

A NetHack adventure - mapleoin
http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/nethack/index.html

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lotharbot
As ascension posts go, this is pretty mundane; a fairly normal first
ascension. Don't get me wrong--it's an enjoyable read--but it misses out on
what makes Nethack a truly unique gaming experience. Nethack is fundamentally
a hacker game. It's about exploiting the rules, exploiting the programming in
order to solve unreasonably difficult problems in creative ways.

Just as an example, he mentions black pudding farming simply as a tactic he's
copied from others. But the true spirit of Nethack was when another player and
I _invented_ black pudding farming: putting together the tactics and equipment
to make it viable in order to solve a specific problem. At a high level of
play, one is constantly doing that sort of thing on the spot. Ascension posts
by good players commonly introduce completely new tactics.

~~~
garote
Well laa dee daa, aren't you cool. Speaking as the author of that essay, I can
tell you, I did my fair share of hacking. I'll go up against you in a hacker
dick-measuring contest any day. Back in 1992 I was rolling my own builds of
Nethack on a university server, OVER DIALUP, to play it my own way. And before
Nethack I was hex-editing my copy of Beneath Apple Manor. So nyeah.

~~~
lotharbot
"I can tell you, I did my fair share of hacking."

This is a fair response. I didn't feel your essay brought out that aspect of
the game very well, but I have no reason to doubt it happened. IMO, the use
and abuse of the game's rules are the most interesting bit of Nethack, and I
wanted to highlight that.

"I'll go up against you in a hacker dick-measuring contest any day."

This is ridiculous and in no way appropriate. I meant nothing personal by my
comment.

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mapleoin
Skip to Part 1 if you already know what NetHack is about. I found the
narrative very entertaining to read.

~~~
dirtbox
Dwarf Fortress is one of my all time favourite twists on the Roguelike genre.
Something Awful had a very amusing succession game that's worth a read too;
<http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Boatmurdered>

~~~
patio11
If you have the right kind of mind to get into Dwarf Fortress, it is one of
the most interesting games I've ever played. You start to really care about
these ASCII characters, especially when one devastated by his wife being
killed by raiding goblins goes into mourning, snaps, and murders your
blacksmith to turn his skin into gloves... and they're the best gloves your
town has ever produced, worthy of a name out of legend.

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DLWormwood
I admit I could never _quite_ get the allure of NetHack. I was a Moria/Angband
man in college. It seemed those games were more in line with the original
Rogue, than the "everything AND the kitchen sink" special case-ism that filled
NetHack. I'd rather play a game I have a reasonable chance of winning is a
short period of time, than have to spend _decades_ trying for my first
ascension unless I cheat by reading the spoilers (that is, the source).

~~~
whimsy
Thanks for introducing me to alternatives; I am of the same predisposition but
had not heard of Moria/Angband.

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vlisivka
You can watch other players in realtime here: telnet://nethack.alt.org . More
resources: <http://alt.org/nethack/>

~~~
garote
That's where I played the game mentioned in the writeup, in fact. I wonder if
the replay is still buried in the server somewhere...

