Blood Maggot
Level: Delver
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How about a paint tool in the builder, that you used to paint creatures with? I think this would make holds more colourful, and interesting. It wouldn't allow for creature camouflage, unless a spider was painted. It would make creature movements easier to examine.

A few basic colours I like the idea of:

Yellow
Blue
Red
Green
Purple
Grey

Nice idea?

Fafnir
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Allowing users to change monster colours is an interesting idea, but I think a slightly better way of doing it may be to allow the user to export and import creature images from JtRH, for greater versatility. That way, instead of just being able to change a monster's colour to one of a number of preset themes, you could change the monster's appearance completely - which might be useful in some themed holds. Plus, since (I'm almost certain) we're dealing with bitmap editing (which you can do in Paint) rather than 3D graphics or similar, it would still be pretty simple to do - you wouldn't end up excluding people. I admit that this may run into some camouflage-esque abuse (think spiders that aren't visible when they move), but I imagine holds using it in such a manner wouldn't be rated highly (to say the least!), so it would be self-limiting.

You're probably right - it may well have been implemented already in one form or another. Just in case, though - please, Erik? :adorablepuppyeyes

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agaricus5
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I like the idea, although it's more of a testing tool than anything else really.

As a playtesting feature, it could be used to mark monsters temporarily with something, so you can follow it around a room as you playtest more easily, and make sure it is doing what it is supposed to.

I'd also like to have the ability to "draw" on top of a room during play (this may have been suggested before), so you can mark battle plans or vital points on it more easily without using a drawing program. I guess it's probably too difficult to be worth it, though, since you will need to add a completely different drawing layer to the gameplay area and the equivalent of a small drawing program inside DROD with associated bars and buttons as well, which may become rather cluttering.

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Krishh
Level: Master Delver
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This could be Ok if you colored a whole type of mosnster, but allowing to color indvidual monsters is just begging for bad architects to create horrible rooms that are harmful to eyes.

I do like the idea of allowing the architect to color a monster while playtesting through.

And yes, the ability to draw while playing has been suggested before, but I agree, that would be a great feature. It wouldn't have to be all too fancy, a simpleblack pencil of about 2 pixels width would probably do for most purposes.

Blood Maggot
Level: Delver
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Hmm, I guess I could see this getting abused. But for testing I think it is a good idea.

I have 2 more ideas: 2 - player DROD - speaks for itself

An extendable lance - Basically, you place the lance inside a wall, and on the opposite side of the wall, is a button. The lance and button would be on the same wall piece. When you hit the button, the lance extends, killing abything in its path, and acting like a wall to any creatures. If you hit the button again, the lance retracts, and is ready to be used again.

DiMono
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Believe it or not, both those things have been mentioned in the past. The general consensus is that Beethro will only ever use a sword, since the theme of the game is "Devilishly handsome guy with swords kills stuff," and I don't remember what the outcome of the 2-player DROD discussion was.

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Krishh
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2 player DROD has been discussed in any variations, but DiMono, you misunderstood the second suggestion. He meant something like an orb activated speartrap like this:

|>.....o

|> lance
. empty space
o orb

I think it might fit in actually.

Doom
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He meant the lance like this:

B L   RRR   |

 BL---XXX---|

B = Beethro (watching east)
L = Lance (pointing east, must be hit on the western side to activate)
R = Roaches
- = Extended Lance (kills all enemies on it's way)
| = Wall
X = Roaches Dying

Blood Maggot
Level: Delver
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This is what I mean by Lance:

B S W/B ----->

B = beethro
S = sword
W/B = Wall with button on it
-----> = lance, after extending

Beethro stabs the wall with button it and the lance somes out the other side.

I guess this is confusing <_<

Blood Maggot
Level: Delver
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Hmm, I have another idea:

An option which prevents beethro from moving when he tries to move into a wall, pit or creature. It would be togglable in the setting menu.

Now some might not like the idea, because it means you die less. However, those are cheap and fustrating deaths, and shouldn't... exist.

mrimer
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Blood Maggot wrote:
I have 2 more ideas: 2 - player DROD - speaks for itself
...

I don't remember what the outcome of the 2-player DROD discussion was.

Multi-player DROD is a fascinating thing to think about. However, it is a highly non-trivial problem to implement effectively (i.e. for fun, not as a purely academic pursuit...and you'll realize it's very difficult to do this for game-play reasons the more you think about it) and I must argue that figuring out what this means doesn't quite speak for itself. I'd love to make this a reality, so I'm interested to hear more. If you have any ideas on how to make playing a 2-player DROD game fun, please do share them!

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egg egg
Level: Delver
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Blood Maggot wrote:
Hmm, I have another idea:

An option which prevents beethro from moving when he tries to move into a wall, pit or creature. It would be togglable in the setting menu.

Now some might not like the idea, because it means you die less. However, those are cheap and fustrating deaths, and shouldn't... exist.

I think this is a great idea, and it would indead prevent a lot of mistaken deaths, and would stop you from wasting turns as you try to run into a wall at the end of a long passageway.
However, the wonderful ururururururururururg noise would be lost forever....................

wackhead_uk
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I think it'd be funny, but totally non-doable, if DROD was integrated into messenger programs so that you could watch another person play and comment.

Notice I said non-doable, I do not really expect this to be even considered to be put on the maybe pile, it's just a thought.

stigant
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You know, though, its a great way to provide hints to somebody. Rooms that rely on efficiency are especially hard to give a hint for without just providing a demo to the person. If they record a demo and send it to you, you can make comments about where they might be able to do something a bit quicker etc. I helped somebody get through one of the rooms in A Quiet Place this way.

I wouldn't think that integrating DROD into a messenger program would be impossible. There are some well defined protocols for exchanging data that you would have to conform to. But assuming the data in DROD is stored, programmatically, in a reasonable fashion, you could massage the file format for demos into one of those protocols, and then just stream it over the network rather than providing the entire demo file up front.

It would probably be easier, though, to build in a networking layer to DROD itself (ie add the messenger capability to DROD rather than adding DROD capability to a messenger program).

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mrimer
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stigant wrote:
It would probably be easier, though, to build in a networking layer to DROD itself (ie add the messenger capability to DROD rather than adding DROD capability to a messenger program).

I would like to do this.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

wackhead_uk
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I only suggested this because I was talking to one of my friends and I noticed that you could start Total Annihilation through MSN messenger, and it is the only game I know of that can actually be started through it. Needless to say, it didn't work thorugh lack of mulitplayerage on Total Annihilation since about 2 years ago, when the company who made it closed down...boo-hoo.

[Edited by wackhead_uk at Local Time:02-09-2005 at 08:43 PM]

wackhead_uk
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I just realised that Unreal Tournament 2004 can connect to an IRC channel through the game. Would it be hard to just let be able to connect to our DROD IRC channel? I don't know about the difficulties or anything, It's just a suggestion.