NetHack, an RPG

[daggaz]

So I was trolling around the interwebs the other day, looking for good ideas for an upcoming campaign i want to run here, when I came across a link to this game called nethack (www.nethack.org) which apparently was all the rage back in the days of dial-up bbs's, usurper, and muds. As well, it seems that it is still going on too, having avoided the untimely demise (or evolution) of its many brethren.

Anybody else play this game? Seems like its rather complex, more so than many PS3 games and Xbox titles, when you look past the graphics and into the actual options available.

Also, does anybody know how to get it to play so that it actually uses the whole screen, instead of a tiny little box? Im only 32, but I can barely freaking read the output, which is really crimping my love of the nethack adventure. :smallannoyed:

[Dairun Cates]

You're looking for the other gaming forum, and I assure you that yes, people still play it.

[Matthew]

Yeah, this belongs in the "Other Games" subforum. Various Nethack discussions can be found therein.

[daggaz]

Im sorry. The heading for this forum is Gaming/Roleplaying Games, of which NetHack is both. Considering its almost entirely based off of DnD 2.0, I would assume it fits pretty well in here as well given a more specific, hitherto unspecified criteria.... but um, thanks for the feedback? :smallconfused:


Roleplaying Games An all-purpose board for discussions of any and all role-playing games. If you're looking to join a game, post in the Play forum.

[Matthew]

I'm sorry. The heading for this forum is Gaming/Roleplaying Games, of which NetHack is both. Considering its almost entirely based off of DnD 2.0, I would assume it fits pretty well in here as well given a more specific, hitherto unspecified criteria.... but um, thanks for the feedback? :smallconfused:

Right, and Baldur's Gate is an RPG, but this subforum is for tabletop RPGs. It is not a social faux pas to start a thread about it here, but you will get better feedback in the appropriate subforum. Not telling you where to post, just trying to be helpful:



Gaming (Other)
For the discussion of video games, board games, war games, LARPs, kick-the-can, etc.

[daggaz]

Oddly enough, I see more than a fair share of BG threads on this forum which get plenty of response beyond "Im not a mod, but you are posting in the wrong place."

As well, I fail to see how "any and all role playing games" equates to "table top only"... maybe the mods should actually put that into the description, since it isnt there?? :smallconfused:

Anyhow, mods feel free to move this thread or whatever.

[Matthew]

About Baldur's Gate or discussing how to convert it to a tabletop RPG? I cannot say I have seen any in this subforum. As I say, though, just trying to be helpful, I would say the same if somebody started a thread here asking how to get more gold in World of Warcraft.

[Yuki Akuma]

Yes, people play it. Tons and tons of people play it. if you read the Gaming (Other) subforum you'd notice...

[Reaper_Monkey]

Played it, and many of the Rogue-like games it spawns from. My fav, which has been on every computer I have ever owned is ADOM (http://www.adom.de/), its a lot more story driven than nethack (although nethack does have loads of funny little discoveries to be had even now). Sadly ADOM hasn't stood the test of time quite as well as nethack has. But I still play it, infact I was even playing it last night.

Be warned though, rogue-like games are very punishing, no save games, one death and your out. You can find yourself in a corridor blocked by two named great red wyrms and your fate is all but sealed (the fate of my longest living character to date). With only one character it doesn't take much to cause a TPK.

But almost all rogue-like games are huge in depth, with plenty of hack and slash fun and things to do and have massive replay-ability due to randomly generated content, from levels to monsters and even items. They still trump most modern games content due to never relying on graphics and focusing entirely on gameplay.

If you have a few hours to give it a go, I'd do so.

[Matthew]

Be warned though, rogue-like games are very punishing, no save games, one death and your out. You can find yourself in a corridor blocked by two named great red wyrms and your fate is all but sealed (the fate of my longest living character to date).

I can never seem to resist drinking from the fountains, invariably leading to death by water snakes. I like that they keep a logfile of all your dead characters and you can encounter their ghosts. :smallbiggrin:


3.4.3 267 0 2 2 -1 21 1 20060627 20060627 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a brown mold
3.4.3 1080 0 3 3 -14 37 1 20060627 20060627 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a wand
3.4.3 94 0 1 1 0 16 1 20060627 20060627 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony called Swift
3.4.3 3023 2 4 4 -1 64 1 20060627 20060627 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a killer bee
3.4.3 423 0 2 2 -1 31 1 20060628 20060628 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a jackal, while helpless
3.4.3 1363 2 4 4 0 41 1 20060628 20060628 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony, while helpless
3.4.3 2019 0 5 5 -2 46 1 20060628 20060628 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a housecat
3.4.3 268 0 2 2 -2 16 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a goblin
3.4.3 0 0 1 1 -3 7 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,slipped while mounting a saddled pony
3.4.3 1473 0 2 2 0 32 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a newt, while helpless
3.4.3 700 0 3 3 -1 34 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a little dog
3.4.3 1513 0 5 5 -1 45 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a kitten, while helpless
3.4.3 1148 0 3 3 28 34 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,poisoned by a rotted kobold lord corpse
3.4.3 34 0 1 1 -5 16 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a water moccasin
3.4.3 2344 2 7 7 -4 46 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a watch captain
3.4.3 282 2 3 3 -2 22 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a gnome, while helpless
3.4.3 14 0 1 1 -7 16 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a water elemental
3.4.3 1783 0 3 3 0 39 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony, while helpless
3.4.3 249 0 1 1 0 16 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a newt, while helpless
3.4.3 3363 0 6 6 -8 51 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,caught himself in his own magical blast
3.4.3 1051 0 2 2 36 36 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,died of starvation
3.4.3 3917 2 5 5 0 56 1 20060629 20060629 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a winter wolf
3.4.3 453 0 1 2 -1 35 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a coyote
3.4.3 617 2 3 3 -1 25 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a dagger
3.4.3 82 0 1 1 -1 16 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a water moccasin
3.4.3 574 0 3 3 0 33 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a jackal
3.4.3 32 0 1 1 -4 16 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,slipped while mounting a saddled pony
3.4.3 728 0 2 2 -3 36 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by Ms. Sneem, the shopkeeper
3.4.3 1419 0 3 3 0 41 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a water moccasin
3.4.3 336 0 1 1 -6 26 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,caught himself in his own ball of cold
3.4.3 1546 2 3 4 0 34 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a dwarf
3.4.3 155 0 1 1 0 16 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,slipped while mounting a saddled pony
3.4.3 271 0 2 2 -1 18 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a gnome
3.4.3 1172 0 3 3 0 52 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a giant bat
3.4.3 20668 0 10 11 -13 57 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a bolt of lightning
3.4.3 5406 0 6 6 -4 44 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a black unicorn
3.4.3 1534 0 6 6 0 34 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a tower of flame
3.4.3 403 0 2 2 32 32 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,poisoned by a rotted gecko corpse
3.4.3 214 0 2 2 -6 33 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a wand
3.4.3 786 0 2 2 14 16 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by strangulation
3.4.3 2759 0 5 5 -1 50 1 20060630 20060630 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,poisoned by a killer bee
3.4.3 7202 0 2 5 0 64 1 20060701 20060701 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a grid bug, while helpless
3.4.3 262 0 2 2 -3 16 1 20060701 20060701 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a kobold zombie
3.4.3 1612 0 4 4 0 35 1 20060701 20060701 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony
3.4.3 1120 0 4 4 0 43 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony
3.4.3 404 0 3 3 -3 30 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a little dog, while helpless
3.4.3 26 0 1 1 0 16 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,fell onto a sink
3.4.3 1504 2 5 5 -4 47 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a rabid rat
3.4.3 962 0 4 4 0 37 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a small mimic
3.4.3 696 0 3 4 0 39 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a sewer rat, while helpless
3.4.3 1498 0 5 5 0 57 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a pony
3.4.3 2247 0 4 4 0 47 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a hallucinogen-distorted giant ant
3.4.3 7596 2 8 8 -3 55 1 20060703 20060703 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a gnomish wizard
3.4.3 756 2 4 4 -2 27 1 20060704 20060704 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a djinni, while helpless
3.4.3 9819 0 10 10 0 57 1 20060704 20060704 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a troll
3.4.3 3374 2 5 5 -1 56 1 20060704 20060704 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a dog, while helpless
3.4.3 763 0 4 4 -2 42 1 20060704 20060704 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a kitten, while helpless
3.4.3 788 0 4 4 -6 31 1 20060704 20060704 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Marius,killed by a contaminated potion
3.4.3 180 0 2 2 0 13 1 20060706 20060706 1 Bar Hum Fem Neu John,killed by a jackal
3.4.3 44 0 1 1 0 15 1 20061030 20061030 1 Sam Hum Mal Law Yoshi,killed by a fox
3.4.3 445 0 2 2 27 32 1 20061030 20061030 1 Sam Hum Mal Law Yoshi,poisoned by a rotted gnome corpse
3.4.3 632 0 3 3 28 28 0 20061030 20061030 1 Sam Hum Mal Law Ryuken,quit
3.4.3 0 0 1 1 16 16 0 20070425 20070425 1 Val Hum Fem Law Marius,quit
3.4.3 1811 0 6 6 -1 53 1 20081214 20081214 1 Bar Hum Mal Cha Uthdred,killed by a bugbear
3.4.3 6816 0 9 9 -4 75 1 20081214 20081214 1 Sam Hum Mal Law Ryu,killed by a bolt of lightning
3.4.3 6345 2 7 7 -7 85 1 20081216 20081216 1 Bar Hum Mal Neu Krull,killed by a gnome
3.4.3 3026 0 6 6 0 54 1 20081216 20081216 1 Rog Hum Mal Cha Rufus,killed by a pony
3.4.3 2006 0 6 6 -1 48 1 20081221 20081221 1 Kni Hum Mal Law Daelthus,killed by a bugbear
3.4.3 2607 0 6 6 -5 45 1 20081221 20081221 1 Ran Hum Mal Neu Talos,killed by a water moccasin, while helpless
3.4.3 589 0 3 3 -4 29 1 20081221 20081221 1 Pri Hum Mal Law Geraldus,killed by a rabid rat, while helpless
3.4.3 9533 0 9 9 -2 86 1 20081221 20081221 1 Bar Hum Mal Neu Borak,killed by a soldier ant
3.4.3 592 0 3 3 0 24 1 20081224 20081224 1 Wiz Hum Mal Neu Guntas,killed by a gecko, while helpless

[Reaper_Monkey]

I can never seem to resist drinking from the fountains, invariably leading to death by water snakes. I like that they keep a logfile of all your dead characters and you can encounter their ghosts. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, I love drinking from pools, I am compelled to due to the lure of a potential wish. I also love the log, its both frustrating and humorous to see how all the great hero's of the world have perished.

My Leading five heros have died by:
Great Red Wyrd(s) as described in my last post,
Dissolved from the inside by acidic herbs (would've been starvation otherwise, very sad death as I was close to finishing),
Being sacraficed to god (pressed the wrong button and ended up on an alter, still kick myself for that one),
Became a Writhing mass of primal chaos :smallfrown: Corruption sucks,
And last but not least taken out whilst cursed, doomed and utterly outmatched by an Ancient Karmic Wyrm!! I did put up a fight, hence the cursing and dooming, it didn't make much of a difference.

But it's all fun and games really :smallbiggrin:

[sonofzeal]

If you enjoy NetHack, I highly recommend ADOM (http://www.adom.de/). Unfortunately, its spiritual successor Jade seems to have folded. Ah well, we'll always have Greater-Claw-Bug-induced phobias of little green "i" characters.... *shudders*

[Reaper_Monkey]

If you enjoy NetHack, I highly recommend ADOM (http://www.adom.de/). Unfortunately, its spiritual successor Jade seems to have folded. Ah well, we'll always have Greater-Claw-Bug-induced phobias of little green "i" characters.... *shudders*

Yeah, its depressing that it appears to have fallen out of production =(
And I still fear any coloured j's. Also, purple things scare me a lot too...

j :smalleek:

[sonofzeal]

For those who don't know....

Take NetHack. Now add a much more developed interface (including a "look" command so you can tell what something is without moving on top of it), even more types of monsters and loot, an overworld map, a plot, probably close to a hundred NPCs that are not inherently hostile (but can pretty much all be killed if you're persistent, often at great personal danger to yourself), ten races, twenty classes, twelve moonsigns (which have a significant effect on gameplay), an alignment system, and generally a massive pile of awesome.

[mcv]

Im sorry. The heading for this forum is Gaming/Roleplaying Games, of which NetHack is both. Considering its almost entirely based off of DnD 2.0, I would assume it fits pretty well in here as well given a more specific, hitherto unspecified criteria....
Don't start that discussion. There's a lot of people who see Nethack as pure hack & slash, with no roleplaying whatsoever. (Although a GNSer might call it a very gamist RPG.) Inspired by D&D, definitely, but the focus is very different.


Played it, and many of the Rogue-like games it spawns from. My fav, which has been on every computer I have ever owned is ADOM (http://www.adom.de/), its a lot more story driven than nethack (although nethack does have loads of funny little discoveries to be had even now).
I should point out that "a lot more story driven than nethack" is still not terribly story driven. It has more variety, lots of different places to visit or ignore, a million different ways to get where you want to go, and quite a lot of different endings, a bit more background story, and even a few quests of a sort.

I played it a lot, but only managed to win by cheating. (Sorry. I just wanted to see what the rest of the game looked like.)

[Reaper_Monkey]

I should point out that "a lot more story driven than nethack" is still not terribly story driven. It has more variety, lots of different places to visit or ignore, a million different ways to get where you want to go, and quite a lot of different endings, a bit more background story, and even a few quests of a sort.

I played it a lot, but only managed to win by cheating. (Sorry. I just wanted to see what the rest of the game looked like.)

Yes, true, it is a comparative assessment of story driven content, however for a game with one player and no cohorts/npcs to follow you around (or annoying cut scenes) it still has a large degree of story elements to it. But either way, it does still contain a lot of hack and slash natured game play (although by no means is a push over where everything you meet can be killed by hitting it enough times...)
infact it's also beneficial to not kill any felines (any coloured f), hard, but worth it believe me

Also, yes it is very hard to get to the end of ADOM, more so if your going for an alternative ending.

[mcv]

Yes, true, it is a comparative assessment of story driven content, however for a game with one player and no cohorts/npcs to follow you around (or annoying cut scenes) it still has a large degree of story elements to it.
It does have some elements of stories, yes. Cool scenes and locations, mostly, but it's all just static backdrop for you to walk around in and kill stuff.

The main thing it lacks is a good way to talk to people and people who have something interesting to say. There's a few people you can talk to, meaning you press a key, and they reply with their standard message. There's only one character who can say something about different subjects, but it's still not much of a conversation.


But either way, it does still contain a lot of hack and slash natured game play (although by no means is a push over where everything you meet can be killed by hitting it enough times...)
It is an extremely tough game. It's mostly a tactical risk-assessment hack & slash game.


Also, yes it is very hard to get to the end of ADOM, more so if your going for an alternative ending.
For a long time, it was hard enough for me to get through the small cave and the UD dungeon below it. Yes, you can avoid those, but I figured being able to survive that was a good test of the survivability of a character. And you find a cool location that's otherwise impossible to find, I think.

Actually, the really hard part (ambitious as I am) was killing Kranach (or whatever that Raider leader was called, rescuing Kenny, and still managing to get through the small cave in one piece. I think it got easier when I stopped trying to rescue Kenny.

[sonofzeal]

It does have some elements of stories, yes. Cool scenes and locations, mostly, but it's all just static backdrop for you to walk around in and kill stuff.

The main thing it lacks is a good way to talk to people and people who have something interesting to say. There's a few people you can talk to, meaning you press a key, and they reply with their standard message. There's only one character who can say something about different subjects, but it's still not much of a conversation.
To be fair, that's basically what many of the early console RPGs were like.

Nethack's story, IIRC, basically ammounted to "go get McGuffin", with no real attempt at worldbuilding or narrative. ADOM, by contrast, has a world that you can conceivably imagine extends far beyond the game, and a story that you can meaningfully interact with at various points. The NPCs aren't exactly conversation machines, but they do often show real emotion and personality.
You can at least imagine them as real people without much effort, even if your interactions are basically limited to "chat", "give", "push", and "attack". That's still more than most Final Fantasy games have traditionally done, and we generally consider them RPGs, yes?

[RS14]

Anybody else play this game? Seems like its rather complex, more so than many PS3 games and Xbox titles, when you look past the graphics and into the actual options available.

Also, does anybody know how to get it to play so that it actually uses the whole screen, instead of a tiny little box? Im only 32, but I can barely freaking read the output, which is really crimping my love of the nethack adventure. :smallannoyed:
I do. I have also played Slash'Em (Crazy Hard) and Sporkhack (not so crazy, but generally more interesting).
So far, I've got 13 ascensions under my belt, including one illiterate. Rolland St. Jude is another multi-ascension playgrounder, as I recall, as is pendell. Probably a few others are around.

I assume you're playing on the terminal with ascii characters, correct? Under what OS? There's probably something like "preferences" or "profiles" under one of the menus; use that to increase the font size. The box will probably resize to accommodate that.

[Lapak]

Yeah, its depressing that it appears to have fallen out of production =(
And I still fear any coloured j's. Also, purple things scare me a lot too...

j :smalleek:Yep, you can count me as another who was disappointed by that. I've played and beaten ADOM a few times, and slain the ElDeR cHaOs GoD once. I go back to it every few months, which makes it one of the most consistently replayed games I've ever owned.

[quicker_comment]

For those who don't know....

Take NetHack. Now add a much more developed interface (including a "look" command so you can tell what something is without moving on top of it), even more types of monsters and loot, an overworld map, a plot, probably close to a hundred NPCs that are not inherently hostile (but can pretty much all be killed if you're persistent, often at great personal danger to yourself), ten races, twenty classes, twelve moonsigns (which have a significant effect on gameplay), an alignment system, and generally a massive pile of awesome.
I presume this post is about ADOM, though that wasn't really clearly indicated. It is indeed not a bad game, and is certainly more CRPG-like than NetHack. Other roguelikes of note are Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (quite well designed and fun to play, though also pretty deadly) and GearHead (anime/mecha-themed, CRPG-like like ADOM, does not have permadeath like most other roguelikes). The grandfather of the genre is Rogue.

NetHack, however, does have a look command. It's ';'.

For the OP; assuming you're playing on Windows and in the console, you can try going into full-screen mode by pressing Alt-Enter. However, if you're on Vista there may be complications which I don't know how to solve.

[mcv]

To be fair, that's basically what many of the early console RPGs were like.

Nethack's story, IIRC, basically ammounted to "go get McGuffin", with no real attempt at worldbuilding or narrative. ADOM, by contrast, has a world that you can conceivably imagine extends far beyond the game, and a story that you can meaningfully interact with at various points. The NPCs aren't exactly conversation machines, but they do often show real emotion and personality.
You can at least imagine them as real people without much effort, even if your interactions are basically limited to "chat", "give", "push", and "attack". That's still more than most Final Fantasy games have traditionally done, and we generally consider them RPGs, yes?
Do we? I don't. Well, I haven't played Final Fantasy, but I don't really see any CRPG as a real RPG. Because computers can't roleplay. Although a few games (Baldur's Gate and Fallout for a moment, Planescape Torment definitely, and maybe KotOR a bit) have made me doubt.

But Nethack and Adom are just plain tactical dungeonbash. Fun, but with about as much roleplay as Advanced Squad Leader.

But I admit I'm a purist.

[sonofzeal]

I presume this post is about ADOM, though that wasn't really clearly indicated. It is indeed not a bad game, and is certainly more CRPG-like than NetHack. Other roguelikes of note are Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (quite well designed and fun to play, though also pretty deadly) and GearHead (anime/mecha-themed, CRPG-like like ADOM, does not have permadeath like most other roguelikes). The grandfather of the genre is Rogue.

NetHack, however, does have a look command. It's ';'.

For the OP; assuming you're playing on Windows and in the console, you can try going into full-screen mode by pressing Alt-Enter. However, if you're on Vista there may be complications which I don't know how to solve.
Ah, thanks for that. I still stand by my comment about the control scheme in ADOM generally being better. There's a whole lot more you can do, and it's hard to move backwards from ADOM to Nethack.

Rogue was great fun though. Awesome in its simplicity and deadliness. Never beaten it, but I've gotten fairly close.

Also worth mentioning here is Spelunky (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0), the Roguelike platform game. Like Roguelike games, it's incredibly frigging lethal and you're expected to die rapidly and repeatedly before making any forward progress; there's often no way to figure out the dangers of a new zone and how to properly avoid them until you've already lost a few lives to each. Like Roguelike games, creative use of the interface is key, trying odd things in combination. Like platformer games, it's fast-paced and exciting.

I died something like 300 times before my first victory. =P

(edit - apparently the current Spelunky build is borked. Bah. If you can get your hands on 0.99, I'd recommend that)

[Reaper_Monkey]

The main thing it lacks is a good way to talk to people and people who have something interesting to say. There's a few people you can talk to, meaning you press a key, and they reply with their standard message. There's only one character who can say something about different subjects, but it's still not much of a conversation.

I personally think this is an unfair criticism, even modern games with all their fancy particle effects and millions of polygons still cant pull off meaning conversation. The reason is because writing advanced enough AI which will be able to interpret the semantic of what you have typed (worse still if its spoken) and then formulate a response that is meaningful and logical is incredibly hard.

Take a look at things like Alice (http://alice.pandorabots.com/) for just how shallow and poor they are at it (btw, Alice is generally regarded as one of the better ones out there too). Noone has yet been able to produce anything which has passed the Turing test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test), and the best games can offer considering they're meant to do a lot more than that is usually offer canned responses with limited conversation trees which you can scale.

Now that may be what you want, but I personally don't think it adds all that much to a game and it really doesn't provide "much of a conversation", more so when you jump back to the tops of trees or get to a loop at the bottom of a branch where they then just start repeating themselves anyway.

If you want a game with meaningful interactions with other characters, then you don't play a computer game you play something like d&d where there is a real person on the other end of the character to provide the conversation.

Ps. Try going into the small cave right at the start of the game, avoid killing as much as possible (they scale to your level so it pays to be as low as possible), get the blanket and find the stairs down, then leave and do the small dog quest etc before going back and legging it to the stairs as quickly as you possibly can. :smallsmile:

[pendell]

So far, I've got 13 ascensions under my belt, including one illiterate. Rolland St. Jude is another multi-ascension playgrounder, as I recall, as is pendell. Probably a few others are around.


:Waves: So I am. Zeful is currently playing through but has not yet ascended, I believe.

I love the game because it really makes you think about everything you do. A lot. Survival in the dungeon is hard to pull off and requires a degree of cunning not often seen (IME) in console RPGs. The dev team does think of most everything.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Yahzi]

The thing about NetHack was there were so many ways to do things.

With a potion, you could: drink it, throw it at foe or ally, dip your weapon in it, mix it with other potions, disenchant it into water, bless it, curse it, or polymorph it into something hopefully more useful.

That depth of ability gives it a great sense of immersion.

[mcv]

I personally think this is an unfair criticism, even modern games with all their fancy particle effects and millions of polygons still cant pull off meaning conversation. The reason is because writing advanced enough AI which will be able to interpret the semantic of what you have typed (worse still if its spoken) and then formulate a response that is meaningful and logical is incredibly hard.
Of course a real intelligent conversation isn't going to happen any time soon (except in real RPGs). But a lot of CRPGs have quite a bit more than simply:

Me: chat
Him: Here's your quest


Now that may be what you want, but I personally don't think it adds all that much to a game and it really doesn't provide "much of a conversation", more so when you jump back to the tops of trees or get to a loop at the bottom of a branch where they then just start repeating themselves anyway.
Have you ever played Planescape: Torment? It has some really excellent conversations. At some points in the game, I spent more time talking to someone in a tavern than walking around and killing stuff.

Of course it's still scripted and terribly limited, and all other games don't implement their dialogues with anywhere near the same quality (Vampire Bloodlines didn't do all that badly, though). But even bog standard CRPGs do a bit more than simply: "talk", "here's all you need to know".

They don't provide meaningful interactions, but some provide interactions with the illusion of meaningfulness.


If you want a game with meaningful interactions with other characters, then you don't play a computer game you play something like d&d where there is a real person on the other end of the character to provide the conversation.
That's why no CRPG counts as "real" RPG in my opinion. Meaningful and flexible interactions are important to the roleplaying experience. Most CRPGs are little more than combat adventures.


Ps. Try going into the small cave right at the start of the game, avoid killing as much as possible (they scale to your level so it pays to be as low as possible), get the blanket and find the stairs down, then leave and do the small dog quest etc before going back and legging it to the stairs as quickly as you possibly can. :smallsmile:
That's what I usually did. Problem is, Kenny still dies. Also, Kranach and Kenny don't go together well: Kranach takes too much time to do Kenny afterward, but Kenny usually gives me too many XP to still do Kranach afterward. And if the stairs in the small cave are too far from the entrance, it becomes a serious hazard.

[magellan]

Anybody else play this game? Seems like its rather complex, more so than many PS3 games and Xbox titles, when you look past the graphics and into the actual options available.


Hate to break it to you, but you got it backwards:

a) You can't look past the graphics
b) of course current PS3 and XBox titles can't compete with a roguelike when it comes to graphics. They only use pixels after all. ;)

As for fullscreen: not sure if nethack runs in console but if it does you just need to maximize the window, it should go fullscreen. (alt F4 to toggle)

And yes: this is the non computer games forum :)

[Yzzyx]

I've beaten Nethack three times, and could've beaten ADOM if I hadn't insisted on going for the best ending and being killed by the Chaos God. I haven't gotten very far in SLASH'EM, and keep starving to death in Rogue.

[RS14]

As for fullscreen: not sure if nethack runs in console but if it does you just need to maximize the window, it should go fullscreen. (alt F4 to toggle)

I'm pretty sure that's not right. :smallamused:

[Emy]

Slash'Em (Crazy Hard)

No kidding. It's the hardest nethack derivative that I've played, mostly because the Slash'EM developers are quite promiscuous about adding in patches/new content. Doppelganger monks are incredibly strong, but I have an inappropriate love for healers wielding unicorn horns and vampire wizards.

I also wish ice boxes weren't so heavy. Keeping corpses fresh is incredibly useful for vampires, as well as anyone with access to an altar.

Doppelganger monks: Race bonus to AC? Class bonus to AC? Self-polymorph? Gauntlets of Defense (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/The_Gauntlets_of_Defense) as a guaranteed #offer reward? Able to wish for and use the Eye of the Atheopica (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/The_Eye_of_the_Aethiopica)? Heck yes.

Healers wielding unicorn horns: Hey, it's kinda justified, in that they're the only class that's good at the unihorn weapon skill. There's also an artifact unicorn horn (the Nighthorn) that drops from a certain monster 100% of the time, and grants reflection. Plus they're cool, they start with the excellent stethoscope (http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Stethoscope), and they're great pet users (Slash'EM has more ways to get pets than nethack).

Vampire wizards: Often have great stats, and regeneration is nice, but... HUNGER. Either starving kills me, or I die to something else while in a hurry to find some fresh corpses. Assuming Slash'EM uses the D&D 6 second round, the blood from a corpse coagulates to undrinkability in 18 seconds! Rings of Slow Digestion are utterly critical for vampires.

[magellan]

oooops.... its alt+enter of course :)