YAAP: Conducty1
Shawn Moore
(nethack.alt.org removes small ttyrecs because most of the time it's
just someone scumming).
http://alt.org/nethack/dumplog/Conducty1.lastgame.txt
Conducty1, neutral male gnomish Healer
-----
a A..A|
---------..-- ---
|.......|A..-- --
|..LLA..|..@.---%
|...@...-@@...a @
@ |...@...|A...---
|..V....|...-- -- --
---------.A-- ----.----
D A ...| | -------
----- | |
------- % --
| -
---
|
Conducty1 the Herbalist St:18/06 Dx:23 Co:18 In:24 Wi:23 Ch:18 Neutral
S:12550
Astral Plane $:0 HP:997(1083) Pw:165(165) AC:-36 Xp:20/5120000 T:5420
Satiated
Your inventory
Amulets
Q - a blessed amulet of life saving named V:36-40 (being worn)
O - the blessed Eye of the Aethiopica
Armor
v - a blessed fireproof +6 cloak of displacement (being worn)
r - a blessed fireproof +7 Hawaiian shirt (being worn)
m - a blessed rustproof +5 helm of brilliance (being worn)
t - a blessed fireproof +5 pair of gauntlets of dexterity (being
worn)
j - a blessed fireproof +5 pair of jumping boots (being worn)
u - a blessed greased +5 silver dragon scale mail (being worn)
Spellbooks
x - the blessed Book of the Dead
Potions
F - a cursed potion of gain level
Rings
N - a blessed ring of conflict (on left hand)
H - a blessed ring of free action (on right hand)
M - a blessed ring of levitation
I - a blessed ring of slow digestion
Wands
R - a cursed wand of digging (0:7)
K - a wand of digging (0:2)
X - a wand of secret door detection (0:7)
q - a wand of secret door detection (0:4)
W - a wand of teleportation (0:0)
V - a blessed wand of teleportation (0:5)
T - a wand of teleportation (0:7)
S - a wand of teleportation (0:1)
B - a wand of teleportation (1:0)
Tools
b - a blessed greased bag of holding named main
d - the blessed Bell of Opening (0:2)
U - the blessed greased Eyes of the Overworld (being worn)
w - a blessed magic whistle
Z - the blessed greased Orb of Fate (1:0)
i - the blessed greased fireproof Platinum Yendorian Express Card
k - a cursed skeleton key
s - a blessed stethoscope
c - a blessed tooled horn
P - a blessed towel
h - a blessed +0 unicorn horn
Contents of the bag of holding named main:
a blessed amulet of life saving
a blessed amulet of life saving
a blessed amulet of life saving
a blessed amulet of life saving
a blessed amulet of life saving
a blessed amulet of life saving
a cursed -1 helm of opposite alignment
a blessed +5 pair of levitation boots
4 uncursed scrolls of scare monster
5 potions of unholy water
8 potions of holy water named holy water
5 blessed diluted potions of full healing
a wand of probing (0:7)
a wand of cold (0:4)
a wand of light (0:13)
a wand of sleep (0:7)
a wand of sleep (0:7)
a wand of sleep (0:8)
a wand of sleep (0:3)
a wand of striking (0:6)
a wand of striking (0:7)
a wand of striking (0:4)
a wand of striking (0:5)
a wand of teleportation (0:4)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:5)
a wand of teleportation (0:5)
a wand of teleportation (0:7)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:7)
a wand of teleportation (0:6)
a wand of teleportation (0:5)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:5)
a wand of teleportation (0:4)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:8)
a wand of teleportation (0:4)
a wand of teleportation (0:7)
a wand of teleportation (0:7)
a wand of teleportation (0:0)
a wand of teleportation (0:4)
a wand of teleportation (0:4)
a wand of teleportation (0:0)
a wand of teleportation (0:3)
a wand of teleportation (1:0)
a wand of teleportation named empty (2:0)
a wand of teleportation named empty (1:0)
a wand of teleportation named empty (0:0)
a blessed greased fireproof magic harp (1:3)
Final attributes
You were piously aligned
You were poison resistant
You were magic-protected
You were blinded
You saw invisible
You were telepathic
You were warned
You had infravision
You were invisible to others
You were displaced
You caused conflict
You could jump
You were very fast
You had reflection
You had free action
Your life would have been saved
You were lucky (3)
You had extra luck
Good luck did not time out for you
You survived
Spells known in the end
Name Level Category Fail
a - healing 1 healing 0%
b - extra healing 3 healing 0%
c - stone to flesh 3 healing 0%
Vanquished creatures
Juiblex
The Wizard of Yendor (7 times)
a high priest (4 created)
The Cyclops
a master lich (7 created)
2 balrogs (4 created)
a purple worm (6 created)
a gray dragon (5 created)
a silver dragon (9 created)
a black dragon (8 created)
a blue dragon (7 created)
a green dragon (8 created)
a yellow dragon (7 created)
a minotaur (26 created)
a jabberwock (5 created)
a demilich (8 created)
Vlad the Impaler
a master mind flayer (5 created)
a pit fiend (11 created)
a sandestin (3 created)
a titanothere (4 created)
a disenchanter (7 created)
2 vampire lords (29 created)
an aligned priest (42 created)
an ice devil (6 created)
2 nalfeshnees (6 created)
2 vampires (36 created)
5 ghosts (35 created)
2 winged gargoyles (5 created)
2 ogre kings (9 created)
2 rock trolls (17 created)
an umber hulk (11 created)
an Elvenking (4 created)
a hezrou (24 created)
3 bone devils (18 created)
a stalker (14 created)
an elf-lord (5 created)
a sergeant (9 created)
a barbed devil (11 created)
a vrock (7 created)
3 hell hound pups (7 created)
2 warhorses (5 created)
an erinys (3 created)
a marilith (7 created)
2 sharks (13 created)
3 shocking spheres (8 created)
2 leocrottas (8 created)
a stone giant (8 created)
a green slime (5 created)
2 pit vipers (11 created)
2 pythons (9 created)
5 wraiths (50 created)
a horned devil (6 created)
an incubus (3 created)
3 giant beetles (7 created)
a giant spider (18 created)
2 giant eels (40 created)
a jaguar (2 created)
8 snakes (23 created)
2 soldier ants (3 created)
a fire ant (2 created)
2 giant ants (3 created)
a floating eye (7 created)
6 rabid rats (26 created)
a dwarf zombie (14 created)
4 killer bees (50 created)
2 acid blobs (3 created)
a gas spore
2 giant rats (17 created)
2 garter snakes (6 created)
a goblin (5 created)
a lichen (6 created)
a kobold zombie (7 created)
128 creatures vanquished.
Genocided or extinct species:
erinyes (extinct)
1 species extinct.
Voluntary challenges
You went without food
You were an atheist
You never hit with a wielded weapon
You were a pacifist
You were illiterate
You never genocided any monsters
You never polymorphed an object
You never changed form
You used no wishes
Your skills at the end
Fighting Skills
(none)
Weapon Skills
knife [Basic]
Spellcasting Skills
healing spells [Basic]
Goodbye Conducty1 the Demigod...
You went to your reward with 106150 points,
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (worth 7000 zorkmids and 17500
points)
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points)
The Eye of the Aethiopica (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Eyes of the Overworld (worth 2500 zorkmids and 6250 points)
The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
7 amulets of life saving (worth 1050 zorkmids),
and 0 pieces of gold, after 5420 moves.
Killer: ascended
You were level 20 with a maximum of 1083 hit points when you ascended.
No Points Name
Hp [max]
1 2147483647 Zadir-Pri-Hum-Fem-Neu died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by overexertion.
4140 [4140]
2 2147483647 ctaboir-Wiz-Gno-Fem-Neu ascended to demigoddess-hood.
3 2145937336 greqrg-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
297 [297]
4 2101144364 Lorenz-Cav-Gno-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
978 [978]
5 2100989450 art-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
21799985 [21800000]
6 2025066518 Jove-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Cha ascended to demigod-hood.
1950 [1950]
7 2003016348 Babamus-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Cha ascended to demigod-hood.
14888 [14888]
8 1050706920 Eidolos-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu turned to stone in Gehennom
on level 44 [max 46]. Petrified by a cockatrice
corpse.
1007555 [1007555]
9 1000878100 nailbunny-Wiz-Gno-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
15369 [15369]
10 384075270 zid-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
5630 [5630]
1998 3382449 tapin-Bar-Hum-Fem-Neu ascended to demigoddess-hood.
236 [334]
1999 3381470 Smello-Hea-Hum-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
653 [653]
2000 3380499 Garoad-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Neu choked on his food in
Gehennom on level 30. Choked on a wraith corpse.
398 [398]
106150 Conducty1-Hea-Gno-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
997 [1083]
funcrunch
> http://alt.org/nethack/dumplog/Conducty1.lastgame.txt
> The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (worth 7000 zorkmids and 17500
> points)
> The Eye of the Aethiopica (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
> The Eyes of the Overworld (worth 2500 zorkmids and 6250 points)
> The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
How did you get all of these without using any wishes?
Shawn Moore
I hit some bones that helped out.
Shawn M Moore
ja...@magic.ms
Actually he prepared it himself. He hit it on DL5, perfectly dug out,
though not many monsters. Many piles of potions, wands, rings etc. All
squares burned with Elbereth and descriptions what the items are.
Most notable a big stack of fruit juice to not break foodless and
countless full healing, gain level, etc. blabla. A full armor set
lying around on one square, he just needed to equip that.
I could go on with that list :) Essentially it was a bone file
especially prepared for this very character, it has to be his own.
I dunno what I think of it. It's certainly an impressive sport to
prepare all this and utilize it to get such a conduct game.
But that's pretty much it. I would have liked to see some really
impressive conduct game... And it turned out to end at DL5.
Jaina
Derek Ray
> But that's pretty much it. I would have liked to see some really
> impressive conduct game... And it turned out to end at DL5.
I believe it was an exercise to clarify the meaning of "impossible", as
opposed to "extremely difficult."
--
Derek
insert clever quotation here
ja...@magic.ms
<moot@idont_check_the_spamtrap_anyway.com> wrote:
> j...@magic.ms wrote:
> > But that's pretty much it. I would have liked to see some really
> > impressive conduct game... And it turned out to end at DL5.
>
> I believe it was an exercise to clarify the meaning of "impossible", as
> opposed to "extremely difficult."
Don't get me wrong, it's very impressive :D
Seeing the posting as it was though, he neglected all those little
details I posted above and that's what I was disappointed about.
Jaina
Janis Papanagnou
>
> (nethack.alt.org removes small ttyrecs because most of the time it's
> just someone scumming).
That seems to be inappropriate as implemented at present; if you play
a long session, continue with a short session, and proceed again with
a long session (all being the same game), you will have a gap in your
record. (Just noticed that with a recently played game.)
Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
Janis
Shawn Moore
wrote:
> Shawn Moore wrote:
>
> > (nethack.alt.org removes small ttyrecs because most of the time it's
> > just someone scumming).
>
> That seems to be inappropriate as implemented at present; if you play
> a long session, continue with a short session, and proceed again with
> a long session (all being the same game), you will have a gap in your
> record. (Just noticed that with a recently played game.)
Yes indeed.
> Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
> a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
I also just noticed that Conducty1's ttyrec included another game
before it, so the new time, which is the exact time (no missing
ttyrecs), is 1h 55m 33s.
Shawn M Moore
Janis Papanagnou
> On Apr 14, 10:19 am, Janis Papanagnou <Janis_Papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
>>a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>
> Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
Hmm.. - It's not necessary (as far as I see) to modify Nethack to achieve
at least some of the cleanup, if file size and file date is correlated
with the date information in the record file; at least that could prevent
rigorous deletion of files that don't fall into the startscum category.
Janis
Shawn Moore
wrote:
> Shawn Moore wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>> Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
>>> a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>
>> Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
>
> Hmm.. - It's not necessary (as far as I see) to modify Nethack to achieve
> at least some of the cleanup, if file size and file date is correlated
> with the date information in the record file; at least that could prevent
> rigorous deletion of files that don't fall into the startscum category.
Unfortunately only the date is stored in the logfile. It's difficult,
if not impossible, to perfectly match up logfile entries with ttyrecs.
I've tried; looking at ttyrecs is how I would award the realtime
trophy in the June tourney. But I just can't get it right. And for
whatever reason, the guy who runs NAO is reluctant to modify the
nethack binary, so we're stuck with a logfile format that has probably
remained unchanged since the 80s.
Shawn M Moore
Janis Papanagnou
> On Apr 14, 5:45 pm, Janis Papanagnou <Janis_Papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>>Shawn Moore wrote:
>>>Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>
>>>>Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
>>>>a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>>
>>>Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
>>
>>Hmm.. - It's not necessary (as far as I see) to modify Nethack to achieve
>>at least some of the cleanup, if file size and file date is correlated
>>with the date information in the record file; at least that could prevent
>>rigorous deletion of files that don't fall into the startscum category.
>
> Unfortunately only the date is stored in the logfile. It's difficult,
> if not impossible, to perfectly match up logfile entries with ttyrecs.
I wasn't aiming at "perfectly" matching it. Just the opposite behaviour
(i.e. to delete _all_ the small files) seems inadequate. But, honestly,
I haven't thought through the outlined solution in any depth (so I will
shut up for the moment :-)
> I've tried; looking at ttyrecs is how I would award the realtime
> trophy in the June tourney. But I just can't get it right. And for
> whatever reason, the guy who runs NAO is reluctant to modify the
> nethack binary, so we're stuck with a logfile format that has probably
> remained unchanged since the 80s.
(Well, a quite minor change was the introduction of version information.)
Janis
Sergey Zaharchenko
Hello Shawn!
Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 02:25:18PM -0700 you wrote:
> > Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
> > a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>
> Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
Couldn't it be done with, like,
head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Restoring save file...' >/dev/null
or
head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Shall I pick' >/dev/null
and testing the exit code?
--
DoubleF
No virus detected in this message. Ehrm, wait a minute...
/kernel: pid 56921 (antivirus), uid 32000: exited on signal 9
Oh yes, no virus:)
Shawn Moore
> Hello Shawn!
> Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 02:25:18PM -0700 you wrote:
> > > Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
> > > a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
> > Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
>
> head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Shall I pick' >/dev/null
> and testing the exit code?
Some people play with their character types already chosen in
their .nethackrc.
Both of these fail to take into account that fruit names, etc can be
named "Restoring save file..." or "Shall I pick". :) Also, the way
ttyrec works is it doesn't print things out that happen in a very
short time interval (I believe, I may be getting the specifics wrong,
but ttyrec doesn't save all frames all the time). This skipping can be
invoked easily by pasting things into nethack.
Shawn M Moore
Janis Papanagnou
> Hello Shawn!
> Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 02:25:18PM -0700 you wrote:
>
>>>Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
>>>a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>>
>>Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
>
> Couldn't it be done with, like,
I'd say, yes.
> head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Restoring save file...' >/dev/null
>
> or
>
> head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Shall I pick' >/dev/null
>
> and testing the exit code?
>
Along the line of your proposal; you can also omit all the additional
processes (head, cat), pipes, and redirection by using some options to
grep...
grep -aq 'Restoring save file...'
which will exit as soon as a match is found and does not produce output
other then the implicit exit code.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On Apr 15, 5:38 am, Sergey Zaharchenko <doublef-...@yandex.ru> wrote:
>>Hello Shawn!
>>Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 02:25:18PM -0700 you wrote:
>>
>>>>Start scumming should just consider a new game; but I suppose that is
>>>>a lot more difficult to find out than just looking at the file sizes.
>>>
>>>Fiendishly difficult unless you can modify nethack.
>>
>>Couldn't it be done with, like, [...]
>>head -c 500 theTtyrec|cat -v|grep 'Shall I pick' >/dev/null
>>and testing the exit code?
>
>
> Some people play with their character types already chosen in
> their .nethackrc.
>
> Both of these fail to take into account that fruit names, etc can be
> named "Restoring save file..." or "Shall I pick". :)
Okay, you have put a smiley. But we can neglect any such personal
behaviour in the context of the current cleanup behaviour of NAO.
> Also, the way
> ttyrec works is it doesn't print things out that happen in a very
> short time interval (I believe, I may be getting the specifics wrong,
> but ttyrec doesn't save all frames all the time). This skipping can be
> invoked easily by pasting things into nethack.
I may misunderstand what you meant, but the startup messages would
always be there, I'm sure. (I'm not sure what else you have in mind.)
Guessing... an extended command to paste any string (including the
startup strings)? In that case you can prevent misinterpretation by
either the proposed 'head -c' or by using the grep option '-m1'.
Janis
Kent Paul Dolan
> Seeing the posting as it was though, he neglected
> all those little details I posted above and that's
> what I was disappointed about.
Indeed. With the supplementary information, we learn
that the original posting was just someone bragging
about cheating by salting a bones file, not
something usually smiled upon in rgrn.
xanthian.
cdi
Without sticking up too much for the OP on this one ...
a) the game was recorded from start to finish
b) he did it on a public server
c) there was no guarantee bones would be left
d) there was no guarantee a successor character
of his would find said bones pile.
e) the OP only used normal game mechanics for
both the games involved in this YAAP.
This YAAP deserves some sort of "best abuse of the rules" recognition,
similar to what the IOCCC gives out for particularly creative gems
[1].
-cdi
[1] The 1988 winner of this award "#include /dev/tty" was particularly
cute.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> This YAAP deserves some sort of "best abuse of the rules" recognition,
> similar to what the IOCCC gives out for particularly creative gems
> [1].
>
> cute.
Without having looked at the original IOCCC (whatever that is) source;
there are some quotes missing, or <...> brackets. :-} Nice, anyway :-)
Janis
cdi
wrote:
IOCCC = International Obfuscated C Code Contest. You're right, I
messed up the title. :/
-cdi
master...@gmail.com
> that the original posting was just someone bragging
> about cheating by salting a bones file, not
> something usually smiled upon in rgrn.
>
> xanthian.
Think about it; there was a point to this stunt. No one is trying to
hide anything or garner some sort of praise.
jlue...@uiuc.edu
wrote:
Just throwing out my own personal experience here... I wrote up a
couple shell scripts that combine ttyrecs into single files by game,
and figure out which ones are ascensions, and whatnot, and out of my
~600mb of ttyrecs, nao has corrupted versions of at least two of them,
to the point where the various tty* utilities fail to read them
properly. As for your solutions, "Shall I pick" isn't what you should
be grepping for, since some people (namely, me, at least) specify race/
role/etc in their .nethackrc. Grepping for the regex "[wW]elcome
(back )? to NetHack" *should* produce the results you want, assuming
ttyrecs are stored correctly. On the other hand, the possibility of a
user using fruit_name="Welcome to NetHack", or even just naming some
item in their inventory with that isn't something you particularly
want to rely on, if you are going to be doing this for any kind of
large scale purpose (such as the quickest ascension trophy in the June
tournament).
-doy
Janis Papanagnou
> On Apr 15, 6:16 am, Janis Papanagnou <Janis_Papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>>Shawn Moore wrote:
>>
>>>Also, the way
>>>ttyrec works is it doesn't print things out that happen in a very
>>>short time interval (I believe, I may be getting the specifics wrong,
>>>but ttyrec doesn't save all frames all the time). This skipping can be
>>>invoked easily by pasting things into nethack.
>>
>>I may misunderstand what you meant, but the startup messages would
>>always be there, I'm sure. (I'm not sure what else you have in mind.)
>>Guessing... an extended command to paste any string (including the
>>startup strings)? In that case you can prevent misinterpretation by
>>either the proposed 'head -c' or by using the grep option '-m1'.
>
> be grepping for, since some people (namely, me, at least) specify race/
> role/etc in their .nethackrc.
Aha, I see what you mean. I haven't considered the second proposal from
Sergey at all; was myself just referring to his first suggestion as you
can see in my posting, and which should work as grep pattern (depending
on how one implements the test maybe modulo the fruit name match).
> Grepping for the regex "[wW]elcome
> (back )? to NetHack" *should* produce the results you want, assuming
> ttyrecs are stored correctly.
Yes, that would be another possibility besides 'Restoring save file...'.
Or do you see any problem with that one, too?
> On the other hand, the possibility of a
> user using fruit_name="Welcome to NetHack", or even just naming some
> item in their inventory with that isn't something you particularly
> want to rely on, if you are going to be doing this for any kind of
> large scale purpose (such as the quickest ascension trophy in the June
> tournament).
Janis
Beolach
<Janis_Pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Why couldn't they just check for the existence of a savefile before
starting nethack, rather than grepping the ttyrecs? Requires a bit more
planning ahead, but seems a more foolproof way of avoiding gaps...
Beolach
Janis
> In <news:evudv0$9uh$1...@online.de>, Janis Papanagnou
>
>
>
> Why couldn't they just check for the existence of a savefile before
> starting nethack, rather than grepping the ttyrecs? Requires a bit more
> planning ahead, but seems a more foolproof way of avoiding gaps...
That would not allow batch processing of the existing file base.
Would that generally help to solve the task? Hmm... If I understand
you correct, a non-existing save file and a small _last_ ttyrec file
would indicate a candidate ttyrec file to be removed. The same
condition would be valid, though, for any short lasting final session
of a game that you don't want deleted (e.g. you want to learn about
the death circumstances).
If one wants to do the deletion before/on game startup, a small ttyrec
file could be taken as possible candidate to be additionally grep'ed
for a known string, to avoid the mentioned problem. (You can't avoid
the grep for that purpose, I suppose.)
But batch processing seems much more reliable to me. The "on-startup"
proposal has the advantage that the ttyrec files are not grep'ed
twice. You can have that also in batch mode if you memorize the date
the batch job did run the last time and just inspect the files with a
newer file creation/modification date.
Janis
Jym
Agreed. And also the recognition that *all* conducts together is possible.
Not likely, but still possible.
The "bad" point is that the OP simply showed the final log of the game,
without explaining the trick [usually games with lots of conducts also
have some part of story in the YAAP and I was disappointed after reading
the conducts not to find the story (as well as some precious hints on how
to redo such a masterpeace), of course, further reading gave the
explanation...]
The first post was, at least implicitely, pretending that the stuff was
done in a regular way whilte this was not really the case... I guess
that's also what is disappointing Xanthian.
--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
carlh...@gmail.com
I am shocked at some of you people! The OP's YAAP brought a smile to
_my_ face anyway. It's just a game and people are allowed to have fun
in different ways. I, personally, applaud the OP's diligent efforts
at over-the-top bones-scumming.
The fact that the backstory was not included in the original post
could hardly be considered obfuscation. The ascending character was
so powerful and well stocked with such a small amount of time, and (oh
yeah!) possessing otherwise impossible objects to acquire that there
had to be something out of the ordinary.
Come on you all, lighten up!!!
Carl
sjde...@yahoo.com
<moot@idont_check_the_spamtrap_anyway.com> wrote:
> j...@magic.ms wrote:
> > But that's pretty much it. I would have liked to see some really
> > impressive conduct game... And it turned out to end at DL5.
>
> I believe it was an exercise to clarify the meaning of "impossible", as
> opposed to "extremely difficult."
>
Exactly. It's the first 12-conduct ascension that's been posted
AFAIK. It's clearly a far cry from doing the same with a single
account in a tournament or something like that, but it's a proof-of-
concept that a 12-conduct ascension is at least possible. It'd have
been nice to clarify that in the OP, but it was pretty obvious from
the listing that it was a gimmick ascension.
Beolach
<janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 16 Apr., 11:49, Beolach <beol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> In <news:evudv0$9uh$1...@online.de>, Janis Papanagnou
>>
>> [identifying small start scumming ttyrec files by grep'ing a well known
>> string]
>>
>>
>> Why couldn't they just check for the existence of a savefile before
>> starting nethack, rather than grepping the ttyrecs? Requires a bit
>> more planning ahead, but seems a more foolproof way of avoiding gaps...
>
> That would not allow batch processing of the existing file base.
>
Right, that's part of what I meant by "Requires a bit more planning
ahead". But since the existing file base will already have deleted false-
positives using the existing start-scum checks, I wouldn't be too worried
about it.
> Would that generally help to solve the task? Hmm... If I understand you
> correct, a non-existing save file and a small _last_ ttyrec file would
> indicate a candidate ttyrec file to be removed. The same condition would
> be valid, though, for any short lasting final session of a game that you
> don't want deleted (e.g. you want to learn about the death
> circumstances).
>
> If one wants to do the deletion before/on game startup, a small ttyrec
> file could be taken as possible candidate to be additionally grep'ed for
> a known string, to avoid the mentioned problem. (You can't avoid the
> grep for that purpose, I suppose.)
>
> But batch processing seems much more reliable to me. The "on-startup"
> proposal has the advantage that the ttyrec files are not grep'ed twice.
> You can have that also in batch mode if you memorize the date the batch
> job did run the last time and just inspect the files with a newer file
> creation/modification date.
>
I don't think that's quite what I was thinking. I was assuming the start-
scum cleaning script is run as a cron job, but the existence or lack
thereof of a savefile at the time of the cron job isn't really useful.
What I was thinking was that dgamelaunch would check for the existence of
a savefile before starting nethack; if a savefile did exist, then the
ttyrec for this session would have, say, a 'c' for "continued" added to
its filename; if there wasn't a savefile, then the ttyrec filename would
have a 'b' for "beginning". Then the start-scum cleaning script would
only look at ttyrecs w/ the 'b'. It might still have some false-
positives if a player starts a game w/ a short session, but even those
could be decreased by the cleaning script checking if the next ttyrec was
also a 'b'.
Beolach
cdi
> On Apr 16, 2:54 pm, Jym <Jean-Yves.Moyen+n...@ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> I am shocked at some of you people! The OP's YAAP brought a smile to
> _my_ face anyway. It's just a game and people are allowed to have fun
> in different ways. I, personally, applaud the OP's diligent efforts
> at over-the-top bones-scumming.
The farming involved (on the bones-scumming side) was ridiculous in
its own right. That account was racking up what seemed like a million
points every 30 seconds or so.
> The fact that the backstory was not included in the original post
> could hardly be considered obfuscation. The ascending character was
> so powerful and well stocked with such a small amount of time, and (oh
> yeah!) possessing otherwise impossible objects to acquire that there
> had to be something out of the ordinary.
I personally got a big kick out of the OP's deadpan response somewhere
upthread when asked about this: "I hit some bones that helped out."
-cdi
David Damerell
>Exactly. It's the first 12-conduct ascension that's been posted
>AFAIK. It's clearly a far cry from doing the same with a single
>account in a tournament or something like that, but it's a proof-of-
>concept that a 12-conduct ascension is at least possible.
Obviously it's possible if you cheat.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Sunday, April - a weekend.
Jym
<dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Quoting sjde...@yahoo.com <sjde...@yahoo.com>:
>> Exactly. It's the first 12-conduct ascension that's been posted
>> AFAIK. It's clearly a far cry from doing the same with a single
>> account in a tournament or something like that, but it's a proof-of-
>> concept that a 12-conduct ascension is at least possible.
>
> Obviously it's possible if you cheat.
Well, this showed that it is possible even without cheating.
Of course, finding such a bone file is not exactly likely... But it's
technically possible.
After all, a pudding farmer being stupidely killed and leaving an insane
bone file is not completely impossible.
--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
Jove
<<op.tqxmitmkft6h9m@xrousse>>:
Happened during my last Ascension on NAO.
--
Welcome to NetHack. | I take what I'm given.
| You exploit the game.
All the best, | He's an abusive cheater.
Jove (Joe Bednorz)
Ohle Claussen
Which is one of the reasons why pudding farming is a bit ambivalent.
--
Ohle Claussen | GPG-Key-ID E7149169
----------===========----------
BOFH Excuse #358:
struck by the Good Times virus
Janis Papanagnou
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:29:07 +0200, Jym wrote in
> <<op.tqxmitmkft6h9m@xrousse>>:
>>On Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:02:34 +0200, David Damerell
>><dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>Quoting sjde...@yahoo.com <sjde...@yahoo.com>:
>>>
>>>>Exactly. It's the first 12-conduct ascension that's been posted
>>>>AFAIK. It's clearly a far cry from doing the same with a single
>>>>account in a tournament or something like that, but it's a proof-of-
>>>>concept that a 12-conduct ascension is at least possible.
>>>
>>>Obviously it's possible if you cheat.
>>
>>Well, this showed that it is possible even without cheating.
For some values of "not cheating".
But how is setting up a bunch of games to achieve a specific goal
in _another_ game not cheating? (Apparently opinons seem to differ
whether all what's possible to do is non-cheating, even if that's
done by external means like bones files, "bones file cheating".)
We shouldn't re-iterate about what that game was, or intended to
be. Apparently to quite some people here the game turned out to be
something different than it first appeared to be. Now it has been
cleared how it was achieved and everyone can form his own opinion
about that game.
For me it is an interesting academic setup. For me, as it had been
presented (intentionally or not), the posting leaves a bad taste.
>>Of course, finding such a bone file is not exactly likely... But it's
>>technically possible.
>>After all, a pudding farmer being stupidely killed and leaving an insane
>>bone file is not completely impossible.
>
> Happened during my last Ascension on NAO.
My current NAO game got spoiled by a pudding farm bones level :-/
Janis
funcrunch
wrote:
> But how is setting up a bunch of games to achieve a specific goal
> in _another_ game not cheating? (Apparently opinons seem to differ
> whether all what's possible to do is non-cheating, even if that's
> done by external means like bones files, "bones file cheating".)
If it were possible to bones-stuff in such a way that both generating
the bones and having your next character find them were guaranteed,
then I would agree that this is clearly cheating. However, in this
case there's nothing to say that after all that effort the bones would
not have been generated, or that some other player wouldn't have
stumbled upon them and helped themselves to a very nice ascension kit.
So making this attempt at all was a big risk.
> For me it is an interesting academic setup. For me, as it had been
> presented (intentionally or not), the posting leaves a bad taste.
That I certainly agree with.
Janis Papanagnou
> On Apr 17, 9:12 am, Janis Papanagnou <Janis_Papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>But how is setting up a bunch of games to achieve a specific goal
>>in _another_ game not cheating? (Apparently opinons seem to differ
>>whether all what's possible to do is non-cheating, even if that's
>>done by external means like bones files, "bones file cheating".)
>
> If it were possible to bones-stuff in such a way that both generating
> the bones and having your next character find them were guaranteed,
> then I would agree that this is clearly cheating. However, in this
> case there's nothing to say that after all that effort the bones would
> not have been generated, or that some other player wouldn't have
> stumbled upon them and helped themselves to a very nice ascension kit.
> So making this attempt at all was a big risk.
The point for me is that the original game (where the setup was done)
is surely more challenging (and boring if you have to do it several
times until success) than executing the final game where you simply
make use of the setup. Whether you have to try it once or 20 times
until you succeed with the setup does not make the final game less
cheating, in my book.
Janis
Shawn Moore
wrote:
> The point for me is that the original game (where the setup was done)
> is surely more challenging (and boring if you have to do it several
> times until success) than executing the final game where you simply
> make use of the setup. Whether you have to try it once or 20 times
> until you succeed with the setup does not make the final game less
> cheating, in my book.
>
> Janis
Being in my somewhat unique position, I must say I disagree. Pudding
farming is an absolutely mindless way to gain arbitrary amounts of
swag. Would I have done this if pudding farming was unviable?
Absolutely not. Ascending with all twelve conducts, quickly
(realtime), and in as few turns as possible, is quite difficult no
matter what bones piles you hit. Just watch the ttyrec (but don't
watch too closely, because you'll see I make probably about a hundred
mistakes :)).
Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
cheating. If I couldn't deal with people calling it cheating then I
would never have posted it to RGRN. But do consider that I did not
modify the source code or save scum (which are mostly impossible on a
public server); everything was done in-game.
Is this my most impressive ascension? Hardly. But I do think it has
some merit, and in playing that game I ran into a few problems I
previously had never encountered (mostly due to the fact that I very
rarely play pacifist). I'll answer any questions you guys have about
this ascension, because while Jaina hit all the major points, there
are many details.
Shawn M Moore
Janis
>
> [...] But do consider that I did not
> modify the source code or save scum (which are mostly impossible on a
> public server); everything was done in-game.
It's surely not "save scum", but rather "bomes file scum", a term that
was -AFAIK- invented here long before this article was posted. And
while bones files are an in-game mechanism I wouldn't call external
bones file _setups_ as "in-game". YMMV.
I haven't initially commented on that game because I think after the
backgrounds had been clarified everyone would find his own opinion.
And with the thus far presented game details it's not even worth
discussing.
> Is this my most impressive ascension? Hardly. But I do think it has
> some merit, and in playing that game I ran into a few problems I
> previously had never encountered (mostly due to the fact that I very
> rarely play pacifist). I'll answer any questions you guys have about
> this ascension, because while Jaina hit all the major points, there
> are many details.
To know about those details, the problems you actually had with the
setup or with the final game, would indeed be interesting to know of.
Janis
Sergey Zaharchenko
Hello Shawn!
Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 10:11:32PM -0700 you wrote:
> I'll answer any questions you guys have about this ascension,
> because while Jaina hit all the major points, there are many
> details.
Well, since you've offered that, why did Vlad take so long? Couldn't you
have used a purple worm instead of the lousy dragon?
--
DoubleF
No virus detected in this message. Ehrm, wait a minute...
/kernel: pid 56921 (antivirus), uid 32000: exited on signal 9
Oh yes, no virus:)
David Damerell
><dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Obviously it's possible if you cheat.
>Well, this showed that it is possible even without cheating.
>Of course, finding such a bone file is not exactly likely... But it's
>technically possible.
If one were actually playing conducts for the challenge, though, rather
than for whatever satisfaction can be extracted from cheating and not
telling rgrn you cheated... well, what would _you_ do if you got a bones
file that set you up like that? It would have destroyed the challenge, and
you'd have to start again.
So, no, I don't think this shows that the conduct is possible in any
meaningful sense.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Gloucesterday, April.
David Damerell
>Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
>cheating.
That's because it's cheating and you are a cheat.
Eighty-seven conducts or none, I don't want to see cheating "ascension"
posts on rgrn. Please never do it again.
deathdruid
> I'll answer any questions you guys have about
> this ascension, because while Jaina hit all the major points, there
> are many details.
Here's a question: how did you guarantee that you (and only you) would
find your own bones file? Did you start scum until you did?
Congrats on a cool accomplishment, though you could have been more
upfront in your original post.
-Rahul
James
> Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
> cheating. If I couldn't deal with people calling it cheating then I
> would never have posted it to RGRN. But do consider that I did not
> modify the source code or save scum (which are mostly impossible on a
> public server); everything was done in-game.
First, I'd like to say congratulations: what you did was an interesting
exercise, and certainly not trivial. And while "cheating" is a highly
charged word which admits many definitions and must be weighed on a
greyscale, I'm going to have to say that this probably /was/ cheating.
1. You didn't do it in-game, you did it in-games. It's like a snooker player
agreeing with his opponent to forego the chalk for one frame, then using
his already-chalked cue from the previous frame.
2. You intended to alter the balance of the second game by leaving stuffed
bones, and this intention renders the otherwise innocent act of leaving
bones cheating.
(2.1 You didn't admit to it in the original post.)
Here are some other ways to do a fast ascension on a public server that
would probably be cheating:
i. Exploit bugs.
ii. Use a rerollbot until you start on a square with a /oW (0:3)
iii. Set up a safe area, then press "." until the turn counter overflows.
--
James
jlue...@uiuc.edu
wrote:
> Quoting Shawn Moore <sar...@gmail.com>:
>
> >Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
> >cheating.
>
> That's because it's cheating and you are a cheat.
>
> Eighty-seven conducts or none, I don't want to see cheating "ascension"
> posts on rgrn. Please never do it again.
> --
> Today is Gloucesterday, April.
Oh, seriously, lighten up. This was obvioiusly posted mostly as a
joke, and for all of these posts to be taking it so seriously really
points out how ridiculous rgrn can be at times. He has said that he
did it mostly just to see if it was possible, and that it is nowhere
near his most impressive ascension, both of which are true (it's not
like he can't ascend without "cheating", see
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_frm/thread/80615177cc9ba3c2/d37377cc4085533d?lnk=gst&q=yaqap&rnum=1#d37377cc4085533d
for example), so I don't see what the big horrible issue is. For what
it's worth, this could easily have been done during devnull with just
a bit of collaboration between clan members, while remaining entirely
within the rules, so I don't think this is something to be
unconditionally discounted as "cheating", although I agree (both with
you and with Shawn) that this isn't anywhere near as impressive as an
actual conduct game without farming or bones.
On another note, for you to act as the police of rgrn based on your
own definition of "cheating" and what you would like to see on rgrn is
equally ridiculous. I actually enjoyed both watching him play and
reading this thread. Please never do it again.
- doy
David Damerell
>>>Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
>>>cheating.
>>That's because it's cheating and you are a cheat.
>>Eighty-seven conducts or none, I don't want to see cheating "ascension"
>>posts on rgrn. Please never do it again.
>own definition of "cheating" and what you would like to see on rgrn is
>equally ridiculous.
Actually, no, it's conventional not to want to see cheated "ascension"
posts here. This is not merely my personal preference but is what is
normal.
Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Gloucesterday, April.
dtype
wrote:
> That seems to be inappropriate as implemented at present; if you play
> a long session, continue with a short session, and proceed again with
> a long session (all being the same game), you will have a gap in your
> record. (Just noticed that with a recently played game.)
You're right.
No idea why I even put that in, although it was years ago and there's
no accounting for what I might have been thinking of. I think it was
just general cleanup of startscumming, as suggested, although there
are obvious flaws that have been pointed out.
The cronjob removing small games has been stopped.
-drew
jlue...@uiuc.edu
wrote:
> Quoting <jlueh...@uiuc.edu>:
>
> >On Apr 18, 6:58 am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> >>Quoting Shawn Moore <sar...@gmail.com>:
> >>>Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
> >>>cheating.
> >>That's because it's cheating and you are a cheat.
> >>Eighty-seven conducts or none, I don't want to see cheating "ascension"
> >>posts on rgrn. Please never do it again.
> >On another note, for you to act as the police of rgrn based on your
> >own definition of "cheating" and what you would like to see on rgrn is
> >equally ridiculous.
>
> Actually, no, it's conventional not to want to see cheated "ascension"
> posts here. This is not merely my personal preference but is what is
> normal.
>
> Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
> --
> Today is Gloucesterday, April.
As you should be able to tell from reading my post, I disagree with
your opinion of "cheating". Why is your opinion more important than
mine? And why are you still upset about this? Shawn isn't claiming
this as anything other than it is, as you should be able to tell from
reading his posts in this thread.
- doy
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
> Quoting <jlue...@uiuc.edu>:
>>On Apr 18, 6:58 am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>>Quoting Shawn Moore <sar...@gmail.com>:
>>>>Moving on to the meat of the thread, you are free to call what I did
>>>>cheating.
>>>That's because it's cheating and you are a cheat.
>>>Eighty-seven conducts or none, I don't want to see cheating "ascension"
>>>posts on rgrn. Please never do it again.
>>On another note, for you to act as the police of rgrn based on your
>>own definition of "cheating" and what you would like to see on rgrn is
>>equally ridiculous.
>
> Actually, no, it's conventional not to want to see cheated "ascension"
> posts here. This is not merely my personal preference but is what is
> normal.
So you're objecting to calling it a YAAP, not sharing it at all? I can
see that. He did point to the ttyrec, but most people wouldn't bother
to go look it up. I thought it was pretty obvious from the text and dump
(such that I found the post cute and not harmful) but I suppose I might
have had out of band information.
[actual interesting nethack content starts here]
> Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
Actually this particular cheat was pretty interesting. It's certainly a
proof of concept for "doing twelve conducts with all the tools you want."
If combined with a proof of concept for "getting all the tools you
want while maintaining twelve conducts," this could be a step towards
a non-cheating all-conduct game. (and a significant one, I'd think)
I guess all you need for that is a way to survive indefinitely and to
get your pet to pudding farm for you. Slow digestion, polymorph control,
and "You feel like a new man" might handle the indefinite (or at least
near-indefinite, polymorph sources don't last forever) survival. You
could poly your pet into something that could wield a -3 dagger, give
it the -3 dagger, and maneuver carefully? All-conduct farming would be
hard, too...
[end interesting content, resume splitting hairs]
Would a startscummed (for ring of slow digestion, say) all-conduct game be
cheating? What about a player who rolled wizards and played the wizards
he or she got, but only tried to get the all-conduct game on games that
started with useful equipment? What about exploiting bugs? I think there's
actually plenty of room for disagreement about exactly what constitutes
cheating, and while maybe Shawn shouldn't have posted the way he did
if _he_ thought he was cheating, I hope that any one person's opinion
should not prevent the rest of us from the opportunity to decide.
If you're going to get upset at Shawn, I'd rather (though it's not like
my preferences are going to change what you say any more than yours
will change what he posts) that you get upset with him for being a troll
than for being a "cheat" --- I doubt he intended to deceive anyone into
thinking he had accomplished a legitimate 12-conduct game. (If you did,
Shawn, *thwap*) I think that the bad thing he did was not to cheat, but to
be disingenuous about it in his post; if he had said "Not A Valid YAAP,
but still interesting" I don't think you would be calling him out as a
cheat, just thinking that he had too much free time on his hands.
...which, clearly, he does. :)
-r.
jlue...@uiuc.edu
Also, (and more importantly,) it's not true that "anyone" can win with
12 conducts intact on a public server in under 2 hours and under 6k
turns, "cheating" or not. That's the point of this thread.
- doy
Jym
<rac...@akrasiac.org> wrote:
> [actual interesting nethack content starts here]
>
>> Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
>
> Actually this particular cheat was pretty interesting. It's certainly a
> proof of concept for "doing twelve conducts with all the tools you want."
> If combined with a proof of concept for "getting all the tools you
> want while maintaining twelve conducts," this could be a step towards
> a non-cheating all-conduct game. (and a significant one, I'd think)
>
> I guess all you need for that is a way to survive indefinitely and to
> get your pet to pudding farm for you. Slow digestion, polymorph control,
> and "You feel like a new man" might handle the indefinite (or at least
> near-indefinite, polymorph sources don't last forever) survival. You
> could poly your pet into something that could wield a -3 dagger, give
> it the -3 dagger, and maneuver carefully? All-conduct farming would be
> hard, too...
I think monsters only death-drop when you killed them yourself.
I remember having tried a "self pudding farm" (in wizmode) where pudding
killed themselves with a rolling boulder trap (and I just had to hit them
in order to split them) but they didn't drop anything and when I spoke
about that here, someone told me that you have to kill the monster in
order to get the death drop.
--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
Oooh! Hmm, that makes it much harder... Are there any other tactics where
you can convert patience into items?
-r.
funcrunch
wrote:
> Oooh! Hmm, that makes it much harder... Are there any other tactics where
> you can convert patience into items?
Even if there is, while maintaining 12 conducts no one is going to get
other roles' quest items without bones. Hence my original followup
question of "How did you get all of these [Eye/s, PYEC, Orb] without
any wishes?" (I subsequently saw the 89 million point suicide in the
NAO daily highscore list and guessed, confirmed here...) The question
is how crucial were those artifacts to this ascension?
- funcrunch <- almost never wishes for artifacts FWIW
Shawn Moore
> On Apr 18, 1:11 am, Shawn Moore <sar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'll answer any questions you guys have about
> > this ascension, because while Jaina hit all the major points, there
> > are many details.
>
> Here's a question: how did you guarantee that you (and only you) would
> find your own bones file? Did you start scum until you did?
I dived ten or so healers down to the entrance of dlvl 4 (but then had
to move down to 5 as the donor game's dlvl 4 had the entrance to the
Mines).
Then, just before I killed the donor off, I loaded all ten divers up,
killed the donor, and began descending each account. Humorously the
first diver actually loaded the bones.
> Congrats on a cool accomplishment,
Thank you.
Shawn M Moore
ja...@magic.ms
wrote:
> Oooh! Hmm, that makes it much harder... Are there any other tactics where
> you can convert patience into items?
The corner stones of his tactics to achieve this ascension was the
abuse of the Eye of the Aethiopica and the Orb of Fate for infinite
level portals. (Indeed he had to wait several times for the cooldowns
to get done).
I would also say that having the Eyes of the Overworld was far far
more than a slight convenience.
So you really can't say this proof of concept (though nice to have)
hints to any strategy.
And to reply to some other postings: Indeed, if the OP had described
(even briefly) how he got to this impressive ascension, the reception
had been way different.
Jaina
David Damerell
>As you should be able to tell from reading my post, I disagree with
>your opinion of "cheating".
If you have some tortuous definition of cheating that doesn't include bones
stuffing, frankly, you're just coming up with it for the sake of arguing.
Be careful you don't define black as white and get killed crossing the
road.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Leicesterday, April.
David Damerell
>Also, (and more importantly,) it's not true that "anyone" can win with
>12 conducts intact on a public server in under 2 hours and under 6k
>turns, "cheating" or not. That's the point of this thread.
Sure they can. They should probably cheat by running the server.
David Damerell
>On 2007-04-18, David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Actually, no, it's conventional not to want to see cheated "ascension"
>>posts here. This is not merely my personal preference but is what is
>>normal.
>So you're objecting to calling it a YAAP, not sharing it at all?
Well, personally I'd prefer not to see it at all, but obviously it's much
worse to pretend it was an ascension. We have to operate on the honour
system in RGRN.
>>Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
>Actually this particular cheat was pretty interesting. It's certainly a
>proof of concept for "doing twelve conducts with all the tools you want."
>If combined with a proof of concept for "getting all the tools you
>want while maintaining twelve conducts," this could be a step towards
>a non-cheating all-conduct game. (and a significant one, I'd think)
I don't think so; "with all the tools you want" is 99% of the battle won.
A proof of concept for "walking" with a proof of concept for "being on the
Moon" is a step towards walking on the Moon, but...
>[end interesting content, resume splitting hairs]
>Would a startscummed (for ring of slow digestion, say) all-conduct game be
>cheating?
I'm not sure the presence of grey areas - for example, that some very
tricky conducts don't seem to have any feasible approach that doesn't need
a particular piece of starting equipment - precludes the existence of
black and white areas. If you're trying to do Zen Samurai, it's OK to
startscum; it's not OK to stuff bones.
>started with useful equipment? What about exploiting bugs? I think there's
>actually plenty of room for disagreement about exactly what constitutes
>cheating,
There might be some room, but frankly I think if someone going to argue
that bones-stuffing isn't cheating they're mad.
jlue...@uiuc.edu
wrote:
> Quoting <jlueh...@uiuc.edu>:
>
> >As you should be able to tell from reading my post, I disagree with
> >your opinion of "cheating".
>
> If you have some tortuous definition of cheating that doesn't include bones
> stuffing, frankly, you're just coming up with it for the sake of arguing.
> Be careful you don't define black as white and get killed crossing the
> road.
>Quoting <jlueh...@uiuc.edu>:
>
>>On Apr 18, 3:19 pm, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>>Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
>>Also, (and more importantly,) it's not true that "anyone" can win with
>>12 conducts intact on a public server in under 2 hours and under 6k
>>turns, "cheating" or not. That's the point of this thread.
>
>Sure they can. They should probably cheat by running the server.
Slippery slope arguments and deliberate misinterpretations of what I'm
saying will only get you so far. I'm done arguing about words on the
internet.
- doy
David Damerell
>Slippery slope arguments and deliberate misinterpretations of what I'm
>saying will only get you so far. I'm done arguing about words on the
>internet.
Good. Choosing not to defend the idea that bones stuffing isn't cheating
is a wise decision on your part, and I could probably only be bothered to
mock it a little.
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
> Quoting Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <rac...@akrasiac.org>:
>>On 2007-04-18, David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>Anyone can win by cheating. Who cares?
>>Actually this particular cheat was pretty interesting. It's certainly a
>>proof of concept for "doing twelve conducts with all the tools you want."
>>If combined with a proof of concept for "getting all the tools you
>>want while maintaining twelve conducts," this could be a step towards
>>a non-cheating all-conduct game. (and a significant one, I'd think)
>
> I don't think so; "with all the tools you want" is 99% of the battle won.
> A proof of concept for "walking" with a proof of concept for "being on the
> Moon" is a step towards walking on the Moon, but...
Actually, I think you're right; seeing some of the tricks he used was
still cute but he relied so heavily on all of the stuff he seeded with
that it's not as interesting as I thought. (Though getting it right on
the first try is probably better than I would do.)
>>[end interesting content, resume splitting hairs]
>>Would a startscummed (for ring of slow digestion, say) all-conduct game be
>>cheating?
>
> I'm not sure the presence of grey areas - for example, that some very
> tricky conducts don't seem to have any feasible approach that doesn't need
> a particular piece of starting equipment - precludes the existence of
> black and white areas. If you're trying to do Zen Samurai, it's OK to
> startscum; it's not OK to stuff bones.
Actually that's interesting. That suggests to me that if it's impossible
to do a conduct game without startscumming, then startscumming to do
that game is OK. If it's impossible to do an all-conduct game without
stuffing bones, does that make it OK to stuff bones to do that game?
(One possible answer: "Yes, but that's not an interesting achievement,
so why are you telling us about it?")
>>started with useful equipment? What about exploiting bugs? I think there's
>>actually plenty of room for disagreement about exactly what constitutes
>>cheating,
>
> There might be some room, but frankly I think if someone going to argue
> that bones-stuffing isn't cheating they're mad.
It's clearly cheating. I care more about whether or not it's interesting,
and didn't understand why people got so upset about it. You've helped me
understand some of the reasons, thanks.
-r.
Link
> On Apr 14, 4:50 am, "funcrunch" <web-goog...@funcrunch.org> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 13, 11:29 pm, "Shawn Moore" <sar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >http://alt.org/nethack/dumplog/Conducty1.lastgame.txt
> > > The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (worth 7000 zorkmids and 17500
> > > points)
> > > The Eye of the Aethiopica (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
> > > The Eyes of the Overworld (worth 2500 zorkmids and 6250 points)
> > > The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
>
> > How did you get all of these without using any wishes?
>
> I hit some bones that helped out.
This is the part that really bothers me. I can understand that some
people might omit bone-stuffing out of their YAAP post if they don't
understand that it is frowned upon.
However, the word choice of "some bones" really seems like it's being
purposly vague to deceive people into thinking that bone-stuffing was
not used. Because really, if someone doesn't think bone-stuffing is
frowned upon, they would have directly said the bone file was from
their previous character. The words "some bones" implies
unfamiliarity, as if the person doesn't fully remember the details of
whom the bones file was from.
carlh...@gmail.com
You use the word "imply", but you can not _know_ the author's intent
so the best that you can do is _infer_.
It seems apparent that some people inferred obfuscation, and found the
YAAP and subsequent response to be deceitful (which is unfortunate);
while others (myself included) inferred irony and/or tongue-in-cheek
humor and appreciated the post.
As far as I'm concerned the concept of cheating does not apply since
it was an academic exercise with a contrived hypothetical condition.
Keep in mind also that Shawn recently acended with an illiterate
wizard in 32k turns so he's obviously running out of other things to
do in Nethack. Like I said earlier, if he's having fun with the game,
then who is anyone else to tell him that he's not doing it right?
Also, I appreciate the academic exercise, so don't mind seeing posts
such as this one so long as the game either does not have any special
conditions (such as stuffed bones files) or at least the true
situation becomes apparent under the most superficial of
inspections.
--
Carl
jlue...@uiuc.edu
Thank you, this is exactly the point I was trying to make.
- doy
Link
Please show me the grammar rule that states "imply" requires knowledge
of the author's intent.
Furthermore, I didn't say "he" implied. I said "the words" implied.
The words a person writes can most definitely suggest things that do
not match said person's intent for writing them.
Perhaps I should have said "seems to imply" instead of "implies".
However, "infer" is most definitely not the word choice I want to
make, for the most excellent reason that "imply" is such a more common
word than "infer", that I would never use the word "infer" unless
absolutely necessary.
>
> It seems apparent that some people inferred obfuscation, and found the
> YAAP and subsequent response to be deceitful (which is unfortunate);
> while others (myself included) inferred irony and/or tongue-in-cheek
> humor and appreciated the post.
>
> As far as I'm concerned the concept of cheating does not apply since
> it was an academic exercise with a contrived hypothetical condition.
> Keep in mind also that Shawn recently acended with an illiterate
> wizard in 32k turns so he's obviously running out of other things to
> do in Nethack. Like I said earlier, if he's having fun with the game,
> then who is anyone else to tell him that he's not doing it right?
> Also, I appreciate the academic exercise, so don't mind seeing posts
> such as this one so long as the game either does not have any special
> conditions (such as stuffed bones files) or at least the true
> situation becomes apparent under the most superficial of
> inspections.
Does this mean it is perfectly acceptable to ascend a wizard that was
start scummed 1000 times for a ring of slow digestion, and pass it off
as a legitimate ascension, as long as the server statistics have my
large number of #quit games on record?
cdi
In the strictest sense of what constitutes a legitimate game, I would
say "Yes, it absoultely counts". If the nethack binaries consider
your game worthy of high score list consideration, then it's
legitimate, as long as you didn't circumvent the save-restore
mechanics and evade permadeath.
A player is entitled to use whatever the game allows to achieve his
goal. In most cases, this goal is what could be called a "clean
ascension" (no scumming, no intentional bug abuse). In the case of
several NAO players (Of which DeathOnAStick's polypiling, Raymond's
endless farming, Zadir's rider farming, and the OP's bones abuse are
promenent examples), the ingame objectives can be a bit goofy.
In many ways startscumming no different from exploiting known bugs
(such as astral call or engrave wresting for a wish) or abusing in-
game mechanics (pudding farming for example).
My take on what constitutes cheating: Do the game mechanics allow it?
If the answer to that question is "yes" then, regardless of whether or
not I agree with that answer, it's not cheating. At worse, it can be
considered "abuse of the rules"
-cdi
Tripa
> On 2007-04-19, David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Actually, I think you're right; seeing some of the tricks he used was
> still cute but he relied so heavily on all of the stuff he seeded with
> that it's not as interesting as I thought. (Though getting it right on
> the first try is probably better than I would do.)
Who says there's only one try?
The most reliable way to get hold of specific bones on a public server,
IMHO, is to have many players reach the right level seconds after the
bones are saved.
The ascendee's name does include a digit...
> It's clearly cheating. I care more about whether or not it's interesting,
> and didn't understand why people got so upset about it. You've helped me
> understand some of the reasons, thanks.
It's clearly bending the "rules" over and out, for my very personal
interpretation of "rules" (which you are allowed to share if you
wish). It's clearly dishonest not to mention who caused the bones in
the OP.
Yet the only cheating I see here is at rgrn's expense, not at the
game's.
Until formal rules of some kind are written down and agreed on,
there's really no cheating just playing through the telnet interface.
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
> Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <rac...@akrasiac.org> writes:
>> On 2007-04-19, David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Actually, I think you're right; seeing some of the tricks he used was
>> still cute but he relied so heavily on all of the stuff he seeded with
>> that it's not as interesting as I thought. (Though getting it right on
>> the first try is probably better than I would do.)
>
> Who says there's only one try?
I'm pretty sure he succeeded at ascending the first time he succeeded
in getting a planted bonesfile.
> The most reliable way to get hold of specific bones on a public server,
> IMHO, is to have many players reach the right level seconds after the
> bones are saved.
>
> The ascendee's name does include a digit...
That's true, though looking at the dumplogs for similar games shows that
while he may not have gotten the pudding farm set up the first time, he
only set it up once.
>> It's clearly cheating. I care more about whether or not it's interesting,
>> and didn't understand why people got so upset about it. You've helped me
>> understand some of the reasons, thanks.
>
> It's clearly bending the "rules" over and out, for my very personal
> interpretation of "rules" (which you are allowed to share if you
> wish). It's clearly dishonest not to mention who caused the bones in
> the OP.
>
> Yet the only cheating I see here is at rgrn's expense, not at the
> game's.
Oh sure, the game doesn't care. But he used out of game knowledge ---
the location, timing, and contents of the bonesfile.
> Until formal rules of some kind are written down and agreed on,
> there's really no cheating just playing through the telnet interface.
I guess you can call it something other than cheating if you want to.
Certainly if I did this in devnull* it would be pretty skeezy.
-r.
*Devnull's one-account-per-player-policy helps, but if you have ten clan
members capable of ascending with the bones, you'll likely still get it.
Tripa
> I'm pretty sure he succeeded at ascending the first time he succeeded
> in getting a planted bonesfile.
Sorry, I read you wrong. I was still on his first try at grabbing the
stuffed bones, you were already on ascending with them. A topic about
which I agree with you.
> Oh sure, the game doesn't care. But he used out of game knowledge ---
> the location, timing, and contents of the bonesfile.
So he did.
Is that forbidden? Good question.
I don't think I'd appreciate to compete against that kind of game in
any kind of official context. But this isn't the case here.
Additionally, it's interesting to have a tangible proof of concept.
> *Devnull's one-account-per-player-policy helps, but if you have ten clan
> members capable of ascending with the bones, you'll likely still get it.
As it goes, devnull has rules. Which can help a lot now it's been
done, should an evil-minded clan read about this.
I'm so grateful there aren't any evil-minded clans playing the
tournament. Now, there aren't any, right? :-)
master...@gmail.com
> You use the word "imply", but you can not _know_ the author's intent
> so the best that you can do is _infer_.
>
> It seems apparent that some people inferred obfuscation, and found the
> YAAP and subsequent response to be deceitful (which is unfortunate);
> while others (myself included) inferred irony and/or tongue-in-cheek
> humor and appreciated the post.
>
> As far as I'm concerned the concept of cheating does not apply since
> it was an academic exercise with a contrived hypothetical condition.
> Keep in mind also that Shawn recently acended with an illiterate
> wizard in 32k turns so he's obviously running out of other things to
> do in Nethack. Like I said earlier, if he's having fun with the game,
> then who is anyone else to tell him that he's not doing it right?
> Also, I appreciate the academic exercise, so don't mind seeing posts
> such as this one so long as the game either does not have any special
> conditions (such as stuffed bones files) or at least the true
> situation becomes apparent under the most superficial of
> inspections.
This is the only person who wasnt present for the games conception and
completion, who completely 'gets' it. If the rest of you need some
help, here it is.
As for the 'I hit some bones...' statement, fault for that lies
squarely with me! Maybe I'm a bad influence.
Shawn Moore
wrote:
> On 2007-04-19, Tripa <t...@invalid.net> wrote:
> > Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <rac...@akrasiac.org> writes:
> >> Actually, I think you're right; seeing some of the tricks he used was
> >> still cute but he relied so heavily on all of the stuff he seeded with
> >> that it's not as interesting as I thought. (Though getting it right on
> >> the first try is probably better than I would do.)
>
> > Who says there's only one try?
>
> I'm pretty sure he succeeded at ascending the first time he succeeded
> in getting a planted bonesfile.
That's true. I did spend quite a few games looking for the right
conditions: a wand of fire or lightning, a ring of slow digestion, and
a sink reasonably close to the surface. I was also hoping to not have
the mines entrance be on dlvl 4 but I ended up working around that. I
also spent a game or two learning how to pudding farm properly (ended
up getting food poisoned in a brown pudding farm at one point due to
desperation for food).
I'd say it worked my first attempt, but that doesn't matter, since I'm
a cheat. 8)
Shawn M Moore
Janis
>
> [...] (ended up getting food poisoned in a brown pudding farm at
> one point due to desperation for food).
I don't pudding farm, but thought that the many death drops from
farms would give you enough food (given its very high probability
to be generated). Was that inattentiveness?
Janis
Jym
>> As far as I'm concerned the concept of cheating does not apply since
>> it was an academic exercise with a contrived hypothetical condition.
>> Keep in mind also that Shawn recently acended with an illiterate
>> wizard in 32k turns so he's obviously running out of other things to
>> do in Nethack. Like I said earlier, if he's having fun with the game,
>> then who is anyone else to tell him that he's not doing it right?
>> Also, I appreciate the academic exercise, so don't mind seeing posts
>> such as this one so long as the game either does not have any special
>> conditions (such as stuffed bones files) or at least the true
>> situation becomes apparent under the most superficial of
>> inspections.
>
> Does this mean it is perfectly acceptable to ascend a wizard that was
> start scummed 1000 times for a ring of slow digestion, and pass it off
> as a legitimate ascension, as long as the server statistics have my
> large number of #quit games on record?
If you think you need it for ascending, then I won't object. Of course,
several people will then tell you that wizards don't need ring of SD to
ascend (and show you examples) and so you did it for your own ease and not
for some real game restrictions.
Typically, if you startscum 1000 times for a zen samouraï before getting
the blindfold, I certainly won't call it 'cheating' in any way since it is
impossible to do a zen samouraï without a blindfold...
If you startscum 1000 times for a wizard starting with ring of SD before
ascending without any special thing, then I'll call it not exactly
cheating but, well, startscumming. It is still an achievement (I'm
currently not able to ascend a wizard, ring of SD or not) but not that
much impressive since you choose some of your starting gear for
convenience only.
If you startscum 1000 times for a wizard with ring of SD before doing a 12
conducts ascencion, then I will again not call it startscumming until
someone shows that 12 conducts can be done without choosing one strating
gear.
Bone stuffing for 12 conducts might be necessarily. Still, 12 conducts is
an impressive achievement (I don't thing I could have done it, even with
the stuffed bones available). And clearly Shawn has both too much time to
lose and no need to prove his nethack skills given his other achievements.
I guess the first person to pudding farm must have been called a cheater
(and some people might still consider pudding farming as cheating or at
least abusing and want the possibility to be removed from further
versions) but nowadays nobody frowns upon a pudding farm.
--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
Mike Kelly
Yes. This is called "humor".
--
mike.
David Damerell
>On 2007-04-19, David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>a particular piece of starting equipment - precludes the existence of
>>black and white areas. If you're trying to do Zen Samurai, it's OK to
>>startscum; it's not OK to stuff bones.
>Actually that's interesting. That suggests to me that if it's impossible
>to do a conduct game without startscumming, then startscumming to do
>that game is OK. If it's impossible to do an all-conduct game without
>stuffing bones, does that make it OK to stuff bones to do that game?
>(One possible answer: "Yes, but that's not an interesting achievement,
>so why are you telling us about it?")
Well, that's part of it, but I would also say that bones stuffing is
flat-out cheating whereas start scumming is one of those grey areas; and,
of course, that Zen Samurai is a rather special case. Like any conduct
game, the player's quitting (or escaping) when it becomes impossible; it
just so happens, for the majority of Zen Samurai attempts, that happens on
turn 1. The player doesn't set out to startscum.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Brieday, April.
Link
>
> - Show quoted text -
This is what I would call it...
Deceitful: if humor wasn't intended.
Tactless: if he honestly didn't think anyone would be offended by the
joke.
Malicious: if he made a joke fully knowing it would offend a large
number of people.
Justin Hiltscher
bones file failed the roll to save ;)
Justin Hiltscher
--
The Source For Premium Newsgroup Access
Great Speed, Great Retention
1 GB/Day for only $8.95
sjde...@yahoo.com
Oh, come on, it was an obvious joke given that:
a) a dozen or more RGRN readers were on NAO (and some on IRC chatting)
watching him pull off the feat in the first place, so it's not like he
was trying to "get away with it" without anyone finding out.
b) Even if you weren't watching (which I wasn't), it was painfully
obvious from looking at just the dump log what he'd done.
Not only that, but even if you don't give any credit at all to his
achievement and consider it straight up cheating with no instructional
or other value, how could you possibly be *offended* by that joke.
And furthermore, it was pretty funny, certainly well worth it if there
are some people out there so soft-skinned as to be offended by an
internet post about an interesting game abuse.
Ohle Claussen
> Link wrote:
>> On Apr 20, 7:47 am, Mike Kelly <mikekell...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> > On 19 Apr, 18:57, Link <chillyn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > > However, the word choice of "some bones" really seems like it's being
>> > > purposly vague to deceive people into thinking that bone-stuffing was
>> > > not used. Because really, if someone doesn't think bone-stuffing is
>> > > frowned upon, they would have directly said the bone file was from
>> > > their previous character. The words "some bones" implies
>> > > unfamiliarity, as if the person doesn't fully remember the details of
>> > > whom the bones file was from.
>> >
>> > Yes. This is called "humor".
>> >
>>
>> Deceitful: if humor wasn't intended.
>> Tactless: if he honestly didn't think anyone would be offended by the
>> joke.
>> Malicious: if he made a joke fully knowing it would offend a large
>> number of people.
>
> Oh, come on, it was an obvious joke given that:
> a) a dozen or more RGRN readers were on NAO (and some on IRC chatting)
> watching him pull off the feat in the first place, so it's not like he
> was trying to "get away with it" without anyone finding out.
It was a bit irritating for those of us that don't use NAO, though.
> b) Even if you weren't watching (which I wasn't), it was painfully
> obvious from looking at just the dump log what he'd done.
Painfully obvious? Certainly not. Bones stuffing didn't even occur to me as
a cheating possibility until this thread.
> Not only that, but even if you don't give any credit at all to his
> achievement and consider it straight up cheating with no instructional
> or other value, how could you possibly be *offended* by that joke.
Agreed. It has turned out to be a joke now, and a nice one, IMO, but the
from the view of someone who didn't watch him on NAO, it was only apparent
as a joke after other posters cleared it up. Just a little hint wouldn't
have destroyed the "joke".
--
Ohle Claussen | GPG-Key-ID E7149169
----------===========----------
BOFH Excuse #431:
Borg implants are failing
Link
wrote:
a) How was it obvious that there were a bunch of people witnessing the
event? Sure, it was obvious there were witnesses... IF YOU WERE ONE
OF THE WITNESSES.
b) If it was painfully obvious, then why did the second post of this
thread say "How did you get all of these without using any wishes?"
Clearly, it was not obvious to the second poster of this thread. Or
was the second post of this thread a "joke" too?
Mylar
> The cronjob removing small games has been stopped.
Thanks, that was probably eating most of my sessions.
I play at home between attacks of an anklebiter and a lap climber who
constantly kidnap that computer for NickJR's game website.
I play at work between attacks of, well, work.
In both places my NAO log in times are anything from 1 minute-1 hour,
with the majority falling in the under 15minute range.
jlue...@uiuc.edu
The Internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS, guys.
- doy
Chris Odorjan
> My take on what constitutes cheating: Do the game mechanics allow it?
> If the answer to that question is "yes" then, regardless of whether or
> not I agree with that answer, it's not cheating. At worse, it can be
> considered "abuse of the rules"
Right. Savescumming is cheating. Selectively deleting bones is cheating.
Looking at savefiles is cheating.
Stuffing bones files, however, is _not_ cheating. It's pretty lame,
though. Except in this case, when it was used to show that if someone's
really, really, REALLY lucky, they could ascend with all conducts intact...
--
Chris Odorjan - codo...@gmail.com - http://www.execulink.com/~bobnet/
Link
> On 04/19/07 4:42 PM, cdi wrote:
>
> > My take on what constitutes cheating: Do the game mechanics allow it?
> > If the answer to that question is "yes" then, regardless of whether or
> > not I agree with that answer, it's not cheating. At worse, it can be
> > considered "abuse of the rules"
>
> Right. Savescumming is cheating. Selectively deleting bones is cheating.
> Looking at savefiles is cheating.
>
> Stuffing bones files, however, is _not_ cheating. It's pretty lame,
> though. Except in this case, when it was used to show that if someone's
> really, really, REALLY lucky, they could ascend with all conducts intact...
Manipulating bone files so that you avoid the ones you don't want is
cheating, but manipulating bone files so that you get the ones you
want isn't cheating?
cdi
Intentionally creating a stocked bones pile, using normal game
mechanics, is not cheating. Intentionally creating a stocked bones
pile, using wizmode, is cheating. I (personally) don't agree with
either action, but there's a subtle difference between them.
It's no secret (either on r.g.r.n. or on IRC) that I've been
attempting (mostly-offline) 10+ conducts for several months now. I
recently killed by typo a promising non-conduct character who was in
posession of a few pieces of equipment which would make such a game
far easier. That game happened to drop bones.
Is using that bones pile in such a game cheating? I would think not.
Is adjusting my strategy and racing for that bones pile cheating?
No. When attempting 10+ conducts it's a pick your poison among
foodless, athiest, illiterate, and pacifist. One isn't getting very
far without a boatload of early luck.
Shawn took the "good luck requires good planning" approach to expedite
his exercise.
-cdi
Rast
> On Apr 14, 4:50 am, "funcrunch" <web-goog...@funcrunch.org> wrote:
> > On Apr 13, 11:29 pm, "Shawn Moore" <sar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >http://alt.org/nethack/dumplog/Conducty1.lastgame.txt
> > How did you get all of these without using any wishes?
>
> I hit some bones that helped out.
hax. :)
Anyway, it doesn't matter much that the bones file was deliberately
placed; even if it came from a pudding farmer YASD, the resulting
"ascension" would have an asterisk next to it the size of Barry Bonds.
--
"Sometimes I stand by the door and look into the darkness. Then I
am reminded how dearly I cherish my boredom, and what a precious
commodity is so much misery." -- Jack Vance
Chris Odorjan
> Manipulating bone files so that you avoid the ones you don't want is
> cheating, but manipulating bone files so that you get the ones you
> want isn't cheating?
No, because in the first case it's done outside of the game and it's
guaranteed that one won't come across potentially harmful bones.
In the second, everything is done within the game and so there was a
possibility that someone else could have come across the stuffed bones
before the OP could.
I wasn't there, but I'd guess that Shawn had several characters waiting
to descend to the newly-created bones files in hopes of loading them.
But there was still a chance a skilled player, who hadn't broken any
conducts, could have unknowingly won the race to the bones instead, and
succeeded in a similar ascension. Does this mean that person cheated?
No, they just got really lucky. Although they probably owe Shawn a
!oBooze in real life... :-D
Shawn Moore
> On 14 Apr 2007 01:54:49 -0700,
> Shawn Moore (sar...@gmail.com) wrote:
>
> > On Apr 14, 4:50 am, "funcrunch" <web-goog...@funcrunch.org> wrote:
> > > On Apr 13, 11:29 pm, "Shawn Moore" <sar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >http://alt.org/nethack/dumplog/Conducty1.lastgame.txt
> > > How did you get all of these without using any wishes?
>
> > I hit some bones that helped out.
>
> hax. :)
>
> Anyway, it doesn't matter much that the bones file was deliberately
> placed; even if it came from a pudding farmer YASD, the resulting
> "ascension" would have an asterisk next to it the size of Barry Bonds.
Definitely. You're not the first person to say that either. You're
still very much the King of the Fast Game. IIRC your fastest didn't
even hit any substantial bones, its speed was due in part to an early
wand of wishing.
Shawn M Moore
Kent Paul Dolan
> Intentionally creating a stocked bones pile,
> using normal game mechanics, is not cheating.
It's been called exactly that here, and many times.
Why would it be different merely because it is done
in an "interesting" cause?
"Cheating" is, IMO, doing _anything_ out of band of
a single game to improve the PC's chance of success
in that single game.
Thus, my hoarding of bones files to have lots of them
in each game is definitely cheating. Since I'm not too
likely ever to ascend, since it is done on a machine
where I am the only player, I really don't care that I'm
cheating, it makes the game more fun for me, but I
wouldn't for a minute post an ascension here without
at least a whole _string_ of Barry-Bonds-style
asterisks accompanying it.
FWIW
xanthian.
cdi
> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Intentionally creating a stocked bones pile,
> > using normal game mechanics, is not cheating.
>
> It's been called exactly that here, and many times.
Nice quote out of context there. The other half of my position on
this issue seems to have been selectively ignored.
I'm using the narrowest possible interpretation of what constitutes
"cheating". If normal game mechanics allow it then, regardless of how
much I disagree with the behavior, my ethics forbid me from calling it
cheating. I will not sit in judgement of someone elses actions from
of some perceived "higher standard of morality" or attempt to divine
TDT's intent. If the nethack binary considers the game legitimate,
and the player took no external actions that circumvented in-game
mechanics, that's good enough for me.
> Why would it be different merely because it is done
> in an "interesting" cause?
Now, I'm more than happy to argue that the OP's failure to mention the
quoted behavior is disrespectful to those who weren't aware of the
nature of the game. That said, superficial inspection of the dumplog,
combined with about 30 seconds of thought, should have made the setup
painfully obvious. That it wasn't is unfortunate.
I restrict my own in-game actions significantly. I avoid intentional
bug abuse. Once I become aware that some trick of mine has been
deemed a bug by the devteam, I stop using it. I don't use HoOA on
astral (the one time I did, it felt dirty). If (offline) I have a
game that's been (in my opinion) tainted in some way, I abandon the
game (and then delete the save file). I don't #quit, I don't
scumstart, and I don't suicide. EVER! If I have a game that's been
rendered unwinnable, I escape the dungeon. If an unsatisfying game
fails to be logfiled (especially on NAO), I'm annoyed by it.
I probably place more restrictions on what I will and will not do than
most players. However, those restrictions are all voluntary. I won't
force (or even ask) another player to conform to my standards of fair
and ethical play. I only ask they cease from taking external actions
which circumvent the game mechanics.
> "Cheating" is, IMO, doing _anything_ out of band of
> a single game to improve the PC's chance of success
> in that single game.
Ok, so finding and using a well stocked "shot herself with a death
ray" bones pile isn't cheating if it was a legitimate attempt to win
and is cheating if you did it intentionally? The end result is no
different: logfiled character and a well-stocked bones file.
Condoning the first while chastizing the second of those scenarios
seems hypocritical. Doubly so if both were done using only normal-
mode mechanics.
Is ascending a game that benefited from such bones (from either
source) as impressive as a bonespile-less ascension. No. I'm not
going to attempt to argue otherwise. Is it as legitimate. I would
say Yes.
> Thus, my hoarding of bones files to have lots of them
> in each game is definitely cheating. Since I'm not too
> likely ever to ascend, since it is done on a machine
> where I am the only player, I really don't care that I'm
> cheating, it makes the game more fun for me, but I
> wouldn't for a minute post an ascension here without
> at least a whole _string_ of Barry-Bonds-style
> asterisks accompanying it.
I would definately concur with your assesment that hording bones files
is cheating. I would also concur that any ascension benefiting from
such behavior is unworthy of YAAP, asterisks or no.
In stating "it makes the game more fun for me", you've hit upon why
most people play nethack in the first place: it's fun.
That an YAAP of an interesting game, completed using only normal game
mechanics, and utilizing a contrived setup created using legitimate
means (but of debatable "cleanliness") can cause such furor speaks
volumes on just how ridiculous RGRN can be at times.
-cdi
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> Intentionally creating a stocked bones pile,
>>> using normal game mechanics, is not cheating.
>> It's been called exactly that here, and many
>> times.
> Nice quote out of context there. The other half
> of my position on this issue seems to have been
> selectively ignored.
No, I have no quarrel with it, had no interest in
discussing it, and so, per netiquette rules, trimmed
out what I was not answering.
> I'm using the narrowest possible interpretation of
> what constitutes "cheating". If normal game
> mechanics allow it then, regardless of how much I
> disagree with the behavior, my ethics forbid me
> from calling it cheating.
Sorry, that's a ridiculous and unsupportable
position.
"Normal game mechanics" present you your inventory
at death, too. Is it any less than cheating to copy
down that inventory so that if you do find that
bones pile, you know exactly what its contents
identify to be?
That's using out of band information to play the
game, just like stuffing a bones pile is, and they
are equally much cheating.
"Uses only normal game mechanics" is not the measure
of cheating.
> I will not sit in judgement of someone elses
> actions from of some perceived "higher standard of
> morality" or attempt to divine TDT's intent. If
> the nethack binary considers the game legitimate,
> and the player took no external actions that
> circumvented in-game mechanics, that's good enough
> for me.
But of course, arranging specifically on a public
server that the player had ten ready to go games waiting
perched one level above the bones level so that the
OP's next character was almost certain to be the one
to acquire that stuffed bones pile was very much an
external action that circumvented the game's
specifically DevTeam designed mechanics of dropped
bones files being untargeted toward any specific
player, and specifically not targeted toward the
player whose game dropped that bones file, and is
very much an out of band use of information about on
what level the bones file existed, and of exactly
what it contained.
>> Why would it be different merely because it is done
>> in an "interesting" cause?
> Now, I'm more than happy to argue that the OP's
> failure to mention the quoted behavior is
> disrespectful to those who weren't aware of the
> nature of the game. That said, superficial
> inspection of the dumplog, combined with about 30
> seconds of thought, should have made the setup
> painfully obvious. That it wasn't is unfortunate.
It's hardly "painfully obvious" to the vast crowd of
"never ascendeds", and it is mendaceous to maintain,
as several here have, that merely because some
handful of people may have observed the game in NAO,
the offense to the rest of us who had no cause to
see the OP as anything but a straightforward
ascension posting is somehow lessened by knowledge
we apparently should have acquired from that handful
via telepathy or something.
It's blindingly obvious that most of the readership
of rgrn does not play on the few public servers,
never have, and likely never will, so writing
postings that will mislead anyone with that status
isn't splendidly honest.
> I restrict my own in-game actions significantly.
Yeah, I have a long, long list of informal conducts,
part of the reason I'll probably never ascend. I
don't do alchemy, polypile, kill peacefuls, etc.
> I avoid intentional bug abuse.
> Once I become aware that some trick of mine has
> been deemed a bug by the devteam, I stop using it.
> I don't use HoOA on astral (the one time I did, it
> felt dirty).
Why on earth not? It has no other conceivable
purpose in the game except to disqualify pre-quest
PCs from ever ascending. Frankly, playing a chaotic,
double-crossing my back-stabbing deity at the last
possible instant would look _exactly_ like excellent
role-playing, and highly stylish.
> If (offline) I have a game that's been (in my
> opinion) tainted in some way, I abandon the game
> (and then delete the save file). I don't #quit, I
> don't scumstart, and I don't suicide. EVER! If I
> have a game that's been rendered unwinnable, I
> escape the dungeon. If an unsatisfying game fails
> to be logfiled (especially on NAO), I'm annoyed by
> it.
Well, since I'm in no danger of ascending, I just
keep on playing to find a chance to learn from my
next YASD.
> I probably place more restrictions on what I will
> and will not do than most players. However, those
> restrictions are all voluntary. I won't force (or
> even ask) another player to conform to my
> standards of fair and ethical play. I only ask
> they cease from taking external actions which
> circumvent the game mechanics.
I think that misses the point. The issue isn't what
a splendid person you are, or I am.
The issue is that what you insist cannot be called
"cheating", in this case is what 90% of players
would call "cheating" even if they were _themselves_
the ones doing it: bones file stuffing.
That term "cheating" has been used for that practice
as long as I've read rgrn.
>> "Cheating" is, IMO, doing _anything_ out of band
>> of a single game to improve the PC's chance of
>> success in that single game.
> Ok, so finding and using a well stocked "shot
> herself with a death ray" bones pile isn't
> cheating if it was a legitimate attempt to win and
> is cheating if you did it intentionally?
> The end result is no different: logfiled character
> and a well-stocked bones file. Condoning the
> first while chastizing the second of those
> scenarios seems hypocritical. Doubly so if both
> were done using only normal- mode mechanics.
Are you daft?
We see, several times a year, posts of
self-inflicted death zaps done by accident, usually
through the game's obnoxious mechanics of using the
last legal direction, say ".", if an illegal
direction is entered by accident.
Dropping a bones file by accident and without
planning to do so is completely legitimate.
However, even in real life, in a real court of law,
"intent" is a big part of how an action gets
evaluated.
Thus, there are much lesser penalties for negligent
homocide than for premeditated murder, despite that
the victims in both cases are equally "not just
merely dead but really quite sincerely dead".
You may have heard that "ends don't justify
means"? Equal ends don't make unequal
means equally legitimate.
> Is ascending a game that benefited from such bones
> (from either source) as impressive as a
> bonespile-less ascension. No. I'm not going to
> attempt to argue otherwise. Is it as legitimate.
> I would say Yes.
It is a "legitimate" _exploration_ of what resources
it would take to do a 12 conduct ascension, but it
is not in and of itself a legitimate _ascension_,
by the standards of rgrn, because cheating, by those
same standards, was employed.
>> Thus, my hoarding of bones files to have lots of
>> them in each game is definitely cheating. Since
>> I'm not too likely ever to ascend, since it is
>> done on a machine where I am the only player, I
>> really don't care that I'm cheating, it makes the
>> game more fun for me, but I wouldn't for a minute
>> post an ascension here without at least a whole
>> _string_ of Barry-Bonds-style asterisks
>> accompanying it.
> I would definately concur with your assesment that
> hording bones files is cheating. I would also
> concur that any ascension benefiting from such
> behavior is unworthy of YAAP, asterisks or no.
Probably I'll keep it to myself if it ever happens,
then. Posting about ascensions based on cheating is
a guarantee here of an unfriendly reception, just as
in the present case.
> In stating "it makes the game more fun for me",
> you've hit upon why most people play nethack in
> the first place: it's fun.
And I'm sure Shawn Moore had a really good time
figuring out how to set things up to make a 12
conduct ascension doable, and I don't begrudge him
the fun. I just begrudge the result being called
anything but an ascension accomplished via cheating.
> That an YAAP of an interesting game, completed
> using only normal game mechanics, and utilizing a
> contrived setup created using legitimate means
> (but of debatable "cleanliness") can cause such
> furor speaks volumes on just how ridiculous RGRN
> can be at times.
Again, are you daft?
The only purposes of rgrn are to help folks figure
out how to do an ascension in accordance with
accepted community standards, and then provide a
place to put a well deserved brag for having done
so.
Posting an ascension based on cheating, without
saying so right in the posting, is a violation of
the expectations of every reader here, except,
apparently, you.
Of course, posting an ascension in which you brag
about some kind of cheating, say, your save scumming
skills, is going to get you nothing but catcalls,
and that has in fact occurred several times here
over the years, to the utter confusion of each
clueless newbie OP involved.
Cheating never has a good reception among an
audience where learning how to win _without_
cheating is a top priority community goal.
xanthian.
jlue...@uiuc.edu
> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
> >> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> Why would it be different merely because it is done
> >> in an "interesting" cause?
> > Now, I'm more than happy to argue that the OP's
> > failure to mention the quoted behavior is
> > disrespectful to those who weren't aware of the
> > nature of the game. That said, superficial
> > inspection of the dumplog, combined with about 30
> > seconds of thought, should have made the setup
> > painfully obvious. That it wasn't is unfortunate.
>
> It's hardly "painfully obvious" to the vast crowd of
> "never ascendeds", and it is mendaceous to maintain,
> as several here have, that merely because some
> handful of people may have observed the game in NAO,
> the offense to the rest of us who had no cause to
> see the OP as anything but a straightforward
> ascension posting is somehow lessened by knowledge
> we apparently should have acquired from that handful
> via telepathy or something.
You're the second person in this thread to say that they took offense
to this post. Am I the only one to find that ridiculous? As I said in
my first post in this thread, lighten up, guys.
> It's blindingly obvious that most of the readership
> of rgrn does not play on the few public servers,
> never have, and likely never will, so writing
> postings that will mislead anyone with that status
> isn't splendidly honest.
As has been mentioned several times, the point wasn't to maliciously
mislead, the point was to have fun and make a little joke. It's the
people who responded who have blown this way out of proportion.
> > I avoid intentional bug abuse.
> > Once I become aware that some trick of mine has
> > been deemed a bug by the devteam, I stop using it.
> > I don't use HoOA on astral (the one time I did, it
> > felt dirty).
>
> Why on earth not? It has no other conceivable
> purpose in the game except to disqualify pre-quest
> PCs from ever ascending. Frankly, playing a chaotic,
> double-crossing my back-stabbing deity at the last
> possible instant would look _exactly_ like excellent
> role-playing, and highly stylish.
There are plenty of items in the game which have no purpose other than
to be irritating. (Not that I disagree with you on this point... I use
HoOA on a semi-regular basis, but i'm just saying).
> > Is ascending a game that benefited from such bones
> > (from either source) as impressive as a
> > bonespile-less ascension. No. I'm not going to
> > attempt to argue otherwise. Is it as legitimate.
> > I would say Yes.
>
> It is a "legitimate" _exploration_ of what resources
> it would take to do a 12 conduct ascension, but it
> is not in and of itself a legitimate _ascension_,
> by the standards of rgrn, because cheating, by those
> same standards, was employed.
Again, that is all this was intended to be. Posting this as a YAAP was
*just a joke*. On the other hand, I would seriously doubt that there
would be many players who could have ascended this character with all
12 conducts intact even given this bones pile. There was definitely
some skill involved, although not necessarily an incredible amount.
> > That an YAAP of an interesting game, completed
> > using only normal game mechanics, and utilizing a
> > contrived setup created using legitimate means
> > (but of debatable "cleanliness") can cause such
> > furor speaks volumes on just how ridiculous RGRN
> > can be at times.
>
> Again, are you daft?
>
> The only purposes of rgrn are to help folks figure
> out how to do an ascension in accordance with
> accepted community standards, and then provide a
> place to put a well deserved brag for having done
> so.
Who are you to say what 'the only purposes of rgrn' are? This is a
group about NetHack, and this post was definitely about NetHack, and
there have been quite a few people posting saying how they found this
post interesting. That is another thing that's ridiculous about
rgrn... how people have this tendency to think that what they care
about reading is exactly what should be allowed to be posted here.
> Posting an ascension based on cheating, without
> saying so right in the posting, is a violation of
> the expectations of every reader here, except,
> apparently, you.
And me, and several other people, if you have read all of the replies.
Speaking for 'every reader' is a bit presumptuous i think.
> Of course, posting an ascension in which you brag
> about some kind of cheating, say, your save scumming
> skills, is going to get you nothing but catcalls,
> and that has in fact occurred several times here
> over the years, to the utter confusion of each
> clueless newbie OP involved.
As has also been pointed out here, Shawn is anything but a clueless
newbie... it could be argued that he is one of the best NetHack
players still active. Read through his past YAAPs if you're
interested.
> xanthian.
- doy
cdi
> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
> >> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Intentionally creating a stocked bones pile,
> >>> using normal game mechanics, is not cheating.
> >> It's been called exactly that here, and many
> >> times.
> > Nice quote out of context there. The other half
> > of my position on this issue seems to have been
> > selectively ignored.
>
> No, I have no quarrel with it, had no interest in
> discussing it, and so, per netiquette rules, trimmed
> out what I was not answering.
Thanks for clarifying that. From my perspective, however, splitting
that paragraph into pieces seemed disingenious.
> > I'm using the narrowest possible interpretation of
> > what constitutes "cheating". If normal game
> > mechanics allow it then, regardless of how much I
> > disagree with the behavior, my ethics forbid me
> > from calling it cheating.
>
> Sorry, that's a ridiculous and unsupportable
> position.
Is it so ridiculous? Is it unsupportable? I've precisely defined
what I consider cheating. I've provided a consistent set of arguments
for why I've defined cheating in that manner. It is your perogative
to disagree with my position. I'm well aware that a segment of RGRN
disagrees with my position on this issue.
> "Normal game mechanics" present you your inventory
> at death, too. Is it any less than cheating to copy
> down that inventory so that if you do find that
> bones pile, you know exactly what its contents
> identify to be?
I suppose that argument, taken to its logical extreme, would preclude
using what you remember about a previous character's inventory to your
advantage? On NAO (or if you have the dumplog patch installed) your
inventory is identified and recorded. If one .ttyrec's ones games,
all the in-game actions are available for review. Is utilizing those
resources any different from taking detailed game in-notes and
refering to them later? From my perspective, I think not. Someone
with an eidedic memory would have access to all that information
without need of reference material. Your argument would also preclude
such a person from using information they are incapable of forgetting
to their advantage.
> That's using out of band information to play the
> game, just like stuffing a bones pile is, and they
> are equally much cheating.
Spoilers and lessons learned by prior experience could be considered
"out of band information" (or out of game, if I grok correctly) and
therefore cheating if I understand your reasoning correctly.
> "Uses only normal game mechanics" is not the measure
> of cheating.
You and I disagree on that point. Your position appears to be "normal
game mechanics plus an imprecisely defined set of restrictions".
> > I will not sit in judgement of someone elses
> > actions from of some perceived "higher standard of
> > morality" or attempt to divine TDT's intent. If
> > the nethack binary considers the game legitimate,
> > and the player took no external actions that
> > circumvented in-game mechanics, that's good enough
> > for me.
>
> But of course, arranging specifically on a public
> server that the player had ten ready to go games waiting
> perched one level above the bones level so that the
> OP's next character was almost certain to be the one
> to acquire that stuffed bones pile was very much an
> external action that circumvented the game's
> specifically DevTeam designed mechanics of dropped
> bones files being untargeted toward any specific
> player, and specifically not targeted toward the
> player whose game dropped that bones file, and is
> very much an out of band use of information about on
> what level the bones file existed, and of exactly
> what it contained.
Had the OP done this offline, he would have been able to take his time
(avoiding the "cheating" of having a multitude of characters on
standby) with the assurance of eventually getting his own bones.
Also, a significant segment of the RGRN community, yourself (by your
own admittance) included, plays (either exclusively or in conjunction
with public server play) in a single-user environment. By definition,
the bones piles they create are intended for their own use.
> >> Why would it be different merely because it is done
> >> in an "interesting" cause?
> > Now, I'm more than happy to argue that the OP's
> > failure to mention the quoted behavior is
> > disrespectful to those who weren't aware of the
> > nature of the game. That said, superficial
> > inspection of the dumplog, combined with about 30
> > seconds of thought, should have made the setup
> > painfully obvious. That it wasn't is unfortunate.
>
> It's hardly "painfully obvious" to the vast crowd of
> "never ascendeds", and it is mendaceous to maintain,
> as several here have, that merely because some
> handful of people may have observed the game in NAO,
> the offense to the rest of us who had no cause to
> see the OP as anything but a straightforward
> ascension posting is somehow lessened by knowledge
> we apparently should have acquired from that handful
> via telepathy or something.
For the record, I was not online during the time when the OP's game
was either conceived or played. Upon learning about this stunt, I was
also somewhat critical of the OP's intent. I did catch some of the
farming done by Conducty0 (and it was ridiculous to watch, in a
humourous way). The OP could have handled the YAAP differently,
avoiding the rampant confusion as to it's nature. Of this we both
agree.
> It's blindingly obvious that most of the readership
> of rgrn does not play on the few public servers,
> never have, and likely never will, so writing
> postings that will mislead anyone with that status
> isn't splendidly honest.
Hearse circumvents the single user environment you describe above. Is
use of Hearse cheating according to your logic?
> > I restrict my own in-game actions significantly.
>
> Yeah, I have a long, long list of informal conducts,
> part of the reason I'll probably never ascend. I
> don't do alchemy, polypile, kill peacefuls, etc.
The reason you don't ascend has nothing to do with any self-imposed
"goofy conducts".
> > I avoid intentional bug abuse.
> > Once I become aware that some trick of mine has
> > been deemed a bug by the devteam, I stop using it.
> > I don't use HoOA on astral (the one time I did, it
> > felt dirty).
>
> Why on earth not? It has no other conceivable
> purpose in the game except to disqualify pre-quest
> PCs from ever ascending. Frankly, playing a chaotic,
> double-crossing my back-stabbing deity at the last
> possible instant would look _exactly_ like excellent
> role-playing, and highly stylish.
Why don't/won't I do that again? The one time I resorted to that
trick left a bad aftertaste. It didn't feel as impressive/worthy (to
me) as the countless times I didn't use an HoOA on astral.
> > If (offline) I have a game that's been (in my
> > opinion) tainted in some way, I abandon the game
> > (and then delete the save file). I don't #quit, I
> > don't scumstart, and I don't suicide. EVER! If I
> > have a game that's been rendered unwinnable, I
> > escape the dungeon. If an unsatisfying game fails
> > to be logfiled (especially on NAO), I'm annoyed by
> > it.
>
> Well, since I'm in no danger of ascending, I just
> keep on playing to find a chance to learn from my
> next YASD.
>
> > I probably place more restrictions on what I will
> > and will not do than most players. However, those
> > restrictions are all voluntary. I won't force (or
> > even ask) another player to conform to my
> > standards of fair and ethical play. I only ask
> > they cease from taking external actions which
> > circumvent the game mechanics.
>
> I think that misses the point. The issue isn't what
> a splendid person you are, or I am.
I'm not claiming to be a splendid person. I was stating some of the
things I don't do (for whatever reason) that others consider
legitimate. I was also pointing out that expecting others to conform
to my play ethics is unreasonable.
> The issue is that what you insist cannot be called
> "cheating", in this case is what 90% of players
> would call "cheating" even if they were _themselves_
> the ones doing it: bones file stuffing.
I have given a consistent set of reasons regarding what I consider
cheating. I will not argue this point further. You are free to
disagree with my reasons.
> >> "Cheating" is, IMO, doing _anything_ out of band
> >> of a single game to improve the PC's chance of
> >> success in that single game.
> > Ok, so finding and using a well stocked "shot
> > herself with a death ray" bones pile isn't
> > cheating if it was a legitimate attempt to win and
> > is cheating if you did it intentionally?
> > The end result is no different: logfiled character
> > and a well-stocked bones file. Condoning the
> > first while chastizing the second of those
> > scenarios seems hypocritical. Doubly so if both
> > were done using only normal- mode mechanics.
>
> Are you daft?
Oooh, personal attack, Hurray! Consider yourself killfiled.
> We see, several times a year, posts of
> self-inflicted death zaps done by accident, usually
> through the game's obnoxious mechanics of using the
> last legal direction, say ".", if an illegal
> direction is entered by accident.
>
> Dropping a bones file by accident and without
> planning to do so is completely legitimate.
>
> However, even in real life, in a real court of law,
> "intent" is a big part of how an action gets
> evaluated.
We're talking about a game, not real life here. Bringing real life
legal precedent into discussion about a recreational activity seems a
bit silly to me. Given your earlier questioning of my intelligence, I
have no further desire to debate this (or anything else, for that
matter) with you.
-cdi
Janis Papanagnou
I think Kent's point is valid; intent is an important factor on the
ethical part of the question we're discussing here. Whether applied
on capital crime or on recreational activity is not important if we
talk about ethics, if we want to "judge" (for ourselves or publicly)
about anyones (mis-)behaviour. Just the _effects_ of any "judgement"
varies dramatically between capital crime and recreational activity;
and I suppose that's what lets the comparison look silly to you.
WRT the non-ethical parts; I am glad to see the positions cleared.
:-)
Janis
Shawn Moore
> cdi <cdinchau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't use HoOA on astral (the one time I did, it
> > felt dirty).
>
> Why on earth not? It has no other conceivable
> purpose in the game except to disqualify pre-quest
> PCs from ever ascending.
Once you remove the HoOA, your alignment reverts. The only way to
disqualify pre-quest PCs from ever ascending is if you _permanently_
convert yourself with an altar (wonder what happens if you convert
yourself permanently while wearing HoOA). The quest leader will not be
fooled even if you try to sneak in wearing HoOA to temporarily revert
to your original alignment.
Shawn M Moore
Shawn Moore
The farm hadn't reached the self-sustaining point. I was manually
farming just with a burnt Elbereth (no boulders), so food was
difficult to pick up (and wasn't dropping at a reasonable rate). So I
started eating the (brown) pudding corpses, and eventually hit a
poisoned one. Prayer didn't help. So.. a ring of slow digestion helps
immensely when pudding farming. :)
Shawn M Moore
sjde...@yahoo.com
That's fine by me. I'd say the original action is borderline, but it
was clearly a case of doing a proof of concept.
>
> "Uses only normal game mechanics" is not the measure
> of cheating.
>
> > I will not sit in judgement of someone elses
> > actions from of some perceived "higher standard of
> > morality" or attempt to divine TDT's intent. If
> > the nethack binary considers the game legitimate,
> > and the player took no external actions that
> > circumvented in-game mechanics, that's good enough
> > for me.
>
> But of course, arranging specifically on a public
> server that the player had ten ready to go games waiting
> perched one level above the bones level so that the
> OP's next character was almost certain to be the one
> to acquire that stuffed bones pile was very much an
> external action that circumvented the game's
> specifically DevTeam designed mechanics of dropped
> bones files being untargeted toward any specific
> player, and specifically not targeted toward the
> player whose game dropped that bones file, and is
> very much an out of band use of information about on
> what level the bones file existed, and of exactly
> what it contained.
I'd venture that more people play at home than on NAO, so finding your
own bones is more the norm than not. But still, stuffing them
specifically with the intent of dying seems a bit off as a general
action to me.
> >> Why would it be different merely because it is done
> >> in an "interesting" cause?
>
> > Now, I'm more than happy to argue that the OP's
> > failure to mention the quoted behavior is
> > disrespectful to those who weren't aware of the
> > nature of the game. That said, superficial
> > inspection of the dumplog, combined with about 30
> > seconds of thought, should have made the setup
> > painfully obvious. That it wasn't is unfortunate.
>
> It's hardly "painfully obvious" to the vast crowd of
> "never ascendeds", and it is mendaceous to maintain,
> as several here have, that merely because some
> handful of people may have observed the game in NAO,
> the offense to the rest of us who had no cause to
> see the OP as anything but a straightforward
> ascension posting is somehow lessened by knowledge
> we apparently should have acquired from that handful
> via telepathy or something.
I presented the "a bunch of people saw him do it" as a counter-
argument to someone claiming the OP was _deliberately_ misleading. I
could see it misleading people, but Shawn clearly knew that a bunch of
people had seen it happen and would comment on it, so it wasn't
intentionally misleading. I can't see that a day or so confusion is
any big deal.
> It's blindingly obvious that most of the readership
> of rgrn does not play on the few public servers,
> never have, and likely never will, so writing
> postings that will mislead anyone with that status
> isn't splendidly honest.
>
> > I restrict my own in-game actions significantly.
>
> Yeah, I have a long, long list of informal conducts,
> part of the reason I'll probably never ascend. I
> don't do alchemy, polypile, kill peacefuls, etc.
>
> > I avoid intentional bug abuse.
>
> > Once I become aware that some trick of mine has
> > been deemed a bug by the devteam, I stop using it.
>
> > I don't use HoOA on astral (the one time I did, it
> > felt dirty).
>
> Why on earth not? It has no other conceivable
> purpose in the game except to disqualify pre-quest
> PCs from ever ascending.
Huh? If you put it on pre-Quest, just uncurse it and take it off.
No big deal, it's not going to end your game (unlike _converting_
yourself at a cross-aligned altar pre-Quest, which does make the Quest
impossible).
It's also quite useful for getting cross-aligned artifacts into your
inventory (e.g. if, as a neutral, you want to wish up the Master Key
of Thievery or something), and for decreasing the effect of the
mysterious force (for lawfuls, especially).
(I agree that it's somewhat stylish for a chaotic and generally don't
have a problem with "converting" via HoOA on Astral).
I've seen _wizard_ bones stuffing (using wizard mode to create special
bones) called cheating, but regular bones? Not so much, certainly not
a 90% thing. It's a grey area for sure. Whether it's mostly frowned
upon or not doesn't much matter, though, as the OP wasn't being
intentionally deceptive.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Huh? If you put it on pre-Quest, just uncurse it and take it off.
Sorry about that, I keep confusing helm of opposite alignment
and altar self-conversions in my mind, from hardly ever seeing
either in a real game.
xanthian.
Jym
And in this specific case, I think intent also plays a big part...
"Hey, I've just stuff an enormous bone file with 10 wands of wishing and
then managed to ascend finding it" (with no conduct, stupid ascencion
trick or whatsoever making the game 'special') would qualify as cheating
for me.
"Hey, I've just stuffed an enormous bone file and then used it for an
all-conduct ascencion" does not, imho.
--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.
Kent Paul Dolan
> "Hey, I've just stuffed an enormous bone file and
> then used it for an all-conduct ascencion" does
> not [count as cheating], imho.
Think about that a bit harder.
All that has _really_ been done, is to move all the
conduct violations into the act of creating the
bones file, then use the material _benefits_ of all
those conduct violations to create a pretend
"conduct violation free" ascension.
The player has in no wise demonstrated an ability to
do such an ascension, or even a lesser conduct
ascension, without cheating, by such tactics.
To me, that doesn't even count _at all_ as a conduct
ascension, much less as an ascension free of conduct
violations.
That's just lawyering, using bones stuffing to move the
conduct violations off where the in-games conduct
checker mechanism can't see them.
IMO
xanthian.
Ohle Claussen
> Jym <Jean-Yves.Moyen+n...@ens-lyon.org> wrote:
>
>> "Hey, I've just stuffed an enormous bone file and
>> then used it for an all-conduct ascencion" does
>> not [count as cheating], imho.
>
> Think about that a bit harder.
>
> All that has _really_ been done, is to move all the
> conduct violations into the act of creating the
> bones file, then use the material _benefits_ of all
> those conduct violations to create a pretend
> "conduct violation free" ascension.
There's a bit more to it than that. Some of those conducts impose more
restrictions than can be made up for with material benefits. That cheat
"only" covered about 80% of the difficulty, at a guess...
Still, as long as a conduct ascension isn't "officially" claimed (which it
originally looked like, but apparently that was an "obvious" joke), it
remains an interesting exercise which does require some skill.
--
Ohle Claussen | GPG-Key-ID E7149169
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panic("Detected a card I can't drive - whoops\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/daynaport.c