Yet another idea for for Book II.

[devinv]

Your idea is a good one but it may be too different to mesh satisfactorily with the existing game. Maybe this idea could be used as an 'arena battle mode', in the style of AUTODUEL, for example, where you enter an arena in certain towns and fight in an exhibition match for money and XP. It might be a nice complement to the standard system of wandering around the countryside. Fights could be set to the level of the player, or left random and relying on the judgement of the player whether or not they want to take on a particular NPC.

For the last couple days my friend Teddy and I were just hanging out at his house brain-storming ideas for Book II. And we both thought of one that was pretty good. Back in the 80's when I was about 13 or 14, Teddy and I used to play this old pen-and-paper RPG called Tunnels and Trolls (T&T for short). It was a pretty simple game, you would roll your character's six prime attributes using 3 six-sided dice, roll up your starting gold, buy some simple provisions (food and water, clothing, torches, all that what-not), buy your weapon(s) and armor, and then get right into the game. What we loved so much about the game is every dungeon was random, we never knew what was coming next. The suspense of it was just great. And we thought that maybe in Book II there could be a second mode of gameplay called Dungeon Delving (or whatever). In this mode you can copy your character from the main game and place him into a random, multi-level, dungeon and just delve deeper and deeper into the dungeon, gaining XP, gathering up some new (maybe even some magical) equipment. And every time you enter this mode the dungeon should be randomized, utilizing different tilesets and themes all together. I know it would probably set you back quite a bit on the release date, but I think it would be a pretty cool addition to Book II.

[Mongolian]

I think what he is bringing up is in Book2 for the game to have 2 options:

1 - Story Mode
2- Challenge Mode (see how many levels your character can go through) kinda idea.

I would love to see some type of Challenge Mode. Especially after beating the game, would be a nice ad-on to master.

[Evnissyen]

I don't know.... Eschalon's a story-based game. I say stick to the story.

[Unclever title]

A challenge mode is a great idea! A randomized map pattern with every floor and increasingly difficult/increasing numbers of monsters spawned in random locations in each floor. I'm not sure how difficult this might be to implement, but even a preset series of maps would be nice.

Though which is more difficult I don't know.

[devinv]

I think the problem that could arise with a challenge mode is that your challenge mode character would be allowed back to the story version of the game with vastly enhanced items and attributes, ( depending on how long you spent down there ) and so to keep the story relevant all the baddies' stats would have to be upped to compensate, otherwise the quests if not the whole story game would quickly become irrelevant, yes? The whole point of having character attributes and improving those attributes is that you have a world in which to use them and enjoy them. The only way I can see it working is if the challenge dungeons were available inside the game story, and that your access to them would be limited. For example, at the beginning of the game a level 1 type dungeon would be available to you which would provide xp and items useful to a lower level character. After you have played for a while and gone up a few levels the dungeon would begin to lose it's appeal and would motivate you to move ahead in the story to find the more difficult dungeon. Again, you would be allowed to visit this dungeon as often as you liked but after a while this dungeon, too, would begin to lose its appeal. In this way, a randomly generated hack n slash type rpg experience could be integrated into the general story arc of the game.

I don't know.... Eschalon's a story-based game. I say stick to the story.

[Unclever title]

Probably the proper way to do a challenge mode is prevent xp gain. Meaning you level your character outside in the story mode and then when he's strong enough you bring him in for the challenge. It doesn't seem like too much of a challenge if one could level and improve his character as he delves deeper and deeper into the dungeons with monsters growing more powerful and more numerous with every level. It also would be unfair if the loot gained were to transfer back into the story mode.

Now, like devinv said, if it were to be in the main adventure of course no problem. In this case then maybe just an endless (or nearly) dungeon with random floors (it's enchanted!), this might be the best solution, rather than an alternate mode there be a really long optional dungeon. This could work easily within the story.

[Mongolian]

Who was suggesting that Character mode and Story mode could use the same characters? I would never design it that way. The characters could be lvl'ed up but would never implement into the other mode.