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[Misterstone]

I realize that we probably want things in DF to arise procedurally- ideally a "dungeon" or suchlike area that adventurers would want to explore should have historical roots of some kind- a city destroyed by invaders, a haunted tomb where historical figures are buried, that kind of thing.

But sometimes I wish there could just be some crazy dungeons on the world map for no other reason than because some apeshit insane historical figure decided to build a gigantic tower or underground lair full of traps and bizarre creatures.  I don't just mean tunnels or empty rooms full of critters to find, mind you, I'm talking about structures that use fully integrated features such as levers, pressure plates, mechanisms that open doors or cause nasty things to happen, traps, flooded chambers, pumps that spew magma from the depths of the earth, the whole nine yards.

Until something more nuanced and contiguous with world history can be implemented, could it be possible for say 1 in 1000 or so civilization or religious leaders to suddenly go bugnuts insane and build a gigantic deathtrap tower/dungeon of ultimate doom, filled with bizarre enemies (as per the new HFS) at the top/bottom of which might be found a large treasure trove of some kind?  Just to keep us interested in adventuring and to, uh, test the game better.   

[eerr]

Any ideas for monsters that would make a dungeon?

Other than dwarves of course.

[Capntastic]

Kludging stuff in now makes more work to unkludge it later.

[Mechanoid]

If everything in a fortress was permitted to stay exactly where it was left, even after multiple visits, that would greatly improve the ability for the player to create a dungeon-type environment and then share it with other players. Especially if pumps and mechanisms remained undamaged and untouched. It'd be nice to walk into your dining room and be greeted by the mist machine in the ceiling, still functioning, even if it was 100 years past it's abandonment; including the 100 year old half-eaten plump helmet still on the third table, second row on the right.

[edit - and of course, this would be an init option, like the 'adventurer traps' is]

[Kilo24]

Kludging stuff in now makes more work to unkludge it later.

Maybe it's better to look at it like the old 2D ruins.  It keeps the current game a bit more interesting and can serve to playtest a few elements of the game which would otherwise be ignored or so rare that much of the player base wouldn't find them (i.e. fighting HFS demons in Adventure mode).  And it's still possible that it could be salvaged later on and made into some historical figure "strange moods" with no repercussions should you disable it in the init.

I still haven't seen that many reasonable justifications for long, elaborate dungeons in fantasy settings, but it is a standard fantasy trope that many fans would be happy to have in.  There are a number of cases in which it might make more sense to turn an existing structure into a horror-filled-dungeon (like with a metamorphosis, undead, or madness sphere), but even so they could build the traps and protections into additions they added to the site as well as the basic structure, which could be salvaged from the random dungeon generator put in place in the present.

[alfie275]

Perhaps it could be done like how me and timmeh do it in our roguelikes? Basically you have a set of rooms with 'nodes' which define where rooms join, you could even add in a floor plan definitions so that it can add elaborate traps, you could even add some amibguity, so instead of saying 'this lever activates the cage' you could say 'this <activator> activates the <thing that causes harm>'.

When a modder mods in a civ they can add in the types of rooms/floor plans they use.

[Neonivek]

Yeah in both mythology AND real life there have been people who created vast deathtrap dungeons for little-no reason (though usually paranoia or cruelty)

-The Dungeon Maze In Crete was created as a deathtrap and sometimes an inexcapable jail. It was likely built as both a wonder for lack of a better word  as well as disuasion, "Our jails are THIS deadly!" (Mythology)

So here are the reasons for building vast dungeons or deadly dungeons
-Home: Perhaps the creature lives in vast underground mazes or what seems like a maze. Trying to navigate yourself through a GIANT ant maze would drive anyone insane.
-Showing off: Just like the Pyramids you create huge vast structures to show off
-Protection: Maybe you need to protect something valuable (or a series of valuables) and your paranoid/crazy enough to build a huge structure. Heck maybe you are just reasonable (like the pyramids).
-Gods/Magic: Gods or magic could naturally construct large mazes. Mythology is ripe with locations that naturally formed endless deadly mazes. The whole Underworld in Greek Mythology is one huge maze, why? Who knows and who cares! (well that and the Elder gods were rather crazy and that the underworld was a representation of death and a prison and it leads to heaven and it houses the servants of death...)

[Grendus]

While I would like to see this, I would rather have it done right than "kludged" in early.

Letting forts exist as they were when abandoned would be a great start though. There's already a project to build adventure mode forts, having all the tools to do so would be fantastic.

[Neonivek]

While I would like to see this, I would rather have it done right than "kludged" in early.

Letting forts exist as they were when abandoned would be a great start though. There's already a project to build adventure mode forts, having all the tools to do so would be fantastic.

Heck player forts are already boobytrap filled to the brink.

[lucusLoC]

@alfie275

take a look at the template thread:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39304.0

@everyone else

i kinda like the idea of a civ leader strange mood. somehow seems appropriate.

[Neonivek]

And of course once one civilisation leader has a dungeon of doom and terror... EVERYONE has to have one too. (Just like the pyramids)

[KenboCalrissian]

I have trouble resisting the urge to suggest importing of other players' dungeons into your world... unfortunately, that presents all kinds of geology problems when you consider most forts contain parts of rivers, chasms, etc. and varied terrain height and slopes that the world you're importing into wouldn't contain.

Similarly, I think the biggest hangup with procedurally generated dungeons would be traps and lever mechanisms.  The game would need to know how to put together a dungeon that will allow access to the goal with or without the aide of levers moving objects that would block your path.  Simple bridges might be easy enough, but some of the more complicated stuff - like pulling a lever to obsidian-cast a walkway across a deadly magma-filled gap - is probably something the game couldn't figure out itself.  On the other hand, maybe it's best that the more complicated dungeons are left to the player's creation!

[lucusLoC]

@KenboCalrissian

a whole fortress would indeed be difficult, but you could certainly have very elaborate player made *pieces* that the ai could use. with an appropriate format they could even be easily shareable (*cough* template storage *cough*). and with the coming of adventure mode constructions, digging and climbing, having the lever on the "wrong" side would just make things all that more interesting and realistic.

[G-Flex]

The next version will have the closest things to "dungeons" we've seen yet: Adventurers will be able to enter the world-spanning caverns (and they're pretty freaking huge) in order to slay things or do whatever. They're pretty deep and expansive and filled with lots of things that want to kill you!

[Skooma]

http://www.nethack.org/