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Scenarios » Descent to Undermountain for DWIGGS 5.0 __V 3.1
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Descent to Undermountain for DWIGGS 5.0 __V 3.1
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Author |
File Description |
morgul666 |
Posted on 12/20/08 @ 12:47 PM (updated 02/26/12)
File Details |
Ruleset: |
AoW: SM - Unofficial Patch 1.4 |
Map Size: |
XL |
Levels: |
3 |
Single Player?: |
Yes |
Co-Op vs. AI?: |
Yes |
PBEM/Hotseat?: |
Yes |
Multiplayer Online?: |
Yes |
# of Wizards: |
8 |
# of players: |
6 |
Skill Level: |
Expert |
Password Protected: |
No |
Surface Minimap:
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Cavern Minimap:
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V 3.0 August 3rd 2011
New Map-version with new resources and an all new Wizard!
The Morrigan (Fey Folk) was replaced by Moradin, Leader of the Dwarves!
Much more fitting into a Dungeon surrounding than Fey Folk!
Of course, the map-painting changed in the former area of Morrigan from natural landscape to dwarven-built caverns.
The Morrigan starting Heroes were mostly distributed into verious fortresses or recruitment sites throughout the whole map and Moradin got his own 9 new Starting Heroes of which the player can choose of.
Apart from that, only a few minor map-changes since 2_2, nothing worth mentioning.
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(old version-updates removed from File-Description.
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Finally, after almost exactly one year of hard work and (apart from several almost-nervous-breakdowns on my side due to most equisite ‘bugs’...) MUCH mapmaking fun, I´m glad to be finally in the position to present the result of a quite ambitous project: The (afaik) second MMBEM (MapMaking by Email - the greatest invention since the eucalyptus candy on a stick - thanks hatstand!) product called "Descent to Undermountain" (DtU) !
A map designed for Dwiggs mod V 5.0. Would be great if more players could be won for this great mod with this map !!
First of all, here come the requirements how to play this map:
1) Dwiggs mod V 5.0 is required. Pls. get it from the download section
2) The ZIP-file contains the DtU map and the folder DtU resources.
Make sure to copy the resource folder into the following folder:
Drive…XYZ /Age of Wonders Shadow Magic/ USER/ RESOURCES
In order to be able to play the map, you have to choose the DtU resources in the file: AOWSMsetup.EXE in the lower right corner of the screen.
Some notes (lay back and relax ;)...
Originally started with a team of seven ambitous members, we ended up with three fix members.
So, as much as I´m happy with the map as it is now, I am a little bit sad that the project didn´t function in a way I had hoped for in the beginning and lost some of it´s original MMBEM character, namely that all members contribute at least those portions that they chose to fill at the beginning of the project due to various, mostly personal and understandable!!! problems (so no offence meant here to anybody!! we all have a RL that sometimes can be a real pain in the neck ;) )
Many areas couldn´t be finished by the original mapmaker so it´s a bit sad that a part of the exclusivness of the map might have suffered from the fact, that in the end much more had to be done by a single person than anticipated upfront...)
Anyway: Each team-member contributed something very special to the map, even if it was not that much in certain cases, so in the end it was still worth doing this map as MMBEM and I´d probably do it again if I could turn back time!
The involved mapmakers are (in no particular order like what or how much they contributed):
Psykitty, Albaron, Ecthelion, Ravencourt, LAL, Kaskoid and my humble self.
I´d also like to thank the one and only Groll (whom I could unfortunately not win for this project in the beginning but at least, I was able to get some artifacts from his previous works implemented into this map (which saved a lot of time! Thanks mate! I dedicated you something very special in the map, hehe ;)
And last but not least thanks Roger for playtesting and maybe (hopefully) also some events in a possible map update which I plan to do if I think it´s worth doing an update.
For those who are interested in who did which sector(s), pls check the following thread.
http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=26&tn=5196&f=26,0,0,60&st=320
Now to the map itself. I´ll try to keep it as short as possible since most will be explained in the map introduction.
here come the facts:
- In addition to being designed with the Dwiggs 5.0 mod, the map comes with an own resource file since many of the original Dwiggs-settings had to be changed/adapted (e.g. most of the hero-sprites but also other stuff) to my personal liking, hehe ;)
- It´s a pure Dungeon map, means, all three Levels (surface world included) have Dungeon character - with some exceptions of course, so you will still find some trees ;) ...
(Just a short explanation at this point in regards to Undermountain (I´m sure, some of you are familiar with that Mega-Dungeon from the Forgotten Realms): Like the original Undermountain, this here is more than simply a huge Dungeon. It´s partly a magically crafted ‘realm’ on it´s own where anything is possible and where various worlds come together somehow. Creatures of all thinkable (or even non-thinkable) kind dwell here and nobody knows exactly, where they come from and how... - nobody apart from one person of course: The notorious mage Halaster Blackcloak the mad, the Creator of Undermountain. It´s said he still dwells somewhere whithin the Dungeon although nobody has seen him since ages (or at least nobody survived to report…)
-DtU is rather a pbem- or multiplayer than a single player map due to the simple fact, that the AI is extremely unlikely to win the game in terms of the actual Game Win Condition (they can eventually destroy the human player(s), which generally is rather unlikely...) But Ithink, the map offers a fair portion of unconventional gameplay which compensates for the unlikeliness of the AI to win the game ‘regularly’ so also single play should offer enough fun (if not the AI (alone) then it´s the Indies who might give you a hard time in Undermountain probably…)
- What is the regular Game Win Condition? Target is, to collect the armament of Gorm, an ancient artifact-set that lies scattered throughout the Dungeon at secret locations. It´s said, that who wears the complete set becomes invincible…
- The random factor of the map is immense: Replayability is always given. Just one example: The locations, where these set-artifacts lie hidden, will always be different in each game!
- Here´s what the map offers apart from the a.m.:
--> scores of riddles/special locations/Quests of different kinds
--> doors and secret doors leading to special places with sometimes unpredictable outcome
--> special random-teleport-system
 constant random spawns of Indy-stacks in all three Levels making player´s life(s) harder...
--> traps
--> special effects
--> Unconventional gameplay. It´s not the usual building up of an empire. It´s more RPG-like roaming through a gigantic and EXTREMELY dangerous dungeon with the accompanying hack&slay & collect items factor ;). BUT: (for the freedom-lovers and enemies of plots): THERE IS NO OVERALL PLOT THAT HAS TO BE FOLLOWED!!!! There are indeed some small subplots to be discovered that CAN be followed but it´s no rpg-like mainplot apart from the task to collect the artifact set!
Gamestart: Each player starts to pick a team of heroes from a quite big variety at their starting location (each player gets the same amount of money to buy his starting-team).
During gameplay, all players can find innumerable more possible allies.
--> roughly 100! brandnew heroes, even some with description ;)
There´s probably more to write about at that point but I think, I let players find it out on their own.
I highly recommend to play pbem only if you have a fast playing team - otherwise, a game with this map could last very very long...
Final note: The maps comes without password protection.
To all of you who think, they have to change something in the map: DON´T BLAME US MAPMAKERS IF SOMETHING DOESN`t WORK ANYMORE !!
This map has been designed very carefully and with a lot of thought behind and with a lot of sensitive details. The smallest change MIGHT have a TREMENDOUS impact – even if it wouldn´t seem so.
Be aware of that. That´s all I can say.
With that, I react to the fact that obviously most people don´t like password protection.
And meanwhile I admit that, beside that negative effect that you can see many things that you should not have seen upfront, the good thing about it is the possibilityt to learn from this map in terms of event-programming at least.
I also learned again many new things the hard way during the mapmaking process.
I also checked several routines in other maps to see how others realized certain things and found out, that these things did not work properly in their maps as well – probably without the author knowing)
These routines work correctly in the DtU map thanks to hours spent on figuring out, how certain damned events/triggers work during gameplay. (It´s more than a miracle that my hair didn´t turn grey in the past year... But I assume my neigbours think, an insane rowdy is living next to them given my occasional outbursts ;) )
Final note: No map is without bugs – at least not in the initial version. This map has been tested thoroughly – especially the many event-driven things. Anyway, if you discover any obvious bug, pls. report it either here or maybe better in the main thread. I´ll keep an eye on both.
In the name of the whole team - Enjoy playing!
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Pages: « First « 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 » Last » | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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morgul666
File Author |
Posted on 12/30/08 @ 10:19 AM
Hi Technomancer!
Thanks for this info! I didn´t know that this is the stop-movement bug. But I know indeed what you mean and I saw it happening once also in this map here.
The funny thing is, that I can´t imagine that on the spot where it happened, I placed any event at all... So maybe there are other possibilities how this strange thing can happen...
I also use the stop movement=true sometimes but not every time. Sometimes it extremely helpful to make players aware of something special. But I think it can be very easy avoided with just some extra-effort, by adding an additional condition asking for Player=human or AI. |
asheldon |
Posted on 01/01/09 @ 03:34 PM
First of all: This is a GREAT MAP!
I think I found a bug though in the finding Albaron quest. In the second dungeon you cannot go on to use the tunneling to exit the "room" because there is no way you can get near the "exit". (some piles of debris is blocking the way, and no its not the tunnelable stuff in front of the teleport.) |
morgul666
File Author |
Posted on 01/02/09 @ 04:16 AM
Hi Asheklon,
-----------
Edit
Got it! Thanks for the hint! The reason why we didn´t find out this one is a simply one: If you test an event-plot as big as this one, you work with teleports in a testmap. Teleports that always teleport you directly to the next spot where something happens. Otherwise you´d have to play 10-20 turns only to find out, if the "routine" is working!
Thanks again, will instantly remove the roadblocks! I´ll upload a new update anyway soon because of the much more annoying stop-movement bugs that may happen sometimes.
But not anymore now.
-----------
Thanks! glad that you like the map!
Hmm, will look into what you mean. Only thing I know (because that´s exactly the last "bigger" event-plot that we tested before uploading ;) is, that the whole quest works properly. All the conventional and unconventional teleports from one room or maze to the next work fine -> actually, there´s no need to tunnel anywhere ?!
Nonetheless, I´ll check later what you might mean. The fact that you mentioned the Albaron quest tells me, that you got the quest from Tigrib so you should have entered the maze via teleport and not by tunneling into it - which is correct or -say- the intended way.
cheers
M[Edited on 01/02/09 @ 04:37 AM]
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Khodan |
Posted on 01/06/09 @ 01:24 AM
Hi guys, need a little help here. I'm having a problem getting DtU to start. I've been using UPatch v1.4 for a while now. Loaded Dwiggs 5.0 and activated it in AoWSMSetup, and can get a few other Dwiggs scenarios to run (The Underdark, Rise of Dwiggs, and Return of the Lizards). I also created a 2x2 Large random map, which starts fine. I copied all DtU resource files into my Age of Wonders Shadow Magic\Resource File, and the DtU AHM file into my Scenario\Custom\Dwiggs Scenarios directory. Started AOWSM and selected the DtU scenario and get a brief loading message, which goes away after a few seconds. I also loaded DtU into the editor, changed a spell cost and saved it under a different scenario name. This time the scenario appears to load (the bar goes from left to right) but when it reachs the end AoWSM just hangs. Any help is appreciated at this point. |
morgul666
File Author |
Posted on 01/06/09 @ 01:49 AM
Hmm. Sounds similar to the problem Kaskoid is having. I honestly have no idea why this happens. It seems to happen only to very small number of people though. I assume, you copied the DtU resources into the correct folder (AOW/USER/RESOURCE)
I read your note twice. You explained every step you did very carefully so the fact, that you missed out one step is at least worth mentioning: Did you (apart from copying the resources into the resource folder) also CHOOSE the DtU resources in the AOW Setup.exe ? At least you did not mention this in your note...
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Khodan |
Posted on 01/06/09 @ 02:25 AM
Thanks, Morgul. I had indeed copied the resources into the wrong folder (which also explains why I could not select them in the setup). Loads like a charm. Next time I'll try using my eyes and my brain at the same time : ) |
Clockwork |
Posted on 01/06/09 @ 09:02 PM
Hello Again,
after re-starting the scenario i haven't really had any problems but was wondering if it's possible to download the latest version update and still continue the game where i'm at now (i don't want to start over).
thanks & i'm having lots of fun with this one!
C. |
morgul666
File Author |
Posted on 01/07/09 @ 02:22 AM
Hi Clockwork (orange? ;-)
No, sorry, that´s not possible. The map itself is part of the savegame (I don´t know exactly how a savegame is set up but AOW is not loading the original map everytime when you load the savegame)
If you are still playing Version 1 or 1_2 I would recommend you to start a new game with the latest version 1_4.
There you can play maybe a new Wizzard and in simultanous mode if you´ve played in classic mode till now. Gameplay will be much faster then and everything works fine as well.
Glad that you like the map!!
M
[Edited on 01/07/09 @ 02:37 AM]
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rat_peddler |
Posted on 01/18/09 @ 03:22 PM
Playability: 4
The randomn/forced transporters are a bit much at times for trying to get around such a large map. However, for all the scripting the map worked very well.
Balance: 4
I stayed alive to see most all of the map. As stated in SP AI probably won't kill you, but exploration needs to be planned.
Creativity: 5
Very nice map, lots of ideas with the user controlled doors, transport spots, etc... Makes a strong case for DWIGGS!
Map Design: 5
Great except for a few places where it was hard to navigate because of the overly complex landscape.
Story/Instructions: 5
Additional Comments:
I got started before all the fixes. So I ended up with a number of very nice stacks trapped. I wasn't careful enough on my save files. However, I was far enough along not to want to restart.
[Edited on 01/18/09 @ 03:23 PM]
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Elbereth |
Posted on 01/21/09 @ 04:56 AM
Hey morgul666,
Let me congratulate you and your collaborators on this great map! I haven't found a single one of those famed artifacts yet, but I have seen enough feed an ongoing enthusiasm. I have to admit I was sceptical at first - so many treasure sites, so few towns to develop... Fortunately, however, the amount of background information is tremendous, not to mention the technical innovations.
Perhaps you could give me a hint since I am stuck with the "Kill Evil Fairy Queen" - quest. I did kill her and the whole scum in her cave, but no reward materialised...
Once again thank you for this superb map, I'll post a lengthier review at some later point.
Elbereth |
Pages: « First « 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 » Last » |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.8 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.8 | Balance | 4.6 | Creativity | 5.0 | Map Design | 4.8 | Story/Instructions | 4.8 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 4,162 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 3.89 MB |
Added: | 12/20/08 |
Updated: | 02/26/12 |
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