The Darklands of Chernobog

[Neonity]

Ok, this is my first ever big effort post so bear with me

Some of the most common complaints I have seen about the current state of the game are as follows:
1) the endgame is a large grind of nothing but numbers and there isn't really a sink for those kinds of outputs
2) the world should interact with the player more/ should be more interesting
3) there isn't really a sense of danger in the world after a certain point.

These 3 concepts birthed an idea in my head, and before I actually state it, here are a couple fore-warnings. Obviously this idea would change the feeling of the game and a large meta shift in how it is played. It certainly could not be implemented without a world reset. And finally, its all a concept and Im no expert in game balance, so just let me know if something is very clearly game-breaking/exploitable. Finally, I personally feel that these additions would not be released onto the main server immediately without alot of balance, and would provide a lot of value to the possible test server that Jorb mentioned starting in the latest stream.

Here goes nothing

The Darklands of Chernobog
A dangerous locale of the world, located in a centralized area is a large zone or biome that contains more dangerous beasties and loot, perhaps where dungeons are now located or where powerful/fantastical creatures find their home. Chernobog, the black god, is a Slavic/Germanic god, the counterpart to Belobog, the white god. In essence he is the evil part of the two's duality. The Darklands would essentially be a sort of evil part of the world to contrast the safe and ideal hearthlands. In the hearthlands, you are safe and secure and life essentially goes on as it does currently in the game.
But in the Darklands, things happen to characters that don't happen in the hearthlands. For example, tribes of trolls could spawn around certain bases in the darklands as mentioned in jorb's most recent June stream demanding tribute, or else they would attack. To set up shop in the Darklands is to invite that kind of danger and to risk the permanence of your base. To offset the cons of living and adventuring in the Darklands, there should obviously be benefits to living there as well.
Some ideas could include certain types of ore only available there, new and more dangerous but high quality animals or other creatures with specific drops, forageables that are native to the territory, possible localized resources only obtainable there, and much more. Perhaps monsters akin to raid bosses of some sort appear and, similar to the meteor events, alert the entire hearthlands of their appearance. When you get to that point in the game where all that is left to do is spiral iron and steel for infinity, the things you make out of them can go towards adventuring through and defeating the creatures of the Darklands and those creatures and obstacles can be given higher stats and be made more difficult without sacrificing the semi-realism we all love about the game because they are in the Darklands where everything is made specifically to be more dangerous.

In short, the main idea here is to provide a sort of localization and centralization for these sinks of time and effort, new additions to the fantastical part of the game, and for players to have something that they can work toward. It also functions to provide a stark contrast between the safety of one area and the danger of another. Essentially what I feel that the Darklands add to the game is a solid Frontier. An outlandish, dangerous, and prospective area that people can work towards and benefit from. The "Darklands of Chernobog" is perhaps a tad too outlandish fantasy but I figured it fit in nicely with slavic germanic lore. Any criticism is on the table, as well as any other ideas or concepts that come to mind as a result of this post. There is a lot that could be debated here, the biggest being the many issues that the game has already and what adding this massive change could do to current game balance. As stated before, this would certainly work best on a test server with plenty of time to work out details.

Thank you for your time

[azrid]

This idea has been suggested before somewhere around w9. Something similar has been suggested for the underworld as well.
Not happening.

[MagicManICT]

This idea has been suggested before somewhere around w9. Something similar has been suggested for the underworld as well.
Not happening.

you remember if jorb said anything about it? I don't, though these end of world scenarios do come up often enough, and jorb has been "meh" at best. (I think "Will consider" is the best answer given.)

As far as the dev's attitudes, my understanding is they aren't interested in doing anything too complex for end of world as the game design is, at this point in time, to create a persistent world that sees no world or character resets (other than through character death).

[Neonity]

To elaborate, the idea wasn't as an end of world scenario, but a persistent place in the world from the beginning. Im not thinking of really a spreading darkness or something like that, juts more of a localized region of dangerous and mid-endgame content that creates a sink to mid-endgame resources and production. Not only does it provide that, but it also could act as an open free range sort of area for higher q resources as just one example. Other examples include stuff like I listed in the main post, more dungeons, dangerous enemies, different ores, etc.

[iamahh]

Salem was a great laboratory for these mechanics, they went crazy with Expeditions servers and exclusive loot, exploration events and seasons shenaningans

looks better on paper than in reality though, the devteam is small, anything big as that is a long shot

[azrid]

you remember if jorb said anything about it?

I would have remembered his reply if it was a clear yes or no so I will go with "will consider".

[jorb]

I like the idea of more dangerous PvE zones. Dungeons are basically something like that, and this has some hint of the civilization mechanic from Legacy as well. Good post.

[azrid]

aka will consider