| Mine level | Description | Danger |
| 0 - open-cast mine | A quary on the surface.Minerals are rare and hard to find | Accidents are mostly splinters from too enthusiastic hammering and hurting thumbs |
| 1 - ordinary mine | Well, it's a mine. You find more Minerals here then on the surface | Just be careful with your head. It rains stones here. |
| 2 - old mine | This mine is old, but more and more valueble deposits are discovered here. | Be careful! Through time, a lot of tunnels have been cut into the rock irraticly. There are dangerous rockfalls here. |
| 3 - abonded mine | This mine was abonded but not because it's exhausted. On the contrary, you will find precious gems and metals here. | It's abonded for a good reason. Toxic gases and explosions are order of buisness. This mine has its pittfalls |
| 4 - haunted mine | You have to be this small and bearded to enter here. Here you will find the most valueble and rare minerals | Dont ask, pray! |
It shouldn't be so dangerous that one could not run like the wind to evade danger or worse. And sometimes, another visit to the death realm will just be inevitable.
The further away from civilisation the mine is the more dangerous it should be, and that's in addition to the factors suggested in the first post. Of course the further away it is the more ore should be there due to the fact that it is little visited, in fact I believe that mines at the very edge of the explored territory should be so dangerous that only a heavily armed and defended party could go there. There should be no, "hey I've just started mining, where do I go to mine a lot of gold", it should be be "hey I've just started, where do I join the next mining expedition". They would then have to give a percentage of their earnings to the organsiers of the expedition. It should be so dangerous that new players going out on their to mine gold and heading to the furthest gold mine would be killed every time. Of course there would be a few close in gold mines for beginners but the gold would be scarce.This actually what I had in mind, too. Really dangerous mines would need experts in minning as well as warriors and mages to defend them from monsters while they are working. Let's say, expert Miners have a "prediction aura" which protects nearby grouped players from mine accidents to a certain extend. Which means there are accidents which can happen to anyone who enters the mine, not just while they dig, and when your mining skill is low, they can be lethal even for a high stat warrior. This would prevent players to enter this places just for looting, and make miners more important for the warrior/mage class than just as supplier of raw materials.
Amazing idea, truly amazing. I would say that instead of the haunted mine only being accessible to dwarves you should replace it with a high agility, with a bonus for dwarves of course.Well I was not serious about this dwarf thing ... ;)
As far as accidentally digging stuff up. Why not a random quest item that a series of quests?
That is a good idea actually, especially the second revised version. However, I wonder how many people would get annoyed about who has to start the mine after a cave-in. I have to wonder when cave-ins would happen. In an elaborate mine like that you would constantly have people in there. If a cave-in occurred perhaps you were given a warning (sound, rocks falling) then you had so long to get out. While it might help prevent macro-diggers, some may find it very annoying since you could have set aside a few hours to mine gold but a cave-in occurred while you were digging. The rest of the time would have to be spent just getting back into the mine! I don't mine too often but I can see that issue arising.