Hey, this is James Sager, one of the original designers of Autosquelch.

[James Sager]

Hello,

I'm so happy to be back on Usenet, my posts seem to be about from 1999. I have tales of running shovel only characters called The Shoveler on here probably. This one is about auto squelch.

Hello,

Many of you know David T Blackston(I confused with Dr. Andrew White), he coded the autosquelch system. He did much more than I, for I only designed it and he implemented it. Do you know for months USENET argued I was wrong, almost no one on my side. The majority, the hivemind said I was wrong and that Autosquelch would change the game play. It was an uphill battle to explain,"Not seeing items does not change the functionality." Almost no one saw the potential, but David Blackston gave it a whirl and now many people think Angband is unplayable without the module I designed and Blackston coded.

Proof on Usenet I was the main proponent designer and pushed for it vocally so much people made fun of me just for my passion: https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.roguelike.angband/search?q=james%20Sager%20squelch

[Don't be a conformist, stand against the majority when wrong philosophical discussion]
Nethack vs Angband, the big nerd war.
Picard vs Kirk, up there too.

I tread on nerdom's holy ground, flipped some tables and said they were wrong. They said I was wrong. Now everyone says I'm right.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” -Mark Twain.

You need to be willing to stand up for what is right even when people say you're wrong. There are people who say,"If it could be done, it would have been done by now." If society only had that type of thinker, we'd still be living in caves or lying naked in the rain and dying to broken bones.

If you conform, it's mind poison,and conformity is part of the human experience unless you train not to be,like listening to punk... Though I recommend not listening to punk because I was huge into the punk scene and punk is code for,"We can't cut it as rock musicians." Though there are exceptions, most notably, The Offspring is not just great punk, they're one of the best absolute bands in human history. Train yourself not to conform as your first instinct, obviously behave in court and around police, but don't buy into conformity for that's how fascism takes root in society.

Famous Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV8X8ubGCc

Famous Comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV8X8ubGCc

I've been right when the hivemind fought me many times because I will not back down when I have the right answer. In the mid 90s, at Carnegie Mellon, a school known for being a top university in physics, I presented my calculations to physics profs and said the Electric Car is viable due to the energy storage ratio of Lithium Ions, none agreed, most didn't disagree at least. All the physics students I told this to, disagreed. I had not ONE person on my side, from a University known for having some of the smartest physics students and professors IN THE WORLD! There are many other places the Hivemind fought me and lost, but they never concede defeat because of pride and time.

Yes, we open by saying to stick with your guns when you're right. Stay true to truth even when everyone lies. This is not the major reason I am posting this discussion though I hope it helps those green around the ears who haven't found it out for themselves.

If you conform enough you can forget who you are as a person. A conformist at their core is someone who hates who they are. A conformist on the other hand likes to be around other conformists to get affirmation by relational bias. Conformity thus leads into authoritarianism and fascism. Don't be a conformist, lets continue.

[Ironman Angband]
Angband has a mode where you never take up stairs. I see upstairs as cheating cuz you can use it to run away from most any situation. Most don't know this, but Ironman Angband is a perfect game, 10/10 for game mechanics. I beat it on more than one occasion Half Troll Warrior is the easiest. You gotta use a version before SCROLL OF DEEP diving was introduced. That scroll breaks the "scroll safety" rule and kills you nearly 100% of the time, ruining the perfection that is Ironman Angband. This post is mostly about this, try Ironman in versions just before the Scroll of Deep Diving, IRONMAN ANGBAND RULES!!!

[Angband soft barriers to diving: A discussion I'd like to open]
You know about free action and resists... They're like mini games to try and achieve before diving past a certain point. What other rules do you do besides not to go to 1000' without free action? or deeper without resists? What do you look for to go deeper? If you'd make a game, what types of soft barriers like this could you come up with? What ones do you like/dislike?

,James Sager

I am working on video games now: www.starfightergeneral.com which is like a MMO with soft perma death and ideas I got from roguelikes.

I have other games at www.crystalfighter.com

[Ben Collver]

On 2023-02-02, James Sager <goodnews...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm so happy to be back on Usenet, my posts seem to be about from
> 1999. I have tales of running shovel only characters called The
> Shoveler on here probably. This one is about auto squelch.

Thanks, i enjoyed reading your post. I like auto-squelch. It's funny
how these things are often portrayed as either-or. As though it weren't
possible to like both angband AND nethack at the same time. One thing i
will say is that 1999 era angband runs a lot faster on pre-pentium class
hardware than the current angband does. In comparison, Nethack performs
about the same between old and current versions.

How did you get into coding on angband? Which roguelike games had you
played before angband?

-Ben

[Igenlode Wordsmith]

On 2 Feb 2023 James Sager wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I'm so happy to be back on Usenet, my posts seem to be about from 1999.
>I have tales of running shovel only characters called The Shoveler on
>here probably. This one is about auto squelch.
>
>Hello,
>

>Many of you know David T Blackston (I confused with Dr. Andrew White),

>he coded the autosquelch system. He did much more than I, for I only
>designed it and he implemented it. Do you know for months USENET argued
>I was wrong, almost no one on my side.

I started on Frog-knows and never really got into auto-squelch -- I'm on
the side of the argument that said it was a solution for the symptoms of
Too Much Stuff, and not for the disease :-p

> In the mid 90s, at Carnegie Mellon, a school known for being a top
> university in physics, I presented my calculations to physics profs
> and said the Electric Car is viable due to the energy storage ratio of
> Lithium Ions, none agreed, most didn't disagree at least. All the
> physics students I told this to, disagreed. I had not ONE person on my
> side, from a University known for having some of the smartest physics
> students and professors IN THE WORLD!

Well, I can't think why that would be, given that electric cars were
viable back in the *1900s*, never mind the 1990s! (In fact they were
competing against each other to break world speed records, not to
mention dominating the New York taxi scene....)

>
>[Angband soft barriers to diving: A discussion I'd like to open]
>You know about free action and resists... They're like mini games to
>try and achieve before diving past a certain point. What other rules do
>you do besides not to go to 1000' without free action? or deeper
>without resists?

I think it's a lot more interesting to pick up resists as and when you
can get them, and be aware of what can kill you without them at deeper
levels, rather than refusing to progress until you have got them. But
then this may be why I've never even come close to completing Angband:
a failure to play the 'game-optimum' tactics as opposed to simply
exploring :-p

--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.ueuo.com/Tower/

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