Dungeon Master Forum

I converted an old dungeon of mine, Conflux.dat to big endian, in order to edit it with CSBuild and play it with CSBwin. Conflux has a lot of "errors" (it used a lot of cloning techniques), however some behaviors in CSBwin is worth mentioning.


1) I downloaded CSBwinexe951a, replaced a working CSBwinexe92 with this new version: it loads the graphics, show the menu where I choose "dungeon", the I see the entrance of the dungeon, I click on "PRISON", the doors open, and the I get: system error 50. Can't find dungeon.dat.
The dungeon.dat is in the same directory than CSBwin. Besides, with CSBwin92 it worked perfectly.
I tried with the DM graphics and the CSB graphics.

2) Also, curiously, this personal dungeon (Conflux) works with the Dm graphics but doesn't work with the CSB graphics.

3) I tried CSBwin92 with the DM graphics. However, there is a bug, I think: a torch, when put on the floor, is displayed like a staff.

4) I don't know if it's on purpose or because you forgot the problem, but when you reincarnate, stats are divided by two. This may be correct in CSB, but not in DM. Since CSBwin has been expanded to read many formats, there should have an option box to choose between DM mechanics and CSB mechanics.

Also, these are just details, but...
5) Could CSBwin start centered on the screen?

6) When I use the "Item remaining" option on a personal dungeon (Conflux), it crashes. This has absolutely no importance for me, it may have for you, so I'm just mentionning it.

7) Now don't get mad at me if I ask again why there is no fullscreen. I do not understand the difficulty of hiding the menus and windows borders, setting the background color to black and centering the image. Correct me if I my understanding of the implementation is wrong.
I do feel uncomfortable about the windowed game, because it throws me out of the ambiance. I need a coherent emission of stimuli to believe in a given atmosphere. If there are outgame menus (file, misc, speed, help), title, icons, borders, colors (the white background), buttons (maximize, minimize and close) then even in a maximized window the game loses its immersiveness. I hope I am not alone feeling this.
Sorry for the argumentation, I don't want to pressure you. I would like however to know your point of view about it.

1) Can you get me a copy of this 'Conflux' dungeon?

2) What doesn't work? In what way?

3) See 1)

4) That is the way CSB is. Should I add an option in
the 'Misc' menu to say 'Dungeon Master Rules'? If I
do this then there is the possibility of cheating when
competing in the various competitions. Moreover, I
don't know the DM rules because I have not taken apart
the DM runtime executable. I want to leave it alone.
What do others think?

5) You can specify on the command line where to put
the window.

6) See 1).

4) The only DM rule i know is the divide by 2 stats. Since competitions require the recording, and sicne you can't play a whole game without goign into your inventory, and thus revealing you stats as being too high, i don't think anyone would be able to cheat like this.

OK...I see where the stats are divided by two. Encountered
it when I fixed the 'Looting the Dead' problem. I will add
an option on the 'Misc' menu.

Hello, :)

I think it's a good idea if the player can choose between DM or CSB rules for reincarnation.

Hmm... but in fact, I think there is another rule that make a difference between reincarnating a champion in DM or in CSB...

Well, in CSB, health, stamina and mana are divided by 2, and strength, dexterity, wisdom, and so on, are lowered.

In DM, health, stamina and mana stay the same when reincarnating, but strength, dexterity, wisdom, and so on, are increased, in a range that seems to vary from +0 to +5 for each stat, with a total that seems to vary from +8 to +12 bonus points.

-----------------------------------------------
Here is an example with Iaido, in DM (Atari version) :

normal stats (strength, dexterity, wisdom...) :
43 55 40 35 45 50

stats after some reincarnations :
44 57 42 36 45 54 (+1+2+2+1+0+4, +10 bonus points in total)
45 55 40 36 50 51 (+2+0+0+1+5+1, +9 bonus points in total)
45 56 42 37 45 51 (+2+1+2+2+0+1, +8 bonus points)
45 59 40 36 49 51 (+2+4+0+1+4+1, +12 bonus points)
-----------------------------------------------

I did notice that while playing, I don't know how it works exactly, but I hope it will help you a little bit.

- Charlatan75 -

Almost all the adjustments are of the form

base + Random(n)

or

base + Random(n)==0 ? Random(m)

or a combination thereof.

Your table does not remind me of these. So I
will put in

Base + Random(5)

As you were......an investigation shows that this adjustment
is a part of CSB. It operates as follows:

12 points are added to each character's attributes.
Each point is individually allocated to one of the
seven attributes.

The reason you do not see all 12 in your table is
that you did not list 'Luck'. And the absence of
any '3's must be a coincidence.
==============================
Now it seems that CSB decreases the seven
attributes before applying the increases. As in:

minimum_attribute_value = 30 (10 for Luck)
attribute = max(attribute - attribute/8, minimum_attribute_value)

So I will skip the decreases in DM rules and proceed to
apply the increases as they already are.