I have dedided to add my first-time experiance with Dungeon Master to this board as a point of interest to, well, whom ever may find it interesting. But first, I would like to tell you all of my prior experiance with Dungeon Master.
I have just started to see what an exelent game this really is. I first played Dungeon Master on the SNES (Background music rocks, BTW) but never even got past the first level of the dungeon (not counting the Hall of Champions level). My best friend at the time managed to get down to level two, but got wacked on a consistant basis by all the nasties.
I put the game down for many years, but picked it back up a few months ago, playing on an SNES emulator. I still have my origional cartrage, but alas, I no longer have my SNES *sob* Again, I couldn't even get past the first level of the dungeon. So, out of frustration, I decided to look up a walk through. The one I found was for the Atari ST version of the game, at which point I began to research it a little further.
After stumbling onto the PC-DOS version on an abandonware site last week, I started to get serious about it. I thought, "Wow! A PC native version, with REAL mouse support! Now I can kick this thing's butt!" And now, after reading over the DM Encyclopedia site (and making an offline copy of it), playing around with various parties, and reading a few pages from this forum, I have decided to go for it, with lonly, reincarnated Zed (renamed to HANSOLO, just for kicks). But, to make it interesting (seeings how Zed is such a well balanced character to start with), he never uses any item in his right hand unless absolutly necessary.
So now, here's the tale thus far (level zero through level three)
Level Zero, The Hall of Champions:
My ghostly presance stood outside the onyx doors of this ancient house of darkness. Who had built it, and what was it's purpose? I had no idea. The only thing I did know was that I didn't have a body, and I didn't like that. So, with hopes of finding some desecated corpus to use as a vessal for my un-earthly being, I pressed the large gemmed button and headed in.
As the big black doors sealed behind me, I marveled at the seemingly inexplicable light that filled this place. As I floated along the stone hallways, I came upon an inscription, saying something about "Champions". I don't know, I didn't pay that much attention.
In the chamber beyond, on a collum to my right, hung the portrait of a man. As I gazed into the frame, a subtle mist enveloped my being. Then, sudenly, a sensation overwhelmed my senses, a sensation that I had not felt in my many dissembodied years of roaving the country side: weight. Then came the sensation of cold chain-mail against my chest, the warmth of a lit tourch in my hand, and the slight pain of hunger in my belly. Unable to believe what I was feeling, I began looking around in amazement.
"There! A hand! But whose? Sweet Mother, it's MINE! It's really MINE! And look, there's another! And feet! I even have a groin! Ohh happy day, I'm back from the dead! HA HA! I can even hear myself!"
Overjoyed at having my physical self back, not even wanting to guess at what magic had accomplished this feat, I began skipping back the way I came. I ran my hand along the cold stone walls, I bit at my lips and tounge, and slamed headlong into walls. I was just so happy to be alive again!
As I neared the onyx doors, I was overwhelmed with excitement. I would finaly be able to release my wickedness upon the world again, tempered by decades of rage brought on by my troutured existance on the non-material plane.
"Oh ho ho ho ho, first thing I'm going to do is take a long bath, a truely WICKED bath! Ha ha ha! And then, prehaps some senseless slaughter and random acts of... WICKEDNESS! Muh ha ha ha ha! Umm... where's the button?"
I searched in vain for a way to trigger the doors to open. Laying the torch on the floor, I began trying to pry the doors appart, but to no avail. I strained both my body and my mind against my only obstacle to freedom untill my fingers blead, and the torch smouldered out against the stone. I was trapped. The place that had only hours ago served as my second cradle, now looked as if it would be my grave.
Wallowing in depression, and boiling over with hatred for my eternal grave, I began to roav the Hall of Champions, hoping against hope to find some other way out...
Heh, I do that from time to time. Sometimes I just have to get the creative mojo going, you know? Anyway, I won't continue with the narative unless someone likes it. The following is what I origionaly planed for this post.
Level 0:
I had experimented with using the "Ghost Trick" to loot out all of the niffty items behind the portraits, but decided that for my first time through at least, I wouldn't cheat. So, I reincarnated Zed (as HANSOLO for some strange reason), grabed all the food, and headed down stairs.
Level 1:
I used the first club to whack the first Mummy. Sometimes, this guy goes down in one wack. This particular time, I had to run back up the stairs and rest TWICE in order to get this guy finished off. Yesh, glad I didn't try this with Tiggy! (on a side note, I have done this part with Tiggy solo before. And yes, that mummy killed me)
At the first Screamer, I used Warcry to get up to Craftsman Fighter and Craftsman Priest. The purpose of this was two fold: beef up my Hitpoints, Mana, and Regeneration; and to gain the ability to make mid-level potions right off the bat. I then turned my back on the Screamer and punched the air up to Novice Ninja to give me some messure of accuracy with my punches.
Latter, in the little nitch where you get your first flasks, I trained up to Craftsman Wizard with Lo Ful spells to beef up my Mana further, and to get the ability to cast long lasting Ful and Light spells (torches take up backpack room, don't 'cha know)
Level 2:
Not much to mention here. I did decide to end my habit of stock pilling food, and only keep cheese. Then I discovered that drum sticks are better, and switched to those. I also began making it a point to eat what ever smaller bits of food I happened upon, such as apples and bread, even if I wasn't very hungry.
Rock Piles are super easy with your bare fists. The attack rate is litteraly as fast as you can click, and a bare fist does as much damage as a Melee from an Axe (I noted this on one of my preceeding "Full Group" runs down to level 3). Furthermore, those blue guys are anoying. Run up to a group of four, vaporize one with a couple bare-fisted punches, and the other three start running like wild. Ohh well, I get some satisfaction out of punching them in the back of thier heads whilst screaming profanities at my monitor.
I also ditched the RA Key and one of the spare Gold Keys I had at the stairs down, optting not to get the extra flask and what not. Don't know why really. Hope I don't need those keys later...
Level 3:
Worms really bite. Even with my trained-up character, these things take way too long to punch to death (seeming to have defense comprable to a Rock Pile) and do too much damage to take on in large numbers. At the start of the level, and being a Craftsman in every class, I was using three PA Vi potions to survive a battle against a group of two.
The one wasp on this level went up in a poof with only three punches, two of which landed. Kind of a disappointment. He was still a thrill though, as he came up on me when I was resting after killing four Worms and using up all of my potions. To top it off, when I awoke to this thing, my magic torches had worn off. First time this game managed to scare me since the first time I played it on the SNES.
Finaly, that mummy on the other side of the pit. You know what I'm talking about. Well, you know that inscription that pops up when you kill him and open the wall that reads "You'll regret that"? Well, yes, I did. By the time I got there, I had hit Adept Ninja, and had seven PA Vi potions in my inventory. Whilst fighting through all those dang Worms that pop up as a result of killing the mummy, I managed to use nine (that's right, nine PA Vi potions, two of which I made on-the-fly) and get down to practicaly no health, there were still one group of two left. After fleeing and making up seven MON Vi potions with the new priest level I got at some point on this level, I headed back. While fighting the last two worms, I hit Expert Ninja. Go HAN!
Major decisions on this level include going with lighter armor, switching from the mail that Zed starts with to some light cloth, as I came to this decision after long passing the full leather suit. I noticed only a slight increase in damage after this, which went back down to normal after hitting Expert Ninja.
Also, I started using LO Vi Bro potions after battles with poisonus creatures to conserve my pre-made PA and MON Vi potions. This is something I did not do with my prior runs, as I had four characters who could make PA Vi potions, and Mana was plentiful.
Ok, I know this has been a really long post, but that's the Q-Man's style. I like to hear my self talk, and type
Tell me what you think.Also, I am just extatic at finding a cummunity of players, modders, and developers for a game that's 18 years old. That really speaks to the gamming philosophy I encourage. In the words of Han, "Flashy graphics and tera-opp graphics cards are no match for good game play"
And finaly, I would like to say that I am NOT a big Star Wars fan, although I do enjoy the movies (in fact, I am a bit of a Treky). I just happen to like Harrison Ford
And with that, I think I'll get back to Dungeon Master. Long Live Geekdom!
QBRADQ
