What ever happened to randomly generated dungeons?

[npbh007]

On 31st of March 2004 JaGeX wrote:

 

"Randomly generated scenarios, where a new adventure is generated for you and your friends each time you go on it. Form an adventuring party and go on your own personal quest."

 

 

 

Now I know if you scroll through the behind the scenes updates there are a lot of promises by JaGeX that never came to fruition, and I don't want to be made out like im some kind of whiney "JaGeX hater", but I was just wondering why this one, perhaps the most exciting prospect of them all never happened?

 

 

 

We know already that they have both the server capacity and technological know-how to implement such a thing - just look at player-owned houses which designates a portion of land to the player for his/her own use, or look at the cut scenes to quests, in which the player enters an area generated for themselves alone.

 

 

 

Think of the possibilities...you could go with a group of your friends and explore a dungeon that has different monsters, traps, pathways every time you choose to enter it.

 

 

 

I think both the team-work element (which they tried and failed with in the barbarian assault mini-game), and the real feeling of adventure has been lost on us ever since we conquered Taverly dungeon X number of years ago. Such an update would surely come greatly received.

 

 

 

So anyway, tell me what you think of the idea of donning your armour with a few mates, working your way through a twisting, unknown dungeon, using your guile and team work to defeat foes from every corner of RuneScape.

 

 

 

Will it ever happen? will it be awesome if it does come out? what are some potential problems with it? How do you think it should work if it does?

[the_drunk_dude]

i think it'll be more annoying than anything else because getting the new drops will be randomly harder

 

 

 

the sense of adventure will be lost on the oldies with barrows+ armour

[Creaphis]

Hm, I had completely forgotten that this was ever promised. It certainly sounds interesting. However, unless Jagex puts HUGE effort into this random-adventure-generator, I'm sure we would start to feel like we were running through the same steps every time.

 

 

 

Yeah, Barbarian's Assault struck me from the very beginning as a strange way to encourage teamwork, because you can't force a team into existence. The four roles all have completely different objectives anyway, so any teamwork is only an illusion at most. While teams in most MMORPG's consist of attackers and support roles, Jagex should realize that this isn't appropriate for a game like Runescape with no real character classes. The fact that we all start RS the same way is one of my favourite things about it.

 

 

 

I know that that wasn't the point of your post, but I still couldn't help but talk about it.

[rareghoul1]

THEY'RE GONE

[hoffman]

THEY'RE GONE

 

 

 

:?:

[darksonic45]

Jagex never said it was a dungeon. The Temple Trekking mini game sounds like it except for 1 part. You cant bring your friends along.

[aoe325]

The randomly generated dungeons ALREADY EXIST! :-s

 

Ever heard of Temple-Trekking? That's a randomly generated dungeon... Different everytime.

 

 

 

This being said, I DO agree a multi-player random dungeon would be nice :)

[Macmaster92]

I think jagex would get to many complaints about people being killed.

[tylersk8shop]

temple trekking?

[highlanders]

It would be fun, since team-training is totally inexistant in this game, no party system, no guild system, it's as if they want us to be alone and bored.

 

Donjons with other people in other games are really fun, and they don't to be randomly generated...

[scopium]

WoW people call these "Instances", and playing WoW, they are a ton of fun. It would be interesting/awesome to see these be implemented.

[Celestrana]

Although this particular Behind The Scenes bulletin was way before my RS career, it is a very interesting idea.

 

 

 

First, I think we'll need some sort of party system so that you can distinguish one team from another and thus generate appropriate dungeon instances. This can be done by a variation of the Wilderness team capes or a similar item. The second possible method is the Barbarian Assualt team recruitment where a team speaks to a team leader and signs themselves up. So, in terms of a party system, Jagex already has two systems in place and can be recycled.

 

 

 

The randomly generated dungeons can be the "classic-rpg" styled dungeons in which the entire dungeon is based on a grid system. The generator would open and close walls in the four cardinal directions, creating the various rooms the party would navigate. To give the dungeon a third-dimension, just add a flight of stairs at the end of the maze and instance another layer to the dungeon. Each layer of the dungeon can get increasingly difficult as the party decends deeper.

 

 

 

These dungeons can be generated depending on the party members and whether or not each member wanted to play a "classic-rpg" archetype or just as a generic adventurer. Each player, when they're signing up with the team leader can designate themselves as a Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Thief or cross-class if their skills happen to fit across two archetypes. Then each party member must only bring the equipment appropriate for their selected class. As they progress through the dungeon, the only way to replenish their supplies is by killing monsters and using their skills to resupply themselves with food, potions, arrows etc.

[Myweponsg00d]

THEY'RE GONE

 

 

 

:?:

 

 

 

Christ

[snake6man]

It would be fun, since team-training is totally inexistant in this game, no party system, no guild system, it's as if they want us to be alone and bored.

 

Donjons with other people in other games are really fun, and they don't to be randomly generated...

 

 

 

ummm... dont we have castle wars? and daganothing? (sp) theres a ton of teamwork in this game.

[dude_of_war4]

barrows is (kind of) different bro for tunnels each time

 

 

 

and temple trekking

[nine naked men]

Yeah, we kinda got this in Temple Trekking. But this would be awesome. Random monsters, I can imagine.

 

 

 

*You and your friends slicing through thousands of Giant Rats*

 

Hah! That was easy!

 

*Distant crashing and roars*

 

*KBD, KQ, CE, all three Dagg Kings, Tz-Tok-Jad come flying down the corridor*

 

Eep.

[12pure34]

Try:

 

Treasure trails

 

Temple Trekking

 

Barbarian Assault

 

Pest Control

 

 

 

I think Treasure trails followed to that update, although far from sure. As TT creates your own 'quest.'

 

Temple trekking is different almost always.

 

And as far as it consernes BBA and PC for teamwork and adventure. BBA is a nice example. Not sure why the autoer of this post says they failed here. For PC, yes they failed.

[npbh007]

First, I think we'll need some sort of party system so that you can distinguish one team from another and thus generate appropriate dungeon instances. This can be done by a variation of the Wilderness team capes or a similar item. The second possible method is the Barbarian Assualt team recruitment where a team speaks to a team leader and signs themselves up. So, in terms of a party system, Jagex already has two systems in place and can be recycled.

 

 

 

In my opinion the the sign up roster as we see in the BA mini-game seems the best option. However, this would not be restricted in so far as at least one person MUST go such and such class, I think it should be entirely up to your team as to how to set up your team to progress through the dungeon. However you could tweak it so that some monsters are only affected by range for example, so that everyone can play a part in the dungeons progression, and setting up your party for the dungeon would be that little bit more strategic.

 

 

 

The randomly generated dungeons can be the "classic-rpg" styled dungeons in which the entire dungeon is based on a grid system. The generator would open and close walls in the four cardinal directions, creating the various rooms the party would navigate. To give the dungeon a third-dimension, just add a flight of stairs at the end of the maze and instance another layer to the dungeon. Each layer of the dungeon can get increasingly difficult as the party decends deeper.

 

Yeah, I believe this would be incredibly easy for them to implement. They already use a similar such grid system in POH's and barrows. Doors would be randomly blocked off, traps such as in the rogue's den could be randomly positioned, the possibilities are infinite and would make for a great injection of strategy into this game. Yes you would also need a sense of 'progression' as you mentioned, as deeper and deeper you go into the dungeon the passageways get trickier, the light dims, monsters get harder, until you reach the final boss. (this final boss would drop something really cool :P).

 

 

 

Each party member must only bring the equipment appropriate for their selected class. As they progress through the dungeon, the only way to replenish their supplies is by killing monsters and using their skills to resupply themselves with food, potions, arrows etc.

 

 

 

I can see this being tricky for JaGeX in so far as determining which items actually belong to which class. You could have weapon racks similar to that of Barbarian Assault that give you all the runes, weapons etc you need. Another possibility is that the monsters you kill drop certain amounts of runes, weapons/armour arrows that you need to distribute amongst your group. What I wouldn't want to see however is the inability to get XP like you see at BA. A large majority of the dungeons appeal would be decent XP and drops from monsters within the dungeon itself.

 

 

 

Now alot of you mentioned Temple trekking, Castle Wars and Pest Control. Well, as for temple trekking thats single player and is nowhere near the scale of what Im thinking of. Castle wars...yeah great game, could be and should be much better than it is. Team work is an illusion in that game that comes from ones desire to win tickets for themselves and own as many noobs as possible. Who here really has a burning desire to win the game FOR Zamorak? honestly...

 

And as for Pest Control, that game is about as mindless as those who play it. It is rarely different and seldom a challenge.

 

 

 

Thats all for now.

[Kiriyama]

Would be good, work on a 10*10 grid. Randomly generated each time.

 

 

 

Annoying but fun.

[highlanders]

It would be fun, since team-training is totally inexistant in this game, no party system, no guild system, it's as if they want us to be alone and bored.

 

Donjons with other people in other games are really fun, and they don't to be randomly generated...

 

 

 

ummm... dont we have castle wars? and daganothing? (sp) theres a ton of teamwork in this game.

 

 

 

Thats "a lot" for you? 2 things? I currently play a game in which there's 12 team-work dungeon, a group system and tactic cooperation needed at high levels. Put plainly, you cannot advance without the help of others, and it's a lot of fun, much more fun than any Runescape soloing. I would call daganothing team work, but no c wars, c wars is not training, it's just a freakshop where everyone gathers and hits on eachothers, that's not what I call teamwork.

[Celestrana]

Would be good, work on a 100*100 grid. Randomly generated each time.

 

 

 

Annoying but fun.

 

 

 

A 100-by-100 grid is a too, um overkill but would provide huge amounts of variety :thumbsup: but I think a 25-by-25 grid is more than enough for each dungeon layer.

 

 

 

To further expand on my previous post, I think each dungeon layer can have a boss character at the end that you have to defeat to get a key or something to unlock the next dungeon layer. Obviously, the boss character will increase in difficulty as you progress deeper. As for rewards, every item that you pick up becomes part of your party's rewards if we are to follow the spirit of the "classic-rpg" dungeon crawl.

 

 

 

Another "feature" is banking items, or at least allowing you to deposit items. I'd imagine that as your party progressed through each dungeon layer, you'll continually become bogged down by item drops that you may or may not want to High Alch or drop. So, to help the party out, they're given a chance to deposit their items at the beginning of each dungeon layer.

[rareghoul1]

there really aren't any mini games with team work, cw is just people killing stuff, they never organize, pc is never organized, that's why most worlds lose, teamwork is about organizing your people, not just working together, that's just putting together forces.

 

 

 

and as for my previous post, jagex doesn't follow up on a lot of things it says it will, there's a lot of threads on these missing updates, jagex just doesn't keep their promises :shame:

[rssurvivor]

They are still coming, however they are on the long term planning list, and jagex do keep their promises, but you have to realize the amount of coding needed for something like this.

 

 

 

What do you rather want? A update everyweek and after every year a HUGE update. Or just one HUGE update every 8-10 months?

[Aresgodowar]

only problem with the whole dungon and master boss thingie is that his drop cant be a unique item that only 1 player can have. were just too used to console rpg games.

[highlanders]

They are still coming, however they are on the long term planning list, and jagex do keep their promises, but you have to realize the amount of coding needed for something like this.

 

 

 

What do you rather want? A update everyweek and after every year a HUGE update. Or just one HUGE update every 8-10 months?

 

 

 

I vote for a HUGE update at each 3 months xD