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Open dungeon design/creature A.I. with scenario Options
Malkonis
#1 Posted : Friday, February 20, 2009 1:32:08 PM
Rank: Noble



Joined: 2/19/2009
Posts: 52
I wasn't sure what the plans were for later releases of the game but I thought I would add this suggestion. A open dungeon floor plan would be a nice addition. Right now the dungeons are understandably small for testing with obvious links to consecutive halls or rooms but it gives no sense of depth. I'm sure there were plans to add to the floor plans but I wanted to ask anyway.
Open rooms with random creatures in the dungeon would be a plus. Denizens-basically a creature that has a permanent residence there could wander-maybe do a routine even of checking the halls. Perhaps creatures could work together to thwart players if their intelligent enough(I.e. sounding alarms or coordinating attacks,barricading doors & the like). creatures could set traps for the unwary player subject to a check by the player character. If the pc is duped they fall into the trap(possibly taking damage) & are prone to the mobs temporarily. Mob groups could have a chance to spawn a random named which is much tougher than the rest-though there is a chance a second random named could spawn as well(but less likely). named mobs are likely to have better drops as well but will use these items on the players. Which could be very troublesome for players but thats part of the reward.

Scenario1; The player group is wandering through the Dungeon of Death-aptly named since most adventurers never come out(hehe). After searching the upper levels with a few scuffles & a couple interesting finds the party decides to descend to the lower sections-not sure what all the fuss is about.
"the moldy dungeon has a soft glow that permeates the area, A semi-iridescent fungus clings to the wall giving the old halls a light luminescence" "the hall continues,opening into a large room(20x30) you can see a flicker of light from a wall sconce as you approach" "as you enter the room you can see etchings in the floor that depict orcs triumph over the other races. There is a massive wooden door to the east. Blood is smeared on a sacrificial altar against the west wall, the other remains are nowhere to be seen."(at this point a roll is determined to see if the occupants are alerted by any noise the pc's make) *you step on a brittle skull which echoes through the room* *A grunt is heard from the next room followed by enraged screams** the orcs pour out of the adjacent room*(players have a chance to cast a spell or get in a battle stance)player 1 is earth mage so he lets loose with a rock volley pelting 5 of the 12 orcs that have just ran into the main room. Player 2 is a fearless warrior who dashes forward & cleaves 2 of the orcs with his polearm(1 falling dead as it stares in astonishment). Player 3 is a shifter who decides to shift into a grizzly bear as he runs forward. Running forward in the massive bear form a roll is checked for this part of the room* a spear launches at you* * a spear trap fails to hit you*(player3) Traps can be activated by mobs as well during the heat of combat if they fail a intelligence roll. * a orc forgets the spear trap is there & is hit by a spear* Just then player 4 arrives in the room(the player typing sorry i was looting in the alcove I found back there)( the other players typing in unison-nevermind we need your help!) Player 4 is a rogue type who specializes in throwing weapons. It looks like he arrived just in time since a stone wall begins to open on the south side of the room. *a stone wall slides open in the southern wall* *Goblins begin pouring out of the southern wall!* 10 goblins in total but they have short bows & start taking shots at the party. Player 4 was ahead of them though with a volley of daggers & a smoke bomb to obscure the party from the goblins arrows. After a short but fierce battle the party has won. Both the group of Orcs & Goblins had a named that were semi hard to kill.
Only 1 orc was hit by the spear trap & several goblins became sick from the rogues smoke bomb.
As you can see,battles can be dangerous but all the more rewarding. If the orcs had a shaman with them things may have not gone the players way or as easily if the shifter had gotten hit with the poison spear(slowing his attacks)
ernzor
#2 Posted : Friday, February 20, 2009 4:50:50 PM
Rank: Noble



Joined: 11/6/2008
Posts: 106
Sounds very well thought out and interesting (nice scenario too). Not sure what it would be like for our current coding team (calbert) to do though. AI is a whole different ballpark...

My Perenthia Characters
Ernzor
Cavey

Malkonis
#3 Posted : Friday, February 20, 2009 5:24:37 PM
Rank: Noble



Joined: 2/19/2009
Posts: 52
True true.. but it could make it in the game eventually. At least scripted traps & alarms could be placed. Advanced A.I. would take alot of work. I would like to see scripted puzzles as well. I can see something as simple as a gatekeeper mob adding to the game especially if you had to acquire a series of keys to continue through.
Malkonis
#4 Posted : Friday, February 20, 2009 5:36:04 PM
Rank: Noble



Joined: 2/19/2009
Posts: 52
A alarm tag could be triggered by a trap as well,spawning the current denizens to that location or perhaps a wandering monster was alerted.*You fell in a spiked pit taking 14 damage* *A Giant Centipede was alerted by the commotion & rushes to attack*

Or opening the Wizards chest.. *A poisonous gas jets from the chest* *You failed your save taking 53 poison damage* *you fall unconscious* * A wizards imp is attracted by the commotion* * A wizards imp stings you for 6 damage* *You have been killed by A Wizards imp!*
calbert
#5 Posted : Saturday, February 21, 2009 10:02:13 AM
Rank: Administration



Joined: 5/24/2007
Posts: 255
You interested in writing some room descriptions? =D

There will be some deeper more in depth dungeons in the future, I have a good portion of them already mapped out on paper but I want to get the core mechanics solid and bug free before adding too much complexity to what I could potentially have to debug through.

As for A.I., I would like to incorporate some intelligent NPCs but that might be way in the future, A.I. is beast all in itself. Starting with some basic stuff like having creatures attack somebody just standing around when they re-spawn, or attacking based on certain attributes, etc. are things that I can get into the creature AI earlier on.

I also did some work on auto generated dungeons that could generate the same way every time based on a seed value. I may pick that up again, it would save me some time in actually building out all of these dungeons by hand. :)
Malkonis
#6 Posted : Saturday, February 21, 2009 10:33:35 AM
Rank: Noble



Joined: 2/19/2009
Posts: 52
yeahh I could help write some descriptions for dungeons. maybe we can have a dungeon design contest. The random dungeon design is nice as well for certain instances.
there are a few programs out there that you can design a dungeon in a printable format but you can do all the groundwork such as mapping,landmarks,key areas,traps, creatures & so on plus enter your descriptives. Then use the uploaded dungeon as a template that you could work from.
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