Differences in DM

[Ameena]

Okay, the following things aren't bugs with RTC but with DM Original...I just wasn't sure where to put them They are things which are different from when I used to play it on the Atari and I consider them to be quite noticeable...just thought I should point them out. Btw if any of these have been addressed before, please forgive me as this is my second post to these forums and I haven't exactly read every message dating back to the beginning of time
Okay, firstly...monsters don't seem to go round in groups any more...I seem to recall reading on some site somewhere recently that this was a change made, but if intended to be true to the original than this is wrong...is there a reason monster groupings were turned off? Just curious...it's also quite good fun to shut a group of four in a door, hehe
Next, Thieves - they could previously only steal items out of a character's left hand, but now they can steal from both...as I still have my ancient hint book from the olden days when I played on the Atari, I thought I had prepared myself when I entered level 8 (I think that's the first place with Thieves) by removig all shields etc from my characters hands, only to have one of the little gits steal my weapon moments later
Some monsters seem tougher than I remember them...I'm sure that Munchers (CSB) only used to take a single, Lo Fireball to kill, yet some I've met will take a couple of Um level Fireballs!
Back to DM...a fall through a pit, as I understand, is supposed to kill ANY mob, yet on level 12, when I dropped a Knight down a pit (the one carrying the Emerald Key, I believe), I climbed down with my lovely rope to discover that he was wandering around, and from the amount of time it then took for me to kill him, it didn't seem like he'd taken much, if any damage at all
Next...the Screamer room (level 4) and the Rat room (level 9)...their respective monsters seem to respawn VERY slowly...I emptied the Screamer room really fast (just nuked them with a few Mon Fireballs, muahahahhaha), looted all the food, went away, came back quite some time later, and found only one or two Screamers in there (there were probably about eight or so in there to begin with). With the Rat room, there would only be about two or three Giant Rats in there to start with, and they never really increased beyond this amount no matter how long I left it before returning...back on the Atari, I'm sure that both rooms respawned quicker than that and produced a population by far big enough to cover every square. For example, I think one time my dad forgot to close the door of the Screamer room, and when he returned some time later he found that level 4 was a bit...er...crowded.
And another issue of monster spawnings, this time where they spawn too much...on a few occasions I would empty an area only to have monsters constantly reappearing there...the only points where multiple creatures respawn are the Screamer room, Giant Rat room, and (I think) Spider room (level 12). Yet there was one point on level 4 where I entered a small room (through a button door), killed the resident Worms, exited the room (through another button door), continued onward a few steps and then turned to flee the Rock Monsters waiting for me, only to find that I had Screamers nibbling my toes from within the room I had just emptied! My dad started a game of DM last night and encountered exactly the same problem. Another point, similar to this, is on (I think) level 6, where there are Beholders and Skeletons...there is an area in the northeast corner in which you have to push a button to open one secret wall, go there, get whatever the treasure is, and also push the button to open the secret wall by where you pushed the first button. Something like that. Anyway, there are a few Skelletons and Beholders wandering around this area. Not a problem...sure, a few Skellies I can handle without much problem...Beholders can nuke me easily if given the chance but a quick one-two of Fireballs takes them out not much trouble. However, after killing a few Skellies, followed by a few more...and a few more...and a bunch more of their friends (etc etc), it seemed that there was an endless supply emanating from around the corner, since on looking at the map there was no way that many Skellies would fit onto that many squares...in the end I decided to just do a save and leg it to the button, which worked, fortunately, but it was nevertheless a bit dodgy having an apparently endless supply of them...I believe a similar thing happened on level 12 just past the Spider room (which I accidentally opened by pushing Forward instead of Turn Right or something, and two or three of the buggers seemed to respawn every time I steped back on the plate, but I think that's meant to happen), down the corridor in the room before the corridor with the stairs, in which there are a few Spell Vines. Before I even reached this room I'd be assailed by a Spell Vine, kill it, and proceed only to bump into one or two more...I'm sure there were more than was meant to be. In the end I just legged it, had my Wizzy die, killed myself, reloaded, legged it again, and made it through
Okay, what else...? Oh yeah - when my dad started his game last night, he selected Sonja She-Devil as one of his characters. She starts with a maximum mana of only two, so therefore can cast a Lo, but no other symbol even if at full mana. Previously, it was possible to increase magic skills by simply casting ANY symbol(s), even if simply a Power rune and nothing else, or any kind of meaningless spell (I can supply a quote from the hint book if you don't believe me on this). However, after trying many many times at simply casting a Lo rune whenever mana permitted, there were no skill gains in either Wizard or Priest class (not sure which of the two these castings would effect, but surely an increase in either should increase mana total).

Yes, that is a lot of apparent bugs, and it seems like I'm nitpicking the game, but...well, possibly I am but I find them very noticeable when playing. Yes, I know that they are mostly trivial things which don't impede on gameplay to any massive extent, but I just felt I should mention them, especially the one about respawning mobs (that also happened when I was trying to get back to the Screamer room from about level 12 or something, and there was a corridor full of Beholders when I got to level 6 )...dunno if it's happened to anyone else, but it's happened to me.
Now, either it'll turn out these have been mentioned before, or I will get severely moaned at for being so complainy (look, I made up a new word ). But either way, please don't moan at me too much. No matter what I post, e-mail, forum, whatever, it always turns out to be hugely long, no matter how concise I try to be...it's details with extra waffle thrown in, I suppose ...
Well, if you have read this far, thank you for staying with it anyway...if I find any more little buggy things that seem wrong, I'll post them here if you haven't group-voted to hunt down my Ezboard ID and permanently ban me from spamming you out (but please don't as I won't be able to access my EQ forum) eer

[beowuuf]

Quick answers -

1) monster groups, yup, fresh idea for RTC, i think it works : )
2) Gigglers always stole from both hands, whih made them annoying - you can test this with CSB4Windows, as its based on atari code. DMJava is worse - the thieves can steal anything!
3) Respawn depends on pressing floor switches, not timing...timing affects how quickly these floor switches can work again. Perhaps in your previous games back in the day you were walking around more...
4) The spawning thing might be bad timings, might be the fact you are dealing with singles not groups now...
5) The casting of spells that are meaningless - i don't recall it EVER giving experience. Failed spells, yes, but not wrong spells. The best person that can solve this and how it related to hint book info/early versions is probably Gambit, but even if it was the case, i don't think wrong spells should give experience.

Don't worry - the fact is that you have missed 24 rounds of these self-same mentions, and all bugs get put into the archive. You would definiely be quite dillegent to have gone through all of them first! People might still feel the same, or might have gotten used to some of these elements is all. For example the spawn I haven't noticed as being bad.

Hope those replies help - if anything is still bugging you stick it in a smaller post and see if anyone wants to debate : ) (though 24 versions of debates is alot!)

[Lunever]

More confidence, Ameena! Posting is, what a message board is made for, isn't it? You're welcome.
Of course many of what you perceive as bugs was addressed before, but you would have been busy for quite a while when reading through all archived posts from V0.1 to V0.24.
As to the difference between O-DM and RTC-DM: The only difference George seems to intend here is to play with (RTC) or without (O) spellbook. There were earlier threads about that a considerable time before.
It is however still my opinion too, that there should be more than that: Original-DM-mode should be indeed as close to the original FTL-DM as possible, in every respect. But of course I realize, that this would be a considerable effort, so in the end this will be of course George's decision alone.
You are mistaken about the monster generators: As Beowuuf already pointed out, they do have timers, but these are only to determine, after how long a time period they can be triggered again. The trigger is always some outside event, usually a floorpad. This was always the case, even in the original FTL-DM. So the spawning behavior is determined by how often you step on a trigger. Since you don't seem to know, where the triggers are, have a look at <a href="http://dmweb.free.fr">dmweb.free.fr</a> . In the maps on that site all triggers are visible. If you want to have precise information about the generator timers in addition, have a look at <a href="http://pub50.ezboard.com/freturntochaos ... 3.topic</a> (You'll notice it's fixed for V 0.25, which is not yet available).
Monsters are tougher when you play at a higher level of overall difficulty (which is a unique feature of the RTC program and was not available in FTL-DM), but some monsters like munchers are indeed too strong compared to FTL even at zero difficulty, I hope George will fix that one day.
The topic of monsters surviving trap doors was discussed before, and there was at least some amount of agreement, that it is ok the way it is now, as long as falling monsters get damaged when falling, and I think they get (although probably only George knows how much so; it might be, that this damage should be increased).
I like independent monsters, they are more challenging, but I would like to see them take on group formation from time to time, so they'd have a broader range of behavior, also they could use space more efficient. As to the difference to that compared to Original DM, see above.
Spell casting: I don't think that casting just a power symbol ever worked, but I'm not sure about it. There might have been some change not necessarily from FTL to RTC, but maybe from one DM version to another. Maybe Gambit knows. But it's a good idea, for I think, it does make sense, gaining a tiny amount of (wizard?) experience by dabbling into the most basic patterns of spell-casting magic. Back those days I played FTL-DM on Amiga I remember training Stamm by giving him Tiggy's wand and choosing Lo, regenerating, choosing Ya and casting a low Ma-Potion into Wuuf's flask. But even that doesn't seem to be possible know, so there must have been some change to that at some point also, but from what game/version to what other game/version I don't know. Or did I cast indeed Lo only 'till I got the first Level? I don't remember, but I' sure about training Stamm long before getting the theowand (playing Hissssa/Stamm/Wuuf/Tiggy back then. Nowadays I prefer Halk to Stamm), which I missed at my early stage of gaming anyway. Gambit? Your opinion?
So, that's it for now.
<p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

[Ameena]

Well, I'm pretty sure that about casting a meaningless spell works for levels, since I'm sure Sonja was a popular choice of mine and my dad's back on the Atari, and since she only has two spell points to start with, we must have had some way to increase her mana. I'm sure I never noticed that items such as Wands or Moonstones increase mana till I read it on the hint book I printed out from the encyclopaedia site, therefore we must have done it some other way, and since we heavily used the hint book (which specifically states that the casting of ANY symbols can increase skill), we must have therefore used that method.
Anyway, I want to mention again the point on Thieves - they could DEFINITELY, in the version I played (dunno if there were multiple Atari versions but it was an Atari game I played) only steal from the left hand - too well do I remember remembering to remove all the shields etc from peoples hands before descending to levels which contained Thieves...so perhaps that was a difference in versions of the game...?
As for spawns being dependent on stepping on invisible (and silent) thingys on the floor...well, that is possible, but I'm sure I don't remember meeting that many of a certain type of monster at any time (back in the olden days, that is), although it was a long time ago...anyway, in the incident I had with the Skellies on level 6(?), I was generally fighitng them from one spot - they weren't hard to kill, and I was taking them down quite fast, yet still they were emanating from around the corner...weird. And yes, I hadn't thought that it might be possible due to the fact they can't group any more (something I kind of miss, but I'm sure it's a complicated load of programming to go through to change something like that...or perhaps it could be made so that monster grouping is an option in the config file...?), but I'm certain that there's no way that many Skellies could fit on that many squares...I wasn't counting kills, however, yet I reckon I dealt with more than 30.
I would love for DMO to be as close to the original DM as possible, yet as you said, it must be a load of hard work for poor old George to get it down to the precise little pixel or whatever...I'm pretty chuffed that I'm actually able to play DM once again after all this time...sadly, the Atari still works, but the DM disk buggered up years ago
Oh well...I have maor thankies anyway for George for actually sticking this thing together so people like us can play it again (heh I feel so old...).

[Lubor Kolar]

About monster killed when falled down the pit - original DM/CSB had a limitation of number of monster species per level. It was IMHO because limited color palette (16 colors) and different levels used different palettes. So if moster appeared on the level it wasn't allowed to appear, it was imediatelly killed.
RTC is not limited in that was so I believe monster is only hurt.

[Gambit37]

Yes, you're correct, although there are two main reasons why monsters are killed in the original DM and CSB: one is the palette issue and the other is the overhead of processing too many monsters/monster types, which is why FTL set limits on monster types per level.

In RTC it would be possible to re-introduce this behaviour by using a damage tile below a pit that only inflicts damage on monsters -- is that possible george?

[George Gilbert]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In RTC it would be possible to re-introduce this behaviour by using a damage tile below a pit that only inflicts damage on monsters -- is that possible george? <hr></blockquote>

Sort of. If you did that, then any monster who was already on the lower level and walked under the pit would also get damaged, so even that wouldn't be quite right.By having a series of triggers around the pit though you could probably come up with something that worked!

To answer the general points though, as several people have pointed out DM was limited (by memory and colours) to have only certain monsters on certain levels. RTC doesn't have that restriction (i.e. you can have any number and type of monsters on as many levels as you want) and so there is no need to destroy them when they fall down a pit.

I can't remember the exact figure I put in off hand, but both the party and monster suffer about the same amount of damage when falling down pits, and that damage is both cumulative (fall down lots of pits in a row and there'll be more damage than just falling down 1 level) and dependent on weight. So a big monster or heavily laden party will suffer more damage than a little / light one. Sometimes that's enough to destroy the monster, sometimes it won't. Although this isn't the same as DM, I think it's better this wayand so why it is as it is - please feel free to disagree though

[George Gilbert]

I believe that these are all now fixed or working as designed.