Interview with Thomas Biskup at Roguetemple

[Silfir]

Good roguelike players can get lucky after a month or two... The "it takes several years" thing is not a hard and fast rule. It depends a lot on experience and "getting" a couple of things, and knowing facts and details about the game that can make surviving much easier.

It's really all about the permadeath. Players used to mainstream games are used to being able to make mistakes and retry with few hassle. ADOM is all about not making mistakes, or rather, making only mistakes you can survive, and avoiding the few really, really deadly ones.

If you value your time a lot and prefer your games to give you several chances and play games to arrive at the set ending point primarily and experience well-crafted stories along the way, you shouldn't play ADOM. Roguelikes are all about the procedurally generated content giving enormous replay value and it's a strategy game first and foremost. If the game can remain fun for you even if you die, since you get to kill loads monsters in completely new environments with different characters with basically zero waiting (as this game has no noticable loading screens or other immersion breakers anywhere), then ADOM might be the right game for you.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I only won the game once, but I can attest to the fact that it can be won without scumming. In that win I didn't use any scumming at all, not even standard grinding to get levels. I just went from mission to mission facing what the RNG threw at me.

Now of course, that was with a wizard. Perhaps with other classes scumming is absolutely necessary, especially if you want to play with unbalanced features like dual wielding as Andy was pointing out.

I can also attest to the fact that it is possible to get at least as far as the Mana Temple without spoilers. I did it, after years of playing. I did use the GB back then but I was careful to only use it for stuff I already knew, i.e. for example I would go to the monster list to search for the effects of a corpse that I already knew but didn't remember. If there are any noobs reading this I really recommend playing without spoilers, it's lots of fun. And you get really excited when you discover some of the stuff.

[gut]

>> Honestly, if one knows about morgia, and moss, the game's a breeze.

> I don't think any version of the game can be described as "a breeze"

Try this experiment then. Roll a DEra, visit the DDL, check for a
morgia/moss square, if you don't find one re-roll. Within 5 minutes
you'll have your square. Stay there, scumming herbs until your
have Wi, To, and De all to 27. Note, if you want to starvation scum,
you can do considerably better. You can use prayers for food to
speed things up a bit, and in a pinch you can go sell some herbs
for ration money. Seriously, doesn't it make the rest of the game
rather 'breezish', even if you dual wield?

: )

[gut]

I actually just did this experiment myself, out of curiousity.

Within 3 minutes, I had my morgia/moss square,
and a square of stoma/pepper to boot. 12 minutes
from then, I had 41 blessed moss, 60 blessed
morgia, 20 blessed peppers, and 20 blessed stoma.
I'm not even counting non-blessed herbs. Within
another 20 minutes, I would have my stats set for
the game, and enough stoma for an immediate crowning
at my first altar. That means perma-bless, lucky,
fate smiles, an immunity, and a good artifact.

Breeze.

[warheart]

I've won twice with dual wielding rangers (both GE), harder than 1h weapon + shield, but quite doable.

[Epythic]

and a good artifact.

such as thunderstroke

[gut]

You mean 'true aim', but yeah.
Rangers only have a 50% chance of getting
something good. Still, it has a use.

[Epythic]

First, I was thinking of archers.

Second, I meant the Obsidian Quarrel "Thunderstroke".

Or were we talking about rangers and I just had luck that they get one of those missiles too?

[gut]

> Or were we talking about rangers and I just had luck
> that they get one of those missiles too?

Yep, I was talking about dark elven rangers, and one
of their craptastical crowning gifts is 'true aim'.

[Andy Williams]

Try this experiment then. Roll a DEra, visit the DDL, check for a morgia/moss square, if you don't find one re-roll. Within 5 minutes you'll have your square. Stay there, scumming herbs until your have Wi, To, and De all to 27. ... Seriously, doesn't it make the rest of the game rather 'breezish', even if you dual wield?

I doubt it, but will give it a try, thanks.