A new NetHack variant has been brought into existence. This variant is called NetHack Fourk, and it is based on the NetHack 4 codebase. The source repository is available at the following address: https://github.com/tsadok/nhfourk.git At this time, the variant is only available from the source repo. However, GitHub does have an automatic zipfile feature, so if you do not wish to clone the repository you can get the current source at this address: https://github.com/tsadok/nhfourk/archive/master.zip I am very interested in receiving feedback from play testing. To provide feedback, you can contact me in any of the following ways: * nickping or /msg jonadab on the Freenode IRC network. * Contact jonadab by email (at columbus.rr.com). * Post feedback in rec.games.roguelike.nethack on usenet * Post feedback in /r/nethack on reddit ================= FEEDBACK FORM ================= In creating NetHack Fourk, my goal is to learn certain things, and I hope that what I learn will help to inform and thus enhance future development of NetHack 4 and of other variants and possibly even official vanilla NetHack. The changes in NetHack Fourk are things that I'm not sure about, things that I think need to be tested by more than one person, in order to obtain a balanced view of what impact they have on the game as a whole. Thus, for each of the changes in NetHack Fourk, I am interested in hearing various players' take on the following questions: * Do you feel that this change makes the game more (or less) interesting and fun to play? If so, why? * Do you feel that this change makes the game easier or harder? How _much_ easier or harder? Why? (If relevant, this question may be answered differently for the difficulty of learning the game versus the difficulty of playing the game once learned.) * How often do you notice this change while playing? How do you feel when you notice it? * Do you feel that this change allows for or encourages a variety of meaningful strategic or tactical approaches? Why or why not? * How does this change interact with the game's other features? Does it make some other game features more (or less) relevant? Does its impact enhance or detract from other aspects of the game? * Does this change cause you to make any adjustments to your playing? Explain. * Overall, as a player, do you like this change, dislike it, or not care? Why? Additionally, for control purposes (so that we can categorize answers and balance considerations for various kinds of players), it may also help to answer the following questions: * For control purposes: briefly describe your experience level with NetHack. (For example, "I've been playing for a month and have reached Sokoban once" or "I've ascended six roles and two variants" or "I can go the fully monty in eight or nine hours.") * For control purposes: briefly describe your general play style. (For example, "I travel light and try to finish by turn 10,000", "I collect every item in the dungeon and love to polypile", or "I like to spend most of the game polymorphed into a vampire.") * For control purposes: what is your favorite role in 3.4.3? * For control purposes: what variant(s) do you play most? * For control purposes: what conducts do you enjoy playing? =========== CHANGES =========== Here are a few of the highlights in NetHack Fourk: * Barbarians are now categorically the best role for melee and probably the easiest role for new players. Samurai, Knights, and especially Valkyries have been compensated with other advantages. * Players will need to pay somewhat more attention to alignment-record penalties (like dishonorably attacking the innocent, being a caitiff, feeling guilty, etc.) * Sokoban now has more versions of its levels, and there are a couple of new ways for players who dislike the puzzle aspect of the branch to dodge the luck penalties. * The chance for thrown projectiles to break now depends on skill, so using weapons suited to your role will result in fewer breaks. This means Tourists can go ahead and use their starting darts, Rangers can go ahead and shoot their arrows, etc. * Certain monsters have been enhanced, notably monkeys and the Oracle. I tried to buff quasits, but I'm not sure if you'll notice. The three kinds of nymphs are no longer entirely identical. * Floating eyes have had their behavior changed again. You can now hit them in melee, and hitting them _once_ won't kill you if you are at full health. Hitting them repeatedly is dangerous. * Certain early-game instadeaths are more avoidable now. * A few monsters have a slightly different appearance than before. (For example, acid blobs are yellow.) * Some probability formulae have been adjusted. Notable ones include your chance to hit a monster, your chance to successfully engrave, and a monster's chance to drop a corpse and/or a random item. * Wands of wishing are no longer rechargeable, but now there are also scrolls of wishing. * Permanently converting your alignment before the quest no longer makes the game unwinnable, though it is still not recommended. * More than fifty vanilla bug fixes (from the September leak) have been ported to NetHack 4 and merged down into NetHack Fourk in time for this announcement. For good reasons (involving release timing), these changes will probably not be merged into the upstream master branch until after 4.3.0 is released (although, that will hopefully be fairly soon now). If you are more interested in these bug fixes than the rest of my changes, they can also be found in the 4.3-maint branch of my NetHack4 repository, here: https://github.com/tsadok/nethack4/commits/4.3-maint For a somewhat more complete list of changes in NetHack Fourk compared to the NetHack 4, see doc/changelog-fourk.txt https://github.com/tsadok/nhfourk/blob/master/doc/changelog-fourk.txt If greater detail is wanted, you can also look at the git log. https://github.com/tsadok/nhfourk/commits/master For a list of changes in the upstream NetHack 4 codebase as compared to the vanilla NetHack 3.x series, see doc/changelog.txt https://github.com/tsadok/nhfourk/blob/master/doc/changelog.txt