ELDER REALMS: An Endgame Idea by Puffagod

#208

Terrene%20Accretion
Terrene Accretion.jpg1284x231 29.3 KB

Am I missing something here? You are thinking of Terrene Disasters which do 400 damage.

It is pretty balanced? I’ve tried to take care of that… and would rather not have my effort diminished by misreadings :3

#209

I am very sorry for that, misread it.

#210

That’s quite alright! It was bound to happen when everything is called ‘Terrene’ something-or-other xP

#211

It’s a blanket statement. I didn’t go back to see the bullet in question. There were some monsters and boss fights that seemed like they’d be fun, but a couple of them (like the Spirit Battle 1.0) definitely needed some balancing. However, as purely conceptual fights, they’re fun to read!

#212

Still, an effort has been made to balance things, it’s not just pure fantasy… I’m not saying it’s been 100% successful of course - but I have tried (see the existence of SPIRIT 2.0). Would be great to know what other things you guys feel might require balancing for when I come to work on the document again :slight_smile:

#213

I feel like a lot of the balancing can only be done if you could actually play it though.

#214

No joke, I would be entirely willing to go through the document a third time again once you are at a point relatively asunder from your workload and have the time to work on this again! I know I scratched some of the items, but there were some enemies I wanted to touch at the time I read them… I’ve since forgotten some of the specifics, though. x)

#215

What happens if a guild does Oryx’s Paracosm?

#216

hmm what do you mean? Terribly sorry but I haven’t looked at that document in years lol, I can barely remember most of the stuff I wrote in it :3333

#217

There was something about a guild exclusive Anchor of Worlds that you can get if you upgrade the guild hall.

#218

In a pre-Discord world it was a way to orchestrate organised private runs (in public runs there would be more chance someone would crash or troll the Bridge of Woe encounter). Also it was a reason to spend guild fame (which we still don’t have)… there was no special reward for doing it as far as I remember…

#219

Isn’t the feed power of the archetype weapons a little high?

#220

hmmm maybe? What would you propose?

#221

Idk, how about 1500 or 1600?

#222

Fair enough, I suppose I’d rather have people incentivised to use them rather than feed them. I’ll bear this in mind for the next update, thanks :slight_smile:

#223

May I dare ask how you came up with the deep one brood maid?

#224

… no :flushed:

Just kidding. She was inspired by that uncomfortable passage from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow over Innsmouth where Zadok Allen describes the ‘intermixing’ of island folk with things that came from the sea: ‘Seems that human folks has got a kind o’ relation to sech water-beasts—that everything alive come aout o’ the water onct, an’ only needs a little change to go back agin […] ef they mixed bloods there’d be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more’n more like the things, till finally they’d take to the water an’ jine the main lot o’ things daown thar’…

You can blame me for the finer details, sadly.

#225

Damn, I’m still trying to skim the document and having a hard time XD Everything I’ve wanted to say seems to have been said for now though. Huge props for this!! This is a bit off topic but how did you go about making this idea? Like if there was a structure or if you were to structure this sort of thing.

#226

Hello! - a very good question indeed…

I suppose I did use a sort of structure or plan when I was making this thing. After inventing the narrative, the first important thing was to split the Elder Realm into ‘bands’ (the Ocean, Lowlands, Midlands, Highlands, Godlands). Then I split the ‘bands’ into biomes. Then I split the biomes into enemies, which are more or less the atoms of the idea, the most basic units of its design (and indeed its storytelling). I then simply focused on designing enemies, using each higher order of complexity (biomes and bands) as a design goal (‘by the end of the month, the Ocean will be finished’). It was generally a slow and incremental process but a gratifying one that made it impossible to get overwhelmed by the complexity of the whole! I am also a raving monomaniac so that was a great advantage.

Also, I was conscious from the beginning that Elder Realms would be unlike any other ‘idea’ that had been done before, because it was trying to be an artistic artefact in itself. It was very gratifying not having to worry about templates or the conventions of ‘dungeon design’. At all times I did precisely whatever I felt like doing, and that was immensely liberating - to invent a structure as I went along.

I hope that answers part of your question at least? C:

#227

Hello everyone! Today is my 9 year account anniversary (hooray! C:) so - for those who care - I thought I’d share some major behind-the-scenes Elder Realms cut content! These things probably won’t ever be added but I think its fun to reminisce and speculate…

  1. The Cult system was originally very different. There were originally going to be three themed ‘nexuses’ embedded in the Elder Realm itself, each stashed with NPCs including cult figures and questgivers (originally SPACE, TIME and DEATH never spoke to you directly until you beat their respective ELDER GODS). There was going to be a subplot about inter-cult conflicts and alliances (including an alliance between the cults of SPACE and TIME resulting from a rather unexpected SPACETIME ship). This was cancelled and the whole Cult system streamlined purely because of the excessive amount of work the original vision would have involved…

  2. Elder Realms was originally intended to have an endgame loop for Unaligned players involving the Many Eyed Men and the Deep Chaos Absureth… which I just never got around to :3

  3. There was at one point an additional biome planned for each band. The OCEAN was going to get the Jungle Island (and possibly also the Midnight Zone around its very furthest reaches). The LOWLANDS were going to get the Temple Complex, the MIDLANDS were going to get the Lake, the HIGHLANDS were going to get the Necropolis (the concept for which was converted into my early-game dungeon idea of the same name). And finally, the GODLANDS were going to get Vestige: Archetype’s Incursion. There’s a minuscule chance I’ll revisit these in the distant future once I figure out a good way to make sprites for them, but I wouldn’t hold my breath…

  4. There are quite a few cut enemies or unreleased versions of existing enemies… Here’s one…

    image

And that’s about it for now :slight_smile: The project is still in suspension but I’ll be very sure to let you all know when something starts brewing again! Thanks for all your support, always happy to answer any questions & here’s to 9 more years! <3