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I give you this ruined Castle. What would you do with it?
Ihmotepp
Member Posts: 14,495
http://www.arteria3d.com/p/1050904/ruined-castle-ruins-pack.html
It's just a random ruined castle. The picture is an example that could actually go in a game. The artwork isn't important, lets' say you could substitute another art style you like.
Ok, you are the developer. The art department has laid down this ruined castle on the landscape. You have a team of l33t programmers that can add just about any game mechanics, or write any quest, lay down and design any MObs, you can think of.
What are you going to do?
Kill 10 skeletons quest?
Bring me back 10 bat wings?
Ogres live here, kill them for XP and loot?
Solo through the ruins? Some content requires a group?
Can you bring the castle back to it's former glory?
Is it a raid dungeon?
The landing site of aliens that will give you an anal probe if you attack them and lose?
What would you like to run across if you were a player and you walk over a hill see this ruined castle, and decide to give it a closer look?
Comments
A long and difficult scaling quest chain culminating in the purging of all hostile elements and the eventual rebuilding (via craft skills) to fully fledged and functional Castle to use as player housing.
Instanced, of course.
I personally dislike instances, since they tend to work against making the game feel like a world, but that would be on approach.
An instanced, story-based quest where the adventurers have agreed to check out the castle for a local lord, because contact had been severed some time ago. Bandits had taken up residence in the court yard, and after the adventurers defeat them they realize that the bandits never went any deeper into the castle.
Our heroes then have to navigate through the castle, occasionally fighting off some ghouls who have taken up residence there as well, while discovering clues to what caused the disappearance of the castle's inhabitants, through evidence and paranormal flashbacks via cut scenes, only for the adventurers to ultimately discover that some horrible evil was committed in the dungeons. The previous lord and some of his royal family had gone mad, arrested his subjects, flayed them, burned them, feasted upon them and forced survivors to watch before they too were killed, and then turned on his own family who tried to escape and did the same to them.
The evil that was committed was so great it brought the angry dead back from their stony prison and they overtook and consumed their tormentors. Blind with preternatural rage, they pursue the would-be adventures. Unable to defeat the hundreds of enraged, flesh-eating dead, and the other more horrible visages of things being awoken, the adventurers barely escape into the sunlight, beyond the boundaries of the castle's evil, leaving our 'heroes' shaken from what they had just experienced.
They must however report back to their lord, who accuses them of lying, and, though still desperate, tired, and clinging to sanity because of their experience, they must escape their lord's castle, and finally the city where in order to prove their innocence, they must venture back to the last place short of hell that they'd rather go. The desolate and cursed castle, in order to find proof of their claims and send the evil back to the depths from whence in came......
.....sorry I went off on a tangent there.
But that's the kinda quest I'd set up.
I feel differently. I like instances as they can be used to afford each player the ability to feel like their actions are having lasting effect. Plus, no interference from the outside world unless I invite them in.
I would start out by getting a new 3D modeller, then some new mapping artists. After that, probably look at the lighting effects and start searching for someone to help me there.... Now, I would make a Kill 10 rats quest.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Pfft. More originality!
How about forcing the player to play as a Giant Rat and giving them all "kill 10 adventurers" quests?
I feel that nothing is affected at all, unless it is seen by all players at the same time. In fact, I would expect any real effects to be seen by any alt I later rolled up. If that's not the case, then I'm just playing some single player game inside the larger multiplayer game.
I don't mind instancing some Boss fights at the end of a quest chain, so there's no waiting for spawns, but that's about it.
I would kill those 10 rats.
I care more about my own game experience than I do about other peoples perception of it.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I would have a creepy old caretaker standing around who asks you to help him kill ten rats and offers you ridiculously tempting rewards for doing so.
But then he follows you as you enter the castle. He tells you the rats live in the dungeon so you should go there to kill them. When you go down into the dungeon he pulls a barred gate shut behind you and locks you in. And then you discover that the rats are 400 lb. monsters and you're locked in with them. You have no hope of killing them and there is no way out.
You die and lose all of your equipment, two levels, and you lose half your standing with all factions for your stupidity. Afterwards the caretaker makes decorative windchimes from your gnawed bones that the rats (his only friends) left lying around.
Why? Why not? Why should everything in these games be sunshine and lollipops.
How other players perceive the game world IS part of your own gaming experience is it not? Unless of course you never talk to other players.
I see a castle there. Do you see a castle there?
No, I do not.
Isn't that part of my "gaming experience"? Isn't that part of MY perception of the game world? I perceive that other players do not see what I see? How could that NOT be a part of my gaming experience?
Well, first thing first, I would want to redo the graphics to be more stylized and gloomy, the castle should be grey instead of brown.
So the castle use to be a prison that housed the most crazed and dangerous criminals in the land. A coven of necromancers have moved in and are using all the slain criminals to create very dangerous undead abominations.
The outside of the prison is abandoned but there is a large gauge steel door the leads into the lower wards. The prison is a mini dungeon.
The prison is organized into blocks. The first block house the less dangerous criminals, as well as the kitchen and medical. These rooms are designed in a row fashion. The first block is for solo or small group. The first block is populated by basic zombies, that try and swarm you, this block contains no traps. All zombies can infect you and turn you into a zombie.
Block two is the high security block, it is designed in a circular fashion where all the cells are on the outside and the guard station is in the middle on an elevated platform. There are pathways around the bottom that connect the cell and were used to transport dangerous criminals. The mobs in here are zombies which are more powerful than the first block and ghouls which are fast zombies that can climb on walls. Bosses include a hulking zombie bound in chains named Golgoth, who can charge, pick up and throw people and objects as well as generally pummel people, Golgoth can charge through walls and cell doors. The second block is group focused. No traps.
The third block is solitary. It is designed like a maze of corridors and is group focused. Solitary mostly has ghouls in it and a new zombie type, the ripper which is a berserker zombie that is hard to take down. Solitary has poison gas traps that will sleep you and your team, but not the zombies. The boss zombie here is simply called the blade a zombie wearing an iron mask and wielding a shiv, it is very powerful and fast.
The final block is the torture chamber, here you encounter the necromancers the torture chamber is designed as a large open area with half open rooms on the sides. The necromancers are largely cultists with simple blades. The boss is Zaltalz a leather and spike clad spell caster who can cast death spells as well as wield a dangerous dagger. The hanging cages are filled with people to be used as sacrifices. The iron maiden has been converted to a sacrificial alter. You have the option of saving the people or sacrificing them to create bloodstones. The final block is intended for larger groups as there are a lot of cultists. When you beat Zaltalz, he escapes and zombies poor out of the blood drains.
The first three blocks are open the last one is an instance. After you beat Zaltalz, if you return the final block becomes open as well and you can fight a bunch of zombies. And the dungeon has a sort of AI director so it isn't the same every time.
OK so it isn't a very good dungeon design but I just thought of it.
Idealy you you have the ability to empty out the dungeon and rebult the prison, but then you would have to have a lot of phasing and people would be in different versions of the world and can't play together etc., it would be a big mess.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
I would inhabit the castle with monsters of medium and boss difficulty. I would make them undead and have the bosses come out (spawn) at night. On full moons, I'd have a werewolf run through the zone outside the castle.
And, I would have TRAINS (monsters that can aggro on others during bad pulls).
And, I might have a mist roll out on some nights. When the mist comes out, the undead patrol outside as well as within the castle.
I would have confusing winding trails in the zone so folks could make a wrong turn and get lost, all the while scrambling to find their way before the sun goes down. And I would limit the mini-map to just telling you what zone you are in, but not where in the zone.
Mini-map? I see you've been corrupted by the decadent easy-living of modern MMOs.
Get some friends together, do some raiding to build up some cash, hire a few artisans to repair the defences, attract more men at arms, start collecting taxes from the nearby area, finish repairing the defences, declare myself Lord of Ruin Keep. Become a robber baron and start collecting the prettiest girls from miles around (this ensures a steady supply of hilariously naive heros)
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Interesting idea. I'd have a quest chain to recruit allies and reinforce the garrison while defending it against various realtime NPC assaults. They want to take the castle, I'd be trying to rebuild it. Kind of like the Isle of Quel'Thalas in WoW, except progress wouldn't be made through daily quests, just through defending the castle and perhaps gathering construction materials.
I would make it a dynamic even/spawnpoint that appears in different areas of the world until it has "played out". There would be several NPC scenarios that would be possible, each tied in to the lore of the game.
for example:
- an army squad/company on it's way from battle has found shelter here, however it is a sacred place for several tribes around who plan to attack... event resolves with the eventual attack, the soldiers either survive or are destroyed depending on player actions, but the castle is always destroyed by the end of it. (similar to what's been mentioned above)
- another scenario would be of a family that lives in the old ruin and their various quests and things.
- another scenario would be of it being a bandit camp
- another scenario would be of it being a haunted place which eventually spawns a massive demon.
The castle would spawn with slightly different configuration each time, the names of NPCs would also be random so no one does the same exact event twice. Each castle would last 1-2 weeks (or whatever works) until the event comes to a conclusion. The castle would also spawn at different levels and with dynamically generated rewards appropriate for those levels.
The idea for this kind of dynamic technology comes from SWG, AO and TR, but taken to the next level.
Oh and just for Imhotepp, the specific scenario that spawned anywhere near him would be "group-friendly" and would require a minimum of 37 of people to complete any of the tasks. 8 )
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Old school pen and paper D&D version:
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1. travelers have been massacred on the road to Danava city.
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2. You or your group is hired by merchant caravans to find out what's up.
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3. You stumble across this abandoned castle.
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4. These mobs have a fantastic AI. Lookouts spot you coming from a long distance off. You have your rogue stealth and kill the lookouts but if you don't, you're in for an ambush. The bandits have molotov cocktails which don't do much damage but interrupt spell casting or anything non instant cast.
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The bandits stay hidden until you are close.
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5. Melee bandits will protect their archers who constantly pelt you with arrows. Arrows will interrupt any spell casting that's channeled.
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6. To make matters worse, you suffer a second ambush from behind.
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7. The bandits have 3 healers that constantly heal their troops.
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8. permadeath rules are in effect but you can be rezzed by your group's healer if you have one.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
That's where instancing comes in.
If I'm in the same instance as the other player, then we both see the same thing.
Public quest!
There is a group of people, sent by the ruler of the land, to rebuild the castle.
Stage 1:
Collect materials from throughout the surrounding area.
Stage 2:
fend off the raid parties of [Insert Hostile NPCs Here] as NPC workers (and maybe some actual player crafters) build up the castle and its defenses
Stage 3:
Hold off the incoming raids for as long as possible. Eventually the attackers will over run the castle and destroy it.
Reward:
The longer you hold off the enemy and the more you contribute to the effort, the greater the reward.
Now that's pretty simplified, but something to that extent.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
An Young guy just discovers he is the owner of the castle, the player will help him to find people to rebuild it, recruit soldiers, fight bandits, and whatever i could came up with. Maybe even cleaning up of vermin the castle dungeons.
Some very solid ideas. I like the suggestion from Catus-man of zombies. Although i'm terrible with mazes, but no worries I would group with someone that's good at that sort of thing.
I also like the old-school approach of uquipu, to go with a D&D sort of feel. Very few MMORPGs capture that these days.
I'd make it a guild hall!
You need to do quests for an NPC to banish it of some monsters / a curse or something.
Then the guild would need to get ALOT of materials to rebuild the castle (Which would take a while). Allow the option to add only X amount of rooms, and the guild need to choose what it is, be it an armoury or a potion store!
Ofcourse, I'd make loads of them throughout the world and change each of them in shape so that more than one guild can have it
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I noticed a number of posts that suggest rebuilding the Castle.
I think players of all types enjoy building things, and making this sort of progress, whether it's building a town, or a small building or repairing an old castle.
I admit it does sound like fun.
However, how do you ad this feature for everyone to enjoy? What happens once the Castle is rebuilt? Now there is no broken down castle for me to rebuild, and I've missed out on the fun.
If you can rebuild it, there must be a way to break it, or else it's just a one time deal for those that play the game first.
Of course there is the "instance" solution, but it seems rather odd to me that we're all repairing the same castle, each in our own instance.
Why then would we play together? I'd be repairing the castle in my instance, nad you in yours depending on when you found the castle, and so on.
I presume you don't want to help me finish the last bit of the repairs in my instance, any more than I want to help you finish the last bit of repairs in your instance.