I expect Terminus, with three large continents, will have all of Earth's main biomes represented. But aside from the obvious (forest, desert, etc), what do you want to see? I hope we have some biomes / settings which are fantastical / fictional and I hope we can offer interesting ideas that help inspire future world-building.
Here are some of my ideas:
I will give a general comment on what I do *not* want clever and creative biomes to lead to. And what I do want them to lead to.
What I do *not* want. Gating of significant content behind things relying on player reflexes, vision and connectivity quality. I much prefer a slower more strategic pace of gameplay where how you develop and equip a character means more than how fast your fingers can move, how good your vision is, whether you have top speed "first world" internet connctions and computers and the like. Examples - floating in the clouds where you need to jump from island in the sky to island to island and if you miss one jump you start over at best and die at worst. Swimming underwater where you need constantly to see air bubbles and have very limited time allowed to get from one to another to another before your character drowns.
By "significant content" I mean large portions of zones or story-lines that are foreclosed by these barriers. Setting up areas for those that actually like jumping puzzles and first-person shooter reflex elements in a MMO is fine as long as the rest of us can totally ignore them and at worst miss out on some purely optional rewards. Titles. cosmetics, even gear that is not *so* good that groups will not take you without it.
VR if you must use this nonsense at least remember that this is a group-focused game and allow a group to succeed even if one or two members are ...reflex or vision or connectivity challenged. For example, if two party members get to the spot that you need to jump to or swim to they can summon the others that may be slower or unable to jump effectively even if their character's life depends upon it. I still remember the storm of protest in a different MMO where some important things were blocked by jumping and reflex puzzles and anyone with issues was ....what is the technical terms .... screwed over because there was no way for anyone else to group with them to help them past the barrier.
What I do want - parallel advancement. Not necessarily related to expansions. If the maximum level is 50 at release maybe 40-50 can be parallel so that level 50 gear is no better than level 40 gear for purposes of playing in a level 35-40 area. To explain - suppose level 40 begins an area in a zone dominated by fire. Volcanos or extra-planar intrusions. Every new ability from 40 to 50 can help characters fight fire-based enemies and protect them against fire effects. A character may max out new skills and attributes and grind endlessly to get new asbestos armor and weapons with properties of cold or water. Yet if she reaches level 50 and goes back to a level 38 hobgoblin village she is in no slightest way more effective againt *those* enemies than she was at level 40.
Counterfleche said:I expect Terminus, with three large continents, will have all of Earth's main biomes represented. But aside from the obvious (forest, desert, etc), what do you want to see? I hope we have some biomes / settings which are fantastical / fictional and I hope we can offer interesting ideas that help inspire future world-building.
I'm sure this next one is quite impossible, but I'd love to see a zone where you can walk on any surface giving the players a full 6 degrees of freedom (think back to the game Descent). This would mean that you could 'walk' on a wall, standing perpendicular to it and it would then be your floor. Someone else walking on the original floor would appear 90 perpendicular to you. Someone walking on what was the original ceiling would be upside down to the person walking on the original floor. So what is up depends upon which surface you are standing. This would even allow NPCs to appear from any direction.
Vandraad said:
- Different gravities with some areas much lower and others much higher. This would affect zone design, fall damage, jump height, climbing endurance, encumbrance, etc.
- Different 'viscosity' of the atmosphere (or zone-wide magic effect) which would affect default movement speed. This is not synonymous with being underwater or the pressure environment
I'm sure this next one is quite impossible, but I'd love to see a zone where you can walk on any surface giving the players a full 6 degrees of freedom (think back to the game Descent). This would mean that you could 'walk' on a wall, standing perpendicular to it and it would then be your floor. Someone else walking on the original floor would appear 90 perpendicular to you. Someone walking on what was the original ceiling would be upside down to the person walking on the original floor. So what is up depends upon which surface you are standing. This would even allow NPCs to appear from any direction.
A surreal zone with walking on walls would be fantastic. It might have to be limited to 1st person. This could be the tower of an insane mage. The zone could also incorporate visual tricks with forced perspective and scale. The magic items found in this zone would be very interesting. Imagine a lake on the ceiling and the Druid's vine bridge being shaped like a corkscrewing DNA chain.
How about an area of monoliths where the environment shifts, grows and shrinks every 15mins? I suppose it could be like that non-sensical movie the Maze, but a pattern (for just that week/month?) can be sussed out... until it can't be (reset). Clues, riddles inscribed upon surfaces, and perception pings will provide an advantage in anticipating a change and how soon it will occur, so on and so forth.
"Underwater Cemetery:" Davy Jone's Locker?
"I'm sure this next one is quite impossible, but I'd love to see a zone where you can walk on any surface giving the players a full 6 degrees of freedom (think back to the game Descent).": Groovy. I am down for that, or is that up?
Counterfleche said:Underwater Cemetery: an old cemetery of unknown origin which was flooded long ago. Its flooded crypts and catacombs, with no natural light, are particularly dangerous.
I think I better need to describe the vision in my head...
Rising out of the murky water next to the cemetery is the top of a derelict gothic church, its twin stain glass windows staring like malevolent, unblinking eyes. On each side of it, flying buttresses reach out into the brackish water like legs, giving the visible top of the church an eerie, insectoid look. When the evening sun is low enough, light shines through the broken roof, causing the stain glass 'eyes' to glow. Many who've seen it swear the eyes move, though this is often nervously dismissed as merely a trick of the light. The slow swaying of the buttress 'legs' was long thought to be the water moving them, despite the absence of any current.
In the area around this cemetery and church is the dead remains of a forest, now partially submerged. Dilapidated suspension bridges and waterlogged pontoon bridges meander through the area, connecting tree to tree for those desperate enough to venture through. The water itself is unnaturally still, save for occasional giant boils. The tops of a few other buildings remain, most notably the ruins of a castle which has, in it's former courtyard, statues of long-forgotten people. Only the heads of the statues are above the water, and they are covered with a black slime that distorts their faces so that the statues are known as the "screaming dead".
At night, the area is thick with fireflies. They typically swarm all over, creating enough light to travel by, but if they suddenly all fly away, put out all your lights and hold completely still. A cult is also rumored to call the area home and is believed responsible for terrifying, mutilated 'dolls' made from sticks that are nailed to trees along the bridge path as a warning to stay away. Hidden under the water are misshaped obelisks with strange heirogliyphs.
A strange swimming bird with a long neck and grotesquely oversized beak lives in the area. If you get to close, it makes a shrill, cacophonous shriek. They are known to feed off the dead and are only seen when large dead things are nearby. Their skull has air sacks in the bone, causing it to float once sufficiently decomposed, so in places, there can be dozens of their skulls floating, undisturbed.
An elephant graveyard but for dragons. Giant sun bleached skeletons. Half decayed coprses surrounded by hyena like scavengers and carrion eating birds. Could lean into acclimation with poisonous pockets of acrid air. Maybe a camp of religious cultists worshipping the dead as gods. Their faction needed increased to enter forbidden areas of the graveyard. Dragon steel weapons and armour. Dracolich world boss, or live younger dragons protecting their kin.
Iksar said:Not super wild but I would love to see a snowy desert.
A snowy desert with invisible mobs. All you can see is the footprints (which glow at night) and all you can hear is the crunch of snow as they approach.
And even without my embellishments. I think a snowy desert would be very interesting.
M.C.Escher, specifically that 3 pronged widget-like thing, Perspective. You know what I mean, like that boxxy dragon head that seems to follow you around in 3-D until you realize you are looking inside it?
I would like to see the artists have fun with that, alot. if Im in a cave and think there is no pathway, only to keep going against the wall and - hey! that boulder (sticking out) is actually a tunnel (divotting in)
It would be cool to have a zone of shifting semi-permanent sea ice. Crevasses would be impossible to climb without tools. Crevasses can can open under you as the sea ice shifts. Some lead to open ocean where you can get trapped under the ice as the crevasse closes above you. Maybe large bergs could house an endemic subvarient of halfling or dwarf inside tunnels in the ice, or maybe some sort of sealkin or bearkin civilization.
Manouk said:M.C.Escher, specifically that 3 pronged widget-like thing, Perspective. You know what I mean, like that boxxy dragon head that seems to follow you around in 3-D until you realize you are looking inside it?
I would like to see the artists have fun with that, alot. if Im in a cave and think there is no pathway, only to keep going against the wall and - hey! that boulder (sticking out) is actually a tunnel (divotting in)
Speaking of M.C. Escher...Imagine if you had a dungeon with 3 entrances. Each entrance put you on a different planar axis of that dungeon, each planar axis 90 degrees offset from the other. You could have locations where all 3 planar axis 'meet' but becuase you are on a different plane than the other you cannot interact. A mob on your planar axis would not 'see' PCs on a different planar axis. You could all inhabit the same space but be separated by the planar axis. Kinda like the M.C Escher painting (pretty colored updated version):
If you wanted to switch your planar axis, you have to exit the dungeon and then re-enter using the entrance tied to a specifc planar axis. Talk about a mind#@#^ of a dungeon.
From the first time I read the lore on the creation of Terminus, I really liked the concept of the collisions of the planets. Not only was it an easy way to explain how zones/environments might drastically change as you walk across a "zone line", but it sparked my interest in how two vastly different biomes might influence each other.
Icy tundra bordering lava rich mountains? Perhaps it created a cave system where steam is prevalent and geysers appear.
I'm also interested to see how the wildlife from different planets might live together or create new species.
I don't have all the ideas, but I look forward to seeing how they use these collision lines to show us interesting and immersive things. Puzzles or dots to connect - aha moments.
Mistfall:
A volcanically heated lake sits atop a caldera. Steam continuously rises from it, creating a perpetual waist-high fog. This fog flows off the side of a steep cliff, like a hazy white waterfall of fog, obscuring much of the cliff face. The cliff itself will have several hidden items of interest, like small caves, that can't be seen from below and are only found through luck or dedicated exploring.
The land below the cliff is uneven and shrouded in the same waist-high fog. Many small hills of earth and rock appear above the fog. Plants can only grow on ground that's above the fog, creating a very surreal 'islands in the clouds' aestetic.
Small valleys, holes, and drop-offs are hidden by the fog and many adventuring parties report group members suddenly disappearing as they drop down into the fog. If they're lucky, the disappearance is temporary, and only requires a quick climb out of a hole. If they're not so lucky, they fell into the burrow of a giant, subterranean creature, or worst of all, got pulled down to a prone position by an ambush predator that hides in fog-covered rock crevices. It looks like a giant pincher bug with two tenticle-like appendages which it uses to wrap around legs and pull prey down (root plus knockdown). They are not-so-affectionately known as "Roctopus".
Vandraad said:
If you wanted to switch your planar axis, you have to exit the dungeon and then re-enter using the entrance tied to a specifc planar axis. Talk about a mind#@#^ of a dungeon.