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Classic Games (Games)

Nethack 20 Years Old Today 47

Posted by Zonk from the part-10-still-missing dept.
An Anonymous Reader wrote in to mention that, according to an informational page about the venerable game Hack, today is Hack's 20th birthday. From the page: "In December 1984 I distributed Hack 1.0 in the newsgroup net.sources.... [T]here were 15 pieces, all sent out on 17-Dec-84." From the reader: "This was the first widespread distribution of the game, which was created by Jay Fenlason a couple of years previously. Nethack's history continues here. You can download this descendant of Rogue from its home page, or connect to a nethack server. Many nethack veterans try their hand at Slash'EM, a.k.a., "nethack on amphetamines". Here's to another 20 years of training your dog to rip off shopkeepers."
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Nethack 20 Years Old Today More

Nethack 20 Years Old Today

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  • But I think I like Adom better.

    It just seems less clunky to me, somehow.

    • It just seems less clunky to me, somehow.

      Agreed. I'm more of a fan of the Moria branch of the roguelike dev tree myself, especially Angband. I haven't played it for a while, though. I got frustrated after only ever getting one player down to Morgoth depth and him not having the speed items to handle him toe-to-toe. I was able to beat Moria once, though. (I also got the Amulet in Rogue, but a Jabberwock destroyed it before I got back out... tanj.)

      • Since you have access to the source, you can change things to make it a little more fair.

        In Angband, I once created an "engineer" class that was a combination warrior and mage (just like real engineers). Some would call it "cheating," but I think of it as "creative winning." Long live engineers!
        • > I once created an "engineer" class that was a combination warrior and mage

          Whoo hoo! Brains AND braun in the same person? Aren't you violating the basic law of the common belief system? Before you know it, engineers will start getting laid, and that would really make the world a weird place...
        • In Angband, I once created an "engineer" class that was a combination warrior and mage (just like real engineers).

          Just curious, what's the difference between an Engineer and a Ranger or Rogue, the classes that already do that?

          There already are variants on the 'Net that try to "abbreviate" the game duration to reduce the difficulty, but I regard that as a form of cheating. If you didn't win Vanilla, you didn't really win.

          That said, my Moria win was with an unorthodox variant that had a "Druid" class, a

        • It's cheating, but creative cheating.

  • Cool maths (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Saiyine ( 689367 )
    So a game created "a couple of years" before 1984 is twenty years old today?
    • Humans are usually about 9 months old before they celebrate their 0th birthday, and we measure how old we are based on the number of birthdays we've had. Same thing here.

    • Re:Cool maths (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zach Garner ( 74342 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @02:12PM (#11117829)
      So a game created "a couple of years" before 1984 is twenty years old today?

      That's the difference between creation date and release date. It's common to focus more on the release date.

      For a real world example: Many americans believe that people are created sometime before they are born. But still the birth date (somewhat equivalent to a software release date) is used for most purposes.
  • I tried to launch nethack on my gentoo box and it required a X server, what happened to the command line ascii version?
  • I must be the worst Nethack player ever - I've been through various states of addiction to it for 16 years and have still to ever get past the 14th level of the dungeon
    • You'll find my corpse on the next level, right under where that hole in the ceiling is...
    • You're not alone. I haven't been playing quite as long, but I can't see how anyone can finish this game without using a trainer. Unless it's all they ever do.
      • Really, man. I love the game, wish I had a tenth of a centavo for every minute I've ever wasted playing it, but it's bleedin' addictive. Last night, I was running around as a barbarian, had worked my way up to 10th level with 18/02 strength, had found a magic lamp and wished up Stormbringer, was doing pretty damned well, killing everything in sight with 1-2 whacks, and was feeling pretty invincible, when all of a sudden up pops a mumak and *WHAP*! Scratch yet another dead critter.
        • Barbarian (or valkyrie) is a great choice to try to win with.

          Say it with me:

          "blessed greased +2 gray dragon scale mail"

          That's your first wish.

          Or, alternately, silver instead of gray (depending on whether you already have another source of magic resistance).

          If you're 10th level (not sure how high you need to be, but 10th is plenty), find an altar (one without an attendant priest) and sacrifice things for a while--you'll get an artifact weapon that way without wasting a wish.
      • Just play on and off for a decade. I finally ascended for the first time this year. Remarkably, I've ascended 3 more times since. Once you learn the tricks, it's a lot easier. Also, the beginning of the game is the hardest; it's almost impossible to die if you make it past the castle (barring silly mistakes)
    • Take heart. I was in the same position until recently, having played for many years, with many YASDs, and then I had a couple of characters get to the Castle, and one which finally ascended. (I've yet to repeat it, though.)
    • Same here, been playing Rogue or Nethack since 1984 and 14th level is just about my max, and rarely achieved, too. Of course, it's the impossibility and shear cussedness of the game that gets me to go back to it year after year.
    • <BRAG>

      I have ascended 5 times. Not bad for some 15 odd years of playing :D

      </BRAG>

      <PLUG>

      http://walkiry.no-ip.org/nethack

      </PLUG>
  • challenging / hard: try finishing the game, it's very hard, you die all the time

    addictive: there's always some new aspect you learn. it takes a lot of experience to get used to the interchange of items in the game.
    the random generator makes every game new, so you won't be bored going through the same room/fighting the same monsters.

    hard to learn: tons of commands, tons of items. the guidebook is the best place to learn how to play.

    gives me creeps: scary monsters, millions of ways to die, sudden death, yo
    • challenging / hard: try finishing the game, it's very hard, you die all the time

      Actually it's not *that* hard, really. It's true I've been playing for a long time, but if you know what you're doing, you can ascend in most games.

      The key is that "knowing what you are doing" is a very difficult task, you could take a college course on Nethack (if you find one by the way let me know) and still not be that good.

      The key elements involve surviving encounters with monsters (soldier ants should be treated with

  • Too young (Score:3, Interesting)

    by clickster ( 669168 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @02:37PM (#11118192)
    I was 6 when it was released, so could someone please give a basic rundown of what Hack and its many variants are?

    • Re:Too young (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tired_Blood ( 582679 )
      It's essentially single-player D&D.

      The best way to understand is to just play the game. I suggest a non-ascii (graphical) version, since you'll probably strain your eyes (and brain) with the original while trying to figure out what each onscreen character represents.

      I started playing Nethack a couple months ago and find myself enjoying it more than most games for two reasons: 1. it's a small complex game, and 2. the dungeon maps always change. In fact, if you load a saved game, the maps of unexplored
      • In fact, if you load a saved game, the maps of unexplored levels will also change on each reload.

        Cheater!

        • Re:Too young (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Tired_Blood ( 582679 )
          Ahhh, whatever.

          Even though a defensive rant is probably unneccessary (I'm still unsure if your comment is in jest), here goes:

          That savegame procedure IS cheating (technically speaking) but, honestly, what's it matter to you? There's no way that that cheat could affect your appreciation of the game (it's not multiplayer and I never made any claim of progress).

          The point is, I just recently started so I'm still learning (a couple months, as opposed to your claim of a couple decades) and my process is much
          • There's a word for your reprehensible behavior.

            Savescumming.

          • Dying at level 2 the 74th time in a row gets old (normally by starvation).

            Yes, that's why one would try to figure out why one is starving, and do something about it. Such as, say, eating. :-) Most things you kill can be eaten, and if you are constantly not finding enough things to kill, you're either not looking hard enough, or not descending fast enough.

            And yes, it's your own business whether you cheat in your own, single-player games. However, you'll enjoy the game much more if you learn to play it

            • When you see 'hungry', you quickly realize that you need to eat something (like corpses) and you learn which corpses to reject. But the problem I was facing occurs when you run out.

              Aside from going deeper, I eventually figured out that #pray frequently saves you in those circumstances (poisoning, low health, etc), but doing that isn't apparent to a beginner. I was punished severely when praying for the first time while experimenting commands, which dissuaded me from that course later on (those first 70som
          • I was just funning. Given the nature of the game, I wouldn't blame anyone for cheating, and you're right, what does it matter in single player?

            When I discovered Nethack, I went back and "beat" rogue by savescumming. It was boring. It may be possible that you'll get more enjoyment for longer out of the game by not doing that.

          • Quoth Tired_Blood
            Dying at level 2 the 74th time in a row gets old (normally by starvation).
            If you are starving in Nethack and can't find any edible corpses, try praying to your god.
    • Heh, the game is older than me, and yet, I play it all the time ;)

      This is one timeless game.

  • Other varients (Score:3, Informative)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 ) <GoNINzo.yahoo@com> on Friday December 17, 2004 @06:07PM (#11120425) Journal
    There are other networked varients out there which are neat. Like Mangband [mangband.org] ( Mulitplayer Angband, a spin off of moria, which is a spin off of hack), and TomeNet [c-blue.de] (there is another site [tomenet.net] but it's slow right now.)

    I run a server for both games on wckg.net. The main server for tomenet is europe.tomenet.net. They are both fun. `8r)

  • When people ask about the difficulty of nethack and SLASH'EM, they are usually told the following (on rgrn). Commercial games want you to win. Nethack doesn't care either way. SLASH'EM wants you DEAD.

  • Three Words (Score:2, Informative)

    by Icephreak1 ( 267199 )
    Best. Game. Ever.

    - IP

  • Happy Birthday Nethack (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djdavetrouble ( 442175 ) on Saturday December 18, 2004 @11:38AM (#11124382) Homepage
    Nethack also worked on SO MANY platforms, I heard about it on a bbs, and was able to download a copy for my atari ST. I also had a shell account at work that I compiled it on (we had vt 100 terminals on our desk back then). I looked on the downloads page, and there are unofficial versions for things like a psion and zaurus, and official versions for dos, all windows releases, atari, amiga, os/2, mac, windows ce, and linux. People will port it to any platform. Back then it was the best dungeon game you could play, and once you are hooked on it there is no turning back. I had never played a game that seemed so simple (kill bad things, get treasure, escape) that could become so complex. My nethack buddy always compared it to chess, in that you have to try to think ahead always. Do you really want to drink that unidentified potion in the gnomish mines and risk hallucination ? etc etc..

    Nethack players are used to the rest of the world 'not getting it', but we love showing the door to newbies, knowing that there is a certain kind of nerd that lives for things like this.

    Funny story, one of the network administrators was at my desktop helping me with something, and I had to explain the Nethack icon on my desktop to her... I saw she was looking at it very nervously....muahahahahaha

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