Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site milo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!umcp-cs!aplcen!aplvax!milo!ded
From: ded@milo.UUCP (Don E. Davis)
Newsgroups: net.games.rogue
Subject: Re: Urogue seems too arbitrary
Message-ID: <180@milo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 13:50:21 EST
Article-I.D.: milo.180
Posted: Mon Dec 16 13:50:21 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 00:43:13 EST
References: <179@milo.UUCP> <328@polaris.UUCP>
Reply-To: ded@milo.UUCP (Don E. Davis)
Distribution: net
Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD
Lines: 30

I complained about urogue being too arbitrary.  In particular,
I mentioned the problem with being summoned by a lesser god
and killed outright without an opportunity to react.

Herb Chong replied:
>
>you haven't thought carefully enough about what is happening:
>1) you notice that the monsters are from a much deeper level of the
>dungeon than the level number indicates (about 3 times, in fact).
>2) the particular monsters you ran into terrified you or other such nasty
>things AND there were a lot of them.  you may have noticed that you were
>completely surrounded
> 
>there are three conditions for being summoned:
>1) 1 in 100,000 turns totally at random (i.e. about once in every
>120 levels into the dungeon, or about once a game)
>2) a possible effect of misactivation of an artifact
>3) possible while going upwards through a stairwell while carrying an artifact
>
Then he goes on to say that he doesn't think the game is too
hard; in fact the next time around he will make it harder.

Apparently Herb missed by point.  I don't mind the game begin hard.
A hard game makes a good game.  What I object to is a random death 
totally out of my control.  I was summoned by a lesser god
and just hit my space key until I died.  Not because I had done
anything wrong, but because there was a random chance this would
happen.  Arbitrary deaths detract from a game.  Instead of wasting
my time with 30 hits of the space key, why don't you just
put up a message saying "You're dead," and core dump.