[Spoiler]Getting the book of the dead without entering wizard tower
7aboir
the wizard tower, just by throwing mental blasts (#monster while polyed
into a MMF) until locking on Rodney's mind and make him teleport next to
you.
I knew it was theoretically possible to do this from the stairs within the
tower. I did not know it was also possible from outside the tower.
Just saw Maud doing this in the recent 2508 turns ascension on NAO, and
also wiztested it my own to be even more sure...
Still amazing to discover things in Nethack...
tenaya
I have once levelported within the Wizard's tower and landed on the
book. Somehow I displaced him.
However, I have no idea how someone can ascend in 2508 turns...wow.
The minimum number of turns to begin the quest is 2000.
Congratulations to Maud
Tenaya
Natso
Its possible to get the Amulet of Yendor from Moloch's sanctum without
actually getting inside... I did it accidentally. About halfway
through the level, our favorite multi-headed demon lord showed up
(Demogorgon). He teleported right in, grabbed the book, and promptly
teleported right next to me and started wailing on me.
7aboir
news:95fb5fe0-5814-47cf...@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
at least this one is well known and even listed as a spoiler bug (SC343-19)
Paul Lenz
> However, I have no idea how someone can ascend in 2508 turns...wow.
> The minimum number of turns to begin the quest is 2000.
This means, a well-prepared ghost level with lots of tins filled with
Wraiths and Giants would not help to begin the Quest sooner?
Paul Lenz
Janis Papanagnou
I suppose a setup would help. But mind that wraiths cannot be tinned!
So one setup could be a bunch of potions of gain level. Or, generally,
a pudding farm bones level could provide quite anything you need.
And I think, besides the plain experience level, you have to build up
alignment points as well to enter the Quest.
It would be indeed interesting to see how much external help (bones)
and random luck was involved in that game. I'll go to seek that ttyrec;
the last ascension was from 2009-12-20, but there were a couple more
this month, maybe the OP can confirm the date or provide the link.
Janis
Paul Lenz
>> This means, a well-prepared ghost level with lots of tins filled with
>> Wraiths and Giants would not help to begin the Quest sooner?
>
> I suppose a setup would help. But mind that wraiths cannot be tinned!
OK, I never tried. But perhaps an ice box would help as well?
> So one setup could be a bunch of potions of gain level. Or, generally,
> a pudding farm bones level could provide quite anything you need.
> And I think, besides the plain experience level, you have to build up
> alignment points as well to enter the Quest.
Really? I only know of complaints that my level is too low to fight
against the Quest monster.
> It would be indeed interesting to see how much external help (bones)
> and random luck was involved in that game.
Luck is very important. If you meet some soldier ants on the first levels,
your chance is almost zero. Except if you found a ring of levitation.
Paul Lenz
Janis Papanagnou
> "Janis Papanagnou" <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> This means, a well-prepared ghost level with lots of tins filled with
>>> Wraiths and Giants would not help to begin the Quest sooner?
>>
>> I suppose a setup would help. But mind that wraiths cannot be tinned!
>
> OK, I never tried. But perhaps an ice box would help as well?
Or just reverse genocide them freshly.
>> So one setup could be a bunch of potions of gain level. Or, generally,
>> a pudding farm bones level could provide quite anything you need.
>> And I think, besides the plain experience level, you have to build up
>> alignment points as well to enter the Quest.
>
> Really? I only know of complaints that my level is too low to fight
> against the Quest monster.
Yes, really. (I just don't know the exact numbers, or how many turns
that would require.)
Code-quote: /* note: piousness 20 matches MIN_QUEST_ALIGN (quest.h) */
Janis
7aboir
@svr7.m-online.net:
> Paul Lenz wrote:
>> "tenaya" <tenaya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> However, I have no idea how someone can ascend in 2508 turns...wow.
> It would be indeed interesting to see how much external help (bones)
> and random luck was involved in that game. I'll go to seek that ttyrec;
indeed. Bones with SDSM and (0:0) wow in minetown, sac for magicbane in 1
turn (IIRC), then the trick for rodney outside of tower again in one turn,
etc, etc...
Sure luck does not explain everything, but sure again, it helps!
> the last ascension was from 2009-12-20, but there were a couple more
> this month, maybe the OP can confirm the date or provide the link.
http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/Maud/ttyrec/2009-12-20.07:50:42.ttyrec
is the last part of the tty.
you should get the previous one too.
cheers
Derek Ray
Correct. You must have +20 alignment to begin the quest.
Your maximum possible alignment is 10+(turns/200), which gives a hard
limit of 2000 turns before you can possibly have +20 alignment; thus,
you cannot go on the quest until turn 2000, no matter how many other
requirements you bypass before then.
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
Paul Lenz
> Correct. You must have +20 alignment to begin the quest.
No idea how to get and how to check this. But after finding
the luck stone, I am used to #offer as much as possible to
become "extremely lucky" and hopefully also receive
Sunsword or Snickersnee or whatever. I suppose this
gives me more then enough alignment.
Paul Lenz
David Damerell
>"Derek Ray" <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org> wrote:
>>Correct. You must have +20 alignment to begin the quest.
If you are killing monsters normally and not engaging in a prolonged
exercise in alignment-damaging operations _not_ interspersed with normal
kills (eg, you don't go and kill every peaceful in the Mines after already
wiping out the hostiles) you will always be close to the maximum
alignment, and after 2,000 turns, that's enough. Only pacifists,
protection racketeers, and the like have to worry.
There are one or two exceptions. Killing your pet is -15, -18 if you
displace it into a trap to do so, -3 more if you sac the corpse. Killing a
quest friendly is worth 1/8 of the maximum alignment, and there are a lot
available. Killing your quest leader is very bad but not pertinent to the
question of whether you have enough alignment to do the Quest. Same-race
sacrifice is -5 (but why would you do a lot in a row?). Converting is a
big hit but also not pertinent to pre-Quest questions, which knocks out
conversion by unicorn.
So basically, don't try it on after killing your pet or murdering every
quest friendly you can find.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Clown shoes. I hope that doesn't bother you.
Today is First Stilday, December - a weekend.
Tomorrow will be Gorgonzoladay, December - a weekend.
Derek Ray
>
>> Correct. You must have +20 alignment to begin the quest.
>
> No idea how to get and how to check this.
A wand of enlightenment will tell you. You should be "piously aligned",
I believe.
> But after finding
> the luck stone, I am used to #offer as much as possible to
> become "extremely lucky" and hopefully also receive
> Sunsword or Snickersnee or whatever. I suppose this
> gives me more then enough alignment.
Killing cross-aligned monsters will increase your alignment. Killing
co-aligned monsters, peaceful monsters, or always-peacefuls will
decrease it.
For the most part there's no shortage of things trying to eat your face,
so alignment isn't much of an issue in the Dungeons of Doom. :)
Janis Papanagnou
[getting alignment points]
> If you are killing monsters normally and not engaging in a prolonged
> exercise in alignment-damaging operations _not_ interspersed with normal
> kills (eg, you don't go and kill every peaceful in the Mines after already
> wiping out the hostiles) you will always be close to the maximum
> alignment, and after 2,000 turns, that's enough. Only pacifists,
> protection racketeers, and the like have to worry.
How do pacifists usually get their necessary alignment points?
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> ï¿œcrivait news:hgv9dj$ooh$1
> @svr7.m-online.net:
>> Paul Lenz wrote:
>>> "tenaya" <tenaya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> However, I have no idea how someone can ascend in 2508 turns...wow.
>> It would be indeed interesting to see how much external help (bones)
>> and random luck was involved in that game. I'll go to seek that ttyrec;
> indeed. Bones with SDSM and (0:0) wow in minetown, sac for magicbane in 1
> turn (IIRC), then the trick for rodney outside of tower again in one turn,
> etc, etc...
> Sure luck does not explain everything, but sure again, it helps!
(Not only luck, nor skill, as I sadly saw.)
>> the last ascension was from 2009-12-20, but there were a couple more
>> this month, maybe the OP can confirm the date or provide the link.
> http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/Maud/ttyrec/2009-12-20.07:50:42.ttyrec
> is the last part of the tty.
> you should get the previous one too.
> cheers
For the interested folks, here's the first 1000 turns[*]...
level 2 - 4x4 armor shop, 5 magical pieces of armor (boots/50/10/50,
helmet/50, gloves/50), sold CoMR, bought the speed boots
level 3 - 4x9 general store (SoRefl, stethoscope, /poly, =confl, etc.)
sold some items, coaligned altar, water prayer (T:442)
level 2 - back in shop, bought GoP and CoMR, bought magic helmet
level 4 - another armor shop 3x4 (SoRefl), sold random plate mail,
another altar (helm blessed, suspected brilliance)
mines 1 - lit level, not interested in daggers, picked a broad pick
mines 2 - dark, lamp from shop, dig to next level
mines 3 - lit level (another stethoscope, ignored)
mines 4 - minetown, baby silver dragon killed by a death ray from a
wraith, kill wraith, get /Death (T:807), it's a bones level,
poly trap, bones heap from a Ranger (pick up amulet, rings,
wand, scrolls, potions, spellbook, gold, food), and another
bones heap on the temple entrance (coaligned altar), Wizard
bones (SDSM, HoB, CoMR, BoH, candles, magic marker, unihorn,
grease, rings, wands, scrolls, potions, T:846)
At that point he named a couple of items (like an "amulet of
strangulation" and a "wand of digging (0:7)" - no clue where
he had got that information from -, or even "gold detection/
remove curse", or "fire resistance/accuracy" (which seems to
be completely unrelated items), and a couple of other items);
could it be that the player took that information from the
final logs of the previous players? - then the player made a
longer real time break while the contents of the bones' BoH
was displayed, and now I suspect that he looks up those items
in the former log files as well. In the process of naming the
items, he named one wand "wand of wishing (0:0)".
And here I lost interest in this game; a lot of luck initially
(shops with wonderful items, many coaligned altars, a couple of
precious bones files), and something that smells like logfile
lookup cheating.
(Only continued to see when he got his artifact...)
At T:994, after 5 (or so) sacrifices he got the Magicbane.
Maud has 2000+ games on NAO (1200+ quit'ed, ~800 played, 13 ascended).
Janis
[*] The funny detail in the game was that at T:999 he, Maud, tried to
write a scroll of charging and he got:
You don't know how to write that!
You write "Maud was here!" and the scroll disappears."
7aboir
news:hh22mj$ltp$1...@svr7.m-online.net:
> How do pacifists usually get their necessary alignment points?
At least, healers and lawful get +1 when casting heal spell on pets
JoaoSantos
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> écrivaitnews:hh22mj$ltp$1...@svr7.m-online.net:
>
> > How do pacifists usually get their necessary alignment points?
>
> At least, healers and lawful get +1 when casting heal spell on pets
Also, some roles already start with alignment = 10:
Arc (role.c:52)
Bar (role.c:78)
Hea (role.c:129)
Kni (role.c:154)
Mon (role.c:181)
Rog (role.c:235)
Ran (role.c:275)
Sam (role.c:300)
The other roles (Cav, Pri, Tou, Val and wiz) start with alignment = 0
solidsnail
sreservoir
> On 2009-12-24, Paul Lenz<pa...@lenz-online.de> wrote:
>> "Derek Ray"<de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Correct. You must have +20 alignment to begin the quest.
>>
>> No idea how to get and how to check this.
>
> A wand of enlightenment will tell you. You should be "piously aligned",
> I believe.
apply stethoscope to self
Richard Bos
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> �crivait
>
> > How do pacifists usually get their necessary alignment points?
> At least, healers and lawful get +1 when casting heal spell on pets
You can increase your alignment by:
- digging up a grave, if you're an Arc or Sam _and_ chaotic - pre-Quest,
this is only safely possible using a Helm of Opposite Alignment;
- angering a non-coaligned priest without hitting him;
- praying, if not in major trouble, but only for the first two points;
- sacrificing a corpse of your own race (killed by something else,
naturally), if chaotic;
- sacrificing a cross-aligned unicorn (ditto) on a co-aligned altar;
- sacrificing any other valuable kind of corpse, but only if you've been
careless enough to let it drop below zero;
- if I read the code correctly, converting to chaotic, but this is not a
useful option before the Quest;
- paying a priest large amounts of gold - more than 600*XL, and more
than a third of your visible cash;
- freeing a prisoner, but this is only possible _during_ the quest, so
not applicable here;
- genociding a human, if chaotic, or a demon, if lawful (though I'm not
sure if there are genocidable demons);
- stealing, or not paying for shop damage, if you're chaotic;
- repaying an angry shopkeeper, if lawful (but AFAICT this requires you
to have stolen something first, which costs alignment if lawful);
- digging in a shop, if you're a chaotic Knight - again, needs a HoOA;
- untrapping a monster, if lawful, but only occasionally;
- using a poisoned weapon, as a chaotic Sam - requires a HoOA _and_
great care not to kill the monster you hit with it;
- finally, as you write, healing pets, when you're a healer or lawful -
but it also works on peaceful monsters.
I would think that the most feasible of these are getting a vegetarian
pet to kill unicorns for sacrifice and gathering great amounts of gold,
possibly from Fort Ludios. But I never tried a pacifist and don't intend
to - I have enough trouble trying for weaponless monks.
Richard
Bleeko Bleeko
<janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> then the player made a
> longer real time break while the contents of the bones' BoH
> was displayed, and now I suspect that he looks up those items
> in the former log files as well. In the process of naming the
> items, he named one wand "wand of wishing (0:0)".
> And here I lost interest in this game; a lot of luck initially
> (shops with wonderful items, many coaligned altars, a couple of
> precious bones files), and something that smells like logfile
> lookup cheating.
I looked up the ttyrecs when this was first posted and that is the
point where I lost interest as well. Still an amazing turn count,
and some extremely skilled play, but not quite as mind boggling as it
was on first glance.
- Bleeko
Janis Papanagnou
> On Dec 25 2009, 9:24 am, Janis Papanagnou
> <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And here I lost interest in this game; a lot of luck initially
>> (shops with wonderful items, many coaligned altars, a couple of
>> precious bones files), and something that smells like logfile
>> lookup cheating.
>
> I looked up the ttyrecs when this was first posted and that is the
> point where I lost interest as well. Still an amazing turn count,
> and some extremely skilled play, but not quite as mind boggling as it
> was on first glance.
Yes, the player is skilled. Though the turn count is moot; how would
you compare that value - "I cheated faster than you cheated" - or what?
If folks see that value without knowing about the cheat, all the really
impressive fast ascenders - and there are very impressive ones! - are
devaluated; they don't deserve that. Sadly that it's possible at all,
given that public servers[*] generally reduce cheating options. But I
suppose we've to live with that loophole. At least we have the chance,
if only very time-consuming, to detect those cheats as well.
[*] The NAO table "Fastest ascensions" (http://alt.org/nethack/fastasc.html)
lists the player in question 12 times in the top 15 entries of that table.
Janis
Bleeko Bleeko
wrote:
> Bleeko Bleeko wrote:
> > On Dec 25 2009, 9:24 am, Janis Papanagnou
> > <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> [...]
> >> And here I lost interest in this game; a lot of luck initially
> >> (shops with wonderful items, many coaligned altars, a couple of
> >> precious bones files), and something that smells like logfile
> >> lookup cheating.
>
> > I looked up the ttyrecs when this was first posted and that is the
> > point where I lost interest as well. Still an amazing turn count,
> > and some extremely skilled play, but not quite as mind boggling as it
> > was on first glance.
>
> Yes, the player is skilled. Though the turn count is moot; how would
> you compare that value - "I cheated faster than you cheated" - or what?
> If folks see that value without knowing about the cheat, all the really
> impressive fast ascenders - and there are very impressive ones! - are
> devaluated; they don't deserve that.
I agree, which is why I lost interest, but I'm not really sure that
this is cheating in the same sense as savescumming. It is use of
outside knowledge, which is done by pretty much everyone who hits
wikihack while playing a game or price IDs something in a shop.
This just happens to be a particularly extreme version of it.
Regardless, getting a complete ascension kit by turn 850 is not
something you see every day.
- Bleeko
Janis Papanagnou
> On Jan 4, 6:03 pm, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Bleeko Bleeko wrote:
>>> On Dec 25 2009, 9:24 am, Janis Papanagnou
>>> <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> And here I lost interest in this game; a lot of luck initially
>>>> (shops with wonderful items, many coaligned altars, a couple of
>>>> precious bones files), and something that smells like logfile
>>>> lookup cheating.
>>> I looked up the ttyrecs when this was first posted and that is the
>>> point where I lost interest as well. Still an amazing turn count,
>>> and some extremely skilled play, but not quite as mind boggling as it
>>> was on first glance.
>> Yes, the player is skilled. Though the turn count is moot; how would
>> you compare that value - "I cheated faster than you cheated" - or what?
>> If folks see that value without knowing about the cheat, all the really
>> impressive fast ascenders - and there are very impressive ones! - are
>> devaluated; they don't deserve that.
>
> I agree, which is why I lost interest, but I'm not really sure that
> this is cheating in the same sense as savescumming.
Probably. But both of those cheats make it impossible to compare games
on any fair scale. (This is different from the case you outline below.)
> It is use of
> outside knowledge, which is done by pretty much everyone who hits
> wikihack while playing a game or price IDs something in a shop.
Consulting Wiki (or spoilers, or a web service, or ...) for price ID is
of different quality than inspecting the log files where you get the ID
and the number of charges and whatnot. The prices is static information
that can be collected from experience and memorized, while the logfile
information is not. The logfile is *pure* external information that one
cannot derive by any other means.[*]
[*] Well, to be more precise, there's a subset of static information in
early bones; you can derive the class played and therefore its initial
class specific equipment.
> This just happens to be a particularly extreme version of it.
> Regardless, getting a complete ascension kit by turn 850 is not
> something you see every day.
That's right. But that part cannot be summarized under "skill", rather
pure luck with shops/altars/... [still quoted above].
To start a new thought - new to me, may have been posted before - in this
thread...
When I saw the player's behaviour another cheat came to my mind; start a
couple of characters with account names L3, L4, L5, etc., play them until
they reached the level matching their name[**], inspect actual games with
good equipment (lucky find, whatever) but fragile characters, and if they
die continue your account L(i-1) and descend in the hope of the random
bones saving/loading events took/take place.
[**] Mind that you don't need to build them up sophisticatedly, just dig
down quickly, and wait at the down-stairs of their respective level.
Janis
TJR
> - angering a non-coaligned priest without hitting him;
You may perfectly well hit him, provided you survive it. I recommend
casting sleep in him.
> - stealing, or not paying for shop damage, if you're chaotic;
> - repaying an angry shopkeeper, if lawful (but AFAICT this requires you
> to have stolen something first, which costs alignment if lawful);
It's fine to steal a gold piece as chaotic, remove the helm, pay the
shopkeeper, put on the helm and repeat the cycle until you have enough
alignment or the shopkeepers wands run out.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> Yes, the player is skilled. Though the turn count is moot; how would
> you compare that value - "I cheated faster than you cheated" - or what?
> If folks see that value without knowing about the cheat, all the really
> impressive fast ascenders - and there are very impressive ones! - are
> devaluated; they don't deserve that. Sadly that it's possible at all,
> given that public servers[*] generally reduce cheating options. But I
> suppose we've to live with that loophole. At least we have the chance,
> if only very time-consuming, to detect those cheats as well.
>
> [*] The NAO table "Fastest ascensions"
> (http://alt.org/nethack/fastasc.html)
> lists the player in question 12 times in the top 15 entries of that table.
Just watched a game of the other player "nht" who maintains the remaining
top places in the above mentioned list; he seems to do the same cheats as
"Maud". This list isn't worth 2 cents, it seems.
I'd really be interested who from that list was the fastest playing fair.
I seem to recall some reports in RGRN quite some time ago somewhere in the
range of 9-15k. (Exempting the above two players, the next in the list are
VicViper/5538, Laith/5736, ContraDork/9294, Nybes/9971, ...)
Janis
Bleeko Bleeko
wrote:
More specifically, I'd define "playing fair" in this context as
fastest ascension without any bones. Otherwise, it gets to be like
the high score list, which eventually becomes a list of who has the
patience to set up for death farming and precision to get the score
right up to the 32 bit limit. All fun to do, but less interesting
to watch.
- Bleeko
Janis Papanagnou
> On Jan 6, 11:27 am, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I'd really be interested who from that list was the fastest playing fair.
>
> More specifically, I'd define "playing fair" in this context as
> fastest ascension without any bones. Otherwise, it gets to be like
> the high score list, which eventually becomes a list of who has the
> patience to set up for death farming and precision to get the score
> right up to the 32 bit limit. All fun to do, but less interesting
> to watch.
Well, "playing fair" is a fairly vague term anyway. If we try to define
that we have a couple choices; with/without bones, as you say, might be
one, with/without start scumming another one. But it's hard to consider
those huge random differences Nethack games typically show. Early shops
and altars can be an advantage as lucky finds can be. Personally I'd
find it okay if bones are part of such a game, as long as they are not
"constructed" (as mentioned recently) in any way.
Janis
Ray
> Bleeko Bleeko wrote:
>> More specifically, I'd define "playing fair" in this context as
>> fastest ascension without any bones.
> Well, "playing fair" is a fairly vague term anyway. If we try to define
> that we have a couple choices; with/without bones, as you say, might be
> one, with/without start scumming another one.
In this case we have a problem where the players are looking at
the ttyrec of the game that left the bones (itself fairly impressive
since he has to look for a matching map in all ttyrecs with a death
at that level - but in principle you could write a program to
automate the search and do it that way and they may have).
So it looks like if you consider that "cheating" and you want to
stop it, ttyrecs and bones files from the same game shouldn't both
be available at the same time. If a game leaves a bones file on
the public server, then it ought to dump the ttyrec someplace not
publicly accessible, until the equipment from that bones file has
been recovered and identified-or-lost.
Bear
Janis Papanagnou
[...]
> In this case we have a problem where the players are looking at
> the ttyrec of the game that left the bones (itself fairly impressive
> since he has to look for a matching map in all ttyrecs with a death
> at that level - but in principle you could write a program to
> automate the search and do it that way and they may have).
No. They need just look at the end-of-game log file that is stored
for every game. Trivial effort.[*]
Janis
[*] Only non-trivial if the respective died players have inventory
disclosure disabled or if they skipped inventory disclosure at the
end of the game.