Neverending dungeon

It may be possible to have a scripted never ending dungeon (Or just a large random dungeon). Why, you ask? well because it would be fun!

How it would work:

Have a few pre-made areas for the dungeon. When the player reaches the end of the area he is randomly transported to one of the areas. These will all have random spawns which increase in difficulty based on which dungeon level the character is on. The database could keep track of which level of the dungeon the player is on. Could even add a vc command to check which level he is on.

Now a system like this would allow for either a never ending dungeon or it can be limited to a set number. When the player reaches a set dungeon level it could also be possible to have a final area which can have a final boss and some treasure. The reason I suggest this is that you can add multiple large dungeons in Aenea without greatly increasing the area count. You could make a huge 30 level dungeon with only 5 repeatable areas if you wanted. Adding a lot of randomness to it would increase it's re-playability. Such as random placeable chests (If it is possible), random traps (If that's possible) and possibly having a rest area every 5 dungeon levels where players could rest or escape the dungeon in case they need to get out of there.

Sounds good.. would be even better if could utilise some of his "secret door tileset magic code".. then even just "the area" itself would end up being uniquely "spawned"...

The dungeon could shift ,changing the spawns according to the lvl of the characters. It would make a great place to test the durability of your character as well as be a new spot to grind the 20-40 lvls without having to do laps around the beholder pits. Kinda reminds me of Bioware's Infinite Dungeons Mod.

I got this idea from one of my favorite games (No not Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon) called Azure Dreams.

Basically it had a town surrounding a large tower. When you entered the tower you were only allowed to bring your equipped items and your pets. Each level was random and progressively harder. There was an area every five levels which allowed you to escape the tower. But anyway it was cool because you found monster eggs that you could hatch or sell. The main goal was to reach the very top level and find out what happened to your father. Pretty awesome game.

I quite like this idea. Sometimes I just want to run around and kill stuff, ya know? But going thru the same areas (and deciding on which one to run around in) gets a bit boring sometimes, as you pretty much know what's coming. The whole random thing would obviously change this.

Edited to add: Oh, and maybe there could be some puzzles too!

I like this idea, as well.... to do it right would be a large undertaking, but.... with good planning, it could be worthwhile.l

The main issue is that no matter how random things like traps and spawns are, the layout of the areas would not change.... (as in the tiles used for them, placeables, doors, etc). Trying to randomize the areas is prohibitively difficult, and anyone who has played the Infinite Dungeons mod also knows how long it takes the engine to generate the areas, traps, spawns, loot, etc. (It literally took my 2.8ghz CPU with 3 gigs of ram over 5 minutes to generate and load the deeper areas of that mod).

That said, even with static areas.... if the player is randomly transported to different areas in random order, etc.. and the creatures are determined randomly (but scaled to the PC's level and to how 'deep' they are in the dungeon) it could be feasible. If the database is used to track progress, it would even open up the possibility of allowing progress to persist through server resets.

Lots of potential, but the nuts and bolts make or break it, I think. Still, excellent idea

Alundaio wrote:I got this idea from one of my favorite games (No not Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon) called Azure Dreams....

Both of those are excellent games as far as I'm concerned. The 'sequel' to Azure Dreams (assuming we're thinking the same game here) was terrible however in comparison to the first Not a surprise though really. How often is a sequel as good or better than the first without some SERIOUS planning into it?

Anyhow...

I do like the idea, but as Dave said, the implementation is the key. NwN is an old game, and as good as it is, we all know too well that it has it's limitations. But, as I've said before, if anyone can do it, and do it exceptionally well, it's .

I do want to point a few things however. Dave mentioned that the tilesets will remain the same. Yes, technically, this is true. BUT, perhaps can do some of his scripting magic and randomize some of his amazing hidden doors to more effectively randomize a tileset. Not perfect, but it's better than nothing at all. But at the same rate, how much to random dungeon games actually change floor to floor. To be honest, not all that much. Yes, the layout's different and all that, but when you bring it down to it, the dungeon doesn't change quite as much as perhaps it's made out to. That doesn't make us stop liking them of course...

One suggestion though - add a trigger that clears your 'map explored' status upon entering every 'floor'

(All despite people taking the game and using the toolset to do things it was never intended for; Persistant Worlds. If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that Persistant worlds are like the Frankensteins of NwN and the Toolset's bounds...)

Well placeables or at least what's in chests could be randomized without much CPU power. As for the area not changing, I don't see it as a big deal. We already go round and round the Beholder cave a million times. I can't tell you how many times I went through the goblin caves.

The only real problem with it is that players not on the same dungeon level could see each other if they were in the same area. Also affecting the spawns. You could just claim the dungeon is a magical one to fix that issue .

A fix for the issue would be:
At the dungeon entrance, check to see if a party or player is already in the dungeon. If they are, nobody else can enter. It would at least give more of a reason to party with other players to go dungeon crawling. If you join a party in the dungeon you are transported to their level when you enter. Then the only real issue is how to make sure everyone in the party gets sent to the same area when they move to a different dungeon level.

Another great idea! You guys are full of them tonight!