Let the New Era of Nethack Begin!

Okay, maybe that's a bit optimistic.  Paul, Josh and I are trying to get the "new guys" to play Nethack, with mixed results.  At least one expressed "hatred" for the game, and has tried to play it again.  Another has told us that he doesn't cope with frustration well.  Consider Nethack an exercise in character building then.

I have abandoned our local server to play on telnet:nethack.alt.org now.  The ability to watch other people play is kind of cool.  I have my options file set to only play tourists.  I currently have a co-aligned altar on level 1, and am consuming a bag of tricks to sacrifice on it.  So far tons of sacrifices and no goodies.

I Think I'm Gonna Be Sick

I have many, many other screenshots but I just can't muster the energy to post them.  I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.  It happened so quickly.  Where did my Amulet of Life Saving go?  Why didn't I use the 4 wishes I had left?

Why is this game so awesome that I keep coming back to it after it savages me?

Start of End Game - The Plane of Earth

I'm so scared, but I have to ascend a Tourist.  It will be the culmination of 25 years of Nethacking.

No return!?  What if I need to go back down and fetch something important?  Oh, man....

Yay!  "Well done" means I win, right?  Whoa, what's this about a Test?

Can I get a third option?

Oh, great.  Look who's back. Well, at least I have my ring of conflict on.  Have fun with that minotaur or titan or whatever.

Well that was pretty easy.  I got confused and read a scroll of gold detection to show traps, so I knew where the level teleport was, then used 3 charges from a wand of digging to get to it.  What's next, air?  Air is the worst.  Hopefully the ring of conflict will keep the air elementals busy.

My Short Stint as a Silver Dragon

So I'm tooling through the dungeon, laughing madly as everything thrown at my bounces harmlessly off my silver dragon scale mail, when I step on a polymorph trap.  Rrrrrip... I become a silver dragon, shredding most of my armor but leaving me a silver killing machine.  You hit!  You hit!  You bite!  I was unstoppable!  Until I got to that cockatrice.  I attacked it without thinking, and before I knew what was going on I was a statue of a silver dragon.

Games and games later, I come across "a statue of a silver silver named Gouda" on a bones level.  I play on a multi-user system, so I can't say I was expecting to find my earlier game's bones level.  Hmmm, it sure would be nice to have all the gear that I was carrying when I became a silver dragon (and which I was still carrying at time of death.)  Thinking, thinking.... hey!  I have an idea.  I blasted the statue with force bolt and all my prior possessions come pouring out.  Thank you, Dev Team.

My Unassailable Cowardice

Okay, you go ahead and give me one good reason why I shouldn't try and ascend this Tourist.  Go ahead.  Nope.  Sorry.  I'm still too scared.

Here we see that my stat line is pretty darn good.

I've got quite the ascension kit going on...

and a fair assortment of wands to fall back on.

...and I even have a magic lamp waiting for me.

And yet I am still too scared to climb above level 1 and brave the elemental planes. Sigh.