Mining is dangerous ...

[glodin]

Motivation
What is the first thing a new player most probably do when he enters the world of Yliakum? Exactly, he goes down to the sewers and kills some rats. Why? Because it's the main source of PPs. For me this is kinda depressing and(Yes, I know we are talking about fantasy here) unrealistic. Did all people in the middle age kill rats and gobbles in the sewers to earn their bread and butter? I am not a historian, but I doubt it. It is just an altered and exaggerated reality, a concept of RP games we are used to. Kill monsters and get experience, which you can invest in stats that enables you to kill bigger monsters. The skill mining in its current form gives you some PPs, but it is nothing compared with those from fighting. That's reasonable when you think that fighting can hurt or even kill you. Rocks do not fight back, do they?



Miner, take care !
It's a dangerous job! Think about it, there are annoying, dangerous and deadly things waiting for the thoughtless miner. Rockfalls, toxic gas, gas explosions, water inrush, stuffy air, heat, dust, splinters, sharp rocks or the possibillty of hurting yourself in the dim light of the tunnel. And in a fantasy world, there are endless posibilities for dangers awaiting the one who digs to deep into the bones of the earth, the rocks themself can be malicious. If you find this is exaguareted and unrealistic, remmeber that the same is true for the fighting system. Why not integrate this in the game experience? The idea is this:

• There are events called accidents, whenever you mine a deposit
• An accident decrease the players HP by a certain ammount
• The damage done by an accident is based on the accident type
• The damage done by an accident is altered by the players mining skill
• The player has a certain chance to completly evade the damage done by an accident, based on his mining skill
• An evaded accident adds experience to the player, determined by the accidents type
• The player has a certain chance to predict an accident, determined by sccident type and his mining skill
• The player will be informed when he predicts an accident in sufficient time to react
• A predicted accident adds experience to the player, determined by the accidents type

Accidents types go from splinters, accidents with your mining tools, smaller stones from the ceiling to greater rockfalls, toxic gases leaking from where you hit the rock and genuine gas explosions. The propabilty and ammount of an accident is determinated by the deposit spot. Each mine would have a "level of danger". This could look like this:

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!

[Erisnas]

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.

[Zhaxor]

Some interesting ideas there, but let me add a few of my own.

We all remember the days of the gold mine at the magic shop don't we? Aaah, happy days, walk a hundred paces, mine gold, walk back, sell gold, repeat as often as possible!

Now of course it's only coal, but the gold mine that close was silly really, it owuld have been cleaned out of ore long ago, now here's my suggestion.

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.

There are some details that need to be worked out, leaving and entering the game at the minesite would be dangerous. if you had to leave for a few hours and came back and your expedition had left you would be all alone and doomed, doooooommmeed I tell you! So a sotckade would be needed, where players could run for safety if they needed to leave, then there could pay the next expedition that comes out to get back to civilisation. Oh yes, and no /die to get back to Hydlaa with your gold, that would need to be though on seriously.

You could also have resident miners who lived there and sold gold to travelling traders who took it back to Hydlaa to sell on, it would be like a mini town. Hard to get to, hard to get back from, but well worth the trip out.

However I do see this as a future possibility, there are to many factors affecting the idea to impement it any time soon, the spawn points for one, to easy to get there with a group then /die to spawn in Hydlaa, in this scenario it is likely the death penalty would be prefferable to waiting for another mining expedition to walk back with.

[Fyre]

Zhaxor, there are many outstanding ideas, based in logic, within your post...hope many come to fruition.  So far as reawakening in the danger zone, one can only rely on pure luck and speed.  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.

[Zhaxor]

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.

Well, personally, I think it shouldn't be possible to evade every monster chasing you, unless you are mounted there are bound to be monsters faster than a person on foot, but I would use a variation on an old idea, a monster that is certain to kill you is to slow to catch you, but a monster that can catch you may not be strong enough to kill you. So the weaker monsters are faster, and if you are a lower level you may be able to fight off a few, if you are lucky, and make it to town or the mining stockade.

[glodin]

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 ...

[Zwenze]

There is another danger you forgot. It happens from time to time that you hit a kran nursery station and all those crying little krans will attrackt older krans who will try to smash  you into the ground

[Sangwa]

Nice idea.

Experience should be awarded regardless if you can evade (predict) or not. Errors teach.

[Eletiy]

a great idea! I always hated mining because it's so boring, but with such dangerouse mines I could be really intresting. Apart from this it could be a real alternative to "killing monsters", at the moment there is no easy way to get pp without killing mobs..

[Ravenguard]

This sounds like a fantastic idea.  I mine a lot, and would love to see this implemented.  It gives more value to miners, both to help others kill things, and to give them more progression points.  It'll means there will hopefully be a larger desire to be a miner, and thus, more raw materials to craft things out of.  Maybe blacksmiths don't have to go running around for materials anymore.
 
Miner's aura?    Sounds a little hokey, but I think it makes a lot of sense.  Of course, the people would have to be grouped with the miner, yes?

Miner: Hey warrior, don't step on that. 
Warrior: 'K. *avoids dangerous pit* 

[Erisnas]

The only problem with good suggestion like this is that if we are not careful the forum slowly swallows them up until it is lost.

[Ravenguard]

Oh, another thing.  Would there also be the possibility of mining something other than what you're looking for?   Not like, say, you find tin instead of the iron you were looking for, but you're digging along and, *thunk* you run into something wooden.  A chest, perhaps?  Treasure?

Maybe you find a corpse and unleash a scary beast.
Or some ancient armor or weapon.
Or someone's spitton, but just something to make you go '...huh' and move on.

[Tontow]

As far as accidentally digging stuff up.  Why not a random quest item that a series of quests?

[Jeraphon]

As far as accidentally digging stuff up.  Why not a random quest item that a series of quests?

I don't see that happening. If someone's spending that much time mining, and finds a quest item, my guess is he's more likely to sell that item than attempt the quest himself. It's just a generalization based on a player's motivations for playing.

[thorgrin]

About great rockfalls, Imagine: We are in a mine, (has got wooden beams to maintain the ceiling) we hear crack on the wood beams and we see rats (small ones) running to the exit, you succesfully exit the mine, then you look the mine and the ceiling has fallen closing the mine.
A miner told me that most mines had wood beams because they crack before the ceiling collapses, and rats run to the exit before some "big" event, and that Steel beams are "traitors" because they do not crack and suddendly... well to death realm.
Also the capability of buy maps showing this categories of mines: 2 to 4.
Great Idea Glodin