NiroZ
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Ok, time to vote!

When voting, try to encourage innovation and solid layout. As for new features, encourage one's that have been well integrated with the rest of the interface. How well do the new features complement the current interface?
I have checked to make sure that all entries fit the specifications. There is one entry which has not quite kept to the 800x600 rule, and one that posted a dreaded .bmp file. Neither infringements are of real concern.

If you submitted and entry, you can still vote, but there are a few restrictions. First, you must vote 10 for your entry. Second, you must vote fairly for the others, and that means not giving them 1 or any other inappropriate score. Big brother is watching you.

If your looking for the compilation pack, try here

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-27-2007 08:27 AM]

NiroZ
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File: Highly Useful Advanced DROD UI.png (105 KB)
Downloaded 178 times.
License: Public Domain

There's one image that contains three pictures (Picture 1 to Picture 3). most objects are labelled.

1. The scroll and map interchange when encountering a scroll in the field (compare Picture 1 vs Picture 2), as opposed to the clock and scroll area inter-changing. Note that the clock area also has the current move count in the room.

2. (Picture 2) The map has scroll arrows that are only visible on mouse-over for quick scrolling inside the map. Left-clicking on the map still produces the large overlay on the playing area as normal, and also resets the scrolled map back to the current location.

3. (Picture 2) The map area also has some statistics for the current hold.

4. (Picture 1) The scroll area, when visible, also has scroll arrows that appear on mouse-over that scroll (in 'page'increments) the scroll content. I think this would be useful for those architects who like long speeches.

5. (Picture 1,2 3) An additional feature that, having played some of the more move-optimisation holds, I would like to see - a move counter. When left clicking in the field, a player can add 'way-points' (at 45 degree increments) to determine an optimised path without all the manual counting. A counter box appears on the playing field in this instance only to keep track of the moves, with manual increment or decrement buttons (eg. adding/subtracting rotation moves) and a cancel button to end the move determination all together. Next to each point, the absolute room co-ordinate would still be displayed. Left-clicking on an existing point would delete all points from that point onward (to make it easy to back-track on error). Note: Because this feature can confuse a DROD newbie, ideally it would be a feature that needed to be turned on in the settings.

6. (Picture 1,2 3) Demo loading and saving can be completed through buttons on the room title (same as F5, F6 keys, though the 'recording' is always occurring, and the Save opens the dialog to save the demo.). For simplicity, room co-ordinates are displayed in a numeric state.

7. (Picture 1,2 3) Online access for the current room can be used through the Online Help button.

8. (Picture 3) Demo playback has a panel that replaces the current map/scroll area. It allows the player to jump quickly through the demo with the slider. The Play and Pause buttons provide control over the demo rate. The "*" button allows a player to mark the current move number. This becomes a 'sticky' point on the slider, allowing the player to return to a key point in a long demo. Though I haven't drawn them, there are also buttons to move back and forward by one move. The standard left/right control keys still work as expected.

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-25-2007 10:25 PM]

NiroZ
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File: NewClockUI.jpg (38.1 KB)
Downloaded 142 times.
License: Public Domain

This new clock is based on the concept of the "Great Clockweight" spoken about in: Beethro the Delver IV - Beethro Hears The Universal Song (By Erik Hermansen) Here the clockweight runs the entire city of Dugandy. This clockweght lead me to think that the citizens of Dugandy would also design their clock the same as their energy system. Thus a tall vertical clock that had a weight drop down one notch each move was more likely then a round face clock. When the weight reaches the bottom it is pulled back to the top and starts all over again.

As an added feature you can left click on the clock or press an "F-key" (one not in use now), either would work, you get a pop-up that tells you how many moves you have made. This appears on the top of the clock. It can also be set to be always on in the settings menu, so you can count the moves as you go without additional keystrokes. The pop-up of move counts, kills and secret rooms visited etc., that you get when you hit enter, would remain unchanged as well. The new counter would be in addition to that great source of information.

This feature was a request in the Feature Requests Board and a type which deals with snake movements was designed by Rabscuttle
JtRH Graphics - Clocks..

If I could draw the clock would have a chain along side it and look very mechanical, but I can't draw so you will just have to imagine it. Each move the weight drops down a notch, 30 in all just like the cycles of the current clock.

Placing it to the left means it is there all the time not just on snake or roach cycles. It also means that walking on a scroll doesn't hide the clock, a complaint/request of some. The down side is it takes up space and the other elements that were unchanged on the left would have to be re-sized some, to make this work. I don't think the re-sizing is too much and the benefits out weigh the cost, (pun intended).

As I said the only other change I thought was needed was to the map. I wanted to take a feature from the 3-D version and enlarge it. That is take the transparent concept of the map but use it for a full map of the level. See, example here.

This map is accessed by left clicking the map and it would open in the center of the screen. It would over lay the room and that is why a transparent version is best. You could see enough of the room through it to see you present position relative to the level but now you can see the whole level as well. This is a feature most of us have wanted at one time or another. Only rooms visited would show up as in the map in the corner.

I would also like the corner map to have a grab feature. No scroll bars are needed but the map can be grabbed and moved up/down right/left. Just like in major online mapping programs, but no zoom.

Add a few more instructions for access these new features can be found under the map, and you have it all. All the other UI elements would stay the same, change is not always good. I like that way the rest of it works.

Legend:
Portrait = YELLOW (and says "characters")
Clock = LIGHT ORANGE
Map = DARK ORANGE
Directions on how to reach the menu = TEXT (Below map)
Scroll Area = BLUE
Room Co-ordinates and level name = WHITE W/ BLACK BARS EACH SIDE
Playing Area = GREEN

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-25-2007 10:29 PM : added URL's]

NiroZ
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File: DRODInterface.png (65.8 KB)
Downloaded 126 times.
License: Public Domain

The legend is in the artwork itself. The only things that need explaining are the following:

The yellow in the submission is what I used to represent the normal background. The white outside the text scroll "should" be considered yellow as well.

The 5-second Snake Clock would show up when there are events being timed on the 5-second interval (Snakes being the major one here). For a graphical picture, I thought there could be a snake crawling around. The snake ends up turning every five steps, so it's a good indicator.

A shortened description of the next part: Two seperate clocks that show up only when something is using each one of them.
(As a second part for the clock, if the room only contains snakes, only the snake clock should appear. The same goes for if the room only contains 30-second monsters. If both are in the room, both clocks show up. Once you kill all of one type, that clock goes away.)

To fix scrolls crowding out the entire screen, I think there should be a scrolling function built in. The user can either click on the Up and Down arrows on the scroll, or he/she can use PageUp and PageDn.

The final new detail on the Interface screen is the Connection Status. I always seem to be getting dropped at random times, so I never know in-game if I'm still connected or not for the uploading of my scores.

The eye (or my eye, at least) has a tendency to drift to the upper-right corner of the screen. For this reason, I moved the Room label to the bottom of the screen.

NiroZ
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File: Strontium Interface.png (8.2 KB)
Downloaded 119 times.
License: Public Domain

Here's the interface! I tried to make everything a good size, but unfortunately, even by making all the other things small, I fear the instructions to get back to the menu will be somewhat scrunched.

Anyway, the legend:

1 - The playing area
2 - Location in the hold scroll
3 - Scrolls
4 - Clock
5 - Portraits
6 - Room speech history
7 - Menu instructions

About the scrolls - Clicking the top or bottom of the scroll will scroll down to reveal more scroll content if the scroll's text is longer than the scroll. Currently, the text is just cut off past a certain point, but with this feature the scroll text can be as long as you want.

About #6 - This is the new feature I'm adding to the interface. This area basically contains a history of all speech said in the room, and is scrollable. This way, you don't have to keep restarting the room in order to hear long, yet important speeches, and you can keep track of what order events happened in a room or in a story.

NiroZ
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File: MyReallyBadUI.JPG (28.7 KB)
Downloaded 114 times.
License: Public Domain

Portrait: Same old portrait we no and love.
Clock: It's a serpent/tar/roach clock kind of like the Rainbow clock you can find in Development, except it has Erik's drawing style.
Scroll: It's a bit shorter, but I added a scroll bar so the messages can go on forever and ever and ever.
Help Button: The help button is grayed out until you Restart 20 times without leaving the room, then some color is added to it and you are allowed to click it. Clicking it will minimize DROD and open up a web-browser to either the hint page for the room you are looking at, the page which lists all the threads for the room you in, the create new thread page with all the stuff filled in already, or the login page if you aren't logged in.
Mini-Map: Same old Mini-Map except if you have CaravelNet turned on, it will display a checkmark and a ranking on completed rooms, and a big "X" on rooms where you don't have a score.
Lock: Locks and unlocks the edges of the rooms.
Room Coordinate Bar: Displays Coordinates, Level name, etc.
Title Bar: Displays a title for the room, like "Dining Room" or "Pit of Undefinable Horrors" or "GHTUFNHLFJH's Lair." Of there is no title, it will be blank.

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-25-2007 10:37 PM]

NiroZ
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File: Eight XP.jpg (70 KB)
Downloaded 119 times.
License: Creative Commons

< see image.

NiroZ
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File: textboxes.PNG (29 KB)
Downloaded 100 times.
License: Public Domain

The changes are explained in the image and were made mostly to unify the interface and provide more information.

NiroZ
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File: The Red Bo.GIF (9.7 KB)
Downloaded 109 times.
License: Public Domain

0: Main Playing Area:
1: Main Player Portrait Area:
2: Clock Area and Character Portrait Area:
3: Map Area:
4: Scroll Area and Dialogue Options Area:

5: Room Location area and Character Speech Area:
6: Flag Selector area and Main Player Speech Area:
7: Major Menu Area:
8: Messenger Notification Area:

9: CaravelNet Notification Area:

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-25-2007 11:03 PM]

NiroZ
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File: TheInterface.png (25.4 KB)
Downloaded 103 times.
License: Public Domain

<see image

NiroZ
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File: The Professional Beginner.PNG (15.6 KB)
Downloaded 102 times.
License: Public Domain

The Playing field is the big rectangle .

Macro Editor: Allows the player to design and use his own macros(movement sequences).
There should also be three "predefined" macros. These however, would be different as they would be slightly variable. Read on to find out exactly why.
The three predefined macros should be:
-clear trapdoor rectangle - this macro only works if the rectangle is completely full of trapdoors and the rectangle´s size is at least 2x2. No tar or orthosquares may be on the trapdoors. The player can also choose where Beethro

will end after clearing the rectangle.
-clear tar rectangle - this macro only works if the rectangle is completely full of tar, there is no tar mother in the room, the tar in the rectangle is not connected to any other tar and there is nothing hidden under the tar. If

the rectangle´s sizes are both even numbers, then Beethro will leave one 2x2 blob left in a corner.
-clear mud rectangle - this macro only works if the rectangle is completely full of mud, there is no mud mother in the room, the mud in the rectangle is not connected to any other mud and there is nothing hidden under the mud.

These macro's should be programmed so that they do not do any of their tasks in the optimal number of moves. While one of these macro's is in action, Beethro should also completely ignore any other monsters. This two features

should be implemented to avoid cheating.

The player ould use buttons on the left side of the screen to select which self made macro should be used when he presses the macro hotkey. The three other macros should be used by simply tracing a rectangle with the mouse(could

also be done by requiring the player to click the macro button, then clicking on two opposite corners of the rectangle). For the trapdoor macro, the game would also ask you where Beethro should end up after dropping all the

trapdoors.

The six boxes above the text box are buttons. They are used to select what the text box shows. The buttons are for hold statistics, level statistics, room statistics, terrain information(for newbies, including some other things

like force arrows, orthosquares), monster information(again, for newbies, including some other things like bombs, orbs, the different doors) and author comments for the room (seeing as comments for the level and for the hold can

already be included in the game).

Those 30 squares at the top show the clock. For those people who don't like to count boxes, the exact numbers should also be written in the squares.

Between the Playing field and the text box, there would be a lot of buttons, which would be used for macros, making the Tar and Mud transparent, showing what each Orb does (either individually, by requiring a mouse click, or all

at once), and simulating what would happen if Beethro stood still for x turns(number given by player).

EDITORS NOTE: This was originally a .bmp file. However, I converted it to .png because 1.4 megabytes is a bit excessive.

NiroZ
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File: Sliding Screens.zip (3.5 MB)
Downloaded 73 times.
License: Public Domain

It's theoretically not 800x600, but this is because I haven't explained it properly.

This view is 1000x600, but players only see a section at a time. Normally, they'll see the regular view, but they can click on the arrows at the bottom to slide it to the Battle view or the Explorer view. The Battle view has a larger spawn clock and a second portrait view (which could be set to the other character in a scene) and a nice big space to put buttons like 'swing sword forwards and backwards' or 'restore room' or maybe a button that goes to the Restore screen. The Explorer view has a larger scroll view (when you step on a scroll, it will automatically switch to the Explorer view until you step off) and a larger map. The proportions can probably be fiddled around with.

The other feature is the spawn clock - each variety of enemy is given its own ring on the spawn clock, which are removed as all of each enemy type is defeated (kill all the roach queens and the roach ring disappears, but the snake ring and the tar ring stay). If they start getting a bit crowded, they'll squash up into thin rings, but will expand again if you hover over the rings or over the enemy they represent. The spawn clock ticks upwards, and you can see the entire spawn clock by moving to the battle view.

The advantage of this view is that you get some use out of those fancy widescreen monitors, while presenting the player with a lot of information without much hassle. I could see the Restore and Demo functionality put on a modified version of the Explorer screen, replacing the scroll with a dialogue box.

EDITORS NOTE: This was originally saved in a .rar file. I changed this to zip to make it more compatible

NiroZ
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File: Contest Entires.zip (3.9 MB)
Downloaded 67 times.
License: Other
From: Not specified

And here are all the entires bundled together.

See the details.rtf file to read what is in the body of those messages.

Now, you have no excuse, get voting now!

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-27-2007 07:40 AM]

Chaco
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I have voted.

My opinions:





____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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[Last edited by Chaco at 02-26-2007 02:46 AM]

NiroZ
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Chaco wrote:
I have voted.

My opinions:

This message will be revealed in negative 925 weeks, 5 days.

You might want to update your times, I failed to take into account the fact that February goes for 28 days.

EDIT: and its faintly amusing and kinda scary how the amount of downloads depleate the futher down the page you get .

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 02-26-2007 02:35 AM]

Chaco
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What date are you picking for end of poll, March third?

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

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[Last edited by Chaco at 02-26-2007 02:35 AM]

NiroZ
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Chaco wrote:
What date are you picking for end of poll, March third?

By purely rough estimate, I'd say 3-4th of march. I was trying to just set it to close a week in advance, not aim it at specific date.

Chaco
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Ah, I see what you mean there.

It seems weird, then, that the untiltime tags only accept absolute dates rather than relative ones, then.

*goes off to make The Site request*

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Dex Stewart
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I now voted and shall post my comments after someone tells me how those untiltime tags work, or the poll closes.

#1 - 9 - Almost nothing bad to say about this one. I love the move counter, except I believe one should also be able to make 90° turns(ortho-squares, anyone?). I also like the demo-playback panel a lot. What I don't like is that you can see hold stats, but not level stats (not that much of a minus point as other people have neither) and that the level help is to easily reached(You good-for-nothing youngsters... in my age, we had no help! We had to work hard in order to have the honour of getting to the end ). But the rest of the UI is quite good.

#2 - 6 - Quite similar to the original this is. I don't like seeing a transparent map. The only reason for it would be to see both the full-scale map and the playing field at the same time, and I don't know of any situation when that would be needed. It also brings up a small problem, as it's more difficult to study the map like this. I do however like being able to drag the mini-map.
I like the clock idea, but I think exact numbers are also needed, as this way it would be hard to differentiate between for example turn 23 and turn 24. Imagine exterminating the wraithwing in Mr. Jones's attic (expert difficulty)without seeing the counter's exact position).

#3 - 7 - What I like a lot about this submission are the clock and the possibility to observe how other rooms look like without having to move (that is what the scroll bars do, I believe?). Otherwise nothing worth special noticing.

#4 - 4 - Little innovation here, except for the speech log. Interesting idea, but nothing to knock me off my chair.

#5 - 8 - I quite like some of the ideas in this one. I ike the room edge ock, I like the limitation for the help button(altough it can be easily bypassed, the limit should be one our, not 20 tries... and it should be impossible to get hints via the site, so you would be forced to spend at least some time with the room). I also like the possibiity of naming individual rooms. What I don't ike is the thing about the mini-map, and the clock. I don't like the rainbow clock(mainly because it's crampbed, or at least it gives me that impression).

#6 - 6 - The first problem I see about this UI is that there is not enough room for the coordinates to be written properly. The same applies for some hold names and leve names. I like that you can see the time and moves spent on the room.

#7 - 7 - Another UI that logs speech. That's a good thing. The digital clock might be nice if drawn properly. Another minor good thing is the "level complete" indicator.

#8 - 8 - I quite like most of this. What I don't like though is hearing of an embedded messenger (very un-DROD-ish) and what I absolutely hate is hearing something of multiple dialogue options. The rest is wonderful.

#9 - 3 - This is absoutely the same as we had until now, except that you can always see the clock. Reading scrolls however, requires reaching for the mouse. That's a big no-no for me.

#10 - 10 - I wouldn't have posted it, had I though that it isn't as good as it can be .

#11 - 4 - I absolutely do not like the idea of having something bigger than 800x600, expecially if I need the mouse to scroll. I'm happy there's almost nothing in the game that requires the mouse and it should stay like that. I also do not like many other things related to the different views. As an example, I do not like that you do not get to see any portraits when in explorer mode(although I couldn't completely understand when one would see the Explorer and when the Regular mode), I do not like that you still can't see the clock and the scroll at the same time. What I do like though is that there are two portraits(at least in Battle mode) and that the clock is detailed(although it scares me to think that I would see 4+ clock layers at the same time)(I say 4+, because no one knows what new things we could get in TCB).

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[Last edited by Dex Stewart at 02-26-2007 12:01 PM]

NiroZ
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As it says here, this will do exactly what you want. Just make sure to copy paste this, and preview your post before replying.

[unhidetime=3/5/2007 12:00 PM]Your hidden text goes here.[/unhidetime]

Citrus
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If I want to give me entry a 10, but really can't figure out how to vote for the other entries, what do I do? I want to be fair, but I need to give myself a 10 to be fair, and I really have no opinion on interfaces since they all are really the same. Help?

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

Maurog
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Find some way to distinguish between the entries, of just blow the dust off that 1d10.

Or you can cheat and not give yourself a 10, but nobody likes a cheater.

____________________________
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Paint the sky in crimson red!

tonyk
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Voting completed. Very interesting to see peoples thought patterns and ideas! My generalised comments below:

I was quite impressed with the thought put into clock representation in a number of these entries. It's certainly the most important widget on the screen (next to the grid display of course ). For me, that was an important voting factor. In particular, the horizontal / vertical clock idea I thought would work quite well in those two entries, with serpent indications.

There were also some entries that played with the concept of the character portrait at the bottom of the screen. It just didn't sit right with me, though in fairness the portrait doesn't have any play significance.

All up though, my congratulations to all those who entered the contest. I hope we see another imaginative contest like this from NiroZ again soon.



____________________________
Life is hard. DROD, harder.

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[Last edited by tonyk at 03-03-2007 04:25 AM]

Casebier
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Wish you had posted the compiled screenshot collection first... I just downloaded all of the layouts except for the last one before I found the collection.

____________________________
Casebier
--------------------------------
Revisiting old Project: ZelDROD 1 / ZelDROD RPG (If I can ever find the custom graphic files that I made for it.)

gamer_extreme_101
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I found the entries very interesting. My comments are as follows:

____________________________
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NiroZ
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Casebier wrote:
Wish you had posted the compiled screenshot collection first... I just downloaded all of the layouts except for the last one before I found the collection.

Fixed.

Tahnan
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NiroZ wrote:
See the details.rtf file to read what is in the body of those messages.

Er, what details.rtf file?

Anyway, voted. I was surprised to find I kind of cared about the interface, since I didn't enter the contest after deciding I had nothing to contribute.

So it seems that scroll bars for scrolls are a popular option. And even in some of the interfaces I didn't love, there were often very interesting and innovative ideas. Beyond that, some random thoughts (secreted only for length):

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[Last edited by Tahnan at 03-05-2007 09:37 AM]

NiroZ
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File: Details.rtf (44 KB)
Downloaded 47 times.
License: Public Domain

Tahnan wrote:

NiroZ wrote:
See the details.rtf file to read what is in the body of those messages.

Er, what details.rtf file?

Oh, God. I cannot belive I forgot to add that into the archive.

anyway, here it is now for those of you who don't want to download the archive to get it.

techant
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I voted! So nice to see such innovative ideas given. I hope that the items that were repeated by many are incorporated in the next revision.

____________________________
DROD RPG Released!! You must try it out it is Great!!

NiroZ
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There is almost 12 hours left to vote.
Make yours count!