New Wyvern Terrain

[kiez]

Well, since the servers are currently down, this seems like as good a time as ever to put up this suggestion. For a long time, I have wondered why there are no lava RDs (that I know of). However, that is not my suggestion, While it is cool, that strikes me as simply too dangerous. Anyway, that thought led me to a question, what would the breakable walls be in a lava RD? I couldn't really think of any material in the game that would make sense both as something that would fit the theme, and as something that would make sense as something that would be difficult to break in reality. So I thought, why not make a new material? Hence my suggestion.

Obsidian

I think this would be an interesting addition for several reasons, and here are a few. For one, it fits well with the theme. After all, obsidian is a compound formed by intense heat, and is almost always found/created by fire, specifically lave. Secondly, it has a very "adventuring" feel to it, and for no small reason. Obsidian is considered a "dark" stone. Ever heard of "Dark Towers" in any mythological based story? You can bet that it was probably made of obsidian. So, in terms of the "feel" of it, obsidian is a good fit with the overall scope of Wyvern. Last, it could be used practically in caves and dungeons as something to hide hidden rooms as opposed to a false wall like is the norm.

My thought for how it would work is, it would essentially be the same as breakable dirt, with a few differences. For one, instead of being clearly discernable as a breakable wall, it should look nearly the same as cave walls, in order to fully utilize its function as a "hiding wall" so to speak. Since obsidian is generally a very tough material due to its high viscosity, it would be cool to see it be a liitle more difficult to break through than dirt.

That's pretty much it. Although I had some ideas for Obsidian Weaponry, I figure weapons have been thought out to death, so I will not post that. Any feedback would be nice, although please do at least a quick Wikipedia search on what Obsidian is before commenting, as my thought is not to chalk it up to be some magical stone full of power -Wyvern has enough stuff filled with grand power to last a lifetime. Most of us just don't search enough. But rather my thought is to introduce a simple landscape feature that can be put in the game to fill in the lack of breakable walls in lava areas. Although who knows, a discussion on introducing obsidian into the game could lead to Obsidian Weapons, Drags, Gems, and a ton of other ideas that could help spice up lava filled maps a little more.

[jezrald]

I like the core simplicity of this idea: add a new material. And the simplicity with which it can be started is also good: just add a new wall type, much like dirt walls, but with different images and, perhaps, different characteristic HP ranges.

Any thoughts on resistances? I'd say it should be very highly resistant to fire, perhaps slightly resistant to cold, as well as low to moderate resistance to shock damage. Not exactly sure what's normal for dirt walls, but I'd say heavy pierce resist, 0 or even negative smash resist, and low or non-existent cut resist. (And, of course, must be destroyed without too much difficulty by the Digging and Excavation spells, although it's likely to be tougher than normal dirt walls.)

[kiez]

My thoughts are definitely pro fire resist and weapon resist. I don't know about cold, but considering it is a mineral, shock resist seems like a good idea. I think dig and excavation spells maybe shouldn't work too easily, since you don't really "dig" for obsidian rather than mine it.

[jezrald]

Well, granted, they should definitely take longer (maybe a lot longer) than on dirt, but they should actually work, that's pretty much all I meant :P

[kiez]

I agree with you on that point. I even thought that it might drop obsidian as loot, rarely, which could be sold. Or forged. Or not.

[Rarkvar]

Did that in about five minutes.
I like the color, but as you said there would have to be a different image, seeing as how I doubt obsidian would form in a solid square such as the earth walls.

As for the resists, come on guys, its a wall, in a random dungeon? It shouldn't be impossible to destroy.

The standard (or at least in the map editor) hp for an earth wall is 30, so if that is true (in some instances it is not) then changing that value to probably 500 would be more realistic, maybe 1,000 tops. As for fire resists, its a mineral made from fire, that is hardened when cooled if my understanding is correct, so why would it be massively resistant to fire? Obsidian weapons would have to be smelted down with lava. A 30% fire resist would be decent for this. It is a stone forged from fire, so it could have maybe 70% cold resists. As for shock, 60% seems fair. Sure its electricity, but theres a difference in hooking wire to an obsidian rock and sending volts of electricity to it, and hurling a bolt of lighting at a rock. I'm sure it would explode.

As for the melee resists, 75% smash resists, 50% stab/pierce, and 25% cut resists.

None to acid of course, seeing as how I'm sure acid could disintegrate the obsidian.

As far as weaponry goes, my idea would be, stronger than an ember weapon, weaker than a ruby weapon. Will obviously deal fire damage.

Thoughts?

[kiez]

I love it! Oh my gosh that is cool! My thoughts, if weaponry is to be dragged into this, (oops, I didn't mean to start that), they should be relatively weak, but light, and MAYBE deal fire damage. I say maybe, because my thoughts when starting this were to instead have it increase Find Weakness or do something that is the equivalent, because of the following reason. Obsidian is a tough material whose strength means that it can be made into a blade that is incredibly thin. It is currently being used in surgery because of this. As a result of its thinness, it can slip through armor. Thus, I am now thinking instead of +FW, it could negate some armor. With this benefit, I would think that adding fire damage could be overpowered. Either way, if weapons were to be made, I think the thinness could mean that it is one handed, but is not very durable.

Back to your map image. WOW! That is awesome!

[Frosten]

This sounds a ton like a themed RD, which is something that I know the wizards have stated is something they would like to implement. before anything can happen, the RD code has to be fixed up some apparently such that they do not grant such a massive amount of xp/gold.

[kiez]

While it certainly stemmed from the idea of an RD, it could potentially lead other places. It could have two forms. RD obsidian, which resembles cave walls, and "other" obsidian. It does not have to be applied only to RDs. Let your imagination take you wherever it leads. As I said, new monsters, weapons, loot, spells to help you mine it, quests using its mythological notoriety as a central theme, simple decoration, and yes, RDs. The possibilities are not endless, but there are certainly a lot of them!

[Rarkvar]

Well mithril is known for being light, so wouldn't it be the same?
From a weaponry perspective if it is to be light and one handed such as mithril, I feel it should be 25% more durable than mithril, and perhaps it should attack quicker?

My outlook on the two, these are made up stats by myself, just to help make my opinion more clear.

mithril sword__
hp: 100
attackpower: 25
speed: 50
weight: 2.5ibs

obsidian sword__
hp: 70
attackpower: 20
speed: 75
weight: 1.75ibs

The way I see this going would be that a mithril sword is stronger, and more durable. You would be smart carrying three of these with you.
As for obsidian, they are weaker, but the light weight allows for a higher attack speed. You would be smart to carry five of these with you.

In a way, it's the same weapon, so it relies on character preference in speed/strength. Mithril would probably be the cheaper/better choice.

And this thread is about the terrain right? Or is it about the inclusion of Obsidian into the game in general? IE, obsidian terrain, obsidian weaponry/armor, obsidian golems, idk. The works.

Oh, and as for the image, a desaturation and brightness of -190% and a contrast of 20% works wonders apparently...

[kiez]

The terrain is my main thought, although I won't restrict other ideas. I am already actively participating in them. Other ideas may need more hashing out than the terrain after all. As far as your weapon stuff, I completely agree, although we must be careful not to make Size and Weight the same. Obsidian is a VERY dense substance, so maybe its size doesn't direct the weight.

[Rarkvar]

Originally Posted by Frosten

This sounds a ton like a themed RD, which is something that I know the wizards have stated is something they would like to implement. before anything can happen, the RD code has to be fixed up some apparently such that they do not grant such a massive amount of xp/gold.

Remove reapers, problem solved. Oh, they give too much money now? Change the frequency of the loot drops in medusa and xipe totec drops.

I find it much harder to RD than to run through AV, so I don't see the problem.
In AV I guarantee someone will make 3x more money that I will in one RD run, at a fraction of the risk. Seeing as how you can go down the stairs and be death ray'd before you see what was there, compared to an occasional beholder or two.

Maybe it's the fact that mages can go down the stairs, blast, and go back up? Why not make the stair room a safe room where no monsters can enter, and no spells can be cast once inside?

That wouldn't work due to the fact that players could simply pull monsters back to the room and kill them like they would in a shop. Maybe just have the stairs set as a no monster/no spell zone. I don't think I've seen monsters on the stairs at all, so why not spells? It seems as if most of the common mid-high level monsters have been randomly generated with other monsters. Meaning, I see more black knights than I used to.

[kiez]

Or we could keep this thread on topic in some minimum sense of the phrase. XD

[Rarkvar]

Originally Posted by kiez

Or we could keep this thread on topic in some minimum sense of the phrase. XD

I completely agree. I'm still waiting to see if anyone has anything to say about the obsidian wall resistances that I posted in what, my first post lol.

[kiez]

Hahahaha!!! I am too.

[jezrald]

Originally Posted by Rarkvar

I completely agree. I'm still waiting to see if anyone has anything to say about the obsidian wall resistances that I posted in what, my first post lol.

TBH, those are higher than I was thinking in most cases :P

But I'm pretty sure you have a considerably better idea than I what the resists for a new diggable wall type should be....

[kiez]

In case uploading the image later on in this post does not work: http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/...ianExample.png

Well, I am going to go back a little, and provide an example of what it could be used for before we start deciding what Obsidian's properties are. Here is an example of how it could be used in a quest. Say the information you have at the moment is that somebody is missing an orb that keeps monsters at bay, thus the entire town is being ransacked. You need to collect the orb. You have been told that a "Very Powerful Monster" grabbed it from the "Keeper of the Key" and hid it in its cave. You go through the cave, and find a door that is locked, but nothing unlocks it, so you continue. You get to what you think is at the end of the cave and find this map. Demon Lord. Very Powerful. Possibly the area with the orb or the key. Then you find obsidian (Marked by the "H"s) and dig through it, revealing the key. You run back and find the door. Little do you know, the DL's cave is a double fake, as there are two sets of obsidian, and the second leads to the final room, concealing the orb, as the "key" was a red herring, and the obsidian was used to hide rooms (Notice the second obsidian passage is just long enough to make X-Ray vision useless).



You may think, "Why not just use fake walls instead? This is a good question, and my answer is simply "continuity". I don't know about everybody else, but when I find fake walls, it strikes me as odd that I can just "Walk through" something that I can clearly see. There is also the fact that maybe obsidian could drop obsidian as a material, and requires digging through, so you can't just ignore the DL and run through the first set of obsidian (I am of course, referring to this map, specifically), hiding from the monster. Notice that I set up No-Spell zones so that the DL cannot be spell-spammed from safety either .

And this is just one way it could be used. Anybody who has other ideas should most certainly feel free to post maps and explanations as well.

[goonyton]

Have you guys ever seen obsidian? It is glass. Yes, it is extremely sharp. Give me 10 minutes and I can knap you a knife out of it that is sharper than steel. Depending on what you are cutting it wears down pretty fast though and if hit wrong shatters. It is hard to attach to a handle, so most of the time you end up holding a piece of glass in your hand with 1 sharp edge on the side away from your hand.

For stats think glass.

Easy to smash, very hard to cut or pierce. Shock has no effect, Fire no effect until you get it extremely hot and it sort of bubbles and melts. Cold makes it more brittal, but in itself does not damage it.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling.

[kiez]

Yes, obsidian is basically glass, but that isn't the point here. However, its properties are ones I would agree with you on.

[goonyton]

Originally Posted by kiez

Yes, obsidian is basically glass, but that isn't the point here. However, its properties are ones I would agree with you on.

You were wanting stats, I help fill that in. Yes weapons can and have been made out of it. When figuring how the weapons work, keep in mind glass. For special items obsidian does has it place, including uses in the real world. You need a special weapon to kill a certain quest monster because its hide is too strong obsidian would be a good choice. Also might be a good choice for a special tool in preparing hides where you need a very sharp, but not very durable knife.

I agree with you on the walls a new type of breakable wall that looks like the rest of the wall. That would be a nice addition.