Dungeon Master Forum

category: bug AND difference to dm
type: puzzle functionality

Description of problem: In the original DM dungeon, picking up diamond edge launched two sets of poison clouds (not sure which ones). Stepping back through the corridor launched each next set but ONLY if you were still carrying Diamond Edge - if you threw it down the corridor, poison didn't launch.

Also, If you WERE still carrying it, you could activate the next tile and the next poison cloud, but then step back onto a safe square to wait for the poison to disappear. You can't do this in RTC as the pads continually activate.

In RTC throwing the sword (or indeed any item) down the corridor triggers all the pads. This is a common problem that has existed since version 0.00 I believe.

Yes, this is by design. I've done this so that pads activate which activate from a single object do so when it is flying over rather than just in backpack or hand.

This also means that you can't take the completed firestaff back out of the dungeon (as you could in DM). I believe that DMs behaviour is a bug so I fixed it (after all it doesn't make sense if a pad should activate when an object is in your backpack, but not if it's just flying over).

Well... I don't agree with this, even if DM didn't make sense with it's implementation.

Pads are supposed to be pressure sensitive. If they activate when an object is being thrown over them (as you've implemented in RTC) then this suggests they are motion and object sensors - which is kind of out of context with the medieavel world that DM is set in. Yes, I really am that picky!

I agree that the 'object in a backpack' is a bit silly, but I don't think it was ever a bug in DM; I think it was the only logical way they could implement the 'have you got this object' type of puzzle without having all sorts of extra conditions.

Incidentally, the Diamond Edge puzzle is further flawed: The launchers activate when you pick up the sword, but also when you put it back in the alcove, when you place it on the floor, when you pick it up from the floor, and when you throw it down the corridor. I don't think that is logical, and it's certainly not fair! If the pads are supposed to activate, as you say, when the object is on or over them, then why do they activate when the object is picked up again? It certainly wiped my party out almost immediately and then crashed the game as there were simply too many poison clouds on screen...

I still think pads in RTC are implemented in a strange fashion... and if this functionality remains, some effects can't be re-created as they were meant to be. If the pads had bugs in them in DM, this would have been picked up in the earliest versions of the game and corrected in later ports, surely? The fact that all versions behave this way suggests it's not a flaw.

If you think about it a pressure pad that can detect an item in your backpack doesn't make sense either, so you've got to assume some mystical ju-ju here : )

As for a gameplay/designing point of view...i'd like to have the option of only pressure sensitive/objects in backpack detecting pads, rather than as a default it can detect flying items, jsut because it's nice to have that avoidance option, plus it does jarr. Though this does make sense for certain things...i hate to have to think in a dungeon design about the throwing option and how to stop people using it to get passed a trap, so i'd like to keep this flying option around alot too : )

Me, sitting on fence.... except I'll say yes, i don't like it used for the diamond edge puzzle. You can't throw it to safety too much anyway, because of the zig zag, and i think that was why that was included in the dungeon design.

Modified for V0.08 - it still triggers when the diamond edge flies over it, but only once.