Custom Dungeons

James202020 · Post by **James202020** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:16 pm

Hi,

I have read in many posts about custom dungeons created by users (e.g. Conflux) where would I be able to get these from and would they work in RTC?

Thanks
James

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:20 pm

The link in the custom dungeon forum shows where the last known position of the dungeons were. It is broken down into categories to show which are for RTC. Easy dungeons for PC DM may convert, through DMute1.5, into RTC dungeons. Easy CSBwin dungeons probably not, conflux, at his time, won't

James202020 · Post by **James202020** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:23 pm

Oops thanks, didnt even notice that forum

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:40 pm

James wrote:

Oops thanks, didnt even notice that forum

maybe we should give a link to that forum (Custom dungeons forum) on the very main page, for example by replacing some dead link. IMHO it would be better because, when you enter the Forums first time and you`re absoluteley lame about DM, you can easily get lost (the whole forum has 52000 posts so far!). At least it was in my case, when I was searching for custom dungeons couple of days.
My idea: replace one of the dead links on the main page by the "PLAY OUR DUNGEONS" link, leading to the Custom Dungeons forums, make that announcement red-green-yellow or so eyehurting shiny colours so anybody seen it when entering the main page.

Wil said:

I tried and download those new dungeons. It isn't easy. This very forum is hard to come by and the files are scattered among subjects, sometimes there is a correction below...
If there was a distinct section in the download area, maybe there would be more players. Well I know it isn't an easy problem.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:49 pm

Umm, there is one, it points to the DME forums, but the first forum there is new dungeons. Or if you mean on these forums, then really i think a custom dungeon forum is as obvious as it gets. And really, we link to 'PLAY DUNGEONS' then need to link to 'ENGINES' etc.... the links and forums are fine as is I reckon. You found your feet, I don't think it is too hard

Des · Post by **Des** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 11:50 pm

A quick note on compatability:

The CSBWin dungeons normally ship as a complete package - i.e. you should play them using the EXE provided as this is the version that it has been tested against and it may not work with a different version.

RTC dungeons are meant to be unzipped into the Modules directory of an existing RTC installation. There have been very few backwards compatability problems recently so most of them will work using the latest version (0.40).

I've played some of the old PC-DM dungeons by converting them to CSBWin (via CSBuild) with few problems. Yet to try converting any to RTC via DMute.

Daecon · Post by **Daecon** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 4:34 am

So you can download any CSBWin Custom Dungeon and you'd never need anything else to make it work on your computer?

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:26 am

I very much like the idea of making these
games 'self-contained'. I have done this for a
few at:

http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/Games/

and I would like to include more. But other folks
don't entirely agree with me on this subject. One
argument is that it requires a lot of web-space to
include copies of the runtime engine and graphics
files with each game. They are often duplicates.
My opinion is that today's disk drives are so big that
it is unnecessary to try and save space at the
expense of making things complicated (Does this
game work with that version??? etc).

So.....anyone who finds it difficult to download and
play a custom dungeon should pipe up and give me
more ammunition for my side of the argument.

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:07 pm

I completely agree with you Paul. Many dungeons are smaller than even a Mp3 music file, the argument against seems ridiculous.

Self contained makes things easier and convenient.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:26 pm

Funny he uses the argument that means the newest engine isn't tested fully, and also runs the risk of having complaints about an old version of the engine

Surely all dungeons should run on the newest stable platform? : )

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:57 pm

But the packages will work, surely the most important thing!

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 10:51 pm

Surely all dungeons should run on the newest stable platform?

Actually, this SHOULD be true for CSBwin and I will
accept bug reports to the contrary. But that was not
my argument. And now we find that particular
dungeons need particular Graphics.dat and sometime
CSBGraphics.dat. Not "the newest stable platform" but
rather a "particular platform". Other dungeons do not.

In any case, I prefer not to force a person unfamiliar
with the various files to locate and download more than
one piece in order to play a game. We have all seen the
chaos caused when people start mixing and matching
new dungeons with old graphics, etc. and the number of
messages that must be exchanged to sort it all out.

Especially when "Copy the graphics.dat to the same folder
as the executable" brings the reply "Huh?".

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 11:00 pm

Very true, I sent a link of this place to a friend, and they couldn't get their heads round how difficult it was to get what they wanted!

In the end I emailed them what they wanted.

Daecon · Post by **Daecon** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 3:55 am

Honestly, that the reason I wasn't confident about using CSBWindows when I first re-discovered Dungeon Master.

Because it wasn't simple plug-and-play usability that RTC has, I thought it would be far too easy to make a mistake by trying to run it using the wrong version of the main program, then finding out I needed to download a different one for a different dungeon to work, etc.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 7:56 am

RTC didn't have plug and play usability, you are coming into it too fresh. Different versions didn't used to be backwardsly compatible, and there are still bugs and issues for really old dungeons. But GG is trying to make it so you just download the core engine and then you should be able to play any file.

This is what CSBwin should be like - especially since the latest engine has been out for a while, and no one has needed tweaks - the latest should probably go to the encycolaedia now, and then all the dungeons could be be relased with bat file and module folder that is simply moved into the route directory with their own dungeon.dat, graphics.dat and CSBgraphics.dat etc as I thought was origially planned

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:33 pm

simply moved into the route directory

Huh?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 6:22 pm

*cough* module directory... :( I didn't even spell root the right way :(