newbie question
Nick
Wondering,
Nick
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DSCreamer
Farming is repeatedly killing monsters that either breed explosively or have
been cloned with a wand of clone monster.
Scumming has many forms, some considered cheating and some not:
1. Save-file scumming-When you die, your game is over and your save is erased.
Making a copy to restore when you die is a way to get around this. This is
looked upon as cheating almost everywhere, and is the worst form of scumming.
2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and go to
another level, you get a level feeling. Repeatedly doing this without exploring
or fighting, and looking for a good level feeling, is probably the second worst
form of scumming.
3. Town scumming-Shops refresh after 1000 turns in the dungeon. Waiting until
they refresh and going back up to buy things is generally used if you are out
of an essential item. This is not usually considered cheating.
3b. Black Market scumming-Town scumming, only looking for good items in the
Black Market. Seen as worse than plain town scumming.
Whew! That was fun.
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...
I am Scuzzlebutt, Lord of the Mountain! Behold my Patrick Duffy leg!
PFTMIDTPTWFDTUAPWONTDTEOTALTEORTTSAJJTRBOATSOLSNOPTFMTR! - The Team Rocket
motto, abbreviated
Divia
>
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999 00:13:54 +0100, "Angband Addict"
> <stabin...@pavilion.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >Town scumming is pretty much irrelevant. The two most scummed for items
> >(Identifies and Restore * potions )
>
> Word of Recall is always the thing I scum for the most, but this is
> effectively fixed by Zangband's excellent decision to put them in shop
> 4 as well as 5. (Another solution would be a hack putting an
> automatic amount of WoR in shop 5).
>
> -Chris
> Life is short. Then it breathes nether. -more- You die. -more-
> (Change "spam" to "edu" in my address to reply.)
Just wondering, why aren't they in shop 4 in Angband? They were in
Moria, so why was this changed?
--
Divia di...@idt.net
"There doesn't seem to be anything special about it"
-Phantasy Star
Angband Addict
>Scumming has many forms, some considered cheating and some not:
>1. Save-file scumming-When you die, your game is over and your save is
erased.
>Making a copy to restore when you die is a way to get around this. This is
>looked upon as cheating almost everywhere, and is the worst form of
scumming.
>2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and go
to
>another level, you get a level feeling. Repeatedly doing this without
exploring
>or fighting, and looking for a good level feeling, is probably the second
worst
>form of scumming.
>3. Town scumming-Shops refresh after 1000 turns in the dungeon. Waiting
until
>they refresh and going back up to buy things is generally used if you are
out
>of an essential item. This is not usually considered cheating.
>3b. Black Market scumming-Town scumming, only looking for good items in the
>Black Market. Seen as worse than plain town scumming.
So what is the general opinion of scumming then?
Personally, I have never bothered about save-scumming as I consider it to be
breaking the rules of the game, rather than just exploiting weaknesses in
them.
I have tried to deal with other types of scumming in Cthangband...
Stair scumming is no longer possible, as you no longer get the message
immediately on entering a level. You now have to wait around for a while.
Whilst you *could* sit on the staircase and wait, it hardly seems worth the
effort.
Town scumming is pretty much irrelevant. The two most scummed for items
(Identifies and Restore * potions ) can no be bought as services, so there
will never be a shortage of them. In any case, being able to stay the night
at an Inn or your Home effectively legitemises town scumming.
Dean
Chris Kern
<stabin...@pavilion.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Town scumming is pretty much irrelevant. The two most scummed for items
>(Identifies and Restore * potions )
Word of Recall is always the thing I scum for the most, but this is
Shrowd
Ways to control scumming and would probably take a lot of coding....would be
to monitor save file access.
Count the ratio of "Quit without saves" vs game turns for that character, or
whatever.
ZTk has an "auto-save" feature that works as a general anti-savefile abuse
tool.
One old game I still play, Mordor (Win3.1+ only), which is heavily based
from the rogue-likeI do believe... and very unique. Anyway, the author
created a horribly long and tedious "quit and restart" process.
You have to click idiot boxes [OK dialog boxes, for you idiots.. heh] 5X
just to save your game and get out.
Very annoying... player fluidity raped and thrown out an unopened window...
--
[Spambot Defense]
For those who bother to read this, my name is Shrowd.
My isp is The Microsoft Network. Bigfoot will work too..
-.
Chris Kern
<Shr...@IckyMeat.bigfoot.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't recommend this...
>
>Ways to control scumming and would probably take a lot of coding....would be
>to monitor save file access.
I think the general attitude towards scumming has been to let it go,
don't put things in the game to control scumming that will hamper
non-scummers (delayed level feelings violate this, but oh well).
Steve Harvey
> I wouldn't recommend this...
>
>Ways to control scumming and would probably take a lot of coding....would be
>to monitor save file access.
>
>whatever.
>
>ZTk has an "auto-save" feature that works as a general anti-savefile abuse
>tool.
>
>One old game I still play, Mordor (Win3.1+ only), which is heavily based
>from the rogue-likeI do believe... and very unique. Anyway, the author
>created a horribly long and tedious "quit and restart" process.
>
>You have to click idiot boxes [OK dialog boxes, for you idiots.. heh] 5X
>just to save your game and get out.
This issue has come up a number of times, and the general consensus
(which I agree with), is that trying to prevent savefile scumming is
too much work and not worth the effort. If people REALLY REALLY want
to backup their savefiles for questionable purposes, then that's
really their decision. People will always find other ways to cheat if
such is their inclination.
Besides, making the quit/save process lengthier or more complicated is
also going to annoy legitimate players. I occassionally play a little
*band when I'm waiting for a file to download or something, for 2 or 3
minute blocks (the same way most people play Solitaire or
Minefield...) I really don't want to have to hit anything more than
ctrl-X when I'm ready to get back to what I was doing...
-Steve
Alexander Deyke
many people consider it cheating, so I didn't use it. However, now
that I thought about it, I've changed my mind. It doesn't really help
the player at all. It just cuts out the boring parts of the game.
People that play 'boring' levels have a lot less risk. If two players
played the same game, except that one also had boring levels, that one
would be (a bit) more powerful and have more stuff. The exception to
this is when someone turns the auto-scum on to get the Phial and turns
it off again. This doesn't really increase risk; at 50', there aren't
big bad monsters. It just guarantees good stuff. I say it should only
be an option during character creation to prevent
'auto-scum'-scumming. Any other thoughts on this?
--
Alexander Deyke
mailto:ade...@psd.k12.co.us
http://www.psd.k12.co.us/~adeyke
Jonathan Ellis
Alexander Deyke wrote in message <7f89v8$c78$1...@mercury.psd.k12.co.us>...
>What about auto-scumming? In the options description, it says that
>many people consider it cheating, so I didn't use it. However, now
>that I thought about it, I've changed my mind. It doesn't really help
>the player at all. It just cuts out the boring parts of the game.
>People that play 'boring' levels have a lot less risk. If two players
>played the same game, except that one also had boring levels, that one
>would be (a bit) more powerful and have more stuff. The exception to
>this is when someone turns the auto-scum on to get the Phial and turns
>it off again. This doesn't really increase risk; at 50', there aren't
>big bad monsters. It just guarantees good stuff.
Autoscum doesn't guarantee good stuff: it guarantees good stuff,
out-of-depth stuff (which may be normal - a mere Long Sword (+0, +0) will
stop the autoscummer at 50') or out-of-depth monsters. For every character
who finds the Phial on the floor at 50' with autoscum on, at least ten will
die grisly deaths at the claws of Maggot's dogs or a pack of cave spiders
(all of which are level 2 monsters and far more likely to be generated than
the Phial: even though it's level 1 rarity 1, the game still has to generate
a "special artifact" before the 1/1 rating comes into play. And the monsters
mentioned enough, being "fast" are nastier to level 1 characters than the
first few Ancient Dragons are to a level 30 character.) And that "superb" or
"special" feeling at 500' might be a great item or two, or just another
bloody jelly or orc pit (which is actually more likely in non-preseve mode,
where pits can cause special feelings just like artifacts can.) Whenever you
do it, autoscumming has its benefits and its risks... which just about match
up IMHO. So I don't view it as cheating, whether you use it permanently
(which I do), intermittently or never.
Jonathan.
Greg Wooledge
>Word of Recall is always the thing I scum for the most, but this is
>effectively fixed by Zangband's excellent decision to put them in shop
>4 as well as 5.
This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
--
Greg Wooledge | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
wool...@kellnet.com | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |
Chris Kern
wrote:
>This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
>Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
Was the change accidental? Why would anyone think making WoR rarer in
the shops would be a good thing? Hopefully that's something that will
be fixed in 2.8.4.
Chris Kern
<jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> So I don't view it as cheating, whether you use it permanently
>(which I do), intermittently or never.
Very well said. I have always maintained that Autoscum is practically
useless. People see "Autoscum for good levels" and they automatically
think that it throws out everything until an artifact pops up. This
attitude was furthered by the old "Autoscum sometimes (100 times)"
option, implying that it often rejected over 100 levels. I played
with peek cheats for a while and never saw the scummer reject more
than 5 levels. All you need is a single point of items to bypass the
scummer. A single out of depth monster or object, even a normal
object, will get you that level. Turning it off and on makes almost
no difference, and it really doesn't increase your chances of finding
good things significantly (it also increases monsters).
Gwidon S. Naskrent
> be an option during character creation to prevent
> 'auto-scum'-scumming. Any other thoughts on this?
Well, Z has ironman_auto_scum, which overrides the auto_scum settings in
normal options (but only if it is on!) I'd see this kind of twofoldness as
unnecessary - same with the small_levels option, which is also duplicated.
GSN
Stephen Lee
Chris Kern <ke...@ac.grin.spam> wrote:
[snip]
>All you need is a single point of items to bypass the
>scummer. A single out of depth monster or object, even a normal
This is only true at very shallow dungeon depths. At greater dungeon
depths the requirement is greater (it eventually reaches the point where
*every* level is guaranteed "good", minimum -- "good" as defined by the
level feeling generator).
--
Boy I Love Losing Superbowls
Count On Losing This Sunday
Dorky Overrated Losers Play Hideously In Nasty Setback
Just End The Season
Divia
>
<snip>
> Actually my most common scumming in moria (apart from save file
> scumming) was for food and/or flasks of oil, I didn't seem to run out of
> WoR scrolls - I bought all the WoR scrolls and all the food (rations &
> beef jerky) and lantern oil the shops had every time I came up to town.
>
> The only sort-of scumming I do these days in Zang is to go to each of
> the town's black markets to see if they have any neat stuff (stat gain
> potions esp, currently on the lookout for a ring of damage +20..) but I
> don't actually scumm for them, I just check each town each time in at
> town level...
>
> Cheers
>
> Quentin.
My highest level Moria character was a druid and I only scummed for
WoRs. I had a create food spell so food wasn't a problem. I only
bought two WoRs for almost the whole game because it meant a little less
weight and it was such an issue. I kept my lantern full, but never
carried oil either. Of course this system got me stuck once at level 49
with no WoRs and no oil, but I managed :).
<snip>
Quentin Christensen
Chris Kern wrote:
>
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999 05:35:17 -0500, "Shrowd"
> <Shr...@IckyMeat.bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't recommend this...
> >
> >Ways to control scumming and would probably take a lot of coding....would be
> >to monitor save file access.
>
> I think the general attitude towards scumming has been to let it go,
> don't put things in the game to control scumming that will hamper
> non-scummers (delayed level feelings violate this, but oh well).
>
> Chris
> Life is short. Then it breathes nether. -more- You die. -more-
> (Change "spam" to "edu" in my address to reply.)
If people want to 'scum', they will find a way to do it, no matter what
the people who make the game do - making it harder to scum often only
makes it more annoying for those who don't do it - eg having to press
about 15 different keys just to save & exit the game...
Quentin, A proudly reformed scummer from moria :)
--
May God stand between/ Quentin Christensen
you and harm in all / og...@mynx.wow.aust.com
the empty places / ICQ # 12889482
you must walk / http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mynx/quentisl/index.html
Quentin Christensen
Greg Wooledge wrote:
>
> Chris Kern (ke...@ac.grin.spam) wrote:
>
> >Word of Recall is always the thing I scum for the most, but this is
> >effectively fixed by Zangband's excellent decision to put them in shop
> >4 as well as 5.
>
> This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
> Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
>
Actually my most common scumming in moria (apart from save file
scumming) was for food and/or flasks of oil, I didn't seem to run out of
WoR scrolls - I bought all the WoR scrolls and all the food (rations &
beef jerky) and lantern oil the shops had every time I came up to town.
The only sort-of scumming I do these days in Zang is to go to each of
the town's black markets to see if they have any neat stuff (stat gain
potions esp, currently on the lookout for a ring of damage +20..) but I
don't actually scumm for them, I just check each town each time in at
town level...
Cheers
Quentin.
> --
> Greg Wooledge | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
> wool...@kellnet.com | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
> http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |
--
Remco Gerlich
> >Scumming has many forms, some considered cheating and some not:
> >1. Save-file scumming-When you die, your game is over and your save is
> >erased.
> >2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and go
> >to another level, you get a level feeling.
> >3. Town scumming-Shops refresh after 1000 turns in the dungeon. Waiting
> >until they refresh and going back up to buy things is generally used if
> >you are out of an essential item.
> So what is the general opinion of scumming then?
1 is cheating because you have to go outside of the game, 2 and 3 are
no problem.
2 was such a hassle that "auto-scum" was introduced to make it
somewhat easier. It's boring to do it all the time, though. And in
recent Z and so on, the inn was made so town scumming was easier
too. They're there to be used.
--
Remco Gerlich scarblac (a) pino.selwerd.cx
George
Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
> Angband Addict <stabin...@pavilion.co.uk> wrote:
> > >Scumming has many forms, some considered cheating and some not:
> > >1. Save-file scumming-When you die, your game is over and your save is
> > >erased.
>
> > >2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and go
> > >to another level, you get a level feeling.
>
> > >3. Town scumming-Shops refresh after 1000 turns in the dungeon. Waiting
> > >until they refresh and going back up to buy things is generally used if
> > >you are out of an essential item.
>
> > So what is the general opinion of scumming then?
>
> 1 is cheating because you have to go outside of the game, 2 and 3 are
> no problem.
Pants. :-)
Seriously, I personally don't scum much in personal play,
but when I do I am in no doubt that I am, to an extent, "cheating".
While the game rules don't physically prevent using techniques
such as stair-scumming or town-scumming, they are abusing a mechanism
included in the game. The reason shops refresh after 1000 turns
was a way of prventing rich players going mental in the shops
and nabbing all the top stuff they can. (This is only a logical
guess. The real reason only Ben probably knows....) It's an
iintegral part of the game, it prevents lucky breaks from
having too much impact. "YAY! I got 3,688,454 AU!...WHAT?
Only food in the Black Market?" :-) While I do use these
techniques in game-play, I certainly do not try to "cover up"
my misdemeanour by saying "Ah, well, it's not REALLY wrong."
I know damn well It's immoral, I just don't care. :-)
As for it being "promoted"...well, to be frank, if the game designers
wanted to "promote town-scumming" they could just hack the code
and edit the time it takes for shops to refresh. But they don't. Rather
they keep the game "as is" but add little things for munchkins to do. :-)
Auto-scum is a tricky one. Granted, it is not a cheat option,
but then that doesn't stop it being unbalanced. Basically it fiddles
the odds. IN no way does it's inclusion in the game "promote" scumming:
rather, it is clearly noted that "A lot of people consider this
option to be cheating." In the same way as debug options
are inculded without actively saying "HEY! CHEAT!" auto-scum
is included, not because Ben likes you to cheat, ( unless Ben is
really a Kamband/Pernband player ;-) ) but because Ben has to
account for everyone who plays Angband. From the "higher level"
of player sch as Ethan, who refuses to pick up items that make
the game too easy, :-) to the people who simply hack the game so
they can kill Morgoth on level 1.
Now, when in the competition, I can't let my own personal
bias prevail. The current cencus is that autp-scum
should be allowed on or off BUT NOT CHANGEABLE WHILE YOU PLAY.
As such, I'm gonna be nice and use a Auto-Scum on char real soon. :-)
As for "other scumming", the views were very wide-spread in
my recent survey but it seems most people what manual scumming in
compos to be banned. Simply put, a competition should be a contest
of who can play best in a pseudo-random situation, not who
can go up and down stairs the best. :-)
So at the end of the day, I feel scumming isn't good because
it involves taking advantage of rules laid down to make
Angband balanced. However, I will not let my personal opinion
affect how I run my competitions. Hey, if everyone asked
for Rangband compos I'd probably allow them too, even though
I now hate the game's author. :-) [Yes, it's a joke, cool your
transistors. I only hate Ethan.]
=======================================================
George Quail - Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland,
Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, The
Universe. Near Space
Remco Gerlich
> Seriously, I personally don't scum much in personal play, but when I
> do I am in no doubt that I am, to an extent, "cheating". While the
> game rules don't physically prevent using techniques such as
> stair-scumming or town-scumming, they are abusing a mechanism
> included in the game.
Using it, not abusing. The only reason why level feelings were put
into the game was to make a decision possible: do I want to play a
boring level? Is this superb level not too dangerous?
At least, I can't think of any other reason.
> The reason shops refresh after 1000 turns was a way of prventing
> rich players going mental in the shops and nabbing all the top stuff
> they can.
As opposed to what? Of course they won't change every turn, that would
be silly, but 1000 is just a number. The thing is that they don't
update while you're in town, you have to be in the dungeon. That's
convenient, it makes sure stuff you want to buy are still there after
you sold some other things to get the money.
> I know damn well It's immoral, I just don't care. :-)
Well, it's clear it wasn't coded just to make town scumming possible.
But it's not a problem at all, in my opinion. The whole game is
basically rolling dice until a good one comes up.
> As for it being "promoted"...well, to be frank, if the game
> designers wanted to "promote town-scumming" they could just hack the
> code and edit the time it takes for shops to refresh.
The time it takes is hardly the issue, that's just a value in some macro.
> Auto-scum is a tricky one. Granted, it is not a cheat option,
> but then that doesn't stop it being unbalanced.
In which way? Using it in Zangband certainly doesn't give you an
easier game. Just more dangerous and more exciting. I think it's quite
balanced. Anyway, since you can do the exact same thing by hand,
balance isn't even an issue.
> Basically it fiddles the odds.
Basically it makes a simple action (reject a few really low-scoring
levels) slightly easier. If you can do it by hand with normal commands
as well, it can't be a cheat.
> Simply put, a competition should be a contest of who can play best
> in a pseudo-random situation, not who can go up and down stairs the
> best. :-)
But going up and down stairs may be the best play in this pseudo-random
situation. It's just a strategy.
> So at the end of the day, I feel scumming isn't good because
> it involves taking advantage of rules laid down to make
> Angband balanced.
So does targetting. So does using a Sabre when you're warrior.
Et cetera.
George
> > Seriously, I personally don't scum much in personal play, but when I
> > do I am in no doubt that I am, to an extent, "cheating". While the
> > game rules don't physically prevent using techniques such as
> > stair-scumming or town-scumming, they are abusing a mechanism
> > included in the game.
>
> Using it, not abusing. The only reason why level feelings were put
> into the game was to make a decision possible: do I want to play a
> boring level? Is this superb level not too dangerous?
>
> At least, I can't think of any other reason.
I know why the feelings were added...I don't get why anyone with 5 miligrams
of patience can;t bear out a boring level with the promise that the RNG will
be nice next time.
> > The reason shops refresh after 1000 turns was a way of prventing
> > rich players going mental in the shops and nabbing all the top stuff
> > they can.
>
> As opposed to what? Of course they won't change every turn, that would
> be silly, but 1000 is just a number. The thing is that they don't
> update while you're in town, you have to be in the dungeon. That's
> convenient, it makes sure stuff you want to buy are still there after
> you sold some other things to get the money.
The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
> > I know damn well It's immoral, I just don't care. :-)
>
> Well, it's clear it wasn't coded just to make town scumming possible.
> But it's not a problem at all, in my opinion. The whole game is
> basically rolling dice until a good one comes up.
That's the thing. You roll the dice, you take what you get. Auto-scum
keeps re-rolling until you get high enough. Sure, it can be hard as well
as rewarding but it's still..well, iffy. The fact we're discussing it proves it's
iffy. If it wasn't "iffy" we'd just do it regardless. :-)
> > As for it being "promoted"...well, to be frank, if the game
> > designers wanted to "promote town-scumming" they could just hack the
> > code and edit the time it takes for shops to refresh.
>
> The time it takes is hardly the issue, that's just a value in some macro.
> > Auto-scum is a tricky one. Granted, it is not a cheat option,
> > but then that doesn't stop it being unbalanced.
>
> In which way? Using it in Zangband certainly doesn't give you an
> easier game. Just more dangerous and more exciting. I think it's quite
> balanced. Anyway, since you can do the exact same thing by hand,
> balance isn't even an issue.
Yes it is. Mechanised actions and manual actions can have different
effects. As for "more dangerous and more exciting"...that's kinda the point.
It messes with the RNG's "balancing act". While the RNG isn't random it
does prevent people from having constant High or Low results, because the
laws of chance give everything an equal chance of happening. By using auto-scum
you are inhibiting these laws.
> > Basically it fiddles the odds.
>
> Basically it makes a simple action (reject a few really low-scoring
> levels) slightly easier. If you can do it by hand with normal commands
> as well, it can't be a cheat.
So save-file scumming is OK since I can do it by hand. :-) Mechanising something
doesn't make it any different than doing it "with normal commands." Thanks to
some pretty nifty bugs in Zang 2.2.3b I can turn cheat_know on without being a cheater.
Is that OK? :-)
> > Simply put, a competition should be a contest of who can play best
> > in a pseudo-random situation, not who can go up and down stairs the
> > best. :-)
>
> But going up and down stairs may be the best play in this pseudo-random
> situation. It's just a strategy.
The pseudo-random situation is Angband itself, Remco. Who can go up and down
stairs the best is not a good way to have fun. Neither is casting
a spell on the town level or using endless Enchant Item spells. That's
why these things are illegal in the compo. Sure, Auto-scum will appear
soon, but it will be limited...it can be either on or off BUT CANNOT
BE CHANGED DURING GAMEPLAY.
> > So at the end of the day, I feel scumming isn't good because
> > it involves taking advantage of rules laid down to make
> > Angband balanced.
>
> So does targetting. So does using a Sabre when you're warrior.
> Et cetera.
To quote someone you know very well, those are "Using it, not
abusing." :-) Targetting is a command. It is not labelled
"A lot of people consider this option to be cheating" because
it isn't. It doesn't screw with the laws of chance:meanwhile,
scumming, whether you think so or not, does. By constantly rerolling
the dice you are artifcially affecting the play enviroment. Whether
or not the option is in the game or whether or not it's a "cheat option"
does not change the fact it's...how to put this...immoral. :-) You're
free to scum as mucha s you want but please, don't kid yourself into thinking
it's just some rosy strategy. The word "scum" is never used nicely in Angband
or the real world. :-)
Look, this is really treading into opinion. I don't like scumming
and you do. As you said in a message to me, Remco, you argue "until
both sides agree, or ad infinitum...", Well, I certainly doubt you can make
me think Scumming is not cheating and I doubt you could possible be convinced
scumming is cheating. So lets just.....agree to disagree. :-)
Divia
<snip>
> Look, this is really treading into opinion. I don't like scumming
> and you do. As you said in a message to me, Remco, you argue "until
> both sides agree, or ad infinitum...", Well, I certainly doubt you can make
> me think Scumming is not cheating and I doubt you could possible be convinced
> scumming is cheating. So lets just.....agree to disagree. :-)
>
> =======================================================
> George Quail - Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland,
> Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, The
> Universe. Near Space
I agree that you two will not agree on this issue. I think because of
this that your compos should be kept seperate in that they have
different rules. They can be connected in other ways, but since the two
of you will not agree on rules, I think having different rules is the
solution to this problem.
George
> George wrote:
> <snip>
> > Look, this is really treading into opinion. I don't like scumming
> > and you do. As you said in a message to me, Remco, you argue "until
> > both sides agree, or ad infinitum...", Well, I certainly doubt you can make
> > me think Scumming is not cheating and I doubt you could possible be convinced
> > scumming is cheating. So lets just.....agree to disagree. :-)
> >
> > =======================================================
> > George Quail - Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland,
> > Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, The
> > Universe. Near Space
>
> this that your compos should be kept seperate in that they have
> different rules. They can be connected in other ways, but since the two
> of you will not agree on rules, I think having different rules is the
> solution to this problem.
Rules aren't really a problem. As I noted a long time ago,
the rules could easilly fluctuate for a compo or two to provied
variety. Indeed, that's what will happen soon with Auto-scum.
Running a blitz compo with alternat rules wouldn't take much work.
However, if Remco still wants to run his compo solo ( despite the
"customer opinion" of the survey :-) ) then I'd reccomend
that he do what the players want and not what he wants. I have
had to add one or two rules to the compo (most noteably the new auto-scum
rule and the dead players allowance) despite my personal preferences,
because the majority of players liked them. If Remco wants to run
his own compo he should think more about what players want
than what he wants.
Thomas Harris
> As opposed to what? Of course they won't change every turn, that would
> be silly, but 1000 is just a number. The thing is that they don't update
> while you're in town, you have to be in the dungeon. That's convenient,
> it makes sure stuff you want to buy are still there after you sold some
> other things to get the money.
Unlike in Zang, where I've been caught a couple of times selling all my
best kit to afford that RoD+20 in the BM, or possibly an amulet of
anti-magic or something, only to find the item disappear in the 30 turns
it takes me to get to the general store to flog my food for the last 20Au
and back to the BM again... :-)
Thomas
--
hot...@argonet.co.uk | ZAng 2.2.2d/Cthang 3.0.1 (Ac)
DPM "Ezekiel" GhM(Sor/Death)M Hp:100 Sp:60 AC:40 L:15 DL:500' $:5k
A- R- !Sp #a:1 w:Scimitar (+6,+6)
H- D- C- S+ PV+ c f s h d- I+ So B
Goingband 2.8.3v4, GSNband 1.0b, GW-Angband 2.8.3v1, Ingband 0.1.1,
Kangband 2.8.3j, Pziband 2.1.0e and Rangband 1.04 for RISC OS:
<http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/harris/angband/>
* "Bother", said Pooh, as he was used as an ashtray
Remco Gerlich
> I know why the feelings were added...I don't get why anyone with 5 miligrams
> of patience can;t bear out a boring level with the promise that the RNG will
> be nice next time.
Because it's a game, right? We don't play it as an excercise in
patience. It's meant to be fun!
> The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
> that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
It doesn't. I don't think Ben has anything to do with it. It just
means that updating while you're in town would be a damn nuisance.
> > Well, it's clear it wasn't coded just to make town scumming possible.
> > But it's not a problem at all, in my opinion. The whole game is
> > basically rolling dice until a good one comes up.
>
> That's the thing. You roll the dice,
yes, but
> you take what you get.
No. If something is out of your league, or you don't like it, you
don't have to take it.
> Auto-scum keeps re-rolling until you get high enough. Sure, it can
> be hard as well as rewarding but it's still..well, iffy. The fact
> we're discussing it proves it's iffy.
The fact we're discussing this means that this "honourable" thing has gone
too far, in my opinion.
Sure, you're a patient, maybe better player if you can do without, but
calling level feeling scumming "cheating" is a pretty heavy
accusation. Besides, if someone feels it's fun that way, who are you to
judge?
> Yes it is. Mechanised actions and manual actions can have different
> effects. As for "more dangerous and more exciting"...that's kinda
> the point. It messes with the RNG's "balancing act". While the RNG
> isn't random it does prevent people from having constant High or Low
> results, because the laws of chance give everything an equal chance
> of happening. By using auto-scum you are inhibiting these laws.
But you could do so yourself. I agree that mechanised actions and manual
actions can have very different effects, but in general the autoscummer
only rejects *a few* levels each time, the impact isn't that big.
> > Basically it makes a simple action (reject a few really low-scoring
> > levels) slightly easier. If you can do it by hand with normal commands
> > as well, it can't be a cheat.
> So save-file scumming is OK since I can do it by hand. :-)
If you can do so with a normal command, sure. Of course, doing a command
outside of the game hardly counts as normal.
> Mechanising something doesn't make it any different than doing it
> "with normal commands." Thanks to some pretty nifty bugs in Zang
> 2.2.3b I can turn cheat_know on without being a cheater. Is that
> OK? :-)
No. Never heard of it. Sounds like a big bug. Please explain how,
I really wonder how you can do that.
I also don't count obvious bugs as normal commands.
> > But going up and down stairs may be the best play in this pseudo-random
> > situation. It's just a strategy.
>
> The pseudo-random situation is Angband itself, Remco.
That's my point.
> Who can go up and down stairs the best is not a good way to have
> fun.
And that's *definitely* my point. I don't do it, because it's no fun.
Sometimes, if I'm in the mood, I will use autoscum. I also use
non-connected stairs when I'm in that mood. Sometimes both. I don't
scum by hand anymore, because it's no fun.
*However*, when you're deciding what the rules of a fair game should
be, you shouldn't be thinking about good ways to have fun!
If the game seems to allow it *by design*, it's not cheating.
> Sure, Auto-scum will appear soon, but it will be limited...it can be
> either on or off BUT CANNOT BE CHANGED DURING GAMEPLAY.
I still don't understand why.
> To quote someone you know very well, those are "Using it, not
> abusing." :-) Targetting is a command. It is not labelled
> "A lot of people consider this option to be cheating" because
> it isn't. It doesn't screw with the laws of chance:
Well, targetting was introduced because people argued the monsters
were cheating; players could only hit in a straight line, but monsters
could hit in other ways as well. With targetting, you can do things
you can't do without it, and it was caused by players complaining
about it.
Surely, by your reasoning, targetting is far worse than level scumming?
> Look, this is really treading into opinion.
And that's why I don't think people should call it cheating. This
is just opinion.
> I don't like scumming and you do.
_I don't like scumming_.
I just defend it. It's a way to play the game.
People shouldn't call it cheating.
Jonathan Ellis
George wrote in message ...
>In article <slrn7hk4be.930.s...@flits104-37.flits.rug.nl>,
>Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
>> > The reason shops refresh after 1000 turns was a way of prventing
>> > rich players going mental in the shops and nabbing all the top stuff
>> > they can.
>>
>> As opposed to what? Of course they won't change every turn, that would
>> be silly, but 1000 is just a number. The thing is that they don't
>> update while you're in town, you have to be in the dungeon. That's
>> convenient, it makes sure stuff you want to buy are still there after
>> you sold some other things to get the money.
>
>The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
>that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
Well, in fact it has nothing to do with Ben at all, this feature
existed right back to Moria - and not even recent versions of that, probably
the second version to have shops (given what happens in Nethack, where shop
inventory never changes from the moment it is generated except according to
the actions of the player: I can imagine this happening in Moria when shops
were added for the first time, people complaining at this, and the gradual
change of shop inventory being added as a feature shortly afterwards.)
Rotation of shopkeepers doesn't necessarily mean that the shop changes
ownership, just that it's someone else's shift at the till...
Basically, if you want to buy a certain item from a shop in real life
and it isn't in stock, you come back a few days later and see if it's in
stock. You don't even have to go into a dungeon and wait a few thousand
turns as you do in Angband, just staying at home a few days will do. (Anyone
who's been down to the store and found they had run out of coffee or
something - i.e. everybody - will know what I mean.)
If there is anything wrong with this, it's not that one is waiting for
the right stuff to come up, but that you have to go to the dungeon to wait
out the time... but it couldn't be done any other way, otherwise you might
just pop out of a shop to sell something to give you the money to buy that
armor of resistance, and come back to find it already gone just a few turns
later. (This could be a feature of RAngband... make it not matter whether
the character was in the town or dungeon when considering changes to the
store inventories.)
Ergo, what some people call "town-scumming" is not, in fact, cheating:
if I was a warrior or wizard and came back from a monster-filled dungeon
with damaged armor, I wouldn't go back until I'd repaired it as best I could
or bought new stuff, even if it took me several days to achieve. And if I
wasn't at full fitness I'd make sure I got as close to that as possible,
waiting as long as necessary to buy potions to restore me to health if I
could afford them, before returning - that little bit extra health,
strength, agility, intelligence or wisdom might well mean the difference
between life and death. 50' is a near as it is possible to get to a "safe"
waiting place that isn't in the town (ZAngband has its wilderness and its
homes as well.)
Jonathan.
Eric Bock
"Jonathan Ellis" <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> If there is anything wrong with this, it's not that one is waiting for
> the right stuff to come up, but that you have to go to the dungeon to wait
> out the time... but it couldn't be done any other way, otherwise you might
> just pop out of a shop to sell something to give you the money to buy that
> armor of resistance, and come back to find it already gone just a few turns
> later. (This could be a feature of RAngband... make it not matter whether
> the character was in the town or dungeon when considering changes to the
> store inventories.)
Way ahead of you ;)
--
Eric Bock
#####
#k..#
####..o##'#
#b.e..@...#
+..m.i...c#
#.r.o...n.#
####.n.####
#e.t#
#'#+#
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Gwidon S. Naskrent
wrote:
>>This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
>>Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
>
>Was the change accidental? Why would anyone think making WoR rarer in
>the shops would be a good thing? Hopefully that's something that will
>be fixed in 2.8.4.
By the way...
The person who decided to take WoRs away from shop 4 should be racked,
impaled, burned, quartered, and then _really hurt_.
I've been playing Ratchet II (who has now surpassed Ratchet I by a
fair bit, though he's without OoD (!)), and I've got to wait _whole_
_bloody_ _10_ _game_ _days_ or so, and still the $**@()@ shop didn't
restock! I've gotten so mad over those scrolls that I grabbed a
debugger, gave myself two WoRs, then erased the cheating flag.
Instant relaxation :)
Of course, lest I be faced in the future with a similar thing, I added
WoRs to the Temple. Strange thing - they're twice as rarer there, yet
they appear each time, and in larger quantities.
GSN
PS. George may proceed as he wishes when he receives my entry - I hope
my little cheat was justified enough! Oh, I also added the Easy Patch
- does that count towards cheating?
Gwidon S. Naskrent (nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl)
GSNband - http://artemida.amu.edu.pl/~naskrent/index.html
GEU/J d- s+:+ a-- C++ ULB++>++++ P- E W++ N+++ o? K? w+ O-- M-- V--
PS++ PE- Y PGP->++ t-- 5-- X- R* tv- b+ DI-- D++ G++ e++ h! r! y?
George
<URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Apr 1999 05:27:51 GMT, ke...@ac.grin.spam (Chris Kern)
> wrote:
>
> >>This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
> >>Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
> >
> >Was the change accidental? Why would anyone think making WoR rarer in
> >the shops would be a good thing? Hopefully that's something that will
> >be fixed in 2.8.4.
>
> By the way...
>
> The person who decided to take WoRs away from shop 4 should be racked,
> impaled, burned, quartered, and then _really hurt_.
>
> I've been playing Ratchet II (who has now surpassed Ratchet I by a
> fair bit, though he's without OoD (!)), and I've got to wait _whole_
> _bloody_ _10_ _game_ _days_ or so, and still the $**@()@ shop didn't
> restock! I've gotten so mad over those scrolls that I grabbed a
> debugger, gave myself two WoRs, then erased the cheating flag.
>
> Instant relaxation :)
>
> Of course, lest I be faced in the future with a similar thing, I added
> WoRs to the Temple. Strange thing - they're twice as rarer there, yet
> they appear each time, and in larger quantities.
>
> GSN
>
> PS. George may proceed as he wishes when he receives my entry - I hope
> my little cheat was justified enough! Oh, I also added the Easy Patch
> - does that count towards cheating?
Considering some of the munchkin ideas I've had to put
up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
well, how much does it affect the game?
George
Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I know why the feelings were added...I don't get why anyone with 5 miligrams
> > of patience can;t bear out a boring level with the promise that the RNG will
> > be nice next time.
>
> patience. It's meant to be fun!
To quote a 1985 cartoon, "THis is supposed to be fun?" :-) (Answers on
a postcard, please...)
> > The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
> > that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
>
> It doesn't. I don't think Ben has anything to do with it. It just
> means that updating while you're in town would be a damn nuisance.
>
> > > Well, it's clear it wasn't coded just to make town scumming possible.
> > > But it's not a problem at all, in my opinion. The whole game is
> > > basically rolling dice until a good one comes up.
> >
> > That's the thing. You roll the dice,
>
> yes, but
>
> > you take what you get.
>
> No. If something is out of your league, or you don't like it, you
> don't have to take it.
Yes, you can retreat. But simply messing about with the inbbuilt system
to get your "ideal level"....it's iffy.
> > Auto-scum keeps re-rolling until you get high enough. Sure, it can
> > be hard as well as rewarding but it's still..well, iffy. The fact
> > we're discussing it proves it's iffy.
>
> The fact we're discussing this means that this "honourable" thing has gone
> too far, in my opinion.
No, it proves you don't know when to shut up. :-) Seriously, this entire debate
is pointless ATEOTD. Let's just leave it alone.
> Sure, you're a patient, maybe better player if you can do without, but
> calling level feeling scumming "cheating" is a pretty heavy
> accusation.
Heavy. Go read option.txt. Think about it. ;-)
> Besides, if someone feels it's fun that way, who are you to judge?
<blissfreak> I am God. Bow before me before I smite you. </blissfreak> :-)
On the same point, I could argue that if someone wants to use a GDB to hack
the game that's OK as well.
> > Yes it is. Mechanised actions and manual actions can have different
> > effects. As for "more dangerous and more exciting"...that's kinda
> > the point. It messes with the RNG's "balancing act". While the RNG
> > isn't random it does prevent people from having constant High or Low
> > results, because the laws of chance give everything an equal chance
> > of happening. By using auto-scum you are inhibiting these laws.
>
> But you could do so yourself.
Kinky. :-) Seriously, just because you can do it manually doesn't make
something right. I can steal from a bank by myself. Is THAT OK? :-)
> I agree that mechanised actions and manual
> actions can have very different effects, but in general the autoscummer
> only rejects *a few* levels each time, the impact isn't that big.
But it has a impact nevertheless, an impact which, over the course of a game,
can seriously affect your character's standing.
> > > Basically it makes a simple action (reject a few really low-scoring
> > > levels) slightly easier. If you can do it by hand with normal commands
> > > as well, it can't be a cheat.
>
> > So save-file scumming is OK since I can do it by hand. :-)
>
> If you can do so with a normal command, sure. Of course, doing a command
> outside of the game hardly counts as normal.
Actually, one of two ports I've played have had a option in them that allowed
auto-saves.
> > Mechanising something doesn't make it any different than doing it
> > "with normal commands." Thanks to some pretty nifty bugs in Zang
> > 2.2.3b I can turn cheat_know on without being a cheater. Is that
> > OK? :-)
>
> No. Never heard of it. Sounds like a big bug. Please explain how,
> I really wonder how you can do that.
Go to Beastmaster and ID a non-existant monster. Voila! Cheat_know is
on. It's been fixed, though. :-(
> I also don't count obvious bugs as normal commands.
Why not? You count everythin else as. :-) (Joking, joking!)
> > > But going up and down stairs may be the best play in this pseudo-random
> > > situation. It's just a strategy.
> >
> > The pseudo-random situation is Angband itself, Remco.
>
> That's my point.
>
> > Who can go up and down stairs the best is not a good way to have
> > fun.
>
> And that's *definitely* my point. I don't do it, because it's no fun.
>
> Sometimes, if I'm in the mood, I will use autoscum. I also use
> non-connected stairs when I'm in that mood. Sometimes both. I don't
> scum by hand anymore, because it's no fun.
>
> *However*, when you're deciding what the rules of a fair game should
> be, you shouldn't be thinking about good ways to have fun!
Yes you should. If people don't have fun they don't play. For the same
reason, one or two..er..unscurulous tactics have been banned from the compo
because, if allowed, there would be no fun in playing. Would you bother
spending hours playing Angband to be beaten by some Munchkin who
played for 10 minutes? IN order to keep the compo as "stable" as possible
sacrifices have to be made/
> If the game seems to allow it *by design*, it's not cheating.
"seems" to allow it. Ben never actually went out of his way
to promote scumming. Certainly, town & stair scumming are in no
way listed in the strategy guide as good ideas. Auto-scum is marked
as a possible cheat and as such is not promoted. Like I said before,
it takes all sorts.
> > Sure, Auto-scum will appear soon, but it will be limited...it can be
> > either on or off BUT CANNOT BE CHANGED DURING GAMEPLAY.
>
> I still don't understand why.
Because the people who play the competition say they want it limited.
Remco, being an admin isn't just about annoying Ethan. :-) You have
to do things, even though you may feel otherwise, because players
want it. A competition is pointless unless the players have major input.
> > To quote someone you know very well, those are "Using it, not
> > abusing." :-) Targetting is a command. It is not labelled
> > "A lot of people consider this option to be cheating" because
> > it isn't. It doesn't screw with the laws of chance:
>
> Well, targetting was introduced because people argued the monsters
> were cheating; players could only hit in a straight line, but monsters
> could hit in other ways as well. With targetting, you can do things
> you can't do without it, and it was caused by players complaining
> about it.
>
> Surely, by your reasoning, targetting is far worse than level scumming?
No. Targetting solves what seems to be a mojor flaw in the game engine...you
can only shoot in "simple" lines (ie, the 8 directions.) Targetting allows
this falw to be overcome...now ranged attacks can be done in a more realistic
"infinite angle" way.
> > Look, this is really treading into opinion.
>
> And that's why I don't think people should call it cheating. This
> is just opinion.
>
> > I don't like scumming and you do.
>
> _I don't like scumming_.
>
> People shouldn't call it cheating.
(sigh) OK, this is pointless. I can't make you think it's
cheating and you can't make me think it's fine and dandy,
so lets just quit it.
George
> >Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
>
> >> > The reason shops refresh after 1000 turns was a way of prventing
> >> > rich players going mental in the shops and nabbing all the top stuff
> >> > they can.
> >>
> >> As opposed to what? Of course they won't change every turn, that would
> >> be silly, but 1000 is just a number. The thing is that they don't
> >> update while you're in town, you have to be in the dungeon. That's
> >> convenient, it makes sure stuff you want to buy are still there after
> >> you sold some other things to get the money.
> >
> >The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
> >that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
>
>
> existed right back to Moria - and not even recent versions of that, probably
> the second version to have shops (given what happens in Nethack, where shop
> inventory never changes from the moment it is generated except according to
> the actions of the player: I can imagine this happening in Moria when shops
> were added for the first time, people complaining at this, and the gradual
> change of shop inventory being added as a feature shortly afterwards.)
> Rotation of shopkeepers doesn't necessarily mean that the shop changes
> ownership, just that it's someone else's shift at the till...
> Basically, if you want to buy a certain item from a shop in real life
> and it isn't in stock, you come back a few days later and see if it's in
> stock. You don't even have to go into a dungeon and wait a few thousand
> turns as you do in Angband, just staying at home a few days will do. (Anyone
> who's been down to the store and found they had run out of coffee or
> something - i.e. everybody - will know what I mean.)
> the right stuff to come up, but that you have to go to the dungeon to wait
> out the time... but it couldn't be done any other way, otherwise you might
> just pop out of a shop to sell something to give you the money to buy that
> armor of resistance, and come back to find it already gone just a few turns
> later. (This could be a feature of RAngband... make it not matter whether
> the character was in the town or dungeon when considering changes to the
> store inventories.)
> if I was a warrior or wizard and came back from a monster-filled dungeon
> with damaged armor, I wouldn't go back until I'd repaired it as best I could
> or bought new stuff, even if it took me several days to achieve. And if I
> wasn't at full fitness I'd make sure I got as close to that as possible,
> waiting as long as necessary to buy potions to restore me to health if I
> could afford them, before returning - that little bit extra health,
> strength, agility, intelligence or wisdom might well mean the difference
> between life and death. 50' is a near as it is possible to get to a "safe"
> waiting place that isn't in the town (ZAngband has its wilderness and its
> homes as well.)
So basically, what you are saying is we should make town-scumming
easier? OK......:-)
There is a significant difference between the bloke goin
home and waiting for his coffee, and the town-scumming techniques.
When the bloke goes home, he does stuff....he bathes, he sleeps,
he eats, he forgets about the coffee, he remembers the next
day and starts to suffer withdrawl symptomns. :-) Meanwhile,
the humble town-scummer is simply wasting time to get that
Potion of Self Knowledge or WoR scroll.
It might not be cheating in the same way Wizard Mode is cheating,
but it's certainly not the rosy strategy you make it out to be.
For a competition...well, judging from the survey I sent out
the majority of players would prefer techniques such as stair-scumming
to be left illegal. It was closer with town-scumming, but still,
the majority prevail.
Bill Seymour
news:19990415171127...@ng105.aol.com...
> >What are farming and scumming?
>
> Scumming has many forms, some considered cheating and some not:
> 1. Save-file scumming-When you die, your game is over and your save is
erased.
> looked upon as cheating almost everywhere, and is the worst form of
scumming.
Actually, worse than that is save file scumming for drops. No longer
supported in many varients, you would save and make a backup of the save
just before killing something with a decent drop, then kil that monster over
and over again until they dropped what you wanted.
> 2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and
go to
> another level, you get a level feeling. Repeatedly doing this without
exploring
> or fighting, and looking for a good level feeling, is probably the second
worst
> form of scumming.
Since this is a supported feature of the game, it's not considered cheating
at all.
Joseph William Dixon
> Actually, worse than that is save file scumming for drops. No longer
> supported in many varients, you would save and make a backup of the save
> just before killing something with a decent drop, then kil that monster
> over and over again until they dropped what you wanted.
Heh, got Wormtongue to drop Ringil *AND* Bladeturner once that way. I
immediately deleted that savefile, of course. Even as withered and
useless as my conscience is, I was rather ashamed of that kind of luck. :)
--
/===== Joseph W. Dixon ==== Team *AMIGA* ==== -*[Gumby]*- =====\
\= aa...@chebucto.ns.ca === http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~aa343/ =/
George
<URL:mailto:bil...@jps.net> wrote:
> > 2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more and
> go to
> > another level, you get a level feeling. Repeatedly doing this without
> exploring
> > or fighting, and looking for a good level feeling, is probably the second
> worst
> > form of scumming.
>
> Since this is a supported feature of the game, it's not considered cheating
> at all.
If you're reffering to auto-scum as "a supported feature of the game",
go read option.txt.
Ethan Sicotte
<ant19183...@coturnix.demon.co.uk>...
> In article <371900ea...@news.icm.edu.pl>, Gwidon S. Naskrent
> <URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> > I've been playing Ratchet II (who has now surpassed Ratchet I by a
> > fair bit, though he's without OoD (!)), and I've got to wait _whole_
> > _bloody_ _10_ _game_ _days_ or so, and still the $**@()@ shop didn't
> > restock! I've gotten so mad over those scrolls that I grabbed a
> > debugger, gave myself two WoRs, then erased the cheating flag.
> >
> > Instant relaxation :)
> >
> > Of course, lest I be faced in the future with a similar thing, I added
> > WoRs to the Temple. Strange thing - they're twice as rarer there, yet
> > they appear each time, and in larger quantities.
> >
> > GSN
> >
> > PS. George may proceed as he wishes when he receives my entry - I hope
> > my little cheat was justified enough! Oh, I also added the Easy Patch
> > - does that count towards cheating?
>
> Considering some of the munchkin ideas I've had to put
> up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
> well, how much does it affect the game?
I would certainly hope that whipping out the debugger counts as a cheat!
Ethan Sicotte
<7fg0n3$l...@news.or.intel.com>...
> > 2. Stair scumming-When you have been on a level for 50 turns or more
and
> go to
> > another level, you get a level feeling. Repeatedly doing this without
> exploring
> > or fighting, and looking for a good level feeling, is probably the
second
> worst
> > form of scumming.
>
> Since this is a supported feature of the game, it's not considered
cheating
> at all.
Yes it is. It's not a major abuse, but it IS an abuse. That's why various
programmers have tried various things to foil this behavior (none have been
successful without penalizing honest players, IMO).
Christopher Stranczek (Chris)
but rest the requisite number of turns before getting a level feeling
for the next level below, i.e. not going up and down.
chris
weisiger
>
> In article <371900ea...@news.icm.edu.pl>, Gwidon S. Naskrent
> <URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> > wrote:
> >
> > >>This is the way it used to be in Moria and in older Angband versions.
> > >>Zangband simply restored the old status quo in this area.
> > >
> > >Was the change accidental? Why would anyone think making WoR rarer in
> > >the shops would be a good thing? Hopefully that's something that will
> > >be fixed in 2.8.4.
> >
> > By the way...
> >
> > The person who decided to take WoRs away from shop 4 should be racked,
> > impaled, burned, quartered, and then _really hurt_.
> >
> > fair bit, though he's without OoD (!)), and I've got to wait _whole_
> > _bloody_ _10_ _game_ _days_ or so, and still the $**@()@ shop didn't
> > restock! I've gotten so mad over those scrolls that I grabbed a
> > debugger, gave myself two WoRs, then erased the cheating flag.
> >
> > Instant relaxation :)
> >
> > Of course, lest I be faced in the future with a similar thing, I added
> > WoRs to the Temple. Strange thing - they're twice as rarer there, yet
> > they appear each time, and in larger quantities.
> >
> > GSN
> >
> > PS. George may proceed as he wishes when he receives my entry - I hope
> > my little cheat was justified enough! Oh, I also added the Easy Patch
> > - does that count towards cheating?
>
> Considering some of the munchkin ideas I've had to put
> up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
> well, how much does it affect the game?
It doesn't really. What it does is allow you to use the movement
commands to open doors and disarm traps. It really spoils you for
variants that don't have it, but it doesn't affect gameplay.
>
> =======================================================
> George Quail - Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, Scotland,
> Europe, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, The
> Universe. Near Space
--
>look
You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
On the ground there is a link
>examine link
The link leads to The Angband Newbie Guide, at
http://home.pacific.net.sg/~jianson/
Inscribed on the link is a small drawing
>examine drawing
The drawing looks like this:
________
/each.co\
|r/---\m|
|n| | |
|i| | /
|@\--/\--
\nitramj
-------
Julian Lighton
That's not cheating at all.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
"Can I play with madness?" -- Iron Maiden
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Considering some of the munchkin ideas I've had to put
>up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
>well, how much does it affect the game?
The game, in no particular way (except stacks of items are possible,
which leads to minor unbalances with items not disappearing), but it
wonderfully protects your knuckles and wrists from jumping all over
the keyb.
glo...@my-dejanews.com
ke...@ac.grin.spam (Chris Kern) wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999 23:47:09 +0100, "Jonathan Ellis"
> <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > So I don't view it as cheating, whether you use it permanently
> >(which I do), intermittently or never.
I agree. I also use the auto-scum... I have never seen an increase in numbers
of artifacts, or even good items. Gold: yes...for reasons below.
> Very well said. I have always maintained that Autoscum is practically
> useless. [snip] I played
> with peek cheats for a while and never saw the scummer reject more
> than 5 levels. All you need is a single point of items to bypass the
> scummer. A single out of depth monster or object, even a normal
> object, will get you that level. Turning it off and on makes almost
> no difference, and it really doesn't increase your chances of finding
> good things significantly (it also increases monsters).
I just finished off a auto-scummed level. No artifacts. *Three* troll pits.
Plus Azog. And a group of nether worms. The only useful thing I got was a
robe of elvenkind (shards).
I find that autoscum only increases the amount of gold you get, due to the OOD
monsters. It also increases the chance of you dying a grizzly death at a
shockingly low level.
- Jeff Sitz
George
> > up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
> > well, how much does it affect the game?
>
> commands to open doors and disarm traps. It really spoils you for
> variants that don't have it, but it doesn't affect gameplay.
Doesn't sound too unbalancing. GDB, though...:-)
George
<URL:mailto:si...@maine.rr.com> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
> <ant19183...@coturnix.demon.co.uk>...
> > <URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
>
> > > I've been playing Ratchet II (who has now surpassed Ratchet I by a
> > > fair bit, though he's without OoD (!)), and I've got to wait _whole_
> > > _bloody_ _10_ _game_ _days_ or so, and still the $**@()@ shop didn't
> > > restock! I've gotten so mad over those scrolls that I grabbed a
> > > debugger, gave myself two WoRs, then erased the cheating flag.
> > >
> > > Instant relaxation :)
> > >
> > > Of course, lest I be faced in the future with a similar thing, I added
> > > WoRs to the Temple. Strange thing - they're twice as rarer there, yet
> > > they appear each time, and in larger quantities.
> > >
> > > GSN
> > >
> > > PS. George may proceed as he wishes when he receives my entry - I hope
> > > my little cheat was justified enough! Oh, I also added the Easy Patch
> > > - does that count towards cheating?
> >
> > Considering some of the munchkin ideas I've had to put
> > up with, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. :-) Easy Patch...
> > well, how much does it affect the game?
>
I'll certianly have to penalise him in some way. Perhaps an
instant knockdown of score, or summat like that. Sorry, GSN,
I understand the pain, but I can't really let cheaters go
"unnoticed"
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I would certainly hope that whipping out the debugger counts as a cheat!
>
>I'll certianly have to penalise him in some way. Perhaps an
>instant knockdown of score, or summat like that. Sorry, GSN,
>I understand the pain, but I can't really let cheaters go
>"unnoticed"
Oh, was Ethan afraid that I might beat him? <g> You would never have
known I did a minor cheat but I admitted it. If cheating is to be
penalised, honesty should be rewarded.
Ethan Sicotte
<371d002e...@news.polsl.gliwice.pl>...
> On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 18:14:05 +0000, George
> <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> I would certainly hope that whipping out the debugger counts as a
cheat!
> >
> >I'll certianly have to penalise him in some way. Perhaps an
> >instant knockdown of score, or summat like that. Sorry, GSN,
> >I understand the pain, but I can't really let cheaters go
> >"unnoticed"
>
> Oh, was Ethan afraid that I might beat him? <g> You would never have
> known I did a minor cheat but I admitted it. If cheating is to be
> penalised, honesty should be rewarded.
Heh.
Seriously: the competition (and RGRA winner announcements) are on the honor
system: we assume clean play as defined within the rules, and anything less
(if somehow discovered, or admitted to) should remove that saveful from
consideration. Actually, I'd've assumed, going by George's posted rules
here and on the website, that submission of a savefile that had been
debugged would not only disqualify for that round but lead to the player's
being banned from future rounds.
I'm not suggesting this should be done, I hasten to add...but then again, I
don't run the competition. Certainly, if I were running a PC in this round
(I am not) I'd be seriously pissed if someone was allowed to submit a known
debugged character, penalty or no penalty.
Yes, yes, you could have not mentioned it at all. That's the honor system:
*you* would still know. That would bother some people and not others.
<shrugs> Nothing to be done about it, really.
<hopes he hasn't started some endless dumb thread about
cheats/debug/blah/blah/blah>
Remco Gerlich
> Oh, was Ethan afraid that I might beat him? <g> You would never have
> known I did a minor cheat but I admitted it. If cheating is to be
> penalised, honesty should be rewarded.
Not putting you in the result for this round would be the right
solution. That's penalising you for cheating, but it rewards your
honesty by not banning you outright, as the rules say you should be.
George
I'm putting him up BUT THIS IS A ONE OFF. Further cheating will
respond in me getting NASTY! :-|
Freejack
>I find that autoscum only increases the amount of gold you get, due to the OOD
>monsters. It also increases the chance of you dying a grizzly death at a
>shockingly low level.
>
>- Jeff Sitz
Well level 30 is low for some, I stepped down a staircase at level
30 and hit a shambling mound of all things. While standing in the
midst of a pack of Gravity hounds, I never knew what hit me. Read it
off my tombstone.
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Not putting you in the result for this round would be the right
>> solution. That's penalising you for cheating, but it rewards your
>> honesty by not banning you outright, as the rules say you should be.
>
>I'm putting him up BUT THIS IS A ONE OFF. Further cheating will
>respond in me getting NASTY! :-|
Oh, thank you ever so much for your mercy! <grovels in dust>
Come to think of it, someone advised people to run non-vanilla
variants under gdb to pinpoints bugs more accurately when they show
up. Since the underlying gdb can be used for cheating as well, is this
an allowed practice?
Note that if I wanted to cheat seriously, I could easily have changed
my Slay Animal weapon into something more powerful and do some other
foul, but not too easy to spot, tricks. I could even win the compo
outright, had I so desired. Heck, I could've won *all* previous
compos, had I so desired. But I hadn't.
IMO giving myself two WoRs out of annoyance wasn't a big enough cheat
to warrant such flamage. Putting WoRs into the temple might have been
qualified as such, but since other variants do it, and previous
versions of Angband did it, this cannot be viewed as aiming at
enhancing my odds in the dungeon - it certainly doesn't help down
there.
Jonathan Ellis
>IMO giving myself two WoRs out of annoyance wasn't a big enough cheat
>to warrant such flamage.
Provided that you decreased your gold by the cost of two WoR scrolls at
the same time... As I said before, I for one don't regard town-scumming as
any more than boring.
Jonathan.
George
<URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 18:09:49 +0000, George
> <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> Not putting you in the result for this round would be the right
> >> solution. That's penalising you for cheating, but it rewards your
> >> honesty by not banning you outright, as the rules say you should be.
> >
> >I'm putting him up BUT THIS IS A ONE OFF. Further cheating will
> >respond in me getting NASTY! :-|
>
> Oh, thank you ever so much for your mercy! <grovels in dust>
You can just kiss my chrome-plated cookies. :-)
> Come to think of it, someone advised people to run non-vanilla
> variants under gdb to pinpoints bugs more accurately when they show
> up. Since the underlying gdb can be used for cheating as well, is this
> an allowed practice?
GDB=Cheating. Full stop.
> Note that if I wanted to cheat seriously, I could easily have changed
> my Slay Animal weapon into something more powerful and do some other
> foul, but not too easy to spot, tricks. I could even win the compo
> outright, had I so desired. Heck, I could've won *all* previous
> compos, had I so desired. But I hadn't.
Same goes for me. Would have taken me 5 seconds to fake, say, Iren
and win the hardest compo so far.
> IMO giving myself two WoRs out of annoyance wasn't a big enough cheat
> to warrant such flamage.
GDB=Cheating. Full stop.
> Putting WoRs into the temple might have been qualified as such,
> but since other variants do it, and previous versions of Angband did it,
> this cannot be viewed as aiming at enhancing my odds in the dungeon - it
> certainly doesn't help down there.
Having WoR artificially =Easier to escape=Enhancing odds in
dungeon artificially=cheating.
George
<URL:mailto:jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> >IMO giving myself two WoRs out of annoyance wasn't a big enough cheat
> >to warrant such flamage.
>
> the same time... As I said before, I for one don't regard town-scumming as
> any more than boring.
As as I've said before..BURN, HERETIC! :-)
Greg Wooledge
>In article <slrn7hk4be.930.s...@flits104-37.flits.rug.nl>,
>Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
>> The only reason why level feelings were put
>> into the game was to make a decision possible: do I want to play a
>> boring level? Is this superb level not too dangerous?
>>
>> At least, I can't think of any other reason.
>I know why the feelings were added...I don't get why anyone with 5 miligrams
>of patience can;t bear out a boring level with the promise that the RNG will
>be nice next time.
The level feelings were added because originally there was no preserve
mode. In order to prevent gratuitous, permanent loss of artifacts,
it was necessary to give players some warning -- "hey, there might be
an artifact here". Hence the "special" feeling. But a 1:1 mapping of
special feelings to levels with artifacts was apparently judged to be too
easy, so special feelings were also given for other situations -- thus,
the player couldn't know with certainty whether an artifact was generated.
The other level feelings between "boring" and "special" were probably
added just because it seemed silly that a player could mystically detect
artifacts (and player ghosts, monster pits and vaults) but not, say,
suits of power dragon scale mail.
Oh, and Remco's explantion was probably a factor, too.
Preserve mode changed the game more than many people seem to realize.
--
Greg Wooledge | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
wool...@kellnet.com | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |
Greg Wooledge
>George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
>> that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
>
>It doesn't. I don't think Ben has anything to do with it. It just
>means that updating while you're in town would be a damn nuisance.
A standard Moria tactic, when discovering a rare and valuable (hence
somewhat expensive) item for sale in one of the shops, was to spend
insane amounts of time killing townspeople to gather the necessary gold
to buy it.
Remember, there was no Black Market. If, say, boots of speed showed up
in the armor shop, then it was something you *did* *not* *pass* *up*.
If it was nighttime (in the game) when you found the item, and you were
a spellcaster, then you could invest some time lighting up the town.
Again, remember: the Moria light spell, used outside a "room", was
radius 1. Forever. And your lantern only gave radius-1 light, too.
After all that effort -- literally hours of game play to accumulate
the ~8k gold to buy those speed boots or half that for an (R) armor --
it would have sucked in an indescribable manner to find the item had
been sold to someone else.
Zangband updates the shops while you're in town. I've had some items
disappear on me while I was off selling stuff to get the gold. I was
not amused.
Greg Wooledge
>In article <371e4c17...@news.polsl.gliwice.pl>, Gwidon S. Naskrent
><URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
>> Come to think of it, someone advised people to run non-vanilla
>> variants under gdb to pinpoints bugs more accurately when they show
>> up. Since the underlying gdb can be used for cheating as well, is this
>> an allowed practice?
I always do this. If the game goes into an infinite loop (as previous
versions of Zangband have done), then I want to know *where*. Actually,
I've had to do this with past vanilla versions, too, though not for
deadly bugs.[1]
It's analogous to walking around armed instead of unarmed. If I'm
carrying a gun but never shoot anyone, should I be arrested for murder?
(Oh, wait, you're a Brit. :-) Substitute "knows karate" for "carries
a gun".)
Having the *potential* for cheating is not the same as having cheated.
>GDB=Cheating. Full stop.
Bullshit.
*Using* a debugger to modify the game's data is cheating. Running the
game under a debugger for diagnostic purposes in case it blows up
isn't cheating -- it's a service to the r.g.r.angband community, and
specifically it's a service to that game's maintainer.
[1]A smaller-than-int variable was used to hold the returned result of
isupper(); there was a conflict with GNU libc version 2. The symptom
was loss of the ability to use capital letters to get a prompt when
selecting inventory items for use.
Greg Wooledge
>On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 18:34:36 +0000, George
><geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Easy Patch...
>>well, how much does it affect the game?
>The game, in no particular way (except stacks of items are possible,
>which leads to minor unbalances with items not disappearing),
The item stacking is already there without the Easy Patch. Without the
Easy Patch, the top item of the stack is shown instead of a green *,
and you can't select individual items from the stack as easily.
(But there are certain option setting combinations you can use to get
the same functionality, albeit with many more keypresses.)
Stephen Lee
Greg Wooledge <wool...@kellnet.com> wrote:
[snip]
>A standard Moria tactic, when discovering a rare and valuable (hence
>somewhat expensive) item for sale in one of the shops, was to spend
>insane amounts of time killing townspeople to gather the necessary gold
>to buy it.
It's also not all that rare in Angband, either, for more or less the same
reasons.
>Remember, there was no Black Market. If, say, boots of speed showed up
>in the armor shop, then it was something you *did* *not* *pass* *up*.
Boots of speed being even rarer in Moria than in Angband (I've never,
ever, seen Boots of Speed in Moria -- this after playing characters who
*had* to have that ribbed plate armor of resistance and that holy avenger
no-dachi to round out his equipment), and speed being much stronger in
Moria than in recent Angband versions, this was so much more true then.
--
Boy I Love Losing Superbowls
Count On Losing This Sunday
Dorky Overrated Losers Play Hideously In Nasty Setback
Just End The Season
George
> >Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
>
> >> The only reason why level feelings were put
> >> into the game was to make a decision possible: do I want to play a
> >> boring level? Is this superb level not too dangerous?
> >>
> >> At least, I can't think of any other reason.
>
> >I know why the feelings were added...I don't get why anyone with 5 miligrams
> >of patience can;t bear out a boring level with the promise that the RNG will
> >be nice next time.
>
> The level feelings were added because originally there was no preserve
> mode. In order to prevent gratuitous, permanent loss of artifacts,
> it was necessary to give players some warning -- "hey, there might be
> an artifact here". Hence the "special" feeling. But a 1:1 mapping of
> special feelings to levels with artifacts was apparently judged to be too
> easy, so special feelings were also given for other situations -- thus,
> the player couldn't know with certainty whether an artifact was generated.
It makes sense when you think about it. Why bother searching every level
JUST IN CASE the Phial is there?
> The other level feelings between "boring" and "special" were probably
> added just because it seemed silly that a player could mystically detect
> artifacts (and player ghosts, monster pits and vaults) but not, say,
> suits of power dragon scale mail.
Sensible enough. If you're gonna be ridiculous, at least
be consistent.
> Oh, and Remco's explantion was probably a factor, too.
Quite possibly.
> Preserve mode changed the game more than many people seem to realize.
Oh yes. That and maximise mode created hordes of new strategies
and destroyed hordes of old ones. While I prefer to have both on
in my compo, I'll happily try either one off for a special compo to
see the different strategies you can try.
George
<URL:mailto:wool...@kellnet.com> wrote:
> Remco Gerlich (scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx) wrote:
>
> >George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> The fact that it updates while yer in the dungeon should point out
> >> that town-scumming wasn't up on Ben's list of "good play ideas" :-)
> >
> >It doesn't. I don't think Ben has anything to do with it. It just
> >means that updating while you're in town would be a damn nuisance.
>
> somewhat expensive) item for sale in one of the shops, was to spend
> insane amounts of time killing townspeople to gather the necessary gold
> to buy it.
>
> in the armor shop, then it was something you *did* *not* *pass* *up*.
This was before my time. I started playing 5 years ago with 2.4 Frog Knows. :-)
> If it was nighttime (in the game) when you found the item, and you were
> a spellcaster, then you could invest some time lighting up the town.
> Again, remember: the Moria light spell, used outside a "room", was
> radius 1. Forever. And your lantern only gave radius-1 light, too.
Sounds fun.
> After all that effort -- literally hours of game play to accumulate
> the ~8k gold to buy those speed boots or half that for an (R) armor --
> it would have sucked in an indescribable manner to find the item had
> been sold to someone else.
True. While there is a "realism" question I know from experience the
pain of watching your dream item going from the Black Market just
as you have the necesary gold.
> Zangband updates the shops while you're in town. I've had some items
> disappear on me while I was off selling stuff to get the gold. I was
> not amused.
Nor would I be. I could understand this, however, if it was designed
so that items removed in this way were given to monsters near the
shop entrance. Hell to code, but a real good laugh. :-)
George
<URL:mailto:wool...@kellnet.com> wrote:
> George (geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> >GDB=Cheating. Full stop.
>
> Bullshit.
>
> *Using* a debugger to modify the game's data is cheating. Running the
> game under a debugger for diagnostic purposes in case it blows up
> isn't cheating -- it's a service to the r.g.r.angband community, and
> specifically it's a service to that game's maintainer.
Assuming that all it did was look out for bugs then sure,
but if (and this is the tricky part) you used it at any time
to alter a variable which could alter your survival chances then
it becomes cheating.
Andrew Schoonmaker
be darkened thusly:
>Count the ratio of "Quit without saves" vs game turns for that character, or
>whatever.
And this info is to be stored where?
-Andrew ()
--
On the other hand, you have different fingers.
Andrew Schoonmaker (ne...@eskimo.com)
Hi! I'm a replicating .sig virus! Join the fun and copy me into yours! :)
Andrew Schoonmaker
screen to be darkened thusly:
>into the game was to make a decision possible: do I want to play a
>boring level? Is this superb level not too dangerous?
>
>At least, I can't think of any other reason.
No, no, no. As I recall, from assorted discussions around the time
preserve mode was added, the reason level feelings were added was so
that people wouldn't worry about missing Ringil and not knowing about
it. (No artifact list, either).
-Andrew (this _was_ the reason level feelings were added, right?)
Andrew Schoonmaker
darkened thusly:
> In article <slrn7hksq3.963.s...@flits104-37.flits.rug.nl>,>> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Besides, if someone feels it's fun that way, who are you to judge?
>
><blissfreak> I am God. Bow before me before I smite you. </blissfreak> :-)
>
>On the same point, I could argue that if someone wants to use a GDB to hack
>the game that's OK as well.
Well, no. Anything done with GDB is outside the game, whereas
town-scumming is not.
>> > Yes it is. Mechanised actions and manual actions can have different
>> > effects. As for "more dangerous and more exciting"...that's kinda
>> > the point. It messes with the RNG's "balancing act". While the RNG
>> > isn't random it does prevent people from having constant High or Low
>> > results, because the laws of chance give everything an equal chance
>> > of happening. By using auto-scum you are inhibiting these laws.
>>
>> But you could do so yourself.
>
>Kinky. :-) Seriously, just because you can do it manually doesn't make
>something right. I can steal from a bank by myself. Is THAT OK? :-)
Yeah, but can you get your copy of angband to do so for you
automatically with the proper options? :-)
>> > So save-file scumming is OK since I can do it by hand. :-)
>>
>> If you can do so with a normal command, sure. Of course, doing a command
>> outside of the game hardly counts as normal.
>
>Actually, one of two ports I've played have had a option in them that allowed
>auto-saves.
Auto-saves just overwrite your current save-file in case of game
crashes. For legitimate players, there's no advantage to this...
>> If the game seems to allow it *by design*, it's not cheating.
>
>"seems" to allow it. Ben never actually went out of his way
>to promote scumming.
Ahem. He added what was originally a patch developed for 2.7.7 into
the vanilla code distribution. While he wasn't personally really
thrilled with the change, auto-scum was made easier for those without
compilers...
>A competition is pointless unless the players have major input.
Coming from you, I find this amusing. I think I have input...but
sometimes I get the distinct impression it's being redirected to
/dev/null. ... :-)
-Andrew ()
Andrew Schoonmaker
darkened thusly:
>It makes sense when you think about it. Why bother searching every level
>JUST IN CASE the Phial is there?
Um, you forgot the <sarcasm> tags. Or at least I hope you forgot...
George
<URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
> darkened thusly:
> >Remco Gerlich <URL:mailto:scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote:
> >> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Besides, if someone feels it's fun that way, who are you to judge?
> >
> ><blissfreak> I am God. Bow before me before I smite you. </blissfreak> :-)
> >
> >On the same point, I could argue that if someone wants to use a GDB to hack
> >the game that's OK as well.
>
> Well, no. Anything done with GDB is outside the game, whereas
> town-scumming is not.
But if they feel it's fun...:-)
> >> > Yes it is. Mechanised actions and manual actions can have different
> >> > effects. As for "more dangerous and more exciting"...that's kinda
> >> > the point. It messes with the RNG's "balancing act". While the RNG
> >> > isn't random it does prevent people from having constant High or Low
> >> > results, because the laws of chance give everything an equal chance
> >> > of happening. By using auto-scum you are inhibiting these laws.
> >>
> >> But you could do so yourself.
> >
> >Kinky. :-) Seriously, just because you can do it manually doesn't make
> >something right. I can steal from a bank by myself. Is THAT OK? :-)
>
> Yeah, but can you get your copy of angband to do so for you
> automatically with the proper options? :-)
Er....(messes about with code)....does making the general store sell 24252 AU
of copper for 0 AU count? :-)
> >> > So save-file scumming is OK since I can do it by hand. :-)
> >>
> >> If you can do so with a normal command, sure. Of course, doing a command
> >> outside of the game hardly counts as normal.
> >
> >Actually, one of two ports I've played have had a option in them that allowed
> >auto-saves.
>
> Auto-saves just overwrite your current save-file in case of game
> crashes. For legitimate players, there's no advantage to this...
Oh, you'd be surprised....
> >> If the game seems to allow it *by design*, it's not cheating.
> >
> >"seems" to allow it. Ben never actually went out of his way
> >to promote scumming.
>
> Ahem. He added what was originally a patch developed for 2.7.7 into
> the vanilla code distribution. While he wasn't personally really
> thrilled with the change, auto-scum was made easier for those without
> compilers...
Ain't history fun? :-)
> >A competition is pointless unless the players have major input.
>
> Coming from you, I find this amusing. I think I have input...but
> sometimes I get the distinct impression it's being redirected to
> /dev/null. ... :-)
That's because I hate you. :-) In case you forgot, a recent
survey ( you failed tyo participate in. :-) ) was taken to check
what players wanted.
George
<URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
> darkened thusly:
>
> >JUST IN CASE the Phial is there?
>
> Um, you forgot the <sarcasm> tags. Or at least I hope you forgot...
did I? Didn't I? GUess. It'll be fun. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW! :-)
Chris Kern
<geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >Actually, one of two ports I've played have had a option in them that allowed
>> >auto-saves.
>>
>> Auto-saves just overwrite your current save-file in case of game
>> crashes. For legitimate players, there's no advantage to this...
>
>Oh, you'd be surprised....
Please explain. How can you use auto-save to cheat? I use it in any
variant it's offered in (I would like to see it in Vanilla,
personally). All it does it protect against power outages, game
crashing, etc. It doesn't create a second savefile for you.
-Chris
Life is short. Then it breathes nether. -more- You die. -more-
Shrowd
> >Count the ratio of "Quit without saves" vs game turns for that character,
or
> >whatever.
>
> And this info is to be stored where?
My first suggestion I won't mention (biting tounge)
My second suggestion would be "on the hard drive."
My third suggestion would be "where ever you care to put it", provided its
not at all related to my first suggestion or me. ;^)
If your not interested in my suggestions, the I would reply "I don't care.
That is not my department and therefore not my concern. Please take a
number and someone will be with you shortly..." *bleats like a sheep*
But, since I'm choosing to assume the question is a rhetorical one intended
to deliver some unmentioned (and undelivered) point, I won't answer. 8)
--
[Spambot Defense]
For those who bother to read this, my name is Shrowd.
My isp is The Microsoft Network. Bigfoot will work too..
-.
Andrew Schoonmaker
be darkened thusly:
>Andrew Schoonmaker <aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote in message
>
>> >Count the ratio of "Quit without saves" vs game turns for that character,
>or
>> >whatever.
>>
>> And this info is to be stored where?
>
>My first suggestion I won't mention (biting tounge)
>My second suggestion would be "on the hard drive."
>My third suggestion would be "where ever you care to put it", provided its
>not at all related to my first suggestion or me. ;^)
Well, if the player is quitting without saving, nothing is supposed
to be written to the savefile, which is the logical place to put it.
>But, since I'm choosing to assume the question is a rhetorical one intended
>to deliver some unmentioned (and undelivered) point, I won't answer. 8)
I'm sorry that the point wasn't more obvious. It would be a decent
suggestion, except for that little problem.
Andrew Schoonmaker
darkened thusly:
>In article <37260e68....@news.claremont.edu>, Andrew Schoonmaker
><URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
>> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
>> darkened thusly:
>> Auto-saves just overwrite your current save-file in case of game
>> crashes. For legitimate players, there's no advantage to this...
>
>Oh, you'd be surprised....
I'm not sure if "quit without saving" counts as a normal command,
since I'm not Remco... if this wasn't what you were thinking of, try
me.
>> Ahem. He added what was originally a patch developed for 2.7.7 into
>> the vanilla code distribution. While he wasn't personally really
>> thrilled with the change, auto-scum was made easier for those without
>> compilers...
>
>Ain't history fun? :-)
Especially the part with no essay questions.
>> >A competition is pointless unless the players have major input.
>>
>> Coming from you, I find this amusing. I think I have input...but
>> sometimes I get the distinct impression it's being redirected to
>> /dev/null. ... :-)
>
>That's because I hate you. :-)
Nice to know I'm appreciated. :-)
>In case you forgot, a recent
>survey ( you failed tyo participate in. :-) ) was taken to check
>what players wanted.
As I've said before, I failed to participate due to problems with my
e-mail...well, that and I didn't read the group at all during the
whole two days we had to reply.
-Andrew (who's pretty sure you know most of his opinions on the
survey questions)
Remco Gerlich
> I'm not sure if "quit without saving" counts as a normal command,
> since I'm not Remco... if this wasn't what you were thinking of, try
> me.
Well, I've never heard of the Angband command "quit without saving".
Angband has "Save and Quit", "Save", and "Quit (commit suicide)".
Of course, you can reset your computer, or close the window in
the window manager if it allows it, or kill the game or so, but
I'd call that outside of the game, wouldn't you?
John I'anson-Holton
The windows ports of *bands have a specific option under the file menu
to Abort which quits without saving. Pernband has IIRC introduced this
as a regular command available in any port.
John
Remco Gerlich
> The windows ports of *bands have a specific option under the file menu
> to Abort which quits without saving. Pernband has IIRC introduced this
> as a regular command available in any port.
Wow, didn't know that. In my opinion, that makes savefile scumming
legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
Chris Kern
Gerlich) wrote:
>John I'anson-Holton <jia...@milbank.com> wrote:
>> The windows ports of *bands have a specific option under the file menu
>> to Abort which quits without saving. Pernband has IIRC introduced this
>> as a regular command available in any port.
>
>Wow, didn't know that. In my opinion, that makes savefile scumming
>legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
That's a bit extreme...I think that taking advantage of a windows-only
option would be considered cheating. In DOS you would have to reset
the computer. Essentially what you are saying is that if I made a
port to C64 or some obsolete system and added in savefile scumming,
automatic wizard mode and other things that they would become legal in
all Angband versions.
Remco Gerlich
> >Wow, didn't know that. In my opinion, that makes savefile scumming
> >legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
Chris Kern <ke...@ac.grin.edu> wrote:
> That's a bit extreme...I think that taking advantage of a windows-only
> option would be considered cheating. In DOS you would have to reset
> the computer. Essentially what you are saying is that if I made a
> port to C64 or some obsolete system and added in savefile scumming,
> automatic wizard mode and other things that they would become legal in
> all Angband versions.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'm saying that if the official vanilla version for Windows has a
command to do it, then I don't consider using it cheating on that
version. And I'm _not_ _happy_ with that. And apparently Darkgod also
thinks using it should be legal since he put it in Pern, and therefore
in all official versions of that.
George
<URL:mailto:ke...@ac.grin.edu> wrote:
> On 28 Apr 1999 15:08:19 GMT, scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx (Remco
> Gerlich) wrote:
>
> >John I'anson-Holton <jia...@milbank.com> wrote:
> >> The windows ports of *bands have a specific option under the file menu
> >> to Abort which quits without saving. Pernband has IIRC introduced this
> >> as a regular command available in any port.
> >
> >legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
>
> option would be considered cheating. In DOS you would have to reset
> the computer. Essentially what you are saying is that if I made a
> port to C64 or some obsolete system and added in savefile scumming,
> automatic wizard mode and other things that they would become legal in
> all Angband versions.
Allrule opinions have major problems. Fiddly (ie me)
rules can have loopholes a player can poke through, which
require a HUUUUUUUUGE ng thread to change. ( Honestly, Remco,
it was OK until you came along...:-) ) Meanwhile, Clean Sweep
(ie Remco) rules ( also known as "No-Frills" :-) ) can lead
to problems like this where a specific OS or port can cause
chaos. Save-file scumming legal vs Nothing at all fun legal.
hobson's choice.
George
<URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
> darkened thusly:
>
> >In article <37260e68....@news.claremont.edu>, Andrew Schoonmaker
> ><URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> >> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
> >> darkened thusly:
> >> Auto-saves just overwrite your current save-file in case of game
> >> crashes. For legitimate players, there's no advantage to this...
> >
> >Oh, you'd be surprised....
>
> since I'm not Remco... if this wasn't what you were thinking of, try
> me.
Like I said before, I can't anticipate what they'd do. While it's a damn
fine option (handy when, for example, your OS is playing up or whatever)
some silly git will find a way to abuse it. :-) Seriously, as long as it's
totally unedited (ie no fiddling at the source to create two copies) it's
fine. For now. :-)
> >> Ahem. He added what was originally a patch developed for 2.7.7 into
> >> the vanilla code distribution. While he wasn't personally really
> >> thrilled with the change, auto-scum was made easier for those without
> >> compilers...
> >
> >Ain't history fun? :-)
>
> Especially the part with no essay questions.
Thanks god I took Modern Studies instead.
> >> >A competition is pointless unless the players have major input.
> >>
> >> Coming from you, I find this amusing. I think I have input...but
> >> sometimes I get the distinct impression it's being redirected to
> >> /dev/null. ... :-)
> >
> >That's because I hate you. :-)
>
> Nice to know I'm appreciated. :-)
Not really, no.
> >In case you forgot, a recent
> >survey ( you failed tyo participate in. :-) ) was taken to check
> >what players wanted.
>
> As I've said before, I failed to participate due to problems with my
> e-mail...well, that and I didn't read the group at all during the
> whole two days we had to reply.
Tough luck. How long to you get to vote at elections?
> -Andrew (who's pretty sure you know most of his opinions on the
> survey questions)
yup. I just poick the one I like and go for the diametrically
opposite answer. :_)
Gwidon S. Naskrent
Gerlich) wrote:
>Well, I've never heard of the Angband command "quit without saving".
>Angband has "Save and Quit", "Save", and "Quit (commit suicide)".
You can press ^C five times and kill the whole thing without resorting
to saving, comitting suicide etc. Of course, the character is lost.
Gwidon S. Naskrent (nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl)
GSNband - http://artemida.amu.edu.pl/~naskrent/index.html
GEU/J d- s+:+ a-- C++ ULB++>++++ P- E W++ N+++ o? K? w+ O-- M-- V--
PS++ PE- Y PGP->++ t-- 5-- X- R* tv- b+ DI-- D++ G++ e++ h! r! y?
Divia
>
>
> I'm saying that if the official vanilla version for Windows has a
> command to do it, then I don't consider using it cheating on that
> version. And I'm _not_ _happy_ with that. And apparently Darkgod also
> thinks using it should be legal since he put it in Pern, and therefore
> in all official versions of that.
>
> --
> Remco Gerlich scarblac (a) pino.selwerd.cx
The Mac versions all have this command too actually. IIRC they did in
Moria too, but I might be wrong about that.
--
Divia di...@idt.net
"There doesn't seem to be anything special about it"
-Phantasy Star
Ethan Sicotte
<372620a1...@enews.newsguy.com>...
> variant it's offered in (I would like to see it in Vanilla,
Yes please. I'd also like the option to confirm going down stairs and
atuosave when going down stairs, but those are less important than timed
saves.
Ethan Sicotte
<slrn7iejoh.4d0.s...@flits104-37.flits.rug.nl>...
> I wrote:
> > >Wow, didn't know that. In my opinion, that makes savefile scumming
> > >legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
> > option would be considered cheating. In DOS you would have to reset
> > the computer. Essentially what you are saying is that if I made a
> > port to C64 or some obsolete system and added in savefile scumming,
> > automatic wizard mode and other things that they would become legal in
> > all Angband versions.
>
> I'm saying that if the official vanilla version for Windows has a
> command to do it, then I don't consider using it cheating on that
> version. And I'm _not_ _happy_ with that. And apparently Darkgod also
> thinks using it should be legal since he put it in Pern, and therefore
> in all official versions of that.
I don't think the option should be there in windows compiles, but its
presence does make its use legitimate. It is a menu command, so out-of-play
a bit to start with, and, far more importantly: we all know damn well that
quitting without saving is cheating. Period. Until and if (god forbid) Ben
releases a new vanilla with this explicitly built in, it is not an official
part of the game. And even if that were (god forbid) to happen, I suspect
the vast majority of RGRA readers would still refuse to use it.
Now, it sounds like darkgod has done exactly this, and has 'legitimized'
quit-abuse (a phrase of intentionally pejorative connotative value) in his
variant Pernband. In a word: yuck.
Chris Kern
Gerlich) wrote:
>I'm saying that if the official vanilla version for Windows has a
>command to do it, then I don't consider using it cheating on that
>version.
There's no such thing as an "official vanilla version for Windows".
Someone compiles the windows versions, and it's usually not Ben.
>And I'm _not_ _happy_ with that.
I think the point is rather ridiculous, you really think it's ok to
savefile scum just because the windows version put an "abort" command
under the file menu? It has a built in "X" at the top right that can
be used for the same purpose (so does the Xwindow version), so I don't
see what a little cosmetic change matters. Wizard mode is in the
"official" version as well, does that make it legal?
Divia
>
> Remco Gerlich <scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx> wrote in article
> <slrn7iejoh.4d0.s...@flits104-37.flits.rug.nl>...
> I don't think the option should be there in windows compiles, but its
> presence does make its use legitimate. It is a menu command, so out-of-play
> a bit to start with, and, far more importantly: we all know damn well that
> quitting without saving is cheating. Period. Until and if (god forbid) Ben
> releases a new vanilla with this explicitly built in, it is not an official
> part of the game. And even if that were (god forbid) to happen, I suspect
> the vast majority of RGRA readers would still refuse to use it.
>
> Now, it sounds like darkgod has done exactly this, and has 'legitimized'
> quit-abuse (a phrase of intentionally pejorative connotative value) in his
> variant Pernband. In a word: yuck.
Actually, I believe he put it in mostly for his own debugging use, but I
could be wrong. I think that this was meant to be removed eventually,
but was for his convenience. I could be wrong about that though.
Ben Harrison
You can confirm using stairs by inscribing "^<^>" on your boots.
And yes, this is a hack. :-)
--- Ben ---
John I'anson-Holton
Actually the 'X' saves before exit (windows compiles). The only easy
way to do this is the Abort menu command.
John
Chris Kern
<jia...@milbank.com> wrote:
>Actually the 'X' saves before exit (windows compiles). The only easy
>way to do this is the Abort menu command.
??? I thought it didn't. I know for a fact that double clicking on
the top-right quits without saving. I've done it before. I thought
the X did as well.
Remco Gerlich
>
> You can confirm using stairs by inscribing "^<^>" on your boots.
>
> And yes, this is a hack. :-)
Wow. It's a *secret* hack. Are there any more of those nice
tricks noone knows about that you can think of right now? :-)
Andrew Schoonmaker
darkened thusly:
>On 28 Apr 1999 15:08:19 GMT, scarblac...@pino.selwerd.cx (Remco
>Gerlich) wrote:
>
>>John I'anson-Holton <jia...@milbank.com> wrote:
>>> The windows ports of *bands have a specific option under the file menu
>>> to Abort which quits without saving. Pernband has IIRC introduced this
>>> as a regular command available in any port.
>>
>>Wow, didn't know that. In my opinion, that makes savefile scumming
>>legal with those versions, and is therefore a rather huge change.
>
[snip]
>In DOS you would have to reset
>the computer.
What does exiting via ^C do?
-Andrew (who would test it himself if he had a DOS version of Angband
lying around...)
Andrew Schoonmaker
darkened thusly:
>In article <3726dddb....@news.claremont.edu>, Andrew Schoonmaker
><URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
>> darkened thusly:
>> >That's because I hate you. :-)
>>
>> Nice to know I'm appreciated. :-)
>
>Not really, no.
...your sarcasm detector have the day off?
>> As I've said before, I failed to participate due to problems with my
>> e-mail...well, that and I didn't read the group at all during the
>> whole two days we had to reply.
>
>Tough luck. How long to you get to vote at elections?
Ah, but I know which day the elections are going to be on ahead of
time.
-Andrew ()
Andrew Schoonmaker
screen to be darkened thusly:
>Ben Harrison <be...@phial.com> wrote:
>>
>> You can confirm using stairs by inscribing "^<^>" on your boots.
>>
>> And yes, this is a hack. :-)
>
>Wow. It's a *secret* hack. Are there any more of those nice
>tricks noone knows about that you can think of right now? :-)
There's one for confirm before attacking with a given weapon, for
use on shovels...but I don't remember off-hand what it is.
George
<URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> George <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> caused pixels on my screen to be
> darkened thusly:
> >In article <3726dddb....@news.claremont.edu>, Andrew Schoonmaker
> ><URL:mailto:aschoo...@hmc.edu> wrote:
> >> darkened thusly:
> >> >That's because I hate you. :-)
> >>
> >> Nice to know I'm appreciated. :-)
> >
> >Not really, no.
>
> ...your sarcasm detector have the day off?
Why bother? Remco don't use them, neither do I. Unwritten
rule between two nemesii. :-)
> >> As I've said before, I failed to participate due to problems with my
> >> e-mail...well, that and I didn't read the group at all during the
> >> whole two days we had to reply.
> >
> >Tough luck. How long to you get to vote at elections?
>
> Ah, but I know which day the elections are going to be on ahead of
> time.
Not if you don't read the papers, look at bill-boards etc.
Gwidon S. Naskrent
Schoonmaker) wrote:
>>Wow. It's a *secret* hack. Are there any more of those nice
>>tricks noone knows about that you can think of right now? :-)
>
> There's one for confirm before attacking with a given weapon, for
>use on shovels...but I don't remember off-hand what it is.
Don't forget the "inscribe name of first monster killed on a weapon"
rumour. It _might_ have an effect <g>
Gwidon S. Naskrent
<geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Why bother? Remco don't use them, neither do I. Unwritten
>rule between two nemesii. :-)
nem-e-sis (nem'uh sis) n. pl. <-ses>(-seez )
Just to prove I learnt a little Greek ;-) And to add to this already
80-ish thread, of course.
>> Ah, but I know which day the elections are going to be on ahead of
>> time.
>
>Not if you don't read the papers, look at bill-boards etc.
Come on, how can someone not directly ignorant on what's going around
them (read: completely dumb) not know that elections that concern them
will take place?
I guess you'd have to Cc: selected members of the rgra community next
time you make a survey...
George
<URL:mailto:nask...@artemida.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Apr 1999 18:54:14 +0000, George
> <geo...@coturnix.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Why bother? Remco don't use them, neither do I. Unwritten
> >rule between two nemesii. :-)
>
> nem-e-sis (nem'uh sis) n. pl. <-ses>(-seez )
>
> Just to prove I learnt a little Greek ;-) And to add to this already
> 80-ish thread, of course.
Nemesises sounds silly, but. Nemesii is k00ler. :-)
> >> Ah, but I know which day the elections are going to be on ahead of
> >> time.
> >
> >Not if you don't read the papers, look at bill-boards etc.
>
> Come on, how can someone not directly ignorant on what's going around
> them (read: completely dumb) not know that elections that concern them
> will take place?
Trust me, it can happen.
> I guess you'd have to Cc: selected members of the rgra community next
> time you make a survey...
But then I'll either be accused of spam or of not posting to
a "respected poster" when he should have been informed.
Either way I'm f**ked. :-)