Now I'm even more confused. I got aggroed a few times by mobs, and they would not attack or make any move until I performed an action e.g., run or attack. When Chisaku joined the server, I immediately went back to 'real time' mode. What's up with that?

Read the manual.
Monsters can attack instantly, do nothing...till you attack, run away, or ask to join your party.
You can even talk to all monsters when they not instantly attack, and get important hints this way, ....sometimes.

Think about it this way:
'F' is like your 'mouse-click' in Diablo...but it can get 'subtle'...

Again, this game demands time, till you really know all the subtleties...

Your first characters are only there to get known to the UI / game-play / and stock the shop anyway....

It's basically 1978's Telengard expanded in equipment and party play aspects.

I did read the manual, but it still doesn't tell me why, for 15+ encounters, I could idle for 10 seconds before attacking an aggroed enemy (and therefore causing it to attack me as well).

Thanks anyway though, I'll continue to experiment around in the game.

Yeah, it's all archaic and the manual doesn't gives apart from talking a lot just the basics.
I have played this thing now for 8 years, and still find new 'tricks' about basic gameplay.
(...and I play computer games since 1988, starting in GDR on a Commodre VIC 20 sent by relatives from West Germany. - Demise is the game I somehow felled to need to always come back, - don't had this feeling with any other game...and I played them 'all', starting with Space Wars and Scramble...

Demise is what Diablo always wanted to be, but never achieved.
Demise is rough on the surface, but underneath lies a true gem.
But of course, you have to invest serious time in it, to 'get it'...

But in the end of course, it's all about like to go out in 'real live' to town/nature, to search for mushrooms or deposit bottles...
(It can make addictive...)

Well, I havent contacted the "new" author since then, but at the time, when original producer (Artifact Entertainment) ended its development there was no patch available for this and new patch must have been purchased.

As I can see on current page in patch section, there is still no patch to update my box version of Demise. http://www.decklinsdemise.com/patches.php

I've been thinking about getting on the server. Does the version straight off of Gamersgate work without any further patching?

Oh, and how is the server in terms of people on? How is multiplayer in general, compared to single-player?

There aren't many people playing on the server. The most I've seen so far concurrently online is 3.

Multiplayer is a great deal more fun, if only because you get to talk and form parties.

Edit: *bla,bla* - off topic

I'm level 15. Hell yeah. Let's explore level 4 and 5 together!

Can we get more people into the server? Come on GOGers. All this talk about old games, and only 3 people playing on the server?

The version on Gamersgate works without patching, but you may want to set it in to compatibility mode and disable visual themes if you have Windows 7. For me it does it automatically and it works fine.

You'll have to register the game first, which can be either a long or short process. The longer one is e-mailing to the address which is shown at the "register now" prompt, the other one is through a webpage, but as it didn't work when I tried to register so I e-mailed instead.

Multiplayer doesn't feel so lonely, but in single-player you can have 4 of your own characters in your party. In multiplayer you have to team up with other players. The gameplay I believe is the same. :)

It'd be nice to see you on the server!

How on earth do you swim in the game? I need to kill a namana but I can't swim.

You don't, you die. I think, there are scrolls or potions that prevent you from drowning, though.

So the only way for me to kill a namana is to drown? D: