murray@t4test.UUCP (Murray Lane) (03/29/84)
Someone asked what makes for interesting Rogue games. Personally, I have found that lack of monsters and magic tend to make a game dull, Soooooo when I finally got my hands on the source to Rogue (ver 4.4) I changed the treasure room definition. It is "shipped" set to 20, meaning that there is a one in twenty chance of a treasure room on any level. I changed it to one, so there is a treasure room on every level. This has two results, first, there are more monsters to kill, so you have to be more careful. Second, there is much more magic, so it is easier to get to the lower levels. The overall result is a slightly more win-able game. Before I made this mod, I had never been a total winner, now I can win perhaps one in eight games. If you (or someone you know) have access to the soure, the treasure room definition is in defs.h, (it is well documented, so you will know it when you see it). BUG NOTE: in version 4.4, it is possible to lock up the game when dropping down to a level with a treasure room on it. If the treasure room is small (say 4-6 positions) and it attempts to create lots of treasure or monsters for that room (more than the empty spots) it will loop looking for an empty spot that does not exist. If you modify the games for treasure rooms, be sure to put something in to allow it out of the loop after 1000 iterations or so. Enjoy... Murray at Intel @ t4test