Mouse
Level: Master Delver

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Is there any way for buggy holds (Such as Blast Castle) to be removed from the holds board & moved back to Architecture?
It's a pain to download a hold you think is okay & then find it can't be completed.

Also, in relation to Blast Castle, does any one know if sims5000 is still around? It'd be really neat to see Blast Castle finishable.

MeckMeck GRE
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As for Sims5000s activity : Sims5000´s last post is 1,5 months old. Also I dont see him in the "Logged In Member List". Maybe he comes back soon...

eytanz
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I support this idea. It seems to me that, with the ever-increasing amount of holds, it's not like anyone will run out of stuff to play very quickly, and unfinishable holds are very frustrating. I think that once its clear that a hold is unfinishable and that the author has no intention of fixing it, it should potentially be removed - potentially, because I think there's room for exceptions in case of holds that are very high quality regardless.

Alternatively, and probably better, there should be a way to flag holds as "unsolvble" - not by the authors, but by the web modeators. Then, there should be an option to filter those out in the download list.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 08-20-2005 01:46 PM]

gamer_extreme_101
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Also, I think that holds that end up as anthologies or collections (The holds that make up Tacker's Trilogy, for example), should also be removed, simply for keeping the board organized and clean.

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MeckMeck GRE
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gamer_extreme_101 wrote:
Also, I think that holds that end up as anthologies or collections (The holds that make up Tacker's Trilogy, for example), should also be removed, simply for keeping the board organized and clean.

No way ! What would be good is remove the single ones ! If you remove the compilation, a dozen of rooms would be lost and there would still be 3 holds / if you remove the single episodes you have 1 hold, and nothing is lost.

Stefan
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Also, I think that holds that end up as anthologies or collections (The holds that make up Tacker's Trilogy, for example)

That's what he meant, although I miread it at first as well.

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gamer_extreme_101
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Captain Confusing Words strikes again, so it seems. Yes, I meant that the anthologies should stay, and the single ones should be removed. Sorry about that.

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Tscott
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But some of those single levels were made in DROD:AE and then collected and updated for JtRH. If someone was playing only DROD:AE, for whatever reason, they'd no longer have access to those levels if they were removed.

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MeckMeck GRE
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Tscott wrote:
But some of those single levels were made in DROD:AE and then collected and updated for JtRH. If someone was playing only DROD:AE, for whatever reason, they'd no longer have access to those levels if they were removed.

Then those players really have to get JtrH (Demo). And.. I dont think anyone really only plays DROD AE.

Tscott
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
Then those players really have to get JtrH (Demo).

I know that and you know that, but do they know that?

And.. I dont think anyone really only plays DROD AE.

I wouldn't want to assume. Limitations like an older computer may make some prefer AE to JtRH.

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agaricus5
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Why not make the criteria to remove a hold be that the hold must be completely or nearly duplicated (i.e. in terms of room numbers and puzzle layout) in another hold or section of a hold, and the version of DROD the hold is for must be the same?

Of course, some sort of notification and discussion would need to be had with the author, but I agree that there's no point in having duplicated holds around if that can be avoided.

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Krishh
Level: Master Delver
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I would like a request hold removal button somewhere on the holds page. You would be taken to another screen where you would have to give your reasons for this and confirm your choice. Once a hold would get a certain number of such requests, it and the reasons for removal would be reviewed by a forum moderator/admin/someone with such authrotity appointed by Caravel for removal and removed if found inappropriate for the holds board. Such a request from the holds author would count as 5-10 votes (the amount required to get the attention of them request reviewers), but he would still have to give the reasons for the removal and the request would still be reviewed.

Edit: Beter yet, such holds would be given a seperate forum, on which there would be no ratings (holds that would get removed from the board would be pretty low on those anyway), just the holds, and no highscroes would tracked for them .(but the existing highscores wold be kept in case the hold returns to the holds board) These holds also wouldn't appear ingame for Caravelnet users. The hold author could request the hold to be put up on the holds board again once he has fixed the reason for which the hold was removed. This of course would again be reviewed by those with the power to take the holds down in the first place.

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[Last edited by Krishh at 08-20-2005 07:17 PM : Another idea.]

gamer_extreme_101
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I don't quite like how that system sounds, but I do think that since CaravelNet is a commercial product, that we need a better way to allow hold uploading rather than a simple warning, as it doesn't take much to simply ignore it.

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ErikH2000
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If there's a hold that is unsolvable then I think we can give the author a little warning and then take it down. The author may fix the problem later and republish it.

As for copying rooms without an author's permission, the copied-from author should try to work things out with the copying author to get the hold fixed. If it can't be worked, then we'll take the hold down.

-Erik

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Syntax
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I think the only problem with taking down a hold is if someone has spent hours (days) getting to the unfinishable part.
If it then got taken down, wouldn't all the ranking information be wiped ?

Maybe the hold could just get truncated ? The unfinishable room would be changed to a generic "stairs-to-exit-the-hold" room. Guess it would mean some editing by "someone", but this could avoid a lot of pain in seeing all that progress disappear

The author could then fix that room, and re-release the full version... until a further room gets identified as unfinishable, and truncated at that point :p

StuartK
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A partially automated system could have holds which start as 'unknown' and move onto 'verified OK' followed by the number of players who have completed the hold. Players could optionally switch off listing holds which have been in the 'unknown' category for a certain length of time.

Then, an additional category of holds 'unwinnable' which are by default filtered out of the list available within DROD, and are marked as such on the holds board. These would be manually checked. The scores for these holds could be removed from the highscores list, but would be reinstated if the hold were fixed.

If there were such an automated system, one anomaly to watch out for would be a hold update which breaks a room some have already completed.

Any monster logic changes should really be verified against the entire existing game base, and authors notified of problems. I realise this would be a huge undertaking, but then making such logic changes shouldn't really be done lightly at all nowadays...

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[Last edited by StuartK at 08-23-2005 09:08 PM]

Jacob
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When I export holds DROD informs me that a victory demo has not been completed for all rooms, and asks me if I want to continue.
So DROD can check if I've completed all rooms (and from this, know that rooms are all completeable). So if I were only allowed to export such holds, or, if I were only allowed to upload such holds (DROD could label holds as to whether they'd had 100% victory demos or not, and this label could be looked for by the uploading code) then wouldn't this solve the problem?

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eytanz
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Adding a constraint on exporting would be a really bad idea - there are plenty of reasons to export an unwinnable hold (say, if two people are working on developing it together, they might want to pass it back and forth until it is complete. Or just for backup).

A constraint on uploading would make more sense; but it would prevent people from making holds with unwinnable rooms completely - even if the hold itself is solvable. Even if it's built to ignore unsolvable non-required rooms, it will not catch levels where some rooms are unsolvable, marked as required, but there's no blue door.

Is this a problem - I don't know. But it's a price. I think the amount of holds being uploaded is certainly within the managable level for human-based enforcement, which can be flexible in a way automatic checks cannot.

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AlefBet
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Additionally, a room may have a victory demo for it, but it may have been recorded when the hold overall was in a different state. It may be necessary, say, to enter from the north to beat a room, but the hold may have since changed such that you can't enter from the north until after beating the room or not at all.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that the absence of victory demos doesn't necessarily say anything about a hold, nor does the presence of them.

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Tim
Level: Smitemaster

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Oh, great! I really like to spend another five months to discuss an automatic solution! (that was sarcasm )

By the way, I would like to keep the export as it is, for 2 reasons:
1) I export my work-in-progress holds very often, for backup reasons.
2) I need to export my wip holds if I transfer them between different versions of JtRH (2.0.6-2.0.9, and from Windows/Linux)

And I really like this quote

I think the only problem with taking down a hold is if someone has spent hours (days) getting to the unfinishable part.
If it then got taken down, wouldn't all the ranking information be wiped ?

So what? If the author puts up another better version, you can always upload the demos again. I would call it unfair if a hold is taken down and I will never get those ranking but the other guy who did that one before removal will always keep those points.

I guess we all agree that Blast Castle is broken. Can we all agree to move that one back to Architecture?

-- Tim

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[Last edited by Tim at 08-23-2005 10:40 PM]

StuartK
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Tim wrote:
So what? If the author puts up another better version, you can always upload the demos again. I would call it unfair if a hold is taken down and I will never get those ranking but the other guy who did that one before removal will always keep those points.

I guess we all agree that Blast Castle is broken. Can we all agree to move that one back to Architecture?

If this and other broken holds are removed, those who have downloaded the holds ingame will be able to improve their rankings for when they are reintroduced. Those who have not downloaded the holds will still be able to do so via the forums, but will be at a disadvantage if they are not regular participants (ie only a subset of DROD players)

On a selfish level, 3 currently broken holds, Blast Castle, Deep Hold and Pitiful currently make up about 25% of my total score. I'll happily accept this solution if it's the agreed preferred one, but it will have a non-negligible effect on rankings.

Also, even if an entirely manual solution is chosen, I'd still like to see better ingame information about how much a hold has been played/tested.

Stefan
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StuartK wrote:
... 3 currently broken holds, Blast Castle, Deep Hold and Pitiful ...

Well, Deep Hold will hopefully be updated soon (once The_Red_Hawk finds the time to do so), and Pitiful will also be updated once we get permission from Ameph to do so (look at this thread). There are also three holds with buggy or unreachable end stairs (Dodecahedral Hold, Idiot's Dungeon and MetDROiD) that I think should be updated at some point.

In general, I think it's better to let buggy holds stay on the Holds board, instead of temporarily removing them (causing the problems with high scores mentioned in this thread). It's better to update them than to remove them. However, this requires some patience from the players' part.

However, I do think that holds such as Experimental Hold should be moved to the Architecture board (Goblin Test, which fits this category, was already removed from Holds some time ago).

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Banjooie
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Uh, Dodecahedral isn't completable? When'd THAT happen?

Django
Level: Goblin

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Banjooie wrote:
Uh, Dodecahedral isn't completable? When'd THAT happen?

Pithy question indeed. I logged on just now to find out how to exit Dodecahedral -- after spending several hours searching for whatever I must have missed. <argh>

Could holds *somehow* be marked as not completable as soon as some admin finds out? (Of course, that fact would need to be propagated through the game-time connections... much like the "UPDATED" notice is handled now.)


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eytanz
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Stefan wrote:
In general, I think it's better to let buggy holds stay on the Holds board, instead of temporarily removing them (causing the problems with high scores mentioned in this thread). It's better to update them than to remove them. However, this requires some patience from the players' part.

I think buggy holds whose author is still around and can fix them shouldn't be removed. Buggy holds that are unsolvable and the author is gone should be permanently removed, high scores or not.

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Rabscuttle
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wallu wrote:

I Ching Contest Entries
Level Deliverance (Bibelot), room 2S2W is impossible in JtRH due to changes in brained behaviour. (There is no high score for 2S2W. Only conqueror is Stefan, which has imported results from AE.)

This room could be made JtRH-compatible, but it would need orthogonal squares (and invisibility potions instead of scrolls)

Didouneto
Level: Delver

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DROD Scenario Puzzle Pack (Didouneto@aol.com) and DROD Scenario Puzzle Pack (English version) (Didouneto@aol.com) are identical. Therefore, either of them should be removed from high score list. ""I think that French version should be removed"".

agaricus5
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Didouneto wrote:
DROD Scenario Puzzle Pack (Didouneto@aol.com) and DROD Scenario Puzzle Pack (English version) (Didouneto@aol.com) are identical. Therefore, either of them should be removed from high score list. ""I think that French version should be removed"".

That might... err... be a disadvantage to those who'd prefer the hold in French, but isn't it possible for you to add French translations to the English version (you could use duplicate scrolls in French, and add French descriptions to the Level start descriptions)? It's just that having a duplicate hold just for a translation might be a bit excessive. Of course, you could also add the French levels to the English ones, and just have an extra level/room where you can choose which version to play. For those after highscores, I guess it might prove a bit annoying, but it might work.

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Didouneto
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sorry...

Jatopian
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I dont think anyone really only plays DROD AE.

Some people are too poor for JtRH.

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