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. :/

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 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?

I assume it would be banana bread

The in-game day? Or the real-world day? Because if the latter, then Atavus Day would last several in-game days... perhaps Atavus has a whole week?

Item idea: The Magical Lampshade. Made of Illithium, indestructable, weights in the neighborhood of 500g, and is a permanent light source. Slightly brighter than an oil lamp.

Why? So I can have an indestructible light source that isn't liable to be stolen by magpies, and doesn't weigh 3 kilos.

I have to voice a little opposition to the idea of a flash-bang. We don't need Attnam to become Nethack, with everything and the kitchen sink.

But a wand of confusion? That could be neat.

With a bottle of acid, a well-placed kick, and some patience, you could probably have created the angle you needed.

Sulphuric acid makes a pretty efficient digging implement, but then you have to deal with a puddle of acid. Fortunately there's at least one way to avoid that.

I added it to my list. Yes. Yes it is. If you managed to make it +0, it would still be a lighter-weight version of normal GEF armor, except it also glows and always comes as +10. And the armor check penalty is small enough that you won't see it at all until you have nearly 100 agi/dex.

OP updated: Added gold, silver, sapphire, ruby, and diamond. Sapphire and ruby have identical stats. Neither is a particularly excellent choice, though they are also not terrible either. Chain armor made of gemstones can be a decent option at 35-Int if you have already have invested in enchanting some chain mail and plan to keep it, but full dragon hide armor is almost strictly better for the same Int. Diamond does not compete favorably with octiron. Gold and silver are jokes - simply carrying gold AoGH and nothing else requires a minimum of 14 LStr.

I also added a chart including the materials mentioned, and the INT cost progression.