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Nethack 3.4.1 Released
fatquack writes "Almost a day ago the DevTeam wrote: The NetHack DevTeam is pleased to announce the release of NetHack 3.4.1. NetHack 3.4 is an enhancement to the dungeon exploration game NetHack. It is a distant descendent of Rogue and Hack, and a direct descendent of NetHack 3.3. Get your copy at nethack.org now! (and it fixes the boulder/landmine bug)."
Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard
I'm serious. I'm a huge computer game buff, but Nethack has always left me cold. The interface is awful, the game is deliberately user-hostile, and you die constantly in ways you can't possibly prevent (boulder trap on level 1, for instance). Most "puzzles" have completely non-logical solutions. (Starving? Pray to your diety! Makes perfect sense!) It feels far too much like playing a paper-and-pencil RPG against an adversarial GM. They thought of everything? Everything but the fun.
When someone feels like doing it.
Personally, I like the game for its playability, not any so-called "multimedia quality". Hell, I still play in ASCII mode (albeit with colour). I'm not a luddite, though - I've played Eye of the Beholder, Diablo, Dungeon Siege etc., and found them reasonably enjoyable for a while, but Nethack is the one that keeps me coming back. 15 years since I first played it (back in the 1.0 days) and it's still fun.
If Nethack is as good as I've heard, it could turn out to be a killer game.
It already is a killer game... lord knows it's killed me enough times :-) But seriously, it's a game developed by a group of people for fun, without the expectation of profit, and it has an intensely loyal following. If you don't like it, don't play it, or do something by contributing to it. But standing at the sidelines and bitching isn't going to do you, or anyone else, any good.