NetHack...

[Father Beast]

I have nethack available on the 200th issue CGW CD. I was wondering whether to install it. It looks like Lightening has convinced me to.

I wonder if it's a dos game? my computer refuses to play any sound under dos... of course, I don't know if it has sound...

I think I found rogue once on a thrownaway disk. It was a hassle, what with all the refernces in the readme to network op systems, and the use of ASCII characters to represent stuff. or am I thinking of something else?

[Ari Rahikkala]

UR, I'll give you a short explanation on those things and the means to find more information:

Q. What does drinking from a fountain do?
A: Various things. Usually you just quaff tasteless water, nothing happens. Sometimes you summon a water nymph; I think you have experience on the nymphs from the other games you've played. Sometimes you unleash a water demon, that can either be hostile or peaceful. If it's peaceful, it grants you one wish (i.e. you can wish for almost any item you want, and the almost means about 5% of the possible items in the game...). If it's hostile, it tries to kill you. And sometimes the water is contaminated, sometimes you unleash a water elemental, sometimes you get enlightenment, sometimes you get monster detection, and... bah. Just download the sources and search for it yourself.

Q: What is this sink business?
A: Look it up from the source code or some spoiler, there are hundreds of them within the reach of a single search engine.

So, go up to Google and give it search terms that include NetHack, spoilers, FAQ or something. Most importantly, just get the game and play it.
[This message has been edited by LightEning (edited February 28, 2001).]

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks for your efforts.

I have spent some time looking at various FAQ and such. It seems to me that nethack is too D&Dish for my tastes. I can't say I like all this silly business about classes, levels, and alignments much. The one that had made some progress in the right direction is omega. Unfortunately it's no longer mentioned.

Thanks anyway.

[Father Beast]

I had some trouble getting into this. the use of letters on screen confused me no end. I got the graphics patch from some japanese site and now I can get into it!

Reminds me a LOT of ragnarok, a game which had me captivated a few years back. I backed up my character regularly because of the various ways to die which hounded me. my most memorable one was when I used a scroll of magic transformation on an ocarina, it turned to a crystal ocarina. So I blew it, and was transported to some weird dimension where all the monsters were about 50 times tougher than I was used to. died quickly.

ANYWAY... I'm playing NetHack, and my first character (or should I say victim? this game is sadistic) steps into a bear trap first thing and is stuck there for a while. loses most of his hits getting out of it. things go OK, until he gets hungry about the time he makes level 3. grabbed a nearby corpse that the dog hadn't eaten, got food poisoning and died within 5 steps.
Dang

Try it again. lots of weird scrolls in the first room. get around and eventually find a fountain. try drinking and this nymph shows up and steals all my stuff, INCLUDING my armor and weapons, except for one scroll. the fountain disappears. so I read the scroll. scroll of genocide. I pick a monster I've met. what good was that? dog drops something. Where'd he get that? find all my stuff in this pile PLUS a looking glass. I'm just about to go downstairs, but I'm scared.

Sooo... What are the whistle and looking glass for?

[Paul Hanson]

Does anyone know where I can donwload Omega? I finished it a long time ago, but I just want to play it again, for old time`s sake.

[Urban Ranger]

Omega official distribution page.

This game has a lot of good ideas, but suffers from underdevelopment, lots of bugs, and is severely unbalanced.

[Richard Bruns]

This game looks interesting, but seems pretty normal since nothing unusual has happened to me. I am playing a gnomish archaeologist, so I start with food and useful tools. Nothing spectacular has happened to me yet; I'll just die from powerful monsters.

[Father Beast]

I have been playing this, but can't get very far.

They were right though, this game has PERSONALITY!

I keep doing the barbarian, since I tried tourist once, got attacked by 2 jackals, and died despite blinding them with the camera.
after the 5th time my barb died from eating a corpse, I SWORE I would never eat another corpse. they don't seem to assuage my hunger much, anyway. I got down to level 3, and got hypnotized by an eye while a hill orc came up and whacked on me till I died.
I must say, the learning curve (all those commands, different if capitalized) is fairly high, but worth it. this is a lot of fun, but when my guy gets killed on something stupid, I feel like killing someone myself.

Hmmnn... I've got to go back and try it again.

By the way, couple of questions.
1. is it better to use scrolls and potions right away and find out what they are, or is there a way to identify them? I once tried my only scroll and it was a scroll of identify, and I didn't have anything to ID.
2. On level 2, I kept hearing the ring of a cash register and the occaisional mutter of someone cursing shoplifters, but I never found a storekeeper. is there a trick to getting to see him?

[Ari Rahikkala]

Yep, tourist is the worst character class in the game... probably because all the people who want to just have a peek at NetHack use tourist, and quickly conclude that the game is too hard for them. That keeps the player pool pury .

But anyway, a few hints:

- Always eat the corpses fresh. They may become tainted over time. If you're barbarian, you don't have to care about normal poisons, though (tainted food poisons you but poisoned food doesn't)

- Don't eat corpses that your pet won't eat. This means that you'll have to be faster than your pet when collecting things to eat, but it shouldn't be so hard

- If you get a food poisoning, there are a few ways of getting rid of it (these are only examples): Pray (works almost always if you don't pray too often), (a)pply a unicorn horn (though of course you need one... don't worry, you'll get one from the first unicorn you kill), or drink from a fountain or sink (rarely works, though). IIRC potions of healing, at least blessed ones, also heal food poisoning.

- Floating eyes aren't so evil. You need to worry about them only if: 1. You are beside them. 2. You can see them. 3. They can see you. 4. You attack them. If you take even one of those parts away (throw things at them from afar, put a towel around your head, throw a cream pie at them, or just ignore them) you needn't worry about them at all. Remember, you get an useful intrinsic from them. But only if you know your towel well.

And about your questions:

1. Usually if I am in good health I do quaff potions and read scrolls (and sometimes zap wands) even without identifying them. With amulets and rings it is a better idea to identify them first, or at least identify whether they are cursed or not cursed (you don't want any cursed rings in your hands)

2. I dunno. I think that the sounds can climb levels, because even with ESP I haven't found shopkeepers from some levels with shopkeeper sounds.

[Stefu]

I usually play to level 20 or something, and then have to face death by newt/floating eye or something equally silly.

[Father Beast]

I'd been hypnotized by an eye before, but what killed me that time was there was a hill orc next to me at the same time. got free hit after free hit until I died.

Pray? never thought of that. there's so many options in this game that it drives me nuts sometimes. good thing it's turn based.

so how do you get stuff identified? I realize one way is to find scrolls of identify (if you can identify THEM), but can a shopkeeper do it too? again, if I can find one.

Does your pet grow? I never saw a difference in mine, although he's knocked out a monster or 2 now and again.

BTW, I always rename my pet "Beastpaw"

[Ari Rahikkala]

You can really identify stuff by:

- Scrolls of identify
- Spellbooks of identify -> Z (zap an identify spell)
- Divine intervention -> #o (Offer enough and you might get your things identified)

There are other ways, too, though, for example:

- Archeologists automatically identify all gems
- Priests automatically identify the cursed/blessed status of all items
- Altars identify the cursed/blessed status of items when you drop them on the altar

(Note: The easiest way of identifying a scroll of identify is to try to buy or sell it. It's always the cheapest scroll)

Yes, have a good look at your pet with F3, and you may see it growing, depending on the number of enemies it kills (for example, a cat grows like this: small cat-> housecat-> large cat -> so on...).

I always rename my pet "Morris" or "Spuds". They had a special meaning in some RPG, though I can't remember which one (in NetHack they don't have a special meaning).

[Father Beast]

I've tried to get my cat to grow up, but it's gotten killed the last 3 times I've played. I can help it against monsters, but what do I do when I get the message "beastpaw fell into a pit and was killed" Dang. Makes me feel like starting over...

Discover blessed or cursed at Altars? got to remember that.

[MattyBoy]

This is my favourite game at the moment. I am no longer mentally tough enough to play Ironman like LightEning, but I have managed to finish on Ironman a couple of years ago.

Valkyrie is the easiest I think. Wizard is fun if you get bored with that, but Wizard relies so much on starting items.

LightEning:
"I had three scrolls... 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."
Wow. Bad bad story.
At first I thought that was worse than anything that has ever happened to me.
But wait, can't you take *everything* off and just slip through spaces between the rocks. Then you can come back to get your stuff by digging or teleporting (wand) that square or bringing in a giant to help. Actually the giant would probably lose some of it when you killed her, so that is not so good. Maybe a nymph would be better. I don't think they ever lose stuff. In the end, this would be a fun thing to happen as you would have a strong character, with no items and it might be fun to see how you fared.

I don't wish for Mjollnir, because Odin gives you that as the first gift.

What is this about getting a bag of holding on Sokoban?

What is this? "I rolled for a few moments with an ice troll, sat on the
throne (and made it vanish without any bonuses)"
I don't know anything that can be done with thrones.

"After a while I found a sink, drank from it and merged with my scaly armor"
How does this work? Is it a good thing or to be avoided?


Other Thoughts:

On eating corpses...
- lizard corpses never go off, they are light and should be carried. If you start to petrify, eating a lizard corpse will fix you.
- unicorn horns applied will help with many things. For example, once you get a horn, you can eat poisonous things, then cure yourself. Eventually you will "feel healthy" after eating a corpse and you are immune to poison.

On shopkeeper sounds. Sometimes you hear "counting money", but that might be a money vault, not a shopkeeper.

I usually quaff any unidentified potions, unless I have the ability to cast identify or can get plenty of identify scrolls.

On pets...
If I play as Valkyrie, I generally get much tougher than my pets after a while and it soon gets better to just leave them on old levels in case you need them later. If I mess with pets for too long, I eventually get impatient. If I play when I am impatient I always die sooner or later. It is fun trying to raise dragons. I haven't tried that for a while.

Actually, IIRC, dragons are bad too, because they:
- eat corpses that you need
- eat Nurses, Incubi, giants, trolls and nymphs that you might want to keep.
and don't they forget you forever if you don't feed them for long enough?

So,
What would you guys genocide? I never can decide.

[Urban Ranger]

Evil Sorceresses.

Oops, wrong game.