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File: KPVIIID3 The Final Floors.hold (11.9 MB)
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Almost a year has passed since the Amnesty incident, wherein King Pilchard was forced into hiding. Now, he's back. And he needs a particular someone's help. Can you guess who's?

This hold is definitely the biggest and best in the series. With a powerful storyline, multiple extras and never-before seen special effects, this truly is a fitting end to the King Pilchard legacy.

Many many thanks to all of my testers:
Banjooie, Jeff_Ray..., Hikari, Ezlo, Timo006, NiroZ, wallu, Jason, tokyokid, zaubberer, Briareos, Pinnacle, coppro, Alneyan, Elfstone and Niccus.

Extra special thanks to CuriousShyRabbit, without whom this hold probably would have been rejected.

CuriousShyRabbit
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It's been nearly 2 years since King Pilchard VIII's Dungeon and KPVIIID2 : Return to the Spire. After all that waiting, the third part to the trilogy had better be good... and KPVIIID3 : The Final Floors most certainly does not disappoint! If you liked the first two KPVIIIDs, you'll love this one.

This hold features an engaging story, told from multiple points of view. When playing this hold, I felt like I was watching a movie. There are good puzzles here, especially in the Eleventh, Twelfth, and the imfamous Thirteenth Floors. (Also some so-so puzzles, more towards the beginning.) Oh, and it's a good idea to find all the secret rooms in game, rather than restoring later. After a climactic boss battle, and surprise ending, there are several postmastery levels packed with interesting goodies.

Pilchard VIII took nearly 2 years to make this hold, and in that time, put care into every detail. Worth playing.

RoboBob3000
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
Oh, and it's a good idea to find all the secret rooms in game, rather than restoring later.

That doesn't sound good. Care to elaborate?

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CuriousShyRabbit
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Oh, no backtracking problem or anything like that! It's for fun!

Pilchard VIII
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That's right, it's to keep you from hearing the messages in a random order. Instead, you can go to the rooms in any order, and hear a different message each time.

____________________________
The DROD Dragon

JoMax
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I have a question about the scripting on Tech-Dugandy.

How is the number of goblins that appear behind you calculated - is it variable?

In 4E the number appearing for me was 12 (for total of 14) in the west of this room; my No. 1 score was bettered by fratopea who had 1 less.

Pilchard VIII
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There's always 20.

____________________________
The DROD Dragon

JoMax
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File: K3TFF Tech-Dugandy 4E Victory.demo (1.1 KB)
Downloaded 98 times.
License: Public Domain

Pilchard VIII wrote:
There's always 20.

If you check the demos for Tech-Dugandy:4E I only had 12 (attached) and fratopea 11.

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[Last edited by JoMax at 01-13-2008 07:19 PM]

fratropea
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Sorry, my name is frat Ropea!

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[Last edited by fratropea at 01-14-2008 12:24 AM]

zex20913
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Then obviously JoMax wasn't talking about you.

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JoMax
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fratropea wrote:
Sorry, my name is frat Ropea!

Apologies - I obviously cannot read

RoboBob3000
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Very cool ending.

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CuriousShyRabbit
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Please ignore this post. I was on the wrong track.

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[Last edited by CuriousShyRabbit at 01-14-2008 11:06 AM]

eytanz
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:

JoMax wrote:
I have a question about the scripting on Tech-Dugandy.

How is the number of goblins that appear behind you calculated - is it variable?

In 4E the number appearing for me was 12 (for total of 14) in the west of this room; my No. 1 score was bettered by fratopea who had 1 less.

Wow, that's really strange. JoMax, I assume you're talking about the 12 goblins that "come through" the western door plus the two that come from the north and south corridors to get your total of 14.

I watched Fratropea's demo, and she does indeed have only 11 goblins "come through" the western door. The demo appears fine and uncorrupted when I watch it. However, when I copy Fratropea's moves exactly, a 12th goblin appears on turn 27. No goblin appears on turn 27 in Fratropea's demo. Very strange.

I'm curious. Have you found a bug? Fratropea, what version of DROD are you using? I've patched my original 3.0 Windows installation to 3.1.0.54.

This is unlikely to be about DROD versions. All a demo file contains is a list of room states, variables, and moves. How those moves play out depends on the DROD version running it, not the DROD that created it. Similarly, the spider would replay the room as if it was running the latest version of DROD, so a demo that depended on a version bug would be rejected.

The most likely difference for what you describe is that there is some variable controlling the number of goblins. It is possible that a bug caused this variable to be set differently in Fratopea's demo, but there's no way of telling that from the room.

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NoahT
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eytanz wrote:
Fratropea's demo

Fixed.

-Noah

____________________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

My stuff:

CuriousShyRabbit
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Aha! I figured it out. It's not a bug, it doesn't have to do with DROD versions (thanks eytanz), and it's not a scripting variable. It's "End on room exit." To solve Tech-Dugandy 4E with 11 goblins instead of 12 goblins, wait at the entrance until the first goblin appears next to you and then exit. When you come back in, you will only have to fight 11 goblins.

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[Last edited by CuriousShyRabbit at 01-14-2008 10:34 AM]

fratropea
Level: Delver
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Good CuriousSkyRabbit!!! You are great!
(anyhow, my version of DROD is 3.1.0.54)

BYE

Tahnan
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
Aha! I figured it out. It's not a bug, it doesn't have to do with DROD versions (thanks eytanz), and it's not a scripting variable. It's "End on room exit." To solve Tech-Dugandy 4E with 11 goblins instead of 12 goblins, wait at the entrance until the first goblin appears next to you and then exit. When you come back in, you will only have to fight 11 goblins.

Of course, this generalizes...

JoMax
Level: Delver

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Tahnan wrote:
<snip>
Of course, this generalizes...

I take it that means you are thinking along the same lines as myself?

I assume from CuriousShyRabbit's explanation that the same would apply to any similar scripting in any room, any hold?

Is this a bug or a feature?

Schik
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Feature of the engine, potential bug of the hold.

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Syntax
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
Oh, and it's a good idea to find all the secret rooms in game, rather than restoring later.

Could we be told how many secrets are on each level then? I don't want to miss any but might and I doubt I'd replay the entire hold just to see the "bonus message"...

Pilchard VIII
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Ooh, go on then...
There's one on the Ground Floor, one on the Eighth Floor, one on the Ninth Floor and one on the Eleventh Floor.

I should state also that like it or not, you HAVE TO backtrack to get to a secret room.

By the way, try visiting the secret rooms again just before the end of the hold.

Also, if you do get all them, you don't just get a secret message...

____________________________
The DROD Dragon

sjschaffner
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It was suggested that I use this area to give my impressions of this hold. I have marveled at how well constructed this hold was. I really enjoyed playing most of the levels. They were beautifully developed as was the story line. For the most part I felt the difficulty was much higher than stated by the author. Up until level 12, I would have rated this at about 5 1/2 or a little higher. Level twelve was much more difficult for me and had a few rooms which I thought were rather tedious. However, I persisted and prevailed until I reached the final realm 2N. Here I just couldn't kill the second slayer.
As always I received excellent help from the forum members and in particular CSR. I think at this point the desire to finish the hold is diminished by this very difficult and tedious task of killing the slayers. I have mixed feelings about the holds rating. If it had been rated more difficult I might not have attempted any of it and would have missed out on a lot of enjoyment. I guess I think that it would have been better if the difficulty of the most of the rooms in each level was more consistent. Thanks for all the fun.

Syntax
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sjschaffner wrote:
However, I persisted and prevailed until I reached the final realm 2N. Here I just couldn't kill the second slayer.

I spent 2 years *refusing* to play any room where slayer killing was a requirement - I would just switch holds. Only recently have I started (taken the time to) understand (care) how to kill them (rather than hitting Esc - r - Enter).

I haven't got as far as you but if Slayers annoy you as much as they annoy me, there's a few "slayer training" holds out there Taught me a lot...

sjschaffner
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Thanks for the reply. Can you suggest the names of the slayer training holds that have helped you understand dealing with the problem?

Syntax
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sjschaffner wrote:
Thanks for the reply. Can you suggest the names of the slayer training holds that have helped you understand dealing with the problem?

No worries - this whole forum is usually faster than me to reply

I've looked up and down the list, but can't seem to find the hold I'm thinking of. I've lost a lot of progress in several holds recently, so I blame that. I'm sure someone will give you a hold title very soon (I believe it was a Rheb hold but could be wrong. I also remember not being able to even match a #1 in this hold ).

In the meantime, have a read of this.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but hopefully that'll give you an extra bit of strategic Slayer technique.

[EDIT]

I'd guess that link isn't actually very helpful. There is a thread (Stefan's maybe), which triggered descriptions of every possible slayer kill. The site is not really responding, otherwise I've have linked to it.

I'm having a bad day

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[Last edited by Syntax at 01-22-2008 03:30 PM]

CuriousShyRabbit
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Here is a thread that explains many different ways to kill slayers. The first method discussed is useful for The Final Realm : 2N.

sjschaffner
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Thanks CSR!

Neather2
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The first part of this was really boring. Especially Castle: Eighth Floor. I give it 1.5 fun and 6 brains for this first part of the final part. I will play another level after return to school

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Nothing to say. I just play the game. And you, sir, should play it too.

Conspiracy, my new hold, has just been released.

Syntax
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Neather2 wrote:
The first part of this was really boring. Especially Castle: Eighth Floor. I give it 1.5 fun and 6 brains for this first part of the final part. I will play another level after return to school

Probably best to vote once you've completed the hold or got as far as you'll play. That way you'll rate it as an average for the entire hold...