RTC V0.39 Dungeon Master II Demo

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 8:04 pm

Yes, there is Amiga and PC grafix. Copperman sent me both extracted, so they are available and George can take the ones that better suit his project. I suppose that George got both ages ago, and if not he'd just need to ask and probably everybody in this forum who has them would mail them to him.

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 8:34 pm

I presume the sounds are different as well (purely because they were for DM / CSB).

If so, if someone has managed to extract the Amiga sounds then please do send them to me because I only have the PC ones and they sound very "tinny".

Other than that, if someone can let me know where / when the MIDI sounds are played then I think I should have everything...

L!ghthouse · Post by **L!ghthouse** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:14 pm

GG: I added the entire map to lvl 1 and added the alternate wallsets (the ones that were included in the engine) to lvl 1 as well. Other than that I have expanded on what you have already done too, but there are still many objects that have yet to be added, so I run into road blocks fast.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:37 pm

There are some key aspects of DM2 that still can't be done in RTC -- the minion maps in particular -- are you going to be looking at coding those up as well GG?

Can minions now be created with all the new actions or do they need custom engine coding too?

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:57 pm

minions are needed for some puzzles!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:57 pm

One small but significant thing was the 'sides' - you can have minions that would attackc cretaures, but guard and attack minions would attack each other, i believe...

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:01 pm

dm2 had some superior quality in comparison to dm..
beo, had that sth. to do with respawning things ?

I read something long ago, but I cannot remember!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:09 pm

???

The DM 2 engine was still at its core DM engine and lots of thigns are hacks. The monster AI routines, as far as a iknow, were the huge leap forward. Everything else is mechanics or apeable by mechanics - ask kentaro/suule or look at kentaro's post about breaking down DM 2 items

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 8:24 pm

Daecon · Post by **Daecon** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:47 am

Does anyone know how close the full-version of Dungeon Master 2 with RTC is to being completed?

I'm really eager to start playing it after looking at the demo!

Unless a working version can be found online anywhere until then...?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 10:57 am

As far as I know that's it, or I wouldn't expect a huge amount more to have been done yet... there is alot to DM2 you know!

Post by **Gambit37** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:41 am

How close? About here:

Code: Select all


Start-----------------------------------------------End
           |

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:23 pm

Yep - that's about right; maybe a couple of spaces further on, but that's about all.

It took years to get DM / CSB running (and I'm sure Lunever would argue that it still isn't quite right). As I mentioned above, the DMII demo with RTC was more to show what *could* be done just by changing a few graphics and by editing objects to give different behaviours.

That said, it would be good to have at least a representation of DMII running under RTC (there are some things that won't ever be the same, because the engine's are too different - but they're mostly the things that people didn't like!) and I'm currently playing through it to see just how big a job it is...

Chaos Awakes · Post by **Chaos Awakes** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:35 pm

DM2 never struck me as that big. After you finish the outside bit, which I always thought of as the "intro" to get into the tower, which I thought of as "the dungeon", there didn't seem much else.

Unless my recollection is wrong, the levels of the tower were quite small and there were only a few of them. When I got into the tower, I remember thinking "right, now a claustrophobic DM dungeon coming up" and from that point it took me a couple of hours to win. When I got to the final level, I actually thought I had just started and when I killed the final boss and won I thought I was just starting out and had done perhaps 10% of the game. So anyone looking forward to playing it should be aware of this.

Having said that, my dungeon is using all the monsters from DM2 and loads of the graphics and has 20 levels pending debugging - so it sounds as though you'll be able to see stuff from DM2 there anyway lol in the short term.

Post by **Lunever** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:01 pm

George: Oh, don't get me wrong, your work is absolutely marvellous and gave me endless hours of gaming fun. It's just that occassionally when a release change also includes a change in dungeon format new bugs creep in or old bugs reappear, and I try to make a contribution in helping wiping them out again. Then occassionally I try to convince you and other regulars here that the interface could be slightly improved, and for me it's ok that such things are handled rather democratic here. But RTC is pretty pretty close of "being right". If the couple of bugs are removed that keep the CSB dungeon constantly craqshing and make some areas in there inaccessible, which I trust will be done in V0.40, we'll have the most perfect RTC version ever, after all that work you've invested into it recently.

No matter whether the DM2 dungeon is actually good or bad, in FTL or in RTC, having it added as completely as the engine allows will be a very good starting point for many new custom dungeons I think, so I hope - like many others here - that it can and will be done.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:55 pm

Just because a dungeon is small or quick to play through doens't mean there isn't alot too it...lots of subtle mechanics peopel blow passed, monster AI, etc!

Post by **Gambit37** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:20 pm

I spoke to Doug a little about DM2 and it seems FTL were a bit peeved that people didn't appreciate how clever the AI was. But he also recognised that they took too long to develop it and that it came out too late -- Doom was here and everyone's expectations of games had changed. DM2 just wasn't fresh enough in people's eyes so it was very quickly dismissed.

It's a shame because the game did offer some nice innovations and there is definitely some nifty AI. But other things also detracted from the experience -- the interface was made more complex (which really surprises me given what I know about FTL's commitment to simplicity), and the over-the-top minions and half-step just were too different from the original game for people to accept.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:48 pm

Yeah, the AI is actually quite cool, but then again if you just hack and slash at critters you won't see alot of it : )

Chaos Awakes · Post by **Chaos Awakes** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:13 pm

DM2 is a fantastic game, and while playing it you just want to see what's next - a sign of a great game.

Unfortunately it was the longevity that let it down for me. When you can't wait to see what's next and it suddenly goes "end of game" it's a bit of a let down.

If you consider the "outside" area as being 1 level, as I did at the time, DM2 has the equivelent of about, I suppose, 2 or 3 DM levels.

Post by **Lunever** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:43 pm

So, after checking the other default dungeons for bugs I now took the time to closely examine the DM2 demo and I'm even more impressed than on the first glance I had upon it in the beta. It's great and I'd absolutely like to see more of it.

A couple minor things I noticed: On contrary to the guards the shopkeepers seem to be completely immortal. Is that intentional?
The fireplace can be only lit by magic it seems. I think swinging a burning torch at it should do the same.
Sound: Even if I turn down the volume in windows to the minimum audible level AND turn down RTC sound and music volume to the minimum sound level "1" too (which I usually do if my gf sleeps right behind the next door), the sound of opening/closing doors is still awfully loud. That sound should be reduced a bit in default volume on order to match the other sounds.

However, I didn't yet have the opportunity to test the demo on my old desktop, but only at my very old laptop, and while DM/CSB 39 is still mostly smoothly playable, DM2 crawls at 4 FPS most of the times. I suppose it's the weather. And while the weather is among those things that make the DM2 demo look great, in regard to a later actually fully playable DM2 emulation it'd be good to have a config option to turn it off.

George: It's a bit early in the demo state, but do you want us to send you completed DM2-RTC files to open up a gHoF, so it will be already there when the first more playable DM2 dungeon will be released?

Post by **Ameena** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:49 pm

Yeah I found it laggy too - in the rain and when you kill something (ie death clouds).

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:15 pm

I found that the shopkeeper sometimes "hangs", facing the wall
and keeps running into it. No big issue, though.
(Can be easily remedied, you have to put sth. on the table)

Post by **Ameena** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:19 pm

Yeah I had that...it seems to happen if, say, you approach the table but then step away before the merchant gets there. If you nip to and from the table a couple of times I think he seems to sort himself out.

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:42 pm

Lunever wrote:A couple minor things I noticed: On contrary to the guards the shopkeepers seem to be completely immortal. Is that intentional?

You can kill them, it just takes quite a bit to do so - as with the original game!

Lunever wrote:The fireplace can be only lit by magic it seems. I think swinging a burning torch at it should do the same.

Click on it with the torch in the mouse hand and it will light (again, as with the original game!)

Lunever wrote:Sound: Even if I turn down the volume in windows to the minimum audible level AND turn down RTC sound and music volume to the minimum sound level "1" too (which I usually do if my gf sleeps right behind the next door), the sound of opening/closing doors is still awfully loud. That sound should be reduced a bit in default volume on order to match the other sounds.

Yes, the sounds are all a bit poorly sampled on the PC version (and I've just put them straight into RTC without any modification from those ripped from the original game by Kentaros editor) - as I mentioned further up this thread, if anyone has access to better samples (presumably from the Amiga version), or of course wants to resample anything themselves, then please feel free to do so and let me know.

Lunever wrote:However, I didn't yet have the opportunity to test the demo on my old desktop, but only at my very old laptop, and while DM/CSB 39 is still mostly smoothly playable, DM2 crawls at 4 FPS most of the times. I suppose it's the weather. And while the weather is among those things that make the DM2 demo look great, in regard to a later actually fully playable DM2 emulation it'd be good to have a config option to turn it off.

Yes, the weather in the demo takes alot out of the engine. FYI - I did it the way its done to show how it can be done using a relatively few number on relays (specifically that it didn't require any new mechanics, just putting together existing ones in inventive ways).

For the next version, I'll do the weather differently which will be alot more efficient, but somewhat harder to understand!

Lunever wrote:George: It's a bit early in the demo state, but do you want us to send you completed DM2-RTC files to open up a gHoF, so it will be already there when the first more playable DM2 dungeon will be released?

Not alot of point - there's only 3 monsters and you can complete the entire demo in a little under a minute if you know where you're going!

I'll certainly add a section to the global list once a full DMII dungeon is playable though.

I found that the shopkeeper sometimes "hangs", facing the wall
and keeps running into it.

it seems to happen if, say, you approach the table but then step away before the merchant gets there. If you nip to and from the table a couple of times I think he seems to sort himself out.

Hmmm, yes. This is caused by the use of the monster attractor (if you have a look at the dungeon in the editor you'll see that if the party stands one side of a table, the merchant is "attracted" to the other side). If however the merchant is already the other side of the table when you step onto this side of it, then the merchant is already in the correct place and so doesn't move anywhere.

So, if the merchant is facing the wrong direction in the scenario above, he has no need to move and so stays there - stepping off the pad infront of the table, letting the merchant move away and then stepping back on again sorts it all out.

I hope you followed that!

The problem could be solved by putting the attractor onto the square with the table on it, setting the merchants to have the "flying" property (so that they think they can reach the attractor, otherwise they wouldn't bother) and putting a teleporter on the table tile to push the merchant back to the tile behind. You would also have to put some clever mechanics in so that if the merchant was by the other table, they would try and get to this table by going round the back rather than trying to go around the front (because at the moment, the two routes are equidistant).

Anyway, I'm rambling now! The point is that it could be done, but I don't think its worth it because it would make trying to understand the mechanics of a shop so much harder (and one of the roles of the dungeons that come with RTC is to show how to do things as well as replicate the original games).

Post by **Lunever** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:14 pm

Hey cool, I noticed that you even implemented 2 of the new spells, "Push" and "Pull". Yet, Pull worked on a table, while push didn't affect a table.

I also noticed that Torham has on starting a new game a dagger in the left hand, like in the original. In the original however, if I remember correctly, a weapon like a dagger could actually be used in the left hand, while in RTC is not capable of doing that. So maybe you should move the dagger into the right hand (or better implement left hand actions like in FTL-DM2

).

I also noticed that you've been paying attention to details: If you import a character rather than take the default one, the first of the imported characters will wear Torham's starting equipment. Very good, lest you'd have less starting currency. This makes me wonder, whether it'd be possible to have a similar behaviour in other default dungeons. That is, if you reimport let's say Linflas (or any character with the name Linflas) into the DM dungeon, have the starting equipment of the mirror-Linflas moved to the imported Linflas inventory?

If you do import a character into the DM2 demo however, for some reason upon first selecting the first character he's in the party twice (I imported characters into the DM2 demo twice, and it happened on both occassions). You have to remove those twins then manually and reselect the character again, then everything works fine. Might have something to do with a default character (Torham) being inserted into the selection of characters from savegames. This is very nice btw, FTL-DM2 being unable to import characters always annoyed me. Of course I understand that DM2 wanted to have a restart in regard to levelling up, but it's good to see that the dynamic difficulty handling of RTC manages to make any dungeon compatible to any character while retaining the challenge of the dungeon.

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:59 am

Lunever wrote:Hey cool, I noticed that you even implemented 2 of the new spells, "Push" and "Pull". Yet, Pull worked on a table, while push didn't affect a table.

The push / pull spells work exactly like the original - namely that you've got to get the spell to explode before anything gets pushed / pulled. This makes it easy to pull a table (because they're often next to a wall that the spell hits). Pushing them however is somewhat more tricky, because the spell flies over the table without exploding and if there's anything behind them for the spell to hit, then the table wouldn't move anyway!

If you can get the spell to explode on the same tile (e.g. by hitting a flying monster which is over the table) then the table will move in either direction.

Lunever wrote:I also noticed that you've been paying attention to details: If you import a character rather than take the default one, the first of the imported characters will wear Torham's starting equipment. Very good, lest you'd have less starting currency. This makes me wonder, whether it'd be possible to have a similar behaviour in other default dungeons.

Please bear in mind that THERE ARE NO DMII SPECIFIC MECHANICS in the RTC demo (in fact, that's the whole point of the demo, to show what can be done with RTC!); it's all part of the default engine that's usable in any dungeon - specifically there is *identical* behaviour in *all* other RTC dungeons already...

Lunever wrote:That is, if you reimport let's say Linflas (or any character with the name Linflas) into the DM dungeon, have the starting equipment of the mirror-Linflas moved to the imported Linflas inventory?

I think you've completely misunderstood how the auto-equipping works!

How Torham gets equipped is because the square the party starts on contains a bunch of items that get "sucked" into the backpack when the dungeon starts. The engine doesn't care who it is - whether it's the default Torham character or an imported one.

BTW, I think your suggestion would create all sorts of problems with some dungeons. For example, dungeons where the mirrors are spread out so you only discover them after lots of adventuring - like ConfluxIII - would allow imported characters to immediately access high level equipment so breaking the balance of a game.

Lunever wrote:If you do import a character into the DM2 demo however, for some reason upon first selecting the first character he's in the party twice (I imported characters into the DM2 demo twice, and it happened on both occassions). You have to remove those twins then manually and reselect the character again, then everything works fine. Might have something to do with a default character (Torham) being inserted into the selection of characters from savegames.

That's just a bug! Now fixed for V0.40.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:51 am

Push and Pull need to explode on a tile for them to work? I think that is going to cause lots of issues with getting DM2 and similar dungeons to work properly. Can it not work so that it just targets the tile in front of the party?

Also, the push/pull mechanism in DM2 gives you the ability to pull a table and turn in the same move -- moving the party diagonally accordingly. Would RTC be able to re-create that?

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 12:06 pm

Gambit37 wrote:Push and Pull need to explode on a tile for them to work? I think that is going to cause lots of issues with getting DM2 and similar dungeons to work properly.

The push and pull *spells* need to explode to work. This is exactly like DMIIs spells did so won't cause any issues getting DMII to work!

Gambit37 wrote: Can it not work so that it just targets the tile in front of the party?

The push and pull *actions* work on the tile they were triggered on; which could be the tile infront of the party (or any other tile in the whole dungeon) if you made it so with your dungeon mechanics.

Gambit37 wrote:Also, the push/pull mechanism in DM2 gives you the ability to pull a table and turn in the same move -- moving the party diagonally accordingly. Would RTC be able to re-create that?

Yep - it just requires a few more menu options and so makes understanding how the mechanics works a bit more complicated.

Post by **Lunever** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 12:07 pm

Well, since I didn't play the original DM2 much and that has been a long while ago my memories of it are often a bit hazy. So if the push needs to explode over a table in the original FTL-DM2 it's of course absolutely fine to have the same behaviour in RTC-DM2 too.

Tables: Do I remember correctly that in FTL you could not only push and pull them, but also turn them by 90 degree? Can this be done in RTC too? If so, how (at least the shopkeeper seems to ba able to do it)?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 12:08 pm

RTC mechanics can make an object have a limited lifespan - so you could create a version of the spell that exlodes on the tile infront by limiting the lifetime of the missile - or just creating the cloud instantly infront

You can move, turn then move again the party with RTC but of course you won'#t have the clean interface for doing it DM2 had