» Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:44 pm
The only way I know to have a player made cave is to imply that the player did it, and apply changes over time for a predetermined path or area, much like what was done to towns in blood moon. Sad to say, I do not know of one way to actually do this as you see fit. It might be possible to even allow some choices to pick from, but overall it would not allow a lot of freedom in direction or whatever, and it's highly unlikely the player would be involved directly.
When a place appears to change, it's actually just tricks like disabling or re-enabling items, or some like thing. For example, a common trick with house mods that need "upgraded" or whatever is to run scripts or even create two similar house spaces.. say a house is ruined at first till you do a quest. Well one way to handle that is to create two interiors that look very alike, one of which is "ruined" and one that is fixed. When the quest is completed, the doors are switched out. When you go back to your "house" it looks different now because it actually is.
I am intrigued by a mine that grows deeper or changes over time though. Not having made something like it myself, I don't know what it would take, but there are a few ways something like that could be handled. You could have a place similar to the caldrea mines in that there is a living quarters outside the mine itself, but be able to go into the mine and "work."
There would have to be quests to make it interesting, like hiring slaves to work the mines faster. Maybe even have to get a charter of your own and pay a tax to the imperials to keep it going etc.. as for the mine it's self, there could be a few different paths to choose from in each "area" of the mine. (and you could make those choices via a mine supervisor or something) Perhaps it would be like various tunnels blocked off by stones and the like so you can't tell where they lead and a condition(s) like X amount of time and slaves, or certain quests would remove (via disable) stones every so often from the tunnel in question.
At the end of each tunnel maybe there could be a door leading to the next "area" for your choices, and the door you get would obviously depend on the path/tunnel that you took. That way the mine is somewhat dynamic like you desire. In fact, maybe there would be an activator in each new area, so once you reach a new zone the previous one has additional changes to make it seem more lively.