Poll

What is your favourite major roguelike?

Nethack
Linley's Dungeon Crawl
Angband
ADOM

Author Topic: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)  (Read 60978 times)

Adral

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Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« on: June 08, 2007, 07:51:37 AM »
What is your favourite major roguelike? I am not talking about newborn ones, but the grand ones of the genre. Please vote and, if you do not mind, specify which one you did vote and why ;)

For my vote, I love them all, but ADOM is the game that actually got me started on roguelikes at all, so my vote goes for it. Yeah, nostalgia... ;)
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myd

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2007, 10:38:08 AM »
Definitly Dungeon Crawl. It doesn't stray too far from the pure formula of Rogue but somehow manages to add tons of features anyway.

ADOM follows very close, but it doesn't have the same high replay value for me.

Anvilfolk

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2007, 12:03:40 PM »
I used to be a huge nethack fan, but now I prefer ADOM. I'm a big fan of skill-based systems, and while ADOM doesn't adopt that system to 100%, it still uses it a lot more than nethack. Also, I hate the linux version of nethack, stupid hjkl keys.

I never really got into dungeon crawl. The linux version also uses hjkl, I think. It seemed a bit too miscellaneous. Too many races, too many choices - do they really add something difference, or are they just content galore, a matter of personal preference?
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Slash

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2007, 01:01:16 PM »
From my personal experience: AdoM; it is what got me into the genre.

NetHack is too chaotic, Angband is grindy...

And about Crawl, I played it *ages* ago, and have lately heard many good things about it, I guess I must give it a try ;)

Adral

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2007, 01:04:03 PM »
I used to be a huge nethack fan, but now I prefer ADOM. I'm a big fan of skill-based systems, and while ADOM doesn't adopt that system to 100%, it still uses it a lot more than nethack. Also, I hate the linux version of nethack, stupid hjkl keys.
Add OPTIONS=number_pad:1 into your .nethackrc file in your home/ folder. Remember, a session of RTFM always helps :P (this is documented in the Nethack Guidebook and in the options help). Alternatively, edit the options in-game and choose number_pad 1, but this will not make it permanent.

I never really got into dungeon crawl. The linux version also uses hjkl, I think. It seemed a bit too miscellaneous. Too many races, too many choices - do they really add something difference, or are they just content galore, a matter of personal preference?
It does not require the use of hjkl keys. Maybe you need Stone Soup instead of Linley's, though (which is at version 0.2.6 at the moment), but I *can* play with number pad. Just remember to keep your num lock button on ;)

Races do add a lot, more than character classes, in Crawl. A race determines your improvement rate with all skills, as well as the attribute advancement tree. Classes determine only your starting skills and attributes. Also, some races have special powers which further distinguish them. I suggest you look for some spoilers regarding races for the latest version of Crawl so you see what are those differences.

Also, maybe you want to check the akrasiac server to play Crawl online.
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Anvilfolk

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2007, 01:16:00 PM »
Ah, interesting. I should say I'm always on a laptop though, so do those keypad things work with the arrows (and Home, PgUp, PgDn and End) ? I believe I might have tried that, but I think I'd remember if it had worked. I might be wrong though.

What annoys me is the lack of configuration for something as simple as keyboard input. There was some roguelike in python I tried some time ago, and you didn't really need to configure it, since you could just as well dive into the code and add a few keys to some lists. I think it might've been Hive Awakening. C++ roguelikes could easilly incorporate a "change keys" feature, or read keycodes from a configuration file.
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Adral

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2007, 01:20:02 PM »
Ah, interesting. I should say I'm always on a laptop though, so do those keypad things work with the arrows (and Home, PgUp, PgDn and End) ? I believe I might have tried that, but I think I'd remember if it had worked. I might be wrong though.

I just checked that, and you are right - it supports "proper" number pad, but not the arrow keys :-/

And I agree that a key configuration file is always nice ;)
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Lavastine

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2007, 09:30:15 PM »
I have to say, that of these four Crawl is my favorite. I like that it feels faster paced than nethack, without being super grindy like Angband, and as a plus, its still being actively developed, with a pretty quick release cycle(though I'm sure that there will eventually be a new version of NetHack and Angband).

Karry

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2007, 09:04:40 AM »
ADoM for me, i am an active CRAWL hater, i mean, every game is pretty much the same, there is very little variety, ugly dungeon generator, classes are meaningless, and the amount of key presses needed to kill one bat...and there are way many bats. Okay, bats are hard to hit, i get it already,  just die now, arrrgh ! The only good thing in CRAWL is auto-explore, very comfy. Why so many lemmings...i mean people spam about CRAWL everywhere they can all day long is beyond my understanding.

Adral

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2007, 04:30:50 PM »
ADoM for me, i am an active CRAWL hater, i mean, every game is pretty much the same, there is very little variety, ugly dungeon generator, classes are meaningless, and the amount of key presses needed to kill one bat...and there are way many bats. Okay, bats are hard to hit, i get it already,  just die now, arrrgh ! The only good thing in CRAWL is auto-explore, very comfy. Why so many lemmings...i mean people spam about CRAWL everywhere they can all day long is beyond my understanding.

And I cannot understand why you keep spamming even more your hatred towards the game everywhere. Nobody is forcing you to play it... Just ignore everything Crawl-related and do not start telling *opinions* (which are different than facts) about the game. Talk about how much you love ADoM, for example, and ignore the Crawl discussions, and everybody'll be happy ;)
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Tarindel

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2007, 11:22:08 PM »
Crawl gets my vote.  It's got the best balance between functionality and randomness, imo.  I'd put ADOM second, just barely behind Crawl.  Nethack 3rd, and Angband 4th.  They're all fun though!

kazookazoo

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2007, 07:26:28 AM »
ADoM for me.  Even after 9 years playing it and finishing it once, I'm still not good enough at it for it to get too repetitive.

I've sunk a lot of time into Crawl as well but I just find it too frustrating, personally.

I still get the 'WTF' face when I tell people my game gets deleted if my character dies.

Anvilfolk

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2007, 11:29:56 AM »
Heheheh!

In view of all the votes that have been put here, I've decided to give Stone Soup a try. I obviously still suck at it, I've only played around a dozen games. Trying a magic-user, I've found I die really, really often because first-level spells really don't do much damage at all. The only way I got a little further was by using a Mountain Dwarf Earth Elementalist to get initial spells, and then just bash at the enemies. However, whenever I put some heavier armour, all the spells fizzle (kinda like nethack).

I also found I quite like the experience system though. It's really interesting. However, it suffers from the thing that annoys me the most: quadratic experience requirement curve - like in a lot of games really. This way, in later stages, the feel of your character becoming more powerful is greatly reduced, as you have to play a whole lot to get another single level in a single skill.

Also, the god system is actually quite nice, though a little more active participation by some would be really interesting. I think POWDER has a bit of this.

Anyway, apart from that, those evil Ogres usually get me. And I've never gotten past the Orc Warrior.

Speaking of which, more experienced players should start a topic referring to their game-of-choice, and give us newbies tips&tricks. I'm the kind of guy that plays a lot. Of the first few levels. I never really get anywhere. That's true for nethack, ADOM, and Crawl so far. I might just be missing on a few things, I dunno.

What really works for me as a fighter in ADOM, for example, is shield+spear combo. The DV rockets sky-high if you get proficient at them. That's one tip. But it should be on a separate topic. :)


--- edit ---

Oh, how could I forget! Ctrl-O, I don't have to bother exploring the dungeon, I can focus on the fighting! Excellent! Really, really nice feature, and shouldn't be all that hard to implement either. Especially because those are really horrible dungeons, I don't like their shape. Helps a lot!
« Last Edit: June 19, 2007, 11:38:01 AM by Anvilfolk »
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Z

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #13 on: July 02, 2007, 05:20:50 PM »
Funny how there are no votes for Angband or Nethack. Maybe we should vote for our second favourite Major roguelike?

Anvilfolk

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Re: Vote for your favourite Major roguelike ;)
« Reply #14 on: July 02, 2007, 07:36:54 PM »
I've recently tried Angband (or one of the variants or something) and hated it. If anyone could point out it's finer parts, maybe I might enjoy it. The maps I ran across were absolutely horrible.
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