Not Just A Game

[Trantor]

I guess that's true Paul. Actually, I am not even sure if it is possible to visit every place in the dungeon in one single game. Still, I'd prefer to start over and visit other places in a new game, but people are different.

[andyp3001]

What is the "alternate ending" in CSBwin? I know of the alternate ending in the original DM by going back to the beginning with the firestaff. Then getting toasted.

[Paul Stevens]

The engine forces you to collect EVERY item
in the game and put it in a single room. You must
also kill EVERY monster. So you have to arrange
that no monsters are generated after you kill
the last one. But talk about seeing the entire
dungeon.....this does it.

There is one way that you can proceed that
will cause a dead end. On the DDD level you
must open a wooden door first---before falling
into a pit. Otherwise, you can never open the door
and there may be an item behind it. Anybody know
any other way to make the game impossible to
finish?

[Erik Bauer]

Whew! Reading this thread brings me some strong emotions.
I'm 34 now and I played DM for the first time in '89 when I was 15.
Right now it still is my favourite game.

It had 3 major effects on my life:

1) It bound me to roleplaying: since DM experience I've looked more and more for RPG until I managed to find somebody to play with. One of these people is right now my wife. Also, RPGing changed my life from a lonely Amiga nerd to a more social person.

2)After finishing DM I also played to end CSB, Black Crypt, EoB I and II, played more than half Crystal Dragon. That gave to me some accustomization with closedoor environment in which I can't manage to get lost, no matter how intricated they are (true for both gaming and real life environments).

3)I still have recurring dreams about DM, that is how much deeply DM experience is rooted in my mind and life.

[andyp3001]

The engine forces you to collect EVERY item
in the game and put it in a single room. You must
also kill EVERY monster. So you have to arrange
that no monsters are generated after you kill
the last one. But talk about seeing the entire
dungeon.....this does it.

There is one way that you can proceed that
will cause a dead end. On the DDD level you
must open a wooden door first---before falling
into a pit. Otherwise, you can never open the door
and there may be an item behind it. Anybody know
any other way to make the game impossible to
finish?

Something I forgot about from a post some months back. Exactly what happens at/in the CSB alternate ending?

[Gambit37]

There is no alternate ending in CSB. The 'collect all items' quest is a CSBWin specific feature and has no real purpose other than providing a unique challenge for hardcore players.

[Paul Stevens]

Exactly what happens at/in the CSB alternate ending

The player gets a well-deserved rest. If you provide
a movie with annotations, I will send you a medal.

[zoom]

with csbwin there comes the feature to see where the items are
currently in game located.. don't know whether this helps..

[iUSTINE]

Beatiful stories.

I guess I can relate to most things said by you all. I just hit 30, first time I played DM was somewhere around 1989 I believe.

It was a life changing experience for me aswell I guess, though I didn't meet my wife because of it, nor any of my good friends ever played it, hehe. It hooked me totally into rpg games, both computer and paper ones, fantasy and scifi literature and all that kind of stuff. But it also had much harder to describe influence on me.

DM was like the good expriences enlarger for me. All the people I met that time, all the good things happend to me, all I done etc etc, it was all enlarged and intensified through all these kind of emotions and amosphere DM can deliver. And DM was giving additional flavour to it, like letting me breath to a real maximum. Weird, it's really hard to use the proper words to describe the feeling I guess. But anyway.

Today I percieve DM as a psychological game, metaphorical journey inside your own soul, personality. You are becoming a dungeon master, your life can be such a dungeon. And we ourselves perhaps are these dungeons too, so it's like a descent into your self. Most of us played this game when we were pretty young, when personality started to develop very intesively, so in many cases DM related experiences rooted into very bottom of personality structures. But I guess it was a good thing. So, what did it give me ? I call it increased sensivity, both in emotion and mental perspective. And perhaps, just perhaps, enabled the will and need for the self control in my life. Oh well

I also think that FTL people, to these days, don't really realise what masterpiece they created from psychological perspective. I am pretty sure people will play it even in 50 years time from now on, experiencing the same emotions and links to their own self.

Amazing, amazing game.

EDIT: OK, they know + spelling + few more thoughts

[Gambit37]

Hey, welcome back Justine

I think that FTL people, to these days, don't really know what masterpiece they created from psychological perspective.

Oh, they know!

[Zyx]

Hello iUSTINE, I have similar feelings about DM being a psychological game.

[MasterWuuf]

I believe I was 31 the first time I played DM. It consumed me for awhile.
I went to a lot of trouble to get a copy, when I found out it had been made available for the PC.

I remember how irritated I always became, trying to figure how to use control buttons, or even keyboards, when trying out any other game.
(I was trapped in DM mode ).