New Dungeons

[Kragar]

One thing that would be really cool would be a program or interface
that players could download and start doing their own content for
Neocron.

Currently we already can modify and furnish apartments so if this could be used
as a base to create new dungeons or locations. All places should first be playtested
and such but if you look at current dungeon locations they are very basic design
and many are quite boring mazes that take 5 minutes to figure out.

Generally I would like to see the current content sorted and checked to be worth
doing xp in. There are a huge amount of "dungeon" locations inside NC and most of
them are never used.

I know this would probably be a bigger project but both official developers could
use it and players could create content that would possibly be used in the game.

[William Antrim]

This is not unreal tournament.

It works in FPS games because there is very little actual balancing that needs doing. Have you ever seen this happen in an MMO?

[Kragar]

Everquest 2 have had it for years which is fully automated and you can at any time create, play and publish dungeons that anyone can play. You can also do that with apartments and they have competitions on coolest furnished apartments where anyone can visit and explore. You can buy more floor plans, textures and furniture in the game, from events or from the cash shop

Neverwinter will have it so you have full dev tools available for creating adventures for other players.

I'm now suggesting a tool based on current items and creatures in the game and when finished it would be playtested for game balance on the test server. As I earlier said most of the NC sewers "dungeons" are unbalanced in the other way, there is no point going there for other reason than to explore.

[Biglines]

it might work in some of those cases, but in neocron the potential for exploiting would be too high i think, imagine building a dungeon that had 100 firemobs, but they couldn't get through a door to get at you, but you could aoe them through the walls. there goes the rare economy.

[Kragar]

I guess you forget that I suggested to be checked and tested on test server before release. If the tool is properly made there is a maximum amount of mobs and a list of all the mobs inside the dungeon.

In any case I hope all the dungeons are re-evaluated to make more places worth doing exp in, since now I count around a handful of places worth going from start to cap.

[Mokoi]

PvE balance is considered part of a bigger balancing effort that we have on our agenda.
As you noted, many places are currently not used much - this is something that needs to change and merely "adding more stuff" will not cut it.

[Sorin]

With many of the current dungeons, coloration and brightness help to keep me away (raising the gamma in options shouldn't be necessary). But the biggest thing that gets me is how just about all objects (walls, boxes, the architecture on the GR buildings near OPs in the wastes, etc) have boundaries that don't quite match the graphic displayed on the screen. The actual boundary extends passed the graphic boundary, creating frustrating invisible blocks between player and target - and sometimes it's a pretty big extension. It definitely doesn't help the case of dark, nearly monochromatic dungeons with high powered mobs. It really reduces my immersion when my performed actions aren't being registered because of the physical discrepancy - I fire a shot, I see it leave my weapon, I see it travel through the air and hit the mob, but no damage registers.....five times in a row; crap....invisible graphic barrier, gotta move aside a little....SPLAT...oops.

I don't know if this is a minor thing, or if this is a fundamental characteristic inherent to the engine used. Either way it's why, sadly, I prefer the big open areas of the wastelands rather than the many cool and interesting dungeons there are; I don't have to worry about the invisible blocking characteristic too much when trying to peek around corners, hide behind trees, pop out from behind boxes, etc.

[Ivan Eres]

With many of the current dungeons, coloration and brightness help to keep me away (raising the gamma in options shouldn't be necessary). But the biggest thing that gets me is how just about all objects (walls, boxes, the architecture on the GR buildings near OPs in the wastes, etc) have boundaries that don't quite match the graphic displayed on the screen. The actual boundary extends passed the graphic boundary, creating frustrating invisible blocks between player and target - and sometimes it's a pretty big extension. It definitely doesn't help the case of dark, nearly monochromatic dungeons with high powered mobs. It really reduces my immersion when my performed actions aren't being registered because of the physical discrepancy - I fire a shot, I see it leave my weapon, I see it travel through the air and hit the mob, but no damage registers.....five times in a row; crap....invisible graphic barrier, gotta move aside a little....SPLAT...oops.

I don't know if this is a minor thing, or if this is a fundamental characteristic inherent to the engine used. Either way it's why, sadly, I prefer the big open areas of the wastelands rather than the many cool and interesting dungeons there are; I don't have to worry about the invisible blocking characteristic too much when trying to peek around corners, hide behind trees, pop out from behind boxes, etc.

You sure you're not running into the bugs affecting mobs since the interpolation tweaks were patched in to tackle the clipping problems?

Your description sounds like it.

[Sorin]

You sure you're not running into the bugs affecting mobs since the interpolation tweaks were patched in to tackle the clipping problems?

Your description sounds like it.

I've experienced this since my day 1, back in 2003.

[Kragar]

PvE balance is considered part of a bigger balancing effort that we have on our agenda.
As you noted, many places are currently not used much - this is something that needs to change and merely "adding more stuff" will not cut it.

Fixing the spawns to the current dungeons is a fast way to fix the problem that have been a long time.

Adding more stuff is something we eventually will come to and if there were a tool for basically anyone to make dungeons for example then that work isn't falling on DEVs that have their hands full with more demanding tasks. Most current dungeon designs are extremely simple and could use a facelift too.

But yes I don't have much idea on the priorities, just throwing in some ideas.

[Izeo]

But the biggest thing that gets me is how just about all objects (walls, boxes, the architecture on the GR buildings near OPs in the wastes, etc) have boundaries that don't quite match the graphic displayed on the screen. The actual boundary extends passed the graphic boundary, creating frustrating invisible blocks between player and target - and sometimes it's a pretty big extension. It definitely doesn't help the case of dark, nearly monochromatic dungeons with high powered mobs. It really reduces my immersion when my performed actions aren't being registered because of the physical discrepancy - I fire a shot, I see it leave my weapon, I see it travel through the air and hit the mob, but no damage registers.....five times in a row; crap....invisible graphic barrier, gotta move aside a little....SPLAT...oops.

I don't know if this is a minor thing, or if this is a fundamental characteristic inherent to the engine used. Either way it's why, sadly, I prefer the big open areas of the wastelands rather than the many cool and interesting dungeons there are; I don't have to worry about the invisible blocking characteristic too much when trying to peek around corners, hide behind trees, pop out from behind boxes, etc.
There are a few problems regarding decorations in Neocron:
1- even if the collisionbox is correctly sized around the model (like a chain link fence model), if you butt two fence models together, perfectly flush, you will still get stuck on the model if you scrape (run diagonally) into the models at the ends
2- as you said, sometimes the collision boxes are too big for the visible model. (a great example of this is the yellowish tree-without-branches model found in newbie MC5 in a couple of the valleys)
3- as you also said, some dungeons simply have too many decorations, for things like preventing players from getting into certain areas, intentionally or accidentally (an accidental example is blocking off all the entries to the water in the aggie cellars with those fences)

The only real solution that I see is to edit the actual maps that have ANY areas that are blocked off by models/fences, and fix the map file using solid brushes (walls, floors) rather than models. I really do hope that someone is still able to physically edit the maps in this way.