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[Vieo]

For those of you who still remember/play the game.

I DLed it for the first time about two months ago. Many years before that, I heard a lot about it but never played it. I use the windows version that uses icons instead of text. Anyway, I can only get to about a time(T) of T:3000, then I pretty much die. Here's some of the more interesting ways I've died:

1. I was starving to death and out of food so I ate a corpse which gave me food posion and killed me.
2. My dog turned on me and attacked me.
3. The dog of one of my previous characters attacked me.
4. The ghost of one of my previous characters attacke dme.
5. I fried like 3 gnomes with a magic missle wand. There was a 4th gnome behind them and without looking I zapped that gnome. Turns out he was a gnome mage. My magic missle bounced off of him and was reflected back to me which in turn, killed me.
6. I tried to drink from a fountain, but as I did a bunch of watersnakes came out.
7. A rock fell and crushed my head.
8. A floating eye froze me while a Kobold punneled the hell out of me.
9. I zapped a shopkeeper with a wand of teleportation. He disappeared. I promptly proceeded to loot his shop. Just as I was leaving, he walks through the front door and fries me with a wand.

I think this game is waaaaaay too unbalanced. You can die TOO easily.

P.S. Did Diablo come first? I was wondering who came up with the random dungeon thing first.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Didn't Rogue predate Nethack?

 

[miyuru]

Diablo was the first game with randomly generated dungeons?

I figure that idea would've come up way way earlier in the '80s.

 

[dog$]

Rogue came before Hack which came before Nethack.

Beating the game is referred to as "ascending" by Nethack fans and is very possible, but I definitely haven't done it yet in my years of playing. Also, I fully disagree that the game is too hard and unbalanced. While death in Nethack is mostly inevitable and the game is engineered to kill you as quickly as possible, you could have avoided all of those 9 deaths to some degree.

1. I was starving to death and out of food so I ate a corpse which gave me food posion and killed me.
#pray or use a unicorn horn to take care of Food Poisoning.
2. My dog turned on me and attacked me.
kill it or set "nopet" as one of your options (pets piss me off)
3. The dog of one of my previous characters attacked me.
see #2
4. The ghost of one of my previous characters attacke dme.
Ghosts are somewhat difficult to hit and don't need to be killed, necessarily.
5. I fried like 3 gnomes with a magic missle wand. There was a 4th gnome behind them and without looking I zapped that gnome. Turns out he was a gnome mage. My magic missle bounced off of him and was reflected back to me which in turn, killed me.
this is bad luck, mostly
6. I tried to drink from a fountain, but as I did a bunch of watersnakes came out.
I only find fountains useful for dipping worthless scrolls into , to make them blank scrolls. If you're looking for wishes, wait for wands, thrones, or magic lamps.
7. A rock fell and crushed my head.
Wear a helmet.
8. A floating eye froze me while a Kobold punneled the hell out of me.
Wear a blindfold (or blind yourself in some manner) before attacking the blue lower-case e's.
9. I zapped a shopkeeper with a wand of teleportation. He disappeared. I promptly proceeded to loot his shop. Just as I was leaving, he walks through the front door and fries me with a wand.
Leave the shopkeepers alone

Don't get me wrong, I have 100K point games one time and then die at the first/second level on the next, so it's not like there's any set way to play Nethack and not die. Just keep playing and you'll figure out how to work around bullshit and survive.

Nethack is still one of my Top 10 Games Evar.

 

[Traumahound]

P.S. Did Diablo come first? I was wondering who came up with the random dungeon thing first.

Kids these days. Honestly.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

There used to be ridiculously deep Nethack guides floating around out there and I would assume there still are. I spent a criminal amount of time playing Rogue/Nethack many moons ago.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Though yes there were games like Rogue before it, MobyGames lists NetHack as starting out in 1992, predating Diablo by 4 years.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Nethack is still one of my Top 10 Games Evar.

IAWTP. Although for me, it's in the top 3.

The whole fucking point of Nethack is you against the Dungeon, so balancing it further in favor of the player would be retarded. Hell, I've got a journal going with memorable player deaths over the years, because every time I play the game, everything turns out differently.

dog$'s comments about luck of the draw are true too; reading (and nearly memorizing) all of the spoiler FAQs has improved by life expectancy over the years, but not enough enough to avoid the various bad situations you can run into (stupid wood nymphs/leprechauns/air elementals/demons...aaaaaagh!)

I was close to ascending once last year, but can't figure a way out of the Water Elemental Plane.

As for the who came first question - ....

Nethack is what? 15 years old now? More?

 

[Crazymoogle]

Though yes there were games like Rogue before it, MobyGames lists NetHack as starting out in 1992, predating Diablo by 4 years.

Other sources, like this go back to 1986.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

I think falling down the stairs to the next level, breaking my legs, and dying was my most memorable Nethack death.

 

[Lathentar]

Nethack was one of the main inspirations for Diablo.

Its a tough tough game, I've only cracked 100,000 once. My friend ascended for the first time about a month ago with a final score of about 9.5 million.

I have 3 friends and a professor who have ascended.

 

[User 406]

Yes, it is possible to beat Nethack. No, Diablo didn't come first. Yes, Diablo isn't fit to lick the sweat from Nethack's balls.

...

No, I haven't ascended yet. ;_;

I think one of my more stupid nethack deaths was when I was trying to do some polypiling, and lined the piles of stuff in front of a wall. I zapped my wand of polymorph at the line of piles, and it bounced off the wall and hit me, turning me into a fearsome grid bug. I spend the next few moments of my brief life moving only horizontally and vertically in a vain attempt to run away from the band of orcs that suddenly showed up.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

whats the best version of rogue nethack to get?


personally Id like a little bit better gfx than straight up text


but not to the point where its a bad port of the "real game" any help?

 

[Crazymoogle]

whats the best version of rogue nethack to get?


personally Id like a little bit better gfx than straight up text


but not to the point where its a bad port of the "real game" any help?

I prefer Nethack standard with the tile graphics mode on. ASCII is a bit too hardcore for my tastes, but that Falcons Eye isometric stuff just looks like crap.

 

[Cimarron]

This is the game that uses all ascii characters for graphics right? If this is the same game it must be close to 20 yrs old because i'm 28 and i played this game back when i was in the 4th or 5th grade. It rocked! I never ascended but I had some damn good times in the dungeon. My favorite memory has to be when I killed the shop keeper AND assistant shop keeper. Teleported the asistant assistant shop keeper stole some items and ran away only to have the assistant assistant shopkeeper hunt me down like a minute later and kill me!!! LOL good times where can I get this game? Somebody drop a link in the forum or email me @ ocornwall@yahoo.com. I MUST play this game again!

 

[dog$]

http://www.nethack.org

I prefer ascii text to bitmap tiles since it helps keep the playing field entirely visible on a single screen.

 

[Mashing]

I too must profess my fondess for this game. While I can't remember any memorable deaths (I played Rogue, and just started playing NetHack at work--the amount of commands are unwieldly) I lost countless hours of my life playing it in the school library with my best friend... good times, good times.

 

[iapetus]

As always, let me also recommend ADOM (http://www.adom.de). Also all the Angband variants, which are purer, more balanced dungeon bashes.

 

[Gattsu25]

http://www.nethack.org have the bitmap version?

 

[JackFrost2012]

I'm with Gattsu ... I WANT TO PLAY NETHACK, but, I want a simplified graphical version. Nothing 3D, but ASCII so complex that upper/lower case is differenciated was an issue last time I tried. I have a Windows XP machine. Help set me up! (please)

 

[iapetus]

Um. There's a version on nethack.org with 32x32 graphical tilesets if that will make you any happier. Just follow that Windows download link and follow the instructions...

 

[slayn]

this looks sweet but how do I get all the options?

I read about the config file and tried setting my own stuff but things like perm_invent to have a permanent inventory window open don't seem to work and I don't see it in the options menu...

and you people that like the asci are insane -_-
I got the one at nethack.org and the tiled version looks pretty good to me.

 

[slayn]

...I'm all for challenge but when I die going down by first hallway because a bolt of cold comes out of nowhere to kill me in one shot is pushing it a little...

 

[Gattsu25]

heh...never played this game before....well...sorta

I believe I downloaded an "older" verion from an isometric viewpoint with *graphics* but doubt I ever even figured it out...

THIS one, however, has little zelda1-like spites and after hitting "ha" i'm able to see a full command list so playing isn't an impossible guessing game now...first 2 tries where sad...didn't even know how to open doors and such but my last try i made it up to level 4, with 11.?K points and 19 enemies killed

If anyone has a link to other versions of this game that would be appreciated...oh...and the ASCII mode is pretty good...if I became more confortable with the symbols I'd use that as I love how the tiles near you are lit up...a minor detail that's missing in the bitmap tile version

 

[Gattsu25]

this is the one I 'played' before (I never firgured out how to do anything but move, back then) and the ONLY reason I remembered it was because of the interface (the actual visuals look alien to me)

http://www.hut.fi/~jtpelto2/nhfeatures.html

EDIT: I know this is going off topic, but anyone know/remember how to create a menu in a batch (.bat) file?





EDIT2:

hmm...the one I linked to is version 1.9.3

does it follow the same version number as the one dog$ linked to? (3.4.3)





EDIT3:

http://roguelikes.sauceforge.net/pub/www/nethack/341/common/links.html

links to multiple versions



EDIT4: damn...should have just read...the version i showed a pic of is version 1.9.3 of the interface but runs on 3.3.1 of the core NetHack engine/rules

 

[slayn]

are secret doors... like... everywhere? and near impossible to find?

twice now that I've played I never was really in any danger but started over because I gave up on ever finding where I was supposed to go. Like right now I'm stuck in 3 fricken rooms connected by hallways, we're talking about a square inch of screen here. I've stepped on every square and mashed s on every square... what am I not understanding?

 

[Gattsu25]

any doors nearby (locked or closed?) try opening them by hitting 'o' and the direction they're in and if they're locked hit 'k' and the direction

repeat till open

first time i played i was locked in the first room without knowing how to open anything :b


(if the door 'resists' then keep trying to open 'o' them)

 

[Gattsu25]

is it possible to apply a graphical 'template' to the 3.4.3 game?

there are a few more ... visual options out there but most are outdated

 

[slayn]

this. this is it. I have stepped on every square and held down the s key so as to search for like 10 turns on every square. My guy is now fainting from hunger.

edit: and yes I have been in the dark room, just doesn't show it cuz its.. well... dark.

 

[Gattsu25]

hmm...not sure of any advice I could give you (fairly new to this myself :b)...you could always leave the dungeon (stand on stairs and press '<') but that's effectively just a 'pussy gameover' instead of a 'you died game over'

 

[Crazymoogle]

I'm with Gattsu ... I WANT TO PLAY NETHACK, but, I want a simplified graphical version. Nothing 3D, but ASCII so complex that upper/lower case is differenciated was an issue last time I tried. I have a Windows XP machine. Help set me up! (please)

Download Nethack for DOS 3.43 from this site. Download the Windows version if you prefer a windowed mode instead of full screen. Both versions work in 2K/XP without any tweaks.

By default, the game should play in tile graphics mode. If, however, everything comes up as ASCII characters, find the folder you put Nethack in, and load up DEFAULTS.NH in a text editor of your choice.

Find the line "OPTIONS=IBMGraphics" and remove the # marks from in front of it. Save the file and reload Nethack. Voila, graphics!

It looks roughly like this:

(This should probably be a surprise, but one level, deep within the game, is ASCII regardless of your choice. The level is modelled accurately after ROGUE, and is generally so easy that dying in it should really be embarassing. Don't worry, if you actually get that far, you're playing really well.)

For current players...

-You can always type ? to get a list of options or commands. Hell, if you need to know how to do ANYTHING, type that and work your way through the menus.

-You can always type / if you have no idea what is on a given graphic tile. The game asks you a Y/N/Q question - yes lets you move a cursor around the game world (hit period on the tile you want), N lets you type in and search by name, and Q obviously gets out of the function.

-For the love of god, set up an autopickup list as soon as you feel at all comfortable with the game. Again, just load up DEFAULTS.NH, and look for the OPTIONS=autopickup line. Refer to the documentation for what every symbol means, but I use the following:

$"=/

Which means Money ($), Amulets ("), Rings (=), and Wands (/). None of these four types can screw you over if you pick them up, and they are all pretty valuable. For everything else, stick to hitting comma to pick them up.

 

[Crazymoogle]

this. this is it. I have stepped on every square and held down the s key so as to search for like 10 turns on every square. My guy is now fainting from hunger.

edit: and yes I have been in the dark room, just doesn't show it cuz its.. well... dark.

What side of the map is it on? Always search to wherever the largest amount of space is. Looking at the screenshot, it seems like you should focus on the upper left corner, or perhaps the hall below it.

While the game does guarantee a way out, I have died once or twice early on because of an extremely hard to track down door. Don't worry about it - many Nethack players will be dangerously careless on the first few floors of the game, because its better to die early than to die late.

For any player in a last ditch situation (fainting from hunger, near death, blind, cursed heavily), you can type Alt+P to pray to your patron god. If the god is happy (ie: you haven't prayed for a 300-1000 turns this game) he will usually help you out (fill your stomach, reheal, or something else helpful). Pray too often and he will ignore your calls (or if you really push it) kill you with a Wide-angle disintegration beam.

 

[RevenantKioku]

this. this is it. I have stepped on every square and held down the s key so as to search for like 10 turns on every square. My guy is now fainting from hunger.

edit: and yes I have been in the dark room, just doesn't show it cuz its.. well... dark.

make sure you press the diagonal movements in spots. Sometimes there are angles that you can squeak through.

 

[Gattsu25]

messed with the Isometric version and prefer the old ASCII or bitmap tiles mainly because of the required numpad controls in the funky isometric one :\

 

[Crazymoogle]

Some more newbie advice off the top of my head:

-Class choices matter. Even for an experienced player, the tourist is a dangerous choice. Newbies will have the most success with barbarians (lots of HP, and they do a lot of damage), Monks (lots of damage and no armor/weapon reliance), and Priests (automatically identify any item they pick up). Priests are sort of like Red Mages in FF - they don't excel at much, but magic, weapons, armor, its all good.

-Nethack LOVES to hand your character to an open grave if you blindly experiment with gear. Whenever you pick up a new weapon or armor - and you're not a priest - drop it on an altar, or just leave it alone. Equip a cursed item, and most of the time you'll love how it actually makes your defense worse (while being unable to unequip without a remove curse scroll).

Case File: Bitchy the Monk just tried on a chain mail. The chain mail is cursed, and he can't afford to pay the shopkeeper. Well, you're hosed now - fight the shopkeeper (and probably die) is your only exit (unless you have a teleportation wand).

If you're really focused on taking a risk, there are some specific things to look for:
Tattered Cape (usually a displacement cloak as some of the cloak just "can't be seen")
Strange Boot types (sometimes can be boots of speed, levitation, or water walking)

-The greatest game breaker in Nethack is the wish. You can ask for ANYTHING (with certain limitations to your choice). The most popular wish "Grey Dragon Scale Mail" works, but you can also ask for specifics, like "+2 rustproof Grey Dragon Scale Mail". Just don't go overboard - if you ask for say, +7 or above, expect to get a +0 instead.

You can ask for artifacts too. "+5 rustproof greased Excalibur"? Sure.

-Always check your Wands! The guy who doesn't check his wands is usually the one who sobs quietly to themself when they find out post-game that they held a Wand of Wishing.

How do I check?

Shift + e (engrave). Choose the Wand from your inventory. Write something small (3 letters) on the ground, and see what happens. Sometimes the answer is obvious (burning, ice, speed), if its a wish, you get the whole "make a wish" thing, and if its something more difficult, well, it does nothing at all.

Advanced players usually check their wands and then type # followed by "name". Hit "n" and then choose the wand and give it a name. By ignoring the "individual" part, now every wand in the game you find will have the name you give it until you definitively know what it does.

For example - I found a bronze wand. Engrave does nothing noticeable (which means its either something like secret door detection or has no charges left). #name it "unknown wand 1", and now every time I see a bronze wand, I see "unknown wand 1" instead.

 

[Crazymoogle]

messed with the Isometric version and prefer the old ASCII or bitmap tiles mainly because of the required numpad controls in the funky isometric one :\

IBTN

The game just doesn't play well on an altered perspective.

Hmm, thats enough basic newbie advice. If you have questions, ask!

 

[slayn]

do I have to do anything to identify with a priest? I was a priest and nothing was ever identified.

is there any way to turn of secret doors? I dunno that I can enjoy that can with that option... 3/6 floors I have thus played I have had to quit and deemed unpassable after walking and searching everywhere and trying diagonals in all corners.

 

[dog$]

I don't play priests, but from what I remember, they only tell if your inventoried items are Cursed or not; they will not specifically identify anything.

Some games will have really stupid secret doors/paths that take forever to find using 's', but as long as you can get a Wand of Digging or a pick axe/mattock, you can make your own passageways through the levels.

Somewhere between levels 2-6, you'll eventually find a level with two downward stairways. One leads to the rest of the dunegon, the other leads to the Gnomish Mines. Hit the mines first and try and grab a pick axe as soon as possible.

 

[JackFrost2012]

Thanks for the advice! I saw the graphical tiles on nethack.org, of course; I just wanted to make sure that those were the recommended set. Isometric looks MEGA NAFF!

 

[Crazymoogle]

do I have to do anything to identify with a priest? I was a priest and nothing was ever identified.

is there any way to turn of secret doors? I dunno that I can enjoy that can with that option... 3/6 floors I have thus played I have had to quit and deemed unpassable after walking and searching everywhere and trying diagonals in all corners.

Man, I really need to see a copy of a savegame of yours, that sounds a little too ridiculous.

And yeah, as the guy above this post says, you're only identifying "curse status" - ie: if something is blessed (great), uncursed (safe), or cursed (bad!).

If something is blessed or uncursed, you can try it on without fear of problems (because an uncursed helm -2 can be unequipped, while the cursed version can't be)

 

[slayn]

once you have read a spellbook, is there any reason to keep it?

is there any way to get more of a description of an item, like the attack power of a weapon or if an item has more benefits than just AC? Or does that come from eventually Idying it? Like can a cloak have say... poison resistance or something and if it did, would it tell me (after id)

 

[Lathentar]

once you have read a spellbook, is there any reason to keep it?

is there any way to get more of a description of an item, like the attack power of a weapon or if an item has more benefits than just AC? Or does that come from eventually Idying it? Like can a cloak have say... poison resistance or something and if it did, would it tell me (after id)

You can forget spells over time. You need to identify the item to get information about it.

 

[dog$]

Spells can be forgotten over time (especially after bad encounters with Mind Flayers), so if you have a spellbook of something good you might want to consider hanging on to it so that you'll always have the ability to cast or relearn the spell. However, spellbooks are heavy and expensive, so it usually is beneficial to sell the ones you don't want to carry around.

Items can be rustproof, fireproof, etc, and any attributes they may have will be revealed once the item is identified (or if you run into a situation where the attribute is revealed; walking onto a water-rust trap hits your sword and "It does not rust!" = item being called 'rustproof' from that point forward in your inventory).

Since you bring up cloaks, there's only a few different types. Offhand I know of Dwarvish (+0), Elven (+1), Protection (+2 or more), Displacement (+1 but enemies have harder times attacking you), and Invisibility (+1). Usually they are not fire or rot proof (look out for Brown Puddings).

 

[slayn]

is there any way to tell how much something weighs?
I'm thinking I just need a faq... I mean I understand not auto idying all items fully but come on... if I have two swords I'd like to know which one does more base damage >_<

 

[Crazymoogle]

once you have read a spellbook, is there any reason to keep it?

Usually, no. They are worth a lot of money and it usually pays to sell them - thats what I always do until I'm powerful enough not to care about money.

However: If you read a book that was much too difficult (not unusual), read a scroll of Maude (somewhat unusual), or are braindrained by a Lich (lategame), you may forget the spell, in which case you would need to read the appropriate book again.

Alternatively, if you have a magic marker with enough charge and an empty book, you can write a new one.

is there any way to get more of a description of an item, like the attack power of a weapon or if an item has more benefits than just AC? Or does that come from eventually Idying it? Like can a cloak have say... poison resistance or something and if it did, would it tell me (after id)

A full identification (either act of god or scroll of identify) will come out like this:

"A Cloak of Displacement"
"A +2 Cloak of Displacement"
"A blessed Cloak of Displacement"

There is no FF style "this item has 34 defense power" display, so you have to judge those numbers yourself. Other effects are unnoted - if you have boots of speed, you will (upon equipping) see something like "You feel yourself speed up!"

In general, expect only high end items to have any bonus. Excalibur or other named weapons always do, and dragon scale mail always does, but all item types in the game are locked, so you will never find a chain mail that "just happens" to have some extra magic ability. If, for example, you put on a gauntlet and your strength went up to 25, that means you have gauntlets of power, not "leather gauntlets with a really high strength bonus".

 

[Crazymoogle]

is there any way to tell how much something weighs?
I'm thinking I just need a faq... I mean I understand not auto idying all items fully but come on... if I have two swords I'd like to know which one does more base damage >_<

By all means, check a FAQ, but weight is something you're meant to experiment with anyway. Expect heavier metal stuff, like full chain mail, to way more than a leather shield.

 

[slayn]

the thign that annoyed me the most with weight was trying to move diagonally, it kept saying, "your carrying too much stuff to squeeze through" and even though I was no where near encumbered, and kept dropping everything I had down to what I had only started the dungeon with, it still kept saying that. =\

 

[dog$]

Squeezing through diagonal cracks like that will require you to be 100% naked.

One small item to note is that you can do this in order to squeeze by rocks that you've accidentally pushed into a wall/corner in a dungeon, in case you've screwed yourself.

 

[Gattsu25]

killed by a thief...stole all my GEAR!!

 

[Gattsu25]

hmm...i've realized....i have no idea how to do anything in this game but eat, drink, open doors, write on the floor, kill, get killed, and read scrolls

how and when do you shop and learn/use magic?