Realm of Kings 2022 update Official Thread

Instead of talking shop :), how about a world wide tournament to see whom upon all the RPGmers out there can FINISH completely (like a speed run) the realm of kings!

I know it might take a miracle and some time, but I think i'm going to work my magic and see what the hell I can do to make this a real thing... hahahahaahahah laugh with me or at me, I think it will come true.. lol

Sounds like a fun map.

Some people might try to compete here at some point in the future so I am going to do my best to give them something that is tangible and memorable..
I will try to invent some kind of club where there is a fair competition here something like that... full clear of the realm of kings in 20 hours? 5 hours? 2 hours? 200 hours...you get the idea

Hmmmm. lets brainstorm for a little bit here.

The monsters of Realm of Kings have an amount to them.. that is there is a total number of baddies/monsters in the realm of kings..
we could give live human players/gamers the task of completing the map by tallying their kill totals.. or better yet force the player to prove his kill total and the player with the fastest TOTAL clear of the Realm of Kings (total clear meaning a certain amount of monsters killed)(if the map has say a total of 7300 evil npc, then player must kill 7100 at least to qualify) in the fastest time EVER would be given a CASH PRIZE paid out by myself .

So thats a portion of the first of the rules of this idea/tournament..there will be more rules.. have to invent them.!.!.!.!.!.!

here is some new information about what I have added in the map (really interesting) I will have to test these things....

The Pits have FINALLY started to give rewards (MEGA SUPER POWERFUL) to ensure that a participant in the map is HANDSOMELY rewarded for completing the pit.. there is no quests tied to it.. its a simple as soon as you have cleared and reached an area an item that is more powerful than anything possible should be equipped and the map will become more sensible. So in effect... without the pit clearing your character would probably remain a bit weaker (insanely weaker). This gives the overall game/map some dynamics that I failed to produce way back when..(because I wanted to program quests but way back when my siege editor would crash every time I tried to add any quests of any type) so I had to try to come up with a different kind of competition and I believe I am still trying to invent it... hopefully some huge updates happen...... bye for now!
all previous google drive links have been updated to current one.. you cannot download the wrong one.. they are all current and shall remain current until the next update which will be awhile from now probably... i just wanted to make sure not to confuse anymore with small updates.. its bad.. i need to take this a bit more seriously and i will
here is the final link for now.. the map has been fairly significantly updated but it will get so so so much more in depth here when i have the time... thank you for your help all!

Official Map The Realm of Kings 2022
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14VOq9bK2QWs5Oa0X18hDsTlnJxYrhrLq/view?usp=sharing

The Greydrak Horror boss.. The Cryptolanthus.. is currently mistakenly too large.. I have to downsize him in the future and i will...

by the way guys.... the way I explore my updates to my map is by being in SINGLE PLAYER.... hitting enter key and I type in +zool

this makes you invulnerable and you can freely explore the realm of kings without ever taking any damage...

peace out

Getting easier now to make significant changes.. im not working full time on this or anything .. just in my spare time.. but i think i can make some significant improvements alot faster than I thought.. HIREABLE NPC KNOWLEDGE where are you?? i still dont get it.. i will try to learn when i can....

the cryptolanthus OVER SIZE npc drake boss has been fixed...

latest update
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14VOq9bK2QWs5Oa0X18hDsTlnJxYrhrLq/view?usp=sharing <----------------all links in this forum thread will be continuously revised with the correct link every time I update the map.. thanks guys

It was a small mod called Setitems1.4b.dsres. Seems it changes how all vendors work on all maps. remove it and realm of kings vendors work!!!

I have sent down aliens from outer space and they have come down and phasered the demons of crepid pit. The aliens were sure that I was wasting their time, but I assured them that the tasty demons will purify there evergrowing hunger for the universe. Then I gave them a carmel apple.

I will update farmhand henry smithers text if you want me too.. I gave you a small cameo lol.. your nickname now appears in his storybook text soo would you like it to stay or go? haha

original text updated for the shopkeeper smithers

For me you don't need to update links in old posts, I'd download from the latest post anyways

You can't make just any NPC hireable - if you look at the templates in Logic.dsres, all party members are derived from certain base templates, so they have all the components they need. You can re-use the existing NPCs from KoE/LoA, maybe rename & re-equip them, or define your own. If you define your own, you'll have to build & include a dsres file with your dsmap. This is very common - rather an oddity of RoK that it doesn't come with a dsres.
For the hiring conversation to run smoothly, you'd also need a custom talk skrit. The original party members all have a specialized skrit with their object id baked into it. For my Utraean Peninsula Single-Player map, I have written a generalized skrit that takes input parameters instead: https://github.com/foerstj/up-remaster/tree/single-player/world/ai/jobs/utraean-peninsula But even to include that, you'd have to pack it into a dsres. The alternative is to use the standard talk skrit, and when you click Accept, the NPC gets hired properly but repeats the same sentence and you have to close the conversation window.

that is what i had figured out over time.. that not every npc had attributes that would enable them for a hire... once added to any game/map they are frozen or non funtional. Importantly you pointed out (You can re-use the existing NPCs from KoE/LoA, maybe rename & re-equip them) this is what I will probably do and I will try to give them a new story to tell.. such as their dreams of one day kinda being a proud warrior who stood up against evil in the prime of their life to join the Kings war against evil stuff like that.. i try to make it memorable... but i need it to function first lol..... its so frustrating adding a nice big update that you hope would be playable only to have to go back and redo everything you had worked on... but at least we are capable of trying things out with this Dungeon Siege editor. Sometimes its very liberating.

The Multiplayer locations is lookin about 40 percent complete.. im so glad you helped me figure that out..

I will finish all multiplayer locations soon its getting there.

New Crepid Pit Screenshots this made a huge difference.. map is updated get it in any of the links provided in this forum thread.
I will try to briefly describe what happened to the path to crepid pit....
(old version) cliffs..yellow light grassy ground.. some green and yellow trees.. a lonely walk to the deadly dangerous and inviting pit..

(new version) angels talking to you, vibrant trees dangling over the cliffs, health potions scattered along giant rocks of gold and encouraging spirits telling you to press forward.
there are screen shots in the top page of it.. its not bad...

new screenshots yada yada yada... so from the very first screenshot you could see where I edited the farmhouse area and the nodes were just starting to be placed...

here are two screenshots that prove i am working on this

the publicrok1 image was submitted by foerstj which was what the beginning of the Realm of Kings looked like before I started working on it this year in August 2022

so compare ahh whatever umm rok31.gif to publicrok1.jpg in this forum to see some progress.... by the way.. once in this map The Realm of Kings I can assure you mass update is being made... I am not taking away anything from the original map.. I AM IMPROVING IT exponentially, it will be different and fun as promised

screenshots show farmhouse starting location has increased in SIZE...more room and much needed proper equipment can now be found in this starting area

TheRealmofKingsOfficialSeasonalChampionship is coming
I am the original creator of The Realm of Kings map for Dungeon Siege.
I am the host for the weekly Invitational Realm of Kings Championship
contest where cash prizes are awarded to the champion!

PayPal.Me/TheRealmofKingsMap to enter the contest the cost of entry is 1 dollar. $1.00

The Realm of Kings Weekly Championship will take a LONG time to get rolling. One must understand the risk, magnitude, and responsibility that is required after a promise to pay out a champion that meets all the set requirements, follows the rules, and is declared a champion of the map for that week and is continuously paid out is a huge endeavor considering the size of the World Wide Web....I am and will be the manager of this journey and I hope in the future we can have a little fun for a very low prize! I will keep those who are interested informed best I can as this BEGINS to become a thing. Thank you and my email address is for any questions inquiries regarding official rules (official rules will be posted soon) for qualifying to participate in the weekly contest. You must have a paypal account and you must use your paypal account to enter the contest, cost is one dollar.

T-Shirts for the Realm of Kings will become a reality. The Official Rules will be on the shirts as well as posted in this forum thread very soon. The T-Shirts may take awhile to get going, but they will be fun.

The Official Rules are important and they will be fun rules, but they must be completely followed in order to participate.
The Official Rules will be posted below very soon.

List of rules:
1. Before you enter the contest you must email me and pay the entry fee at paypal using PayPal.Me/TheRealmofKingsMap

New information concerning the map: latest changes: not downloadable yet:

Griswald Thorsen in Dromnar speaks , he might even be funny..
The City of Thornvale is under attack, also, many improvements are happening in Thornvale (pathing, npc speak, decoration, treasure hunting (behind church)
Directions and signs are going up EVERYWHERE (its a very tough task) at every corner in The Realm of Kings so the player never gets lost... (I repeat, this is a tough task haha)
Many many many new weapons suitable for the difficulty of the map have been added and are working extremely well to hasten the gameplay here
The story line is deepening
I am adding many more talking npc's to advance the players experience within the map as well as direct him/her where to go regarding getting a stronger character faster.

Coming soon:
NPC TEXT within the game regarding the weekly tournament....
perhaps new weekly or monthly challenges
more NPC dialogue to describe every single aspect of what he/she is encountering
much much more... i am working alone )by myself( so this is a daunting task but I will keep at it.

thanks for tuning in guys

NOTE: many more screenshots in the thread check them out

lets see if we can )any of us( recall the Pit Boss monster Names shall we!!!

1. Crepid Pit: Boss Name Crepid
2. The Greydrak Horror: Boss Name Cryptolanthus
3. Trechor Pit: Boss Name Psionicong
4. Slothmorn Pit: Boss Name Ender
5. Darkmoore Pit: Boss Name Malich (4) and the other one(it was Bahrathanoor) i have since changed it... can't remember what I named it lol its hilarious though UPDATE: Bahrathnoor(DarkmoorePitBoss) is now named Darkmoore Pit Legendary Soulcrusher Nimitz.
6. The Caverns Infernal (multiplayer location is up and running) the END BOSSES to the Realm of Kings names are Lozule and The Myriad..

thank you all for playing and trying to help me with the production of this map.. i sincerely am grateful you guys are wonderful

omg im going thru the most ungodly updating currently having to tell all the stalagtites and mites in caverns infernal to not occlude or bound the camera... so there must be at least 400 of these nodes striking out into the nether and i have to tell the engine (siege editor) to let the player see these things instead of force cam on top of players head...hmm let me think.. why did I put those wonderfully evil looking stalagtites and mites in there...???? so the player/hero/warrior/legendary super being can see them.. and have some fun.. sheesh.........coming along fine though

so far there are at least 25 new lootable objects lying upon the ground from new swords, mace, bows/arrow weapon, club, shield, chest armor, helm, boots, gloves, and a few new spells easily picked up by the player in the proper location as a genuine reward for clearing the area. This bountifully makes the player able to carry forward quicker and it's working flawlessly.
A new update is right around the corner but I want to make sure I have SUBSTANTIAL updates before I drag anyone into another download with a minimal change to the map.. thank you for your patience.

Hi, I like the regions overview and all the new pics in the thread head, they're beautiful! If you add more you should remove others because it already takes a while to scroll past them

In my maps I try to abstain from giving the player overpowered items like large potions before level 10, or powerful swords right at the beginning - it'll make the following normal Krug a bit weak in comparison. But that map design philosophy is a matter of taste, I guess.

I'm intrigued about this championship idea, however I gotta say I'm not a very competitive person and also my parents raised me not to play for money Also I think if you do it, monthly would be better than weekly. The community is just not THAT alive. Look at the Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonSiege/ - they started with weekly general discussion threads, and quickly went down to monthly ones because engagement was too low.
Also I would STRONGLY discourage any reference to contests INSIDE THE MAP. The contests will at one point end, and from there on there'll always be a sad, dead reference to it in the map. Don't do it.

List of bosses: Wasn't there a "Cryptolanthus" somewhere as well?

Thanks for setting the camera block and occlude flags of the nodes, it's a lot nicer to walk around when the camera is not suddenly in the neck of the character and you have to zoom out again!

Agreed...putting contest information in the map would devolve the storyline considerably so i wont do it. The NPC's are having a hard enough time keeping up with my imagination as it is..
yes.. thank you for the correction.. it is indeed a Cryptolanthus... so in order to bring some originality to the Drakes I made sure to rename every drake type creature to some type of Mesolanthus or Mezzolanthus instead of calling anything resembling a drake a drake. All drake are Mesolanthus or Mezzolanthus , the Cryptolanthus was a gatekeeper in Greydrak Horror that is how he got his name.. he was a Crypt keeper of sorts... thank you for correcting me on that

I will thin out the screenshots most defintely...I have made a nice new update page at NEXUSMODS link here : https://www.nexusmods.com/dungeonsiege1/mods/116/?tab=description

lets see if I can move some traffic from NEXUS to over to this site.. that would be a nice challenge its highly doubtful but should be fun

The contest will be official... the rules will be stark.... the playerbase will have to email me before anything ever happens.. i doubt they will even try..but I will have a very nice set of easy rules to follow....like such the game will have to be played in MULTIPLAYER by yourself so the game can tally up kills...no single player games will be allowed period because the game doesnt do a kill count on it..

like i said the rules list will be long, to the point, but easily understood and I will pay out the cash prize via paypal.... PayPal.Me/TheRealmofKingsMap

this isnt started yet..... the official rules havent been written yet... lol so there is no official start to the tournament i have to write the rules and distribute them...who knows who will enter. it will be complicated at best...if the rules are good and easily understood it can happen..... i havent written the rules anywhere yet so nothing will happen until rules are written.

https://therealmofkingschampionship.com/

https://therealmofkingschampionship.com/

WHAT ARE THE RULES?

You must have Dungeon Siege 1 installed and you must play The Realm of Kings map in multiplayer by yourself. When in multiplayer, there is a kill count. The player with the highest kill count for the week in The Realm of Kings Map will be declared the Champion for that week and will receive the CASH PRIZE from me via PAYPAL. Player/CHAMPION to receive 80 percent of total prize pool. 20 percent of prize pool is going toward increasing the size of the contest with map quality updates and new challenges. EXAMPLE: if 10 people sign up to play and pay one dollar with paypal to PayPal.Me/TheRealmofKingsMap then the WINNER/Player/Champion will receive 8 dollars to their paypal account and I will keep 2 dollars to administrate and increase the size of the contest.

ALL PLAYERS must email to a screenshot of their TOTAL kill count while in multiplayer and the player with the most kills in The Realm of Kings Map wins the prize. All players must also email me before entering and the one dollar purchase PayPal.Me/TheRealmofKingsMap must be verified by myself before the weekly contest can begin for that player.

How is the cash prize rewarded?

The cash prize will be rewarded to the player of (The Realm of Kings Map) who has the most kills while playing from the start in multiplayer mode by him/herself. Whoever has the most kills for the week will get THE TOTAL 80 percent of purse/cash 80 percent of prize for that week. There will be leaderboards here making an account each week of all players entries, earnings, kills, and more as we get started here.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHDBXdbbyCiaPxVSEp1Yg2w <-------The Realm of Kings Official Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eu_XIQNpmc

https://therealmofkingschampionship.com/

what have i done......................................................uh oh

Look how many kills my buddy Starfall has, just two minutes after I told him of the contest!
Honestly I think it might not be a good idea...

give me some details of the Starfall character would you??

I could impose rules that you MUST START with a NEW CHARACTER each time....

once these people pay I WILL HAVE TO HAVE STRICT RULES ..so if they cheat.. i cant help that right?.. I will have to add some documentation warning to some degree that its absolutely essential to start with a new character ... like I said I will address it later...

if things dont work out I can always refund any contestants entry fee.... this is a work in progress..

once again.. can you please give me some details about the Starfall character?

Starfall is a guy over on Discord who knows how to use MS Paint

you are a genius.. thank you very much for pointing this out.. I laughed all day while working... i said to myself.. omg A TEXT editor.. hahah

so I came up with major rules concerning the contest.. if there ever is one.. lol...

the rules will be that KILLS will count... but A player/contestant must also talk to AN NPC specifically entered into the map for the purpose of giving the player a passphrase or coded message( such as the bear has three eyes )

there will be 4 TIERS of NPC CODE that the player/contestant must relay back to me with his/her screenshot of their kills in the email they send to me to participate in the contest.

first tier of NPC SPEAK/CODE/secret message will require talking to 3 NPC in the specified area and the player must write down what the 3 different NPC has said
second tier of NPC SPEAK will require the same.. but deeper into the map.. such as first tier could be tyramule forest and the second tier could be dromnar 3 npc speak again
third tier will require 6 NPC SPEAK... so 6 NPC will be placed in specific areas each with its own message, the player/contestant must relay these back to me in the email they send with their screenshotted killcount......so tier 3 has 6 secret messages....from npcs

tier 4 NPC SPEAK 7 .........this will be the final tier 7 different NPC with different message that must be relayed to me through email along with killcount....

So as I go.. anyone who photoshops a killcount will be disqualified immediately.. I will warn all players who come to try this out so they know if they pay to play that they should not cheat at all otherwise they forfeit their chances of winning the weekly prize pool...

also.. with npc speak and tier 1 2 3 4 each having regions in which the npc is placed, i can estimate and even verify the amount of enemies that are even possible to have killed and mark that number down as STATIC so players who get these coded messages (which would change weekly) will generally have the same kill count ..........examples below:

REGION: Tyramule Forest -------NPC SPEAK Tier 1 = three npc speak needed....(3 talking character with a message in Tyramule Forest easily found) add up number of possible monsters killed lets say its 305 total monsters possible I can expect if a player only reached tier 1 of NPC SPEAK with 3 messages relayed to me with his/her screenshot that the monster kills are from 200 to 305

REGION: DROMNAR -------NPC SPEAK Tier 2 = three npc speak needed....(3 talking character with a message in Dromnar easily found) add up number of possible monsters killed lets say its by this point around 900 monsters total found up until Dromnar then I can expect 6 NPC SPEAK coded messages relayed back to me via email with contestant killcount anywhere from 500 to 900

REGION: TONVAR KEEP ------ NPC SPEAK Tier 3 = six npc speak needed....(6 talking character with a message in TONVAR KEEP area (region name is Thornyhill) easily found) add up number of possible monsters killed lets say its by this point around 1900 monsters total found up until TONVAR KEEP then I can expect 12 NPC SPEAK coded messages relayed back to me via email with contestant killcount anywhere from 800 to 1900

REGION: BASTONIAN PLANE ---- NPC SPEAK Tier 4 = seven npc speak needed....(7 talking character with a message in Bastonian Plane area (region name is plane) easily found) add up number of possible monsters killed lets say its by this point around 2900 monsters total found up until Bastonian Plane then I can expect 19 NPC SPEAK coded messages relayed back to me via email with contestant killcount anywhere from 1300 to 2900

and on and on upwards toward the more difficult portions of the map.. i could just do ONE NPC SPEAK per tier so I don't have to make up so many coded messages but then you run into the problem with what if player a and player b both have reached tier 2 speak complete ..then they tie and their killcount decides who won that weekly championship..

I think the tiers would solve the photoshop text editing problem of possible cheating ........then I came up with also the idea of Specifically Talking with King Ryn

King Ryn could be scattered around the regions giving mandatory NPC speak confirming the players activity and what I came up with was King Ryn would potentially have something rather charming to say about the worlds most popular youtubers...but only King Ryn would have this speak in his chat log window.

the player would have to relay me the answer to a possible question posed by King Ryn and that could be an additional way to complete the contest for the week.

OK here's my honest opinion: scrap the whole thing. It's not gonna work.
I discussed this idea over on Discord, and people didn't really seem to care about the championship itself, but got very creative inventing ways to cheat, both in-game and outside.
- You cannot check whether they started with a new character or not
- You cannot check that they didn't simply use the +drdeath cheat
- You cannot check whether they used additional mods that make even an initial character very powerful
- You cannot check which map was played (RoK or KoE or a custom map with 10000 phrak)
- You cannot check when the screenshot was made (this week or last week or 5 years ago)
- You cannot check if a screenshot is even genuine or simply photoshopped
And literally each of these points is made even more obsolete by the next one.
Someone suggested that we should make a contest of who comes up with the highest number that you still find credible. They also had the idea I should run one of my Python scripts to count the number of enemies on the map.
None of this is done with malice. But anyone who is playing DS to this day and is involved in some DS community will have some idea how to cheat, and has a little hacker heart that likes to break things just to prove it can be done. Including me
So once again, honest advice: It's just not gonna work. Forget about it.