Aucbvax.6735 net.games.rogue utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!ucbvax!hamachi Tue Apr 13 18:09:42 1982 The Flame Bounces --More-- Opinions seem to be divided between those who are amused and entertained by the war between Ken Arnold and me. If you don't like it, don't read it. I think it IS relevant and amusing. A lot of people believe that it is my moral obligation to reveal any bugs I find. That is true if the program in question is a compiler or some other useful program; however, we are not talking about such a program: we are talking about a computer game written by sadists and for masochists. When I go to Peter Kessler and say "The Pascal compiler is broken, could you fix it?" I'm asking him to do me a favor. I want him to fix the thing so I can go about my work. When I find a bug in rogue, I don't care if Ken Arnold fixes it. In fact, I don't want him to fix it--I want to have fun exploiting it! You too will agree. When I independently confirm that version 5.2 fixes the particular bug I found, I will mail to the net saying what it was. Then all of you can back up your old copies of rogue and have a ball. It is a great way to learn your way around the deepest dark corners of the dungeon and to learn how to cope with Umber Hulks, Dragons, and Purple Worms. Apply this knowledge to version 5.2 and you too can be a total winner without cheating! Cheating is fun only up to a point. If cheating makes the game too easy, then the challenge goes away and you might as well do something else, like real work. On the other hand, cheating which gives you a minor advantage is fun because you're getting away with something and in addition are learning some of the subtle nuances of the deep levels of the dungeon. Here's a shocking fact: even when I started out on level 1 with 100 or more hit points, I still managed to get myself killed before I got the amulet. In the several games in which I cheated outrageously, I never managed to be a total winner. Do not think that that is merely because I am an amateur class adventurer-- I have religiously studied the game and have even managed to win without cheating at all, and without even as much as a genocide or a 2h sword! The fact is that even with 100 hit points on level 1 (and the promise of much more as one goes up in the usual manner) ROGUE IS STILL A HARD GAME TO WIN. That's why I say that rogue is a game written by sadists for masochists to play. What could be more masochistic than killing yourself over and over again? Look at the names people play under: John Lennon, John Belushi, Anwar Sadat, Eater of Dead Babies, etc. The hardest thing for most people to do is to say that they are wrong. Let me try to put this discussion to rest by saying, "Ken, you were wrong." There, that wasn't so hard, was it? You hear manaical laughter in the distance. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.