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The spitemaster
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icon A general post about making RPG holds (+4)  
I have looked at several of the new out and coming holds, and there is a few reoccurring themes that I am not happy with.

1. This is not a DROD game. It is a spin off. You do not need to make it like DROD. I realize that the mechanics of this game is different that what you are used to. I think that you need to wait and find out how to make different puzzles than you are used to.

2. This is a game that revolves around stats. If you make the game not have any choices than the game is not fun. I know that a choice is harder to produce than some people think, and that is O.K. This game will be different and harder for producers as much as it is for the players. For example, a choice between a gel baby and a roach is not a choice if you cannot defeat a gel baby. A choice is when you can only chose between attacking two different spiders and there is a key and defense behind one and a key and attack behind the other. Also in this case you can only attack one of them and then you have to move on. That is what makes it fun. Not just walking along and making sure that you don't kill yourself on someone you can't attack yet.

3. Room clear gates. In general this is a bad idea. Because then you can't chose to move on and attack something else. Also this is a case in where you are porting something from DROD that doesn't belong there. If you really want the person to have to kill everyone in the room put trapdoors under everyone and a red door and the end. At least that way they know naturally.

4. Monsters with weird stats. If anyone is to get really good at this game they have to know instinctively what they have to have to make attacking those monsters feasible. If you suddenly change one of the persons stats they have to redo all their stat checks. If you want something with certain stats make a picture to go with it. At the very least make sure that if you change one monster to have different stats, change all of the monsters of that type to those new stats.

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09-14-2008 at 08:04 PM
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The Architest
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
Im not pretty good making Level-Sets with choices...yet!

This is important info for all those Archite(s)(c)h who are having problems making...Level-Sets/Holds! :yes
09-14-2008 at 08:11 PM
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Someone Else
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
No, no, you don't understand. If it doesn't have choices, it's not a puzzle. You have to be able to mess up. And I don't mean accidentally attacking the out-of-depth monster. I mean choosing attack over defense and losing just too much health in the next couple rooms to beat the boss, where choosing defense would have let you get through (This is just an example, hopefully the puzzle is much more complicated than that).
You should mess around in the editor for a while before trying to create a hold to show off. Just find out what it's capable of. Then, when you have a pretty good idea of its limits, make a hold that has a puzzle or two. Please, don't make Bad Evil Restaurant.
09-14-2008 at 08:42 PM
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zex20913
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
Actually, it'd be Bad Evil Restaurant RPG.

You'd get to add points to your vomit skill.

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09-14-2008 at 10:43 PM
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Chaco
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
And you'd be able to take ranks in Weapon Specialization (Persistance) and Improved Sanity :)

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09-14-2008 at 10:52 PM
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hyphz
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (+1)  
Someone Else wrote:
No, no, you don't understand. If it doesn't have choices, it's not a puzzle. You have to be able to mess up. And I don't mean accidentally attacking the out-of-depth monster. I mean choosing attack over defense and losing just too much health in the next couple rooms to beat the boss, where choosing defense would have let you get through (This is just an example, hopefully the puzzle is much more complicated than that).

And I should probably add to this - an issue I'm trying to deal with - the choice has to be made with variable information.

If the user has no information either way, it's not a puzzle, it's a random choice. If the user has the certain information that defense in the way to go and they will die otherwise, it's not really a choice any more. The trick is how to give just the right amount of information..

09-15-2008 at 12:14 AM
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Tim
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (+1)  
Note: The following text is my personal rant and is not the general view of the HA's.

I've been playing holds that have been submitted for promotion lately, or on Architecture, and I usually ended up playing the same hold for more than 5 times. That is not acceptable.

Here are some of the things I've seen. The reason why I'm writing this is that these things comes up in almost every hold.

1. Please make sure that the version you are submit is the FINAL version. Scoring within RPG is currently final. That means that no further changes are possible. (This may change later, but probably not this year.)

2. We currently don't have many tools to check for changes, so every minimal change means that I'll have to play the whole hold again. Of course your hold is so good that everyone wants to play it 20 times. (I've played Tendry's Tale only a couple of times, and I'm sure your hold is better than that. Or not.)

3. I've seen holds that really needs many minimal changes. Like Anyone Edit (I prefer Anyone Edit), Missing Scorepoints (yes, we demand at least one in every hold), Big Obvious Bugs (and I don't mean the roaches). Please do your beta testing first, in the Architecure Board, not on the HA page.

4. I'd also like to say that some of the holds that I've seen had big "guess the script" problems. Let's just say that I don't think I want to approve (or HA check) any hold that is not "Anyone Edit" (because it's easier to find current bugs, and bugs due to future versions of RPG).

5. On the other hand, I might just autmoatically approve anything that is completable and has at least one scorepoint. In case a big bug is found after promotion, there is absolutely no way we can update the hold, so the bug will stay there, forever. Yay!

In short, submit your hold at your own risk! You hold might become the first RPG Big Evil Restaurant!

(Yes, I know most of these things is already on the DROD Architecture Board, but somehow architects here think these things don't apply to them.)

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09-23-2008 at 12:48 AM
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nabla
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (+1)  
The spitemaster wrote:
2. This is a game that revolves around stats. If you make the game not have any choices than the game is not fun. I know that a choice is harder to produce than some people think, and that is O.K. This game will be different and harder for producers as much as it is for the players. For example, a choice between a gel baby and a roach is not a choice if you cannot defeat a gel baby. A choice is when you can only chose between attacking two different spiders and there is a key and defense behind one and a key and attack behind the other. Also in this case you can only attack one of them and then you have to move on. That is what makes it fun. Not just walking along and making sure that you don't kill yourself on someone you can't attack yet.
In original DROD I was never much of an optimizer, but of course RPG is all about optimizing, and I did have much fun with that. That said, what I'd like to point out is that I do need a certain incentive to optimize, and while the obvious one, i.e. being able to complete the hold, certainly serves its purpose, finding the one solution that works is potentially frustrating.

In the other extreme, if multiple solutions work, and the only effect different choices have are different scores when completing the hold, I don't really feel like going back just to obtain a better score.

What both parts of Tendry's Tale and Paycheck do very well is offering both a basic walkthrough, that gives a certain sense of accomplishment, and an advanced walkthrough, that leaves you with the feeling of "now I've seen it all".

I really wish that future holds will also use choices in that way (the better your choices, the more you will have seen of the hold once completed, which really makes me want to optimize), and not solely as a means to determine the score or your ability to conquer the hold at all.
09-23-2008 at 02:00 AM
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Yellow_Mage
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
nabla wrote:
I really wish that future holds will also use choices in that way (the better your choices, the more you will have seen of the hold once completed, which really makes me want to optimize), and not solely as a means to determine the score or your ability to conquer the hold at all.

I strongly agree with this. It's actually what I want to do if I get around to making a half decent rpg hold.

Also another thing - when people make hidden rooms don't think that they have to be always optional. Hidden rooms can be part of the floor puzzle. If you make hidden rooms optional, make the sacrifice to get to them worth it, for example, you don't loose more overall points. Compared to DROD, the architect in DROD RPG has much more control over a player even tho' it harder to predict what they may or may not do within a level set.

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09-23-2008 at 06:52 PM
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Tim
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
Yellow_Mage wrote:
Also another thing - when people make hidden rooms don't think that they have to be always optional. Hidden rooms can be part of the floor puzzle. If you make hidden rooms optional, make the sacrifice to get to them worth it, for example, you don't loose more overall points. Compared to DROD, the architect in DROD RPG has much more control over a player even tho' it harder to predict what they may or may not do within a level set.
I have the feeling that you are comparing things that shouldn't be compared. Hidden rooms in DROD RPG has one main function: it is NOT displayed if the player has the map for the level. Since there are no Master Walls in RPG, it's up to the player to decide whether they think it's worth the sacrifice.

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09-23-2008 at 09:17 PM
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RoboBob3000
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (+1)  
Tim wrote:
I have the feeling that you are comparing things that shouldn't be compared. Hidden rooms in DROD RPG has one main function: it is NOT displayed if the player has the map for the level. Since there are no Master Walls in RPG, it's up to the player to decide whether they think it's worth the sacrifice.
You're forgetting that the concept of mastery still exists for editing rights, though.

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09-23-2008 at 09:53 PM
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Tim
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RoboBob3000 wrote:You're forgetting that the concept of mastery still exists for editing rights, though.
Good point.

(Although I hope that master edit is not the main function of the hidden rooms. But even if it is, that would sound like a good tradeoff.)

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09-23-2008 at 10:33 PM
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zex20913 wrote:
Actually, it'd be Bad Evil Restaurant RPG.

You'd get to add points to your vomit skill.
Chaco wrote:
And you'd be able to take ranks in Weapon Specialization (Persistance) and Improved Sanity :)
:shifty

Edit: Okay, It might actually be fun. :rolleyes

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[Last edited by Monkey at 09-24-2008 12:59 AM]
09-24-2008 at 12:55 AM
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Tahnan
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Tim wrote:
Scoring within RPG is currently final. That means that no further changes are possible.

[...]

In case a big bug is found after promotion, there is absolutely no way we can update the hold, so the bug will stay there, forever. Yay!
Um. Perhaps it makes sense to not promote holds right now? Since it looks like there are some pretty large bugs (e.g., involving variables) waiting to be fixed?
09-26-2008 at 03:30 AM
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mrimer
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icon Re: A general post about making RPG holds (0)  
Tahnan wrote:
Tim wrote:
Scoring within RPG is currently final. That means that no further changes are possible.

[...]

In case a big bug is found after promotion, there is absolutely no way we can update the hold, so the bug will stay there, forever. Yay!
Um. Perhaps it makes sense to not promote holds right now? Since it looks like there are some pretty large bugs (e.g., involving variables) waiting to be fixed?
Yes, I'd suggest to the HAs to wait on promoting holds for now. IMO, we don't need holds on CaravelNet, especially with potential scoring issues, until we've gone through and knocked off the list of bug reports.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 09-26-2008 04:49 AM]
09-26-2008 at 04:48 AM
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