Tero Karttunen
New member
This is a thread for posting your initial impressions on GnollHack.
My 6th level Bandit (Barbarian) got as far as Minetown in Gnomish Mines. (Seems like Gnolls did not manage to banish gnomes altogether from the dungeon?) I managed to anger the Priest by converting the altar to Set, and my haphazard escape attempt was ruined by his summoning in monsters (a lot of ants).
I was impressed by the number of additions Hyvän mielen pelit has done on the game. I felt like new items and other discoveries (trees, mushroom, spell ingredients etc) were turning up on every corner, and the game balance and mechanisms have changed too. The addition of item weights in the inventory will probably make a big difference in directory management as the character gets loaded, that's great.
I do think that the game's user interface is getting strained by all the additions. The game has become noticeably more chatty with the changes to weight and experience system, and the addition of new commands and skills has forced you to relocate familiar keyboard shortcuts. I realize it is difficult to refactor the user interface to accommodate all the extra content, but you might think of breaking away from vt100 terminal emulation and extend the screen size from 80x25 to 120x25 and mapping some commands like information screen and saving to function keys F1-F12 instead of relying on Ctrl- and Alt-keys.
Furthermore, I believe that the game is getting so large and complex that the learning curve may be a little bit too steep for millennials. Old NetHack players can probably adapt and cope with the additions, but the game is probably too imposing for beginners. The game might benefit from a number of tutorial modes that disable or hide away some "advanced" functionalities. Here are some of my ideas for "tutorial modes":
* No-spells mode that hide away spell components and spellbooks but leave magic items. Fighting monsters by simply walking into them is an easy start.
* The weapon skill enchantments could easily be hidden away or automated in the grand old D&D fashion: the character gets better at fighting by leveling up, and the bonuses depend on character class.
* Auto-wear mode for armor; the game could easily calculate whether a newfound armor item would result in better AC for the player and say "this banded mail looks like an improvement to the ring mail you are wearing, would you like to pick it up and wear it?". Also, the game could say for special (magical) armor paces something like "those old gloves look magical and special".
* Starvation and fullness effect could be removed for new players. It is a good idea for a player to be able to test out corpses for their effects, but they could be able to consume anything and at any time.
My 6th level Bandit (Barbarian) got as far as Minetown in Gnomish Mines. (Seems like Gnolls did not manage to banish gnomes altogether from the dungeon?) I managed to anger the Priest by converting the altar to Set, and my haphazard escape attempt was ruined by his summoning in monsters (a lot of ants).
I was impressed by the number of additions Hyvän mielen pelit has done on the game. I felt like new items and other discoveries (trees, mushroom, spell ingredients etc) were turning up on every corner, and the game balance and mechanisms have changed too. The addition of item weights in the inventory will probably make a big difference in directory management as the character gets loaded, that's great.
I do think that the game's user interface is getting strained by all the additions. The game has become noticeably more chatty with the changes to weight and experience system, and the addition of new commands and skills has forced you to relocate familiar keyboard shortcuts. I realize it is difficult to refactor the user interface to accommodate all the extra content, but you might think of breaking away from vt100 terminal emulation and extend the screen size from 80x25 to 120x25 and mapping some commands like information screen and saving to function keys F1-F12 instead of relying on Ctrl- and Alt-keys.
Furthermore, I believe that the game is getting so large and complex that the learning curve may be a little bit too steep for millennials. Old NetHack players can probably adapt and cope with the additions, but the game is probably too imposing for beginners. The game might benefit from a number of tutorial modes that disable or hide away some "advanced" functionalities. Here are some of my ideas for "tutorial modes":
* No-spells mode that hide away spell components and spellbooks but leave magic items. Fighting monsters by simply walking into them is an easy start.
* The weapon skill enchantments could easily be hidden away or automated in the grand old D&D fashion: the character gets better at fighting by leveling up, and the bonuses depend on character class.
* Auto-wear mode for armor; the game could easily calculate whether a newfound armor item would result in better AC for the player and say "this banded mail looks like an improvement to the ring mail you are wearing, would you like to pick it up and wear it?". Also, the game could say for special (magical) armor paces something like "those old gloves look magical and special".
* Starvation and fullness effect could be removed for new players. It is a good idea for a player to be able to test out corpses for their effects, but they could be able to consume anything and at any time.
