Hi. This is a HUGE map. It must have taken lots of efforts to create it. Thank you.
I have to be a bit honest. At first I got irritated when playing this map precisely because I got lost in the caves and could not get out or complete a quest. After spending a couple hours and patience I restarted from a saved game from the entrance of the cave.
Here's what I have experienced.
To me (and I'm talking about my experience only), the shield icons from the two necklaces were of no help either in getting the bones or getting out of the cave. Neither was "follow the rats to get out" was helpful to me. Ultimately, what helped me was my persistence on trying to thoroughly check all the places of a given cave depth/level before going deeper. As a result, I kind of memorized the first two levels and that this is what would get me out of the cave. That's my way out.
I have a question about shields. And please consider this from the perspective of a player who is likely lost in the caves but still wants to find all the bones using help from Orange and Yellow shield icons?
Q) How do I figure out which direction to follow when I see an orange icon?
Sometimes I see the shield on the left side of the cave, other times on the right side of the cave, and sometimes near the middle of a junction. When a player is lost how do you expect them to follow the direction? A shield icon tells nothing about which way to go. For a lost player it could be way forward or way backward, way leftward or rightwards, at any given place where the icon is visible. This is what irked me about shield icons.
May be being in the cave for so long, without having sunlight to recharge my mind has taken a toll on my brain and that I'm unable to think straight anymore.
This one has to do with finding the fourth-leg because I don't think there is any part in the cave I have left unchecked. I have obtained three leg-bones so far:
1) from the the center of a labyrinth;
2) by looting the gold hunter;
3) by stealing from the instrument maker;
From where do I get the fourth one and at which place or level? I have other bones of the King too. It's only this fourth leg I cannot find out.
As for the cave maps, please remove them if you're still considering doing that. They were of no help at all.
BTW, earlier I though it would be the monsters who would be challenging. I kind of realized it wasn't the monsters but the complexity of the caves that poses the true challenge. The player has to resist getting angry on themselves when they feel lost and helpless going round and round in deepest parts of the caves. There is no hacking and slashing here. It is perseverance that is tested. That's a nice challenge the game did not provide earlier.
I admire your patience with the maze without the help of the major navigation helps
In fact my first version was without these, but I got lost too often myself
So I added the following:
The shields show in each map
the passage you should take. They are always placed directly left or right to the passage you have ti take to get to the next map towards your target.
The blue shields
lead the shortest way through half of the maze
The orange shields
lead a long and winding way from the entry to the museum.
Yellow shields
are for a short side track where you can find a bone at the end
The exact way how the shields work is in the description of the item. Or Clevred tells you when you can ask him.
And most important to find your way back out from any place is
to use the passages where a rat is placed in front of. So better avoid to kill the rats...
There is a bug I noticed. Whenever I removed or changed the orange or blue necklace with any other necklace (let's say Marrowtaint) and went back to the already-visited nearby maps/blocks the corresponding shield icons did not vanish immediately, even though they should have vanished. Only after when the map was no longer in foreground would the shield icon vanish.
Right, the shields should react instantly, but this wasn't possible to do with the engine (or would take too much ressources) - and it's not that important
And if it still won't start, then read my other notes:
"This area is made for rather high level players. (The quests Lodar, Charwood, Colonel Lutarc, and the starter quests Disallowed substance and Rat infestation are mandatory)
If you have completed these, and also have 9000 gold pieces with you, then you can dive into the new adventure."
