Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

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Gothmog
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Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

Post by Gothmog »

Hi, I just joined the forum because it's nice to see that a lot of people think the way I do, and consider Dungeon Master to be one of the all-time greatest games.

It's the first computer game I ever bought for my Atari ST back in the day.

I read a thread in the "Custom Dungeons" forum and it sounded like some of the Dungeon Makers were getting discouraged about making Dungeons because only 3 people had voted for their favorite dungeon.

Don't get discouraged, the memberlist is pretty big, I think the problem is, because of the Internet, is that people can take what they want and don't feel the need to give someone a pat on the back or say "Nice job" when they get something, which is too bad.

I'd like to thank EVERYBODY that has put THEIR TIME and THEIR EFFORT to keep this fantastic game ALIVE and FRESH...

So Hats off to the Dungeon Makers and to the Wonderful programmers of RTC and CSBWin etc....

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, this is my frist post.
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beowuuf
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Post by beowuuf »

Good a place as any - very nice sentiment, and welcome to the forums!
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George Gilbert
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Post by George Gilbert »

Indeed, welcome.

For your interest, RTC gets a few thousand downloads a year and from these I typically get about 50 emails a year from new people saying thankyou. The number of new people on the forums is substantially lower, but as you say, this shouldn't be taken as a representative sample!

There are certainly many more people playing the DM dungeons that you might first think...
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Gothmog
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Post by Gothmog »

George Gilbert wrote:Indeed, welcome.

For your interest, RTC gets a few thousand downloads a year and from these I typically get about 50 emails a year from new people saying thankyou.
hehe, funny you should mention that, I just sent one out a couple of days ago to you, thanking you for RTC, (which I'm playing right now,) :lol:
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Post by Sophia »

Don't lose heart, dungeon makers! People will get tired of Conflux eventually! :lol:
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Gothmog
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Post by Gothmog »

Right now my party is badly hurt and wounded and also running out of food and water in Surgical Strike.

I'm having a great time, so far this Dungeon brings back the urgency to survive, just like my first time through DM and CSB
:P
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Post by Sera »

soon... gothmog... conflux wont be the only one youll cry to...
Immortal Dungeoneer.
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Sophia
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Post by Sophia »

Eeeep!

I love the custom dungeons, but, as a rule, they are so brutal :shock:

Some of us poor souls still find CSB to be a challenge... :oops:
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Post by beowuuf »

Lol, since you have made a brutal one, you aren't allowed to complain! Are you?
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Post by Sophia »

Brutal? Me? :wink:

Seriously, though, I wasn't complaining. I was just noticing that, on the whole, the custom dungeons out there are generally on the order of a CSB-level of difficulty, if not even harder, because a lot of them not onl throw you into a crazy dungeon, they do it with one apprentice-level character and no magic! (Sukumvit's Labyrinth comes to mind)

I had not played DM for nearly 10 years when I came upon it again, and I found that my skills at dungoneering were far more rusty than my memory of the dungeon. Not wanting to replay the same old territory, I went for the custom dungeons, and was I ever in for a surprise!

As an aside, my goal in Reactor was to create a dungeon that was fun to play, but not quite so completely "hardcore."

Everyone said it was too easy. :P :wink:
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Gothmog
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Post by Gothmog »

Speaking of "Reactor" I can't seem to find that file anywhere, the link in the Reactor thread doesn't work :cry:
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Post by beowuuf »

Yeah, I think people tend to design dungoens either once they have finished the game themselves, so are at a certain levle, or are designing for the community in mind. I know when I first started mine I was going for something with a slow progression, then once I started in the community I started adding harder puzzles and slightly harder fights cause I was worried it would be too easy
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Post by Sophia »

I know when I first started mine I was going for something with a slow progression, then once I started in the community I started adding harder puzzles and slightly harder fights cause I was worried it would be too easy
Ooh, I like hard puzzles, as long as you mean mentally taxing... stuff like where you have to dodge 8 fireball launchers while fighting 10 mummies, 5 oitus and a red dragon gets old, though. :P

To me the spirit of DM is in the exploring and the puzzle solving... the sense of always wanting to get a little further to see what's around that next corner... the fights are secondary. But that's just me. :)

Anyway, is this dungeon downloadable anywhere?
Speaking of "Reactor" I can't seem to find that file anywhere, the link in the Reactor thread doesn't work
I can post a link... but hmm... I really should give it another run-through, it was made for RTC v0.23, I can't see everything behaving properly in v0.34. :?
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Post by beowuuf »

DM:Alt is in encyclopaedia forum but isn't hard compared to new stuff
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Gothmog
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Post by Gothmog »

beowuuf wrote:DM:Alt is in encyclopaedia forum but isn't hard compared to new stuff
I'll play it :)

After starting some of these new dungeons (Surgical Strike, Towers, Conflux) it looks like I'm going to have to find my graph paper again ;)
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Post by Gothmog »

Sophia wrote: Ooh, I like hard puzzles, as long as you mean mentally taxing...
YES!!! I love those too!!

True story, It took me SEVEN MONTHS to finish Bard's Tale II, (another classic along with the original System Shock)

I ran across a puzzle in BT2 that stumped me, (no hint lines or internet hint/cheat/trainer/spoiler sites at the time), but thankfully BECAUSE of that lack of hint/help lines, I had to rely on myself to figure out the answer, I eventually did.....and it made me feel GREAT that I had finally conquered that riddle on my own.

(Don't get me wrong, I might be in here asking for help with some of these user created dungeons) But I only try to do that when I'm at a complete loss for an answer. :)

Besides, graph paper is your friend. :D

IMO, Knightmare was an outstanding game and was on par with DM and had great puzzles in it too.

Maybe some Sadistic Dungeon creator would re-create that one for CSBWin or RTC? hint hint :P

Closing thought.........

Does anyone else find it funny/sad/strange/ironic, that with all of these new games that are packaged on DVD's and take up 1 to 4 gigs of hard drive space, that a game that fit on a 3.5" floppy from 20 years ago is still AS GOOD, or EVEN BETTER than the stuff they release now?

hmmmm......now that I think of it....are the Bards Tale I,II, and III dungeons do-able? (maybe not? because of that wrap-around thing they had?

Anyways.........after my lengthy post, I want to extend an ENORMOUS THANK YOU to the people who have spent their time designing new dungeons for DM and CSB, Your hard work has NOT gone unnoticed and is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!!!!!.....I'm playing EVERY SINGLE ONE that I can find download links to....and so far I have to say...

HOLY CRAP!!! DM and CSB and Lord Chaos are a pushover compared to what you Dungeon-Makers are creating!!!

VERY TOUGH!!!!

I LOVE IT!!!!!!!! :) :) :) But give us some flasks once in a while!!! :P :D
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Post by sucinum »

Sophia wrote:Ooh, I like hard puzzles, as long as you mean mentally taxing... stuff like where you have to dodge 8 fireball launchers while fighting 10 mummies, 5 oitus and a red dragon gets old, though. :P
i seem to have overdone that :(
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Post by George Gilbert »

are the Bards Tale I,II, and III dungeons do-able? (maybe not? because of that wrap-around thing they had?
The wrap around isn't a problem as you can just use teleporters to take you back to the other side (for example, the infinite corridor to the south of the ghost room in DM)/ The problem is with the infinitely thin walls used in Bards Tale.

That could possibly be handled with teleporters and floor objects, but it would be a bit of a fiddle. That said, if you're happy to slightly alter the dungeons (but keep the same rough layout) then it could be done with "proper" walls...
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Post by Logales »

Where is the poll about new dungeons ?

I might try to have a look at it later on my own :d
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Post by linflas »

there's no poll, but you can make your own reviews into the custom dungeons forums.
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Post by PadTheMad »

I think Knightmare could be quite a problem, mainly due to the fact of the boat and water concept :( Although maybe if someone were as dedicated to Captive as GG is to Dungeon Master, AND they want to teach themselves programming AND they've got a few spare years, MAYBE it could happen :D
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Post by Sophia »

George Gilbert wrote:The problem is with the infinitely thin walls used in Bards Tale.
Eh, no big loss, I always hated those. :P

I mean, if Mr. Evil Dude's dungeon's walls are these little paper-thin thingies, why bother navigating it? I'm just going to kick down the walls and go beat him up. :roll:
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Post by ParuNexus »

thats funny let me see in the last 2 weeks i guess I've been trying to track down all the dungeons for each version. Because I was going tp burn it all to a CD with some DM music and give it to my brother and sister for christmas.

they both played the atari and PC ones before I did, infact they both won the game while i was SCARED SHITLESS of thr worm level.

spekaing of bards tales and other rpg's... how about spiliting parts of Eye of the Beholder up? looking at some of those DM\CSB, RTC, CSBWIN etc tools it soundspretty possable, how much are people using these others?

*EDIT*

yea becuase I personally don't say it much(ever?) Thank for these engines, thanks forever lasting DM community And most of all: Thanks for keeping DM ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by PadTheMad »

Wow, an extensive custom dungeon collection. Nice christmas present! :D
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Post by JCG »

Dungeon Master is also the first game I bought for my Atari ST.
Well...more exactly, I bought my Atari ST to play Dungeon Master.
Since, I also played many RPGs, including Bard's Tale, Captive, Eye of the Beholder which have been mentionned here, spending too many nights drawing maps, solving puzzles, taking notes and building characters.
Of all these early games that I played, I still prefer Dungeon Master, and I am now playing the custom dungeons....when I can.
The problem is the lack of time and I wish I could have the time to design a complete custom dungeon.

...Like Sophia, I didn't like the paper thin walls of Bard's Tale, however the story was very good, it was the strong point of the game.
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Re: Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

Post by Saumun »

Wow... Just came across this, eight and a half years after the last post.

Took me back, and reminded me how it took me what seemed like an eternity to complete the destiny knight.
Can't remember the exact part (one of the snares... possibly the grey crypt), but in desperation i wrote (yes, with pen and paper) to someone offering tips in a magazine.

Aah, those were the days...
The internet may have proved that a billion monkeys with keyboards will NOT write the complete works of Shakespeare, but it does have it's uses.
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Re: Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

Post by terkio »

Image

Monkeys typing Shakespeare.
"You can be on the right track and still get hit by a train!" Alfred E. Neuman
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Re: Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

Post by Ameena »

Chimps aren't monkeys ;).
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Re: Dungeonmakers don't get discouraged

Post by Seriously Unserious »

terkio wrote:Image

Monkeys typing Shakespeare.
That looks more like a game studio run by EA. With the quality of their games I wouldn't be surprised if someone in EA's HR dept. did take the expression "Code Monkeys" too literally. :P

No offense intended to chimps, monkeys or any other species of primate, of course, the only offense is intended for EA's management, which, IMO would actually improve if those chimps in the pic above replaced EA's management team.
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