The decline of dungeons?

[deama]

I enjoyed the whole of arx fatalis, does that count?

 

[RNGsus]

An obsession with keeping immersive story time mode in focus, so they wind up neglecting other constituent parts, like being a good DM ffs.

 

[Dorateen]

The entire stretch from the Cenotaph of the Black Lich to the Vault of the Exemplar was one of the most brilliant underground adventures I have encountered in a computer role-playing game. Its sequence of puzzles, combat and depth of backstory were interwoven and executed in a demonstration of well-crafted dungeon design.

 

[Melan]

Indeed. The dungeon design in Grimoire is a shining beacon in a sea of decline and fail. The Aquavia dungeon by itself is an example of the things to come in miniature.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

I would rate the dweomer ruins from Morrowind as examples of dungeons done well too. I personally don't think in terms of dungeons, but an area well designed and having an evocative atmosphere is always welcome. In the ruins, when you first enter them, you have a depressing atmosphere and tough enemies to contend with. The ashen remains of the Dweomer add to the feeling.

However, the best such examples are not in RPGs but in the Thief series. Especially, the Cragsgate prison is terrific. Then you have the halls of the necropolis and that is a freaking frightening place the first time you visit it.

Deus Ex offers some amazing designs as well; the very first Liberty Island is a marvellous, shining example of level done right. And the game keeps repeating this feat just to prove it was not a fluke.

 

[Curratum]

I may have some good news for you soon-ish if you think the decline of dungeons is a shameful thing. I do too, believe you me.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Dungeons are one of the greatest, if not THE greatest gameplay innovations ever designed. The fact that you can design an entire game around them and still have it sell is very telling. Many of the greatest RPGs ever made are dungeon crawlers.

Making a good dungeon is hard. Stringing together some combats down a linear corridor interspersed with story and dialogue is very easy.

 

[Tito Anic]

Arx Fatalis has great dungeons also System Shock 2, Deus Ex.

 

[Lurker47]

What's the specific appeal of a dungeon?

 

[DemonKing]

I'm trying to think about what makes up a good dungeon and my mind keeps going back to some of the locales in IWD like Dragon's Eye, The Severed Hand and Lower Dorn's Deep. They stood out because they each had a distinctive and evocative look, but they also had quite detailed backstories and finally in a gameplay sense they were not very linear (Dragon's Eye being the most but the levels themselves allowed some free-form approaches) and the connectivity between various parts of the dungeon was well done. There's also a nostalgia element I guess from playing D&D back in the day and this game felt the closest to me to my memories of clearing out the Caves of Chaos or the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

So for me a great dungeon is somewhere that feels unique and "real" (in that it has a reason for existing) and there are a number of ways to get around and move between the various areas within the dungeon. Of course, in the early days of CRPGs dungeons were more of a mainstay because they were relatively easy to create within the graphical limitations of the day. These days creating wilderness or urban settings is much easier and hence a focus on "dungeon" locations is much rarer.

 

[Black]

M&M6, Castle Darkmoor.
Entire Temple of Elemental Evil.

No jrpgs nonsense.

 

[Bladeract]

Even though the combat is PST was kind of shit, I really liked the catacombs area as a dungeon but that is one of the few later RPGs with a good dungeon in it, most of them are a joke. Never saw the big whoop about durlag's tower or anything else in BG, let alone The Glow. If you can even call that a dungeon, it is more like a cool 'area' as it were. It is really quite small. BG I+II dungeons are almost all like that, they hardly count as dungeons at all.

The best dungeons are all in older games. Pools of Radiance and the Krynn series had some great ones. So did Wiz 4+5+6+7 and the whole ultima series. Daggerfall, too, but some of them were just ridiculously large.

 

[ilitarist]

I would rate the dweomer ruins from Morrowind as examples of dungeons done well too. I personally don't think in terms of dungeons, but an area well designed and having an evocative atmosphere is always welcome. In the ruins, when you first enter them, you have a depressing atmosphere and tough enemies to contend with. The ashen remains of the Dweomer add to the feeling.

Where they really good? Those were one of the few big dungeons in Morrowind - most other were small caves or tombs - but like the rest of Morrowind dungeons they still weren't complex at all. Strong theme, yes, but even that is somewhat spoiled by Dwemer ghost who have no reason to exist thematically. Because when you ask the big question of where the Dwemers went - here, go into the ruins, they're dead and turned into ghosts, case closed.

I'd argue that Skyrim did the same better. You still have a mystery of their absence but it's in the background. No ghosts in sight but more diverse assets show you Dwemer bedrooms, kitchens, forgeries. Blackreach had this great atmosphere of well fortified and hidden abandoned town. And thanks to Bethesda ingenious decision to make all the normal towns have just a dozen of buildings Blackreach looks massive in comparison, he-he. It also manages to pack a lot of interactions there allowing you to organize three-way fights between Falmer, dormant defensive systems and sleeping dragon, plus some quests wihtout any talking NPC.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Where they really good? Those were one of the few big dungeons in Morrowind - most other were small caves or tombs - but like the rest of Morrowind dungeons they still weren't complex at all. Strong theme, yes, but even that is somewhat spoiled by Dwemer ghost who have no reason to exist thematically. Because when you ask the big question of where the Dwemers went - here, go into the ruins, they're dead and turned into ghosts, case closed.

Morrowind's dwarven spectres are undead formed from dwemer who died before the event that caused the Disappearance of the Dwarves.

 

[nikolokolus]

What's the specific appeal of a dungeon?

Exploration of the mythic underworld; a nearly universal theme in all cultures throughout history. Often it's about mortals entering the world of the dead and being altered by the experience in some fundamental way. This guy has a pretty good take on it: https://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-mythic-underworld-persephone.html

 

[ilitarist]

Morrowind's dwarven spectres are undead formed from dwemer who died before the event that caused the Disappearance of the Dwarves.

I guess that works. Maybe by the time of Skyrim they all gave up and just dissolved, yeah. I don't think there's any rule about how soon ghosts appear after death, in Daggerfall it happened almost immediately but in some cases you clearly meet some ancient people.

 

[Old Hans]

King's Field: Lost City was an awesome dungeon. I love getting hopelessly lost

 

[mindx2]

The Stygian Abyss.

This x1,000! Still the best even after all these years!

 

[Lurker47]

What's the specific appeal of a dungeon?

Exploration of the mythic underworld; a nearly universal theme in all cultures throughout history. Often it's about mortals entering the world of the dead and being altered by the experience in some fundamental way. This guy has a pretty good take on it: https://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-mythic-underworld-persephone.html

Interesting. Is there any specific type of dungeon that really appeals to this or is it more of a dungeon is a dungeon is a dungeon thing?

 

[nikolokolus]

What's the specific appeal of a dungeon?

Exploration of the mythic underworld; a nearly universal theme in all cultures throughout history. Often it's about mortals entering the world of the dead and being altered by the experience in some fundamental way. This guy has a pretty good take on it: https://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-mythic-underworld-persephone.html

Interesting. Is there any specific type of dungeon that really appeals to this or is it more of a dungeon is a dungeon is a dungeon thing?

Tomb of Horrors or go home.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

So many minions of decline on rpgcodex.

 

[Serus]

M&M6, Castle Darkmoor.
Entire Temple of Elemental Evil.

No jrpgs nonsense.

How many times it needs to be said that japanese rpg != jrpg. JRPG is a specific subset of the genre but Japs make other CRPGs as well - their wizardry inspired dungeon crawlers like Elminage series have as much in common with JRPG as an average western CRPG has. In fact even less so because an average western CRPG these days must have an "emotionally engaging" and "immersive" story, something that JRPG have been doing since forever but it's not necessary in a jap dungeon crawler.

 

[Gurgaraneth]

As long as those *posers* will keep chanting that PST and BG2 are the best CRPG while JRPGs are not *real* rpgs we will have rpgs with shit dungeons and shit gameplay.

Most jrpg dungeon sare either stupidly simple likenew Persona or endless grindy corridors filled with same traps and random enemy encounters

 

[Siobhan]

I'd say Wizardry 8 is a good example of why mechanically satisfying dungeon design is so important for RPGs. That game is really dragged down by its low ratio of dungeons to overworld (not counting the three secret ones which are clearly easter eggs), and most of the dungeons aren't particularly engaging: no traps, spinners, teleporters, fake walls, hidden switches, creative item usage, or logic puzzles, and the encounter placement isn't too impressive either. That's pretty much my personal baseline for a good dungeon, and it's shocking how few games meet that baseline.

Among those that do, very few try more elaborate things such as challenging z-level navigation (I'm not even hoping for CSB-levels of complexity, the fairly simple Maini cave in Albion has few equals), puzzles that stretch across multiple floors, or dungeon layouts that change dynamically (e.g. with the time of the day). So I'd say op is right that dungeon design has been declining, the problem is, it's been declining since CSB, Wizardry 4, and Dark Heart of Uukrul. Once you've played those, everything else is at best good, but not great. That said, the good category has a fair number of recent games, most of which have already been named in this thread:

- Dark Spire, the Elminages and other Japanese RPGs
- The spiritual successors to DM like LoG1 & 2, and possibly Fall of the Dungeon Guardians

The dungeons in RoA 2 & 3 and Albion are also worth mentioning in that they go for a believable, heavily atmospheric feel but retain many of the mechanical trappings of the more abstracted blobber dungeons. Vaporum might be the only recent game that tries to replicate this, but its ratio of atmosphere to mechanics is much more tilted towards the former.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I'd say Wizardry 8 is a good example of why mechanically satisfying dungeon design is so important for RPGs. That game is really dragged down by its low ratio of dungeons to overworld (not counting the three secret ones which are clearly easter eggs), and most of the dungeons aren't particularly engaging: no traps, spinners, teleporters, fake walls, hidden switches, creative item usage, or logic puzzles, and the encounter placement isn't too impressive either. That's pretty much my personal baseline for a good dungeon, and it's shocking how few games meet that baseline.

I'm surprised that you didn't enjoy Wiz 8's level design. In my opinion Martin's Bluff is one of the best designed levels ever created. The interconnectedness between different map areas, secret areas every where, unique traps and enemies, amazing NPCs, amazing atmosphere, a mysterious backstory that you discover while exploring etc. The Monastery is another well designed level.

So I'd say op is right that dungeon design has been declining, the problem is, it's been declining since CSB, Wizardry 4, and Dark Heart of Uukrul. Once you've played those, everything else is at best good, but not great.

I haven't actually played Wiz 4, but from what I've heard it's levels have been designed by the devil to inflict maximum pain and agony. So I bet the levels are great for masochists, but for the rest of us I'm not so sure.

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.fi/2010/10/wizardry-iv-everything-about-this-game.html