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10th Year of the International Nethack Tournament
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Nov 02, 2008 01:14 PM
from the why-did-this-potion-eat-my-legs dept.
from the why-did-this-potion-eat-my-legs dept.
Dr. Zowie writes "The 10th annual Nethack Tournament just started over at nethack.devnull.net, so put on your Hawaiian shirt, grab an expensive camera, and head for the dungeon. The tourney runs through the month of November each year, with volunteer game servers dotted around the world. Fewer than 1% of contestants actually finish the game by retrieving the Amulet of Yendor and ascending to demigodhood, but take heart: there are many prizes for intermediate goals, and prizes for team effort. For those too young to remember games older than Halo, Nethack is the apotheosis of the Roguelike genre of role-playing games, rendered in ASCII. Gameplay is phenomenally complex, and the game is somewhat sadistic; there are no 'checkpoints,' so if you manage to kill yourself somewhere in the dungeon you must start over from the beginning. The dungeons are quasi-randomly generated, so every game is different."
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Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Good luck to both of you still playing nethack!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Starting class only determines how you start (starting abilities and inventory)....after a point, all characters evolve into basically the same thing. Even race has only a small bearing on your character after a point (starting intrinsics). There are ways of getting all of the equipment and intrinsics such that by the end of the game, you've collected all of the ones you need.
Generally, I find Valkyries to be the easiest early on (and most likely to survive long enough to make initial class irrelevant)..... Archaeologists are also good because gem identification (makes it easy to buy the good equipment0..... Wizards are tough early on until you can gain some strength and good equipment.
Layne
Parent
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"While the graphics may seem primitive by today's standards, today's gameplay seems primitive by NetHack standards."
(Found that quote here [battlereports.com].)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Having a deadbeat relative precludes you from being President?
Heck, (once) being a deadbeat doesn't preclude you from being President.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Informative)
Not true. Bones files (levels containing a dead character's corpse, ghost, (mostly cursed) equipment, pets, and whatever nasties killed them) can be found by any player no the same machine. If it was a powerful character who died of something stupid high up in the dungeon, it can be a really, really good thing; and it's usually a nice-ish stash regardless once you get things uncursed.
Parent
For those too young... (Score:5, Funny)
Get offa my lawn!
Slashem (Score:2)
I love Nethack, but I prefer Slashem.
I made an uber-patched version of Slashem I should polish up and release some day.
Interaction (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things I love about nethack is that items (and monsters, and dungeon features...) interact with each other in so many ways. Wielding a cockatrice corpse as a weapon will make short work of many monsters -- as long as you're wearing gloves. Just be careful not to fall down the stairs because you're carrying too much load...
The lack of a save and restore feature is definitely one of the things that makes nethack work so well. After putting in several hours carefully figuring out which potions do what and collecting decent armor and weapons, that D down the hall will be far scarier than any gorgeously rendered 3D dragon. After all, it can actually kill your character, not just send you back to the last save point.
At first glance, nethack seems not just hard but outright sadistic (well, ok, it is, but bear with me). But, as you get to know it, you realize that it's not like many other RPGs. Rather than trying to acquire the single best collection of stuff you can, in nethack you're rewarded for having backup plans -- and backups to your backups. When you find yourself surrounded my monsters and low on HP and out of healing potions you might consider praying. If you've done that too recently, you might try a wand of teleport or digging to escape. And when you discover that those wands just ran out of charges, you'll be glad you didn't leave that cursed potion of gain level behind. (The cursed ones, rather than gaining a character level, make you gain a *dungeon* level.)
Combine the attention to detail with the huge variety of options for character class, general strategies, and the high game-to-game variability thanks to random dungeons levels with random items, and you get serious replay value.
Re: (Score:2)
Wielding a [...] corpse as a [...] will make short work of many monsters -- as long as you're wearing [...].
I can has spoiler warning? :(
Spoiler Warning? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that you know that one tidbit,
I suggest that you read every other spoiler you can find,
and then still have only a 1 in 10000 chance of ascending...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
1 in 10,000???!??!?? You must play in Wizard mode. :D (That's either a smiley or YASD by newt.)
Layne
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Finally, a thread where my sig makes sense...
It is "lol: You see no door there." for posterity.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That 'outright sadistic' is why I don't play Nethack. I quit after a beginning character stepped on a trapdoor, landed on a trapdoor on the next level, landed on a teleport trap on the third level that sent him two more levels down, only to land on (you guess it) another trapdoor.
No one who did that to my character in a pen and paper RPG would ever get me back to the table. I've thrown people out of conventions for doing that sort of thing to other paying members when running to
Re:Interaction (Score:5, Interesting)
Nethack and the like would be boring without the sadistic part, without the constant threat of dying of unfair causes. It helps the game to stay somewhat challenging even after completing it many times. It makes every game intense and exciting.
Besides, many unfair deaths aren't really unfair deaths, but instead deaths that could have been avoided by playing better (preparing better, being more cautious, being less greedy, etc). This is especially true when you get further along in the game and have more to lose. Truly unfair deaths where you do everything right and then you just die anyway are quite rare.
Note: I'm not saying you're "wrong" to not play Nethack 'cos you think it's too sadistic. Then it's just not a game that's entertaining for you. I'm just saying that it would be worse if it wasn't like that, it would be just plain boring.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Every few years I pick up Nethack again and give it a whirl, and it always goes the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude, no offence but what you've described is extremely unlikely, and while that is no consolation to you when it happened, it is unlikely to happen again.
I don't know - I haven't been playing nethack that long and I've had almost the identical scenario happen to me several times. I once ended up on level 10 of the dungeon from level 2 because of a series of trap doors and level teleports.
I used every trick in the book, and even managed to survive working my way back up to level 3 before I messed up and died. Part of the real fun of nethack is that at times it can be sadistic, but if you're careful and learn from previous mistakes you can handle most the th
Re:Interaction (Score:4, Funny)
One of the things I love about nethack is that items (and monsters, and dungeon features...) interact with each other in so many ways. Wielding a cockatrice corpse as a weapon will make short work of many monsters -- as long as you're wearing gloves. Just be careful not to fall down the stairs because you're carrying too much load...
This is what kept me playing Nethack for many years - to see if some obscure piece of logic had been accommodated. It usually was.
I once "died" in Nethack of a "thermonuclear explosion", largely due to a series of unfortunate events (coulda been a Darwin contender :P):-
I had a room full of demons to deal with, and adopted my usually successful room clearing move which goes like this: having acquired teleportation and a ring of teleport control, I teleport into the room; then using my magic whistle, I summoned my 3 tame dragons (Huey, Dewey and Louie - when you absolutely have to kill off every last m**** f**** in the goddam dungeon...). This where it all went wrong though as on the next turn, the dragons breathed fire at the demons, I got caught in the cross fire, which wasn't a problem as I had many many HP by then and was fireproof (you need to be to descend to the "hell" levels), but I was also carrying so many spellbooks, wands, potions, scrolls etc which all went up causing a critical mass of magic...
I also remember a friend of mine who thought he'd be clever and hack his save file in an early Nethack and give himself max HP. He was very pleased with himself until he went up a level, gained 8hp, and the signed integer rolled over...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things I liked in a very old DOS version of HACK (It was not called nethack in the 80's IIRC) were the bugs.
If you started on beginner mode, all your items were identified for you. And, if you selected a wizard class, and then immediately left the dungeon then started a new wizard and left the dungeon. Then you repeated this process over and over your characters would gain an extra wand or 2 over time as you created each new character.
After enough iterations, your character would be carrying (32)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But I got the feeling it was all coded as a bunch of IF statements. IF you got a pie in your face, and IF you wiped it with a towel, then it would unblind you. Very cool, and on a level much more complex than most other games. However, it was all still pre-planned. Any cool interaction of things in nethack you discovered as coded into the game by a d
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
ah yes, i was wondering what "gaining" a level would actually mean.
thing is this tho, are not the levels counted in increasing numbers while going down?
as such would one not be "loosing" a dungeon level by going up?
or is this on par with:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html [giantitp.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose losing a level would be more technically correct, though it depends on whether you consider "gaining" to mean "increasing the number" or "going up".
Anyway, the question you should be asking is what happens if you use a cursed potion of gain level on the uppermost level of the dungeon, i.e. the first floor below the surface.
And the answer is that, unless you're carrying the Amulet of Yendor, then nothing happens. If you do have the amulet, you go to the Plane of Earth (the first level in the final
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
yea, that happened to poor DeathOnAStick on NAO. It was horrible. He had spent nearly a year and a half mining the entire dungeon and polypiling rocks for gems. He had a couple pet giants lugging around bags of his loot since it was so heavy. sometimes i would watch him play, like the rest on rgrn, trying to figure out what he was up to.
from nethack.wikia.com:
After killing the Wizard of Yendor on dungeon level 1, he found a potion of gain level from the death drop. He drank it without fully identifying
I've said this before but... (Score:5, Funny)
I ascended with a wishless tourist once, and I consider that more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree.
Re: (Score:2)
I ascended with a wishless tourist once, and I consider that more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree.
Your CS dept.'s friday bar probably had more chicks, though ;)
</snark>
I put more effort into nethack... (Score:5, Interesting)
I replayed the game in 05 a decade later... and cheated to do some "tourist gaming" even with a full wand of wishing, and optional dying, it took all night to ascend,, When I left the dungeon I was bloody surrounded with monsters. Even in the deep parts of nethack there are monsters conventions that make moving a total pain.
Still, a game where you can wield the iron ball on your ankle as a weapon rocks.
Parent
Re:I've said this before but... (Score:5, Funny)
I ascended with a wishless tourist once, and I consider that more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree
So do I.
Signed,
Your boss. ;-)
Parent
Nethack is fine (Score:3, Interesting)
But in the genre of cruel dungeon-crawls, I prefer Iter Vehemens Ad Necem [sourceforge.net].
There's nothing like bludgeoning a zombie to death with your own severed arm, then being forced to eat the arm to stave off hunger.
Very difficult but strangely rewarding (Score:5, Informative)
I never managed to complete Nethack until I found the spoilers [cam.ac.uk], which include helpful advice about the best way to approach the game. The dungeons are random, but the structure of the game is not, and the same things will appear in approximately the same places (with different names). Once you have got to a certain depth, you've cracked the game and a win is almost certain.
Whether it is cheating to look at the spoilers is a philosophical question. Cheating is copying a save file or modifying the game - reading spoilers is no more cheating than looking at the source code.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think most veteran hackers would agree that looking at the source, along with most spoilers, is definitely cheating -- though some level of general advice is not. The definitely-not-cheating ways to learn about the game are explore mode and the oracle; both are quite informative without being overly spoiled. At the same time, I think the vast majority of players look at spoilers to some degree.
To anyone new to nethack out there: Give it an honest try without spoilers. Use them when you get stuck, but o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with your general sentiment, that it is good to learn the game without spoilers, but due to the game's difficulty, I found this far too frustrating. The game does not forgive mistakes, and even in explore mode it is easy to get stuck.
I think I have a different philosophical approach to the game. I see it as a black box. Provided you don't open the box and change the rules, you can do anything you want with the information it provides and the moves you're allowed to make. Viewed like this, Nethack is
Re:Very difficult but strangely rewarding (Score:5, Interesting)
As a seasoned nethack player (I've ascended all classes and done some optional conducts. Still working on pacifist :) ). Spoilers and source diving are not considered cheating amongst the greater nethack community. And by greater nethack community I basically mean rec.games.roguelike.nethack.
There is only one thing that is universally considered cheating, and that is backing up save files to circumvent permanent death.
While spoilers are very helpful, they are not gamebreaking. There's no set path to follow in nethack that will guarantee victory.
Spoilers are more often used as a reference for things that just don't make sense to memorize.
For example, let's say I need a scroll of enchant armor, I have blank paper and a Magic Marker with 15 charges on it. I don't remember how many charges are required to make that scroll, so I look it up.
The spoiler won't give you the idea to make a scroll that you need using equipment found around the dungeon. But they will give you the details you need to be a little more efficient.
Think of the spoilers as more of a pocket reference than a walkthrough or tutorial.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Spoilers is a bit like doping (Score:2)
reading spoilers is no more cheating than looking at the source code.
Which, I imagine, a lot of the people with long beards and intravenous coffee would also consider cheating.
Reading spoilers or source is like doping: it gives you an advantage over those who don't do it, but the sport is still challenging. As long as you can distinguish those who do from those who don't, and take appropriate measures [whatever that is], I see no reason to be offended.
I pulled off a Double Top last year (Score:3)
That may well be my crowning achievement in video gamery.
I've since retired from Nethack, simply because I don't have the patience for any more of it. Good luck to this year's players.
bsdgames, hack, age of nethack (Score:5, Informative)
For those too young to remember games older than Halo
Halo? More like Bomberman or the Lotus and Turrican series (~1990). Nethack is from 1987, and is based on hack from 1985.
If you install `bsdgames' on debian/ubuntu, you can play hack, the precursor to nethack.
To get an idea of how the world looked when the internet was black-and-white, look at the end of the man page:
BUGS
Probably infinite. Mail complaints to mcvax!aeb .
Bang path ftw :) I'll get off your lawn now.
I prefer Angband. (Score:3, Interesting)
The game also has its own special flair when it comes to ironmaning it. If you run out of light or food, you pretty much lose. If you linger too long on a dungeon level, you waste light and food. So if you get low on light or food, you play more aggressively and dive faster. Of course if you dive too fast, you won't be able to defeat the enemies. So very often you find yourself staring death by lack of resources vs death from tough monsters.
telenet nethack.alt.org to watch live games (Score:5, Informative)
This thread will (has) descend into alternative recommendations, so I'll take a moment to pimp a multiplayer variant of Angband, being MAngband ( http://www.mangband.org/ [mangband.org] ). A realtime non-turnbased roguelike sounds kooky, but it actually works out pretty darned well (and Morgoth in realtime is a very frightening experience).
On a side note, I always appreciate roguelike-related threads on slashdot, as it is a rare opporunity for my username to have any sense of context.
telnet noway.ratry.ru 37331 for tourney games (Score:3, Informative)
Unlike all-year public servers, the tournament ones aren't watchable by default. But a few of the contestants broadcast their own games anyway on telnet://noway.ratry.ru:37331 [ratry.ru] so that's always a nice watch too. This service doesn't get enough publicity, I wish the top players could show us their progress!
Flamebait - Best game ever (Score:5, Informative)
As an example of pure depth, consider the water traps that rust your weapons and armor. Well, if you are polymorphed into an iron golem, you can rust to death from walking into a water trap. Touching cockatrice corpses will turn you to stone instantly, but if you wear gloves you can wield it as a weapon to turn other creatures to stone. But if you are burdened carrying too much stuff, you are likely to fall down the steps and turn yourself to stone. Game over, try again. If you are confused from eating rotten food, reading scrolls will cast spells in ways you weren't expecting. They thought of everything in this game.
You can actually find a wand of wishing on the first level and get any three items in the game. The inexperienced player still won't make it very far. No matter how strong or amazing you are, you could still die from a falling drawbridge, cockatrice corpse, being digested by strange creatures, being drowned by an electric eel, or kicking a wall while you are near death. Even after all the years I've spent on this game, I still learn something new every time I play. It's that deep.
Re:Flamebait - Best game ever (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be theoretically possible to create a game where you can have true unexpected interactions of objects. You would create a set of simple properties, and then more complex interaction emerge from the interactions of simple properties. Like legos, you keep combining and combining, coming up with new and creative combination, suprising yourself with things no one could have predicted. It's like language or music; you can never exhaust the possibilities. They're endless. It's literally and endless set. It's called a discrete combinatorial system.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In some sense, NetHack has had this from time to time. Some of the interactions were 'prototyped' as bugs: different object classes stored their attributes in overlapped storage (unions, shared bitfields, whatever), and the type checking was a little sporadic. So casting an enhancement spell on something that had an inappropriate data structure would occasionally give things peculiar properties. Then devteam would look at the bug report and say, hey, this is a latent feature, and give 'proper' semantics to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nethack isn't hard among roguelikes (Score:3, Insightful)
An incredibly hard, incredibly fun game (Score:3, Informative)
I ascended as a samurai once, and it was this close to landing on my CV. That one's offset by the squillion times I was killed by a combination of my stupidity and the cruelty of the almighty RNG (random number generator).
Then there are those crazy iron-man ascents made by guys who never eat, never attack other monsters, never wear armor and so on.
It's a great game, and after playing it a few times you can take a look at some archived YASDs to appreciate their fine humour:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/search?q=yasd [google.com]
Best nethack moment ever (Score:5, Funny)
It's just amazing how many strange combinations of items and effects have been thought of by the dev team.
My favorite Nethack moment ever was when I had used a blessed scroll of genocide to permanently wipe out all dragons from the game, but I was still wearing a suit of silver dragon scale mail I had acquired earlier. I stepped on a polymorph trap, and discovered a little known game mechanic that if you're wearing dragon armor while polymorphing uncontrollably, you turn into that kind of dragon. However, dragons were already wiped out, so I couldn't. The message the game gave me was:
"You feel slightly silver dragon-ish."
Re:three four three (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they still answer to bug reports. Sometimes :-)
The last update to the bugs page has been in August.
But what's taking them so long for a new version, nobody knows.
I've heard that they had issues switching to a new graphics engine.
Parent
Re:three four three (Score:5, Funny)
What, Times New Roman?
Parent