The next dungeon

I am, of course, assuming there will be another dungeon.

I propose that the next dungeon project be similar to the UT, but slightly longer - perhaps 5 main levels instead of 3, with 1 or 2 'secret' levels as well. It would connect to another continent. Of course, if implemented, there would have to be a reason for going to said other continent - perhaps there could be another town there eventually, but for now putting Xinroch's Tomb over there would provide some incentive for exploring it.

The reason I suggest it is because it would be a (relatively) cheap way to expand the game, and use more of that absurdly large overworld map.

As for the theme... No idea. Perhaps a giant, magical bridge?

A giant bridge would make the dungeon way too linear, quite literally : It could only be a straightforward large path.
How about a hedgehog den, with maybe more hedgehog variants and a giant hedgehog boss ?
Of course the general concept of a den works with carnivorous bunnies, kobolds, or any subterranean creature really, so that gives us an opportunity to expand on lesser critters we've all come to know and hate (especially hedgehogs, darn their high critical rate !).

Another idea that comes to my mind is a cloud dungeon, with the first floor being a giant stairway to the sky (maybe with wooden platforms and stairs branching off so it isnt too linear).

I don't think we need another dungeon similar to UT. We already have UT and "bug underwater tunnel dungeon" gets old quickly. Plus if we want to have visitable locations on more continents (and I hope we will one day) that would require many and many UT-esque dungeons, which would increase the amount of loot and/or tedium of getting from one place to another.

I'd like to see a portal network connecting various continents. You could find and onld portal hub on Attnamese continent, and then you haev to do some short quests for each portal to open. Then, however, you can easily jump between continents.

This a) does not increase the amount of loot generated nor b) does it bring boring travelling through countless underwater dungeons from continent to contient. It does c) allow for quick and easy travel to mroe interesting locations once you clear the initial roadblock (the quest), thus d) giving space for locations on many continents, while allowing for pacing of the game (through the quests), so you can't skip to some high-loot end-game area easily, and without the need for many insignificant side-dungeons.

If there's gonna be a lot of dungeons on different continents, then this means either

a) Gloomy cave should be on a faraway continent so it is the true last dungeon

or

b) Gloomy cave should be significantly harder, meaning you have to go get stuff in other continents to be able to win

or

c) Have more stuff after elpuri/oree's lair that's on other continents (maybe the bastion of mortifer ?)

*cough*

What rabbit hole is this? This will take a bit to read, but if I'm going to have any constructive comments on the future development of IVAN I should probably understand what has already been said/planned. I'll probably be doubleposting in a bit.

By the way, do you devs have a roadmap set up already?

I've been working loosely on the suggestions by SquashMonster, and as much as I can on the changes suggested at the IVANcon. I think the last formal discussion took place in this thread?

I see that, from reading the other thread you linked.


I was thinking of something akin to this. I suppose the council list is a close approximation, however.

Advanced warning: Sorry for the horrible mess I made of this post. It kinda exploded on me. Feel free to pick it to pieces or ignore it at your volition.

Anyways, after reading all that (any other key threads I ought to read before I resume slinging ideas around? I mean, besides one that will teach me how to actually build things?), I still think that new/interesting ways of reaching other continents (and things to do there) would be a good idea. And I retract my comment about cheap ways to expand the game.

Soooo my revised thought then. I still like the large-bridge idea. However, it would be a PITA if you had to cross it every time you wanted to get back to Attnam. Perhaps the portal-system idea ought to be revisited. I mean, granted, we have nowhere near the number of dungeons needed to make other continents a necessity yet, but we'll get there, in time.

Which through a slight tangent brings me to the main story of IVAN: that of the slave sent on a mission to deliver a letter to Petrus, and our subsequent use of the encrypted scroll as the 'key' to dungeons. We can only really use this technique so many times - there are only so many things you can do with the scroll and have it make sense. But, with some story-editing I think we can kill two birds with one stone. (With a little more we could even kill three. But that's not related yet. I'll mention that at the bottom.) I should mention that I have no idea about the effort involved in implementing this. All my coding these days is in Python and revolves around plotting data.

Here's the proverbial stone, then: Change Petrus' quest on delivery of the Scroll. He recommends you to find the lost Portal Stones, which is a (marked, but unrevealed) wilderness location on the same continent. To make this interesting, wilderness encounters would be required, and the location itself would probably need a handful of baddies, but ultimately it would not be a long side quest. Petrus also asks you to return in a day, that he would have further tasks. This starts a one-game-day timer. Before it expires, nobody hands out major quests - anyone who would give you a dungeon would just tell you something along the lines of "Come back later." After it is expired, Petrus sends you on the normal Elpuri quest, the necromancer in the dungeon sends you off to Xinrochs, and so on; but only one of them would be able to be activated. This, I imagine, is where the difficulty would be; de-coupling the quests from the Encrypted Scroll.

What two birds have we killed? 1, we will have made the quest-key something less tangible, which would (IMO) make it a little easier for potential dungeon builders to come up with quest hooks. 2, we will have hinted at the existence of (and created a location for) inter-continental portals. At that point we just need to fill things up.

So the third bird I mentioned earlier. This is totally unrelated. We could artificially fill up the world map (and make life a little easier for the players) by splitting up the GC - put the bottom half in a different place, unlocked by completing the first half (something like retrieve the Quest Item from GC6 and return it to Petrus).

Where does my original bridge idea fit into all this, especially if we can have portals leading to the various continents? Simple: you have to go to the Portal Stones on a given continent in order to portal to them. Now mini-dungeons between continents only have to be traversed once. Hell, if we made the bridges interesting enough, simply re-activating the entire portal network could serve as a minor victory-worthy quest in itself.

Sorry again. I spiraled a bit out of control with this. I set out to make my original idea more concise and fitting with prior existing plans; instead I concocted a grandiose plan for restructuring half of the game. One I by necessity can't help with. :/

The possibilities are endless. Regarding portals, I guess we can use the sampling algorithm to "detect" continents and place a portal in the first available location on each continent? Then there would just be one portal level where all the connecting portals are located and you traverse one (via a bridge level??) and it (eventually) takes you back to the world map, only to the portal on a different continent (a bit hard to explain).
I'm concerned about changing the story, but I agree that delivering the scroll to another character gets lame... but maybe simple and generic is the key? I don't know.

I strongly disagree we should split GC, because it allows players to go directly to the end without having to go someplace else first. I learned this largely because some good players complained about fetch quests in CLIVAN.

The other option is to make one big "Valpuri" shaped continent surrounded by ocean (pretty sure this is possible by the convolution of some perlin noise with an image of the Frog Himself). The New Attnam island would generate as normal and all the other locations would be easily reachable. Problem with this is we don't get our lovely continents, but it avoids the necessity of using portals.

I want to implement a Valpuri-shaped world one day, but also leave the option of generating the world as a classic IVAN world, resplendent with continents. These two world-types could be toggled by an option accessible from the config menu, with classic IVAN worldmap as the default. In the case the player wants to play the additional dungeons in a classic worldmap, then there still needs to be some portal system.

Long ago I thought of using "Ports" located on the shoreline of each continent, where the player could hire a boat to anywhere. I didn't want to go through the hassle of making a coastline-finding algorithm, so I became less enamoured of this idea. Portals would be a helluva lot (actually one step) easier than boats. In fact, I beleive it is possible to make portals using barely any code.

Rather than make a Valpuri shaped continent, we should depict under the oceans the outline of great Valpuri himself.

He is amphibious after all... :D

Bump.

Back to the topic, is anyone planning a next dungeon?

be the way: with all that water around, some sort of sailing and/or hidden underwater dungeon is simply begs to appear.

a dungeon that was underwater and only reachable with magical breathing would be cool. It could be dark and hard to see in like the old X-com terror from the deep game.

yet it will prolly require new set of aquaticaly-themed monsters. or you can have a sidequest with "scroll of revealing of old lands" as a revard. the only scroll that can be read on world map for visible terrain effect: read near the sea, it will raise the old island with a dungeon. but you will still need belt of levitation to get there. smth. like that.

the dungeon still can be hard, dark, and nasty. and it can has occasional new enemies limited to it (one or two, to make things more interesting). and, of course, a Big Boss. but i don't know what revard you can find in there, 'cause i'm absolutely sux at storytelling.