The Monster Memory

[takkaria]

Fair enough. I actually called him a bit of a douche and then explained what he did that I thought qualified. I'll try to watch that particular language in the future.

A discussion about cheating *is* a discussion about character; frankly I thought that was the politest way of making the point without directly casting aspersions on any participant's character.

I believe Djabanete was referring to the quote you posted, not the original post where literally used the word 'douche', which was quite a direct attack on another poster's character IMO.

The thing is that people disagree about whether it constitutes cheating. Trying to get one up in the argument by invoking your higher moral status isn't going to make people agree with you, it'll just get people's backs up.

[HallucinationMushroom]

mca, that casts aspersions.

[Oramin]

"Name-calling" refers to you calling the other guy a douche, in the OP.

As for the other bit, I'm sure you're capable of having a discussion about what is or isn't cheating without casting aspersions on your interlocutor's character.

Sorry for going off topic. I already said what I thought about the option, so I'm done now.

Fair enough. I actually called him a bit of a douche and then explained what he did that I thought qualified. I'll try to watch that particular language in the future.

A discussion about cheating *is* a discussion about character; frankly I thought that was the politest way of making the point without directly casting aspersions on any participant's character.

[Djabanete]

"Name-calling" refers to you calling the other guy a douche, in the OP.

As for the other bit, I'm sure you're capable of having a discussion about what is or isn't cheating without casting aspersions on your interlocutor's character.

Sorry for going off topic. I already said what I thought about the option, so I'm done now.

[Oramin]

(3) @OP: Please, let's not have name-calling in our discussions on this site.


In this case we can deduce that AHero, like many others, prefers his strategy games to come with transparency when no one is watching. But it sounded kind of like you were trying to say something less nice.

Assuming that you are referring to what I said to AnonymousHero, let me be clear what I was trying to say.

1. The free complete monster memory is currently considered a cheating option just like the infinite lives option.

2. It is possible to get around the cheater label that the game marks your file with by actions outside the game itself.

3. In the case of the monster memory, as far as I'm concerned, if you do this to get information that you have not already discovered within the game then you are still cheating. You've just avoided getting caught by the game.


Should the game be changed to reflect his apparent opinion that it is not cheating, then it won't be cheating. At the moment, however, it is.

Now, if you have a problem with my conclusion or you consider that to be name-calling, that is unfortunate.

Clarified?


Edit:

Perhaps this will help. IIRC, Chessmaster 2100 had a Championship option which eliminated all possible "cheating" options. If you won, it printed out a special certificate to commemorate your victory under those circumstances.

Consider this: There's nothing stopping you from getting help from other people, analyzing it on a board by moving pieces, consulting with books, or even getting a better program to suggest moves.

I would consider any and all of those to be cheating because they violate what I consider to be the premise, that you will have earned the victory within the intended parameters of the game.

Sure, you can change the parameters so that the free complete monster memory isn't a "cheat" option; I just think it violates the spirit of Angband (and Rogue-likes generally) to do it.

[Oramin]

AnonymousHero:

(In fact, I'd be for removing the "cheat" flag from every single option and just uploading the option information when you upload a character and be done with it. That may be a bit extreme for others, but whatever.)

Well, at least you're consistent.

As for this:

The only context in which this matters is if you're competing against others, and I'm saying it's absurd to call it "cheating" if you're just playing against yourself.

You are playing solo but you aren't just playing against yourself.

[AnonymousHero]

You do realize that your argument boils down to "It is incredibly easy to cheat and I'm going to do it anyway so therefore it shouldn't be considered cheating."?

No. I'm saying that it literally does not matter if it's called cheating or not -- unless you're competing against others on a supposedly equal footing. If it's an option, everyone can see exactly what I've done when I upload my character. If it's a "cheat" option I'm not even sure I can upload my character.

(In fact, I'd be for removing the "cheat" flag from every single option and just uploading the option information when you upload a character and be done with it. That may be a bit extreme for others, but whatever.)

The only context in which this matters is if you're competing against others, and I'm saying it's absurd to call it "cheating" if you're just playing against yourself.

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden

"A witty saying proves nothing". - Voltaire. So please stop it with the smugness, mkay?

[Djabanete]

(1) There is something to be said for exploration (acquired monster knowledge), and something to be said for transparency (automatic monster knowledge). But in of Angband, the difference in difficulty between the two is a mere hairsbreadth. Even when I was a new player, I only died once or twice to the unknown, and much more often to my own rashness. Rather than being a question of difficulty, I think acquired vs automatic monster knowledge is a question of enjoyment for personalities who cannot abide "gotcha" moments (such as having Mim put -1/-1 on your artifact weapon), and for people who often change between computers/game versions. I support adding a non-cheat option.

(2) Tangent: monster memory should say what things a monster doesn't resist. It's frustrating when information that my ancestors have learned through trial and error isn't there. (The lack of mention of, say, fire resistance could be owing to a monster's lack of fire resistance, or I might never have used fire on this monster before --- my human memory doesn't know if I have or not, but my character's monster memory ought to.)

(3) @OP: Please, let's not have name-calling in our discussions on this site.

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden

In this case we can deduce that AHero, like many others, prefers his strategy games to come with transparency when no one is watching. But it sounded kind of like you were trying to say something less nice.

[Oramin]

I dunno, Derakon, he might just have met his match

That has yet to be determined. He hasn't had much time to post in this thread yet.

[Oramin]

Look, it's very simple.

As a player who wants information about monsters at the time I face them I (currently) have two options: a) be labeled a cheater, or b) suffer the huge and insurmountable (/sarcasm) inconvenience of opening monster.txt in a text editor and doing a Ctrl+F once in a while. Which am I most likely to choose if I, for example, am going to post my character to the ladder?

The point being the negative connotation of "cheat" and the relatively small inconvenience of monster.txt versus having in-game perfect recall: Labeling the option as a cheat option can only encourage people to meta-game rather than enabling the friggin' option. As long as the effort to open monster.txt in an editor is trivial (it is) nobody's actually going to use an option labeled "cheat". (Well, OK, some will but people playing roguelikes are a weird bunch )

You do realize that your argument boils down to "It is incredibly easy to cheat and I'm going to do it anyway so therefore it shouldn't be considered cheating."?


“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden

From:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23041.John_Wooden

[Nick]

I'll note that the only times, so far, that I've seen an argument with DaviddesJ end are when the other party gives up and walks away. As far as I can tell, he is physically incapable of letting anyone else have the last word in any discussion.

I dunno, Derakon, he might just have met his match

[AnonymousHero]

Look, it's very simple.

As a player who wants information about monsters at the time I face them I (currently) have two options: a) be labeled a cheater, or b) suffer the huge and insurmountable (/sarcasm) inconvenience of opening monster.txt in a text editor and doing a Ctrl+F once in a while. Which am I most likely to choose if I, for example, am going to post my character to the ladder?

The point being the negative connotation of "cheat" and the relatively small inconvenience of monster.txt versus having in-game perfect recall: Labeling the option as a cheat option can only encourage people to meta-game rather than enabling the friggin' option. As long as the effort to open monster.txt in an editor is trivial (it is) nobody's actually going to use an option labeled "cheat". (Well, OK, some will but people playing roguelikes are a weird bunch )

[Oramin]

Bio_Hazard:

(Text inserted to make the post long enough.)

[bio_hazard]

I'd prefer NOT to have auto-monster memory labeled as a cheat. I'm a pretty casual (and pretty bad) player who doesn't play that often. Sometimes I play with the monster memory cheat on, because I really don't care about my ladder scores. At the same time, there are clearly degrees of cheating, and that one is pretty minor. It shows up in the birth options, so if someone really cares about it their mark of shame will be there for all to see even if it doesn't say CHEAT all over in big bold letters.

Thematically, it doesn't make any sense to me why player memory would transfer @-to-@, but @ never brags about anything to the shopkeepers who are actually persistent game-to-game. Also, the uniques are, you know, famous things in the world of Angband.

Since the monster attributes are static game-to-game, the "get knowledge" part of the game is not interesting (i.e. fun) to me. To me it seems like an artificial hurdle because it's something that mostly affects beginners.

If monster attributes were variable, then everyone would have to play the "get knowledge" minigame every time the head into the dungeon. I would actually prefer something like this if it were well implemented.

but hey, this is all just my opinion. I'm not that passionate about it one way or the other, and I think it's kind of neat that not only is there a team of coders working to keep the polish on a 30 year old game, but there are players who are ready to write thousands of words in an internet forum defending her honor. Go on, buddy, tell us what's what!

[Oramin]

Ok, let me see if I can explain it differently.

Consider the two spells Clairvoyance and Probing.

Suppose we had an option to allow auto-mapping of the entire level the instant you enter it. I suspect many of us would regard that as cheating (if not, feel free to pipe up). IIRC, that's part of what Wizard mode in an earlier version of Angband used to do (might have been Moria, this is from 20 years ago).

That's the equivalent of being given an infinite supply of the Clairvoyance spell.

A free complete version of the monster memory is like being given an infinite supply of an improved version of the Probing spell (don't even need to be in LOS).

Either both are cheating, neither or cheating, or you can draw a distinction between the two. Personally, I think both should be considered cheating.


Derakon:

You are correct that since this is a single player game what one player does ostensibly does not affect any other player.

So, are you fine with eliminating *all* cheating options?

Infinite lives, you still get to be a *WINNER*. Creating items, you still get to be a *WINNER*.

I also understand that people want to invest limited amounts of time, but they are quite capable of just looking at the spoilers as opposed to the game providing them the information.

(If you like, we can get into a discussion of whether players in the steroid era belong in the Hall of Fame. )


Edit:

Also, the simple fact that we're having the discussion not of adding an option for a free complete monster memory but of removing the cheating flag for using that option pretty much demonstrates that it does matter. If it didn't then the people using the option wouldn't have a problem being flagged as cheaters in their single player high score list, would they?