When will they learn? -Huge Dungeons = crappy game
Jamie C. Wakefield
When are major game companies going to learn?
I've been out of CRPG's for a bit, but I sign onto this newgroup and
find the same complaints about games I saw three years ago.
Huge dungeons with nothing in them don;t help a game, they wreck it!
When are game companies going to realise this?
I have been anxiously awaiting Daggerfall, but now I read that it's
dungeons are huge and mindless.
I won't be buying this game until its in the bargain bin for just this
reason.
Personally, when I spend eight hours wandering mindlessly in a dungeon,
it leaves a very, very bad taste in my mouth.
I played Thundrescape for weeks until hurling it across the room in
disgust after pulling countless levers, fighting endless monsters, and
dungeon after dungeon of nothing but crap.
Its been years since I played one of these things and they still haven't
learned? The same companies doing the same stupid things?
I'd rather have forty hours of great game play, than 250 hours of crappy
game play.
I had hoped daggerfall would be different.
sigh
later
--
Jamie Wakefield
The...@sover.net
Bard of Team Quarterstaff
18th at Pro Tour 1
Going to Dallas!
Gavin Scarman
And it's not just that they're huge, but that they are mainly just
tunnels/corridoors. Very few large rooms, with some dungeons having no
large rooms at all.
Admittedly I am yet to explore a main quest dungeon and I hope they are
better.
I would have thought that the designers of the dungeon templates would
have learnt something from all the fabulously designed Doom levels that
were done with a 2.5D engine and could have expanded on them with a true
3D engine at their disposal.
--
-----------------------------------------------
Gavin Scarman http://www.satech.net.au/~scarman
mailto:sca...@satech.net.au
-----------------------------------------------
Keeper of Time
Gavin Scarman <sca...@satech.net.au> wrote:
>And it's not just that they're huge, but that they are mainly just
>tunnels/corridoors. Very few large rooms, with some dungeons having no
>large rooms at all.
Very true. Not much satifaction in walking through endless corridors
going up and down and up and down, etc. Then you get REAL happy when
you see water, just cause it's different. I've been in ONE random
dungeon that was fun to romp in, and that was Gaersmith Fortress.
(Not sure of the spelling.) This dungeon consisted of one HUGE room
and some branching corridors that eventually come back into the room.
Definitly a nice change.
>Admittedly I am yet to explore a main quest dungeon and I hope they are
>better.
Same here, although I am one of the suckers who bought the hintbook,
so I can see what they're like due to the maps in the book, and they
promise to be a change.
>I would have thought that the designers of the dungeon templates would
>have learnt something from all the fabulously designed Doom levels that
>were done with a 2.5D engine and could have expanded on them with a true
>3D engine at their disposal.
I personally don't know why people allways come back to Doom, maybe
they should've looked at the Ultima Underworld games. Hell, even if
they loosely followed the Duke Nukem 3D layouts it could have been
better. (And I'm not what you would call a Duke fan..) Oh well.
Maybe in TES 3. IF I buy it. I'm starting to hear rumors of Ultima
Underworld 3. I read it in the PC Gamer October issue in their big
write up on Origin.
Bruce Rennie
Gavin Scarman (sca...@satech.net.au) wrote:
: And it's not just that they're huge, but that they are mainly just
: tunnels/corridoors. Very few large rooms, with some dungeons having no
: large rooms at all.
Hallelujah! Someone else has noticed this. Some of these "huge" dungeons that
people are defending have fewer than 2 dozen "rooms" in them.
When we say we want smaller dungeons, we don't mean fewer rooms. Just remove
a few miles of pointless staircases, passageways, ramps, etc.
:
: Admittedly I am yet to explore a main quest dungeon and I hope they are
: better.
:
: I would have thought that the designers of the dungeon templates would
: have learnt something from all the fabulously designed Doom levels that
: were done with a 2.5D engine and could have expanded on them with a true
: 3D engine at their disposal.
:
Absolutely agreed. The designers copped out on the random dungeons.
:
: --
: -----------------------------------------------
: Gavin Scarman http://www.satech.net.au/~scarman
: mailto:sca...@satech.net.au
: -----------------------------------------------
/bruce
--
*******************************************************************************
* Bruce Rennie Q: Are We Not Men ? *
* bre...@interlog.com *
* *
*******************************************************************************
j...@atlantic.net
It's not the size of the dungeons that I find annoying, it is the lack
of stuff in them - I want to be able to find an amount of stuff
equivalent to the size of the dungeon--if the dungeon is huge and full
or monsters then there will be more stuff than a small dungeon with
only 3 or 4 monsters.
Incidentally--graverobbing pays off big in this game!!!
Don Nalezyty
Hey all,
Don from Bethesda here and I thought perhaps I could address this
one. One of my largest concerns for TESIII is to overcome the tedium of
the dungeons. There are a few ways to address this.
1. In general, the dungeons are too big. Some big dungeons are nice, but
a good range of sizes between the crypts and the average dungeon are in
order.
2. Most of the dungeons seem to be endless winding corridors with no
recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
somewhere or to something.
3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
thousands of years old and no longer valid.
4. There are actually a number of different dungeon types, (18 I
believe,) but unfortunately I think the distinction between the various
types has been lost... I have established 6 types thus far, which I hope
will be very distinct.
These are just my current thoughts on the subject, I welcome any
input or suggestions.
Sincerely,
Don
Scott Hoppe
In article <54l2fi$a...@news3.digex.net>, dnal...@mail.bethsoft.com says...
>
>Hey all,
>
> Don from Bethesda here and I thought perhaps
I could address this
>one. One of my largest concerns for TESIII is to overcome the tedium of
>the dungeons. There are a few ways to address this.
>
>recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
>somewhere or to something.
>
>3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
>thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
>purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
>or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
>thousands of years old and no longer valid.
>
>4. There are actually a number of different dungeon types, (18 I
The DF Chronicles says 60, but so what -- the concept, like you said above,
is flawed. Go to a 'coven' or an 'academy' or a 'mansion' anywhere on the
map and what do you find -- a gigantic dungeon that doesn't even try to
resemble a house or a school. Covens should be more like a burnt spot on the
ground in the middle of the woods, or maybe a stone monument, not a dungeon.
The problem with Dungeons & Dragons style games is that they tend to
concentrate on the 'dungeons'. 'Dungeons' is mainly in the name to make the
acronym symetric (D&D). Even with all the varied terrain and gigantic
outdoor scenes, the majority of DF is spent crawling through dungeons that
serve little or no purpose except to put a corridor there for players to walk
down. Even the castles in the game are composed mainly of dungeons that
start as soon as you open a door off of the main hall. Why not try to copy
the layouts of real castles -- a moat, walls, an inner courtyard with several
buildings, and of course, the main building which MAY house a dungeon, and
may not. Towers, staircases, windows you can look through/open, landings,
spiral staircases, secret passages leading to other buildings, stables,
kitchens, larders, servant's quarters, gardens, ponds, birds (mostly in the
courtyards), fountains -- all these exist in RL castles and are either
ignored or unrecognizable in DF.
Also, comraderie is missing. Go to any guild, and there are never any
gatherings of the guild, no parties, pig roasts, beer-swilling...nothing. Go
to the taverns and no one is moving, talking, drinking, gambling, or anything
-- they all just stand there waiting for a PC to click on them....talk about
a bunch of boring people.
--
-=( Scott )=-
Scott Hoppe <batt...@cwc.lsu.edu>
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/people/shoppe
Tom Pancoast
Don Nalezyty <dnal...@mail.bethsoft.com> wrote:
>Hey all,
>
> Don from Bethesda here and I thought perhaps I could address this
>one. One of my largest concerns for TESIII is to overcome the tedium of
>the dungeons. There are a few ways to address this.
>
>1. In general, the dungeons are too big. Some big dungeons are nice, but
>a good range of sizes between the crypts and the average dungeon are in
>order.
Don't have the game, but this is one of the things keeping me away from it.
>2. Most of the dungeons seem to be endless winding corridors with no
>recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
>somewhere or to something.
Absolutely. There should be a reason for everything.
>3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
>thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
>purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
>or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
>thousands of years old and no longer valid.
(Rant Warning...) Oh my God!!! Someone has finally figured it out! I
respect D&D for all that it is and all that has accomplished, but it
started the idea that all fantasy worlds must be littered with dungeons,
and it just won't let go! Either get rid of the damn things, or provide
some background for why they are there. Earth Dawn (FASA rpg) explained
them by overrunning the earth with horrible magic demons that forced many
people to hide in underground cities (which also nicely explained why they
are riddled with wards and traps). Tolkien talked of Ancient Dwarven
empires. Just pick a reason (or two, they're small) and design the
dungeons with that in mind...
Put some variety in. If you want a real dungeon, put it under an crumbling
castle that suffered a withering destruction after some heinous curse.
Most of the exploration should be in the castle, and the dungeon should be
comparatively small. Even the most evil of kings would still have more
living space than torture/imprison space.
Or, castles are often built in rocky areas, so the castle can be razed to
the ground, but the dungeon might connect to a natural cave system, which
would extend the size of the place enormously. Who knows what might have
been hidden in these caves while the castle was still in use?
Personally, I think most dungeons, crypts, or whatever would be pretty
small. The large extensive dungeons would probably be either 1) the
product of some REALLY heavy duty magic, 2) built by an oppressive empire
on the backs of many slaves (probably for some religious reason ala Egypt),
3) natural caves adapted to the purposes of mankind (or whatever-kind), or,
finally, 4) Dwarves (or some other intelligent species that dedicate
themselves to tunneling underground).
---------------------------------------
tpan...@freedomnet.com (Tom Pancoast)
"An object at rest cannot be stopped!"
Bjorn Lovoll
Don there should be an abandonment of the whole dungeon concept. There
should instead be a concerted effort to make a more interactive
environment. Ogre's who take over a country farm house should live in a
house. Perhaps they are out wandering the local areas hunting/pillaging,
etc.
Bandits have a base? Fine make it a bandit base not a dungeon type 54 with
mixed creatures to include 6 bandits. If you put something into the game,
it should be integrated into the game, not tossed in without consideration
for logic, etc. If there is a lair of Vampires, make use believe it is
their home not a hole in the ground with random monster types 2,7,9 & 32.
Give up the algorithmic approach. It detracts from the game. Mathamatical
formulas don't generate believable environments, people do. If you decide
to have a huge convoluted cave, make it a thought out, logical convoluted
bowl of spagetti, not some random torture test for your customers.
Castles would make the most interesting places to explore. Say if
perhaps a local ruler made us angry, we could run around in his keep doing
damage till the mages guild shows up.
A OrcWarlord should dwell with his Orc Army, and so on. The biggest
problem with the dungeons in TES II is that they just don't make any sense.
Monster types mixed in a senseless manner, etc... they have the feel of
random messes which were given very little if any thought.
If you instead of working on how HUGE you can make things but instead of
good you can make them. 2 good NPC's are better then an endless supply of
crappy ones. 2 good dungeons are better then an unlimited pile of
thoughtless ones. etc...
Don Nalezyty <dnal...@mail.bethsoft.com> wrote in article
<54l2fi$a...@news3.digex.net>...
> Hey all,
>
> Don from Bethesda here and I thought perhaps I could address this
> one. One of my largest concerns for TESIII is to overcome the tedium of
> the dungeons. There are a few ways to address this.
>
> 1. In general, the dungeons are too big. Some big dungeons are nice, but
> a good range of sizes between the crypts and the average dungeon are in
> order.
>
> 2. Most of the dungeons seem to be endless winding corridors with no
> recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
> somewhere or to something.
>
> 3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
> thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
> purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
> or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
> thousands of years old and no longer valid.
>
> 4. There are actually a number of different dungeon types, (18 I
DLRapp
In article <54lrm3$8...@starbase.nse.com>, batt...@cwc.lsu.edu (Scott Hoppe) says:
<snip>
>The problem with Dungeons & Dragons style games is that they tend to
>concentrate on the 'dungeons'. 'Dungeons' is mainly in the name to make the
>acronym symetric (D&D). Even with all the varied terrain and gigantic
>outdoor scenes, the majority of DF is spent crawling through dungeons that
>serve little or no purpose except to put a corridor there for players to walk
>down. Even the castles in the game are composed mainly of dungeons that
>start as soon as you open a door off of the main hall. Why not try to copy
>the layouts of real castles -- a moat, walls, an inner courtyard with several
>buildings, and of course, the main building which MAY house a dungeon, and
>may not. Towers, staircases, windows you can look through/open, landings,
>spiral staircases, secret passages leading to other buildings, stables,
>kitchens, larders, servant's quarters, gardens, ponds, birds (mostly in the
>courtyards), fountains -- all these exist in RL castles and are either
>ignored or unrecognizable in DF.
<snip>
This is a concept that seems to have become popular with the more recent
games. Possibly because it's easier/cheaper to program; as you can copy
basic designs over and over in various combinations. The older games,
even those by SSI/TSR (Gold Box games), had much more variety. The SSI
games had overland adventures, courtyards, graveyards, castles, towers,
ships, arenas, etc, etc. Granted, on a much less complex scale; but
consider the level of game technology. Now, you don't really see much
of the above ideas.
Richard Deal
In article <32746e68.6774736@gateway>, tpan...@freedomnet.com says...
>>2. Most of the dungeons seem to be endless winding corridors with no
>>recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
>>somewhere or to something.
>
>
>>thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
>>purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
>>or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
>>thousands of years old and no longer valid.
>
>Put some variety in. If you want a real dungeon, put it under an crumbling
>castle that suffered a withering destruction after some heinous curse.
>Most of the exploration should be in the castle, and the dungeon should be
>comparatively small. Even the most evil of kings would still have more
>living space than torture/imprison space.
>
>Or, castles are often built in rocky areas, so the castle can be razed to
>the ground, but the dungeon might connect to a natural cave system, which
>would extend the size of the place enormously. Who knows what might have
>been hidden in these caves while the castle was still in use?
>
>Personally, I think most dungeons, crypts, or whatever would be pretty
>small. The large extensive dungeons would probably be either 1) the
>product of some REALLY heavy duty magic, 2) built by an oppressive empire
>on the backs of many slaves (probably for some religious reason ala Egypt),
>3) natural caves adapted to the purposes of mankind (or whatever-kind), or,
>finally, 4) Dwarves (or some other intelligent species that dedicate
>themselves to tunneling underground).
Tom,
Finally somebody has some sense :) I would LOVE to see some outside, under
the clear blue sky, exploration tied into the game. IE, go to such and such
mountain and find the hermit...or go to such and such grove and leave a
sacrifice to the gods...or sail to an island and find the lost hamlet of
JibberJabber...or the list could go on and on and on... Now THAT would be
something I would be willing to fork over my hard-earned GPs.
Bethseda...if you are listening...incorporate these kinds of changes into
TES3...you'll make a lot of people happier.
With Daggerfall, the dungeon automap sucks, plain and simple. It's nearly
impossible to use in a large scale setting and you can't even mark the map
up with little notes THAT ARE VISIBLE as you are panning the dungeon...this
completely blows goat dung. I've wasted more time in dungeons that I now
pretty much ignore any quest that requires me to go into them.
I also saw someone else post the "ingenious" ;) idea of a NON-LINEAR method
of solving the main quest...ie, there should be a myriad ways of solving it.
If you're portraying a good, instead of an evil, character, obviously the
way you would tackle the solving of the quest would be VERY different.
Enjoy!
Richard
Daniel Dejeu
r...@arstpa.com (Richard Deal) wrote:
>With Daggerfall, the dungeon automap sucks, plain and simple. It's nearly
>impossible to use in a large scale setting and you can't even mark the map
>up with little notes THAT ARE VISIBLE as you are panning the dungeon...this
>completely blows goat dung.
Especially after you map most of the dungeon and the map becoems so
cluttered you have not one single clue where you are.
> I've wasted more time in dungeons that I now
>pretty much ignore any quest that requires me to go into them.
And I thought I was the only one that stopped taking dungeon quests:-)
Honestly,why do some gaming company think an RPG has to be an endless
life in a dungeon?Or is it because they don't know how to make a
game,but by making the dungeons they can say:"oh gee,our games should
have least 200 hours of play",allthough if there wouldn't be the
dungeon life,the game could be solved in 3-4 hours?
Why nobody can learn from Ultima?Ultima 4-5-6-7 are probably some of
the most sucsefull games in the history of gaming,and yet there are
very few dungeons to be explored,and they are relatively small.
Or least make the dungeons to be unique,have personaltiy so to speak,I
remeber ultima underworld I and II was just a plain dungeon,but after
walking couple times on one level,I didn't need to look on the map
anymore,because the structure of the dungeon was logical,not just a
stupid random series of tunnels.
I mean,come on,how exactly all those tunnels fit for a laboratory?,if
it's a laboratory shouldn't there be like some chemistry eq in one
room?and some others have discarding containers,or such,how exactly
did a lab was existing in just tunnels?
Daniel Dejeu
>Richard
Dave Scidmore
> >3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
> >thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
> >purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
> >or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
> >thousands of years old and no longer valid.
> Put some variety in.
I know this one is kind of tough, but if each of these dungeons
was built by someone different, they would all look different.
No two people decorate their houses the same and no two dungeons
would be the same either. Different areas have different kinds
of stone, different kinds of wood, and people just have different
tastes. If I had any one complaint about Daggerfall's sameness
it would boil down to the fact that every city, every house, every
dungeon looks like it was designed by the exact same people.
Go downtown in any real city and look at the variety of types of
architecture. Sure there will be a lot of similar buildings, but
you can have a glass tower right next to a stone church, next to
a wood and brick pub. Even many of the similar building look different,
because they were designed by different people.
This complaint is not by any means specific to Daggerfall. Most
RPGs have a level of similarity between cities and buildings that
would seems absolutly bizzare in the real world. Now I know there are
problems making things look different in any RPG, partly because all
the cities, dungeons and buildings are designed by the same people,
but I would hope that those people would have upmost in their minds
that these cities towns and dungeons should look like they were
designed by different people. In my mind the ideal for designing
a dozen or so main quest dungeons would be to take a dozen people
and have each of them do the basic design (on a napkin if need be),
even if their not a part of the design group. The idea being that
you start from a different blueprint for each dungeon.
What I'm trying to say is that I have nothing against a dungeon with
lots of winding corredors, if there's a reason for it, and if it is
done for contrast.
Daniel Dejeu
Gavin Scarman <sca...@satech.net.au> wrote:
>And it's not just that they're huge, but that they are mainly just
>tunnels/corridoors. Very few large rooms, with some dungeons having no
>large rooms at all.
And it's not only that but they are also random,which Bethesda
promised it won't be.
Some of you might say they are not random as they keep same way,but if
you run thru few of them few times,you'll see they have 20-30 patterns
and all dungeons are random combinations of those patterns.
And speaking of random,random quests/dungeons/NPC dialogue was the pet
hate of Arena(TES 1),didn't Bethesda learn anything from that?
Daniel Dejeu
Karl Davis
In article <01bbc126$71779140$a85a...@v-ntxbal.DBSD-TST.MICROSOFT.COM>,
cpts...@wolfenet.com says...
Chris
On 10/25/96 11:37AM, in message <54qms4$5...@news.asu.edu>, Karl Davis
<da...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu> wrote:
I totally agree, but we can't have everything. If the dungeons were perfectly
thought out, as opposed to random, the game would be smaller. Then we would be
complaining "60 bucks and I finished it 3 days, what a waste of money". Hmmmm,
is there a middle ground that will make us happy, I can't see it but I hope
Bethesda finds it in TES III.
Gerald Hayes
Dej...@thenet.net (Daniel Dejeu) wrote:
>r...@arstpa.com (Richard Deal) wrote:
>
>
>>With Daggerfall, the dungeon automap sucks, plain and simple. It's nearly
>>impossible to use in a large scale setting and you can't even mark the map
>>up with little notes THAT ARE VISIBLE as you are panning the dungeon...this
>>completely blows goat dung.
>
>Especially after you map most of the dungeon and the map becoems so
>cluttered you have not one single clue where you are.
>
>> I've wasted more time in dungeons that I now
>>pretty much ignore any quest that requires me to go into them.
>
>And I thought I was the only one that stopped taking dungeon quests:-)
>Honestly,why do some gaming company think an RPG has to be an endless
>life in a dungeon?Or is it because they don't know how to make a
>game,but by making the dungeons they can say:"oh gee,our games should
>have least 200 hours of play",allthough if there wouldn't be the
>dungeon life,the game could be solved in 3-4 hours?
>Why nobody can learn from Ultima?Ultima 4-5-6-7 are probably some of
>the most sucsefull games in the history of gaming,and yet there are
>very few dungeons to be explored,and they are relatively small.
[snip, UW stuff}
But the world wasn't "huge"!! There wasn't "real time" hack and
slash... Gee wiz, you had to think.....
Then again, they didn't lie...200 hours of worthless dungeon crawls=
200 hours of game play.... (if you have the patience and don't want
to cheat)
The Ultima series was and still is the best rpg. My fav is U5. I'm
still waiting for something to top it.
Daniel Dejeu
cle...@zoomnet.net (Chris) wrote:
>>
>I totally agree, but we can't have everything. If the dungeons were perfectly
>thought out, as opposed to random, the game would be smaller. Then we would be
>complaining "60 bucks and I finished it 3 days, what a waste of money". Hmmmm,
>is there a middle ground that will make us happy, I can't see it but I hope
>Bethesda finds it in TES III.
Maybe,but seems you(together with Bethesda) forget one thing:
Life in an RPG doesn't have to be spent completely in a dungeon,I
doubt anyone could say they finished U6 or U7 in 3 days(even a
week),but I also remember hardly spending any time in dungeons.
Of course as I posted in another post,dungeons are the easy way
out,who the hell cares that there's no story,no interactivity and no
realism in the game,as long as there are plenty dungeons where players
can get lost for weeks?
Daniel Dejeu
Nick Old
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, Don Nalezyty
<dnal...@mail.bethsoft.com> wrote:
> Don from Bethesda here and I thought perhaps I could address this
>one. One of my largest concerns for TESIII is to overcome the tedium of
>the dungeons. There are a few ways to address this.
>
>1. In general, the dungeons are too big. Some big dungeons are nice, but
>a good range of sizes between the crypts and the average dungeon are in
>order.
Include some of the large semi-random dungeons for really challenging
quests, and for those of us who like an occasional lengthy dungeon
crawl would be great. But put most of the quests in smaller,
logically laid-out dungeons, and leave the big ones mostly for
voluntary exploration for looting and building up skills.
An annoyed guild might send a character off to map a monster dungeon
as penance for misdeeds, or a character might find one by asking about
rumors of places that are good for loot and adventure. But please
don't send us off to spend a month or two in an enormous random maze
every time we turn around! :-(
>2. Most of the dungeons seem to be endless winding corridors with no
>recognizble order, if there are going to be corridors, they should lead
>somewhere or to something.
And rather than the corridors running randomly from one end of the
dungeon to the other, break things down into sections. IE, a group of
rooms in one area all interconnected by passageways, and a few
passages connecting that area to the other areas.
>3. IMHO, the whole concept of "the dungeon" is flawed. There are
>thousands of these odd underground structures that serve no discernable
>purpose throughout the landscape??? There should be an overall purpose
>or functionality behind the design of a dungeon, even if that purpose is
>thousands of years old and no longer valid.
Ancient Dwarven ruins, leftovers from a day when vampires were more
conspicuously in positions of power, temples of various abandoned
secret cults, remnants of some long forgotten non-human civilization,
etc. As turbulent as the history of Arena has been, I don't have much
problem accepting the presence of incredible numbers of ruins and
other leftovers of the past.
But a ruined castle should be laid out like a ruined castle, rather
than just being a bunch of random passageways running all over the
place. A central keep, some walls, a moat, towers, etc - all in some
sort of rational arrangement rather than just thrown together at
random.
And a coven or stronghold should actually BE a coven or stronghold,
not just a generic dungeon inhabited by a bunch of generic monsters.
>4. There are actually a number of different dungeon types, (18 I
>believe,) but unfortunately I think the distinction between the various
>types has been lost... I have established 6 types thus far, which I hope
>will be very distinct.
The first time one of my characters was sent to a dungeon on a quest,
it was something of a surprise: she was sent to a cave (to kill a
werewolf), and it sure didn't look like any cave I ever saw.
It had lots of wild animals, but it also had towers, skywalks, spiral
staircases, a pyramid with an altar, and other structures that were
obviously the product of a fairly sophisticated civilization. The
entire thing looked like a well-maintained underground city or other
civilized domain; it definitely wasn't anything like a cave!
But it was still awfully impressive looking, even if it didn't look
anything like the natural cavern it was supposed to be. :-)
Another thing that disappoints me is the external appearance of most
of the dungeons - a lot of them (not counting the graveyards) seem to
be just one of those dumb looking mounds with a door in the side. How
about caves that are reached through a hole in the side of a mountain,
ruins that actually look like ruins, etc? And an inside arrangement
that matches up to the exterior appearance (the same way the insides
of town buildings correspond to the outsides).
I was sent to one dungeon (a 'Citadel of...') that actually looked
like a fortress, and even had multiple entrances. But when I got
inside, it was just a generic dungeon - all the entrances led to the
same place, and the interior map had nothing at all to do with the
exterior shape of the castle.
Thanks for listening, and have a great day!
--
Nick
Bruce Rennie
Hey Bethesda:
Think about the time spent putting together that semi-useful 3D map. Then,
think about the time NOT spent planning better dungeons, events,
locations, etc.
Allow me to speculate:
DPM - Daggerfall Project Manager
HSP - Hot-shot programmer.
PWAC - Programmer with a clue.
DPM: So, what're we gonna put in this new game ?
HSP: Hey, people like spiffy graphics. Let's put in a 3D map. We can then
create all sorts of twisty, turny dungeons and players can view it from any
angle with the map.
DPM: That sounds pretty cool.
PWAC: So, we're gonna build dungeons to suit the map? Why don't we just
plan simple, yet functional, logical, and coherent 2D dungeons and use the
map we already have?
<pregnant pause>
DPM: So, 3D map it is. Get started.
HSP: Gnarly, man.