Ah, the DonJon... classic staple of any self respecting RPG. We've shown you some sneak peeks of our first sample dungeon, but this has only made you clamor for more details.
Fear not, thirsty heroes. Good Ol' Greenknees is here to provide a little much requested clarity.
This sample dungeon is being set for 3 heroes who are roughly level 10. If you're level 12, it will offer less of a challenge and if you're wearing your crazy strong Alpha Knight II gear, it will be a day at the undead-littered beach. It will be on first-come, first-served basis so you will have to synchronize with your friends if you all want to run it together. It's small with only a handful of surprises but that's because this is the first instanced dungeon that we've ever made. You can expect a lot more from future dungeons.
I know that this is new to some of you so you may not know what I mean by "Instanced dungeon".
Basically, it's any place that will make a new copy of itself when the last one fills up. AQ3D is already using a similar system for all of its areas which is why you might end up in a different version of Yulgar than your friend is in... but these dungeons are specially designed instances. As you fight your way through the dungeon (or "clear the instance"), the map will keep track of your progress so bad guys don't respawn in 60 seconds like they do out in the world. This means that we can make the monsters ("trash mobs") harder than they normally are so you get more of a challenge. Once you beat the boss and everyone gets their goodies, everyone leaves and that instance resets. When you enter again, you will be in a fresh instance.
In the full release of the game, you will form a party to raid a dungeon with your friends.
Right now, AQ3D has no party system or friends list so we have no way of tracking who wants to run the dungeon.
We don't want to sit on instances for months until we have a finely crafted friends list and party system in the game. We want you in the dungeon and giving us feedback on what you liked about it and what you didn't. Even though some of you are very patient and willing to give us as much time as we need to make the perfect game, most of you want to be fed game content as quickly as we can jam it in your mouth with a broom handle.
On the other hand, we can't slap together a friends list because all future instances, the future party system, the social system including the ability to summon friends/ignore jerks and the future guild system are ALL going to be built on the foundation laid down by the humble friends list system. We can't afford to give you some dumpster fire of a system, get you used to how bad it is, then completely replace it with an all new system when we get around to it. Even if it's better than the improvised one, we would alienate a massive amount of you guys who had already gotten used to the one we slapped together out of dried seaweed and snot.
Like so much of AQ3D, we have to do it right the first time. So, for the time being, it will be pretty hard to try and solo an instance because the next 2 people who join the dungeon will join your instance of the dungeon. Just consider it a work in progress.
Any more questions about dungeons? That's what the comments section is for!
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