Is it really possible to beat this game without ...
Peter Zuckerman
gotten pretty far, but I think I'm going to give up and see what you
need to do.
G-Mon
difficult even to a well-spoiled player, depending on how the Random
Number Good is feeling any given day.
Matt Frisch
scribed into the ether:
>Yes, it's just exceedingly difficult. Of course, it can be pretty
>difficult even to a well-spoiled player, depending on how the Random
>Number Good is feeling any given day.
I think we can really eliminate the RNG as a major culprit of failed
ascensions, given the consecutive ascension streaks people like Marvin have
piled up.
The RNG can do great bad, but player skill can always overcome it.
David Ploog
> On Wed, 13 May 2009 06:24:05 GMT, "G-Mon" scribed into the ether:
>
>> Yes, it's just exceedingly difficult. Of course, it can be pretty
>> difficult even to a well-spoiled player, depending on how the Random
>> Number Good is feeling any given day.
>
> I think we can really eliminate the RNG as a major culprit of failed
> ascensions, given the consecutive ascension streaks people like Marvin have
> piled up.
As I see it, the point is that heavy spoilerage is needed even for an
unusally mild RNG. Since the OP asked about beating the game without
spoilers, I would say: technically yes, practically no.
An evil RNG will merely hasten the unavoidable (to the unspoiled) death.
David
Doug Freyburger
>
> As I see it, the point is that heavy spoilerage is needed even for an
> unusally mild RNG. Since the OP asked about beating the game without
> spoilers, I would say: technically yes, practically no.
Can a Brahms level sympony be comphosed without studying
a lot of music texts? Yes. It is reasonable to think any one
person can do it? No. Given a large enough population will
it happen? Yes.
Every known serial ascender on NAO is spoiled as far as I
know. There exist spoiled players for who the game is a
solved puzzle. They are the high ascension percentage
players with streaks.
There have been threads about unspoiled play leading to
ascension. When I've read them they look spiled to me just
with some terminology shifted to not match the spoilers.
Okay, I don't think it's really at the level of composing a
Brahms level symphony. Pick a lesser known composer
but one who's good enough to get played by orchestras on
occasion. The Brahms level may have too many orders of
magnitude in it, but Rostakovich? ...
mikek...@googlemail.com
> Is it really possible to beat this game without ...
> ... reading lots of spoilers? I've been trying for years, and I've
> gotten pretty far, but I think I'm going to give up and see what you
> need to do.
No. It is impossible.
David Ploog
> David Ploog <pl...@mi.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>
>> As I see it, the point is that heavy spoilerage is needed even for an
>> unusally mild RNG. Since the OP asked about beating the game without
>> spoilers, I would say: technically yes, practically no.
>
> Can a Brahms level sympony be comphosed without studying
> a lot of music texts? Yes. It is reasonable to think any one
> person can do it? No. Given a large enough population will
> it happen? Yes.
I agree with the first two. I disagree with the last one.
By the one, I think it is likelier for a raw (but completely uneducated)
talent to come up with an opus magnum than a player with only the Nethack
game (and no other sources information) to win. The difference is that
Nethack is intentionally opaque and roundabout. You can listen to music
and music is quite transparent.
> There have been threads about unspoiled play leading to
> ascension. When I've read them they look spiled to me just
> with some terminology shifted to not match the spoilers.
I usually sum it up like this:
(A) An unspoiled player has no chance of winning.
(B) A fully spoiled player can win every game.
Neither of these is literally true, of course. But I think they catch the
(intentional?) design quite well.
David
Link
Does Wizard Mode count as spoilers? It seems like if you spent enough
time in Wizard Mode, then you can make your own spoiler files.
Ross Presser
> Okay, I don't think it's really at the level of composing a
> Brahms level symphony. Pick a lesser known composer
> but one who's good enough to get played by orchestras on
> occasion. The Brahms level may have too many orders of
> magnitude in it, but Rostakovich? ...
How about a "modern" "composer", like Howard Yermish?
>:-) [evil grin for a totally obscure reference. I estimate the chance that another rgrn reader knows Yermish or his work (and doesn't also personally know me) to be lower than the chance of ascending without spoilers]
Doug Freyburger
> (A) An unspoiled player has no chance of winning.
> (B) A fully spoiled player can win every game.
>
> Neither of these is literally true, of course. But I think they catch the
> (intentional?) design quite well.
The (A) half is true to maybe 4-5 decimal places? The error
bar is non-zero but small. Not literally true but quite close
to true. I think even more decimal paces than that because
I think the discussed spoiler-free ascensions sounded to me
like spoiled ascensions where the player substituted different
words to sound unspoiled.
The (B) half could be determined by NAO records. The exitance
of streaks in the range of 20 suggests it might only be true to
one decimal place but the fact that there are hundreds or
thoousands of registered players and under 10 have streaks of
10+ suggests it's true to maybe 2-3 decimal places. Not literally
true as the error bar is much larger.
Ray Kulhanek
> Does Wizard Mode count as spoilers? It seems like if you spent enough
> time in Wizard Mode, then you can make your own spoiler files.
That brings up an interesting point: the information in the existing
spoilers had to come from somewhere. No doubt some of it was from
source diving, but not necessarily all of it. The spoilers on
what corpses give what intrinsics, or price identification, for
example, could easily have been gradually compiled by taking notes
during play.
Janis Papanagnou
So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
Janis
Ray Kulhanek
> So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
> That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
> from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
> ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
Yeah, without a doubt. And other spoilers would be possible to write,
but not as precisely. A non-sourcediver might be able to figure out
how high a weapon can be enchanted safely, for example, but not the
exact probability of vaporization above that. But then, that first
bit is what's really useful to know. So then the question becomes
not, "Is it possible to beat the game without spoilers", but merely
"Is it possible to beat the game without ALL the spoilers". And
that's a lot more likely.
David Ploog
> David Ploog <pl...@mi.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> (A) An unspoiled player has no chance of winning.
>> (B) A fully spoiled player can win every game.
>>
>> Neither of these is literally true, of course. But I think they catch the
>> (intentional?) design quite well.
>
> The (A) half is true to maybe 4-5 decimal places? The error
> bar is non-zero but small. Not literally true but quite close
> to true. I think even more decimal paces than that because
> I think the discussed spoiler-free ascensions sounded to me
> like spoiled ascensions where the player substituted different
> words to sound unspoiled.
I think the same. As discussed elsewhere, you can come up with many
spoilers for yourself (I did this when starting to play Nethack). But if a
new players asks this question, as happened here, it seems more prudent to
say no (as everyone did).
> The (B) half could be determined by NAO records. The exitance
> of streaks in the range of 20 suggests it might only be true to
> one decimal place but the fact that there are hundreds or
> thoousands of registered players and under 10 have streaks of
> 10+ suggests it's true to maybe 2-3 decimal places. Not literally
> true as the error bar is much larger.
Yes, your assessment is valid. I generally use (A) and (B) to explain our
design principles for Crawl (which negates both of them). And I would be
really interested in knowing whether (A) and (B) were planned for.
David
sjde...@yahoo.com
wrote:
I made it to Gehennom with only one spoiler (zl ohqql gbyq zr nobhg
ernqvat fpebyyf bs rapunag nezbe juvyr pbashfrq gb ehfgcebbs vg) that
I didn't use in the game. The game has changed since then--at that
time, I incinerated instantly upon entering Gehennom. Sort of
surprising as a Valkyrie that I was still in an incineratable state.
That character in retrospect was lucky in the equipment she carried; I
hadn't figured out a lot of details, but she'd randomly gotten some
features that I now consider pretty indispensable. Even with that
"stars aligning" kind of luck on equipment and without the
incineration, though, I can't imagine she would have ascended. But I
could see an industrious enough player learning from that death (and
others) and, over enough time, pulling off an ascension.
Patric Mueller
>
> So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
> That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
> from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
> ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
I too think that MC is the most important thing that you need to know
about if your ascension shouldn't just happen out of sheer luck.
Not even in wizmode are you told what your MC status is.
This is rather strange as almost everything else gives feedback or can
be seen in the enlightenment window.
Bye
Patric
--
NetHack-De: NetHack auf Deutsch - http://nethack-de.sourceforge.net/
NetHack for AROS: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nethack-aros/
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
>>That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
>>from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
>>ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
>
> I too think that MC is the most important thing that you need to know
> about if your ascension shouldn't just happen out of sheer luck.
Well, WRT "too"; I wouldn't have meant to say that MC is the most
important thing to know. Rather I think it's quite good try to get
it in the early game, because games often get spoiled by secondary
effects. But at some quite early stage of the game you'll have at
least a MC:2 (with ~66% of safety), probably (in the unspoiled case)
without even knowing, therefore I don't consider it just sheer luck
to ascend, there's an abundance of cloaks early on. So I think it's
more appropriate to say; MC is important to increase the early game
survival rate.
Janis
Patric Mueller
> Patric Mueller wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
>>>That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
>>>from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
>>>ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
>>
>> I too think that MC is the most important thing that you need to know
>> about if your ascension shouldn't just happen out of sheer luck.
>
> Well, WRT "too"; I wouldn't have meant to say that MC is the most
> important thing to know.
Well, I should have phrased it "the most important thing to know about
that you can't really learn in-game".
> Rather I think it's quite good try to get
> it in the early game, because games often get spoiled by secondary
> effects. But at some quite early stage of the game you'll have at
> least a MC:2 (with ~66% of safety), probably (in the unspoiled case)
> without even knowing, therefore I don't consider it just sheer luck
> to ascend, there's an abundance of cloaks early on.
But there aren't any monsters in the early game where MC protects you
from an instadeath. Or am I mistaken?
> So I think it's
> more appropriate to say; MC is important to increase the early game
> survival rate.
Interesting. I would have said MC is important to increase the *late*
game survival rate.
There are more monsters where MC matters and especially more dangerous
monsters in the late game.
If the looming instadeath has a probability of 34% or 2% seems to be
significant enough to most spoiled players if I remember correctly the
past discussions about magic cancellation in this group.
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Rather I think it's quite good try to get
>>it in the early game, because games often get spoiled by secondary
>>effects. But at some quite early stage of the game you'll have at
>>least a MC:2 (with ~66% of safety), probably (in the unspoiled case)
>>without even knowing, therefore I don't consider it just sheer luck
>>to ascend, there's an abundance of cloaks early on.
>
> But there aren't any monsters in the early game where MC protects you
> from an instadeath. Or am I mistaken?
Let me quote from the spoilers... [armr-343.txt]
: Magic cancellation affects the chance of success of the following special
: melee attacks: fire, cold, electricity, sleep, poison, paralysis, level
: drain, lycanthropy, teleport, intrinsic speed stealing (shades and
: skeletons), energy drain, slime, disenchanting, and "sticking to" ("You
: cannot escape from the mimic!" [...]
There's enough stuff to kill you early on, even though I was primarily
aiming at deaths from "secondary effects".
>>So I think it's
>>more appropriate to say; MC is important to increase the early game
>>survival rate.
>
> Interesting. I would have said MC is important to increase the *late*
> game survival rate.
In the mid game you will most certainly "just have" MC (whether you know
about the MC concept or not). So, yes, it's important, but unnecessary to
know. (My wording was probably misleading, sorry.) Let me try to rephrase;
for the ascension stage it's not necessary to be spoiled about MC to win
the game, but for the early game it may be a worthwhile property to focus
on.
Janis
Link
Before I read the MC spoiler, I thought it was a bit strange that some
of my characters never ever turned into werefoo, but I honestly had no
idea this was because the cloak they start the game with blocks them
from getting lycanthropy.
Richard Bos
> Link <chill...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > Does Wizard Mode count as spoilers? It seems like if you spent enough
> > time in Wizard Mode, then you can make your own spoiler files.
>
> I don't think many totally unspoiled people are aware of the wizard mode
> and know how to use it.
I would say that this is only true if you count the guidebook as a
spoiler, which, because it comes with the game, I don't. Ok, it's also
true if you assume that most people are too stupid to read manuals,
which unfortunately is all too likely.
Richard
Kent Paul Dolan
> -- comphosed --
Surely a portmanteau word for "compose hosed"?
xanthian.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
>Random
>Number Good
I always thought of mine as a Random Number Bad.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
Actually, it merely captures the entire demographic, and therefore must
be and has to be true.
It is the best worded declaration of "play requisites" I have ever
seen.
Of course an "unspoiled player" has "a chance" of winning. It just
happens to carry astronomical odds of happening.
And of course a fully spoiled player can win every game, even though the
rules of chaos dictate that even he could easily fail and occasionally
will.
But NetHack is fun for all types of player.
Maybe there should be a SpringBoardHack or something to instruct and
prepare the newbie for The Dungeons of Moria.
I think the nethack engine should be incorporated into a 3-D FPS type
setup.
I played Wolf 3-D the other day. That was weird. I did not recall it
being so bad.
It is all relative.
Capt. Cave Man
<dfre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>The (B) half could be determined by NAO records. The exitance
>of streaks in the range of 20 suggests it might only be true to
>one decimal place but the fact that there are hundreds or
>thoousands of registered players and under 10 have streaks of
>10+ suggests it's true to maybe 2-3 decimal places. Not literally
>true as the error bar is much larger.
Are there any streaks where the player chose a different character type
for each?
Capt. Cave Man
Gentle Giant.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
>Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> > -- comphosed --
>
>Surely a portmanteau word for "compose hosed"?
>
A failed crypto section.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
The spoilers are the result of a gradual compilation of gathered
knowledge from experiences within the game. Then usually proven by
source diving.
Or the other way around... ;-) It's so easy, a cave man can do it.
Ray Kulhanek
> Are there any streaks where the player chose a different character type
> for each?
It took me awhile to track down where I saw the reference, but yes.
marvin has apparently ascended every role in a row, while considering
it "just lucky" and "Nothing to be proud of."
Here's the archived post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread
/thread/a110df96391936f1/
sjde...@yahoo.com
<ItIsSoEasyACaveManCanD...@upyers.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:14:40 -0700 (PDT), Doug Freyburger
>
> >The (B) half could be determined by NAO records. The exitance
> >of streaks in the range of 20 suggests it might only be true to
> >one decimal place but the fact that there are hundreds or
> >thoousands of registered players and under 10 have streaks of
> >10+ suggests it's true to maybe 2-3 decimal places. Not literally
> >true as the error bar is much larger.
>
> Are there any streaks where the player chose a different character type
> for each?
There are certainly streaks of ascending all 13 roles in a row. I
believe there are some with all races and alignments mixed in there in
the process.
I'm not on the level of those guys, but I've done 6 in a row with a
moderately diverse set of roles (Wizard, Ranger, Rogue, Archaeologist,
Barbarian, Samurai) before losing a priest to an ant in a stupid,
completely avoidable death.
Corey
Re: Re: Is it really possible to beat this game without ...
By: sjde...@yahoo.com to rec.games.roguelike.nethack on Sat May 16 2009 01:24 pm
I even have a mod in my nethack 343 where I can also play as a monster too.
Geoffrey Eadon
bf2c-549...@h23g2000vbc.googlegroups.com:
> ... reading lots of spoilers? I've been trying for years, and I've
> gotten pretty far, but I think I'm going to give up and see what you
> need to do.
I had a friend back on college (maybe 8 years ago) who treated Nethack like
a big puzzle to be figured out, and using that approach was able to get the
amulet, mostly by testing EVERYTHING in wizmode first. Every time he was
going to try something new he would test it in wizmode. It made for very
slow progress in his games, and I'm willing to bet that his notes (about 80
pages worth!) would represent a fairly good set of spoilers to the total
newbie, he was even able to get the basics of some of the "hidden" effects.
However my first question to you if you're trying to remain unspoiled would
be: Have you used the oracle much? It has some good advice.
G-Mon
wrote in news:h4gt05lk7333htcnj...@4ax.com:
Typo. Didn't notice until the next day. Should be obvious what I
intended, though.
mikek...@googlemail.com
<ItIsSoEasyACaveManCanD...@upyers.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 May 2009 13:14:40 -0700 (PDT), Doug Freyburger
>
> >The (B) half could be determined by NAO records. The exitance
> >of streaks in the range of 20 suggests it might only be true to
> >one decimal place but the fact that there are hundreds or
> >thoousands of registered players and under 10 have streaks of
> >10+ suggests it's true to maybe 2-3 decimal places. Not literally
> >true as the error bar is much larger.
>
> Are there any streaks where the player chose a different character type
> for each?
Certainly:
http://alt.org/nethack/ascstreak.html
http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=Adeon
http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=ekiM
http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=mrivan
I was one win off having 2 of each role in the streak. :\ Floating
eyes are tuff.
Abbey Somebody
His method would not have been like a puzzle. More like documented
trial and error. Nice exercise though.
Those notes would be cool to see though, except for any changes to the
program since that would invalidate some of them.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
I was just making a joke. I've had many favorable 'rolls' as well.
Capt. Cave Man
wrote:
You got nailed by a trance you were put in by a floating eye? :-)
Tee Hee Hee.. My streak length is zero, but I have been similarly nailed.
Hahaha... he said "nailed"...
G-Mon
<ItIsSoEasyAC...@upyers.org> wrote in
news:di9015p8tp5pqdoof...@4ax.com:
I think we've all had that happen at least once. And it's such an
avoidable YASD, too.
> Hahaha... he said "nailed"...
Har dee har har. :|
G-Mon
<ItIsSoEasyAC...@upyers.org> wrote in
news:sg9015d1ut25sm6h6...@4ax.com:
I know. I have, too (two early-game /oW's, for one. Would've been
even better if I had made it out of the early game....).
Richard Bos
> There are certainly streaks of ascending all 13 roles in a row. I
> believe there are some with all races and alignments mixed in there in
> the process.
The first one, possibly; the last one, I can guarantee. If you've
ascended Rogue, Samurai and Tourist, you _must_ have done Chaotic,
Lawful and Neutral as well.
Richard
Derek Ray
Unless you have made use of the Helm of Opposite Alignment to save time
on Astral; the standard logfile tracks _ending_ alignment, not starting.
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
Doug Freyburger
> Geoffrey Eadon wrote:
>
> >However my first question to you if you're trying to remain unspoiled would
> >be: Have you used the oracle much? It has some good advice.
>
> His method would not have been like a puzzle. More like documented
> trial and error. Nice exercise though.
>
> Those notes would be cool to see though, except for any changes to the
> program since that would invalidate some of them.
I once tried to beat "advent" aka zork that way. I ended up with
a map of every room in the dungeon, charts of the two mazes,
a sequence that got me all of the treasures. I ended up ONE
point short of a perfect score.
That's when I resorted to source diving to figure out what that
last point was and how to get it. By that time I had come to
understand that Advent didn't use a random number generator.
It was all state tables and deterministic behavior. I scripted
moves up to one point below perfect, watched it run through
the game, and started experimenting on how to survive once
getting that last point. I eventually had a file that had all of
the moves of a perfect game in it. Watch it run once, done
playing that game, move on to rogue ...
Ross Presser
>
> I once tried to beat "advent" aka zork that way. I ended up with
There's a big difference between "advent" and zork. Almost as big as
between Rogue and Nethack.
Ray Kulhanek
YANI: A large green snake should block your path into Gehennom, and
engraving xyzzy with a wand of teleportation should levelport to
dlvl1. :-)
David Damerell
>That brings up an interesting point: the information in the existing
>spoilers had to come from somewhere. No doubt some of it was from
>source diving, but not necessarily all of it.
I do not believe that any significant proportion of the information in the
current spoilers was not checked by source diving.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Gouday, May.
David Damerell
>So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
>That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
>from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
>ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
I think you could easily conclude that something makes you (nearly) immune
to certain effects, and deduce the identity of some MC3 items.
Doug Freyburger
> Quoting Ray Kulhanek <kulhane...@wright.edu>:
>
> >That brings up an interesting point: the information in the existing
> >spoilers had to come from somewhere. No doubt some of it was from
> >source diving, but not necessarily all of it.
>
> I do not believe that any significant proportion of the information in the
> current spoilers was not checked by source diving.
The relationship between discovering something by game
play and by source diving can work in either direction.
I've written a few spoilers based on source diving. An
obsolete on on prayer, one on fine tuning luck and how to
use it when altar camping, identifying gems without a scroll
or spell. I've used and confirmed them in actual game play.
There have been posts about game play events that I've
looked up in the sources to figure out.
For any one spoiler to be found there's often no guarantee
which order it used to evolve to its current state. There are
some in tabular form where it's clear the starting point was
source, but not a one that I've ever seen hasn't been
confirmed in game play.
Janis Papanagnou
> Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>
>>So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
>>That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
>>from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
>>ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
>
> I think you could easily conclude that something makes you (nearly) immune
> to certain effects, and deduce the identity of some MC3 items.
"easily"? - well, not me - not even close. YMMV.
I don't think I'd ever noticed even if I were looking for some
"unknown force". How should I be able to distinguish the effects
compared to a random effect? Sure it's possible in theory, if my
working hypothesis is; "There's a new effect [say, lycanthropy],
now let's make tests whether it's caused by some item wielded or
worn, or something you ate, or whether it's just a random event,
or depending on an item in addition to some random factor.". That
would require infinite patience and make self-experiments (with a
character that can afford it) to get bitten and bitten (without
dying), constantly curing and healing the character to get some
reliable data, while changing gear, and parameters, and whatnot.
Just by ad-hoc suspicion that it might be tool-related. Now if I
consider another "unknown force", say whether the prayer timeout
is depending on some tool; it is unthinkable for me (as with MC)
to make tests in practise to verify or disprove any relation with
a tool or any other factor.
Mind that I've written "hardly" in the quoted passage; that word
exactly defines the difference between some theoretic possibility
and practical usefulness.
Have you got aware of MC without spoilers, David? (My respect!)
How about the other (unspoiled) players in the RGRN audience?
Janis
David Damerell
>David Damerell wrote:
>>Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>>>So spoilers could be seen as shortcut to cut down the exploration time.
>>>That said, I think there are spoilers that can only hardly be derived
>>>from game experience. What I'm thinking of is MC; at least I wouldn't
>>>ever have got aware of that (cannot speak for other folks).
>>I think you could easily conclude that something makes you (nearly) immune
>>to certain effects, and deduce the identity of some MC3 items.
>"easily"? - well, not me - not even close. YMMV.
I think we may simply be quibbling over the definition of "easily". I mean
that I would expect the sort of unspoiled player who might ascend
unspoiled - someone who is constantly alert and inquisitive - to, sooner
or later, notice that they had a bad encounter with a bunch of (say)
vampires, expected to (say) lose a bunch of levels, and didn't. It's not
an effect you'd have to specifically mount the kind of research programme
you suggest to spot - you'd just notice that sometimes you seem to be
nearly immune to certain effects and at other times you are more
vulnerable. Some of the weaker MC effects have a good enough chance of
going off that at MC0 you are unlikely to avoid them just by dumb luck.
>Have you got aware of MC without spoilers, David? (My respect!)
I have always been a spoiled player. This is pure speculation.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Chedday, May.
Rast
> There have been threads about unspoiled play leading to
> ascension. When I've read them they look spiled to me just
> with some terminology shifted to not match the spoilers.
That has been my impression as well.
--
"Sometimes I stand by the door and look into the darkness. Then I
am reminded how dearly I cherish my boredom, and what a precious
commodity is so much misery." -- Jack Vance
James Of Tucson
> ... reading lots of spoilers? I've been trying for years, and I've
> gotten pretty far, but I think I'm going to give up and see what you
> need to do.
In the past, people have brought up concrete examples of things that
"can only be learned from spoilers", when those very things I myself
learned before I had access to spoilers. I don't think there's any
one single thing you can point to and say a player would never learn,
although I'd be willing to admit that explore mode is necessary.
Dan
> although I'd be willing to admit that explore mode is necessary.
I only just started playing with explore mode, so only recently came
to realize this. I always knew it was there, but foolishly thought
myself some sort of purist for not using it.
I also read the wiki, but I've convinced myself it's only "as needed"
because I still like the surprise of encountering new things in the
game. Eventually I'll get tired of dying all the time (I'm being
chased by a Tiger in my current explore mode game).
-Dan
Dan
> (There are no tigers in vanilla Nethack.)
I'm playing Qt Nethack v 3.4.3. I didn't realize it was different
content-wise, just thought it was Nethack with tile graphics.
Anything significantly different (are tigers significant)?
-Dan
micromoog
No, nothing's different. And vanilla does have tigers.
James Of Tucson
wrote:
> Dan <drduj...@gmail.com> writes:
> > game. Eventually I'll get tired of dying all the time (I'm being
> > chased by a Tiger in my current explore mode game).
>
> (There are no tigers in vanilla Nethack.)
3.4.3 0 0 1 1 -3 16 1 20090710 20090710 503 Cav Hum Fem Law
Nesta,killed by a tiger
James Of Tucson
wrote:
> Yeah, I remembered wrong. Admitted.
> A few seconds after posting I realized that and cancelled my posting.
> But there are news servers that don't honor cancels, and the one you use
> is apparently one of them.
Google Groups, the only "news server" left to me.
How I miss the old days when I had my own NNTP feed.
Kent Paul Dolan
> How I miss the old days when I had my own NNTP
> feed.
There are several free ones. I use must-register
site reader.albasani.net as my usual NNTP feed, with
no-registration-required site nntp.aioe.org as a
backup, and Thunderbird is more than adequate as a
News client, though IIUC older non-GUI stuff like
strn and pine will also work.
FWIW.
xanthian.
I cannot manage to keep the _secure_ NNTP feed at
news.albasani.net working for me reliably, though,
so I stick to the ordinary one. The sysop at
albasani tells me that there is a known
incompatibility between Thunderbird and secure NNTP,
and neither software provider is doing anything to
fix it.
Richard Bos
> On Jul 11, 12:32=A0am, Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjd...@hotmail.com.invalid>
>
> > A few seconds after posting I realized that and cancelled my posting.
> > But there are news servers that don't honor cancels, and the one you use
> > is apparently one of them.
Most of them don't. There are good practical reasons for this.
> Google Groups, the only "news server" left to me.
How about eternal-september (used to be motzarella) or individual.net?
Richard
Archimedes' Lever
wrote:
I can't believe that Jukka even said that. Must have been a brain
fart. Do dungeon dwellers have brains... or farts?
Archimedes' Lever
<jtfj...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>James Of Tucson <james0...@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Jul 10, 1:17�pm, Jukka Lahtinen <jtfjd...@hotmail.com.invalid>
>> > Dan <drduj...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > > game. �Eventually I'll get tired of dying all the time (I'm being
>> > > chased by a Tiger in my current explore mode game).
>
>> > Which variant are you playing?
>> > (There are no tigers in vanilla Nethack.)
>
>> 3.4.3 0 0 1 1 -3 16 1 20090710 20090710 503 Cav Hum Fem Law
>> Nesta,killed by a tiger
>
>Yeah, I remembered wrong. Admitted.
>A few seconds after posting I realized that and cancelled my posting.
>But there are news servers that don't honor cancels, and the one you use
>is apparently one of them.
No, it just takes some time for the cancels to go through.
I never saw one though, so you likely posted the cancel massage
incorrectly as well.
James Of Tucson
> James Of Tucson wrote:
>
> > How I miss the old days when I had my own NNTP
> > feed.
>
> There are several free ones.
Yes, but none that actually work better than Google Groups, that I've
found.
When I say "I had my own NNTP feed", I mean I was a lead sysadmin at
NetCom.
I had the power to kill spammers and trolls for millions of readers,
and often did.
Drowning Not Waving Goodbye
>> =A0> feed.
>>
>> There are several free ones.
>
>Yes, but none that actually work better than Google Groups, that I've
>found.
>
>When I say "I had my own NNTP feed", I mean I was a lead sysadmin at
>NetCom.
>I had the power to kill spammers and trolls for millions of readers,
>and often did.
nawwwwwwwwwww ......... a guy who had his own NNTP feed with the power of
life and death over Netnews using google groups?
well that's just wrong
get your stuff over to eternal-september.org, fire up trn again and get
plenty of rest in bed.
hth
--
Tom Evans Master of Puppets
DENSA Life Achievement � Am I the only one in here with half a brain?
James Of Tucson
Goodbye) wrote:
> In article <8b55cecb-0025-49cd-bf02-7194effb8...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> James Of Tucson <james0tuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Jul 13, 6:09=A0pm, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
> >> James Of Tucson wrote:
>
> >> =A0> How I miss the old days when I had my own NNTP
> >> =A0> feed.
>
> >> There are several free ones.
>
> >Yes, but none that actually work better than Google Groups, that I've
> >found.
>
> >When I say "I had my own NNTP feed", I mean I was a lead sysadmin at
> >NetCom.
> >I had the power to kill spammers and trolls for millions of readers,
> >and often did.
>
> nawwwwwwwwwww ......... a guy who had his own NNTP feed with the power of
> life and death over Netnews using google groups?
>
> well that's just wrong
Yes, it is. I was in academia for a few years where I refused to
lower myself to sysadmin work,
and today I'm in a kind of aerospace development that doesn't operate
its own network. The nntp service of my residential link just annoys
me, but I refuse to pay money for anything else.
Drowning Not Waving Goodbye
>Goodbye) wrote:
>> In article <8b55cecb-0025-49cd-bf02-7194effb8...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.=
>com>,
>> James Of Tucson =A0<james0tuc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Jul 13, 6:09=3DA0pm, Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>> >> James Of Tucson wrote:
>>
>> >> =3DA0> feed.
>>
>> >> There are several free ones.
>>
>> >Yes, but none that actually work better than Google Groups, that I've
>> >found.
>>
>> >When I say "I had my own NNTP feed", I mean I was a lead sysadmin at
>> >NetCom.
>> >I had the power to kill spammers and trolls for millions of readers,
>> >and often did.
>>
>> nawwwwwwwwwww ......... a guy who had his own NNTP feed with the power of
>> life and death over Netnews using google groups?
>>
>> well that's just wrong
>
>Yes, it is. I was in academia for a few years where I refused to
>lower myself to sysadmin work,
>and today I'm in a kind of aerospace development that doesn't operate
>its own network. The nntp service of my residential link just annoys
>me, but I refuse to pay money for anything else.
still say it'd be easier to do news with Thunderbird if you
wrench it up to slurp news from eternal-september.org than
wading the mess at google groups.
or
since you likely have some experience on a unix box there must still be
"freenet" shells available somewhere. PuTTy is still a free telnet/ssh
client...fire up trn or tin and put the peddle to the metal.
yep trn is more complex than the underlying formula to DNA
but it's killfile properties work like a duck on a junebug.
ha...@eyry.org
>> There are several free ones.
>
>Yes, but none that actually work better than Google Groups, that I've
>found.
Deja News ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Google Groups finally works with rn? Cool!
hawk