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DIN'S CURSE User Manual
Overview
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Din, champion of the gods, has cursed you into a second life of service because you selfishly squandered your first one while causing misfortune to those around you. To redeem yourself, you must impress Din by building a reputation for helping others. Travel the spacious western plains of Aleria and save desperate towns from the brink of annihilation. Until you're redeemed, you're doomed to wander the earth alone for all eternity.
In Din's Curse, you will explore an extensive underground, slaying dangerous monsters, solving dynamic quests, dodging deadly traps, and in your spare time, plundering loot. Quell uprisings, flush out traitors, kill assassins, cure plagues, purge curses, end wars, and complete other dangerous quests or the danger WILL escalate. Not all is as it seems though, traitors will gladly stab you in the back, renegades can revolt against the town, spies can set up ambushes, and items might even curse or possess your friends. Choose one of 141 class combinations and journey to an infinite number of dynamically generated towns with vastly different problems. Every game is a surprise! Your actions have real consequences in this dynamic, evolving world. Your choices actually matter! Open the door to Din's Curse. Surprising adventures await!
Getting Started
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To start a new character choose Play and then choose New Character.
Choose the class you want this character to be. You can choose to be a warrior, rogue, priest, wizard, ranger, conjurer, or a hybrid character. The description for each class is below: Warrior: Muscle bound heroes employ brute force through almost any blunt or pointy object to demolish foolish foes. Rogue: Living by their own rules, this tricky class excels at stealthy
deception, trap evasion, lock picking, and are lethal killing machines. Priest: By the light of good, these holy warriors command more than strength and might, but also heal and bless themselves and others. Wizard: Powerful magic courses within the knowledge-seeking wizards who contain mastery of ice, fire, and other useful spells. Ranger: A jack of many trades, these lone fighters wield ranged weapons with skill, throw down deadly traps, and use shapeshifting to befuddle and decimate fearsome foes. Conjurer: Dark magic courses through steely veins. Mighty power rest in the palms of the conjurers including mastery of lightning, vile curses and diseases, calling forth demons from beyond and raising the dead as mindless slaves. Hybrid: Two skill trees from any class created this unique fighter. Having one less skill tree than pure classes is a small price to pay to become the ultimate hero.
If you pick the hybrid class, you will also either have to choose 2 specialties or hit the Random Hybrid button to choose for you. Note: a normal class gets 3 specialties.
Pick your gender. Name your character whatever you like. You can also use the random name generator to generate human names or just to give you some ideas. After naming your character, picking a gender, and choosing a class, click the Ok button to continue. On the next screen, you select some basic options on how difficult you want the game to be. Select the starting monster level. This will normally default to the nearest choice to your character's level. You can set this lower if you want the game to be easier or higher if you want more of a challenge. When you get to higher levels, you will eventually be able to choose higher world difficulties (Champion, Elite, and Legendary). When you are done selecting these options, click Create New World to start the game.
Basics
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Most of the tips in this manual also show up in the game in the form of help topics. To read a help topic click on the blinking question mark icons. You can also start the help topics over again by Reseting the Help Topics in the Game Options.
Please also take some time to read the tool tips. These tell you a lot of useful information. Left clicking with the mouse is context sensitive and does the most common action (move, attack, pick up, etc.) whereas right click does the more rare actions like using an item. For movement and attacking you can hold down the left mouse button to continue the current action. You can also setup up to 3 skills in the slots in the lower right corner of the screen to use when you right click on a monster. Right clicking uses the skill in the bottom slot. Use the up and down arrow keys to change which order these are in. Hold the ALT key down to see all of the items on the ground at once. You can change the ALT key to work as a toggle instead in the game options, if that is easier for you. Holding the CTRL key down will prevent your character from moving when left clicking and thus make it safer to select, shoot at, or cast spells on enemies. You can change the CTRL key to work as a toggle instead in the game options, if that is easier for you.
Objective
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The objective of each game or new world is to save the town. It's a dangerous time for small human towns. They need a hero. That's you, thanks to Din, whether you like it or not. You will save the town when you have completed all of their quests.
You also have another goal. Din has cursed you. He will not release you from his service until you have redeemed yourself. Talk to Din's Avatar in town for more information. When you have saved a town, you can finish up whatever you need to and can then start a new town. Make sure you open your reward chest in the center of town though. Once you are done, you can start a new town by clicking on the blinking won game icon. Don't worry, your characters and items all carry over into the new town.
Dynamic World
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Unlike most games, Din's Curse has a very dynamic world. Each and every town will be very different. Without giving any spoilers, when an NPC says do this quick or something might happen, well what ever that something is it will probably happen if you don't do something about it. When an NPC says hurry, they really do mean it. The game will change depending on what is going on in the town when you arrive, what you do, what you don't do, and even what the monsters do. So keep on your toes and solve the town's problems as quick as you can. You are the hero after all.
Interactions with the world
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Many objects in the world can be used and/or destroyed so keep on a look for different types of objects. Many times these are useful, but not always. For example, some things are poisonous or are holding up the ceiling. Causing large explosions near the support beams isn't the smartest of actions to take. Also beware, some types of monsters know how to use some of the objects in the game.
Sometimes doors and chests are locked or stuck. If something is locked and you use it, you will use up one skeleton key automatically and it will unlock. If you don't have a key though, you can use your Lock Pick skill if you are a rogue or you will have to bash down the door or bash open the chest. Bashing is the only way to open a stuck door. To bash something, simply attack it with any damage type skill you have, including your main attack skill (default 1 key). Beware though, bashing things open makes a lot of noise which will alert nearby monsters and give you a surprise penalty for a few seconds. Bashing also tends to damage your weapons faster than hitting enemies. Be very wary of pools of acid and acid based attacks. Acid does way more durability damage to your items than anything else. Acid pools look like small pools of green liquid. Caves and dungeons are fairly fragile. Large explosions can cause cave-ins which will damage anything underneath them and can block paths. If they get in the way you can attack and destroy them though, just like if they were a monster. Beware though, bashing on rocks with your weapons wears them down faster.
Main UI Screens
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Here is a quick list of the main UI screens with their default hotkeys.
Character - C
Quests - Q
Skills - S
Inventory - I
Map - M
Journal - J
Bestiary - B
Main menu - Esc
Minimap - Tab All of these also have small buttons at the bottom of the screen. The character screen shows the basic stats of your character. Place the mouse cursor over anything that you want more information about. The skill screen shows all of the skills available for your character class. A gold border around the skill icon means that you have that skill. Notice that there are multiple tabs at the bottom. A full class will have 3 tabs where as a hybrid class will only have 2. The skills are not arranged in a skill tree. All of the skills are available at the very beginning, but they each have a different point cost. In general, the lower the skill is on the screen the more points it costs. For each skill level, the point cost increases by one compared to the last skill level. Buying a skill also costs some amount of money based on the point cost. There are two types of skills: passive and active. Passive skills are skills that automatically work with no input needed from the player, assuming you have the skill of course. Active skills only work when the player uses them in the appropriate way. The easiest way to use a skill is to add it to your hotkey bar and press the associated hotkey or add it to your 3 right click skill slots. Passive skills have a blue border around them on the skills screen.
Town NPCs
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There can be many vendors or even no vendors in town. There are also various different types of vendors like small items vendors, armorsmiths, and weaponsmiths. They each carry different items, but you can sell any item to any of the vendors for the same price.
To buy an item, just move the item from the vendor's inventory to your own, right click on the item, or use the buy hotkey (defaults to space). To sell an item, just move the item from your inventory to the vendor's or hit the sell hotkey (defaults to space). You can also identify all of your unidentified items or repair items here for a price. Only armorsmiths and weaponsmiths can repair items. The gambler allows you to gamble on items. To gamble, just buy the item like normal and if you are lucky it will be a magical item worth more than what you paid for. Each town usually has four main quest givers: the warmaster, the steward, the apothecary, and Din (the god that has cursed you). In general, they each carry different types of quests. Also, sometimes the other NPCs in town will offer personal quests.
Reputation
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Reputation is very important in Din's Curse since Din will not release you from his curse until you have gained enough reputation. You can gain reputation in only one way, by solving quests. However, doing quests for Din's Avatar and normal towns people are generally worth more reputation.
You can lose reputation in multiple ways though. Any time you fail a quest, anyone from town dies, or you buy items from a less reputable source you will lose some reputation. As an added bonus, each time you go up a reputation level you get a unique item as a reward!
Items/Money
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Items come in many different rarities or types: normal, common, rare, set, elite, artifacts, and legendary.
Normal items are just that, normal. Common and rare magic items have some random magical enhancements with rare items usually having more. Set items belong to a group of items. If you can find and equip all of the items from a set, you will get some bonus enhancements. Many sets also have a partial bonus if you can equip part of the set. Elite items are items that are named, have enchantments that are always the same, and usually are very powerful. Artifact items are very similar to unique items but usually have at least one extra enhancement so they are even more powerful. Legendary items are the holy grail. They are the same as their artifact counterpart except they have an additional random magic modifier. The stash is your extra inventory space where you can store whatever items you want. Note: Only bags can go directly into the stash. Any type of item can go into these bags though. Your shared stash is shared by all of your players that you have created. Money in the world of Aleria comes in the form of copper pieces (CP), silver pieces (SP), and gold pieces (GP). 100 Copper Pieces = 1 Silver Piece
100 Silver Pieces = 1 Gold Piece
Durability
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Most items have a limited durability before they break. You will be warned when any item gets too worn, but pay attention or something might break at a bad time. Weaponsmiths and armorsmiths in town can repair items for a fee. Attacking some things like doors, chests, and cave ins will cause more damage to your weapons than softer things.
Staying Alive/Death
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There are many ways to regain health when your health gets too low. Typically the easiest way is to eat some food. Eating food will slowly regenerate your health and food is relatively cheap. The fastest way to regain health is to drink a health potion. Health potions instantly give you health but are relatively expensive. The cheapest way to regain your health is to use the Din's altar in town. Using Din's altar regenerates your health fairly quickly and is free but you have to be in town of course. And last but not least, some of the classes have different spells that can heal wounds.
Death is inevitable in Din's Curse. When you die you can always resurrect through Din's power though (unless you are playing hardcore). When killed you will incur a small XP debt penalty. This means you get less experience until you work off the XP debt. If you go and retrieve your soulstone that dropped when you died, the XP debt will be decreased. Soulstones are not saved so be sure to pick them up quickly.
Multiplayer
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For the most part Din's Curse works the same in multiplayer as in singleplayer. The multiplayer experience is designed to be co-op, so you can't hurt other players and things like quests and experience are shared.
There are a few differences. You can chat with other players by hitting enter or clicking on the chat button in the lower left of the screen. You can also hover the mouse over the icon in the upper right of the screen to find out information about the game. You can see the locations (either a dot or the level name) of other players on the world map. Each player's health shows up on the right side of the screen. If the player is close enough, left clicking this health bar will select their character and right clicking it will show you their items. The game uses ports 26503 through 26507.
26503 - client port
26504 - server port
26505 - port on server & client to talk to master server
26507 - master server port
Other Useful Info
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Each time you increase in level you get more attribute and skill points to distribute however you want. To use your attribute points, open up your character page (defaults to the C key), and press the + button next to the attribute you want to increase. You get 5 attribute points each level. To use your skills points, open your skill page (defaults to the S key), and press the + button next to the skill you want to increase. The higher your character's level the more skill points you get per level. Also note, that skills cost more and more with each skill level and that they also cost a certain amount of money to increase.
There are many ways to regain mana when your mana pool gets too low. The easiest way is to just let it naturally regenerate. This is also the slowest way however. You can drink a mana potion to instantly regain some mana. You can also drink a drink to regain mana over time. This isn't instant like potions, but it's faster than your normal regeneration rate. Other than these many classes have various ways to gain mana. Look at your character skills for specifics. Item find, magic find, critical hit, crushing blow, and deep wounds bonuses are slightly misleading. They represent the bonus compared to normal. For example, a 100% bonus to critical hits means a 100% better chance than normal, not a 100% chance. So if your normal critical hit chance is 5% and you have a 100% bonus, the final value will be 10%.
Characters/Screenshots/Exports
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Pretty much anything the game saves like characters, screenshots, and exports goes into a User directory. Where this is depends on your operating system.
Vista/Win7 - C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Local\DinsCurse\User XP - C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\DinsCurse\User Mac - /Users/YOUR USER NAME/Library/Application Support/DinsCurse/User Where YOUR USER NAME is whatever your specific user name is in your operating system.
Credits
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Designer & Programmer
Steven Peeler
Story & Writing
Delilah Rehm Sound Effects/Music
Tori Kamal Voices
Tori Kamal
SB Moore Artists
Stephen A Hornback
Ethan McCaughey
Patrick Boisvert
Rebecca L Smith
Joseph Mirabello
Alex McCusker
Rich Fleider
Vasili Gaidukevic
Alpha Testers
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Sandra Spears, Kris Mitchell, Ross Patton, Scotty Mitchell, Emily Peeler, and Roland Smith.
Beta Testers
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Coming soon.
Troubleshooting
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First make sure you have the latest video and sound drivers installed for your system.
If your graphics are flickering, especially if your mouse cursor is having issues, try turning off the hardware cursor in the graphics options menu. If you are having any strange sound issues try setting the Sound Device to DirectSound or MMSYSTEM in the sound options menu if you are using Windows. You will have to completely get out of the game and restart the executable for this change to take effect though. There is also a startup problem when running ATI Tray tool's on-screen-display (it shows fps for any 3D application). If you have this tool turned on and the game fails to start, turn it off. AC 97 sound cards with old drivers have had problems with Din's Curse. If you have one of these sounds cards, please make sure you have the latest drivers. for AC97 (normal): go here for HD: go here If you have OS X 10.3.9 and the game doesn't start correctly you probably need to install OpenAL. You can download the OpenAL installer from Creative. If you are still having problems your best bet is to read the Din's Curse forums at http://www.soldak.com/forums/ to see if anyone else is having this problem and if there is a known work around. This is also the place to report any unsolved problems.
Support
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Forums - http://www.soldak.com/forums/
Website - http://www.soldak.com/
Updates/Patches
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Please go to http://www.soldak.com/ to find out about the latest updates and patches for Din's Curse.
Mods
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We encourage people to modify the game if they want as long as they don't sell it in any way. See the EULA for specifics.
The pack files for the game are just normal zip files, most of the data is in there somewhere, and it is usually in a text file format. So the game is pretty easy to modify. Also if you post questions on our forums about modding the game, we will in general help out if we can.
More legal stuff
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Din's Curse and Soldak Entertainment are trademarks of Soldak Entertainment, Inc.
Copyright (c) Soldak Entertainment, Inc. 2010 All rights reserved. |
