[Puke]

no, diablo cant call itsself roguelike just because it has random dungeons. and it isnt unroguelike just because it does not use ascii. you can argue any similarity or difference, but the 'heart' of the genre is going to be specific to any individuals interperatation. which is why you both have your undies in a bunch. rogue was ASCII based, and was tile based, was turn based, had random dungeons, involved a quest for artifact retrieval, etc, etc. you can say that the presence or lack of any of those things makes it roguelike or unroguelike, but honestly youre just *****in.

you guys are playing two extremes of the arguement, and i must insist that you quit yer *****in. there are many tilesets for rogue, and the Version that I played the most of, was written by one of the original two designers as an ATARI ST port, and indeed used a graphical tileset. the same tileset that is still popular, and which is used to derive many of the larger tilesets in existance today.

there are many efforts at creating 3d isometric tilesets, and some open GL ones. my favorite way to play is with the classic ascii characters, but if there was a well done graphical set, with animated tiles, i'd play that too. Honestly, the Version that I find most attractive is the set that uses OPEN-GL rendered ascii characters, so the floor is a bunch of flat '.' characters, and the '@' sign and other symbols stand up in 3d.

I have often wanted to take some custom art to a print shop to be placed on a t-shirt, with a 3-d @ symbol wielding a shield and flaming sword, with a limp & sign on the ground before it.

As an interesting note (that most folks are unaware of, so i thought i'd share), the original default character name for the ST port of Rogue (by one of the original designers, as i mentioned) was Rodney. You were, of course, trying to recover the Amulet of Yendor. In Nethack, you are also trying to recover the Amulet of Yendor. But its a bit more detailed, and you have to take it from a near-demigod wizard (the wizard of yendor). His name? Rodney.