Mines

The orcish mines are most often done after the lair. You usually face lots of orc enemies following up to the lair. Once you hit the lair, the game changes as you start facing more difficult opponents, as well as hitting a major theme. By the time you go back to do the mines, you're much more powerful than pre-lair, when you were already bashing orcs around. Now you have to back peddle and fight more orcs. It feels as though the game is being stretched out, or that you're taking a step back. What's more, fighting through hordes of mostly plain orcs is kind of dull.

There are some things that help combat this. You do get to see unique opponents there, but that's true for almost all of the dungeon and branches. You do get to see giants and ogres, but exceptional specimens tend to be rare (though still common enough that people tend to do lair first). Orc sorcerers and knights/warlords make the area much more interesting, as do orc high priests to a lesser degree. The Giant Fortress ending is a really nice touch, personally I'd like to see more things like that. Overall, I think there's a couple ways the Mines could be made more fun! (for a given definition of fun)

I'd like to see what other people think about this

One way of doing this is to lose the orc distinction. The mines can have a randomly determined set of denizens (probably chosen from orcs, kobolds, and deep dwarves (though these are much tougher), or some other set) or alternatively, each floor of the mines can have a different set of denizens, with the final floor devoted to the special ending. This would require writing up some new types of enemies for each of these groups (and any other groups you want to add). Even the orc group could do with more mid-range enemies. All groups should have a “miner” type: similar to the base monster but with an added digging ability like a boring beetle.

Goblins and deep elves could also work.

This goes completely counter to the flavour of Beogh and would be an *immense* disappointment to worshippers of Beogh, so I'm 100% against this. — jpeg 2011-01-18 10:21

It seems a bit strange to render a whole branch untouchable for the sake of a highly particular playstyle. — Pedjt 2011-01-19 04:58

I should probably have been clearer. I don't mind adding more variety to the Orcish Mines, but if they are potentially replaced by an altogether different branch type hosting other monsters, we might as well get rid of Beogh. This is much worse than a player hoping for an early altar to Jiyva and being disappointed. It's more like if you started out with Jiyva (or picked him up early) and then the Slime Pits were missing. (But even that doesn't quite cut it, as Jiyva isn't built around the slime pits like Beogh is around orcs.) — jpeg 2011-01-19 09:43

Orc Necromancer: Similar to a wizard, but with pain and animate dead. Having him raise the horde of orcs you just slew is a mix of hilarious and somewhat depressing. (also kind of tiresome though)

Orc Berserker: Orc warrior generated without armour and with the berserk ability.

Kobold Evoker: Similar to a big kobold, but generated with an attack wand in stead of the usual gear.

Deep Dwarf Farmer: Generated with a quarterstaff and alongside a number of hogs.

More stuff could be added that one might find in a mine. These could be added throughout the levels, regardless of denizens.

• Earth Elementals
• Clouds of poisonous/noxious gas that pop up randomly or from fixed points
• Worm-type enemies
• Other new subterranean monster types (badgers, etc)

As I already mentioned, I love the giant fortress ending and would love to see more of the same. Some ideas:

• Khazad-dum: Ripe with goblins, ogres, a land bridge, and a balrug.
• Madness Unleashed: Abominations, kraken, and tentacled monstrosities. Perhaps an altar to xom.
• Subterranean Lake: Swamp worms, aquatic acid-spitting dragons, fishes.
• Lost City: Undead city-type ending, mostly phantom enemies. Player ghosts? Spectres? Something new?

Well, there really aren't endings for Orc, just large vaults. — evktalo 2011-01-18 09:13

Just the same, they tend to dominate the final level, and are very nice. I was hoping to see some new ideas for them. — Pedjt 2011-01-19 05:04

More of them definitely would be nice, and those ideas are a very good start! — evktalo 2011-01-19 18:07

09:46 <+Keskitalo> Mines are quite boring, yeah. In theory it's nice that you 
                   can do either Lair or Orc depending on your character and 
                   situation, but that really rarely happens I guess?
09:47 <+Keskitalo> Spawning Orc earlier than Lair is a newbie trap too, not to 
                   mention Elf inside Orc. (I'm fond of the non-linearity 
                   though)
09:48 <+due> I love the idea of reimplementing the Orc bubble generator.
09:48 <+due> Lots of narrow snakey corridors that lead into open caverns filled 
             with orcs++++++.
09:49 <+Keskitalo> due: That sounds great
09:49 <+Keskitalo> due: Because one thought I had was that it would be more 
                   interesting if
09:50 <+Keskitalo> you didn't take the stairs directly into an OH SHIT HORDES 
                   OF ORCS
09:50 <+Keskitalo> especially on Orc:1
09:50 <+due> agree
09:50 <+due> Now I'm obsessed with this idea.
09:50 <+Keskitalo> that would make it much more newbie friendly and also more 
                   of an alternative to Lair
09:50 <+Keskitalo> due: Go for it!
09:50 < Pedjt> The mines have always looked odd. More like a cave than mines
09:50 <+Keskitalo> Even just arrival vaults for Orc:1 could make that happen
09:50 <+due> Pedjt: Yes, exactly
09:51 <+Keskitalo> Pedjt: That's true...
09:51 < Pedjt> no mine shafts or anything to indicate people were actually 
               mining

10:14 <+Keskitalo> due: I'll put the entering orc cavern stuff thing on the 
                   mines page
10:15 <+due> okay
10:16 <+due> not sure how to do the builder ,to be honest
10:16 <+due> I think it should do the current bubble thing, but blow the 
             bubbles smaller.
10:18 <+Keskitalo> I'm always for the cheap solution, i.e. arrival vaults for 
                   Orc:1 :)

RE: a “mineshaft” layout - to evoke a “mine” feel, perhaps long, branching dead-end corridors with increased chance for gold piles + rocks at the end? The piles (both of rocks and gold) shouldn't be too large (more for flavor rather than to compete with the piles hoarded up already by the orcs.) You could basically just overlay this on top of the existing “bubbles”; IMO, I think that at least as much of the level should consist of mineshafts as “bubble chambers”. I have no idea what the basic level generation algorithm looks like, but if it has factors for (a) when to generate rooms, (b) when to branch a passage, and © when to leave a dead end, you could set (a) to zero, and increase (b) and © until you get something workable. — jeffqyzt 2011-01-18 14:45

• I like the idea of “mines” instead of orcish mines.
• The difficulty of the mines should be increased, and it should appear at deeper levels than lair, on average.
• I don't think we need more types of orcs. (apparently lava orcs already exist, so maybe they should appear)
• Some monsters that I would like to see added: Deep Dwarves, Earth Elementals, Deep Elves, Rock Worms.
• I like the poison cloud idea.
• I like the idea of more/different endings. Maybe we have enough undead areas in the game though.

— xyblor 2011-01-14 01:41