Monday, March 25, 2024

NetHack [3.1]: Nothing Lasts Forever

 
          
"If dragons and vampire lords and demon princes don't offer any real danger, what at this point could possibly kill me?"
                          --Chester N. Bolingbroke, 1 game hour ago
      
The answer is: a cockatrice egg. I didn't even know that was a thing. If they existed in 3.0, I don't remember or never encountered one. I'm not sure how I could have told that it wasn't a regular egg.
   
I was on dungeon Level 45. I had found a boulder at the end of a hallway. Some earlier version of NetHack hid Wands of Wishing beneath boulders at the ends of hallways in Hell, so I felt I needed to smash every boulder, just in case. I smashed this one, and there was an egg. "Cool!" I thought. "A little bit of nutrition between meals!" I ate it right off the floor. I took a step, and a message flashed by that I missed. One more: "Your limbs are stiffening." Maybe something could have healed me at this point--the unicorn horn?--but I didn't recognize it for what it was. I took another, and suddenly it was "DYWYPI?"
   
I did not want or need my possessions identified, but I did check out my intrinsics. It was a pretty impressive list:
     
"You were extremely lucky" does seem to apply to this character.
     
And then, just like I told you I was going to do, I restored a backup. I had saved on this very level, when I first arrived. I went back and grabbed the egg. I threw it at the next enemy I saw, but it just missed him and splattered against the wall.
    
A couple of notable things happened before Level 45:
    
  • I ate wraith corpses on Levels 42 and 43, rising to character Level 23.
  • A master lich cursed some of my stuff on Level 46. I had to waste a few holy water potions uncursing the items. So it wouldn't happen again, I read a blessed Scroll of Genocide and wiped out all liches.
          
Knowing that Scrolls of Genocide exist, you'd think monsters would be extra nice to adventurers.
      
  • On Level 44, I missed a trap door and dropped two levels.
  • On Level 46, there was a large square area that I couldn't access in the middle of the level. I couldn't find a door into it, and digging didn't work. I figured this was the bottom of an area that could only be accessed from an upper level, so I returned to Level 45, where we picked up the adventure above.
      
Well, there's something to look forward to.
      
After the reload, I finished exploring the rest of 45 and didn't find a way down into the square area. I then went back up to Level 44, which I'd only explored a small part of. The stairs brought me to the southeast corner of some kind of fortress crawling with demons and undead, and a demon lord named Orcus. But he generated friendly, so I didn't have any problem with him except that he kept teleporting next to me and blocking my progress. I eventually killed him on some return trip so he'd just leave me alone.
   
A nurse attacked me as I was cleaning out the area, and I know from spoilers that if a nurse hits you when you're naked and unarmed, she will heal you. If you're already at maximum health, there's a small chance that she'll increase your maximum hit points. She usually then teleports away, but this was a no teleport level. I figured I could stand there and mine her hit point increases indefinitely. But I guess the "no teleport" rule doesn't apply to nurses, because after a couple hits, she was gone. I should mention that I was standing right next to Orcus when I stripped, so I was really trusting that "friendly" flag.
    
It's kind of a fantasy of mine.
      
The rest of the level seemed to be some kind of ruined town. There were a couple of abandoned stores with more mimics than loot, and nothing I particularly wanted. I found one Scroll of Enchant Weapon and one wraith to bring me to Level 24. I found an altar to Moloch last, long after every enemy I had slain on the level had rotted. I briefly considered trying to kill Orcus and then sacrifice him to my god on the altar, but I decided that isn't the sort of thing I would even consider if I didn't have a backup.
   
Level 47 had another central square area that I couldn't access, so I continued downward. Same story again on 48. I vaguely remembered a similar "tower" in the last NetHack version, where you had to find an entrance on the bottom level. But Level 49 was a regular maze level with no stairway up to that central area. I went back to 48 and spent longer than made sense trying to dig my way into it before continuing on. I figured I'd find the bottom level and then backtrack if necessary. In fact, at this point, I got impatient (the mazes really are exhausting). I started digging in the floor, dropping down levels, until I reached a level where the floor was "too hard": Level 55. 
     
I gained nothing by coming here early.
     
I wandered around until I found the "strange vibrating square," which I marked with a pile of gold, then started to work my way back up. On Level 52, I found a central area shaped like a "+", surrounded by water. In earlier versions of NetHack, this is where you found the Wizard of Yendor with the Amulet of Yendor, but I knew things were different here. I put on my Ring of Levitation, crossed the moat, and hacked a hole in the wall. Where the Wizard stood in earlier versions was a teleporter, which took me to the central square on Level 48. 
       
I miss the old version, where I'd be an hour away from ascending right now.
     
I fought through lots of demons (and more killer bees with royal jelly) on the lowest tower level. On the second, more dragons and demons with a large central room full of gold that I didn't bother to take. The top level had still more battles. Someone dropped a Potion of Gain Level, which brought me to 25. A Scroll of Enchant Weapon got Grayswandir up to +4.
   
The top level had another "+"-shaped area surrounded by water, which I approached the same way as the first one. This time, the Wizard of Yendor was inside. I backed off diagonally to deal with his vampire first, but the Wizard teleported outside the room and next to the moat where I was. I blasted him with a Wand of Death and missed. I hit him a second time and he died, dropping the Book of the Dead, which I verified with an "Identify" scroll.
      
Now it gets real.
         
Killing the Wizard before I absolutely had to was a huge mistake. Throughout the rest of the game, he kept appearing at the most inconvenient times, usually right next to me, and attaching, cursing my stuff, summoning packs of monsters, and stealing things. He doesn't even need to appear to curse you; you just get a message that you've been surrounded by a malignant aura at random intervals. He's nearly impossible to kill; get a couple of lucky hits, and he teleports away. I learned to fire a Wand of Death at him the moment he appeared, but I only had about 10 total charges. I envisioned having to get some Recharging scrolls at some point. Later, I found some more wands, fortunately.
   
I knew from spoilers that I still needed a Candelabrum of Invocation, which I'd find in Vlad's Tower, which was somewhere above me, via a staircase that I had missed. I followed Broken25's advice to wish for a Spellbook of Magic Mapping, which I memorized and cast on every level on the way up, quickly identifying the stairs. I found the second stairway to Vlad's Tower on Level 43. I fought through two levels of demons and whatnot, made it to his throne room, hit him twice, and watched him read a Scroll of Teleportation and disappear.
     
Arriving in Vlad's Tower.
     
After not being able to find him anywhere in the tower, I started working my way up the levels with my blindfold on, looking for him. By the time I reached Level 23, where I knew there was a friendly altar, the Wizard of Yendor had cursed just about everything I had. I dipped a stack of potions in the swamp level and brought them to the altar, then dropped them, forgetting I was still levitating. The potions, falling from the extra distance, smashed on the ground. I still had a few other potions, so I went and dipped those, came back, took off my Ring of Levitation, dropped them on the altar, and prayed. Now my god decided to give me a weapon: Stormbringer. But he didn't bless my potions. I tried praying again, but because I had just prayed, he was displeased with me. Annoyed, not knowing where the damned vampire was, looking at my cursed items and rapidly-diminishing uses of Wand of Death, I quit and restored from way the hell back on Level 51.
      
Given this, I probably should have used the sword at least once.
     
I returned to the tower, fought my way up again, and destroyed Vlad this time, taking from his corpse the candelabra. Now possessing the bell, book, and candelabra, I headed back down the various levels to the bottom and its vibrating square. I'm eliding the boring combats and the occasional blasting of the Wizard of Yendor with the Wand of Death on the way. My stock of holy water got low as I kept uncursing items.
    
  
     
I knew I had to perform a ritual with the bell, book, and candelabra at the vibrating square, but I didn't know the order. First, I readied the candelabra by attacking a stack of 7 tallow candles to it. I found those in a shop, I think. Then I tried bell, book, candelabra. When I got to the book part, the game said I "raised the dead," and a bunch of wraiths and zombies appeared. I'm not going to complain about wraiths. Only one left a corpse, but that's another level.
  
I started again with the book and raised a bunch more dead, one of which read a Scroll of Create Monster, turning the whole place into a circus. I teleported out of there and returned slowly. That took another half hour to clear up. 
     
Oh, for the love of god . . .
     
With "book" out as the first option, I tried candle, bell, book next. That worked. There was a blast in the area around me and a bunch of squares got replaced by water. Another wraith appeared just then, left a corpse, and got me to Level 27 when I ate it. I then went down to the bottom level of the dungeon.
   
The result of the completed ritual.
    
The bottom level was full of vampires, ghosts, wraiths, zombies, vampire lords, devils, demons, and mummies. Man, did I get sick of acknowledging combat messages. Not one of a dozen wraiths left a corpse, the bastards.
      
The next time I play, I genocide giant insects first.
      
I opened a door and got attacked by a swarm of Moloch's priests and priestesses, all of which seemed to have the ability to summon giant ants and beetles. I mowed my way through them to a central chamber surrounded by fire traps. There were no openings in the wall, and I couldn't bash or dig through it. Storing my flammable stuff in my Bag of Holding, I began circling the building (I take no damage from fire traps) looking for a secret door. I finally found one on the back side.
    
What if I just offered it immediately on that altar? I didn't think to try.
      
As I entered, the High Priest of Moloch intoned, "Infidel, you entered Moloch's Sanctum! Be gone!" He ran up as I entered. I instantly blasted him with the Wand of Death. On his body, I found the Amulet of Yendor.
   
Taking extra care between moves, I slowly made my way back to the stairway and prepared to ascend 56 levels. I soon ascertained that I could no longer teleport on demand. Random Teleportitis still kicked in occasionally, and I was happy when it did. (I cursed the special levels where teleportation didn't work.) I was also happy I'd used so many Wands of Digging to blast shortcuts through the maze levels. About a third of the time I tried to go up a set of stairs, the game said, "A mysterious force momentarily surrounds you," and I got teleported somewhere else on the level instead. 'Cause that's what this game needed. I also kept getting messages that I felt "vaguely nervous." 
      
I get teleported from the stairs to the center of the maze. This nonsense stopped after I got out of Hell.
       
A wraith corpse on Level 40 got me to character Level 28. In addition to the Wizard of Yendor, Baalzebub dogged me all the way up, frequently appearing and stunning me. (Fixing it just meant touching the unicorn horn, but it was still annoying.) On Level 33, Asmodeus joined him. They kept teleporting away when I actually hit them. I didn't want to waste the Wand of Death on them. I eventually killed them both with my sword on Level 31.
   
I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I finally made it to Level 26 and started seeing regular dungeon walls again. I don't remember the maze levels in the previous versions sucking this bad. I would give anything for a spell that just blasts the hell out of maze walls in all directions.
      
I am so happy to be out of the maze.
     
On Level 25, I tried blessing some potions again, and thankfully it worked this time (I also got Stormbringer). I was able to uncurse most of my stuff that the Wizard had cursed, including my blindfold, magic lamp, and one of the Wands of Death. At this point, I had four wands with six charges total, plus one wish left on my Wand of Wishing. The one good thing is I had plenty of food--so much that I forgot about my cached rations on the castle level.
     
And, eventually, I was on Level 1. I wasn't quite sure what to expect at this point. The last version I played had one final level after you ascended, but I thought I remembered that this one had multiple. As I went up the stairs, the game warned me there would be no return. I continued. "Well done, mortal!" it said. "But now thou must face the final Test . . . Prove thyself worthy or perish!"
     
Believe me, I have seen enough of this place.
   
It was pretty late at night at this point, so I decided to save the endgame area for a new session. Obviously, I've already lost the ability to win "legitimately" in the eyes of most NetHack players, but I still want to see the endgame, analyze my experience, and figure out what I'd do better next time.
   
Time so far: 36 hours. This character is going on 30 hours, incidentally. I have no idea how so many people win it so fast.

63 comments:

  1. Oh, um, yeah. Sorry for not warning you about that one. Don't eat unidentified eggs.

    Since the cockatrice itself also has a stoning attack, it'd be a good idea to have some sort of counter-stoning item. Unicorn horns don't work, prayer does but not in Gehennom, and I'm not going to spoil this because there's basically no way to know other than by looking at spoiler: the best counter is eating a lizard corpse (which never rots), acidic items like potions of acid or acid blob corpses also work at the cost of some HP that you can easily afford. Amulet of life saving also should work (but you lose the amulet, of course).

    I would say you had a very good reason to keep and restore a backup here.

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    1. The Oracle does have a major consultation that tells you about lizard and acidic corpses. Acid blobs also never rot, but do a little damage when you eat them.

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    2. I really wonder WHY eating a dead lizard would cure petrification; as far as I'm aware, neither D&D nor the myth about cockatrices has anything like that.

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    3. @Rodneylives: According to the spoiler I read, acid blob corpses never spoil, so they're always safe to eat if you have one; but they do rot, in that they will eventually disappear from your inventory. Lizard corpses are guaranteed to last.

      @Radiant: It seems like the game introduced dead lizards and then gradually gave them some function--first to reduce confusion, then to prevent stoning, I guess because stoning was very annoying before then. Seems like mythologically, the anti-cockatrice beast should be a weasel.

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    4. I anticipate that you are using more than just one backup file. Definitely keep one before the end game or you could be REAL sad.

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    5. The dead lizard thing is probably a bit of mercy, and possibly a reference to the major mythological petrifier, the basilisk.

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    6. In mythology, cockatrices and basilisks are more or less the same thing.

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    7. I always believed the dead lizard thing in nethack was a refrence to the dragonlance novels. In these books, a gully dwarf once offered a dead lizard to Raistlin as a cure all to many ills. Raistlin (who was a main character in the books) ended up carrying it with him thru the rest of the 6 books in the series. To me dragonlance was so popular back then that it made sense that nethack would make reference to this, but I never read any confirmation to my theory.

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    8. Thanks Peter, that makes perfect sense in a game full of other references to fantasy novels.

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  2. "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."
    Darkest Dungeon narrator

    I'm not an expert of this kind of roguelikes (I enjoy the occasional "modern" roguelite) but 30 hours for a single run for a permadeath game sounds like a whole friggin' lot.

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    1. Darkest Dungeon, though, is a fantastic game.

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  3. Gehennom is where I always lose interest. Maze after maze of nothing in particular. As far as not getting a "valid" win, I don't think that's a problem at all. You're documenting a game that can take ages to win, with a massive list of other games ahead of you. I'd much rather see the highlights of the NetHack experience; no need to be dogmatic about it.

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  4. (take the previous comment as notes for the future)

    Another couple of things:

    It's no coincidence that the packs of wraiths almost never leave corpses. On levels with graveyards, special areas with tons of undead (or just some levels that are marked as such because of all the undead), wraiths are much less likely to leave corpses. Some players try to lure the wraiths to another level because of this, though I wouldn't try it on Moloch's Sanctum.

    Those teleporting monsters are teleporting to the up staircase to heal. It's often a good idea just to hang out on the up staircase to be able to finish them off. They'll flee upstairs if they beat you to the upstairs, which they often can do because they have teleportation, which I guess means it's a good idea to clear them out before you get the amulet so you can telepor there first.

    It's a good thing you didn't use any wand of death charges on Asmodeus and Baalzebub, because wands of death don't work on demons.

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  5. Level this, level that, gain a level, go down a level, reach a level, lose a level, back to level...

    I still wish you'd differentiate better between dungeon floors and character levels in a game like this (where they're in constant flux).

    Still an exciting read, cheers!

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    1. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html

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    2. There are *so* many homonyms in normal common English you probably don't even think about, because context makes them unambiguous.

      I think all usage is clear here, it's just that the word "level" is used quite a lot.

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    3. Vince, that's a pretty funny strip!

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    4. Nethack plays with this homonym; A potion of gain level will increase your character level... Unless it's cursed in which case you'll go up a dungeon level.

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  6. At least no one gated in Demogorgon! He's the absolute worst enemy in Nethack. He's killed so many of my promising characters. He's fast, slows and sickens you. Which frequently leads to a one shot kill.

    Luckily, he doesn't have his own level. Instead one of his demon buddies has to summon him.

    PS - there are so many corner case deaths around cockatrices that you can only learn via trial and error. Don't sweat the "save scum."

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  7. Oh yeah, it's really the tedium that kills you in Nethack. Between the mazes, the Wizard and the mysterious force, the game really tries to make you give up by being utterly dull and miserable, while not actually providing any challenge. Experienced players know how to make it slightly less annoying, but the pain never truly goes away.

    On a positive sidenote, the mysterious force is getting nerfed in the upcoming 3.7.0 release(becoming increasingly less likely to happen each time it triggers) , so although it took devteam over 30 years, they did finally realize that maybe it doesn't actually benefit the game. If it wasn't for who added the feature, it would have probably been completely removed, but that's how the things are.

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  8. It is true that restoring saved games means you didn't "really" win, but life's too short to care. It's a game, not a mountain to climb, and you should play it however you want.

    About teleporting opponents like the Demon Princes and the Wizard: Jura zbafgref gryrcbeg njnl ng ybj urnygu, gurl'er tbvat gb gur hcfgnvef. Vs lbh fgnaq ba gurz, gurl jba'g or noyr gb vafgnagyl rfpncr naq lbh pna onfu njnl ng gurz, naq nqqvgvbanyyl pna rfpncr hcfgnvef vs guvatf trg unvel.

    Nethack is one of my favorite games, but its length really speaks against it. With a permadeath game, the longer it is, the more you have invested in it when you get far, and the more it hurts when you die. For this reason, I think roguelikes are better when they're shorter.

    Also, Gehennom is absolutely the weakest part of Nethack. Wandering through miles of indistinguishable mazes is thematically appropriate but terrible for the player's mental state. They're brain killing, and having to redo sections because of the "mysterious force" pushes it over into excruciating. Sometimes it even teleports you down some levels! Most variants, even the ones that increase the difficulty, make sure to fix this.

    I think later versions of Nethack give special messages when you've one of the opening artifacts in the right order. A way to remember the order is: light the candelabrum to give you light to read by; ring the bell to announce your presence; then read.

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    1. Roguelikes work better when runs are short, no doubt.

      Nethack runs are long compared with modern, sleeker roguelikes, but it's still fairly playable - in comparison Angband and it's ilk absurd runtimes, at least.

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  9. Also: congratulations, in all my years of indiscriminate egg eating, I've never died to a cockatrice egg! I've been pretty lucky, and you, very unlucky.

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  10. Ha, that one is kind of a classic.

    I wouldn't feel too bad about restoring a backup for this one, in modern versions of Nethack cockatrice eggs are autoidentified so this doesn't happen anymore.

    (Before 3.6 you just couldn't eat any egg without formally identifying it first without risking instadeath).

    Cockatrice eggs are, btw, pretty excellent weapons, they never rot like a c corpse does and you can throw them to instakill almost anything.

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  11. > One more: "Your limbs are stiffening." Maybe something could have healed me at this point--the unicorn horn?

    Delayed stoning can be healed with prayer (although that wouldn't work in Gehhenom) quaffing a potion of acid, or eating a lizard corpse. That's why it's recommended to carry a couple of lizards corpses with you once for find some (they weight almost nothing and never rot).

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  12. It's a good thing you had a back-up, otherwise you'd end up with egg on your face.

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  13. Wow. This game sounds absolutely ridiculous. You could ask, "Which is harder, NetHack or Wizardry 4?" and the answer somehow wouldn't be obvious.

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    1. Wizardry 4 sounds harder, but that might be bias due to years of playing NetHack and only reading about W4. Nethack lulls you into a false sense of security as the difficulty ramps up and you descend slowly downward. W4 sounds absurd almost from the get go, with less hints and common sense to partially guide you.

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    2. By sheer number of people who have finished NetHack over Wizardry 4, one would guess NetHack. OTOH, that could be because Nethack is easier to get, and Wizardry has the reputation of being a very hard game in a hard series which puts people off. With Wizardry 4, you're also not cheating by restoring an earlier save IIRC.

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    3. The addict took more than three times as long to finish Nethack (3.0, which I understand has a shorter endgame?), which goes with my gut feeling that Nethack is the harder of the two when playing without any spoilers. When playing with spoilers, it's probably a bit more even because IIRC you depend more on the RNG in Wizardry 4, while Nethack offers many safeguardsonce you know them. On the other hand, death isn't as costly in Wizardry 4, so it also depends on the ability of the player to play carefully.

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    4. I'd argue that the first levels of Nethack are intriguing and make people want to play more (even if they die) whereas the first levels of Wiz 4 (with the lack of resources, real-time ghost and the %&*(#$& invisible minefield) are frustrating and make people delete the game.

      As Tvtropes would put it, a case of "real difficulty" vs "fake difficulty". https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

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    5. I'm not sure it's clear that anyone has ever beaten Wizardry 4 without spoilers. (Jason Dyer said Carl Muckenhoupt, of the stack at wurb.com did, but when Carl replayed in 2022 he said he consulted hints the first time he played, specifically about the carrot puzzle at least.) Supposedly there is one spoiler-free NetHack ascension.

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    6. Brenda Romero claims that she beat Wiz 4 as a playtester in "a couple weeks" with zero spoilers (but, of course, extensive prior Wizardry experience). I don't see any reason to disbelieve her.

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    7. Ah there you go! That makes Wizardry 4 easier unspoiled than NetHack.

      In some ways they have completely different axes of difficulty, though, because NetHack is more replayable and permanently loseable, so it makes more sense to talk about people learning to beat it four times in a row than for Wizardry 4.

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    8. The main difficulty in Wiz4 is figuring out the Adventure game type puzzles. The rest is just diligent map making, patience and resilience.

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    9. I agree. W4 is a game of patience. It's not really all that "hard" as long as you're willing to map and accept the occasional setback.

      NH is perhaps easier from moment to moment, but harder in the sense that the accumulation of probabilities is against you in the long run. There's also a lot more to learn.

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    10. "I don't see any reason to disbelieve her." I mean, I won without spoilers in 70 hours, which is about 2 weeks of full-time work, so it checks out as far as I'm concerned.

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    11. I had forgotten that you had won Wiz 4 without spoilers!

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    12. Funnily, Wiz4 wouldn't rate very high as an adventure game, either (mainly because of poor puzzle design). It's really a genre-defying work.

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    13. I think I had to get help on the Qabalah level, and it looks like some commenters provided a couple of clues all the way, so I guess I can't quite claim that I won with no spoilers at all.

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  14. A solid play session; and I agree, as a chronicler you shouldn't necessarily be bound by the same anti-save scumming constraints as someone doing it for bragging rights.

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  15. As someone that tends to see 10 minutes of lost progress as a reason to break out savestates and rewinds, seeing you using save backups just makes me wonder why I never tried that. Losing progress is one of the quickest ways to make me lose interest in something, and Nethack runs potentially taking tens of hours makes that even worse

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  16. One nice property of roguelikes and other games with permanent consequences is that you have to stay alert. But it's hard to stay alert when most things in the game are easy and only some rare hidden deathtraps remain.

    Regarding reloading a backup or save state, I found that after doing this, my alertness is immediately diminished and I start to easily rack up mistakes. I can't fool my mind to keep taking the game as seriously as before.

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    1. After the first restore the game never felt the same for me, and I usually abandoned the restored character shortly afterwards. Though had it happened this late I would have continued, too.

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    2. As you'll see next time, I had some of the same problem.

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  17. I wonder why does Priest of Moloch call you "infidel", implying a lack of fidelity. I mean, it's not like Moloch is Allach who created all of the sentient beings and had their fidelity "by default" so you have to "betray the trust" somehow to be his enemy, nor is he Tetragrammaton nor Jesus. What makes him think there was any fidelity to be in the first place? :D

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    1. The words "Fidelity" and "Faith" share a common root, but I think "infidel" refers to the latter alone: "no faith". An infidel has no faith in that particular god (or religion).

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    2. There's an Infidel role in the EvilHack variant, where you start with the Amulet and have to sacrifice it to Moloch.

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    3. AlphabeticalAnonymousMarch 26, 2024 at 5:06 PM

      And the gold-standard OED tells us:
      "Of a person: that is an adherent of a religion other than one's own, and hence regarded (from one's own perspective) as a non-believer. Also: that is without religious belief; unbelieving, faithless."

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    4. Oh. As a non-native English speaker, I believed "infidel" amount to something like "betrayer", rooted deeply in Abrahamic religions only =)

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  18. You seem to really have hit your stride this time around! Yes, NetHack is a game about risk assessment (interesting things do happen if you sacrifice Orcus, or the Amulet to Moloch. No idea why he was peaceful). Genociding liches was prudent.
    Some variants change up Gehennom or remove the mysterious force.

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  19. You know, it's almost cute that cockatrices wrap their eggs in boulders like it's a pearl. What else would a petrifying bird use for a nest?

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    1. Um, literally everything? Since when cockatrice touches it, it gets stoned? =)

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    2. Even inanimate objects? Can you build an economy out of cockatrices turning haybales into bricks?

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    3. I believe it could be inanimate objects as long as it is still organic matter? I mean, cockatrice would turn some sort of tree-man (like the one from "Guardians of the Galaxy") into a stone, too, and he is a plant? So, it could turn both flesh and plant/wood/straw into stone? I guess. =) Regarding economy - we cannot even imagine WHAT kind of economy would a fantasy world have if all of the magic spells and magical creatures were used =) Imagine gelatinous cubes working as trash dispensers. Imagine magic-fueled steam trains where mages use fireballs to boil the water - no coal needed! Imagine restaurant franchise using horn of plenty and Platinum Yendorian Express Card to create entire warehouses of food... )))))

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    4. I once thought of a ridiculous farming strategy involving a horn of plenty, the PYEC, a unicorn horn, and amethyst, and a game where fruit juice is smoky. Though I think someone calculated that exploiting it to its full effect would take till the heat death of the universe or something.

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    5. Doesn't smoky potion get progressively worse with each successive use, though?

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    6. My understanding (from the wiki) is that it gets successively less likely to have any effect, but the effects stay just as good. Hence the heat death of the universe problem, as by the end it becomes very unlikely to have any effect.

      For people who are wondering what we're talking about:

      Bar bs gur enaqbzvmrq nccrnenaprf n cbgvba pna unir vf "fzbxl cbgvba," naq jungrire vg vf, n fzbxl cbgvba unf n punapr bs pbagnvavat n qwvaa. Vs gur cbgvba vf oyrffrq, gurer vf na 80% punapr gung nal qwvaa vg pbagnvaf jvyy tenag lbh n jvfu.

      Gur ubea bs cyragl cebqhprf zbfgyl sbbq vgrzf, gubhtu vg ehaf bhg nsgre n pregnva ahzore bs punetrf. Bar bs gubfr pna or n cbgvba bs sehvg whvpr. Fb vs gur enaqbzvmrq nccrnenapr bs sehvg whvpr vf fzbxl, lbh pna trg fzbxl cbgvbaf bhg bs gur ubea bs cyragl. Naq gur Cyngvahz Lraqbevna Rkcerff Pneq nyybjf sbe vasvavgr punetvat (sbe cynlref bs arhgeny nyvtazrag), fb lbh pna erpunetr gur ubea bs cyragl nf zhpu nf lbh jnag. Gur havpbea ubea naq nzrgulfg uryc orpnhfr fbzrgvzrf gur ubea znxrf cbgvbaf bs fvpxarff naq cbgvbaf bs obbmr; qvccvat n havpbea ubea be nzrgulfg vagb bar jvyy znxr vg sehvg whvpr.

      Fb va gurbel, jvgu guvf frghc, lbh pbhyq trg vasvavgr sehvg whvpr, vasvavgr fzbxl cbgvbaf, naq jvfurf hagvy gur tnzr fgbcf znxvat qwvaav (bayl 120 bs nal xvaq bs zbafgre pna or trarengrq). Ubjrire, gur zber qwvaav ner perngrq, gur yrff yvxryl vg vf gung fzbxl cbgvbaf pbagnva qwvaav, fb va gur raq vg jbhyq gnxr n ybbbbbbbat gvzr. Lbhe punenpgre jba'g fgneir gb qrngu orpnhfr gur ubea bs cyragl perngrf sbbq, ohg lbh zvtug fgneir va erny yvsr. Nyfb gur yngrfg irefvba nccneragyl chgf na nofheqyl yvzvg ba gur ahzore bs gheaf n tnzr pna gnxr, juvpu guvf fgengrtl jbhyq hfr hc.

      Delete
    7. @Lorigulf - Spiderweb's games, especially Geneforge, go some lengths to examine that thought experiment..

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    8. @Tristan Gall - I've heard good things about the setting of Geneforge series, about its originality and uniqueness... Too bad I cannot stomach the design of Geneforge for some reason. I have no qualms with Ultima 4 graphics, or letter-based roguelike "graphics", but Geneforge just does not click for me despite being more technically advanced. =( So, closer to the point at hand... Could you elaborate a bit? Is there a society where hard-ruled magic is used instead of technology and artifacts and mages fuel something akin to our contemporary consumerist society?

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    9. @Lorigulf, Spiderweb issues a remaster of Geneforge a couple years ago (and one of Geneforge 2 just this week) with somewhat updated visuals and improved mechanics. Perhaps those would work better for you than the originals. You're missing out because the setting isn't the only selling point; it's also one of the best RPG series in terms of sheer roleplaying: it supports a number of fundamentally different playstyles, has a heavily branching plot, and is mostly open-world on top of that.

      The setting of Geneforge is a mixture of fantasy and biopunk: the world is ruled by a caste of mages who breed specialized creatures to perform all sorts of functions: manual laborers, bio-computers, living tools and devices etc. The plot of the series largely revolves around the ethics of such practices.

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    10. To add: The ruling caste of bio-mages monopolise bio-magic and strictly control its use. Backwater towns look pretty much like those of any other world but the economic centres revolve around bio-magic and have access to a sort of pseudo-electricity. A lot of the high-skilled normies and regular mages make their living creating tools for the bio-mages, other normies will be in charge of controlling bio-made sentients. Most unskilled labour is handled by bio-made humanoids.

      Delete
  20. Every time you say Grayswandir, I cry a title inside, knowing that Zelazny never got to finish the new, post-Merlin Amber stuff he was working on when he passed

    ReplyDelete

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