Newbie

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:37 pm

Hello all!

I started playing DM (RTC) again a few months ago after a 20 year break. What a brilliant game - George has done a great job on it.

I've completed it a few times already so I'll move on to CSB soon with Hisssa, my solo character.

Anyway, being slightly sad when it comes to comparing the pros and cons of the different characters, I thought I might get each one to LO Master in each profession and compare them. Has anybody done this before?

Also, I've noticed a few differences in RTC and the original DM on Atari ST, though 20 years is a long time to remember back to!

Firstly, my original characters always ended up with considerably more stamina than health at high levels. In RTC the opposite is true. Anyone know why?

Secondly, RTC VEN clouds are much weaker than in the Atari version. I distinctly remember the damage from these starting at 6 or 7 points per time unit for a MON cloud and reducing to zero. If you stood in one until it ran out you actually ended up taking more damage than blowing yourself up with a MON fireball. In RTC they only do 3 or 4 damage and seem to run out quite quickly. I used to use them quite a lot on monsters, especially when time frozen but now it's pointless.

Apologies in advance if these have been covered before but there are a lot of posts to search through and, hey, give a newbie a break!

Cheers,

Steve

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:25 pm

Welcome!

As you may guess some people have been sad enough to take thier champions towards the dizzy height of archmaster, with varying success! Not sure if anyone has done it qith specialisation to compare the four paths though... let us know if you manage to do it and find anything interesting

Obviously, perception might have somethign to do with your comparisons of Dm and RTC. Secondly, while GG has tried to make it similar, he has done it without refering to the source code of DM, so everything is by feel - players saying if something is more or less. Combine that with the random assignment of points when going up levels and it could lead to the discrepancy over the assension of levels.

The ven cloud thing has evolved like that - instead of dealing contant rates of higher damage, ven clouds infact deal damage faster and faster (I believe). This is a difference, making the cloud better in some cases and worse in another. Watch out that anti-magic or anti-poison effects differences in RTC of the party aren't also causing the clouds to seem less effective overall than in DM

Anyway, hope other people can wade in with firmer knowledge than me!

Post by **Ameena** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:25 pm

Well, I can wade in but not with any kind of great knowledge - just poking in to say helloooo to the new Newbie

.
Woo I just thought of something - next month I'll have been here five years :O.

Or did I join in May...damn I can't remember...ugh why do two months of the year begin with "M"

.

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:13 pm

Thanks for the replies.

I'm working through the characters in alphabetic order. Done Alex, Azizi and Boris so far, just about to start with Chani tonight.

Boewuuf, I'm only taking the 'test' characters up to the first master level for the comparison otherwise it would take far too long but my Hisssa solo character is = master in fighter, ninja, wizard and priest. Should be OK in CSB.

I'll test the VEN cloud thing on a variety of characters with different anti-magic etc.

Ameena, 5 years

you certainly deserve your Archmaster title!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:26 pm

"Ameena
Archmaster, Wordweaver

Joined: 24 Mar 2003
Posts: 2304
Location: Here, where I am sitting!"

You should look left more often ameena

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:35 pm

Beowuuf, you are one sharp-eyed dog-creature type thing

5 year anniversary in just over a month for Ameena then.
Are you planning a celebration of some sort?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:23 pm

Heh, we should meet in london again

Sorry SS, we seem to be stealing your RTC thread!

Also note to save yourself time (unless you are doing this already) you can start people off instabtly in any profession with the editor, editing character information and adding them to a starting party.

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:39 am

Some of those dates are wrong -- things got messed up when the forums were combined and some are inaccurate...

Post by **Ameena** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:42 am

Hmm, well I dunno if that's the date I joined the other forum before the merge, or the date of the merge, but it can't be too far off either way - I think I'd only been in the RTC forum a couple of months or so before the merge.
Anyway, it's no big deal really - plenty of people here have been around these parts for longer than me

.

Post by **Lunever** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:10 am

Indeed, welcome to the forum, and to CSB

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:41 am

Beowuuf, I know it is possible to edit the character stats etc but I thought I'd do it the long winded way as it will give a better comparison. I'm recording all the stats at the start (no levels in anything) and at the end (lowest master level in everything).

Lunever, thanks for the greeting!

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:55 pm

Nearly finished with Gothmog now, so about one third of the way there.
Halk is next on the list. As a single character with no starting mana I think it will be very tough until reaching the level where the staff of claws is. The ghost on the purple worm level is going to be bloody awkward! Halk may just have to forget his macho image and run away.
So far, all the different characters are quite similar at LO master level when comparing the sum of all their statistics. I suppose that's good in terms of balance - there certainly does not seem to be any 'super' characters in there yet.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:26 pm

I've taken Stamm all the way on his own, you just need to get to level four (teowand better than staff of claws) and he never felt a thing before that

You can run aroudn the ghost, get to the blocker, job done. Teowand train if you must kill the poor ghost

Post by **Lunever** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:54 pm

Actually, with Tiggy and Stamm or Halk in the party, you can begin to train spellcasting right from the start, using Tiggy's wand.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:04 pm

On one mana? I didn't think lo on its own gave experience!

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:10 pm

When running Halk lonesome, I always 'WarCry'ed"
until I gained enough mana to cast my first spell.
Never took too long.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:49 pm

Beo, you can sleep
that makes with a memorized
lo rune 2 mana ..
lo then
sleep then
cast ya.
a bit tedious, so you
should use the warcry hint,
super structure.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:13 pm

Wand gives you one mana though. Your method is the one useful for sonja with her useless 2 starting mana!

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:27 pm

so it takes up 3 mana to cast
the least spell? was not sure
about it!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 6:25 am

1 mana for lo, sleep, 2 mana for ya = 3 mana total, 2 mana starting character needed

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 10:42 am

You are right, doesn't work in RTC. Well, in some version it did work, I think it was in original FTL-DM on PC. I'm not sure anymore, but some version also gave you a tiny amount for XP for miscast spells like just casting a power syllable.

Super Structure · Post by **Super Structure** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:46 pm

Paul Stevens wrote:When running Halk lonesome, I always 'WarCry'ed"
until I gained enough mana to cast my first spell.
Never took too long.

Very cunning sir!
Halk will have to try scaring off all the screamers and mummies on the first levels to get a few priest levels.

Just out of interest, and ignoring the fact that a ZO KATH RA spell is required to release the power gem, has anyone ever completed the game without gaining any priest or wizard levels? Seems like that would be a real challenge.

Post by **Ameena** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:44 pm

You also need a spell at "Cast your influence, cast your might". I almost said you need one at "Prove you are a Wizard", which is true, but wrong game hehe

.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:57 pm

need a spell at "Cast your influence

I don't think you NEED to go there.

Post by **Ameena** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:40 pm

Oh, okay, I can't remember - it's been ages since I played it...I've recently been thinking that I probably should again but haven't got round to it yet. A bit like that dungeon of mine I started making two or so years back and didn't really get very far with...

Post by **Gambit37** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:57 am

Cast your influence is one of the six rooms that yields a gold key, and you only need four to progress.

Post by **Ameena** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:28 am

Ohh it's on Level 3, is it? Okay I couldn't even remember that, just that it was fairly early on in the game

.

Gor · Post by **Gor** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:12 am

Hi all,

For some reason I can't find any starter info thread. What about a FAQ in the Sticky Topic section?

It could contain:
* Links to all dungeons for RTC for instance.
* A tip section for how to play well. I have tried some DM clones(java mainly) and some are insanely difficult. I played the three original games back when and I had no problems. It's obvious that I lack some essential info regarding gameplay but what? Things like War Cry giving wizard (or priest) levels would have helped (at least that is what I think one poster ment). I'm sure there are loads of similar tips. Looking through a gadzillion positings really isn't that much fun.
* Why doesn't clicking on the RTC v0.48 download start downloading the file? I can't download the game and I can't figure out why.

Particulary the last question is of interest...

Post by **Gambit37** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:46 am

Hi, welcome to the forums. All the info you mention is buried in lots of threads and no-one has ever taken the time to extract it and make a FAQ unfortunately.

Custom dungeons are in the Custom Dungeon forum:

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=23916

For your last point, 0.48 has some serious bugs in it, so George -- the author -- has probably removed it for now.

EDIT: I just checked, it still works for me. What browser are you using?

Gor · Post by **Gor** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:52 am

Gambit37 wrote: For your last point, 0.48 has some serious bugs in it, so George -- the author -- has probably removed it for now.

EDIT: I just checked, it still works for me. What browser are you using?

Ok but where do I get 0.47 then? I didn't find it on the page where 0.48 was located.

I'm using standard Windows Explorer. If I chose open instead of save it starts downloading it but then just disappear when it's finished.

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