Information AboutNethack |
''NetHack'' is a single-player Roguelike Computer Game originally released in 1987. It is an evolution of an earlier game called '' Hack '' (1985), which was itself an evolution of '' Rogue '' (1980). The "net" element references that its development has been coordinated through the Internet, which was notable at the time. The "hack" element refers to a genre of Role-playing Game s known as Hack And Slash for their focus on combat. The player takes the part of a dungeon-diving hero in search of the Amulet Of Yendor . The dungeon spans over 50 levels, most of which are randomly generated. The dungeon contains monsters, weaponry, magical items, hidden doors and more. ''NetHack'' is Open Source and one of the oldest computer games still being actively developed, with new features and bug fixes regularly being added by a loose but secretive group of volunteer developers, commonly called the DevTeam. ''NetHack'' is traditionally played using Text Mode graphics where the dungeon's features, inhabitants, and items are all represented by single ASCII characters. There are also several graphical user interfaces available for the game. __TOC__ GAME Before playing the game, the player is asked to name their character and then select a Race , Role , Gender , and Alignment for his or her character, or allow the game to create a random character. There are traditional character roles such as Knight , Wizard , Rogue , Valkyrie , and Samurai , but there are also unusual ones, including Archeologist , Tourist , and Caveman . The player's character class and alignment dictate which god the player serves in the game; by pleasing his or her god, the player may receive aid and gifts. After the player's character is created, the task, which can differ depending on your class of character, is then introduced. The quoted snippet below, however, is always the same: To win the game, the player must find the Amulet Of Yendor and sacrifice it to his or her Deity . The Amulet is found at the lowest level of the dungeon. Successful completion of this main task rewards the player with the gift of immortality (the player is said to ''ascend''), and the player attains the status of Demigod . In addition to the main quest to find and sacrifice the Amulet, a number of sub-quests must be completed along the way, including one class-specific quest. The player's character is usually accompanied by a pet animal, typically a Kitten or Little Dog , although knights begin with a Pony . The game is very broad in scope, with hundreds of unique items, situations, monsters, and personages providing opportunities for interaction within the gameworld. Some interactions are rare and occasionally amusing, while others can prove quite painful or even deadly. Players sometimes use the acronyms YAAD and '''YASD''' when discussing their characters' deaths, meaning ''Yet Another Annoying Death'' or ''Yet Another Stupid'' (or ''Silly'') ''Death''. An "annoying" death is typically one that was the fault of misfortune more than the player (such as falling into a spiked, poisoned pit trap early in the game); a "stupid" death is when player's actions were directly responsible for their own death. Like Roguelike s in general, Nethack features Permadeath : expired characters can't be revived without having made backup copies of the actual save files (a controversial practice called ''savescumming''). The prompt "Do you want your possessions identified?" (abbreviated as DYWYPI and used as shorthand for "Then my character bit it") is given by default at the end of any game, allowing the player to learn any unknown properties of the items found during the game. Sporadically, the game saves the level on which a character has died, and then integrates that level into a later dungeon, complete with the ex-player's possessions, ghost and killer(s). This is done via 'bones files', which are saved on the computer hosting the game. A player using a publicly-hosted copy of the game can thus encounter the remains of many other players. Players can also swap bones files via programs like Hearse.http://hearse.krollmark.com/ It is often said that "the DevTeam thinks of everything" (abbreviated as TDTTOE). Anything the player can think of for their character to do, the DevTeam will probably have thought of a plausible response. Bugs, funny messages, stories, experiences, and ideas for the next version are discussed on the Usenet Newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethacknews:rec.games.roguelike.nethack (abbreviated RGRN). Levels Most of the Nethack levels are randomly generated when the main character first encounters them. A typical level contains a way "up" and a way "down" (these may be stairways, ladders, trapdoors etc.) To move from one level to the next, a person may use these, or he may use other methods (Dig a hole to go down, use an item to "float through the ceiling"). Some "special" levels are of fixed design in every game. Several different types of level architecture are found during the game - Dungeon, fort, castle, maze, quest levels, tower, graveyard, and endgame elemental planes. Items and tools ''NetHack'' features a variety of items: Armor to protect the player; Scroll s and spellbooks to cast; Potion s to quaff; and an assortment of Tool s such as keys and lamps. Although the majority of items are beneficial to the player, their use is unknown until the player finds out about them. For example: a golden potion could be any potion that the player has not yet identified and the colour associations differ randomly from game to game. Blessings and curses As in many other roguelike games, all items in ''NetHack'' are either " Blessed ", "uncursed", or " Curse d". The majority of items are found uncursed, but the "b/u/c" (blessed/uncursed/cursed) status of an item is unknown until it is identified or detected through other means. A blessing makes the item more powerful, or less harmful in the case of items such as a scroll of punishment. Cursed items, on the other hand, cause ill or unintended effects, for example wearable items can no longer be removed until they have been uncursed. Voluntary conducts While ''NetHack'' is very difficult, veteran players often attempt "conducts", which are voluntary restrictions on their behavior tracked by the game, to increase the difficulty further. Examples include:
Some conducts are not tracked by the game, but remain popular, such as Speedrunning (making it through the dungeon within a set number of turns) and Chastity (not using Incubi or Succubi to gain experience). Other challenges include not using items, such as wearing no armor. SPOILER FILES Players over the years have compiled extensive documentation for every aspect of the gamehttp://www.dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Roleplaying/Rogue-like/NetHack/Cheats_and_Hints/, from instructions on exactly how to navigate certain obstacles, to detailed formulas explaining the probability of in-game events. Gleaning spoiler information from the source code is known as ''source-diving''. The documents are collectively known as ''spoilers''. GRAPHICS ''NetHack'' was originally created without a graphical user interface, although the option to play using one was added later in its development. The game's interface, environment, entities and objects, are all created or represented by arrangements of ASCII or ANSI characters: ''Key:''
Below the map is the status line. First there is the hero's name and professional ranking, the latter being based on the hero's experience. ''St'' stands for strength, ''Dx'' for dexterity, ''Co'' for constitution, ''In'' for intelligence, ''Wi'' for wisdom, ''Ch'' for charisma, and the player's Alignment is Neutral. The next line shows the dungeon level the hero is currently on (increasing when the player goes deeper), Money , Hit Points , magical power, Armor Class , and experience level. The hero's Hunger status, ranging from Satiated down to Fainting is shown on the far right, if it is anything other than normal. Tiles mode .]] Apart from the original Text Mode , there are interfaces that replace text mode screen representations with images, or tiles, to represent the objects in the game - this is known as "tiles mode". Graphic interfaces include those using X11 tiled and the similar Windows graphical interface, the Qt Toolkit , and the GNOME libraries. There are also enhanced graphical interfaces such as the Isometric SDL -based Falcon's Eye or Vulture's Eye and also the OpenGL based Noegnud . NOTABLE (NON-PLAYER) CHARACTERS
NOTABLE CREATURES See Also: Mythology and fiction in NetHack
DEVELOPMENT ''NetHack'', as stated above, is developed by the DevTeam. They do not publicly discuss Versions in progress, and they release new versions without notice. However, a listing of known bugs (though not patches for those bugs) is available on their webpage. Often, unofficial patches will be released by others between versions. OTHER VERSIONS & INTERFACES Even though many experienced ''NetHack'' players prefer the original text mode interface, as they feel the graphical alternatives deter attention from playability and the use of one's imagination, several graphical user interfaces exist for NetHack. Isometric graphical interface.]]
CULTURAL REFERENCES ''NetHack'''s long life has led to a wide acceptance into Computer Culture , with constant references being made to it in the social circles, on the Internet , in other games, and online comics, such as User Friendly http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010501. To a hallucinating player, monsters will appear to be creatures drawn from other mythos, fictional universes or features a nethack option which changes the error and information messages to humorous ''NetHack''-style messages. For example, exiting Copy And Paste mode will give the message "You have escaped the dungeon", and "Suddenly, the dungeon collapses" when it crashes. PuTTY includes a numeric keypad handling mode specially designed for playing ''NetHack''.http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.60/htmldoc/Chapter4.html#config-keyboardNumerous references to ''NetHack'' can be found in the online Satirical RPG '' Kingdom Of Loathing '', including an entire area.http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_Dungeons_of_Doom#References. In the video game '' Deus Ex '', a reference to NetHack can be found in an E-mail accessible on an employee's personal computer in the headquarters of the fictional company VersaLife . REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS ;Official
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