[net.games.hack] Ghosts and rabid dogs...

barbay@spp2.UUCP (01/23/85)

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Could somebody answer the following questions on hack:

1) What determines is a ghost is created from your character?  Is it
   an unusually violent death?

2) What determines if a rabid dog from a previous character stays
   in the game?  Do all abandoned dogs stick around?

Can anybody answer these questions?  Can anybody answer the question
of life?

			Your friend and mine,
			Chris Barbay

robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) (01/25/85)

>< 
> 1) What determines is a ghost is created from your character?  Is it
>    an unusually violent death?

Nope.  If you're killed, or starve to death or choke, a ghost is always
created.  The seeming randomness occurs later when you (or someone else)
starts another game.  Whenever they go down a level, there's a one in
three chance that the level they end up on has a ghost (assume that someone
died on that level previously).  There are a other modifiers, like no
ghosts are saved on the earlier levels and things like that.

> 
> 2) What determines if a rabid dog from a previous character stays
>    in the game?  Do all abandoned dogs stick around?
> 

Dogs are saved with their ghosts (assuming the deceased had a dog).

				robert
-- 
Robert Viduya
    Office of Computing Services
    Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA 30332
    Phone:  (404) 894-4669

...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!robert
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alien@gcc-opus.ARPA (Alien Wells) (01/28/85)

In article <63@gitpyr.UUCP> robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) writes:
>  If you're killed, or starve to death or choke, a ghost is always
>created.  The seeming randomness occurs later when you (or someone else)
>starts another game.  Whenever they go down a level, there's a one in
>three chance that the level they end up on has a ghost (assume that someone
>died on that level previously).  There are a other modifiers, like no
>ghosts are saved on the earlier levels and things like that.

Wrong.  All ghosts are saved in files of the form /usr/games/bin/tmp/bones*.
I have a macro called 'ghosts' which lists them.  The creator is the player
that was playing the character turned into a ghost.

I have experimented a lot with ghost creation, and I know for sure that most
games to not create a ghost.  It also does not have any correlation (that I
can see) to you hearing the 'Wail of the Banshee' or Carol-Ann either (:-)).
I suspect that it is probabilistic, as is whether you get a level with the
ghost or not.  You can have a ghost on any level starting with 2, though the
earlier ghosts tend to get cleaned out more often.

You can have more than one ghost on a level (I have had up to three).  This
is caused by someone dying on a level that they are sharing with a ghost.

It is good to play a variety of characters, so you will have a variety of
items you can get from ghosts.  The best character is a caveman with a 
wizards elven cloak, a knights armor, and a tourists camera.  (Though beware,
items a ghost has are typically cursed.)

Note that the state of the entire level is saved with a ghost.  If you go down
a level and see unusual monster activity right away, chances are you are on
a ghost level.  The best way to take ghosts out are either the tourists
camera (I had two ghosts blinded once, as I calmly plundered their hordes)
or wands (polymorph is especially good, striking is virtually useless).

					Alien