Dungeon Core Online 6 Chapter 6

"Are you really telling me, in DCO, the Dungeon Core has to draw out their dungeon, by hand?" James glanced from the pencil to the paper on the table.

"Too Dungeons and Dragons for you?" Rue's reference made James smile. If he had to guess, someone on the DCO development team was a fan of the original table top games. James had played a few virtual versions of D&D, and even took part in a forum campaign every once in a while when he was bored at school. However, every dungeon master he had come across had resorted to using random dungeon generators, instead of drawing them out. His generation had gotten a bit lazy in that aspect.

"Well no, but there are a few issues I see here."

"Such as?" Rue was twirling the pencil playfully atop her fingers. How cool was his pixie?

"Well, first, that seems a bit, 2d." If he was going to create a ma.s.sive dungeon expanse for players, he was certain just drawing it wouldn't properly create what he was imagining. "Second, and more importantly, I don't have any hands." He was a floating orb with an eye. Unless he grew tentacles, there was no way he was going to be drawing anything. And he really wanted to avoid becoming like a beholder.

"Well, have you thought about tentacles? I've heard those are quite, handy." She shot him a wink as she spoke, and James felt his nonexistent face flush. She had hit the nerve of his teenage mind, and he was suddenly stuttering.

"I, well, um." James cleared his throat. "I'm not going to grow tentacles." Rue started laughing so hard at his reaction that she dropped the pencil.

"Don't worry Glyax, you can't grow tentacles." She steadied her gaze at him and rose a single eyebrow. "Even if you wanted to." Was this how it was going to be? James suddenly wasn't sure if he could survive being paired with this pixie. She seemed to know how to hit all his nerves. That put him at a huge disadvantage.

"Can we just move on from the tentacles? How do I really design my room?"

Rue laughed, and the table disappeared. With a wave of her hand, the room around them completely vanished and James was suddenly outside, staring at a vast expanse of land. He could see sprawling fields, a ma.s.sive forest, a mighty mountain range, complete with a volcano, and even in the distance an ocean.

"First, you have to choose where your dungeon is going to be located." She motioned with her hand, and pulled up another screen for him to view. This one had a variety of different terrain options, and at the top, he noted, it said Dungeon Creator.

"So, I get to choose any of these options?" He was s.h.i.+fting through, waiting for one to catch his eye. Where did he want his dungeon?

"Correct. Usually, Dungeon Cores will know their mob type by now, so could choose a location that made logical sense for that type of dungeon." She shot him a smirk. "But since the mighty Glyax felt like being vague and mysterious, we don't know what type of mobs you will have." He was starting to marvel at how much his mob choice was already affecting his life.

"I get it, Random makes things difficult." He finished flipping through his options, and finally found one he liked. Given how random his mob types could potentially become, he needed something that would make sense. The closest thing he could justify, was a cave at the edge of the forest, leading into the mountain range. From there, he felt he could justify and work around any mob type he got, as long as he didn't get water mobs for his first floor. He really didn't want water mobs right away. No one liked water dungeons.

"Well, I'm glad you understand how much more difficult you our making our lives." She crossed her arms and motioned towards the timer, which had followed them. He was almost down to 22 hours remaining. "So, time's a ticking. What's your choice?"

"I'm going to choose the cave." With his acknowledgement, they were teleported directly in front of the cave. It was a ma.s.sive expanse of rock, a gaping maw leading into darkness. He instantly loved it.

"Now that you've chosen your dungeon's location, you can begin to customize it." The dungeon creator before him pulled up the cave's entrance like a set of blueprints. Surprisingly, it seemed the cave entrance was all that was created for now. It was up to him to generate the rest of it.

"Alright," James looked at the dungeon creator screen. He could see countless options on the bottom, and it appeared he really did have free reign to build his dungeon. He saw options to clear away expanses, options to add features, options to create pre-generated rooms and paths. The tool even had side bars, that let him completely customize the shape, style, size, angle, color, and any other feature he wanted, of everything he could creator. h.e.l.lo Dungeon Simulator.

"Say Rue, what's with these resource costs?" Other than the ability to clear away materials, everything seemed to have a resource cost underneath it. He didn't remember that on his character sheet. As he scanned the dungeon creator, he saw a set of numbers at the top right of the screen. Currently it showed 1000, with the word Max written next to it.

"Resources are what you use to create everything within your dungeon. Also, you can only summon mobs in rooms generated by resources." She sent him a knowing wink. Had she figured out he was planning to just use the remove tool to create his whole floor to avoid using resources? Most gamers tried to figure out ways around resource caps.

"And how do I generate them?" Glancing at the resource costs on the dungeon creator screen, he could tell dungeon building would get expensive. "Also, how do I increase my max?" He knew how resources usually worked in games, there was always a way to increase the maximum amount. Especially since one of the options he was staring at, energy pylon, cost 3,000 resources.

"Ah, you are very perceptive." Rue offered him a smile, but he couldn't tell if she was actually delighted or simply messing with him more. He was certain she enjoyed teasing him.

"At the very core of your instance, you have a resource generator. This generator is constantly consuming random materials within this instance, and turning them into resources for you. When you are at max, the generator turns off. When you spend resources, it turns back on until you are full again."

So it was a basic resource generating mechanic, like many of the real time strategy games he had played. Seemed easy enough to understand. "How about my maximum amount?"

"This capacity increases in three ways. First, as you climb in ranks, your maximum amount of resource held will increase by 100. Second, when you hit a new tier, your maximum resources will increase by 1000. Third, you can use resources to create resource storage units, which will increase your capacity by a size dependent on the type of unit." James used the Dungeon Creator tool to pull up the storage units, noting the cheapest cost 1,000 resources, and increased his maximum resources by 100. He made a mental note to come back to those later. He had a feeling he would need all his resources now to build his first floor of his dungeon.

"What's the rate of resource generation?" He needed to know these things, as he now had a little less than 22 hours to completely build his dungeon.

"Your generator creates 10 resources per in game hour." So, if he started building now, he would be able to spend a total of roughly 1200 resources on his first floor. James could tell it was going to take him a while to create a floor he was proud of. However, the game did advertise that the dungeon would be constantly growing and evolving. He just hadn't expected to be time gated so hard so early on.

"Alright, I guess that all makes sense." He glance from Rue to the clock, and back to the cave entrance. "So, before we can really go all out, we need to figure out what type of mobs we have, right?"

"That would be the best choice, yes."

"Well, then lets build a basic first room, to get started." With that, James quickly selected a few options from his Dungeon Creator screen. He might not have many resources yet, but if he was going with a cave as his entrance, he could get creative for cheap. He quickly began digging away through the back of the cave, carving out a rough pathway, making it roughly ten feet across with an arching, rocky ceiling perhaps fifteen feet high. He tunneled this path back and forth, making it curve slightly here and there, until he had dug about thirty feet in.

From there, he made it narrow, until the path was only large enough for a single figure to step through. At that point, he summoned a basic wooden door. The door only cost 5 resource points, and it gave him the effect he wanted. He planned to use the natural formations of the cave the adventurers initially walked through to create a mining area, and a slight sense of excitement. Then, as the cave narrowed, he could imagine the excitement as they came across the narrow expanse, and the random, single door. He knew as a gamer, he would be very anxious to see what was behind door number one.

On the other side of the door, James spent 50 points to create a large, empty room. He kept it basic, because he didn't know what type of mobs he would need to build his first floor around. But now, he had a room to summon one in, and with excitement, he turned to Rue, who was watching him intently.

"So, how do I summon my mobs?"