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Vanilla NetHack hasn't had a release since 2003 but there have been several forks of it, one I did myself (look at my sig).

Considering the "far better roguelikes" that's something just asking for a flame war but I guess he thinks about ToME4 or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

ToME4's root go back a long time, originally an Angband variant but the 4th version separated completely from that heritage and created vast amounts of original content that makes Skyrim look like a coffee-break activity.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is sort of an Anti-NetHack, trying to avoid many of the design mistake NetHack had. Like the needs for spoilers, that different races play the same in the long run, grinding, or that the game doesn't stay challenging after a certain point.

DCSS and ToME4 are big games but in the last years there has been a trend to develop smaller roguelikes. Like DoomRL which is exactly what its title says or roguelikes for mobile devices like 100Rogues and POWDER.

http://diablo.chaosforge.org/ - you mean like this? ;)

One problem with many roguelikes is that they are frustratingly difficult (at least for people who don't know exactly what to look out for). One good alternative is DoomRL. Yes, it's Doom in roguelike form, blending FPS and roguelike sensibilities - the game is much more fast-paced than regular roguelikes and much easier to get into. At the same time you not only have a nice skill tree but also a number of challenges ranging from the benign pistols-only "Angel of Marksmanship" to the brutal "Angel of Pacifism" where you can't use weapons (you do get a nuke for killing the Cyberdmon, however).

Add to that a lot of secret levels, unique weapons, weapon and armor mods, mystery levers etc. etc. and you end up with a really nice game with a lot of replay value. Oh, and it has sound and music, too.

Closed yource, though, which is why there are only Windows ans x86 Linux binaries available.

DoomRL
http://doom.chaosforge.org/

I loved playing 'Elite II: Frontier'; cruising around in a Cobra Mk 2, with the Stardreamer on and Sting's "Dream of the Blue Turtles" playing in the background...

Currently, the Vega Strike project looks like the best open source Elite-style universe. I've gotten it to run on an Ubuntu system, but very much unlike Elite, it exceeded the graphics capabilities of the computer I was using at the time, so I can't comment on gameplay.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/

Haven't been looking for games lately, though. I played NetHack for 15 yrs or so, and felt no need for other games; but that's been replaced now by Dungeon Crawl.

http://www.chaosforge.org/crawl/index.php?title=CrawlWiki

There you go.

Not everyone likes their roguelikes to be frustratingly difficult. Enter DoomRL, a Doom roguelike with variable difficulties (from "kinda hard" to "beyond absurd"). Plus sounds, music and Windows/Linux support (no source though).

I maintain that DoomRL is much superior to Doom 4.

I normally don't like roguelikes too much because they tend to be cruelly hard in the beginning, but DoomRL is relatively fast and easy to get into. If you're a rouelike fanatic who is put off by the game sounding too easy: Play one of the harder challenge modes like Angel of Berserk (melee only) on Nightmare! and we'll talk again...

doomrl is a cool TEXT mode game http://doom.chaosforge.org/

Nethack was good fun, but I don't play it so often now for fear of losing months of my life. DoomRL (Wiki) is fun to play for a short while - a "coffee break" game, as they call it.

Thats because you didn't try Doom RPG. He didn't do the game per say, but he is the driving force behind it. And its an amazing cell phone game (one of the best I've played, and only short to DoomRL as far as turn based doom RPG goes.)