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A History of Rogue
blacklily8 writes "Gamasutra has published "The History of Rogue: Have @ You, You Deadly Zs." Despite only the most 'primitive' audiovisuals, Rogue has continued to excite gamers and programmers worldwide, and has been ported, enhanced, and forked now for over two decades. What is it about Wichman and Toy's old UNIX RPG that has sent so many gamers to their deaths in the Dungeons of Doom, desperately seeking the fabled Amulet of Yendor? This article covers the history of the game, including the Epyx failure to make a ton of cash selling it in 1983. It also goes into rogue-like culture and development."
I was trying to persuade the missus (yes really) that WoW was just really an extension of the rogue and Angband games I used to play but with the ability to play real time instead of turn based and actually play with/against real people.
She looked at me blankly and claimed that she didn't know what Rogue and Angband were. When I showed her, she laughed and claimed that it was completely different because of the graphics.
I maintain the similarities are there - certainly with the stats and so forth. But obviously it is a bit more advanced. As you'd expect in twenty years.
I for one welcome our new @ symbol overlords.
My favorite Rogue-like will always be Ancient Domains of Mystery. The control system is so much better than Nethack.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Rogue/Nethack/etc. have perma-death.
I love perma-death.
WoW gets boring because you level up to a certain point and "then what?"
Perma-death is awesome, and too few games utilize it.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The first version of Rogue that was widely circulated became quite a time sink for a lot of people at Caltech. This version was considerably harder than subsequent versions. It was extremely rare for anyone to actually win the game, by getting down deep, getting the Amulet of Yendor, and making it out alive.
One undergraduate, however, had no trouble beating it. Within a couple days of his starting playing, he had all the spots on the top score list, and all of them were total winners.
He then stopped playing, except when anyone else dared to take a spot on the top score list. Then he'd come to computing center, sit down, and 30 minutes later, the interloper would be pushed off the list.
Naturally, we all wondered how the hell this guy was so much better than the rest of us (and, based on what our contacts at other schools told us, better than anyone at their schools, too). He didn't do anything to hide when playing--he didn't play in an office with a private terminal. He played right out in the main terminal room, where anyone who wanted could stand behind and watch.
As far as anyone could see, he didn't do anything significantly different than the rest of us, other than he died a lot less than we did.
Finally, he told us the secret, and we all learned an important lesson. There was no big secret--he just made every little decision correctly. For example, if he had to explore a dark room, he did it in the minimum number of steps necessary. The rest of us would use the "run until you hit something" funciton and sweep the room, which made us step on more locations, which made us have a higher chance of springing a trap.
Traps usually weren't fatal. They just put you down a few hit points for a little while. But in that little while, a monster that he would barely survive, we would barely lose to.
After he got the Amulet and was on the way up, he would only step on locations he'd already stepped on while descending, and so he NEVER sprang a trap on the way up.
He knew the odds of everything (based on observation while playing, not based on looking at the code), and would use potions or scrolls at the time when they had the maximum expected utility.
He did this for EVERY decision point in the game. He made the decision that, based on all the data available at the time, was the best decision.
None of the things I listed above, or any of the other things he did perfectly that the rest of us only did 99% perfectly would make a noticeable difference by themselves. But put them all together, and all our tiny mistakes added up to losing for us, and the lack of any mistakes added up to winning for him.