Nethack 3.4.3 [PSARC/2008/172 FastTrack timeout 03/11/2008]

[Danek Duvall]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 09:14:48PM -0800, Dan Price wrote:

> Umm... less than 24 hours available to comment?

I'm happy to let it run if you think there are architectural issues to
discuss.  The consensus was that there weren't, but it's conceivable we
were wrong.  :)  I also expect to be waiting some time for legal approval,
so if there are issues, there's time before integration to raise them.

> I for one would like to see the X11 options turned on in the build.
> I have a hard time (brain too old) remembering that "f" means "your cat".

Yeah, I bet you can't read the pictures in The Matrix, either.  Perhaps if
you played more -- maybe four or five hours a day -- it would sink in a bit
more.  ;-)

> The X11 GUI is very simple, and has, IIRC, minimal dependencies, but
> makes a world of difference for people trying to learn the game.
> There is also a gnome gui but I was not able to get it to build the
> last time I tried.  It'd be really great if both versions were available.
> I'd be happy to try to help out, if development cycles are the issue.

I doubt it would take much time, honestly.  I just never believed that the
GUIs were useful, or pretty.  Like I said to one commenter, if you want to
play Diablo, play Diablo (and we should see if that's remotely possible
under virtualbox) -- it's a much better experience.

I don't think this is an architectural issue (I'm not really that concerned
about putting nethack on systems where X has been minimized out), so I
suggest we can take it offline.  If there are other folks who really want a
GUI for this, lemme know privately.

> Also, are you proposing a general potion-mixing architecture here?

No.  The potions in nethack, sadly, aren't compliant with the latest potion
RFCs (I forget the numbers offhand), so it's kinda off in the weeds in that
regard.  You won't be able to import nethack bones files, say, into GIMP in
order to use a paintbrush dipped in a potion of hallucination.  There are
simply better ways to get that effect.  And forget scroll sharing -- Google
has made the once-expensive scroll of magic mapping dirt cheap, but the
shopkeepers still jack up the zorkmids.

Danek