On Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 8:53:03 PM UTC-5, CSS Dixieland wrote:
> On Thursday 25 May 2023 at 05:02:02 UTC, Kid Umby wrote:
> > On Wednesday, May 24, 2023 at 7:40:42 PM UTC-4, CSS Dixieland wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 24 May 2023 at 13:56:55 UTC, Yosemite Sam wrote:
> > > > The temple isn't empty. It has an altar to Moloch unless you've converted it.
> > > Yes, Mister Yosemite Sam, I have meant temple and shops 'empty' in the sense that there is no personnel attending the premises. No priest, no shop keepers, and no guards. I hope that readers have correctly understood my words in that sense. Certainly the Orcs have NOT removed the altar, and hopefully various useful items can still be found in Mine Town even after the Orc occupation of the settlement, besides weapons, armour or other items carried by the Orcs themselves or by other enemies that per chance may appear.
> > >
> > > However, as I have mentioned, the only method that I know for entering the streets of Mine Town (apart from walking along the paths approaching the urban area), is the use of potions of acid. A pick, a mattock, an axe, fire, or any other such methods do not work. If You or another player know of a different method than acid, pray be kind to inform.
> > Have you tried applying the pick to not-the-iron-bars specifically? Digging into Orc Town is one of the easiest ways to enter, as opposed to what's apparently been tried - I'm not sure where fire became applicable unless there was a recent commit that lets us burn down solid rock.
> No, Mister Umby, I have not tried digging. Mine Town is normally diggable, and I suppose that the Orc presence have not made it undiggable. Certainly a pick, a mattock, a wand of digging or another similar resource should be capable of making a hole. Not on the floor, because that would only transport me to a lower level of the Mines, but on the wall.
>
> Your idea is EXCELLENT, Sir. Next time, whether I find Mine Town occupied by the fastidious Orcs or I find the normal Mine Town, I shall experiment with digging if I have some resource for doing it, or I shall return once I find a viable resource, unless I happen to be located in other parts of the dungeon far from the Mines. Thanks for the idea, Sir !

It's possible to be overwhelmed at the breach. The hall will be full of orcs just waiting to attack. Still, I sometimes dig an adjacent hole to the first before wielding my Warhammer again.

Am 26.05.23 um 12:52 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:
> On 26.05.2023 09:57, RecRanger wrote:
>> I have intense dislike of Orc Town. It sounds interesting, but is
>> bad for so, so many reasons. What is the worst how it ruins
>> the protection racket, and more specifically pacifists. You play
>> for an hour or two to carefully get down to Minetown with a
>> pacifist and discover orcs. #quit. Not fun.
> I very well understand the frustration, and specifically with the
> Protection Racket. I presume two aspects for introduction of that
> dungeon level variant; variance (a chance for non-reliability of
> certain features) and a style (atmosphere) issue.
>
> Personally I don't do the PR, so I am less concerned in this case.
> But not having a single priest (where you can donate) in the whole
> dungeon is also bad.
>
> There's a couple things that are quite essential in the roguelikes;
> one other thing is having a container for your items. There are
> games where I find a lot of bags (even a lot of bags of holding),
> but in other games not a single sack even until mid-game. Then not
> even having the 50% Sokoban chance but a further reduction to 25%
> (marker/bag) only is also frustrating. At least at some point you
> might get a chance of manufacturing one (e.g. with polymorph) or
> to get a better container (e.g. by upgrading, in some variants).
>
> But lacking temples (or, to a lesser degree, an altar to get some
> artifact) or other dungeon features is something that the game must
> provide (or compensate), you cannot work around it.
>
> Some games cat get quite arduous and stress the fun factor. That's
> part of the game-variant design to sensibly balance availability
> of options and necessities.
Just out of curiosity: Do you know if it is possible to remedy this
situation somehow by wishing (by the guaranteed wand in the Castle)? I
could imagine wishing for a blessed figurine of a (properly aligned)
priest in a forsaken temple. Just a thought; I never had to try
something like this yet…

Benjamin

--
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires.
Seek discipline and find your liberty.
-- Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles

On 01.06.2023 12:24, Benjamin Heiligenbrunner wrote:
> Am 26.05.23 um 12:52 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:
>> [...]
>>
>> But lacking temples (or, to a lesser degree, an altar to get some
>> artifact) or other dungeon features is something that the game must
>> provide (or compensate), you cannot work around it.
>>
>> Some games cat get quite arduous and stress the fun factor. That's
>> part of the game-variant design to sensibly balance availability
>> of options and necessities.
>
> Just out of curiosity: Do you know if it is possible to remedy this
> situation somehow by wishing (by the guaranteed wand in the Castle)? I
> could imagine wishing for a blessed figurine of a (properly aligned)
> priest in a forsaken temple. Just a thought; I never had to try
> something like this yet…

I seem to recall that in _wizard mode_ it had been possible to create
altars, but neither in ordinary games nor in a setup where a coaligned
priest could be appointed to the task to serve a temple. - Interesting
idea, though.

Janis

On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 12:24:19 +0200, Benjamin Heiligenbrunner wrote:

[Protection racket: Priestless mines and main branch]
> Just out of curiosity: Do you know if it is possible to remedy this
> situation somehow by wishing (by the guaranteed wand in the Castle)? I
> could imagine wishing for a blessed figurine of a (properly aligned)
> priest in a forsaken temple. Just a thought; I never had to try
> something like this yet…

Apart from the general problem already discussed by Janis: Just one
level below the castle is the guaranteed temple priest of the Valley
of the Dead. In Vanilla games, this one would be sufficient to buy
protection from.

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

On 01.06.2023 19:10, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 12:24:19 +0200, Benjamin Heiligenbrunner wrote:
>
> [Protection racket: Priestless mines and main branch]
>
> Apart from the general problem already discussed by Janis: Just one
> level below the castle is the guaranteed temple priest of the Valley
> of the Dead. In Vanilla games, this one would be sufficient to buy
> protection from.

I forgot about which variant we're talking here, so bear with me.
In some variants that I played recently it was not be possible to
donate at the Valley temple (Slashem, Hack'EM, EvilHack?, IIRC).

Janis

On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 01.06.2023 19:10, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 12:24:19 +0200, Benjamin Heiligenbrunner wrote:
> >
> > [Protection racket: Priestless mines and main branch]
> >
> > Apart from the general problem already discussed by Janis: Just one
> > level below the castle is the guaranteed temple priest of the Valley
> > of the Dead. In Vanilla games, this one would be sufficient to buy
> > protection from.
> I forgot about which variant we're talking here, so bear with me.
> In some variants that I played recently it was not be possible to
> donate at the Valley temple (Slashem, Hack'EM, EvilHack?, IIRC).
>
> Janis

You cannot in EvilHack. It even angers your god immensely.

Been so long since I've played Slash'EM, I do not recall.

--

On Friday, May 26, 2023 at 2:24:45 PM UTC-5, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 26.05.2023 20:59, RecRanger wrote:
> > [ Chess board game ]
> > Oddly, chess is picking up in popularity exponentially, for some reason..
> > In particular, it has become a new obsession with today's youth.
> Interesting. Do you know whether they prefer it as board-game or per
> computer screen?
>
> I'm not a youngster, by far not, but not long ago myself as well was
> looking for a chess board (but didn't find an adequate one); I wanted
> a good board with a built-in computer. Chess is a game where I want a
> haptic experience, I don't like playing it on a computer display.
> > One of the oldest games on Earth and it still grabs people in. Really
> > tells you something. What seems such a simplistic game is quite the
> > opposite when you begin to dissect it.
> With respect to simplistic games, Go (the board game) is even simpler
> concerning the rules and the figures, notwithstanding considered to be
> extremely demanding; it had been compared to Chess in the past.
>
> Janis

Go is supposedly the oldest board game in existence.

You can't really advance too far in chess without picking up a chess book.

On Sunday 4 June 2023 at 05:49:53 UTC, Yosemite Sam wrote:
> On Friday, May 26, 2023 at 2:24:45 PM UTC-5, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > On 26.05.2023 20:59, RecRanger wrote:
> > > [ Chess board game ]
> > > Oddly, chess is picking up in popularity exponentially, for some reason.
> > > In particular, it has become a new obsession with today's youth.
> > Interesting. Do you know whether they prefer it as board-game or per
> > computer screen?
> >
> > I'm not a youngster, by far not, but not long ago myself as well was
> > looking for a chess board (but didn't find an adequate one); I wanted
> > a good board with a built-in computer. Chess is a game where I want a
> > haptic experience, I don't like playing it on a computer display.
> > > One of the oldest games on Earth and it still grabs people in. Really
> > > tells you something. What seems such a simplistic game is quite the
> > > opposite when you begin to dissect it.
> > With respect to simplistic games, Go (the board game) is even simpler
> > concerning the rules and the figures, notwithstanding considered to be
> > extremely demanding; it had been compared to Chess in the past.
> >
> > Janis
> Go is supposedly the oldest board game in existence.
>
> You can't really advance too far in chess without picking up a chess book..

Yes, the Chinese game Weiqi or Weichi (called Go or Igo in Japan, Baduk or Patuk in Korea) is considered one of the oldest board games still in regular play. There is also the Egyptian Senet, the Mesopotamian Royal Game of Ur, the Scandinavian Hnefa Tafl, and a few others. Which one is the oldest is a matter of conjecture, because the rules as played today are not necessarily the same as the original rules, which in some cases are poorly known, or unknown.
The board of Weiqi is today of 19 x 19 lines, but the original one was of 17 x 17 lines and so is still played in Tibet.

Also European (International) Chess is different from its ancestors, the Indian Chaturanga, Persian Chatrang and Arab Shatranj. It changed since the late Middle Ages, with some rules for competition being modified even in recent years. And yes, becoming a Master in Chess (or in another complex game) means 'standing on the shoulders of giants' by studying the books written and the games played by Masters of yore. Fortunately, much of that is available in Internet.

Pray allow me to present a derivative of Nethack with which I am recently very engaged, for not saying 'addicted' to it:

Gnollhack, dungeon game with impressive graphics and sounds, based on Nethack version 3.6.2

A project begun in 2019 for Linux and other Unics operating systems, as well as Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, and in 2023 ported to Google Android Linux and Apple IOS (IPad, IPhone) tablets and mobile telephones. Game play is similar to that of Nethack version 3.6.2, but Gnollhack includes a new race, the Gnoll, improves the intelligence of pets for following the hero and for not attacking peaceful creatures unless called to do so, and has some other interesting enhancements.

Besides those improvements to game play, an aspect in which Gnollhack stands out is in astounding images and sounds, thousands of them. High quality static and animated images plus sound effects, background music, speech (in English) with various characters such as hermits and shop keepers, and even whole songs in Elfish and English, interpreted by charming female Elves. Voices are not synthetic, they have been recorded by human locutors who interpret their characters credibly.

All that might seem like abusing computer or Internet resources, but it is not so much. In my tablet I have installed Gnollhack for Apple IPad: it needs less than 650 Megabytes of data transmission and storage space, and about 3 Gigabytes of Random Access Memory (or about 2 Gigabytes if disabling sounds), and most important of all: IT CAN BE PLAYED OFF-LINE, without Internet after installation.

Gnollhack is not one of those graphically heavy games that retrieve tons of high resolution dynamic images from a remote server during game play. At the opposite extreme, it is not the venerable Hack or Rogue of the 1980's that could be played from floppy disk. It is somewhere in between, and likely satisfactory for both kinds of players, the modern as well as the traditional one. I am myself of the traditional kind, and I have good news: MOST GRAPHICS CAN BE DISABLED, offering to the player the traditional interface where game characters and objects are represented by textual characters, in the old fashion. The characters can be in traditional ASCII (Code Page 437), or in Unicode UTF-8.

Sounds can be kept with disabled images, or they can also be disabled. The rich flexibility of options that exists in Nethack for game play is reproduced verbatim in Gnollhack, with extra options needed by the images and sounds of Gnollhack if enabled, such as screen refreshment or sound intensity.

I have discovered very few programming errors so far. The 'kick' short cut in stead of kicking moves the character Northwards (because the letter 'k' does that in the traditional Nethack interface when not using number pad), but kicking can be done by the extended command '# kick'). A little difficult is the presentation of the eight arrows for moving the hero or indicating direction (in substitution of the letters 'y u h j k l b n'). The arrows are presented on the touch-sensitive screen of the Apple IPad tablet as a background of the dungeon, visible through partial transparency and perfectly touchable for activating their function, but on a tablet this usually means keeping the arm too high, which after several hours of play is physically exhausting. Besides being dungeon player, one can also become a body-builder. The programmers were probably thinking of mobile telephones more than of tablets, when they decided to present the arrows like that. It would certainly be much easier in a telephone. Anyway, the screen of a tablet is touch-sensitive and can be used for movement or giving direction.

In sum I can affirm that, in my view, Gnollhack is the BEST Nethack derivative for Apple IPad tablets. There is also INethack, and a few other similar games available for IPad in Apple Store or in various other places, but by far Gnollhack superates all the others. Gnollhack is also very well documented:

Short presentation of Gnollhack in the Nethack Wiki:
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/GnollHack

Short presentation of Gnollhack for Android and IOS in Reddit, March 2023:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nethack/comments/11zeg1m/graphical_version_of_gnollhack_is_now_officially/

Gnollhack Wiki, with detailed explanations about many aspects of the game:
https://github.com/hyvanmielenpelit/GnollHack/wiki

Gnollhack Forum available for any one to read, and where members can write:
https://community.soundmindgames.com/forums/gnollhack.18/

Without any downloading, Gnollhack can be tested by playing the text characters interface. Without images or sounds, but the mechanics of the game and most of its options are, of course, the same:

Gnollhack playable in Gnollhack servers via SSH (not via Telnet):

ssh play@eu-server.gnollhack.com (Europe)
ssh play@au-server.gnollhack.com (Australia)
ssh play@us-server.gnollhack.com (North America)

Gnollhack playable in Hardfought servers via SSH (not via Telnet):

ssh nethack@eu.hardfought.org (Europe)
ssh nethack@au.hardfought.org (Australia)
ssh nethack@us.hardfought.org (North America)

Gnollhack is playable as part of the annual Junethack competition, via any of the servers above. So far Gnollhack is one of the LEAST played of all Nethack derivatives in Junethack, simply because it is the newest and the least known by most Nethack players. I am registered as one of the more than two hundred competitors in Junethack 2023, where I am slowly playing Gnollhack at the Hardfought server in Australia. I do not hope to be winner, just to finish my game by 30th June, whatever results.

On 07.06.2023 10:52, CSS Dixieland wrote:
> Pray allow me to present a derivative of Nethack with which
> I am recently very engaged, for not saying 'addicted' to it:
>
> [ infos about Gnollhack ]

There's probably some more to say, but I restrict myself for
now to this emphasized one...

> [...], and most important of all: IT
> CAN BE PLAYED OFF-LINE, without Internet after installation.

Hadn't that been possible for most (if not all) roguelikes?

I recall to have had hack, moria, angband, larn, and nethack
sources on my computers, myself playing Nethack since 3.0.9
locally (switched to NAO (playing NH 3.4.3) only much later).
Then continued playing Slashem once again locally a couple of
years. Only recently again on a public server to try out some
variants.

I would be astonished if I couldn't play a roguelike locally
without Internet.

Janis

On Wednesday 7 June 2023 at 09:22:35 UTC, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 07.06.2023 10:52, CSS Dixieland wrote:
> > Pray allow me to present a derivative of Nethack with which
> > I am recently very engaged, for not saying 'addicted' to it:
> >
> > [ infos about Gnollhack ]
>
> There's probably some more to say, but I restrict myself for
> now to this emphasized one...
>
> > [...], and most important of all: IT
> > CAN BE PLAYED OFF-LINE, without Internet after installation.
> Hadn't that been possible for most (if not all) roguelikes?
>
> I recall to have had hack, moria, angband, larn, and nethack
> sources on my computers, myself playing Nethack since 3.0.9
> locally (switched to NAO (playing NH 3.4.3) only much later).
> Then continued playing Slashem once again locally a couple of
> years. Only recently again on a public server to try out some
> variants.
>
> I would be astonished if I couldn't play a roguelike locally
> without Internet.
>
> Janis

Correct, Mister Janis Papanagnou, as far as I know all dungeon games played by computer can be played off-line. They are inspired on the original Dungeons and Dragons, released by Wizards of the Coast in the 1970's, which was played using a physical board with pieces, cards, dice, and similar accoutrements. However, playing off-line is NOT necessarily the case with modern video games featuring heavy graphics, which need and Internet connection during game play, thus swallowing enormous amounts of band width for data transmission. Anticipating that some of our readers, especially the younger ones, may be thinking in terms of modern video games much more than in terms of venerable computer games such as Rogue, Larn, Hack, Nethack and the others, I have thought it advisable to make clear that Gnollhack follows the old philosophy of playing off-line, without needing Internet at all after installation.

I played Larn, Hack and Nethack version 3.4.3 years ago, using DOS systems in my own computers (initially MS-DOS, later Free-DOS). I play now in the Hardfought server, or also in my Android mobile telephone or my IPad tablet. I have Nethack likewise available in the Knoppix Linux distribution, where it is installed by default. The only recent derivative of Nethack that I have ever played is Gnollhack, I have never tried the others. About twenty are available in Hardfought (including the venerable Hack). Numbers of players devoted to each derivative are very different, Gnollhack being one of the lowest in popularity due to also being the newest. I hope that more Nethackers one day decide to try Gnollhack.

Correction published in the Gnollhack Forum by the creator of Gnollhack, Herre Tommi Gustafsson, regarding the name of the company that released the board game Dungeons and Dragons in 1973:

- - - -

Thanks for the summary of GnollHack. It was a well-written article.

There's a small mistake regarding Dungeons and Dragons. D&D was not released by Wizard of the Coast (which acquired the IP in 1997), but by TSR, Inc. (Tactical Studies Rules), which was founded in 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. More about it here (hyper link).

- - - -

Reply by CSS Dixieland, in the same forum:

- - - -

Thanks for the correct information, Herre Gustafsson. In connection with a recent lawsuit involving Wizards of the Coast I have read a short introduction to how the physical board game of Dungeons and Dragons originated, and would become the main inspiration for Rogue and its derived dungeon games for computer. The introduction mentioned Mister Gary Gygax, but not Tactical Studies Rules.

I assumed, wrongly as it seems, that Wizards of the Coast had been the original publisher. However, the detailed information that You have indicated makes clear that the publisher was Tactical Studies Rules, which after a complicated series of splits, merges, and changes of ownership well explained in that report, would disappear as a separate company, acquired by Wizards of the Coast in 1997.

The report continues that Wizards of the Coast stopped using the trademark Tactical Studies Rules in 2000, with new releases referring only to Wizards of the Coast as the publisher. Hence comes the regrettable confusion. My conjecture is that the old name of 'Tactical Studies Rules' was purposely downplayed, simply not mentioned at all, in a misguided effort of making the lawsuit case stronger.

In spite of such a childish trick, in December 2022 the Court of Justice has ruled that Wizards of the Coast effectively ceased using the name of Tactical Studies Group, not renewing its legal register, and therefore the name does not belong to Wizards of the Coast anymore. Two new companies had begun using the old name, one of them commanded by the son of nothing less than Mister Gygax.

Besides the purely legal considerations, there is also a case of 'political correctness'. Mister Gygax (junior) correctly releases his products with the traditionally DIFFERENT rôles of different races in the game. An Orc does not behave like an Elf, nor does a Dwarf behave like a Human, for example. Their attributes and skills are, necessarily, different at the start of the game and during the game.

That biological reality has led some liberal-minded egalitarians to accuse Mister Gygax of being 'discriminatory', or worse epithets. However, not only such racial differences have ALWAYS been fundamental part of Dungeons and Dragons, Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Gnollhack, and of virtually all their derivatives, they are differences to be expected in games that feature various different races.

Or in any fictional work, such as a book or a cinematographic film. Otherwise even Mister Tolkien could be accused of 'discriminatory'. And in fact, a bunch of liberal cranks have gone as far as that, saying not too kind words of Mister J. R. R. Tolkien and calling him names. A product of the troubled times in which we are living. No one in Mister Tolkien's time would have dare say that about him...

On Saturday, May 20, 2023 at 4:43:22 AM UTC-5, Pat Rankin wrote:
> On Friday, May 19, 2023 at 9:33:03 PM UTC-7, Yosemite Sam wrote:
> > I haven't been playing for awhile because I don't have a numpad.
> > However, I've come up with this - I'm going to remap qweadzxc and
> > use them to move and s will probably be search. Any better ideas?
> How about "learn to use 'hjkl' and 'yubn'"? The HJKL part is
> pretty straightforward and YUBN are positioned diagonally
> around H (approximately, assuming ordinary qwerty keyboard).
> It won't take very long to not need that as a visual reminder
> anymore.

This was successful. I logged in on my other computer with the numpad and it was weird not using hjkl and friends. It's pretty good. I've got lights in my new keyboard and I can play in the dark.

On Sunday, May 21, 2023 at 6:50:21 PM UTC-5, RecRanger wrote:
> On Saturday, May 20, 2023 at 9:47:07 PM UTC-4, nabru wrote:
> > Em 20/05/2023 01:33, Yosemite Sam escreveu:
> > > I haven't been playing for awhile because I don't have a numpad. However, I've come up with this - I'm going to remap qweadzxc and use them to move and s will probably be search. Any better ideas?
> > Just get used to yuhjklbn keys. I was without a numpad for a long time
> > and eventually you get the hang of doing things without it.
> >
> > nabru
> > --
> > nabru | This PIZZA symbolizes
> > | MY COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!!
> > ---------^-----------------------------------
> How does one kick then? Are you limited to <CTRL> k? What if you
> are on a server where one cannot use <CTRL> commands? Is it
> #kick, then?
>
> --

Kick is ^D.