Instanced dungeons have their place, but I really do wish open dungeons were scattered about the world as well. With lots of little nooks and crannies and places for solo adventurers to explore, as well as areas geared toward group exploration. Also, stuff like locked doors and traps which can be picked or disabled, leading to shortcuts or hidden treasures. In other words, like DDO's dungeons but open, not instanced.
Yeah, for as many games as have rogues/thieves and their skillsets, very few actually use any of the prototypical dungeon mechanics: traps, secret passages, locks, cool puzzles, etc.
This is an area MMOs have massively(see what I did there?) failed in.
Yep, I'd have to say DDO and WoW, and ESO's public dungeons.
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Darkness Falls in DAoC, as others have mentioned, a huge tri-sided dungeon with 4 levels going down into the ground, control was won by having more towers and keeps controlled in the frontiers (rvr zone). It was a zone with encounters possible for any group size, you could go down there solo or with 200+ people and farm princes or Legion the hardest DF boss, all while having the risk of rvr/pvp. In DAoC dungeons felt like a real place within the game, not just a mini game location like WoW.
I have two best experiences but I am not sure if they would be that way aside from WHEN I experienced them.
1st DAoC. . realizing that other people were in the dungeon looking for the same things. 2nd DDO complete opposite. . very thematic. Ran it with by DAoC guild. . they let me go first since I had not done it yet. The traps etc. were great.
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Dungeons aren't really my thing, but I guess WoW? That's probably the only MMO that I actually bothered to go into it's dungeons. Well I also attempted DWB and the Corellian Corvette in SWG back in the day, but those were more like places to go if you wanted to make a trip back to the clone tubes.
For an mmo I'm going to say The Spider Cave in Vanguard.
I'm not really into dungeons that are instanced and have set, scripted, encounters so I don't really enjoy those. However I do enjoy exploring and Vanguard did have its share of dungeons to explore.
The Spider Cave, for someone of level for the area it was in, was difficult. One had to carefully make their way through if they weren't in a group. It was dangerous and a lot of fun.
I'll add, in a similar style as far as exploration, Giants Cave in Lineage 2 as well as School of Dark Arts and Tower of Insolence. Also Cruma.
For exploration and community part i would strongly recommend Project Gorgon.
Comments
This is an area MMOs have massively(see what I did there?) failed in.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
1st DAoC. . realizing that other people were in the dungeon looking for the same things.
2nd DDO complete opposite. . very thematic. Ran it with by DAoC guild. . they let me go first since I had not done it yet. The traps etc. were great.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
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For exploration and community part i would strongly recommend Project Gorgon.
This ones pretty easy for me, it was Vanguard.
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