How EXACTLY is the dungeon generated from blocks?

[Marisa Kirisame]

I mean, what is the exact alghorythm, does anyone know? I don't even know when exactly the game generates random dungeon data.

[Suvid]

If I recall correctly, the dungeons were already randomly generated since before you installed the game. Your [Derp Laboratory] and your [Crypt of Whathever] are going to look exactly as mine.

The only completely random things in dungeons are basically treasures and monsters (restricted to dungeon type, of course).

[Marisa Kirisame]

So the only way to get the alghorythm is to deduce it from numerous dungeons by their block layout? I guess I should start right away.

Then why haven't we got maps of those dungeons with all the available quest locations marked?

[Suvid]

Hmm I don't know. The thing would be to have maps of the blocks, and then listing which blocks does each dungeon have.

If you want, we could test if they really are equal, anyway. Give me the locations of three or four dungeos that are near a town/home/temple, and I'll try to find it in by walking in the fields. Then, let's explore near the entrance, and take snapshots (ctrl+F5) of the map, the nearbiest rooms, etc. Then we'll be able to compare those dungeons.

[Marisa Kirisame]

Well, I don't know them blocks. If there truly is a different generation process, then having just one dungeon to match is more than unlikely; if two match, we can think it's the same dungeons and if three match, it's proved.
Here's one I can get there right now (had a save at the entrance): the Peristair Dungeon, I suggest you use cheats to unlock it for fasttravel, 1 square west and about three-four squares south of the Screaming Hedgehog Inn in Daggerfall.
Two entrance screens and a map screen. Long corridors( theres also something underneath.
Aww, damn it, I cannot post links. I'll try to PM you. Aaand I can't PM. That sucks. "Ten posts and one week", they say.
I'll try the pics, you'll have to edit out the spaces in the links:
http :// s017.radikal .ru /i430/1511/9e/ f2e983fe53f2 .jpg
http :// i008.radikal .ru /1511/b4/ 11a09741d002.jpg
http :// s019.radikal .ru /i631/1511/4e/ 5173d08ad384.jpg

[Suvid]

Yep, pretty much the same.



A question: was that first door locked? The one at the screenshot. I had to bash it to go through.

Just after the entrance I also found those big trunks and branches. And I bet I you kept going east instead of south, you also found a hole in a corner. If you jumped it, you face a door, and behind it, an enemy.

Oh, and this is my map.



The same question as before: the foor I'm facing (red arrow), was locked in your game?


Blocks are like the pieces that are are copied an pasted in various dungeons. The big trunks an branches you found? You will see them again in other dungeons, maybe not at the entrance, and then you will see a hole in a corner, etc. But maybe in that dungeon the block is rotated 90 degrees or something like that.

You see the small red dot in the yellow map? That's the 1/4 of block I am, so I'm in the in the north-eastern quarter of that block. Everything that is above or under me belongs to that block. The green dot is the exit, which is at the north western quarter of its respective block. That dungeon has 12 blocks, but only 4 of them are inside blocks (inside bocks are surrounded by four blocks at the four cardinal directions, in this dungeon they form a T), which are the only ones where quest targets may be found. The rest are external blocks (I'm in one of them), and most of them are made of a single room or a passage, so they are not worth of being mapped if we (or someone with the free time) ever do it. The wikia will surely explain it better.

By the way, that map may be confusing at first, but can actually be very helpful if you use the annotations: you can click a segment to make it blink, then click the horizontal grey line bellow the buttons, and you'll be able to write something about that segment: For example, write "Came from south" or simmilar in intersections so you know which direction you have follow when going back to the exit. Or "Lever opens door at west" and then "Door opened by lever at east". I suggest using it also to mark where the blocks are joined, so you can explore an entire block and then go back to the "Next block though this door" mark and go explore the next one.

I know you didn't ask for that info, but I tell it just in case you didn't know, because dungeons maps used to confuse me a lot before, as annotations work different as in towns.

[Marisa Kirisame]

Yes, it was locked. The rest of the setup is the same as you described. I know what blocks are, but I don't know the exact blocks visuals to distinguish one from another.

So I guess they really were pregen before the game, which means game has no replayability we thought it to have. Therefore we can only deduce the alghorythm by comparing many dungeons to blocks to see how are they built.

[MrFlibble]

It is my understanding that the random dungeons were generated by the developers from blocks comprising main quest dungeons, which were created manually, and not randomly generated each time the game is installed or whatever.

The easiest way to prove that would be to install the game twice and just run a byte-by-byte comparison of the copies of the data file which contains the maps (ARCH3D.BSA?).

[Marisa Kirisame]

Your understanding seems correct. And that sucks.

[Suvid]

Well, if dungeons are equal for us all, at least that means we can make guides for them (specially useful for main quests like Dust of Restfull Death, which may send you to a random dungeon in Balfiera), ask for help in exploring a particular dungeon, share information about traps (I made a post about them some weeks months ago), magical furnitures, teleporters...

[Marisa Kirisame]

Yet in the end, it means that a devoted player can remember every dungeon, which will make the game boring for him. Would be better to always have different ones.

[MrFlibble]

Actually, perhaps real randomly generated dungeons could be possible with XLEngine eventually?

On a somewhat related note, recently I discovered the free prototype of Sublevel Zero, a Descent roguelike clone of sorts. The free version randomly generates levels which are, in a way, rather similar to Daggerfall. This made me think that perhaps a Daggerfall spin-off game (maybe on the XLEngine) could be possible using the existing or similar dungeon layouts.

As of your initial question, there's some info here in the wiki about how the dungeons are assembled. To the best of my knowledge, the same principle is used in modern games with randomly generated environments as well (including Sublevel Zero). There are pre-made blocks of rooms that are randomly interconnected (and randomly textured in the case of Daggerfall) at joints that have passages in them. With this method, potential variety depends on the number of different pre-made blocks that are used, but the player will eventually learn the layout of each block, making dungeons repetitive and largely predictable anyway.

In Daggerfall, there are lots of dungeons and quite a large number of different blocks, which allows for considerable variety. However, each block is pretty large so dungeons become predictable within each block as the player explores them. The upside of this is that with each dungeon's size, it would be a lot more difficult to navigate if the player had to move in completely unknown mazes every time.

[Marisa Kirisame]

The exact alghorythm is unknown and was not shipped with the game, hence to include it with DXL one must deduce it from finished dungeons, otherwise it will be different from the original game.

[Marisa Kirisame]

Looked through blocks and dungeons, what a relief blocks are only aligned on two dimensions, and all the vertical component is provided by the block itself.

[MrFlibble]

The exact alghorythm is unknown and was not shipped with the game, hence to include it with DXL one must deduce it from finished dungeons, otherwise it will be different from the original game.

What would be wrong with that? If the algorithm is not 100% identical to the original, but yields workable results (i.e. random dungeons that can be completed and not contain any quest-breaking features like unreachable rooms with quest items), then it's only a bonus.

[Marisa Kirisame]

The original dungeons only have quest items in internal blocks, which are always accessible. Only border blocks have unreachable patterns.