RPGs with the best dungeons

[Andyman Messiah]

I'm going to agree with Realms of Arkania's dungeon design and The Glow in Fallout.

Another Fallout-dungeon is the Sierra Army Depot in Fallout 2. SAD is memorable to me because I spent more time trying to get in than actually doing whatever I was supposed to do. I came out of that place with a Skynet brainbot on the first try but couldn't blow up a door with a howitzer. Now that's really fucking SAD.

 

[Trash]

The dungeons in Vogel's games. Why? Simple, seemingly he's the only person to have figured out that good and interesting dungeons aren't just mazes to keep the player occupied. He gives them a purpose and sticks to it. Goblin camps feel like real camps, ruined keeps are put together as ruined keeps, etc. I absolutely loathe it when a game has a dungeon that's supposed to be an abandoned dwarf stronghold and turns it in a boring generic maze with traps and monsters everywhere(I'm looking at you Arcanum!). It just feels so cheap and gamey. At least Vogel's dungeon look and feel like that which they attempt to portray and top this off with good (combat) encounters.

 

[Redeye]

BTW, there's an alien skeleton in the Glow.

Aliens = Canon. j/k

I thought that was in SAD.

As for dungeons, I'd like to have uses for ropes, spikes, ten foot poles, etc.

No handholdey crap about "you may be able to attach a rope here".

There should be multiple potential workarounds, etc.

The object interactivity of Wasteland or Ultima VI would be a good direction.
(sure most of it was useless, and the Wasteland stuff was scripted as hell- but its a start)

One of the Durlag levels reminded me of Sleeper Base.
(split the party to open doors)

I would like to see monsters regroup, add barricades and traps, hide treasure, send for reinforcements, and perhaps even evacuate in between forays by the party.

Patrol Paths. Daily Routines with semi-random variations.

Patrol Paths. Daily Routines with semi-random variations.

Patrol Paths. Daily Routines with semi-random variations.

Have dungeon denizens feed back on each other.

Emergent behaviors.

Ecosystems.


General stuff not directly dungeon related:

Have a barter system, perhaps with a consignment option so that items the merchant can't buy could be sold to someone else in the future for a split profit.

Also, make the merchants make economic sense.

Also I want to be able to climb through windows, run across rooftops, etc.

I want everything lootable. (houses, shops, etc.)

Also people should have gossip/yell for the watch etc. regarding seeing trespassers, murders, etc.


Back to dungeons:

Some of the treasure may be heirlooms, stolen from caravans, etc. and there may be claimants who challenge ownership, merchants who accuse sellers of robbing from caravans, etc.

Also, some thieves and bandits may prey upon wounded, treasure-laden adventuring parties on their way back to town.
Remember that scenerio from 1E DM's Guide where the thief stalks the party in hopes of stealing it's treasure?


The Commandos games had incredibly tight and complex levels and some interesting AI.
Even swimming through rain drains on one level.

And they had an excellent camera.


Oh yeah: Z-Axis.

 

[bhlaab]

I know it's not a full-fledged RPG, but the underground bits in STALKER are unmatched

 

[Redeye]

I know it's not a full-fledged RPG, but the underground bits in STALKER are unmatched

Combine Stalker, Tomb Raider (the first 3), Commandos series, Thief series, Wasteland, Nethack, Dues Ex, Psi-ops... yeah.

I'd pay triple.

 

[Eldritch]

I'm currently replaying ToEE after all those years with the latest 5.5.0 BETA Co8 modpack in a badass Ironman challenge with a party of misogynistic elven supremacists and I've got to admit the Temple of Elemental Evil is a pretty fucking awesome dungeon in itself. The background, the scope, the motherfucking foreboding Temple of pure evil...... filled with a lot of crappy encounters of buggybears for you to steamroll in a most boring process with an awesome combat system that makes you weep for all the wasted potential. I haven't made it to the Temple yet but I hope those modders juiced up the encounters a bit. It was a game aimed at hardcore dnd guys with a hardcore dnd combat system, I'll never comprehend why they couldn't have presented quality over quantity with fewer but assraping encounters with a handcrafted quality demanding everything you got using all the tactical options represent in the system? Maybe Ironman would be the cure this time, sides, I always got Alt+F4 at my disposal if TSHTF :pussified:... The Temple could have been the best dungeon ever, I still love it and some encounters were p. badass after all.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

OK, how about this:

One thing I was hoping to add to SoZ was an area near Conyberry. It was an old elven keep all crumbled-like, and either the Eldreth Veluuthra (however you spell the name, the elven supremacy group) or the drow had taken it over. You go all rarr rarrr evil guys in forgotten keep for a level or two, then find an area that is barred the fuck right up. You, being an Adventurer With Brass Balls and No Common Sense, stroll right in. And of course you find a few dead drow, then horrible drow zombies, then some really fucking horrible shit from the result of a mythal decaying or something. Some nice kind of chilling "what the fuck HAPPENED here" kind of stuff. So that's ONE idea.

(I do think that the flooded mine part did that pretty nicely, though. And I do admit I made the mine owner look and sound as much like Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood as it was possible to.)

There was another regarding a brass dragon's lair, and the sort of weird fucked-up logic-puzzle shit they put in to amuse themselves, but I didn't get to fiddle with that idea much. Plus, logic puzzles can be godawful irritating if not done well.

 

[1eyedking]

Except it didn't happen.

And would've sucked anyway. Why? Because it would've probably been a "ZOMG DROW ZOMBIEZ!!1" situation rather than a thoughtful one (as with everything SoZ).

 

[Elwro]

One thing I like about Spiderweb dungeons is that it pays off to visit them again when you have more (levels in) spells like Move Mountains or Dispel Barrier... there are quite a few nice things hidden this way and coming back to a place after noting it down a month before gives the playthrough a nice oldschool feel :D

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

The Mantellan Crux

Nice dungeon this one. If you can fly that is. And, as almost no one gets far enough into the game to actually see it, we can say whatever the fuck we want about it.

Many of the nicest dungeons I've played have been named here (Durlag tower for instance), so I'll just add those in wizards and warriors. "Boogres caves" and "sunken city" particularly.

I also loved that radiating, tribesmen killing, giant-bugs nest' shelter in Fallout Tactics.


EDIT :

some really fucking horrible shit from the result of a mythal decaying or something.

Does a mythal ever works ? It decayed in Icewind Dale, causing the fall of the severed hand. It decayed in Icewind dale 2, causing the final destruction of said hand. It decayed in Pool of radiance : ruins of Myth Drannor, giving power to the cult of the dragon.

How about it working like it should, for a refreshing change ?

 

[Elwro]

The Mantellan Crux

Nice dungeon this one. If you can fly that is. And, as almost no one gets far enough into the game to actually see it, we can say whatever the fuck we want about it.

Yeah. The dungeon also includes a room with some fire inside an a talkable NPC who looks like he was from a fraction that never really made it into the game, but the designers thought that since the dungeon was crazy as it was, they might just as well leave the character standing there. It was pretty wacky. I always felt Max Payne's dream visions were inspired by Daggerfall's aetherius dungeons (there were 2 of them, right?)

fakedit: whoa

 

[Thrasher]

Does a mythal ever works ? It decayed in Icewind Dale, causing the fall of the severed hand. It decayed in Icewind dale 2, causing the final destruction of said hand. It decayed in Pool of radiance : ruins of Myth Drannor, giving power to the cult of the dragon.

How about it working like it should, for a refreshing change ?

See page 139 of the external link here http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/C ... _the_Elves

 

[Double Ogre]

BTW, there's an alien skeleton in the Glow.

Aliens = Canon. j/k

I thought that was in SAD.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

some really fucking horrible shit from the result of a mythal decaying or something.

Does a mythal ever works ? It decayed in Icewind Dale, causing the fall of the severed hand. It decayed in Icewind dale 2, causing the final destruction of said hand. It decayed in Pool of radiance : ruins of Myth Drannor, giving power to the cult of the dragon.

How about it working like it should, for a refreshing change ?

Heh, this is true. I actually spent a while looking at mythals for the epic-level stuff I did for MotB, and holy crap, most of them seem to have an expiration date that is no joke. Dudes DIE making them, too. Conversely, it could even be a mythal that still works, but has gotten twisted, or was simply just made by bad people to do very bad things. I like the idea of magic getting out of hand, because it suddenly becomes unpredictable and creepy. It's one thing to have a hurricane that is a force of nature that you can't reason with - but a wall of whirling blades whose purpose for existing IS TO KILL YOU? Eep. It's not psychological horror, it's not Silent Hill, shit no, but it's a jumpy thought.

1-eyed: Yes, yes, you drank the Hateraid, I get it. You wanna give suggestions as to stuff you'd like to see or just continue to snark? Cause I do actually want to improve things. And don't be like THEN IMPROVE THE CAMERA HURR HURR because I don't have the technical prowess to do that, so move on.

 

[obediah]

Oblivion

Several people have mentioned Oblivion, but I thought the dungeons were a great improvement over Morrowind. The dungeons were 10X as large ( 20 minutes to get through one instead of 2 ), and there were twice the variety in interiors ( 4 instead of 2 ).

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

See page 139 of the external link here http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/C ... _the_Elves

Nice lore. But I was talking about mythal in computer games. I know it works in D&D, elves may be pussies but they are not stupid.

Mythal is one hell of a spell though :

The minimum Intelligence of all central and secondary casters must be a score of 19, while tertiary spellcasters need a score of 17 to participate in this overlapping series of spells. The central caster must be an elf wizard of at least 21st level and the four secondaries must be at least 20th level, though the tertiary casters can be any level of spellcaster.

 

[Thrasher]

Yeah, well why hasn't anyone ever implemented a working one in a CRPG? Well think of the setting. A stable well protected elf community. Maybe not very exciting? Unless it's to defend against raids like during the Fall of Myth Drannor.

I would think that would be a pretty cool strategy/RPG game.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

A stable well protected elf community. Maybe not very exciting?

Unless you play evil. But that would bring the question of the evil path.

Anyway, I was just remarking that as far as computer D&D goes, the "decaying mythal" is getting rather stale. Since I played PoR : RoMD recently and just finished replaying ID2 yesterday, it sort of jumped into my face.

 

[circ]

Stuff

I too drank the Haterade. Seriously, NWN 1 and 2 are horrible, the camera is just one problem among a million broken pieces. This isn't a Troika game where bugfixes will clear the coating of shit to reveal a flawed diamond. These are piles of turds on turds.

Why not spend your time on some game that's actually good, JA2 has a big mod community, to give an example, and tons of other actually good games. NWN 2 has no redeeming qualities. None. It never has, it never will, no writing in the world will change that.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Almost all Arcanum's dungeons suck but there's one I actually liked - the Vendigroth ruins. While there's no much interesting gameplay, only a lot of combat in famous Arcanum style, the story of old advanced civilisation destroyed by Arronax which was told during the game by finding places with ancient artefacts (like the submarine on the Isle of Despair), reading fragments of old newspapers, studying schematics and through the words of Arronax and Nasrudin was my favourite part of the game and it was nice to finally see the place and also find some more informations about it.

pic

I can see a deformed humanoid with a huge head. If we can be sure it's an alien then deathclaws also are aliens.

 

[ecliptic]

I always liked Wizardry 7's dungeons, they had lots of secret doors, traps, and puzzles to keep it interesting. Munkharama and the Funhouse were my favorites from what I remember.

THE HORROR OF RA-SEP-RE-TEP

 

[Chefe]

Oblivion

Several people have mentioned Oblivion, but I thought the dungeons were a great improvement over Morrowind. The dungeons were 10X as large ( 20 minutes to get through one instead of 2 ), and there were twice the variety in interiors ( 4 instead of 2 ).

You must have not played Morrowind.

Morrowind - Stylized daedric ruins, machinery based dwemer ruins, caverns with history behind them, ancient dunmer strongholds inhabited by the Sixth House; in the expansion there were the ice caverns, haunted sewers, and Sotha Sil

Oblivion - Generic alyeid ruins, generic caverns, Patrick Stewart's dungeon

The only thing the Oblivion dungeons had over the Morrowind ones was a few gimmicky traps, which weren't even fully utilized.

 

[Mackerel]

I always liked Wizardry 7's dungeons, they had lots of secret doors, traps, and puzzles to keep it interesting. Munkharama and the Funhouse were my favorites from what I remember.

THE HORROR OF RA-SEP-RE-TEP

BEAST OF A THOUSAND EYES

 

[Jaesun]

Stuff

I too drank the Haterade. Seriously, NWN 1 and 2 are horrible, the camera is just one problem among a million broken pieces. This isn't a Troika game where bugfixes will clear the coating of shit to reveal a flawed diamond. These are piles of turds on turds.

Why not spend your time on some game that's actually good, JA2 has a big mod community, to give an example, and tons of other actually good games. NWN 2 has no redeeming qualities. None. It never has, it never will, no writing in the world will change that.

Worst. Troll. Ever.

Well ok I'll even give you a .5/10

 

[circ]

Worst. Troll. Ever.

Well ok I'll even give you a .5/10

Just breaking the facts to her.