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/dev/null/nethack Tournament 2001
bakunin writes: "Tonight (Halloween) at midnight Pacific U.S. Time, /dev/null's third Annual NetHack Tournament opens. 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." /dev/null is calling for volunteers to run a server; you only need a modest machine but must have good bandwidth. See below for more information.
bakunin continues: "/dev/null is a loose association of networking geeks, unincorporated and noncommercial. We make no money from this; we just do it for giggles.
The prize structure going in, as we're 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
- Most Ascensions
- Lowest Scored Ascension
Since we'd appreciate volunteer servers to help speed the game play up for folks not near Oakland, California, here's roughly what you need to host:
Server Requirements
Remember, before volunteering, that anyone with admin level access to a game server box is not allowed to compete. So don't volunteer to host if you want to be a contender.
- a multi-user NetHack installation (thus, probably, a Unix of some sort; the /dev/null server is an OpenBSD system)
- sufficient speed/disk/memory to support 250 player accounts and 25 concurrent players (ours is a P133 with 64M of memory and 2.5G of disk)
- a dedicated Internet connection (our is on a T1)
- since NetHack needs real user accounts, we'd recommend that it be a dedicated system (the players will need to be entered in /etc/passwd to play on the box)
NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game that runs on a wide variety of computer systems, with a variety of graphical and text interfaces all using the same game engine.
Hmm... While Nethack and all it's Rogue-esque descendants are quite entertaining, I just don't see much excitement in a non-multiplayer tournament.
Ah, well. That's what DiabloII's for I guess.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
The site cant be slashdotted already is it?
Anywhere the rules/details are mirrored?
I would play, you see, but I was walking along when I put on this strange ring I found, and suddenly I found myself transformed into an acid-slime, so I ate the ring (since it's metal, you know), and then I turned back into a person, but occasionally changed into a golem. While I was a golem, I killed off a monster that would normally turn me to stone, but you know I was stone already, so I picked him up to use as a weapon...
I don't remember much after that; although I slightly recall using my dog to go steal stuff from the supermarket for me...
This is kind of neat, but nothing more.
Now a mud or online massively multiplayer RPG where everyone starts at the same time, at the same level would be pretty cool. Totally ruthless.
If you're going to try this seriously, make sure you read all the spoilers and FAQs. There's a ton of good information in there.
-Ted
About two minutes after this posted,the web server with the Tournament site on it kernel pacicked with an out of memory error.
;-)
It has 3/4G or real memory and over 1G of swap. I think it mis-handled something there. It's booting, so we'll see how long it lasts this time.
-robin
Well it looks like not to many players on the east cost. Sience it is still a School/Work day/night. That is a bit to late. Midnight EST would be a lot better that will be 8:00 PST. I guess if I go to bed early I can wake up in time to start the game.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Of course, there's a better chance at getting some of the better goodies when the difficulty is higher, so it might be worth trying...
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I'm not really familiar with NetHack, but I *might* be able to provide a fast freebsd server on a multiple reduntant DS3 network, except giving local accounts is not an option, for security. Any exceptions?
--
grep "xercist"
I would join if I could kill a week of just playing NetHack. and i've done it too. Because right now, I don't have the 8 hours dedicated to just gem sorting and poly-piling required before i climb the top stairs... heh
The only major question i have is how do they make sure that they are all using the same version with the same options? I mean, someone with -W access can do some serious damage, as well as any server that tweaked the magic lamp distribution number.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Do they want this game to play, or just to see if /.-ing is real?
(Yes, it will overheat.)
I wasn't aware there was such an age...
I'd play networked nethack, but my connection is pitiful and I don't have DSL, yet.
If you're in the the vicinity of Santa Cruz, California, c'mon down to 99 Bottles tonight and join those who don't get online, but have fun anyway. (PS. You underagers can still come in and sip rootbeers)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Gameplay is going to be *really* slow now you went ahead and DOS'd the server. Thanks slashdot.
Hi,
I'm going to unabashedly karma whore for a second because Nethack is my favourite game ever. I can't tell you the number of hours I wasted playing this (or other rogue-like games, such as rogue, larn, adom, or omega).
Here are some links to get you all started:
Nethack.org
One of the first and best Nethack pages, from the legenday Boudewijn Waijers
another Nethack homepage
A newer Nethack page
QT Nethack
An impressive graphical Nethack
The google Roguelike directory entry
the classic rec.games.roguelike.nethack
Happy hacking!
That's what happens when you talk about classics like NetHack. NetHack was potentially the most addictive little computer game I've ever plaid. In fact I still fire it up from time to time for the nostalgia. You'd think with it not being multiplayer it would be boring, but that absolutely isn't the case. It has an elegant charm in its simplicity.
If only our launch date wasn't tomorrow I'd hype myself up on caffeine and partake of the fun.
In a row???
Midnight pacific = 0300 eastern.
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Multiple DS3 connection. I'll have to build a machine for it, though. I can't add all of those user accounts to a production box or workstation ;)
Looks like I'll need some more hardware. laptop with no harddrive, laptop with no power supply, athlon with no motherboard.
I do have one box which should certainly be 100% functional by that time. 80mhz PowerPC machine with 96 megs of ram, running Linux.. but it has a small scsi harddrive.
Maybe next time I'll have some working hardware!
Most Stupid Death. :)
Given how viciously rich NetHack can be when it comes to getting killed, this ought to be fun. =)
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
nethack isn't very intensive to play, just to host. it goes back to the bbs days. I remember hosting something similar to it when my BBS had a 2400bps modem for heaven's sake! And nethack doesn't even have color last i checked.
Liquid Gaming - Your daily dose of gaming news
Yeah, I'd like to volunteer google's bandwidth... oh wait
http://www.devnull.net/nethack/
This one works!!
www.Beyond7.com Insane modern art water sculpture.
Wow! Tonight is Halloween AND full moon. How does NetHack handle that? Does it make it THE best possible night to be playing NH? :)
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
The complexity of these games, though, still blows away a lot of what's out today. Imagine taking the engine of NetHack, Larn, Moria or Omega and giving it a Quake like view. Sure, you'd have to impliment Real Time and handle interaction for far more than just point-and-shoot, but it might have potential. For all I know, someone's probably doing it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How are you going to stop people from cheating by backing up the game files.
Anyone can ascend if they can restore their save files. It takes alot of skill to ascend without restoring.
I have only managed to do it only once, with a wizard, in 4 years of playing.
You can set it up to prevent cheating, but I wouldnt count on other people who are donating boxes to set it up properly.
If people can restore, it ruins the whole contest.
Still, playing on a box with other people sounds real fun. Yeah, bones files and high scores.
Only its no fun comparing mortal scores against people who have ascended like 30 times. You want to compete against people in your skill range.
just for you moderators' information...
Er... so how does one participate? The info on the website is all from last year's tournament, it doesn't even mention the one starting tonight :P
That's why all games are played by connecting via telnet to a server, not on your home machine.
Falconseye as a client? (http://falconseye.sourceforge.net/)
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
It's a good idea. Tournament games need to be like this, making sure than random events don't influence the outcome more than skill. In fairly random games you need to make sure that they influence everyone equally.
The problem with displaying the seed beforehand is that it'd be possible to predict what you'd get if you polymorphed a specific pile of stuff, and not do it unless you'd get something good out of it, etc.
Of course, you could do the same thing anyways, but if you weren't running the server it'd be harder. (There are still ways though to figure out what seed was used.)
As to the bones and save files... They could be exported into a text file, something platform independant. In fact, some XML-ish format would probably be the best. That way other games could implement import and export features for Nethack characters, keeping as much as they can and translating items into close equivalents.
There's no real issue of cheating because
1) You can already cheat, you just need to edit a binary file.
2) You can sign the text file, and put the user into 'no score' mode if the signature doesn't match. (Cheatable though, see #1)
3) Wizard mode is available, so it's not like anyone is trying to stop newbies from exploring.
I personally think it's a great idea. In fact, I'll make a note about looking at the source and seeing if it's within my skill.
You're not going to get very far in nethack if you're trying to play it with one of those quaint N64 controller as the topic picture suggests :)
I did some searching on the updated link (http://www.devnull.net/nethack/), and wasn't able to find any information about registering to PARTICIPATE when the competetion starts up. Anyhow know how we register to be a contestant?
I've been playing nethack since as long as I can remember (3 or 4 years old), and being 18 now, all the nethack intricacies are engrained in my memory..
I absolutely love this game-- it still holds my attention longer than any of these other fancy 3d games.. except for everquest of course....
while we're on it-- I tried to compile nethack today on a machine here at school with codewarrior-- are there any special things i need to do to get it compile?
You might want to check out #nethack on either undernet or efnet, they're both good resources for the game.
Also, I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet, but rec.games.rougelike.nethack is another great place to go to read about strategy.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
Here's a clue for you folks who might ever submit an article: don't do it if you're running a default BSD kernel.
;-)
After booting a few times and getting killed immediately, I booted with no net connection and built a kernel with maxusers, NMBCLUSTERS and NKMEMCLUSERS goosed beyond any reasonable amount and it seems to be holding up now.
I had not anticipated _that_ many immediate requests from an article ablout NetHack.
-robin
Well there is your problem sir, memory management, you would probably be a lot better off installing linux. I am not trying to upset the bsders out there, just the memory management in the newer linux kernels does work quite well. Of course you do want to use the bigmem features, so you will need to build a kernel...use slackware it uses BSD init style so you will feel at home.
I'm still waiting for net-playable Nethack.
Until then, I suppose MAngband will have to do. It's good and all, but I never got into Angband like I did Nethack.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
But in practice, a large part of the fun of nethack is that it isn't fair. A couple days ago, I was walking around on the third or fourth level of the dungeon, and
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I was playing around with some C64 games with CCS this past weekend and, in the Halloween mood, recalled a spooky game I used to enjoy called Castles of Dr. Creep by Ed Hobbs. I just did a Google of the title and found a PC Beta version probably worth a look if you don't want to fool around with emulators. Looks cool and the came was a lot of fun on a C64, looks like Ed is still at it and has done a nice job.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
HOAX?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
no I heard it too. sad.
OK, how do I sign up to play?
I couldnt find a link or instructions for signing up.
Welcome bakunin the Invoker - More -
.
Be careful! New Moon tonight!
You see here a large webserver - More -
The server appears to be running normally.
You hear some noises in the distance.
Slashdot hits! Slashdot hits! - More -
Slashdot hits! Slashdot hits! - More -
Slashdot hits! Slashdot hits!
X
What do you want to transcribe? f
You read the spellbook of Instant Hardware Upgrade. The spellbook crumbles into dust!
#pray
A Large voice booms: "You have angered me mortal! " - More -
"I demand a sacrifice!"
Q
Do you want your possessions identified? [y/n]?
n
Goodbye bakunin.
You were BSD-aligned.
You were chaotic.
You were ambitious.
You did not survive the Slashdot effect.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
You need volunteers to tune their machines and put 250 user accounts on their machines in seven hours, and you DID'T put contact info in your request? I went to the webpage, and there isn't so much as an email address or even a phone number.
How am I supposed to volunteer when I can't communicate with you?
This server will be around for awhile, and has great low-latency connections to the US and North America, and decent ones to more patient people elsewhere.
---
Drew Streib, dtype.org
..is AllegroHack, for Windows and Linux. It's really sweet, and IMHO more complete than Falcon's Eye (the last time I played it a monkey's picuture was that of a guard!)
Also, Allegrohack works with SLASH'EM a really fun version of nethack (if a wee bit unbalanced) where you get more abilities and fun stuff like TNT.
-Brendan
OK, for all the poor saps like me who couldn't find out how to register to join the tournament, here's the appropriate linkage:
http://nethack.dev.null/scoop/?op=newuser
you feel foolish, you haven't been paying attention.
mmmmmm.....open sauce
I don't think that's right, sorry. The name and password I got from there don't work when I ssh to nethack.dev.null , and I can't figure out any other way I'm meant to get at the game, especially since I don't see any other servers listed on the website. So now I just feel even stupider. Does anyone know how to work this??
mmmmmm.....open sauce
I found it finally!!! You know how? By guessing the URL at random. I knew that luckstone would come in handy.
http://nethack.dev.null/registration.html
Sorry about the wrong link confusion before, this should set you right!
mmmmmm.....open sauce
Try here: http://nethack.dev.null/registration.html
mmmmmm.....open sauce
http://nethack.devnull.net/login.html I'm really sorry about the quantity of posts, I'm just posting new stuff as I find it out. In retrospect this is a stupid thing to do, and if I had any karma I'd be waving goodbye to it right now.
mmmmmm.....open sauce
That's effing hilarious. ;-)
Thanks, I really did need a good laugh after this afternoon's doings.
Cheers,
-robin
who cares ?
Well, the Tournament _does_ last a month (though that seems to be another one of the things our net web site didn't mention).
;-)
So you have plenty of time to waste at it.
-robin
But no, now I have to enter a tournament! It's cheating if I let the computer do it!
even as a Windoze user Slashdot is worth a read - great story/link/etc/amen!
I'm still running HACK 1.0.3D... on my AMIGA!
You'll have to pry the disk from my cold, dead fingers.
This comment was stolen from Usenet.
It's back now. That amulet of life saving can come in handy, eh.
Thoughts?
I thought that Spootnik was a plagiarist bastard. And I was right. We need more moderators here NOW.
e.g. that character that ascended with only 49000 points: how did they do it? what was their inventory like at the end?
same goes for all the others: it would be great to be able to see them in action.
surely in these days of huge disks, it would be dead easy to log all the tournament games (preferably with timing information), so you could see action replays of particularly spectacular nethack action scenes from the top scorer, etc...