The Castle Doctrine Forums

Welcome MMaster! You can have a look at this interesting thread about the numbers of different tools you could practically force the robber to use here: http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … php?id=576

This will not help you get the tape, but for your next self-test, replace the trapdoors with non conducting lights (the green ones). Much less deadly...

This is the dumbest post ever...
Read carefully the proposition, it doesn't affect starting players.
About the rich vs. poor ideas... Don't be upset because you are poor, there are millions of different houses you can build, and many of them will stand more than 3h if you take the time to learn the game and make progress. Each time you buy a new videogame, do you expect to master it after a few hours of play? That would spoil the fun

OK, I think I'm getting it. It is not the corner of the image that defines the transparency, but the corner of each sprite (actually the bottom left corner). That makes it a bit difficult at first to locate the corners of the sprite... Plus, there may be several of these "corners" in each image.
(I use gimp too, and disable the compress option when exporting to tga)

[EDIT] The problem I have with lost transparency/big blue square happens when I do the following in gimp: select a rectangular area, copy (Ctrl-C) and paste (Ctrl-V) somewhere else in the image. If I export *right then*, the exported tga file looks fine, but if I launch the game all the sprites contained in the modified image are screwed-up. I come back to gimp, click on a random place to reset the rectangular area, then I export, everything is fine in-game (and the tga file looks exactly the same). I  wonder why having an active selection in gimp messes up with the export process...

Wow. Hard to believe. I've been away from the game for more than one day since my last death. I log in and find that Mr Connel's house is still here, now on the top page, and still broken right up to the vault. The easiest 68k I've ever grabbed...

A starter tip I wish I had known beforehand: don't start playing this game. It is much too addictive.

Thanks a lot Iceman, that explains everything concerning the visual weirdnesses.
Why did you leave the alive family members colourful? For aesthetic purposes?
I have another question: how did you generate the new propertiesSignature (for example in the houseObjects/wife/1 folder)? I imagine every state of every objects needs a specific key to encrypt the signature, and the server tests that signature to detect if you are trying to cheat with properties. Either you work on programming the game, or you submitted the new folder to Jason so that he delivered you the associated signature? Thanks!

This probably has nothing to do with the mod, unless that new wife/1 folder you created screwed up something... (the difference now is that the game detects and reads into that folder). I found nothing suspicious in the log file, but I probably relaunched the game before checking it. Anyway I located the bug in the recordedGame file, and I'll e-mail it to Jason.

Allright, I better understand the context. Still, I think that even using bruteforcing, this challenge is very difficult to achieve. Also, it must require a big amount of time. Just being curious, Josh, how many hours a day do you spend on the game during the this challenge?

It is funny how 2 weeks ago, many threads started in attempts to deal with top houses being too easy to chain rob/brute force. Now, I read here and there the "problem" that Mr Price is too powerful, that any uber-rich player is totally immune because he can storm any house with a fraction of his money. These are both interesting discussions.

First, what I see, is that the in-game money amount is slowly reaching an equilibrium (no more 10 houses over 100k$ that you could brute force with 15 saws, top pages houses now hover around 40k, which I think is still a bit high but this may continue to stabilize), so less "easy" money is available. Chain-robbing can be effective, but I notice that when I get steamrolled this way, it is always by a player who is more skilled than me. If chain-robbing was so easy, everybody would be able to do it, and I would be stormed every day, but it is not the case at all. It looks easy when you watch the tapes, but to succeed you need to keep a high degree of concentration, make smart and quick decisions, you are not allowed to fail a single time, withstand the pressure... In some way, the same can be said about a super-rich player who is trying to take down a rising challenger. The longer your life is or the richer you are, the more difficult it is nervously (and also technically, because if you are at the top you will mostly rob top, better designed houses). Mr Price will fall some day, and it may be because of a stupid self-test mistake, a nervous breakdown, or simply when a good player finds a way to solve his house.
I consider myself an experienced player, and I truly think that he is not invulnerable. In the last 12 hours, I gathered 100k$, died, gathered 150k$, and died again. So, I got twice the opportunity to decently try his house. I failed, because, purely and solely, I was not good enough. I died "stupidly" because I didn't have strong enough nerves, or because I didn't choose the best moment/quantity of tools to attack. Many small details that are required to be at the top. But I'm sure it is feasible by a better player than me (or when I will be a better player )
Josh was already good at chain-robbing, and now he can design houses that can resist 100k$ brute-force attempts, and at the same time he can keep on taking down rising challengers. Why? Because, simply put, he is very good at the game! Again, if staying super-rich many consecutive days was easy, then many people could do it. To me, the fact that he can do it, means that the game is pretty well balanced, has still room for discoveries, and allows only good players to rise and stay on top, which is great!

Damn, while writing this, I timed-out and lost 37k$ between two chain-robberies. Nervous breakdown...

This was in Finn's house. How ironic! Now you even collect my bounties. The Sarsaparilla night is my favorite, very Sword&Sworcerish mood. I really like the two others (day and sunset), but I haven't seen them in weeks, maybe 2 months. I'm afraid they are lost forever. Jason, if you ever read my post, can you please check that they are still in some reachable house? Did they stay in the same house during all those weeks?

Thank you colorfusion, I understand now how these folders are organized. But I still don't understand why some non-broken pets and non-broken trapdoors (the robber didn't even see these trapdoors) would appear grayscale in build mode, next to coloured ones at the same time.
Now that I'm thinking about it, it reminds me of a strange behaviour: I noticed that sometimes after being robbed, some trapdoors appear closed (non-blocking state) in build mode, and I can walk on them, just next to other trapdoors that at the same time appear open (blocking). Even after doing a new self test, they may still appear with both states at the same time in build mode... Have you ever noticed that? Seems weird to me.
[EDIT] To summarize, It behaves as if sometimes, objects were being locked into robbery mode after a robbery.

Thanks for sharing the data! Did you have an estimation of how many accounts you would sell? Does the result meet your expectations?