Geo, it's about solving the puzzles. You have to be a very 'verbal' person to like nethack or the other 'rogue-like' games because they're about word-magic, and that requires thinking. Eating the corpses of monsters often gives you powers that the monsters had, for example, but sometimes it has bad effects, too. Half the fun of the game is seeing 'what happens if...' you eat a certain item, or wear a certain combination of items. As Puke says, you can wield a cockatrice corpse as a weapon. This is called the 'rubber chicken' attack, btw.
The elaborate 'ritual' required to open the final level and get at the Wizard is amazing. I
never would have figured it out myself. Had to read a spoiler file.
The other half of the fun is how unbelievably smart the monsters are. I once killed a cockatrice and did NOT pick up the corpse, then ran around a corner to avoid another 'monster' (a human guard of some sort) while I healed. The guard
picked up the corpse (he had gloves obviously) and tried to use it against me! I've had incredible battles with demon lords too, where he/she/it used every trick you'd expect a player to use and we wiped out entire levels of the dungeon before I finally got him/her/it. Sometimes I had to go back for healing/replenishment of resources several times before winning the battle with that one 'monster'. If the AI in SE IV was a fraction as smart as the nethack AI we'd all be begging for mercy, not whining about how bad it is.
[ July 24, 2002, 20:23: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]
Re: malfador-off topic
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