I always liked crawling through a cave or old castle for the first time. that being said dungeon crawls can be long and drawn out, if you are checking all the nooks and crannies. i would like to see safe areas here and there where the groups can stop for bio breaks or camp if they want to.
Sevens said:Open world deep dark dangerous dungeons please
If you make them crawls they will have to be instances
and they will become speed runs like any other crappy mmo out there.
Make the dungeons big, make them span vast level ranges so when you get to the dungeon you know for the next few days, or weeks you know where you will be hunting. As you hunt in these dark places you begin to develop relationships with the other players in the area and next thing you know....you have an actual community in the game and not just a Que up in the LFG tool, zone into dungeon and then run the thing as fast as possible.
I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure we have the same definition of a crawl :)
I would prefer vast open multi path dungeons that you explore your way through finding boss rooms and random named spawns that you could ideally camp to pop named. The control measure to avoid party overlap, is the sheer size of the place, plus difficulty in getting to some areas. No instances, unless its part of a quest story in a instanced room in the bottom of a dungeon. No speedruns, No Achievements its just an adventure. You could even add special seasonal mobs and events and quests.
What could also be insteresting is havethe dungeon start as a 10-15 dungeon but also have lower levels as 30-40 to continue story lines and allow players to return to older dungeons so that all dungeons would have multiple level content also spreading the player base around.
Venjenz said:Let Velious era EQ1 be your guide. Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons with multiple layers of increasing difficulty...and NO INSTANCING.
Anyone who did those dungeons knows. Still as good as MMO dungeon design, theory, and intent has ever been. Nobody's made anything that good since. Even the good designs in vanilla WoW take a distant second because of instancing. It just cheapens the overall design to me.
Challenges are one thing, and OK, instance them. But for proper dungeons, think Sol A + Sol B + Lord Nagafen, or bolt Old Seb onto Guk as one continuous environment. MASSIVE is the word. BIG, HUGE, SPRAWLING affairs. Non-instanced, death around every corner, serious MMO dungoen play.
IMHO, YMMV.
This style of EQ dungon was earlier than Velious. It started in Blackburrow, my first player dungon, found outside of Qeynos and progressed on up to Velious: each zones dungeons getting larger and more difficult. Unrest I think, was in the CLs for the low levels of FP. I can't remember the low dungeons of GF.
I agree 100%. Best dungeons ever made in any game. NO instancing needed.
I think I've seen it said that there would be no instancing, back a year or more ago. But, I know, things change.
Graysilk said:Venjenz said:Let Velious era EQ1 be your guide. Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons with multiple layers of increasing difficulty...and NO INSTANCING.
Anyone who did those dungeons knows. Still as good as MMO dungeon design, theory, and intent has ever been. Nobody's made anything that good since. Even the good designs in vanilla WoW take a distant second because of instancing. It just cheapens the overall design to me.
Challenges are one thing, and OK, instance them. But for proper dungeons, think Sol A + Sol B + Lord Nagafen, or bolt Old Seb onto Guk as one continuous environment. MASSIVE is the word. BIG, HUGE, SPRAWLING affairs. Non-instanced, death around every corner, serious MMO dungoen play.
IMHO, YMMV.
This style of EQ dungon was earlier than Velious. It started in Blackburrow, my first player dungon, found outside of Qeynos and progressed on up to Velious: each zones dungeons getting larger and more difficult. Unrest I think, was in the CLs for the low levels of FP. I can't remember the low dungeons of GF.
I agree 100%. Best dungeons ever made in any game. NO instancing needed.
I think I've seen it said that there would be no instancing, back a year or more ago. But, I know, things change.
Yes, the style was earlier than Velious, but only when Velious arrived did truly sprawling dungeons (and zones for that matter) arrive. For the size and scale I'm hoping to see in Pantheon you only need to look at Skyshrine. That place was monumnetally huge. A run from the entrance to the top was a huge time committment in and of itself, never mind if you were a raiding guild going through there killing everything as that was a multi-hour grind. The reason for needing dungeons to be so large is you want that sense in the back of your mind that you are so deep underground that if you die you might never see your body again. You want to feel the weight of all the ground above you.
When it comes to dungeons I do have a few requirements beyond that of a huge size and the first of those is this:
First off, the dungeon should be a living breathing thing, not just a place full of static spawns. Movement should be everywhere, after all this is the home/fortress of an entire race. It should be teaming with activities. Yes, we all enjoyed Sebilis, but it was just rooms filled with frogs just standing around. You can still have a camping approach in an activity filled dungeon...you'll just need to be a bit more careful.
Next, I'd perfer that spawn always happen outside of any sightlines. It could be as simple as just around a corner but something should never just spawn into a place right in front of your face. You could even have doorways behind which they spawn then enter the dungeon. A barrier would stop players from entering.
Lastly, dungeons should lead to other, deeper, dungeons. This is what partially made Upper Guk/Lower Guk so entertaining was having to traverse one dungeon to reach another. Granted UpperGuk quickly became a trivial run but still interesting nonetheless. Luclin had other examples of one dungeon/underground area leading to another as did Planes of Power though those were far more raid oriented.
Basically what I'm saying is I should be able to spend nearly my entire existence underground in dungeons covering areas a large and as diverse as those on the surface.
Driven said:I am fine with a balance of both.
I am torn on balancing. If we have large sprawling areas between both it could be done well. I agree with a lot of comments that I want to fear death.
With that said, the socialization aspect is what drew me in years ago! As long as it not a Rundugeon I am good.
J
Just playing devils advocate here - but in reality, EQ's dungeons were "crawl" dungeons that were progressively difficult as you delved deeper into them. That, combined with the kill rate and respawn rates in EQ made camping a viable and desirable option (Along with the fact that the camps had something worth camping there for).
For example - not every area in every dungeon was desirable as a camp. Sometimes you sat in an undesirable camp waiting for a chance to move into a desirable one. You did so because:
A) That camp you desired was either the hardest you could handle or had someting you desired
B) You were able to crawl / clear your way to that camp.
I know this is a topic that has been hashed out several times (with Brad putting his thoughts out there) - but for me personally, the mistake would be to create dungeons that were specifically intended to NOT allow players the option to camp a spot within that dungeon.
You don't have to make "crawl dungeons" and "camp dungeons" - just create those progressively tough dungeons that have rooms in them where people can choose to sit and hold a spot, or not... then let the players figure it out.
I like the EQ1 style it reminded me of an arcade where you put your quarter in line on the machine and waited your turn for that game. It was like zoning into Lower Guk and shouting camp check. You'd get back Ass/Sup, Frenzy, etc. that way you and your group knew where if anywhere there was a spot and if the one you wanted was taken you asked for a tell when they were done. There was communication and it was a friendly community. Yes it did suck waiting for the mob to spawn in kithicor for the cleric epic but when you met a cleric with their epic you knew they earned it.
Mekada said:I would like to hear everyone thoughts on dungeons. Should they be a campng similar to EQ or should the game encourage or force a group to proceed further in and actually crawl the place.
Camping never quite felt right to me so i'd like to see some crawling. However please do not debate the breaking in a room/pulling as I think this could be achieved with either setup. I beleive that moving thru the dungeons might keep you challenged most of the time since you always have to solve the next chamber instead of breaking the pattern and then picking single spawns as they come.
Where I have my doubts is how to actually encourage moving without instancing the place. Traps/flooding rooms + no going back might do it, but it would get cheesy in every dungeons.
I don't understand why you think EQ was relegated to camping? Ever break a zone? Sometimes it took an hour or more just to GET to your camp. Talk about a dungeon crawl. What's worse, sitting in one place or doing the same larger place over and over? With the right population, EQ had it nearly perfect. Otherwise you end up with instancing like WOW had where all you do is race through the same content over and over, that's not fun.
Graysilk said:Venjenz said:Let Velious era EQ1 be your guide. Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons with multiple layers of increasing difficulty...and NO INSTANCING.
Anyone who did those dungeons knows. Still as good as MMO dungeon design, theory, and intent has ever been. Nobody's made anything that good since. Even the good designs in vanilla WoW take a distant second because of instancing. It just cheapens the overall design to me.
Challenges are one thing, and OK, instance them. But for proper dungeons, think Sol A + Sol B + Lord Nagafen, or bolt Old Seb onto Guk as one continuous environment. MASSIVE is the word. BIG, HUGE, SPRAWLING affairs. Non-instanced, death around every corner, serious MMO dungoen play.
IMHO, YMMV.
This style of EQ dungon was earlier than Velious. It started in Blackburrow, my first player dungon, found outside of Qeynos and progressed on up to Velious: each zones dungeons getting larger and more difficult. Unrest I think, was in the CLs for the low levels of FP. I can't remember the low dungeons of GF.
I agree 100%. Best dungeons ever made in any game. NO instancing needed.
I think I've seen it said that there would be no instancing, back a year or more ago. But, I know, things change.
Agreed 100%. There isn't even a comparison. There are no other games that even try to do dungeons like EQ did.
I don't want dungeons to be designed to crawl or camp, I want organic zone designs.
When you start worrying about how the player is going to play the dungeon you move away from natural designs and move towards "golden path" design. Just build the dungeon in the style your Lore team and game designers envision that enemy building their lairs. It doesn't have be any more or less complex that that.
The players will, and should, decide the best way to take on the zone -not the developers.
Well, we just did Upper Guk last night on our "Phinny" progression server... This is a classic design, tight cooridors, mobs everywhere, multi-direction options, danger... L Guk is even crazier!
I think dungeons in this matter give you a sense of danger and feeling of being "lost" when exploring them. A good well-balanced group (tank, cleric or druids, enchanter, puller, etc.) handles this a lot easier which makes perfect sense. I think when you can look back on the memories of EQ, it is amazing how each dungeon / area have their own unique personalities, rewards, and they all tie to past memories. Is this not the goal here?
Makes perfect sense to me to have dungeons similar in this manner. Tight, twisting areas, open areas, water, bridges, go up or come down, variations of all kinds... This is what I am hoping for. Having each group member feel like they contributed something along the journey is ideal.
Everyone talks about the Guks or Seb or Blackburrow or SolA and B, but nobody ever mentions RunnyEye! To me that zone was far more dangerous than anything its level. It was very tight quarters, roamers were everywhere and goblins always ran when low health. Add to that the Evil Eyes that would Dispell and Charm. Then there were the sounds..Goblins scream when casting so all you hear are yells echoing off the walls.
RunnyEye was, if memory serves, the first place where you could get magical boots (Black Iron) so you could kick magical creatures like wisps that were immune to non-magic weapons.
Vandraad said:Everyone talks about the Guks or Seb or Blackburrow or SolA and B, but nobody ever mentions RunnyEye! To me that zone was far more dangerous than anything its level. It was very tight quarters, roamers were everywhere and goblins always ran when low health. Add to that the Evil Eyes that would Dispell and Charm. Then there were the sounds..Goblins scream when casting so all you hear are yells echoing off the walls.
RunnyEye was, if memory serves, the first place where you could get magical boots (Black Iron) so you could kick magical creatures like wisps that were immune to non-magic weapons.
I loved Runnyeye. One of my favorite places to bank!
I feel its important to have both within Pantheon. Many people including myself remember the days of EQ when camps were one of the few ways to really get to know other players, the downtime that camps allowed gave players time to actually exchange dialog and get a feel for one another. Many guilds were formed from these early camps and many people became great friends due to it. I personally found camps fun and useful on days when I couldn’t give my full attention to the game due to other real-life events such as watching my kids with one eye while playing with the other. If I had to constantly move around through a dungeon crawl there would have been no way I could have played because of the amount of focus that would have been required.
With that said, I did enjoy some of the some of the dungeon crawls EQ had if you so choose to partake in that activity, as an example I played a Shaman in EQ and heard about the Jaundiced Bone Bracer with the right click effect of Winters Roar (250dd) made me want this item so much. I put a group together and went down to Sebilis to find the Arch Duke Latol, but it required having a Rogue to unlock a door to get to him. The crawl from the top of Sebilis down to where the Arch Duke was located was lots of fun and once we got there we secured a camp so that we could gain EXP and at the same time wait for the Arch Duke to pop.
I understand that dev’s want players to move around while in a dungeon, but the players don’t necessary want that for every dungeon. If the dev’s want to make dungeon crawls and camps more interesting they should change things up a bit such as randomizing spawn points in the game and change the timers on when mobs should respawn so that it would be challenging to hold a broken camp when mobs re-popping are not on a set time-table. For dungeon crawls have random events take place such as cave-in’s, flashfloods, random high level mob spawn every once in a while that roams the dungeons seeking crawlers and campers alike.
My 2cents…
Rint
You know....if you want to have every dungeon be a crawl, all you have to do is be the first group to go there. Nobody will know where named spawn or what drops off which mobs. You'll be the vanguard on the forefront of adventure. And so long as you don't run off and fill a website with spoilers immediately after you've learned the place you can effectively force everyon else to crawl it until they learn everything.
I really think that crawling only turned into camping once dungeons were mapped, all the spawns were knowna and the named loot tables fleshed out. Only then could you say "I want this item so I must go here and kill that."
I really like the idea of visiting a dungeon for the first time and seeing the monsters grow in level promoting players to group to explore together.
Crushbone anyone?
That being said, if Pantheon will bring raid dungeons and boss' mobs, I would like to see these instanced. Griefing and random players jumping in when you're trying to execute a kill is incredibly, incredibly frustrating. If I'm co-ordinating 20 people in a raid to kill a boss and little Jeff who's on an exploration mission comes in and taunts / pulls the boss and wipes us before we're ready etc or simply messes with the mechanics I'm pissed.
I'd love to see both instanced and open world encounters however.
In response to the big non-instanced dungeons with super scary stuff of a broad level range I agree... it's gotta be that way.
I do however think they can become an issue if the game servers reach a specific size (cant find stuff to camp or you have to get on some weird raid boss rotation and wait like 4 months). Not sure what the answer is. Maybe twice as many servers of half the size or something in comparison to the ratio of world size to server pop that EQ1 had in kunark-era.
It's a fine line I think. People want to feel good about getting a camp and feel that it has real value and its 'theirs'. But at some point I don't really have time to log in and check that, wait, log out, log in and check, wait, log out, and then feel obligated to poopsock the camp for like 12 hours once i finally get it. It should be hard on occasion to get camps with non-instancing, which creates competition and a good feeling of accomplishment/luck/excitement/value, but non-instancing also sometimes creates a feeling of 'I can't get anything done at all as a casual player'.
Obviously the servers can't be too small to where it's difficult to find people in your range... but smaller than original eq1 servers could make the world (and these cool big dungeons) feel more accessible.
My guild would "crawl" even during early EQ (classic and Kunark), but I played on a team pvp server with a low population so it was possible. It is a superior form of gameplay imo, but not in the modern MMOs where the dungeons are on rails. It is superior in a game designed like early EQ. I beleive it was the intent during design. The hard part is getting the population right.
In early EQ you had to have a good group to "crawl". If the players were unknowns or low skill players it was best to camp. Of course in zones that were over population you were forced to camp. Crawling also took your full attention if you were running it hard. If you were watching TV or something at the same time then you better be camping.
To me, i prefer the old EQ style of dungeons where it had its camp spots (so long as you took care of the roamer), or if you had a good group, you could rotate camps if you killed fast enough and the dungeon wasnt crowded to where you were forced to take one camp. Thinking about it a bit more, i wouldnt mind some instance dungeon "crawl" only for like the final quest of an epic quest. kind of like the rogue 1.5(?) where you zoned into an instanced version of Hate. Raid crawling was the best imo.
My issue with camping is it feels boring. A group of people sitting around with one person pulling stuff back isnt my idea of a good time anymore. With that being said, while I do like the crawl feeling of moving forward but not to the point it becomes a speed run.
This is where dungeon size will help. If the dungeons are LARGE enough with mutiple paths with roaming dungeon bosses as well as fixed bosses this will allow for more of that forward moving crawl while still allowing for people to move across mutiple paths hunting down the roaming bosses or heading straight for the stagnet ones. It would be the groups choice.
Respawn rate also has a roll to play here. If it is too slow it creates an atmosphere of speed running, whereas too fast makes forward moving progress almost impossible.
Both! I like holding down a camp and getting to know the poeple I'm grouping with but I also like a dungeon run (well not "run" but crawl) where you have to keep killing. Whatever you chose please don't instance them and make it easy mode. Dungeons where you fight your way in and back out are fun.