Whatz Up

[Crimson]

Just wondering what is up with this game. Anybody working on any Mods for it. And where are all the people who bought it at. I know, us SEIV fan couldn't have scared everyone away.

[David E. Gervais]

I agree, things are kind of slow in here. I don't know about any new mods, but I hope there will be some in the works.

Cheers!

[DarkStar]

Yep pretty slow. I have been having fun with the game. I like the changes in the new patch. I also like the new tiles and graphics you have been doing David. The Icons look really nice now, IMHO.

I like the game, and I'm happy with my purchase. I can't put my finger on it but something seem to be missing. The game isn't as exciting to play as the all ASCII rogue-likes. Not sure why it is. Maybe because this game is alot more simple?

A few ideas I had:

- Rings have powers when equipped
- Auto change treasure into gold when picked up
- A bigger inventory again, it still seems small
- More items should stack
- User defined teleports to and from town - item?

[Akachaki]

could you give me an exemple of a ASCII rogue-like game ? the only one game i know from ASCII is rpg-maker

[ January 17, 2003, 02:06: Message edited by: The Dishonorable Akachaki ]

[David E. Gervais]

I think he's talking about games like 'Rogue', 'Nethack', 'Larn', 'Moria' and 'Angband' I've played all these games and don't think they are 'Better' per say, just that they leave more to the imagination and therefore appeal to a wider audiance. I think Dungeon Odyssey has a lot more potential though.

Just my humble opinion! Cheers!

[DarkStar]

Yep! David is correct. I'm also talking about Angband and all the offspring of that. I guess better isn't the best word. It just seems like there is more strategy involved in playing those.

Don't get me wrong, I like Dungeon Odyssey and it DOES have alot going for it. I wish the forum was more active and we had more players but I have been having loads of fun with it and don't regret the purchase.

If I remember correctly, you did quite a few of the tile sets for those old ASCII games, right David? I fact I see a few of them in Dungeon Odyssey. It's amazing what you have been able to do in such a small pixel size and limited colors!

[David E. Gervais]

I agree too, I think all that is really needed is a few more 'mod' tools and to enhance the existing ones. Like the ability modify the whole map, be it wilderness or dungeon. (as opposed to one tile at a time and having the game 'link' them!) Also, an editor for creating 'quests' and adding 'items' would be nice. Ultimately I would like to see the ability to start a game in 'edit' mode where you can modify the map, items, etc. For example, when you ctrl-click on an item, a dialog opens allowing you to edit it! In the conversation window, the ability to 'add' a topic, or edit an existing one would be nice.

I, like many people love the idea of 'modding' but would like it to be as easy as possible. IMHO, the ability to 'mod' while in-game would be a great feature. It has never been done and to me makes the most sense, after all, all the data, objects, features and quests are already there.

Probably easier said than done, but it would be awefully nice to have that kind of ease for modding!

Cheers!

[David E. Gervais]

Yup, I first did tiles for KAngbandTK because I found the existing ones to be a bit 'fuzzy'. This fuzziness was probably due to the game having resized Adam Bolt's 16x16 tiles to 32x32.

KAngband is my favorite variant, I like that it has a wilderness and 'Quests'. I think 'Z' has these features now too, but I never could wrap my mind around Zelasny's wierd creatures.

My tiles then migrated to the other variants of Angband and then to other games like Silmar, Kharne: The revelation, and several more that escape my mind at the moment.

Here's a bit of insight, When Aaron first approached me he was going to do Dungeon Odyssey in the overhead 2D perspective. I convinced him that isometric was the better route to go.

I truely think that Dungeon Odyssey has a lot more potential than Angband and it's variants. A few ideas I have are 'wilderness dungeons' where you enter a 'forest' on the wilderness map and you find yourself in an 'outdoor' dungeon where trees, mountains and water make up what would be the dungeon walls. Also, I like the idea of creating 'themed' areas like swamps, (where you would only encounter creatures like snakes, rats, etc.) I also created a bunch of 'cliff' tiles to give the 'wilderness' more debth. These tiles are not being used in and mod yet. I plan on creating several mods myself, it's just a matter of time!

Nuf said! Cheers!

[Akachaki]

I agree with all what you said. I nearly compleated a list of suggestion that would make me much more happy with dungeon odyssey to send to Aaron. Here's a few exemple, to make a second dungeon odyssey or an expension with a much deeper role playing game exeprience while keeping the hack and slash and retro look. for example a differant way to speak to npc, to be able to steal from shop keepers, having a map with much more town and a much bigger world map, that the bread that gives 120 food looks different than the one that give 200 something, a respawning system in the wilderness and in certain dungeons, the choice to turn off the ramdom map and arrange the map very easaly tile by tile. also a tool to creat mod easaly like one to edit the monster group file or the item file , etc. Im sure dungeon odyssey can have a better combat system. some weapon could attack once per second some faster. we can always make a game better and dungeon odyssey could become much more interesting even if it already is.

[ January 17, 2003, 12:59: Message edited by: Akachaki ]

[E. Albright]

Originally posted by David Gervais:
I think he's talking about games like 'Rogue', 'Nethack', 'Larn', 'Moria' and 'Angband' I've played all these games and don't think they are 'Better' per say, just that they leave more to the imagination and therefore appeal to a wider audiance. I think Dungeon Odyssey has a lot more potential though.

[IMNPHO]Ahem. I'm sorry, but I must disagree. After playing the DO demo, I couldn't make myself WANT to play it when I could be wasting my time playing NetHack. There's IMNPHO just no room for comparison 'twixt the two. It's not a matter of NH (the only Rougelike game I've played since I was in high school, which is to say since the early-to-mid nineties) leaving "more to the imagination", as I'm one of those heretics who plays exclusively with very-non-ASCII tiled graphics, and always have done so (heck, if the Falcon's Eye isomorphic interface was NetHack 3.4.0 compatible, I'd probably be using it, and if FE gets updated before the next Version of NH, I probably will be using it). It's just that NetHack seems so much more immersive, so much deeper. In the six or eight months since I got hooked on NH, I've yet to have a character Last more than two days, but I get attached to the forsaken little buggers in a way that I never could with DO.

Yes, I only played the demo. Yes, I've heard the rest has a lot more to offer. But the demo doesn't seem to exhibit an engine with the same capability as NH. Admittedly, it may not be fair to compare the two. NetHack is a venerable but dynamique monstrosity spawned by (IIRC) a development team which has included at least twenty individuals across a period of nearly two decades, whereas DO has had far less in the way of time and developers. So yeah, it's probably not fair to compare 'em. But if I wanna play an "old-school hack-n-slash RPG", I've got to go with NH.

[And as to modding, NetHack is open source, so any changes one might want can be easily affected (sez the lad who's working on a MS in CS, and thus isn't, hélas, speaking for the gamer on the street; I'll admit that DO slaps NH around quite brutally in terms of popularly accessible modification...)][/IMNPHO]