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The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

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Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#51

Post by wwweston »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Has anyone won this game honestly? I've patched the C code and only got so far. I tried savefile hacking and that didn't get me to the end. I was only able to win by compiling a version with debug symbols and playing inside the debugger. (eg. find the flag for the Wizard of Yendor's invisibility status and clear it.)

With 3.4, I got to the point where I could probably win at least 1 in 5 games (and did so with every class). 3.6 got more difficult but I'd guess I could win roughly 1 in 10.

(None of that came without playing a lot of games where I did poorly over months and months, along with some liberal use of explore mode, and reading a lot of spoilers. It's a time investment for sure, not necessarily a wise one.)

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#52

Post by digi_owl »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #50
digi_owl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, that kind of development approach gets my skin crawling for some reason.

Upvoted. In my opinion, this is what broke AD&D 3rd edition relative to 2nd Ed.

And then 4th went and slimlined things even further.

And what a success that was...

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#53

Post by stickfigure »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Has anyone won this game honestly? I've patched the C code and only got so far. I tried savefile hacking and that didn't get me to the end. I was only able to win by compiling a version with debug symbols and playing inside the debugger. (eg. find the flag for the Wizard of Yendor's invisibility status and clear it.)

Yes, a few times!

Unless you require "honestly" to avoid having ever read the source code. This is one of the rare games where I think understanding the source actually improves the gameplay. There are soooo many interactions that you can't possibly factor it all in; you just sort of get a sense of the programmers' philosophy and that guides the rest of your play. You would have to spend your whole life playing NetHack to develop a thorough understanding of the game rules; you only have to spend 1/10 of your life reading the source to get an equivalent perspective.

It's the only game I can think of where spending 1/10 of your life developing a perspective on it is actually time well spent. The source code (and the comments!) are a joy to read.

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#54

Post by lottin »

I am big fan of this game, but I wish it had a more appealing user interface - I mean appealing to the general public. Whenever I show nethack to a friend, they're put off by it, and it's a shame because nethack really is a great game and it should be better known outside geek circles.

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#55

Post by htfy96 »

jammi wrote: post #40

Personally, since I'm less interested in MS-DOS modes and fixed-length 8bit charset modes, I switched to the redesigned NetHack 4, which works fine with modern UTF-8 terminals. NetHack 4 is geared towards progression of the game and staying up to date with the changing world rather than mothballing the old game. It's a separate project from NetHack 3.x, with different goals and development teams. http://nethack4.org

+1 here. The most significant change of Nethack 4 is to separate game logic into a common library named libnethack[0], so you can write your own interfaces and communicate with server using JSON.

[0]: https://github.com/tsadok/nethack4/tree/master/libnethack

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#56

Post by metafunctor »

lottin wrote: post #54

I am big fan of this game, but I wish it had a more appealing user interface - I mean appealing to the general public. Whenever I show nethack to a friend, they're put off by it, and it's a shame because nethack really is a great game and it should be better known outside geek circles.

The terse user interface invites imagination. Therefore, the experience is so much more intimate than what a more graphical version could ever be.

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#58

Post by pmoriarty »

Nethack is the game I've played more than any other.. having played it literally for decades and decades. Yet I switched to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup about 5 or 6 years ago, and really haven't gone back except to try Nethack again every now and then only to feel it too painful and slow to continue playing.

I've been spoiled by Crawl's autoexplore, its richness of gods and god-granted powers, its colors (in text mode, not tiles), and many other new features and innovations. That said, Nethack is still the deeper game in so many ways. Crawl's "don't do it like Nethack" approach has prevented it from taking all sorts of great ideas from Nethack and making Crawl in to a richer game -- things like making more advanced use of pets (like training them to steal from shops), more things to do in shops, use of altars beyond merely converting to a god, use of potions beyond merely drinking them, more uses for item inscriptions, all the ways to combine items, the list goes on and on.

All this makes Crawl seem like the shallower game, though it's still plenty of fun, and I still play it to the exclusion of most any other roguelike for now. There's a lot of room for improvement, though. I just wish they'd take more of the best parts of Nethack and make Crawl even more fun.

Re: The NetHack dev team is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6.1

#60

Post by pmoriarty »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Has anyone won this game honestly? I've patched the C code and only got so far. I tried savefile hacking and that didn't get me to the end. I was only able to win by compiling a version with debug symbols and playing inside the debugger. (eg. find the flag for the Wizard of Yendor's invisibility status and clear it.)

If you read the spoilers and have patience, it's not that hard to win... eventually.

What's hard is winning with various voluntary conducts[1], like atheist, pacifist, foodless, etc.

[1] - https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Conduct

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