Bim wrote:I guess I'm completely at odds with the direction DCSS is going these days so I'll not bother posting anything further.
There are a couple of things you should probably understand.
First, when looking at, for example, this discrete proposal, the problem is not just to do with the "direction DCSS is going these days" nor with 'the attitudes of minmay & etc.' Maybe there is a trend towards removing complex or arcane elements (ignoring the multiple gods and species recently added that constitute legitimate content instead of bloat/cruft) but they don't have much to do with Kikubaaqudgha. Regardless, the problem with the quote-unquote proposal provided is that it does not meet what are supposed to be the standards of this subforum. I assume you've read the post titled unambiguously "You Must Read This Before Posting in GDD." Grimm is no longer an administrator for reasons complex and irrelevent, but you probably understand that the fact that the forums administrators stickied that thread means that they tacitly support it. That page proclaims, among many other things, that design proposals must explain their own generative conditions (i.e. why they ought to happen) and be in line with crawl's design philosophy. In a minimal way, I guess the OP supplied these things. It also asks one to, quote, "Work hard on your proposal. Provide details, and flesh out ideas as much as possible. Consider special cases and how your proposed changes interact with the rest of the game. Provide numbers and formulas when you can. Try coding at least some of your proposal." I personally see no evidence of this in the original post (nor any of the follow-up.) It reflect a surface-level dissatisfaction with the incongruity of some elements of crawl with some others. This might be an appropriate sentiment to casually voice in, for example, ##crawl or even ##crawl-dev, but this subforum has a different set of standards. Incongruity is not a fundamental problem and is, in fact, a source of tactical and strategic richness. So if there is a reason to alter it, that reason ought to be rooted in an attempt to increase legitimate complexity and crawl's main goal - the opportunity for the player to make interesting and important decisions - and not just to emulate whatever other tropes are related to deities.
Second, you must understand that I (I can only speak to my own motivations) was not sarcastically dismissing the OP because I don't think the kind of game he or she was vaguely gesturing towards ought to exist. I was sarcastically dismissing it because the proposal was vapid and useless. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is an open-source project. This means that anyone can use anything that has been developed or released for their own means. They can make their own edits or alterations for personal use or dissemination. See, for example Crawl Light. There has, incidentally, been a collaborative effort between a large number of contributors, whom we call "devs," to make a certain kind of game out of the code given to use by Linley. This comprises a broad developmental community of people who want, largely, to make a certain kind of game. What kind of game? The kind of game that is envisioned in the crawl design philosophy and that is approached asymptotically by every good and legitimate alteration made to the game as it is (that is, the game compiled and released by the dev team.) That is, axiomatically, what "crawl" as it is generally discussed is about. It is a very specific kind of game. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you like it but disagree with certain aspects of its fundamental complexion, feel free to take what you like and change them at your leisure, or maybe develop another community that is organized along whatever lines you wish the game followed. Please do not, however, enter into a discussion predicated explicitly on certain foundations if you disagree with them, explicitly or tacitly. "Alternate viewpoints," if they are not in line with what are explicitly identified (and I use "identified" here in the strongest sense) with design goals, then they have no place here.
Third and regarding specifically the tone of responses in GDD, there are multiple caveat emptors in the "You must read this" post. E.g.
When (not if) someone criticises your idea, accept it. Listen. Adapt your proposal. Admit when you're wrong. Do not belligerently make the same case over and over. Basic etiquette and the forum rules still apply. If you feel a criticism is personal or unwarranted, use the report button or pm a moderator. Be advised that the forum benefits from a certain amount of astringent criticism of new proposals, and that whining on your part will weaken or destroy your case.
and also
Anything posted here will receive criticism that is sometimes quite harsh, so be prepared. If you want to minimise your chances of being criticized and increase the chances that your idea will be taken seriously, spend plenty of time familiarising yourself with other proposals both successful and failed, and read and understand every point in the list that follows.
The degree of hostility in GDD is tame compared to, for example, most business environments or academia. My impression is that it (the former) stems largely from people who well understand the game and its philosophy being dissatisfied with people who do not appear understand those things. This strikes me as being, given the context, a more legitimate a source of dissatisfaction than the kind of reactive hostility that usually responds to it.
(This is not directed completely at you but towards a general sentiment among some players and posters in this particular subforum)