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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Architecture : A friendly note from your HAs. (Uploading holds.(updated 3/14/09))
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eytanz
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silver said: It doesn't say "always be able to backtrack" just always backtrack to required rooms. eyetanz was mistaken, because the Choice doesn't violate this rule as stated.

It also says "secret rooms should be reachable." as part of the backtracking rule, which is the issue with The Choice.

Jatopian said: I'm just saying that if holds that are generally reviewed positively violate this rule, then there's something wrong with the rule, and that I believe this to be ill-considered.

I don't understand this. First, you were not saying anything about The Choice or the backtracking rule - I brought it up. You mentioned KDD and the duplicate hold rule, which was clearly a different case. For one, this poll shows that people generally don't want duplicate holds. Secondly, the duplicated hold case is not a factor about the quality of the hold itself, it's a factor about what else is out there. So I'm not sure when you where saying what you are saying here.

And as I said, KDD is special because KDD 1.0 is not available for Caravelnet, even though it is on the Holds board. That's a special kludge introduced for KDD because of its historical purpose. If you want to make a duplicate hold and have it not available in Caravelnet, though, that's still both possible permissible - just use the architecture board.

As far as the backtracking rule, the rule was put into place because when holds do have backtracking issues, people complain. A lot. Look at the thread for King Pilchard VIII's dungeon. Or, in older days, for those rooms in level 17 (I think) of KDD. Or other cases. In general, this rule is in place to prevent cases of "if you skip room X on first visit you can't return to it" or of the "if you create a tar baby after you solve the room and leave you're screwed". Both of which I think need to be prevented.

So, I don't think I'd go so far as say the rule is ill-considered. It might be that the wording of the law is stricter than it should be, which may well be true. And I, and the rest of the HAs, welcome discussion and criticism of the rules. But for criticism to be constructive it should be A - clear, so the "*cough*cough*problem*cough*cough*" style of posting isn't going to do much good, and ideally, B - make some suggestions for improvement.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 05-05-2007 01:21 PM]
05-05-2007 at 01:19 PM
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Doom
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eytanz wrote:
silver said: It doesn't say "always be able to backtrack" just always backtrack to required rooms. eyetanz was mistaken, because the Choice doesn't violate this rule as stated.
It also says "secret rooms should be reachable." as part of the backtracking rule, which is the issue with The Choice.
That's not exactly how I've understood it. The complete rule as written currently goes:

"Also, secret rooms should be reachable. Otherwise people will get mad at you when they can't master your hold."

Where does this force backtrackability? The key here is that you can always restore to secret rooms without losing any progress. As long as you can actually get to the secret rooms somehow, this sounds clear to me. I don't currently see the problem with The Choice.
05-05-2007 at 04:18 PM
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eytanz
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Doom wrote:
eytanz wrote:
silver said: It doesn't say "always be able to backtrack" just always backtrack to required rooms. eyetanz was mistaken, because the Choice doesn't violate this rule as stated.
It also says "secret rooms should be reachable." as part of the backtracking rule, which is the issue with The Choice.
That's not exactly how I've understood it. The complete rule as written currently goes:

"Also, secret rooms should be reachable. Otherwise people will get mad at you when they can't master your hold."

Where does this force backtrackability? The key here is that you can always restore to secret rooms without losing any progress. As long as you can actually get to the secret rooms somehow, this sounds clear to me. I don't currently see the problem with The Choice.

That's the problem with The Choice - you can't get to both secret rooms without replaying all the non-secret rooms. It's sort of the same issue as with King Pilchard VIII's Dungeon, only on a much smaller scale. Note that I'm not saying that the Choice is bad - the difference is that the Choice rooms are different upon replay, which is why I think it's ok with The Choice but not with KPVIIID.

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05-05-2007 at 05:15 PM
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eytanz wrote:
That's the problem with The Choice - you can't get to both secret rooms without replaying all the non-secret rooms. It's sort of the same issue as with King Pilchard VIII's Dungeon, only on a much smaller scale. Note that I'm not saying that the Choice is bad - the difference is that the Choice rooms are different upon replay, which is why I think it's ok with The Choice but not with KPVIIID.
I guess it just means that there is a fine line between good usage of this and bad usage of this. If you want a more recent example, try compass point, which does this to a lesser degree.
05-06-2007 at 12:31 AM
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eytanz
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True. And compass point was approved under the new system - which goes to show that the HAs generally try to obey the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.

I do wish Jatopian (or someone else) would clarify his initial comment. If the rules can be improved so that they make a clearer distinction between good and bad uses - while still remaining short and clear, mind you - it would be good to do so. I don't have any ideas on how to do that, but if someone has them, please don't keep them to yourselves.

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05-06-2007 at 05:38 AM
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Jatopian
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I have no problem with the backtracking requirements.
eytanz wrote:
I don't understand this. First, you were not saying anything about The Choice or the backtracking rule - I brought it up. You mentioned KDD and the duplicate hold rule, which was clearly a different case. For one, this poll shows that people generally don't want duplicate holds. Secondly, the duplicated hold case is not a factor about the quality of the hold itself, it's a factor about what else is out there.
The poll also shows, however, that people like compilations, different-language versions, and extensions...
If this is about scores, why not say that the first version (or 1 version, for different-language ones & such) is the only scoreable one, that only rooms that are in only one hold should be otherwise scoreable?

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 05-06-2007 04:33 PM : I have no problem with the backtracking requirements.]
05-06-2007 at 04:32 PM
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eytanz
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Jatopian wrote:
I have no problem with the backtracking requirements.
eytanz wrote:
I don't understand this. First, you were not saying anything about The Choice or the backtracking rule - I brought it up. You mentioned KDD and the duplicate hold rule, which was clearly a different case. For one, this poll shows that people generally don't want duplicate holds. Secondly, the duplicated hold case is not a factor about the quality of the hold itself, it's a factor about what else is out there.
The poll also shows, however, that people like compilations, different-language versions, and extensions...

As of right now, the poll shows that 29% of the forum likes different language versions, 31% like compilations, and 38% like extensions. While not insignificant numbers, it is still clear that these are minorities. Compare this to 67% who are ok with modified versions of old holds, and 98% (!) who like different difficulty levels, the two categories the current rule allows.

So I'd say that the rule reflects the majority of the community's desires, even if there is a sizable minority that it doesn't quite capture. And I think the poll is deceptive - I think that some people who voted "no" for the first question might still have voted for some of the options in the last question under the mindset "I prefer if none of these occur, but if some are to be accepted, these are the ones I'd tolerate". I may be wrong about this, of course.

If this is about scores, why not say that the first version (or 1 version, for different-language ones & such) is the only scoreable one, that only rooms that are in only one hold should be otherwise scoreable?

Because it's not just scoring - it's also room progress. If you add a fourth level at the end of an existent hold, it doesn't matter if levels 1-3 are unscorable - someone who wants scores on level 4 will still have to replay levels 1-3. And if the hold author adds a warp directly to level 4, why not just release it as a stand-alone sequel?

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05-06-2007 at 04:44 PM
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Jatopian
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...well, alright. Still I think that contest compilations should have an exception, and also that multiple languages should be alright if only one is scoreable (no repeat progress issue there - who's going to play both?).

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05-06-2007 at 08:08 PM
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eytanz
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Jatopian wrote:
...well, alright. Still I think that contest compilations should have an exception, and also that multiple languages should be alright if only one is scoreable (no repeat progress issue there - who's going to play both?).

Well, contest compilations are usually fine - compilations are only an issue if the individual holds they are made of are available independently on the holds board (like the case of HIJK). In most contest compilations, the compilation is the only version of the contest holds promoted, so there's no problem there.

As for multiple languages, as Stefan pointed out in this thread - and as I totally forgot myself earlier or I would have brought it up - DROD 3.0 include support for external language files that allow you to have two languages for the same hold without creating two copies of the hold. Hopefully, as people become more aware of the new feature and learn how to use it, this will become a non-issue too.

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05-06-2007 at 08:14 PM
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Jatopian
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eytanz wrote:
Well, contest compilations are usually fine - compilations are only an issue if the individual holds they are made of are available independently on the holds board (like the case of HIJK).
Well, yes, that's what I meant. Contest compilations should be comprehensive.
As for multiple languages, as Stefan pointed out in this thread - and as I totally forgot myself earlier or I would have brought it up - DROD 3.0 include support for external language files that allow you to have two languages for the same hold without creating two copies of the hold. Hopefully, as people become more aware of the new feature and learn how to use it, this will become a non-issue too.
:thumbsup mrimer

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 05-06-2007 08:27 PM : credit]
05-06-2007 at 08:27 PM
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eytanz
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Jatopian wrote:
eytanz wrote:
Well, contest compilations are usually fine - compilations are only an issue if the individual holds they are made of are available independently on the holds board (like the case of HIJK).
Well, yes, that's what I meant. Contest compilations should be comprehensive.

Well, I agree, but I think the way around that is to just not have people publish their contest entries individually. Which, at least in almost all cases, they don't.

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05-06-2007 at 08:41 PM
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Jeff_Ray...
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Hey! I can't send messages to the HAs anymore! What is going on?

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06-09-2007 at 01:23 AM
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jbluestein
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Do you mean on the hold promotion topic for SBS? Can you see any of the items in the chat already?



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06-09-2007 at 03:01 PM
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Jeff_Ray...
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I can see what you guys say. But I can't send messages to you!

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06-09-2007 at 03:36 PM
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Tahnan
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A discussion brought over from Troshian Tower:
RoboBob3000 wrote:
Tahnan wrote:
Regardless of which: insofar as the "no changing rooms" policy is there to protect people's high scores, I feel like if an upload needs to be done to fix some rooms because of a patch, that doesn't license changing other, non-broken rooms to remove unintended solutions.
Maybe I'm one of the only ones that thinks so, but I've always believed that the architect should be able to modify high-scorable rooms.
Quick note: My statement above (about not licensing changes to other rooms) was my interpretation of the current policy, not necessarily an expression of the ideal state of affairs.
If an architect already has to power to nullify high scores (by marking any room as unscorable), what's wrong with wiping out scores with the end result of improving the quality of a room? I feel that as a community, we should be more open to the (appropriate!) revision of holds and less concerned about holding onto our #1's. Yes, I know revision is what the Architecture board is for, but there's hardly any way an architect can claim that their expansive hold is 100% bug-free for the holds board.
Well. I think in fact an architect shouldn't be able to wipe out just any high score. Retroactively marking a room as unhighscorable should, IMHO, only be allowed for rooms that have no high scores--i.e., rooms that genuinely are nonhighscoreable. (Note: an architect can mark whatever room zie likes in advance, as far as I care; that doesn't affect the fairness of things.)

But I have to say that I do still feel that revision of a room shouldn't be allowed. Again, it's a difference between Architecture and Holds: if your work is a work in progress, something that you want to be able to tweak, to occasionally remove an unintended solution or make a room a little harder by adding a few more goblins, it belongs in Architecture. "Holds" means "this is finished".

I guess that, as an academic, I think of it roughly the way I think of publishing papers. If you put your paper on the web or otherwise distribute it in manuscript form, you're letting other people see it and respond to it while still making it clear that this is a work in progress, and anything that you claim could change. If someone writes a paper saying "RoboBob claims, on page 8 of this manuscript, that X", and then RoboBob changes the manuscript to remove that, that's the way unpublished manuscripts work.

Once you put your work into a journal, you're saying, "OK, while my thoughts may change, I'll have to put those changed thoughts into another paper: for this paper, the published content is the final content, and you can respond to it without fear that it will change." Later authors feel safe in saying "RoboBob claims, on page 8 of this paper, that X", without fear that the paper will be changed to remove claim X. And that's not just because it's on paper and distributed; even if a journal were entirely online, you wouldn't expect any changes to be made. (Except, say, typo fixes, which are the equivalent of the cosmetic, non-high-score-affecting changes that architects are allowed to make.)

So that's the difference: a high score is like a citation. You cite an unpublished paper at your own peril, because the paper could change; we don't save high scores for an Architecture board hold, because the hold could change. We do save them for Holds board holds, and freely cite published papers, because those don't change in such a way to make our citation/high score retroactively invalid.

I'll let someone else extend the analogy to RoboBob's question of wholly revised, "second edition" holds...I'm pretty sure I've gone on more than long enough.
08-27-2007 at 03:29 PM
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Tahnan wrote:
A discussion brought over from Troshian Tower:
RoboBob3000 wrote:
Tahnan wrote:
Regardless of which: insofar as the "no changing rooms" policy is there to protect people's high scores, I feel like if an upload needs to be done to fix some rooms because of a patch, that doesn't license changing other, non-broken rooms to remove unintended solutions.
Maybe I'm one of the only ones that thinks so, but I've always believed that the architect should be able to modify high-scorable rooms.
Quick note: My statement above (about not licensing changes to other rooms) was my interpretation of the current policy, not necessarily an expression of the ideal state of affairs.
If an architect already has to power to nullify high scores (by marking any room as unscorable), what's wrong with wiping out scores with the end result of improving the quality of a room? I feel that as a community, we should be more open to the (appropriate!) revision of holds and less concerned about holding onto our #1's. Yes, I know revision is what the Architecture board is for, but there's hardly any way an architect can claim that their expansive hold is 100% bug-free for the holds board.
Well. I think in fact an architect shouldn't be able to wipe out just any high score. Retroactively marking a room as unhighscorable should, IMHO, only be allowed for rooms that have no high scores--i.e., rooms that genuinely are nonhighscoreable. (Note: an architect can mark whatever room zie likes in advance, as far as I care; that doesn't affect the fairness of things.)

I'm pretty sure that arbitrary marking of rooms as unhighscoreable is no longer allowed after the promotion of the hold. One of the things that precipitated the HA infrastructure was a set of hold updates that did this very thing. I've never published a hold, so I don't have the interface to look at, but I am pretty sure that this is the case.

Josh

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08-27-2007 at 03:38 PM
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Mild bumpage to inform the non-HA that CuriousShyRabbit is a new member of the HA. Also, Chaco is a member of the HA, too, and I forgot to bump mildly with that information.

Edit: Additionally, they are taking positions that were vacated by michthro and VodkaAndCoke.

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10-17-2007 at 04:50 AM
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Tahnan
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I'd like to officially request that we add, to the rules:

6. Your hold is bad if it flagrantly violates the grammar and spelling of (some dialect of) English.

As I've said, I'm happy to organize this, so there would be no more work for the HAs other than providing the Proofreaders' Brigade an exported copy of the hold's text (and, perhaps on request, an anyone-edit hold, as there are places where a reviewer may need to see who's speaking in long dialogue, or the context of a scroll, etc. That could be discussed).

It's still my belief that "the text is broken" should be just as good a reason for rejecting a hold as "the puzzle is broken".
01-01-2008 at 10:01 PM
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Hear hear. Terrible english certainly impairs the enjoyment of a hold.

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01-02-2008 at 12:03 AM
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eytanz
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Tahnan wrote:
I'd like to officially request that we add, to the rules:

6. Your hold is bad if it flagrantly violates the grammar and spelling of (some dialect of) English.

As I've said, I'm happy to organize this, so there would be no more work for the HAs other than providing the Proofreaders' Brigade an exported copy of the hold's text (and, perhaps on request, an anyone-edit hold, as there are places where a reviewer may need to see who's speaking in long dialogue, or the context of a scroll, etc. That could be discussed).

It's still my belief that "the text is broken" should be just as good a reason for rejecting a hold as "the puzzle is broken".

No, this is not the kind of thing that should be a rule.

The HAs are not a quality checking bridgade. It is not our mandate to ensure that holds are enjoyable. It is to ensure that they are: A - not going to get Caravel in any sort of legal trouble, B - are playable from start to finish, and C - don't create unnecessary hurdles for people paying to get highscores.

Bad spelling and grammar falls along the line of bad puzzles or annoying scripts. Stuff we all like to see less of, but simply not the kind of thing that the HAs are about. Instead, that's why we have a hold rating system. If you want to discourage holds with bad grammar, give them low grades.


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01-02-2008 at 10:27 PM
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Note that HAs are not opposed to a Proofreader's Brigade in any way. It's just that we don't think that making it a stopping offense is the way to go.



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01-03-2008 at 02:02 AM
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Tahnan
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eytanz wrote:
The HAs are not a quality checking bridgade. It is not our mandate to ensure that holds are enjoyable.
Ah, yes, I see what you mean. Somehow when I posted this, my (mis)reading of the five rules suggested that the proofreading rule would be a sensible extension. Mea culpa; withdrawn.

I'd still like to find some sort of way to put proofreading at the same level as puzzle testing. But that's not part of the HAs' work, so I'll think about that.

But let me ask: is "fixing grammatical errors" a legitimate reason to update a hold on the Holds board? If not, why not and can it be made so?
01-03-2008 at 03:29 PM
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eytanz
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Tahnan wrote:
But let me ask: is "fixing grammatical errors" a legitimate reason to update a hold on the Holds board? If not, why not and can it be made so?

I would think it is, for the simple reason that it won't affect highscores, but it will improve player experiences. Not just the enjoyment of the native English speakers, but also (usually) making it easier for non-native English speakers to understnad. So why not?

Note that this assumes you have permission from the hold author. I'm not sure fixing grammar errors would be a legitimate reason for updating a hold without permission, though I think that might need to be decided on a case-by-case basis should the situation arise.

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01-03-2008 at 03:42 PM
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eytanz wrote:
Tahnan wrote:
But let me ask: is "fixing grammatical errors" a legitimate reason to update a hold on the Holds board? If not, why not and can it be made so?

I would think it is, for the simple reason that it won't affect highscores, but it will improve player experiences. Not just the enjoyment of the native English speakers, but also (usually) making it easier for non-native English speakers to understnad. So why not?

Our stated policy is that cosmetic changes are permitted at HA discretion. So I'd think that this would be allowed. But note that we don't have an automated tool in place for updating holds -- once it's been promoted, it currently requires admin (not HA) intervention to update it again. This makes it less desirable. Plus, obviously, it would be better if these sorts of things were cleared up prior to promotion.

Josh

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01-03-2008 at 06:32 PM
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I guess the confusion is whether "poor experience holds" should be promoted by HA. Having thought about it, I guess they should. This would include low-rated holds and poor grammar unfortunately.

Having just played through Dungeon Country I can say that I *wish* it wasn't on the Holds board, but after much deliberation I can't see why it shouldn't - and the same would apply for poor grammar holds.

On an aside, you may want to remove me from the list of HAs on the first page. [done -- mrimer]

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-04-2008 06:20 PM]
01-04-2008 at 12:15 PM
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Hikari
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icon Re: A friendly note from your HAs. (+1)  
I'm not totally sure if this is the appropriate place to say something about this, but...

I know that in the past, rooms from hold(s?) by JonhSoft2006 were modified in order to make holds that had been uploaded to the Holds board by that user completable. However, there is still a long-outstanding issue with the holds 'king dugans dugedion 2' and 'Puzzles' where there are unsolvable Secret rooms in the holds, blocking *mastery*, if not completion.

Is there any chance at all that those holds might be tweaked at some point in the future so as to finally make it possible to clean them off of everyone's 'Unmastered' lists, perhaps most reasonably in the form of turning off the 'Secret Room' bit on the rooms in question?

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Caravel Official Holds Progress:
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01-17-2008 at 05:45 AM
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Syntax
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icon Re: A friendly note from your HAs. (0)  
Hikari wrote:
there is still a long-outstanding issue with the holds 'king dugans dugedion 2' and 'Puzzles' where there are unsolvable Secret rooms in the holds, blocking *mastery*, if not completion.
Do you know which rooms? I'm pretty sure all this got sorted a while back... Not 100% though.
01-20-2008 at 10:55 PM
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Hikari
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icon Re: A friendly note from your HAs. (0)  
As far as I can tell, the following rooms are uncompletable, and as they seem to be marked Secret, they're making the holds unmasterable:

King Dugan's dugedion 2:
Level 2:2N3W
Level 4:1E
Level 7:1N

Puzzles:
Level 1:1N1W
Level 2:5W

With what I can manage to pull off in the holds, at 100% exploration rate on all floors of dugedion and 100% on all but Level 2 of Puzzles, which appears (looking in H&S) to have a group of five rooms full of nothing but wall spaces that aren't open to the rest of the level, I'm stuck with an 85% secret clear rate in dugedion, and a 71% in Puzzles.

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Caravel Official Holds Progress:
Click here to view the secret text


[Last edited by Hikari at 01-21-2008 07:09 AM]
01-21-2008 at 07:00 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: A friendly note from your HAs. (0)  
It is unlikely that either hold will be updated, as both holds are conquerable. Typically, impossible and unreachable rooms are marked non-highscorable on CaravelNet.

Checking your highscores (the trophy icon under your post) shows that you have conquered all the highscorable rooms in each hold.
01-21-2008 at 07:12 AM
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zex20913
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icon Re: A friendly note from your HAs. (+1)  
Larrymurk has joined the HA. Welcome aboard!

(Now we have to watch out or we'll step all over those lynchpins he's brought along. They hurt feet!)

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01-21-2008 at 04:25 PM
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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Architecture : A friendly note from your HAs. (Uploading holds.(updated 3/14/09))
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