"Realistic" Dungeon Lighting

I wouldn't say that it's never appropriate.. it depends on the scenario you're putting the player through. If a story element says this place is dark and dangerous and make sure you're well prepared.. giving the player amble warning ahead of time then sure.. but usally this isn't the game.. least not in the games I've played.

Gameplay trumps all, even story and you have to keep it fun. Lighting is a big part of this. Little surprises that cost you a lot of time on a regular basis isn't fun.

As with all aspects of design there's a balancing act. You don't want to make things too easy either. No risk/challenge means no sense of reward but you want to avoid situations where a player feels helpless to continue. Well, I could go back and forth all day.. you want to avoid this but that not make that too easy etc etc.. If needs to be fun but challenging etc etc..

So yeah, I wouldn't say "never" to "out of luck" scenarios if they player didn't properly prepare.. but it needs to balance out somehow. Obviously if you're in a cave there's no likely to be a lot of old light sources laying around.. but in a constructed dungeon there would be.

 

@Mishri I was responding to Owain's comment about people adjusting their monitors in order to see. That wouldn't work without some ambient light. So if that ambient light exists your eyes can adjust to it to some degree. Obviously if there is NO light then it won't happen.

And as a mater of fact.. I have on many occassions walked around in the dark, through the woods at night with no flash light. I'm fairly familiar with how much you don't see in the dark.

 

I second Sir Mishri. Caves are dark. Oppressively dark. You can't see your hand 2 inches from your face. If you always have to carry a lantern or torch, how does this effect equipping a weapon. How does it hinder your movement?

 

@Mugly Sure it would require to use a hand for the light source, most RPGs with torches require that. I don't know how much more it would hinder your movement than carrying a sword or shield, which may be very heavy.

Though, in any game where a cave is pitch black, it would also be nice to be able to place a light source on the floor, or some other place where it could temporarily be not in your hand.

 

Could see maybe some sort of cheap craftable light source for leaving a trail. As well as a magical equivelent that would last for several hours. Oh.. perhaps some sort of alchemy formula to make something akin to glow sticks. Or a kind of substance that will glow when mixed that you'd pour out to mark your path with glowing splats.

 

I don't know... I think realistic lighting sounds good in theory, but could make the gameplay frustrating.

Now, I remember playing the original Diablo and being completely freaked out - in a good way - by the darkness. Enemies hidden just beyond sight was terrifyingly awesome. Yet in the case of Diablo, a basic hack and slash dungeon dive, darkness and light were integral to the gameplay. In fact, much of the game strategy centered around improving your light radius.

In an RPG in the Ultima tradition, I don't think this would work as well. While we may still dungeon crawl a bit, what is most important is the story line and character immersion. Unless light and darkness (and its varying degrees) are somehow tied to the story line, I could see anything other than basic light sources/spells as tedious and distracting from the primary purpose of playing.

 

@beastvold Why does the story line have to be the primary purpose of playing? One of my complaints about later Ultima games is they started to focus on the story aspects to the exclusion of adventuring aspects. The wilderness started becoming infinitely smaller, battles became less interesting. The games became more linear.

Many people rightly pointed out that they could almost be considered adventure games rather than role-playing games, because even with all the simulation like bread-baking they were almost all about the story.

Personally, even though I enjoyed later Ultimas for what they brought to the table, I would like to see the game go back to earlier Ultimas in that regard.

 

@redfish I'm sure there is a way to combine both - a great story as well super-realism in the game mechanics (including lighting). However, with the reality of development time tables and release dates, I would much rather have the developers focus on an immersive story line with enough of the realistic details to help me imagine myself within the game. Too few details (or unrealistic details - like prelit torches in an abandoned mine) don't let me fully enter the game. Too many details, and I lose sight of the story.

If I'm going into a dungeon, there is going to be a purpose behind it, something I really want or need to accomplish. That, for me is the primary purpose of playing. If you've ever done pen and paper role playing games, you'll know there is an art to balancing the details with the story. If I need to keep telling the DM to relight my torch, sharpen my axe, tighten my belt, pull up my socks (sorry, I'm getting hyperbolic) - I can't fully get into the story.

I see the game developers as our DMs. It is their job to tell a good story - GO TRACY HICKMAN!! It is our job to be the hero. I hope they will tell it with enough realism to make things engaging and interesting, but not so much that it is distracting.

To put it succinctly: if it is realistic lighting just for the sake of realistic lighting, it may not work. If it is realistic lighting for the sake of a good story, then I'm all in!

 

I think most dungeons, caves and the like should be dark according to their location.

If you're carrying a lantern you can always put it on the ground. The quality of the lantern can determine the
radius of its lighting strength or something like that.

Cast a spell on yourself for night sight or have an item on yourself that grants that effect.

I'm sure the world will have realistic lighting and so should dungeons and caves.

 

@beastvold I've done pen-and-paper role playing -- it really depends on the approach of the gamemaster, how he wants the story to reveal itself, and how slowly he wants the story to reveal itself. If the story reveals itself in a very quiet manner, then the mean-time is a lot of more visceral rather than narrative adventure.

When I was a DM for instance, I avoided as much as possible what I'd consider "blunt" storytelling. A player would have some directive or reason to go somewhere, but exploration would provide nothing but hints as to where the story was going; which would only be understood as important much later on. I tried to craft the fun into the actual environment, and create a really detailed, well-thought out environment that would entertain and challenge the players. The desire to see what -- if anything -- was on the other side of a door would be more important than opening a door as some mechanism to further the plot along.

The cool thing about computer RPGs, IMO, is they allow you to do even more of that than you can do in pen-and-paper. A player can actually go through a process of baking bread, which would seem silly in a pen-and-paper environment.

 

@Solace Vale: on top of what you said, I would like to see night spells or potions amplify the strength and radius of lighting so you can see farther, not just a spell that lets you see in the dark.

Also would not mind to have some things glow in caves as well, sorry if someone already said this I skimmed through the responses

 

@Bowen Bloodgood said, "I was responding to Owain?s comment about people adjusting their monitors in order to see. That wouldn?t work without some ambient light. So if that ambient light exists your eyes can adjust to it to some degree. Obviously if there is NO light then it won?t happen. "

It's not a matter of realism, it's a matter of game play. People had an opportunity to try this feature in UO, and by the thousands, they decided that it was more trouble than it was worth, and elected almost universally to NOT have realistic dark dungeons. Why have a feature that has already been tried and rejected?

Even so, in a game that features magic, sometimes it can be counter intuitive to argue about 'realsim'. Maybe the people of SotA can naturally see in the dark better than we can, if you'd like a story based explanation.

 

If you have to hold something this not only effects what weapon you can use, it also hinders movement such as climbing ladders and ropes, opening doors, eating. Lighting a torch or lantern takes two hands as would plucking and dropping breadcrumb lighting.

Do we also have to hold the lightsource high and behind our head? Holding a bright light in front of your eyes pretty well blinds you. I always had to laugh at pictures of Diogenes since he was never going to find an honest man, nor anyone else by holding his lantern in front of his eyes. Reality ad absurdum.

 

@Owain There are also plenty of games where it works and those games are enjoyed by thousands of players, too. You're insisting that this is a case where gameplay proves realism is a bad idea, and I don't agree with you. My experience is the reverse; that gameplay proves it a good idea. I didn't play early UO so I can't say how UO implemented it and whether it implemented it poorly.

 

I have played early UO and as I recall it did not readjust the lighting for you to simulate your eyes getting use to the darkness.. also it did NOT use realistic lighting. There was some ambience even without a light source so I don't really think of UO as the greatest example of realism o the lighting front. You walk in without a light it got dark sure.. but that was about it. I didn't particularly find UO dungeons to be anything to get excited about in general.. just a standard kill fest..

 

I'm actually a big fan of realistic lighting. It can be a true environmental challenge and it actually makes light sources useful rather than just cosmetic. It also adds to the atmosphere I find.

There could be a wide variety of light sources - maybe crafting them could be a valued profession.

Also it means someone in the party has to take the role of lampholder!

 

I think being forced to carry a light source would be an excellent addition, but I do not think people would enjoy having to navigate a completely dark dungeon unless it was a rare circumstance. Also, light sources are an excellent place to add diverse and unique/rare items.

So, you've got a torch or a lantern - they light a certain radius and last for a certain amount of time. Takes a hand to hold, so replaces a shield or weapon or whatnot. Minor inconvenience.

Level 2 light source: Does not reduce your equippables - this could be a floating ball of light that takes an equipment slot reserved for such items, or you have your glowing swords, helmets (adds useful enchantment and other magicks). Spells that provide light would fall into this category.

Level 3 light source: A piece that only fills the light slot but also gives you other powers (levitation, faster healing, perhaps a combat bonus for allies the falls on)

Obviously, items that conferred special vision would also be a workaround. I would see this as being crucial not only for dungeons but at night as well. This needs to be handled well to avoid it being a major annoyance - the only place I have seen it work really well is in text games.

 

@Bowen Bloodgood

Hmm, if you didn't think the UO dungeons were something to get excited about, you probably haven't done alot
of them. There were a lot of great dungeons and I might add very dangerous ones at that.

 

@Solace Or perhaps I didn't do a lot of them because I didn't find them to be all that special? I went through most of them at some point. Usually large groups were wandering around killing everything off.. PKers were usually lurking around every corner and if you died you were pretty much assured of having your corpsed swarmed and looted within about 5 seconds.

Basically, the dungeons didn't have the capacity to handle the large numbers of players and standard hack fests are nothing special. You limit it to a party of 10 or less.. ok.. you cram 30+ people in there and you're tripping over everyone around every corner.

Besides, we were talking about the lighting in said dungeons. Whether or not you or I found them a fun romp for the whole family is entirely irrelevant.

 

I played on Pacific, it was (probably still is) the highest populated shard. Sometimes some dungeons were completely full, I would go to different ones till I found one empty or just a couple of others in it. There were tons of them. This was after T2A came out though that I played. before the Trammel split. Even with GM or near GM combat skills many of them had challenges once you got deep into them. I probably played mostly in the ice caves, the secret room with the demons was fun. (maybe it wasn't that secret, but it wasn't exactly obvious to go there to me the first time I ran through).