What Would You Add to the Driath?

[Erythil]

Most of the game now takes place in the Vrun Driath, but I feel like it's a zone kind of short on points of interest.

What would you add to the Driath, if you were a builder, that would still be in keeping with its general theme of a harsh semi-wasteland?


Personally, I'd like to see:
1.  Some kind of half-subterranean mushroom forest
2.  Some ruins of old forts from before Allanak took complete control
3.  Egyptian style monuments to the glories of nobles past
4.  Interesting geological formations
5.  More outlying Allanaki holdings

[nauta]

A volcano!

I jest, but I think geographical formations -- like what the Dashra region has: choke points, climb spots, hidey-holes, etc.

[Riev]

Less power creep, like "that place you used to hide" suddenly being taken over by soldiers because one time, some rogue witch hid there.

More diversity in the creatures. If you're on the Flats, its worms and meks. That's it. Nothing else out there for a hundred rooms. If you're out west, its dead agro beasts that killed one another.

More caves discovered after earthquakes. More points of interest to be fought over, and not 'simply decided by the higher ups in a clan'.

I would LOVE to add ruined encampments, or added prey in the form of dis-located Grasslands creatures that have mutated for being too close to the silt.

[Shoka Windrunner]

Mantis.

As of before unknown tribe of Halflings that have returned for the revenge of things.

Stealthy gith raiders, just a few, maybe outcasts from their peoples.

Glass elementals that hide as glass deposits.

The occasional random vegetation sprout that could be cared for until it grows to full existence.

Some scavenger creature that eats all the detritus left from the hundreds of skinned animals.

Caves that appear after sandstorms but disappear after the next sandstorm, multiple, random chance any one might be uncovered.

Super mutants and ghouls. 

Kanks that have survived until now, via wild natural/magickal mutation, that have only now reached a population that has allowed them to return from their dens and burrows beneath the sand to seek sustenance for their psionic overlord Queen Kank.

Occasional ruins and signs of harshness, beetle shells next to rotting dried out corpse of (insert race here)

VNPC hunter/grebber echoes where it makes sense to do so.  possibly affecting life span of different deposits?

Random rooms of magickal wildness? Visible from a distance of course.





Jabba's Palace.

[Armaddict]

Coded connection to the city.  I know someone wanted less power-creep, but I want more...but only in tandem with more 'things of interest' altogether.

I want villages to have roads connected to Allanak.  I want coded, non-virtual formations marching at certain times between that village and Allanak; I want raiders targeting these formations to have a good chance interrupting shipments of goods being returned to the city.

I want more desert-dwellings.  I want more random 'wtf' places that you come up on; relocating/sporadically-recurring ruins of small village encampments. I want there to be more 'down' exits that are routinely/randomly covered and uncovered by the weather.

I want large 3rd party conflicts; this clan is engaged in an epic battle for their life against mutant scorpions, and another party comes in that hates both them -and- the scorpions (I always hated that some entirely predatory animals 'ally' with each other; silt fliers and spiders should not be buddies).

I want chalton herds to be far less prevalent.  I want the 'danger' of the wilds to be far closer to the city, like the untamed wilderness that it is, ala Shoka's roaming gith; Baddies used to wander much closer to the city on their own, and there were updates to cut back on that which was altogether a step towards safety of the wilds.  We'll see a lot less 'Rangers are OP' when early rangering is as hard as it used to be.  Warrior friends are gooooood.

Seems like me and Shoka like a lot of the same things.

[Synthesis]

The aggro critters don't attack each other out of coded necessity...because otherwise, the desert would end up like the 'rinth in the old days, with one UberCritter that rolled amazing stats and is now extensively trained in whooping ass after constantly killing everything in sight throughout the duration of the uptime.

[Armaddict]

The aggro critters don't attack each other out of coded necessity...because otherwise, the desert would end up like the 'rinth in the old days, with one UberCritter that rolled amazing stats and is now extensively trained in whooping ass after constantly killing everything in sight throughout the duration of the uptime.

So...1 super critter vs pack of really weird critters helping each other and using their skills in tandem.  I'd rather the 1 super-critter any time.  At least then you stumble on a giant pile of bodies and know something's up rather than the whole thing where you hunt a scrab, see one critter arrive, and find out it's been leading a group of 3 invisible spider buddies that keep you bashed for it to eat your face.

Not to mention one of them actually makes sense in an ecological perspective.

[lostinspace]

choke points, climb spots, hidey-holes, etc.

Yes please!

[Marauder Moe]

I'd kind of like to see the farmlands better represented/defined.  With almost half a million people in Allanak, there really needs to be some very significant farming going on.

I have a few villages.  We have a few rooms that describe fields but... if I'm in those rooms, am I walking on crops?  Are there virtual fieldhands all around me?

[Shoka Windrunner]

I'd kind of like to see the farmlands better represented/defined.  With almost half a million people in Allanak, there really needs to be some very significant farming going on.

I have a few villages.  We have a few rooms that describe fields but... if I'm in those rooms, am I walking on crops?  Are there virtual fieldhands all around me?

Yeah VNPC echoes.  Would make the world really pop I think.

[Pale Horse]

A Wall.

Payed for by Tuluk.

[WanderingOoze]

A Wall.

Payed for by Tuluk.

[Shoka Windrunner]

A Wall.

Payed for by Tuluk.

I prefer my politics in Zalanthas to be settled by the one with most soldier's left standing.   

[Jihelu]

A Wall.

Payed for by Tuluk.

I prefer my politics in Zalanthas to be settled by the one with most soldier's left standing.   

You can't enslave their corpses.


...Well actually, I guess you can

[Shoka Windrunner]

A Wall.

Payed for by Tuluk.

I prefer my politics in Zalanthas to be settled by the one with most soldier's left standing.   

You can't enslave their corpses.


...Well actually, I guess you can

You doubt the Highlord's might?  HERESY! 

To add to the thread, Dwarven Banshees?   

[Hauwke]

We should totally turn the shield wall into game of thrones.

[Alizerin]

Things that I think would make improvements to Vrun Driath:

• Chalton Herd SimDesert fixes.


• There probably needs to be less herd. That essentially free food, bone, horn, and hide are laying around in the desert going to waste is an issue.
• An alternative fix to this is making predators and scavengers eat corpses and abandoned innards/meat/whatever. Maybe abandoning meat to roast in the desert attracts predators and scavengers (so the vulture flocks aren't all in the same place; or players have incentive to avoid leaving meat out lest they summon aggressive scavenger beetles or something).
• A wider range for the Herd. Have the herd move around the Vrun Driath area depending on the time of the year. Savvy hunters will know where the herd will likely be during whatever part of the season. Alter the locations of the Herd's chief predators accordingly.
• Tameable/herdable Chalton. This could be another mini-job, like salt-grebber, mud-digger, obsidian miner, dung cleaner, etc. PCs who can tame animals maybe can capture wild Chalton and take them to the butcher shop. Or a pie-in-the-sky idea might be that they could breed their own mini-herd which they can shepherd around the Vrun, protecting them from beasts.
• More tameable beasts. Where do all these Warbeetles come from? It would be cool if swarthy desert rangers and half-elves could find the occasional tameable beast in the southlands. It doesn't have to be all of them: perhaps a certain rare Warbeetle, or very rare desert tarantulas. Maybe even Sunback?
• This is less a "Vrun Driath idea, but a "whole game idea": Add more tameable beasts in general, but tie them into the game economy. Mounts need to be tamed/sold to mount sellers by players themselves. So: Sunback are only available as long as players are finding sunback and putting them on the market - that sort of thing.
• A more organic desert: caves which can become revealed or buried under dunes after a sandstorm. Maybe earthquakes in the Scoria area open up and close fissures and crevices. They don't have to be huge or expansive, but could be randomly generated one or two room enterable objects which maybe could be sources of interesting forageables, sources of water, or perhaps a hibernating beast(s) that doesn't want to be bothered. You never know until you explore it.
• Escru herding! Maybe shearing/milking side jobs.
• Examine power scaling. It feels like there is a huge gap between "easy monster" and "extremely scary" around the Vrun. Maybe this is by design, which is cool, but I could see examining the scaling and finding more middle-ground-deadly. I may also not know what I'm talking about here - I've not had many long-lived fighter/ranger characters, and it's totally possible the power-scaling is just fine, I'm just too inept to notice it. It may be worth looking at, though.

Anyway - some random thoughts I've had wandering the wastes.

[Akaramu]

Things that I think would make improvements to Vrun Driath:

• Chalton Herd SimDesert fixes.


• There probably needs to be less herd. That essentially free food, bone, horn, and hide are laying around in the desert going to waste is an issue.

It's only an issue because certain types of PC are forced to kill stuff to raise skillz, even if they have no interest in hunting.

I mentioned it before, I'll mention it again: alternate forms of training combat that are accessible to most people and don't involve mass slaughter of wild creatures, the Byn (it was never meant to be the world's combat school), or doing silly things like poking each other with sparring swords in the wilderness. This is also an issue for offpeakers since it can be hard for us to find sparring partners, and the only thing to do is 'kill animalz for skillups' without any interest in hunting, which is kind of OOC and should have no place in an RPI.

I'd also like to see new places with new types of resources to generate conflict over them.[/list]

[Ourla]

I wouldn't mind seeing improved road and route conditions throughout the Known. It's been years. This is important. Folks stay busy.

[Hauwke]

Ive never had much of an issue with the chalton herds. Except when you try to kill a single one and you get dogpiler by a dozen from other rooms, which only adds to the whole 'I have so much meat and hide I have no clue what to do with it' situation, however I normally play clanned so I just bring that stuff in and chuck it in the store room or wherever we are supposed to which alleviates that issue a lot.

Back on topic: I would add more clear markers around the place,  people have been traveling these paths for a long ass time, there has to have been at least one dude who thought to himself fuck memory and just piled a hole butt-load of stones.

[Fathi]

A long time ago we discussed the idea of a salt marsh in the Salt Flats during the Armageddon 2 days and the aesthetic has stuck out in my mind in a "that would be soooo cooool" way ever since then. I still daydream about it sometimes. Imagine pushing a little barge along the salt-marshes. So cool!

[bardlyone]

A long time ago we discussed the idea of a salt marsh in the Salt Flats during the Armageddon 2 days and the aesthetic has stuck out in my mind in a "that would be soooo cooool" way ever since then. I still daydream about it sometimes. Imagine pushing a little barge along the salt-marshes. So cool!

but can we get some argonians to do it... gith? marsh-gith?

[Erythil]

Gonna agree that a salt marsh would be really cool.  I ran an RPT to explore the Salt Flats and there is basically NOTHING out there in a GIGANTIC number of rooms.  Seems like wasted potential!

Staff, I would build this for you, if only you let me submit the descs 

[Armaddict]

There used to be stuff in it.  Heh.

[Feco]

There used to be stuff in it.  Heh.

Yeah that was wierd when that... vanished, if we're thinking the same thing.

Also guyz you aren't trying hard enough if you haven't found Steinal yet.