ELDER REALMS: An Endgame Idea by Puffagod

#41

I have plans for at least 3, coming in a later update :slight_smile:

#42

Hullo again! C:

With the first update to Elder Realms out of the way, and bigger things likely arriving to the idea over the coming months, I thought it might be worth preparing for future additions…

This poll (hopefully it works!) is a list of biomes in the Elder Realm. Which did you think were the most successful (by whatever metric you desire)? The aim of such a survey is quite simply to find out which areas might need improvement in the future, and indeed, which you would be most interested to see more of… feel free, of course, to comment with any ideas or reasoning! Would be mighty useful :slight_smile:

I respect that the poll ignores certain elements of the idea, like the WIP bosses and event system - but since those are definitely the subject of future updates, this is more designed to keep on top of the bits that already exist!

  • Open Water
  • Reefs
  • Ancient Islands
  • Desert Islands
  • Beach
  • Woodlands
  • Mire
  • Heath
  • River
  • Plains
  • Deep Forest
  • Desert
  • Swamp
  • Fungal Forest
  • Tundra
  • Mountains
  • Ruins
  • Lost Lands
  • Caldera
  • Blight
  • Glitch

0 voters

Would also be lovely to hear if you have any ideas for additional biomes… because I do :wink:

Cheers!!
Puffagod

#43

You know dude, you could just write fantasy novel series like everyone else

Edit: Fix the purple prose before you do

#44

Many thanks! You see, I mercilessly repress purple prose from everything else I write… so here, in this seedy opium-den of a document (which has no literary aspiration), it irrupts with all the force of a smothered complex…

I might have to settle for a sort of pale lilac for the fantasy novels though, to keep them addictive.

#45

I do, admittedly have a very small brain, but I simply cannot wrap my head around all the ‘jokes’ that you have made about Yanshe. I cannot comprehend how you could find such a noble race a fitting target for your derision and laughter. You and I are but mere mortals, while the Yanshe race shall thrive until the end of time.

/s

(joke explain pl0x :smiley:)

#46

It’s an in-joke between myself and my best friend… something we’ve been working on for absolutely ages (and still are!)

I won’t spoil too much for now, and apologies for being cryptic… but you can safely remove your ‘/s’. Eternal praise lavish the yan of the turgid snout!

#47

The men with varying amounts of eyes grant me both knowledge and dread beyond my understanding

#48
_ _ _

An OBSERVER lours in the offing, my PUPILS~

Do the CONCEPTS twitch? Is the membrane intact?

it is UNCERTAIN~

[A YOUNG SELF OBSERVED INTO BEING]

image
…

O O O
#49

3 eyed ̶m̶a̶n̶ boy confirmed.(why puffa)

#50

This idea is spectacular! I know I’ve been a quiet observer for the past several years with your projects, Puffagod, but I love this one the best! I know you heavily criticize your work, but most ideas need refinement. I mean, look at DECA at this point in time with O3 and the Bard, and that’s being tackled by a group of people, rather than a single mastermind.

I read every word and envisioned every concept (for my own pleasure; at times like these, I wish I could help with a programming effort to bring ideas such as these into fruition), even if it took me 3 sittings and 4-5 hours of reading and digesting! XD
At least I understood beforehand most of the words thrown at me, no matter how deep a shade of purple they may be. Though, I’ll admit I learned a couple. They add charm to the dialect and authenticity of the lore in my opinion, making it less of a drudge to push through the plethora of pages!

I know there is an astronomically low chance that this or Oryx’s Paracosm will ever become a reality, tweaked or no, for a few reasons, but the idea of an alternate, more challenging realm has been a quiet wish of mine not long after starting this game. This document just fueled that dream again. One can always hope… Thank you for taking the time to share! You have (had) a fan.

(Also, my apologies for awkwardness, this is the first time I’ve posted anything; delayed digital dialogue takes a form of finesse alien to one such as I :3)

#51

Also, here are the Winding and Webding translations in the document, just because:

Six Eyed Man: I am from a plane beyond Abhoroth. The Archetype comes. Do not heed her concepts!

Four Eyed Man: Name and Aesthetics

Eleven Eyed Man: Eyeball

If anyone cares or even knew they existed in the document in the first place… lol

#52

My friend, your comment has warmed the calcified chasms of my heart! C: Thank you so much for reading my idea(s), and dedicating so much time to the endeavor… I can’t express how much it justifies the whole project, knowing that there are souls out there who enjoy it! I can’t thank you enough!

But yes… I find it’s very easy to become your own biggest critic - and I must apologise accordingly for subjecting you to the myriad crimes against grammar and spelling that plague the document as it devolves! I’ve recently flicked through it myself, cringing, noting typos, repetitions, and other such embarassing vagaries… but I totally agree, and am aiming for (relatively) sustained refinement going forward!

… positively Tyrian! But alas, the baroque contortion of language was one of the only things that could propel me to write in such a sustained capacity… I’m glad it wasn’t too exhausting! And I’m also super happy you noticed the element of ‘dialect and authenticity’… though it was in a pretty adolescent manner, and quite peripheral, I did try to play with a few different idioms (and narratorial voices) to signify different things… after all, ‘I am present in five forms’…

Yes, I’ve long ago come to terms with that… but it won’t stop me tinkering and polishing this old thing, so long as there are people who are interested in reading it! C:

… Eye do :wink:

And by the way, it is an honour to have my idea the subject of your first post… but worry not, if anything, the format calls for a systematic un-learning of finesse! xD

Again, thank you so much for your comment and I’m delighted that you enjoyed the idea on the whole. If you’ll forgive the slight impertinence (for, you see, I imagine it is fairly rare that people sift through the document so closely) - were there any parts that you thought would benefit from improvement? Or even parts you liked in particular? I realise that’s quite a tall order and no worries if not lol, would be nice to know however, just in terms of planning future updates! C:

#53

@Puffagod

Well, I’m certainly a fan of the (in my humble opinion) better lore and backstories, especially of Oryx. Piecing together tidbits of information that echo faintly of a grand scheme in a peculiar (multi)universe adds great flavor. Suddenly, you aren’t battling random, slobbering monster sprites. You are part of a grand story, one that as of yet, you don’t fully comprehend. Some pieces of the puzzle will never be solved, like completely unearthing everything about a long ruined ancient society, but that’s part of the fun, like pre-Disney Star Wars when you really pay attention to the games, legends, and the like.

I am also a massive fan of exploration, no matter the game. Dungeons are somewhat… limited… in what they can offer in that regard, hence the wish for an improved realm. I mean, working with a group to discover new lands, new structures, peculiar life forms, hostile or otherwise, and fightzing challenging enemies (that aren’t crazy bosses in confined rooms with dissolving ground everywhere like in some certain dungeons/others’ ideas…) would be the ultimate game style for me!

As a minor additional call out, I like that you think about the loot. Very seldom do I see realistic designs amongst ideas in the forums, and even more seldom do I see people coming up with consumables. There were even a couple of loot drops that I thought were a tad underwhelming for the rarity and difficulty of obtaining :slight_smile:

Now, as for the tp system… the consumable backpack was a great way to balance tp tokens taking up too much inventory. I forsee it becoming a bit of an exclusive system for guilds our Twitch runs, because of the lower drop rates for those tokens where people spawn, and rushing to crowds would be limited to only the most experienced of players, and potentially fatally dragging to the crowd they’re rushing to. And good luck getting anyone from an inland crowd tI up come and bother trading tokens, even for sale, just because someone wants to join them.
Now, this said, it may be more feasible to ignore teleporting if:

  1. The spawn rate of mobs is always relatively low, nowhere near as common as the normal realm, including fodder mobs, or

  2. Any monsters killed in the visibly explored map stay dead, and only pre-existing mobs ignored wandering about could interrupt the easy walk back.

Now I know said groups will occasionally have to nexus for some particularly nasty beasts of the Elder Realm, but you still would have to wait for that to happen. I love the token idea, but I have mixed feelings about the culture of the average players that would likely sprout. Not to mention the low spawn rate of the Elder Realm itself. Maybe that was the intent, anyway, to have organized groups, though!

And honestly, with all that said, DECA isn’t doing terribly right now. They may not have as grand aspirations, but there’s a reason. I think for what they’ve tried, from the whole quest for the calculator dungeon, new classes, lore bits from the library and a couple other sources, generally trying to balance old mistakes and glitches that were inherited, and so on and so forth, I think they’re doing their best, especially with the merciless part of the fan base. It may be inferior to the ideas that people like you think of, but hey, they’re why I still play.

And as a fun thought, they do watch for some fan ideas. I remember reading the Lost Halls idea when I was in high school back when DECA was new, and though they tweaked some pieces, it was surprisingly similar! And that reading was just before I discovered your “The Beyond” document in The Best of The Best section. (I like that O3 sprite better than this new official one, but ah well XD) So so knows…

In closure, I think those were some of the best parts. I’m not going to critique in much detail, because I would have to do it on the individual mob basis, which is obviously not worth it. For future works, there are some cool far fetched ideas, like the PSI Brain, but oddities such as that and new status effects haven’t stopped DECA, so keep trying stuff like that out!

(And forgive my wordiness; alas, I suffer from that in live conversations with people, too)

#54

Thank you so much for the feedback!! This is amazing stuff - and really great to hear! :smiley:

So glad to know that you enjoyed all the random world-building snippets and ‘lore’ clues! Sometimes big hints towards the future are in strangely banal places (a few things in the Swamp biome spring faintly to mind). But yes! I have definitely tried many times to foster the mystique of the ‘unsolved’ mystery… the best story will always be the one you don’t try to write!

(But really now - who are the Elder Gods? what are the CONCEPTS? who was Nyx again? What do yanshes have to do with anything? And how on earth did that Water Sprite get there??? :thinking:)

ugh don’t remind me ;-; But I totally agree - I love exploration, and I feel like collecting things like Lore Tomes and even just random trinkets like consumables along the way would really help with game-world immersion, in a way that the current realm could (maybe) use a bit more of!

Yes… I get what you mean. There’s a mounting prejudice against ‘discord dungeons’ now and I can see how the teleport system might favour that sort of insular organisation… It is true that the Cult Event System does very much favour organised guild runs or other specialised exclusivity. For the pinnacle of endgame, however - which is what the Elder Realm is trying to be - I don’t necessarily think its too unreasonable… the very nature of the Elder Realm, after all, demands at the very least a simple organisation into three groups.

But then again the paucity of teleportation does affect everyone, and is basically there to make sure people actually explore and fight through the world. I had this grand vision of battle-scarred veterans spearheading fame-trains into the unknown heart of the land… Sherpas checking their compasses, guiding envoys, following the roads and rivers, searching for Monoliths or Agalmata or the enemies of their Cult… this is, however, a highly idealised fantasy of tp-token culture xD In all likelihood, people would probably figure out that Phytre Magnets can technically drop on the Beach, load up on tokens by slaughtering Lowlands 16x16s, and warp freely at the command of their raid leader. Workarounds aside - my ultimate aim was to severely cripple the reliability of teleportation, while rewarding exploration with the same spike of power. Hope those thoughts made a bit of sense?

Absolutely xD Apologies once more for the big ask!

… me too (who would have guessed).

But many many thanks indeed for your thoughts! C: And of course, please feel free to let me know if you have any other ideas!

#55

@Puffagod

I’ll be sure to do that! It may be easier to do it via in game chat rather than forums for more intricate, smaller ideas, but if you have a larger concept for refining, I’d be honored to assist!

#56

Of course! C: And if you can’t catch me in game, do zap a direct message here on the forums… (and that goes for everyone else too - would love to hear all thoughts, critiques and ideas, and I don’t mind where :slight_smile:)

#57

… Progress update time! C:

So… another update to Elder Realms is in the works! This time, I’ve really started work on the ELDER GODS themselves - but they are complicated! Since I would like to reveal all three at the same time (and thus avoid betraying any cult partisanship), the update unfortunately might be delayed - hopefully not for much longer than a month or so. It should, however, be worth it - provided plans don’t change!

Other than (with any luck) the ELDER GODS, the upcoming update (which may technically end up as three updates released at once), will definitely include a healthy crop of new pet skins, a few formatting and balance fixes, and at least a few new World enemies - one for the BLIGHT, since people seemed to like that biome, along with its minions, and at least one for the TUNDRA… so far.

It being my birthday I have diverted all serious efforts into reskinning the Conquerer Ohrm to resemble the Alaskan Bull Worm, which the next update will make canon.

image

Thanks for your continued support for Elder Realms, and stay tuned for the next update (hopefully in a month or two!) C:

#58

That’s an Alaskan Bull Worm, all right! Those hideous things love to consume the animals (or unlucky, brainless human) of my homeland, commonly leeching their lifeblood until they’re too weak to continue, then feast upon their victims’ flesh heaps, growing all the larger…

XD Joking, of course. Although we have some other interesting critters (and yes, a few sizable parasites I’ve seen with my own eyes), Alaskan Bull worms are kind of the equivalent of Australian Drop Bears, used as a joke to freak out gullible tourists etc… Beyond parasites and earthworms, I think the only vaguely interesting worms are the Ice worms that love on top and within our glaciers. They feed off the tree pollens that are scattered atop their homes, then burrow back inside for safety. They aren’t, however, very large on account of their meager diet.

Posted partly to debunk a myth for the benefit of a few poor souls in the dark, and also because I think it’s awesome that you’re using something related to my home. The chances! :smiley:

#59

I read your first paragraph, maybe only half of it, then immediately decided to google it. Hahahahaha. I wish I read the rest first. Now I feel a little stupid.

#60

Wow!! :smiley: What a coincidence, (perhaps even a ‘synchronicity’…) I am utterly fascinated by these quasi-hoaxish sorts of creatures. Have you read Gerolf Steiner’s Form and Life of the Rhinogrades? It’s not quite the same, in the sense that its fabrications do not form a specifically cultural sort of in-joke… more of an in-joke localised in a certain academic discourse. Would highly recommend!!

In your honour I will institute the Alaskan Bull Worm (Bull Ohrm) as its own standalone enemy. It shall spawn in the TUNDRA biome - and won’t just be an optional/seasonal re-skin C:

I have never heard of these - but I LOVE THEM!! So oddly poetic! My favourite sort of worm (at least, ere now) is the Palolo Worm, which lives in the Pacific near Samoa, as described by Rachel Carson…

‘Twice each year during the neap tides of the moon’s last quarter in October and Novermber, the worms forsake their burrows and rise to the surface in swarms that cover the water. For this purpose, each worm has literally broken its body in two, half to remain in its rocky tunnel, half to carry the reproductive products to the surface and there to liberate the cells. [I later learned that this motile half is called an ‘epitoke’…] This happens at dawn on the day before the moon reaches its last quarter, and again on the following day; on the second day of spawning the quantity of eggs liberated is so great that the sea is discoloured’.

… however scientifically accurate that is, I find it endlessly enchanting in its imagery!