EUO as a roguelike/nethack/dungeon crawler

[Magrock]

...They also largely encourage teaming, which makes for fun, but the way they do it players just turn into rape squads...

No strategy or collaboration. They should focus on one at a time and maximize XP.

[eggmceye]

I had a quick go at realm of the mad god and kinda got bored after lvl 3 and quit. I'm for tryin new things tho - I can handle making a new euo server too, the physical server is beast now and could handle another server process.

[Keighn]

You don't necessarily need a new server. You could make a very roguelike dungeon utilizing the current random dungeons and perhaps even the instances. There's a few blocked dungeons entrances around either on Maeondir or for more readily available access, that blocked dungeon on the island just SW of Shame and NE of Valley of the Trolls.

Since this is a rather unique dungeon I wouldn't use the mine entrance or generic dungeon entrance. I'd use this one:

DoD1.PNG

This would open up into a large room.

DoD2.PNG

A series of these: (with a sign in front of each)

DoD3.PNG

Easy Difficulty (1/2 as hard but 1/2 as much xp gained)
Normal Difficulty
Heroic Difficulty (x3)
Epic Difficulty (x5)
Legendary Difficulty (x10)
Mythic Difficulty (x20)

While in the dungeon these would indicate wheter you go up or down:

DoD4.PNG

And these would indicate you moving to another random series of rooms/cave of the same mob but different layout or whether you go back to the one you were just in.

DoD5.PNG

I don't know how complex the dungeon is but it could be a random layout that might generate a random map similar to Rank Dungeon or Treacherous Cave, or even like the Farimond Dungeon for a massive hackfest. Completely random on which you get.

I think current lvl going down difficulty is something like:
PESTS = (slimes, rats, gremlins, bats, giant rats, reapers,gazers)
HUMANOIDS = (goblins, goblin archers, goblin shamans, orcs, orc brutes, half orcs, fel orcs, shadow orcs)
MEN = (Artful dodgers, Evil Wizards, Rogues, Bandits)
LESSER UNDEAD = (Ghouls, zombie, mummy, ghost, skeleton, skeleton mages)
GIANTS = (headless, trolls, troll axe thrower, troll priest, ettins, ettin warlords, ogres, cyclops)
MINOTAURS = (minotaurs, minotaur shaman, minotaur chieftain)
GREATER UNDEAD = (phantom warrior, wight, skeleton archer, skeleton warrior, vampire, lich, demilich, skeleton dragon, zombie dragon,
spectral reaper, undead lord)
DEMONS = (basilisks, fire lizards, hellcats, imps, devils, daemons)
DRAGONS = (white, blue, green, black, red, fire dragons)

I suppose this could be tweaked or have it just go from there to
SHADOWS
BLOOD

Problem is this really doesn't go much deeper than 11 lvls total before you start repeating mobs. Even if you did it similar to how treasure maps are done with 2 lvls of the same thing you're still getting only 22 lvls deep and then what; just repeat blood mobs on the lowest lvl?

*Just like instances once you clear an area it stays clear and mobs don't respawn.

[Keighn]

Ok, here's a slight solution to mobs though I'm sure a better one could be concocted:


Nusiances (slimes, rats, insects, bats, giant rats) (sparsely populated)
Nusiances (slimes, rats, insects, bats, giant rats) (more densely populated)
Nusiances (slimes, rats, insects, bats, giant rats) (Extremely populated)
Nusiances (slimes, rats, insects, bats, giant rats) (Neck & Neck filled to the rim)

Pests (gremlins, reapers, gazers, wisps, spiders, snakes)(sparsely populated)
Pests (gremlins, reapers, gazers, wisps, spiders, snakes)(more densely populated)
Pests (gremlins, reapers, gazers, wisps, spiders, snakes)(Extremely populated)
Pests (gremlins, reapers, gazers, wisps, spiders, snakes)(Neck & Neck filled to the rim)

same routine:
Humanoids (goblins, goblin archers, goblin shamans, orcs, orc brutes, half orcs, fel orcs, shadow orcs)
Men (Artful dodgers, Evil Wizards, Rogues, Bandits)
Lesser Undead (Ghouls, zombie, mummy, ghost, skeleton, skeleton mages)
Giants (headless, trolls, troll axe thrower, troll priest, ettins, ettin warlords, ogres, cyclops)
Minotaurs (minotaurs, minotaur shaman, minotaur chieftain)
Greater Undead (phantom warrior, wight, skeleton archer, skeleton warrior, vampire, lich, demilich, skeleton dragon, zombie dragon, spectral reaper, undead lord)
Golems (Earth, Fire, Iron, Wood)
Demons (basilisks, fire lizards, hellcats, imps, devils, daemons, ice mephits, frost mephits, nox mephits, quasits)
Dragons (white, blue, green, black, red, fire dragons)
Shadows (warriors, mages, shadow imps, shadow daemons, shadow lords, shadow dragons)
Blood (warriors, mages, hydras, drakes, dragons, wyverns, lords)

Meh that'd only get us to lvl 52 that way. It could be broken up even more as we're leaving out some fire mobs, other golems, hydras, etc.

[lobster]

OK, bump given a few things: First, I'm embarrassed at how incoherent my proposal for an EUO permadeath roguelike was before. I guess I was trying to make the idea as vague as possible to just let the thoughts flow from egg instead of me. Second, I have some insights from the whole Wesnoth thing mentioned above. And, third, another action roguelike has come into being: Delver.

So, I mentioned the the Wesnoth dungeon-crawler I was working on. This is perhaps the best short overview I could give for it: http://www.protozoic.com/2009/07/01/wesband/ The idea was to mod a multiplayer, turn-based strategy game into a roguelike. I've gotten really far with it, have written about 80k lines of code for it, and it's pretty fun right now. You can team with up to 3 other players or go solo into hours of gameplay of killing creeps, getting loot, and powering up. One of things in it that other roguelikes don't have is that strategy is all laid out before you. While there is great mystery as to what lies around the corner, there is no mystery as to how likely you are to hit an opponent and how much damage you're do if you hit, and the same goes for your opponents attacks on you.

But, I've pretty much given up on the idea. The problem: It's completely turn-based. This means, you're sitting there waiting around for up to several friends to make their moves. This can take way too long to be enjoyable, which leads you to get distracted by something else, which leads the time in between turns to be even longer for others. Given my dissatisfaction for this, I am currently working on an action game engine that could even eventually be used for a multiplayer roguelike.

However, it's extremely cheap to dream about a game that is so close to having something that could work. This is where EUO can come in: It's a semi-turned based game, meaning there is almost an element of action to it. This lends itself way better to a multiplayer roguelike than does straight-up turn-based, not alienating those who can't handle action games, but also avoiding having to wait around.

Let me side-track to another game which is showing the appeal to action roguelikes: Delver http://intrrpt.com/delver/ It's a short, first-person roguelike available for a bunch of platforms. Notably, it's available for Android and the guy making it has sold a few thousand at $2 a pop. This isn't counting whatever donations he's getting for the other platforms.

A little more backstory for me, I played EUO years ago. I got to a high enough level: http://euotopia.com/plyr.php?Mandara , exhausted The Abyss, and soloed the giant crab a bunch, but I just couldn't grind the same stuff any more, on this or any other game. I used to go into the 2 randomly-generated dungeons as much as I could just for the variety. I haven't played since before the new classes and races. I would however, love to play a shorter game with a finite goal, and I would love to do that with other players. So, if you're still reading, here's what I think in more detail.

100 levels of procedurally-generated maps that refresh every month.
I remember you had the 2 procedurally-generated dungeons: the brick one and the cave one. A little expansion on those and I think you'd be almost good to go. Maybe put some town functionality in every 15-30 floors and scale the enemies up on each level. I guess bosses before exiting some or most floors would be the way to go, so you can't just sneak through it all. The only question is how to deal with existing characters and dungeon regeneration; maybe you'd want to warp them to the last town. Also, you'd probably want to take away the upstairs every so often, preventing high level players from screwing around with the lower levels.

Of course, leveling should scale to whatever max level you want people to be at on the last floor.

Unlock-able classes, races, and skills.
This is a big trend for replayability. Realm of the Mad God and a ton of flash games do stuff like this. Granted, it sort of forces replayability, but it gives people something to accomplish.

Restricting races is easy enough conceptually, but classes are different. I don't have too much insight on how this would even work because I've only ever played the 3 main classes. I guess you could restrict skill % to something until you unlock it by beating the dungeon with whatever class you want to progress from. It will be really cool when you see a bunch of fighters go down and try to be the first one to get whatever the next class would be. In any case, you'd want a tree of advancement for the account which dictates what class/race you need to beat it with next to unlock the next option. Generally, these things advance in the direction of more specialized.

A big finite boss or item to collect at the end
This would destroy the character and put him on a chart of heroes or something. It would also unlock any class/race that you get from that specific set-up.

Damn, just factor tomes into the loot drops and you'd almost have what you need. Do this right and you're making your computer generate most of the fun for you. I'm afraid I'm too removed from the game at the moment to give too many more details than what I have. I can still dream, though.