This is a test.

Trav

Dont you think that elementalists should get the "lighning bolt" spell when they reach level 12 or so? (ADOM)

Wow! A post!

I don't know, I never gor very far in ADOM. What types of characters do you recommend, and how far along in the game have you gotten? Is there a lot of replay value?

Hey, I think it would be good to talk about all the different Angband variants (Zangband, Kangband, Kamband, etc.). What are your favorites?

Travis

I'm looking for an old DOS roguelike game called 'Evets'. Ever heard of it/Know where I can find it?

Oh yeah, Evets... I remember that one, and in fact I think I've been looking for it myself; I just didn't remember the name.

Could you remind me a little more about what it was like? Been ages.

Hopefully I'll get some time to update my site - it's very out of date and there's a new version of Unreal World I'd like to make available. Right now I'm trying to finish up some music related web pages.

Any requests on what you'd like to see on my Roguelike site? The RLNews site is awesome for keeping up to date with the latest games. I need to think of things to do on here that'd offer unique contributions to the genre.

Trav

I have heard of a roguelike game called Dimensions that is meant to be in it's early stages of development. Does it really exist, and, if so, where can I find it?

Freak Boy

The best place to find info about new games is the Roguelike News site: http://www2.krisalis.co.uk/wwwdheb/index.html

Dimensions page: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2057/Dimensions.html

Trav

There's another roguelike game i think ssould be added to the list; The very fun Castle of the Winds by Epic Megagames. And btw, anyone know if there was ever a non-online version of the roguelike game BlackDragon for Compuserve?

Death of the day:
Slash'em: Fyathurio died on level 1; Poisened by eating a rotted newt corpse

Hello. I would like to spread a little good word. First of all, I am the founder of the RL Games club at Yahoo!. Okay, don't laugh. I'm actually somewhat proud of this. After perusing this site (which is designed well, BTW), I realized that I may be able to ask for help here. Namely, would anyone care to write a good FAQ for their favorite RL? I've already got a few lined up (Crawl, Ragnarok, and a bit of ADOM), but all help would be sincerely appreciated. I know I sound kind of shallow and opurtunistic...okay, I am oppurtunistic, but you would have my undying gratitude (that, and fifty cents will get you a Pepsi in most places). Thanks!

Frost Wolf

Oh yeah, is there any quick fix to get rid of pets (really pests!) in the Slash source code so i dont have to delve into it?

Amazing who you see here...I actually know "Supernaut1." Small world.

Delivering musings again,

Frost Wolf

One of my esteemed colleagues at the club has started a recruiting drive. The RL Club has roughly 50 members, and sees roughly 20 posts a day. It's a great alternative to NG's, where discussion typically is less free in thought. Anyone care to join?

Feeling shameless today,

Frost Wolf

Okay, guys... I have made huge edits to these web pages. I've been working on them for about a week now and construction is still in fact underway. Tonight I solidified the layout enough to warrant an upload.

If you check them out, please bear with the sparseness and obsolescence of some of the information. I didn't want to actually REDUCE the content of the web site, so I created several placeholder pages to contain the old data. The layout, however, is pretty much finalized.

I have received LOTS of information from people over the years (yes, years... I've been REALLY bad at keeping these pages updated) and have collected lots of useful links and have lots of things to say. Plus, I need to check links and find new versions and review more games and make more screen grabs and, well, I have my work cut out for me.

Hopefully seeing traffic on this discussion list will keep me reminded and motivated (as the Feb99 posts have done so far). Likewise, hopefully my web site updates will be fun for you guys and inspire you to communicate and give feedback and all that good stuff.

Trav

[Posted by Travis and dated 08Aug98]

Absolutely great pages, but why have you ingored non-PC users? It would be nice to know which games have mac versions, and probably download them.

Thanks anyway,

Lauri Heikkilä

Lauri -

I talk about this a bit on the new Download page.

Basically, I have PC versions there because I can validate them. Since I download them to play anyway, it's easy for me to put them on my web site.

If you want to put together a Direct Download page for Mac, I'll gladly provide a link to it. That'd really help out the other Mac users.

Thanks for the good question, and sorry that it's taken me so long (6 months!) to respond.

Travis

[Posted by Travis, originally dated 17Oct98]

In your review page on Roguelike games, you criticize Ragnarok for shallowness, and lack of balance. I think it would be more appropriate to criticize Ragnarok for hiding too much of its depth in such a way that characters almost invariably get killed before they can analyze anything. I reviewed the product for a major publication when it actually went commercial, about 6 years ago; and at the time a dead character was simply deleted, while you could only save a character every 5,000 moves (one savegame per character).

There was far too much chance to slip up, and nowhere near enough hints about how to win anything in the game. Their hint guide, on the other hand, was full of information-- but like I said, it wasn't actually integrated in the game at any point. Of course, they sold it separately.

One final, sorry note. They took out the 5000-move savegame feature after I mentioned in casual conversation with the developers that it would help sell the game to allow people a little more leeway; after the review came out, they issued a version that put back in the 5000-move feature, with a version statement that said they were not going to coddle stupid players anymore. Go figure. :P

Barry Brenesal

[Posted by Travis, originally dated 21Oct98]

> What are your favorite Roguelikes these days?

Nethack, period. Occasionally I'll play Slash'EM, because some of the additions and changes are fairly nifty, but it's got the "bigger! more!" problem that plagues Angband and its variants. I simply cannot play any form of Angband without rapidly getting frustrated with its transparency; in your review, you mentioned that Nethack has the least emphasis on roleplay, but in a way I see it as the opposite. Nethack doesn't tell you how much damage you're doing, how much weight you're carrying, or any of the underlying game mechanics that you get to know in Angband, and this makes for a much more immersive environment.

I've played ADOM, and was instantly put off by the unchanging world; I prefer consistancy within a single game, but randomness between games, in the Nethack style. If I want a consistant world, there are better places to get it: Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games.

Nethack strives for realism. It's realism in a universe with different natural laws, but it's consistant. If you're levitating and you kick a wall, you fly backwards, possibly thumping into the far wall; that level of detail, and the mentality that created it, make for an excellent gaming environment.

So, how about yourself? :>

This is cool, this is REALLY cool. I spent all day on it...

(url snipped since the file no longer exists)

You can download the ZIP and unzip in zangband\lib\help You don't have to quit the game, just don't use help while unzipping.

It will overwrite your old help files so back 'em up first if you want. My help system is far bigger than the default one, but it might take a while to get used to it.

When you next hit '?' you should see a new command:

(0) INDEX

Check it out! I wrote a PERL script today that generates it. The PERL script run in UNIX and can generate an index for ANY Angband help system, not just my Zangband one.

Travis

Okay, version 1.1 is done and it runs in DOS. See my download page for more info and the latest version

Trav

In defense of ADOM, I find it to be much more dynamic, and, but these are both personal preferences, I enjoy the ADOM UI much more. But, that's just me....

Frost Wolf

hiya...

I'm looking for a copy of Dungeons of Evets (a shareware game that came out a while ago)...if anyone has a copy, or knows where I can get one, or any info at all, please mail me (edo@rucus.ru.ac.za)...please don't post a reply, as I can't access this site very often, and so won't actually get to read it...

thanks
Edo

Evets... I haven't been able to find it. Funny, but whenever I search for it I end up back here! :)

I do remember playing it, though. And I think I liked it.

I'll keep hunting.

Trav

I found several references to evets on old FTP sites. The filename is usually one of these:

• h000453.zip
• h453.zip
• H453.ZIP

None of the sites allowed me to download. Also, Archie and two other FTP searchers I tried all failed to find h000453.zip and h453.zip

Here's an example of one of the sites that lists evets:

http://www.conex.com.br/conex/sharewar/ftp/softlib/games/dd_adve/

Trav

Okay...I've heard suggestions on a system in RL's which would allow you to play as your character until you die. The obvious flaw to an otherwise great idea is that every RL only has a finite number of quests, whether it be one or 50. So, my idea was implementing a random quest generator. Is this feasible, or even interesting, in any way? Could it bring RL's back to the D&D roots?

Frost Wolf

welcome masters of the realms as i was reading though you crap work that you have done on your page i thought "what a sad person i wish i could be just like you doing pointless bits of crap that no one will look at!"

Hello my name is trav and I have mastered the update on the two bit realm editor blah blah blah

but more importantly i just came here to admit that i am a complete sad bastard who wastes all of my free time doing crappy boardgames and rpgs that, as much fun as they are who will waste their time to play them.

that is why i shall have to close down this poxy excuse for a web page

thankyou jonethethethethethetheth for showing me the error of my ways

Huh? Ah, come on, the fun just started. If you let people like this dictate your life, Trav, _THEN_ you have no life. Heck, if they aren't a fan, why are they here, for that matter?

Frost Wolf

As much as I hate censoring, I had to put that guy's name "trav" in quotes. Right now there's no protection on here against impersonation [well, you can look at the IP access logs like I did but that's boring]. I kept his content untouched, though. Censorship is bad.

Anyway...

I've been reading Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. Have any of you read it? I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first book and so far, it's awesome! So far, this book and the Assassin trilogy by Robin Hobb are my two favorite non-Tolkien fantasy stories. Highly recommended!

Trav

By the way, in regards to the Quest question... I've been thinking a lot about that issue recently.

On the one hand, as someone on the Angband newsgroup pointed out, elaborate quests might make it really fun to play the game one time through, but overall they tend to decrease replayability. I think I agree with that.

However, I think simple quests can be cool, especially those which have random elements and aren't that based on puzzle solving. For instance, I like the idea of having to kill a certain number of monster X on level Y. I also didn't mind the Thieves' den so much because it is really just like another [very small] dungeon level. There's no puzzle-solving aspect to it.

I've never gotten past the third quest in Zangband, though. The hammerheads always chop me up. And I don't know what the other quests are like. Are they like the thieves' den?

Trav

Uh, sorry...I played Angband very briefly. I may get back to it, once ADoM gets old.

Frost Wolf

Yo, Trav...just flipping through your site, and, you know, my experience with UnReal World was comparable. I was really upset (well, not really. Stress just takes years from your life.). Just thought I'd put in my opinions.

Frost Wolf

Hola!

Just had a browse through the site - one of the few places where I've gotten an overview look at what's out there :) Not that, of course, it changes my standpoint - but it's good to have a way of "scoping out the competition".

As for SLASH'EM's development cycle - actually, that's often dependant on my workload - me being a student and all. Of course, having more players == more feedback == less thinking for me, but in the end, new versions get done whenever I have time to finish coding them (How sad, neh? That the future of a roguelike depends on whether I've had any bright ideas :) Personally, popularity is a small issue - I have only a VERY rough idea (I'm guessing the lower end is in the three digits...) of th popularity of SLASH'EM - although I have to admit, Zangband and ADOM are a big thing - and Linley is just nuts with Crawl :) Kudos to everyone! And I love the site :)

Woah! Jeez, Blow my mind! I was just about to write a post saying how cool I thought the latest SLAM was, and how glad I am to have gotten back into it after a long Angband stint... And then to see Warren right here, right now! Freaky! As Warren would put it: ;B

I was up until 3:30 last night playing SLAM.

I also spent a lot of time yesterday looking at Warren's web site. Very slick. I love the simplicity. The elegant simplicity. Very cool. And then to find out he's from Vancouver... way cool! [Warren, what area of Vancouver?]

Frost - in case you didn't know, Warren's the developer for SLASH'EM, which is the most significant and frequently updated NetHack variant. He has recently released a new version for the first time in months!

Warren - in case you did't know, Frost runs the Roguelike chat channel at Yahoo. He's also the most active participant on here! :) His frequent and frank postings are what keep me motivated in working on this site!

Feedback is definitely caffeine. Developmental caffeine.

I will always, I think, have an extra-soft spot in my heart for Hack and its decendents. It was my first Roguelike. In high school [1987 or so] my friends and I used to spend our evenings in conference calls, each of us playing our own game of Hack... Lots of clicking and then an occasional, "Yeeehaw!!!!" when someone managed to rob a shop without paying. :)

I think Moria and its kids and grandkids [Angband, Zangband, etc.] are more strategic, "deeper". It's a much more "serious" game, but in my opinion is less replayable.

Usually, when I get on an Angband kick I play two or three dud characters as a warmup, then a decent character for several days, until he dies; then I don't touch Angband for a couple months.

When I get on a Hack/NetHack/SLAM, I usually play ten or twenty characters over the course of three or four nights. SLAM is much "lighter" than Angband. Like short stories compared to a novel. Great for a laptop.

Personally, I think SLAM is a cleaner, higher quality game than Angband. It's a brilliant short story. Angband is a very good, long epic novel. I think sometimes we're in the mood for novels, sometimes we're in the mood for short stories.

I don't think SLAM should try to get any bigger. I like many of the ideas on the to-do list. I think if SLAM gets released more frequently [even with small updates], it will regain its popularity. Right now Angband is dominant because of the billions of frequently updated variants.

One thing I would love to see more of in Roguelikes is legacy. A character should have a lasting effect on the game world. Dying should be even more fun than it is now. I love bones levels and ghosts. I love the plaques in the Kamband town. I'd love to see:

• TOMBS -- Vaults/levels named after a particularly cool character, with the character's best weapon or armor made into an artifact. You could give the item some extra bonuses so it is a worthy prize; it has "aged" well... Combine that with:
• HERO WORSHIP -- Buildings/people dedicated to dead characters. Maybe if you have some item belonging to that character [which you get from a Bones or Tomb level], you can sell it to the building/person for lots of $$$. Or get that person to follow you.
• JOURNALS -- Can be found on dead heroes, more likely if the hero was intelligent. If you find the journal of a dead character, you should get [slight] bonuses against the creatures which the character killed. You should also be able to automatically identify all [or some] of the potions/scrolls/wands which the character new.
• LEGENDS -- Timelines and local lore devoted to dead heroes. Something easy to read which you can print out and show to your friends, entertaining to browse in itself. Focuses on major accomplishments and the death scene. Doesn't necessarily affect game play, but it's a more fun kind of character dump.

Stuff like this would be awesome. It'd encourage replayability big time. It wouldn't be difficult to implement. If I had time, I'd write my own Roguelike that used these ideas. Maybe someday I will, but right now I have papers to write.

Trav

p.s. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is due out today. Heroes 2 is the only commercial game which approaches Roguelike Games' addictiveness and replayability. I've been waiting for Heroes 3 for a long, long, long time. SLAM and Heroes 3 in one week. What an awesome!!!

Glad to inspire you, Trav...but, I know Warren. I only have one question...where ya been, Warren? He was one of the leading contributors back at the club at one time. I like those ideas. Matter of fact, my comments are usually brief becaue I lack such creativity. Frankly, it sounds good. Characters should leave something behind!

Frost Wolf

Bah! Who's bashing ADOM?

About the Zangband quests: What do you mean by hammerheads? I thought the third quest was to clean out the sewers (the reward is great for vampires)?

-Taffy, the false Supernaut1

Taffy, no one's really bashing ADOM. Trav just happens to like Angband more. I was just pointing out my reasons for preferring ADOM.

I recently downloaded Zangband. Any generic tips?

Frost Wolf

LOL...I really should get into doing little updates frequently...I know I love that ;) What I need, of course, is a high-speed connection that lets me mirror my "work" directories straight online...then people can always play with the latest...although, sometimes, that might be a terrible idea :) I've managed to "break" the source more than once...

Finally got back into Yahoo :) Expect to see more of me there as well :)

As for where in Vancouver, I live in Shaughnessy - around Oak and King Edward :) You live in Vancouver, Trav? Very Scary :)

I personally think that it's sad that I'm limited to playing SLASH'EM and Nethack - I really should try to pick up ADOM, Zangband and the like...but I suppose it's just too much work. It's the interface issue. I just can't live with theirs :) I love the design ideas - but I'm not good enough to build an all-new RL yet...

The "past characters should have more of an effect"/persistant world is a great idea - reminds me a bit of Mordor, where if you "died" people would come after you and retrieve you to revive you in the town (with attribute loss :) And I like the randomized simple quests ideas...although if you started simple and slowly increased complexity, you could probably get really complex random quests :)

Sigh...half the time I feel like I'm playing catch-up. The rest is the feeling that I've got so much locked in my head, and so little that actually gets done :)

Frost Wolf: Don't let yourself get surrounded (I've lost a number of unlucky chaos warriors when I leveled up and didn't have any method of teleportation), don't play a skeleton, tamper with the game files, and remember your scrolls (or rods) of recall. I usually use as many random quests as possible, but it's up to you. NOTE: The Node quests are EXTREMELY hard, even for Zangband. *Mutters something about Great Hell Wyrms and Ethereal Dragons...*

-Taffy

Cool. Thanks for the help. Skeletons seemed weak, anyway.

Warren, I have Slash'em on my machine. An old version, and I never really played it once I found the wizard mode...nothing like immortality to make you never want to go back to being mortal ;). And, just say as many things as come to mind. That way, you may get most of your thoughts down! ;)

Frost Wolf

Hey guys!

Actually, I never lived in Vancouver, but I was there a couple summers ago. We stayed in the Jericho Beach youth hostel, which is NorthEast of wheere you live. Most of our travelling was in the downtown area and then up to Whistler. Beautiful area!

The only think I didn't like about Vancouver...

On our first night the hostel was booked solid so we got ourselves a hotel room east of China Town; I love Asian food and girls so the choice of locale was strategic. :) Anyway, one look at the tiny room, the shared bathroom down the hall, and the stains on the bed and my friend wanted to leave; she called it "dirty" and a "dump" but I called it "cute" and with "character". It reminded me of the hole-in-the-wall hotel rooms in movies. My friend hated the idea of staying there but I teased her about it, calling her a wimp and a snob, until she finally agreed to stay. My little movie fantasy was gonna come true!

After dinner, coffee, and a movie, we walked back to our hotel room. I opened the door and there was a roach in the sink.

I cannot stand roaches. I hate them! They are what I detest above all other animals. Snakes, who cares. Mice, they're cute! Even spiders don't bother me as long as they stay up in a corner out of my reach. But roaches... Man oh man. If they are inside my house, I cannot sleep, eat, or do anything else until I kill them. I hate them. We haaaaaatttessss it!!!!

When it saw us approach, the roach skittered out of the sink and back behind it somewhere. "Great," I thought. "Now we have a roach free in our room. This is gonna be a sleepless night if I don't kill it." My friend went to brush her teeth and I sat on the bed staring at the sink, hoping the little demon would show its antennae so I could bash its brains out.

That's when I noticed another roach, on the floor, near my bag.

"Oh god." My heart stopped. One roach could be a freak occurance, but two roaches... Panic mode. Morale at 20%. If I had a Morale Warning option it'd be beeping at me now.

I quickly grabbed my bag and jerked it up onto the bed. As I did, I uncovered another roach, who skittered under the bed. I had an impulse to jump up on the bed myself and give a huge Ned Flanders shriek, but my friend was just coming back into the room.

I told her about the roaches. I couldn't tell it she was disturbed or not; she just stood there in the doorway. On the very first day I had met her, a month before that, I had told her about my aversion to roaches. She's German, and wasn't sure she knew what I meant by "roach" so I drew her a picture on a napkin. She liked the picture, but didn't know if she had ever seen a roach before.

So now she just stood there.

I looked over at her bed, with her bag on it. She started in, but I said, "wait a second" and walked over to her bed. I lifted the bag. A roach. I looked down, saw my shoes on the floor. I lifted one up. Yep, a roach.

I grabbed my stuff, shaking each item wildly, and she grabbed her stuff and we got the heck out of there. We slipped the key and a brief note of complaint under the proprietor's door, and were just heading down the steps to the street when we met two other travellers, two girls. Turns out they were trying to find the manager in order to make a complaint about something in their room, and when I told them about the roaches, they freaked out and decided to leave with us. [Morale is contagious and mine was downright abyssimal.]

We couldn't find another hotel room that late, and weren't quite willing to pay twice in one night anyway. I had slept overnight in the Anchorage airport a few weeks before and kind of enjoyed it, so I suggested we do the same, this time at SeaTac. They agreed; we got a taxi all the way down to the airport.

We unrolled our sleeping bags in the darkest alcove we could find and crashed. It turned out the next morning that we had slept in the children's play area; people were eyeing us VERY strangely, and we were unshowered, and generally feeling gross. But at least there were no bleepin' roaches...

That's my little Vancouver story. :)

Okay, in regards to Zangband. I thought the 3rd quest, where you have to go to the water place, with the sharks, was waaaayyyy too difficult compared to the first two. My friend got a 30th level character and still can't kill the dracken or whatever it is. So I would say, Frost, to avoid the quest that is west of town (danger level 50 I think) until you are incredibly high level.

That was the only totally unbalanced thing about Zangband, the thing for which a new player needs to watch out the most.

Right now I am playing Heroes of Might and Magic III. Not a Roguelike or even a true RPG, but there are a couple areas of similarity:

• turn based
• fantasy setting
• multiple realms of magic (fire, air, water, earth)
• each hero has a level, primary stats, skills, and mana
• small quests [find the object] that are conceptually simple enough so as not to detract from replayability

Heroes 3 is an awesome game. It is to Heroes 2 as Zangband is to Angband (Heroes 1 is like Moria). Some things I really like about it, some of which I think the Roguelikes could heed:

• As your hero develops, he can specialize in certain realms of magic (lower mana costs, higher effectiveness), but he's not restricted to a subset of the realms; the game just finished before he learned them all. I think this is cool. It would be great if a Zangband magic user could learn any spell eventually if he tried hard enough to get mastery in that area.
• A character does have a limitation on the number of skills he can acquire (8 naturally, and then more via artifacts). This is the opposite of the freedom of the magic system. However, I think it works just as strongly. I like the fact that characters are forced to make choices that have a permanent effect on them. It helps the role-playing aspect and develops greater character attachment.

So you see, there are benefits to either approach.

Free access to spells results in a "gimme gimme gimme" attitude towards learning spells. The more spells, the better. The only disadvantage is gaining a new spell is that an enemy hero might use the Eagle Eye skill to spy on you during your spellcasting and learn that spell for himself. But the overall message is that information is instrinsically good and powerful and free to everybody as long as you're smart and educated enough to understand it.

The restricted skills system seem to tell us that no one is going to be perfect in all aspects of life, that we have to make choices about how to spend our time and in what areas we want to strengthen ourselves. Information itself is free, but we must work hard and with focus at gaining the ability to use that information [we need to choose and seek out skills that enable us to use higher level spells]. We obtain/attain skills through determination and sacrifice; developing one skill [like game playing] prevents us from developing skills in other areas [like gardening]. We need to make our choices with care.

Both messages are pertinent. I'm sure there are others in the game, but I'm getting hungry. I wonder if the Heroes designers were aware of the underlying messages behind some of their design decisions, or if those decisions just "felt right."

Angband designers are no less ethical and social-conscious than Heroes developers. Yet Angband has restricted spell classes and nonrestricted skills. Maybe Heroes's message is just a coincidence?

Or maybe there isn't a message at all, maybe I am just getting light headed from hunger? :)

I faint from hunger. --more--
I hear a door open. -- more--
The cockroach bites! The cockroach slithers on you. --more--
You can move now.

E c

Trav

We all have a phobia. Mine is snakes, but that's alright. That comment on morale being contagious reminds me of a saying I heard on a movie..."No, [he's not crazy] he's just a carrier."

Being waaay off topic,

Frost Wolf

Oh, the underwater quest! Actually, isn't that the seventh one? The third is the one with the druid, as far as I can remember.

Still can't do anything in Zangband, but, I perservere!

Frost Wolf

I've completed the first quest in Zangband. Now, what dungeon am I looking for to find the Wargs?

Hello! Back from Spring Break in Colorado. Lots of skiing - it was fun! Now I just need to finish my midterm (due Thursday) and then the only competition for my time will be Heroes 3... :)

By the way, I added Evets to the Downloads page.

Frost, the Wargs are in the normal dungeon, at around 250 feet if I recall. Or maybe it's 350? I don't remember! But it's in the dungeon that's to the east of town. If you're a decent level [10 or so] it should be a piece of cake!

The quest I always got next [or right after the Thieves' guild] was the underwater quest, which is a killer. Maybe newer versions of Zangband improve the balance - I hope!

Trav

Thanks, man. I may try to do that...how many levels are in 250 feet, anyway? Balance has been restored, apparently.

BTW, what makes Evets unique?

Frost Wolf

50 feet per level. I usually play with feet turned on.

As for evets, I haven't had a chance to evaluate it, so I don't know what all the fuss is about. Hopefully this weekend or next week I'll be able to sit down with it, make screen grabs, and all that good stuff! :)

Trav

Cool. Five levels? Can't be *too* hard...Yeah, right! I'll go huntin'...sometime. Right now, though, ADOM is driving me nuts!

Okay, what about race/class combos for Zangband?

[Posted by Travis]

Greetings,

been a fan of rogue types forever, and I'm trying to find some REALLY ancient ones (not necessarily good) from my "youth"...I couldnt tell you the names, but was wondering if you had any others, or new any sites where they could be found?

No big deal if you cant :)

David k

David -

You should check out the Balrog site, mentioned on my links page. Unfortunately, it seems to have been removed! :(

Um, RL News is excellent, but it focuses more on the recent Roguelike releases. The Roguelike Games Home Page focuses on older games, but doesn't have as complete a geneology as the Balrog site.

Hmmm. I'll try to see what's up with the Balrog site...

Frost -

I usually play Half Elf Rangers all the time. Mostly out of habit [and the comfort of familiarity] but also because if I'm trying to figure out what's new in a variant, it helps to keep as much constant as possible.

But actually I did play Mindflayers [???] quite a lot, which offered a neat twist - they don't get spellbooks.

I just downloaded the new GSNband, which is supposedly an extention of everything that's in Zangband. It looks cool. I like having as many new features as possible. More, more, more! It still doesn't have the arena, guilds, and plaques that Kamband does, though. :(

I finishally finished the Heroes 3 campaigns... all 7 of them! What a game, what a game! But now that I'm done I should be able to get back into RL's a bit... Although... there are still several dozen standalone Heroes 3 scenarios that I still need to tackle, heh heh!!!

Seriously, though. Heroes 3 is awesome.

Trav

Heh. Thanks. Personally, I've been having success with Golems. Dumb as a brick, but, boy, can they dish it out!

Heroes 3? Hmm...where might I find a copy?

Okay, I fixed the Balrog link; had a typo in the original URL.

Heroes 3 you can get just about any game store. I got mine from Babbages on the day it came out.

Right now there's no demo for it but there should be soon. There's a demo for its prequel, Heroes 2. That would give you a pretty good idea of what Heroes 3 plays like, although Heroes 3 has significantly advanced technically since then.

They have Golems in Heroes 3, too. Four kinds: Stone, Iron, Gold, and Diamond. :)

What a game!

A warning, though. It's quite abstract. When I first played Heroes 1, I didn't like it at all. I didn't care that the graphics were cartoony, but I thought the game play was goofy. Each army has to have a hero leading it - how realistic is that??? Not! And to top it off you could only have eight heroes. That means eight units marching around on the HUGE map! Only eight! That sucks!

Anyway, although I disliked Heroes 1, I read such positive reviews about Heroes 2 that I made myself check it out. Once I pushed myself over the abstraction barrier, I was hooked. Completely and pathetically hooked. Heroes 3 is even better, in almost all respects. It is incredibly, eye-burningly addictive despite its dogged adherance to abstractions and limitations that would be laughable in any other game.

I suppose Roguelike games are similar in one respect. There's a barrier to the beginner: the ASCII graphics [and also the fact that characters die and saving/restoring ruins the fun]. Once you're over that barrier, once you bust into the new paradigm, you're hooked. But it takes effort in the beginning. And a lot of gamers today don't want to put forth all that much effort.

Anyway, Happy Easter!

Travis

Ok, how about this one. Is it better to go with a complimentary race/class combo, like Dwarven fighters, or a combo that catches a little of everything, like Trollish wizards?

It depends on how much hand-to-hand fighting you wanna do. If you want to be able to use spells to most of the time knock out the enemy monsters before they get near you, then you want to focus as much on magic as possible.

If you almost never have to swing your sword then it doesn't really matter how good your STR and DEX are. Likewise, if you never get into hand-to-hand combat, then CON is not important. Neither is armor [except against ranged attacks]. However, one thing you need to consider is how much you can carry - staves weigh a lot, though not as much as weapons. So your STR can't be too puny.

Usually, I [and probably most people] end up playing all characters like hybrids. Lots of spells, yes, but also lots of arms and armor. So we slow ourselves down and limit the number of magic items we can carry, which compromises our overall magic ability.

The game seems to encourage this type of [jack of all trades] behavior, since most artifacts are melee-related rather than spell-related. If there were more spell-related goodies then there would probably be more pure-mage characters.

In Heroes 3 [you can tell where my mind is] there are advantages either way [specializing vs. spreading out your talents]. Since you can have 8 heroes instead of 1, you tend to assign different roles to each hero based on its concentrations.

A hero who focuses primarily on spells has the advantage of being able to travel lighty, with few troops. Any troops would be wimpy due to the hero's poor fighting skills, and troops cost $$$, so having lots of troops in a magic-oriented hero's army is not cost effective. The same troops would be much more potent if moved to a might-based hero's army.

Pure-magic heroes are ideal for guerrilla warfare against larger stacks of troops [rush in, cast devastating spells, retreat]. They are also good at taking out slower [ideally homogeneous] armies, with the goal being to kill the enemy monsters before they reach your few troops.

Pure-might heroes on the other hand would suck at guerrilla warfare [attack, do some critical damage, retreat before he can mop you up] because every time you retreat you lose all your troops; the other escape option is to surrender, in which case you keep your troops but you have to pay your opponent for safe passage. Guerrilla warfare is not a cost a effective use of pure-might heroes.

Pure-magic heroes on the other hand are helpless when fighting in areas which disallow magic. Pure-might heroes are at a disadvantage when there are not a lot of troops to recruit, either due to frequent plagues, sparsely populated maps, or towns that have building restrictions.

So, the overall effectiveness of a pure-might or pure-magic hero really depends upon the scenario you're playing, and your own strategic preferences [lots of small guerrilla conflicts versus a few epic battles].

My apologies if I repeatedly spelled "guerrilla" incorrectly. That would be annoying!

Anyway, in Roguelike games, there are no scenarios. Instead, you have a bunch of random encounters, some which benefit most from good melee ability, some which benefit most from good magic ability. Floating eyes and big rooms - magic. Dragons and twisty hallways - melee. Each time you play you get a mix of both styles of encounters; in the long run the mix tends to balance out to the same ratio of encounters each time you play.

As a result, I'm guessing that in Roguelike games, well-rounded characters have an overall advantage over highly concentrated characters.

It seems like the next question, the hard one, is how, when designing your hybrid characters, to make sure you pick the best of both worlds rather than the worst of both worlds.

Travis

Well-thought answer, indeed. But, then, I may ask, why is it that so many people have such great success with Dwarven fighters?

hey there travis,

i just came upon your page while scoping for new versions of roguelikes that i hadn't touched in a while. great job in providing unique content -- well, not that reviews are unique, but at least everyone's opinion (including yours), is. so with that cryptically worded statement, i will append some applause and encouragement to continue.

off topically: i first played nethack on my family's first computer (a pc/xt) a long time ago. it was a freebie game sent with some other shareware/freeware games i got via mail-order. i remember the feeling i had when that game loaded up (off the snazzy 5.25" disk) and my first character died within two minutes: i was hooked! it was definitely an eye-opener in terms of replayability and depth within an austere package.

and like you, i've been bingeing on roguelikes every so often between purchases of new games (and coming off the alpha centauri cycle about now).

anyway, i wish you continued inspiration towards this page... i'll probably stop by again when the next roguelike fix becomes necessary.

/will.

I've been gone for a while, because my favorites list got wiped from my hard drive (actually, everything did, but that includes bookmarks). I just haven't bothered to re-acquire the URL of this site (sorry, Trav!).

I like vampiric chaos warriors, which is sort of the best of both worlds. If you like playing golems, try a priest with life magic-- at least you'll be able to prevent starvation.

-Taffy

Actually, my Golems never starve. For some reason, they just never seem to get hungry. Oh, well. Do Golems made of gold start off richer? Break off a finger, shave some skin, instant money!

Frost Wolf

Hey Trav-

Nice site! I've been here many times to check up on the latest news, and I think I remember coming here for the topics since you posted about them on rec.games.roguelike.developement.

My favorite roguelike is Nethack (http://come.to/nethack/), especially Slash'EM (http://slashem.cjb.net/). Mostly I like talking about what the ideal hypothetical roguelike would be (though I think I'll never implement it ;P), both on the inside and the outside. You know, the stuff rgrd talks about.

My idea for an ideal roguelike would, if implemented, be HUGE. Okay, basically here's my specs so far:

• Based on Slash'EM (in monsters and items if I ever implement it, since I would need some base), though in ideas, not code.
• You are treated EXACTLY like a monster. It does not assume that humans are the most intellegent lifeforms
• Language system: All lifeforms will be able to communicate. Here's some ideas on that:
  • Garbling - If you hear (or see!) something in a language you have not learned, it is garbled in some way (randomly, so it sort of represents it, though you can't understand it)
  • Not neccessarily speach - Some creatures communicate telepathically, visually, through odor, the possibilities are endless!
• Noise in general - if a monster makes any noise at all, and you're close enough, you hear it.
• Filtered information transfer - you can learn almost anything you could pick up, but you only can notice a certain amount of TYPES of things. Set only at game startup and levelups (or some other sort of checkpoint).
• Monsters:
  • Monsters fight other monsters as well.
  • Humans are monsters as well.
  • Even Gods are monsters

Oh, I think I'll stop now, I don't have time to type it all. Also, I liked the idea that just came up in rgrd that even objects can have inventories and wield. It's pretty clever.

So these are my 2 principles:

• All Beings are created equal (I'm thinking of changing this to Things)
• If you can make it more complex and realistic, DO!

Normally, I would insert some little commment on your suggestions...but, ooh, ooh, it floods me little mind...;)

Frost Wolf

Actually, I didn't post anything about the topics on rec.games.roguelike.development. That means someone else must have! Yay! :)

Interesting ideas. I too like the idea of breaking down the line between characters and monsters. However, the complexity issue is sticky.

Would you want the interface to be more complex and realistic? Then it'd be like Omega. Personally, I've found that learning complex interfaces detracts from my enjoyability of a game. On the other hand, once you've learned the complex interfaces, there is a certain satisfaction you get from having conquered that hurdle. It's like learning a new language. But for newbies, complex interfaces are bigtime turn-offs.

Another problem with complexity is that it discourages modularity in design. This makes it less and less likely that an "UberHack" will ever created, one which includes all the behavior [or all the best behavior] from various Roguelike games. Personally, I'd love to see more convergence of Roguelikes instead of constant divergence.

Travis

Trav-

For the complexity issue, I was talking about the complexity of what can happen, in what circumstances, which Nethack has done a fine job of (not interface). For realism, I mean realism within the fantasy world, which actually would be more like agreeing with oneself. Also a Nethack-type thing. Anyway, I'm making a prototype for a "all things are created equal" roguelike. Once I feel like uploading it, it will be at http://www.concentric.net/~anne1337/roguelike.html. But for now, all that is is a "File not found" error. It'll have to have a LITTLE more then my data structures (all I have so far ;) ) before I upload it, though.

Frost Wolf-

Your mind is not little, but mine is young, wandering with imagination. Maybe that's because I'm only 12, in 7th grade :). Being a child also gives me more free time to imagine what the game would be like if... Also, it is very good to have time to develop. However, the only times for that are vacations (like now, Spring Break), after school (not much chance of that with my friends), and the weekends (oh, I have no free time! :) ).

Everyone-

I'm a C-user, by the way. I do not want to learn any other languages (though I've already learned BASIC a while ago).

My roguelike (see my comments to Trav) is going to be pretty simple, by the way. Let me get that comment from "rogue.h" ::rummages::

Here we are:

/*
 * Here's the basic plot:
 *   You are playing your favorite MS-DOS TTY-Graphics game.
 * Suddenly, you are sucked in to its character-based world...
 *
 * You are '@' and there are letters all around you.  The two groups,
 * the vowels and the consenants, are gathering around their leaders,
 * who are about to sign a peace treaty.  The consenant leader, '%',
 * runs off with the vowel leader, '&', capturing him!  Most of the
 * consenants follow their leader, and the vowels leave, shouting
 * "Oh, please save our leader!  That meanie consenant king % is
 * being mean again!"
 *   You realize, this is a job for...
 * [insert fancy little block-based graphic for @! here]
 */

Frost Wolf: You're 12? Doesn't your Yahoo profile say that you're 17? So you were... lying?

Cool, I'm older than someone...

-Taffy

Me? Yahoo Profile? 17? I'm confused.

--Jonathan Nieder

By the way, on yahoo, I am called jrnandco.

(long story...)

Oh, now I see what confused you! I'm 12, that section of my post was directed toward Frost Wolf.

Hi!! Im the moloch formerly known as "Supernaut1"! I was the first poster here! And, the first abandoner! Funny thing is, i vaguely recall posting here!

OK, this is my first post under this (forward on, permanent) alias, so im gonna comment on the messages i see fit that have been posted thus far.

Heh! That jonethethethethethethethethetheth chrisie waddle is one sorry fellow! Crafty though, to impersonate you, Trav. Pretty gutsy i say! But a coward to not have replied to the outcome, nonetheless.

Trav, you have some phenomenal ideas!

Taffy used my former name to dub a character he sent into the ADOM hall of fame

http://home.sol.no/~mydland/ADOM/hof/

(also has a great forum). I felt it was such a thrilling compliment to me. Ill always be flattered by it. *SNIFF* <:)

I dont recall Warren... wait a minute was that WarrenAC? Hell yeah now i remember him! But i had no idea he was the maintainer of Slash 'em! hmmmm... :0

Roaches.. My precious!! Nay, ixnay on the hombre, i just wanted to show my meager and disintegrating knowledge of Tolkienology. ;p Yes, them nastay!!!

Gotta take a break, half way through...

Ok, just came back from watchin SNL.

I have Heroes 2. Its got a coat of dust so think it would probably break in half if i tried to pull it out of the CD bin. Commercial games are one time wonder drugs with short duration. Interactive movies, they are. Pure fate. Minimal choice.

I feel that selecting a good class/race combo in ADOM is like making a good deck of Magic cards. Lot of calculations required.

Jonathan Neider's ideas are great! Except there are repurcussions with realism in gameplay, such as balance. Someone made a good point and opened my mind when they said "Or, how about throwing in some frustrating insta-kills, like being stomped by a titan or poisoned with an incurable venom, etc. etc.". He sure convinced me. But i would still like a game like that, because it would force you to use more tactics to deal with a situation. With the giant, for instance, either with a good dexterity you could severe his achieles tendon (the bigger they are...), or, keep a distance and fire missiles.

Ok, i caught up. But now im out of breath. I am an ultimate chaos god of ADOM. Nuff said.

I want the latest version of Nethack. GIMME THE LIIIIIIIINK!!!!!!!!!

;p

Im gonna log in every day from now on.

Oh well, I'm still older than someone...

-Taffy

I'm back! The reason my mind is flooded is that my time on the 'net stretches to later and later past my bed time. But, I gotta go sleep now!

Hey, Trav, see what I started? ;)

Frost Wolf

Hello?

Yo.

Hey Taf, i finished ADOM again, this time with a human barbarian. Got Vanquisher, and ive fallen in love with it. Just killed the walking forge, and ate his corpse. Ive done all there is, now im pondering either leaving the chain to see the human ending, or try to break Orion's ID record...

I think "human" is (one of?) the race that can get Vanquisher as a crowning gift. Death recieved it, but later found Executor in a grave.

The endings are all the same. You either become an iron-fisted ruler, or the king of all humans/trolls/dwarves/high elves/whatver.

About Barbarians...one of my main concerns, as with Beastfighters, is their lack of literacy (hence, the reason I use Elvish Beastfighters). How quickly did you human get that skill, Moloch?

Frost Wolf

Adal N'Thrak, the human barbarian, happened to "find" a certain literacy-endowing corpse before completing the ancient dwarf's first assignment. Which was *quite* convenient. Unfortunately, and unbeknowest to me before, barbarians cannot learn spells from reading spellbooks. Which makes my character proof that it is possible (and for some classes, almost nessesary) to finish the game without casting a single spell. The only way my character could learn a spell was either through wands of wonder, or potions of wonder. And still, although his learning was high, no spell gained through such means was memorized in any efficient amount. Thus, teleportation was not possible, or available, except through undesired and inconvienient sources (assassin cave - dipping in potions, bah!). Its amazing how unnessesary it is, by the way. But it is undeniably, very useful.

By the way, they can read scrolls just as well as any other class. Books are the only bitch.

Ah...to me, it almost seems unworth it. What fun is a character that can't identify items from the beginning?

Frost Wolf

Lots of fun, Frostie. Scrolls of ID are in abundance.

Yah, but if you can't read 'um, what good are they?!? ;)

I said they learn spells from SPELLBOOKS. And the next message specified that they could still read scrolls. Really, Frostie. You dissapointed me.

Moloch: I think Frost Wolf was talking about scrolls of ID. He said that the game isn't fun if you can't ID items from the beginning. You said, "lots of fun, scrolls of ID are in abundance." He was pointing out the fact that you can't read ID scrolls in the beginning, as far as I can see.

Thanks, Taffy. That's exactly what I was driving at.

Admonished and disappointing,

Frost Wolf

Admonished? Whats that mean?

Admonished...you know, kind of scolded for doing something bad? I was kidding around a bit...you know me! ;)

Frost Wolf

Cool word!

Cool words? Try Dave Barry's favorite...

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

Always verbose,

Frost Wolf

Woah! And how much does THAT cost, hmmm? ;)

Actually, I heard someone call it a 12 dollar word one time...one-ups a ten-dollar word, I guess ;)

Frost Wolf

Moloch, I got MaLaKaI's quote. I assumed it was a typical chaos knight quote, so I didn't write it down. If they're the same, I'd know, but I can't remember the quote exactly. Something threatening, like most of them (I think).

-Taffy

Yeah, I'd scarce expect a Chaos Knight not to be threatening!

Cool, let me know when youve updated your site so i can check.

I'm going to have to use a savefile editor to get that quote again. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to go through 66 levels when you've run out of luck?!? And I may have to do it again if MaLaKaI notices me.

ONLY 66??? Try 500. And as a fallen champion without help from any deity. :)

Yo there T-Funk, been a big fan of rougelikes for some time and thought I'd join the ASCII based orgy. A couple of questions:

1. I've been playing nethack for some time, and haven't gotten an ascension under my belt... I think that the farthest I've gotten is down to Lord Suter with a Valk, but never past that... Any non-newbie suggestions for first time ascension?
2. In you're review of nethack you mention town levels, something that I've never encountered, what's up with that?

I'll be back later...

-Casey

Moloch, I think you misunderstand me.

The message "You have run out of luck!" is when you use a savefile editor and ADOM detects it. Every monster has hundreds of experience levels on it, shops have outrageous prices in them, and the RNG abuses you more than usual.

-Taffy

Doh! ...

Yep, guess i misunderstood FOR A CHANGE.

>:T

Thats a message you get when you cheat? Well, see there ya go. I wouldnt know any-thing about that.

<goody-goody-two-shoes> ;p

So there! Blah! ;p

Hey, Casey! Always nice to meet someone new. I know a club that could give good NetHack tips on Yahoo!: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/thenethacklair/ Check it! While you're at Yahoo! (ooh, I bet my cohorts smell this coming) check out our own little hole in the wall, the RL Games Club. The address should be posted with my name.

What? Me? Shamelessly recruiting? Naah! ;)

Frost Wolf

Whoops! The page thought I meant to put a period at the end of The NetHack Lair address. It should read: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/thenethacklair/

Gotta stop being so grammatically correct! ;)

Frost Wolf

Hey guys. Sorry for the recent lack of updates. It's the end of the semester and I've projects, papers, and presentations galore! As soon as the semester ends I'll be able to get back into gear.

Casey - I've never ascended in NetHack either, so any strategic advice I offer is questionable. :) As for town levels, I'm surprised you haven't seen any. They consist of a big square with shops in it, guards, muggers, and some empty houses. On the sides of the screen are some typical tight passages, so you sometimes don't know it's a town right away. I think one of the signal messages you get is, "You hear sounds of civilization."

Trav

Hi all,

Just mentioning, since no one else did, that there is a Yahoo! club for Roguelike Developers. It is called "Beginners Roguelike Development". It will be the new place for my IotDfmIR (if you don't know what that is, you probably wouldn't care about my these IotDfmIR anyway). Anyway, I put its URL as mine even though it isn't my URL, so you might want to check it out!

Jonathan Nieder

New place? Aw c'mon! Surely you can copy paste it to yer pals at the YRGC?

Sure, J.R....we all enjoy your ideas!

Busy man,

Frost Wolf

*THA-ROOOMB*

The sounds of silence...actually, I'd love to post something RL'ish, but I haven't had time to play lately! :(

Frost Wolf

I just find it funny that practicaly everyone that posts here regularly is a member of the roguelikegames club...

Hey, join today if you're not already a member! http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/roguelikegames/

:)

Thanks for the plug, J.! Anyways, I hate to be off topic, but, are y'all ready for a weekend? (Actually, this could be the first time in about 2 weeks I've gotten to play any games, so it could be on topic... ;)

Frost Wolf

Anyone here killed Andor Drakon in adom? he has nailed me twice and i want to know if anyone has a strategy.

Right...Moloch's got your plan, baby! He's the only person I know of to have ever achieved the ultimate ChAoS ending. If he doesn't come back to these haunts, you may find him at the club...

Frost Wolf

And Frost Wolf was talking about the roguelikegames Yahoo! club, of course...

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates.

I've been trying to get Unreal World to work, but no luck, on any of my computers. :(

All the *band updates coming out recently are intimidating. And then there's all those new Roguelikes! Help, I'm drowning! Very hard to keep up. I'm waiting for the dust to settle a bit in Roguelike Land. Then I'll start added some more topics I've been pondering, and some more reviews.

I'm itching to see someone do a continual world Roguelike. Bones levels are a start, and that "legacy" stuff discussed earlier is a start. But what about a game where characters can be played concurrently?

So, you play your mage for a while, take him on some adventures, then put him in "day job" mode where he works, trains, whatever. Meanwhile, you start up another character, take him on his own adventures, and maybe have him come back and trade stuff with the Mage. Maybe he can then go into "day job" mode where the Mage trains him, or vice versa. Then you can start a third character, and so on.

Pretty soon, you have a "community" of adventures, all of which are played by yourself. Kind of like Mordor 2 [Infinite Worlds], except in a true Roguelike setting, with random dungeons etc.

When you go on adventures, you'd only take one character at a time, or have other characters be NPCs [pets]. Alternatively, you could have a party operate as a unit [was it Evets that does that?] It is important that you don't control multiple units simultaneously - that would greatly bog down play and turn it into more of a strategy game.

To maintain replayability, dungeons can repopulate, new dungeons can be found, or you could have earthquakes which scramble the dungeon maps. Basically, you want a source of random dungeons, which Mordor 2 and MUDs lack.

So, you end up getting attached to characters. They have potentially VERY long life spans in terms of player time, since you don't play them until they die. Instead, you play them until they are "useful" to other characters [in terms of training or trading], at which point you send them back to work in town while you play other characters...

If one character dies, you don't start completely over. Instead, you start/load another character and go try to find the dead guy's stuff. This would be a really cool type of quest; body hunting... You probably want to re-generate the dungeons in which the character died [except for the bones level, a la NetHack]. That way, you have fun exploring the levels on the way to bones level. Retreading visited levels might be more realistic, but it is also more boring.

Life in town [when the character is not adventuring] would dictate the character's skills; you could dispense with experience levels. You could have expert mages teach novice mages. Skills would improve or atrophy, depending on what activities are undertaken while a character is in "town mode."

Adventuring would influence skills somewhat [especially stuff like fighting and trap detection which cannot be 100% trained in town], but should be treated more like an opportunity to find interesting items. Solving quests [usually random: kill a monster X, or get item Y on dungeon level Z] would give you money.

More money would mean your character has more time to train in "finesse skills" like archery, wizardry, and sword-play, and less menial work [which might contribute a little to strength but not much else]. In that way, your performance would influence your skills.

Monster memory - good idea. The more of monster X you fight and kill, the easier it becomes to kill monster X. I can imagine the announcement of a new dungeon which contains lots of orcs. "Okay, that sounds like a job for Thud, who sucks at killing undead [having not seen any] but is [through experience] an expert on fighting orcs..." If an undead castle is located somewhere, you might call on a different character.

In this way, your characters' behaviors determine their specialization [skills]. You can get rid of rigid classes, experience levels, and primary stats. You can get rid of the notion of "general purpose" characters, the sort of rennaisance personalities that tend to emerge from most RPGs, especially single player RPGs. This is because you can choose what character to use against what type of dungeon/threat; one character needn't solve the entire game.

Trav

Hmm...I may have to learn computer science just so I can make a really good RL! ;) I love all the ideas I keep seeing. Just hope some of them actually make it into a game!

Frost Wolf

One more thing...have you not been here UnReal World took a week to load this time? ;) Man, it sure seems like it does!

Frost Wolf

Subject: On Monster Memory

Trav, wow. You have some excellent ideas. I think I'll try to include them in my current roguelike project, and they will definitely be on the wishlist for my Ideal Roguelike.

Now you said you might be good at fighting one type of monster, and you called it "monster memory". I think that that should be true, but the monsters that you have fought a lot of should all remember you. They would focus more energy on killing you, organizing ambushes and traps and warning each other when you come. Effectively, they would be just as hard and just as easy to kill, but it would become a more fun fight, a battle of wits.

Also, I think that there should be some simulatanius players, but very few would have the potential to become a hero. You could only control one player at a time, but (a) many players would follow what a hero says, (b) you can control many players at different times, and (c) the AI might be good enough to leave 'em alone. If none of the current players had potential, you could control everyday life to make it ready for another hero. Alternatively, you could simply let the AI control it until someone with certain requirements (that you say are potential of a hero) would come. Until then, the dungeon would be left alone with monsters reproducing and more lairs being built up. Every once and a while some monsters would try to raid the town, and you would have to ward them off with the little resources that you have.

For a final note, most roguelikes with quests say that they are urgent, but they do not implement urgency. The closest that they can come to is a time limit. I think that even doing *nothing* should have consequences, so you have to fight the enemy/do whatever the quest is quickly; not so that you win soon, but so that you can win at all.

Right...I've seen so many other, non-RL RPG's where you're given a quest to complete by, say, sundown, and then have hours of GAME time to play around in. Something there ain't kosher...

Frost Wolf

Quest idea:

Install Unreal World in 6 days. After 6 days if you don't have Unreal World installed, your boss (he likes playing games) will kick you off the computer and the game will be over. It's pretty hard, since it is said that Unreal World installation takes a week... :)

Hmmm, well, seriously, there should be quests other than kill him, grab this, find this. There should be long-term goals and short-term ones and they shouldn't all be battle-oriented...

I had in mind quests very much like AD&D's quests, which, unless I'm mistaken, usually involve retrieving something for somebody...but, I don't have much experience in these things! ;)

Frost Wolf

I don't know AD&D, but I would like more diverse quests. That was what I was talking about in my post.

Like? Give us some ideas, JR!

Frost Wolf

[I've eliminate Jonathan's creative HTML markup in the process of rewriting this page in strict xhtml, but I've kept his words intact. -- Trav]

(Don't worry about that; I was just making sure I remembered my HTML right; you can erase that test if you want, Trav or if you don't want to erase it please add a </LI> after the first </OL> in my HTML numbered list code)

Now it is time to actually start my real message!

Frost Wolf (frost_wolf@yahoo.com) wrote:

Like? Give us some ideas, JR!

Okay, I'll put em in three categories:

1. The Offensive Quests
   • Convince the Evil Antagonist to join the Good Forces
   • Rescue the Innocent Helpless Victim from the Evil Antagonist
   • Force the antagonist to anger XYZ god
   • etc
2. The Defensive Quests
   • Resist the Evil Antagonist trying to make you join the Evil Forces
   • Protect the Innocent Helpless Victim from the Evil Antagonist who wants to capture this Victim
   • Make sure XYZ god is not angered despite Evil Atagonist's attempts
   • etc
3. The Repentive Quests
   • Escape from the Evil Antagonist and rejoin the Good Forces
   • Capture the Innocent Helpless Victim back from the Evil Antagonist
   • Repent for your (and the antagonist's) sins against XYZ god
   • etc

I like those quests. Very diverse in their simplicity, and very much like a military operation. Perhaps something else...recon, perhaps? Take stock of the Evil Antagonist's forces--DO NOT ATTACK! Should be implemented, though.

BTW, Kid, great HTML coding. You never cease to amaze me...

Frost Wolf

There hasn't been an update in 2 months? Why? Trav?

Oh well. Frost Wolf, see you at the club

No updates recently because I've been working on my other pages. It's cyclic. I just got Unreal World to work this morning, so I should be posting a review of it soon.

Trav

I got rid of that HTML, Jon. It was too much of a headache to debug! [and I have games to play :) ]. This board certainly is not bulletproof, as we're seeing.

I've been playing Might and Magic 7 for the past week and a half. Pretty cool. I missing my Roguelikes, though. There's something comforting about a random dungeon and no actual compulsion to *finish* the game.

Trav

What you guys can do is subscribe (instructions above). That way, you don't have to keep checking on the site [and getting disappointed about the lack of updates]. When I make my next big update, I'll post something on here, and if you're subscribed, you'll get emailed.

Trav

Thanks for the idea, Trav. Keep us posted!

Frost Wolf

That's fair. Why doesn't anyone else subscribe, other than you and Frost Wolf?

Those of us who know about Majik 3d see tons of wonderful ideas that will not be implemented in a long while. A wonderful 3d realistic role-playing multiplayer world, which is only 27% of the way to their first milestone. But the ideas abound. They are a sort of combination of a roguelike and a MUD, with many of their own unique ideas. They keep on shouting "More! More!", and that is what caused it to sprout up from a simple adventure game to a complex 3d MURPE. So the question is, which ideas from Majik do you think would be ideal in a roguelike that wouldn't be that huge expansion craze? And a single-player roguelike I mean, BTW.

Having not played Majik, all I can say is that the whole "Bigger! More!" syndrome can get old if it isn't handled well...I may check it out, though...

Frost Wolf

As I was saying. I hate "Bigger! More!", except when it means new ideas that can be added to a smaller, more humble game. That's what I'm asking about. If you check that site out, you'll see a lot of good ideas, many of which apply to roguelikes. I would like comments on those.

BTW, Majik is an alpha currently. It is scheduled to be actually working fairly well and stable by September 1.

MURPE? Hmm...Let me know when it's working...

Frost Wolf

Just scanned through this site and realized... is there no review for crawl? Oh no!

Okay guys, I made some updates today! Revised reviews of Unreal World and ADOM, and other edits - see the News page.

I'll try to get to Crawl, Crossfire, and Castle of the Winds soon. The three C's. :)

Trav

Right...I'll check 'em out ASAP...

Frost Wolf

I see we have a new comer. Tell us, Sean, what is your favorite RL?

Starting petty discussion again

Frost Wolf

"BandBand" idea --

With all the different character types, it'd be cool to be able to run several characters "simultaneously."

To be precise, you would only play one character per execution, but whenever you drop something in town (or a specific house in town), that item would be accessible to all your other saved characters.

So, you could drop a pile of stuff in town (or house), save, quit, and then load up another character, which could walk over to the pile and pick up whatever he wants from it.

This should be pretty easy to code. It's similar to NetHack's ghost piles, but the first character is still alive, and it's only in town.

By limiting it to the town level, you reduce the temptation for abuses like this (which could result in extremely tedious gameplay):

"hey, that dragon is about to kill me in one turn. I need a scroll of teleportation. Let me save, and get Zorg to go fetch one and bring it to me. Then I'll load, get the scroll from Zorg's pile, and read it before the dragon gets his next turn."

To keep it simple, everything else about the game could stay exactly as it is. Quests would be per-character, word-of-recalls would be per-character level, etc. The only addition is the piles in the town.

Maybe if we didn't want to actually put this in a *band, an independent program could be written that edits all your other characters' save files whenever your current character drops an item in town, or in a house in town.

Well, so, what are the advantages?

For one, when a character finds a valuable item he can't use, he can let one of the other characters use it. For instance, a Monk might find an awesome sword. Instead of selling it, he can bring it up to the town and leave it for one of your other characters to use. This would be fun, in my opinion, and add a certain story-telling aspect to the game. You can envision characters going on "item quests" for each other:

"Zorg, I'll find you a Potion of Restore Strength, now don't you worry. Just sit tight up here in town while I go look for one. And stop that blubbering!"

Also, there *is* a small sense of a continual world, or at least a continual progress within the world, because stored items will keep on getting better and better. Think about it, the more you play, the better the items in the piles in town will be. Even when one character dies, the items are still in town. You'll eventually accumulate a ton of them, which could be a bad thing, so you might want to restrict them to a finite-inventoried house, or set of houses.

Plus, you could try out lots of different character types, and make strategic decisions as to *when* to play which characters. If Zorg is good at bows but needs a decent weapon, and meanwhile Whap sucks as bows but has enough strength to take on the Thieves' Hideout, then Whap can go ahead and get that <spoiler comitted> and leave it for Zorg. (Bows aren't much help in the close-range Hideout combat)

Anyway, I think this would be *really* cool to see in action, and probably really easy to code as well. Also, in the spirit of the quests, it would be a totally optional part of the game; if you don't want to leave piles for your other characters you don't have to.

Please let me know what you think,

Trav

p.s. I posted this to rec.games.roguelike.angband. If you want, I can copy all responses on there to here. Please let me know if you want me to do that.

Subject: Re: BandBand
-----------------------

If you do this, you should be able to write scrolls with contents of your own choice that are not just destroyed when you read them (whether this would be possible or not I don't know)

That would be cool, 'cause then you could write notes for each other on scrolls. Maybe there would be a scribe you could pay to write a scroll in that house/whatever? That way, you would at least pay for this incredible advantage. But I think that would be quite interesting.

Don't you think?

--

Jonathan Nieder

Subject: &apos; and <Q>

[Jonathan's referring to some of the "creative HTML markup" that I later removed when converting the page to xhtml strict -- Trav]

Sorry 'bout that. I guess that at least some web browsers (including the one that I'm using) don't support HTML 4.0....

So the <Q> thing should just be in quotes, and &apos; is supposed to be an apostrophe.

Sorry again.

--

Jonathan Nieder

Hiya! Good to see we're back in business.

Hmm... If you could run a game like this on-line, it would get interesting. It would be like a MUD, yes, but more graphical. Let's use Java, not Telnet!

Say, JR, why not tell Trav about your idea for a new variant?

Frost Wolf

Hello, kids!

I'm here to introduce you my new game its called The Elder Realms and it'll be much more better than ADOM is.

You may say:" Who, hell you are ?" , but shut up. It's really true.

Hey!

I feel so lonely here!

Let chat with me, ask me for some more informations and so on!!!

Now, why do you feel lonely eight minutes after your first post?

And 'better' is an OPINION. An OPINION is something that, though one person believes it is perfectly true, is neither true nor false. Unless you have a scientific measure of 'better', you shouldn't ask people to shut up right away.

And who said ADOM is the best game ever?

And where can I find this game? Seeing is believing.

Hmm...*Dons the look of a psychoanalyst* Given the content of those two messages, back to back, I should think that Killer merely meant to gain some attention for his foundling game. It seemed to work, at least for you, kid... (BTW, you don't mind my calling you "kid," do you? I've taken to calling quite a few people that, it just fits you most especially).

Now, then, Killer, I say...Prove it! Also, you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar...

Frost Wolf

Hi.

Does anyone know when will "The Elder Realms" come up and where can I get it?

If it's true than it's better than ADOM, I want to have it as soon as possible.

Thanks

I have Slash'em 0.0.5-0 beta.

When will the next version come?

Where can I get it?

I think the guy who was talking about Elder Realms has gone AWOL, and I don't have any further info...

As for SLASH'EM, I couldn't find any data on when the next version will be out, but check http://slashem.cjb.net/ often. That's the official homepage of the the game...

Ok, i'm new to this place and i just read all the messages posted here.....So, here's something i thought up.......

Someone mentioned BandBand or something like that. Well, if someone remembers the game Dungeon Master from Amiga and it's sequel Chaos strikes back and their sequel, Dungeon Master II, i think those games would be excellent sources of ideas for a multiple-character Roguelike.

Like, all character move at same time, so, if one character slows down, every other would, too.

Also, if one character would buy some agricultural land, he/she/it/whatever could be resurrected either at a Temple or sometimes at altar in dungeons.

All the characters would be generated separately, so, there might be a half-troll Fighter, a human rogue, a elvish mage and a dwarvish priest or something like that.

Also, movement would have to be changed to something like the < and > arrows would control the direction the group is facing and up and down arrows would control the movement forwards/backwards.

Of course, you could change the positions of your characters in the group and only critters attacking you from your back could hit your characters in the back line.

So, thats just a fraction of my ideas about that. If someone actually creates a multicharacter roguelike or knows about one, please post me.

Sounds like the basic control set of the AD&D SNES RPG (don't we love our acronyms?) Eye of the Beholder. It's a neat concept...

Frost Wolf

Hi

If someone here knows something about Turbo Pascal (7.0) programming, could you please help me. I've tried to make some kind of a roguelike game very long and I still haven't realized how to make a level with random passages between rooms. I can make the rooms, of course, but the passages are much more difficult to think and make.

Thanks.

(I think I should start learning C/C++.)

Sorry. I don't know Pascal. For that matter, I don't know much C++. Anyone else?

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Frost Wolf

See the Roguelike News developement section for algorithms and other things to make a programmer's life easier.

Hey guys! I'm finally back from my travels!

Anxious for the next "official" version of Zangband. Also, anyone know what's up with ADOM and SLASH'EM development? Been a while for those two.

There are SO MANY angband variants these days! I am curious which ones you like best. I've been pretty much restricting myself to Zangband. I would love to find one with more of a Tolkien feel, while also having quests, wilderness, new town buildings, etc. I don't really care about extra character classes or monsters. The key is atmosphere.

Demise (a/k/a Mordor 2) is due out tomorrow... I hope to spend some time with that. And there's always Heroes 3 begging me to play it! :)

Anyway, it's good to be back.

Trav

i can't believe your review on ragnarok! i have actually played and finished the game! maybe if you had taken the time to do the same, you might have a better idea! (sorry 4 being harsh, but it really is quite a good game!, i feel you din't take enough time on reviewing it....

i noticed that you didn't mention castle of the winds! it too, is a great game! and a question for any expeirienced developers-- (to me, that means everybody who knows more then me,(which is probably everybody) -- i plan on learning c, cause i heard that it was probably best for developing rogue-likes.

i appreciate all you reading this!

anyone heard of majik3d, i've been following that game for awhile now, it sounds revolutionary(in terms of rogue-like gaming)!

and, do any of you know of a good book on c or c++ programming, as a begginners guide? any answers would be appreciated!

Ragnarok was tough, for me at least. I've given it a few shots. If a new version were to come out, I'd give it another go.

I downloaded the new nethack and zangband that just came out. After I explore them for a bit, I might be able to find some time to update the reviews and downloads.

There are so many Roguelikes coming out these days. It's a bit overwhelming. However, the whole point of this site is to evaluate all those games. So, sometime, when I get free time (and I have very little now), I'll go through ALL the links on the RLNews Links page and evaluate every single Roguelike listed there.

The goal of this site is to answer this question:

What Roguelikes are "worth" downloading?

Everyone's idea of "worth" is of course different. For me, I want the depth of the game to exceed the learning curve. I want to be ADDICTED to the game, to find myself succumbing to the "One More Turn/Level" syndrome. I want to be excited when new versions come out. I want to get a thrill out of reading articles and other people's reviews about the game. Basically, I want to have FUN with the game.

Ragnarok wasn't all that fun for me. Neither was Quake 3. In both cases, the learning curve exceeded the depth. For me. If Quake 3 got itself some depth, or Ragnarok made itself easier to accomplish things in, then I would like them more.

Anyway, that's just my slant.

Castle of the Winds, I played a long time ago. I think I liked some bits of it, but didn't think it was very finished, or else it wasn't very much like a "traditional" Roguelike. I think I saw a copy floating around an Abandonware site the other day. I'll try to relocate it.

c/c++ -- Well, there are online references galore. In case you want to hold something in your hands, the QUE books are good. Of course, the K&R C book is a classic (kernigan and ritchie).

Instead of C++, I'd recommend Java. More portable, simpler, and NO POINTERS. Much better for beginners, and even for old fogies like me. I'd also say Pascal is a little easier to pick up than C, although almost no one uses it to develop real programs.

Off to exercise...

Trav

Majik 3-D? All I know is that it is supposed to be the evolution of the MUD. If you wanted anymore info, I could dig up the link, but I want to see if you even come back here. That, and I'm just looking for excuses to be lazy. ;)

Quick post: I like LISP

LISP, kid? Fill me in...

And that quick post was quick cuz I had to work and I didn't want a LONG post anyway...

Okay, LISP stands for LISt Processing, nicknamed by the uneducated Lots of Infuriating Silly Parentheses. Forth is a variety of lisp that you may have heard of. It has garbage collection, doesn't make you work directly with the pointers, allows integration of other languages, and feels quite recursive. It's really hard to explain, this recursive feel. Maybe it's partly because there's no such thing as a statement (everything's expressions)...

LISP is used for AI and other really high-level stuff. It uses prefix (otherwise known as polish) notation:

(+ 3 5) would be 8.

One can define functions, types, OO classes, variables, and everything else at runtime...

It can be interpretted or compiled, and it is reasonably fast for how high-level it is.

I, myself, like the LISP dialect "Common Lisp". They have one of those hard-to-read ANSI standards for it, or you could read the other "standard" that's a lot easier to understand: Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition (CLtL2).

A type is actually a (infinite) set of all of the values a variable of that type could be. So you can use Unions and Intersections and all of those set operations on one.

Lisp is weakly-typed, though you can declare a type to get the type-checking a little stronger.

Overall, it's quite a fun language that's really hard to explain. My old bookmark on LISP is out of date, since I haven't had much time to play with languages for a while...

I can't think of what else to say...

You can make a function within a function if you want to... So, you could:

(defun foo (a)
'(lambda (b) (+ a b)))

to make a function called foo that takes one argument andreturns an anonymous function that adds the argument to foo to the argument to the anonymous function. a is not garbage collected, since there is a reference to it in the anonymous function, so thus the argument to it lasts until the anonymous function goes out of scope. Then you could:

(funcall #(foo 5) 6)
and get 11. The foo 5 returns a function that adds five to its argument, and funcall calls this with the argument of 6, so that's how you get the answer.

Anyway, I like the language. You may make your own decision, of course.

Next time, just say that it's a programming language... ;)

Frost Wolf

::grins::

Hello,

I want to introduce my newly programmed game called The Elder Realms. It's medium level visualised rogue-like. If you want more details, ask me here because I haven't my own regular web site, and I send you some pre-release versions. Game had packed it's own bug-report system, so if some bug appears (it's more thant just possible} follow program's instructions.

Sorry for my english, but I fucked on school and now... you sea.

Hi.

I have a problem (again?) with programming a roguelike game. I'm trying to generate some random items on a level. How should I storage the positions of the items in an array? If an array has for example 100 items with their X and Y positions storaged in it, it would be too slow to go through the whole array every time the character moves to check if the character is standing on an item. What is the easiest way to find out if the character steps on an item?

If somebody understood my problem (it could be little difficult!?) and know something about programming could you help me, please.

And could you, Jan Drahokoupil, send me the prelease version of The Elder Realms, please. My e-mail address is prasilo@nettilinja.fi.

Thanks.

Hey guys!

Just got FrontPage 2000 a couple days ago. It's a great improvement over FP 98!!! Lots of time saving features, and fewer bugs. This'll make it easier to keep these sites updated and link-verified.

Anyway...

Jan - Could you please tell us more about your game? I'm curious what you mean by "medium level." Is that its difficulty level?

Rasilopaavo -

There are lots of different ways to manage your data. A general piece of advice is to keep your design modular. Identify those portions of the design which are likely to change (such as whether you use static arrays, dynamic arrays, linked lists, databases, etc.) and isolate those design decisions from the rest of your program.

So, you could make a function (or method or whatever) called ListItems(), which is passed coordinates and returns a list of items. One simple (but not all that robust) concrete example in C would be:

Item* ListItems (int x, int y) { /* implementation here */ }

For a first stab at an implementation, you should keep it simple. I would use a static array, and not worry about how slow it executes, as long as it's not horrendous. Later on, if I've decided to keep this function, and if I'm not satisfied with its current performance, then I'd think about reimplementation. The interface should stay the same; all the differs is the specific implementation.

Implementation hiding and decision deferral (sp?) are important strategies. Plan out your interfaces before you even THINK of implementing anything. The best advice: Do not start coding until you have all of your interfaces defined.

Trav

Aghhh! FrontPage! Evil! =)

Okay, now, for Rasilopaavo...

I'd reccomend having a tile struct/class/whatever. In it, you store attributes like what traps it has on it, its elavation, terrain type, etc. etc. Also, it would have an array or linked list of pointers to items. If you have some 100-item array somewhere, whenever someone carrys an item, just change the array to not have a pointer to it and put a pointer to it on whoever's structythingey.

And be sure not to waste too much time and space with modularisation.

Wasting your time again!

First to Travis Emmitt:

Low level visualised (MUD like)
Medium level visualised (ADOM like)
High level visualised (DIABLO like)

I think it's clear now!

to Rasilopaavo (and to all):

Be patient I found little bug and I don't want my pre-release to be correct-free.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As you maybe discovered I have new email address. I'm glad that some is interested in my really huge game. Here are some closer informations (I don't want to let you know all new features):

"CUSTOMIZATION"

• as in masterplan : absolutly customizable everything
• nothing more to say here

"SCRIPT"

• TER Lang is massive programming language for detached configuration and customization
• everything with link to script is free to be changed and re-programmed by user (if granted by me)

"GRAPHICS"

• althought text-mode based graphics ,it's really stunning !?
• changing of light during day
• realistic light-spreading with intensities
• color-lights (even generated by items,effects or monsters)
• map forgetting (fog of war)
• nice re-defined character set

"WORLD"

• many environmental advances (thermal,sound,bump and memory)
• main new feature are elements

"ELEMENTS"

EARTH

• remaining of foot steps (tracking)
• creating of immovable barriers from it
• digging (making of holes)
• gardening and planting
• placing items under surface (mine-like)

FIRE

• influencing of thermal map
• melting of ice (if any)
• cooking corpses or food at all
• using as forge (if real heat)
• burning of beings
• consuming of flamable items
• melting of items

WATER

• realistic spreading with gravitation
• diving (if depth)
• drinking from it (D-check directions)
• sinking (if cannot swim or encumbered)
• drowning (if out of breath)
• distinquishing of fire element
• clearing of labels written on floor (dust,blood)
• moving of light items (stream)
• swimming
• building of bridges
• fishing (if some fishes)
• cleaning body (bath)
• water-traps (room filled with water,waiting for encounter)
• fountains,seas,rivers,lakes and stains
• affects growing of plants
• rusting of iron items

SWAMP

• realistic spreading with gravitation
• paralyzing movement
• drowning (you can't get out...,ok,you can but hardly)
• building of bridges

LAVA

• using as forge
• melting of items
• realistic spreading with gravitation
• influencing of thermal map
• clearing of all labels on floor
• burning of beings (including death)

RAIN

• only in exteriors
• affect your character at all
• makes water stains
• distinquishes fire
• cleaning body (shower)
• affects growing of plants
• rusting of iron items

BLOOD

• blood remains
• real bleeding (not just message)
• tracking of blood (powerfull)
• sacking into land
• affecting environment (bloody altars,doors,stairs)
• affecting of items
• (dis)attracting of some kinds of monster
• make sick (if weak character)
• writing message with blood on the floor

"RACE"

• general settings such as (sex,alignment,mood and more)
• functionally connected bodyparts with their characters and wounds (also with their characters)
• states (bleeding,afraid,poisoned,sleeping and more)
• resistances (lightning,fire,ice,acid and more)
• skills (with their sub-actions, you'll see)
• weapons skills (sorted in groups)
• spells (script)
• perks (I took inspiration from Fallout series)
• abilities (special actions)
• short memory (scanning)
• long memory (memory)
• dynamic equipment (depending on bodyparts)
• inventory

"ITEMS"

• items has really large attributes so I describe just important ones
• joined items (as one)
• linked items
• items as containers
• each has its own dynamics

"SPELLS"

• we have now planned over 160 spells
• classic 4 elements and bright against dark magic (HLS cylinder like)
• we're now quickly completing the script (over 500 commands)

Arrrrgh, maybe I forgot something, sorry but I'm tired now!

Perhaps using a two dimensional array to represent the map... A simple boolean check could be used to "mark" the squares, then? Hmm... Oh, well. I have limited knowledge, I concede...

I like the blueprints for this game, though. It could be interesting.

Frost Wolf

I think I'm the only who is active here...

That, what I wrote about my game is 85% implemented!

Bye now!

[Posted by Travis]

Dear Trav,

Your review on ADOM really bothered me. Ancient Domains of Mystery is THE BEST game I have ever played. Descent(I, II, freespace), Age of Empires, Quake(I and II), Unreal, and even Starcraft haven't even come close to the depth of gameplay and pure playing enjoyment which i have recieved from ADOM. I have played angband, crawl, nethack, moria, etc... and NONE of them are as refined, complex, and intuitive as ADOM. As for checking the weather (:W) I do it each time I go into the wilderness to see if my eq is going to get rusted by the rain. As for difficulty, if ADOM was any easier it really wouldn't be half as fun... as it is I have never beaten ADOM, I once had a level 42 character, but other than that my best games have been about level 24. As far as the amount of races/classes goes, I say the more the better. I love the variety of gameplay which comes from more classes and races to choose from, I can't see why anyone would like less choice.

Dan -

When the new official version of ADOM comes out (soon, hopefully!) I'll re-review it.

I'm glad you like Roguelikes! Not many people do.

I tend to favor the NetHack/Angband styles because those were the games I grew up on. Random dungeons, just level after level. I can afford to be tunnel-visioned. I don't have to follow a plot, solve pre-scripted puzzles, etc. The "puzzles" in NetHack and Angband are "natural" situations that have arisen through combinations of "random" circumstances.

For instance, your torch has gone out, monsters are swarming into the room, and a thief just stole your spellbook so you can't phase door out of there... It's a stressful, exciting situation (and rewarding if you survive it) and it's YOUR situation... No one else is seeing this particular puzzle. And even you won't see it again! That's the coolest feeling.

Sure, ADOM and Omega have some naturally evolving situations like the above, but they also have pre-planned/scripted/"artificial" puzzles. Yes, rescuing the carpenter was interesting and rewarding the first time, but after the 10th time it's tedious.

Plot decreases re-playability. NetHack and Angband are the KINGS of replayability. ADOM, to me, has too much of an adventure game feel to hold my interest very long. I keep coming back to NH and Angband. I can't help it. They are just MORE FUN for me than ADOM.

Trav

Dan -

There are several reasons that some people enjoy games like Nethack and Angband over ADOM:

• plot vs. replayability - see Trav's post
• Open Source - ADOM will be releasing the source at version 1.0. And how long will that be?... Open Source games tend to be able to adapt over time based on the expertise of many people, while ADOM only can be changed by Thomas Biskup
• Code maturity - Nethack and Angband are very old, mature, and traditional games. They keep that same old roguelike interface people are used to. e.g. they have an option for VI keys
• differences in plot - Traditional roguelikes have a totally different experience every time you play. Though they don't have such an elaborate plot as ADOM, their plot can bring you situations that you and the the author never imagined.
• detail - you actually get more of a detailed experience in a random game, since the developers are used to having strange things that you can do, you MUST do, because of changing circumstances
• portability - the Open Source roguelikes that have clear sources are quite easy to port to, for example, Linux. Games like ADOM that are distributed as binaries cannot be used with different user interface extended or new platforms.

Overall, it looks like you haven't really given the traditional roguelikes a chance, and you simply look at how you like the detail Thomas Biskup made... You'll get tired of it after a while, I suspect.

That was very well put, Jonathan. The bits about the source code might not interest everybody, but the emphasis on familiarity of interface and general game goals are key.

ADOM might on the surface *look* like an archetypal Roguelike, but the actual gameplay is very different. Not worse... just different.

And just like music, people have different tastes in games. I've got a super brand-new 3d graphics card now, but I still play Heroes 3 more than anything. I occasionally dip into the latest 3D demos, but they just don't grab me.

Heroes 3 and Zangband and Nethack are all part of the "Old School gaming" category... and that's the stuff I like! No 3D or real-time, and the emphasis is on single player rather than multiplayer. Totally un-cool if you think about it. Yet, that's the stuff I like, and I keep coming back to it.

Trav

I prefer ADOM, myself. For the simple reason that I could always live longer at it... *Grins* Although sprawling dungeons may be more realistic, if you're anal retentive (like myself), you like to explore *everything*. And that's a pain in *bands, although NetHack is a bit more compact. I dunno. I like Nethack, basically, but I never could go far at it... ;)

Frost Wolf

[about Nethack difficulty]

Well, yeah, the Nethack learning curve does make it kinda hard in the beginning... Though you should be glad you never tried Hack =)

I started my roguelike career with Hack. My mom used to sometimes play this game, and the detail intrigued me. Well, not that much DETAIL, really, just simplicity, and stark realism, compared to most games. I really liked the atmosphere of it. So I played it.

My mom, of course, also YASD'd in Level 1 or 2, though she didn't know it was called YASDing.

Then I read the manual =). It told me some stuff about how to play that I didn't know; for example, that I could dip and pray. So, when I wanted to waste time, I always either prayed or searched. That's all praying did back then... =). Another thing the manual taught, which I have no clue why, is how to "save file backup", i.e. save and copy the save file to come back to an old save after you die. I really abused this sometimes; whenever I was about to read a scroll, I save-backuped. Then, if it was identify, I jotted down whatever I identified, went back, identified other stuff, and repeated until I had my whole inventory. That was fun =). Or, if it was something else, I could go back and name it.

So, of course, I loved the game. Once my mom, playing with one of my save files, got down to level 5. Then she saved of course. I even got to level 10 one time with that save... That was fun. I met killer bees and things like that.

Then I introduced it to my friend. After a month, he had beat me without save-backuping =). He already had even met a cockatrice!

Oh, and back then, you could read the whole fortune cookie database. Since there wasn't much to really tell about, most of them were funny things that hinted at in-game things. They were fun.

Stopped playing for a long time (school), found the source on the 'net, played with that (helping me learn C too), found Nethack, downloaded it at dad's work, never touched it, long time later remembered and downloaded it again, read spoilers, ruined my game, read newsgroups, found out about the other roguelikes, saw some of their sources, played Slash'EM, found roguelikegames club from its link, discussed a lot there including my many Ideas of the Day for my Ideal Roguelike, and, well, now, I'm going to reformat my hard drive and get rid of Windows soon. I'll leave space for it, of course. I'll let mom install it. Myself, I'll use DOS and Linux. First DOS. I'll install Lynx and Co, and whenever I really want power or graphics or anything, I'll go to Linux. But there's so much DOS stuff on the 'net... That'll be fun. And to think, I learned about Linux by finding a Linux port of Slash'EM. See what these games do to you?

--

Jonathan Nieder

My introduction? I was helping someone I knew set up a very old computer about three years ago (it only had 128Kb...no hard disks!). I played around with the disks they had and discovered a copy of Rogue. I played it quite a bit, and thought it rather nifty...

A couple of years later, I found a game called Ragnarok, which very much resembled Rogue, but with more depth. This piqued my interest...

About a year later, I finally had an internet connection in my house. One of the first things I did was try to find a copy of Ragnarok. In the process, I discovered the Roguelike News homepage, and found a whole genre. I downloaded quite a few of them (including SLASH'EM) before I decided to take advantage of Yahoo!'s new club service. The rest...is history. ;)

Frost Wolf

Trav: We're waiting for an update... =)

Are you ever going to update your Nethack review to include something about 3.3 and the new aspects of Slash'EM?

I don't follow any other games... =)

Except *band.

--

Jonathan Nieder

The instructions for becoming a member are not very clear. What do I need to do to become a subscriber to this newslist?

Subscribing:

You actually don't need to subscribe to anything. The Read-Only mirror simply sends peoples' posts to you automatically. This is primarily helpful for people who:

• don't have regular WWW access (but who can read email)
• want to be notified whenever anyone posts to the list

There's no added content in the messages sent out automatically; they are simply there for convenience.

To subscribe, simply type something along the lines of what Sean Reddy did back on 31 July 1999, except use your email instead of his.

Updates:

Coming soon! I have been going over some of the newer releases on my laptop. I'll get rolling again with the updates soon. Just yesterday as I was jogging to work I was brainstorming ways of making weekly (even possible daily!) updates easier.

Remember the Topic of the Day, which became Topic of the Week, which became Topic of the Month, then Topic of the Semester... Now it's like Topic of the Year... Well, I want to get that back up to a weekly update level.

Also, I'm trying to decide the main focus of the site. Certainly not news; Roguelike News and Thangorodrim are performing that job excellently. Not tips, because I suck at these games! Not spoilers, not source code, not downloads, not developmental info...

No, the real reason for this site is to provide reviews, and a web-based forum for discussing the various games. The biggest question on my mind regarding Roguelike games has always been "Which Roguelike Games Are Worth Learning?"

I say "Learning" instead of "Downloading" because downloading is fast and free; learning is the hard part. It's very difficult to get a feel for the sense of mid-game fun in these games.

Take Angband, for example... When you first get it, it's really not very fun. The interface is complex and non-standard (not mouse driven). The graphics SUCK compared to other games out there, so there is no initial "wow" factor. Killing wimpy things in the the town doesn't give you any reward, and when you first learn how to play, you die a LOT. It's frustrating not to be able to restore and try again. There's that whole "getting acquainted" period where it's not really fun in itself; it's the hope that the game will *become* cool (because so many people say they like it!) that keeps you going.

No, the fun really doesn't start until you've learned the game and are deep into the adventures of a cool character which you have laboriously built up from a level 1 wimp.

Anyway, learning a new Roguelike game takes time, and if there's no depth, emotional attachment, excitment, etc. at the end of the tunnel, then you've just wasted hours of your life on something that never became fun.

It's not like a 3d shooter, which provides immediate satisfaction (but which also often grows old after a while).

Anyway, gotta run

Trav

> No, the real reason for this site is to provide reviews, and a web-based forum for discussing the various games.

Just a minor nitpick: it's really just reviews =)

The <PLUG attitude="shameless">Yahoo! rogulikegames club</PLUG> does a much better job at being a web-based forum. Well, I believe that. The reason is simple: people use it more. If a forum is used to discuss, the current discussion provides fodder for future discussion, and the amount of discussion attracts more discussers, which makes discussion more worthwhile... You get a post here about once a month. At the "club", you get many posts daily. Which can be a bad thing =)

Oh absolutely... There are lots of other, more easy to use forums out there, and I agree that traffic -> growth -> traffic -> growth and so on...

Pesonally, I like quieter lists where I feel like my thoughts and presence are important, that I'm not just a tiny little ant whose words are whisked away within a week into some archive no one will ever read.

Ideally, Enscriptions will focus on the Big Question (What Roguelike Games Are Worth Learning). I envision people making recommendations to each other, answering questions, etc. Gentle little bits of conversation that will help point us down fun avenues of Roguelike exploration.

Trav

Hello all,

This is my first visit here. I was actually looking for an old rogue like game, when I found a link to this page instead.

I've only played a couple of rougelike games, but my Favorite is Ragnarok.

I was kinda disapointed in the review given to Ragnarok on these pages. Simple, yet clean, graphics with a decent storyline. And the re-playability and addictiveness is outstanding.

I'll not kid you it is hard, until you learn the tricks. Like polymorfing into a extreamly powerful monster. Or finding a Wand of Wishing. Once you find a couple of the Lost Artifacts, you are almost assured of winning the game. Notice I said "Almost." Hehehehe

The worst thing about this game is that, once you die, the game is over start from scratch. But, there is a way to cheat around this. Or if you prefer not to cheat, all the Items that you have collected stay where you died. Just waiting for you next adventurer. That is very Cool.

Drop me an e-mail to terry-newsom@home.com if you want some more help with this outstanding game. Now all I have to do is register the game hehehehe. The programers really deserve the payment for this one.

See ya later,

Terry

I forgot to put a link where you can get Ragnarok:

http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/ragnarok/index.html

You can also pick up a hint/spoilers document there too. Have Fun and happy gaming.

Terry

Hey guys!

I've started updating my web pages. First up for rennovation was my Julian Cope page

My plan is to apply similar to the Roguelike site. I've got lots of things to add, but until now didn't really have the ability to do incremental updates.

Before I start the overhaul, I'd like to get as much feedback as possible about the current site layout, appearance, and content.

Meanwhile, Roguelike game development seems to be in bit of a slump. Hopefully this summer we'll see some exciting action. I know there's a new release of ADOM planned, and the Angband/Zangband camp seems to be stirring a bit more vigorously.

What I would *love* to see is more work going into making really solid ASCII Roguelikes, not these new graphical ones....

Graphics sucks! I am now firmly putting my foot down. I've seen too many lame, half-developed graphics-based "roguelikes" that seem to have more to do with Ultima than Hack. I hate adventure games, I hate the thought of having to use a mouse to play a Roguelike, and I hate the WASTE of all that programming time that could have been spend flushing out the GAME.

Graphics and sound are totally unnecessary in Roguelikes, and should be optional plug-ins. Programmers should NOT be spending their time making the tiles, WAV files, and documentation, *especially* if there is only one programmer! These non-essential elements should come LAST [if at all], and should be handed off to people who have gobs of time and ability.

The same applies [but to a lesser extent] for quests, levels, items, and ANYTHING that can be parameterized; move it out of the code and into data files.

Most importantly, however, is KILL THE GRAPHICS!

I am curious what y'all think... Maybe we can have a mini-survey on here, something along the lines of:

I want future Roguelikes to use:

[ ] ASCII
[ ] Graphics
[ ] ASCII and Graphics - I like a mix
[ ] Don't care

Travis

Subject: list_2.htm

I'm curious about this. Actually, this post is partially a test. I just got a blank enscriptions post (skeeter's) via e-mail, and it pointed me to list_2.htm (oldest posts first). Is there going to be a link in the future to it? Why is it there? Will this post (from list.html) link to list_2 or list? If it will poin to list_2, why - what's the point? Well, there are many unanswered questions in life, this is just one set of them.

For more useless questions (and the rare answer), go to <PLUG style="blatant">The Yahoo Roguelikegames Club</PLUG> (for those of you without HTML - read, those using e-mail, that's <PLUG style="blatant" url="http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/roguelikegames/"> The Yahoo RLG Club </PLUG> )

--

Jonathan Nieder

Actually, I have no idea what Skeeter was gonna say. list_2.htm is simply the reverse order of this list; I use it for making the archives, and for people who like to read top-down when they're catching up with what's been going on.

I'm anxious to see NetHack on the Palm!

Trav

> Actually, I have no idea what Skeeter was gonna say. I don't either, but that's besides the point =)

> list_2.htm is simply the reverse order of this list; I use it for making the archives, and for people who like to read top-down when they're catching up with what's been going on.

I can understand that, but why does the link in the e-mail point to list_2 when you post from list_2? Usually when someone makes a post and you're just checking up on that, you want newest posts first... There may have been the "switch to oldest posts first" link last time I posted, but I don't remember it, so that was why I was so curious...

> I'm anxious to see NetHack on the Palm!

You shouldn't be. Nethack-palm is going to take a while... For now, all they have is a screenshot-test-thing, but you already know that, right? Anyway, the Palm UI stuff will take a while. (I'm subscribed to the nethack-palm list)

--

Jonathan Nieder

Well...As far as graphics goes, I'm not picky. A real child of the times. While my intitial favorites were graphical, the ASCII crowd now holds all of what I consider to be the best RL's...

Frost Wolf

I can't stand graphical RL's. The creators spend more times on the graphics then on good gameplay, and then the graphics are horrible. Tile sets for ASCII RL's ( such as those for Angband, my personal favorite) are no better, and I don't have to guess at what wants my flesh. I'm sure some would disagree, but each to his own.

For those who didn't understand my previous post because of the bad grammar, here is a correction of the flubbed sentence: "Tile sets ... are no better, and with ASCII I don't have to guess at what wants my flesh." I can't stand bad English.

Amen, Rabbit! I agree with you totally!

That said, guess what I bought today and am installing as I type this... Diablo 2!

I'll let y'all know what I think about it once I get a chance to play it for a while. I never got into the first one but it got so many rave reviews that I decided to give this one a try. I'm deeply curious to see what roguelike elements it has, and if the random maps have the same "just for me" feel.

Trav

I liked Diablo, but my reflexes are too poor for me to get very far, so Is tick by freeware. It was pretty cool, though.

*sigh* I _hate_ my typing...

I've never played Diablo, or its sequel. Let us know what it's like, huh?

Frost Wolf

Frost Wolf: Diablo I was reasonably good, but I died once or twice because of the perspective. (It's angled.) It's not turn-based so there's not a lot of time to think things through, and even during equipment and inventory management the action doesn't stop. I found everything past the 2nd level or so very frustrating, but I can't win action games. I hope Trav enjoys II, though.

Subject: Diablo
X-No-Archive: Umm, I don't think I have a choice
X-Aside: I think you should be able to preview your HTML

Diablo was okay. It is not even close to as challenging as most roguelikes, and you can catch on very quickly (catching on = mastering the game, IMHO)... The maps are not so nice, and the AI is horrible; hordes of monsters fight (not literally) to get at you through the door where you take them off one by one, for example. The isometric 3d graphics are nice and impressive at first and then they just get extremely annoying when you think, if only I had a simple ASCII map. You can press tab to get a map, but it is overlayed 3d-style over the standard 3d display and it doesn't show the whole level, while an ASCII map easily would. Also, you can't just ignore the 3d display and concentrate on the map, since it doesn't show monsters or items or anything.

It is extremely linear, except for the quests which get very tedious after a while (though they are simple kill-the-evil-boss type quests, they are surrounded by hordes of weaklings. it's very annoying). You often have to go through the tedium of going back and forth to town, unless you use the Town Portal Spell. It also has no decent skill system, your XLevels just get you five points to the attribute of your choice and a little advantage casting spells and stuff, and you're always equally good with the mace and the bow, for example (depending on your DEX). The spell-levels can only be advanced by book, and only if you have enough of the MAG attribute. After you catch on (read: master the game), you can beat the game in a day if you're *that* bored. Many common aspects of the game can get very tedius... and there's no run-commands or useful things like that. It's mostly mouse, and the combat system consists of click-click-click-click-click on some monster. Unless you use spells, in which case replace the above with rightclick-rightclick...

But it's fun multiplayer with friends. Not over b.net anymore, that place is infested with cheaters and "player killers".

Umm, yeah.

Maybe you should get around to those reviews you were going to do? The three C's, remember? *grin*

--

Jonathan Nieder

Oopsed on the HTML. If it causes problems, delete it. Or change the <IMG SRC="<A HREF=" to the obvious just plain <IMG SRC=" and change <</I> to </I> And put a </FONT> after the </I> in the X-aside column. I think I want to emphasize that X-aside, BTW... Or at least let your posting system have a list of simple tags like <IMG> that don't have end tags and require that all other tags *do* have end tags. That would be pretty useful, if you really want, make it overridable, but it would catch some little HTML errors very easily. Or just count <s not followed by /s and </s, and make sure the number is equal... no, that's not good, imgs and stuff. Anyway, a preview would be very useful. Now, if this ruins it even more, delete it, but I think I have a workaround:

Didn't work *sigh*

BTW, sorry to those who are getting this by e-mail...

Uhm...Three C's? Was that something *I* mentioned? Mind like a sieve... Thanks for the info, though.

And now, for some feedback: EEEEEEEEEEEEE....

Frost Wolf

Trav said it. Not you. Crawl, Crossfire, and... I don't remember, why don't you search?

Well, I figured out what's wrong with the images... Auto-linking. I should have thought of that earlier. Could you make it disable-able? Or at least provide the source code to trav_list.pl so I can edit it and submit a nicer version (maybe)?

I fixed up the HTML problems in your posts, Jonathan. The parser for this page automatically expands URLs; that's why your IMG SRC tags didn't work. I don't have time to rewrite the parser for this list. I barely even have time to read the posts! So please, please, please.... If you have to use HTML, be careful and keep it simple.

Diablo 2 - click-fest, bug-fest! I played it pretty heavily for about 3 days [didn't make it to the 2nd chapter] and then got tired of the bugs [slow-downs, CD-Rom issues] and the constant clicking so I started playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 again.

Right now there are many very serious bugs in Diablo 2. Once a new patch comes out [right now they're at 1.02], I'll try to get back into it.

Not as fun as Zangband or NetHack, if that's what you're wondering! Also, not as fun as the Sims and of course nowhere near as fun as Heroes 3 [my favorite]. :)

Trav

I've always wanted to play The Sims. I may, yet. The best new computer game I've found is Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire. It's got a good replay value. ;)

Frost Wolf

I've been having computer troubles lately, which forced me to have to reformat my hard drive. Upon trying to download a new copy of Moria, I found that Ben Grabiner's page (http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner/moria.html)is missing, and that the Moria Archive (ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Moria/) dead-ends at the /Games directory with a 237 Mb .tar.gz file - the games might be in there, but I can't download that... can anyone tell me where to find Moria 5.5.d or the latest version of Color Moria?

-Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Hey guys, I'm on blizzard.com, waiting to play a Diablo II game. I want to see if it really feels like a Roguelike mud. If anyone wants to hop on and join me in a game, then cool! We can evaluate it as we click at monsters madly! :)

Trav

I'm on the USEast server

Sims is cool. Definitely worth getting.

Trav

I'm playing Diablo 2 online again... I've created a game on USEast called "Roguelikers". Whenever I'll log on I'll use the same game name. Hope to see some of you on there!

Travis

[to trav]

How about the source to trav_list.pl so that I can modify it, locally test it, and see if you want to upload it? I can understand that you don't have much time, but it doesn't take much time to just e-mail that over...

We can't mail out our CGI scripts, for security reasons. If I took some time to generalize it, I could post it...

It's based on the "writer's workbench" discussion list I saw back in 1996. That's when I was starting to make these web pages. The author of the original pl file was Fred McLain, and he was nice enough to let me adapt it to my own computer. I ported it and then tweaked it, little hacks here and there.

It's definitely not designed to handle people's HTML. I added the automatic URL linking so that people wouldn't *have* to type HTML (including me!) Writer a whole parser for it would be gross. Too much like work! And web pages for me are fun. Know what I mean? Shouldn't we be playing our games instead of writing parsers for discussion lists? Games are more fun!

[especially for those of us who program 45+ hours a week]

Trav

Hey, speaking of having fun, I'm on battle.net again for any of you interested in getting a Roguelikers game going.

Trav

Okay, I get it. It would be pretty simple to filter out all < and > and & etc and convert them into HTML entities, making HTML not work at all. If you don't want to, I understand that it's not especially fun when your job is programming to just program during your free time. Say, are you ever going to do those three RL reviews?

--

Jonathan Nieder

diablo2 sucks, heroes 3 is better

Just read all the messages...a good read.

When I was a kid in the 80s, I played some early versions of rogue and hack, and about a week ago I thought nostalgically about rogue and thought that I could probably find a copy of it on the web that I could download. Then I found that there is an entire genre of roguelike games and I thought I had died and went to heaven. I immediatley downloaded nethack 3.3 and began playing. It is so much like hack that I was able to grasp it quickly, even if there is so much more of everything (monsters, characters, items, commands).

I never beat rogue or hack, and I'll probably never beat nethack, but my question would be is it worth it to learn other roguelikes? Or better yet...how difficult is it to switch between games...how different are the commands...I think you get the idea. (I still kinda like the hjklyubn movement keys from rogue, though I'm trying to wean myself off of them for faster access to commands.)

One more thing that I've had trouble with: How do I set my default options? I haven't been able to make that work yet.

-Rexx

Rex, there are a bunch of good roguelikes out there now. You can even find versions of the original rogue if you look... But it's hard to go back and play that after messing with its descendants - it isn't as though I don't enjoy character graphics games, but the oldest rogue-genre games simply don't have the complexity or the ease of use the newer ones do.

Some of the more popular roguelikes you'll find on the web are Rogue (of course), ADOM, Ragnarok, and NetHack, which you have already located. My personal favorites are Moria, its immediate descendant Angband, and the numerous Angband variants, which range from odd (Zelazny-Amber) to insane (Cthulhu) to merely silly (Cat-in-the-Hat)... Moria and its family will make it easier for you to make the transition, since they offer the choice of either a rogue-like command set or the Moria/Angband commands; you can play them with whichever commands you feel most comfortable with. These games also have good online documentation and easy-to-modify options.

Sadly, NetHack does not sport these features. To modify the defaults in NetHack 3.3, you need to open the defaults.nh file with some sort of text editor -Notepad wortks fine - and alter the contents. The internal comment lines will give you plenty of direction.

[Posted by Travis]

Hello mr. roguelike site maintainer person. I wanted to point out a fault you made on your reviews. In the game Adom you CANT play an Imp. Nor can you play a vampire or a half-dragon. I appreciate your attempt to review these games but I think you should be a little more accurate before you say something negative about a game. There is always the possiblity that you might deter some imp hating vampiraphobic psychopath from playing (and possibly even really enjoying) Adom. Its one thing to say a game sucks because its too complex or too diverse. Its another form of insult to say that a game sucks for for something that isn't even true.

John -

My ADOM review is pretty old (1996 ???). I think at one point, we could play imps. When the new ADOM comes out (it was due out a couple weeks ago but hasn't appeared yet), I'll do another review. I'll also use that opportunity to update the entire web site. I'm going to be moving everything to a new, friendlier server next week, which will make updating the web site easier.

I totally agree with you that a review needs to present accurate information. Like I said, I'll update it soon.

Even so, I find ADOM too hard/complex for my tastes. I like simple, consistent rules, with no plot-driven surprises, no instant-deaths; for that reason, I prefer Go to Chess. I like gradually winning, gradually losing. I like a quantitative sense of progress.

ADOM is a bit too Chess-y for me. NetHack and *band are more Go-ish in their objectives: as you play more, you go deeper and rack up the levels. With simple rules, you can have the most room to express yourself.

In ADOM, you have to worry about Following The Author Around. When I play plot-driven games, I feel like I'm not really creating anything; it's all paint by numbers. I much prefer doing things my own way, from scratch.

Other news, really quick:

Diablo 2 - I'm in act 3 now. It's getting more fun, but I'm tired of clicking.

Heroes 3 - I Just started playing Heroes 3 again after a month's haitus to play The Sims and Diablo 2. I must stay... Heroes 3 ROCKS!!! I'm still working through the Armageddon's Blade campaigns.

Palm Pilot - The palm version of rogue got mentioned in Maximum PC magazine! Also, today I found out that there is a new developer for the Palm version of NetHack. I can't wait to play it!!! I hope we see more Palm-Roguelikes.

Gotta run!

Trav

On Palmnethack:

It still doesn't work, Chris is just taking over development...

Hey guys.

I got some more mail about my ADOM review this morning, so I just re-read it to see just how bad, unprofessional, and offensive it is...

Well, it's not professional, that's for sure, but it *is* honest and I think it does a great job of conveying my impressions of ADOM. The references to "imp" and "retarded" were made lightly, in passing, and I used "retarded" to refer to myself!

I effectively communicated my opinions, and hopefully helped answer the question: "Is ADOM worth investing a lot of time in?"

• For newbies and casual Roguelike players [like me], I think ADOM is currently so hard and linear that it is ultimately more frustrating than fun.
• For hardcore gamers with tons of free time, sure, go for it; it'll be a challenge. Best of luck. etc.

I personally don't have a lot of free time. I want to spend what few leisure hours I have on activities that give me the greatest number of happy points per hour. I have little interest in activities that are more "challenging" than "entertaining". For games, I place high value on shallow learning curves and deep replayability. ADOM is weaker than NetHack and *band in both areas and consequently, I don't have as much fun playing it. Ditto for Ragnarok.

If it's too hard for me to enjoy, it's too hard for me to enjoy.

Trav

Hey, give yourself more credit, Trav. I can see how ADOM's plotline would dissuade some from playing. Heck, if I save that puppy ONE MORE TIME... But, I'm sure you could learn it. I think, as always, it's really just a matter of taste. I don't really have the...feel...for NetHack, or Angband. ADOM just suits me more. I can't say why...it just does...

Finally returning,

Frost Wolf

I'm looking for ragnarok and crawl have anyone seen them please email me at jcoudrain@yahoo.com

hi,

how do u edit ur diablo 2 characters

I farted and it stinks

Hello everyone. I've been a fairly avid gamer for quite some time now, however my knowlege of other computer related skills is somewhat lacking, and as such, I can't figure out how to get SLASH'EM up and running... what do i have to do? (the word compile comes to mind, but the meaning...???)

Is anyone interested in a Ragnarok editor?

Maybe a way to patch you're save file to get rid of a few tough, un-extinctable enemies?(Like the Drauger, or Fylesh(?))

If there's any interest, go to http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/rag_pc/

Even the author of this page admits that Ragnarok is pretty tough.

Test - If you see this, the new server is working! :)

Trav

Yo!

I have few questions (about ADOM):

1. What's with the Trident Of The Red Rooster
2. Are there any cheats or trainers for ADOM?

Please answer someone! (I would prefer if someone would email me)

Some site updates coming in a few minutes...

Trav

Hey does ne 1 know where i can get a map editor for mordor 1 the depths of dejanol

I used to really be into athletics when I was younger (alot younger!) anyhoo, since then I've become a little lardy around the edges and am trying to give up smoking and want to start jogging again but I don't really know where to start.

Are there any specific excersises to practice before hand? and how far should I start running etc. If anybody has any helpful hints or tips, I'd be delighted to hear them.

Cheers,

Nat

(scuse spelling - learning to touch type!)

Natalie -

When I first started running, I just kinda jumped into it. I told myself I'd get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, and I stuck to it. If it's raining, I like to exercise indoors, which means either finding an exercise gym (expensive and inconvenient) or jogging in place inside your own home (very convenient, but it might disturb neighbors).

For me, the key is to always get AT LEAST 30 minutes of exercise a day. Usually I aim for 60-90 minutes of aerobic exercise. I also have a morning routine of 150 push-ups and 500 sit ups (this usually takes about half an hour).

Another key for me is reading. Whenever I run outside, or jog in place inside, or use an exercise bike, or am doing situps, I read. Although it sounds difficult, running and reading at the same time is a lot of fun, and very easy if you have good light and a light book (which you can hold in one hand). It looks dorky as heck though! :)

Reading while exercising helps the time pass, and lets me focus on things other than the exertion and duration itself. I love reading, so I look forward to my exercising sessions!

Hope that helps!

Travis

I'm currently playing a freeware game called Ragnarok.

It was available at www.gamesdomain.com

Are there any cheats or editors for this game? Or anything?

I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

John G. A. Gordon

Now I feel like a fool.

I should have read the previously posted messages.

Sorry for the trouble.

Johnny G.

A quick intro:

Ive been playing rogulikes for longer than i can remember (though probably not longer than some of you others), and feel that some of the best games ever belong to that genre. im compiling an archive of roguelike files, so if you have anything thats kinda hard to find or something like that, email me and let me know. I am specifically looking for a Moria version with automatic stat roller (i remember this feature from the very first Mac version I ever played).

bye fer now,

wil

Hi! I found a neat page the other day, for palm roguelikes!

http://roguelike-palm.sourceforge.net/

They have larn, rogue, and moria available for free download! :)

Question... is there a replacement for Roguelike News? I loved that site and I am curious where everyone goes for news nowadays. Is usenet pretty much it or is there a good web-based RLNews successor?

Trav

Hi!

This was my help-offering that I wanted to post at rougelikenews, but they are closed now.

"I would gladly write music for a finished or almost finished rouge-like game.I use adlib trackers mostly Amusic11.exe which is totally free and has thesource of its module format (amd) in pascal and asm. (And has players in these proglangs.) If you have an own tracker I can use that too, but I am not too god in mid-making. (I am not a professional musician, though I make musics in Ft2-like things for 5 years. And play guitar too. :)) )

Of course I don't want any money for my music, so if you are in need some tunes please drop me a line. It would be a pleasure for me to take part in a project.

bye

Attila Salyi / chaosultra@freemail.hu

I'd like to find a hack program for Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol. Sats, items, and so on.

Hi,

I'd like to announce a new RL, called 'The War of the Ring'. At present still in planning phase, expected to release first alpha in December 2001. Any RL enthusiasts and developers who are familiar with the Ada 95 progrmming language and feel they have anything valuable to contribute, write to me.

Hi guys! If you're want to hear a song I wrote about Roguelikes, check out "New Moon" on:

/tripecac/albums/the-hermit/#new-moon

Does anyone know of other Roguelike-related songs?

Trav

Is there a community for the original Mordor? <depths of Dejenol> I'm looking for maps,guides,item/monster info.Any other fans that have any Mordor info to contribute,I'd really apreciate it.

.:Genocide Angel:.

'Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.' -LotR

I'm looking for Mordor 1 - Depths of Dejanol.

After the loss of the game I also lost a save for a character who had level 220 paladin, and many levels on wizard, scavenger, sorcerer etc. I would much like to get this game back and continue playing.

It seems like it's not a easy job to search out the full version on the internet, so I would be most pleased with any help.

Where can I find (online) the Dragon Magazine edition that details the generation of the AD&D 2nd edition Monk-class character. This particular character is the improved version of the 1st edition.

Adom is key

Do anybody know where i can download mordor depth of dejenol?

Hey there, just looking to see if anyone could email me or help me find an editor for mordor, preferably something of an item editor/character editor...

Thanks...

Here's my aggregation of the dozens or hundreds of hack requests that flooded this forum for the next 5 months. I've compressed them into a single post because they have nothing to do with Roguelike games. However, it's kinda fun to read them. The authors seem just as lazy (and inept) in their typing as their game playing! -- Trav

• I would like to find a hack for ragnarok online just give me a site.
• Can anyone tell me where i can find the famous hack for Ragnarok Online? it's calles "Fake Zeny" I hope u can help
• I want the same thing as the person this post... about fake zeny hack.
• Can I also have the fake zeny hack? E-mail it to me if possible. Thanks
• Yeh me too.. Zeny Hack plz
• can i also have the Zeny Hack Please !!!
• Sorry guys but the zeny hack has been fixed. but iam sure that there is another hack or other hacks for Ragnarok Online. And if there's any website for these hacks please tell me
• I need a diablo2 that works trainer for macintosh
• can anyone send me any hack or cheat for ragnarok online? or maybe nexus TK or maybe send me the website address, thanks in advance
• Hey im Playin Ragnarok Online id like to be emailed if there are any hacks available for it!
• I need some hacks for Ragnarok Online if anyone has anything please send it to my email ... thanks!
• I'm playing Ranarok Online and was wondering if anyone had any hacks/cheats/trainers for this game? or if anyone knows here to find one? if so, email me.
• Could anyone send me a link to some sites with Ragnarok Online hacks? I'm in the process of helping a friend develope his own and we need some other examples.
• can some1 send me hacks for RagnarokOnline? like zeny frezze or hp frezze.... plz!!!!!
• plz send me Fake Zeny
• PLZ SEND ME HACKS FOR RAGNAROK ONLINE!!!!
• Please sent me the ZENY HACK please!!
• PLZZZ send me [put in some lame trainer/cheat stuff herre]!! plz plz plz plz.. ieargh! excuse me, but you ARE lamers.. lamers i said!
• Ragnarok Cheat ? Oh I want too!!!!
• please send me Fake Zeny
• PLZ guys, someone send me the Fake Zeny cheat ive been hearing so much about :P thx
• will someone send me any hacks for ro they have or a website that has them
• Hey, here were so much rumors about Trainer's and Hacks. Are the some of them??? If yes please please send me all... i would be very thankfully. Bye
• hi~~~ i want fake zeny... plz..give me FAKEZENY..
• I need some hacks for ragnarok. Especially a zeny hack. If you have one or know where i can get one please email me. If i can get one im going to edit it a little and make it better. T_T
• I've been searching the net for some fake zeny hacks for Ragnarok Online. If anyone has this hack or knows a site where I can download it myself, please email me or send it to me on MSN at ss_jin_neptune@hotmail.com or on AIM sn ssjin neptune thanks a lot! ^-~
• I would also like the FAKE ZENY, if possible, thanks alot!
• Please send a "Fake Zeny" to an E-mail.
• hi im am a player of ragnarok online please i need trainers please send me a trainer thanks
• plz send me the fake zeny hack plz
• plz Send me some ragnarok hacks plz thx
• I need hacks!
• if anyone want a ro trainer get it here. [snipped - Trav] btw: CHEATERS! anyway., have fun
• PLZ i need any ragnarok online haks please send it to my email THX!!
• i need zeny hack in ragnarok
• I'd like any hacks for Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, that anyone might have. I really dun care what they hack... I jus' want anythin'. Aight, thanks.
• plz i seriosly need some hacks my acount got hacked into twice already and i dont get to play that much so my 2 lv 20's got erased it pisses me off soo muchj i need some hacks so that i can get back in there and accually do something thx
• sup people, i've been looking for a person that has a hack or a trainer for "Ragnarok Online" or "Dark Ages". ((please)) Email me web site that has them or if you have a hack please send me it.
• I Need A Ragnarok Exp. and Zeny Hack!! Plz Send It To Me!! Thx~!
• Hey guyz, i need Ragnarok hack that WORKS for windows ME.... i want a zeny and exp. hack~! Thx~!
• please give me any ragnarok hacks that works! Thx
• i need hacks,cheats, trainers for Ragnarok Online. It doesnt matter what the trainer does, i just want em',fast. thank u.
• I need everything that can cheat the Ragnarok online Please send me some program
• I need Zeny and Exp. Hacks, Cheats, Trainer for Ragnarok Online. Please send me some programms.
• Trainer for Ragnarok Online. Please send me some programms thank you
• Hi, i have been searching the internet for months trying to find a Macintosh Map Hack for Diablo 2 expansion on Closed B.net if you know anyone that has this or you have it yourself i would most greatful i would even be willing to pay you. Thanks
• can anyone send me up to date working Ragnarok Online trainers/hacks? thanks very much... sending a site is ok too
• can someone send me a hack or a site withhacks or cheats for ragnarok online too. it very hard to level up when its a newbie. please.
• Could someone plz send me a trainer/hacks for Zeny or EXP or even just stat points for Ragnarok Online, I've been looking since the beginning of 2002 for them but none come up and I'm starting to get bored from reading all these alpha strats, its Beta why don't they get rid of them?
• please send me some trainers and hacks that will work on the macintosh computers
• Hello, I'm Donnie Darko. I've been looking for a trainer/hack/bot for the game Ragnarok Online for about 1 year now. If anyone has ANY hacks/trainers that work for the up to date RO, then please email them to me or talk to me on AIM. My screen name is ... Bye.
• Can someone please send me a hack or trainer for Ragnarok Online. Something like fake zeny or something.
• hey! can someone send me a RagnarokOnline bot please. a site where i could download the bot is still useful. plz help me!!
• PLz, I need the fake zeny hack!!!
• Can someone send me a ragnarokonline hack?
• plz give me any ragnarok hacks ,editors, trainers,and others
• well i try hard in ragnarok but's too hard...if you have any hacks for ragnarok online could u please send em my way? It would be greatly appreciated
• plz help me.,. lost my account from hacker zeny hack plz send to ...
• I Want utility Hack Zenny Plz help me

And so on. More than 90% of the the 2002 posts were about hacks.

[Referring to Ragnarok Online hack posts]

I am curious: why are you posting messages like that here? This site is designed to let us talk about Roguelike games themselves, give our own reviews and tips. Asking for hacks doesn't really help anyone, and I'm guessing that it's not paying off very well for you either.

I'm not going to censor you or scold you or anything; I'm just wondering how long these "I need zeny hack" posts are going to continue. I'm probably the only person who's reading your messages (daily), but I don't even know what "zeny" means or anything about ragnarok online, so I can't really help you get your answer.

Trav

Please, scroll [up] and READ TRAV'S COMMENT DAMNIT!

Yeah, this "zeny hack" stuff has kinda gotten old by now... :)

Maybe we should talk about something else for a change?

How about this:

Does anyone know of a good "successor site" to Roguelike News?

Trav

In other news, I got Heroes of Might and Magic 4 about a week ago and must say it's awesome! :) I'm a big fan of the Heroes series, and this new one, despite being a bit sluggish on my computer (P2-350) seems to be even *more* addictive than the previous ones!

The new "heroes can fight" feature allows parties of heroes to be created, and heroes can also go on "solo quests"... The game feels a lot more like an RPG than the earlier versions.

If you're interested in Roguelikes, you'll probably like Heroes 4.

A word of caution, however... There's a memory leak in the current version (1.0) which makes Heroes 4 slow down considerably after playing for a while. I had to upgrade from 128MB to 256MB RAM to be able to play it for more than an hour at a time. It still crashes, at about 5 hours (no more swap space left on my hard disk). Still a great game! :)

Travis

[After a dozen more hack-related posts]

Please stop asking for hacks.
Please stop asking for hacks.
Please stop asking for hacks.
Please stop asking for hacks.
Please stop asking for hacks.
Please stop asking for hacks.

You are posting your "requests" in the wrong place!!!

This web site has nothing to do with Ragnarok Online or "hacks".

I don't know *how* y'all found this particular page, perhaps by searching on "ragnarok" and "hack", which are two single-player Roguelikes... In any case, please try to find a more appropriate forum for your inquiries!

Thank you,

Travis

Can someone send me a Ragnarok Online hack please?

lol, sorry Travis, I this showed up when I searched for a trainer and I decided to post here since 2057290573298572 other people already did. What is Roguelikes anyways?

I was wondering whether anyone (here) could direct to a site with a fairly recent (and as such stable or "cleaner") version of Crawl. Thanks,

omid

[After more hack-related posts]

READ THIS: Please stop asking for hacks. You are posting your "requests" in the wrong place!!! This web site has nothing to do with Ragnarok Online or "hacks". Please try to find a more appropriate forum for your inquiries!

Thank you,

Travis

[This was posted 2 minutes later]

I Need A Ragnarok Exp. and Zeny Hack!! Plz Send It To Me!! Thx~!

Hi.

Some of you may recognise me. I'm the one who has been asking you to apologise for this spam. Please, just grow up, learn to spell, and be man enough to say sorry.

I hate doing it too, but it is worth it.

Matthew Sawyer

[After several dozen back-and-forth emails about specific hacks]

Y'all are just going to have to chill out for a while... I was going to let the "off topic" stuff persists (since it had apparently become helpful after a point), but once people started impersonating each other, I decided to shut things down. For now, only I can post.

If someone has something Roguelike-related that you want me to post, email me and I'll add it to this page.

Travis

Please do not email me any questions about "zeny hacks" or "Ragnarok Online". I do not know anything about either, and cannot help you.

I'm getting tired of being bugged about stuff that has nothing to do with this site or my interests. It's like spam, and if it persists I will have to delete all of the zeny hack and ragnarok online references from this page in order to decrease the frequency of people getting sent here by search engines.

I've allowed the information posted on this page to remain here up until now, because I realize that although it is misplaced, it still might be of value to someone. However, there comes a point where my generosity and patience are worn thin by the annoyingly persistant requests for "zeny hacks", and, folks, I am at that point right now.

As I've stated several times before, this is NOT an appropriate forum for posting requests pertaining to "hacks" or "ragnarok online", and I am NOT able to answer questions about either of those topics.

It might be considered unfortunate that "hack" and "ragnarok" are terms used repeatedly on this web site (within the context of roguelike games), but the real "tragedy" is that so many people feel the need to *beg* for something without even paying attention to the context.

Not only that, but they are begging (almost *demanding*) other people to send them free cheats for a multiplayer game!

I mean, come on, guys, grow up! Learn to think and develop a work ethic. That's the *only* reliable method for being able to afford computer games when you get older. You can't just keep tugging on your parents' hand or pants-leg all day. You can't just keep yelling and crying for handouts.

Learn how to hunt for yourself. It's *much* more rewarding when you find something.

Travis

For those of you who persist in emailing me questions about Ragnarok Online: I will not reply to your emails. I've already made it clear that:

1. I can't help you, and
2. I dislike the persistent begging (and won't encourage it by replying)

You'll have to bug someone else to help you... just not ME!!!

Travis