Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia: The opening

[ChristopheF]

It was promised years ago, and now is the time to start slowly opening the web site to users other than myself!
I have enabled the following 10 user accounts on the Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia:
- Adamo
- Beowuuf
- Cowsmanaut
- Gambit
- Greatstone
- kentaro
- meynaf
- Paul Stevens
- Sophia
- Zyx

These users should receive an email to log into the web site and change their password. Tell me if you have any trouble.
For now, user registrations directly on the web site are still disabled. If you want a user account, please send me an email (some accounts are already created but disabled, so please tell me your various nicknames in order to avoid having two separate user accounts for the same person. I can rename if necessary if your nickname changed since I created many accounts several years ago).
Please do not ask for an account if you don't plan to post something on the web site. There really is no benefit in having an account in such a case. There are no hidden bonuses in having an account other than being able to post content and comments.
After some time running the site like this, I will think about opening user registrations (I will have to install some anti-spam tools before).

Registered users are able to:
- Post comments on the existing pages.
- Create new content: Clone, Custom Dungeon, Custom Dungeon Review, FAQ, Forum topic, Link, Tool, Wiki page. For example, it means that people will be able to upload their new custom dungeons.
Note that 'Wiki pages' are new: any registered user can create and edit these pages. Click on 'Wiki' in the menu to access these pages (currently empty). All changes made will be stored so that we can revert to a previous version if necessary and to avoid any intentional or unintentional loss of information.
- Edit own pages. For example, Zyx can modify the pages about his Custom Dungeons, kentaro can modify the pages about his various tools, etc. Users other than the page owner cannot modify the page (except in the wiki section of the web site).

I want the DME to remain a reference web site, and not another place to discuss about DM things. Long discussions should take place here in the forum.
I will strongly moderate the comments made on the web site in order to keep it as clean as possible. Comments should always contain some useful information. Please do not post comments to say 'hello', 'thanks', or to discuss topics unrelated to the web page. I will delete such comments. You should post them on this very forum, or in the DME forum if it is about the DME web site itself (technical issues while posting, suggestions, etc.). For comments containing useful new information, I may include the information in the web page itself (and give credit to its author) and remove the comment.

I hope you will all like being able to participate in the web site, and will wait for your feedback.

[Gambit37]

Dungeon Master has gone all Web 2.0: User Generated Content and Social Networking! Who'd have thunk it!!!

That's really cool, thank you Christophe. I'm not sure what I can contribute just yet, but I'm sure there will be things I can add over time.

What does this mean for Custom Dungeons? That seems to be the one area that is still a bit confusing, because they are listed on your site, but we discuss them here.

[Adamo]

Thanx for the access, Christophe!
@Gambit: as you`re now the Encyclopedia administrator, you can move all your stuff (info and graphics) from Codex to Encyclopedia (= upgrade The Encyclopedia to the highest level).
For example as adding your stuff as an independent sub-site content. That would make an Encyclopedia even cooler!

[beowuuf]

As Christophe said, you discuss dungeons here and put cmments like (needs v0.39 RTC, etc) on the encyclopaedia

Thanks christophe!

[ChristopheF]

For custom dungeons, I hope we will have a complete list on the Encyclopaedia, with one page for each custom dungeon, including a description, screenshots, technical requirements, and the files to download.
Then if people want to share their experience, exchange tips and spoilers, I think it is better to have these discussions here in the forum. The only exception to that would be the 'formal' reviews that you can post on the DME. By creating a "Custom Dungeon Review" you'll have a standardized form to fill with your marks and comments.

[Gambit37]

@Gambit: as you`re now the Encyclopedia administrator, you can move all your stuff (info and graphics) from Codex to Encyclopedia (= upgrade The Encyclopedia to the highest level). For example as adding your stuff as an independent sub-site content. That would make an Encyclopedia even cooler!

Not going to happen, unless Christophe would allow me to completely re-design his site.

The Codex is as much an art project for me as it is about DM and isn't really compatible with the goals and purpose of the Encyclopedia. I did consider in the past maybe working with Christophe but ultimately the projects are quite different.

[Adamo]

Gambit wrote:

Not going to happen, unless Christophe would allow me to completely re-design his site.

There could be two options to choose: "original" Encyclopedia style and "Codex" style. Like you had, previously, three "board style" options of the forum ("sub silver" etc).

[zoom]

ah, what I want to tell is fitting here. Display problem due to background for monsters and items

When I look at all the dungeon master or csb items, the ency has a white background (1/2 of the time)
so the graphics are not shown nicely

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/266
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/259
(white claw bow on white bg is not good or swords have this problem)


same somtimes for monsters esp. skeletons
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/781



btw, is there any chance to see the items of Dungeon master nexus version?
I know it is probably already on your list Christophe!

I would like to see side and backviews(animation) of the monsters of SNES DM version,
but that is not really necessary, maybe I emulate it to see ingame.

cool that these SNES dm monsters are shown,since quite some time now(1 year?),
nevertheless: It is a great addition
!!shame no csb came out for SNES!!!

[ChristopheF]

Thank you for your feedback. I have changed the background color for items and creatures.
Extracting item images from DM Nexis is indeed in my totolist, but don't hold your breath: as far as I know, nobody has started working on this task. And I don't plan to make screenshots of all items in an emulator. If you want to help here, I'd be glad to add the images on the site!
Regarding SNES images, I also plan to add them someday., though I still have to create the animated gif files from the extracted images.

[zoom]

Thanks for this quick fix. At second glance it is ok with this grey background. At first look, however, it is not as stylish as before.
you can leave it at that or implement something like this>

Probably it is possible and in comparison easy to have the pictures be only on the light blue and never on the white background.With the blue bg there was no issue..
So you let the white be "empty" and use it as a separator of 20 pixels only (1 or 2 lines of blank space)).

emulator
I would make screenshots, but I donot have an os to emulate the game..also time is maybe not too much at hand.
we will see, maybe sometime

[ChristopheF]

Is it better now? I changed the color for creatures, but I left the gray for items as it looks nicer, don't you think?

[zoom]

oui. ce´est mellieur. edit: mieux
really, as I said before, on second glance the items don´t look that bad with grey squares; actually rather good.
together with monsters it is now the best you could have achieved. Great!
(always laughing when I see the snes vexirk. It looks so funny.)

[zoom]

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/199
Wuuf The Bika (Female): Coincidentally the sound he makes when he speaks.

some inconsistencies in stat increase from items:

Mana is included already;
chani gets mana bonus from the moonstone. 17/15
Tiggy has the statincrease not included or not? from the wand she is carrying. 35/36

Gothmog gets not the bonus from his cloak of night.
either include all the bonuses or leave them out best is tell a line or two about this fact.
Would DEX 35/42 (2 values) make sense?
Boris has a rabbit´s foot, don´t know whether or not it added to his luck stat(25),
probably notbecause it seems quite low.

maybe include somwhere max min values of str, dex mana and so on, differs from version to version, sure.
also how much loss you get when reviving champions, probably already included.

[ChristopheF]

Thank you for your feedback. I have updated the page separating real stats values and bonus values given by items.