Newbie's first impressions

[Ed Kolis]

[quote]
PCarroll said:

(Well, except for the time I was viewing a battle and had to switch to the desktop momentarily; when I returned, all the soldiers and commanders on the battlefield had turned to letters of the alphabet!)

Ah yes, the legendary nethack mode

[Cainehill]

Ed Kolis said:
Ah yes, the legendary nethack mode

Bah! Angband / Moria mode, not Nethack!

[Ed Kolis]

I prefer angband as well; I just thought nethack would be a bit more recognizable

[quantum_mechani]

Ed Kolis said:
I prefer angband as well; I just thought nethack would be a bit more recognizable

Meh, Nethack is obviously superior. Or ADOM. Or anything that remembers levels and has a non-insane combat system.

[Zooko]

Illwinter recommended Dungeon Crawl on their web site one time, and I got hooked on it. I really prefer it to the others that I have briefly tried, because

a. It has balance.
b. It has a consistent world (not a myriad of independently developed levels, each one attempting to be sillier than the last).
c. It has a pleasurable skill system.

Also I've written several patches to Dungeon Crawl, mostly to re-invent the personality of the god Xom.

[PCarroll]

Zooko said:
Illwinter recommended Dungeon Crawl on their web site one time, and I got hooked on it. I really prefer it to the others that I have briefly tried, because

a. It has balance.
b. It has a consistent world (not a myriad of independently developed levels, each one attempting to be sillier than the last).
c. It has a pleasurable skill system.

Also I've written several patches to Dungeon Crawl, mostly to re-invent the personality of the god Xom.

Thanks for that tip. I'd heard of the game but never tried it. Now I have, and it's very good. My wife's hooked on it too. Her only complaint is that she can't cheat by saving at critical points; it's hard losing a character you've carefully worked up to a high level.

Surprisingly, neither of us has any complaint about the interface (we're using the basic one, not the "tiled" one, mainly because I couldn't figure out how to get the tiled version to work in English--and I don't read Japanese).

My wife thinks it's great, because she has control over everything--casting a spell or using a wand or whatever, and seeing the effect.

--Patrick

[Scott Hebert]

Patrick (if you don't mind my calling you that),

I do read Japanese, as a matter of fact; if you need any help in that area, just let me know.

Scott

[Zooko]

Cool! What platform -- Windows? Let me know if you or your wife want to try my new improved Xom. :-)

[PDF]

PCarrol, did you try something like Combat Mission (if anything else exists that is "like" CM ) ?
Games are rather short and fast paced compared to Dom2 et al., and it requires some "battlefield tactics" sense more than analytical brains - surely that's why I suck at it, I was able to make strategy articles on it then get blasted by one of my readers that managed to apply it, while I couldn't !! .
Also it's graphically more rewarding than top-view 2D strat game as it's in full 3D with free camera, even if now it's not really up to date graphic-wise ...

[PCarroll]

PDF said:
PCarrol, did you try something like Combat Mission (if anything else exists that is "like" CM ) ?

Yep. I played the demo several months ago. It's apparently one of the most popular games around, but I didn't care for it. The 3D graphics that impress everybody else are a turn-off to me. I don't like things looking that realistic.