Personally, I like the game for its playability, not any so-called "multimedia quality"
Yes, of course playability is extremely important. That's why I didn't like Dungeon Siege even if it had excellent graphics. I just think some improvements in that area would make the game appeal to more of us.
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.
No, and since I'm not able to contribute since I'm no graphics artist or have enough spare time to develop Nethack, I don't play it anymore. I'm just taking the opportunity when the topic was brought up to share my thoughts. I just don't see why Nethack would get worse by improving its aging graphics.
Re:Am I the only geek who HATES Nethack?
on
Nethack 3.4.1 Released
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
You aren't alone. Nethack feel like nothing more than that to me -- a hack. When I play the game, I always get the feeling of playing a product of a bored hacker who just liked to have something to do while not administrating his Unix system. And that might very well be the actual origin of the game as well, I don't know.
My problems with this game is probably due to a combo of the disgusting ASCII "art" and the illogical game play with a million of keyboard shortcuts to remember. So I pick up a port that's focused on the graphics part such as Falcon's Eye and get the same game but with sprites that look the same regardless of which way you turn, merely as a substitute of the @ character or whatever.
I'm not saying I could do it better, I'm saying that I think it sucks when compared to a commercial RPG. So I choose to play those instead. If I'd pick up the aging Eye of the Beholder today, I'd still find that much more fun than a game of Nethack.
1. Bring Nethack to today when it comes to graphics and sound. 2....? 3. Profit!
Right now, *all* graphic ports of Nethack look like a tile based game of the early 90's, which isn't a huge improvement from the ASCII art. When will this game be brought a decade forward in multimedia quality? What I'd like to see is something along the lines of the graphics found in Diablo or Baldur's Gate. And skip this tile based system. Then I'll see if I'm interested. I'm sure a ton of work and polish has went into this game and appreciate RPG's like Baldur's Gate, so I'm no Action RPG freak, but the graphics is simply not immersive enough for me yet.:-(
If these "demands" of mine need Nethack to be some commercial product, so be it. I haven't got a problem with that. If Nethack is as good as I've heard, it could turn out to be a killer game.
Usually, it's no doubt about what exactly I'm saying one should search from the context.
- Where can I find info about that new space sim? - Search for freelancer.
"To google" sounds like a redundant verb to me...
- Google for freelancer?
Sure there's no doubt about what search engine I'd like him/her to use, or at least that the web should be searched, but is that information really necessary? Would the person really think he'd search for an article about it in a computer mag? Or search for a CD-ROM at home that might contain a demo version of the game? And if my information would remind him/her that there *was* recently an article about Freelancer in a mag -- fine, that might be just as good info as you'd find on the web.
Perhaps that's a poor example because it's a computer game which is often related to the internet. But there would still be easy to understand what one would mean by saying:
- How old did Albert Einstein become? - Try searching for einstein and age.
I'd like to see the person that walks to the local library looking for information about Albert Einstein and "age", etc.
English: The Clone Wars have begun. Yodish: Begun, the Clone Wars have. Soviet Russia: In Soviet Russia, Clone Wars begin you! Yodish Soviet Russia: You, in Soviet Russia the Clone Wars begin... Umm, no wait... Arrgh!
Yes, often this problem is taken care of in the documentation by simply using the default shortcuts/commands in the OS. If the user use some other keyboard shortcuts, etc, s/he should usually know that the OS was reconfigured and how.
The site, with just a few comments on/., is already showing signs of slashdotting. I'll quote the most important parts about the UT 2003 benchmark, just in case:
"The Athlon-64 demo system we already reported on yesterday had a 2GHz clockspeed and used the SuSe 64-bit Linux operating system and was running the 64-bit version of Unreal Tournament 2003 as a demo."
-snip-
(at 1024x768x32...) "we measured a mere average 42fps and maximum fps around the 55...60fps mark. Considering the fact that this is a 2GHz Athlon-64 processor teamed up with a GeForce Ti 4600 we honestly expected a whole lot better."
I seem to recall an MS employee claiming that it was entirely Microsofts fault Windows was so unstable, even though crashes were normally caused by faulty drivers. His theory was that if MS were more open with the kernel code, driver manufacturers could work more closely and easier with them
At least in my case, I have no longer any special crash problems with WHQL certified drivers.
And Microsoft managed to get a couple of companies to create certified drivers:
Since I consider productivity important, I use Microsoft Visual Studio as my IDE.:-)
Seriously, there's a grain of truth in that statement... If I'd be on Linux, my productivity would go to zero since in my business, it's not an option and nothing I can do to change, unless I can convince the companies we develop software for to switch operating systems and run their only-exist-on-Windows software using Wine, and then cross my fingers.:-)
Agreed. Windows XP has blue-screened for me perhaps twice since it was released, well... over a year ago. Got it some time in September 2001. I actively use XP at least 4 hours/day in normal cases.
I recall one of the blue screens on my home computer. It was when I used some beta video drivers for my TV tuner. IIRC, it was an Infinite Loop BSOD.
And fortunately, both 2000 and XP has built-in support for such encryption. You can of course also use a BIOS password which might help. But regardless the security measures you take, I'd consider someone have physical access to your box having a great deal of access indeed.
Hopefully, the swedish government will start switching soon as well.:-) There's been quite a bit of talk about it lately, so at least they seem to give it some serious consideration.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Yes, since it was some time I heard about it, I guess it was related to BGP and "route flapping" as TheSpunkyEnigma mentioned. I see there's a lot of articles both regarding the BGP protocol and route oscillation and route flap dampening methods to find at Google, and I'm now pretty sure it was these things I was thinking about.
"if routers choose the route that looks the least congested, they are doing selfish routing. As soon as that route clogs up, the routers change their strategies and choose other, previously neglected routes. Eventually the system will settle to an equilibrium that mathematicians call a Nash flow, which will be, on the average, slower than the ideal. "
Now, hasn't there been a problem some time a long time ago in early Internet history where parts of the internet entered a state of self oscillation. I recall this was later fixed somehow to a point by revising some protocols.
I remember it basically as the problem where lots of routers (for some reason) started sending packets to one path, it got very congested, all routers switched to another, congested, etc.
I only have very vague memories since I took the course where I heard it some years ago. Perhaps I'm only full of bullshit.:-)
This is going to change fast, thanks to Safari. Whenever a page looks incorrect or doesn't function in Safari, click the little bug icon in the upper-right corner, and it pops up a dialog where you can send feedback directly to Apple's Safari team.
To the *Safari* team? What on earth are *they* going to do about it? Mail the webmaster? Make their browser more Internet Explorer compatible? Going to spam Microsoft with complaints?
This is going to change everything but fast due to Internet Explorer's dominance.
the only way a FTP or HTTP can resume transmission is with the GetRight tool.
No, the only way FTP can resume transmission is if the FTP server support resuming. GetRight doesn't magically make resuming work since the server still need to support a method to set the "file pointer" to a certain amount into the file.
But I agree that Z-Modem rocked! Wasn't there even variants of Z-Modem that was supposed to be even better?
Slashdot Mirror
NetHack would lose something if it got that kind of graphics
Well, if the poor graphics of a game is the special thing it can't loose, the game surely isn't for me.
But if you like that sort of thing, why not just play Diablo?
Of course I play other games instead of sticking with a game I don't like. It's not like I'm a masochist. I'm just sharing my thoughts.
Personally, I like the game for its playability, not any so-called "multimedia quality"
Yes, of course playability is extremely important. That's why I didn't like Dungeon Siege even if it had excellent graphics. I just think some improvements in that area would make the game appeal to more of us.
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.
No, and since I'm not able to contribute since I'm no graphics artist or have enough spare time to develop Nethack, I don't play it anymore. I'm just taking the opportunity when the topic was brought up to share my thoughts. I just don't see why Nethack would get worse by improving its aging graphics.
You aren't alone. Nethack feel like nothing more than that to me -- a hack. When I play the game, I always get the feeling of playing a product of a bored hacker who just liked to have something to do while not administrating his Unix system. And that might very well be the actual origin of the game as well, I don't know.
My problems with this game is probably due to a combo of the disgusting ASCII "art" and the illogical game play with a million of keyboard shortcuts to remember. So I pick up a port that's focused on the graphics part such as Falcon's Eye and get the same game but with sprites that look the same regardless of which way you turn, merely as a substitute of the @ character or whatever.
I'm not saying I could do it better, I'm saying that I think it sucks when compared to a commercial RPG. So I choose to play those instead. If I'd pick up the aging Eye of the Beholder today, I'd still find that much more fun than a game of Nethack.
1. Bring Nethack to today when it comes to graphics and sound. ...?
:-(
2.
3. Profit!
Right now, *all* graphic ports of Nethack look like a tile based game of the early 90's, which isn't a huge improvement from the ASCII art. When will this game be brought a decade forward in multimedia quality? What I'd like to see is something along the lines of the graphics found in Diablo or Baldur's Gate. And skip this tile based system. Then I'll see if I'm interested. I'm sure a ton of work and polish has went into this game and appreciate RPG's like Baldur's Gate, so I'm no Action RPG freak, but the graphics is simply not immersive enough for me yet.
If these "demands" of mine need Nethack to be some commercial product, so be it. I haven't got a problem with that. If Nethack is as good as I've heard, it could turn out to be a killer game.
Is that old now?
Usually, it's no doubt about what exactly I'm saying one should search from the context.
- Where can I find info about that new space sim?
- Search for freelancer.
"To google" sounds like a redundant verb to me...
- Google for freelancer?
Sure there's no doubt about what search engine I'd like him/her to use, or at least that the web should be searched, but is that information really necessary? Would the person really think he'd search for an article about it in a computer mag? Or search for a CD-ROM at home that might contain a demo version of the game? And if my information would remind him/her that there *was* recently an article about Freelancer in a mag -- fine, that might be just as good info as you'd find on the web.
Perhaps that's a poor example because it's a computer game which is often related to the internet. But there would still be easy to understand what one would mean by saying:
- How old did Albert Einstein become?
- Try searching for einstein and age.
I'd like to see the person that walks to the local library looking for information about Albert Einstein and "age", etc.
English: The Clone Wars have begun.
Yodish: Begun, the Clone Wars have.
Soviet Russia: In Soviet Russia, Clone Wars begin you!
Yodish Soviet Russia: You, in Soviet Russia the Clone Wars begin... Umm, no wait... Arrgh!
Yes, it does indeed look exactly like that. Hehe... They can't even get the HTML for an empty blue screen right. :-)
Although Windows XP doesn't contain any easter eggs. Only old, documented, easter eggs like the Minesweeper one.
Yes, often this problem is taken care of in the documentation by simply using the default shortcuts/commands in the OS. If the user use some other keyboard shortcuts, etc, s/he should usually know that the OS was reconfigured and how.
The site, with just a few comments on /., is already showing signs of slashdotting. I'll quote the most important parts about the UT 2003 benchmark, just in case:
"The Athlon-64 demo system we already reported on yesterday had a 2GHz clockspeed and used the SuSe 64-bit Linux operating system and was running the 64-bit version of Unreal Tournament 2003 as a demo."
-snip-
(at 1024x768x32...) "we measured a mere average 42fps and maximum fps around the 55...60fps mark. Considering the fact that this is a 2GHz Athlon-64 processor teamed up with a GeForce Ti 4600 we honestly expected a whole lot better."
I seem to recall an MS employee claiming that it was entirely Microsofts fault Windows was so unstable, even though crashes were normally caused by faulty drivers. His theory was that if MS were more open with the kernel code, driver manufacturers could work more closely and easier with them
At least in my case, I have no longer any special crash problems with WHQL certified drivers.
And Microsoft managed to get a couple of companies to create certified drivers:
https://winqual.microsoft.com/parentorgs.asp
The spammer probably used the dictionary-like-attack
He used a random mix of characters, so it would have to be a brute force attack in that case.
One day, we'll see two stories immediatelly following each other... Mark my words. One day. :-)
Since I consider productivity important, I use Microsoft Visual Studio as my IDE. :-)
:-)
Seriously, there's a grain of truth in that statement... If I'd be on Linux, my productivity would go to zero since in my business, it's not an option and nothing I can do to change, unless I can convince the companies we develop software for to switch operating systems and run their only-exist-on-Windows software using Wine, and then cross my fingers.
Agreed. Windows XP has blue-screened for me perhaps twice since it was released, well... over a year ago. Got it some time in September 2001. I actively use XP at least 4 hours/day in normal cases.
I recall one of the blue screens on my home computer. It was when I used some beta video drivers for my TV tuner. IIRC, it was an Infinite Loop BSOD.
Really? Yikes!
I must immediatelly print the artistic gene on a T-shirt then! I mean... That trick always works!
Hmm... If you replace "Windows" with "Linux", would you still be modded as +1 Interesting?
And fortunately, both 2000 and XP has built-in support for such encryption. You can of course also use a BIOS password which might help. But regardless the security measures you take, I'd consider someone have physical access to your box having a great deal of access indeed.
Hopefully, the swedish government will start switching soon as well. :-) There's been quite a bit of talk about it lately, so at least they seem to give it some serious consideration.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Yes, since it was some time I heard about it, I guess it was related to BGP and "route flapping" as TheSpunkyEnigma mentioned. I see there's a lot of articles both regarding the BGP protocol and route oscillation and route flap dampening methods to find at Google, and I'm now pretty sure it was these things I was thinking about.
I suppose this is the heart of the article, btw:
:-)
"if routers choose the route that looks the least congested, they are doing selfish routing. As soon as that route clogs up, the routers change their strategies and choose other, previously neglected routes. Eventually the system will settle to an equilibrium that mathematicians call a Nash flow, which will be, on the average, slower than the ideal. "
Now, hasn't there been a problem some time a long time ago in early Internet history where parts of the internet entered a state of self oscillation. I recall this was later fixed somehow to a point by revising some protocols.
I remember it basically as the problem where lots of routers (for some reason) started sending packets to one path, it got very congested, all routers switched to another, congested, etc.
I only have very vague memories since I took the course where I heard it some years ago. Perhaps I'm only full of bullshit.
I so want to see an "Interpret bad IE code" button or option in Safari...
Yeah, so webmasters can continue getting away with bad IE code.
This is going to change fast, thanks to Safari. Whenever a page looks incorrect or doesn't function in Safari, click the little bug icon in the upper-right corner, and it pops up a dialog where you can send feedback directly to Apple's Safari team.
To the *Safari* team? What on earth are *they* going to do about it? Mail the webmaster? Make their browser more Internet Explorer compatible? Going to spam Microsoft with complaints?
This is going to change everything but fast due to Internet Explorer's dominance.
the only way a FTP or HTTP can resume transmission is with the GetRight tool.
No, the only way FTP can resume transmission is if the FTP server support resuming. GetRight doesn't magically make resuming work since the server still need to support a method to set the "file pointer" to a certain amount into the file.
But I agree that Z-Modem rocked! Wasn't there even variants of Z-Modem that was supposed to be even better?