With all the different versions of this game I am not sure where to start. What version should I get?

Oh yeah, can I be vampire in this game?

Current version (3.4.3) is fine:

http://www.nethack.org/

No vampire class that I'm aware of.

That version has graphic tiles to spice things up doesn't it?

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer.

Vulture's Eye adds some spiffy graphics and interface if vanilla NetHack is a little too ASCII for you.

http://www.darkarts.co.za/project/vultures/

Hey, Pixy. Have you played Nightmare of Druaga? How does Shiren stack up to Druaga?

Will it run on Vista? (i'm at work so the site is blocked)

I was going to redownload Nethack at home but it didn't appear to work on Vista. I was sad.

Shiren is so much closer to a true rogue/hack. It's also just SO MUCH better overall, in probably every aspect. Nightmare of Druaga strayed A LOT from the Mystery Dungeon formula. I wouldn't be surprised if Chun Soft was only involved in a supervisory role as they were for the Chocobo games. If you've ever played Torneko: The Last Hope no the PS1, Shiren is very close to that.

After you beat the main dungeon (30 floors) you can open up six bonus dungeons, one of them is a VERY pure rogue experience where you can't bring any items in with you and every single item starts off unidentified. I actually play that dungeon to unwind after being mentally tortured by the Kitchen God dungeon, it's rather relaxing (and if you get a Storehouse Jar, you can send some pimp items back to your main game).

Vulture's Eye runs on Vista, but so does regular NetHack. I tested it out just now.

Awesome, i will play around with it when i get home. Thanks!

Hmm.. I will have to check out NetHack as well.. I see it referenced a fair bit in Kingdom of Loathing.

I played three games of standard version.
Game 1 = died of starvation. I didn't know I was even hungry. Maybe played 20 minutes.
Game 2 = Didn't die but I left the game by mistake. I was thinking I was going to visit the surface world. I guess there isn't one. Maybe 5 minutes.
Game 3 = played maybe 20 minutes. This guy is still alive running around with a cat. I think he is a wizard or a monk. He has a wand so he is probably a wizard but I have only been doing hand to hand fighting.

Dwarf fortress is a better game, but the only thing they have in common is they look the same. hmmm I take that back I haven't played enough of the game to say how it is.

The bad thing so far is I seem to pickup everything, even things I don't want like dead bodies or maybe I do want those. I would like a little more feedback on the player condition. Maybe something like "hey your belly wants food" or "you are getting weak from hunger".

You can Play as a vampire in Slash 'EM

damn you for reminding me of this game.
Currently a level 10 doppelganger monk, made it as far as the oracle. I already have a bag of holding, and gloves of Dexterity. Right now I'm polymorphed into a winged gargoyle with a whopping -29 AC

my best game ever was as a wizard who found an altar and a bag of holding on the 1st level, and my pet somehow got polymorphed into an ogre. The ogre maxed out at 250 health, and he killed all the shopkeepers for me, making me rich and well geared at a crazy low level. Sadly I died when I stood too close to a drawbridge while trying to lower it. <splat>

Vulture's Eye is the exact Nethack game isn't it, just with spiffier graphics?

I was so proud that I was able to ride my pony and train him to rob the shop keepers. I was very very sad when I was blinded by some trap and I killed my horse by mistake thinking it was one of the monsters attacking me. I never thought for a second that question mark could be my little pony. This is a cruel cruel game. What type of games tricks you into killing your beloved pony? Damn you nethack, damn you to hell.

Yeah, Vulture's Eye is just a skin for NetHack basically.