What do YOU want from a dugeon

[IstNick]

If you could have any idea put in a dungeon mod what would it be? Nothing too outlandish, for example: A pole dancing bear xD

[David Brasher]

I really like dungeons that use correct spelling in all the names, dialog, books, notes, and quest messages.

 

I like dungeons with big battles where you have to face a huge mob of enemies all at once.

[ub3rman123]

Large open vistas that give you an epic view, points that allow you to snipe with a bow, many traps, unique enemies, creative use of tilesets.

[IstNick]

All of that sounds good but I'm hearing one extra thing. Severe lag...there a way around that?

[synnworld]

Beautiful women tide and changed up, each lustful and wanting me :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[ub3rman123]

You have to know what will fit into your 'lag budget'. Giant expanses of epicness will lag the computer, but not as much as they need to if you plot them right.

 

Use the right objects: When selecting armors and creatures, don't use ones that are ludicrously high-poly. Don't use a full rock to build a wall when you can just use one of Mr_Siika's cliff meshes which only has one side.

 

Know what causes lag: The main cause of lag is light. Try it. Type TLB into the console while playing and see what kind of FPS you get. To avoid getting too much lag, make sure your light radii don't intersect. Press L when arranging lighting and do your best to keep them from overlapping too much.

 

Don't overdo anything! Sometimes you have to make a tradeoff between how amazing the dungeon looks and how much it lags. You have to know when to cut content. I recently had to remove an amazing particle effect and rely instead on built in cell fog because the cloud lags the computer when there's more than one.

[Deleted1848331User]

Another way you can get around lag, like ub3rman said, is not to put too many lights, like only putting them every, say, 10 yards in real life (which isn't that much in CS though) so they have just enough to see where they are going. You could also just set the light to 100 in the cell, but that makes it look odd.

[Pronam]

When I enter a dungeon I want something different from vanilla. What's vanilla? Hack and slash and quite a linear route. Do I want all of that removed? of course not...but a difference is nice.

Quest-dungeons have a linear route at themselves, go to here, there and there. there's a passage at the left that goes to a mini-boss, passage at the right that goes to another. Kill them both and you're done!

 

Like many, open vistas are nice..but not always possible. Many dungeons can be considered not to be high/leveled but mainly large in horizontal view...but that's all limited by the resources available.

 

Other things...scripts/lore.

 

I always like to see some scripting and AI worked out, the most simple things can bring a lot of fun with. It mustn't be too complex in a way it gets linear to follow in order to execute. The same with AI packages. Especially if a dungeon is meant to respawn it'd be nice to see something different than an ambush from the left every time...maybe it could be random which causes it next time to be from the right! or with ghosts instead of zombies. Variation, yet it doesn't need to be complex...just...different :) .

 

Next is the 'lore', but with that I mainly mean the atmosphere. Is it filled with vampires/goblins/undead/necromancers/bandits/mages/etc? Not every dungeon has a purpose but it has a theme and gives you a good feeling of 'where did I end up this time'. Switching those in different cells can be fun as the player would expect more of the same, but would be confronted with other things. That applies for scripting too again. If a chest/coffin enables wraiths for two times, but the third coffin would enable 4 tiny mudcrabs with the ghost effect on...I'd have a laugh. A note here or there telling some story does never hurt either.

[tizerist]

If I can point at it and say:

"Look: that's nothing like a vanilla dungeon. Completely different flavour and feel."

 

Credit goes to Underdark and Lost Spires in this case.

[majikmonkee]

If I can point at it and say:

"Look: that's nothing like a vanilla dungeon. Completely different flavour and feel."

 

Credit goes to Underdark and Lost Spires in this case.

Agreed. Different looking environments are a refeshing change. I also like cool boss monsters like a giant version of an existing creature or something totally new, and a suitable reward like a stash of gems or large sum of gold.

Edited December 20, 2010 by majikmonkee