Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[beowuuf]

You can finally let it go and concentrate on other creative outputs!

Well, from what I'd scratched the survace of in the last few builds, I'm eagerly awaiting a decent length of free time to explore the finak Conflux Many thanks for the years and years of hard work!

[squidmonger]

Conflux III beta 6 player, several questions.

Stuck on level 8 in two spots: First is at 11,10 in Solune Alchemist (copper, silver, golden golem room) the alcove with fountain, bag in niche, and eye switch. Step in and an invis teleport keeps me from leaving. Tried lots of items on the fountain, switch, and in the alcove.

Second spot on level 8 is the trap at 8,21 in front of the door at the end of a corridor (fire pit, ashes on the floor, eye switches on either side) "Be clean servant. I do not want to see any ashes. If you put them on the floor again you will be punished." Once you step forward, teleports appear front and back to keep you stuck, maniacal laughter when you turn. Again tried various items on the eye switches. Picked up the ashes... Quite clueless now.

Some items in my inventory are draining player stats, but it seems like I have to carry them in combination. One item isn't enough, but if one char carries several, 3-4 stats go down to 0. Avoidable? I've curse flushed at high priest a couple of times, running out of coins to do it any more.

Following weapons:

Spoiler

Leviathan, Furx, Rapier (funeral and unique), Caluburn, Dagger (unique and vampyric. unknown origins)

. Any recommendations for my two front-line fighter guys?

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Xorn Eye

. Carried this around for quite a while now, am I supposed to have done something with it back on dwarf level 4 where I got it?

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The One Ring (Funereal, Cursed, and Unique)

. Quite irritating the way this puts itself in my main hand. Lost it several times and had to reload when it tried to pop in over a weapon from a pouch and the weapon stayed. How do I get it to stop doing that?!?

Bones:

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Remains of Druafang, Bones of the Cartographer, Old Bones of Lor (were cursed I think, but cured that). One of them came with a scroll "Ressurection Spell Zo Vi Ew Mages help me many secrets I know". Tried to rez the bones near where i got them, can't seem to. Worth trying again? Also one of them keeps chatting at me, I find it kind of amusing but should I be listening to any of it?

Sorry about all the spoiler tags, probably over did it. Also apologies if any of this has already been covered. 66 pages of comments, I've gone through a lot of them, but I don't think I've read even 50% yet.

Any advice welcome, but having read a lot of other posts, a LOT of the clues and hints go right over my head. Feel free to try, but I may follow up with PMs if it's too subtle for my brain to get it.

[beowuuf]

Fountain: If Solune (A powerful wizard) accidentally trapped himself, how would he escape?

Spoiler

Use a zokathra rock

Ashes: Have you examined the ashes for a clue? They possessa property the original DM ashes did not.

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Eat the ashes, make sure you have some water to compensate

Items draining stats? Odd, this I don't know for sure. Must be new. If I had to guiess - if they are cursed weapons, I doubt the blessing would work. I assume you need to use them on creatures to feed them, or you get fed on. It could also be a bug, or you could be getting hit by diseases and it's co-incidence?

Weapons:

Spoiler

Furx usually gets it done in most situations, especailly dragons. Leviathan is more powerful in the right guild master hands. I think swift death is a good dagger for fast draining attacks.

Eye: Must be knew, can't help!

Ring: Sounds liek the mechanism is broken, it used to swap I believe. And the answer is you can't, it's evil! You need to leave it behind or give it to a character. Hmm, ok, maybe there is a way to stop it, not sure though

Bones: Used to be only ornamental (all of them) but goodness knows what new coolness this version has. Ressurection spell:

Spoiler

Bones not needed, use a snapdragon in the mirror

Not a problem, the trouble with this thread is a) 66 pages, b) every versio nof conflux zyx tweaks and adds cool stuff. For example, the ZO VI EW spell used to represent a red herring because there was no mechanism there! Then there was!

[Zyx]

For the ring disappearing, looks like a bug. Have you tried putting it in a bag?

[squidmonger]

Thank you for the help! A little nudge goes a long way.

Ashes: Hoisted on my own petard. I'd done the right thing, but forgotten

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that I carry 4 sacks filled with misc items, including two spare ashes I'd been lugging around forever. Once I ate them too, I was fine.

Fountain: Part of the frustration is knowing that I can't truly be trapped. Since there are no dead ends where you get truly stuck, it's my own fault whenever it happens to me.

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I'd not only forgotten to try zo kath ra, I'd also forgotten Teleport. btw: Does teleport use the coin up or do you still have it after? I haven't experimented with it.

Stat draining: Well, that's amusing. EVERY piece of armor I'm wearing is cursed. And no, I read the enough notes to know not to

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use the zo spell ever

. I know how to de-curse, but I'm running low on

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Gor coins

, in fact I'm on my last one. I've used three so far de-cursing, am I likely to need more? Going back to base to find uncursed armor...

Ring: Won't go in a bag. I think I've figured it out. When I put the ring in the side pouch (the two slots below the left hand), and have an item in hand that can't be put in the pouch, then I'll lose the ring whenever it tries to force a sword or similar into that pouch. I keep the ring in my main inventory now. Still irritating that it forces itself around, I may leave it behind, but I don't lose it anymore.

[Joramun]

Some

Spoiler

notably the funereal

items drain stats. e.g.

Spoiler

Swift death funereal dagger

drains strength. This has nothing to do with the Zo curse, it's a permanent feature of these items, that you can't avoid. It's usually a drawback to balance the power they give. Stop wearing them and the stats should return to normal after some time (or use potions). Wear them only in combat.

[raixel]

Woo! 3.5b6 is awesome! Thanks for all your hard work over the years, Zyx. Retire knowing you have blown the minds of probably everyone on this board.

Maybe I'll actually get somewhere in this thing now. *goes to play, and prolly die 5,000 times*

Does anyone know whats causing these assertion faliures? (similar to what Quartermass posted a while back) I ignored them at first because I thought they were like the "Excessive DSA message", but I have gotten quite a few over various things. They dont seem to do much besides jam my CPU usage up to around 20% for a little bit. I will put the text of any future ones I get in this post, in case anyone with more programming knowledge than me wants to see them.

K. This one Ive been able to repeat every single time by clicking on the credits:
Assertion faliure at time = 0
Line 1814
Program D:\Projects\CSB\CSBwin\src\Mouse.cpp
CursorCaller malfunction
Should we quit?
Yes No

[Paul Stevens]

Firstly, the fact that you get 'ASSERTION' failures indicates
that you are using a Debug version of the engine.

You should not be using a debug version of the engine.
It uses a great deal more CPU time for one thing.

The assertion failure you report is perfectly harmless.
It is a debug aid....an attempt to match up:
HideCursor() with matching ShowCursor(). They
are supposed to be nicely nested. I can believe that
when the credits are shown that someone has cleared
the 'hide cursor count' or something equally upsetting
to the debug code.

[raixel]

Ahhh, thats why it was ocassionally using nearly a full core of my processor. Thank you, oh wise guru.

Now back to our regularily scheduled Conflux.

[squidmonger]

When you say "You should not be using a debug version of the engine" what engine should I be using for Conflux? I just downloaded it, found that running Windowed.bat got me going and never looked back.

Now that I'm in the game a bit (Council is dead and I'm up to 35 points! Personal best!) I'm noticing that the game is running a lot slower and lag is starting to cause problems in combat with spell casting and maneuvering around opponents.

Will using a better engine or taking it out of debug mode get rid of the lag?

[Zyx]

Which version of Conflux are you playing? I thought they were all shipped with a normal csbwin executable.
You can download the latest version of csbwin here.

[squidmonger]

940kb (962,620 bytes) Details says version 1.0.0.1

The one you linked to is smaller and much, much faster. Thank you!

[Paul Stevens]

Probably all my fault.....I was shipping the debug
versions to Zyx so that he would be acutely aware
of CPU loading problems. I still think that is a
good idea. The game SHOULD run well with the
debug version. If it does not, then it can probably
be made to run well with minor tweaking.

[squidmonger]

Stuck again: Was on level 10, Mophus's section if I'm not mistaken,

Spoiler

got sucked into this little section while going past all the RA key doors.

Killed all the critters in the Fighting Wing, can't get into the Cunning Wing yet.

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Used 6 Sar keys on the locks in the Fighting Wing, which didn't get me through the door to the guys on the ceiling.

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Killed the dragon in the main room that popped. Can't kill the stone statue between the pillers (or the pillers), they seem to have infinite hit points.

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Took the torch out of the holder in the other room, grabbed a few from the alcove. No clue what to do in this section...

The part where I'm stuck is where

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I get sucked up to the tentacles coming out of the wall at me. Tried fire, immaterial, poison, standard weapons, unarmed, torches, throwing Zo Kath Ra's at them, and probably 4-5 other things that I'm forgetting.

Again, apologies for overuse of spoiler tags AND for getting stuck yet again...

[beowuuf]

Haven't done the guild leaders in a while I'm afraid! Hopefully someone else can help...

Sounds awesome though! Probably spoiler tages are an idea given it soudns a reasonably new addition to the endings.

[Zyx]

I checked: one of the locks is faulty. Send me a savegame.
The statue should give you clues upon examination, which I apparently forgot to do.
The tentacles, I think, are invincible.
EDIT: There are also some wall skin glitches. I'll release a bugfix.

[raixel]

I havent had much of a problem with the debug version except for afew assertion failures, as I stated above. But none of them have been game breaking.

Zyx: Thank you! It seems that even though you retired, conflux is trying to drag you back into its massive grasp. Bugfix is much appreciated.

[Zyx]

I can't let you in failure because of a bug. If you succeed or fail should be entirely up to you. I need your savegame to fix it: bprieu dot yahoo at com, except I reversed two words (mailbots are a strange plague, that we need to talk in code.).

[pabrams]

Where can I find these other characters like Lor? How many are there aside from the main guild characters (I think there are 24 of those)? Or are the extra characters hidden in the guilds?

[Joramun]

The maleficient guild is right at the beginning. My advice is not to take them unless your ultimate goal is to die again and again, and finally die of the good death.
There are 4 hidden characters in the Guild, I think. Other extra characters are mostly downstairs, in the Crypt and beyond.

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Their portraits have to be unlocked for them to work.

There are a lot of them.

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~4 in the dwarven halls, ~4 in the lich's hall, 1 or 2 in the Ogre den...

They cannot be taken unless you already have a guild character, or some trick I'm not aware of.

[pabrams]

hmm.. okay thanks. I've seen some portraits in the crypt, but I can't do anything with them... Can I get these now or do I only learn how later in the game? I've explored the crypt, been to druafang's lair but haven't visited the altars yet. Also collected a pile of emerald keys from golems, have killed the white council (got some nice looking armor but it drains all my stamina) but haven't killed the regular council yet, and it looks like the path to get lower in the dungeon is blocked by a golem that regenerates indefinitely - is that because I need four characters to proceed? Currently I have Leif, Halk and Gothmog in my party. I was planning on picking up Mophus as well but still looking for another Monk Staff... just as well I couldn't find one since I would have regretted it once I found the new characters down lower...

So anyway I'd rather get my fourth party member sooner than later... what should I do /where should I go first to find the best character(s)? You mean the

Spoiler

dwarven halls in the crypt, right

? How do I activate them to see their stats? And what is

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the lich hall - do you mean Vecna? Also never seen the ogre den... you mean in Moria?

?

[beowuuf]

There are two ways to unlock the portraits. The first way unlocks one at a time, the second unlocks a set at a time. The means for the first is abundant, the means of the second requires finding something, and using something a little more rare but not unobtainable.

The golem regernating stairway isn't the main way to go down, there are other routes. You did need four characters in certain iterations of the dungeon to advance, but you will be explicitly told if you are being blocked in this manner.

[pabrams]

Yay, I found Lor! He was a lot closer than I thought.

[Joramun]

You don't need four characters. There are other pathways,

Spoiler

through the Moria

The ogre den is in the Crypt, it's where Lor is found. The Ogre is the two-headed monster you probably killed a while ago.

Unlocking the mirrors is a bit like

Spoiler

robbing a grave

...

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except it's the mirror image of it.

[pabrams]

There are a lot of items that seem like they might be interesting (especially when um master priest gets description), but i suspect are useless/just for atmosphere. For example,
1. what good is the Phylacter of Protection?
2. What about the body of vecna,
3. or the various unique bones (e.g. Dark councillor; cartographer)?
4. Also, is there a way to remove the negative traits of items like Windu, Dexhelms, Holy armor, leviathan, sar shield, etc?
5. Why are there so many gems of ages - what do they do? If I recall from DM, they increase a hidden priest level...
6. What does it mean if my cerberi adore me/ like me?
7. How do I get the treasure on the top level?
8. Do I have to use my emerald keys to close all those pits? I seem to remember there was another way past them.
9. Where are all the sar keys? I haven't found a single one yet.

Zyx, congratulations on retiring and great game.

[Zyx]

Thank you.
1. I think it has an effect if you carry it in hand.
2, 3. No effect that I remember. (except for the eye of Vecna).
4. Some special characters are immune.
5. Don't they slow hunger and thirst? I don't remember.
6. It means that you're a powerful wizard.

[Adamo]

Wchich version of Conflux should I play - B4, B5, B6 or 3.5? In Encyclopedia there`s link to B4 (also C3.5 separately) and in Conflux Wiki pages there`s a link to B5. Wchich version is proper? Are there some bugs in B5, that were repaired in B6? Is B6 more unstable than 3.5? Could you clarify? Where can I download B6 (there`s no link). Which version do you advise me to run?

EDIT: wrom what I see in "repository" site, latest C3b5 is from 05 jun 2008. So I guess there were some non-repaired bugs?

Code: Select all

Conflux_3.5_B6.zip is 31-Dec-2010 21:52 35M,
Conflux_III_BugFix5.rar 05-Jun-2008 21:58 9.0M

[beowuuf]

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... 31&t=25152

[Adamo]

oh, ok, thanx Beo. I think the links to latest version should be on Encyclopedia and Conflux wiki pages

[Adamo]

The latest update (Conflux_3.5_B6) seems to run fine for now (with the latest, 11_095 CsbWin executable; the one from cyberskald page is 11_095), except for the sound, which is no good.

=> I can`t hear most of the wall taps, mainly on the lower levels (especially when a party is moving fast with tapping walls, which I used to do a lot),
=> most of the short sounds - like all "interface" sounds, when I put or take away something from the inventory - are played partly (being cut) or not played at all (with "attempt using Direct X" on).
=> all the sounds caused by a DSAs (I think) has 1-2 ticks delay,
=> when DirectX is on, "ghost" can tap the walls. Is that normal?

There`s also "Excessive DSA operation. This is the LAST warning" message appears in some situations.

The reason might be my Linux OS (I`m using Wine emulator). Does that happen in Windows OS too?

EDIT: just tried Conflux_III_BugFix5 and the same problems appears; so it must be OS emulator fault.