egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
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File: Eggs Castle Demo.hold (27.2 KB)
Downloaded 76 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

I have begun making my first JtRH hold, with lots of fights, puzzles, story and secrets!

It will probably take a really long time because it will be huge!

I will post the first floor as soon as it is done.

You can get the first couple of rooms now if you like.

EDIT: Ground Floor Finished!!!

[Edited by egg egg at Local Time:04-10-2005 at 10:07 AM]

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
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egg egg wrote:
I have begun making my first JtRH hold, with lots of fights, puzzles, story and secrets!

It will probably take a really long time because it will be huge!

I will post the first floor as soon as it is done.

You can get the first couple of rooms now if you like.

Is this the same as the other version you posted earlier?

If so, your scripting is interesting, although perhaps in 1N, instead of having the characters just disappearing when you walk by, you could add another command to make the characters flee to the room edge before disappearing to make it more realistic.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
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I have decided on the hold design now.
I am probably about 4% finished, and have filled some of the ground floor.

There will be one upper floor and a roof, which are part of your contract, and also two underground floors infested with goblins.
There will also be three bonus floors, one for finishing the upper floors, one for finishing the lower floors and one for finding the slayer.

There is a map for the bonuses and the main castle.

Post with any questions.

Have a few more rooms to Test.

MeckMeck GRE
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 594
Registered: 01-03-2005
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Ok. Thats a really nice hold. What I find especially good are the away running scouts (mud) and the guards reaction when I move to close to the king. Also that eggs (on the floor) are cute. I found 3 Secret rooms but











[Edited by MeckMeck GRE at Local Time:04-05-2005 at 05:52 PM]

egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
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3S3W You are not meant to be able to reach the orbs.

2S3W This is easily fixed.

you get the slayer to know when he have to run away and is there a way to let him start the fuse ? I know this actually belongs to the Architecture Forum but I dont want to make a extra thread for that.

I am not sure..., but it took lots of trial and error, and muliple lables, go to and if...goto commands.

Krishh
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 282
Registered: 06-05-2004
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In 6S you can kill one of the mud baby scouts.

egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
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Thanks for being patient everyone!

The whole first floor is done now.

Please post with any bugs, complaints or ideas.

You can get it from the first post.

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
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It would have been a little easier if you'd left it as Anyone-Edit for testing. It's so large that the rooms are a bit hard to keep track of.

Anyway...

I've seen around 20-25 of the rooms so far, and I've got to say that I'm fairly unimpressed. It's not that your hold concept is poor or anything like that, but I feel that you've basically rushed this hold just for the sake of having the largest hold for JtRH to date.

Most of the rooms that I've seen are basically filler rooms, mostly empty or with very easy puzzles, and they dilute the quality of the hold to such a degree that it's not really worth playing. Take for example, rooms like 3S 2W, 2W, 1N 1W and 2S 2E. All these rooms don't contain much of a puzzle at all; I can complete them all within 5 minutes and so found them relatively uninteresting. They could have been much elaborated on to improve their content, or even removed entirely and replaced by something else more interesting.

Remember that it is far better to have a hold with only 10 really high quality puzzles, than a large hold with 50 mediocre rooms. Size is not the most important part of a hold; if the only remarkable thing about a hold is its huge size and a lack of quality, then it won't be rated very highly overall. It's generally the case that the effort you put into it is proportional to how good the hold is; the more effort and time you spend on it, the better overall it will be. Also, even if you don't aim for difficulty, making the rooms fun to play also requires effort.

However, it's not all bad; there were one or two rooms, like 1S 1E, with more interesting puzzles, although these could also have been much improved. For example, in this room, you've filled the whole of it with Orthogonal squares, but only have one serpent to kill. You could divide the room up into smaller segments, each with its own serpent. First, the puzzle will be overall more challenging, and second, you'll now have a smaller space in which to deal with a goblin and a snake, bearing in mind you can no longer move diagonally, which requires more careful manipulation.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

MeckMeck GRE
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 594
Registered: 01-03-2005
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Bug in first secret slayer Bomb room ! You cant go back if you once exit south.

1E is however not possible....

[Edited by MeckMeck GRE at Local Time:04-08-2005 at 06:20 PM]

Krishh
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 282
Registered: 06-05-2004
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Bugs:

1E is immpossible.

2W One of the statue pieces is misplaced.

2S 3W The Slayer here is a creature not a character, and therefore stays there even after you complete this room, and if you come back from the not yet working entrance to his lair, is killable.

The guard that escorts you to see the king is killable in all three of the rooms. (in fact, he moves in such a way that I pretty much always kill him accidentaly just by moving north) And if this happens, his script doesn't end and when you enter the room again, he again moves from the south through the room.

Krishh
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 282
Registered: 06-05-2004
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
Bug in first secret slayer Bomb room ! You cant go back if you once exit south.

Yes you can.

egg egg
Level: Delver
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Registered: 01-20-2005
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Thank you, I will try to change the boring / too easy rooms.

Also 1 E is not impossible, although it is difficult, I just managed it.

What is wrong with 3S 2W?


Here is a hopefully better version, although I don't want to make it anyone edit.


[Edited by egg egg at Local Time:04-08-2005 at 08:25 PM]

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
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egg egg wrote:
Thank you, I will try to change the boring / too easy rooms.

Also 1 E is not impossible, although it is difficult, I just managed it.

How do you drop all the trapdoors?

What is wrong with 3S 2W?

Well...

First, there isn't much of a manipulation puzzle there to begin with (only two sets of roaches need to be dealt with), which aren't really a problem for anyone acquainted with backswiping.

Second, it's a pretty cheap usage of scripting to make a puzzle anyway. Sure it's a surprise, but certainly not one predictable from the start of the room. I'd avoid such rooms unless you have a good reason for them, or absolutely need to use the effect, otherwise it will get boring quickly, and potentially lower the quality of the overall feel. I, personally, would have thought a orb/door mechanism would have looked much better, even if another scripted character (visible) would be responsible for opening the door when you stepped on the central square. If you did it that way, at least the player would have time to admire your architecture before stepping in to deal with it, rather than have to figure it out the hard way and get frustrated.

Here is a hopefully better version, although I don't want to make it anyone edit.

You don't have to, but from experience (and there are many others who will agree with me), you will find testing your hold will become much less desirable with time as more are released. Even I was like this at first, but I learned that if people have to replay rooms in order to get to where they progressed to, or don't have an easy way of bypassing rooms that have not been completed, they will invariably find something else to do. Anyone-Edit will definitely help your hold get the testing it needs, so if you're worried about people viewing secrets you'd like to save for later, then copy the hold, remove them from this new copy, and release it as a limited testing edition instead.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

Krishh
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 282
Registered: 06-05-2004
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I see you've fixed most of the bugs (well, the guard can still be killed in the very first room and if you exit one of the later rooms through the sides, you can come back from them and overtake and kill him. May I suggest that he strikes an orb that closes off yellow doors to the sides, forcing you to follow him and see the king the first time you enter the castle?)

But 1E can't be possible. It has a roach behind red doors, and there is a 4 square long trapdor dead-end, which can't be dropped.

MeckMeck GRE
Level: Smitemaster
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Registered: 01-03-2005
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In 1E EggEgg seem to forgot a trapdoor. EggEgg, however you did it... tell it us. (Is the room not requierd ?)

egg egg
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Sorry everyone, when I said 1E was possible, I though you meant 1W, which also has a trapdoor puzzle.

I have made it possible now, and am continuing to try to improve all of the puzzles on this floor.

You can have the next post anyone edit if you want.

Krishh
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 282
Registered: 06-05-2004
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Also, you could solve the do not lie thing with this setup, whereby every top (or other floors required to get through that final door) have stairs behind blue doors (requires you to clear that floor to access) leading down to the main floor, to a room that is only solvable if you enter the floor from this way. (somewhat like the detour in my hold, only much larger in scope) And place a blue door blocking the passage curently dependant on the question. The only downside to this is that you couldn't place blue doors blocking the basement, but I think that would be a small price to pay for not making the final dependant on the honesty of the player.

egg egg
Level: Delver
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Registered: 01-20-2005
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I already have a blue door settup where you need to finish the ground floor to get to a room on the second, which is not connected to the others. In this room there is another blue door and stairs leading to the roof, and another blue door.

This means that only players who have cleared all three floors are able to get to one area of the roof.

The guard is just to stop honest players who have only finished the ground floor from getterg stuck.

egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
IP: Logged

I already have a blue door settup where you need to finish the ground floor to get to a room on the second, which is not connected to the others. In this room there is another blue door and stairs leading to the roof, and another blue door.

This means that only players who have cleared all three floors are able to get to one area of the roof.

The guard is just to stop honest players who have only finished the ground floor from getterg stuck.

egg egg
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 64
Registered: 01-20-2005
IP: Logged

Anyway, you can find the possible and hopefully improved ground floor at the top. If anyone still thinks any of the room are bad, please tell me and i'll try to fix them.