EUO as a roguelike/nethack/dungeon crawler

[lobster]

One of the best things, for me, about EUO is it's a multiplayer Nethack. Wouldn't it be great if there was a PD server that acted like a dungeon crawler?

Use the functionality for Rank Dungeon and Treacherous Caves to make a dungeon with no overworld and have occasional towns every once in a while. If the dungeon was 100 levels, then make a town every 10-15 levels (probably less frequent the further down you go). In between the towns include all the hack and slashery you can, with every type of monster represented.

Players could work alone or work together to descend to the last level, where maybe they have to fight an end boss or something. You could then rank the players as completing it and put them on a scoreboard. The dungeon could then be refreshed every few months, with all the random variables re-rolled, to start a new scoreboard.

Without quests and shrines, NG might be the best way to go about leveling up, or just the PD way. Either one.

The most "work" I see this being is making suitable towns. Player merchants probably wouldn't work either, as players aren't going to be coming back to old places. Maybe a way to handle selling and buying of equipment, so that other players could sell something to an NPC and then another player could then buy it? Barring that, you should include NPC merchants that actually sell useful items, using whatever code generates enchanted drops for a particular level of monster to randomly feed into that level of merchant.

Thanks for reading my pipe dream.

[Eidolon]

I'm guessing you started this game a little while back. Played reg for awhile and didnt have the patience. Then you learn abt a 10x faster server and you sucked too bad to stay alive. You're not only telling everyone abt your idea, but also saying PD is lame and that its a fact that doesnt even need to be argued about? I think you can pretty much go fuck yourself on that one. PD is great and the only thing that makes it not so fun sometimes is that you might be the only one on there. Egg just finished spending so much of his time that he could be doing many many other things outside of sitting on a chair stairing at a computer screen expanding a free game that he lets anyone in the world play, for free, and you're saying that one of his servers is lame and he should now sit there for more time and develop an entirely new one.

The saddest part about this is that you sound like you're not a kid who just had a cool idea. You sound like a grown adult who would be able to put this together.

Here's my idea for you: Go learn how to code. Spend months of your life that you could be making money sitting making a game. Then put it online and let everyone play for free. Then let everyone bitch about how much it sucks and how you should completely change it.

[lobster]

I did start the game a while back. I did have the patience to get over lvl 100, but eventually got bored of that. I didn't suck at PD; I just found it extremely boring.

I do code for an open source game called Wesnoth and over the last year I've been building a multiplayer dungeon crawl mod for it.

However, I do have to commend you for perceiving I'm not a kid.

But, this thread isn't about me.

My suggestion wasn't asking for egg to change the PD server. I also wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think it was relatively simple for him to do (some random levels like RD and TC with incrementing spawn types, add some simple towns and you're good to go).

If my critique of PD offends you, then sorry and please look over it, because this idea isn't meant to threaten it. Otherwise, .

[Eidolon]

I see what you're saying. I apologize for coming off to rough right off the bat. However, I dont really understand why you're suggesting this be done by someone else if its your idea and you honestly know how to code. Why not try to create it yourself.

The way I see it is, the game that I've been playing has changed so much within the past 5 years I've been playing and I still love it. Everytime I start to get bored, something great comes in. Egg has said himself PD is more of just a fun server not one to be taken very seriously. Some people, like myself, really enjoy playing on PD so he keeps it up and running and keeps adding the new updates over there as well as on reg.

I guess the world wouldnt be as far advanced if people didnt come along and suggest left field ideas. But if you know how to do it yourself why would you be panning the work onto someone else? Not only is that kind've lame, but on the bright side if it works out well you can get all the credit.

[lobster]

Because it would take me a very long time to get to egg's point in making this type of game. He's got the goods, so he's got a much better cost/benefit ratio than I do.

Again, I don't want to make a critique on the game other than it would be neat if all 3 servers weren't identical in content.

I was hoping people would input on possibilities, but, whatever, egg will consider it or he won't. Until then I'll see what this maeondir stuff is about before fading away again.

[Bk]

PD used to have the continent of Maeondir as it's continent, while Reg had the same one as it does now... But now they share the same continent...

[eggmceye]

Warm welcome Wesnoth developer Firstly, don't mind Eidolon, he's just being protective of the hive. (slaps joel)

Your post comes at an interesting time for me. I've just been looking at tomeNet - a multiplayer angband kinda game. I only discovered this yesterday and plan on really checking it out. Biggest surprise for me is the fact that it's open source and multiplayer. I'd open source EUO if I thought I could stop people playing on my server with hacked up clients (altho most of the game play is server side, there are a few things that are still client side, such as walking speed and casting success - this is a whole other off-topic matter...).

So back to the point - EUO being more of a linear dungeon crawler (or more roguelike)? Well, EUO has even better support for random maps - a couple of levels in the Maeondir expansion are random generated using lua, and are much better than 'rank dungeon' in New sosaria (tho the caves algorithm is still quite good). So the whole thing is feasible, if not close to my heart. I'm a huge fan of roguelikes, and I like the clear simple goals, the scoreboard, etc.

There are a couple of issues of interest to me raised here, intentionally or not:
i) multiple PD servers (currently being discussed elsewhere)
ii) multiple servers in general (thinning out playerbase)
iii) your request for a dungeon grinder sounds more like multiplayer rogulelike, which is a huge point of interest for me, at a philosophical & game design level

multiple PD servers
Currently thinking about having another PD server with a resettable scoreboard, reset every month or so. Maybe at the end of the month when the server is reset the players get sent out to pasture to the classic PD server. It's possible that this new server could be more roguelike. Or, there could be yet another server ... see below.

multiple servers in general
I prefer to have as few servers as possible ... the more you have the thinner the playerbase per server gets thinned out. Also each server uses 30m-40b of ram ... well - that aint that bad I guess. CPU usage is proportional to players connected & maps loaded, so empty servers are not a problem.

Also more servers means more updating - it's easy now with some very simple updating scripts. Currently all 3 servers have the same gameplay content, so having another server with different content means more work in ways i) writing the content, ii) maintaining the content. I'm all for lots and lots of content but I have a 1000 things to do and my helpers are unpaid volunteers.

multiplayer roguelikes
I have been thinking a lot about multiplayer roguelikes. I think the biggest reason why they can't exist is due to the fact roguelikes are turn based and rely heavily on strategy. I really feel that this point is the biggest thing that distinguishes them from other RPGs. Sure EUO could have random levels, even random potions colours and scrolls, a single goal (get amulet of yendor, beat zod, etc) and a scoreboard, no amount of tarting it up can make it a roguelike because EUO is multiplayer, and has real time keyboard mashing combat, and very little strategy. When I realised this it was a huge disappointment, and I've since learned to accept EUO for what it is, which is why I find tomeNet intriguing - they made what I set out to make 10 years ago ... a multplayer moria.

So make what you like of that rant.

[lobster]

I had heard about ToME but didn't realize it was MP. I actually got into the dungeon crawl project for Wesnoth because of ZAngband. Wesnoth is a turn-based strat, so things are altered to make the gameplay faster (i.e. while there are no monsters within a certain radius, you get infinite movement).

So, I played ToME today. I've seen you note elsewhere, too, that EUO can't be like Nethack because of lack of strat in combat. Well, as you will see, ToME is even more like that. Combat happens almost instantly, so you set your character to auto-fight or to auto-cast. Even with the "fast and furious" combat of EUO...let me just say I don't think you have to perceive EUO as lacking to the degree you seem to think it is.

Now that I think of it, you don't even need towns if you were to make a simple roguelike for EUO. Increment difficulty on a bunch of descending levels and create a simple end-game condition, killing the player character but tagging it as winning. Add what you think is necessary after that.

However, you bring up a lot of points why you shouldn't take the plunge and I'm sure no one would blame you if you didn't.

[WbBann]

At the same time loberster, your idea is decent but pd itself is legendary also. The fact you have one life only (inless you pay rl money) means you gotta think about what you're gonna do, about taking risks etc. Personally I got fed up when I died at lvl 36, 2 hours work down the drain, but to change a server thats been running for 4+ yrs and deleting all the people who invested rl money and dedication (magrock etc) would just be harsh.

[lobster]

Deleted the critique of PD in my first post in the hopes that people will shut up about it.

[WbBann]

Deleted the critique of PD in my first post in the hopes that people will shut up about it.

Dude maybe its a lost in translation on my behalf, but what do you expect people to say? "yeah brilliant idea, lets change pd to this as pd sucks and is boring"? I never said your idea was bad just that pd is better, your idea sounds like it should have a server on its own. I dislike ng with a passion but I wouldnt give the idea to replace ng with a dungeon crawler idea.

[lobster]

I never suggested that the current PD should be deleted.

At its core, this topic has nothing to do with the PD server, hence the whitewashing of it from the original post.

But, you're right. I don't see the point of NG and, if only 3 could be up at a time, NG would be my choice to sub out for content (oh crap, here I've pissed off the NG-lovers too...now what could I do get the Reg players mad, completing the trifecta...).

[eggmceye]

I tried tomeNet and instantly disliked the lag between inputting a movement and the move being executed (I guess that's server side approval of the move). EUO used to do that but I got rid of that in the first year - EUO client approves the move and moves you instantaneously but the server checks it also.

I should work out a list of reasons why I can't open source euo then work out a list of workarounds & fixes. Walking speed (based off dex) and casting success are the main 2 I can think of...

I'm going to try tomeNet some more. And Mangband.

[lobster]

Yes, I forgot to mention movement lag. Hecka annoying, but, since monsters usually came to me and I didn't have to do anything active in combat, it didn't matter. Yet, I don't think that's a good thing.

A multiplayer game I followed pretty closely a while back, Infantry, trusted a lot of things to the client, which, even though it wasn't open source, led to many hacking attempts, especially speed hacks. In the end, what I think happened is the server calculated a max range of what's possible over a time given a character's stats and checked every once in a while to make sure nothing went outside of it. If the range was exceeded, bans were slapped on rather than giving permission for anything beforehand. However, we were never sure players didn't hack and made sure they stayed subtle.

[Chedich]

I don't see why you shouldn't list all of those reasons, it would allow people to come up with solutions for them even if you didn't want EUO to be open source, it would at least prevent people from changing the client or the memory of it to allow them to cheat.

For walking speed you should set up two counters and timer for each player, and increment one of the counter's value for each move and then check it against their walking speed each time the timer reaches 0. A good value for the timer would be perhaps 10-30 seconds. Or you could throw it around and check the timer each x amount of moves. Also check and reset the timer and move counter each time they mount/dismount. And to avoid people being banned because of lag; for every time they've moved more than they're allowed you should increment a second counter, which decrements each 5th minute or something like that. When they the infraction counter reaches 3-5, they would be banned.

EDIT: Pretty much the same thing that lobster were talking about, although what I said was a bit more detailed.

Casting success is a bit more tricky to check since they could just as well be very lucky or have a faulty random generator. But something similar would have to be done as with the walking speed, for every 300th(or more to be more accurate) casting of the same spell(you'd have to have a counter for each spell) you'd check if their success rate is outside acceptable limits(+5%?) considering the spells success rate. If it's outside you could either ban them or have some sort of infraction counter(that'd be used for all the spells) there as well to avoid banning people who were just incredibly lucky.

[eggmceye]

I don't think you can chk casting success - just chg the engine so that casting is 100% if you know the spell, then adjust all the lvl reqs of the spells accordingly.

Back on topic: I don't think a random dungeon crawling euo PD scoreboard server is the worst idea in the world. It would be server #4 I guess.

[lobster]

Just a thought since we're talking about separate servers and ToME, the ToME way of having everyone on the same server but with different modes of play is something you could consider since they all have the same content anyway. That way you wouldn't find dead NG/PD servers, but everyone on the same one, able to benefit from the same merches and stuff. Players wouldn't be able to party with anyone not in their own mode of play (thus you'd want add a /w command that shows only those of your own mode).

That is, of course, unless this would be way too much effort compared to maintaining 3 separate servers.

[lobster]

Bumping, temping fate.

Anyone played Realm of the Mad God? I'm not meaning to advertise it or anything, I just had a realization of how similar my idea in this thread is to what they've accomplished.

RotMG is a cheap little game with lo-fi graphics, permadeath, rare item collection, randomly generated maps, etc. Anyway, the game is nowhere as deep in gameplay as EUO. But, it's got kind of an EUO feel in that the combat is fast and furious. I think it is a good proof that EUO would be well suited to a CO-OP roguelike.

Anyway, just dropping the thought again. It's the kind of game that I yearn to play.

[Keighn]

Hmm, never saw this thread before. I don't think we need a new server for this. Currently there are 4 servers if you include the playtesting Alpha server. There are lots of random effects in this game: Rank Dungeon, Treacherous Caves, Sylvengard Tower, Farimond Dungeon, Phase Anomalies, Treasure Maps. These don't quite touch your idea in the original post. I imagine if there were just a few dungeons that had no end to that that got harder as you climbed down would be perfectly fine for something else to do. I'm a huge dungeoncrawler fan myself, ableit PnP games and some solo rpgs. I never tried nethack or the crew but probably would have loved them.

I love the hallways of Rank Dungeon, I love the size of Farimond levels, and I love the cave effects of treacherous/trmaps/anomalies. I wonder what the best layout for dungeon mobs an infinite lvl dungeon would be like?

[lobster]

Apart from the random generated content, I'm shooting for a more casual style of gameplay. My record for getting max level in Realm of the Mad God is 16 minutes. Granted, that's too easy, but it shows you what kind of gameplay is attractive. Compared to that, EUO permadeath is incredibly slow (not that there's a max level...last time I checked). The Nethack completion time lapse vids on Youtube show completion between 4 and 16 hours, which still might be just about right for an EUO treatment of the same idea, since we're talking about a permadeath dungeon with a finite end. I've never beat Nethack myself, though I've spent many times more than that 4-16 hours I've quoted on it.

Again, not to harp on the RotMG concept, but it's really fun to get in with other players and collect classes. If you die 20 times in the process, no big deal. They also largely encourage teaming, which makes for fun, but the way they do it players just turn into rape squads. For EUO, I can remember having to limit myself to 50% exp for a level (above ~100), because I liked the game but felt bad about the time I spent with it doing basically the same thing. Way outside the question is actually getting my other characters to a high level. And, even the PD server is a big commitment of time. RotMG is fun in that you can just go in, start gaining, get killed 30 minutes later and just try it again with another setup. I'm imagining 100 levels of random dungeon fun with a max level that just barely lets people take on shadow creatures (though, having not played in 2 years, I don't know exactly how things have changed), which could be achieved by multiple players monthly.

Anyway, I'll stop begging now. Back to my own game projects.