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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)."
The question is, does this release fix the "DAMN this game is IMPOSSIBLE!!" bug, or the "Holy crap, I keep dying for no reason." Bug?
NetHack is cool because you can play it at work... nobody will notice you're playing a game, it just looks like ascii/binary garbage.. :)
That download was slashdotted.
You feel deathly ill.
(Improperly formatted because of lameness filter)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I was planning to graduate in a couple of years!
Infogrames (UK) could learn a thing or two from these people.
They had a simultaneous world release for Master of Orion 3, er, except for the UK, which gets it 10 days later.
You are lost in a twisty maze of Hack and Rogue versions, all the same. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
fifth sigma, inc.
I figured I won't donwload Nethack. Why? Because I know how damn good it is and I know I'll be lost forever if I start playing it for real.
For the ones who don't know what Nethack is: The GameSpy Hall of Fame has a really good piece on Nethack.
.: Max Romantschuk
Net...hack? Rogue? Sounds suspicious to me. How can I get in touch with John Ashcroft?
I first tried playing Nethack a few years ago, and I couldn't stand it. I'm a huge fan of RPGs and MUDs, but I just couldn't get the whole nethack thing. For those of you who don't like it either, try Falcon's Eye (or another Nethack GUI--there's many!)
I know that this release is going to push my Radeon 8500 hard.
I know I might sound completely moronic when I say this, but I think the title 'NetHack' is almost, but not quite, entirely misleading to the actual theme of the game.
I've stumpled upon NetHack here and there and always thought it to be something along the lines of the ancient Neuromancer Amiga game that I loved so much.
Why don't they call it something like "[insert D&D'ish sounding name]: The legacy of [insert other D&D'ish sounding name]
Example:
Crangrall: the legacy of Wanhall
Forthrall: the legacy of Krilltorr
You can all troll me or flame me to pieces now for not getting it.
naah sig schmig
Funny, I just finished a fun programming assignment here at umich on a limited version of nethack--help Hugo find the stairs!
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." - Baha'u'llah
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.
PHB: What's that you're doing?
Me: Err... I'm hexediting the new project, just working out a couple of bugs.
<the grid bug bites!>
Me: There's one! Must have got into the system through the power...
<you killed the grid bug!>
PHB: Nice work! I should give you a raise!
Me: How 'bout an office with a door?
PHB: No, people play games if I can't see them working.
Me: I guess that's a good point. I should get back to my work...
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
At one point, NetHack had everything but the kitchen sink. Then they added the kitchen sink. What more could you want? :-)
The game stands on it's own, but the added graphics don't need to be anywhere near perfect to make the game immensely more usable by non-techies. My six-year-old has played it again and again, and loves it, which never would have happened with the text-only version.
If they do, I can't wait to see the fully raytraced, mip-mapped hi rez @ sign brutally attacking the letter Z.
I think bullet time would go down well too!
It's My Tea and I'll Drink it if I Want To!
This is my week.
1. Found out wife is pregnant.
2. Our rental has been sold and we have 42 days find a new place/move out.
3. Starting a new job on Monday
4. New version of nethack released
Oh, the inhumanity of it all...
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
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.
And I admit, it's nice that the ascii version still works, but the graphic tiles (added in, what, 1992?) make it even nicer, IMO. (Although not quite as safe to play at work, I admit.)
:)
But be careful -- the PHB may not have a clue what all that odd text on your screen really means, but the technical manager probably played it in college himself, and will know at a glance what you're doing. The game has been around for nearly two decades, and in that time, a lot of people you might not expect have probably run across it here or there.
Also, if you're running it on a shared machine, you might want to rename the binary. Any sysadmin who sees "nethack" in a process list will either a) know you're playing games on company time, or b) assume the machine is under attack and panic. Either option may result in effects you may not enjoy....
ATI's new 9700 pushes the limits of ASCII gaming
"Almost a day ago..."
Ahh, I remember it like it was yesterday, oh wait...
Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
Anyone know where I can find a playable recording of a successful NetHack game? I want to see a Master play.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
The boulder/landmine bug was a serious problem that was identified with release 3.4.0 a few days after it was released. Unfortunately, the release had already been shipped, and so everyone had to either patch it on their own (which involved a re-compile, something Windows users simply seem to lack the skill for) or wait for 3.4.1.
... these things happen to include boulders that block your path and can be pushed around, as well as rare traps called landmines. When a landmine explodes, it leaves a pit behind. Boulders fill up pit. When you push a boulder onto a landmine, it triggers a panic in the program, which dumps out on you without the possibility of even recovering your saved game.
In the game of Nethack there are many things
If anyone is interested in playing Nethack but you don't want to go through the trouble of setting it up for yourself, you can simply play on my public server. SSH or telnet into fyre.sytes.net with username "yasd", password "yasd". You'll be able to set up a username, preferences, and get started playing Nethack. Good luck with your 'hacking!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
... learn him how to play Nethack.
Open a tin of salmon to get rid of cursed rings
Eat a red dragon to become immune to fire attacks
GENOCIDE! Woot!
Dip your sword in a pool after inscribing Elbereth on it to gain a +5 magic sword
And there's millions of little things like that. That's one of the reasons it's called Hack - because it has been "hacked" together by hundred of programmers and is full of "Hacks".
All the time I played Diablo I found myself wishing it had the depth of hack with the graphics and sound of Diablo.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Try this site.
If you don't like the traditional ascii rendering of the game, there is now a complete port of nethack to use a 3D-accellerated, high-resolution display engine which will keep you on the edge of your seat! See screenshot, and drool!
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
You find yourself on an empty tile.
Looking northwest you see a large chest.
A grid bug approaches you from southwest.
There's a curved wand 2 squares to the north.
>
Well, to be honest, your examples reflect precisely what I dislike about NetHack, its arbitariness. How do you learn any of this stuff other than trial and error? Diablo has at least occassional attempts to produce a gameworld that makes sense, rather than just being a random and incomprehensible series of 'hacks'.
Baldur's Gate or Deus Ex are, to my mind, much more immersive than either NetHack or Diablo, not primarily because of the graphics, but because it's possible to do well in these games by thinking like a participant in the game world, rather than as an external player of the game. Much of the best recent Interactive Fiction is immersive for similar reasons, and obviously in the case of IF, the immersiveness isn't to do with the graphics. Adam Cadre's I-0 is a good example.
I'm aware that some people like the NetHack style of gameplay, but frankly, they're wrong. More to the point, though, I do think the NetHack style, whether good or bad, is distinctly old-fashioned. Merely improving the graphics won't make the game more appealing to those who want a more modern style of gameplay, which seemed to be the suggestion being made by the guy I was originally replying to.
Oh, BTW:
GENOCIDE! Woot!
I can't help but think that's going to be quoted out-of-context against you, one of these days.
"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."
Does anyone know if NetHack 3.5 will be a descendent of NetHack 3.4? Someone told me that it was going to be a spreadsheet application.
- The Information density of colored text is quite high. This is because font designers spent years making sure that for your 96 pixels, you got 128 very different looking things. Frankly, the text is easier to read than most tilesets. I know at a glance that two small light blue ds are winter wolves. How many artists can accurately convey 'winter wolf' to me in a 32x32 icon? And make it distinguishable from a silver wolf?
- Having played nethack for 10 years or so, I definitely 'get' the map generator. So I almost always know which rooms have secret doors, where to look for passages, etc. I've found this really hard to do in isometric view. Also, even though I run at 1600x1200, I haven't found an isometric view which lets me see the whole level at a time. Unlike ASCII.
I already am bad enough at the game that I don't need another layer of confusion (What, those were Uruk-hai? Not gnomes?) added to my poor playing. I'll stick with ASCII, thank you very much.Not only don't they notice, they peer in over my shoulder exclaiming,
:o)
"Whow, you guys are always doing such techy stuff, it's amazing..." (spoken with absolute naivety)
And hjkl is why I picked up vi so quickly. So I also describe it as a vi training module.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"