Big, Big Dungeons

I've been playing several characters through the first part of U6P and let's just say that the dungeons in this game are immense. Most people have played at least one of the Ultima games, so I don't think it's much of a spoiler to at least name one. I've been in the dungeon called Despise for over 4 hours real time. Why? Because it's very dark, with twisty winding passageways. It's 4 huge levels deep and you don't wanna just go running around in case of death. What a hoot!

The Nehrim Oblivion mod has some really big dungeons. I am not that far in, but the starting dungeon was great, and apparently they are all pretty big, pretty good, and pretty unique - I am looking forward to checking them out. Commercial releases seem to shy away from big dungeons compared to fan projects, it seems. At least since Arx Fatalis...

I didn't care for Arx because you were ALWAYS underground. It just seemed like a cheap way to save money in Dev costs. @GBG, do you have an outer world in the Nehrim game? Can you give a quickie overview of what the mod is about?

Yes it does, about the size of Oblivion although apparently not quite as full (haven't explored much yet myself). Unfortunately it gives me a bit of trouble, as it is more taxing on the system than vanilla Oblivion.

There is a translation of an extensive german review here:
http://sureai.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1498

English subtitles should be available soon.

MM6 had some big ones, too. The final one with all the Cuisinarts (Tomb of Varn?) was a gauntlet-and-a-half. For that matter MM7 had a fairly long one as well with the tunnel to Nighon. Ascension Peak in Wiz8 wasn't a complex map at all, but it was a pretty tough slog.

I'm having a love hate relationship with the U6P dungeons. If nothing else, you have to marvel at the level of complexity that went into designing them. They truly are massive and you can spend hours upon hours just wandering around.

However, due to the limited availability of in game maps for the subteranean areas (they all exist, but finding them is damn near impossible some times), the inability (not sure if it's purposeful or a limit of the DS engine) to see you location on those maps, and no 'fog of war' on the maps, it makes navigating them, when you need to find something specific, very, very challenging.

I tried drawing some of my own maps (like the old days), but it's pretty tough given the detail and size of them. I found myself completely lost in the sewers more than once and had to teleport back to the throne room and try again. Due to the proximity of the throne room to the sewers, that's not a bad solution, but that doesn't work on most of the dungeons that aren't located right near shrines or moongates.

One thing I did to make my life a little easier down there, which some probably consider a cheat, is to crank up the gamma correction on the display settings. It washes out the shadows and such a lot, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to navigate around.

Despite all my complaining though, I'm totally loving it!

Crypt Isle in Wizardry 7 was pretty epic.
To get inside, as well as progress through it, player needed to use items acquired in entirely different parts of the world, near the end of it there was a solution to the (otherwise unsolvable) puzzle found elsewhere, it was filled with traps and tough opponents as well as with some optional supertoughies, contained a segment that consisted of 8 levels filled with vertical teleports as well as some totally dark areas, and to begin the endgame sequence at its very end, one needed to fully progress through a different sequence far away.
Basically a big unspoken endgame hub where all efforts from the other parts of the world were coming into fruition.
Of course, given the highly open ended nature of the game, one could discover the isle relatively early (say half-way through), but making it through to the end was an entirely different matter which is what made it so epic.

Map Cheat-spoiler ahead.

@blatantninja-you're more patient than I am. I just opened the console and gave myself the maps. If you wish to do this yourself, just press enter to open the chat box, type "+debug on" and press enter, type "u6p_despise1_map" and press enter.
You can do this for all the prime dungeons. The other dungeons use a little bit different lingo, but you've got the gist. Once you have the maps and can pin to your hearts content, getting lost is no longer as big of an issue. It's still possible though. The resolution of the game makes the maps kinda hard to read, but much better than just a peering gem.

dteowner said:

MM6 had some big ones, too. The final one with all the Cuisinarts (Tomb of Varn?) was a gauntlet-and-a-half.

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Ugh, I remember that was a killer. It was made worse for me because at that point in the game I was really ready to be done despite that I had enjoyed the title overall.

crpgnut said:

Map Cheat-spoiler ahead.

@blatantninja-you're more patient than I am. I just opened the console and gave myself the maps. If you wish to do this yourself, just press enter to open the chat box, type "+debug on" and press enter, type "u6p_despise1_map" and press enter.
You can do this for all the prime dungeons. The other dungeons use a little bit different lingo, but you've got the gist. Once you have the maps and can pin to your hearts content, getting lost is no longer as big of an issue. It's still possible though. The resolution of the game makes the maps kinda hard to read, but much better than just a peering gem.

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Yeah, I actually finally broke down and did that cheat in the sewers when I couldn't find the place you are looking down there. That said, I still have trouble discerning what is a path and what is solid rock on those maps most of the time. I thought about raiding the lyceum for books and using them as breadcrumbs, pinning where I think I am on the map with the name of the book.

How do you guys feel about huge dungeons? a do or a no go?

and how big is too big?

I was in love with Daggerfall's endless dungeons. I remember spending hours and hours in each trying to reach every nook and cranny. I had tons of time back then in comparison to now. But yes. If they are well designed and interesting (W7 is prime example) it's great. I wouldn't be that interested in daggerfall's style of dynamically generated yet self-similar ones nowaday.

I think what I am interested more than before is if they are well-crafted. If I think back to times of Dungeon Master, there was tons of stuff to do and explore even if the visuals were always the same.

Ouch, I am being sentimental and nostalgic.

GothicGothicness said:

How do you guys feel about huge dungeons? a do or a no go?

and how big is too big?

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I don't think there is any one answer. A large dungeon just for the sake of having a large dungeon is probably not a good idea, but if you can fill it with interesting (and non-repetitive) things that add to the experience, it is a good idea.


One thing I loved about Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale was that the subterranean spaces were extremely large in many cases, but each was unique, had some sub-quest attached to it, and filled with interesting places and things. I had a blast exploring them just to see what was next!

To sum up, the dungeons should be fun, not work, and that can be accomplished by both large and small dungeons.

Bigger is better. Like PoR:RoMD, right Todd?

In Pools of Radiance 2, the ungeons were simply ugly, because they were so empty, and at the same time so complicated to reach.

For an explorer-type of player like me, this game is a nightmare. Nothing to find, but lots of kilometres of tunnels to explore.

Ha, I was the original playtester on all those U6P dungeons right After Alfie created them. He'd send me a message and I'd trot in to try them out. He always hoped I'd get totally lost and have to beg for help. I managed to wend my way through them, much to his disappointment!! I think he tried to make them even tougher after that.

GothicGothicness said:

How do you guys feel about huge dungeons? a do or a no go?

and how big is too big?

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I'm not too fond of big dungeons. In most games, they are simply repetitive and boring. I didn't mind them in M&M6, though.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

In Pools of Radiance 2, the ungeons were simply ugly, because they were so empty, and at the same time so complicated to reach.

For an explorer-type of player like me, this game is a nightmare. Nothing to find, but lots of kilometres of tunnels to explore.

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I found lot of stuff and enemies in those POR2 dungeons, much more than I could carry, in fact... They were repetitive looking until you got to the unique locations.

GothicGothicness said:

How do you guys feel about huge dungeons? a do or a no go?

and how big is too big?

Click to expand...

It depends entirely on how much interactivity there is. For examples of how not to design a dungeon, look at the early chapters of NWN1 & NWN2's official campaigns. Most of the dungeons there consisted of nothing but repetitve encounters with 4/5 largely identical enemies and treasure chests everywhere. They weren't particulary lengthy but they were so monotonous it certainly felt like it.

A good dungeon should have things to interact with other than combat, like secret passages, puzzles, the occasional NPC and notes or books that reveal something of the backstory of the dungeon. I'd be quite happy to explore a huge dungeon that fit this description - variety is key. Hordes of the Underdark was pretty much one big dungeon but it had all these things so it never got boring.

Thrasher said:

They were repetitive looking until you got to the unique locations.

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Yes ... okay. In some places ... yes.

What I didn't like, apparently, was them being repetitive, outside these "unique places".