4th Annual NetHack Tournament

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."

Comments

nethack?

[Klerck]

ADOM is a much better rogue-like.

No way.. KANGBAND * !!!!!

[Viewsonic]

My Kangband scoffs at your ADOM !

I don't understand what's up with Nethack

[CanadaDave]

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

[_ph1ux_]

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.....

Re:I don't understand what's up with Nethack

[Sancho]

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.

Prizes

[unicron]

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.

4th Annual NetHack Tournament and cheaters

[Istealmymusic]

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?

Re:How many of you between 15-15 really know netha

[Yurian]

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.

Not so hard.

[juuri]

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.

Dungeon Crawl

[Neechee]

I'd like to mention Dungeon Crawl 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! >;->

Mysterious Dungeon

[moronga]

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.

I loved Rogue on the Amiga

[Anonymous Coward]

the version by Epyx was so great. I can't play Nethack type games without wishing for that old version. Too bad my Amiga long since vanished into Ebay.

Nethack Replayability

[Succa]

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. Or this Extinctionist. Or this absolutely unbelievable Vegan, Atheist, Illiterate, Weaponless, Wishless, Genoless, Polyless Monk. Great fun, I tell you. Anyone know of ascensions more impressive than these? Post them!