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My experience is Omega is the best of the lot, too bad it's no longer updated or even maintained.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

[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.