NOT DONE YET
Please note that what is listed here are hoped-for goals for the game, rather than what actually exists at the moment. I’ll rewrite this at a later date, hopefully after some of this is implemented. The schematics mentioned here refer to areas of the maps hand-crafted in an external map editor.
The game’s world is for the most part procedurally generated, consisting of biomes, towns, safe zones, roads, dungeon doors, etc. In addition to this, the world is broken up into difficulty regions. The difficulty at any point can be determined from an onscreen display, and is often a significant factor in what is found nearby.
The Overworld
The overworld consists of different biomes including mountains, oceans, plains, etc. Different sections are also given difficulty ratings, from zero (for towns, safe zones, etc.) upwards. The difficulty ratings are fixed, meaning that you can be easily outgunned in a dangerous area, so it’s a good idea to keep track of the ratings as you explore. Dungeon entrances are also found throughout the overworld.
Towns and Safe Zones
Towns and safe zones are created in the world to provide places for players to heal their characters and restock their inventories, but this may not be available at all locations. The most prominent town is called “Root Town”, where the newly created characters begin the game. This town is for the most part quite large, having all available facilities available, as well as a large town square and a teleportation device.
Root Town is identical in every server, since it is loaded from a schematic. Other towns are much smaller and often generated.
Roads
Throughout the overworld, roads criss-cross the various biomes allowing fast and relatively safe travel between important areas like towns and legendary dungeons, etc. The further away from a town (especially Root Town) you travel, the fewer roads are available, forcing players to travel though dangerous areas.
Dungeons
Scattered around the overworld are several types of “dungeons”. Uniquely themed monsters and items can be found inside, and they usually have one final “boss” monster that drops the biggest reward. Each dungeon has a specific difficulty rating, based partially on its location.
Each area inside a dungeon is procedurally generated, based on various factors including the dungeon’s type, difficulty rating, how deep the player is, where in the world the dungeon is located, etc. The locations of these dungeons are generated by the overworld algorithm; there are also unique “legendary” dungeons that are guaranteed to spawn with certain parameters, and may be entirely loaded from schematics.
Ruins
The ruins are the remains of an ancient civilization. Their structures have multiple underground levels, with sprawling corridors and halls honeycombing through the ground. There are also symbols written in certain locations, hinting at an ancient language.
The ruins are the most Rogue-like inspired dungeons, taking inspiration from traditional dungeon generators. The separate floors of a ruin may be accomplished by teleporting between great distances in a single room object.
Towers
Towers are gauntlet-style challenges that get progressively harder the higher you go. Each level in a tower is a single room, but it has its own enemies and challenges. Towers are fairly rare, and are designed as a challenge for higher-level characters. Death is entirely possible here, and exiting the tower is not possible from all floors.
The tower dungeons may not need a complex map generator. Instead they can simply be a series of combat instances strung together, or consist of simple round rooms filled with combat portals that get progressively harder the higher you get.
Forests
Forests take up actual space in the overworld, possibly forming natural barriers, but their internals do exist in their own instance. They can be bigger on the inside than the outside, they may have multiple exits, and their internal doors don’t need to precisely correspond to their external ones.
The Forests are single levels, with a mazelike structure containing plant-based and poisonous enemy types. There could be a variation to forests with a swamp theme.
Caves
Caves have several exits, often extremely far apart from each other, with the cave acting as a fast transit system. However, like other dungeons, caves also have dangerous obstacles, and must be explored to reach the other end.
Caves are single room tunnel systems, and can branch apart in several locations. They may prove to be the most difficult to program, since each entrance for each cave needs to be present in the overworld’s generation algorithm, and each entrance can possibly trigger the internal generators. Forests have a similar problem, but cave doors are not connected by any overworld object, and may in fact be separated by several kilometres.
Legendary Dungeons
Legendary dungeons are special cases in the overall generation algorithm. These unique locations are guaranteed to spawn with certain features in every server, and are often loaded partially or wholly from schematics. These legendary dungeons are connected to the game’s story or lore.
The first legendary dungeon is “Beginner’s Hall”, a ruins-type dungeon whose entrance is located at the outskirts of Root Town. This dungeon is schematic based, and provides new characters with basic equipment and items at predefined points.
Another possible Legendary Dungeon could be “The Ringed Fortress”, which is surrounded by impassable cliffs. To access The Ringed Fortress, you must first pass through a cave dungeon that exits inside the ring. The algorithm for creating this scenario would be particularly difficult, even if it’s partially schematic-based; nonetheless it would be a fantastic endgame- goal, and well worth the effort.