Suggestion: New things to be discovered

[BobDobbs]

The idea of instanced dungeons leaves me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

The idea of instanced dungeons leaves me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

Uh huh.

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood.

Every dynamic object in the game is an individual "instance" of that object: every Lich is an individual instance of a Lich; every boat is an individual instance of (that type of) a boat; every house/tower/keep/castle ...

Consider the drifting, derelict boat I mentioned: the staff would have no trouble making such a dynamic object spawn, nor with assigning it a locomotor to emulate it's "drifting" movement; now, instead of a boat, make it a small island with a Tower on it (it doesn't move), inhabited by the Mad Sultan of Spektran ...

Like bandit camps, these objects would have only limited persistence.

"But what if it gets deleted while someone is on it ... or a PC disconnects/dies/logs-out and doesn't log-in again until after it's gone?": there are solutions for all these possibilities; functionally, it's no different than logging inside someone else's house ...

Fewer headaches for staff would be the instanced dungeon, whose entrance spawns in various and/or random wilderness locations: instead of a tent with a handful of bandits/ratmen/orcs spawning at a point on the map, what spawns is the entrance to a crypt/minidungeon; the crypt/minidungeon itself occupies fixed allocated "space" set aside for it on the "dungeon server", but can only be accessed by using its entrance, wherever on the surface that entrance has spawned; if the entrance does not exist, the dungeon is inaccessible.

The temporary minidungeon found Monday near the Shrine of Sacrifice, a lair of Evil Magi, thus looks strikingly similar to the Crypt of the forgotten Lich King discovered Tuesday in the Spiritwood southeast of Skara Brae; from the perspective of players, there was a temporary minidungeon near Yew on Monday, and a different one near Skara Brae on Tuesday; as far as the UOSA server is concerned, the one-and-only minidungeon was filled with Evil Magi on Monday, and spawned its entrance near Yew, and was filled with Liches and Bone Knights on Tuesday, and spawned its entrance near Skara Brae; the floorplans don't even need be fixed, only their addresses otherwise-unallocated; when the dungeon "collapses", all persistent mobiles get booted to the (now-empty) surface location that had been occupied by the entrance.

There are hundreds of variations on the basic theme I am describing.

This sort of thing could start out linked to specific events, but could become fully-automated, recurring features thereafter.

SS

[Derrick]

In principle the idea of having things in the world that are unpublicized and generally waiting to be discovered are very much in line with UOSA. I think though that adding new land masses is somewhat contrary to the concept though, new landmasses would be quickly discovered and highly controversial, likely leading to their discovery by most players in forum, not in game.

It is fortunate that most of the more interesting things on Second Age are not published in forums, or at least usually take quite some time to surface.

[Downs]

It is fortunate that most of the more interesting things on Second Age are not published in forums, or at least usually take quite some time to surface.

Example: Maahes' love nest....

[Bert]

In principle the idea of having things in the world that are unpublicized and generally waiting to be discovered are very much in line with UOSA. I think though that adding new land masses is somewhat contrary to the concept though, new landmasses would be quickly discovered and highly controversial, likely leading to their discovery by most players in forum, not in game.

It is fortunate that most of the more interesting things on Second Age are not published in forums, or at least usually take quite some time to surface.

Sweet, thats what I was looking for, for a world that is constantly changing, that there are actually secrets and things that some know about but others do not- not ones that would create a change in economy or anything drastic like an unfair advantage to those who know of it. Just more fun things to be discovered. Now that I think about it another example comes to mind, ever played a game from The Elder Scrolls franchise? The worlds are very intricate and constantly changing, random things to be discovered left and right, not essential to gameplay, but fun to explore nonetheless.

[Derrick]

These elements, as long as it's not taken to an extreme, are usually the most memorable looking back on games that I enjoyed.

[Bert]

Agreed.

One idea, that might be deemed appropriate that me and a few others created on a shard long ago once before especially with halloween coming and what not- might be neat if the staff built a really big "Hanted House" or "Haunted Castle/Mansion" if you will. Spawn plenty of mummies, undead, ghosts, spectres, ghouls etc. and make it scary- there could be trap door hidden tiles that members of a hunting party could fall through into a room full of traps and poisonous snakes that you would have to find the "hidden door" that looks just like a wall to then reveal the entrance to a room with a ladder leading to a seperate part of the house. Which means that person would be seperated from his group.

There were tiles that if stepped on would trigger a powerful trap or open doors that release monsters from within. You could use the good old switches like in I think its shame- that could open doors that are otherwise locked in another area, so you would have to cooperate; having one person from your party go to one area or room, and wait to activate the switch until another one of the party is at where the door opens. There were keys to certain locked doors that spawn on certain monsters in the house that can be used to unlock the door only once- then are removed- thus required people to have to find the npc who spawns with the key again if they wish to travel through that entrance again. We had tiles that when stepped on would make scary noises, decorated the whole place nicely with an eerie feel. At one part we created almost a "maze" of tiles through a "black area" of the map and dyed them true black and named them all spaces, so they had to find their way through a short maze or trail if you will that they couldn't see- unless dead of course (everything goes blck/white).

It had a very "chips challenge" kind of feel to it- a puzzle but also with hidden dangers (and treasures) lurking within, but was done in a way that it could be explored and enjoyed by everyone in groups and parties alike. There was even a point that required an odd in game object like oil or something of that nature to grease a rusted keyhole of a door before you could use the key in it, the oil was found in the celler of the house, just a small item that spawned on amongst some garbage and old lanterns and torches- which players often picked up and used also to light their way in the dark mansion.

Anyways, I've gone into way too much detail and said way to much, but I'm sure my drift is clear. I just find things like that to be extremely fun. Its not like the mansion ever proved any more rewarding than any other dungeon or place for hunting- it was just a new and different aspect to the game.

[MatronDeWinter]

Some possibilities include:

• easter-egg secret rooms (like the behind-the-waterfall Terethran Keep room idea);
  "uncharted" islands that appear/disappear;
  pirate/brigand/orc camps spawning in unusual locations (inside a mountain cave, for example);
  for that matter, a cave entrance "spawning" irregularly in any of the "normal" mountain walls, with something interesting inside;
  a crypt/minidungeon entrance that would irregularly spawn at various locations in the wilderness;
  a corpse/ruin that periodically spawns, carrying a mini-quest directive;
  similarly, a drifting derelict boat far out to sea

Easter-egg rooms are a nice idea!

I don't think the "island" thing would be possible without modifying the client to create land. If you made them without land tiles there would be the huge burden of wandering through a ton of dynamic objects = lag/stress-on-server.

I'm not a huge fan of randomly spawning dungeons and things though.

[Biohazard]

Honestly I think you just posted initially because your a forum whore and wanted a post count or something of that nature with no real intent of adding to actual discussion, and now you are throwing out random things in your defense cause you were wrong.

DING DING DING DING DING!!

I dont know if you noticed... but mikel is 8th coolest on the forums with his post count.