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[Shades]

Thing is I really liked the tropico games, although the timelimits in the sandbox annoys me no end, mud tv though I thought was a failure. Far too much time running the avatar around in pointless whitespace movement and not actually playing the game.

A shame because I tend to like those games and the simple act of removing the avatar would have made the came fun for me.

I never understood the whole timelimits thing in tropico, the game should end when I want to end it ¬_¬ I don't mind stopping scoring or whatever but stopping me play is annoying.

I have downloaded the german demo not sure If I will try it or wait for an english one though, my german is limited.

[nenjin]

I never understood the whole timelimits thing in tropico, the game should end when I want to end it ¬_¬ I don't mind stopping scoring or whatever but stopping me play is annoying.

This is something I will never get with the makers of Sim games. They address the need to challenge the player during game by placing artificial, and unfun (for a sim) limitations on them. Time limits, truncated content, mechanical ties ins that hobble a core part of the fun (for example, Dungeons tying limited monster spawn points to your radius of control...erk)....Sim fun is about having many rules but few limitations, so you can explore the rules and the relationships they have to each other.

As Sims have become their own highly successful niche market, they've become less experiments and more games.

[Lord Snow]

So, this is my setup for mission 4.

Code: [Select]

# wall
. path
$ treasure
♫ armory
§ prestige gimmick
r monster
arrows desired path
  #####
  #...####
  #.♫.§.r.§.  ->
  #...####
  ##.##
   #§#
   #.r#
   #.$#
   #.§#
  ##r# ^
  #$.# |
->##§##
###...#####
O...w..........O
###...#####What happens is, they come from the portals, have a look at the prestige to the north, beat up one or both monsters, have a happy stand-around the first treasure...
And then they proceed east and south towards the dungeon heart where i placed no treasure, no armory, no library, no prestige.
Whats up? :|

The whole hero direction system is just messed up.

[nenjin]

There's some code that basically directs heroes toward your DH when you've got too many in the dungeon, I think.

Also, are you playing a patched version?

[Farseer]

Dungeons actually lets me build a dungeon that looks creepy and operates by quasi-D&D rules. Maybe it's just because I've spent so many years creating PnP dungeons, and sticking treasure rooms where they have no earthly business being, that I enjoy a game that gives me some reasons and some mechanics for designing like that. Everyone is so super insulted that you're designing a dungeon that is "pleasing" to heroes....and frankly I think the entire concept went over their heads the minute they read it.

I think the issue is that all the game's mechanics go through too many different goals AND don't flow well altogether. You build a dungeon to make heroes happy like a poor GM would (this makes sense on it's own) to kill them for their life force (killing heroes for their life force makes sense, it'd also make sense as the end goal) in order to build the dungeon up to make heroes happier etc etc until you can complete the ultimate goal of the mission (whatever it is).

Nevermind that most people just seem to seriously dislike the whole "Oh, hello, heroes. Please come in and have some tea and I'll kill you in a bit" thing. Not just because of it's implementation, they just dislike it as a concept. I certainly do, I just dislike it on the whole.

Look at how the vast majority of games are designed. You have an obvious goal with obvious solutions. In Starcraft, you build up your base to build units to do whatever needs doing. In Dungeon Keeper, you built up your dungeon to complete the mission. In most RPGs, you do things to be able to do things against palette swapped enemies.

Examine the various goals of Dungeons and see what you'd expect from a game that just told you about one of them: a) You build up a dungeon to make heroes happy, b) You kill heroes that come into your dungeon in order to get soul essence from them, c) You are a Dungeon Lord who needs to get back up the social ladder by sucking upto other Dungeon Lords. They're completely different goals.

[nenjin]

Lol, keep trying to convince they've done something horribly wrong. I wish you the best of luck. Because in truth, they've made a game you didn't expect and therefore don't like.

Examine the various goals of Dungeons and see what you'd expect from a game that just told you about one of them: a) You build up a dungeon to make heroes happy, b) You kill heroes that come into your dungeon in order to get soul essence from them, c) You are a Dungeon Lord who needs to get back up the social ladder by sucking upto other Dungeon Lords. They're completely different goals.

Compared to...what? DKII, which had a ramshackle campaign mode that made no sense either, and a sandbox mode that literally begins with "be evil......"

If you don't like the game, that's your prerogative. But people almost seem to be knocking it so it can't be successful, because the name of Dungeon Keeper is just so fucking holy.

[Soulwynd]

I think it's more because it sucks and isn't fun to play. I couldn't care less about the mechanics, as long as they worked and were fun. They're neither.

[nenjin]

And why, for you, Soulwynd? I don't find myself any more or less bored than I was in DKII. It's just different to me.

[Soulwynd]

Anyone has every right to like the game, but I have some serious gameplay issues with it.

1. The summoning circles both act as monster summoners and increase your control reach. Now the problem here is that if you want to keep your dungeon self sufficient hero-wise, you need to concentrate your summoning circles in a certain area, which means you cannot extend your reach as much. You might think it as a trade off, but it doesn't really work, specially with the dungeons already having points of interest. Granted, you don't need to have your control area in a lot of those points, but in some yes and that means you have less monsters to use against heroes.

2. Mobs see through walls. Not much I can say about that, that simply sucks. Plus arches can hit you from around corners and through walls.

3. Your gold has no physical form unless you put chests, piles, etc around. Not only that, the chests aren't meant to store your stuff, but to make heroes happy and give them a chance to actually steal your gold... That's just silly... They could easily have added a better mechanic with treasure rooms, traps, etc and still keep the make your heroes happy thing.

4. The hole gimmick is too cyclic, plus it's silly to watch the heroes admiring your hanging skeletons. Kill hero -> Soul -> put gimmick -> prestige (or whatever it was called) -> get stronger -> kill hero -> get soul -> put gimmick... and so on.


Maybe there are better game mechanics later on, but at the 4 level I thought it was enough and deleted it.

[nenjin]

Well, it's obvious you guys are previewing it. As much as I wanted to do that, I've waited, because I want their update patches.

The summoning circles both act as monster summoners and increase your control reach. Now the problem here is that if you want to keep your dungeon self sufficient hero-wise, you need to concentrate your summoning circles in a certain area, which means you cannot extend your reach as much. You might think it as a trade off, but it doesn't really work, specially with the dungeons already having points of interest. Granted, you don't need to have your control area in a lot of those points, but in some yes and that means you have less monsters to use against heroes.

That's somewhat of a mission thing. It was the same story in DKII. You got limited resources in the campaign missions, which was my biggest annoyance with that whole game. It's the reason I never bothered with the DKII campaign. In sandbox, the caps are a lot more generous on your monster limit. This is also one place people are telling them to ease off restrictions on the players.

That's one thing I really appreciate about Dungeons' design. Even in the campaign levels, play is self-sustaining. You're not running on limited gold veins and monsters that you have to pay. That's why I only played sandbox in DKII, it was the only place the levels were truly open-ended.

It's also worth noting that you can at least explore and dig out areas you don't control, so you can at least look at the level to see if it's even worth building over there.

2. Mobs see through walls. Not much I can say about that, that simply sucks. Plus arches can hit you from around corners and through walls.

Addressed in the 1.1 patch.

3. Your gold has no physical form unless you put chests, piles, etc around. Not only that, the chests aren't meant to store your stuff, but to make heroes happy and give them a chance to actually steal your gold... That's just silly... They could easily have added a better mechanic with treasure rooms, traps, etc and still keep the make your heroes happy thing.

In DKII you had a reason for money. Monsters wanted pay, and they needed to go somewhere to get it, to penalize/reward you for dungeon design.

There's no reason for it in Dungeons. It would be thematic....but the only reason you need gold to begin with, other than as an arbitrary cost on summoning circles, is for the heroes. It makes the point you don't really need gold. So why not store it where it's needed most....at their feet.

4. The hole gimmick is too cyclic, plus it's silly to watch the heroes admiring your hanging skeletons. Kill hero -> Soul -> put gimmick -> prestige (or whatever it was called) -> get stronger -> kill hero -> get soul -> put gimmick... and so on.

I'm in agreement here, somewhat. But I don't have the full feature set.

I'll stay with the game, since I'm not canceling my pre-order, and let you guys know how/if it improves through patching.

[Sowelu]

I never understood the whole timelimits thing in tropico, the game should end when I want to end it ¬_¬ I don't mind stopping scoring or whatever but stopping me play is annoying.

This is something I will never get with the makers of Sim games. They address the need to challenge the player during game by placing artificial, and unfun (for a sim) limitations on them. Time limits, truncated content, mechanical ties ins that hobble a core part of the fun (for example, Dungeons tying limited monster spawn points to your radius of control...erk)....Sim fun is about having many rules but few limitations, so you can explore the rules and the relationships they have to each other.

As Sims have become their own highly successful niche market, they've become less experiments and more games.

Huh.  As a big sim-game fan I feel the opposite.  While big open-ended SimCity type things are fun, I always thought that they were too open ended and didn't give you enough ways to self-limit.  CitiesXL pissed me off by not even having a concept of a 'year'; you couldn't see how many 'turns' had passed so it was hard to try and speed your way through to see how fast you could build.  Plus, they all suffer from the "build a small city, wait for money to skyrocket through the roof, you are now playing a sandbox game" thing.  Why even have money if it's so cheesable without even trying?  If you leave the speed up for too long you've accidentally cheated.

Hell even the Sims games don't feel like they have enough (optional) challenges to put on yourself.  Maybe I'm just missing the point, but I feel like limitations give more meaning to your actions.  It's like, sure Doom is plenty atmospheric with god more turned on, and you can use your imagination, but there's something of value there that you've lost.

Seriously looking forwards to this still.

[Soulwynd]

1. I don't have an issue with there being points of interest in the maps. I like that. I liked the missions in DK/II. What I don't like are how the summoning circles work and how monsters are static. I would like it better if you had like some magic relay stations (That heroes could destroy) in order to keep control around areas and as for the summoning circles, I wouldn't mind them as much if there were certain trap devices which could call all monsters to a certain location. Furthermore, it's kind of silly you need housing space when monsters don't really leave their circles. You end up with a huge dungeon and the only ones making use of it are the imps/goblins/whatever and your character. (and the heroes, of course) If your heart gets attacked, precisely 0 monsters come to aid, you have to go there yourself. Another sucky bit about the circles.

2. Hurray, but that's not something that would make me reinstall it, sadly.

3. Which is silly and isn't any fun.


Let us know if it gets better. I wouldn't mind trying it again if they made things better, but I doubt they will change the core fundamentals which I don't like.

[Mephansteras]

Probably ought to rename this thread, since it's really not a new Dungeon Keeper.

[Aklyon]

Probably ought to rename this thread, since it's really not a new Dungeon Keeper.

Yep.

[nenjin]

Hell even the Sims games don't feel like they have enough (optional) challenges to put on yourself.  Maybe I'm just missing the point, but I feel like limitations give more meaning to your actions.  It's like, sure Doom is plenty atmospheric with god more turned on, and you can use your imagination, but there's something of value there that you've lost.

It was Populous that got me on this line of thinking. Consider that in Populous, your population just wanders. It expands exponentially, like bacteria in a petri dish. And you're the researcher, putting drops of stuff in the petri dish, like flatter land, fire, ect... when your bacteria met the other bacteria, they'd absorb each other's cell populations.....

The whole construction of a lot of the early sim games are based on scientific experimentation, I think. That's why I was so hyped for Spore, and so disappointed, because it seemed to be pitching that exact thing: this world is an organism you as the player get to fuck with. It's not about "victory" per se, but about gaming the system.

Compared to what I see now, I feel less of that spirit of experimentation and more hard core mechanics designed to help you reach "optimization" driving today's sims.

edit

There, there's your bloody thread change.