The tile at 8N, 17E is flagged for a random combat. So if a hacker cheats his way onto that square, the the denizens of that mystic place assault him without warning.
What's in the inaccessible area in Harkyn's Castle?
What's in the inaccessible area in Harkyn's Castle?
There's a small section of the second level of Harkyn's Castle that it's impossible to enter, due to a teleporter. Reverse engineering reveals that there really is something in there, if only you could get inside.
The tile at 8N, 17E is flagged for a random combat. So if a hacker cheats his way onto that square, the the denizens of that mystic place assault him without warning.
The tile at 8N, 17E is flagged for a random combat. So if a hacker cheats his way onto that square, the the denizens of that mystic place assault him without warning.
Death and drek? WTF?
Re: What's in the inaccessible area in Harkyn's Castle?
I entered that area thanks to our revelations on how to manipulate the dungeon layout in memory and found NOTHING whatsoever.Horpner wrote:There's a small section of the second level of Harkyn's Castle that it's impossible to enter, due to a teleporter. Reverse engineering reveals that there really is something in there, if only you could get inside.
The tile at 8N, 17E is flagged for a random combat. So if a hacker cheats his way onto that square, the the denizens of that mystic place assault him without warning.
My SOSI never told me anything special is there. Are you sure?
I'll have to go have a look.Horpner wrote:Yup. You'll just get attacked by some random monsters on that one square. There are similar places where an encounter is guaranteed in various places on the map.
Care to tell me what byte to put in what memory location to kick a hole - I mean, door - in a wall to go see?
Random combat -- you mean one of the random fights that generates a chest? You know, it was a long time before I released that all the "chest" encounters were in fixed locations. At least in BT 1, you get attacked right away in those spots. In BT 2, you sometimes have to walk over a square 2 times before you trigger the encounter (but eventually you will, and it always gives you a chest, indicating this was a fixed encounter). Makes it royally painful to try to find all their locations and map them.
Marco.
Marco.
I don't believe Michael Cranford continued with his "fixed random encounter" method in II that he used in 1. All of the set encounters in II are denoted with "Something special is near..."...Marco wrote:Random combat -- you mean one of the random fights that generates a chest? You know, it was a long time before I released that all the "chest" encounters were in fixed locations. At least in BT 1, you get attacked right away in those spots. In BT 2, you sometimes have to walk over a square 2 times before you trigger the encounter (but eventually you will, and it always gives you a chest, indicating this was a fixed encounter). Makes it royally painful to try to find all their locations and map them.
Marco.
However, I think that there's a mechanic at play that flags certain squares as increasing the chances of a monster encounter. Case in point being the "Monster Reformatory" area in the Dark Domain, level 2.
In the northern tip of this no-man's-land, you'll get attacked the first time you step there. I faced death itself in the form of 2 Master thieves.Darendor wrote:I'll have to go have a look.Horpner wrote:Yup. You'll just get attacked by some random monsters on that one square. There are similar places where an encounter is guaranteed in various places on the map.
Care to tell me what byte to put in what memory location to kick a hole - I mean, door - in a wall to go see?
The easiest way to get in is to deactivate the teleporter. To do that in Vice, enter the second level of Harkyn's Castle, and then start the machine language monitor by pressing Alt-M.
Now enter the command (the > is not a prompt--it's actually the "poke" command)
>fa80 00
Now walk forward into history!
Last edited by Horpner on Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Death and drek? WTF?
Well, this is my impression from playing the games:Darendor wrote:I don't believe Michael Cranford continued with his "fixed random encounter" method in II that he used in 1. All of the set encounters in II are denoted with "Something special is near..."...
However, I think that there's a mechanic at play that flags certain squares as increasing the chances of a monster encounter. Case in point being the "Monster Reformatory" area in the Dark Domain, level 2.
BT 1, there are 3 types of fixed encounters. Each one always generates a chest after you win the fight.
1) fixed random encounters, which are squares that force a fight with some randomly-generated monsters the first time you land on the square. These don't show up on SOSI. These squares are usually found behind doors, but not necessarily.
2) fixed encounters, which force a fight with a specific group of monsters, but don't have any particular message or other special thing about them. Examples include the fixed encounters with spiders and black widows in the sewers, the fights with groups of 99 skeletons or 99 zombies in the catacombs, the jabberwock you fight in the hall leading to the crystal sword in the castle, most of the fights in the Mangar's Crypt area (except the Vampire Lord), the balrogs and ancient enemies in Mangar 5, and so on. These show up as "something special" on SOSI.
3) special encounters, which have some message or other special feature about them in addition to the fight itself. The statue gates in the city, the spidergod statue that turns into a spinner in the sewers, the crystal golem, the vampire lord in Mangar 4, two dragons in Mangar 4, and so on.
BT2 has the same 3 basic types of encounters. However, unlike BT1, fixed random encounters are not automatic. My impresson (on the Apple 2 version) is that they have only about a 30 or 40% chance of getting triggered when you walk on them. Once triggered, however, they never trigger again unless you leave the level and come back. With a little preserverence, you will find that these squares are always in the same location, and they always generate a chest after you fight the monsters. The "Monster Reformatory" area in the Dark Domain that Darendor mentions is a perfect example of a cluster of these squares.
If you were going to try to map the location of all the fixed random encounters in BT2, you would probably go crazy. I know, I've tried -- that's how I know that their locations are consistent and deduced their general behavior, and after the Dark Domain, I gave up. In BT1, however, it's very easy to find these squares.
Of note, the "fixed encounters" with nothing else special about them, while very common in BT1, are extremely rare in Destiny Knight. They do exist, however. Dark Domain level 1 has 8 individual encounters with 1 guardian each. Dark Domain level 2 has 1 encounter with 1 medusa. Oscon's Fortress level 2, in the hall of mirrors area, there are 5 encounters, each with 1 goofy-named doppleganger (marvin the dop, troy the dop, fred the dop, matt the dop, and steve the dop). Finally, I think the fight with the 2 web dragons in the snare in Dargoth's Tower level 5 is also one of these types of encounters. I don't remember though. Still, this isn't much, while these encounters were all over the place in BT1 (and in my opinion, added a lot of flavor to the dungeons).
Marco.