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File: Garlonuss Galley.hold (71.9 KB)
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This is just a collection of different rooms that I was itching to get out of my system. It's my first hold, so it does not have a completely unified feel to it.

rowrow
Level: Smiter
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Registered: 08-17-2004
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If it is your first,then why did you first put it in the holds section and not in architecture?

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B'hakhgra Du S'tra Moth'ness Ti!

masonjason
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 349
Registered: 12-29-2003
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Well, it's not really relevant whether it's his first or not. Garlonuss, if you're reading this - can you please post your future holds in the Architecture forum first so that people can make comments and find bugs (which even the best hold architects miss)? I'm about to play this hold, so I'll post some comments soon.

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Eighty people came to the bazaar.

masonjason
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 349
Registered: 12-29-2003
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OK. Here are my comments so far - I've managed to get through the first two rooms.

ENTRANCE: It's nice to leave checkpoints in this type of room uncovered at the start so that the player can see where they are. Otherwise, a nice room, although frustrating.

ONCE EAST: A solid idea, but too much like hard work to play. Dropping trapdoors while stopping to smite roaches every few steps isn't my idea of fun, and losing a few hundred turns when I made a misstep was frustrating and made this room much longer than it should have been.

ONCE SOUTH, ONCE EAST: I took a look at this room and thought, "Dammit! Not another one!" I may come back to it another time.


In summary, your rooms (or at least what I've seen so far) are good, but you might want to intersperse the hardcore combat rooms with some more relaxing, thoughtful fare, or risk tedium.

Of course, somebody who's REALLY good at DROD might have a different opinion from I.

[Edited by masonjason at Local Time:11-24-2004 at 10:43 AM]

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Eighty people came to the bazaar.

Doom
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3226
Registered: 07-05-2004
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My comments on the first level:


Entrance: Ok room but it's a little too repeating.

1E: Hmm... This is starting to look like some rooms in Bavato's dungeon. Except that it's not so difficult. The only bad thing with this room is that it's far too loooong. It gets boring after a while.

1S1E: A little easier room than previous one.
Still feeling a little like Bavato's... Large areas may be a little frustrating to clear.

1S: So far the most enjoyable room of the first 4. It's easier but it's more fun to do it than the first few.

2S1E: It's quite easy to find a usable route after looking at the arrows for a while.

2S2E: Way too much trapdoors. This room just isn't fun.

3S1E: This room looks like a bit too empty. Most difficult thing is to get rid of the goblins without getting verrun by wraithwings, Not so difficult after you get it.

3S2E: You can read half of the message without hitting any orbs. Those doors give it away. Tricks like that are kind of cheap by the way. (Yep, I had to try. But it was only a restore away to come back)

2S: This room is really easy if you've done level 22 in KDD. Just a few moves and you can clear both trapdoor chambers one at a time by blocking other mimic.

2S1W: Nice idea in this one. But there's only 2 ways and it's easy to find which one doesn't work.

2S2W: Serpents have been placed interestingly but that's pretty much what's in this room.

1S2W: Nice room, You can take a shortcut by hitting the lower-left orb while standing on the trapdoor. Actually I'd like it better if that was the only way to do it

3S2W: There's practically 2 things in this room.
- Running away
- Fighting your way back
Maybe a little too tedious here too. It's also obvious how to reach the tar mother.

3S1W: Most devilish trapdoor room ever! Well done on that! But it's only because the orbs are so random, you'll practically have to write every one of the to know where to go next. I've not completed this room yet and there seems to be (few?) more rooms to the east.

Overall a nice hold with few nice rooms but too much hack&slash (and too many trapdoors).

[Edited by Doom at Local Time:11-24-2004 at 03:27 PM]

Atch
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 81
Registered: 08-29-2003
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Well despite the reservations expressed at the top of this thread the hold played flawlessly and I finished today – so congratulations Garlonuss.

That being said I think that it could have benefited from some tweaking in Architecture. I’ll admit to being no fan of DROD’s orb rooms but this dislike is exacerbated when you have to start a room from the beginning some twenty times due to the absence or lack of checkpoints. You can’t know what the orbs are going to do until you have been through a few times and First Level: 3S, 1W and Second Level: 1N, 3E were especially bad in this respect. There were plenty of checkpoints in the orb full Second Level: 2N, 2E but I found this the most tedious room in the hold.

I think that I enjoyed the tar rooms best notably Second Level: 1N, 2E and my favourite room of the hold Third Level: 1E – that was quite a battle! I was grateful for the advice to head west from the Third Level Entrance so that the trapdoors only had to be dropped twice though the design of the room was immaculate.

I have rated it 8 out of 10 – Thanks G.

larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1911
Registered: 12-09-2004
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I second Atch's opinions.

Nice hold

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
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I have just discovered that this hold's description is too long in GatEB. What do?

P.S. Fun hold.

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bomber50
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 872
Registered: 09-18-2006
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After putting on Tar Transparency in the Options, I was finally able to get past the first room featuring trapdoors under tar, thus marking it off my Unexplored Holds list.

Continuing on through the hold, I began to realize that this is one of the most tedious holds I've ever played. The second room, in particular, takes the "drop all the trapdoors while being harassed by a slew of brained roach queens" and takes it to a point where it gets incredibly boring. The next room, basically "drop all the trapdoors while being harassed by a brained tar mother", wasn't much better.

I haven't made it through the entire hold, but looking at the rooms I've played, plus the rooms ahead, it's safe to say that it is extremely tedious. Basically, if there's some annoying DROD room you don't like, you'll probably find it in here.

On other notes, the checkpoint placement is not very inspired, and playing this hold on Architect's Edition, with no macro keys, no one-turn undo is certainly pure HELL.

Some holds are just an easy enjoyable hack n' slash romp. This hold isn't; it's irritating hack n' slash.

1 Fun
6 Brains

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[Last edited by bomber50 at 05-18-2014 06:19 AM]

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
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Why playing in AE out of interest?

Thanks for the feedback in any case