rst@tardis.UUCP (Robert Thau) (02/16/85)
A peculiar thing that happened to the top scorers on one of the local machines (not me, and not this poor PDP-11): The "top scorer" is really two guys who switch off. At one point, the two managed to simultaneously restart two instances of a game that one of them had previously saved. Both encountered the same levels, with the same objects on them. At one point, they got scrolls of identify, which they got extra use of by identifying different corresponding objects. Saved games here seem to be pretty flaky regardless (often the game fails to restart and you simply lose) --- anyone have any similar experiences? rst@tardis P.S. This was a test of our inews, and you didn't even know it!
play@mcvax.UUCP (funhouse) (02/21/85)
In article <122@tardis.UUCP> rst@tardis.UUCP (Robert Thau) writes: > > ... At one point, two guys managed to simultaneously restart two instances >of a game that one of them had previously saved. Both encountered the same >levels, with the same objects on them. ... Yes, that shouldnt be too difficult. The save file is unlinked after its contents have been read, but that may take a second or two. If two people using the same account restart their game at the same moment, they will have this effect. (If you are alone and want to cheat anyway you can just take a copy of the save file, or make an extra link to it.) >Saved games here seem to be pretty flaky regardless (often the game >fails to restart and you simply lose). Clearly you are talking about the recently posted PDP11 version. I do not know of serious bugs in the 'official' hack. (However, you shouldnt Save while swallowed by a Purple worm ...)
brian@digi-g.UUCP (Brian Westley) (02/21/85)
<welcome to Frobozz's magic shoppe!> We also encountered a "cloned" level (2 players apparently on identical levels) but we were both playing separate characters. If hack's random-number gener- ator uses time-of-day (read each time for each level) it could happen. Anyway, we BOTH managed to rob a general store which contained the same items in both of our games. Rather interesting. Side note: neither of us like the Orcrist of Elbereth kludges, this makes the game much too unbalanced. Merlyn Leroy "Quo nunny foats"
guads@nmtvax.UUCP (02/22/85)
In article <> rst@tardis.UUCP (Robert Thau) writes: >A peculiar thing that happened to the top scorers on one of the local >machines (not me, and not this poor PDP-11): > >The "top scorer" is really two guys who switch off. At one point, the >two managed to simultaneously restart two instances of a game that one >of them had previously saved. Both encountered the same levels, with >the same objects on them. >Saved games here seem to be pretty flaky regardless (often the game >fails to restart and you simply lose) --- anyone have any similar experiences? I haven't seen anything strange with the save-game function, because I don't use it, but I have seen strange things. For example, if two people here are playing on the same account (with the same login name, of course), they will often get the same levels. If one player is on level two when the second player goes down to level two, then when he gets there, the level will be the same as the first player's level. If one of the players becomes two levels ahead of the other, then when the other player goes down a level, it will be the same level, but it will also be as mapped out as it was when the first player left it, and all the stuff that was there when the first player was, will be gone. Also, the monsters will be there, but they won't move when attacked! Verrrrry Strange! Interesting, anyway. -Lautzy (El Guadious One)
jona@clyde.UUCP (Jon Allingham) (02/27/85)
> In article <> rst@tardis.UUCP (Robert Thau) writes: > > >A peculiar thing that happened to the top scorers on one of the local > >machines (not me, and not this poor PDP-11): > > > >The "top scorer" is really two guys who switch off. At one point, the > >two managed to simultaneously restart two instances of a game that one > >of them had previously saved. Both encountered the same levels, with > >the same objects on them. > > >Saved games here seem to be pretty flaky regardless (often the game > >fails to restart and you simply lose) --- anyone have any similar experiences? > > I haven't seen anything strange with the save-game function, because I don't > use it, but I have seen strange things. For example, if two people here are > playing on the same account (with the same login name, of course), they will > often get the same levels. If one player is on level two when the second > player goes down to level two, then when he gets there, the level will be the > same as the first player's level. If one of the players becomes two levels > ahead of the other, then when the other player goes down a level, it will be > the same level, but it will also be as mapped out as it was when the first > player left it, and all the stuff that was there when the first player was, > will be gone. Also, the monsters will be there, but they won't move when > attacked! > > Verrrrry Strange! Interesting, anyway. > > -Lautzy (El Guadious One) It's not really strange at all. Since you are allowed to move both up and down in the dungeon, hack needs some way of keeping levels around. It does this with lock files that are tagged by the name of the user and a level number. When going to a new level, hack first looks to see if there is a lock file for that level, if so, it means that level has already been found and uses the existing level. Sometimes if hack crashes, there will be some lock files sitting around which will prevent you from getting a new level for any level there is a lock file for. Solution? : periodically have the administrator remove any lock files sitting around. Just don't remove any that happen to be in use ( although it wouldn't be that major a catastrophe ) -- Jon M. Allingham (201)386-3466 AT&T Bell Laboratories-WH "Beam me up Scotty, no intelligent life down here!"
robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) (03/02/85)
>< Posted from jona@clyde.UUCP (Jon Allingham) > It's not really strange at all. Since you are allowed to move both up > and down in the dungeon, hack needs some way of keeping levels around. > It does this with lock files that are tagged by the name of the user > and a level number. Hmmm.. The version we have running here doesn't use the name of the user as the file name. Instead it uses (in regular expression format) [a-z]lock.[0-9]*. The first user gets assigned the files alock.*, the second is assigned block.* and so on. What triggers this is if you specify a max number of hack players on the command line. robert -- Robert Viduya Georgia Institute of Technology ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!robert ...!{rlgvax,sb1,uf-cgrl,unmvax,ut-sally}!gatech!gitpyr!robert