Four Character Archmaster Party

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Royou
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Just a quick question, am playing it on Dosbox at the moment and just wondering what level the original goes up to? on first impression, the fighter training is faster on the origianl as there is less waiting time, ti;; give it an hour or 2 this evening and let you know what levels I get to :)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

ti;; was supposed to be will? lol
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Oh my I had forgotten just how cool the dungeon door load screen music was oh how I love this music :)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Paul Stevens »

Playing the PC version on DosBox is a perfect way to play.
CSBwin and DSB are quite faithful to the original except
that some versions of DSB allow groups of monsters to
separate. RTC is the least faithful in my opinion as it seems
to have been built from scratch from 'feel'. DSB and CSBwin
were built with rules copied from the original code.
CSBwin can be played on Linux and the others are
windoze only.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Wow my wrist is killing me :( this may tale me longer due to needing to rest my wrist, not as young as I used to be :(
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Paul Stevens wrote:Playing the PC version on DosBox is a perfect way to play.
CSBwin and DSB are quite faithful to the original except
that some versions of DSB allow groups of monsters to
separate. RTC is the least faithful in my opinion as it seems
to have been built from scratch from 'feel'. DSB and CSBwin
were built with rules copied from the original code.
CSBwin can be played on Linux and the others are
windoze only.

Nice thanks Paul :)
"The Virtues guide us when the path is dark, Sacrifice most of all, sometimes Sacrifice is the Greatest Weapon we have!

That is a Cruel Truth"
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Jan »

Personally, I prefer the CSBWin versions of DM and CSB - they feel most faithful to the originals, have virtually no bugs and are still supported by Paul (thanks, thanks, thanks! :D ).

As I said, I've started a new DM go last week with reincarnated Sonya, but I have so little time to play... I'm currently standing in front of the third door (from left to right) in the Treasure Stores area. I wanted to finish DM before Christmas so that I could then transfer my character to CSB and enjoy this great game in the calm time between the Christmas and the New Year, but I don't think I'm going to make it.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Ameena »

Yeah, I use CSBWin these days too (not that I've replayed it for maybe a couple of years now), though I used to play RTC. That was back when I first thought of looking online to see if there was some kind of downloadable version of DM. I happened to find RTC and ended up joining the forum as a result (this was back in 2003!). I found RTC was okay but had various differences from the version I was used to, such as monsters making footstep sounds and a few other things, several of which I was able to change in the config file to make them more like the Atari version. I ended up getting repeatedly stuck, however, as spell damage from monsters is much higher than in other versions, so I kept getting stuck at the start of one level which has spell-castery mobs in it, killing htem and retreating up the stairs to heal, then coming back down and finding they'd respawned :P.
Gave CSBWin a go after that and have used it ever since - I played the Atari version "back in the day" and since CSBWin is a port of that version, that means I'm basically playing the version I always used to play. Which is cool :D. Weirdly, till I joined this forum and saw people talking about it, though, I had never even considered taking less than four characters into the dungeon. I have tried with every other possible number and decided that two is my preferred party size (reincarnated Hissssa and Wuuf, renamed as Ameena and Fippy :D).
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

That's awesome and I love the name changes :) I'm going to go play CSBWin versions, I love the original but do not have a working version of Chaos strikes back, but I do have Pauls version :) so if I play that I can then take my team to Chaos after DM :)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

What level is the max for characters in CSBWin?
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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Should be exactly the same as the original version (for the Atari).
If you discover differently, it is a bug and you should let me know.
CSBWin was translated directly from the Atari machine code. There
have been additions but the basic engine should be unchanged.

See: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/691
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Cool so it is Archmaster then :) the thought of trying a level above that as you say would be twice the amount of experience needed for Archmaster, is probably something that I may try over a long time period, just an hour here and there with an old saved game, or on the other had when I port them over to Chaos will see what happens then :)
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That is a Cruel Truth"
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Paul Stevens »

I don't think your characters will retail their level when you
import them into Chaos Strikes Back. CSBwin has a nice feature
that assures that you will see the entire dungeon. It has a 'collect-
every-item-and-kill-every-monster' feature that tells you what items
and monsters have not yet been processed. That might be a good way
to gain a lot of levels more interestingly. Rather than standing in one
place and beating on a door. It is a bit difficult and requires a somewhat
different approach to the dungeon. Do it with a single champion and
he will get a lot of experience!
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Sound intriguing I may just do that :)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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Around 14 hours gaming, two things that I noticed that are different for the other version.

1. I can keep training when I am hungry as long as I keep my characters watered their stamina drops to half but I can keep going as long as I keep feeding them water, this is the same are the original but the illegal copy does not allow this, as soon as you are out of food no matter how much you water them they will die, hence the screamer room runs, this I will not need to do and will save myself time :)

2. When I throw items my stamina goes down, meaning that I have to cast stamina potions and or rest, this also it different on the illegal copy, on that stamina is hardly touched, so Ninja will take slightly longer, but it will increase priest skill a little at the same time :)

Here are a four pictures of what I've got to so far.

Image

Image

Image

Image
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Paul Stevens »

The Purple Worm level has an experience multiplier of 2.
The Rat level, below the arena, has a multiplier of 3. You
can get 50 percent more experience for the same effort.

The Northeast corner has a rat generator and pummeling the
Rats can also increase experience while obtaining free food.
There is also a fountain nearby.

You have to go to the zoom level to find a multiplier of 4
and the Clockwise level for a multiplier of 5. The Chaos
level and the Dragon level have multiplier of 6. No water
down there...you'd have to go up the back stairs to the
Arena and down to the Rat level. But getting experience
at three times the rate might be worth it. A difference
of 270 hours versus 90 hours. ;-)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Jan »

Paul Stevens wrote:I don't think your characters will retail their level when you
import them into Chaos Strikes Back.
What exactly do you mean? They do retain their levels and skills.

@Royou: Cool! Keep going! I'm now on the Rat level but have to give up playing for one or two weeks - the real life is getting hideously in my way again. :wink:
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Saumun »

Phew! I don't have even close to enough patience to get to archmaster (in any discipline).
In fact I think I've only ever gone past ee level wizard once, and nowhere near that in the other skills.

I think that knowing that I don't need anywhere near that level to finish DM or CSB, takes away any sort of determination I might begin with.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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Characters definitely retain their stats and skills when you transfer them from DM through to CSB - if they didn't, there wouldn't really be any point in importing them! They lose all their gear, but you'd sort of expect that. I think starting CSB with stuff like Inquisitor and the completed Firestaff might be a teeny bit OP otherwise ;).
Basically CSB is like "DM, Part Two", the next chapter of the story in which the characters are plonked into a new dungeon. You can recruit new ones from the Prison instead of importing your old ones, but I find I'm always kind of attached to my old characters and having taken the time and effort to travel down through the whole of DM and complete that whilst acquiring loot and levels along the way (as well as renaming them with names I like ;)), I want to stick with them for as long as possible. You can't reincarnate CSB characters...well, I mean, you can, but I don't think they'd last very long with zero skill levels against the starting area of CSB ;).
If you can get each charcter up to at least Adept/Expert in each skill, that should be suitable to take them through into CSB once you're done with DM, and that's perfectly possible to do without stopping to train. Because I can never be arsed with that, except that I do absolutely nothing which gains my team any Ninja levels so I do stop for a few minutes when I'm around Level Nine-ish and have each character chuck a heavy thing (eg chest, boulder) over and over again until it travels to the next square. Then I switch charcters and get the other person to do it. This gets them both up to Journeyman Ninja, which isn't very high but it's better than the nothing they were at before ;). Why do I only train this far? Because I'm lazy and can't be arsed to keep moving a step to pick up the thing. And training heavily like that isn't necessary anyway - I can finish the dungeon just as well as someone who's spent three days punching rats to death ;).
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Paul Stevens wrote:The Purple Worm level has an experience multiplier of 2.[...]
Wow thanks for the info :)
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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Jan wrote:@Royou: Cool! Keep going! I'm now on the Rat level but have to give up playing for one or two weeks - the real life is getting hideously in my way again. :wink:
Thank you Jan, I hope things improve for you quickly :)
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That is a Cruel Truth"
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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Ameena wrote:Characters definitely retain their stats and skills when you transfer them from DM through to CSB - if they didn't, there wouldn't really be any point in importing them! They lose all their gear, but you'd sort of expect that. I think starting CSB with stuff like Inquisitor and the completed Firestaff might be a teeny bit OP otherwise ;).
Basically CSB is like "DM, Part Two", the next chapter of the story in which the characters are plonked into a new dungeon. You can recruit new ones from the Prison instead of importing your old ones, but I find I'm always kind of attached to my old characters and having taken the time and effort to travel down through the whole of DM and complete that whilst acquiring loot and levels along the way (as well as renaming them with names I like ;)), I want to stick with them for as long as possible. You can't reincarnate CSB characters...well, I mean, you can, but I don't think they'd last very long with zero skill levels against the starting area of CSB ;).
If you can get each charcter up to at least Adept/Expert in each skill, that should be suitable to take them through into CSB once you're done with DM, and that's perfectly possible to do without stopping to train. Because I can never be arsed with that, except that I do absolutely nothing which gains my team any Ninja levels so I do stop for a few minutes when I'm around Level Nine-ish and have each character chuck a heavy thing (eg chest, boulder) over and over again until it travels to the next square. Then I switch charcters and get the other person to do it. This gets them both up to Journeyman Ninja, which isn't very high but it's better than the nothing they were at before ;). Why do I only train this far? Because I'm lazy and can't be arsed to keep moving a step to pick up the thing. And training heavily like that isn't necessary anyway - I can finish the dungeon just as well as someone who's spent three days punching rats to death ;).
Hehe I enjoy levelling :P lol
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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I enjoy levelling
Congrats on your single-minded determination! That is something!
The stonework walls? Pristine. The floor? Level. The waterworks? Flowing. Central heating? The Dragon in the basement was grumpily heating the pipes. Lord Chaos consulted the blueprints again, looking for the bathroom. #playmygame!
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Paul Stevens »

Characters definitely retain their stats and skills when you transfer them from DM through to CSB
How about that! I've never done it. CSB would become relatively easy.
You can't reincarnate CSB characters...well, I mean, you can, but I don't think they'd last very long with zero skill levels against the starting area of CSB
I have done this. A single, reincarnated Toadrot. It does make the
game more challenging for a little while. But he gets better quickly.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

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I completed the game once with 4 characters and I think I had 1 master in wizard, all the others were near. Then went back with 2 but found it harder, so was the time that my maxing out the characters was born, which soon developed into an obsession :( which follows me into every game I play, just have to max them all the time, levelling characters just sort of grow on me. some game I enjoy levelling others I try but If I'm not 80% to 100% about the game, I just never seem to finish and move on.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Ameena »

Wow, PaulS, you've never taken a DM party through into CSB? Somehow that just feels like something all of us "old-time" players will have done. Well, there we are, you learn something new every day, as they say ;). But if characters didn't retain their stats and skills, it'd be like taking a group of newly-reincarnated DM characters into CSB. Surely you didn't think we were all succeeding so easily playing like that? :eek:
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Paul Stevens »

Surely you didn't think we were all succeeding so easily playing like that?
I don't know about 'all' of you. But the record-breaking runs of
about 10 minutes were made with CSB characters. They were
allowed to train in the prison before entering the main dungeon
so they were not totally unprepared. That training was limited
by lack of food and water and was not like bringing experienced
characters from DM.

There is really nothing 'hard' about CSB when you know the dungeon
as intimately as we do.
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Sphenx »

Ameena wrote:But if characters didn't retain their stats and skills, it'd be like taking a group of newly-reincarnated DM characters into CSB. Surely you didn't think we were all succeeding so easily playing like that? :eek:
You can even import CSB characters into ... CSB for a new adventure, infinitely :) I think this is the funniest way to train ;) this is never ending ...
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Royou »

Wow nice thank you for pointing that out Sphenx :)
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That is a Cruel Truth"
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Re: Four Character Archmaster Party

Post by Ameena »

It's true that when you know the dungeon well, it's not so hard. But plenty of us played it for the first time using imported characters, when we were still running around clueless and falling down pits all over the place whilst getting invisibly teleported, generally lost, and hunted down by zillions of monsters :D. Well, I know my dad and I did, anyway.
I suppose importing must just take the save file and ignore the "inventory contents" part of it, keeping the rest for use in the actual dungeon.
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