[Pkg-nethack-devel] Re: Other nethack options

[Lukas Geyer]

Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:

> On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 11:11:15AM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:

> > hjkl is extremely newbie-unfriendly.
> 
> And? Come on, this is *nethack*. It's the hardest game I know of, bar
> none. You have to learn a pile of keystroke commands when you first
> start up nethack anyway.

Have you tried slashem? Well, it is a nethack variant, so maybe you
included it in the statement, but I would actually say it is harder
than nethack. :)

> Leave the newbie-friendliness to falconseye, which actually stands some
> chance of managing that rather than making a tiny concession in the form
> of number_pad.

I don't like number_pad either, because my main computer is a laptop,
but I don't really care either way.

> > Arrows require the player to manually turn NumLock on.
> > Both things need some action from a first-time user (be it reading the 
> > help files, or finding out NumLock needs to be on).
> 
> How long is a first-time user going to survive without reading the
> keystroke help files anyway?

Funnily, I know some newbies/computer illiterates who like to play
nethack. And they have probably never read the help file, but had
someone explain the keystrokes to them. (Some people seem to get
allergic shock reactions when exposed to manuals...) However, I agree
with Colin that nethack is not intended to be self-explanatory without
the manuals or help files. I like this discussion because I like
nethack, and arguing about best options or ascension equipment. (Do
you wear amulet of life saving or reflection? A crystal ball to detect
the portals on the elemental planes? Do you use cockatrice eggs? ...)
However, I also find this discussion utterly insignificant, as nethack
is only a game and num_pad is really something that can be changed in
a second by the user. It would be slightly more relevant to discuss
what compile-time options to turn on, but then I also leave that to
the discretion of the maintainer(s).

Lukas