NPBruce
commented
7 years ago Some random thoughts:
If leaving number of tiles to the random generator it can go down to 1 tile and up to all tiles used. Perhaps setting a minimum and maximum is useful?
I would like to change the tile definition arrays to characters, so that it is more visual and will line up using fixed width. This can be done with a find and replace, I am thinking something like this:
._ ##*&## ###### ###### ###### ###### ##&*## _.
The problem is that a hazard square can't be on a puzzle edge, but I don't think this ever happens? One solution that may also help readability is to only mark the external puzzle spaces (1/2) and imply the others.
Going further still, only the extended bit (2) needs to be marked, as long as A/B type connections are known. This could mean using numbers 0 to 9 for here to mark inside, outside, city and blackrealm. I am also thinking ahead to Imperial Assualt which has even more types.
Traits in Valkyrie will need to be updated, this is not a big issue.
Currently this doesn't allow for excluding tiles sides where the other side of the same tile is already used. Valkyrie has this information already so it shouldn't be hard to add.
It doesn't look like you have a tile count to limit number of end peices or other duplicates. This will need to be added (Valkyrie doesn't have this either).
The traits you have are: 'Building','Cave','Cold','Corridor','Crossroads','Dark','Hot','Room','Tunnel','Water' Some of these are the standard D2E monster/quest traits are some are not. It is not immediately clear to me how these are used and mixed.
Random Names: This is both easier and harder in Valkyrie. You can self reference in dictionaries so you can have:
quest.name,{qst:PLACE_NAME2} {qst:OF} {qst:ADJECTIVE4} {qst:THEME1}
PLACE_NAME1,Crypt
PLACE_NAME2,Dungeon
PLACE_NAME3,Labyrinth
OF,of
This will allow for translations, however the quest.name will need to be generated, so any language that doesn't fit the X of Y Z template will break without special support.
These all look like things that should be exposed as controls for the generator: % probability that a doorway has a door ratedoor=.75; % probability that a tile has a spawn event ratespawn=.67; % probability that a tile has a search item ratesearch=.33;
On questtype, my concept is to have these still manually created. So the quest would have a manually written intro/outtro and the bit in the middle will be filled in. One implementation of this would then be to create a quest (not an internal Valkyrie feature) that has a whole bunch of questtypes as you have done and picks one at random, but I don't see that is something that should be built in.
The Long/Short weighting doesn't seem to do anything?
I think the first step is to get the extra TileSide data into Valkyrie, I will start on this.
PeterF-D2E
Hi all,
I have been working on a software package for randomized quest generation for D2E (basically a set of MATLAB/octave routines). The s/w selects tiles at random and builds a dungeon with them; placing doors, spawning monsters, placing search tokens, and including a quest objective. The output can be used with Valkyrie to play a different quest each time. They are mainly intended for one-offs, or side quests, but anything is possible. They might also serve to start people of who want to create their own quests. Just generate a few dungeons until you get something you like, and start editing from there.
The plan now is to integrate it in Valkyrie itself with help from Bruce. Also, if anyone has ideas how to add more variety, let me know. Just keep in mind that it should be quite modular to easily fit in different dungeons.
Discussion at boardgamegeek: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1850261/random-dungeon-generator
and the files: QuestGeneratorD2E_v01.zip