Dungeons?
I've been wondering if they have or are soon planning on putting in some dungeons? Currently playing WoW and pvp aside i think the game is still very good in a pve way. I do miss my dragon though. So is there a reason to fly my dragon again?
Also have they updated their client? does it still lag ? I'm sorry i haven't the time to read up on the current events in horizons.
Dungeons, no and nothing mentioned that i've read
I'll have to let a dragon player answer the dragon questions.
Client gets updated all the time, I'm about to try out today's updates. It has memory leaks with porting, but it runs pretty good and smoothly most of the time.
A veteran dragon player will hopefully come along and answer your questions better.
YES TG is planning to put dungeons into the game! I've actually seen them and they are pretty incredible. I've been asked to keep quiet about them so I cannot say more than that but they will be worth the wait.Originally Posted by Drakolis
As to the client it's improving and they are still working on it. The current ongoing even has been aimed at the higher level players.
Dragons now have lairs and Ancient Rite of Passage so there's a lot to look forward to there.
I asked this a long time ago, I heard they were planning on it. did they ever get to it? if not will EI get to it?
no I severely doubt the previous plans of Tulga are going to be implemented. Truth be told its probably beyond what EII can do really. I also doubt any there were any dungeons in the works as claimed above.
Why ? it's a technical issue the client as it is now does not and cannot support dungeons. It would require both a world model ( which was being worked on ) and a new client ( which apparently was being worked on as well but was a long long time away from being completed ). Only then could Horizons support dungeons as we know it and only then as well could the lag and performance issues associated with Horizons be eliminated.
so basically your saying that EI can't or won't ? or this is what you think? do we have any information one way or the other?
There is a working "dungeon" that has made it to live but can not be gotten to as it is not linked to the one port that was found for it. Just before the sales. DB was porting people over to it to show it off to them.
If it is ever used now is anyones guess.
I don't know if WoW or EQ does their dungeons the same way or if they are "instanced"
The was Asheron's Call did it, was they "hid" the dungeon "physical location" in the water areas that were inaccessable to players (like the big lake in the middle of the map held lots of dungeons). Everyone was allowed in the dungeon no matter who (or by portal restrictions)
An "instanced dungeon" is one that the server "creates" when you and your party enter it. It is only for you and your party and no one else, and does not reside on a "map coordinate"
Horizons has no World Model Collision detection for mobs. If I stand too close to an ouside wall in my lair, I have slate golems coming through walls to come visit (and end up on my stonecutting table).
"The Rift" for AROP is as close as you are going to get to a "dungeon" in Horizons. The map coordinates are so high on the Z axis, you can't fly up to it (flight limit cap) so if you are in the rift and fall off the edge, you must use your "rune" to teleport back to the starting point.
A dungeon "could be made" following these restrictions using the present engine:
1: it is inaccessable by dragon flight (it would make it pointless to have a dungeon that dragons can freely access without doing the quest to get there)
2: Most of the area in this "dungeon" would have to be open, and not like a real dungeon, or you will have spawns from adjoining areas coming through the walls to come and get you.
3: The spawns would have to follow a very tight "walking route" so they remained in their spots and didn't venture too far from their spawn spot
4: the "boss mob" would have a long respawn time to keep people from camping it and never leaving.
A good example would be to take Balit's island (werewolves) and thrust it thousands of feet in the air, the only access to it would be through the portal.
Take the augendell mines setup, put a rocky roof over the top, hoist the entire thing up in the air (Z axis), and create an entrance to it from a portal (like the one for Abandoned Isle, where it's an adventure for low levels to run out and attune to AI.)
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Not only is the terrain at the top of the rift above fly height of even ancients, the rift itself is surrounded by a set of null sectors. That is, the sectors that are around the rift are not activated, so there is no way to physically get there without being teleported.
The new dungeon David was making was based on similar ideas, terrain high enough that the fly height of ancients was just above the ground, and surrounded by null sectors ... but expanded upon, with several new world objects created to help along the illusion of a subterranean environment.
This is achieved, as stated above, by surrounding an isolated area with deactivated sectors. RedWalls have been used in the past but world cache insecurities make this a less-than-ideal solution.
This isn't exactly true, with good placement of points along a patrol path, and thick enough 'walls' (either terrain or wold objects) such that you can't draw aggro from another section of the dungeon, you can have some fairly tight spaces that stil allow encounters.
Wandering Mobs would have to walk back and forth along the center of passageways, but the only limit to the length of a patrol region is the number of verts in the polygon that makes up the region. (Patrolling MOBs stop at the verts then move to the next vert)
Another thing to consider is static mobs. There was a new monster type I thought was very interesting that was nearly done being modeled, and about to get started being animated at the time of sale. Based on the design of the twisted Feladin Forest trees, it was a 'man-eating-plant' that 'sprouted from the walls of the dungeon' and attacked anything that ventured too close. It couldn't move, so even if it drew aggro from an adjoining path it couldn't do anything but sit and grumble about wanting to kill you. :P
Here's an easy abuse of the buff system to eliminate the need for a long respawn time. On death, the boss MOB emits an AoE that cannot be resisted. This imparts two buffs on the player. The first lasts for only a couple minutes, long enough to loot the boss and any chests lying around that also spawned on his death (that was gonna be so @%&$ cool :P), and when it runs out your are teleported somewhere. The second lasts longer, does not fade on death, and acts as a constraint on the portal that leads back to that dungeon, so you can't just go right back in.
Yes, these are good examples and illustrate fairly well how the process works. Add "surround by null sectors" to the things to be done to eliminate any world-cache hackers from gaining access to the area and you now have yourself an isolated 'dungeon'. Oh, and don't forget the custom weather region to get rid of the sun.
Fridlekh thanks for the insight on how the engine works. So many cool things which ALMOST made it
Horizons isn't the only fantasy game without dungeons. Guild Wars doesn't appear to have real dungeons either, and it's mobs DO know about the terrain (they'll run around obsticles, not through them).
did they now ?
How ? without a world model and basic collision detection issues a dungeon as we know it could never work in Horizons as it is now. I would have been interested to see that and how exactly they implemented it. Strange though neither smeglor or Amon mentioned this dungeon in their talks about horizons over at rant refugee's.
As to EII's future plans ? who knows. But right now there aren't going to be many changes dungeons or client fix wise till EII can get a programmer that can make heads or tails of Horizons.
I think they had set it up like the Viod for Dragons. AS far as how monsters work, it had not been stocked. ASk them about it. I never saw it but know that he had let some people into it just beforfe the sale so someone out side of the devs saw his handy work.
Monsters do not necessarily need to understand pathing and collision with the world to be in a confined space. There are plenty of tricks and hacks with spawn regions and how you lay out an area that will prevent mobs from running through walls or doing the impossible to reach the player.
The "dungeon" does exist in-game. Right before the sale David teleported probably 100 people from both Chaos and Order to see what was being worked on before Tulga was forced to cease development. Only the physical layout, the atmosphere effect, and some world objects existed at the time, but it was impressive nonetheless.
I ran around the "Blighted Labyrinth" a good while before the sale while I still had access to Genesis. I was sure to take plenty of snapshots along the way as well. Here are a few to look over, be sure to click them for a full-sized version. Ignore the red lines you see, they were a by-product of being logged in to the development server with regions set to be visible.
Entrance to the labyrinth
Undead florae
Bubbling pool with rock bridge
Hidden passage on the left (look closely)
Undead plant with petals open
Prototype scripted sequence w/ caged Amadan
Maggots lurking
What's sad is that this area will probably never see the light of day as it was intended. There were to be several new monster types along with chests/mimics hidden behind narrow secret corridors and other clever little paths hidden from view. I found four or five places where wandering off the beaten path would lead you to a secret passage with what looked like a chest spawn area. From what I understood players would need to craft keys to open the chests, and there was always the possibility a mimic would spawn instead of a reward.
None of the monsters were fully complete to my knowledge, and getting the keys to work required simulation overhaul that only Smeglor really knew how to do. There was also a planned scripted sequence with the caged Amadan involving a NPC teleporting in, walking around, having a conversation with the prisioners, and I think interacting with the player and maybe casting a spell or two.
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Is it today?
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Sigh. I was certainly struck by the imagination, and the reintroduction of the old Hz's "Sense of Wonder".
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yes you could get around collision issues with proper pathing and confinment of MOBS. But it tends to be very buggy and hard to get right. Not to mention very exploitable with players probably finding spots where mobs couldn't get to and nuking them down etc among other exploits. This has been a problem with the horizons world in the past.
Would have been interesting to see if they could have pulled it off
If I'm not mistaken, lag seems to also effect the reliability of paths. Too many times I've seen mobs racing across landscapes for some reason that they don't belong in.
They don't have any problems keeping mobs on the paths in the void. Basically all they'd have to do is have the sides go up as walls instead of down like they do in the void and voila, dungeons.
Re: Dungeons?
so any news about the dungeons? they have been near completition 2006?
Monsters do not necessarily need to understand pathing and collision with the world to be in a confined space. There are plenty of tricks and hacks with spawn regions and how you lay out an area that will prevent mobs from running through walls or doing the impossible to reach the player.
The "dungeon" does exist in-game. Right before the sale David teleported probably 100 people from both Chaos and Order to see what was being worked on before Tulga was forced to cease development. Only the physical layout, the atmosphere effect, and some world objects existed at the time, but it was impressive nonetheless.
I ran around the "Blighted Labyrinth" a good while before the sale while I still had access to Genesis. I was sure to take plenty of snapshots along the way as well. Here are a few to look over, be sure to click them for a full-sized version. Ignore the red lines you see, they were a by-product of being logged in to the development server with regions set to be visible.
Entrance to the labyrinth
Undead florae
Bubbling pool with rock bridge
Hidden passage on the left (look closely)
Undead plant with petals open
Prototype scripted sequence w/ caged Amadan
Maggots lurking
What's sad is that this area will probably never see the light of day as it was intended. There were to be several new monster types along with chests/mimics hidden behind narrow secret corridors and other clever little paths hidden from view. I found four or five places where wandering off the beaten path would lead you to a secret passage with what looked like a chest spawn area. From what I understood players would need to craft keys to open the chests, and there was always the possibility a mimic would spawn instead of a reward.
None of the monsters were fully complete to my knowledge, and getting the keys to work required simulation overhaul that only Smeglor really knew how to do. There was also a planned scripted sequence with the caged Amadan involving a NPC teleporting in, walking around, having a conversation with the prisioners, and I think interacting with the player and maybe casting a spell or two.
would be great if we would get them soon!
Re: Dungeons?
Holy undead threads batman!
But to answer you. Yes they just just talked about getting this ingame, in one of the monthly Dev letters I think it was. Oh wait I think the correct reply for you was "Use search noob"
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