The Castle Doctrine Forums

Well I thought it was a literal statement, I could be wrong, but with the time stated it just means that for that period of time everyone should make sure their house is available.

It may just be how I interpreted "At 5pm, I will take a snapshot of the server database to "freeze" the state of the game world safely for study offline. "

As I understand it a snapshot of houses on the list will be taken. If your house is not on the list i.e. You are camping in it, then you house will not be shown and therefore will not be eligible. I could be wrong tho.

TBH I have played A LOT of MMO's and they seem to have the whole "instant gratification" theme. It gets old quite fast. I do X so I should be rewarded for doing it. This game however is the opposite and that's the appeal. The longer you play the harder it gets. I can rob blah blah's house and get lots of money.. but then I have more money and more people will rob me for it. Also the more money I have the better equipped people will be when they come to my house. To me it almost plays out like a tower defence game. See how many "waves" you can last before you lose. I really like the idea behind the game. Death is extremely painful. The feelings of loss, frustration and anger when you die reminds me of the days of cartridge gaming. There was no save feature, if you died you died. You start all over again from the start. However in those games if you had a power cut or the cat ripped a cable out of the dog stood on the power button or something you could very well have to start from scratch. This game you can exit and come back.

As for the violence, its a very real situation if you live in a big city. However the traps you can deploy in this game can't be used irl so it almost turns to a fantasy game as well. The defence of your money and your safe is quite a good idea however, this plays into the whole capitalism where your money is more valuable than your family. Many people feel like this, but then there are those of us that feel the opposite and we have the harder job of defending the family... that is until someone brutally murders them. Violence in games goes back a long time, even if you look at Wolfenstein. That was a long time ago and that brought about all other FPS games. Killing is not a big thing in many games and genres.
FPS like Call of Duty or  Battlefield.
RTS like Command and Conquer or Company of Heroes.
Puzzle games like the millions of Tower defence games.
Racing games like Carmageddon or Twisted Metal.
RPG's like Skyrim or Fable
3rd Person games like GTA series, Dynasty warriors.

It's portrayed as no big deal to take someone's life. This game however is the opposite and even tho violence is portrayed and allowed, its a closer to home feeling than these others.

At the end of the day everyone is different and if you feel its too graphic or wrong in any way then that is your choice on whether to play or not. I'm not trying to be condescending or sarcastic in any way, sometimes it can be hard to read peoples intentions behind text.

I play it because I like the idea of the puzzle/building aspect. I know everyone will rise and fall including myself. But that's part of the appeal.

Oh you were camargo... took 40k from me I was spamming enter house trying to get in and change the config while you were between scouts but I kept just missing the timing.

LOL! Try getting to 50k, being robbed, getting to 50k, being robbed, getting to 40k, dying to my own faulty trap design, getting to 40k, getting robbed. (rounded figures of course). Add all that up in real world conversion.
I am currently floating around a safe(ish) amount editing and changing my house with the excess.

As you learn more from making more money and building more elaborate traps you then know how to beat them. Then you can take on the stronger houses since you also have a bigger budget for tools.

So you NEED to have the particular painting you want in your house? What if you are in the top 8 and don't have a painting? can you still choose one?

I was thinking hackers for quite a while actually as this has happened to me a few times with 3 different house builds. All the names vanished almost straight away. When Jason looked into it and reviewed the tapes it was considered to be dumb luck. Also the fact that the person vanished off the house list with so much money was cause their dumb luck ran out on my house and they died soon after.
I have come to the conclusion that with you having to do a self test without tools anyone could fluke their way through your house at any time. Remember people win lotteries and the odds there are pretty huge. It is really, really frustrating and the paranoia is running rampant with this game. That's part of the fun.

Someone came into my house and saw the battery-sticky switch-trapdoor that I have right beside the door. They walked up to it not stepping on the switch and proceeded to destroy the circuit by cutting the wires out of the walls and frying the battery. Then they stood on the button to close the trapdoor to walk past. Funnily enough it stayed a pit (since they had fried the battery). After walking back a forth a heap of times they threw themselves into the pit dying. They could have walked back out the entrance/exit which was only about 2-3 steps away.
The worst thing is.... this has happened with more than 1 person.

Ahhhh sweet hadn't thought of that. It really does have you fidgeting and panicking when you go over 50k. Been there a few times now since the contest started.

Would be a cool feature. Maybe a box where you can input the number of steps to jump to and a step counter. That way you can watch the tape through to roughly the point you want on fast, hit the stop button and see what step you are up to say 120. Then hit restart and type in say 100 then hit play. It would quickly play through the first 100 steps at super fast then auto stop at the number you set.