DiMono
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The first thing I noticed when I started playing Caravel was the difference in what happened when I held an arrow key:

In Webfoot, Beethro would rocket across the screen like he was being chased by a dinosaur.

In Caravel, Beethro takes slow, measured steps, as if he's running away from a mouse with a limp.

Is this something that was coded, or is it my computer just sucking that much?

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Oneiromancer
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I believe in the options menu of Caravel you can set the key repeat rate, and should be able to recover Webfoot's speed, if you so wish.

Game on,

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DiMono
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From the main menu I see Settings, Continue, Help, Exit, Restore, Demo. In the settings menu the only sliders are for sound and music volume. Am I just missing something?

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Schik
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You're missing the Architect's Edition of DROD, apparently.


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DiMono
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I was just wondering if I should mention I'm using 1.6... lol

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Schik
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1.6 is AE. Perhaps you're using 1.5? If so, I'd definitely reccommend getting 1.6. Playing all the user created holds would be the big, obvious reason.

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DiMono
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Somewhere on my hard drive is the install for AE, but I have too much to do for the next 3 weeks and I know that AE would cost me my school term if I started playing it now. Thanks for the pointer.

I thought AE was 1.7?

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eytanz
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1.7 is the version that will add a lot of new monsters.
1.6 is the architects edition (level editor)
1.5 is the older version of caravel DROD.

I don't think anyone has 1.4 or older.

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DiMono
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Right, I remember now. 1.7 is the version that will eventually be retail. I don't suppose there's some way I could become a beta tester for it and get a free copy? (having no money sucks)

Edit: and if by 1.4 you mean Webfoot, I have it and still play it sometimes.

[Edited by DiMono on 11-23-2003 at 04:20 AM GMT]

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Oneiromancer
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I hope to be a beta tester, but I will still pay for it, even if I am offered a free copy. I think even for big retail games (like Diablo II) the beta testers don't get free copies (and I'm not talking about the Stress Test of course, I meant the real beta testers).

Game on,

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DiMono
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I would absolutely pay for a copy of this game if I could afford it, and even if I do end up being a beta tester and getting a free copy I will eventually buy a copy, when I can afford it. Unfortunately though, I really have close to no money, so buying something just for fun hasn't been an option for quite some time.

Bill Roper is a contact of mine though from my column, so I guess I could probably just ask him if the beta testers got free copies of the game.

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The_Red_Hawk
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So we won't be able to get 1.7 unless we pay?

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eytanz
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My understanding is that 1.7 will be free - we'll all get to use the new monsters and bugfixes and music and stuff. What will cost money is the new official holds - Rooted Hold, and future holds by Caravel. But ultimately it's up to Erik - I'll definitely pay for 1.7 no matter what it includes, I've already gotten way more out of DROD than out of many games I payed good money for.

I'm really not sure what 1.4 is, of if such a version ever existed... I didn't mean Webfoot in my post above, though, I'm really not sure what the versioning system of webfoot looked like.

[Edited by eytanz on 11-23-2003 at 04:39 AM GMT]

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The_Red_Hawk
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OK, I get it.....

And...Isn't Webfoot v1.0? I thought that there wasn't any version v1.4.

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DiMono
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I agree, DROD has given me much more playtime than other games I've purchased. I bought Space Quests 1-6 for $50 in a collection, and between them all I got less than 40 hours of playtime. The free DROD gave me well over 100 hours the first time I played it, and took much more logic to get through.

Fun fact: My Webfoot DROD is copyright 1996 and VGA, and here's something from the Creator Comments:

So I'm not worried about providing enough challenge for the masochistic MENSA-types out there, but I am worried about some of you getting stuck and giving up--especially when all of the cool stuff is on the later levels. For those of you with Internet access, you should find the Usenet newsgroup "rec.games.computer.puzzle" and post questions about rooms you are stuck on, or answer other D.R.O.D. players' questions if you see any. Use the Z-key while playing to get room coordinates (i.e. "50,201") to put in your message--this lets others know quickly what room you mean. Put "D.R.O.D." or "Deadly Rooms of Death" in the subject of your message. I will check in every once in a while and post hints to questions if I see them. Also, if you have a web browser , go to "www.dejanews.com"--it is a good tool for searching through the newsgroups. If you don't have Internet or Usenet newsgroup access, perhaps you can find a friend that does. If there is enough popular support for the game, I may come up with something more organized--like a hint/cheat document.



Since the topic of this thread has morphed in to what it is, and I'm sure that, like me, Erik still has a copy of each released version somewhere, how reasonable would it be for a version guide, so we can see just how far DROD has come over the last 10 years?

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Oneiromancer
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Hah, I remember that message about the Usenet group...I don't know if I ever followed it up though. Someone should advertise there about DROD AE.

From what I have gleaned about 1.7, it may be that only some of the new items and levels of Rooted Hold will be free. In order to access the extra items and levels, you will have to pay. I don't know about what will be available in the editor. I guess the way I would do it would be to make all of Rooted Hold free, but the ability to use the new stuff in the editor what you have to pay for, including importing new holds with those extra monsters. But I don't know, it's not easy thinking of a good payment program for a game like this.

This reminds me of another game I was quite enamored with -- Demise. It is basically the hack 'n' slash RPG to end all hack 'n' slash RPGs, and it is good at what it does, as long as you don't expect depth. It is an old game, and can only be bought through a small online company for $50. And yet a good number of people bought it after only playing the demo--it had that much play value. And it is a huge game--easily hundreds of hundreds of hours if you like that kind of thing. I certainly put over 50 hours into it, so I considered it money well spent, and I just barely got halfway through the dungeon (level 16 out of 30). Anyway, very soon they will be releasing a full updated version and they will charge $20 for it. It will replace the old version, so it is cheaper in that respect, but they are making people pay for it even if they own and paid for the original version. There are many good arguments for this reasoning, including the fact that the game was heavily pirated because of the high price, but still a lot of people aren't too happy. The true fans, however, don't mind at all.

I was actually relatively active on their forums until they switched servers, which was around the time I stopped playing. I went back and made a post there recently plugging DROD, hopefully some of them will check it out, there were some very cool people there (just like here).

Game on,

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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Hah, I remember that message about the Usenet group...I don't know if I ever followed it up though. Someone should advertise there about DROD AE.

From what I have gleaned about 1.7, it may be that only some of the new items and levels of Rooted Hold will be free. In order to access the extra items and levels, you will have to pay. I don't know about what will be available in the editor. I guess the way I would do it would be to make all of Rooted Hold free, but the ability to use the new stuff in the editor what you have to pay for, including importing new holds with those extra monsters. But I don't know, it's not easy thinking of a good payment program for a game like this.

That would entail that rooted hold doesn't have that stuff.

If it was my project, I'd probably make only the bugfixes and interface improvements free, and the general gameplay changes such as enabling holds to have interconnecting levels - but I'd make all the new monsters and items cost money, both to edit and to play; as well as all of Rooted Hold.

But it's not my project, and Erik knows best, I think.


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Schik
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One big problem is that this is still an open-source game. The source code for 1.7 will be released at the same time as the game itself. So disabling the editor or other features would be difficult, as anyone could grab the source, re-enable the features, and release it.

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eytanz
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I'm guessing that it'd be unfeasible to rewrite DROD as an open source core engine, with the various monsters and stuff being plug-in-able modules - that way some of them could be open source and some not, without changing the open source status of the game as a whole... But I'm guessing that would require a major rewrite that is probably too big an undertaking...

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Oneiromancer
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eytanz wrote:
That would entail that rooted hold doesn't have that stuff.

Not necessarily, the 'Neather is in Dugan's but the player can't use it in the editor. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to just have the new items "greyed out" until the fee was paid.

If it was my project, I'd probably make only the bugfixes and interface improvements free, and the general gameplay changes such as enabling holds to have interconnecting levels - but I'd make all the new monsters and items cost money, both to edit and to play; as well as all of Rooted Hold.

That sounds reasonable too, but we'll just wait and see I guess.

Schik wrote:
One big problem is that this is still an open-source game. The source code for 1.7 will be released at the same time as the game itself. So disabling the editor or other features would be difficult, as anyone could grab the source, re-enable the features, and release it.

I'm confused...I didn't think commercial games could be open-source. I think I need it explained to me.

Game on,

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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
I'm confused...I didn't think commercial games could be open-source. I think I need it explained to me.
Game on,

Open source is an umbrella term for several different kind of legal conditions; the only thing they have in common is that they require allowing access and reuse of the source code. Most open source licenses do not restrict charging money for compiled binaries.

Also, some (but not all) open source licenses allow open and closed source code to be mixed - as long as all the open source stuff is available in its entirety, there could exist a version which is partially closed. I don't know whether this applies to DROD, though.

Code that's in the public domain, by the way, is totally free for anyone to do with what they like, with no restrictions whatsoever - if I want, I can take public domain code and sell it, and if anyone is stupid enough to buy it that's their problem. (If I tell them it's not public domain then I'm commiting fraud, but that's a different matter).

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DiMono
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Doesn't this all relate to the GNU license? Where you're allowed to resell as long as you provide the source code as well and mention that it's open source?

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eytanz
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The GPL (GNU Public License) is an open source license. It's not the only one. It's just a very popular one that's backed by a relatively powerful legal entity.

If you google for it you can find a lot of debate on the merits of various public licenses. It gets very ugly, occasionally.

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Schik
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<Edit: Eytanz beat me to the punch regarding the GPL>

One thing about 1.7, and our license - there could very well be things such as graphics and music that are not released under the same license. As of 1.6, all of the graphics and sounds are in the public domain. This will not necessarily be the case in the future.

I'm going to stop trying to figure it out and just rest easy knowing that Erik and Mike will deal with this hard stuff.


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Oneiromancer
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I guess I can think of it in terms of what Wizards of the Coast is doing with the D&D stuff now...there's the OGL, the Open Gaming License, and the d20 license. The OGL, if I remember correctly, covers all the very basic stuff, the things that are universal to any D&D thing, like stats and the core character classes, and is free to use. The d20 license includes more specific things like certain spell names and deities, and I think has to be paid for. Not all 3rd party products have the d20 license. I could have this all mixed up, but I think it is close to correct.

Okay, assuming I understand it, it seems to me that it should be like Eytan said--that the stuff that is just simple improvements to the DROD game and interface continues to be open source, but the new stuff, the stuff you have to pay for, is under a different license. This is probably not feasible though. I don't think I know enough yet.

Game on,

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Mattcrampy
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Although this is probably already sorted, from what I hear the plan is that there may be two releases: DROD 1.7, and DROD 2.

DROD 1.7 would contain bug fixes, and probably the new graphical engine.

DROD 2 would contain most of the new content. KDD would be a seperate download with its graphics and music.

Of course, I'd have to dig up the e-mails, and I think I deleted them.

Matt

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ErikH2000
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eytanz wrote:
I'm guessing that it'd be unfeasible to rewrite DROD as an open source core engine, with the various monsters and stuff being plug-in-able modules - that way some of them could be open source and some not, without changing the open source status of the game as a whole... But I'm guessing that would require a major rewrite that is probably too big an undertaking...

Well, there's a couple problems with that. One is, like you say, it would be really hard to write it that way. The other is that I've made promises to programmers who contributed to the project that we would not disable Caravel DROD releases or make a free version that has less features than one we sell for money. So I'd be bait-and-switching the crew that helped me put together 1.5 and 1.6. Also as Schik pointed out, being legally obliged to release source code with DROD makes it extremely easy for someone else to duplicate our work in a competing commercial or freeware product.

1.7 is an experiment. We will be selling media (levels, graphic, music, story) instead of game features, so the media does not fall under the open source license (it's Mozilla Public License 1.1, BTW). From a salesman's standpoint, this is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. It would be very useful, for example, to say "Get the level editor when you register!" but we can't do that--it has to be included for free.

If we don't do very well with 1.7 sales, Mike and I will probably put more effort into a different game (we have a million good game ideas) that we can work on as a closed source project.

-Erik

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eytanz
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Well, I'll pay, of course, but I do think that if you want to stand a chance of making good sales for 1.7 you need to start evangelizing 1.6 - since the stuff you're selling will be primarily an expansion, it would help a lot to have a large, loyal fanbase for the core game. You have a loyal fanbase, but it's not quite large enough at the moment for the kind of sales to be worth your investment.

(note, by the way, that I'd be very happy to see a non-DROD game - and I'm starting to think that 1.7 will contain all the features DROD will ever need - but I'd really want the decision to be up to you, not financial constraints)

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ErikH2000
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Mattcrampy wrote:
Although this is probably already sorted, from what I hear the plan is that there may be two releases: DROD 1.7, and DROD 2.

DROD 1.7 would contain bug fixes, and probably the new graphical engine.

DROD 2 would contain most of the new content. KDD would be a seperate download with its graphics and music.

Well, we talked about that. In a way, we are really only throwing names around here. A lot of the confusion comes from our requirement to sell media instead of new software features. Internally, our team thinks of an engine with a version number ("1.7" right now) that corresponds to a certain feature set. There is a hold, that contains media, and that is a separate thing we will sell.

However, when we go out and market this thing, I'm not going to spend a lot of time with text inside the DROD game explaining the divisions of open source and media, and version#s, and that sort of thing. The only people that care are DROD zealots like you and me and maybe those wacky Linux users. It will just be presented as a simple shareware/registered dichotomy, because that is something people understand. They can download the "shareware demo" for "DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold" and if they want, pay for the "registered upgrade" which unlocks all the other levels.

But underneath the hood, it will be a full-featured 1.7 engine all free. You pay for the commercial hold if you want it. If you don't want the hold, enjoy the free software that has everything but the hold. And enjoy all the holds that other people make with the level editor.

I don't want to say too much about names, because we may still change them. Right now, I guess you could say the codename for the next release is "DROD 1.7", and that encompasses the engine and the commercial hold that will be released simultaneously.

-Erik

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ErikH2000
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eytanz wrote:
Well, I'll pay, of course, but I do think that if you want to stand a chance of making good sales for 1.7 you need to start evangelizing 1.6 - since the stuff you're selling will be primarily an expansion, it would help a lot to have a large, loyal fanbase for the core game. You have a loyal fanbase, but it's not quite large enough at the moment for the kind of sales to be worth your investment.

I agree. We will do much more to promote 1.6. Waiting on a few things right now.

-Erik

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