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

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

[Romothecus]

Nethack is different from most other "dungeon crawls" in that it is about content and strategy, instead of action and eye candy. There are hundreds of different items in Nethack, some magical, some mundane, all with some kind of use. Any troubling situation you find yourself can can be solved various ways, and no two solutions will yield the same outcome. The game leaves a lot of room open for play style; try playing Barbarian, then try Ranger or (if you're a masochist) Tourist.

If you want more specific, in-depth information about Nethack (including some spoilers about dungeon depth, as you asked) then go to List of Nethack Spoilers which contains A LOT of information about Nethack. The other great thing about Nethack is that it's open-source, which should automatically get it kudos with most of the people here. :p

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

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yes, and no.

Ok, I used to play it a lot, but I gave up, partly cos its irritating as hell.

In theory there is actually a way to win the game, I think there's atleast 25-40 levels or more; but in practice unless you cheat and/or research the game a lot chances are you'll never, ever win it; it's just too obscure. I've known a dozen or so players- of those, maybe one has completed it, maybe once.

Still there's plenty of fun in there- robbing shop keepers is a blast, and the keystone cops turning up is fun, if a bit life shortening. Your pet dog/cat and you against the dungeon has a certain nice ambiance to it.

But ultimately the random death element got on my nerves just too much.

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

[jericho4.0]

If you don't get Nethack, you might not ever, but before you decide....

Play at least 30 games. The multitude of actions you can do at any time is huge. This leads to very open-ended gameplay, with no two games the same.You'll die 20 times on the 3rd level, and next game you outwit some 15th level monster and walk away with a wicked weapon, etc. It's highly rewarding.

Other things I love about Nethack;It's net-aware and Unix friendly, delivering emails via messengers and other neato tricks. It runs on the console, and it has a wacked sense of humor, in the best tradition of oldskool Unix hacking.

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

[JesseL]

Geez, this is like suggesting that you should give up on chess or go and play "Hungry Hungry Hippos" instead. Somtimes the enjoyment comes more from the quality and depth of gameplay than the eye candy, and multiplayer isn't always desirable.

For all you NetHack fans..

[Anonymous Coward]

Give Mangband a shot http://mangband.org/ if you like dungeon hacks. Open source..even a Japanese version or two.

Now I can get fired from unemployment!

[teamhasnoi]

Like reading /. all day hasn't hurt my productivity, all I need now is to have a new excuse to play Nethack. I narrowly dodged the last release, and thought I was safe!

I better go find a tinning kit, so I'll have something to eat while I live on the street. :(

Re:4th Annual NetHack Tournament and cheaters

[fatquack]

First: the team of the tournament are rather experienced coders themself. Second: there is no client executable, the games run on the (dedicated) servers. You just use SSH or even Telnet to play. And if you want to walk through walls, just polymorph yourself in a Xorn :-)

NetHacking and Jail

[GigsVT]

Remember, hacking into other people's computers is a crime, which you can go to jail for a really long time for.

You may think it is all fun and games "Hacking" the "Net", but when the cops bust down your door you may feel a little differently.

Doing a search on google for this tournament, it seems that people have been doing this for years! Just imagine all the lost hours of productivity when poor admins have to reinstall systems that were hacked. It's not their fault they ran Microsoft software.

3D Nethack

[Avumede]

It would be quite amusing for someone to make a 3d version of nethack, yet have it use 3d text instead of actual character graphics. Can you imagine, in the flickering light of a dungeon, the sight of a huge W jumping out from behind the shadows?

Re:3D Nethack

[VistaBoy]

If someone made that game, I think God himself would have vengeance by having a giant rain of Ts fall from the Heavens to impale everyone involved. Just for the irony. If God was really nasty, he may even use *s or even the dreaded #!

Re:3D Nethack

[Sancho]

When Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring came out, several of us couldn't help laughing out loud during the Balrog scene. Later while discussing the movie, we discovered that we'd all pictured an ampersand (&) chasing a bunch of h's and @'s ;)

We decided it was time to stop playing....

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

[Kintanon]

Got a few of my mates into it, but we quit after a while- It was just really frustrating- you would just die at some random level after you came across some 'monster' that you simply couldn't kill.


Monster?! There are MONSTERS in this game?! What am I doing chasing around all these #'s and b's then?!

Kintanon

I can tell you what the winner will look like

[Pyrosophy]

@

If he's lucky, he'll be accompanied by

d

Ah, Nethack, where

!$%??!

is a store, not a swear.