Author Topic: Mining  (Read 6846 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Mongo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
  • Attack: 91
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • My Loony Bun is Fine
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 29
    Badges: (View All)
    Sixth year Anniversary 10 Poll Votes Fifth year Anniversary
Mining
« on: April 24, 2012, 08:11:21 am »
Mining was a hugely popular part of RPGWO. It was fun but after a server had been up for a few weeks, most of the underground was just tunnels everywhere with all the major veins mined out. You have to wade through the sea of granite and dirt on the ground to find one or two ore that wasn't mined out.

I'm wondering what your plans are for mining.

I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) in V1/V2, when an ore vein location was created, it stayed there for the duration. Meaning, if you mined gold in position X,Y, then the cave filled back in, position X,Y would still have gold.

If mining is to stay at the same speed as V1/V2, then I think something has to change. Once you got to a decent mining level, you could just walk through walls without a care in the world (except stamina), plowing through the underground. This makes two problems:
1) The underground is now a horrible mess of ore no one wants
2) The server needs to work harder to do cave-ins and respawn all that ore no one wants

I think somehow mining needs to be slowed down. I remember there were underground graves that you could accidentally stumble on.. which almost always meant you would just die. I like the concept but I feel like something was off there.

Ore veins were neat.. was nice to know that if you found one copper, there were probably a couple more around.


So my thoughts, summarized:
Randomize ore spawn locations. Might make the veins harder to generate, for sure.
Cave-ins more often. Maybe players need support struts to prevent a cave-in.
Slow mining down to prevent a single player from mining across a whole sector in a couple minutes.
Shoop!

Offline Zachariel

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 189
  • Attack: 89
    Defense: 88
    Attack Member
  • Karma: -10
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 17
    Badges: (View All)
    Windows User Topic Starter Combination
Re: Mining
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2012, 09:03:00 am »
Whenever implementing features, the only question a designer must
always ask is: "Is it fun?"
If a feature is not fun, then what is the point in implementing it in
a game?
What you are suggesting is called Balance Compensation and all successful
studios stay away from it as if it was nuclear waste.

While it is true that mining must not make a game too unbalanced,
the features that define mining (or any other aspect for that matter)
must not be set in place to limit a player, but to create alternative routes
from which the player can then choose from.

Instead of tweaking mining, the whole underground implementation
should be re-designed.
The UG should be in the same "mapspace" than the surface world.
Meaning, you don't need cave entrances or exits - you just walk into
a cave, if there is one.
This also means, that when you are mining underground and the ground
on top is in declining slope, you will reach the surface level when digging
out the cave wall that is one height level lower than the surface level.

This causes seamless transitions and enables monsters from caves enter
the surface world. This in turn enables night-prowling monsters to exit
caves at night and is a good feature for a horror survival game.

Mine veins should be generated once when the server generates the world.
After that, when an ore is mined and cave-in caused, the tunnel is filled
with the surface material the ground above has, meaning that the topmost level
cave-ins will be dirt, which can be easily removed with a shovel.
Mined ore is not regenerated with a cave-in.

Now, there should be multiple UG levels. Maybe 10, but should be easily configurable
in the server cfg. Having multiple UG levels increases the
ore available to the player, but, as the depth increases, the rock density increases,
and the player has to use better tools (and maybe more time)
to excavate deeper levels, making the player carefully consider if he should
mine horizontally in the easy upper level or mine down vertically into more
tough rock for, say, diamonds.

This system also means, that it is possible to create open-pit mines down
to the most bottom level.
Also, when there is a cave-in at lower levels, all of the unfortified stone above
will cave-in and cause the ore in, say, level 5, to fall down to level 7, if
that is where the cave-in originated.

This also allows to cause damage with earthquakes and other natural disasters
like volcanoes.

In conclusion, the whole underground levels implementation should be redone,
instead of just tweaking the classical system hoping for a better result.
The current classical implementation is sub-par for RPGWO reincarnate.

Also, this system provides enough ore, if the player is willing to put effort in it
and makes it tougher to mine new ore.
Also, to prevent server resets, ore veins should regenerate in land plots which
have not been mined for a long time, say 1 real time month.

This allows new players to find ore in the easy upper levels of UG, if they
wander around enough.

If there is going to be a newb town or island, the ore should always regenerate
for training purposes.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 09:07:12 am by Zachariel »

Offline Mongo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
  • Attack: 91
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • My Loony Bun is Fine
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 29
    Badges: (View All)
    Sixth year Anniversary 10 Poll Votes Fifth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2012, 09:13:58 am »
This is one hell of a re-work. You're suggesting adding another axis instead of using the simulated depth with the 'levels'. Interesting.

How would you mine up? Would you carry a ton of ladders with you to get up/down levels? Could you fall/jump? This affects the entire game, not just mining .. and should be thought over very carefully before pursuing.
Shoop!

Offline Greatest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1330
  • Attack: 161
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 9
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm better than you!
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 38
    Badges: (View All)
    Linux User Mobile User Tenth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2012, 10:32:54 pm »
@Zach who said anything about a horror survival game?  RPGWO has never had any horror or survival aspects(except for maybe 2 servers and those weren't too popular), stop trying to turn this game into something it isn't.  this isn't HnH where you get tons of ore from 1 spot, here its 1 ore per spot so underground has to respawn(as it always has) or there would be nothing left in a few weeks.

@Mongo I see your point, when you're in a highly populated area(usually near a town) everything will be dug out and take forever to respawn.  faster respawns for minable tiles could fix that, or just cause a huge problem for people trying to build a house.  the part about random ore respawning would fix the gold vein left unsurfaced in someone's house that they constantly mine(I've had several of those).  I see no reason to slow mining down, most people who go straight across a sector are usually looking for a vein of some type of ore and zig zagging across a sector is usually the best way to find anything worth keeping...

as far as unearthed graves, those were the 1 thing implemented in this game that almost made me quit.  as you said you find one you die.  the thing about the economy of any mmorpg is that higher risk(such as fighting) gives more reward than safer things such as crafting, if theres an insta-death option for mining and you need to mine to smith(unless you buy your ore, and who would do that) it means you have far higher risk and still have the same reward...it makes no sense
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline @@Admin Nash

Re: Mining
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2012, 10:43:02 pm »
Cave-Ins + Unearthed Graves made mining horrible and not fun lol

Offline Greatest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1330
  • Attack: 161
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 9
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm better than you!
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 38
    Badges: (View All)
    Linux User Mobile User Tenth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2012, 10:48:19 pm »
Cave-Ins + Unearthed Graves made mining horrible and not fun lol
pfft I liked cave-ins.  find a good vein, mine it carefully with no support(straight line without mining the wall near it) then toss on some armor and force it to cave in and get more of the same ore...its how I got the gold for my mule land and trader in under 10 minutes way back on Arc Reborn(server where UT first added cave-ins).

but I think Mongo was referring to the minable area respawning, not an actual cave-in
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline Mongo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
  • Attack: 91
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • My Loony Bun is Fine
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 29
    Badges: (View All)
    Sixth year Anniversary 10 Poll Votes Fifth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2012, 07:45:46 am »
but I think Mongo was referring to the minable area respawning, not an actual cave-in

Both, actually.
Shoop!

Offline Novibear

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 170
  • Attack: 89
    Defense: 90
    Attack Member
  • Karma: -22
  • Gender: Male
  • He who should be named
    • MSN Messenger - osiris8762@msn.com
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 23
    Badges: (View All)
    Fifth year Anniversary Karma Bad Level 5
Re: Mining
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2012, 08:11:48 am »
I never really got into mining mainly because i never get far but so far sounds good folks
I play on and off

Where'd everyone go!?

Offline Mongo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
  • Attack: 91
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • My Loony Bun is Fine
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 29
    Badges: (View All)
    Sixth year Anniversary 10 Poll Votes Fifth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2012, 10:38:27 am »
Instead of tweaking mining, the whole underground implementation
should be re-designed.
The UG should be in the same "mapspace" than the surface world.
Meaning, you don't need cave entrances or exits - you just walk into
a cave, if there is one.
This also means, that when you are mining underground and the ground
on top is in declining slope, you will reach the surface level when digging
out the cave wall that is one height level lower than the surface level.

Thinking about this more and more, I don't know why this wouldn't be possible. The biggest change would be you would have to allow people to dig in ways they cant in V1/V2. Before, players could only dig in such a way that the land would be sloping uniformly - you couldn't make a cliff/sharp drop. If players could dig in any direction or manner, you could dig into the side of the mountain and make it a sharp drop. Dig again to start going into the mountain. Now you have a tunnel.

The other change would be configuring the layers of the world. Already there were tons of layers.. just make it so you can dig below elevation 0.

Everything above elevation 0 would be dirt
Everything below would be ore (Or water, I suppose).

Shoop!

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: Mining
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2012, 11:34:06 am »
Well, it sounds like a Minecraft type map. A 3D map, X, Y and Z, connnected and all shown together, not as seperate levels. I'll have to draw a picture and think about how to implement somethin glike that. It would be neat looking.
You may have conquered my worlds, but I destroyed them!

Offline Mongo

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 449
  • Attack: 91
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 16
  • Gender: Male
  • My Loony Bun is Fine
    • View Profile
    • Email

  • Total Badges: 29
    Badges: (View All)
    Sixth year Anniversary 10 Poll Votes Fifth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2012, 12:22:05 pm »
Well how is it different from the above ground in V1/V2? You had multiple layers there, only difference is they were all dirt.
Shoop!

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: Mining
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2012, 12:42:27 pm »
Probably not gonna change much to the levels.
But what about the ore veins and locations. Right now you can find everyone every where. What about tieing ore to geological surface structures or something? Of tie them to world latitude or elevation or underground level?
You may have conquered my worlds, but I destroyed them!

Offline Greatest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1330
  • Attack: 161
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 9
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm better than you!
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 38
    Badges: (View All)
    Linux User Mobile User Tenth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2012, 01:47:30 pm »
Probably not gonna change much to the levels.
But what about the ore veins and locations. Right now you can find everyone every where. What about tieing ore to geological surface structures or something? Of tie them to world latitude or elevation or underground level?
ewww...

though its more realistic I think its alot more work for the players.  just imagine a guy with 10 quickness having to walk 3 sectors to mine a type of ore.  I could see less of a certain type of ore in an area, but having an area completely missing a type would be rough. 

using the underground level could be a fun twist also, less of the crappy ore the deeper you are, but less of the good stuff on the upper levels.  since its harder to mine on the deeper levels it means finding a good ore on the upper levels will be more 'rewarding'. 

looking at it that way, I'd like to offer another change to mining.  currently your mining level decides whether you can mine something or not, I don't see how that would really work(you hit something enough times its going to break eventually).  I'd like a change to mining level determining how much stamina it takes to mine an ore.  for example an ore that takes 60 skill to mine, at 50 skill it may take 35(?) stamina while at 120(guessing double skill would be max bonus for mining) it would only take 5.  I don't have a mathmatical formula for it, but it probably needs 1 :P
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline Tokoshoran

Re: Mining
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2012, 04:02:37 pm »
The problem with the idea of the Minecraft style quarries is, as stated before, water. When you dig low enough, you hit water.

But I don't like the idea of being able to mine anything at any skill level. You say that you should be able to break through to the ore--well, keep in mind there are all sorts of different types of materials in the world, the ore could easily be hidden inside some harder to break ones.

Besides, I would much rather have an ore that takes a hundred tries to get out than one that BREAKS due to mining it wrong.

Offline Tokoshoran

Re: Mining
« Reply #14 on: May 13, 2012, 04:13:52 pm »
Although, that is an option. Having the underground wall release a broken ore if your level's too low to mine it properly would help get an area dug out... and could possibly be made so that four broken ores would smith into a full one.

Offline Greatest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1330
  • Attack: 161
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 9
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm better than you!
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 38
    Badges: (View All)
    Linux User Mobile User Tenth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2012, 07:05:34 pm »
you know, you can't really break ore.  if you've ever seen a mining operation you'll notice depending on material being mined they take big chunks and dust.  think about gold dust, you don't leave it just because its not a nugget, and iron powder is the easiest way to make steel(small scale not industrial megaproduction).  also dirt may be packed really tight, but no way in hell its packed so tight you can't mine it.  I can see having trouble getting through bedrock in some places, but most mining takes place above or below the bedrock.  if its below they'll blast a hole through it for a shaft since bedrock is just stone, and stone can be more easilly obtained from a quarry on the surface.

easy way to realize this is modern mining techniques, they bring in machines that pretty much shred everything down to fine particles so they can be more easilly seperated...
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline Tokoshoran

Re: Mining
« Reply #16 on: May 13, 2012, 09:59:52 pm »
Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock? You'd have denser bedrock around the harder ores, whereas when you just dig up dirt, that's all you're doing is digging dirt. (In the event of Rebirth, you're breaking up not-quite-bedrock rock)

Offline Greatest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1330
  • Attack: 161
    Defense: 91
    Attack Member
  • Karma: 9
  • Gender: Male
  • I'm better than you!
    • View Profile

  • Total Badges: 38
    Badges: (View All)
    Linux User Mobile User Tenth year Anniversary
Re: Mining
« Reply #17 on: May 14, 2012, 06:26:18 am »
Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock. 
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline Tokoshoran

Re: Mining
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2012, 11:35:41 am »
Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock. 

Let me point out that this isn't our world we're talking about. What applies to our world may not apply to other inhabitable worlds. This is a world where magic and golems exist.

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: Mining
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2012, 01:13:31 pm »
Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock. 

Keep in mind that "rock" can be just about any mineral or ore. But for our purposes, it either volcanic based granite or water born limestone. Either formed when the planet cooled or over millions of years of sedimentation. Anyways, rock covers it all, heh.
Granite I believe covers it for us.
You may have conquered my worlds, but I destroyed them!

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
11 Replies
3128 Views
Last post October 23, 2009, 02:16:47 pm
by xadves
25 Replies
6625 Views
Last post November 02, 2013, 02:48:15 pm
by Mickey Kudlo
4 Replies
2660 Views
Last post November 12, 2013, 04:53:08 pm
by Mickey Kudlo
12 Replies
2534 Views
Last post May 02, 2017, 12:57:28 am
by Greatest
Mining

Started by Tommy RPGWO V3

4 Replies
1361 Views
Last post June 06, 2017, 03:02:26 pm
by Mickey Kudlo