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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Holds : The Choice (Summer 2005 Smitemaster's Selection)
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Author Name:Neil Frederick
Submitted By:Oneiromancer
Hold Name:The Choice
Theme:Smitemaster\'s Selection
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Number of Levels:1
Number of Rooms:18
Number of Monsters:429
Version:DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold
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Hold Karma:4 (+4 / -0)
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icon The Choice  
Smitemaster's Selection, Summer 2005

Beethro is faced with a difficult choice. A choice that will affect him more than he realizes...

[Last edited by mrimer at 03-28-2007 03:43 AM]
07-25-2005 at 04:20 AM
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Jacob
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Mastered it. A great hold, good job. Shame it was over so quick.
Btw, I HATE Wubbas.

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07-25-2005 at 08:22 PM
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Oneiromancer
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
Thank you, thank you. :)

It was tough to come up with the number of rooms I did that conformed to my chosen theme...especially when I was trying to meet the June 1 deadline. I was also working on KDD2, secret rooms and scripting and whatnot, so within that timeframe I felt that what I had was good enough. If I had known we'd have had the delays we did, I would have probably tried to get some more rooms in there...maybe even try to get some forks in the road, to alleviate the linearity, but I was kind of leery of that, because I wanted it to work right and not introduce anything that could break the hold.

As for the wubbas...the story of the secret rooms is actually kind of interesting. At first I only had 1 of each...the first ones...but while they were interesting, there just wasn't any challenge, especially for secret rooms. So Adam suggested I make them a lot harder. I tried many things before deciding that the wubbas and the timer combined made for a good challenge. I left the original rooms in because I felt that they were good rooms for people to compete for high scores on...they were easy to beat by themselves but getting them perfect...that's not so easy.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
07-25-2005 at 08:34 PM
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Oneiromancer
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
One more thing: this hold was originally titled The Eightrix, a play on The Matrix. The storyline had references to the Chosen One and other things from the movies. (Although I should mention that I didn't really like the first movie and still have never seen the sequels...I was just going off of hearsay and the general artistic license you have with satire.) When we decided that it would be a good idea to have an additional hold to go alongside KDD2, and since mine was mostly finished, it was decided that we didn't want to have an SS hold, which was part of a service that people pay money for, be derivative of a copyrighted work. So the scripting and storyline stuff was all modified to the present form.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
07-25-2005 at 08:38 PM
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agaricus5
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
Oneiromancer wrote:
One more thing: this hold was originally titled The Eightrix, a play on The Matrix. The storyline had references to the Chosen One and other things from the movies. (Although I should mention that I didn't really like the first movie and still have never seen the sequels...I was just going off of hearsay and the general artistic license you have with satire.) When we decided that it would be a good idea to have an additional hold to go alongside KDD2, and since mine was mostly finished, it was decided that we didn't want to have an SS hold, which was part of a service that people pay money for, be derivative of a copyrighted work. So the scripting and storyline stuff was all modified to the present form.

Game on,
Interesting. Was the red/blue path idea then originally based on the red/blue pill that Neo had to choose near the beginning before he discovers his true identity?

In any case, I've just completed all the rooms up to 8E, and I really like some of the puzzles I've seen so far; they're actually quite inspiring, while the red/blue theme through the first part was pretty well done.

Click here to view the secret text


Keep up the good work!

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07-25-2005 at 11:37 PM
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Oneiromancer
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
agaricus5 wrote:
Interesting. Was the red/blue path idea then originally based on the red/blue pill that Neo had to choose near the beginning before he discovers his true identity?
Yeah, that's pretty much it. The scripting even said "pill" instead of "path".

Click here to view the secret text

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
07-25-2005 at 11:49 PM
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TripleM
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
Nice hold.

I'm nearly finished (both ways, that is), but just one question:

In 8E, did you leave out an invisibility potion for the top entrance? Kinda ruins the symmetry a little, so I don't think it was deliberate.

(Not that invisibility/no-invisibility really changed anything.)

[Last edited by TripleM at 07-26-2005 02:32 AM]
07-26-2005 at 02:32 AM
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Oneiromancer
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
No, the single invisibility potion was intentional. It does make a small bit of difference when clearing out the main section's mothers, and if you aren't careful it can get you trapped when clearing out the brain areas. And it was the only thing I could think of to differentiate the two areas. :blush (I had originally thought of a mimic potion for the blue path...blue vs red potions too...but mimics just make it too easy to jump paths. The one room that has mimic potions had to go through tons of revisions in order to prevent jumping paths.)

So yeah, a bit of a letdown for the diversity of that room, but I hope the other ones make up for it.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
07-26-2005 at 03:37 AM
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Tscott
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Fantastic hold. Very clever, challenging and tons of fun.

Click here to view the secret text


____________________________
And I can recall our caravel: a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel. O my love, O it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen.
-Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons"
07-26-2005 at 10:22 AM
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Doom
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Just mastered the hold. The concept is original and well done! None of the rooms were boring (Well, maybe 8E was a little repeating, but that's it) and there was lots of interesting scripting.

The biggest drawback is propably that both sides are very much like each other in many rooms. You could say "twice the fun", of course :P

[Last edited by Doom at 07-30-2005 12:53 AM : grammar]
07-30-2005 at 12:36 AM
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larrymurk
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
I think the theme/concept was very original and the strongest aspect of this hold.

Scripting scares me because I like to solve puzzles knowing the puzzle element characteristics. Luckily the scripted behavior was pretty clear so I had no problem with its usage in this hold.

Negatives: rooms not too exciting, paths not too different, 8E fine idea but becomes repetative
08-01-2005 at 12:58 AM
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jjohn7418
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
Am I missing something? Where can I download this hold from? I would like to try it.

Thanks,
JIm

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08-06-2005 at 03:42 PM
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Oneiromancer
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
It's a Smitemaster's Selection hold, so you can only download it in-game if you have a full CaravelNet subscription.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
08-06-2005 at 05:53 PM
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Insane
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icon Re: The Choice (-2)  
Oneiromancer wrote:
It's a Smitemaster's Selection hold, so you can only download it in-game if you have a full CaravelNet subscription.

Game on,

Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!
I hate CaravelNet.....
I would like to play all these holds BUT I CAN'T !!!! :angry :angry :angry :~( :~( :thumbsdown :thumbsdown :thumbsdown

-Insane
09-11-2005 at 07:28 PM
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agaricus5
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Insane wrote:
I hate CaravelNet.....
I would like to play all these holds BUT I CAN'T !!!!
Well, why don't you just buy a 1 year subscription to Caravel.net then? It only costs $12.00 (that's about £6.50 or €9.70), which is actually reasonably cheap compared to what you can get out of it. Basically, it allows you access to Caravel.net exclusive holds, the ability to submit scores on-line, the ability to download and view demos from the game (F6), the ability to download holds from the game without having to go to the Forum, and also the ability to create special private beta testing boards for holds you don't want to release publicly right now. In fact, £6.50 wouldn't even be enough to buy many reasonable PC Games (or even any other type of game) in England, and DROD + Caravel.net probably have a much larger total gameplay and usage time (maybe even approaching thousands of hours) than many of those.

In short, if you really like DROD (and spend a lot of time playing it), the subscription is probably worth its total value many times over compared to what's currently on the gaming market.

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09-11-2005 at 11:45 PM
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Syro
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Great concept! My favorite room is 2E (also is one of the most different from red to blue I think). I also enjoyed 6E.

-Syro

p.s. Caravel.net is definitely worth it.
10-14-2005 at 06:58 AM
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MeckMeck GRE
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
Played it today and conquerd it. Its really cool and not too difficult (If you play the blue path, which looks far easier than the blue one).
The choice between red and blue was a original idea.
Now I am looking whats behind the yellow door above the master walls....

[Last edited by MeckMeck GRE at 10-15-2005 07:10 PM]
10-15-2005 at 07:09 PM
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Azsedcf
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
In the room with the red snake, 4 Wubbas and 4 Goblins. How the heck did you get the mimics to use speach simultaneously? I have tried to do it in a dungeon of mine but the game seems to refuse to do it properly
10-17-2005 at 01:42 AM
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Oneiromancer
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Azsedcf wrote:
In the room with the red snake, 4 Wubbas and 4 Goblins. How the heck did you get the mimics to use speach simultaneously? I have tried to do it in a dungeon of mine but the game seems to refuse to do it properly
Use the Speech Delay on the Add Speech script dialog. One of them can just have 0 delay...the others should have non-zero delays, and also different numbers. Basically, only one character can speak on a specific time slot per turn. So by delaying each character by 1 millisecond, it looks like they're all speaking simultaneously. If you had 2 character with a 1 ms delay, then they also wouldn't speak at the same time, and would have the game-induced pause between them (based on the order in which they're created, I assume).

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
10-17-2005 at 03:02 AM
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Azsedcf
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Thanks Oneiromancer! That worked!
10-17-2005 at 06:51 AM
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NiroZ
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Nice hold, i definatly like the premise, although i found it quite hard the first time because i chose the blue path rather than the red path, Thus the red path felt like a breeze.
Thats not to say i didn't enjoy this hold, t'was a lot of fun.
I definatly liked the ending, and what is beyond the master door.
07-26-2006 at 08:16 AM
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jjohn7418
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Oneiromancer wrote:
It's a Smitemaster's Selection hold, so you can only download it in-game if you have a full CaravelNet subscription.

Game on,

Okay, now I have a subscription. How can I download this hold? Is there a seperate section?

Thanks, Jim

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07-30-2006 at 06:47 AM
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eytanz
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
If you just got a full Caravelnet subscription, you won't be able to get this particular hold since it's too old; you'll have to buy it seperately. A Caravelnet subscription bought now should give you access to Beethro's Teacher, which you should be able to download in-game like any other hold, or from the "purchases" tab in your forum profile.

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I got my avatar back! Yay!
07-30-2006 at 06:53 AM
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jjohn7418
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
I did download Beethro's Teacher already. Still trying to get through it.

Thanks, Jim

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07-30-2006 at 07:44 AM
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Chaco
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icon Re: The Choice (0)  
...as well as the next three Smitemaster's Selections released too.

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Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):
Click here to view the secret text

07-30-2006 at 03:24 PM
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Tahnan
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For some reason, this hold is far and away the one on which I have the lowest average rank. (48th!) So I've been going back and trying to optimize it, and can I just say what an incredible pain it is to try to optimize a room when you don't even know which entrance to use...
10-25-2006 at 05:55 PM
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eytanz
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Can't you just load up a top-8 demo and check what entrance they use?

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10-25-2006 at 05:58 PM
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Tahnan
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eytanz wrote:
Can't you just load up a top-8 demo and check what entrance they use?

But that's cheating!

(Er, I suppose I could, but I'm so much in the habit of not downloading demos except in cases of extraordinary frustration.)
10-25-2006 at 06:16 PM
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jbluestein
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icon Re: The Choice (+3)  
OK, I finally mastered this hold. This was the first SMS that I ever tried (unless you count KDD 2.0), and while the hold itself was not too hard, the secret rooms gave me no end of trouble.

The room behind the master wall was cute.

This puts me where I want to be, though: I've now mastered every official Caravel hold, so I'm ready for TCB to be released. I guess I'm also going to retire this signature (Displaying Caravel Holds progress) as it no longer conveys any particularly interesting information.

Josh

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03-14-2007 at 02:26 PM
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tokyokid
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icon Re: The Choice (+1)  
Conquered! Ug, I don't even want to try the secret rooms... I'm tared tired of tar and mud. I totally agree with Beethro: "I hate both equally". I choose the mud path, and I didn't regret.

When I first tried this hold, back in may 2006, I thought to myself, "this is a really hard hold." Now, when I come back to it, I pretty much breezed through it in a day and a half. Now if I thought it was that easy, maybe I should go back to the harder sequel. :)

Now, for scoring. Most of the rooms were very fun, like the 'guard/mimic path' rooms. The scripting and story was pretty good, too. It was excellent for the first SmS. (And it's only one of two that I've beaten.) The last room, 8E, was one hell of a cleaning!

Individual room comments:
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I gave this wonderful hold 5 brains, and an 9 overall. :D
03-27-2007 at 04:32 PM
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