Thangorodrim and Angband
Since Rob has been posting topics about gaming diversions in between our SABG sessions, I thought I'd recommend anonther:
Thangorodrim - The Angband Page
If you enjoy Descent, this game is pretty much the same thing, though you're on your own. I enjoy the Tolkien theme to the game as well. Best of all, its totally free.
posted by Ben @ 9:58 AM
20 comments
20 Comments:
Angband is excellent. The premise is simple: kill monsters, buff yourself up with the stuff you find, go deeper into the dungeon, become more buff, lather, rinse, repeat...eventually slay the ultimate evil. The attraction of the game rises from the fact that every dungeon level you visit is randomly generated - you'll never visit the same level twice (so leaving stuff lying on the ground with the plans of coming back to pick it up later doesn't work out). Plus, the variety of objects, treasures, and monsters to be discovered is immense.
For those of you who've joined us since March 2006, we've visited this topic before:
http://saboardgamers.blogspot.com/
2006/03/too-bad-there-is-no-
wwwallgamegeekcom.html
Yes, I remember the link.
An Ben, I just do my part to keep the site alive. It's been quiet lately.
And a little off topic (can't seem to be able to add to the calendar the update), but I will be showing up on Monday at 5pm (til 7:30pm
that is some good news Rob, I think I forgot what you look like.
YEs, it's nice looking forward to swinging by.
I'd never dare attempt to take the original "mysterious gamer" title (from Ted).
I'm more of a Nethack guy, myself.
Neckhack: where hijacking control of the Adam's apple is considered a finishing blow!
Simon: ? (hehe)
Brian: Is there an online nethack game?
Ah, you deleted your comment. Now mine makes no sense.
www.nethack.org
S: what me guilty?
B: thanks. Will give it a look.
B: Oooops. It looks like I got confused (and not only between net and neck). I thought you were talking about the anime series .HACK which has a CCG.
When it comes to computer RPG's, I need the pretty colors and 3d graphics. That means...World of Warcraft, Morrowind series, etc...
Rob: Have you tried the latest Morrowind? It looks pretty sweet, but I'd have to give up WoW to make time to play it. I'm still playing on Scarlet Crusade server, alternating between a Priest and a Mage. It really seems to help having all your guys on the same server where you can have them craft stuff for each other.
The beauty of Angand is its cost (i.e., free), low footprint, and speed. With WoW or similar games, I think you need at least a solid hour to immerse yourself in the world. With Angband, you can just zip through a few levels while you're checking e-mails.
What's the deepest anyone has made it in Angband? I've only gotten my best guy down to about level 15, when he ran into an endlessly respawning horde of flaming red worm masses. My high elf ranger became like a little skinny breadstick in a bowl of flaming spaghetti!
I think the high-elf ranger I was save-file cheating with in grad school made it down to level 55. My current character is on level 35(?) and can't find decent footwear.
Well, I cancelled my WoW account some weeks ago, and haven't tried to get into any other RPG. I've heard great things about Morrow wind though.
Jeff: how do you save-file cheat?
Level 35 is impressive. Last night I started up a new character, thinking, "Okay, this is the guy that's going to make it all the way." Five levels later my half-orc warrior was eaten by Farmer Maggot's Dog.
Save -file cheating is simply keeping a backup copy of your character file someplace so that if something nasty happens suddenly and you perish ("The sorcerer summons help! The Ancient Green Dragon breathes poison. The Mature Bronze Dragon dies. You die. You are poisoned.") you can reload from that last save (like with most computer and video games). Many people who frequented rec.games.roguelike.angband back in the day considered avoiding death in this manner cheating. I do not, but out of habit I still use the term to describe the practice. The game is long and difficult enough without having to worry about losing a year's work just by stumbling onto a monster you aren't quite ready to face. You have to learn which monsters have the nasty types of attacks (like ghouls), which ones you should just simply avoid (like red jellies), and which ones you should pack special gear for (like giant lice). You can't learn this stuff without spending lots of time delving deeply into the dungeon. I'm not about to play for six weeks so that I can say "Ah. That's what a Nether Hound does. Time to start a new character."
The game is very hard core, which I actually kind of like. Imagine what WoW would be like if death was permanent, and you'll have the idea. Death being permanent adds a significant amount of tension to the game.
Now, since the deepest any character I have had has gotten is level 15, having the guy die was only moderately annoying and sad (sniff sniff). I can imagine losing a guy on level 35 or 50 might make me want to break something with a Dell logo on it into little bitty pieces.
Its amazing how attached one can become to a little ASCII character moving around on the screen...
Ben said: "...might make me want to break something with a Dell logo on it into little bitty pieces."
So, I'm the only one who feels this way toward Dell all the time then I'm taking it?
Man, if my lvl 39 Warlock from WoW died permanently, I'd probably kick my dog or something. I'd definitively have to hurt something.
(insert psycho twitch with wandering eye)
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