Order of H'Pak

Playing solo Myth II 1.5 on Mac OS X using latest RDF plugin "z rdf50 solo rd's vs erd's", level "Beyond the Cloudspine", right at the end there is one of the stones needed to repair the knot that makes the dorf picking it up behave very strangely.

Instead of repairing the knot, the dorf stands still and throws slow fireballs at the knot post. Forever, as far as I can tell. Stuck as a blue unit, knot not repaired, stone no longer available, slow fireballs every ten seconds or so.

This seems to happen for me no matter which dorf picks up the stone.

Forced to use the control-plus to end the level.


BTW, took a LOT of tries, but I did finally manage to fry Banor on legendary (rd vs erd) with no casualties. A nice conversion, thanks.

Hey jp, thanks for posting this quirk.

This is interesting because I've played the level a few times, and even played it with Two Saks (one of my order mates) right about the time I released RDF 5. I'll track down the film and be sure it's the RDF 5 release and not one of the last pre-releases.

You don't by any chance still have the film for this? If you're not sure, you can zip me films around that time and I can sort through them (just keep it to 500K or less in a zip file please). You can email it to: baakATorderofhpak.com (turn the AT into @).

Heh, Banor is definitely a challenge and can be quite a bastard (though a funny one) sometimes! He's always behaves a little differently. Very glad you enjoyed it!

Really appreciate your post - helps quite a bit to get feedback, especially when it's clear and concise.

Fresh-baked recording on its way.

This recording has an additional quirk, because this time (unlike earlier times I tried) there is a slow fireball bounce that kills the blue dorf -- which miraculously heals the world knot and also drops the stone on the ground where the dorf was!

I just realized I forgot to include this in the RDF Manual - that's precisely what's supposed to happen.

NOT!!

I'll check out the film and let you know what I discover - I'm really curious to see this now.

... this one could well be "Quirk of the Year"!

Thanks again. Have a Happy and Safe New Year!!

Well, that sure is odd.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with running it in solo mode rather than as a multiplayer game. I'm assuming you ran it in solo mode (so you could save the film mid-game, etc.), is that correct?

Funny, I've never actually played it that way! It's always been as a multiplayer game, even when I played 'em solo.

I'll put it on "the list" and perhaps we can check it again when the Myth II Patch 1.5.1 comes out.

Thanks again for your feedback - it's very helpful!

Let me know if you'd like to join in our regular weekly game sometime as a Special Guest and I'll get you set up.

I do run in solo mode, so there may be differences from multiplayer.

I've got another couple of quirks to report.

In "With Friends Like These" if I open fire with my dorfs right away, I can take out all four trow and win within less than a minute.

In "The Deceiver" at the end the dorf says the magic words, retreats a bit, then throws a slow fireball at the Deceiver which destroys the Deceiver, and the dorf, and loses the level. I have to force win to go on to the next level.

I think you are definitely finding the weak spots.

Overall RDF is meant for Multiplayer, with the Solo as a "bonus". My main goal with the Solo is to get those excellent Myth II Mapmakers out there (either veterans or n00bs) to start thinking about making custom Solo conversions like Banor's Keep and Return to White Falls.

These play much better due to the fact that you can set up the enemy units strategically to make the game more challenging. Anyone who is interested in doing this, just register in the RDF Forums here and start posting under the new "Building RDF Solo/Co-op Maps" topic.

The standard levels' conversion is mainly a fun diversion from the core of RDF, which is the Multiplayer.

That said, I saw that Deceiver bug at the very end of my testing for 5.0 and was too tired to try and fix it. There is something odd about the scripting that means it would take a lot of work to fix that tiny quirk, so it remained. Actually when I tested it I busted up laughing because it was so funny to watch the RD awaken the Deceiver and then blow himself up!!

And with the Trow I am remembering waaaaay back - I believe there was an oddity in the Myth II standard solos in that they didn't use the Trow "unit" in the most logical way between the several levels where they are enemies and then allies. Because of this I left the Trow alone and you probably can just blow them away right at the start. My only suggestion there for the moment is to just let them go out into the field first.

Thanks especially for your separate feedback on Return to White Falls and the tiny bug where the Cannon Guards leave their posts to attack you. I made the Evil T-Ghols much more aggressive at the end of the 4.x series and forgot this would affect the play on RTWF. I will post an update when I get a chance and list something on the RDF Forums here when it is posted under "News". I'm thinking perhaps I need to do a blog site or something for RDF - *something*....

Not to beat a dead horse to water, but I've noticed that quirk about rebuilding the world knot when playing RDF in solo too (I play solo more so I can slow the damn thing down and survive longer, NOT so I can record my victories - JP you are such a braggart, i keel u) - anyways, I **think** it may be something to do with *which* dorfs you use to pick up the stones. I think that maybe only the dorfs that were actually dorfs in the normal unadulterated solo level can rebuild the world knot - the others start T-special attacking the knot.

I came by this "theory" after having a handful of my own dorfs wipe out themselves and the rest of my units when they were SUPPOSED to be repairing the knot, and a lot of "testing" (aka "trying to stay alive") and watching what happened. I could be wrong, but I wonder if it is the case that if all your transspecied born-as-dorfs are dead when you get to the knot you are just out of luck. It seems that if I have most of my dorfs left alive at the knot I can find a couple of dorfs who will rebuild the knot correctly.

What I do now when I get to the knot is move everyone away from the knot and send one dorf in to pick up a stone and then watch what he does. If he starts firing slow fireballs I blast him and then send in another until I find a dorf (one of the born-as-a-dorf originals?) that works. Of course it's easy to lose the stones you need to rebuild the knot when you blast the dorf - but once he turns blue you can't really get him to stop shooting fireballs any other way - although I guess in theory you could let some enemy units take him out.

I could of course be hallucinating or misremembering.

Heh - I've done so many subversions of RDF that now anything pre-v5 is just a blur...

I *thought* this was working properly as of the RDF version I did for Myth II 1.4.x, so it could either be: (1) That was never really working right and I just didn't catch it; (2) It was and something has changed since regarding how Artifacts are tweaked.

Essentially there is some RDF Black Magic going on to allow the various units in the various solo Unit Sets to pick up all those Artifacts from the solo games. This appears to be broken.

It's definitely "on the list". I might be able to release an RDF Modz (small plugin) that would fix this. What's potentially annoying is it might be something in the Unit Set rather than the +tagz plugin, which means it would be better to just release a 5.1. Dang. Will have to wait and see what other kind of magic I can summon.

Thanks for the extra feedback on this. Better than I got playing it myself.