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Games Entertainment

4th Annual NetHack Tournament 179

Posted by michael from the twas-brillig dept.
fatquack writes "The NetHack tournament season is upon us once again. /dev/null's Fourth Annual NetHack Tournament has just opened. As with past years, the Tournament is open to anyone who'd like to play. We're also open to anyone who'd like to volunteer to run a game server since, though we have a T1 hosting the main game server, play can be slow across the transoceanic links. devnull.net is a loose association of networking geeks, unincorporated and noncommercial. We just do this for giggles; we make no money from this other than what folks feel like donating. The prize structure going in, as we're always open to suggestions to change this during the Tournament, is: Prizes The "standard" prizes will go to: Highest Score 1st, 2nd and 3rd Highest Score in each class The "additional" prizes will go to: Most Ascensions Lowest Scored Ascension This year's Tournament will begin with servers in California and Oregon, but with servers in Colorado, The Netherlands and Australia hopefully coming online in the first few days."
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4th Annual NetHack Tournament More

4th Annual NetHack Tournament

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  • nethack? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Klerck ( 213193 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:24PM (#4581610) Homepage
    ADOM [www.adom.de] is a much better rogue-like.

  • I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CanadaDave ( 544515 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:27PM (#4581630) Homepage
    Can someone please tell me honestly why I should start getting into Nethack? I mean I've clicked on the icon a few times and tried it out but it didn't seem that interesting. I mean, what I am trying to say is, does it get better, more interesting? how many levels are there? What else can you tell me that will make me want to take up this seemingly lame game.

    • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:5, Informative)

      by Romothecus ( 553103 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:32PM (#4581660)
      Nethack is different from most other "dungeon crawls" in that it is about content and strategy, instead of action and eye candy. There are hundreds of different items in Nethack, some magical, some mundane, all with some kind of use. Any troubling situation you find yourself can can be solved various ways, and no two solutions will yield the same outcome. The game leaves a lot of room open for play style; try playing Barbarian, then try Ranger or (if you're a masochist) Tourist.

      If you want more specific, in-depth information about Nethack (including some spoilers about dungeon depth, as you asked) then go to List of Nethack Spoilers [cam.ac.uk] which contains A LOT of information about Nethack. The other great thing about Nethack is that it's open-source, which should automatically get it kudos with most of the people here. :p

      • One thing I've learned is that, while blind and hungry, it's not a good idea to wander around the dungeon feeling for food on a level where you've killed a cockatrice.

        Playing Nethack always reminds me of the room in Infocom's Enchanter where one must retrieve a scroll from a maze of caverns. Every step is important. Y'know how food rots away if left too long? I was once starving and did a hk to move instead of the diagonal. In that one step the food disappeared. I starved to death.
        • >One thing I've learned is that, while blind and hungry, it's not a good idea to wander around the dungeon feeling for food on a level where you've killed a cockatrice.

          You also don't want to go after a cockatrice if you're polymorphed into a dragon. Or a vampire, I think.
      • IMHO Nethack is way due its expiration date... This is not a flame, nor do I find ASCII-based games boring, but face it, Nethack is just being kept alive so that a mid-30s Unix admin can brag about the items he discovered back in the "good old days".

        Just face it, whoever says that Nethack is better MUD surely has something wrong in the head. My reasons?

        • MUD is Multiplayer
        • Text (ASCII) is better used for describing things rather that "draw" them
        • There are better gaming technologies at present, why hang on to a "has-been" from ages ago?
        • Wasteful misuse of that GeForce4 4600 you just brought


        Nethack is long dead, why not let it go in peace rather than holding on to the nostalgia of the past. Let Nethack take it's place beside Pong, Space Invader, Frogger, etc. and be proud of what it has achieved in the past.

        • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JesseL ( 107722 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @08:57PM (#4582154) Homepage Journal
          Geez, this is like suggesting that you should give up on chess or go and play "Hungry Hungry Hippos" instead. Somtimes the enjoyment comes more from the quality and depth of gameplay than the eye candy, and multiplayer isn't always desirable.
          • OK, how do you merit Nethack with quality and depth? Sure it has a gazillion dungeons and monsters (which I remind you, is represented by some ASCII character). But what person who has a life would spend hours a day (at present) staring at typefaces which are supposed to be characters of a game?

            I'm not saying it doesn't have quality or depth... It used to have... back in the 80s and early 90s *at most*.

            • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:4, Informative)

              by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @09:59PM (#4582338) Homepage Journal
              The key words there are "typefaces which are supposed to be..."

              One of the great things about Nethack is how much is left to your own imagination. The experience is somewhat akin to listening to a baseball game on the radio, which can often be a richer experience than watching it on TV. Gameplay, content, and humor make Nethack quite simply the best computer game I've ever played, period.

              How many other games can you come back to years later and still find them entertaining?

            • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01, 2002 @10:43PM (#4582426)
              That's exactly the point; don't judge it until you have played it at least to the gnomish mines. It may be hard at first, but one gets better with time and knows what to take and what to avoid.

              The depth is simply awesome and recent dungeon-crawlers like the "click-click-click-kill" Diablo 2 and the barely interactive screensaver Dungeon Siege don't even come near a tenth of it.

              It does have a lot of items and monsters, but the interaction and possibilities are endless.

              In Diablo II, how many ways of going around are there? One; killing everything you can kill. Same for Dungeon Siege. In Nethack, each class has a TOTALLY different way of playing. For instance, with a tourist, you may (and will) want to avoid fights. For instance, the tourist starts with a photo camera, which he may use against monsters. Some times, the flash blinds a monster, sometimes it enrage them, some like it. Some flee when they see it. It all depends on the monster. Almost any obscure action you can do with the game's very extensive commands have programmed responses. Another exemple: touching a cockatrice petrifies you, but this effect still apply to the corpse. To take a cockatrice corpse, you would need gloves. Then, one can take the corpse as a weapon and turn other monsters to stone with it.

              MUDS do have that much depth. To get a MUD as developped at Nethack would be infeasible (well, save the infinite-monkey theorem).

              It's not like graphics matter; they simply are pixels. NetHack's not making graphic cards useless, it just spares 'em.

              NetHack is not simply random, too. It has a story, and some parts are half pre-generated (special levels and such).

              It requires thinking, unlike MUDS and other recent RPGs. It comes from an era where almost only intelligent people used computers, and was very succesful in those times. Games were dumbed down during the nineties, but Nethack stood still. The fact that this news was posted on Slashdot proves that intelligent gamers are not all dead.
            • Why in the world does the depth of a game have anything to do with the visual tokens that represent its elements? Chess is exactly the same when it's represented by little plastic pieces or carved crystal. Or ASCII characters on a board.

              I downloaded nethack for Mac OS X today.... when I started it up it had a graphical interface, pictoral representations. I played one game, then deleted it. I'm downloading the source as we speak. The terminal-based play is easier for me to follow. The graphical version was ugly, which was part of my motivation, but the bottom line is that I don't need that much overhead... the game is as playable in 25x80 ascii as it is in 1024x768 pixels. It's about what goes on inside your head as much as on screen.
        • So it must be brand new and shiny, eh? I take it you don't play computer chess or go. Do you ever play a game that doesn't involve a computer at all? Yikes, that really would be the land of the dinasours, wouldn't it?
          • No it doesn't necessarily have to be new and shiny... Yes I do play chess, and go, and checkers (or droughts, what ever you wish to call it), and chinese chess. So my answer here is, "You took it wrong!. Just because I find Nethack dumb, it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate true classics.

            And for your info... Nethack does involve a computer... so it's not exactly a dice-and-book-dungeons-and-dragons-game. So what does it got to do with what kind of (computer-based or otherwise) games I play?

        • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:4, Funny)

          by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @10:01PM (#4582345)
          Nethack is long dead, why not let it go in peace . . . Let Nethack take it's place beside Pong, Space Invader, Frogger, etc.

          Done. It now has a desktop icon and hotkey shortcut too. And as soon as a PalmOS port is done, it'll take its place there beside the others as well.

        • Falcon's Eye Nethack is a graphical interface for Nethack... While retaining all the keys and game itself ofcourse.

          Here [sourceforge.net].
        • Actually, NetHack the game is independent of it's user interface. Falcon's Eye is a wonderful frontend to Nethack.

          However, why does text make a game less fun? Did you have less fun when that was the only thing available? Of course not.
      • What strategy saves you from having to walk over every bloody square to find _the_ Vibrating Square in the maze?

        What strategy gets you enough trap-detection scrolls to avoid going insane looking for a moving, hidden teleporter on the elemental levels?

        What strategy guarantees you that the game won't kill you on your first step via a fire trap?

        What in-game strategy could POSSIBLY have told the player, given the complete lack of in-game hints and, if memory serves, lack of information about this from the Oracle, about the need for the Bell, the Book and the Candlelabrum, and how to use them?

        The game has /plenty/ of irritations, absymally tedious nonsense, and random deaths, and would appear to be mostly a collection of bizarre in-jokes and generator of nigh-mandatory spoiler files.
        • Well, the VS can only be so many squares in from the edges--four, I think, but read the spoilers if you care to know. That shrinks down the area a lot. Next, I can't be under a wall. Still, if I have some renewable means of digging (e.g. a pick-axe, though the dig spell works wonders as a wizard with that nice amulet :) I'll gladly use that instead. Now, dig through only the walls to the left & right & run along from right to left, covering all the squares. Once you find the VS, put something on the ground to the side of it (e.g. an iron chain) so you don't lose it, teleport to the stairs & go back up to kill Rodney (do NOT kill him before you find the VS, it's just asking for trouble... you just know that he'll double trouble you right when you've found the VS & will steall all the stuff you need for the invocation...)

          As for the trap-detection scrolls, grab the wand of wishing in the castle. You have 6 wishes even if you don't have a blessed ? of charging already--MORE than enough to get what you need. Besides, they're useless on water, anyhow. You should just genocide ; put on a ring of searching & rest for a while.

          You can't avoid dying on the first turn to a fire trap, though it's incredibly unlikely. I've only ever hit the 'do not pass go, do not collect 200 zorkmids' message on purpose. Besides, you've put *NOTHING* into such a character, so start over already! It's *much* worse when you have your brains sucked out in Moloch's sanctum :/

          BTW, the invocation *IS* available, more or less, from both the Oracle & the messages you get if you mis-used the bell, book & candle. The only caveat is that the bell has to be charged, but that's no biggie, so long as you identified it. Your quest leader tells you that that stupid bell is important, anyhow.

          You might find the game more fun if you'd beaten it a few times, though :] It doesn't seem all that fun until you're *finally* running a char who can make it. E.G. that time I found that wand of wishing in the *first* room. So much for Archaeologists being "challenging" ;] It's *so* much easier wandering about wielding a blessed +2 Grayswandir, wearing +2 SDSM & blessed fireproof +2 boots of speed... =]

        • SPOILERS

          Once you know you're on the last level of Gehennom, yes you basically have to walk over almost every square until you find the vibrating square. Gehennom is boring, I agree.

          Use scrolls of gold detection, while confused. The portals on the planes will be detected, and stay detected. And it only moves on the plane of Water.

          I don't think fire traps occur on lvl 1. But yes, you can die like that, maybe magic traps do exist there, or you may have few hp and there's a falling rock trap. There's some luck involved in the very early game. But that doesn't matter much, not a huge time investment.

          The Oracle has this to say about the invocation: It is said that thou mayst gain entry to Moloch's sanctuary, if thou darest, from a place where the ground vibrateth in the deepest depths of Gehennom. Thou needs must have the aid of three magical items. The pure sound of a silver bell shall announce thee. The terrible runes, read from Moloch's book, shall cause the earth to tremble mightily. The light of an enchanted candelabrum shall show thee the way. Seems pretty explicit to me (apart from the apparent error "thou needs must have...").

          I do agree that I started enjoying the game a lot more after reading spoilers. And I saw much more of it too. The first four years I saw the Castle exactly once. In the six years after I found spoilers, I ascended 17 or so times.

    • Well, where to begin.

      Nethack was such a big influence in the lines of RPGs... and a great Thief of Time in so many of our lives.

      Its a great game - it was an early online D&D style RPG - its fun. very fun.

      But it requires that you get into it because you loved D&D and love the RPG genre. If you cant get over the lack of wild 3D fragging madness - then move on...

      I know that it may be hard for "newbies" (i.e. people who didnt play it when there was no such thing as 3d graphics) to get into it... but when it came out it quenched our thirst for a time by filling the RPG wish we had.

      You should definitely give it a go. I would recommend starting it at the same time as a friend - that will help engender competition between your characters... and help you get into it a little easier.

      Dont be fooled it is not lame. But I would recommend that you try Zangband [zangband.org].....

    • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:42PM (#4581725) Homepage
      Yes, and no.

      Ok, I used to play it a lot, but I gave up, partly cos its irritating as hell.

      In theory there is actually a way to win the game, I think there's atleast 25-40 levels or more; but in practice unless you cheat and/or research the game a lot chances are you'll never, ever win it; it's just too obscure. I've known a dozen or so players- of those, maybe one has completed it, maybe once.

      Still there's plenty of fun in there- robbing shop keepers is a blast, and the keystone cops turning up is fun, if a bit life shortening. Your pet dog/cat and you against the dungeon has a certain nice ambiance to it.

      But ultimately the random death element got on my nerves just too much.

      • I belive no one has ever beaten Nethack. Winning being returning the Amulet of Yendor to the surface.

        I've seen level 18, on an adreniline fueled, 'stepping on eggshells' trip to the depths. I can't remember how I died, but it was quick and nasty....

        • Nah, lots of people have beaten it. (Not me, but then, I've never played.)

        • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @07:24PM (#4581917) Homepage
          I have ascended (beaten it) as have two of my friends. It's difficult, and can take weeks. The number one problem I see when someone new plays nethack is that they try to go too fast. Take your time. It should take a week at minimum to finish a game. I consider that a speed play. To finish the game you have to be extremely careful.
          One of the most fun and challenging aspects is identifying items. Sure, you can look for scrolls of identify, but even then you're unlikely to have /those/ identified! Trying to figure out items by the way they interact with the world and without using them in a way that they can blow up in your face is one of my favorite aspects of the game, and almost a necessity unless you are very lucky early in the game (Book of Identify or a couple of scrolls).
          There are sites devoted to "spoilers" for the game. These sites detail the way object interact with the world. For example, if you engrave something into the floor with a wand, usually something non-destructive will happen. By knowing the message a fire wand gives, for example, you can rule out whether the random item you find is a fire wand. Similarly for just about all item types. Also, once you find a shop, you can have a general idea of the power of an item by attempting to sell it.
          Once you get a large number of items identified (either by truly ID'ing them or by marking them when you find out what they are) you can begin really gearing yourself up. Eventually you'll find a wand of wishing (there's always one at least) with which you can get some real protection and be more daring.

          I used to be addicted to the game. I came close to ascending a monk, and I did ascend a couple of Wizards (cheesiest class, imo), but you truly must take your time or else the game will be nothing but a frustration.

      • Not so hard. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by juuri ( 7678 )
        You just have to be dedicated. I personally have ascended 10 characters out of probably 1-1.5k games of nethack starting from around 1995-2000. After I got 3 valkrys up in a row I stopped playing.
      • I got out with the wossname some 12 years ago (it was one of the earliest versions to be called "NetHack" rather than "Hack" so perhaps it was easier then). Played as a Wizard, had 3 pet dragons called Huey Duey and Luey, and a dog called Dave :)

        My modus operandi for big battles towards the end was to teleport in (ring of teleportation control, plus an early diet of quantum mechanics/leprechauns) summon my Dragon "horde" (magic whistle) and teleport out again..

        The Dragons could be a right nuissance mind - more than once I died from a thermonuclear explosion when my pets fired on a monster on the other side of me, causing my scrolls and potions to catch fire, and all manner of unwanted magical happenings that invariably ended up with me dead.

        If I recall correctly, the thing I spent longest on was becoming fireproof - can't remember why now but I kept getting burnt to death on the last level.

        We played that far too much at university. My mate Dave was a born cheater, and it very amusing watching the game trap his early efforts - like the time he just wished for the amulet with a wand of wishing, got it, and greedily exited the dungeon .....

        Or my favourite - the time he edited the save file and successfully gave himself max hit points. He then killed some monster, went up an XP level and the signed integer holding the HP clocked round to a negative number and he died... the look on his face..

        That's why you play Nethack - its the closest you;ll get to that atmosphere you get in a well run AD&D game with the inventiveness (especially on the magic front - a la Vance) It's the problem solving element - the amusing combinations of items + actions, and the awful puns (magic marker, quantum mechanics, and so on).

        The first time I burst into a room of Demons and instead of them beating me to a pulp they said "go away! go away!" and ran off.... It's those bits.

        Another friend of mine, actually bought a second hand DEC Rainbow just to play Nethack (this was before PC's were "affordable").

        Fantastic.

    • Ah, but therein lies the rub: if you have to ask why you should play Nethack, it's not the game for you. It's like the Grateful Dead--either you get them or you don't.

    • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:5, Informative)

      by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:44PM (#4581738)
      If you don't get Nethack, you might not ever, but before you decide....

      Play at least 30 games. The multitude of actions you can do at any time is huge. This leads to very open-ended gameplay, with no two games the same.You'll die 20 times on the 3rd level, and next game you outwit some 15th level monster and walk away with a wicked weapon, etc. It's highly rewarding.

      Other things I love about Nethack;It's net-aware and Unix friendly, delivering emails via messengers and other neato tricks. It runs on the console, and it has a wacked sense of humor, in the best tradition of oldskool Unix hacking.

    • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It isn't actually lame, it is just hard and complicated. Minesweeper it is not. It does get better. I'll play for 20 hours at a stretch if my wife lets me. As to why you should try it? Why should you play any game? Nethack is challenging, fun, surprising, and can take years to master.

      Some tips:

      Starting out, play a Valkyrie. They're quite formidable. Add non-cursed armor as you find it.

      Don't wield/wear cursed items (one's a pet won't walk over).

      Don't eat anything your pets won't eat. (_Old_ corpses, kobolds)

      Refer to the spoilers often (online or in /usr/doc/nethack-spoilers).

    • Can someone please tell me honestly why I should start getting into Nethack? I mean I've clicked on the icon a few times ...



      LOL!



    • You shouldn't get into Nethack. The longer you are able to think of it as a seemingly lame game the longer you will maintain your job and relationships. You won't like it, honestly. There are too many levels to bother with.

      (started playing (Hack for Amiga) 1987; first ascended (Nethack 3 on a VAX) in 1992)
    • Better: Yes. More Interesting: Yes. How many Levels: Yes. Getting into Nethack requires a little patience. Then again, so does Chess. They're both no fun when you don't know what you're doing. Nethack is miserably dull when you keep starving on dungeon level 2 and keep starting over again and again and again... What you've missed, though, is that Nethack is the deepest game ever made. By that, I mean most games make you do what the programmers' want you to do. This is because the interactions between items, actions, bad guys and such is combinatoric in nature, so games that have a fixed dev schedule only implement a tiny fraction of interactions. This is why you must find the "Magic Key" to open the door, rather than just kicking it down. In Nethack, you can kick the door down. Unless you're a tourist, in which case you might hurt yourself trying. You can also try picking the lock. This can work well on locked chests too. You might not want to kick chests open, because that can destroy some things inside (like potions in glass bottles...) You see, Nethack has been in development for a VERY LONG time by people who aren't wasting time making pretty graphics. This means that people have come up with interesting, clever, and often funny interactions for so many corner cases that you will likely never exhaust the possibilities of this game. Toss in multiple character classes, and randomly generated dungeons, and you have a game with more replayability than anything else I can think of. Oh, and it's HARD. You only get one life. You die, you start over. Makes you actually think about what you're doing, and makes all these decisions really matter. Oh, and one piece of advice for the newbie: if you're about to starve on one of the early levels, try praying, and don't eat zombie corpses.

      • In Nethack, you can kick the door down.

        Or you can, say:

        • Zap it with a wand that destroys it
        • Pick the lock
        • Polymorph into an acid blob or so and ooze under the door
        • Polymorph into a Xorn and walk through the door
        • Dig around the door
        • Go up a level, dig down, jump through the hole, hope you end up behind the door
        • Teleport to the other side
        • Unlock the door with the spell of Knock, then open it
        • Have the door hit by a disintegration ray (from a black dragon that misses you, or by polymorphing into one)

        And this is just a start. There are options like this with anything you can do in the game. If I want to impress people with Nethack I try to tell them of all the strange situations that can happen with cockatrices... Say a monster has gloves on, picks up a cockatrice corpse and wields it... You put on your ring of conflict, the nymph next to him steals his gloves, he turns to stone :-).

        And that's why Nethack is unique!

    • They can be great fun if you have craploads of time on your hands (like us students >: ) Most RPG games do start out lame. Final Fantasy VII is still for my money the best RPG ever made (controversial choice, I know) but for the first coupla days of play all you do in fights is select Attack from a tantalisingly big empty list of options.

      RPGs are always shit when you first start out. That's a side effect of the essence of role-playing - growth. If you start out fully grown, what's the point?

    • Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Friday November 01, 2002 @07:54PM (#4582011) Homepage

      The makers of the game concentrated on the content, not the graphics or presentation. =)

      The game is challenging. There's about ~40 dungeon levels or something. I've played the game for about a decade. I've been to level 12 or 13. (Okay, I'm a very lazy player, but still.)

      There are few games that give this kind of feeling of accomplishment. Even if you don't win, if you have One Hell of a Game, it really means you have One Hell of a Game. I, for one, use the expression in a way entirely different from the way non-Nethackers use it.

      For me, personally, it's also a grim reminder of the harsh reality: I can't really call myself a gamer until I've finished Nethack. I mean, everyone can finish these new games, but Nethack is an old, time-proven test that separates really dedicated gamers from the rest of the people. If someone says they have finished the game without cheating, I look at them with Great, Boundless Respect(tm). Anyone who can finish a game this hard has to be worth their merit. And I'd give the Nobel or something to the guy who finishes the game without tips, spoilers or sourcediving and with all optional challenges done...

  • How many of you between 15-15 really know nethack? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:29PM (#4581643) Journal
    and why? I mean, I do not think I would have thumbled into it if I would be a bit younger. Do you, non-dinosaurs, really play it? How did you get introduced to it? Is there anyone who can admit just pretending it's cool, because it's "oldskool" :)
    • I started playing when I was about 13. I was reading somewhere and the website said that ZAngband gave you funny error messages if you typed unbound keys. This eventually led to Nethack, which I play sparingly now (I'm 15 now.)
    • I started playing Nethack at the tender age of 13, and not because it was "oldskool" as you say. I started because it was fun and easy to smuggle onto other people's computers since I didn't have one myself. :)
    • Well, Im 19 now - I don't remember what age I was when I first saw nethack - about 12 maybe. A friend of the same age introduced me - no idea how he was introduced.

      I've played it in binges ever since, not because its oldskool, but because its a cool game, probably more detailed than anything else I've ever played. Ascended my first character last year - yay.

    • 15 through 15 is a rather small sample if you're taking a survey.. :®f

      I ran into nethack after playing a 'Moria' port for the IIgs - I loved it, and still do (even though I STILL haven't ascended! grrr.)

      It has spent some time on all my machines at one time or another; I had to get rid of it because I wasn't doing anything else! Then I went and played Galtrader [operagost.com] (run by a fellow /.er), and was horribly addicted to that for awhile.

      Damn games in a terminal window! They always get me!

  • For all you NetHack fans.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:30PM (#4581651)
    Give Mangband a shot http://mangband.org/ if you like dungeon hacks. Open source..even a Japanese version or two.
  • Reading an An analysis of the slashdot effect [openchallenge.org] has proved to provide instant help.

  • Prizes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@NOSpAm.thcnet.net> on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:34PM (#4581675) Homepage
    For hacking related contests, all prizes should fall into the "Pieces of a Ma-Bell truck" category and the "Carolyn Meinell's severed head" category.
  • How is the 4th Annual NetHack Tournament committe planning on handling the scourage of the gaming field that is cheaters, flooders, packeteers, and other undesirables? Denial-of-Service is unavoidable, but preventing gamers from modifying the client executable (given the fact that the source is freely available) to achieve higher scores, go through walls (similar to Doom II's IDCLIP walk-through-walls code), or acquire inventory out of thin air? Often, the NetHack executable is signed with a cryptographic hash which is used to verify authentic, genuine, non-modified executables to the server, how reliable is this--and what will the NetHack Tournament ringleaders be using?
  • Like reading /. all day hasn't hurt my productivity, all I need now is to have a new excuse to play Nethack. I narrowly dodged the last release, and thought I was safe!

    I better go find a tinning kit, so I'll have something to eat while I live on the street. :(

  • OOPS. (Score:4, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:38PM (#4581699)
    Contest is over. nethack.devnull.net slaughtered with a Vorpal Slashdotting +3

  • I know you can't use it (Score:4, Informative)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:45PM (#4581744) Homepage Journal
    for the tournament. But if you want the gameplay of Nethack with rather cool graphics and music try Falconseye [sourceforge.net]

  • NetHacking and Jail (Score:5, Funny)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:47PM (#4581750) Journal
    Remember, hacking into other people's computers is a crime, which you can go to jail for a really long time for.

    You may think it is all fun and games "Hacking" the "Net", but when the cops bust down your door you may feel a little differently.

    Doing a search on google for this tournament, it seems that people have been doing this for years! Just imagine all the lost hours of productivity when poor admins have to reinstall systems that were hacked. It's not their fault they ran Microsoft software.

  • 3D Nethack (Score:5, Funny)

    by Avumede ( 111087 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @06:51PM (#4581771) Homepage
    It would be quite amusing for someone to make a 3d version of nethack, yet have it use 3d text instead of actual character graphics. Can you imagine, in the flickering light of a dungeon, the sight of a huge W jumping out from behind the shadows?

    • Re:3D Nethack (Score:5, Funny)

      by VistaBoy ( 570995 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @07:12PM (#4581875)
      If someone made that game, I think God himself would have vengeance by having a giant rain of Ts fall from the Heavens to impale everyone involved. Just for the irony. If God was really nasty, he may even use *s or even the dreaded #!

      • Re:3D Nethack (Score:4, Funny)

        by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Friday November 01, 2002 @07:36PM (#4581960) Homepage
        If someone made that game, I think God himself would have vengeance by having a giant rain of Ts fall from the Heavens to impale everyone involved.

        Rain of Trolls... and they say Slashdot has a troll problem...

        Just for the irony. If God was really nasty, he may even use *s or even the dreaded #!

        I understand the stones, but a kitchen sink from the heavens? If I remember the Bible stuff correctly, it was that ruler guy who washed his hands, not God!

    • Re:3D Nethack (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @07:28PM (#4581932) Homepage
      When Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring came out, several of us couldn't help laughing out loud during the Balrog scene. Later while discussing the movie, we discovered that we'd all pictured an ampersand (&) chasing a bunch of h's and @'s ;)

      We decided it was time to stop playing....

    • Re:3D Nethack (Score:4, Funny)

      by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @08:22PM (#4582071)
      Something like this? [www.adom.de]

      W
    • >It would be quite amusing for someone to make a 3d
      >version of nethack, yet have it use 3d text instead
      >of actual character graphics. Can you imagine, in
      >the flickering light of a dungeon, the sight of a >huge W jumping out from behind the shadows?

      For extra irony, the Slashdot banner ad for this article is advertising the Radeon 9700.

    • Actually, what'd I'd love is for someone to make something like glhack (thus with a zoom) and antialiased fonts. I'm not one for the graphics but zoomable would be nice.

  • Dungeon Crawl (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Neechee ( 603494 )
    I'd like to mention Dungeon Crawl [dungeoncrawl.org] while we're talking about rogue-likes. It's an excellent program written originally by a Scandinavian fellow (sound familiar?). It's a great game, with 26 different races, 29 different starting classes (the practice-based skill system makes this quite flexible), and the best dungeon-generation code I've ever seen in a rogue-like. Try it! Your life will never be the same! >;->
  • Of the men and the boys -- the boys being those whoe die 10 every game, and the men being "I ascended with my eyes closed yesterday cause I was bored" -- I am a lowly baby. The site has playback software, but frankly it's an ugly hack. I can't tell where one game starts and another game ends. It seems I click on one, and it's someone who's already at level 25 going up against ridiculous foes. I click on another, and it's a guy who gets unlucky and dies on level 3. I just want to see ONE complete game. I want to see someone make that transition from the mines to the quests. That's what I can't do, and I can't find a recording of anyone making this leap anywwhere
    • Well ... not to toot my own horn, but if you look at the recorded games for 'aardvark', my ascension is in there. (It's split into two files, as I saved my game; I was playing as a neutral male human barbarian.)


      My biggest recommendation for that stage of the game is to always make sure you think about what you're doing before wading into battle. By the time you've cleared the mines, an ascension is nearly guaranteed if you don't screw up. Whenever you get killed, look at your inventory and try to think of a way you could have saved yourself.

      • I'm interested to know how an ascension is "guaranteed" once you clear the mines... Why is that, exactly? (I'm seriously asking).
        • By the time you clear the mines, you should have 75-100 hitpoints (depending on class), AC between -5 and 0, and a good assortment of scrolls and wands. (Chances are about 1 in 3 or so that you'll have a wish, as well.) Barring something ridiculous like an arch-lich in the dungeons or a kobold with a wand of death, that equipment is enough to survive just about anything nethack will throw at you.


          My experience corroborates this; I can't remember the last time that I died after the mines that wasn't due to my own stupidity. (Note, of couse, that I said "if you don't screw up" ... I probably screw up more often than not, and I suspect that most other people do too.)

          • Yes, I suppose you're right... I always do manage to screw up though. Of course, in Nethack 3.4, the titan can summon entire hordes of monsters. (I don't recall him doing this in NH 3.3) He once summoned the entire room he was in on the water level completely full of monsters, including a lovely master mind flayer right next to me. I was kind of pissed, and kind of dead... Oh well. :) Thanks for the advice, by the way!
            • The difference in summoning is that monsters can now cast spells from a distance; in 3.3 and before, they had to be standing next to you. If they summon more spellcasting monsters, together they can quickly fill a level.


              I believe that it is considered a bug, and will be fixed in the next version. However, until then, the proper means of dealing with spellcasters is to dispatch them quickly or run for it. (I neglected to do that in my last ascension, and demilich in the castle nearly killed me.)

  • I've been getting into nethack more and more lately. The depth of this game is absolutely intriguing. You can play a thousand games, and no two will be alike. And the more you play, the more you discover that you're able to do. The huge number of beasts you encounter, the immense number of spells to cast, scrolls to read, traps to fall into while holding back screams so the other people in the lab won't think you a weirdo...

    The infinite number of absurde, hysterically funny situations you get entangled in. This is what makes nethack more and more fun the more you play, and it's probably what's kept the game alive since the mid-eighties. Nethack is the oldest computer game still in development.

    And guess what, it has the best graphics EVER. Your unleashed imagination.

  • Ascensions? Give me a break! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Pac ( 9516 ) <paulo...candido@@@gmail...com> on Friday November 01, 2002 @08:12PM (#4582058)
    I said it elsewhere and I will say it again: Where are the prizes for us clueless? Where is the "Dumbest Death" prize? "Fastest Death"? "Best Death Playing as if it was Quake"? "Most Stupid Level 1 Death"? "Best Level 1 Death While in Level 10 or More" (like starving for lack of attention deep into the mines)?

  • Mysterious Dungeon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moronga ( 323123 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @08:20PM (#4582068)
    Chunsoft (the people who make DragonQuest / Dragon Warrior) have a series of "Mysterious Dungeon" games that are rogue / nethack games, with spiffy graphics. The purists out there probably cringe at the thought of bitmaps (the latest ones are in 3d!) but the gameplay is basically the same.

    It's really amazing how much strategic and tactical complexity you can get out of simple rules and a huge number of items and monster types.

    The most famous one in the US is probably Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, published by Square. Typically, these games get ripped apart in reviews by idiot videogame writers who don't understand the first thing about good gameplay. They have a really loyal following in Japan, though.

    Check them out if you have a PS1. Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon and Toruneko's Escape are available in the US.

  • Dear Slashdot enthusiasts (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Please play more commercially-produced, retail linux games. We need to invest time in the "commercial market", the free and opensource market will always be around. I don't troll when I say this; Linux, and its buddy, freeBSD, need to be recognised as alternative platforms for gaming and we need more 1337 SysAdmins playin and talkin Linux UT2003, Linux Tribes2, Linux Doom3, Linux RtCW, and Mr. Mike Simms' new effort called Majesty [tuxgames.com]. Thankyou for the excellent forum to post this unto and thanks for the consistant ranting, praising, code ethics, and kindness.
  • 2,956,782 FPS in nethack. NVidia can't touch that.

  • I can tell you what the winner will look like (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pyrosophy ( 259529 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @10:09PM (#4582362)
    @
    If he's lucky, he'll be accompanied by
    d
    Ah, Nethack, where
    !$%??!
    is a store, not a swear.

  • What's really great about NH (Score:4, Insightful)

    by danshapiro ( 529921 ) on Friday November 01, 2002 @10:21PM (#4582382) Homepage
    Load it on to your laptop. Turn off the backlight. It's text, so it's still easy to read. It'll never page, so your HD goes to sleep. If you switch it into text only mode and you're using Windows XP and your drivers support it, your graphics accelerator will go to sleep (not sure about Linux). And be sure to pull out your PCMCIA cards, and get network drivers and an ACPI BIOS that play nice. You'll get battery life and entertainment value to last most of a transcontinental flight. Try that with the latest EA game-of-the-month!

    Dan-V ascended to demigoddess-hood. 479 [496]
    7th Place, 5878647 points
    (1999 NH tournament)

  • I will hit any T with a c %

  • Nethack Replayability (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Succa ( 108618 ) on Saturday November 02, 2002 @12:14AM (#4582637) Homepage
    One of my favourite things about Nethack is the ability to do conduct challenges. This feature gives Nethack a lot of replay value. There have been some crazy ascensions posted to rec.games.roguelike.nethack. For example, check out this Atheist, Pacifist Ascension [google.ca]. Or this Extinctionist [google.ca]. Or this absolutely unbelievable Vegan, Atheist, Illiterate, Weaponless, Wishless, Genoless, Polyless Monk. [google.ca] Great fun, I tell you. Anyone know of ascensions more impressive than these? Post them!
  • what your dog is?

    Perhaps an interesting side-topic: what games first started taking real-time into account? Zork/Dungeon?

    I admit that Dungeon Keeper II is the best that I've encountered, limited experience here. (The first few times, amusing. Tonight is not a good night to put my head on a pillow! Oh wait, even Dungeon Keepers..)

  • I'd like to be able to view some of the players are they are playing their games. Perhaps some sort of combined passive telnet + IRC so other viewers can comment, chat while watching. No kibitzing obviously, musn't disturb the participants.

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