Discuss the massively-multiplayer home defense game.
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Hi agent, welcome to the forums. With regards to saving construction half way through, the idea of the game is that once you've started a house, all the time you're not in it, it will be on the list of rob-able houses for every other ne'er-do-well in the neighbourhood to poke into, and try to rob, and all the houses have to be fair - i.e. it has to be possible to reach the vault using no tools, by disarming whatever security mechanism has been built. Therefore you have to complete the self test every time you leave the house, or else commit suicide. The game is supposed to make you feel vulnerable and afraid for your money and family constantly, and 'saving' your house, taking it out of the game temporarily would eliminate this constant vulnerability. Also, Jason has stated in the past that he doesn't want to include construction aids in the game, such as the ability to export a copy of a design and then import it back in in a new house. He wants you to have to do the nitty gritty construction, walking around your own claustrophobic death traps to do the building.
For some more tips have a look at this short guide made by a knowledgeable member of this forum (thanks Jere):
http://jere.in/sneaking-into-rohrers-ca … hort-guide
This guide is a little out of date, as it was made quite a few versions ago in the game's development - the main things in this guide that have been changed in the game are: the prices of most of the items (although the wiki does have the correct prices, i believe); and that powered trap doors do not transmit electricity so you can't have a corridor of powered trap doors being powered from one end, each one needs its own power supply. But it's still a very useful read.
As Jere says in his guide, I really would stress to try not to get too invested in your earlier houses, as there are lots of intricacies in the game which you can only really learn the hard way, by being killed unexpectedly by someone's tricky little device. I died a lot in my first few weeks learning the game when trying to rob other people, it took me a while before I kept a house for more than a few days without making a stupid mistake and dying. I would definitely suggest that each time you do die, before you start building your house again, go do some suicide runs through other peoples' houses, learn what other people are doing, see what can be done with the game's mechanics - dying ten different ways in ten different houses will teach you a lot, so it's worth doing for half an hour in between dying and starting again.
Hope this helps
Ahh, I see, thanks for telling me. I thought it might be something like this, but it seemed unlikely that they died in the seconds between clicking on the house list and clicking into his house, but I guess that's why it's the first time I've seen it in many months playing the game.
I clicked into a house from the neighbourhood list, only to be told 'That house was reclaimed by the state after the owner die.' which I think is missing a 'd' at the end, to say 'died'.
I just wanted to let Jason know about this, and to ask if he or anyone else can tell me what this message means.
Here's a jpeg showing the error:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2j9e1u2806qv … elling.jpg
Could you clarify what exactly that means please Jason? What is the step count?
I think some sort of timer to prevent legitimate griefing could be acceptable, but 5 or 10 mins is too short - there's been plenty of times robbing houses that I've spent a good bit of time moving around large parts of the space making sure there's been no annoying hidden dogs in some part of the map, or making a few exploratory cuts into the electronics, then want to spent a fair while examining the wiring and planning my next moves.
When I've tried to log into my house, only to be told that there's someone robbing it, and I've just got to hang around waiting until they're done attempting to violate my house and possibly family, these are the moments that make me feel the most aware of the threat that my house is constantly under, and having to wait 15, 20 or 30 mins to see what damage they've done is a very powerful suspense-building thing.
I agree with your points. I think a crowbar costs far too much money, but it shouldn't be reduced to the point of the powered door being too cheap to open, and think that a brick opening a door could be thematically good, as the sprite of the door doesn't look like a particularly solid door, and I'm sure that lobbing a brick really hard at a door could open it. Plus I feel that being able to use a brick from range to open a door in the same way as triggering a switch would be a good tool for a robber to have, leading to good gameplay potential.
You're right, there's no bad reason, something to do with my time off. I've sent you an email with my download code. I accidentally sent you two emails - the first is from an email address that's not registered with this game, so sent a second from the correct address.
Hope I can help
Hmm, just went back into the house and peered through the gloom, saw one clubbed dog, but couldn't see anything else.
I just wanted to check if some behaviour I noticed is supposed to be a feature of the game, or if it's an unwanted glitch. Twice now in the last few days I have walked into a door to open it, and instantly killed by a dog. It was my understanding that animals had to spot you one turn, before they could move next turn. The house this was in belongs to Michael Richard Li. I think I read something about this in an older forum post recently (which I can't find now to recheck what I read) and someone mentioned that you could mouse over the door and it would tell you if there was a dog there as well, so I have been doing this for all doors since my first death like this, but this didn't work for me the second time.
Both times this has happened it's been a really nasty shock, and has ruined my fledgling houses. I know the idea of this game is that there are no unfair deaths, that it's always the player's fault, but I cannot see how you are supposed to avoid this death, without cutting around the walls of each door you find, which would cost stupid amounts of money.
Anyone else got any thoughts on this, or can shed some light on it?
Hi,
Don't have a Linux OS installed at the mo, but if no-one's emailed you by tomorrow post on here and I'll install Ubuntu quick and download steam. Want to help get the steam launch here asap, get more people in the game.
I think I've had a 'house check in' lost house twice or three times since I've been playing this game, both within a week or two, about a month ago. I haven't seen it in a while though, so I thought that there had been some connection optimisation done to the game.
I'm guessing it was you who annihilated my house about 24hrs ago then. By my estimation you spent around $70000 in tools, and got $22000 from me, so how did you afford to keep up this quite impressive reign of terror? Was this you?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f84wwx8mk7ofddr/aftermath.png
My hoard of dogs didn't seem to deter you in the slightest!
I must say I'm a bit disappointed that you lost your house through a check in error - I was looking forward to regrouping and seeking bloody vengeance against you! Still, I guess it is karma that you lost your house
I also agree that I don't think this game should be made much more 'casual catered' - Yes, when I first loaded the game before looking at any tutorials or lets-plays I was pretty overwhelmed with all the different building items that could be chosen, but once I got to grips with it, understood most of the game mechanics and made some decent houses the sense of achievement was great, matching my mind against the other top players in this game. The steeper the learning curve, the more satisfying it feels to finally get to grips with it.
I think the comments that the people who tend to gravitate to this game are generally interested in engineering, computer science, physics etc. could be quite relevant. I've got a masters degree in maths, and am studying for a masters in computer science, so I think that is why I became so addicted to figuring this game out when I first played it, wanting to 'master' the system. And if TCD doesn't end up with a huge mass-market appeal, instead fosters a smaller, more inquisitive and creative group of fans, I think that would probably be a good thing.
I think you misunderstood what I meant. You can't keep a player base with how the game is currently being played.
I don't know about that, myself and plenty of other people on this forum seem to have stuck to this game with the rules as they are.
When the animal rules last changed to stop them moving until they had line-of-sight, I was initially unfavourable to it, but that was only because it would mess with my current house designs, forcing me to abandon some designs I had. However, once I realised how this rule improved the overall gameplay, ruling out completely invisible, behind the scenes mechanics that could kill you at any step, I realised it was a good move for the game to make.
I think I feel the same way about changing the animal rules again to make them in some way not be able to track your movements forever behind walls (although I am not sure what exactly would be the best way to implement this) - I would be disappointed that it would make me have to abandon some of my current traps, but it would force people to come up with new, hopefully more interesting trap designs, as magic dances really aren't that fun to try and solve in my opinion.
bey bey wrote:It's an odd strategy that has evolved as of now. I assume it's an attempt to make it to a safe house with a family alive, which usually fails during mid-game when the wife gets killed because she's less well protected than the safe. Focusing on the other element (i.e. the wife) is an interesting way to get around this problem.
That's the way I've always used houses like that, as a temporary stop gap until I can adequately defend both my wife AND safe from the $2000 start-up crew. Leaving a house like that is for sure boring, but I think it's a reasonable starting strategy seeing as your money is replaceable while your wife is not (and you must decide on one or the other at the beginning or risk ruination...).
I'm not sure about that, my last few houses since the new animal movement rules, I've found that the starting $2000 has been enough to build a rudimentary trap system and place a strategic dog or two - which require $1000 each to get past - to protect the family, and have been able to keep them and my vault safe (Until I walk on a pitbull that is). Plus, as you say, it's more fun. Then I usually use my first few hundred $'s wages to reinforce my family to make them survive their first night while I'm in bed.
Awesome, I'll give it a go.
How do you place a busted tile manually by the way?
Yeah I guess that is a little weird come to think of it, but I guess I've come to think of this game purely in terms of game mechanics now and think of the families as the resource/annoyance that they are, so I just see these houses as a boring non-addition to the gameplay - I guess I'm trying to force people to make interesting houses.
I've just been through the house list and counted 5 houses doing this out of 2 pages.
I actually died when I made a mistake on a vigilante mission. I really don't like all the houses set up like this:
http://castlefortify.com/c/d5e3f1d
where they just keep their wife safe and leave their vault out in the open. In the last day or two since my house got to what I considered 'finished', I'd been using my wages to go and hunt down wives in houses like this. I think in one house I spent $7000 to kill a wife for $120, but it's the principle! Does anyone else do this?
Yes, drunk home improvements have caused me trouble in the past. Need to fit some sort of breathalyzer to my computer to stop me doing it again.
Damn pit bulls, nearly made it a week with this house for the first time. I think I was Delbert Aaron Lynn, but I might be wrong:
http://castlefortify.com/c/8ce4c66
edit: or maybe Michael L Wakefield?
Yes that is true, but usually it's a case of at most $50 each time, to replace a concrete wall, and I'm very willing to build a bit slower, spend a little bit more money, and be safe.
Edit: grammar
Yes, but at least there seems to be a fair number of beginner houses on the second page of houses for people to learn with, using more transparent traps like dog mazes, rather than behind the scene magic. These should be good for learning the core game mechanics and building confidence.
Haha yes I've seen a LOT of people learning doggy mechanics the hard way. I did it too when learning, and you only do it once. And the other one that makes me laugh is when they pour water on an electric floor which is powering the trap door they're standing on.
Bump
In response to the comment that there are certain traps that can't be made in to a safe version as they rely on electric floors to kill animals and such, I think there are ways around this.
I've just finished adding an extension to my house, and there was no realistic way to make it safe to return to the front door while testing if it didn't work as planned, but I got around this by leaving my vault along the path where I was testing so if my new gizmo didn't do what it was supposed to do I could bug out and reach the safe if it didn't work. I found that by doing this I was able to test each part of the new design by moving the vault each time to a safe place to reach. And yes, some bits I designed didn't work as intended first time, so I was able to reach the safe and return to find the problem. The only risk here is after reaching your vault, there will be a couple of seconds where your house is open to rob before you get back into it, but I've done this dozens of times and I don't think anyone's ever got into my house in that short time.
