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My first hold, enjoy.

Writing wise, it's like my first two holds combined into one, so you will notice a sudden theme shift after the first four levels. It takes place along the story of the High Road trip between JtRH and TCB, but is not canonical.

It is not intended to be super difficult, but you might want to practice some goblin-handling before tackling the bottom half.

It was private beta-tested. My thanks to Alneyan, Doom, Briareos, wallu, Ezlo, KevG, Hikari, jbluestein, and michthro for their helpful feedback. Nevertheless, errors may remain due entirely to my own haste to move on to the "posting" stage.

Ezlo
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Well, I would've waited a few more days before uploading. But that's me. I really liked the hold, but I'll wait to vote until I finish the hold proper.

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zex20913
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I think there may be a bug in the hold...and I'm not talking about a roach.



So...hopefully that can be fixed, or I'll find what I'm erring on.

Edit: Nevermind. Ignore that whole thing.

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[Last edited by zex20913 at 08-20-2006 04:24 AM]

eytanz
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So far, I've solved about a quarter of the hold. It's a good hold, but I do have some quibbles - checkpoint placement tends to be pretty annoying, in the sense that there are quite a few rooms that you reach a checkpoint after making a crucial decision, not before.

Overall, though, I'm liking what I've seen so far. Well except Cold Storage 2E where I'm currently stuck and which is a seriously annoying room.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 08-20-2006 04:52 AM]

silver
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Ezlo wrote:
Well, I would've waited a few more days before uploading. But that's me. I really liked the hold, but I'll wait to vote until I finish the hold proper.

so right. I just found a bug on in King L's dungeon (if you visit King M first). King L doesn't appear in the last room. aie.

fortunately, I'm the only person to reach that yet, so I can update without setting anyone back (provided I do it before eyetanz gets there)


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eytanz
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I'm actually done for the night, so not much risk of that

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silver
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...or maybe I can't update it:

"
ERROR!
I can't find a level with the correct ID or a level named 'Long and Lonely Road'
"

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I tried deleting the hold and re-importing it to fix my issues. But now it's just worse. When I go to "change location" it shows 2 greyed-out copies of "A Small Diversion" and BOTH say they are beta. Whichever one I download, it says "(BETA) (Updated!)" (and sure enough, is the last version I beta uploaded but not the version I "really" uploaded). hitting Update generates an error "this is a later version (ignored)".
deleting the hold and importing my master copy almost seems to work (though it says "(BETA)") except when I mod the room and try to update on the server, I get the error above about no-such-level-ID.

I think I would have had none of these problems if there was a "delete beta hold" button, or better a "promote beta to release" button. I can't delete myself as a beta-tester for my own hold, so it's messing up any attempts to get the correct version or upload it (it's possible that this is a mix of beta-testing and also having two levels with the same name. but then, that's also the first level name, so it's hard to tell if it's related to the problem)

here's a corrected copy of my hold as an attachment, though. all I did was change one character from "none" to "goblin king"

EDIT: removed attachment since Mr Schik has kindly corrected the issue.


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[Last edited by silver at 08-20-2006 08:22 AM]

Schik
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silver wrote:
I think I would have had none of these problems if there was a "delete beta hold" button, or better a "promote beta to release" button. I can't delete myself as a beta-tester for my own hold, so it's messing up any attempts to get the correct version or upload it (it's possible that this is a mix of beta-testing and also having two levels with the same name. but then, that's also the first level name, so it's hard to tell if it's related to the problem)

While neither of those features would have fixed the fact that you can't update your hold, this thread indicates that I do intend to add those two features. I haven't yet added them due to a lack of time.

here's a corrected copy of my hold as an attachment, though. all I did was change one character from "none" to "goblin king"

Your copy had different internal level ids, which throws the update code off. I changed it to use other criteria for matching levels, and uploaded your new version.

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--Mahatma Gandhi

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[Last edited by Schik at 08-20-2006 08:08 PM]

silver
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congrats to Remlin, my first non-tester conquerer (even though Remlin is missing 6 rooms, it appears that those were due to network issues... unless there's a bug in the second room of King L's dungeon that lets one take the 'back path' through? but then how come Remlin is missing a score for the Entrance? must have been network).

post something so I can give you a mod point

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[Last edited by silver at 08-20-2006 11:43 AM]

Remlin
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Yeah, it just stopped uploading scores for that level. But I just went and re-finished all those rooms, so all is well. (Thank you for putting checkpoints right by all the exits.)

Chaco
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Hmm, looks interesting. One question though I'd like to ask:

Does Perfection come before or after the High Path? Just to help me chronologically sort this hold.

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eytanz
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The high path is a very long road. JtRH ends with Beethro arriving at the high path (note that the canon is silent as to whether the high path starts at the end of JtRH, or whether JtRH feeds into a side entrance and the path starts somewhere else). Perfection and Beethro's Teacher take place when Beethro is already on the high path and he encounters strange places on the way.

This hold seems to be supposed to be the same kind of thing - presumably sometime before Beethro's Teacher, but it's not clear whether it's before Perfection or after. However, this hold is not canonical.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 08-20-2006 06:24 PM]

silver
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As I pointed out in the first post, it's not canonical. However, my intention was somewhere after Perfection when ... well, not to give away anything behind the master wall, but he didn't get much food there. Possibly after Teacher, since he did a lot of exhausting smite work there. I didn't want him to starve to death before reaching the City


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[Last edited by silver at 08-20-2006 09:01 PM]

eytanz
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Well, teacher explicitly is billed as "the last thing Beethro encountered on the high road", though if you're not canonical you can ignore that, of course.

Anyway, now that I've conquered the hold, here are some general comments:

First, non-spoilery, I really liked the hold. Good puzzles, good story, not too difficult and not too easy. Some scripting bugs, and sometimes the difficulty curve wasn't very smooth - there were definitely rooms which were harder than anything else around them. But overall, very well done.

Spoilery discussion:


And one question about mastering the hold:


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Ezlo
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silver
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what scripting bugs? I saw a couple minor things: one of King M's guards disappears if you come up the ladder (though he could just be getting relief, or checking on King L's armies)... and King L himself fades out for a turn before turning into a goblin when you encounter him with the blue door door down. neither were bad enough for me to desire to invalidate any high scores by re-posting.

clearly, if Teacher is billed as the last thing he encounters, then this hold takes place between Perfection and Teacher - since while I know I'm not canon, I intend to be canon-compatible . But I don't remember seeing Teacher billed as the last thing, and specifically remember the hold coming out in September being billed as the last thing he encounters along the high path...

thank you for your vote and your review.

about mastering the hold:

I'm somewhat surprised that anyone beat my King L's Domain 2N score. I was 70 moves ahead of the beta testers. edit: OH, backdoor chicanery. sigh. another minor scratch to polish if I end up with a major bug and need to update.



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[Last edited by silver at 08-20-2006 10:13 PM]

Jatopian
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Hmm... can't wait to play once these bugs are ironed out (or swatted, or sprayed, or...).

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eytanz
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Ok, mastered the hold. I must say, adding to what I've said above:



Oh, and I think the bugs you mentioned were the ones I noticed - I have a vague feeling there was a dialogue related one too but that was late last night and I'm not sure.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 08-20-2006 09:36 PM]

silver
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Jatopian wrote:
Hmm... can't wait to play once these bugs are ironed out (or swatted, or sprayed, or...).

the bug reports that I have, I'm ignoring as mere scratches on the cd


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Chaco
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Mastered. Nice hold, Silver. Although it was non-canonical, I can tell that it certainly tried to at least be semi-canonical and internally consistant, and that I liked. The puzzles were rather good too and fit in well.

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Jatopian
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silver wrote:

Jatopian wrote:
Hmm... can't wait to play once these bugs are ironed out (or swatted, or sprayed, or...).

the bug reports that I have, I'm ignoring as mere scratches on the cd

In that case, [insert battle cry here]!
Hopefully playing twice won't be too annoying.

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Banjooie
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Chaco wrote:
I can tell that it certainly tried to at least be semi-canonical and internally consistant

Clearly, it should have been /flawlessly/ consistent. That's the only problem.

Stephen4Louise
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File: short snake.JPG (6.7 KB)
Downloaded 597 times.
License: Public Domain

Hi,
I'm enjoying the hold so far, but there is a trivial solution in

Keep up the good work and I hope to see more holds like this coming from you soon!!

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[Last edited by Stephen4Louise at 07-12-2007 10:04 PM]

silver
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Stephen4Louise wrote:
...there is a trivial solution in Gardens and Labs 2N3W

not exactly "trivial" since it requires some work still, but I see how to fix it (switch black and green doors on the south. maybe add a black door on the east) and it will disappear if I have a major update. thanks


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jmpava
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Heh, well, I'm not sure I necessarily agree with the 'easy rooms' statement (but I'm guessing that's just exposing my overall inexperience ). That said, I HAVE been able to work my way through most of it by this point, so I suppose it can't be THAT difficult...

I'm enjoying this one a lot, especially the effort to make a hold that could fit well right in the middle of the 'real' ones even if it isn't. It's a nice change. The puzzles are also different then many of the one's I've seen recently which is also nice. Except for that whole 'supposed to be easy' bit, which has me a tad concerned on my own behalf...

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Tahnan
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eytanz wrote:
...except Cold Storage 2E where I'm currently stuck and which is a seriously annoying room.

One man's annoying is another man's "whew tricky but very clever". I liked that one.

And I'll second eytanz's comments above--that the writing is excellent both plotwise and dialogue-wise, and it seems canon-level quality to me. (Even if I do...



...though I did just improve one of my #1's by two moves, so perhaps it's worth it.)

(Edit to add: Actually, it's worth it for all the alternate dialogue that results from making the other choice. And for a chance to appreciate the clever scripting that went into making a whole bunch of rooms do double duty, dependent on what choice you made on a different level.)

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[Last edited by Tahnan at 08-24-2006 09:19 AM]

Blondbeard
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Nice! Just one more secret room, and I will have mastered it. A perfect difficulty level. It allowed my brain to recover after Beethros Teacher . I'm surprised it has six brains for difficulty, though...

larrymurk
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So, to master the hold one must:

Chaco
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King Lagumat's Domain and Dungeon.

However, not all the rooms are exactly the same, as you will see.

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silver
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let's not exaggurate. only 2 puzzle rooms play differently from "the other direction" and one of those 2 is trivial. that leaves, um, 15 that play exactly the same?

on the other hand, mastery isn't necessarily the goal. I carefully arranged it so that you get all the high-scorable rooms either way. mastery just gets you a "story bonus"... and a small one at that (as opposed to some holds where mastery is essential if you want the hold to appear "complete" on the my-stats page)



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[Last edited by silver at 08-27-2006 01:19 PM]