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Underrealm Weather and Magical Storms
JustVine
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Now that we have seen some fantastic examples of standard above ground weather, I wanted to speculate on the weather of the realms below and how magic can create fantastical events.
In the real world, big enough caves can have their own weather system. The seasons of big caves revolve a lot more around moisture, however temperature still has a subtle effect on what happens. I therefore can see there being a 'cold wet', 'warm wet', and 'dry' seasons. The types of weather events that would occur would probably revolve around fog, rain, and mushrooms.
During the 'cold wet' season I would imagine the Underrealm would be at it's most dangerous as it would have frequent thick fog. I'm looking forward to the dazzling display of the mushroom light bouncing all around the fog given how gorgeous the UE5 engine has proven to be. I can also imagine that there would be a very frequent light shower of 'rain' from the cave ceiling above. I expect smaller gather-able mushrooms to be most available here and for this to be the best climate for harvests in the Underrealm.
During the 'warm wet' season I can imagine there would be torrential frequent downpours that flood the many small rivers and streams of the Underrealm and make many small ponds deep. I can imagine the breath requirements of certain underwater hidden passage ways getting much larger or even impassable.
A pseudo 'fourth' season I would imagine would occur after the warm wet season. In real life mushrooms tend to sporulate after rain. I would therefore think that the cold and warm 'wet seasons' would have moments where the large mushrooms are producing thick constant puffs of their spores to propagate. Perhaps this has a strange effect on wild life, or some of the mobs receive a parasitic mushroom. I'm extremely interested in what sorts of strange effects we might be able to get from the concept of 'mushroom weather' as a whole. Either way it's probably hard on crops.
During the 'dry' season I expect things to be safest in the Underrealm and therefore I probably would expect commerce to be the heaviest during. As a node develops in the Underrealm, however, I feel like acid rain could be a real tangible risk since the sulfur from various industrial buildings wouldn't have much else to go. So perhaps acid rain can be a node event dependent on what artisan support buildings you have. This could even be a 'neutral' thing if it pushed back more dangerous mobs, or weakened them in some way, but of course made gathering mushrooms and flora a bit more difficult.
In terms of magical weather, it's sort of hard to make magic weather that doesn't feel 'forced'. Weather is a confabulation of a couple variables and therefore weather irl tends to express them. We know by looking at the weather on the various moons and planets of our own solar system just how well earth tends to express all kinds of weather. I therefore personally think the concentration of magic as an additional variable is probably the best philosophical approach when considering magical weather.
For example, there could be heavy rainstorms during a high magical concentration that amplifies everything. The lightning is more frequent and larger, the rain drops themselves are larger, hail and horizontal winds get mixed in, and tornadoes start forming. I'd call this type of weather event Pandemonium.
In the hot dry summers, in an area of high magical concentration it would be interesting to see small balls of lightning floating around. This could also be a setting where wildfires are more easily triggered. Balls of lightning and large billowing fires all around would certainly make for a dramatic scene.
Perhaps in some extremely magically attuned areas, gravity literally stops working in the normal way. Therefore you get strange things like rain or snow falling upwards, random rocks floating around the place. Perhaps you get cool willowisps as well.
And that's not even touching the fact that corruption and holy weather are almost certainly going to be a thing. As for examples of holy weather: giant plants and vegetables from the goddess' blessing, fields of soft glowing beams of lights with no clear source other than the gods dancing around. Perhaps there are huge fields of flowers during particularly 'blessed' events'. So many possibilities. If any one has ideas of how to make the 'good' gods weather type be slightly unnerving or 'awe'ful please share your ideas!
As for the 'corrupt' weather, I really hope they don't lean too much on over done 'dark spooky evil lurks here' stuff and focus more on 'weather as an aspect of the gods themselves' including the evil ones. So more along the lines of 'what if lovecraftian gods influenced the weather'. Dimensional portals that lead you in circles, traps and hazards like extremely grabby plants, the sounds of footsteps or combat that isn't really happening, rain and fog that slowly eat away at the corporeal forms leaving only their spirit forms to exist and being a nexuses for all sorts of powerful ghosts and ghouls, amnesia inducing colored fog that can temporarily reverse your controls, I really could keep going on. The point is there is a lot more than just 'miasma' that could happen here. It can be a lot more focused on 'hazards'.
So now I've said my piece, you say yours! What sorts of weather do you want to see in the Underrealm? What kind of magical weather are you most looking forward to? Do you have a different philosophical approach to magic in weather that you feel would be better?
In the real world, big enough caves can have their own weather system. The seasons of big caves revolve a lot more around moisture, however temperature still has a subtle effect on what happens. I therefore can see there being a 'cold wet', 'warm wet', and 'dry' seasons. The types of weather events that would occur would probably revolve around fog, rain, and mushrooms.
During the 'cold wet' season I would imagine the Underrealm would be at it's most dangerous as it would have frequent thick fog. I'm looking forward to the dazzling display of the mushroom light bouncing all around the fog given how gorgeous the UE5 engine has proven to be. I can also imagine that there would be a very frequent light shower of 'rain' from the cave ceiling above. I expect smaller gather-able mushrooms to be most available here and for this to be the best climate for harvests in the Underrealm.
During the 'warm wet' season I can imagine there would be torrential frequent downpours that flood the many small rivers and streams of the Underrealm and make many small ponds deep. I can imagine the breath requirements of certain underwater hidden passage ways getting much larger or even impassable.
A pseudo 'fourth' season I would imagine would occur after the warm wet season. In real life mushrooms tend to sporulate after rain. I would therefore think that the cold and warm 'wet seasons' would have moments where the large mushrooms are producing thick constant puffs of their spores to propagate. Perhaps this has a strange effect on wild life, or some of the mobs receive a parasitic mushroom. I'm extremely interested in what sorts of strange effects we might be able to get from the concept of 'mushroom weather' as a whole. Either way it's probably hard on crops.
During the 'dry' season I expect things to be safest in the Underrealm and therefore I probably would expect commerce to be the heaviest during. As a node develops in the Underrealm, however, I feel like acid rain could be a real tangible risk since the sulfur from various industrial buildings wouldn't have much else to go. So perhaps acid rain can be a node event dependent on what artisan support buildings you have. This could even be a 'neutral' thing if it pushed back more dangerous mobs, or weakened them in some way, but of course made gathering mushrooms and flora a bit more difficult.
In terms of magical weather, it's sort of hard to make magic weather that doesn't feel 'forced'. Weather is a confabulation of a couple variables and therefore weather irl tends to express them. We know by looking at the weather on the various moons and planets of our own solar system just how well earth tends to express all kinds of weather. I therefore personally think the concentration of magic as an additional variable is probably the best philosophical approach when considering magical weather.
For example, there could be heavy rainstorms during a high magical concentration that amplifies everything. The lightning is more frequent and larger, the rain drops themselves are larger, hail and horizontal winds get mixed in, and tornadoes start forming. I'd call this type of weather event Pandemonium.
In the hot dry summers, in an area of high magical concentration it would be interesting to see small balls of lightning floating around. This could also be a setting where wildfires are more easily triggered. Balls of lightning and large billowing fires all around would certainly make for a dramatic scene.
Perhaps in some extremely magically attuned areas, gravity literally stops working in the normal way. Therefore you get strange things like rain or snow falling upwards, random rocks floating around the place. Perhaps you get cool willowisps as well.
And that's not even touching the fact that corruption and holy weather are almost certainly going to be a thing. As for examples of holy weather: giant plants and vegetables from the goddess' blessing, fields of soft glowing beams of lights with no clear source other than the gods dancing around. Perhaps there are huge fields of flowers during particularly 'blessed' events'. So many possibilities. If any one has ideas of how to make the 'good' gods weather type be slightly unnerving or 'awe'ful please share your ideas!
As for the 'corrupt' weather, I really hope they don't lean too much on over done 'dark spooky evil lurks here' stuff and focus more on 'weather as an aspect of the gods themselves' including the evil ones. So more along the lines of 'what if lovecraftian gods influenced the weather'. Dimensional portals that lead you in circles, traps and hazards like extremely grabby plants, the sounds of footsteps or combat that isn't really happening, rain and fog that slowly eat away at the corporeal forms leaving only their spirit forms to exist and being a nexuses for all sorts of powerful ghosts and ghouls, amnesia inducing colored fog that can temporarily reverse your controls, I really could keep going on. The point is there is a lot more than just 'miasma' that could happen here. It can be a lot more focused on 'hazards'.
So now I've said my piece, you say yours! What sorts of weather do you want to see in the Underrealm? What kind of magical weather are you most looking forward to? Do you have a different philosophical approach to magic in weather that you feel would be better?
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Comments
Caverns and tunnels that can only be accessed when the water levels rise really high!
r.e. the floods, I think it has been confirmed:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Underrealm
I 100% can imagine that happening, but height based pathways have a lot to consider .
I wonder how many crazy people will take advantage of these new areas with their alts with gliding mounts just to have them glide back down for the perfect spook.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Creates a cool mystery for us to unwind and solve.
Ooo spore storms.That'd look sick. All those things feel like a story event that lines up with their idea of an event system. I never say no to a good mycopocalypse.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Terrible dad jokes aside…
Corrupted water supplies originating from under realm creature actions would be another hook.
Earth elementals being disrupted from their slumber by invading goblins may start earthquakes that destroy (or seriously damage) any nearby freeholds / villages.
A spore haze that causes a tribe of nomads to connect to the astral planes and channel a form of magic previously unknown. ( that’s my nod to Aldus Huxley)
On and on. So many interesting things.
Firstly, what would a critically low mana area even mean. Your cool downs are longer? Less mp regen? No respawning? And how does this effect the mobs in the area, let alone the players. Is the area supposed to become 'harder' to farm or 'easier'? I'd personally assume it's more about mp regen which makes the encounter design a little more manageable, but that could still be fairly unbalanced from the PvP end for certain styles of combat and make the area a lot more gank oriented depending on the level design.
From a story standpoint that's cool and I like it as a base concept. From an actual game balance and game play loop perspective on the other hand it's kind of 'annoying' because it's slowing down your gameplay rather than enhancing what the combat is like unlike some of the other extreme weather scenarios above.
Overall it still has an element of increased risk, in a way that some of the other extreme weather I listed in my op also achieve, that can dramatically change how the level design effects safe passage and over all ease of ganking that I hope IS takes into consideration when they are building their map/environment.
What I mean by this is simple. For example in this mana drought, if it's on a slightly hilly savanna with fairly sparse tall grass, there is no true obfuscation of sight lines,and it therefore might be a bit safer since players have a stronger control on engagement range. If there is a lot of tall obscuring grass, however, those on foot might have a harder time noticing things and therefore escaping, meaning that the engagement will be a little more 'forced' due to the mana drought making both escaping harder, and the over all battle harder for both combatants.
You can play with this a LOT and it's why I'm expecting the environment designers to have a lot of work ahead of them even after they finish the whole world map. There is going to be a lot of things that need tweaking and adjusting depending on player abilities and how the weather effects the psychology of players in any given area.
This is type of thing is a detail I think that will matter even more in the Underrealm where escape spaces have a bit more of a hard limit especially if you start factoring darkness and mist. In other words I'm really excited to see some of the future progress on level design from Intrepid when it comes to weather. I think it's one of the funnest parts of an open world PvP game with weather this spectacular and dramatic looking to consider.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
I would expect Mana drought to weaken all mana-based abilities. Cooldowns could probably remain as normal...although... with true Mana drought, cooldowns might just remain engaged until one leaves the region.
That's a memorable Event, if we have to complete some quests to remove that kind of environmental disaster.
Ashes will have a variety of Events that "slow down your gameplay".
I think what you mean is such events may slow down progression.
In an MMORPG, that's not necessarily the same thing as slowing down gameplay.