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Tannis
03-24-2008, 02:40 PM
We need to do some brainstorming for Thomas for overmap areas to explore, fight in, and complete quests in that are alternatives to your standard dungeon in the side of a hill/mountain. The necessity of this came to me after watching the JADE video. The world is truly massive, but if it consists of dozens of towns and hundreds of dungeons scattered haphazardly about, it might get repetitive. I understand that the game is miles from finished so that's where we come in! Let's brainstorm overmap alternatives for Thomas!

Towers: An an obvious one. Towers can hold wizards, temples at the top, or gangs of bandits who have moved in. My favorite idea is a tower of order with a greater solar at the top. I forget which person on this forum suggested it, but it's a great idea that I'd love to see implemented.

Colosseum: An epic version of the arena from the good ole CoC in ADOM. I love this idea since there are multiple angles to approach it. On the one hand, it can be just like the old arena, where you fight monsters for cash and prestige. It gets more interesting when you throw some quest ideas in. One quest could be that slavers capture you and throw you in the gladiator pens. From here, you'd have basically three options. FIght in the arena over and over again and win your freedom by becoming the champion; simply escape; or for the heroic option, escape and free all the other gladiator-slaves while you're at it. Admittedly, this plot line is borrowed from the brilliant AD&D game Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.

Druidic Circle: An ordinary circle a stones most of the time, but a place of great magic during the equinox. If it's a good druidic circle, maybe a spirit of order appears during the equinox to give aid or advice. If its an evil circle, perhaps a horror from the Abyss appears at midnight once a year. Very Lovecraftian.

The more ideas the can be implemented, the richer the world. Any thoughts?

Nezur
03-24-2008, 03:36 PM
Volcanoes: They erupt periodically, burning forests and plains, creating lava fields... driving away NPCs from the area around the volcano. New monster types can be encountered around the lava fields and scorched ground. The heat allures hellhounds and and other fire daemons. The hot depths spawn fire elementals and fire grues... A volcano can go to a sleeping state, allowing some sort of exploration in the interior of the mountain. An avatar of the god of fire could possibly explore an active volcano. ;)

Farmland: rice/grain fields or fruit plantations where the PC can stop by to steal some food (chaotic act). You may see farm workers/slaves (and slave drivers) run on their errands occasionally.

Barbarian camps: Primitive settlements. Tents, game, many crude weapons, lots of barbarian shamans and warriors.

Ratling trading posts: A lot of ratlings trying to sell various stuff. Often pseudo-useful rubbish, occasionally rare and more valuable items.

I'll add more ideas should I think of anything.

theotherhiveking
03-24-2008, 05:47 PM
Portals:

Gates that appear and dissapear according to the calendar. They just drive you the a random place, but you can't know where. May mean the death for low lvl characters, some zones may only be accesible from gates.

MattW
03-25-2008, 12:07 AM
Good thread.

Along the same lines as a volcano, but less grand: forests, swamps, lakes, and wilderness should be home to many interesting different types of geography. Lakes could contain islands, there could be a river going through a forest, wilderness could have different types of animals in different areas. Not everything interesting has to be a man-made structure. Right now these types of things don't serve much purpose other than scenery (I think) but I believe they have the potential for the kind of depth which allows you to engage in quests and other adventures within them.

Boats! A portable "location". For example, a voyage could consist of getting on a boat and having to be on that boat for a designated period of elapsed game time, and depending on circumstances, your boat/ship could be attacked my sea monsters, or pirates, or storms, or by nothing at all (just a peaceful voyage). Boats could be like the world map view, where unless you're attacked or go down a level with > you don't see the boat itself. Perhaps, if appropriate, the lookout point (crow's nest) could be the place you need to move to in order to get back to the world map view. Something like that.

Cities in the sky (I guess that's a long shot, but if done well, perhaps using some sort of spell or a flying machine/vehicle/mount, I believe it would be cool).

Dougy
03-25-2008, 12:28 AM
Well... not all of them need to be exciting. Houses, towers, temples, shops, lumberjacks' huts, fishing huts, etc. Some exciting ones though (:. Some of the ideas here sound quite like the ideas implemented in the ultima series.

Theodal
03-30-2008, 12:14 PM
Surprised no one has suggested this yet... good ol' plain castles?

Be they still intact or in ruins but I think they can be very interesting places to explore; containing towers and a small dungeon, possibly hidden entrance passageways that the player must find because the bridge to the castle is destroyed, and he's not equipped/not able to climb the walls or cross the moat...

There's also a lot of quest ideas that go with the setting:

An old noble, whose castle became haunted by ghosts suddenly and he asks the player for help... on the castle the player finds out why the ghosts haunt the castle and maybe has to turn on his former questgiver... (if that ties in with the JADE concept of ghosts; we don't really know why all those ghosts still roam the lands, do we?)


A ruined, haunted (or non-haunted, but there could be undead from a battle looong ago) castle the player could explore just for kicks (and riches, of course)


A full-fledged siege, with the player on either side; the battle style would also heavily depend on attacker and defender races and classes (goblins climb walls, humans and dwarves bring siege engines, mages use powerful spells that tear down the walls, etc.)


The nobleman's son Timothy fell in the castle well! Save him!


Castles as flavour elements, i.e. as home for quest givers, guilds, evil (and non-evil) overlords, ...


I don't know how good some of the ideas fit in the JADE universe, but I think they can easily be adapted...

Oh, and... hi everyone.

Sradac
03-30-2008, 05:05 PM
Druidic Circle: An ordinary circle a stones most of the time, but a place of great magic during the equinox. If it's a good druidic circle, maybe a spirit of order appears during the equinox to give aid or advice. If its an evil circle, perhaps a horror from the Abyss appears at midnight once a year. Very Lovecraftian.

The more ideas the can be implemented, the richer the world. Any thoughts?

why a spirit of order? for the most part druids are Neutral not lawful/good they try and uphold the balance of nature and see either of the extremes as dangerous, too goody goody and your vision is clouded, if someone commits a crime you want them dead automatically, no matter the circumstances around it. The other end of the spectrum the results are obvious, personal gain, placing others below you to further your own ends. Druids typically stay away from either extreme and I could totally see druids setting an attack on Lawfuls as much as Chaotics if their power became TOO prominent in the world. I agree, everything must be shades of grey there should be no black and white.

Sradac
03-30-2008, 05:11 PM
someone dug a hole to china!!!

Maybe some kind of crazy huge cavern/cave complex that goes alllll the way through ancardia, with like 50 levels both ways, you go in one way go down 50 levels the closer you get to 50 the more dangerous it gets and the more hot/molten it gets. level 50 coulkd be a huge magma lake with some scary monsters in it. Think the effects of ToEF x 20. THen you find a second staircase going up and you get to ascend 50-1 and come out on the other side of the world. this just came to me, maybe not this extreme but i think SOME locations should be connected. A castle gives oyu a quest to clear a cavernous troll community nearby that have been attacked them and their livestock. You have 3 choices to enter. Through the front main cave entrance full of combat and heavy battle with tough trolls, good for up front fighter types. A hole they found in the back of the castle courtyard that leads into an opening in the cave that it seems is too small for the trolls to fit in, good for stealth characters, sneak in behind and assassinate the troll leaders. Or you can go through an underwater cave in the lake nearby, leads right into that underground spring the trolls use as their toilet lol, may be good for a mage character that has the ability to waterbreathe.

Artran
03-30-2008, 05:19 PM
someone dug a hole to china!!!

Maybe some kind of crazy huge cavern/cave complex that goes alllll the way through ancardia, with like 50 levels both ways, you go in one way go down 50 levels the closer you get to 50 the more dangerous it gets and the more hot/molten it gets. level 50 coulkd be a huge magma lake with some scary monsters in it.

That's the so called endless dungeon in ADoM. But nobody beat it yet...

:-D

Grey
03-31-2008, 03:20 AM
Well, let's see, ADOM has:

-dungeons
-caves
-caverns
-pyramid
-towns
-underground towns
-chaos temples
-glades/clearings
-labyrinths
-graveyards
-underwater cave
-flaming tower

Some other simple ideas would be:

-Crypts - more complex and deep than the simple dwarven graveyard, with many tunnels interconnected underground
-Buried ruins - Indiana Jones style ruins full of danger and excitement for the daring adventurer (may require more real digging and exploration to get to blocked off areas)
-Temples - I'm thinking big complex structures with several levels, with the main temple on the highest level (or hidden in some underground passageway)
-Smugglers caves - like the ones in Morrowind
-Outposts - populated by all one species (may or may not be hostile), controlled by one main leader
-Huge underground cities - especially populated by evil races like dark elves and orcs
-Mines - abondoned (maybe because of some evil deep within) and now infested with monsters - again may need some digging to get around blocked tunnels, with some chances of finding valuables rewards in the darkest depths
-Natural cave complexes
-Underground sand cavities in deserts
-Prisons
-Tree towns (could be kindly elves, primitive and savage humans, or xenophobic drakelings)
-Castle of skulls - occupied by a powerful necromancer with the walls able to come alive and attack you at any time
-Belly of the beast - enter into the carcass of some giant dead creature, whose very arteries have become the nesting place of evil creatures feeding on its remains

Petra
03-31-2008, 02:42 PM
Oh! Oh! Oh!

Don't forget Dark Elven Lairs!
And what about something with Dwarves and Gnomes? Dwarf Settlements in the mountains that the PC has to climb into and Gnome holes, often near hobbit settlements. XD

F50
04-03-2008, 04:49 AM
Missions for wartime:

1. Sneak into walled city/castle and visit the food stores, possibly remove some food.

2. Sneak into enemy camp and humiliate the leader (often worked in historic battles).

3. Assassinate enemy leader.

4. Prevent FOO from escaping area (leader from seige, bandit from town, etc.)

5. Deliver message from [A]lice to [B]ob.

6. Intercept [A]lice's message and either:

a. read it and report its contents (A's messenger shouldn't know).
b. change it (A's messenger shouldn't know)
c. Kill A's messenger and take a substitute letter to B.
d. Kill A's messenger and destroy the letter.

7. Defend [A]lice's messenger (or at least the message itself) as it goes to [B]ob


If you don't understand why I used Alice and Bob, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob

Epythic
04-05-2008, 12:29 PM
Missions for wartime:

1. Sneak into walled city/castle and visit the food stores, possibly remove some food.

2. Sneak into enemy camp and humiliate the leader (often worked in historic battles).

3. Assassinate enemy leader.

4. Prevent FOO from escaping area (leader from seige, bandit from town, etc.)

5. Deliver message from [A]lice to [B]ob.

6. Intercept [A]lice's message and either:

a. read it and report its contents (A's messenger shouldn't know).
b. change it (A's messenger shouldn't know)
c. Kill A's messenger and take a substitute letter to B.
d. Kill A's messenger and destroy the letter.

7. Defend [A]lice's messenger (or at least the message itself) as it goes to [B]ob


If you don't understand why I used Alice and Bob, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob

Nice idea.

8. Crack a simple Substitution Cipher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_cipher)
9. Crack a not-that-simple Polyalphabetic Cipher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyalphabetic_cipher)

Manually, not in-game.

If you have never done it before, its not that easy.

F50
04-05-2008, 09:31 PM
For all puzzles, the things the *player* has to do should be at least partially solved by the PC. For instance, the cyphers could have some letters solved by the PC depending on intelligence. If the PC does not have sufficient intelligence, the puzzle is unsolvable. The puzzle becomes easy as the PC's intelligence goes up.

Ars
04-08-2008, 12:39 AM
Well how about quickilng trees?

BlU_sKrEEm
04-09-2008, 06:10 AM
I love the Druidic Circle idea. Here are a few quick ideas:

Caravans: Groups of merchants and their guard that wander the wilderness

Roads: Paths that reduce travel time by a 25%

Haunted Ruins: Destroyed cities that may have ancient treasure in them, but are infested with the ghosts of the former inhabitants

Orphans: Lost children in the wilderness (perhaps one of Blub's hatchlings?) who trigger an escort mission

Fountain of Youth: A single unique terrain that reverse the negatives of aging and stop the process (Perhaps a Trollish legend)

Troll Caverns: I'm a bit of a troll fan I'd love to see some sort of trollish settlement

Stampede!: Large herd animals (or quicklings?) move from one corner of the screen to the other, pushing and damaging the PC untill they can reach the end of the terrain.

Pagodas: Larger versions of Guild houses

Casinos: Everybody loves mini-games

Wandering Minstrels: Followers of a mad tradition

Environmental Traps: Tiles that force players to enter, and have negative effects, and obsticles to overcome. Examples: Geysers (watter traps), Sink holes (holes), Locusts (Swarms that devour food,) Faults (Occasionally trigger the earthquake spell), Wild fires (Fire damage that changes forest tiles into clearings when left,) Mosquitoes (sickness,) Thunder Storms(occasionally releasing electric lightening bolts,) Chaos Storms (randomly trigger spells and are a good place to train Mana,) Walking Forests (Everyones favorite)

Epythic
04-12-2008, 01:01 PM
For all puzzles, the things the *player* has to do should be at least partially solved by the PC. For instance, the cyphers could have some letters solved by the PC depending on intelligence. If the PC does not have sufficient intelligence, the puzzle is unsolvable. The puzzle becomes easy as the PC's intelligence goes up.

This is the place where i would make an exception. Why not have the player (not pc) think about it, if its only once?
And i am absolutely against unsolvable stuff.

Epythic
04-12-2008, 01:06 PM
Caravans: Groups of merchants and their guard that wander the wilderness
Roads: Paths that reduce travel time by a 25%
Haunted Ruins: Destroyed cities that may have ancient treasure in them, but are infested with the ghosts of the former inhabitants
Good.


Orphans: Lost children in the wilderness (perhaps one of Blub's hatchlings?) who trigger an escort mission
As long as it doesnt take too much time.


Fountain of Youth: A single unique terrain that reverse the negatives of aging and stop the process (Perhaps a Trollish legend)
Yay. Problem (for the players) is that time still goes on. You might miss someone you wanted to talk to.


Stampede!: Large herd animals (or quicklings?) move from one corner of the screen to the other, pushing and damaging the PC untill they can reach the end of the terrain.
Yay.


Casinos: Everybody loves mini-games
No, I dont. But ok, provided that:

1. Casinos don't have unlimited cash.
2. If you get too much, they'll send assassins after you.


Wandering Minstrels: Followers of a mad tradition
Ya hear a booming voice: ONE SHALT BE ENOUGH.


Environmental Traps: Tiles that force players to enter, and have negative effects, and obsticles to overcome. Examples: Geysers (watter traps), Sink holes (holes), Locusts (Swarms that devour food,) Faults (Occasionally trigger the earthquake spell), Wild fires (Fire damage that changes forest tiles into clearings when left,) Mosquitoes (sickness,) Thunder Storms(occasionally releasing electric lightening bolts,) Chaos Storms (randomly trigger spells and are a good place to train Mana,) Walking Forests (Everyones favorite)
Yes yes yes yes YES.

Daemon
04-18-2008, 02:57 PM
Lairs - Caverns that contain hordes and hordes of monsters of the same type (for example goblins or dark orcs). Maybe a boss king with body guards.

Vortexes - If overwater transportation is implemented, a possibility of the ship getting caught in a vortex could be added. PCs without a high Swimming level would drown. Maybe a path to an underwater cave complex in case the PC survives.

reich
04-18-2008, 05:32 PM
Vortexes - If overwater transportation is implemented, a possibility of the ship getting caught in a vortex could be added. PCs without a high Swimming level would drown. Maybe a path to an underwater cave complex in case the PC survives.

I think this should be called whirlpools, to avoid confusion with the monster.

Laukku
09-26-2009, 02:39 PM
We need a carnivorous cavern.


The Cavern grins wickedly as you descend the stairs.
The Cavern suddenly writhes towards you.
The Cavern grabs a hold of your leg with its reaching tentacles.
You die of pure fright.

The entrance to this cave looks rather... toothy.

Nuff said.

Al-Khwarizmi
10-01-2009, 11:15 AM
I like the idea of boats. It was implemented in Ultima IV and it was just great to sail you boat around and being boarded by pirates (your combat screen would be your boat attached to their boat) or just attacked by sea creatures.

An idea that I think hasn't come up... how about "forest dungeons", like the typical forest scenarios in japanese CRPG's, where the forests are too dense to be passable sometimes so they only allow you to move in certain directions, creating a de facto dungeon but with an outdoors setting.

Also, mountains. Many games have taken advantage of the theme of climbing a mountain, where your path to climb is very restricted... I'm thinking about the mountains in the King's Quest saga or in Secret of Mana. And you can have enemies like rocs or badass creatures like that.

Ambushes in narrow passes. I have fond memories of encounters in narrow passes in Might and Magic games. Although this might be hard to implement in a roguelike, because it would probably need a Z coordinate system. Dwarf Fortress has such a system and is quite cool, but I don't know if I'd really want to see this in a real roguelike (as opposed to a strategy game), as it probably makes combat too confusing.

Ghost towns. And definitely ghost ships that you can find in the sea when you are sailing, another true classic.

Or just quests in plain old towns... "The hamlet of Oyniret is being attacked by chaos forces!", a la terror attacks in X-COM UFO Defense.

dallonj
02-21-2010, 06:06 AM
for some the reason the idea of running into a nomad settlement seems toad-ally awesome to me

"You enter the small circle of tents..."
"Yaks are everywhere! small children are playing and fighting. Young women hustle and bustle milking animals and performing other chores."
"The Sick Old Nomad dude with a huge beard invites you into his yurt"

and a cool quest about looking for some lost yaks or fighitng off raiders stealing young women and yaks. the problem is, once you find said lost yaks, will the settlement have moved off to better grazing lands?

speaking of yaks, i really hope we'll be able to ride animals in JADE