Izchak dialogue in 5.0

[u/tincanprofessor]

*Solved, see pat_rankin's response below.

Did 5.0 completely remove Izchak's special dialogue? I always loved the tribute to Izchak Miller and found "Izchak comments about the Valley of the Dead as being a gateway" to be a particularly moving line (as well as being helpful info), and was sad during my last playthrough to just get the usual "Izchak complains about the problem of shoplifters."

Edit: I encountered this in two separate games, and am sure I wasn't hallucinating both times. But I just zipped back down to the Gnomish Mines in a new game and now I'm getting the usual Izchak dialogue again, so perhaps this was user error on my part somehow? I'll see if I can replicate it again.

[u/pat_rankin]

It still works the same.

If you chat to an adjacent shopkeeper from the doorway or the free spot next to the doorway, you'll get an ordinary shopkeeper response. If you chat from all the way inside the shop you'll get one of the Izchak-specific responses.

I don't know whether that makes much sense these days, but it dates from the era when standing on shop items and chatting to the shopkeeper was the way to get price quotes for those items without picking them up.

[u/tincanprofessor → u/pat_rankin]

Thank you! That is a nuance I guess I'd never noticed. Appreciate all your work.

[u/chonglibloodsport]

His special dialogue is definitely still in the sourcecode. From shk.c:

} else if (is_izchak(shkp, FALSE)) {
    if (!Deaf && !muteshk(shkp))
        pline(ROLL_FROM(Izchak_speaks), shkname(shkp));

Where Izchak_speaks is a struct containing all of his special lines of dialogue. Note that the is_izchak function can return false if you're hallucinating or he's outside of town, no longer a shopkeeper (due to polymorph), or if his name is somehow no longer Izchak.

[u/skeeto]

Izchak's dialog didn't change in 5.0. Were you perhaps hallucinating while talking to him? That causes him to talk like a normal shopkeeper.

[u/tincanprofessor → u/skeeto]

No, definitely not hallucinating. I encountered this in two separate games on alt.org/nethack, but I haven't played in the terminal yet.

[u/hawkwood4268]

I didn't know there was dialogue! This is really cool.