Dungeon Master Forum

lord soth 75 wrote:One of you custom dungeon designer supremo's should make CSB 2.

'Chaos strikes back..Again'
'Chaos strikes back with a vengeance'

The list of titles for such a sequel is probably infinite.

Or indeed: "Return to Chaos"

Jan wrote: But this applies to CSBWin only whereas LS plays it under RTC.

@Jan
Iv got RTC,DSB,and CSBwin now installed on my laptop.
Im going to play CSB again using CSBwin.

My games consoles haven't been switched on for the best part of a month.All iv played the last few weeks is DM.
Its a testament to how brilliant this game is,even after all of these years.

Re- Custom dungeon building
Im going to have a crack at it.I already designed 4 dungeon levels on graph paper...I now need to play around with and understand how the editing tool works.

Iv got a cool idea for a 2 choice dungeon called "Rags or riches"
One path will be paved with gold.The other will be paved with hardship.The 2 paths will eventually interlink,but the choices made during the early stages will determine how easy the finale is.
The moral of the dungeon will be loosely based on the 7 circles of hell by Dante Alighieri.Self or selflessness.Gluttony,greed. ect

Wow, Dante Alighieri, that sounds brilliant! Have you already decided what engine to use?

Jan wrote:Have you already decided what engine to use?

No.Not yet.
It depends which one is the easiest to get to grips with.

They all have their quirks, charms, drawbacks and strengths.

RTC uses simple blocks to build stuff, and you know the how the engine performs. Complex mechanics are harder, but you can have new graphics.
CSBwin has a pseudo code language to play with for complex things, and the original DM mechanics and objects are around for normal dungeons, however you will have a learning curve to realise what's under the hood of DM/CSB (and how the psuedo code works). New graphics are harder to put in, and need to be under the original 256 colour limitations.
DSB is made completely from lua scripting, so should be the most flexible but at the cost of working out the language.

There's also DM Java, but you already have three engines to contend with, so I won't muddy the waters further!

Beginners should use RTC. It has the easiest and most intuitive editor in my opinion. If you're more advanced, go with DSB.

I had a look at the thread about 'Conflux' earlier,and that dungeon looks very interesting.

Im pondering which custom dungeon to try next.
I don't particularly want to play any custom dungeon that has outdoor locations,and mixes DM and DM2 wallsets/monsters.
Im of a firm belief that DM games should take place solely in a dungeon.

As far as I'm aware, Conflux is entirely dungeon-based and I think it uses the original wallset throughout, though there are plenty of new monsters to meet and interesting-looking features like pillars and stuff .

Ameena wrote:As far as I'm aware, Conflux is entirely dungeon-based and I think it uses the original wallset throughout, though there are plenty of new monsters to meet and interesting-looking features like pillars and stuff .

I'v just discovered a DM Wikipedia,and iv had a look at the extensive collection of monsters that inhabit the Conflux dungeon.
Wow!!!
Some of those critters are superb.

My mind is made up. Im playing Conflux next.

Hehe, good luck . It's probably one of the most notorious of all the custom dungeons. I had a few goes at it myself but never got too far. Then again I was sort of only messing around. I know there's something like eight different endings for it, though, so there's certainly plenty of replayability in it.

Conflux is in an 'undercity', so yes, is pretty much dungeons. There are many wallsets though (CSBwin is that powerful), and some decorations too that make areas stand out from each other. Good lucj with conflux! Pay attention to the hint file, especially regarding the changed runes, and don't get disheartened at first. You survived CSB, so you should be able to scramble around and map things out and master the basics and conquer the early stages of conflux! Then it's all fun and wondering what surprises zyx has in store from the dungeon or the engine next


Also, for the firts run through, don't be afraid to just take the four guides and fill the party with them right off the bat.

Ameena wrote:Hehe, good luck . It's probably one of the most notorious of all the custom dungeons. I had a few goes at it myself but never got too far. Then again I was sort of only messing around. I know there's something like eight different endings for it, though, so there's certainly plenty of replayability in it.

Would be nice if there was a custom dungeon that allowed the importation of CSB champions.

CSB proved that a powerful party of starting characters meant very little.

^I would have loved that feature as well. To take the kick-ass champions who beat Chaos twice, and then throw them into a tough dungeon. Having Archmaster wizards blowing everything away could be impressive.

In RTC, any dungeon that allows import allows previous characters to be importaed back. So you could use your CSB characters to replay CSB or play DM. However, RTC's engine scales the dungeon difficulty to suit.

beowuuf wrote:In RTC, any dungeon that allows import allows previous characters to be importaed back. So you could use your CSB characters to replay CSB or play DM. However, RTC's engine scales the dungeon difficulty to suit.

Im just confused as to why nobody has created a custom dungeon that is solely for 'Double champions'. (DM/CSB Conquerers)

The game is fiendish enough to challenge a party of Epic Level characters..if its designed properly.
Maybe..the game could start with you controlling just 1 of your CSB champions,and you have to 'rescue' the other 3 by going on a ball breaking quest that would test the high level champion to his/her limit.
After you have rescued the other 3 members...the game proper would begin.
An absolute hell hole of a dungeon filled with high HP monsters,and near insta-death traps ect.

An absolute hell hole of a dungeon filled with high HP monsters,and near insta-death traps ect.

In other words, pretty much as you described DM and CSB.

A couple of minor corrections.

beowuuf wrote:CSBwin has a pseudo code language to play with for complex things, and the original DM mechanics and objects are around for normal dungeons, however you will have a learning curve to realise what's under the hood of DM/CSB (and how the psuedo code works). New graphics are harder to put in, and need to be under the original 256 colour limitations.

The DSA language is not anything resembling "pseudocode" in the usual sense, that is, code that looks more like English to give an idea of what a program does without bothering with gritty implementation details. The DSA language is very low-level and has lots of gritty implementation details.

Also, the color limit is 16 colors, not 256.

beowuuf wrote:DSB is made completely from lua scripting, so should be the most flexible but at the cost of working out the language.

I'll take a moment to promote DSB also.

While this statement is generally true, the DSB editor has quite a few "building block" type objects available, and it's possible to make some pretty sophisticated mechanics in DSB without writing any code at all. This is particularly true for a dungeon designer who doesn't want to use custom graphics.

lord soth 75 wrote:Im just confused as to why nobody has created a custom dungeon that is solely for 'Double champions'. (DM/CSB Conquerers)

The game is fiendish enough to challenge a party of Epic Level characters..if its designed properly.

(...)

An absolute hell hole of a dungeon filled with high HP monsters,and near insta-death traps ect.

I don't think that it's the best way for development of new custom dungeons. It would only lead to an "inflation" of hit points and mana points. The difficulty of fights should correspond to the abilities of the champions, so you should have stronger enemies for better champions and weaker enemies for worse champions, but both should be of similar "difficulty", i.e. ratio 'abilities of champions / strength of enemies' should be basically kept more or less constant / balanced.

@Sophia: You're right, that's the wrong words. Not sure how to describe CSBwin's scripting though, since it's more just the language of telling the actuators what to do, or interrupting messages at its heart, rather than what someone would thing of as a scripting language. Still, if you cna have 'go' and 'for' loops and store variables and make pretty much anything you want to happen happen, it's a scripting language!


@Lord soth: Keep playing conflux. You start out with weak champions, and need to fight through to get them stronger. However, the dungeon has enough nooks and crannies and places to go that you can expand them to pwoerful champions and then have the fun of taking powerful champions through some interesting enemies with tricks.

Noraml DM games, as Jan says, use positional or numerical aspects to give a challenge for players. Having too powerful a set of characters means the challenge goes unless you up the numbers, in which case you may as well have just introduced fresh characters and added challenge that way (as Zed does, with weak characters). It's cool to keep having powerful characters, but at some poitn they should retire.

That's not to say there aren't . Or as I said, RTC would let you import your characters right back in to DM and CSB with increased dificulty - especally in CSB that might give you a challenge! I know there wsda diablo-style custom dungeon somewhere, but I forget if it wasRTC, what version, and if it allowed import I'm afraid!

Im just trying to imagine a RTC version of the DSB 'Chaos hack' random dungeon generator.


Geeees. That WOULD be freakin hard.
A level full of spell casters that can kill your character with 1 Fireball/Lightning bolt/poison bolt ect

beowuuf wrote:In RTC, any dungeon that allows import allows previous characters to be importaed back. So you could use your CSB characters to replay CSB or play DM. However, RTC's engine scales the dungeon difficulty to suit.

I actually never used RTC, despite downloading it a while ago. Maybe I should give it a go - I was planning Trantor's dungeon and ToC.

Although perhaps I should replay CSB on RTC, and then throw them into the further custom adventures.