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DCSS is great, the web UI works flawlessly. https://underhound.eu:8080/#lobby https://underhound.eu:8080/#lobby It has a very different philosophy from NetHac

DCSS is great, the web UI works flawlessly. https://underhound.eu:8080/#lobby https://underhound.eu:8080/#lobby It has a very different philosophy from NetHack tho, in that you generally have clear trade-offs between your choices (e.g. there isn't a "best" armor or weapon, you have limited skill upgrades and need to choose how to spend them etc..), compared to the "keep buffing up until you're god" you get in NetHack. Both are a lot of fun and frustration.

versteegen 4y ago
The web UI is excellent, but not flawless... for example, Ctrl-Q is the key to quit the game (so you can start over with a new character). But... that's already taken by the browser.
- smw 4y ago
  You can type * and then another character as a replacement for control.
  - versteegen 4y ago
    Thanks!
nonethewiser 4y ago
why does the url include the port? I haven't seen that before. What does it mean about how the site works?
- incompatible 4y ago
  It means they are running the server on port 8080, which is actually a popular choice if port 80 is already in use or if you don't want to access a "privileged port" in Unix.
  - nineteen999 4y ago
    I would have thought 8443 was a more common choice for HTTPS on a unprivileged port rather than 8080, which is frequently used for unprivileged HTTP. But it matters little, its only cosmetics anyway.
- seedie 4y ago
  Your browser assumes that the server is reachable on port 80 if you are browsing a http site or port 443 if you are using https. The server mentioned above runs on port 8080. So the Browser needs this information which is then added to the url
seanhunter 4y ago
I know this is somewhat sacrilegious to say but I think for all the reasons you say DCSS is a much better game than nethack. Some years ago I went through a phase of being quite into nethack and ascended a couple of times, but really lost interest because there are too many situations where there is only one correct way to play. There’s also just a lot of arbitrary nonsense that they expected you (not sure whether this has changed) to have read the source code to know with zero discoverability in the game.
- riffraff 4y ago
  > I think for all the reasons you say DCSS is a much better game than nethack I would say.. maybe? IMO it's just fun in a different way.
- mrob 4y ago
  Nethack tries to present the experience of exploring a rich and detailed world, full of interesting things to discover. The drawback is that you only get the joy of discovery once. Finding something like the technique to steal from shops is fun the first time, and then tedious every other time. To best enjoy Nethack, I recommend avoiding spoilers as much as possible. DCSS sacrifices Nethack's sense of wonder for better playability. Simulating a world is secondary to presenting a series of interesting tactical challenges. There's very little discovery involved, because the game openly tells you everything you need to know, and it's up to you to figure out how to apply that information. DCSS goes out of its way to remove tedium, even at the cost of realism. E.g. Nethack includes food, which serves as a kind of clock, but food availability is random, so it doesn't work very well. DCSS removes food and replaces it with an explicit countdown timer. Nethack allows selling items to shops. This means there's a reason to pick up trash items, which is annoying. DCSS does not allow selling items. Nethack has hidden traps, which can be found by searching. This means you can spend a lot of time searching, or you can tediously track which tiles are safe, noting where you and the monsters walk, which is even more annoying. DCSS makes all traps visible, and replaces hidden traps with "sourceless malevolence", which applies random bad effects as you explore. There are no secret techniques to bypass difficulty in DCSS. DCSS does not simulate a very believable world, but it's better as a game.

versteegen 4y ago

The web UI is excellent, but not flawless... for example, Ctrl-Q is the key to quit the game (so you can start over with a new character). But... that's already taken by the browser.

smw 4y ago
You can type * and then another character as a replacement for control.
- versteegen 4y ago
  Thanks!

nonethewiser 4y ago

why does the url include the port? I haven't seen that before. What does it mean about how the site works?

incompatible 4y ago
It means they are running the server on port 8080, which is actually a popular choice if port 80 is already in use or if you don't want to access a "privileged port" in Unix.
- nineteen999 4y ago
  I would have thought 8443 was a more common choice for HTTPS on a unprivileged port rather than 8080, which is frequently used for unprivileged HTTP. But it matters little, its only cosmetics anyway.
seedie 4y ago
Your browser assumes that the server is reachable on port 80 if you are browsing a http site or port 443 if you are using https. The server mentioned above runs on port 8080. So the Browser needs this information which is then added to the url

seanhunter 4y ago

I know this is somewhat sacrilegious to say but I think for all the reasons you say DCSS is a much better game than nethack. Some years ago I went through a phase of being quite into nethack and ascended a couple of times, but really lost interest because there are too many situations where there is only one correct way to play. There’s also just a lot of arbitrary nonsense that they expected you (not sure whether this has changed) to have read the source code to know with zero discoverability in the game.

riffraff 4y ago
> I think for all the reasons you say DCSS is a much better game than nethack I would say.. maybe? IMO it's just fun in a different way.
mrob 4y ago
Nethack tries to present the experience of exploring a rich and detailed world, full of interesting things to discover. The drawback is that you only get the joy of discovery once. Finding something like the technique to steal from shops is fun the first time, and then tedious every other time. To best enjoy Nethack, I recommend avoiding spoilers as much as possible. DCSS sacrifices Nethack's sense of wonder for better playability. Simulating a world is secondary to presenting a series of interesting tactical challenges. There's very little discovery involved, because the game openly tells you everything you need to know, and it's up to you to figure out how to apply that information. DCSS goes out of its way to remove tedium, even at the cost of realism. E.g. Nethack includes food, which serves as a kind of clock, but food availability is random, so it doesn't work very well. DCSS removes food and replaces it with an explicit countdown timer. Nethack allows selling items to shops. This means there's a reason to pick up trash items, which is annoying. DCSS does not allow selling items. Nethack has hidden traps, which can be found by searching. This means you can spend a lot of time searching, or you can tediously track which tiles are safe, noting where you and the monsters walk, which is even more annoying. DCSS makes all traps visible, and replaces hidden traps with "sourceless malevolence", which applies random bad effects as you explore. There are no secret techniques to bypass difficulty in DCSS. DCSS does not simulate a very believable world, but it's better as a game.