I bought an Atari 800xl around 1988 while I was in high school. I had
several friends who had been playing AR: The Dungeon (at least two on
Ataris, and one on a C64). One of these friends gave me a copy of the
game along with copies of the maps, hint guide, and an early FAQ. I'd
play AR at night and then discuss my findings with my friends the next
day. Together, we mapped out every square inch of the Dungeon (My
friends found their way into the Arena, but I was the one who stumbled
into the Palace.*

We were good, we were evil, we claimed the Mace of St. Cuthbert and the
Gauss Rifle, impressed the Clothes Horse, defeated a dragon with our
bare hands, robbed the treasury, backstabbed both the goblin and troll
kings, walked around wearing Truesilver everything, stopped time,
defeated the true masters of the Dungeon more times than I can remember,
and even knocked back a cold 6-pack or two. We knew that Dungeon from
top to bottom.

I've barely played The City. I remember the mortality rate of your
character being very high and AR was never friendly about letting you
have extra save games.

I still have all of my old notes and maps from those days. At some
point, I'll take the time to type in that old FAQ I have because I have
never seen it on any AR website.

Tony

* Of course, the Palace and the Arena were not the planned AR
expansions, but the spaces in the Dungeon where the Palace and Arena
were supposed to go. If you map them out, the walls in those places
spell out "Pal-ace" and "Arena," respectively.
-----Original Message-----
From: Warwyth--aol.com [Warwyth--aol.com]
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 10:50 AM
To: <Address Masked>
Subject: Longevity

Out of curiosity,
how long have each of you been playing AR? What was your original
platform? Did anyone else play the Dungeon before the City? Or one of
them exclusively?

I've been playing AR since 1986, I guess, when I bought it for my Atari
130XE. I bought them both at the same time, but got into the Dungeon
far more because my character kept dying at an untimely age in the
City--and you had to reload the entire game to start over.

I have still never really gotten into the City, but I recently finally
won the Dungeon. : )

Warwyth