Dungeon Idea

[Ashes Emberblade]

My favorite dungeon, in any game ever, was a dungeon in Lufia II. It was the dungeon where, upon zoning in, your characters were completely naked and had no spells. As you fought through the 99 levels of the dungeon, you had to equip and use the spells and equipment you found.

This would be a great idea for a WoW dungeon. As soon as you zone in, you and your raid have no equipment and spells, and all of your bags are empty. The beginning is fairly easy, easy enough for 40 people to beat with their bare hands, rewarding grey items. The difficulty progresses. The equipment you get inside only exists in that dungeon. That is, you end up with two sets of equipment saved to your character. The final bosses of the dungeon, however, would drop items that exist in both worlds.

The theme could be some sort of dimensional rift or tear or some such. Your equipment is phased out of existence, but the drops from the end bosses are like, multiphasic or some such.

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by Ashes Emberblade
That is, you end up with two sets of equipment saved to your character.

As long as your idea includes anything like this it will never happen. You'll never get any sort of fun factor to justify the insane storage requirements.

[Ashes Emberblade]

No storage requirements. When you're outside the dungeon, your normal gear exists... when you zone in, it's like playing a new character. All your equipment is gone, only the gear you've gotten in the dungeon exists. Zone out, that gear is gone, your normal gear exists. The only gear that is different is the uber items from the end, they exist in both.

[orcmauler]

Yeah that was a pretty cool fucking dungeon.

In fact I think ill go download the rom now.

[dak]

Better known example of this would be Chrono Trigger when you are on the Blackbird Dalton stole.

Yes, it does sound fun but it would be VERY bias against melee classes. A successful raid would consist mostly of people dependent on mana.

Caster without gear = "I can only cast six 900 damage fireballs instead of twelve /cry"

Melee without gear = "You hit a bunny for 1, You miss a bunny, You hit a bunny for 1 (1 point blocked)"

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by Ashes Emberblade
Zone out, that gear is gone, your normal gear exists.

As long as it isn't ever stored. You said 'saved' to your character.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Yeah, saved to your character as in, when you return to the dungeon, the equipment you've gotten on your last runs is still there. It's as if you have two characters, same race, class, base stats, skills, rep, but two totally different sets of equipment. Your equipment set in the dungeon starts as nothing (but you retain your bags).

By saved, I mean for that instance ID. Once the instance ID resets, you would start from scratch again.

On the melee bias... all casters would start with NO spells. You'd only get spells in the dungeon, and these spells would only be useable in this dungeon. Thus, both casters and melee have to start from scratch, pretty much.

[Solmancer]

It wouldn't work, unfortunately. One reason: severe technical limitations. It'd basically be having two pfiles for every character that ever went there. That adds up fast.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Nah, just save it with the instance ID. Gets erased with the ID's expiration.

[Solmancer]

Your own suggestion is to track equipment and whatnot for that ID. That's what would take up the space, sir, not to mention the state of the instance.

[Kevincheese]

Pfft, let's see some dungeons with multiple paths, one path per. Requiring teamwork, ala FF6. (only more complicated than a switch here and there =P)

[Camerous]

Why would anyone want to do this in an MMO?? Hell if you wanted to do that guess what you can do? Go make another toon and start over! You'll get the same effect! Woot Woot!

[Angry Amadeus]

You know, a lot of the threads lately has got me to thinkin' usin' my skullcap of thinkin'.

I realized something lately.

Even though I can buy women, snort as much coke as humanly possible, and fart gold flakes, there's something incomplete about my life. I play these games for immersion, true. Just like any other pasty moronic ape-tit here. But there has to be a limit - this shit is NOT Tron.

Until the day comes when I can transplant my mental self into a machine and live forever, we have to suffice with these games.

But ultimately, we are forced to compromise. Take this thread for example - right now I'm compromising quality time with a professional for hire named Anna to type this scat.

*cough* Where was I?

Oh, yeah. This is where I see the future of online gaming; logging in, clicking my avatar, and having the people I play with on the same time as I all meeting up in one dungeon, or one area. With dungeons being instanced as much as possible these days, it would seem to make sense that we could have a custom made dungeon each and every night. Yet, there's one catching point that has been irking me lately.

You cannot randomize forever! Shit man, even though you fought the same monsters in DnD for decades on end, you were always treated to a different environment (for the most part), and different scenarios arose each time.

I remember trapsing through VT with Deke and Hobb one time, one of the first times through, it was completely unique and completely non-linear since we had absolutely no experience (other than SNAP!) with the zone. It was as though we were back at the table rolling some d20's and drinking Coke, chortling away at the DM's shitty description of a four-armed alien and a giant blob. The problem is, it became mundane after two weeks. Hell, one week.

Dungeons as you describe them, in my mind, need to be more random, with random characteristics, random mobs, and random events each and every time.

Look, the entire experience of having a game based solely on leveling was THE WRONG idea from the onset. Have a game that is based on FUN and make it unique each and every time. This is one of my only fears about playing DnD Online; will it have any elements which actually made the table-top games of yore enjoyable; I just don't know. For sure they will have a solid, normal, MMORPG. I don't really want another regular MMORPG - I want something of the DnD of old (and current, for you true nerdiciles).

So, whateverthefuckever. Plug me in. /snort

/jimmy

[dak]

*Blink*

[Camerous]

I would love to play a game where everything was instanced. Stay with me on this.

You come home and talk to your friends. What are you guys in the mood for tonight? Killing Lizardmen? Killing huge spiders? Maybe doing a balls to the walls dungeon crawl or a slow, clear it all as you go dungeon?

I want dungeons where I get to choose what is in it. If i want to fight lizardmen then I choose the Lizardman dungeon. It randomly generates a dungeon with loot and mobs and my friends and I zone in. All content is set up for our group alone cause hey no one else is coming in here. If there is not 6 of us then maybe tone down the mobs a little bit but still make them challenging. No more wasted space like damn Befallen in EQ where maybe 2 people a week, if that, zone into it. You would have HUGE amounts or armor and weapons cause hell the designers aren't having to worry about all the filler in a normal MMO all they have to worry about is the random dungeon generator (RDG) is working the way it is supposed to.