What!? Whoa...Was that it?

Black hand Bika · Post by **Black hand Bika** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:19 pm

I've been lucky enough to get the RTC running on my system and had finally been able to play DM2 for the first time. I liked much of the changes added to it, stores, moveable items, varied graphics. However I thought it would be as extensive as the first DM...Maybe it is, and the extra goodies just took up too much room.

Anyways, I had ran through it for a few hours, got the machine working, went into the "other plane"...found the annoying bad guy there and so led him back to the engine room with all the fireballs & lightning and let the dungeon do the work for me.

, upon finding the exit in that blue outer plane, I then realized that the game ended for me !? Whoa...What? Was that It?!

Ah well, it was fun enough. I noticed after the "the end" appeared the computer errored out and the program crashed, so I was wondering whether there actually was more after that or not.

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:25 pm

That bad guy in the other plane is indeed the final boss. I'm a bit surprised that you managed to get him back into the room with the machine, as I thought that wasn't possible (I certainly didn't manage to do so). The crash definitely shouldn't happen! You should post this in the "RTC bugs" forum so GG can have a look.

The way I see it, the game isn't shorter than DM or CSB; the size is about the same. It has less open areas with little to do than DM, and the puzzles are certainly more complex. I still don't like it nearly as much as DM or CSB, but it is a nice game still, especially the RTC version that I prefer to the original.

Black hand Bika · Post by **Black hand Bika** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:28 pm

Ah, I did indeed take a screenshot of the errror...however it is on my system at home and is using dialup, so given the time I'll stuff the image into photobucket or something and post here...it's just the matter of the bloody wait that's all.

...

Now it's time to figger out how that editor works.

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:39 pm

That's what I am still trying to do as well.

At least the more complicated stuff still needs a little time.

If you are hungry for new dungeons, check out the custom dungeons posted here. Some of them are indeed excellent, as good as or even better than the originals.

Black hand Bika · Post by **Black hand Bika** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 3:20 pm

Trantor wrote:That bad guy in the other plane is indeed the final boss. I'm a bit surprised that you managed to get him back into the room with the machine.

I did indeed. But it was more of an opportunistic fluke if you ask me. I was in the process of figuring out the pattern on the second "bridge" on that blue plane when what's-his-pickle walked across the space and smacked me off the edge. So I had gone back to see him poking around the area and layed waste to him...until I got cornerd by him and his...floating things, and so I jumped off to go back to the beginning.

In preparation of the next confrontation (making potions and such) I was awoken from my rest by the big guy in the fireball room. I then finally had a use for the eye of time ring and magic box that I had and just froze time when he was in the path...easy as cake.

I could've slept through the experience if I didn't have to keep maintaining the freezing life.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:39 pm

Yup, this experience is eerily similar to my own. Whatsiface can actually be lured out of his room and fought on a more level footing. I don't remember the final crash, but I played DMII back in v0.42 of RTC.

Post by **Ameena** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:03 pm

Jfyi his name's Dragoth

.

Black hand Bika · Post by **Black hand Bika** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:21 pm

Ameena wrote:Jfyi his name's Dragoth .

Ach So. I never really had known the background story for DM2 so the info for the main character and of course the bad guy was lost on me...

I just jumped in and started playing.

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:27 pm

It should not be possible to lure Dragoth out. This is one time when the new RTC monster behaviour is wrong in my opinion. He's supposed to go back through his portal and heal from time to time, but he never comes all the way after you in the original game.

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:42 pm

I pretty much agree with Gambit here. This is plain wrong. Easiest fix would be putting a teleport (relative, 1 step back ) at the gate with a scope for creatures.

Also... UNLESS GG add an option for movies to be played after you finish a dungeon, there's no way to see the outro for DM2 (Unless you want to cheat or use the PCDM2 version)

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:12 pm

The teleport is also supposed to be random. Sometimes you end up in the Zo gate control room, but most of the time you end up in a random part of the world (insert David Byrne pun). This was buggy in the PC version, too, as once I was teleported into a thicket of trees and could not move.

I much prefer the PC version because it works the way it's supposed to. The RTC version is a great creative feat, but I wouldn't call it DMII because there are too many crucial differences. I'd call it DM 1.9, or maybe DMII 2nd beta.

Post by **Ameena** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:14 pm

Last time I played DM2 (PC version), it seemed to dump me in a certain place depending on whereabouts in the Void I fell off. Often I ended up in the Zo-Link room, but sometimes in the cemetery, I think sometimes also in the "Home Town", and err...probably somewhere else outside a couple of times too. But it was no really biggy to run back up there again. In fact, I think I could just use the Tech Shield to teleport to the last pad before the Zo-Link room.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:22 pm

I prefer RTC DM2 in alot of ways as most of the engine changes were just 'meh' and I did want the DM engine underneath it all - some of the view changes and interactions and momnster AI is sadly missed, but RTC DM2 is cool

Anyway, yes, while DM2 had lots to play about with (especially seeing the secrets of monster AI or buying all the shiny weapons) as a gaming experience it is woahfully easy to blast through - the coin on table puzzle and possibly the initial doors puzzle of skullkeep the only ones that really make anyone pause

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:42 am

Well, they certainly didn't milk it for what it was worth. One thing that bothers me about DM2 is that it feels like it's only part of a much bigger game. The two opposing clans never had any depiction or background, and the existence of Skullkeep was never thoroughly justified — why the crap did a bunch of dwarves build it in the first place?

Anyway, the game really needed more background to be what I think it was supposed to be, and that's a full-fledged RPG instead of the dungeon crawl DM was. Most DM fans complain about DM2's vastness, and I can understand why. The world of Zalk isn't really suited for a dungeon crawl. I think DM2 would have been better as a Myst-style game.

There's an idea. Maybe not a good one.

Post by **Sophia** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:47 am

On the other hand, provided you're willing to accept the tweaks necessary, some genre-twisting can be fun. I have my own personal little example--

Shadowgate was much more of a point-and-click Myst-style game, originally. I think Dark Portal worked pretty well and stayed pretty faithful, though, despite changing it to a DM-ish system.

A point-and-click DM2 would have to have more puzzles and less combat, not that that's bad. It's an interesting thought, anyway...

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:44 pm

Hmm, so far I did start DM2 a couple of times, but I never played through. So if I do this in RTC for the first time ever, I suppose I will be pretty disappointed when the game will end without the ending movie.
Therefore: Does anyone have the original PC-DM ending movie , Amiga-CSB intro movie and ending movie and DM2 ending movie in a file format that can be easily played in current media players?

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:40 pm

DM2:

Change "intro" and "end" file extensions into .exe to make them run as stand alone animations

The DM1 PC movie... I don't know how to crack it yet. All I remember that it was Grey Lord tossing firestaff into the furnace and then "Peace being restored"

I want to see the CSB Ending movies though!!

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:42 pm

Ok, but how can they be convverted into a media player compatible file format?

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:46 pm

They can't. That's the problem. They're in a VERY specific format with a player attached directly in the beginning of the file. I think Encyclopedia has more info on it...

Post by **ChristopheF** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:14 pm

Here are tips to view the ending animations of DM, CSB and DM2:
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/222
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/230
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/238

The format of animations is documented here: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/216
So if someone wants to do it, it should be possible to develop a converter to a video format like AVI.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:50 pm

You can dump the DM2 movies from DOSBOX into AVI format.

As for the CSB intro, I also built a version of it using the extracted frames and then BIKed it into an EXE, but lost the files!

Post by **Lunever** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:13 pm

Gambit: Well, can you do it again?

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:00 am

Doubtful, I have too many other things to do and it was too time consuming to sync all the sound effects. Anyone else is welcome to try

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:05 am

Do you actually want them avi compatible or jsut to watch them? Cows did something similar I believe and I have that on my HD as a .exe

Post by **ChristopheF** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:52 am

You can also watch some animations converted to Smacker (EXE) here:
CSB Atari: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/716
CSB Amiga: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/717
DM2: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/718

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:25 am

Well, I want them in a format that I can insert into RTC.

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:53 am

Can they be converted to AVI by smacker tools?

Post by **ChristopheF** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:45 pm

I think you can convert them to AVI with Smacker, but depending on the codec you choose, the quality may suffer or the size may increase (modern video codecs are not well suited to encode these old animations).

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:49 pm

Well I did AVI <-> SMK encoding but I'm puzzled if they can be encode from an exec.

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:55 pm

You'd need to use a lossless codec, I haven't a clue what's available by default in Windows anymore. I'll investigate.