Tag: dungeons

Crawl tips

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Earlier this year, I had blogged about a new Rogue-like game by the name of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Better known as Crawl.

The appeal to this game, is that it’s not a simple grind-based game and it is definitely not meant for n00bs. To them, I would suggest World of Warcraft, which has a simple learning curve, and is currently loosing support due to the ever increasing nerfs to the game dynamics.

The game is not easy, and a n00b can easily die if not cautious. Here are some tips for beginners –

  1. Do your research on the races – It helps if you are aware of each races pros and cons. Pick one which suits your style, for e.g – if you are a melee type of person who likes to be at the fore front of a battle, then it would be foolish to select a magic affine race such as Deep Elf, or a stealthy race such as Spriggan.
  2. Know your classes – The race + class combination is absolutely essential. Certain classes work well with certain races. A Spriggan berserker is asking for trouble, is it not? Even more disastrous would be a Troll Wizard.
  3. Know your skills – There are certain skills which you will be better suited for with your race + class combination. Exercise more of those skills, and become better at them. It helps your attack power and can help you down the largest of the lot.
  4. Worship the Gods – There are lots of Gods to be worshipped in Crawl. Select your God wisely, since there are melee-based gods and magic-based gods. You do not want to be a caster and worship Trogg for example, he prevents magic use. Similarly, you do not want to be a necromancer and worship the Shining One who forbids the use of necromancery.

A list for beginners is here.

I personally favor Melee-based characters, but have done good with casters as well. What about you?

Diablo 3: Updates

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I have been waiting for almost three years for this game to release. Along with me thousands of other Diablo fans are waiting for Blizzard to announce the public beta launch date. Truth be told, it’s going to negatively impact the subscriptions of the other Blizzard games, especially World of Warcraft. Perhaps they are working out on when to announce the launch of the 4.3 WoW patch, and when to announce the Diablo public beta. Here’s a list of all things that I have heard about the game.

  • The private beta has been released last week, and is open to all the friends and family members of Blizzard employees. Not only is it a way to find beta testers ;-), but also it’s a brilliant HR ploy.
  • The game will fear an Auction House (AH) like the WoW series, but this time players will have an option to use real money in the AH. This is going to be a game which will somehow impact the economy, at a micro level albeit, but interesting to note that no other game has the balls to try this out. Then again, this idea might just backfire.
  • The solo game will require the player to still be connected online. I guess the online part is made mandatory due to the ease of operations. The game can be updated later on, DRM issues are resolved, piracy goes down, instead of a one time purchase a player can be made to pay the subscription amount month on month. Most of the game houses are trying to include this concept (even Microsoft with X-Box live).

Having said all that, the game is still widely awaiting and you can start checking out the game play videos of Demon Hunter, Monk, Wizard and Witch Doctor. With the private beta now live, you can always hope to see a lot more content and videos on youtube.

Here’s hoping that the game releases before 2012!!

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I am a huge fan of Role Playing Games (RPGs). Especially those which are random in nature i.e the dungeons are generated in real-time and not from a pre-made style.

The first RPG I really loved was Diablo, but the first real random RPG I played was Nethack.

So when I came across the mention of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on Questionable Content (it’s a comic strip), I could not resist myself. I just had to try out the game.

And whattay game!! A must see for all fans of any slash’ems. Of course I am not an elitist, and I prefer to play with a tile-set :-|

N3tH@c|<

Prasad Ajinkya3 Comments

The mountain giant picked up a boulder and heaved it towards me. My female orc wizard ducked and narrowly missed the hulk of rock. I decided to take my Wand of striking and kill both the giant and the killer bee buzzing behind him in a single strike. The giant absorbed the magic and moved on to pick up the boulder for another shot. I smote off the killer bee with a couple of blows with my trusted +4 magic staff and turned to face the giant. The goliath had managed to pick up the boulder, now was the time … I took out another wand of magic missile and let go its fury at him. No effect. I would have to kill this one by hand-to-hand. No matter. The staff was up for the challenge and my mithril coat was unharmed. A fast flurry of blows was exchanged the giant lay bested at my feet.

No, this is not a dream. Its one of my favorite games, NetHack!! This is a single player game released in around late 1980’s … the development of this game has been completely on the net … and its a hack and slash game … hence net + hack = nethack :-)

Everytime I play the game, theres something new that happens. The maps are different, the characters are many to play with … and the game decides to behave differently on a full moon day!!

Just one more example of how a product has developed in a decentralized fashion over an open interactive medium (IRC and Usenets) to result in a customer oriented product.