Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (
More info?)
This is sort of unrelated, but twice now I've had crashes (with generic
guild.exe-has-crashed messages) when hitting the 'w' key to wear
something. The first time I thought it might just be a coincidence,
but it just happened again. It doesn't happen *every* time I hit 'w',
of course; it's only happened twice so far. I don't think that's why
it hasn't taken off, though, since this is the first crash I'd heard
reported and I played for a while before it happened; but I thought I
should report it. I'm playing under Windows ME if it makes a
difference (ugh).
Anyway. Other people have touched on several of the reasons why it
might not have taken off--the steep difficulty curve, the generic
setting, the description on the webpage which says you can only advance
to level 5 and gives the sense that the game is incomplete (I wasn't
even aware it was possible to win yet until you mentioned not seeing
any YAVPs.) I'm not a big fan of the Angband non-saved-dungeon system
myself, but I suppose that's a design choice, and there must be people
out there who like it.
Another possibility that occured to me, though, is the lack of party
generation. A roguelike where you control a 4-person party has lots of
opportunites for interesting character generation at the beginning; but
Guild just hands you a generic 4-person party. There are 4 party
members, and (as far as I can tell) only 4 classes, so the player
doesn't even get to make any choices about who they bring unless they,
say, want to skip having a thief to get two clerics or something.
I don't think character generation should be *too* detailed; manually
rolling up stats on all 4 people would be too much. But it might be
interesting if there were a few more classes, even if they were just
small varients on the existing ones, and the player got to choose the
composition of their initial party. This would also make it less
frustrating to get wiped out--I stopped playing Guild for a while when
one of my parties got killed, since I knew that if I started a new game
I'd have to take an identical party and would basically just be doing
the exact same things over again in a slightly different dungeon.
For class ideas... Some class varients could just differ in their
starting equipment and spells. For instance, an Illusionist might be a
mage who starts with illusion-related spells and a wand that supports
them, while an Enchanter would focus on enchantments. Additionally,
they could get bonuses with spells related to their specialty, and
their spell lists could differ somewhat, with each having some spells
unique to them and others they can never learn.
There could be a "berzerker" class, a tough warrior who wears light
armor and scorns shields, but sometimes goes berzerk in combat, getting
even more bonuses to toughness and damage. Naturally, they can't be
controlled while berzerk, and wouldn't listen to orders.
A Sage is a priest who can learn mage spells, although they can't
memorize as many of them as a true mage and get their priest spells
more slowly. They are as weak as a mage, with the same equipment
restrictions, and use holy symbols to cast spells instead of wands (so
they can't wield wands and don't get the wand bonuses). However, they
are better at avoiding magical wards, and can tell more things about
items when examining them.
Extra classes like these would also make checking the tavern for new
party members a little more interesting.
Other suggestions, let's see... The AI that controls thieves needs
some working on. The other party members are at least half-decent;
fighters will fight on their own, mages and clerics cast their spells,
etc. Thieves don't do what they're supposed to at all. There's no way
to ask them to scout around for traps without manually sending them
from point-to-point; they won't disarm traps on their own even if they
find them; they'll never sneak unless you order them to; and even when
they do sneak, I've never seen my thief backstab or pick pockets under
their own initative. This basically means that the player has to
control their thief almost 24/7 if they want to get any use out of
them.
Does Guild's system allow thieves to spot traps at a distance? I
haven't seen it happen, but now that I think about it it's almost
essential. The thief can't really help the rest of the party with
traps if they have to walk on every single space in a room in order to
make sure that it's safe; that's fine in a single-character roguelike,
but doesn't work for a party.
Allowing the party to have a pet might be an interesting idea, too...
A little dog or some other animal that follows them into dungeons feels
like it would fit into the game's theme.
Anyway, just some suggestions. Maybe I'll think of more later.
--Aquillion
It doesn't even have an easy beginning like most
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