Maurog
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1501
Registered: 09-16-2004
IP: Logged

Ah yes, after finally finising KDD, and what with JtRH not out yet, I bravely surfed to the holds page is search for some user-made action. The sheer quantity of the holds astonished me. I mean, sure, I expected at least several dozen finished holds but certainly not over 70! This raised an important issue - how shall I explore them. Should I just pick a hold at random? Should I go for the better rated ones first? Or maybe start with those rated easy and increase difficulty over time? After contemplating all that for awhile, I sorted them by date. Let's see - first ever submitted hold from November 2003, that's from Oneiromancer; last submitted to this date was submitted yesterday (March 2005), from some cab driver. I decided that exploring them in chronological order is probably the best option - first in first out and stuff, and let the last holds wait for their turn. As I entered the first room of "Treasure Hunt" hold it occured to me that people are probably building holds faster than it's possible to complete them. Oh well, one can but try...

You feel like you've taken the first step on a road to nothingness.

____________________________
Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Maurog wrote:
As I entered the first room of "Treasure Hunt" hold it occured to me that people are probably building holds faster than it's possible to complete them.

This may literally be the case. Here is some text I wrote for an in-game sell screen of DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold.

You will receive a free one-year CaravelNet membership with your purchase of DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold. This allows you to download thousands of rooms from our server without even leaving the game. As I write this, there are 4,422 rooms available!

* Each square that Beethro occupies is 5 feet long by 5 feet wide.
* Each room in the game contains 1216 squares, making the real-world area of a room about 70% the size of an acre.
* The physical area of DROD is over three thousand acres!
* Lay all the squares end-to-end and you will have a line 5092 miles long, which is something close to the width of Canada.
* If you were somehow able to solve each DROD room in 15 minutes (believe me, you won't) it would take you 1105 hours and 30 minutes to get through the whole thing.
* If your fulltime job were to solve DROD rooms, you'd be done with the existing rooms in six months.
* Nearly all of those 4,422 rooms were created in the space of one year by the player community, which grows by about 5% each month. Taking into account authoring activity generated by the release of DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold, they will have at least doubled the total room count in half a year.
* It would take less time for you to walk across Canada than to play all of the currently existing DROD rooms.

The prediction about doubling the room count in half a year is speculation, but I think the rest is right. Note also that we broke the 5000-room count just recently. Not to encourage people to dump extra rooms in their holds--quality over quantity is always a better approach.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

By the way, what is the real width of Canada from westernmost to easternmost? After Googling around, I had to settle for a rough measurement based on the scale key.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

krammer
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 904
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

Well, first of all congratulations on completing KDD! Now go pester Matt to get yourself on the Hall of Legendary Smitemasters.

I don't think there's any best order to play user holds. It depends how much of a challenge you want and what kind of puzzles you like. Of course, you can have several on the go at once, which can be useful if (or perhaps when) you get stuck. But don't feel you have to play them all.


____________________________
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error +++ Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot +++

"Oook!"

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

If you were somehow able to solve each DROD room in 15 minutes (believe me, you won't) it would take you 1105 hours and 30 minutes to get through the whole thing.

There are rooms that will take you more than 15 minutes to solve, but I'll bet there are far more rooms that will only take a reasonably decent DRODer 1 minute (or less) to solve. Is 15 minutes a reasonable average? Maybe, maybe not, but the point about exponential growth of the number of holds is well taken.

Now, what order to attack holds? I would suggest (and this is from personal preference for harder holds) that you start with midle-difficulty holds (say 5 difficulty). If the first couple are pretty easy, ignore the others at that difficulty and move up. Continue until you find the difficulty level that suits you best. Of course, as you play more holds, you'll inevitably get better, so you'll need to move up some more. Once you get comfortable with the harder level holds, I'd switch over to rating.

____________________________
Progress Quest Progress

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

A note:

Smitemasters is updated to 21/03/05.

I should take this opportunity to apologise to rowrow for the delay it's taken to get his name on the list. His original e-mail disappeared, and it's just now that I've been able to get into the site to upload the Smitemaster's list. Sorry, buddy.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

NoahT
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1166
Registered: 06-17-2003
IP: Logged

Maurog wrote:
You feel like you've taken the first step on a road to nothingness.

Don't you mean mothingness?

-Noah

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

My stuff:

gamer_extreme_101
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1939
Registered: 03-07-2004
IP: Logged

On a semi-related note:

Mattcrampy wrote:
Smitemasters is updated to 21/03/05.

Have you updated the rest of the site yet? I don't see the article I sent you, and the JtRH page still doesn't have a link on the Upcoming page.

And I hope you have the second version of my article with the changes in it...

____________________________
--That guy with a million different aliases since he doesn't like this name anymore.

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

No, the site hasn't been updated yet. I do Smitemasters separately, because I can't get our CMS to handle it the way I want it to.

I did get the second version of your article, thanks, gamer.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

rowrow
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 08-17-2004
IP: Logged

Its ok. At least I am on now. Now I am part of the cool crowd.It is partly my fault too since right when I beat it,(a few months ago) I pm'ed you and not email.

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

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

stigant wrote:
Now, what order to attack holds? I would suggest (and this is from personal preference for harder holds) that you start with midle-difficulty holds (say 5 difficulty). If the first couple are pretty easy, ignore the others at that difficulty and move up. Continue until you find the difficulty level that suits you best. Of course, as you play more holds, you'll inevitably get better, so you'll need to move up some more. Once you get comfortable with the harder level holds, I'd switch over to rating.

I would also look to see what comments have been given to the holds as well. There are some smaller holds, that although not as "fun" or as difficult overall as some of the larger ones, nevertheless also contain some great puzzles (if not as ridiculously hard) that are well worth playing.

Indeed, you might just want to use the "10 Random Holds" function to help you choose which to play first.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Also, if you need more help deciding, this thread might interest you:

People's Selection Hold Awards

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist