Dungeon Master Forum

Hi again folks,

must be 20 years now, that I (and I guess most of you) last played DM or CSB on the Atari ST, so most of what I discuss here was buried quite a long time and comes from quite a depth.

The first version I've ever played was a cracked version (young, you know) from the 42-crew. There was a strange bug or (and this is what I guessed and now can proof http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/210) merely a copy protection. As soon as you've gotten quite a way withhin the dungeon all the characters suffered a sudden death. The ST was randomly accessing the disk drive shortly before this happened, so you knew it was time to save your game. Still, the game was playable with the copy protection working and I remember having obtained the firestaff, but never killed Lord Chaos. So I've played one of the greatest piece of software without ever having to pay for it. I know: crowd goes oooooh. It's not like that it's eating me up or something, just something that was given me long ago without donation of any kind.

Usually the copy protections on the ST were of the "work-or-wont-work" type, so maybe DM had one of the first "I-will-let-you-taste-a-bit-and-then-let-you-suffer" type. Funny thing: Me and some friends who were playing it too, had strange theories about deadly poisioned water springs in the 2nd level. Sometimes it is sad that taking it apart bitbybit/disassembling takes away all the secrets, isn't it?

Another thing I havn't found any real information about:
In DM (dunno remember if it was alike in CSB - yes, I had the original a charachter was loosing his/her Armor protection after some training with the rope. Noticeable due having <<2>> instead of the protected <<1>> damage when banging against a wall. I also remember that armor was of no use against fireballs (only flame bane got a real effect because of its Anti-Fire +) or even the received physical damage. I've seen some threads about this, but havn't been satisfied with the answers. My (pink-tinted sunglasses) theory says that a ninja has no use for its armor and therefore won't gain any benefit, but why should a armor plate be of no use against a fireball (against walls they worked just fine) or a ninja level gained by throwing axes against doors be any better than climbing down a pit where there is none? Maybe these things are well known and I've been just too dump to find them. Generally I should ask for short: are there still any unknown features within the original game?

Greetings from Germany
T0Mi

T0Mi wrote:Sometimes it is sad that taking it apart bitbybit/disassembling takes away all the secrets, isn't it?

I know what you mean.
In order to put DSB together and use the authentic DM formulas, I had to understand the DM formulas very well (which required lots of digging through the CSBwin code), and of course understanding them very well meant there were few/no secrets anymore.

T0Mi wrote:a charachter was loosing his/her Armor protection after some training with the rope. Noticeable due having <<2>> instead of the protected <<1>> damage when banging against a wall.

That number is random so I don't think it had anything to do with this...?

T0Mi wrote:I also remember that armor was of no use against fireballs (only flame bane got a real effect because of its Anti-Fire +) or even the received physical damage. I've seen some threads about this, but havn't been satisfied with the answers.

Armor did have effectiveness, but there were a couple of bugs in original DM: Shields, unlike armor, did not seem to do anything.
Also, when being hit by a fireball, anti-fire didn't do a whole lot.

T0Mi wrote:are there still any unknown features within the original game?

If they're unknown, how would anyone know to be able to answer?

thanks for your reply.

[anyone not knowing anything about the unknown, unknown?]

hehe... ok, this is a language thing, yes.
As an example: the bit that makes Tiggy a female is never to be seen within the game, but it is there (or at least I remember reading a text concerning that about 2-3 years ago, when I first played DM on an emulator again), so this would be a unseen feature and unknown in times of the Atari ST.


[wall damage]

hä? I just don't understand.
Running a newly resurrected, naked Tiggy into a wall results in ~12 bumps till she dies, while with some leather pants, boots and a sexy halter it will result in ~22 bumps till death. There is a time 'inbetween' (wearing a thin armor), where the damage is seeming randomly changing (1,2,1,1,2,2,1,1) as far as I remember, but randomly regardless of which armor is worn? This isn't directly connected to the question about rope training, so maybe I just didn't put it in suitable phrases.

So anyway... I really would like to know if that "rope training makes you naked" bug/feature is known or not, and if, is it intentionel or accidential, or maybe even caused by the copy protection. This is connected to the question if anyone is in contact with the original DM creators, yes. If so, would someone kindly send me an PN?

Maybe I should just spend some time roaming around this forum and it's older posts, yes again.

greets
T0Mi

Rope training if I recall gives experiences to an otherwise unused sub-level of ninja skill if I recall correctly

It is therefore possible that there is a bug in the game that was never fixed, since no one trains ninja levels with rope

I did in Conflux with the curses, because their stamina is just about the only thing about them that regenerates at the normal pace. You can get the first few ninja levels quite quickly that way. Just remember you don't have to stand in front of a pit for it to work .

It's actually a funny effect to do it infront of a closed pit

beowuuf wrote:It's actually a funny effect to do it infront of a closed pit

Glad I saw this. I fully intend to try it out this time.

P.S. Sophia: The fire protection spell was a benefit to me, when I played it before. I sometimes intentionally killed my team, and fireballs seemed to hurt less when the fire shield was used (especially the higher power levels of it).

Now I'm going to have to "test" to make sure. Poor, Little, Me.

MasterWuuf wrote:Sophia: The fire protection spell was a benefit to me, when I played it before. I sometimes intentionally killed my team, and fireballs seemed to hurt less when the fire shield was used (especially the higher power levels of it)

I know. I was talking about the anti-fire stat.
The "Fire Shield" spell does reduce fireball damage.

Sophia wrote:

MasterWuuf wrote:Sophia: The fire protection spell was a benefit to me, when I played it before. I sometimes intentionally killed my team, and fireballs seemed to hurt less when the fire shield was used (especially the higher power levels of it)

I know. I was talking about the anti-fire stat.
The "Fire Shield" spell does reduce fireball damage.

MasterWuuf wrote:The fire protection spell was a benefit to me, when I played it before. I sometimes intentionally killed my team, and fireballs seemed to hurt less when the fire shield was used (especially the higher power levels of it).

Now I'm going to have to "test" to make sure. Poor, Little, Me.

...

I know. I was always a little extreme, when I finally decided I should stop playing DM long enough to get a little crash time.