NetHack...

[Ari Rahikkala]

I don't know if I should love or hate this game. I'll explain my latest game briefly.

So, I start the game as a Valkyrie, Human/Female/Neutral. Game begins with the usual stuff, the shield, some food. The only difference between this game and the usual NetHack game of mine is that I play completely ironman (no save-load cheats at all).

So I proceed in the game, and don't I proceed well? My little kitten is already a large cat at the Oracle level, and I'm well on my way to 100 hp. Of course I already have Excalibur (with which I killed a wraith that had ventured way too high in the caves compared to where wraiths can usually be found from) and some other fun stuff. Like lots of food, rings of invisibility and see invisible. My AC is -4 (Small +3 shield, +0 helmet of telepathy, +3 iron boots and +0 dwarvish mithril coat) and exp 9 when I do the usual maneuvre: When I get to Oracle, I proceed back, go through the Gnomish Mines and then go back to the Oracle (in fact, I think I should go through Soko-ban before the Gnomish mines... If not anything else, I need a bag for those gems!). So, I about walked on the gnomes in the first levels of the gnomish mines. Everything was going just too well.

Then came Mine Town. Happily I find out that Izchak's store has more than enough candles (thrice my need). About the altar I don't really care so much, it was neutral while I was lawful (actually I intended to be lawful when I created the character), but I didn't have so much money. But then again, I didn't lack very much either, I had about 700-800 zorkmids.

So, when I was cleaning the temple from the resident Gnome lords, a yellow light came up to me. "No need to care, I can just search places and I've got ESP anyway", I thought. Well, so I didn't care. And so I went to the second, empty room. And like magic a yellow c appeared to the door of that room. A cockatrice, as everybody knows. I killed it into the doorway. Well, who would wait for some 50 turns to get one doorway cleaned... Or who would use charges of the wand of digging? No-one I say! Or, at least my sub-conscious mind said so.

Ari the Valkyrie, petrified by a cockatrice corpse. I hate this game.

[Urban Ranger]

I could never get into NetHack. After starting on Rogue, I moved to Moria, Omega and finally Angband.

My experience is Omega is the best of the lot, too bad it's no longer updated or even maintained.

[Sterilio]

uhmmm.... i might not start this game after all then

and then again.. maybe i will ..... i probably will...

[Ari Rahikkala]

UTTERLY UNHOLY MAJOR DEMONS, I HATE THIS GAME FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!

OK, so here's the story. I was Ari val-hum-fem-law. My games go almost always well when I play as a valkyrie; This time it went even better than the last time. So, at level two I found a crystal wand. Of course I zapped it and checked what it did. Hmm, a wand of wishing. OK, I might just have some use for... A blessed +2 GDSM, blessed +2 fireproof speed boots and the blessed +2 Mjollnir. After I got my long sword cursed (drank from a fountain) and throhoughly rusty, I finally got the blessing of Excalibur from the last fountain in the Oracle level. I also got a thankful water demon from one fountain, and wished for blessed +2 gauntlets of power.

And I went on; After the Soko-ban(bag of holding), in the Mines my little dog stepped on a polymorph trap and became a xorn (actually I had to guide him there, first time he polymorphed into a giant beetle and the second time into a giant bat, and those just weren't satisying enough). I found the gems from the bottom of the Mines with the luckstone and because I completely forgot the gems while I was in Mine Town the second time, I didn't get the money from them. Afterwards I threw quite a lot of them to unicorns. When I got up from the Mines I happened to find a brown potion that I quaffed, and I merged with my armor. Hmm... Didn't somebody say that female characters can lay eggs in some monsters' forms? So I laid about 20 eggs, then thought that if they're all going to be my pets it's a bit too much. And who knows if they become feral. So I ate most of the eggs and put a few in my back.

After a few levels I had polymorphed back to human form, had a Xorn and a small army of baby gray dragons as my pets, and I was happily bashing every enemy with the Mjollnir (with power 25). But then the time of decay began. I angered my god (prayed on an altar, ate tainted meat and prayed again - and at first, forgot that I had an unicorn horn). So I went to the lower levels without my pets to find sacrifices. I did find them, and an altar to convert, too, but when I came back I had only one tame baby dragon and the xorn. One of the dragons had gone completely feral, but it wasn't a big job to shock it dead. But then I went back again, hungry for even more from my god. When I came back I had only the xorn. I decided to keep with my only pet and went down, but in one of the levels, when I slipped the leash from around her and let her walk into the wall, I didn't see her after that. Anyway I proceeded down to get to exp. level 14 for the quest. I found a leprechaun hall (more than 16000 zorkmids... Not bad) and a few opulent throne rooms where I had fun with a few ice trolls that just didn't know how to die. In the second of the throne rooms, there were three dragons (orange, red and yellow) and I killed them after all the other monsters. I ate the orange dragon to get sleep-resistance, I had a hard time getting it all down but wasn't prompted for stopping. After I ate it (and got "wide awake") I rolled for a few moments with an ice troll, sat on the throne (and made it vanish without any bonuses) and found a chest. Forced the lock, found a banana and a violet gem. Ah, doesn't that banana look so delicious? - I thought.

You choke over your food -More-
You die -More-
Do you want your possessions identified?

I HATE this game.

[Urban Ranger]

It's greed that does you in.

[Ari Rahikkala]

And to make sure nobody thinks my NetHack misery has ended now...

So I started a game again. I was a valkyrie, as always. I happen to love that class. So I started the game quite normally... It went quite normally until I found a fountain, drank from it, got a graceful water demon. For me a graceful water demon means a blessed +2 grey dragon scale mail. So, with a +3 small shield and +2 GDSM I got AC -5... not bad for level two. After a while I found a sink, drank from it and merged with my scaly armor, laid one egg (I don't really want to have so many pets that I forget them... and then fight against gone-feral grey dragons) and gone with playing. I came back to human form before the egg hatched. Soon I got the Excalibur by dipping, very easy. Just as always, everything was going extremely well. I was actually quite scared when a giant mimic was one hit away from killing me in a hardware shop, but I could kill it. After that my little dog and baby grey dragon cleaned the shop of mimics. I bought two leashes, a looking glass and a whistle; All quite useful tools. And went on. So I found a violet spellbook and read it. Lo and behold, no gold. Damn stupid valkyries. But anyway, I was proceeding well enough and continued. A shop, of course. A general store, to be exact. So I went there, sold an indigo spellbook that I had got earlier and bought two tins, hoping for spinach. Nope, just bat meat found. Disappointed, I decided that it would be time to see what my scrolls do, perhaps to make myself happy again. I was in a corner of the corridor, like this (stone decipted by -, ground by .):

---.-
---.-
-.@.-
-.---
-.---

I had three scrolls... Scroll #1: Create monster, I dispatched the two elf zombies quite easily. Scroll #2: Enchant armor, and so I had a +4 small shield. Scroll #3: Earth, and so I was stranded in the middle of boulders, able to move... nowhere. No pick-axe. No scroll of teleportation.

I HATE THIS GAME.

[Urban Ranger]

Interesting tales nevertheless

Perhaps you could fill us in a little about drinking from fountains, sinks, merging with your armor, laying eggs, various colours of spellbooks, etc.

You know, the details?

[Theben]

I wonder if the term "masochist" means anything to you.

[Ari Rahikkala]

UR: Just get NetHack and play it yourself. Yes, I could write a book about all those issues you told about already... And I've never been to Gehennom. Says something about this game. (Note: I'm so positive towards NetHack because it's already a few days since I played it last time)

Turban: What do you mean? Don't you think it's fun to... er... do various things? [You need only a few succubuses to change your mind]

[Urban Ranger]

Maybe I will; it would be nice if you can tell me something about it, just like what the mandatory FAQ does, you know ?

Q. What does drinking from a fountain do?
A. ...
Q. What is this sink business?
A. ...

You can write a tome. Come on, don't be shy, go ahead, be my guest.

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by LightEning on 02-20-2001 05:48 PM Turban: What do you mean? Don't you think it's fun to... er... do various things? [You need only a few succubuses to change your mind]

Considering I usually play my favorite D&D character when I play Nethack, they're incubuses, unless my sex has been changed.

I know what you mean about it's addictiveness. That's part of the reason I deleted it from my computer. The other reason is because I played the best game I think I'll ever get already. I had cleared out the gnomish mines, the goblin castle, the fort, and was traveling through hell. I was sleep resistant (elf), cold resistant, and I think polymorph resistant, as well as a bunch of other stuff (ESP, speed, regenerating, etc.). It took 3 Arch-Devils randomly pounding me and teleporting away to finally bring me down, and it took them a while. I think what really got me was the lack of food. I made it to level 34.

[pchang]

Never played NetHack, but in the old days, I used to play rogue. I even won once. You have to go down far enough and then you can go back up again. You win when you emerge from the dungeon back onto the surface. The number one killer in rogue was lack of food.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Father Beast: You don't need to care. First, it's freely available for download from http://www.nethack.org , for masses of platforms. Besides, no, it does not have any sound.

And yes, NetHack is pretty much the same, but deeper, bigger, and more fatal to real life . There is a version of NetHack that uses tile graphics, but I don't really like it.

[Theben]

The other nice thing about Nethack is you can sneak it onto your computer at work. Games go by quickly enough (most of the time) that you don't lose too much productivity.

[Urban Ranger]

So where can I find this FAQ?