ARENA FAQ From: srt@sun-dimas.aero.org (Scott Turner) Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 02:37:10 +0000 ARENA II Frequently Asked Questions -- Answered! 1) How do I get the rules to Arena? How do I start playing? To start playing Arena, sent an empty mail message to the Arena daemon: arena@sun-dimas.aero.org. The Arena will send you back a plain text copy of the latest rules and register you in the player database. The rules explain how to begin playing. A postscript version of the rules should be available from the PBM archive sites: ftp.erg.sri.com:/pub/pbm ftp.funet.fi:/pub/doc/games/play-by-mail NOTE: The rules on the archive sites may be slightly out-of-date. 2) What are the most common mistakes for the new Arena player to avoid? * DON'T send your turn to srt@sun-dimas.aero.org. DO send your turn to arena@sun-dimas.aero.org. Turns sent to "srt" are generally deleted without reply. * Don't train until you see what weapons and armor are available. * Don't enter an Arena until you're ready to fight. If you leave and re-enter, you'll be charged the entrance fee again. (This prevents gladiators from "picking and choosing" their fights.) * Leave yourself enough money to lose two or three fights. 3) How come the Arena complains that my gladiator is in use by another player? The most likely cause for this problem is that you've sent in your turn from an e-mail address different from the one you used when you created your character. ARENA identifies you by the e-mail address taken from the ``From:'' line in your message. If your user name or the machine from which you sent the mail change, ARENA thinks you're a different person. If you have to switch to a new account or machine, contact me. I can manually change your address. Support for the Reply-To: field is being worked on. 4) I went into a store and tried to buy a longsword but I ended up with a leather kite shield! What happened? At midnight of each day shopkeepers inspect their wares and may rotate unpopular items. If this happens, an item id may be reused for a new item. The best solution to this problem is to avoid it: always make sure that the item you want to buy exists and buy it that same day. It's also wise to make sure your attempted purchase actually succeeded before you try to use it, or enter an Arena. 5) I have other pressing questions! How can I get answers? If they concern Arena, mail them to srt@sun-dimas.aero.org. This is a question-answering daemon that will process your question as soon as possible. If your questions are of a more general nature (e.g., "What do you think the children of Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson would be like?") you may still send them to the Arena question-answering daemon, but do not expect authoritative replies. You may also post questions to this newsgroup. The question- answering daemon monitors this newsgroup and will reply as time permits. As a courtesy to other readers of this newsgroup, please include ``ARENA'' in the title of your post. -- Scott T. Referenced By Up