Mining

[Voodoo_Snake]

Why would these mines have to be secret? I think the option should be there to mark the nodes on your world/area map, maybe I'm just a lazy player but once I've found something I like to go there with ease and at any time, again and again.
I like the idea of an underground mine though with a geologist having to come in and assess the area.


One thing that pisses me off royally about mining/gathering in most games is that if you spend hours and hours and HOURS gathering these resources, other than getting a rank 'x' in your journal, not much else changes. If I've put the time in, I believe that you should gain a little reward in the amount of time it takes you to gather said resource.
Say it takes a rank 1 person 5 seconds to gather 1 resource, if your the highest rank it should take you less time, ie 3 seconds.

Just my beef with grinding for resources, I imagine there is a whole world of issues that I'm not anticipating but it just jacks me off with the time spent.

[Torgrim]

Im happy if there is no "nodes" in the middle of nowhere but actual quite realistic spots.

And nothing stupid as like just becuse you are in a mountain area a node is there like a rock and you start mining it or you are in the woods and not shoping down trees like in Vanguard but hammering on a dead logs on the ground.

[Alaster]

One of the few good things about AoC was the resource bag. Hopefully this has been given thought for MO.

[woodoo]

Vote for SWG harvesting style.

[Shurt]

Originally Posted by woodoo

Vote for SWG harvesting style.

So....you want great big harvesters dotting the land depending on the location of the harvest?

[woodoo]

Originally Posted by Shurt

So....you want great big harvesters dotting the land depending on the location of the harvest?

aye, harvesters for sure, but we can discuss about their size and functionality.

[osteo]

I vote for a UO style of mining but innovated. Make it better then the old UO way of mining. Ya uo style mining was good but with today's technology it could be made way better.

[Death Saved]

Why not have vein's placed by SV which then can be turned into mines by players, also you would have to spend mats and money into the mine by reinforcing the shafts with wood or steel placing work stations also carts and other stuff.

Also if they place in that manner you would see interesting guild battles for example a guild of metal craftsmen would have to hire mercs because of there low combat skills also if the mercs discover that its a gold mine they can keep taking support from there employer until they kick out the enemy guild then refuse to hand it over.

[Somarl]

Originally Posted by Arxon Havenloft

I like it how UO did it. Walk up to a mountain or a cave and go wild. You never know what you'll get until you try it. And then the key is remembering those locations.

Of course it would be a little more difficult obtaining the higher metals because of the lack of a recall/mark system that UO had. Though I'm only guessing that there wont be recall/mark in MO, we don't really know for sure. But the mining system in UO was next to flawless in my opinion.

Wont you be able to mark stuff on your map? Then maybe it could be up to you to "share" information with party/guild members etc or just keep it to yourself.

[Arxon Havenloft]

Originally Posted by Somarl

Wont you be able to mark stuff on your map? Then maybe it could be up to you to "share" information with party/guild members etc or just keep it to yourself.

It could be likely however what I meant by difficult is that "Valorite Spot #1" (for lack of a better example) may be a 20 minute walk from "Valorite Spot #2". You get what I'm saying?

[Somarl]

Ahh i see what you mean. I suppose more precious metals would be further away but then again thats how it should be i guess. Less common "ores" all over the show.

[Jade]

I like the way UO did mining, but with some tweaking needed.
I also hate the way AoC and WOW do it.
Also the same as tree's, why do i have to spend 5 hours in a forest to find a tree that can produce wood?!!? ie AOC

You should be able to chop wood from any tree, depending on what tree you chop should depend on what wood you gather.
Same as mining, mining a mountain may just produce normal ore, but findind a gold, silver or diamond mine would be an exception, of course over a period of time or constant use this mine would deplete into normal ore or just plain rock. maybe over a long period of time the resource may return, maybe a few months in game time would surfice. allowing the more extravagant miner/woodsman to traval afar to collect rare resources for exceptional items.

resource gathering is a huge part to some gamers, prefering it to actual pvp, pve or roleplay. So it is very important to get the trade system 100% right, Old UO is a great example, im hoping in MO every item can be created, and even have an important use in the world we are going to live in.
UO had a huge amount of creatable items, some were of use others were of complete no use lol

but even items down to a smoking pipe, and herbs you can smoke for example would have a great feel to a game such as this. There are many items i could list but this was the 1st i could think of, i dont even smoke in RL so god knows why i suggested this one

[Lachrymose]

ahh mining.. brings me back to my first days playing UO as a lowly miner/blacksmith. i spent most of my first couple weeks in UO without leaving minoc very often, other than to do random exploring, getting killed, and then running back to the mines.

i totally agree jade. the mining system in UO was far better than something like WoW, where a random vein would spawn and you would know exactly what it was by looking at it.

"oh look, a big green rock. must be a fel iron vein."

i much prefer having to chip away at rocks, searching for ore, but sometimes getting only rocks and rubble. in most cases, it shouldn't be so easy to find precious ores. also, when ore "respawns" (as it will most likely have to) it shouldn't always be in the same place as it was before. like some have mentioned, i didn't like in UO how you could know that a specific spot always produces valorite, verite, etc. it should change, so people have to constantly search for those rare ores, rather than knowing exactly where to find them every time.

[Arxon Havenloft]

It would be nice if it always switched. You never know which spot would give what.. It's completely random and therefore the more you mine the more rare ore you'll get but that's the only way to get it

[Resin]

Originally Posted by Shinzon

Totaly player made would be the ideal thing. I suggest poeple take a look at Wurm Online, it is a game written in Java supporting deformable terrain and underground mining as well as house building, and extensive crafting. Give it a chance and consider that the thing is written in Java, and use it as a resource to base opinions on.

For the people that are lazy, Wurm uses a grid system with elevation maps, and players can later the elevation maps in the "Dirt Layer" it is possible to dig all of the dirt and hit the "Rock Layer" which is impossible to dig through but you can mine through it. So in essense there are 3 major height maps, the dirt, the rock and the mine height maps.

A player can choose to start mining at any single tile if the rock layer is exposed, hence the ability to form mines at any tile or location they please. But each time you start to mine it takes 30 seconds to mine, so to exhaust a vein you need 30*1000 seconds so 30 000 seconds or 8.4 hours of repeated non-stop mining.

Granted MO is going to use the UIII engine so the prospect of using a tile based system is probably out of the question, instead mine entrances can be built anywhere; space permiting, and they act much like a house in oblivion, in that if you enter the mine you are "Teleproted" inside much like in oblivion, and the layout of the mine can be pre-canned by the devs with the regular WoW veins spawning inside the actual mine, with the type determined by the geographical area; hence the previously done prospecting on the surface before the development of the mine, with a predefined spawn number; so after a while theese veins would stop spawning in; or the Wurm style veins would stop yeilding ore, forcing expansion.

Also a "Node System" can be used. A Node is the only place where a mine can be built, and each node is dev specified, this gives the devs a chance to carefully handcraft each mine, and any encounters within. This means that a mine Node can lead into a dragon layer, a river of lava, or be un-eventfull and peacefull as the dev's wish it. So a trade off, even though the placement is more limited, each node can be created into it's own adventure per the dev's will.

Once the actual mine is placed there are 2 things that can be done from the technical perspective. The first one is the mine can be dynamicaly altered by the players; the miners dig at at the mine wall and the shape the layout of the mine themselves. The second one is more mechanical but less technicaly difficult. The mines are "Hard Upgraded" in the term that the owner shells out a defined amount of resources and the mine is "Extended" to another level and size; offering more resources to be exploited.

Now you can have alot more fun with the abondoned mines, you can have timers on the mines that will "Spawn" monsters inside the mines if no player has visisted a mine after a certain amount of time. So old mines could become goblin or other monster's nests giving the player made territory a second life as a dungeon. The size or level and the gestation time can specify the difficulty of the spawned monsters. So that initial mega dwarven mine now abandoned suddenly turns home to a balrog that is now attacking the home city...

This idea rules! I think it would also be cool if some mines/tunnels could be shortcut through difficult mountainous areas. Also if they could be used as a seigeing mechanism (tunnel under walls to attack or burn the support beams to collapse entire wall) of course that would be a very long seige, but player tunneling plus player wall-building, well that sounds like a sandbox to me!

[Maxtor]

I've been watching the forums for a while now and finally decided to join, so here goes.

Shinzon's idea about spawning monsters in the dungeon sounds like a good idea. When I played TLK several years ago, in order to keep people from botting in the mines, monsters would spawn after certain amounts of time depending on your level.

In order to fight the monster you'd have to re-equip all your armor, as to mine you'd have to equip a miner's garb and pickaxe, making programmers shy away from implementing the feature into their bots. (a headache).

Mining in the game was very simple going to mine1, mine2, mine3, etc etc. Random stones would spawn everywhere, repeatedly hit with pick, and if ore came out, you took it to a blacksmith to have it turned into a bar.

For example, I mined a rock, and three "Iron ore" items drop, take it to blacksmith of appropriate level, he smelt's the three into one "Small Iron Bar", etc etc.

I personally would like to see items be player made. No NPC blacksmiths etc. It really adds depth to the game. Have a "general merchant" for basic items, etc.

We had players that would only focus on mining, and others focused on blacksmithing, and they formed unions and relied upon each other for everything. Of course, the miners and blacksmiths always had an easy time when they would fight, because they'd always have the best equipment. They might not be a high level warrior or whatever, but they had an easy time surviving.

[deathspellomega]

Originally Posted by Maxtor

Shinzon's idea about spawning monsters in the dungeon sounds like a good idea. When I played TLK several years ago, in order to keep people from botting in the mines, monsters would spawn after certain amounts of time depending on your level.

If mines are implemented, I like the idea of occational monster spawns, but NOT level dependant (skills in this matter, though).

Makes me think of Oblivion, where monster encounters was based on your level...wtf...sooooo lame

[Mathael]

Originally Posted by deathspellomega

If mines are implemented, I like the idea of occational monster spawns, but NOT level dependant (skills in this matter, though).

Makes me think of Oblivion, where monster encounters was based on your level...wtf...sooooo lame

This is a great idea, maybe day/night cycles will also affect how they react too. That is, if they are nocturnal then they would probably be out hunting during the night which gives the player an opportunity to mine without actually having to kill the monsters. Likewise, they probably wouldn't be very happy if you went during the day while they're trying to snooze.

As for Oblivion deathspellomega, there is a mod called Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul which allows the game to not scale monster levels based on the character but are predominantly set. This means that you can be level 20 and easily kill a rat but would have difficulty against more difficult creatures. I know it's off the topic but I had just discovered it and thoroughly enjoy trying it out .

[deathspellomega]

Originally Posted by Mathael

As for Oblivion deathspellomega, there is a mod called Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul which allows the game to not scale monster levels based on the character but are predominantly set. This means that you can be level 20 and easily kill a rat but would have difficulty against more difficult creatures. I know it's off the topic but I had just discovered it and thoroughly enjoy trying it out .

Yes, I know about that mod, but one cant add mods for personal pleasure in a mmorpg

But now we are off topic deluxe

[Resin]

Get back on topic you off-topicy off-topicers!

what?



I like underground mines, that have underground lakes, that lead to secret tunnels, through which you might find a hidden city, that contains a sealed crypt that unlocks a mystical portal, that releases a ......

[deathspellomega]

...techno viking?

[boblikesoup]

Incorporating a bunch of other's suggestions, I think a really good system would go like this:

You can mine rocks/mountains with a 10-30% chance of success. You can also go to a mining zone/quarry and mine with a 100% chance of success. The mines/quarries are exhaustable after, say 500-10,000 swings depending on the size/density. You have to move from spot to spot after each mining attempt because it will take like 5 minutes for the ore to respawn in that spot (though each wack in the zone depletes from the predefined mine/quarry limit). The mines will regenerate 10% of their total per day so mines near cities will be mined out very quickly. This leads to the necessity for expansion and frontier settlements or houses near mountains where a guild can accumulate wealth over time and then caravan it to a city to sell. Different mines will have different frequencies of different ores like iron, copper, and gold and even gems. A normal mine won't have any gold. A low-gold mine will have maybe a 5% chance of gold, 85% chacne iron, and 10% something else. A gold heavy mine might have a 30% chance of gold per swing. The large resource rich mines will become hottly contested zones for guilds to monopolizes the resources, so too will they be zones where player killers and theives go to hunt miners and get rich, but so to...will more powerful monster be attracted.
Monsters bands will spawn to attack caves every once in a while. They will also inhabit mines when there has been less than a 10% withdrawal in a two day time period in which case it will become something of a temporary dungeon.

I believe this system makes mining fun and dynamic. It adds a lot of depth and strategy points to the game and is also a bit more realistic than some other models. Most importantly, it calls for travel and exploration or utilization of rumors and word of mouth and player interaction to find the good spots, utilize them, and be safe.

[Resin]

I like the general premise of your suggestion and implementation, particularly the mixed ore types in a single mine or quarry.

In regards to the mobs, I would reference Lachrymoses idea of roaming mob bands. Certain mob types might want ore (such as orcs or humanoid creatures) but many might just want to rest during day (nocturnal creatures) while others are hunting miners. It would be nice if they acted intelligently only attacking when they had the advantage and only when it was fitting for their type of creature to do so.

[Arxon Havenloft]

Originally Posted by osteo

This thread is created to debate how we find out what ore we are mining? I was just woundering cuz i could not find where in the question and answers this question was asked. I hope we dont have to find a certain spawn. I hope we just have to go up to where the stone is and start chipping away at some stone. I hope we just dont have to mouse over some sparkly object and think to ourselves ooh hey heres some copper, because a tool tip window pops up and tells you what it is.

This also brings up another thing once we accumulate some mineral do we automatically know what it is? I hope someone can shed some light on this question.

Hehe, you mention a tooltip that tells you what kind of ore it is.. Well, that got my creative juices flowing.. Wouldn't it be nice if there were no tooltips to tell you what an item was? Aside from crafted items that is. That way pretty much any non-crafted item or resource in the game would have to be named by the playerbase. We'd recognize it by shape and common name only. I would really like that

Originally Posted by boblikesoup

Incorporating a bunch of other's suggestions, I think a really good system would go like this:

You can mine rocks/mountains with a 10-30% chance of success. You can also go to a mining zone/quarry and mine with a 100% chance of success. The mines/quarries are exhaustable after, say 500-10,000 swings depending on the size/density. You have to move from spot to spot after each mining attempt because it will take like 5 minutes for the ore to respawn in that spot (though each wack in the zone depletes from the predefined mine/quarry limit). The mines will regenerate 10% of their total per day so mines near cities will be mined out very quickly. This leads to the necessity for expansion and frontier settlements or houses near mountains where a guild can accumulate wealth over time and then caravan it to a city to sell. Different mines will have different frequencies of different ores like iron, copper, and gold and even gems. A normal mine won't have any gold. A low-gold mine will have maybe a 5% chance of gold, 85% chacne iron, and 10% something else. A gold heavy mine might have a 30% chance of gold per swing. The large resource rich mines will become hottly contested zones for guilds to monopolizes the resources, so too will they be zones where player killers and theives go to hunt miners and get rich, but so to...will more powerful monster be attracted.
Monsters bands will spawn to attack caves every once in a while. They will also inhabit mines when there has been less than a 10% withdrawal in a two day time period in which case it will become something of a temporary dungeon.

I believe this system makes mining fun and dynamic. It adds a lot of depth and strategy points to the game and is also a bit more realistic than some other models. Most importantly, it calls for travel and exploration or utilization of rumors and word of mouth and player interaction to find the good spots, utilize them, and be safe.

Anyways, quarries are an interesting idea and I wouldn't mind seeing them in specialized mining locations such as maybe in UO like around Minoc or something.. Placing housing units around them should be possible however these quarries should as you suggest contain a resource limit so that after enough hacks with a pickaxe the quarry is depleted and it begins to grow with wildlife as it becomes abandonned and forgotten. Caves and Mountains should always be minable as well just as they were in UO.

Having monsters spawn within mining areas in say, the UO sense wasn't so bad.. My miner rarely had trouble with the weak orc or corpser.. Now the Reapers on the other hand would tear me up if there were more than one but I was always fine with going to a different spot if I were to come across more than one in a certain spot. I just don't want to see any sort of scenario where you have to be in a group in order to mine a resource. There is no good reason to enforce the idea that a player must be in a guild in order to produce the best wares.

Also, someone mentioned being able to gather wood from any tree.. That's also something that you could do in UO. Kind of weird how every game since UO seems to have gone backwards in terms of intelligent design, isn't it? Let us hope that MO gets it right!