; I love the idea of random gods, but they will obviously be less consistent than the designed ones etc.) Of course it's obvious that the whole genre is driven by randomness, we are very aware of that. But that does not mean that randomisation is useful for everything. (To give a minor example: starting stats used be randomised, now they're fixed.)
Sorry to spray water, but unless someone really, really likes this idea, it will never materialise. And I don't mean a developer here. Some pointers what should be considered: A branch should have a certain monster set, threat (this is related to, but more than monsters), theme, loot (this includes total xp), layout. On top of this, it should be distinguished from branches already in place.