Noteworthy deaths in games

[Kassiopeia]

OK, it's time to bring back those old memories of ways of getting yourself killed in an amusing/bizarre/grotesk/otherwise noticeable way.

Nethack is probably the master of strange deaths. Slipping while trying to seat a pony, obesity, a ball chained to your foot falling on your head, you name it they've got it.

[Paul Hanson]

The most irritating death has to be GoldenEye on the N64. Dying is bad enough, but having to watch it 3 more times in slow motion takes the piss.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson
The most irritating death has to be GoldenEye on the N64. Dying is bad enough, but having to watch it 3 more times in slow motion takes the piss.

It sounds almost like they were trying to shame you with your death.

[MattyBoy]

Nethack.
Feeling what is on the ground while blind, you find a cockatrice corpse and get turned to stone.
Or those damned eels that pull you underwater and drown you.

Choking from over-eating makes you feel a bit silly, especially when you have built yourself into an invincible, untouchable fighting machine.

[Kassiopeia]

Nethack again; how about kicking a cockatrice corpse without boots? After putting dozens of baddies down?

[Chowlett]

I don't appear to do very well in Nethack - I always seem to die somewhere around level 4. Any tips? For example, what characters are easiest? When should I read/use any unidentified potions or scrolls? What do you recommend for food (barring the obvious food items)?

[August Borms]

What's nethack? Is it some sort of online text/ascii adventure?

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Assur
What's nethack? Is it some sort of online text/ascii adventure?

Not online. The game originates to 1985, and is an RPG adventure that's graphics are based solely on ASCII-keys displayed on your monitor. Like this:

This thing below is a hall from where a corridor is leading east.
The @-symbol represents the player character. Also there are loads of other stuff around, a D-letter of different colours represent dogs, coyotes, wolfs, jackals etc.

----------------------
|..........................|
|..........................|-------
|......@............................
|...........................|-------
-----------------------|

[General Ludd]

Asheron's call: I bash my way through swarms and swarms of undead in a dungeon, eventually being forced to retreat, I escape the dungeon just barely alive, and one of those annoyng cat-things takes a lucky swipe at me and kills me.

I have hundreds of similiar experiences with EverQeust, but they all involve me yelling for help while a dozen other people watch me die, so they can kill the half dead monster themselves and get the exp.


Some other noteworthy deaths, which wheren't mine:

On the team PK servers in EverQuest, I'd often sit up in kelethin (a wood elf city, built in the canopy of a forest) and blind every dwarf I see running by, so they can't see where they are going and run right off the platforms and fall to thier death if they are smart enough to stop moving I'd usually just give them a bash with my shield and run off, waiting for a good time to try it again .

On the alignment PK server in EQ: The 'goods' had claimed everfrost as their territory - but there was a large population of neutrals in neighboring zones, and there would often be a few of them causing problems in everfrost, or even full scale raids. In one case, there was an annoying little bugger of a halfling who would climb up the walls of the zone so people couldn't see him and cast spells at people bellow, he was such a high level compared to most of the other people in the zone that he could often take out a dozen people with a single spell. After using tracking to figure out where he was hiding (I was a ranger), I started climbing up after him and attacking him everytime he began to meditate - he'd instantly get up and run away like a little girl and hide somewhere else, but I kept tracking him down and hiting him, eventually I beat him to within in an inch of his life, and because you can not run very fast when maimed it negated his spirit of the wolf (a spell which increases running speed) and allowed for everyone who he was terrorizing to swarm over him and kill him, even though he was about 20 levels higher then me and everyone else who was attacking him.



Another amusing experience from EQ: in the forest around kelethin there is a particular tree which is on a slope, but the base of the tree still goes horizontally, leaving a small hole at the bottom of the tree - that only gnomes can fit into. (this is completely unitentional, and probably considered an exploit) In the PK servers, some gnomes would often use this as a safe haven or hiding place and I'd always be chasing gnomes into it and waiting for hours for them to come out (or log off).

One time, there was a particularily troublesome gnome which just about everyone in the zone wanted dead, I'd formed a group of people to hunt him down and we eventually found him in the tree, he had half a dozen very angry and mean elves waiting for him outside of the tree, This is when we disocovered that the tree isn't quite big enough to keep him safe - no matter where he sat, there was a partular angle that we would allow us to hit him through the tree, but it was hard to find the right angle. Nonetheless, we where able to attack him often enough to keep him from logging out . (you have to sit down for ten seconds to log out, and when you get hit while siting down you take full damage and automatically stand up)

[MattyBoy]

Regarding Nethack

Chowlett,
Someone else has answered your question of who to play here.

My 2 gold pieces worth:
Valkyrie is the easiest. Experiment with praying and sacrificing to your god and Valkyries will quickly reap important rewards.
You can always run away (food permitting).
Some character classes are really quite hard.

Wizard is good to play as it is weak early but gets stronger later. Early on you can usually survive if you have the patience to throw or fire weapons as a matter of course. You also need to use weapons, kicking (including doors) and spell casting in a consistent, balanced way during the early game. This ensures that you exercise as many characteristics as possible (Wisdom is top priority here).

Assur,
You can get Nethack for free
here. It is well worth it

Any existing players who lack moral fibre and patience,
WARNING: Don't read the spoilers below if you want to find it all out for yourselves...
The spoilers below will explain the game mechanics and give out hints that take quite a lot of fun out of the game. OTOH, I have read them and I don't feel any worse for it.
If you are getting to the very bottom of all of the dungeons and you "feel a strange vibration" under your feet, but cannot figure out what else you can do in the game... ...only then is it time that you really must read these spoilers, because you will never guess how to finish the game otherwise.
SPOILERS

[Chowlett]

What do I sacrifice? I sacrificed a corpse in my last game and felt "hopeful".

[MattyBoy]

You felt hopeful?
Sounds like a step towards reconciliation with your god.

If you pray too often you must have noticed that your god gets progressively angrier and her/his responses change ?
Each sacrifice usually makes your god happier, though this depends upon your alignment and race and what you are sacrificing (and who's altar it is).
Praying at altars is different to praying elsewhere. Some altars are owned by your god and others are not.

[Chowlett]

Well, OK, but I hadn't prayed that game yet.
Another problem is I always seem to run out of food. I had a decent wizard going just then, but I was killed by a grid-bug while unconcious. What do I do about that? And are eggs always bad to eat?

[loinburger]

Robinson's Requiem: I died from shock and blood loss after hacking my own arms and legs off with a rusty knife. Wutang!

[Admiral PJ]

I just bought Heretic 2 on budget , a nice looking FPS (not a lot of strategy, but i get enough of that with civ3).
Theres a great death sequence - when a Swamp Vulture does a flying dive attack , if it kills you it decapitates you and you see it fly around with your head in its talons!
(you probably have to have the gore setting on high)

The nastier way to 'die' was to get stuck at the bottom of a tomb in a dank dungeon , because of a bug in the quake2 engine.. so I just drowned needlessly.