Saner Dungeons

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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alephnaught
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Saner Dungeons

Post by alephnaught »

Daggerfall was always a deeply flawed masterpiece with enormous unrealized potential, and the great thing about this project is it gives modders the opportunity to bring Daggerfall closer to being the game we know it could have been. Admittedly there's a fine line to walk in modernizing the game while keeping true to the spirit of the original, but there are some features - like the ludicrously labyrinthine and broken dungeons - that I don't think many of us have a lot of nostalgia for.

Given that the dungeons are procedurally generated, would it be feasible to mod the procedural generation system using a different seed and a modified rule-set to regenerate the dungeons (not the hand-crafted ones, obviously) into something a little more manageable?

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Jay_H
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Re: Saner Dungeons

Post by Jay_H »

It sounds like you're thinking of making a new landmass based on Daggerfall's rules. That fits in line with the Daggerfall Tools for Unity project, which appears to be on the backburner until Daggerfall Unity is up and running. I believe Interkarma's original goal was to allow players to create entirely new scenarios and worlds in a Daggerfall-esque pattern, so yes, what you've stated sounds likely in the future.

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LypyL
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Re: Saner Dungeons

Post by LypyL »

Given that the dungeons are procedurally generated, would it be feasible to mod the procedural generation system using a different seed and a modified rule-set to regenerate the dungeons (not the hand-crafted ones, obviously) into something a little more manageable?
I actually have a functioning dungeon generator. It doesn't work outside of Unity and there isn't much in the way of customization, so it's nothing more than a novelty for now. My plan is to do exactly what you're describing once we're further down the road.

Narf the Mouse
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Re: Saner Dungeons

Post by Narf the Mouse »

...Kids these days. :p

In my day, you put some grid paper over the CRT, and sketched the map onto that! *Shakes fist*

Spoiled, with all this automap thingies! :p
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

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Jay_H
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Re: Saner Dungeons

Post by Jay_H »

(Ancient topic but the most relevant one I could find. Thread revival!)

On Reddit I just read a discussion that piqued my interest. Apparently someone hex-edited Blocks.BSA to alter how dungeons are generated to make them smaller. It provides a now-lost download link, but there are instructions on how to reproduce it:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Daggerfall/comm ... s/cegvjgd/

Anyone programming-minded able to tell if this is a feasible thing for modding? This apparently would just make DF replace some massive dungeon blocks with simpler ones rather than reduce the number of blocks per dungeon, but it's a start.

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Interkarma
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Re: Saner Dungeons

Post by Interkarma »

It appears that he's changing the index table in BLOCKS.BSA so that offsets to large/complex blocks now reference smaller/simpler blocks instead. So when dungeon is laid out complexity is reduced overall while the actual block layout and total number of blocks remains the same.

It's an interesting approach, and something that could be used in Daggerfall Unity without too much drama. Would only need a hook into layout process for mod to change which block is injected.

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