User talk:R0twang/Guide
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-- New user message (talk) 20:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Your user page
Um, hi. I just noticed your user page and wanted to know whether you're serious or just trolling. This is a wiki about NetHack and as such, people reading your "guide" will most likely actually want to play NetHack — leaving aside the question whether you might be right or not.
You also seem to be overstating the flaws of NetHack. (While I do think some of the things you listed may indeed be flaws, some people like NetHack for exactly some of the reasons you listed.) So far, that might be fine for a user page, though.
NetHack is still in development; while perhaps not by the original DevTeam, there are multiple actively developed variants. This isn't a myth, and calling it "propaganda" is misinformed at best, a lie and itself propaganda at worst. (Perhaps good faith should be assumed here.)
I am also unsure whether you realize that most people who could be targetted by your "guide" will not read it – it's on your user page, people are unlikely to read that unless they follow the recent changes. Of course, putting it anywhere else wouldn't work anyway as it doesn't go well with a wiki that is about NetHack in a mostly objective way, which NetHackWiki is. Thus, I don't see the point in you putting it here (unless, as I wondered at the top, you're just trolling and created an account just to have a user page to put it on, safely out of the main namespace). I'd like some clarification on that.
(FWIW, part of your "guide" also reads a bit like an advertisement for Dwarf Fortress to me. That might just be because you needed something to compare NetHack to, perhaps.)
A serious question (in case you're not trolling, and actually read this): just why did you register here only to tell people you dislike NetHack and its promoters and they also should?
Another question: are you r0twang on NAO (stats, games, deaths, dumplogs, ttyrecs)? If so, I wonder why you still played today, given your apparent hate of NetHack?
—bcode talk | mail 22:00, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Hey bcode, No trolling here. I've been meaning to write a beginner's guide for a long time that doesn't pretend NetHack is the awesomest game ever made, gives fair warning about how painful it can be, and still helps a reader build up a character that has some chance of living. All the other beginner's guides have a sort of blind worship of NetHack and for years I have been wishing someone had given me a little more even-handed layout of the game when I was starting out.
So I am trying to include all the stuff that I wish someone had told me when I first started. #1 being - no shame in reading the spoilers! Just do it! #2 - Dwarf Fortress is way less frustrating and more beautiful and under MUCH more active development. and #3 - here's how to start a game that MIGHT not end up in heartbreaking death (but probably will.) I haven't written #3 yet.
That is indeed me on NAO. My relationship with NetHack is the definition of love/hate. I just minutes ago had a level 12 wizard killed by a gnome with a wand of death on NAO. I had been playing that wizard for 2 weeks. I do intend to end this beginner's guide with a paragraph about why I can't seem to stop playing. Knock the reader down and then stand them back up again - that's the plan.
I put it on my user page specifically because I don't want people reading it yet, since it's unfinished. I was going to work on it from a couple of different locations, so I wanted it to be online. NetHack wiki just seemed like a good place to write it. After I finish, I'll see if anyone wants to post it somewhere where people are more likely to read it. I couldn't figure out a way to call it a "draft" that only I could read on here. If nethackwiki has that functionality, let me know, and I'd be happy to set it to draft while I work on it.
Anyway, I hope you guys don't find it too annoying. This is really my way of taking revenge on a game that has caused me so much heartbreak and wasted so much of my time. But I'm hoping that when it is finished it is clear that it is more funny and useful to a beginner than just an annoying diatribe against NetHack.
--R0twang (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- Dwarf Fortress is way less frustrating
- Four words: Beware it's deadly dust! -- Qazmlpok (talk) 04:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Can I curse on nethackwiki? That would make this page way more fun.
--R0twang (talk) 02:00, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
- I think if you complete this, you should probably put a label at the top that it's subjective and contains possibly offensive language, mostly because other parts of NetHackWiki don't.
- On #1 – sure, though NetHackWiki is itself a huge spoiler (as it tells non-logged in users on the Main Page); as such, people likely to read your text here will probably already be willing to read spoilers.
- On #2 – that may be true; YMMV. It doesn't really seem fitting to devote so much of a guide about NetHack to a different game, though.
- On #3 – that is indeed a good idea. I think the part written so far seems a bit biased, though. (I consider wizards to be easier than valkyries, though that may be because of experience with them — I think lawful valkyries have a much easier time than neutral valkyries with access to Excalibur, though, and I think being able to eat dwarves without penalty isn't really worth giving up the mostly-peaceful Mines. (You can still kill dwarves with a rather small alignment penalty.))
- Also, the guide seems to be mostly bashing NetHack in the beginning (while praising DF). I don't demand praise for NetHack or anything like that – actually, I would like for the wiki to be mostly unbiased in that matter, a kind of "this is NetHack, decide for yourself if you like it or hate it" thing. (I mostly just don't want that the guide drives people away from NetHack.)
- There are some mistakes in the guide and also some ways in which it could be improved to match the wiki's style (mostly without changing the text, in fact). Do you want other people to fix such things? (I do have some kind of obsession with wikilinking as much as possible – that's part of what defines a wiki.)
- Finally, a mostly formal suggestion: could you move your guide to a subpage of your user page, perhaps something like User:R0twang/Guide/Guide or similar? That would allow you to put something relevant on your user page, like {{NAOplayer}} or actually whatever information you feel like telling us. (It could of course include a link to your guide, especially if that's the most important thing you're working on.)
- Thanks for your reply! —bcode talk | mail 08:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Some thoughts while reading your guide:
- "I'm telling you, forget it. NetHack is soul-destroyingly heart-breakingly cruel." The people who will enjoy Nethack probably enjoy taking calculated risks and minimizing other risks with a lot of foresight. Explore mode sucks for that reason.
- Bad user interface: Acehack and NetHack 4 set out to improve that. Maybe you could try them.
- Badmouthing / over the top praise: We do need a more balanced take. Perhaps the emotional extremes are the same thing that gets people hooked on NetHack in the first place.
- Cursing and non-traditional content: Colorful language is a plus IMHO, because it's more authentic. But readers don't like being called raving idiots or time wasters, and a rant is only marginally useful. Take a look at NetHack_quaffing_game - we're not that politically correct.
- Spoilers: Agreed, better named tutorial / documentation.
- Draft status: A subpage is the normal way to mark it a draft. When you're finished, you can move it into the main article namespace. Good content is more important thatn technicalities and politics, which can always be fixed later.
- "NetHack might technically be a role-playing game" -- except all 12 roles are the almost the same.
Keep writing, editing, and pruning your guide. :-) --Tjr (talk) 11:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
