Sierra's The Realm did something similar. When you entered a dungeon it was
yours and your parties. There was a delay and the next group would be able
to enter and it would be their own dungeon separate from what the previous
party entered. I dont know if this is feasable in a 3d MMORPG or not...i
would think it would take ALOT of resources...but i could be wrong.
--Jalaric
-----Original Message-----
From: Reece, Tom - 25IDL G4 [mailto:
g4mntofcr@...]
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 5:18 PM
To:
eqbards@onelist.com
Subject: [eqbards] Camping vs dungeon crawls (OT) (was Do I ever have a
chance at m aking high level?)
From: "Reece, Tom - 25IDL G4" <
g4mntofcr@...>
Something John mentioned touched off a old issue I had in the back of my
mind. This make take a while to say everything I want so please bear with
me.
Like many of you out there, I started playing RPGs in the late 70s and early
80s with high school and college buddies. First off was AD&D then moved on
to others such as Warhammer and Rolemaster. Because we always played with
the same group, everyone's character was always close to one another. The
GMs would design their dungeons and campaigns based on the level of our
party. In other words, any dungeon we went into we knew that we could go
from start to finish with the characters we had when we started the dungeon.
This was the good old fashioned dungeon crawl. Traps, puzzles, treasure and
monsters to fight spaced out all along the way.
This type of adventuring was what I hoped EQ would be when I first started
playing. Unfortunately, the way Verant designed every dungeon in the game
precludes the classic dungeon crawl mode of fantasy RPGs. In every dungeon
you can go to, what you will see is lower level characters at the beginning
of the dungeon, intermediate levels in the middle, and higher level players
in the depths. Because of the way EQ is designed everyone is forced to camp
because if they tried to go further into the dungeon they are almost
certainly going to die. This issue has been brought up in numerous EQ
forums and debated until no end. With that said..
Do you guys think its possible for a game like EQ to have dungeons where
players can actually complete a dungeon via the dungeon crawl method? Here
is an example of how it could function:
1) All dungeons designed where a party of six all within a set range of
levels could defeat every mob within the dungeon.
2) Dungeons include traps, locked doors, puzzles, etc to make a rogue a
useful party member.
3) Spells like wizard lock and barrier type spells included to make the
party safe from wandering mobs and trains. You go into a room and get into
a fight. Caster could magically lock the door to keep wandering mobs out.
If you are fighting in a hallway, caster could cast a barrier type spell to
keep wandering mobs from joining in the fight or from following the party.
4) A mob in each location drops a key required to move on to next area of
dungeon. Party moves from location to location further down into dungeon.
Mobs don't respawn in an area until the party moves on to next area.
5) Treasure chests located in specific locations contain minor items and/or
money as a reward for killing the mobs in that location.
6) Boss mob at the end of the dungeon. Killing him produces a key that is
used to open up a special treasure chest. This chest has the rewards in it
for successfully completing the dungeon. Chest contains money and one magic
item for each member in the party. Each person only allowed to loot one
item from the chest to ensure everyone gets at least one magic item for
completing the dungeon. Items in chest random every time it is opened.
7) One way exit from the dungeon after killing the boss mob so you dont
have to go all the way back to the entrance.
8) Additional one way exits from dungeon at certain points along the way in
case someone has to leave party for whatever reason.
Probably a lot of things I have left out but this is the gist of it.
Implementing something like this would require a radical change in design
philosophy. I'm not even certain it would be possible in EQ but its
certainly a possibility in EQ2 assuming it comes out a few years down the
road. Key question is it possible for something like this to work in an
online game?
Without a doubt it will require some kind of control mechanism for parties
to enter the dungeon one at a time and spaced out from one another. Not
certain how this would work. Would probably require an online GM/Guide for
each dungeon. Don't think you could rely on player cooperation because
there will alwys be people arguing its their turn to go in. There would
also need to be a mechanism to ensure an orderly progression of parties
within the dungeon.
I'm out of time and this has gone on long enough so I'll end it here.
Apologize for the big-time off topic post but thought the topic was good
enough to throw it out there to get everyone's opinion. If this stirs up a
lot of discussion, do you guys think it would be worthwhile to consolidate
all the ideas/opinions everyone has and send them to Verant?
Galtin of E'ci
29 bard
(snipped)
> It's not impossible, but it becomes increasingly difficult.
> Not only will you need to camp to get the nice items, you'll
> find it more and more dangerous to sweep through dungeons
> because mob aggro radii work regardless of LOS. So you'll
> probably resort to camping a location if not a mob, and
> pulling to get stuff to kill.
>
(snipped)
> These are two major problems I see with the game. Too many
> players, and (paradoxically) too many mobs given the amount of
> space they're packed in (this was done to support the too many
> players). As a result, any deviation from camping results in
> a high probability of starting a train and/or pissing off
> other players.
>
> --
> John H. Kim
> kim@...
>
>
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