New experiences with an old game...DM

[Paul Stevens]

that is, if both pics are of the same spot in the game

Whether or not it is the same spot----the floor is the same and the
walls are different. I think 'parity' of both is determined by the
same 'even-odd' function of location.

[Gambit37]

Yep, later versions changed the perspective slightly and the lines between walls were moved to improve overall coherence. There's an animation on dmweb showing the difference.

http://dmweb.free.fr/files/Documentatio ... enshot.gif

[MasterWuuf]

I've spent a little time developing my own little herd of rats on the rat floor.
Not very impressive at the moment, but if I can get a group of 100,
I'm going to let them out and let them take over the place.
I might even put on the armor of DARK and LYTE, since I only have two characters,
then see if I can get myself in a RAT TRAP. ha.
Thanks Paul for the earlier information. I just wish the game allowed the rats to scurry to other floors.
I think I could make the game very entertaining.

[MasterWuuf]

I've been wondering whether creatures have a tendency to go back to the spot where they started,
when you go to another level, or possibly even when you close the gate at safe place on that floor level?

[MasterWuuf]

Decided to see how many rats had accumulated in my rat-herding adventure.
May have lost count but 35 rat legs in one fight. Shall I deep-fat fry them, or broil them?

[Paul Stevens]

creatures have a tendency to go back to the spot where they started,

Creatures have no knowledge of where they originated.

[terkio]

Creatures have no knowledge of where they originated

They wander randomly, so they don't go far from where they came from.
That is from a non intuitive result of probability.
The probability of the presence of a creature drops quite fast over the distance of origin.
This fact can induce one to think they go back to where they originated.

[The Journeyman]

May have lost count but 35 rat legs in one fight. Shall I deep-fat fry them, or broil them?

Can you send 10 deep fried drumsticks up to the Hall of Champions? That would be great

[PaulH]

As the weather is poor (and the pubs are shut) I have a few evenings free. So I am going to play through with some characters I've never taken before and try some new tactics.

I might even finish a dungeon I started designing about 12 years ago...

[The Journeyman]

I am going to play through with some characters I've never taken before

am I hearing that you're going to do this with Mophus?

Also, if your local pubs are closed..you oughta check out the village of Skullkeep, they've got a good beer supply over there and no masks necessary.
It's gone in four gulps, though, so it's best to bring a lot of money.

[PaulH]

I have a few gold coins left..

Interestingly Mophus used to be a staple of my go to team in the 80s. Halk-Stamm-Gothmog-Mophus: the journeymen! Didn't really care for Ninjas back then so Leyla was missed, but could have gone for Sonja.

I'll stand by that Stamm is the best

[The Journeyman]

hey, that is a really specialized crew...haven't seen it from this angle yet. but hmm..would I really want to drink a concoction that a grinning Mophus is passing around after having completed half a level? That looks a lot like a fast win for Lord Chaos

Think about it..Mophus does not carry a flask, albeit being a journeyman priest, i.e. the best there is in the Hall of Champions. So he must've given it (with a potion) to his companions before ending up in the mirror himself.

[The Journeyman]

I imagine it something like this:

Leyla: Mophus, why do I end need to carry all the chests we found? My back is starting to hurt.
Mophus: don't worry. here, drink this.
Leyla: *glug*glug*....*flump*
Mophus: oops..
and then Mophus gets killed by 2 mummies and/or a 4 pack of screamers.

[jayrshaw]

That's pretty funny - I could see Mophus accidentally cooking up a VEN bomb or something and telling Leyla that it was a Ku (Strength) potion...


--Jay

[MasterWuuf]

Poor Mophus. Does he get all this negative publicity, simply because he's a journeyman priest with no flask?

And honestly, after a double 'glug' of a VEN bomb, don't you think Leyla deserves at least some of the blame???

P.S. I still hang my head in shame, for all the years I cross-dressed Wuuf. Poor lady.

[The Journeyman]

maybe you'll change your mind about Mophus after he took the first shift for you while camping for the night and you'll end up being a half dead mummy in an odd spot of the dungeon

[The Journeyman]

hey..and don't blame Leyla for trusting a man for once. Mophus told her the green of the potion matches her eyes.

[Gambit37]

In another thread I've shared some progress I'm making on a revamp of DM. This has meant a spending a lot of time perusing the original map in a map editor. And that's made me think about a lot of things in the game that don't really make a lot of sense:

1) The dungeon was apparently the Grey Lord's home before Chaos twisted it with monsters, puzzles and traps. But that doesn't really explain why old Grey would be happy to live in such an empty, depressing place... once you take out all Chaos' additions, there's nothing compelling about it as a cozy home!

2) Why did Chaos leave all Grey's keys lying around? Surely it would have been safer just to destroy them all?

3) If Chaos is so powerful that he can completely refashion an entire dungeon to his whim, why is he stuck down there in the basement? Surely he'd wander up to the Firestaff tomb, let himself into Grey's lab and read all the notes, and therefore find out exactly what he needs to do to escape!

4) Why did Chaos overprotect Diamond Edge, but just left Fury lying on the ground in an easy to access room?

And that's just for starters...!

[MasterWuuf]

Gambit, lying on a couch, sharing DM stress-points which have plagued him for over 30-years now.

1. The first floor (picture level). You might pull the pictures closer together, perhaps in tidy rows?
It would leave a large area to make-over into a warm and delightful-looking living quarters, where the Grey Lord spent his evenings.

2. Self-destructive tendencies, brought on by mental difficulties?

3. While escaping might not be a high priority with Mister DL (Dark Lord), I've always thought it would be nice to see him 'petting' the dragon.
Can one imagine him 'showing up' on the screamer level? Better yet, the 'transportation' room. Talk about a challenge!

4. Perhaps Fury is a 'gift' after the 'clock-wise' difficulty? Still, even more confusing to me..."Why is the room EMPTY, other than the Fury???"

P.S. A nice recliner-couch would be nice, if you decide to include a 'Grey Lord' rest area in your revamp. Also, a shock collar for the dragon would be cool. You could toss it over his head, allowing you to walk all over that area with him swishing his tail and licking you.

[Ameena]

I suppose the explanation for most of Lord Chaos's apparent decisions are that he is, after all Lord Chaos, and therefore everything he does is chaotic and therefore by definition doesn't have to make sense .

[The Journeyman]

I like your logic there. So let's all be happy we didn't have to venture into Lord Order's dungeon

[PaulH]

I have often thought similar to Gambit. Sure, it's a computer game with its own set of laws and physics, but the narrative has to be consistent within them boundaries. It asks the question - why did Chaos not just place a big ol' lump of wall at the entrance to stop people getting in? We can't break walls down without some trigger in DM. This would give Mr Chaos all the time he needs to figure out the Zo Kath Ra spell. But asks further questions.

The manual (story) states that a botched attempt at extracting the power gem causes the universe to explode and Chaos was split off from the Grey Lord. Chaos somehow managed to take over the dungeon, and as he is, shall we say, "a bit on the evil side", twisted the Grey Lord's experiments into puzzles and traps to mock him. So this could possibly explain why the dungeon is the way it is - Chaos invited people in to torment them, giving them false hope and treasures, only to eventually torture them to death. His lust for blood and trophies was ultimately his undoing, even though he knew the Firestaff could be his fate if it was reclaimed.

Now what about Lord Librasulus and Lord Order? Are they not the same person? I believe so, as opposed to Chaos, Order and a third being left over from the Chaos/Order creation. Lord Order was the other half of the splitting, and in reality is just as evil as Chaos. In order to regain form and be able to enter the dungeon himself he needs the Firestaff. He renames himself Librasulus to hide his intent (and to explain why his appearance had changed) and instructs Theron to go and fetch it. The story hints though that he had collected his thoughts and now knew the spell - but he never gave it to Theron. We all know what happens when we bring the Firestaff to the entrance

Interestingly the first hint book states that Fuse from the Powerstaff+ is actually the fusing fluxcages together into one large cage. The second hint book scribes that fusing Chaos when surrounded by fluxcages (and/or walls and yourself) will teleport Lord Order in his true colours to the same square where they ultimately amalgamate into the Grey Lord.


Or something like that....

[aster]

I basically just stood at the square where the three doors leading to the Oitu area connected and kept lobbing MON level (i.e., Level 6) fireballs at the Oitus until the area seemed clear. I then went through the three rooms in a circular fashion, killing the remaining Oitus I encountered with fireballs and gathering the treasures in the rooms.

I recall being pleased and surprised when one of the Oitus dropped a Skeleton Key (the second I had found on that floor of the dungeon). The Oitus were already starting to regenerate by the time I had managed to gather all of the treasure from the Oitu rooms, so I just high-tailed it out of there to the part of the floor leading to the final part of the dungeon as quickly as I could...

Wow, just came across this and this is definitely an interesting bit of info worth investigating. I thought there were only 5 Skeleton Keys in the game. Does this mean you found a 6th this way?

would a creature be able to trigger the regeneration switch

Certainly.
This was done in a couple of places in Chaos Strikes back. Tidal waves of worms.
I don't remember any such place in Dungeon Master.

Is there any way to stop a regeneration switch, like leaving an item there? Also, what creatures trigger a generator? Only the ones moving along the floor or all creatures, even those that move in the air like ghosts?

[ChristopheF]

That sixth skeleton key in a Oitu is only present in the Super NES / Super Famicom version.
In all other versions, there are only 5 skeleton keys in the dungeon.

Each creature generator is a sensor that must be activated by another sensor. Anything is possible as any other sensor can be used to trigger the creature generation. This means there is no general rule, you need to check each particular creature generator to find out which conditions will trigger it.

Levitating creatures do not trigger floor sensors. I will add this fact on the following two documentation pages (about levitation and dungeon sensors):
http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... e-details/
http://dmweb.free.fr/community/document ... eon-files/

[aster]

To this day nothing scares me more in DM than those creature generators. I cannot even imagine going back to the days of not having maps and not knowing where those generators are and hence, no idea of when (or how many times) you might have triggered them. Scary...

Many thanks for the explanation, I had no idea that each creature generator could act differently. Maybe someone could make a precise list of all the generators and what triggers them, what time delay there is (I found this in another thread... for instance around 20 seconds for the rat room generator), etc.

On a side note, can I report and addition to the items page here? http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... ons/items/

The notes next to Gold Coin mention "Required in alcove at (05,14,28) to open door at (05,18,25)" but during my recent run I found out that it's worth adding (even though it's on the same level but still...):

"Required in crack in wall at (05,22,23) to open removable wall at (5,25,21)"

[ChristopheF]

I will add your note.

If you want, you can use CSBuild to investigate creature generator sensors and see how they are triggered.
http://dmweb.free.fr/community/tools/cs ... l-csbuild/

[Ameena]

On the subject of creature generators, I've often wondered what it is that triggers Fire Elementals to respawn - sometimes a new one pops up as soon as you kill the previous one, but sometimes they stay dead for ages. Maybe they slowly regenerate over time and "queue up", respawning instantly when killed until you reach the end of the "queue" and it has to wait out the timer to pop up another one.

[ChristopheF]

If a creature generator is triggered when another creature is already occupying the target square of the generator, then the generated creature is indeed "queued" because only one creature group is allowed on a square, and it will spawn as soon as the square becomes free. That explains the instant respawn you have experienced.

[aster]

"If a creature generator is triggered when another creature is already occupying the target square of the generator, then the generated creature is indeed "queued" because only one creature group is allowed on a square..."

I know this must be a huge coincidence for a creature to be in the exact spawn location when you happen to pass through a creature generator that is quite a distance away, but what would happen if they happened to belong to the same creature group? Would a single rat become a pair if the generator randomly added just one rat?

[ChristopheF]

No, creature groups are distinct. They never merge and they never split.