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First NetHack bot ascension

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Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#41

Post by fooqux »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #39
jballanc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one's actually not that hard to explain. Shirts can be worn under your armor, and these are the only two kinds of shirts. Normally, a shirt adds nothing to your armor class, but it can be enchanted (up to +7 safely), so it's nice to have one if you can find one. The problem with the Hawaiian shirt is that shop keepers will assume you're a tourist, and charge you extra.

> The problem with the Hawaiian shirt is that shop keepers will assume you're a tourist, and charge you extra. Absolutely cannot tell if you're fucking with me, or if this is an actual game mechanic - and if so, why this shirt would be desirable.

> Absolutely cannot tell if you're fucking with me, or if this is an actual game mechanic

Welcome to the world of nethack! The amount of special case situations that have been programmed into this game over the last few decades are truly amazing. (Mostly because it somehow still works.)

I still remember the first time I ran into a kitchen sink.

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#42

Post by schoen »

mjgoins wrote: post #36
statico wrote: post #28

You can watch players (and bots) play NetHack in real time: telnet nethack.alt.org ...then hit "w" to watch games that are in progress. You might need to resize your window, and some players might be using a different character set than your terminal. If you want to start playing, telnet there, create an account, hit "p" to play a game and then "?" to read basic help. http://nethack.alt.org/ will keep logs of your ga…

It's worth pointing out that no one ever finishes (ascends) a game of Nethack without looking at the spoilers, so they're really not spoilers, they're more like the instruction manual. It is definitely more fun to try playing the game for several hours without reading the spoilers, but you're not going to figure out stuff like the Invocation Ritual without reading the spoilers.

There is at least one self-described unspoiled ascension, in 2010:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.roguelike....

This did involve use of wizard mode (not for the unspoiled ascension itself, but beforehand for learning stuff).

People often ask how someone would learn how to perform the Invocation without spoilers. One intended answer by the DevTeam is to pay the Oracle for a series of major consultations, one of which (somewhat elliptically) explains the Invocation. The Oracle consultations aren't considered spoilers if you pay for them in-game.

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#43

Post by Retra »

klibertp wrote: post #20
jedberg wrote: post #7

At the risk of losing my nerd card, I've never played Nethack. I read the reddit thread, and while it was in English, it made not a lick of sense to me. Now I know how non-engineers feel sometimes. :) BTW, can someone tell me why this is such an amazing accomplishment? I know Nethack is very old, so is this a case of a complex problem space or just no one has tried before?

I spent quite a lot of time playing ADOM, which is a roguelike like Nethack, and I can attest to enormous complexity and devilish difficulty level of such games. They are so huge - in terms of items, locations, NPC, quests and everything else - that you really can't even imagine it without a couple of weeks of playing with them; it then takes years to complete the game for yourself, and if that's not enough there are…

>It also makes you forever unimpressed with "interactive environments" and "complicated plots" of modern games.

Dwarf Fortress ruined modern gaming for me. I keep thinking "Why do they keep making new games when they could just make the old ones bigger and better?"

People love it when their games evolve over time. A new, small feature every week will keep people feeling refreshed and invested in the game.

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#44

Post by schoen »

nkuttler wrote: post #16
ansible wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot can also do things that would bore a human player to tears, such as automatically switching between items as the need arises.

Not to mention the farming. I could never do that.

I look forward to hearing about a non-farming bot ascension (as the developer of this bot has suggested is possible!).

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#45

Post by acheron »

mjgoins wrote: post #36
statico wrote: post #28

You can watch players (and bots) play NetHack in real time: telnet nethack.alt.org ...then hit "w" to watch games that are in progress. You might need to resize your window, and some players might be using a different character set than your terminal. If you want to start playing, telnet there, create an account, hit "p" to play a game and then "?" to read basic help. http://nethack.alt.org/ will keep logs of your ga…

It's worth pointing out that no one ever finishes (ascends) a game of Nethack without looking at the spoilers, so they're really not spoilers, they're more like the instruction manual. It is definitely more fun to try playing the game for several hours without reading the spoilers, but you're not going to figure out stuff like the Invocation Ritual without reading the spoilers.

Well, the Oracle will tell you about the Invocation Ritual.

What's you're not going to figure out spoiler-free are things like magic cancellation. Which is maybe not literally essential to winning, but you're going to have a tough time without it.

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#46

Post by ijk »

mjgoins wrote: post #36
statico wrote: post #28

You can watch players (and bots) play NetHack in real time: telnet nethack.alt.org ...then hit "w" to watch games that are in progress. You might need to resize your window, and some players might be using a different character set than your terminal. If you want to start playing, telnet there, create an account, hit "p" to play a game and then "?" to read basic help. http://nethack.alt.org/ will keep logs of your ga…

It's worth pointing out that no one ever finishes (ascends) a game of Nethack without looking at the spoilers, so they're really not spoilers, they're more like the instruction manual. It is definitely more fun to try playing the game for several hours without reading the spoilers, but you're not going to figure out stuff like the Invocation Ritual without reading the spoilers.

Technically, the Oracle is supposed to dispense enough information to figure out most of the important stuff.

Of course, you'd have to be good enough at the game to survive to the Oracle and have the cash to pay for the major consultations. And you'd have to know that information source exists.

Since Nethack is a game where not knowing the details of some minor edge case can and will kill you dead, or deader than dead, I don't know of anyone who actually relied on that (though there may very well be someone).

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mkramlich wrote: post #34
statico wrote: post #28

You can watch players (and bots) play NetHack in real time: telnet nethack.alt.org ...then hit "w" to watch games that are in progress. You might need to resize your window, and some players might be using a different character set than your terminal. If you want to start playing, telnet there, create an account, hit "p" to play a game and then "?" to read basic help. http://nethack.alt.org/ will keep logs of your ga…

The beauty/terror of NetHack is that even if you play with the wiki/spoilers at hand it's still a difficult game to master and win, even survive. YASD and the RNG kill most people, and often.

[deleted]

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#48

Post by samspot »

guelo wrote: post #29

One of the difficulties for a human playing Nethack is remembering all the potions and amulets and wands and scrolls and rings and monsters and their effects and many, many, many combinations. In a way a bot should have an easier time since it has basically unlimited memory.

True, also most player deaths are due to obvious mistakes - YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death), mistakes that the bot will only ever make once and then be programmed to avoid.

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#49

Post by digi_owl »

fooqux wrote: post #41
pavel_lishin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with the Hawaiian shirt is that shop keepers will assume you're a tourist, and charge you extra. Absolutely cannot tell if you're fucking with me, or if this is an actual game mechanic - and if so, why this shirt would be desirable.

> Absolutely cannot tell if you're fucking with me, or if this is an actual game mechanic Welcome to the world of nethack! The amount of special case situations that have been programmed into this game over the last few decades are truly amazing. (Mostly because it somehow still works.) I still remember the first time I ran into a kitchen sink.

Now that is one hell of a in joke...

Re: First NetHack bot ascension

#50

Post by digi_owl »

Retra wrote: post #43
klibertp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent quite a lot of time playing ADOM, which is a roguelike like Nethack, and I can attest to enormous complexity and devilish difficulty level of such games. They are so huge - in terms of items, locations, NPC, quests and everything else - that you really can't even imagine it without a couple of weeks of playing with them; it then takes years to complete the game for yourself, and if that's not enough there are…

> It also makes you forever unimpressed with "interactive environments" and "complicated plots" of modern games. Dwarf Fortress ruined modern gaming for me. I keep thinking "Why do they keep making new games when they could just make the old ones bigger and better?" People love it when their games evolve over time. A new, small feature every week will keep people feeling refreshed and invested in the game.

Arenanet seems to be trying this with Guild Wars 2. Not sure about how well it is working out though.
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