I was wondering if you could add two or three columns to the encyclopedia section. One is an up front designator for RTC, DMMute etc. so we can tell what it is with out having to call up each one. Also, it would be nice to have each of the clones rated (either by the board master or the moderator and maybe a separate rating by the general public) on the main page.
It would be nice if the rating system was made up of about 5 leters in a specific order.
1st letter could be S - Small, M - Medium, L - Large, G - Gigantic
2nd letter could be Q - Quirky, O - OK, F - Flawless
3rd letter could be V - Very Original, O - Original, M - More of the Sane, P - Plane Jane
4th letter could be E - Easy, H - Hard, V - Very Hard
5th Letter - Open -- Any Ideas?
Nice Site. Especially I like the RTC Clones. Never can get enough of that DM stuff. Is anyone making DM II Clones???? If so where????
Newby Question. Can you add someting to the encyclopedia??
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cowsmanaut
- Moo Master
- Posts: 4378
- Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2000 12:53 am
- Location: canada
hmm interesting ideas for the reviews.. I could try at it.. but I may be overly biased with regards to DMJ and RTC. Since I've been helping with both for so long. many of the other clones are incomplete or not yet released. CSB for windows seems to be rather popular of late due to the Conflux II map showing just what can be done with all the work Paul has put into the code making it so very versitile.
I do find each has some benefits of it's own. RTC has a unique spell book setting as well as smooth step lighting and dungeon difficulty that scales to the levels of your characters the AI is improved greatly. DMJ has a number of new spells and has support for the addition of anything you like if you know how to program as it's now open source. Both of these can have new graphics, sounds and maps since the tools are there to make them. DMJ currently has support for alpha channels through PNG files however George has mentioned the possibility of alpha support in the future. CSB for windows has support for new graphics as well be they are limited to the orriginal boundaries of the game 16 colours locked pallete. from looking at Conflux though you can see where that can go and it has been a unique experience working with singular pixel by pixel plotting of images again.
In other clones we have one that has been showing some promise of being complete and that is dungeon maker.. Made by Wishbone who helped on DMJ as well. it's full 3D with smooth movement but it still moves square by square.. it just looks smoother going from one to the next. it has now 3D monsters and some objects support for animation looks like he's using MD2 which would be the model format used for Quake 2. This is vertex based animation and a program named Milkshape3d (www.milkshape3d.com) can be used to create and animate these monsters and objects. It's only $25 to buy too which is super cheap and supports a large number of formats from various games and more are added every month or so as well as an open forum of people developing tools sets and helping out..
Several other clones have been started and died or just are on standby.. many promising.. if they ever get done.
Editors are abundant and it seems there are at least 3 set to make new RTC maps. These are made by George called RTCed (the RTC creator), Andyboy who is making one called Chaos Forge with open tile sets, and annother made in Java by Unnamed Bone which being Java is platform independant.. which I suppose doesn't really matter since RTC is PC only
anyway.. that's it for me
moo
I do find each has some benefits of it's own. RTC has a unique spell book setting as well as smooth step lighting and dungeon difficulty that scales to the levels of your characters the AI is improved greatly. DMJ has a number of new spells and has support for the addition of anything you like if you know how to program as it's now open source. Both of these can have new graphics, sounds and maps since the tools are there to make them. DMJ currently has support for alpha channels through PNG files however George has mentioned the possibility of alpha support in the future. CSB for windows has support for new graphics as well be they are limited to the orriginal boundaries of the game 16 colours locked pallete. from looking at Conflux though you can see where that can go and it has been a unique experience working with singular pixel by pixel plotting of images again.
In other clones we have one that has been showing some promise of being complete and that is dungeon maker.. Made by Wishbone who helped on DMJ as well. it's full 3D with smooth movement but it still moves square by square.. it just looks smoother going from one to the next. it has now 3D monsters and some objects support for animation looks like he's using MD2 which would be the model format used for Quake 2. This is vertex based animation and a program named Milkshape3d (www.milkshape3d.com) can be used to create and animate these monsters and objects. It's only $25 to buy too which is super cheap and supports a large number of formats from various games and more are added every month or so as well as an open forum of people developing tools sets and helping out..
Several other clones have been started and died or just are on standby.. many promising.. if they ever get done.
Editors are abundant and it seems there are at least 3 set to make new RTC maps. These are made by George called RTCed (the RTC creator), Andyboy who is making one called Chaos Forge with open tile sets, and annother made in Java by Unnamed Bone which being Java is platform independant.. which I suppose doesn't really matter since RTC is PC only
anyway.. that's it for me
moo
And don't forget CSB4win, which is basically the original CSB engine with many subtle and not so subtle expansions so that lots are possible - Conflux II currently showing what you can do with the engine
I think you can assume all the clones are good, unless they are in development in whcih case they are merely 'promising' and we aren't goign to bias you to supporting one, you should chekc them all out and give your own unbiased opinions : )
I too like the small review letters for instantly seeing dungeons perhaps, though then newbies will of course be going 'huh' and they are the ones you need to cater for!
There already exists a numbers rating - you can quick scroll and see the numbers/dm levels rating for a variety of thigns from craft and atmosphere (together thigns liek that tend to buld up to new or old feel), size and replayability and gameplay, etc
The eventual plan is to have them over here, i believe, so then we might have the first post has an amalgamation of ratings. Maybe have the simple letter designation in the title for scrolling through when
So far no specific DM 2 clones active, though you never know..people just appear with these things have the time!
I think you can assume all the clones are good, unless they are in development in whcih case they are merely 'promising' and we aren't goign to bias you to supporting one, you should chekc them all out and give your own unbiased opinions : )
I too like the small review letters for instantly seeing dungeons perhaps, though then newbies will of course be going 'huh' and they are the ones you need to cater for!
There already exists a numbers rating - you can quick scroll and see the numbers/dm levels rating for a variety of thigns from craft and atmosphere (together thigns liek that tend to buld up to new or old feel), size and replayability and gameplay, etc
The eventual plan is to have them over here, i believe, so then we might have the first post has an amalgamation of ratings. Maybe have the simple letter designation in the title for scrolling through when
So far no specific DM 2 clones active, though you never know..people just appear with these things have the time!
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cowsmanaut
- Moo Master
- Posts: 4378
- Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2000 12:53 am
- Location: canada
Infact.. I also mentioned Conflux II as well wtih it.Interesting, do the DMJ clones work right from windows like
Interesting, do the DMJ clones work right from windows like RTC clones do.
I have never had much luck running the DMute Clones that I have seen here and on other sites. That is why I like RTC so much. Now I dont have to pull out my old Amiga to play CSB. That is Great!!!
I have Original Disks for both the Amiga and PC, and of course DM2 for the PC, but have never been able to play CSB on my PC until I found this RTC site last week. That is great!!!
I was just woundering if there was a particularly good RTC format game/s to try in the archive on this site. If so I will try it instead of doing CSB again for the 100th time.
Can you recomend one or more that is particularly good and original???
Most of the ones that I have called up are DMmute based and I do not have that much time free on the internet to spend searching. I only have access at work and can only do this on my breaks.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
Great Site. Is there any way for me to contact the guy that did the RTC CSB conversion/programing. He has my sincere thanks. Is he the or one of the Heads for this site???
Sorry if I am being ignorant, I have not had time to read all the particulars of the site and people here
I have never had much luck running the DMute Clones that I have seen here and on other sites. That is why I like RTC so much. Now I dont have to pull out my old Amiga to play CSB. That is Great!!!
I have Original Disks for both the Amiga and PC, and of course DM2 for the PC, but have never been able to play CSB on my PC until I found this RTC site last week. That is great!!!
I was just woundering if there was a particularly good RTC format game/s to try in the archive on this site. If so I will try it instead of doing CSB again for the 100th time.
Can you recomend one or more that is particularly good and original???
Most of the ones that I have called up are DMmute based and I do not have that much time free on the internet to spend searching. I only have access at work and can only do this on my breaks.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
Great Site. Is there any way for me to contact the guy that did the RTC CSB conversion/programing. He has my sincere thanks. Is he the or one of the Heads for this site???
Sorry if I am being ignorant, I have not had time to read all the particulars of the site and people here
cows: lol, i swear, i thought i had read all the words...there was furry...i mean blurry eyes and tiredness and apparently slight skimming...
must stop replying to posts first thing in the morning : )
wvlr: RTC ones are tricky...the format hasn't settled, so new releases of the engine seem to have invalidated the current ones. Once the format settles then I'm sure they will be upgraded
and yes, George is sole creator of RTC and he lurks and posts and releases new versions of RTC, each time a step closer to that stable v1.0. His goal was to create a DM/CSB clone with an editor, and those three have now happened...
just post on the RTC general, its been a whle since we said thanks and woohoo for RTC : )
Dmute is the program, the games play on PC DM (you replace the dungeon.dat file or dmsave.dat file and it should be fine). With varying degrees of success, they be translated into CSB4win games...what you do is load up the dungeon in CSBuild, making sure in the options that the editor allows EVERYTHING. Then you can hopefully play them under csb4win.
While it might be easier to wait for them to be translated by the designer, hopefully this will allow you to play using one engine (conflux II and tower of chaos have been translated)
Ones i would recommend...umm, grave of king filius by toni was an old favourite of mine, imprisoned again by amber, tomb of the firestaff by paulH i remember liking (never properly tried out black flame myself), mildew by zyx is one long puzzle/explore-o-fun, and the two saved games poison and lost scrolls by LMB are short but very fun
Oh, and dust & blood and parlous i recall likign too by chistopher
That's enough to be going on with!
Whoever I said recently to that the encyclopaedia forums weren't too bad, i apologise...there's only two pages there, but the signal/noise of complete dungeons vs test and old versions is worrying! not surprised a new person finding anything!
must stop replying to posts first thing in the morning : )
wvlr: RTC ones are tricky...the format hasn't settled, so new releases of the engine seem to have invalidated the current ones. Once the format settles then I'm sure they will be upgraded
and yes, George is sole creator of RTC and he lurks and posts and releases new versions of RTC, each time a step closer to that stable v1.0. His goal was to create a DM/CSB clone with an editor, and those three have now happened...
just post on the RTC general, its been a whle since we said thanks and woohoo for RTC : )
Dmute is the program, the games play on PC DM (you replace the dungeon.dat file or dmsave.dat file and it should be fine). With varying degrees of success, they be translated into CSB4win games...what you do is load up the dungeon in CSBuild, making sure in the options that the editor allows EVERYTHING. Then you can hopefully play them under csb4win.
While it might be easier to wait for them to be translated by the designer, hopefully this will allow you to play using one engine (conflux II and tower of chaos have been translated)
Ones i would recommend...umm, grave of king filius by toni was an old favourite of mine, imprisoned again by amber, tomb of the firestaff by paulH i remember liking (never properly tried out black flame myself), mildew by zyx is one long puzzle/explore-o-fun, and the two saved games poison and lost scrolls by LMB are short but very fun
Oh, and dust & blood and parlous i recall likign too by chistopher
That's enough to be going on with!
Whoever I said recently to that the encyclopaedia forums weren't too bad, i apologise...there's only two pages there, but the signal/noise of complete dungeons vs test and old versions is worrying! not surprised a new person finding anything!