OT: Oldies but Goodies

Kamog · #1 May 11th, 2003, 09:12 PM

I have gone through about 15 different characters in ADOM in the Last few days. I'm not getting very far because I keep getting killed. At first, I wasn't paying attention to my hunger level, so I starved to death, and so then I improved my 'food preservation' skill whenever I can, and whenever there was a dead monster left after a fight, I ate it before it rotted.

So the food situation was OK, but then when I go past the first couple of towns to the west, I keep getting killed by a group of chaos sisters who are really strong and I always die. So I tried to build up my levels before I meet them, by wandering around the wilderness and fighting random monsters. This worked to a certain extent, but inevitably I have an unlucky battle and die.

ADOM is more difficult than most other RPG's I've played... gaining a few levels does not make the battles easier by that much even when you fight the same monsters; also you can't revert to a saved game when you die - you have to start all over. Oh well, keep trying!

Angband seems to be a bit easier. I haven't played this one very much so far. The labyrinth is huge and I haven't gone very deep because I know I'll get lost. I'm thinking of finishing ADOM first before I go back to Angband...

Erax · #2 May 12th, 2003, 01:12 AM

In ADOM, talk to the people in the first town. The easier dungeons only appear if you are on a quest. Don't go west of the river before you finish one or two of these quests.
You can also buy food in the first town. It is highly recommended that you do so (you can't eat your money when you starve).

Edit: Eating some monsters may give you skills, raise or lower your stats, or poison / kill you (this info is in the manual).

In Angband, the levels are all random and they are generated whenever you go up/down the stairs. So you go, for example, from L1 -> L2, explore L2, then come back up... and there's a brand new L1 to explore.

[ May 12, 2003, 00:16: Message edited by: Erax ]

Kamog · #3 May 12th, 2003, 05:09 AM

Thanks, Erax. I'll try that.

Krsqk · #4 May 12th, 2003, 03:20 PM

DO NOT start playing Angband or Nethack. I wasted many, many, many days which should have been spent studying for my graduate classes playing Nethack, which I personally prefer to Angband. I don't think the developers of Nethack have left any possibilities out of their programming.

Voidhawk · #5 May 13th, 2003, 05:54 AM

NetHack rules! By far the coolest way to play it is on a public server, where you have access to "bones piles", or levels where other players have died and dropped all their goodies. Kind of lends a multiplayer feel to it. Of course, usually the overwhelming joy at finding a pile of awesome equipment is tempered somewhat by the agony of getting whacked a couple of moves later by the monster(s) who did the first guy in.

If you can get used to the interface and (lack of) graphics, NetHack makes Diablo seem about as deep as Pong.

Erax · #6 May 13th, 2003, 05:46 PM

I discovered Angband long before I heard about Nethack. When I started playing Nethack, I felt frustrated because many of my old Angband tricks wouldn't work. I have it on my HD but I don't play it.

About the graphics, there's a free interface add-on that makes it MUCH nicer. It's called Falcon's Eye.

There seems to be some sort of connection between Scandinavians and roguelike games. Well, at least it gives me a good excuse - "I can't help being addicted to Angband, dear, must be my Finnish genes".

Voidhawk · #7 May 13th, 2003, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Erax:
About the graphics, there's a free interface add-on that makes it MUCH nicer. It's called Falcon's Eye.

Yes, I've tried FE! Very nice interface. Call me loony, but I still prefer plain ol' ASCII. I honestly don't know why! It's like I've been looking at those ASCII characters for so long, they look more like monsters/items/dungeon features than any graphic ever could. I'm not one of those roguelike purists or anything though. I've got a few different tilesets I like to use when I'm not playing Online (which is not that often, Online is my favorite).

There seems to be some sort of connection between Scandinavians and roguelike games.

Haha, you're not the first one to point that out! There was a discussion on rec.games.roguelike.nethack a while back on that phenomenon. I guess Finns just have great taste in games.