Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[beowuuf]

Welcome to the forums thyceult

1. Spoiler tags use bbcode, put

Spoiler

[ /spoiler] around the comment. Obviously without the space.

2. You just remove the black flame at the start

Spoiler

by walking into it

and click four times on the portrait

3. Events only triggered by the characters possessing the items, not necessarily weilding it. In later versions to be released in the future, the person themselves will activate the ending

4. There is a set of stairs leading to mampang, along which are doors that only open to the guild leader. The corridor leading to the staircase is just below the council level

5. Hmm, not sure. I think

Spoiler

White Councillors, Grey Councillors (some), Dark Coumcillor, Marpax

[thyceult]

Thanks for the welcome Beowuuf!

I sort of accidentally discovered Leyla's path by heading down the said flight of stairs before I read the post on the forums, but thanks all the same. It seems that the only problem I am running into right now is the accursed black smoke that keeps chasing me around the entire dungeon. I doubt it's a bug, and that's pretty clever an application of the

Spoiler

"damaging one's health through manipulation of food and water levels"

!

Aaaaah, silly me. Well, definitely up for some loving long time with the Maleficient guild later! The game is getting sneakier by the moment lol.

Well, I am really looking forward to the triggers activating on character rather than their items. It would be a great addition to the game!

Jesse

[beowuuf]

That smoke is a monster! Thjere are ways to get rid of it temporarily if I reclall correctly

[thyceult]

I've a better solution!

It's called run! Hahah... can't believe that stupid thing wiped out my entire stack of food supplies brought for the long trip and also sent me literally playing hyperspeed throughout the entire scenario. However, granted, I'd say it's definitely one of the few challenges that truly feels like a challenge when played against my typical playing style (that is waiting things out and taking a chess-like, slow-motion approach).

Zyx,

Well done Zyx! You could not have possibly replicated panic or fear better than this! Almost reminds me of the time when I first played CSB and was totally clueless about what was happening. This time it's worse... I have full vision and was still panicking! Bravo!

Jesse

P.S.: I happened to notice that there are a lot of easter eggs in this game. I am very impressed! Is it me or the phrase mentioned when you walk through the dreamlike state of the Emerald Forest comes from

Spoiler

the lyrics of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven?

[Trantor]

About that song lyric: It's very possible that you are right. There is a scroll in a prison cell on the council level with a line from Pink Floyd's song Stop from their famous album The Wall, too.

Oh, and welcome to the forums! It's always great to see new users here!

[Parallax]

Playing with the Maleficient will get you more lines from the song you mentioned, here and there. I don't usually play with the sound on, so I don't know for for sure, but it also possible that

Spoiler

the Forest will echo with laughter

...

[thyceult]

Argh!

This is possibly the first time I had to resort to hints on the forum, but I am at the end of my tether here guys. Hopefully you can help me out. Zyx tells me that there is an exit out of my current predicament and just that I haven't looked around hard enough. I'm currently stuck in the room where you find the Long Lost Wand, with one metal door that's refusing to budge and a stairwell just out of my reach behind the wall. My only companions are a bunch of screamers that spawn from time to time and a water fountain to drown myself in, in case of boredom.

I've already done the following:

1. Click every single possible wall on all bricks and turned up the speakers to hear the "bump" response

2. Watched all other walls and the door for response

3. Clicked all known holes in the room to find other hidden objects, if any

4. Slept in front of the Chaos wall decors (2 of them)

5. Waited and tried to bait the screamers that absolutely refuse to move

6. Slept on the screamer's square

7. Brutalized the door in every single way imaginable, including soft approaches like throwing objects and open door spells

8. Applied the same approach to every single wall, alcove in the room

9. Attempted to reverse climb my way back out of the hole I fell in from (heh!)

10. Clicked on the crack on the floor

11. Placed weights on all possible combinations of floor tiles and even resting to allow time to pass

12. Time all actions 1-11 against background sounds in case reactions are monster based outside the room

Cabin fever is setting in! Any solution, however silly it would make me look, would be extremely helpful. Zyx, you got me on this one. I concede the value of the 5 points I would have otherwise earned on this challenge because I haven't done it completely on my own hmm. That and if the "The Rich Desire It, The Poor Have It" riddle carried points too, I would have lost on that one too because I sought

Spoiler

Google

for help!

T_T
Jesse

Edit: This just happened to me, the room stole my Plasma! I was testing it by dropping it all over the floor and it got passed around the room

Spoiler

the same way as the Long Lost Wand did

and then wheee~ off it went lol.

[beowuuf]

Spoiler

the wand ends up in a wall with a hole, that probably only releases wands.

place the wand in the alcove with the long lost wand scroll

[thyceult]

A timely save as always beowuuf!

Gosh, is this the part where I say "DOH?!" That was seriously embarassing. I guess all those answers of mine I was trying to look for involved me trying to

Spoiler

bring the lost wand OUT of the room instead of leaving it where it belongs. Kind of ironic for something that doesn't really want to be found haha.

Anyway, I guess I'm set on my ways now. Thanks again!

Jesse

P.S.: Oh you got me nice and good with that puzzle Zyx! Looks like it just gave me the perfect reason to take it out on your Dark Councillor now. Hehe...

[beowuuf]

Hehe, who says that for the cunning person there is not a way to finally free the wand?

It involves another item that was found i nthe room, and another wall object...

[thyceult]

Yeah beowuuf,

To be honest, I crumbled and gave in to greed and resorted to that instead, but was wondering if I could have instead kept the metallic alternative and saved it for somewhere else? Who knows? Bah... now I will never know. Curse ye Zyx!

Jesse

Edit: Speaking of alternatives Zyx, I really miss the Tree of Courage and Fear that I just offed seconds ago. Could you please insert more cute creatures like that in your next update? They serve as really good punching bags to help relieve stress to be honest, and it was a shame that it ended when it had to.

Also, on a separate note, my god... Leyla needs to get off the Red Bull!~ She's like totally pumped up on steroids or something for her Stamina, I'm nowhere near maxing out her levels and she's already reaching 999 Stamina! (992 to be exact) Oh my gosh!

Lastly, is there any way to lift the 999 cap for the future versions Zyx and Paul?

[beowuuf]

keep the branch!

[thyceult]

Oh no worries beowuuf!

I've had it added into my collection of goodies

[Antman]

Hey I'm back!

Finally have internet again. Anyway welcome Thyceult!

For a couple of your earlier questions:

5. Mopanthrax, the grey lords. The white lords ARE killable. Oh, and I think Mopanthrax can be killed used teleport scrolls if you want to be technical.

6. Here's what me and Parallax came up with a couple of pages back: 3. If this is true then did you know: a. you can still get to the teleporter room from the spider level at 07,28,02, b. you can throw the power gem up the PitD stairs from corner to corner at each level so whatever trigger that closes the wall at 06,16,06 is bypassed, c. you can freeze the Dark Councilor on PitD at 07,19,03, sprint to the spider level and jump down PitD there thus killing him there instead of at the bottom of PitD.

Darn, 3c is mighty clever, I must say. You forgot 3d: letting the thieves from the maze steal the powergem (they pick it up from the ground instead of you), pursuing them into the maze of thieves, killing them and getting the gem back.

This does not include the Deathrap Dungeon though.

7. There's a big list of the unique items on the wiki, I think I forgot one though, which I remembered later, then forgot again. But I remember that I forgot something.

And I had wondered about the water of death, could never get it to work but had never really tried that hard either.

[thyceult]

Antman!

It's a pleasure to speak with you for the first time, and wherever you came back from, (hahah more like the Land of the Dead [Lines, that is]) welcome back!

Next on, I guess on a more focused note, I am really curious to know what might happen if we "killed" Morphanthrax? Wouldn't that like muck up the game tracking statistics or something? Of course, then again it's not necessary to do so, albeit a fun alternative.

As for the solution to the Dark Councillor, can I add 3e? 3e: Get Zyx to help patch up the pit problem ahahaha!

On a more serious note, I am keen to get working on the Deathtrap Dungeon bonus after I obtain at least a consistent score of 110 or so (using 3 guildmasters). Not very ambitious in a sense, but I feel it's a good start. I will definitely go for the super high score thing later. 175 was it?

Mmm, no worries on the items on the Wiki list. Referring to it right now just to make sure it's on my list. I try to avoid reading the effects of the item though, because I want to learn them up for myself. More importantly, I want to completely avoid knowing where they are found unless I am completely stuck. No honor in trying to best Zyx's dungeon if I don't try it myself. Haha... he's taught me that!

Lastly, if you need help on the water of death thing.. don't hesitate to ask me for a clue. I sort of figured it out but haven't reached the place yet to test it. However, I think someone else already beat me to answering that for you bro.

Oh yeah, before I forget, can anyone be kind enough to give me explicit explanation on the checklist of goals for Mophus' and Gothmog's end quests? I am running around the entire floor madly opening up areas and locations without sufficient understanding of my secondary goals (the primary was explained upon entering the door, so it's more of a "how" rather than a "what" problem)

Till the next post bro!
Jesse

Edit P.S.: Actually on second thought, scratch the request for a checklist of activities for Gothmog's end quest. I mugged around the dungeon long enough to find my way around It's not as bad as it seems after a while hehe.

Edit II: Zyx, I have to say that as a story, Gothmog's ending was rather wicked, but a bit sad for me in terms of a player as I have to

Spoiler

end the game in order to collect the last bits of points?

. Is there any other way to achieve it without

Spoiler

an abrupt end to the game?

That being said, it really makes me wonder how is it I am going to reverse the

Spoiler

sacrifice of three lives

even if I manage to circumvent the problem at the endgame?

[thyceult]

Sorry guys,

(For Zyx)

I had to keep this as a separate post because this is more of addressing technical issues regarding Conflux III:

1. Is it me or your characters'

Spoiler

attack speeds

are affected by the beholders in Gothmog's final quest? If so, how long do they last? They seem to be affecting me until now (many hours later). This is evident by observing the

Spoiler

punching speeds of my characters who can't seem to punch very well anymore since playing the entire module block... also applies to all of their melee weapons as well.

Jesse

[Zyx]

Yes, known and fixed bug for the next version. Beholders should slow down for a few ticks, not 65535 ticks. Just wait a full week of play and it will wear off.
Or send me the savegame.

As for gothmog ending points, I'll check that, but for next verision (I'm still with a big fever).

[thyceult]

Well Zyx,

Thanks for the clarification. I don't know how long a tick is, but if it is 1 second per tick, that just means I have to be at it for 18 hours. I think I can last that long no problem. Just will have to take it as a challenge hehehe. Yeah, hoping that Gothmog's ending will reward me with points without having to be forced to end the game completely .

As for the advanced ninja skills. Thanks for the explanation! Definitely a cool expansion. Hmm... less burden for me to carry around too!

Jesse

[Antman]

I don't think anything would break if you telefragged Mopanthrax, it would just rid the dungeon of an annoying monster and use up a useful teleport scroll.

As for the water of death:

Spoiler

I thought it was something to do with chasing worms into the phasing shower, but it never did anything for me, and it's hinted at by Chani at the Mothers of the Egg Chamber.

As for the beholders, in Bugfix3 they sometimes sped you up instead of slowing you down but maybe that's fixed now? If they slowed you down you could just find some more and wait near them until they sped you up. There's an infinite supply at Halk's ending. 1 tick is a 6th of a second I believe.

You can get Gothmog's points and still keep playing unless there has been a change, and as for the sacrifice, there is an area earlier in the game which can help you for that....

[thyceult]

Ah well,

For Morpanthrax, I happen to think he's kinda cute in his own way, but granted without some way to scare him away in the opposite direction he would be quite the irritating fellow now, wouldn't he?

Oh sorry, I must have gotten that confused with the Thirst For Death, in which case I made the remark for. As for the water of death, I have completely no idea though. I have however sent some worms into the shower for some cleaning and apart from some really fancy fireworks, I have yet to figure out what it does.

Oh? Well, as for the beholders, I think I've played off the attack lag as it is, so there's no problem at all right now. Unless you mean to say that Xanatar has the same abilities, in which case I would be screaming!

Hmmm, if it is indeed possible to collect Gothmog's points and continue playing I'd really like to know how, because I have already reached it and am dumbfounded. Either I just watch it and leave or end it (sigh).

Ah, as for the Dark Councilor... can he be killed through regular hand to hand combat? I am really keen to know this as apparently the path home is blocked up by the fact that he dies on the wrong floor for me, so that pretty much prevents me from trying to even transfer the booty upstairs like you fellows mentioned earlier.

Hmmm, I am not sure if I have correctly transplanted Zyx's save game for my second team (in which he supposedly fixed my pit getting in the way problem) because the same buggy pit that leads to the Clockwork Maze still exists.

Puzzled,
Jesse

[beowuuf]

Thirst For Death:

Spoiler

Zo is now the run for death, if that helps

Dark Councilor:
He is importal as far as I know - how he dies on the wrong level I do not know

[Parallax]

For the Dark councilor dying on the wrong level, it sounds like you might be stuck outside of the normal boundaries of his death. If that is the case, there are a few things you can do to recover:

(I'm spoilering the explanation so I don't have to dance around the issue.)

Spoiler

If you have a saved game before you went to retrieve the powergem, close the pitD in the Dark councilor room. Once you retrieve the gem, get back to the guilds and from there jump in pitD. You should end up back on track.
If that doesn't work (for instance if you can't get back to the guilds, or if you've already left the DC area and can't close that pit anymore) then go to the Moria. You should have the regular stairway to the depths of the Moria open, the pit in that staicase is the "exit" of the Moria that will get you back on the pitD stairs below the councilor level, hence on the right track.
If there is a pit open at the "bottom" of pitD, that way to the stairs of ashes will be blocked, though, then you want to drop in one of the mines pit (26,15), south of the forge, or (28,15), in the long, north-south, stairs-to-stairs hallway. They'll drop you back on the right track since, from there, it's only a short treck to the stairs of ashes where you can finally trigger the final events and get back with the quest.
Another way back to the stairs of ashes is to take just about any "To the giggler goggler room" teleporter. From there, if you've solved that part, you can go back to the stairs of ashes. I mean, that door probably closed on powergem release, but you can kill the grey councilor, retrieve the item that opened it the first time, and drop it on the trigger again. Maybe it will work again and free you.
And iIf that doesn't work, well, screw it, just e-mail your saved game to Zyx. That works just about every time.

[thyceult]

Hmm Parallax and beowuuf,

I think when I am referring to him dying on the wrong level refers to him dying on the level other than the one he normally appears in. It seems that the wall closure past the turqoise door entry into his chambers is caused by the death of the Dark Councilor (aka the dropping of the Powergem). That particular block of wall blocks the exit stairway back into the Chambers of the Councilors.

Spoiler

The real headache here is that if I follow the trail of pits all the way down to wherever it brings me, the only alternatives I have is a really cool room full of vegetation and a pit that apparently leads into an illegal wall cell (as in graphic cell and not prison cell) in the Clockwork Maze. What often happens here according to Zyx is that the pit that drops me into the illegal space in the Clockwork maze isn't supposed to exist (?)

What's worse is that supposing we follow the logic of going down to the Clockwork Maze and working my way backwards from the Tower of Mampang / Elle Draco's lair, I can't seem to go back out past the Ven Cloud passage to the stairway of ashes area and out the giggler side. The wooden door with a metal grill viewhole, for some reason, closes on its own? Effectively that means I can still access the guild endings, with no obvious means to go home to the guild base floor from there! Well, actually there is via Gothmog's end path, but supposing I didn't have Gothmog?

Nevertheless, thanks for the helpful alternatives though.

Argh!
Jesse

P.S.: Oh my god! Beowuuf, the Dark Councilor is immortal? ARRRGGHH, then what the heck have I been doing sleeping and saving over 30 times and attacking him with all sorts of melee attacks for the past 1 hour?! (T_T)

[thyceult]

Oh yes,

On a separate note, can the kind seniors on here explain to me how is it that I install and play the rest of the mods on here? It would be helpful to have some kind of dummy's guide or a link to a thread if there's any. So far, to my knowledge Conflux is probably one of the only few comprehensive mods that I know of that gives a complete experience, right down from the unpacking to the "installation". Thanks for that! Very user friendly.

And before I forget, there's this long overdue kudos and holler out of appreciation for Paul Stevens and his wonderful reengineering of the DM platform. Indeed, without the added features a lot of the new stuff would not have been possible really. Thanks Paul... great work!

I am keen to meet the rest of the wonderful people on here and try out their contributions as well! So help me out here with the installations guys?

Also, I tried downloading the Dungeon Master II original game from the dm.freewebs.fr site (or a link similar to that) and found that I couldn't play the game. It loads up to the splashscreen and then immediately crashes to desktop. Anyone have any idea why this happens or do I need an old-school OS to play it?

Jesse

[beowuuf]

All you really need to do is take the dungeon.dat file, or the dungeon.dat and graphics file, and over-write the original files of a plain Csbwin install.

Paul S even packaged some of the dungeons in a complete bundle in the Games directory of his site

With RTC you simply put the .rtc file in the 'Modules' folder, then select the game from the menu at the start of the game

[money]

hi thyceult,

To get DM2 to work, it's easiest to use the dosbox app - http://www.dosbox.com/ the latest version 0.72 supports DM2 rather well.

You can use the commands to speed up the frame rates etc. depending on your cpu/computer to get the best from the game.

Shout if you run into problems.

[Antman]

This Dark Councillor thing sounds odd, I don't get it. Can't you head up the Stairs of Ashes? The dragon down there is carrying the Onyx key needed to open the door. Or is this buggy pit some where en route from where the Dark Councillor spawns to the bottom of PitD? Like PitD goes down one more level then usual, landing you in the clockwork maze. Therefore this area can't be reached and you are stuck. And I'm assuming Zyx fixed those 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d bugs so can't get the gem out any other way?

Of course if you are truly stuck then you can just get the powergem from Halk's ending and use that and forget the Dark Councillor, Halk's gem isn't needed for anything special.

Also, if 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d have all be fixed, I don't see how you can get the 10 points for this ending and be able to carry on with the game as everything becomes sealed off and doesn't reopen? Assuming you don't use Halk's gem that is.

I also think that door that closes near the Ven room is due to you having the powergem in your inventory, so you could try throwing the gem as much as possible while traveling around in the hopes that it is thrown over the square that sets the door off. I would try throwing it from 08,00,00 all the way to 08,25,00.

Also, have you done most of Moria, including opening up the moonstone wall? Because then Moria can be reached from the clockwork maze very easily, but it must be opened from the Moria side first. You can check level 13 on the Wiki to see what I'm talking about, it also contains the bottom of PitD.

Another long shot is to to throw it in the cartographer's guild through the portcullis, after setting it off so a gigglers picks it up and then gets teleported randomly to any of level 02, 03, 04, 05 or 06 where you then find and kill him and take the gem. The guild's location is also seen on the level 13 map in the Dragon area.

As well as escaping through Gothmog's ending, you can also escape through Halk's.

[Parallax]

Spoiler

OK, first of all, the Dark Councilor is not dying on the wrong level. Dropping him down pitD is the way to go. When that happens, a bunch of barriers are put in place to prevent you from running around with the powergem and completely unbalancing the game.
(Note to Zyx: looks like there's still a leak, though )
What you are supposed to do, normally, is kill the stone dragon there and, with the Onyx key, open the way back up through the stairs of ashes. Now, if you have collected that Onyx key before and not used it on the door, but it's not in your current possession, erm... you'd normally be kind of screwed. The exit to the guilds in the maze of thieves might still be there in this version, but since I signaled it to Zyx as an escape route previously he might have closed it, so that one's a longshot.
Anyways, it seems you have found a pit that leads to the clockwork maze, so even if you cannot access the stairs of ashes (which is really where you should be going if you can at all) you're back in business.
You say you can access the guild endings, so you can also get to the tower of Mampang. Near the end of it is a teleporter to the guilds. Also, you are right that Gothmog's ending offers a way back to the guilds, so you do have multiple options there. And once you're back in the Guilds it should be a breeze to get back to the proper part of the crypt if you drop down the correct pit in the mine, see my previous post.
If this is not doable, please explain carefully what the problems are and maybe we can find you an alternate route. I have accumulated a lot of experience bypassing Zyx's blockades (there used to be more of them) and I'm not the only one. If it can be done, someone will know how.
One last thing is, once you use the powergem where it's supposed to go, all the blockades will be removed, so don't fret about getting around the dungeon in the long run.

[Zyx]

Grrr, I did blocked all the ways to bypass the powergem route, but it seems that just before saving the dungeon I accidentally, unknowingly clicked on the floor, putting an open pit and sabotaging my own efforts!

I fixed it for next version and in thyceult's savegame.
I'll try to hurry a little the next release, but there's quite some work.

[thyceult]

Oh my,

Seems that my post has indeed caused a rash of replies to happen. So sorry for redirecting the focus here. On the simpler subject of following instructions on installing the other mods, I'll follow them diligently as per money's instructions! Thanks money! And aye, let's not forget beowuuf's contribution on this one as well!

Looks like I will need tons of lessons before I become as good as any of you guys, much less attempt the construction of my own dungeon (if ever?)

Now on the subject of escaping the Dark Councilor situation, you're spot on, Antman and Parallax. There are indeed ways to get out of this fix but the thing being that I sort of want to get out of it in a "neat and clean" fashion, if you get my drift?

Yeah, sorry to have to drag you all over fixing potholes on the floor when you should actually be resting up from your fever bro!

On that note, I wanted to point out that the special exit back to the guild entry hall via Gothmog's end quest is well... kinda sacrificial in nature. Allow me to explain myself here: You see what happened here is that I realized I was dumping a lot of, ho hrm... hold up. Spoiler time!

Spoiler

Okay, back on the subject of the exit from Gothmog's to the guild entry hall. There's a portal that connects both ends, am I correct?

On the guild floor end, I dumped tons and tons of snapdragons by the water fountain as a storage/loot spot. When I activated Gothmog's exit to topside, what happened was all of my hard piled snapdragons got moved into Gothmog's end sequence! In fact, is it me or is it supposed to block up future access to one of the few sources of clean, convenient water?

The presence of the portal on the square containing the water fountain seems to be permanent from my brief observation, and because of that I can never reach the water anymore!

Jesse