Your favorite Variant

[the Invisible Stalker]

Is this Oangband 1.1.0u? And if so, what is wrong with the menus? I have an update of it which just needs to be compiled IIRC, so can do some fixes easily.

Thanks. It is 1.1.0u. I'm using the roguelike keyset. hjkl are movement keys within item lists, which makes selecting items in those slots annoying. After several deaths by accidentally picking the wrong item I just gave up. It would be much better if hjkl just selected items in those slots, just as they select menu items in character rolling. That is how the Mac version of V works.

[Hariolor]

Definitely O. It's just much less silly than other variants, or V for that matter. None of these angels or similar monsters which have no business being in a roguelike. Also, the O system of magic realms and classes seems very well thought out. And the combat system makes more sense than V's. To be honest, the only reason I play V is that selecting items from menus is broken in the Mac version of O.

My second choice would be Ironband. I like the 9 Ironband stats more than the traditional 6. And Ironband eliminates the "game of shopping" phenomenon.

I second everything said here. For the same reasons.

[nobody]

I like hengband, for the same reasons the other person did, and also agree with some other person about how v has nice new features. the person or persons that mentioned un/fa being too hard was sorta on the right track, they're just a little too different, expansive, or something for me to grok, along with tome and furybands. i haven't given dajband a try, mostly cause some of his playing philosophy (mostly about not liking selling) I disagree with. portralis is certainly one to look at, it's done things in a very unique way that is worth checking out, but overall I'd probably say my favorite variant is hengband.

[will_asher]

i haven't given dajband a try, mostly cause some of his playing philosophy (mostly about not liking selling) I disagree with.

There is a birth option in DaJAngband to enable selling to shops. It hasn't been removed.

[buzzkill]

mostly cause some of his playing philosophy (mostly about not liking selling) I disagree with.

Don't knock it until you try it. I didn't think much of it at first either, but now I find playing with selling to be tedious. It's liberating to be able to leave egos and sometimes even artifacts (and everything and anything else you don't need at the moment) lying on the dungeon floor.

[nobody]

i don't mean to knock it without trying it, but i think i'm much more invested in buying and selling then the average person, it's a life style for me. i buy and sell hundreds of pounds of books a month, and it bleeds over to my game character, just the idea of not being able to sell things makes me feel strange. despite that, i was going to give it a try, but when i started, i noticed there was a bunch of different entries for granite walls. (and perhaps perm too, not sure on that though) i can't play with #s, simply cannot do it, my head would explode (i realize i'm weird and set in my ways) and in vanilla, i've always had to set them from #s to solid blocks, and the %s to differently colored solid blocks every time i start the game. i've tried saving it, but i haven't gotten it to save those settings. now setting up my 7 terminal windows properly saves, and only takes about 4 minutes to do properly, so i don't mind since i only have to do it once, but the idea of resetting a tone of granite walls and veins every time i play is just too much.

[PowerDiver]

i don't mean to knock it without trying it, but i think i'm much more invested in buying and selling then the average person

Surely your gaming should be an escape from real life!

I've been saying something along the line of "nobody who has seriously tried playing without selling has ever said selling is better" for years now. It is still true to the best of my knowledge.

I wonder if you might eventually turn out to be an exception. I sure am glad you picked that particular moniker.

[edit] My grammar used to be better. I don't suppose you could change your name to "no one".

[ThunderToads]

I've liked all the variants I've played, and I've played almost all of 'em, even if only for a few goes with some. I most enjoyed Z+Angband (and Z variants in general) and Hengband for their craziness, and TOME for skillset depth and alchemy.

There was also one variant, I think it was actually a TOME module, whos name escapes me. You played a monster that was trying to escape a dungeon, and you could upgrade yourself with all kinds of mutations and grafts, it was AWESOME. Gonna have to try to track it down again.

[nobody]

so i have bit the bullet, and am trying djangband. its causing me great mental anguish. what am i supposed to do with all these potions and scrolls? read and drink them not knowing what they are? wait till i get enough money, scrolls, etc to identify them all? i already got bit with a potion of weakness, i never use unidentified potions and scrolls unless its an emergency, it just seems wrong to me. i don't know if the death potion is still even in the game, but i remember it. the rest of everything else seems ok.

[will_asher]

so i have bit the bullet, and am trying djangband. its causing me great mental anguish. what am i supposed to do with all these potions and scrolls? read and drink them not knowing what they are? wait till i get enough money, scrolls, etc to identify them all? i already got bit with a potion of weakness, i never use unidentified potions and scrolls unless its an emergency, it just seems wrong to me. i don't know if the death potion is still even in the game, but i remember it. the rest of everything else seems ok.

I assume you have selling to stores turned off (as is the default). Even when you can't sell to stores, you can get a shopkeeper to identify items like potions, scrolls, and wands for you for the cost of giving him the item for free (works the same way as selling except you don't get any money for it and you can't do that with all types of items).

Also, I have tried to make it so IDing stuff like potions and scrolls isn't so dangerous, and is (almost) never fatal. (potions of death have been removed, but potions of detonations are still an exception to this, but they are very deep and rare and don't do quite as much damage as they did in V3.0.9. Mushrooms of Unhealth are slightly dangerous, but bad mushrooms do reduced damage to low level characters.) When I play, I usually ID potions and scrolls by using them and very rarely have problems because of it. Just make sure you're standing on stairs when reading unIDed scrolls until you find summon monster.

I don't encourage mining after the first couple trips into the dungeon, but in the very early game mining is very useful to get enough gold for needed equipment.

[nobody]

well i guess i'm stuck giving away my potions and scrolls. i don't play nethack cause i don't like the dumb jumping through hoops to id stuff and i won't do it with angband either. also, why are there so many messages about not noticing anything? that sorta makes me trollface