A Dungeon As A Random Encounter?

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Imagine a vast wilderness area, but then occasionally you find a large mansion just randomly there.

There's treasure to loot and monsters to kill inside, but the mansion itself is alive and will start trying to eat you if you do not get out within a certain amount of time.......

Random Encounter: Gargantuan Mimic

A random encounter that is able to be both a monster and a dungeon all at once!

[systemshaker1941]

I love the idea but feels like it's not possible with the current engine.

I wonder if just portals could be made to appear in semi-random locations? Not portals the creature but as in transports. Like in the wilderness zone a portal appears in a random location and takes you to an instanced dungeon?

[bsquishwizzy]

It is possible.

Starting with Kings Forest, they have pretty much all they need to create random wilderness adventures - they just don't bother.

The original excuse was that every quest was hand-crafted, and so on. But then with MotU, they revamped the wilderness areas to include random "rares", which were not rares like they were in GH. They could have created a random quest goal system to tack it on to the random encounters and spawning system, place it in a large wilderness area and, SHAZAM! Random dungeons.

As it stands right now, there are some random dungeons you can run: Wiz King is one of them, and one out in Amrath. The layouts change (somewhat), but the quest objectives remain the same. I'm not sure why they haven't gone there, but they are more than capable of making something along the lines people have been asking for since....well...forever.

[systemshaker1941]

The rare spawns in king's forest(I believe) spawn at pre-set locations, the game is just rolling dice as to whether or not they spawn then at which of 2-3 points.

I think though there's enough control there to, say, have a roving mob that dies and spawns a dungeon entrance. Wouldn't be quite random but might be a bit better. Personally I'd like to see more variability in the wilderness areas, after a while you have every mob spawn memorized.

I suspect DDO's engine doesn't support "rogue-like" content, and I'd kind of prefer they didn't bother to try. That style of gameplay is not condusive to DDO's XP/reward system.

[dunklezhan]

I think though there's enough control there to, say, have a roving mob that dies and spawns a dungeon entrance.

There definitely is, because its used in the High Road adventure area. Although technically that's a portal to another area of the same map, and that area is static.

[systemshaker1941]

There definitely is, because its used in the High Road adventure area. Although technically that's a portal to another area of the same map, and that area is static.

Thats not really a problem; if they can teleport you they can teleport you; mechanically speaking going through a door is no different.

The question is: can the mob that triggers this be set to meander aimlessly around an entire wilderness zone, or will it be restricted to a specific, non-random spawn point?


I wonder sometimes why SSG isn't more interested in ideas like this? After all, they made Asheron's Call; which apparently heavy involved adventuring into the wild and searching for portals to dungeons.

[dunklezhan]

Thats not really a problem; if they can teleport you they can teleport you; mechanically speaking going through a door is no different.

I'm sure they could very likely approximate, but it's DDO. Teleporting will definitely not be that simple, if it were we wouldn't have to have the way through to FR in the Hall of Heroes being via log off, they'd just have a portal between the two.

[systemshaker1941]

I'm sure they could very likely approximate, but it's DDO. Teleporting will definitely not be that simple, if it were we wouldn't have to have the way through to FR in the Hall of Heroes being via log off, they'd just have a portal between the two.

I mean, you can walk to forgotten realms through the spinner's prison. I dunno what zaiyness they are doing with the hall, IMO they completely ****ed the bed on that whole project by making it so absurdly massive, so I don't even use it except to get to quest entrances.

But for example there are quests that will teleport you outside if you fail an objective, regardless of where you are or what you click on. Somewhere within the eldritch coding structure there's a simple if/then/else function to teleport a player. Absolutely no reason they couldn't teleport you to a dungeon once you kill a specific named.

[Yokido]

On this note, DDO could take a page from Runescape in terms of random encounters.

I remember the joys of mindlessly fishing lobsters for hours and hours... The only thing that would break the monotony was a random talking cat (as an example only, they had like 10 different encounters that changed each time) that appears out of nowhere and whisks you away to solve some silly puzzle, and then you get an often-appreciated prize for your trouble.

DDO could theoretically implement something like this, but I only worry that people may get frustrated that it's interrupting their xp/loot grind if it whisks them away. A "challenger" event would be fun though. Give all players a button they can push that says "Accept challenger". Sometimes after finishing a quest/raid but before opening the final chest, everyone will see a message stating "A challenger has arrived!" If everyone hits accept challenger, the challenger appears, locks the end chest(s) until they're dead, and tries to kill the group. Random challenger (preferably tough but not unbeatable) and random named loot appropriate to the challenger(make sure it's zesty but level appropriate). Just a thought.

[systemshaker1941]

Certainly a whole lot they could do with the current engine and a little creativity. I'll be curious to see what Sharn brings us.